Split (1)

train · 2.86k rows

conversations listlengths 3 301
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Carry on with the narrative as the plot partner.\nTags: sci-fi, dystopian, dark humor, societal critique, human nature\nAuthor: Phil Elwood\nTitle: All the Worst Humans\nChapter: 3" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "AUTHOR'S NOTE\n\nThis is my story, as I remember it. Some names and a few details have been changed to protect the many guilty and the few innocents." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "PROLOGUE\n\nFEBRUARY 8,2018\n\nWhen the FBI knocks, you are going to lose. It's just a question of what. And how much of it. Money. Love. Freedom. Friends. Jobs. If they knock, you have been gambling. And you do not have the high card in this hand.\n\nAt 6:30 a. m., my phone rings. I mute CNN's Chris Cuomo discussing the latest in Robert Mueller's election interference inquiry and answer to make the ringing stop.\n\n\"Phil Elwood?\" a woman's voice says. \"This is Special Agent Logan with the FBI.\"\n\n\"Good morning?\"\n\n\"Do you still live at apartment one-zero-zero-eight?\"\n\n\"Not anymore,\" I say, struggling to process. \"We've moved within the building.\"\n\n\"What apartment are you in right now?\"\n\nI look at my wife, Lindsay. She is still in her pajamas, answering emails from a higher education reporter. Fighting the good fight. \"Can you give mean hour?\" I ask Agent Logan.\n\nFight-or-flight kicks in. Protect what matters. \"Lindsay, the FBI is downstairs,\" I say. \"They will be up in one hour. You need to leave.\"\n\nMy wife speaks with the lyrical precision, and efficiency, of a machine gun. When her adrenaline spikes, the words get really fast. So, I can't repeat with any accuracy the chain of concern, profanity, and fear that comes out of her. She is out the door in record time.\n\nI have thirty minutes before the agents are due to knock. Normally, the FBI doesn't call ahead, so I believe I am unique in my ability to describe how one waits for them. How would you spend your time? I read their Wikipedia entry. Thirty-five thousand employees, $ 9.8 billion annual budget, thirteen thousand Special Agents, many of whom carry the Glock 19 Gen5, a 9mm with a fifteen-round magazine. Atop priority of today's Federal Bureau of Investigation: \"Protect the United States against foreign intelligence operations, espionage, and cyber operations.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At this moment, there is a bag in my closet full of promotional material for an Israel-based organization that advertises that it is a'foreign intelligence operation\" that engages in'online operations.\" The word espionage is not in the brochure, but it is strongly implied.\n\nTen minutes to go. I think about the million dollars the Israelis have moved through my bank account. The wire transfers to the Seychelles, Cyprus, Switzerland, the Caribbean, Palestine, and who knows where else. About the laptop whirring away under the desk in my office, which the Israelis told me never to touch. Five minutes. I worry about the reach of the Wire Fraud Act, and of the Espionage Act of 1917. My pajama bottoms peek out from under the legs of my cargo pants.\n\nThen comes the knock.\n\nI open the door to a man and a woman wearing pistols on their hips. The woman steps forward and hands me her business card: \"Special Agent Logan, Counterproliferation.\" It is my understanding that this division works to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. I also understand that my life is about to change. Until this morning, I've been a ghost. My name has never even appeared in a Politico'Spotted\" blurb. Google'Phil Elwood,\" and you'll find a dead jazz reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle.\n\nI offer the agents coffee. They decline. I walk them to my dining room table. They sit down across from me. Their body language telegraphs: the government versus you.\n\n\"Mr. Elwood,\" Agent Logan begins. \"Do you know why we're here?\"\n\nSeveral things come to mind. It could be the Israelis. Or Muammar Gaddafi. Or Bashar al-Assad. Or the Iranians. Or because of what I pulled in Antigua. Or the bank transfers to accounts in tax havens allover the world. Or Project Rome. Probably not the ounce of cannabis in my kitchen drawer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They could be knocking on my door about so many things I've done over the last two decades in public relations." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CHAPTER 1\n\nOf Marble and Giants\n\nEIGHTEEN YEARS EARLIER, JULY 2000\n\nThe halls of the Capitol Building are empty this morning. The clinks of the liquor bottles in the hand truck I'm pushing are the only sound. I love being alone here, marveling at marble columns propping up carved ceilings. Under the massive dome of the Rotunda, paintings tell the mythology of early America. In Statuary Hall, I nod to a bronze statue of Huey Long, an assassinated senator who some consider a hero, others a criminal, and then enter a wood-paneled corridor. Spiral staircases of iron and marble materialize out of dark corners.\n\nI maneuver the bottles past unmarked doors that lead to the hideaway offices of Senators Trent Lott, Mitch McConnell, and Ted Kennedy. Senators steal away to these coveted havens to host meetings they'd rather not have eyeballed by reporters or to nap after marathon debates. The booze is heavy, and I'm out of breath when I reach Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's hideaway. Vodka soda sweat leaks through my cheap, white collared shirt. We interns were out late at Politiki bar last night.\n\nI let myself in and head for the brass bar cart. Fifths of whiskey, gin, scotch, and Tio Pepe sherry, Moynihan's favorite, get loaded in and lined up. When I'm finished, I sit on a leather couch dyed the same dark mahogany as the regal desk and spark up a Camel. Moynihan is a fellow smoker. His hideaway reeks of tobacco.\n\nThe hundred or so hideaways in the Capitol are passed down through handshake deals. Seniority rules, and sitting on the Finance Committee doesn't hurt. Junior senators fight over windowless basement rooms the size of utility closets and furnished with cots. Moynihan has earned a view of Pennsylvania Avenue and space for ten people to sip cocktails. Standing under an oil painting, I pullback the cream-colored curtains and take it all in. I imagine the senator from New York inhere, lighting up, pouring a tumbler of Tio Pepe, and telling stories about the presidents he has advised." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sitting in the private office of a Senate demigod still doesn't feel real. I'm a twenty-year-old college dropout whose only credentials area job at a Mexican restaurant and a cocaine problem. The rest of my intern class are the kids of campaign donors and New York City's financial glitterati. My dad is a pastor in the other Washington. He preaches to a congregation in Olympia.\n\nSix months ago, I was a sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh on a debate scholarship. Debate is about speed. Being able to talk fast was the prerequisite for entry. On weekends, I traveled to universities around the nation to argue about what policies would lead to nuclear war. Rapid-fire reading of news clippings scored points in around. So did biting insults lodged at your opponent in an attempt to trap them in a rhetorical mishap. You won by manipulating the news and calling it'evidence\" to advance your argument. I won a lot.\n\nMy grades were nearly perfect until I started working nights as a cook at Mad Mex. The waiters survived on a diet of wings and cocaine. One night, one of them noticed that I seemed a bit down and he offered me a pick-me-up from his bag. It worked. For fifteen minutes. Three months later, I was failing five out of five courses. I don't believe I attended one.\n\nThe week before finals, I called my older brother in a panic. He jumped on a plane to Pittsburgh. We debated my options. I tried to advance the argument for my brother taking my finals. It was raining when we went to the registrar's office and filled out the forms. The first Elwood to dropout of college.\n\nMy parents collected meat SeaTac airport. I deplaned drunk on whiskey and clutching a plush toy of Opus the Penguin, from Berkeley Breathed's comic strip. My father shook his head and made me see a shrink. I snowballed my way through the sessions. Left out the cocaine use. The shrink informed me that I was suffering from'situational depression.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Since you are removed from the situation,\" she explained. \"The problem must be resolved.\"\n\n\"Makes sense,\" I said.\n\nIt didn't. And the depression didn't lift. A childhood friend, who I'll call Preston, worried that I had no prospects after dropping out of school, threw me a lifeline. His college classmate Eric, a trust fund kid, worked in Washington, DC, as Senator Moynihan's aide. If he liked me, Eric could get mean internship on the Hill.\n\nI called Eric, and he told me to meet him the next Tuesday, at 10 p. m., at 1823 M Street. \"Northwest M Street, the one near the White House,\" he said. \"Do you have a fake ID?\"\n\n\"Indeed I do.\"\n\n\"Bring it. You'll need it in DC,\" Eric said. \"Your official interview will be on the Hill the next day. But this one is more important. I vet the interns for the staff.\"\n\nMy parents bought me a suit at the mall, and I flew to Washington. Résumé in hand, I cabbed it to a redbrick building with blacked-out windows on M Street. My fake ID fooled the bouncer. Inside, Ice Cube's'You Can Do It\" played as a dancer sprayed Windex on the pole before taking off her underwear. A topless woman asked if I wanted some singles.\n\nEric wasn't hard to spot. He was the only other guy wearing a suit in the strip club on a Tuesday night. He chugged a Bud Light at a table with a clear view of the stage. I handed him my résumé. He gave it to a dancer in a neon-yellow G-string.\n\n\"Relax,\" he said, sliding me a beer. \"You met meat Camelot on a Tuesday night. You passed the test.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In Moynihan's hideaway, I kill my cigarette and flush it down the toilet. I lockup, push the empty hand truck past Minority Leader Tom Daschle's office, and ride an elevator down to the basement. I flash my badge to a guard, cut through the crypt under the Rotunda, and head into the Capitol Hill Tunnels. I love these underground passageways, that feeling of special access.\n\nI walk the pedestrian pathway alongside a miniature subway trolley modeled after the Disney World Monorail. A group of congressional aides are taking the two-minute ride, briefcases on their laps. To my right, I spot Sen. Fred Thompson.\n\n\"Good afternoon, Senator,\" I say. \"Die Hard Two was on TNT last night.\"\n\n\"Was it really?\" he replies in the deep southern drawl that was so out of place when he played a New York district attorney on NBC's Law& Order. \"Walk me back to my office.\"\n\nOn the twenty-minute trip to the Hart Building, Thompson asks whether I think DC or Hollywood is the more terrifying place. I argue in favor of Hollywood. The Capitol doesn't frighten me. Just the opposite. From the moment I set foot in DC, I knew I was home. The Hill is areal-world version of debate team. Everyone talks fast, and there are winners, losers, and nukes. Last week, I had a drink with Sen. Russ Feingold, who told me stories of working with John McCain and Carl Levin on trying to pass campaign finance reform. I've gone from bussing tables at a Mexican restaurant in Pittsburgh to rubbing elbows with senators. I never want to leave.\n\nI weave through redbrick-walled tunnels back toward Moynihan's staff office in the Russell Building. Discarded and broken office furniture lines the bowels of the Capitol Hill office buildings. I pass the Senate barbershop, where I recently got a bad haircut sitting next to Majority Leader Lott. A quick elevator ride up from the basement takes me to Russell's fourth floor, where I drop off the hand truck and head down a flight of stairs to a private parking lot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two interns are already out here smoking. The senior senator from Michigan Carl Levin's beaten-up blue Oldsmobile sticks out among the rows of luxury sedans. I smoke another Camel and watch Kit Bond of Missouri climb out of a black town car. Kay Bailey Hutchison struts by, followed by her'purse boys,\" two young, attractive male aides who carry her luxury bags around Capitol Hill. When senators bum a smoke before hustling to their next meeting, I feel like a young Henry Hill parking cars for Paulie's crew in Goodfellas.\n\nIt's almost four o'clock. In this town, the most important houris happy hour. I head back out into the muggy city, down First Street, passing the Supreme Court and the Library of Congress, where 3,700 boxes of Moynihan's personal papers have been kept for posterity. It's the largest one-man collection in the library, Moynihan's legislative director recently told me over whiskey and Cokes at the Capitol Lounge.\n\nAt Pennsylvania Avenue, a helicopter buzzes across the sky. The pilot shadows a motorcade of black SUVs careening downtown, lights flashing and sirens blaring. When the street clears, I duck into the Hawk \"n\" Dove. I nurse a vodka soda, holding a good table with a view of the TVs, tuned to CNN. Just like the hideaway office system, this place runs on dibs. Soon the bar will be teaming with staffers from both sides of the aisle. They will drink, party, date, and sometimes put together bipartisan legislation. Tables are valuable currency. As an intern, I take it as my sacred duty to make sure the staff doesn't have to stand at the bar.\n\nAt five o'clock, Moynihan's staff trickles into Hawk \"n\" Dove in ascending order of the food chain. Legislative correspondents arrive first, along with the rest of the interns. An hour later, the legislative assistants claim their seats. Then come the legislative director and, finally, around seven, Moynihan's chief of staff. His blue suit is rumpled, and he looks exhausted. In his hand is today's\"clip sheet,\" a binder compiling daily press filings that mention our boss. The interns create it each morning by cutting apart the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the hyper-local weeklies and meticulously underlining Moynihan's name." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thanks for holding down the fort, Phil,\" the chief of staff says." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look at this. Hillary Clinton is going to walk into Moynihan's seat. Rick Lazio doesn't stand a chance.\"\n\nI've landed in Moynihan's office just in time. He's about to retire after twenty-four years in the Senate. The alumni list from his office reads like a who's who of Washington, DC-and they help each other out. I spent the rest of the summer helping them out by following the legislative director's instructions: \"Do anything we ask. And do it with a smile. Even if it's not part of your job. Even if it's weird.\" I take his words to heart. Moynihan's staff takes a shine tome because I volunteer to huff cartloads of Tio Pepe and get menial intern tasks done at my restaurant pace.\n\nThere are two ways to go about a career here: get in deeper or get out. I know one thing: I'm never leaving Washington. But a college dropout's trajectory is limited; I need a degree. Before my internship ends, I apply to George Washington University. I draft my own letter of recommendation, and Moynihan's chief of staff, for whom I've held tables all summer at half the bars in town, signs it. \"Motivated and gifted with his words, Phil Elwood will make a valuable addition to your storied university.\"\n\nI wake up in a holding cell. Two cops yank me into an interrogation room and slam me with the accusation that I drunkenly crashed through a window at GWU's Gelman Library. I can't remember last night, but my throbbing head and the cuts on my body indicate that the police are telling the truth. I'm frog-marched into a sheriff's van and handcuffed to the floor.\n\nI stand in front of a judge, who tells me he knows I'm very sorry for what I've done and that I will never do it again. He slaps me on the wrist with twenty hours of community service. Later, I hear that Moynihan's office made a call. A few days after I get home from central booking, a thin letter arrives from George Washington. I am no longer welcome on campus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'm certain I'll be excommunicated from DC. I'll have to return to Olympia. My parents will once again watch their son emerge at the Arrivals gate holding his plush toy Opus the Penguin, like a deadbeat Sisyphus. Instead, I'm promoted. Moynihan's office makes one call, and I'm hired as a legislative correspondent for the senior senator from Michigan, Carl Levin. The happy hours continue. It's amazing I get anything done with all the booze. Toward the end of my first year, the chief of staff hauls me into his office.\n\n\"I strongly suggest you get a college degree,\" he says. \"George Washington is off the table, clearly. What about Georgetown?\"\n\nGiven my high school C average, Georgetown should be off the table, too. But it turns out Levin has considerable influence with the university. One letter from the senator and I'm accepted as a transfer student. I realize this is how the world works, or at least how this world does. It is not a meritocracy.\n\nIn the basement office of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, staffers drop off crates of documents. \"Go through these. Look for anything suspicious,\" they instruct. They leave to fetch more boxes. Levin is leading an inquiry into the malfeasance of Enron's board of directors. Enron's spectacular implosion has been a lead story on CNN for months. Now Levin is making it his mission to codify the company's wrongdoing into the national record.\n\nI drink coffee with a team of lawyers who haven't seen the light of day in weeks and sift through thousands of pages of emails with a highlighter. Most of the material is banal talk about steakhouse lunches and corporate retreats. Every few pages, I notice the obscene dollar amounts of Enron's transactions. Villains get paid in numbers with extra zeros." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the day of the Enron hearings, I go watch the fireworks at the Hart Building. A homeless man stands at the front of along line stretching down Constitution Avenue. I watch a sharky-looking guy in a jet-black suit hand the homeless man a ten-dollar bill and slide into his place. Lobbyists have probably been pulling this trick since the Grant administration. I flash my staff ID and follow the lobbyist past security and into the Senate hearing room, where I stand against the back wall.\n\nLevin strides up to the dais in a baggy suit, the last of his hair combed over a sun-spotted scalp. In 2013, BuzzFeed News will publish a list of the'23 Most Important Comb-overs of Congress.\" Levin will come in second place. A man of the people. He's the hardest-working member of his staff. I watch, rapt, as he rakes Herbert Winokur Jr., Enron's Finance Committee chair, over the coals about a half-billion-dollar loan.\n\n\"Now, when you met with my staff, did you also tell my staff you did not have much recollection of that transaction?\" Levin asks, peering down his glasses, pushed far down the bridge of his nose.\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Now that you have refreshed your recollections. Enron was borrowing a half a billion dollars from Citibank, but it did not show upon the balance sheet of Enron as debt but rather as preferred shares, which looked more like equity than debt. It was a loan disguised as equity in order to avoid showing debt on the books.\"\n\n\"Sir, I believe it was accounted for as a consolidated subsidiary with a-\"\n\nLevin cuts him off. \"Was it shown as a loan?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It was shown as-the entity was consolidated and the$ 500 million of Citibank was a minority interest.\"\n\n\"But was it shown as a loan?\"\n\nLevin's got him dead to rights. I watch Winokur break. \"No, sir.\"\n\nAn exchange worthy of a headline. I spot a gaggle of reporters taking notes at the side of the chamber. As in a debate, they've got their evidence. Now they'll print it in tomorrow's paper. And some college debater will use the article as evidence in around where the topic is'fiscal regulation.\" It's codified into the record. The truth, as far as anyone is concerned.\n\nI'm fascinated by this bloodbath, particularly by the criminals on the witness stand. Who helps them? Who prepped them for this massacre? Whoever it was, they aren't good enough at their job. Where's the consistent messaging? Why weren't they expecting these questions? Why aren't they repeating the same five lines over and over and over? Why are they just giving easy soundbites to the senator and the media?\n\nI realize I'm probably the only person in the world who has this reaction to the Enron scandal.\n\nI lean out into K Street, hailing a cab. It's the first week of summer. School is out. I've been barhopping with Hill staffers. A yellow cab pulls up, and I attempt to hop over a Jersey barrier. My foot catches the edge. I spin as I fall to the curb.\n\nI can't walk. I crawl into the cab's backseat and tell the driver to take me to the nearest trauma center. When we arrive at George Washington University's ER, nurses put me in a wheelchair. Three hours later, a tech looks at my X-ray, says, \"Oh shit,\" and starts to run out of the room. I grab his arm. Make him show me the image. The ball of my hip is floating, completely separated from my femur." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I wake up sucking oxygen from a tube. My mother is sitting in a chair next to the bed. My mother lives on the other side of the country, so I figure something is probably wrong. I don't remember anything after looking at the X-ray.\n\nI'm on crutches fora month. Then I graduate to a cane. For the rest of my life, I'll walk with a slight limp. And the three titanium screws in my hip will ache when the temperature dips below forty degrees. A few months later, I skydive out of an airplane for the first time. At a checkup, I inform my surgeon that he must have done some good work. He is not pleased.\n\nMy parents fly in for Georgetown's graduation ceremony. They seem relieved that I made it to the finish line. Levin writes yet another letter, and I'm accepted into the London School of Economics. I live in a flat in Notting Hill, attending lectures on trade wars with the kids of prime ministers and international diplomats.\n\nOne day, I'm walking on campus when I pass a balding young man with hard eyes flanked by massive bodyguards. I've heard about Saif Gaddafi. The students whisper that he's a dictator's son. I've heard we share a weed dealer.\n\nIna few years, he'll be one of my clients. Long after I've been on his family's payroll, the world will find out that Saif allegedly bought his PhD in philosophy from LSE with millions of pounds in bribes. Howard Davies, the distinguished institution's director, whose signature is on my diploma, will resign, disgraced.\n\nBut I'm getting ahead of myself.\n\nI walk through the doors of Venture, which feels like the smallest public relations shop in DC. I've been back in town fora few weeks, applying for any job that will keep me close to the action on the Hill. I've missed this city. Missed working on projects that I'd read about in the newspapers the next day. Missed the happy hours spent trading gossip about senators and feeling like a master of the universe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Venture's office isn't much more than a few desks scattered in the basement of a lobbying firm. A young woman shakes my hand and tells me to sit down. She scans my résumé, catching an item that makes her pause.\n\n\"Mr. Elwood,\" she says, smiling. \"I see you've worked on the Hill.\"\n\nI'm riding in a black SUV heading down First Street toward CNN Studios. Beside me sits Jon Powers, an army officer fresh off a tour in Iraq, and Michael Tucker, a filmmaker. \"When you get onset, remember to emphasize that young audiences need to watch this film,\" I coach them. \"Putting an R-rating on it is limiting the exact people who should see what war is like firsthand. The kids who might enlist.\"\n\nPowers nods, mouthing my words to himself. I walk him through his talking points one more time as the SUV pulls up to the tan-and-glass building housing CNN's DC bureau.\n\n\"If this film gets rated R, it hurts the youth of America,\" I repeat when we step into the lobby and receive our security badges.\n\nPowers is a subject of the documentary Gunner Palace, directed by Tucker, about soldiers living in Saddam Hussein's son Uday's pleasure palace during the second Iraq War. Venture has been tasked with keeping a PG-13 rating on a film in which the word fuck is uttered more than forty-two times. MPAA rules state if the word fuck is said in a movie more than once, the film receives an automatic R. And an R means fewer ticket sales.\n\nIt's my first PR campaign. My strategy has been to flood the zone. Make as much noise as we could. I've called television bookers and producers from a landline in Venture's basement office. \"The Iraq War is a killing field right now,\" I spitballed. \"Teenagers being recruited by the army need to see this film.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't have time for this,\" beleaguered bookers said before hanging up.\n\n\"This isn't my beat,\" I heard again and again. \"Take me off your list.\"\n\nI'm twenty-four years old-my'save the children\" pitch was born out of instinct. I didn't train in a press shop on the Hill. Venture has two other employees and pays me$ 35,000 a year, but my gut told me I was onto something. After a barrage of calls, I got through to a segment producer at CNN. In passing, I mentioned that Powers was from Buffalo, New York.\n\n\"Lucky break,\" the producer said. \"Wolf Blitzer is from Buffalo. We'll help your guy out.\"\n\nThe CNN set is smaller than I imagined. The studio looks like a toy replica of what you see on-screen. The idea that this tiny room is responsible for so much influence seems incongruous, like ants carrying an apple. Aline producer walks Powers from the greenroom to his mark. We have four minutes of camera time. Powers is calm. He has faced down RPG fire in Baghdad; he can handle a few questions from a cable news anchor.\n\nI watch the segment on the TV in the greenroom, imagining the audience watching at home. Powers and Tucker stick to our script, repeating my talking points about the film educating America's youth about the harsh realities of war.\n\nAs the anchor nods like a concerned parent, I watch as Powers's words-my words-become legitimate in real time because he's saying them on cable news. In an instant, ideas I thought up in a windowless office appear to become reality, certified by CNN itself. The audience doesn't see me building the machine that creates this illusion. They don't even know I exist. If a PR person appears on TV, it usually means we've fucked up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As CNN broadcasts my message to millions of Americans, I realize my job isn't to manipulate public opinion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My job is to get gatekeepers like CNN to do it for me. Once you have ink, your story becomes real. A conversation starts that didn't exist moments before, a conversation nobody would think to have if you hadn't started it. The public begins to accept something you created out of nothing.\n\nAnd I have something reporters will always need: access to inside information. Information is the only commodity I control, but in this world it's valuable currency. The media demand constant fuel. I can feed information to reporters and toggle how much they see. I feel as if I've put on a pair of night-vision goggles that reveal the hidden machines powering the world. I begin to see levers I can pull. The adrenaline that spikes feels stronger than any line of cocaine.\n\nThe press pickup our message and run with it. We secure a sympathetic review by A. O. Scott in the New York Times. \"The raw inconclusiveness of \"Gunner Palace\" is the truest measure of its authenticity as an artifact of our time and of its value for future attempts to understand what the United States is doing in Iraq,\" he writes. Fox News's Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes bring on Powers fora five-minute segment. MSNBC also does a segment with Powers and the director. My first timeout, I secure a cable news'hat trick.\"\n\nA few weeks later, I attend the premiere of Gunner Palace. Sen. Ted Kennedy shows face on the red carpet. The houselights go down, and the screen lights up: \"This film is rated PG-13.\"\n\nI've just sunk a body.\n\nLet me explain. I sank my first body when I was twelve. My father was the minister of an East Coast church, an easy walk to the ocean. Our house stood behind the church, and our front yard was the parish graveyard. Heavy metal bands tried to rent the property for record release parties. Aging, failing septic systems upstream yielded fecal counts in the hundreds of thousands in the creek running through the graveyard. A river of shit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When a parishioner expired, I would get to spend time with my father, and I would be compensated for my time. Fifty dollars per body. All I had to do was hold the cross and look sad for an hour. Workers brought in earth-moving machines to dig the grave. When the casket was in place, we stacked flowerpots between the hole and the bereaved.\n\nDuring one burial, my father and I stood behind the flowerpots. I could see down into the hole. \"Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...\" my father began. Then, over the mourners' bellowing, crying, and sniffling, I heard clods of earth falling and... splashing. Brown liquid was pooling up from the dark earth. I gave my father an elbow and nodded toward the bottom of the grave.\n\nHe picked up his pace. \"I will fear no evil.\"\n\nI watched shit-colored water swirl around the coffin. The coffin broke free from the dirt, floating, rising. I elbowed my father again.\n\n\"Steady the casket,\" he whispered.\n\nAngling the cross just so, I was able to place one foot on terra firma and the other on today's Jane Doe.\n\n\"For thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.\"\n\nBy the closing prayer, my shoe was soaked through.\n\n\"Handle this. I'll be back soon,\" my father told me and then led the mourners to the parish hall. They were none the wiser. I worried that the coffin was going to float up and out of the hole. I was twelve, so I also worried that the body inside would comeback to life. I jumped on the coffin, trying to submerge it. I slipped on its slick surface and fell into the grave." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the first time I helped create a false narrative." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cover up the truth when the wheels have fallen completely off the wagon. Remain calm and sink the body. The body is the truth. With Gunner Palace, the truth was that we wanted a PG-13 rating to sell more tickets. So, you sink the body. You make the public believe you want to keep vulnerable teenagers safe from the Iraq War. And with this body, I've made much more than fifty bucks.\n\nI need to create this illusion again. All around me, I see power and more power. I'm low in DC's pecking order. Even Moynihan's aide Eric has more pull than me. But for the first time in my life, I've discovered a trick that makes people clap. A trick that I'm apparently good at. I need to master it. I need to see how far it can take me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CHAPTER 2\n\nEveryone Deserves Representation\n\nI'm sweating through my best suit at the Garden Terrace at the Four Seasons in Georgetown. My table sits below a trellis of manicured ivy. Peter Brown is due to arrive in five minutes.\n\nEarlier this afternoon, I got a call from a woman who said she was Peter Brown's assistant. \"Can you meet Mr. Brown fora drink this afternoon?\" she asked. \"He's thinking about hiring you.\"\n\nI agreed. Then I googled'Peter Brown.\"\n\nBrown rose from running the record department at a store in Liverpool to managing the Beatles and sitting on the board of Apple Corps. He is mentioned by name in a Beatles song. He helps Robert De Niro promote the Tribeca Film Festival and takes Barbara Walters as his date to events. In the early 1980s, Brown moved to the PR game and now heads up Brown Lloyd James, a boutique firm based in New York.\n\nBrown strides into the Garden Terrace wearing a tailored blue suit accented with a pink silk tie. His silver hair matches his cuff links. When we shake hands, he feels frail but somehow in charge of even this small physical interaction-which is incredibly disarming. A waiter materializes, asking, \"Campari and soda, Mr. Brown?\" I order a glass of Malbec. Our drinks arrive nearly instantaneously.\n\n\"So,\" I say, \"tell me about the firm.\"\n\n\"Imagine Brown Lloyd James as a relationship brokerage,\" Brown says in an elegant English accent. \"We solve ornate problems for extraordinary clients. Used to do it ages ago for John.\"\n\nIt takes me a moment to realize he's referring to John Lennon.\n\n\"John once called me in a pinch. He needed to get married immediately without the media hounding the ceremony. I found the one place on the bloody globe that fit the ticket. He and Yoko tied the knot in Gibraltar.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Coming out of a less remarkable man's mouth, this story would sound like shameless name-dropping." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Brown speaks softly, nonchalantly. He can afford to: Lennon canonized him in'The Ballad of John and Yoko\": \"Peter Brown called to say'You can make it okay, \"\" Lennon sang. \"\"You can get married in Gibraltar, near Spain. '\" A Beatle singing about your cocktail stories is better than being knighted. And Brown will later almost be knighted. The Crown will appoint him a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.\n\n\"My uncle Phil is a big Beatles fan,\" I say. \"I'm named after him.\"\n\n\"John and Yoko bought an apartment in the building next to mine because they liked my view of Central Park. Yoko still lives there. Mick Jagger once sublet my apartment. When the term was up, he wouldn't give it back. We got into quite a dustup over it.\"\n\n\"Happens.\"\n\n\"We need someone in New York,\" Brown says. \"To run a couple of accounts.\"\n\n\"What sort of accounts?\"\n\n\"BLJ represents exotic clients. Countries. High-net-worth individuals.\"\n\nBrown doesn't get specific, and I'm too impressed to pry. He isn't selling his firm. Rather, anew life that his demeanor telegraphs I'd be lucky to accept. I'm in the market fora new life. After Venture, I was hired away by the PR mega firm Burson-Marsteller. My biggest client was the U. S. Tuna Foundation, which tried to get pregnant women to eat, you guessed it, more tuna. We paid off academics to argue that a certain form of molecular mercury was too large to cross the blood– brain barrier. The National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition maintained that women of childbearing age should eat at least twelve ounces of seafood per week. We were caught by none other than the New York Times: \"Industry Money Fans Debate on Fish,\" read the headline that exposed the whole nasty affair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Everyone deserves representation,\" Brown opines. \"And anything is possible with the right amount of money.\"\n\n\"I have some references you can call.\"\n\nBrown takes a slow sip of his Campari and soda. \"What do I care what someone else thinks?\"\n\n\"You need to sign this,\" Peter Brown's assistant tells me, sliding a form across the desk.\n\nI don't recognize the name'Tatanaki,\" but I sign the form without a second thought. I walk back out into the Brown Lloyd James offices. A dozen PR pros pace around gray laminate cubicles, firing pitches into phone lines. I hear conversations in Chinese and Arabic. I can't wait to get my hands dirty.\n\nPeter Brown takes me to meet my new manager, BLJ's second-in-command and my direct boss. We go to lunch at Michael's, on West Fifty-Fifth Street, where we are ushered to the best table in the house. \"Phil,\" Brown tells my new manager, \"is our new operative.\"\n\nOperative. The word lets me know I'm home.\n\nPR firms employ two types of people: bureaucrats and operatives. Bureaucrats are the accountants. The conference call leaders. The digital paper pushers. Operatives infect newsrooms. Call reporters. Do whatever it takes to get ink. I have always been and will always bean operative. Put it on my tombstone.\n\nNinety percent of mega PR firms'staff are bureaucrats. These firms claim to be experts in media relations, adept at securing coverage. Most of them don't achieve results for their clients. They don't know how to start fires. They understand their job is to create paper. PowerPoint presentations. Spreadsheets. Revise website copy. At Burson-Marsteller, the weekly email we received with the roundup of coverage secured by the entire firm was embarrassing. Publicists pushed paper for years without placing a single story in a major paper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But mega firms still charge clients millions for their services. It's a giant money suck. British conglomerate WPP earned£ 12.8 billion in 2021. But, hey, at least WPP's website has a charming tagline: \"We use the power of creativity to build better futures for our people, planet, clients and communities.\" Here's a good rule of thumb: More jargon equals more bullshit. More bullshit equals more billable hours. More billable hours does not mean more coverage.\n\nThese firms don't know what to do with an operative. An operative at a mega firm is like a Navy SEAL working at the post office. During my tenure at Burson-Marsteller, I secured only one story, and not for lack of pitching. The bureaucrats shot down my wilder ideas, the ones that would actually have translated into coverage. They worried that by going after one client's enemies, they would anger another client. Ora potential client. By having such a large clientele, the megas ensure that all their clients get the most inoffensive, ineffective, and likely useless campaigns possible.\n\nAt Brown Lloyd James, I am hindered by no such constraints. Here, I can be myself. Here, I am among my own. (Okay, I stole those last two lines from Thank You for Smoking, a book I worshipped in high school. I imagine Nick Naylor would consider being plagiarized a professional honor.) Peter Brown has assembled a team comprised exclusively of operatives and has instructed them to start fires.\n\nAfter Hurricane Katrina, one of BLJ's vice presidents arranged for the Qatari royal family to flyover New Orleans in Black Hawk helicopters to survey the devastation. Only after, of course, the Qataris pledged one hundred million dollars toward relief efforts. My manager has contacts in every newsroom from the San Francisco Chronicle to the New York Times. And then there's the interns. Just like on the Hill, they have a direct line to the elite." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Peter Brown moves through the world as a distinguished executive, with immaculately tailored suits fresh from Savile Row and a requirement that he sit in seat 1A when he must fly commercial. But he's a rock-and-roller at heart. Within weeks of my starting at the firm, Brown calls me and says, \"Our client has a job for you. You're going to Chile. If you get into any trouble, I know the president.\"\n\n\"I hope I won't get into enough trouble that you have to call the president,\" I reply.\n\nForty-eight hours later, I'm riding above the streets of Santiago in a rickety cable car. In Chilean wineries, I source contacts fora nongovernmental organization that needs international voices to criticize a legislative proposal before the U. S. Congress. What feels like days later, I'm answering an email on a rooftop bar in Istanbul with a view of both the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. My once seldom-used passport is suddenly full of stamps.\n\nBest of all, I convince Brown that I'm a more useful operative in DC than in New York. At BLJ's New York headquarters, agents dress in Armani suits. I have two suits from Jos. A. Bank and prefer to work from my rooftop in cargo pants. I sign a lease on an apartment on Logan Circle, ten blocks from the White House.\n\nThe day I move in, I meander into a neighborhood bar called Commissary. It's discreet, and the drinks are cheap. I sit at the bar and order an old-fashioned. Commissary becomes my base of operations. It's the perfect hideout for lunches with Wall Street Journal scribes. Politico rarely'spots\" people at Commissary.\n\nI'm having breakfast at Commissary, sipping a mega mimosa, when an email comes through from one of BLJ's clients, a wealthy Turkish American industrialist. He's received intel that a Turkish barber named Sabri Bogday has been sentenced to death by religious authorities in Saudi Arabia for blasphemy. Bogday's crime? Someone getting a haircut overheard him say, \"Goddamn it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Get the English-speaking press to cover this, my client implores.\n\nWhen you're trying to apply pressure through the press, you must know and exploit your enemies\" weak spots. The Saudis don't have many. They are rich. They don't give a shit about political hits. But they don't like religious shame. So, it's time to play the shame game. The pitch writes itself: barbarism.\n\nI calla DC friend and Huffington Post political blogger named Peter Slutsky. \"The Saudis are going to kill this guy for saying \"goddamn it,\"\" I tell Slutsky. \"Something we do every minute.\"\n\n\"Goddamn,\" Slutsky replies.\n\nSlutsky and his twin brother Matthew write 750 words on Bogday's case. I win all 750 for my client. The piece is bleeding-heart perfection. \"This situation is completely nuts and no reporters are stepping up to the plate to tell this man's story,\" the Slutskys write. \"This case, and cases like it, have occurred and will continue to occur as long as international voices remain silent.\" The Slutskys also write in defense of a jailed Saudi Arabian blogger facing five years in prison for posting about the incident. I can use that. Reporters will come running to protect one of their own. I've got what I need: first ink. Once you create one moment out of nothing, you can create more. You have started afire.\n\nA few days later, Saudi Arabia is hosting a summit at the United Nations to discuss, of all things, religious freedom. I send the HuffPo piece to reporters from Reuters and the New York Times. \"If you want a story, get down to the UN and ask questions about Bogday,\" I tell them. \"You've got a rare chance to confront a brutal regime about a religious prisoner.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the summit, reporters pepper Saudi officials with probing questions. Caught off guard, the officials stumble over their answers. A week later, the Saudis buy Bogday a one-way ticket to Istanbul and tell him never to comeback to their kingdom.\n\nI celebrate over a few rounds with Peter Slutsky at Commissary. \"Bogday owes this Jew free haircuts for life,\" he says, raising a glass.\n\nHe's so jovial, I try to match it. \"The best part is he'll never know I exist,\" I say.\n\n\"Phil, we just saved a man's life,\" Slutsky says, suddenly serious. Suddenly proud.\n\nInstead of feeling satisfaction, I am unsettled. Low when I should be riding a high. I think about my college therapist's diagnosis of'situational depression.\" But this heavy, shaky feeling follows me around regardless of the situation. There is a wide gap between how I should feel and how I actually do.\n\nThe next night, I go back to Commissary alone. Then the next. And then back the next day fora mega mimosa breakfast. When I'm low, it's easier to make small talk with reporters after I've had a few old-fashioneds. No matter how many stories I place, I still feel that something is wrong with me. Another drink, another joint. The bar tabs add up, then add up some more. Within six months of starting at BLJ I'm twenty grand in credit card debt.\n\nMargarita likes to drink martinis at lunch. And after lunch. After a few extra-dirty ones at a dive bar in Hell's Kitchen, Margarita still looks poised in her tight red dress. She can still walk a straight line in her high heels. In my wingtips, I cannot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'm five rounds into one of Peter Brown's exotic assignments." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'm to escort Russia Today's editor in chief through New York's newsrooms and introduce her to Brown's contacts. Margarita Simonyan got the job at Russia Today at the ripe old age of twenty-five. She knows Vladimir Putin personally. In 2022, a State Department report will call her'adept at serving up lies as truths-and with a smile.\" Along with Al Jazeera, Russia Today is one of two foreign media entities represented by BLJ. Our goal is to legitimize it in the American news market.\n\nIn polls, the news media's popularity hovers around 10 percent, the same rating enjoyed by Congress and baby seal clubbers. The press need PR pros more than anyone. All the major networks have us flaks on staff in case of a crisis. A good friend of mine was one of CNN's PR people in 2004. One Friday, the storied program Crossfire booked a comedian as its guest. What could possibly go wrong? The comedian was Jon Stewart. The hosts of Crossfire that evening were Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson. Ina now-infamous segment, Stewart ripped cable news to shreds on air, calling Carlson a'dick\" and a'failure.\" And he looked like a hero for it. It was probably the worst day of my friend's career. She had to try to clear up the fiasco for Page Six and the other news-starved gossip columns that had pounced on the story. Whenever the news organization becomes the story, you are about to have a nightmare news cycle. Stewart caught lightning in a bottle: he got Crossfire canceled. I'm quite sure each host has his version of revisionist history, but in the Wikipedia entry for Crossfire, the heading'Jon Stewart's appearance\" appears just before'Cancellation.\"\n\nIn New York, Simonyan and I use Brown's limitless Rolodex to careen through offices of the city's media luminaries. We end up, very drunk, at the office of the Nation with the magazine's publisher, Katrina vanden Heuvel. The Nation prides itself on being one of the country's most liberal publications. I have never been to a meeting of the Communist Party, but I imagine its talking points could have been generated from Simonyan and vanden Heuvel's back-and-forth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Today, I'm acting as a double agent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every reporter I introduce Simonyan to also becomes one of my contacts. Weeks later, I will ask vanden Heuvel for an introduction to a journalist at the Nation. She connects us immediately. If you make one friend inside a newsroom, you can get them to introduce you to their colleagues. You can infect that newsroom.\n\nBack in DC, I continue my viral outbreak. I have drinks with a young new Wall Street Journal reporter. I feed her some intel. She invites me to a journalists'poker game. I build from one reporter to the next until I've got a network across the Journal. It's a slow process. But now, when I scan through my dozen contacts at the paper, I can trace them all back to my first meeting with the up-and-comer who liked to play poker.\n\nSoon, my Rolodex of reporters balloons: Ken Vogel at Politico, Dan Wagner at the Associated Press, and Reuters bureau chiefs based in Istanbul and Ankara, who prove useful for my Turkish American client. When I call, they pickup. I can send a message to a well-respected reporter at any number of the top-tier journalism outfits and get a response from them in minutes. They know I have something juicy, an exclusive. They build their careers, and I do my job to spin a story fora client. I'm understanding better everyday how influence works, and my own influence is growing.\n\nInfluence-wasta in Arabic-means many things to many people, but my life's work is best encapsulated by the word's seventeenth-century etymology: \"unobservable forces that produce effects by insensible or invisible means.\" PR people like me hide in plain sight, influencing news coverage. Like most PR pros, I get journalists to tell stories about our clients or about our clients' enemies. These clients range from individuals to companies to entire countries, who pay, at a minimum, tens of thousands of dollars a month to engage our services. Sometimes hundreds of thousands a month." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sounds innocent enough, right? Right.\n\nMy industry is worth approximately$ 129 billion. We will do anything to earn those billions. The best journalists in the world aren't always breaking stories because of their dogged reporting skills; they're breaking them because they rely on people like me to feed them exclusive scoops. We use journalists to do our clients' bidding. And then the public reads their stories and believes them because they are coming from a trusted news source and not a corporate bagman.\n\nSadly, we have the journalists outnumbered. Three hundred thousand people are employed by the PR industry in the United States, compared to an estimated forty thousand journalists. There are seven and a half PR pros for every journalist. Would you take those odds in a fight? We also have journalists outgunned. The average salary fora PR professional is a multiple of what a journalist of comparable experience can make. And we have them on our side. They need us because we're a main source of information feeding today's nonstop hunger for media content. Media relations practitioners operate between the source and the journalist. We will always find a news outlet to make our clients' stories appear legitimate.\n\nSeven hundred fifty words. That's how long your average print news story is. To manage their expectations, I tell my clients that we want to win 50.1% of a story. That's 376 words. That is what I am fighting for. \"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press...\" The first words of the First Amendment give me the rights I need to fight for my 376 words, my clients provide me with the resources. Sometimes you can game the system and get 80 or 90 percent of the story placed. Embargo dates, background and off-the-record conversations, access to clients, access to proprietary information, a look at a lawsuit before it's filed, an internal email from a CEO, a surreptitiously recorded Zoom call, an internal memo, or a full-fledged whistleblower-all are weapons in the arsenal that allows a person in my position to control where and when a news event will occur." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But calling the journalist would, normally, be starting in the middle of the story.\n\nWhen I am trying to place a story, I plan for it to take at least a month. Twenty phone calls. Ina 2024 world, I send hundreds of Signal messages. And only one or two emails. Email is the easiest to subpoena, so I limit my work over that platform. The process generally goes something like this. A client calls the firm and presents us with a problem. We do an intake call to understand the scope of the damage. I take the allowed incubation time to consider our options. This can range from thirty minutes in the worst case to a day or two in the best.\n\nI am about to admit to a trade secret here, one that might piss off a few people: I engage in the equivalent of'insider trading\" with the media on a regular basis. I don't just talk to myself during this period. I use a group of a dozen journalists to field-test ideas. During my incubation period, I'll call one or two of them and float a strategy by them that has not been given to the client. It's always positioned as'What if, hypothetically, my client decided to do X... Would that be newsworthy?\" And I make sure that all these calls are off the record. I'm not sure what a journalism school ethics professor would think of this practice.\n\nI then present the plan to an internal audience at the firm. Because what I come up with is normally a bit crazy, it then gets modified. After this, the firm presents the strategy to the client. Then we convince them to take our advice.\n\nThis is where a reporter would normally get involved. If we are lucky, I'll know a reporter who will take the story immediately. However, normally, I need to ask someone at the target publication fora recommendation of a reporter who covers the issue in question. For the most part, reporter friends will send an email introducing me to a colleague. I then switch the conversation to Signal as quickly as possible and send some version of the following message: \"I have apiece of information that no one else has. Do you want it?\" Generally, reporters will give you a call after that. Then you move into the'discovery\" phase." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The discovery phase is when I spend my currency." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I have never bribed a journalist. I have heard of it happening in other countries. Clients have asked me to do it. I have worked with a former foreign journalist who had a penchant for taking bribes. But I have never bribed one myself. When I refer to spending my currency, I mean the proprietary information my client has given me to dole out to the media. Once I no longer have any new information to give a journalist, I become irrelevant to the story. More important, I have lost all leverage in the conversation.\n\nRemember, this conversation takes place over a month. I can add my own editorial spin at each point in the conversation. If my client's opponent is a rival company, I can (off the record) impugn its credibility to my heart's content. If the opponent is another country, I can pick any negative item from that country's daily news and send it to the reporter or reporters I am working with on the issue. I am a bug in their ear, and 95 percent of what I say never sees its way into print (thank God). But there is that pesky 5 percent. I'm paid to disseminate information. I tell the truth from a monetized point of view.\n\nA few weeks before Christmas 2008, I get a call from my manager. \"I have a draft op-ed I need you to take a look at,\" he says.\n\nI open the attachment and read the byline: \"Muammar Gaddafi.\"\n\nThe form I signed on my first day at BLJ tumbles out of my memory. The word Libya was right therein black and white. Our client Hassan Tatanaki is a surrogate for Colonel Gaddafi. I'd agreed to represent the dictator of Libya.\n\nThe form, called a Foreign Agents Registration Act (or FARA) Statement, exists only because of another dictator, Adolf Hitler. In 1933, Hitler wanted to create positive spin for Nazi Germany in the minds of U. S. citizens. How did he do it? He hired American PR firms. The firms pushed Nazi propaganda to the American public through op-eds in newspapers. Congress thought this was beyond the pale and, in 1938, passed an act requiring all firms working for foreign powers to register with the Department of Justice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Foreign dictators hiring American PR firms is still common practice. Take Ketchum, a public relations outfit owned by the holding company Omnicom Group, one of the mega PR firms. Vladimir Putin's Russia was one of Ketchum's largest clients. From 2006 to 2015, one of America's greatest adversaries paid tens of millions in fees to an American public relations firm. In 2013, Ketchum placed an op-ed from Putin in the New York Times about the Syrian civil war. Ketchum also does work for the American government: the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Internal Revenue Service, and the U. S. Army. If you work for Russia, you should not have a U. S. government contract.\n\nIn 2004, Ketchum was accused of'covert propaganda\" when it used actors to play journalists in videos shot fora client. In this case, the U. S. Government Accountability Office found the firm in violation of the federal propaganda ban. But Ketchum's campaigns have been awarded'Campaign of the Year\" at least six times by PRWeek, so they've got that going for them.\n\nAnd while we are telling tales out of school, let's have a look atone of my favorites: Qorvis. Qorvis has the distinction of being the go-to PR firm for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Shortly after the events of September 11,2001, the kingdom hired Qorvis fora cool$ 14.7 million, paid between March and September 2002. One of the tactics deployed was to use an astroturf (or front) organization called the Alliance for Peace and Justice to run radio ads promoting Saudi messaging in the United States mere months after 9/11. When, in 2004, the FBI raided Qorvis's offices, the firm called the raid a'compliance inquiry\" regarding the Foreign Agents Registration Act." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Inflation hit the kingdom after Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post, was abducted, tortured, murdered, and dismembered on October 2,2018, at the direction of the Saudi Arabian government. It cost the Saudis$ 18.8 million in PR cleanup fees for killing just one person. Qorvis gobbled that money up between October 2018 and July 2019.\n\nForeign governments hire American PR firms because they've seen how skillfully we protect American politicians and corporations. In October 2004, prior to New York State governor Eliot Spitzer's self-immolation, he looked into the American International Group (aka AIG), a massive finance and insurance company that in 2008 would need a significant bailout from the U. S. taxpayer for misbehavior. AIG did not care for the inquiry and hired Qorvis to ameliorate the situation. You know what's easier than crisis communications? Paying people off to say nice things about your client. Twenty-five-thousand-dollar retainers and ten-thousand-dollar television appearance fees were offered to former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officials and think tank staffers. When they were caught, Qorvis called it'research.\" Qorvis perfected its bag of tricks with American conglomerates and then sold it to the Saudis fora multiple of the price. Not a bad business model.\n\nAt BLJ, we're in the same business. We prove our skills in DC and New York and then export the strategies to the highest foreign bidder.\n\nGaddafi's op-ed is a rambling, pro-Russia, anti– NATO expansion screed. I edit the piece, wordsmithing long-winded paragraphs into buzzy soundbites designed to catch an editor's attention. When placing an op-ed, you need to hit a specific audience. If you're pitching a conservative argument, you shoot for the Wall Street Journal. If you're pitching six hundred words of crazy from a North African dictator, you enlist a second-tier publication like the Washington Times." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I call up the latter's op-ed editor.\n\n\"You're full of shit,\" she says when I tell her my client's name.\n\nI have to spend an hour convincing her I'm a legitimate representative of Libya's\"Brother Leader.\"\n\nA few days later, I pickup a copy of the Washington Times on my way to Commissary. The headline reads, \"Gaddafi: Provoking Russia.\" I join a small group of people who can say their words have appeared under the byline'Muammar Gaddafi.\" I'm not sure if I'm proud of what I've pulled off or scared of what I'm capable of. It's unsettling, like watching someone get mugged in broad daylight and doing nothing to stop it.\n\nAt BLJ's Christmas party, Peter Brown asks me to come to his apartment an hour before the other guests. I'm awed by his views of Central Park, his double living rooms, and his museum-chic furniture. In one bathroom hang pictures of Peter with the Queen of England, Peter with John Lennon, Peter with Ronald Reagan. Every time someone uses his toilet, Brown lets them know he has access to influence. Linking undeniable impulses is part of his genius. He understands that everyone is seduced by fame and that everyone needs to defecate.\n\n\"Are you seeing anyone, Phil?\" Brown asks when I join him beside his piano. It's his first hint at an interest in my personal life.\n\n\"Not at the moment,\" I say.\n\n\"Who's your favorite actress?\"\n\nI've recently watched Layer Cake, so I say Sienna Miller's not bad.\n\n\"She's a friend. I could introduce you.\"\n\n\"Maybe she's a little out of my league. But thanks for the offer.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A who's who of the media trickles through the door. Michael Elliott, the editor of Time, walks in with senior executives at the Wall Street Journal. Not far behind them are Barbara Walters, Yoko Ono, and Donald Trump.\n\n\"Don't shake Trump's hand. He's a germaphobe,\" Peter whispers in my ear.\n\nI've invited my childhood friend Preston, an East Coast, elite university– educated investment banker. When I need the right-wing take on a PR campaign, I tap Preston. Ashe says, \"Nobody who doesn't have a generator and two years' worth of food in their garage outflanks me to the right.\" I describe him as'authoritarian-curious.\"\n\nWhen I call Preston for his take on a story, it's not unusual to find him cleaning his'wireless hole punchers,\" his loving nickname for his AR-15s. Plural. Punch a code into a keypad in his den, and a false bookcase swings open to reveal his gun locker, which is filled with short-barreled AR-15s, some loaded with. 30-caliber subsonic rounds'almost as quiet as you see in the movies.\" Preston says he's big believer in the importance of'diversity,\" so he also has shotguns, pistols, and precision long-range rifles. The locker is stocked with more than enough ammunition to keep his suburban home, in one of the lowest-crime zip codes in the country, safe indefinitely from... no one exactly knows. Bonuses from Preston's current investment bank finance this arsenal. I've had friends arm themselves because they are worried there is going to be another civil war. Preston arms himself because he's hoping fora civil war.\n\n\"Al Jazeera had a birthday party fora terrorist live on air,\" I recently told Preston, crowd-testing ideas for the network to break into the American news market. \"How do we get around that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There is no getting around that in the American states,\" Preston replied.\n\n\"You mean the red states?\"\n\n\"Said what I said. Just because you're a U. S. citizen, it doesn't mean you're an American. Americans aren't going to watch the Terrorist News Network.\"\n\n\"Fuck,\" I said.\n\n\"Barack Hussein Obama,\" Preston finished.\n\nWhen Preston arrives at the party, he is mystified by a huge vase filled with bananas. He glowers at the cornucopia of public relations professionals, celebrities, and BLJ clients. \"All the worst humans,\" he says, \"gathered in one place.\"\n\n\"Play nice,\" I say.\n\nI make small talk with Barbara Walters and watch Donald Trump avoid handshakes. I've heard Trump is showing face because he wants to ink deals with Gaddafi. Libya has a multibillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund. Peter Brown might be able to provide access. I grab another flute of champagne and overhear Preston berating a New York Times journalist.\n\n\"Your profession has disgraced itself,\" he says. \"You people have no pride. No shame.\"\n\nI sip my bubbly and spot Peter Brown across the room, making Barbara Walters laugh. Brown is completely comfortable with how the world works and his place in it. He understands the hidden machinery behind it all. He knows how to operate it. And he understands that the most important thing of all is how you look while you're doing it. How you appear. He once told me, \"We can't just do a good job. We also have to appear to do a good job.\"\n\nAnd that's public relations. If you can do that, then you can do whatever you want, and there won't be any consequences. You can represent a dictator, and everyone still comes to your Christmas party." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My cab heads across the underside of Foggy Bottom and stops in front of the Watergate Hotel. The driver hands me a blank receipt. Blank cab receipts are the joy of every expense-accounted staffer in DC. An eight-dollar cab ride can transform into a fifty-dollar trip to the airport. I go to the airport a lot.\n\nThe Watergate's exterior looks like ribbons flowing in the wind. Once a posh address, the Watergate is slowly dying. Bob Dole used to live here; now the highlight is the Safeway in the basement. DC's zone-based taxi fare system was influenced by Dole, who wanted to ensure that he could ride from his residence in the Watergate complex to his Senate office in a one-zone ride.\n\nI'm stressed because Peter Brown called mean hour ago and said, \"You need to get down to the Libyan embassy.\" Lately, Brown has developed a penchant for calling at all hours with orders. Orders to jump on the next plane out of town. Orders to putout afire. Or to light a match.\n\n\"What happened?\" I asked.\n\n\"Our client is very happy,\" Brown said. \"But the world will be very displeased.\"\n\nInside the Watergate's office building, I head through a nondescript door into a suite full of Libyan flags and portraits of Muammar Gaddafi. The embassy's décor is tacky, stuck in the 1980s. Everything about the Gaddafis is stuck in the '80s-and covered in layers of cigarette smoke.\n\nAmbassador Ali Suleiman Aujali invites me to sit down at an oval desk. Last time I was here, we had Donald Trump on speakerphone setting up a game of golf for the Libyan ambassador." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I gotta ask. Why did you pick the Watergate?\" I say once I'm seated.\n\n\"It was available,\" Aujali replies.\n\n\"I'd imagine,\" I say. \"Nothing shady has ever happened here.\"\n\n\"Today is a great day for our country,\" Aujali says, beaming.\n\nHe fills me in. Tomorrow, Scotland will release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the terrorist responsible for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie. Apparently because he has cancer and the Scots believe in compassion toward terrorists. Al-Megrahi is set to receive a hero's welcome back home in Libya.\n\n\"The Brother Leader doesn't want the press to spoil his moment of triumph,\" Aujali explains.\n\n\"Oh, they are going to try.\"\n\nWe're in a fiery-red space beyond crisis. The world will find out about al-Megrahi's release in less than twenty-four hours. Then comes the storm of negative coverage. Al-Megrahi murdered Americans. Men, women, children. A lot of them. There is nothing I can do to stop this runaway train. But I can create a counternarrative. I think it up before I leave the Watergate: Libya is America's ally in the war on terror. We have bigger fish to fry than one asshole who blew up a plane in the eighties. I need one story. One headline to say that there is some dissent in the international outcry against Libya. Anything counts.\n\nBack at my apartment, I scan old Google Alerts for'Libya.\" Four members of Congress traveled therein 2004, before the United States restored diplomatic relations. They tried to open the door to the West. I smile when I see that one of them was Solomon Ortiz. I know Congressman Ortiz from a recent operation in Mexico. When an earthquake rocked Turkey in 1999, the Mexican government sent dogs trained to locate survivors in the rubble. Saved a lot of lives. After a flood hit Mexico's Tabasco region in 2007, BLJ's Turkish American client decided it was time to repay the debt and donated ambulances to the relief effort. Ortiz facilitated the transfer." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the writer's co-author, extend the plot.\nTags: sci-fi, dystopian, dark humor, societal critique, human nature\nAuthor: Phil Elwood\nTitle: All the Worst Humans\nChapter: 9" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It could throw sand in their gears,\" my manager says." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But we need to get the resolution introduced, like, yesterday.\"\n\nHe's right. The vote is in two weeks. We are running out of time.\n\n\"How much money do I have to play with here?\" I ask.\n\n\"Can you make ten thousand work?\"\n\n\"I can try.\"\n\nWhen you need quick access to Congress, you need a lobbyist. When you need to charm a lobbyist, you take them to the Palm. I arrive at the steakhouse a half hour early. A maître d'who reminds me of the concierge at the Bellagio guides me past walls decorated with cartoon portraits of DC luminaries. Above my table, a cartoon Tom Brokaw stares down at me. I doubt he approves of today's journalistic ethics. I fidget under Brokaw's gaze, craving a cigarette, but Morton's is the only steakhouse in DC where you can still smoke.\n\nThe lobbyist arrives, an aging guy in a black suit. We connected through a friend who specializes in third-party outreach and whom I'll call Joe. Actually, his real name is Joe, so let's call him Frank. Lobbyists sell access to politicians; Frank sells access to lobbyists. I'm sure someone farther down the food chain sells access to Frank.\n\nThe lobbyist orders a bowl of bone marrow soup and a rib eye. \"Should we get a bottle of the Super Tuscan?\" he asks, testing the waters of my budget with the wine list.\n\n\"Order two,\" I say.\n\nWe're a bottle and a half deep before I make my ask. \"I need a resolution introduced about physical education funding,\" I say.\n\n\"Resolutions aren't too tough. Has to be someone aligned with the message. Usually, a bit of back-and-forth on the language.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Here's the thing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We need it done fast.\"\n\nThe lobbyist studies my face and narrows his eyes, perhaps detecting the scent of duplicity. Or he's raising his price in his head. \"What's the rush?\" he asks.\n\n\"Ink. We need to galvanize the press.\"\n\n\"Who's your client?\"\n\n\"The Healthy Kids Coalition,\" I say. \"A children's advocacy organization fighting childhood obesity. It's Michelle Obama's big cause.\"\n\nTechnically, I'm not lying. But only technically. The Healthy Kids Coalition doesn't exist. It's a dormant astroturf organization created by some company years ago to advance a completely unrelated legislative agenda. In reality, it is just a website with a tax filing in Delaware. Astroturf organizations are shell nonprofits used to create the illusion of grassroots support fora cause. PR pros use them as shields for our clients. I'm borrowing the Healthy Kids Coalition fora week.\n\n\"So, who are you thinking about?\" I ask.\n\n\"Kilpatrick might do it.\"\n\nI know all about Detroit representative Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick and her family. My parents live just outside Detroit, and Kilpatrick's son, Kwame, was the city's mayor until he was convicted of obstruction of justice. Kwame charged a city-issued credit card$ 210,000 for massages at spas and for wines as pricey as the one the lobbyist and I are drinking tonight. In 2003, he was connected to the unsolved murder of a stripper who allegedly danced at his mansion, a story that has since become Detroit urban legend. His mother, Representative Kilpatrick, has just lost her primary. She's a lame duck in a lame-duck session. Double lame duck. You can get them to do anything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perfect,\" I say.\n\n\"Me taking this to Kilpatrick costs twenty-five.\"\n\n\"Listen,\" I say. \"I'm working on behalf of these kids. Their mothers don't have a lot of money. All they have is ten K.\"\n\nThere are greater sins than deceiving a lobbyist. Although, this particular sin may cause a sitting congresswoman to unknowingly introduce legislation on behalf of a foreign government.\n\n\"The rate is twenty-five.\"\n\nI take a check for ten thousand dollars out of my pocket and slide it across the linen tablecloth. The lobbyist stares at it while chewing a bite of steak. Ten thousand birds in the hand are better than twenty-five thousand in the bush. He swallows his meat and pockets the check.\n\nI can't attest to whether money changed hands between Kilpatrick and the lobbyist, but a few days later, a draft of the resolution is circulating in the U. S. House of Representatives. My idea has gone from a cocktail napkin to Congress in less than a month.\n\nI don't have time to wait for the resolution to get introduced, so I offer Politico's Ben Smith a leaked copy; I know he's a soccer fan. This is well before Ben Smith became the first editor in chief of BuzzFeed News and broke stories for the New York Times. At this point, he's an influential reporter always eager to land a scoop.\n\n\"How would you like an exclusive on a resolution that opposes the U. S. bid to host the World Cup?\" I ask.\n\n\"That's a weird story,\" he says.\n\n\"Weird enough to interest you?\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\n\"One thing. Would you mind printing most of the resolution in your article? I think it's important for people to read.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Smith confirms with Kilpatrick's office that my leak is the real thing. His piece is published forty-eight hours before the vote in Zurich. The headline reads, \"World Cup vs. Gym Class?\" Smith prints the entire resolution. \"Therefore, in order to help realize the goals of First Lady Michelle Obama's vision for reducing childhood obesity the US will place a higher priority on physical education programs in public schools,\" I read. I remember writing those words while ordering my second vodka soda at the Fox and Hounds. Now everyone reading Politico thinks the words came from the mouth of a congresswoman and that Michelle Obama is on our side.\n\nI've got a solid hit piece in my black-ops campaign against the United States\" World Cup bid. PR pros invest a great deal of time and effort to bring hit pieces to fruition. Most often, clients want to see a hit piece on their primary competitor. Early on in my time working for Peter Brown, I needed to hit one of my clients'political enemies. My adversary did not exactly follow the letter of the law. Their tax status and a few other legal t's and i 's were not crossed and dotted. I knew this because my client knew this; he had the resources needed to obtain this information. All I needed was the appropriate messenger.\n\nWashington is littered with nonprofit organizations founded with the ideal of changing the world for the better. But ideals don't keep the lights on. Money does. My client knew this. A significant private donation yielded a press release from a legitimate nonprofit and a letter of inquiry to the Department of Justice. Suddenly, my client's enemy was less concerned with my client and more concerned with their own growing legal bills.\n\nOne afternoon over cocktails, I told Peter Brown this story.\n\n\"You're an arsonist,\" he pronounced. \"Let me seethe picture of you and the First Lady of Mexico.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I passed my phone to Brown and took another drink of wine.\n\n\"What are you telling her to make her laugh?\" he asked.\n\n\"Don't remember,\" I said. \"Sorry.\"\n\n\"I have a guess or two.\"\n\nClients ask for hit pieces all the time. Walmart likes to see negative articles about Amazon. So, in 2018, it hired PR pros to create the Free and Fair Markets Initiative (FFMI), which described itself as a'nonprofit watchdog committed to scrutinizing Amazon's harmful practices and promoting a fair, modern marketplace that works for all Americans.\" Don't be shocked: FFMI was another astroturf organization. PR pros get well paid for creating these shell nonprofits-in this case, $ 250,000. FFMI putout a stream of content hitting Amazon: Labor issues. Controversial items being sold on Amazon. Scandals in the C-Suite. All highlighted in tweets, press releases, and media statements by the FFMI.\n\nNormally, this would have been a win. There's a catch. Often, clients don't understand what they are getting themselves into when they commission hit pieces. You must look at every story you pitch as a potential Pandora's box. You won't find out exactly what's inside until you open it. These are the risks when you play this game. Unintended consequences are to be expected. When a good journalist begins to look at the industry writ large, controversies about the client can come into play. Sometimes, the investigation spirals out of control. The hit piece against a competitor can turn on the client. If that happens, you have lost control of the narrative. \"Be careful he who hunts monsters, lest ye become a monster yourself.\" Or whatever Nietzsche said. If you play with fire, there is a better-than-even chance you will get burned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sometimes, the ensuing headline can hit the wrong target-which is exactly what happened when Walmart tried to burn Amazon. The Wall Street Journal's headline read, \"A'Grass Roots'Campaign to Take Down Amazon Is Funded by Amazon's Biggest Rivals.\" The subhead was worse: \"Walmart, Oracle, and Mall Owner Simon Property Group Are Secret Funders Behind a Nonprofit that Has Been Highly Critical of the E-Commerce Giant.\" The reporter had done his job and sniffed out the astroturf organization, including the pesky little detail that one of the'grassroots advocates\" had been dead for months. Walmart got hit by its own hit piece, and so did its allies.\n\nLuckily, my hit piece against the United States'World Cup bid is a clean shot, and the Healthy Kids Coalition provides adequate cover. The astroturf nonprofit issues a press release lauding Kilpatrick's vital work on behalf of young arteries. The release appears to come from childhood obesity experts instead of, say, the Qatari royal family.\n\nMy manager at BLJ prints dozens of copies of the article and flies to Zurich. The Qatari delegation brings the article to their final meetings with FIFA. They tell the voters that, in America, funding for the World Cup has become apolitical football. In Qatar, the emir decides how money gets spent.\n\nI watch the announcement broadcast alone on a dirty couch in my apartment on Logan Circle. FIFA president Sepp Blatter announces the 2018 winner first: Russia.\n\nIt's a bit of a shock and dashes my hopes for the Qataris. If FIFA awarded a bid to Russia, surely the next one will be for the United States. The balance of power, so to speak.\n\nThen Blatter opens the second envelope. When the name'Qatar\" appears, I'm as shocked as the rest of the world. A camera pans over the celebrating Qataris, and I spot Bill Clinton in the shot, whispering something in his aide's ear. Later, Peter Brown tells me that Clinton threw a tchotchke through a mirror in his hotel room that evening." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I don't blame him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The 2010 World Cup vote will be largely regarded as the most corrupt in the history of soccer. The Department of Justice will goon to conduct a multiyear investigation and indict three FIFA officials who received cash to vote for Qatar.\n\nA few days after the announcement, I get a call from one of BLJ's vice presidents. \"Did you hear about the seven-figure win bonus in the contract?\" she asks.\n\n\"I had not. Are we all getting raises?\"\n\n\"Ha. When Peter tried to collect, the Qataris told him, \"You should read your contracts.\" When the Qataris sent back the contract, they had redlined the bonus. Nobody checked.\"\n\nBLJ has just helped Qatar secure a World Cup bid for the firm's monthly retainer of$ 80,000. Eventually, Qatar will spend$ 220 billion on the games. Our fee was a hell of a bargain, if you ask me.\n\nIt doesn't matter what happens on the soccer pitch in 2022; Qatar has already won the World Cup. This is about so much more than sports. The Qatar monarchy has been legitimatized in the eyes of the world. As many as 1.5 billion people will watch the 2022 World Cup final. When, in 2023, Qatar's sovereign wealth fund buys a stake in the ownership group of the NBA's Washington Wizards and the NHL's Capitals, nobody bats an eye. Sportswashing works.\n\nThe Syrian embassy is a redbrick colonial-style building with white trim. It's not in the Watergate. So that's an upgrade. I fold three hundred dollars into a reporter's passport and hand it to the visa officer. I've gotten to know this officer quite well over the last few months. He's a soccer fanatic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do you think of Doha hosting the World Cup?\" I ask him.\n\n\"We are proud our region will host the games,\" he says and hands me back the passport with a visa installed and the hundred-dollar bills gone.\n\nBLJ is sending Vogue journalist Joan Juliet Buck to Damascus. The magazine is going to feature our client Asma al-Assad in its March 2011 issue, thanks to Peter Brown calling up his old friend Anna Wintour. The theme of the issue is'Power.\" We're using the wife of Syrian president (read: dictator) Bashar al-Assad to try to strengthen the relationship between the United States and Syria. It's an American tactic: the First Lady is always more popular than the president, and she makes her husband look good by association.\n\nThe Vogue story runs under the title'A Rose in the Desert.\" When I pickup a copy of the glossy magazine, I'm gobsmacked by the first line of the piece: \"Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young, and very chic-the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies,\" the writer gushes. In the first few paragraphs alone, the piece describes Mrs. al-Assad as'breezy\" and'fun\" and calls Syria'a secular country where women earn as much as men and the Muslim veil is forbidden in universities, a place without bombings, unrest, or kidnappings, but its shadow zones are deep and dark.\"\n\nThe piece reads like the reporter spent a few days with Gwyneth Paltrow: \"Asma al-Assad empties a box of fondue mix into a saucepan for lunch,\" Buck writes. \"The household is run on wildly democratic principles. \"We all vote on what we want, and where,\" she[Asma] says.\" (For example, her children voted to make the chandelier over the dining table out of cut-up comic books.) It's rare that you send a journalist on a propaganda tour and they actually print the propaganda. But you won't find any complaints from the flaks who set it all up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Vogue writer says Mrs. al-Assad likely has a'killer IQ.\" Poor choice of words when describing a dictator's wife. The article is chock-full of questionable journalistic choices. It quotes Bashar al-Assad himself saying he became an eye surgeon because there is'very little blood.\" Vogue publishes photos of Assad playing with his children: he is dressed like an American president in jeans and a gray fleece.\n\nA few days after the Vogue issue hits magazine stands, the Arab Spring revolution erupts in Syria. Thousands of protesters soon fill the streets of Damascus, calling for Assad's head. When his troops beat them bloody, the world reacts live on Twitter. Later, Vogue tries to scrub any record of the article's existence from the internet, and Anna Wintour has to defend herself in the pages of the New York Times.\n\nIn Libya, the Arab Spring escalates to civil war after Gaddafi's army opens fire on protesters in Benghazi, killing hundreds. I think back to Srebrenica, to standing on the blood-soaked soccer pitch. That day, I wondered how long it would be before similar scenes played out in Libya and Syria. It took less than a year. The nature of these conflicts was different; the results were the same. Blood on the soccer pitch. Blood in the desert. It's still blood.\n\nOnce again, I'm faced with the business end of my business.\n\nUnfazed, BLJ will goon to advise the Assad regime on how to spin the Arab Spring. Brown wants me to work on the Assad account, but after I find out that the Syrian government is shooting its own people, I refuse to sign the FARA form. In an internal document leaked by Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, BLJ later advises Assad, \"If hard power is necessary to quell rebellion, soft power is needed to reassure the Syrian people and outside audiences that reform is proceeding apace, legitimate grievances are being addressed and taken seriously, and that Syria's actions are ultimately aimed at creating an environment in which change and progress can take place.\" BLJ wants to spearhead media efforts to'create a reform'echo-chamber'by developing media coverage outside of Syria that points to the President's difficult task of wanting reform, but conducted in anon-chaotic, rational way.\" All this during a revolution that is quickly becoming a civil war." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Peter Brown wants to meet meat the bar at the Mandarin Oriental. In the middle of a workday. Atypical request coming from me. A strange one coming from Peter. On my way to the bar, I see a junior BLJ staffer. Brian is a few years younger than me, hired about a year after I came aboard. We pass in the marble hallway. I catch his eye.\n\n\"Peter's firing me, isn't he?\" I ask.\n\n\"Absolutely,\" Brian says.\n\nWe shake hands, and Brian heads for the exit. I walk through the gilded doors of the bar to face the music. Peter isn't at the bar. It's empty. A waiter comes up tome and asks if I'd like a drink.\n\n\"Yes, I think I would,\" I say. \"I'll take a double Pappy Van Winkle. On the rocks.\"\n\nI sip my two-hundred-dollar glass of bourbon and stare at the ice cubes bobbing in the amber liquor. Peter arrives ten minutes later. He waves the waiter away. I wait for him to speak.\n\n\"The Arab Spring has been bad for our business model,\" he says.\n\n\"I agree.\"\n\n\"And as you know, I haven't been happy with your performance for sometime.\"\n\n\"I didn't know that, Peter,\" I say. \"I didn't know that at all.\"\n\n\"So, you're out.\"\n\nPeter Brown gave me anew life the day we met at the Four Seasons. Now he's taking that life away at the Mandarin Oriental. He knows I won't make a scene here.\n\nWhile Brown explains that he wants me to stay on for two weeks to smooth out the transition, I am thinking, This man describes me to clients as a hit man. A guy who can punch hard in the media. I want to turn to him and say, \"For years, you've called mean arsonist. What do you think I'm about to do?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I hold my tongue." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even now, even as he's casting me out into the cold, I'm still in awe of Peter Brown.\n\nI cab it home and head down to the computer lab in the basement of my apartment building. I enter the password to my BLJ email account. I need to get it all before they lock me out. I start forwarding documents to my personal email account. I'm looking for anything with an attachment. Anything from Peter. Thirty minutes later, I've forwarded 1,500 communications that Peter would never want to seethe light of day.\n\nThen I start printing. Invoices paid by the Gaddafis, Assad, Gabon. The printer hums and clicks. Soon, I've got a stack fifty pages thick. I slip it into a manila envelope and lick the seal.\n\nI ask Lindsay to meet meat Commissary the next day for lunch. I arrive an hour early and start drinking. By the time she arrives, I'm in a gray area between tipsy and buzzed.\n\nLindsay and I have been seeing a lot of each other. We've talked about my moving into her place when her roommate moves out. Lindsay looks happy to see me. Then she notices the graveyard of glasses.\n\n\"You okay?\" she asks.\n\n\"I'm going to do something,\" I say.\n\n\"Oh... Phil.\"\n\n\"Burn a few bridges.\"\n\n\"You're going to inform on BLJ?\"\n\n\"To every reporter who'll take my call. At the biggest papers I can.\"\n\n\"I'm not going to tell you how to run your life,\" Lindsay says. \"But it's generally a good rule to avoid leaving a trail of destruction in your wake.\"\n\n\"Peter is doing something wrong. I mean look at the Middle East right now. Blood on the streets. Assad is shooting civilians.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Didn't you rep Assad as of, like, last Tuesday?\"\n\n\"It's the right thing to do to hold Peter accountable.\"\n\n\"That's why you're doing this? Accountability?\"\n\n\"Bingo.\"\n\n\"You want to know what I think?\"\n\n\"By all means,\" I say.\n\n\"I think you're pissed at Peter. I think you're doing this out of spite.\"\n\n\"It's the right thing to do,\" I repeat.\n\n\"Phil, this could hurt your future. Move on. Let go.\"\n\nLindsay is right, of course. About everything. Here's the thing about good advice: sometimes, you just can't take it. I start dialing reporters later that afternoon.\n\nThe first reporter I meet with has rules. Rule number one: If there is alcohol on the table, the conversation is off the record. Better than fine by me. We've met at the Bottom Line, a dive bar where I used to pickup an occasional shift while at Georgetown. There is most certainly alcohol on the table.\n\n\"Gaddafi and Assad's PR guy, the former manager of the Beatles, selectively registered their accounts with the Department of Justice,\" I say. \"This is a problem.\"\n\n\"Why are you telling me this?\"\n\n\"Because he just fired me.\"\n\nPart of my strategy in dealing with reporters is to express my agenda upfront. I'm honest about my conflicts of interest. I often tell reporters, \"This is the headline I'd like to read. This is the reason I'm talking to you. This is my motivation. And yes, someone is paying me to say this. But here's the story.\" Why not be upfront about my motives? It gives me immediate credibility. It gets dirty laundry out in the open so they don't find it later. Playing hide the football with someone who investigates people like me fora living is a bad idea. And what comes after'But here's the story\" is usually newsworthy. I'm never trying to sell toothpaste or bananas." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I tell the reporter how much Gaddafi paid BLJ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I tell them about babysitting the Doctor in Las Vegas. And I tell them that we didn't register any of this with the Department of Justice. I go through, in detail, each of the questionable things I have been asked to do while working at Brown Lloyd James. The payments in cash. The mysterious emails. The'nontraditional business practices.\" Peter Brown is an eccentric man, one who firmly believes there are two sets of rules: one for those with money and another for the rest of the world. Neither set of rules really applies to him.\n\n\"Are you sure you want to do this?\" the reporter asks. \"These are scary people.\"\n\n\"The real question is, Do you want the story?\"\n\nPeople always ask for my motives. They want to know why. Here's the truth, a truth I have trouble admitting and explaining: I do it for the story. My time with Brown Lloyd James cannot end with the whimper of my making Peter Brown pay for my two-hundred-dollar glass of whiskey. I need it to end with a bomb. It's not that I'm upset about being fired. Rather, it's about who fired me. The caliber of the person who fires you matters. Later in life, I will be terminated by a bureaucrat atone of the mega firms. I had so little respect for this person that I thanked him for firing me. But for some reason, being dismissed by a rock-and-roll icon has set something off in me. This story needs a proper ending.\n\n\"You didn't answer the question,\" the reporter says.\n\n\"My safety is not my first concern.\"\n\n\"Well, regardless of your motivation, there is a story here. BLJ is flouting the law. And they are unlikely to get caught.\"\n\nI push the manila envelope across the table. \"Everything you need is inhere.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The article goes live on September 9,2011. \"The public-relations firm Brown Lloyd James posts an extensive client roster on its website, including composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, the charity Autism Speaks, Carnegie Mellon University and the state of Qatar,\" it begins. \"Unacknowledged on its website client list is its work for the regime of Libya's Col. Moammar Gadhafi and the wife of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.\" The work BLJ does, the piece reads, \"carries a risk to a firm's reputation, especially if a firm's client battles its citizens, as happened in both Syria and Libya this year.\" The reporter got Tony Fratto, a Treasury and White House spokesman during the Bush administration, to comment on Peter Brown's business practices. \"Tome the job of diplomatic relations with foreign governments, even troubled ones, is the job of the State Department,\" Fratto says.\n\nPeter liked to call mean arsonist. Now he's got afire.\n\nThe Department of Justice refuses to confirm if Brown Lloyd James will face sanctions or penalties due to its failure to properly register clients. I hear rumors over the next weeks that the U. S. government has called BLJ with some questions. Staffers there are frantically emailing to get all their records updated for the DOJ. But in the end, Brown files the appropriate forms, apparently having convinced the DOJ that there was no intentional evasion of the law. All crimes are forgiven. And the system will keep turning. Influence will be purchased. Governments will topple. And the people living under dictatorships will continue to suffer and die.\n\nMy career as a bagman for dictators is over. But I can't get out of public relations. I'm still in debt. This is the only way I know how to make money. Who else will employ me after what I've done? The Hill won't have me back, but the PR industry embraces me. And that's what happens when I walk through the doors of Levick Strategic Communications, the premier crisis communications shop in DC. I tell the firm's CEO Richard Levick, about my work on the Qatari World Cup bid. He's impressed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On May 13,2011, while I'm filling out new-hire paperwork with Levick, NATO aircraft strike Gaddafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound in Tripoli. Gaddafi responds by taunting NATO. \"I tell the cowardly crusader[NATO] that I live in a place they cannot reach and where you cannot kill me,\" he says in an audio recording played on Libyan state-run TV.\n\nTurns out, he was right. For about three months.\n\nTripoli falls in August. Gaddafi and Mutassim flee to the desert city of Sirte. At approximately 8:30 a. m. local time on October 20, NATO forces intercept a satellite phone call made by the Brother Leader. At the same time, a Royal Air Force reconnaissance mission spots an ever-so-subtle seventy-five-car motorcade blasting through the desert. An American Predator drone circling the skies over Libya, operated by someone in Las Vegas, fires at the convoy first. It is the middle of the night in Sin City, where I spent my terrifying weekend with Mutassim. Moments later, French fighter jets bomb the convoy. Gaddafi hides in a drainage pipe before being captured by rebels.\n\nThe next day, I follow the news. The networks show a photo of the Doctor's dead body, shot in the chest and the neck. I wonder what's become of Ali and the two Muhammads. I have a feeling most of the people on our Las Vegas trip are now dead. Al Jazeera cuts to footage of Muammar Gaddafi being beaten by rebels, blood pouring down his face and clumped in his hair. A pistol is put to his head.\n\nHis last words are, \"Do you know right from wrong?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CHAPTER 6\n\nThe Government v. the Internet\n\nA call from a Wall Street Journal reporter wakes meat 5 a. m.\n\n\"Phil, I wanted to give you the chance to comment on a story that's about to go live,\" he says. \"Here's our lead: \"After months of planning, New Zealand police swooped on Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom's home as guests arrived to celebrate his birthday. '\"\n\n\"Let me get some people awake,\" I croak.\n\nDotcom's lawyer, Robert S. Bennett, former counsel to President Bill Clinton, fills me in. Counterterrorism agents have raided the Web baron's 25,000-square-foot Auckland mansion using military helicopters, canine units, and SWAT vehicles in an operation coordinated with the FBI. My client barricaded himself in his panic room, clutching a sawed-off shotgun. He faces extradition to the United States on charges of copyright infringement, racketeering, money laundering, and wire fraud.\n\nWhen you work in crisis communications, you expect the phone to ring with a crisis. Just not this many of them at once.\n\nSix weeks earlier, on a Monday morning in December, I enter Levick Strategic Communications. Our building sits on the corner of Nineteenth and M Streets NW in Washington, DC. Richard Levick's corner office is lined with bookcases stuffed with legal treatises. That day, I join Levick, who is smoothing the lapels of his three-piece suit, and four executives huddled around the speakerphone. A senior vice president gives me the once-over.\n\n\"So, you're Richard's new black-ops guy?\"\n\nBefore I can respond, the speakerphone connects and a German accent punctures the room. Kim Dotcom's voice throws me-not what I'd expected from an obese hacker. I'd assumed he'd sound like Neo from The Matrix, not Christoph Waltz from Inglourious Basterds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I vant to box this little vorm,\" Kim Dotcom booms.\n\n\"Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Dotcom,\" Levick says.\n\n\"Mr. Dotcom's subsidiary Megaporn has been sued by Perfect Ten, a porn company looking to create anew revenue stream as a copyright troll. He's being forced to pay a large settlement,\" adds Dotcom's tech lawyer, a fast-talking attorney from San Francisco. \"Perfect Ten's CEO is on the older side.\"\n\n\"I vill fight him on television for the exact amount of the settlement,\" Dotcom says through the speakerphone.\n\nThe suits around the table exchange frowns. I immediately like the guy. I've finally meta client whose ideas are crazier than mine. As the junior man on this intake call, I remain mute, watching how Levick handles the situation.\n\n\"Sounds a tad... splashy,\" says Levick. \"What if we got some third-party allies to say good things about you?\"\n\n\"Put a good face on the settlement while still maintaining a viable business,\" a VP in the room interjects.\n\n\"I am not a criminal,\" says Dotcom.\n\n\"Paying the settlement is not dispositive of guilt,\" says Levick.\n\n\"I have a legitimate business. Forbes vants to put me on the cover. I see a vorld where big content and internet freedom can exist together.\"\n\n\"I see that world, too,\" Levick says. \"And we can help the public see it. Let's hold off talking to reporters until the settlement news cycles through the papers. Is there anything else we should know?\"\n\nIt's a good question. All PR crises start with an intake call. It's an exercise in extracting as much information as we can from the client and their lawyer. Usually your client, or more often their lawyer who is always on an intake call, doesn't tell you the whole truth or neglects to tell you something very important. (Casein point: At the time of this meeting, the FBI is six weeks away from taking down Dotcom, and he's already hired a criminal defense team.) Or they straight-up lie to you, trying to play the PR pro with PR pros. Sometimes, I say to lawyers, \"Do you see me getting up in the courtroom and making objections? Tell me the truth and let me talk to the media.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's where things stand,\" says Dotcom's lawyer.\n\n\"So, nothing else?\" asks Levick.\n\n\"I vant to move fast,\" Dotcom says.\n\n\"We will turnaround a proposal for you in twenty-four hours,\" Levick says, shooting his finger in my direction.\n\nProposals are the responsibility of the most junior agent. Twenty-four hours is actually a large window within which to come up with a crisis strategy. I've been through fire drills where a client had to talk to reporters within thirty minutes.\n\n\"Start with the crazy on this proposal. I'll rein you in,\" Levick tells me after the call, over a glass of bourbon. He keeps the good stuff hidden inside a false globe. \"I love the way your brain works.\"\n\n\"I can do that.\"\n\n\"Stop by HR on your way out. Tell them you'll need to look at some... blocked sites on the company laptop. I don't think Perfect Tenor Megaporn are whitelisted.\"\n\nI order takeout from Commissary and browse dozens of articles about my new client. Kim Dotcom is my kind of criminal: a six-foot-seven, three-hundred-pound computer nerd who likes chartering model-laden yachts, driving vintage Cadillacs on golf courses, and playing games with the American entertainment industry. In 2005, he started the file-sharing service Megaupload, through which users could access copyrighted content like Hollywood films free of charge. At its peak, Megaupload claimed to have sixty million users, to generate twice as much Web traffic as Facebook, and to have turbocharged Dotcom's net worth to two hundred million. He sometimes travels with a life-size statue of the alien from Predator.\n\nOut of all my clients, Kim Dotcom has the longest rap sheet. The man born Kim Schmitz was first convicted in 1998 for trafficking stolen phonecard codes, computer fraud, and data espionage. He milked the arrest for hacker cred, telling the press he was the head of an international cybercrime team called Dope. He bragged that he had breached Citibank's digital vaults and sent twenty million dollars to Greenpeace. A 2001 piece in the German newspaper Die Welt says he hacked NASA and the Pentagon, accessing classified military intel on Saddam Hussein. The Guardian claims he sabotaged the credit rating of former German chancellor Helmut Kohl. In 2002, he was convicted of manipulating the stock of a Dutch internet company. German authorities extradited him from Thailand. He met them at the Munich airport introducing himself as the'Royal Highness Kimble the First.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kim parlayed exploits into hacker fame. According to Wired, \"He promoted his new bad-boy rich hacker genius image through a bizarre Flash movie called Kimble, Special Agent, in which his cartoon alter-ego drives a \"Megacar\" and then a \"Megaboat\" before breaking into Bill Gates's compound and riddling the wall behind Gates with a machine gun (spelling out'Linux' with bullet holes).\"\n\nPeter Brown taught me that'anything is possible with the right amount of money.\" Dotcom has exponentially more money than Peter Brown, and his fortune has allowed him to stay one step ahead of the law since the Clinton administration. We're now well into the Obama administration. Dotcom had successfully skirted the law for three presidents while enjoying wine, women, and song. And he found the time to become the number one– ranked player in the world in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. \"Don't hate me because I beat you,\" goes his gamer motto. \"Respect me because I can teach you.\"\n\nA 2001 article in the Telegraph calls Dotcom'a PR man's nightmare and a journalist's dream.\" Conventional PR wisdom says the public should hate him. Not so. He's mostly beloved, even by people who should really hate him like Kanye West and Apple's Steve Wozniak, who had money taken out of their pockets by Megaupload. Of course, Dotcom is reviled by the entertainment companies and their lobbyists, like the Motion Picture Association of America, and they have really good reasons to detest him. The MPAA estimates that online piracy costs the U. S. film industry around$ 29.2 billion per year. (Typical of the MPAA, this figure seems like a bit of hyperbole.) But millions of fans on the internet can't get enough of this obese geek who lives like Richie Rich while gleefully flipping the bird to the powers that be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I, too, am smitten." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dotcom is a PR genius. He breaks every rule of public relations and gets away with it.\n\nRule 1. Don't believe the lie that'any press is good press.\"\n\n\"There is no such thing as bad press\" is the most flawed statement in public relations. Just ask Gaddafi. Except if you are Kim Dotcom. There is noway fora journalist to write about this cartoon character that he won't find flattering. Dotcom lets it all hangout and flips bad stories into irreverent jokes on his Twitter account.\n\nRule 2. Don't repeat the negative.\n\nTell me the first Richard Nixon quote that pops into your head. \"I am not a crook,\" right? You remember the line even if you weren't born yet when Nixon said it. Everyone remembers the line. Those five words are perhaps the single greatest PR blunder in American history. Nixon repeated the negative, the first thing in media training we teach clients to avoid doing. If someone asks how long you've been beating your wife, you don't say, \"I'm not a wife beater.\" You say, \"I'm a good man.\" Why deny when you can obfuscate?\n\nDotcom is often asked if Megaupload is legal. He doesn't say, I run a legitimate business and donate to charity. He says, The law is wrong. Everything that comes out of Kim Dotcom's mouth is worthy of indictment. Because he tells the truth, he's guilty of most crimes except perjury.\n\nRule 3. Never wrestle with a pig in shit. *\n\nTwo things will happen. You'll be covered in shit. And the pig will like it. Never get down and fight with an opponent who is beneath you. Dotcom wants to challenge a copyright troll to fisticuffs. He'd probably stream it live on Twitter. And people would root for him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rule 4. Don't kick someone when they are up.\n\nAn old saying in Washington. It's too much work to attack a strong opponent. Know your place. Dotcom kicks whomever he wants: beloved CEOs, the entertainment industry, powerful lobbies like the MPAA. These are people who hire shadow men like me and tell us, \"Do your worst.\" Even Dotcom's ridiculous surname kicks up at authority. Knowing that his line of work would bring him up against lawsuits and investigations, he legally changed it so the header of any case against him essentially reads, \"the Government v. the Internet.\" He's a complete 180 from humorless dictators sequestered in their bloodstained, oil money palaces.\n\nI can't wait to get started.\n\nAt the Willard Hotel's Round Robin Bar, DC bartending legend Jim Hewes serves me one of his gorgeous old-fashioneds. Hewes lives by the motto'Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.\" I'll drink to that.\n\nI haven't been back to the Willard since BLJ threw Gaddafi the'Hooray, Forty Years as a Dictator!\" bash. Fifteen minutes later, the rapper Swizz Beatz enters, wearing the type of suit NBA players wear courtside after they've torn their Achilles'.\n\n\"You Phil?\" he asks.\n\n\"Yeah,\" I say.\n\n\"I'm excited for the multitude of opportunities presented by this opportunity to grow my personal brand.\"\n\n\"Uh-huh,\" I say.\n\nIt's been a busy few weeks. Dotcom settled with Perfect 10. Under Levick's advisement, he did not box its aging, balding CEO. It would have been cruel. Funny. But cruel. Dotcom has bigger plans for Megaupload." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're going legit,\" he announced on a recent conference call. \"Mainstream. We're going to install someone with music industry credibility as CEO.\"\n\nEnter Swizz Beatz. I'm handling the media rollout for Beatz's upcoming announcement as Megaupload's CEO. Swizz Beatz and his nine Grammy nominations are the face of a well-crafted narrative. We're using him as a shield from music industry criticism, creating the narrative that Dotcom is entering the lawful fold. Mega, Kim, and Swizz aren't destroying the music industry; they are the well-meaning stewards of its future. Dotcom's next move is to partner with a record label and major industry figures to release music through his file-sharing platform.\n\nHe's off to a hot start. A few days ago, on December 17, Dotcom released the'Megaupload Song\" music video to YouTube. The video stars Kim Kardashian; musical artists Kanye West, will. i. am, P. Diddy, and Chris Brown; actor Jamie Foxx; boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr.; and tennis champ Serena Williams. After the parade of A-listers, Dotcom appears in it dressed in a black hoodie, sporting a neckbeard, and boasting'Four percent of the internet.... It's a hit, it's a hit!\"\n\nOnce again, Dotcom breaks all the rules of PR. He kicks up at the music labels and literally repeats the (potentially criminal) negative in song: \"M-E-G-A! Upload tome today!\" Artists who have contracts with major record labels are advertising the very company bending those labels over a barrel. I imagine the horrified faces of the United Talent Agency suits logging on and seeing their biggest clients shilling fora pro-piracy website.\n\nOnce again, Dotcom gets away with it. The music video racks up millions of views on YouTube. The press covers it as a fun oddity. And the song is an earworm, as if an AI program mixed a commercial jingle with a song by the Black Eyed Peas. Yesterday, I caught Lindsay singing it while she cooked breakfast. \"Meeegggaaaa,\" she hummed. \"Me-ga-up-load. Send me a file.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This launch is going to be massive,\" Swizz Beatz tells meat the Round Robin.\n\n\"Don't talk to Page Six,\" I tell him. \"They're sniffing. We'll break the news soon. Thinking of the Wall Street Journal. Only right fora CEO.\"\n\n\"I like the sound of that.\"\n\nI leave the Willard and head to Rumors, a sticky-floored bar with a patio near Levick's office. I work late, emailing with a tech reporter named Ernesto who writes for TorrentFreak and with a Forbes writer who wants to put Dotcom on the magazine's February cover. If all goes according to plan, I'll be on a plane to New Zealand in a few weeks.\n\nAll does not go according to plan.\n\nNow, a few days later, I get the call that Kim Dotcom has been arrested. When Dotcom hired Levick, I suspected he didn't need us to deal with just a copyright troll. His lawyers didn't give us the straight dope. Dotcom knew the FBI was trying to take him down. Now that day has come. The day of his arrest, the press runs photos of Dotcom brandishing a shotgun in front of a black Mercedes with a vanity license plate reading, \"GUILTY.\" The music newsletter Complex declares it possibly the first case of confession via license plate.\n\nI doubt antics will save him this time. Dotcom threatens multibillion-dollar entertainment companies with deep connections to the White House. Chris Dodd, the chairman and chief lobbyist for the MPAA, was a senator from Connecticut when President Obama was a senator from Illinois. Vice President Joe Biden has called Dodd one of his best friends. Dotcom's lawyer will claim that White House logs show Obama and Dodd meeting in the Oval Office on December 9, just a month before Dotcom's takedown." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then, around the time of the raid, Dodd went on Fox News. \"Those who count on, quote, Hollywood for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them when their job is at stake,\" he said. \"Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk, and then don't pay any attention tome when my job is at stake.\"\n\nIs it too far into the weeds of conspiracy to think Dodd threatened to yank financial support for the Democrats unless Obama sanctioned the raid? I call Preston to run my theory by him.\n\n\"Communist Hollywood and leftist politicians coordinating to destroy an armed sovereign citizen? I don't believe you,\" he says dryly. \"Are you a cognizant freethinking individual? Is this not obvious to you already?\"\n\n\"What's that noise?\" I ask, hearing a pop-pop-pop in the background.\n\n\"I'm on a range in Upstate New York. Marine snipers are teaching me to be more effective with long-range rifles. We shoot with silencers, but you can still hear it.\"\n\n\"Sounds accurate.\"\n\n\"We're hitting kill shots at a thousand yards,\" Preston says. \"Hate to tell you, Phil, but you're getting beat at your own game. \"Public relations\" is just the genteel name for propaganda. You went up against Hollywood propagandists. They areas rich as Croesus. And they have a bigger army.\"\n\n\"I don't have an army.\"\n\n\"Get one. They've got the FBI. You don't even own a gun, for some reason that I cannot fathom and will not attempt to.\"\n\n\"I'll work on my army. Right now, I'm scrambling. The press keeps harping on the detail that Kim was arrested holding a sawed-off shotgun. He's like a Bond villain.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A villain?\" Preston says. \"He's standing up to the state in an armed fashion. He speaks tome on a deep level. But a sawed-off is a rookie move. It's too fucking loud. And ninety-five percent of people load with bird shot. Nonlethal at twenty-five yards. A longer barrel is better for putting warheads through foreheads.\"\n\n\"For my purposes, it'd be better if Kim didn't brandish a gun at all.\"\n\n\"Don't be ridiculous,\" he says. \"I've got to run. If you're ever in New York and feel like shooting shit at great distances, please let me know.\"\n\nI manage the crisis through the weeklong news cycle immediately following Dotcom's arrest and garner positive news coverage on his behalf. But there is only so much a PR firm can do when its client is an FBI target. The DOJ instructs us to stop working for Dotcom and freezes his assets. I'm frustrated that my hands are tied. I hate that the justice system does the bidding of media conglomerates.\n\nIf I'm being really honest, I'm mostly disappointed that Dotcom and I never had a chance to get started. When I think about the media games we could have played, it's like pining fora long-lost love. I want revenge for my PR white whale. But it's a dumb idea to go after the FBI. And Levick's phone keeps ringing with intake calls from clients in crisis whose assets are not frozen.\n\nLindsay leads me down a dark linoleum hallway lined with stacks of Plexiglas doors. Scores of desperate-looking cats and tiny kittens lookout at us.\n\n\"Our guy doesn't do the cute and fuzzy thing,\" Lindsay says. \"He's more gangly and mangy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look at these little guys,\" I say, stopping in front of two orange tabby brothers licking each other's ears.\n\n\"Don't look in their eyes,\" Lindsay says, yanking my arm. \"It's a trap. Besides, they have each other. Our guy doesn't have anyone left. His siblings and mom have been adopted. He's been here for months.\"\n\nLindsay has been volunteering at the Washington Animal Rescue League, on a secret mission to find the best cat to adopt. She watches the cats interact with visitors, eavesdrops on the staff discussing the hard-luck cases, and recaps the details tome, cat by cat, at dinner. This is one of the things I love most about Lindsay: her idea of a conspiracy has her embedded in an animal shelter petting stray cats. If I were a double agent, I'd probably windup working for an Afghan warlord.\n\nLindsay approaches a cage. A pair of yellow eyes open, staring skeptically. Lindsay unlocks the cage and fishes out a scraggly kitten who can't weigh more than a couple of pounds. He's jet black, all except those eyes.\n\n\"I saw him make a kid cry earlier today,\" Lindsay says, scooping the kitten onto her shoulder and heading to aside room where we can let him loose. \"His name is Humerus, like the bone, but I was thinking we'd call him Darth Vader.\"\n\nI lean down and reach out. Darth Vader considers me fora moment, then stabs me in the leg with a razor-sharp claw. A trail of blood runs down my shin. A volunteer rushes to bring me a Band-Aid.\n\n\"You probably want to meet some other cats,\" the volunteer says.\n\n\"No, this one is an excellent judge of character,\" I say. \"We'll take him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They put Darth Vader inside a box with holes, and Lindsay and I head home with him.\n\nI moved into Lindsay's place two weeks ago. My Bloom County posters have finally found frames. Lindsay leaves me and Darth in the back bedroom. \"I'm going to Petco. We need supplies,\" and she bounds out the door.\n\nI peek through the holes in the box. A yellow eye stares back. I open the box, and Darth Vader beelines it under the couch, which in Lindsay's place is stain-free and not concealed by old sheets.\n\n\"I find your lack of faith disturbing,\" I tell him.\n\nI lie on the bed. The pillowcases smell like Lindsay, clean and fresh and of another scent that makes me feel calm and happy. They smell like home. After fifteen minutes, a dark flash creeps into my peripheral vision. Darth Vader studies me. He approaches, one paw at time. I don't move an eyelash, and he hops onto the bedspread, still keeping his distance. I resist the overwhelming urge to pet.\n\n\"You have emotional problems,\" I tell Darth Vader. \"That's cool with me. I do, too.\"\n\nLindsay busts through the front door carrying bags of kitty litter, anew litter box filled with toys, food, brushes, and treats. \"I spent way too much money, Phil,\" she shouts, putting things into cabinets. \"We now have a Petco credit card.\"\n\n\"Come see,\" I call out from the bedroom.\n\nLindsay appears in the doorway and sees Darth Vader lying at my feet. \"I think he likes you,\" she says. \"So maybe he won't stab you anymore.\"\n\n\"You're going to be fine. It's going to be fine,\" Lindsay says." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I sit upon the stretcher, anesthesia already coursing through my veins. But I'm ready. I've been practicing a joke just for this moment. \"Next time you see me, they'll be double Ds,\" I say, grabbing my chest. Lindsay cracks up as orderlies wheel me into the operating room. Then everything goes darker than black.\n\nWhen I come to, I am hugging my Opus plush toy. Lindsay leans over the hospital bed and snaps a selfie. She tells me the surgery went well; they shaved down the bone spur jamming into the labrum of my hip. This operation will buy me two years until I need a total hip replacement.\n\n\"In the waiting room, I read four hundred pages of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,\" Lindsay says. \"I have so much to tell you. And Preston snuck in a bottle of bourbon.\"\n\n\"Bourbon,\" I repeat, like an alcoholic infant learning his first word.\n\n\"Later,\" she says. \"Bourbon later.\"\n\n\"Don't leave,\" I say. \"I don't want to be alone.\"\n\nLindsay pulls up old episodes of Law& Order on her laptop. She stays with me in the recovery unit all night and falls asleep in her chair with her face pressed into a stack of blankets at the foot of my bed.\n\nA pharmacist hands me a bottle of OxyContin. Forty pills. Then a bottle of Percocet. Ninety pills. Each with two refills. Take one or two every six hours for hip pain. Sure.\n\nI start taking client calls after popping Percocet. I rub the extended-release coating off the Oxys with a wet paper towel and use a spoon to crush the pills into a fine powder that I swallow with water. In this way, the drug rushes into my bloodstream. I grow accustomed to the warm opiate bath running down my spinal cord." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'm back at the pharmacy the day my bottles run out. I like Percocet. I like Oxy even more. Too much. When my last refill runs dry, I stop cold turkey. I shake. I sweat. I vomit. Four days into my detox, Richard Levick notices me hunched over my desk, my fists clenched into white balls.\n\n\"Are you okay?\" he asks.\n\n\"Just going through withdrawal,\" I say.\n\nI don't realize it at the time, but I am one of millions of Americans who were overprescribed opioids by doctors. I get lucky. My parachute opens before I fall headlong into opioid addiction. Now called the first wave of the opioid crisis, the overprescribing began in the late 1990s. Guess what Purdue Pharma debuted in 1996? If you guessed OxyContin, you've won a free Purdue Pharma hat! (Legal disclaimer: Purdue Pharma LP does not sanction the views of Mr. Philip Elwood, nor is the company liable for any headwear-related giveaways Mr. Elwood promises in his memoir.)\n\nKarl Marx said religion was the opium of the people. You know what's a lot more like the opium of the people? Opiates. Like every other drug dealer I have ever met, Purdue, and the Sackler family who owned the company, sold a product that people wanted. Turns out the market for legal heroin is huge. But you can't very well takeout an advert in the New York Times to sell heroin, can you? So, Purdue hired McKinsey and Company and a little-known PR firm called Dezenhall Resources. And Dezenhall Resources helped commandeer the credibility of the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank. Think tanks are research and advisory nonprofits, and they litter the streets of downtown DC. There is a think tank for most things you can think about or shoot with a tank. Many think tanks are wonderful resources for scholarship and potential legislation. But they can be corrupted. Some take money for'directed research.\" In these relationships, there is often a financial stake in the conclusions of the research-a very polite way of saying that a donor is funding the conclusions. Sometimes the donor is a high-net-worth individual with an agenda. Ora corporation with an agenda. Ora foreign nation with an agenda. Nothing is free. Not even fora nonprofit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For Purdue, the price tag was$ 800,000." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Remember my saying that you can't very well takeout an ad in the New York Times to sell heroin? Well, not unless that ad is penned by psychiatrist Sally Satel, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and unpaid advisory board member for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Satel's 2004 New York Times piece was titled, \"Doctors Behind Bars: Treating Pain Is Now Risky Business.\" How is this for shifting the narrative? \"Pain treatment itself is an area ripe for misinterpretation. Many patients who seek doctors' help have already tried nonsteroid anti-inflammatory drugs, conventional opiates like codeine and even surgery, yet they are still in severe pain from cancer, degenerative arthritis, nerve damage or other conditions,\" Satel wrote. \"Large doses of medicines like hydrocodone (Vicodin), oxycodone (OxyContin), morphine or methadone maybe required.\" Satel actually plugged Oxy by name, and quoted a Purdue shill claiming that one in ten Americans in pain could benefit from along-term, high-dose treatment with the drug. All I can say is well done.\n\nThe overprescribing peaked in 2010. When people ran out of pills, they turned to heroin. Then fentanyl. At least 645,000 people died from opioid overdoses from 1999 through 2021. In the end, McKinsey and Company had to pay over$ 640 million for its role in the opioid epidemic. Books, news articles, magazine exposés, and even 60 Minutes have covered the epidemic and the PR machine behind it. I could name more names and shame more people, but I'm a PR guy, so I'd rather look at two press releases: the first one ever written and the one drafted by the Sacklers in 2021." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On Sunday, October 28,1906, at 2:20 p. m., a West Jersey and Seashore Railroad train derailed and plunged into the Thoroughfare, the creek separating Atlantic City from the mainland, at nearly forty miles per hour. Fifty-three people drowned.\n\nThis is where Ivy Lee enters the story.\n\nIn the wake of the derailment, Ivy Ledbetter Lee, now regarded as a'father of modern public relations,\" drafted the first-ever press release. His client was the Pennsylvania Railroad, which owned the West Jersey and Seashore Railroad. The press praised Lee's release for being so transparent and straightforward. So much so that the New York Times printed it in its entirety.\n\nThings have changed since then.\n\nOn December 9,2021, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Sackler family jointly issued a press release. One might call it the final release of the Sackler era. For fifty years, the Sackler family donated millions to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But now the Sacklers'evils had come to light, and the time had arrived to announce the removal of the Sackler name from the museum's walls. The Met could have issued a scathing press release, calling the Sacklers drug dealers and murderers. Both accurate statements. Instead, the Sacklers and the Metropolitan Museum of Art apparently negotiated the language of the release. Museum president and CEO Daniel Weiss stated, \"The Met has been built by the philanthropy of generations of donors-and the Sacklers have been among our most generous supporters.\" Weiss called the Sacklers'gracious.\" Mention of the opiate deaths, or any reason for the museum's stripping the Sackler name from its walls, was conspicuously absent from the text. Compared to the first press release ever drafted, the Met's release shows just how much my industry has changed. Ivy Lee got it right the first time. Now even museums launder the truth and offer their own spin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The PR industry is a parasite. It lives off its host, the media. But what happens when the parasite becomes bigger than the host? Now, in 2024, the host is evolving. Salaries in some newsrooms are going up. Private equity is buying up media companies left and right. Foreign nations are investing heavily, too. Lines of ethics are blurring. Social media companies are becoming news agencies. Their rosters of investors include some of the most blood-soaked money in the world.\n\nAnd the PR industry has also begun to publicly invest in new media properties. In 2023, the news media site the Messenger launched, while simultaneously acquiring another news media company called Grid News. Grid News debuted with a great deal of fanfare and some boldface names in reporters, but later it was revealed that one of its principal backers was the UAE-based International Media Investments, which will now be a minority investor in the Messenger. The company's majority investors-they brought in fifty million dollars-were led by the Stagwell Group, a DC-based holding company controlled by former Burson-Marsteller CEO Mark Penn. Stagwell in turn owns PR companies, most notably, SKDK, a DC firm with close ties to the Biden White House. It's one thing when media corporations are beholden to sponsors, but quite another when they are beholden to governments. This adds another layer of conflict. You have to wonder if the Messenger would ever run critical stories of the UAE or of SKDK's extensive client list. Their paymasters call their objectivity into question. And SKDK executives do not divest themselves from the firm when they do government service for the Biden administration, including prepping Joe Biden for national debates. It's akin to an SEC regulator giving out stock tips.\n\nThis is the battlefield where we play our game. Understanding rivalries between media companies, between PR firms, between former clients and potential clients. Not to mention trying to do work for actual clients." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nearly a year after his arrest, I'm still thinking about Kim Dotcom. I want to avenge my former client. I'm daydreaming of ways to do this when I get a phone call from a DC operative who's a friend. He tells me the United States has banned Americans from gambling in Antigua's online casinos, annihilating$ 3.4 billion of the tiny Caribbean nation's economy. Nearly four thousand people (4 percent of the country's population) have lost their jobs, and Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer is up for reelection.\n\n\"I told the prime minister my friend Phil solves exotic problems,\" the operative says.\n\nI see an opportunity to exact revenge on the entertainment industry and to help a hopelessly outgunned underdog. Richard Levick and I are on the next flight to Antigua." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CHAPTER 7\n\nThe Internet v. the Government\n\nMy pen moves fast, scribbling bullet points onto a yellow legal pad. In the seat next to mine, Richard Levick fidgets with his laptop, anxious to hear my pitch. In ninety minutes, our flight will land on the island of Antigua. Prime Minister Spencer is expecting us-and a solution. I need to present him with one perfect idea.\n\nThe only problem is I have no idea what I'm going to propose. Articles on international trade law are spread out across my tray table. The phrase cross retaliation jumps off one page. If someone takes away something dear, you don't just fightback, you take something bigger from them. In chess, when your opponent moves into take your piece, you don't retreat. You move to take one of their bigger pieces. You go from defense to offense.\n\nIn one of the magazines, I read about how, in 1999, American companies were dumping huge quantities of cotton into the Brazilian market, undercutting Brazil's producers. Brazil fought back by manufacturing U. S.-patented AIDS medicine and giving it away for free in Africa. Suddenly, pharmaceutical giants were complaining to American officials about cotton subsidies, and Brazil had restored its market share. All this was sanctioned by the World Trade Organization.\n\nI think about borrowing from Brazil's playbook for Antigua. My strategy has to be adapted to the island's limited resources. And modernized. I leaf through a fat binder of media coverage. By the time we touchdown I have a plan.\n\nLevick sees my pen stop scratching and gives me the guarded stare of a veteran PR executive about to field a pitch. It's a look I know well. And my cue to start talking.\n\n\"We're going to start a trade war between Antigua and the United States.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Levick huffs like he's caught an elbow to the stomach, but he doesn't kill the idea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My knack for starting fires is the reason he hired me. He wants to hear the rest.\n\nIn the current standoff, I tell him, the United States holds the bigger gun. Antigua, by comparison, holds a water gun. We need a third gun. \"We create it,\" I say, \"by blackmailing the American entertainment industry.\"\n\n\"Phil, you know we sometimes do business with those people.\"\n\n\"And I hope you don't have aspirations to work for Microsoft.\"\n\nI go through immigration dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts so the official stamping my passport will believe me when I say I'm on vacation. Levick is still wearing a business suit and gets questioned by immigration officials for fifteen minutes. We walkout of the airport and into a balmy tropical December. We hail a cab, and I calla reporter I know at the Caribbean desk of the Associated Press. If Antigua were about to start a trade war with the United States, I ask him hypothetically, would he be interested in an exclusive? Naturally, I have some terms.\n\nLevick and I face Prime Minister Spencer in a drab conference room. I've pitched presidents, royal families, and dictators inversions of this room allover the world. Spencer is a large man, his hair the shade of white you often see on heads of state.\n\n\"Gentlemen, you are aware of our problem,\" the prime minister says. \"What do you propose?\"\n\n\"I want you to blackmail the United States of America,\" I tell him.\n\nSpencer grimaces and glares skeptically at Levick. This is par for the course. When presenting a wild idea to a client, you want to give the crazy part first. Then you work backward, and everything else seems reasonable by comparison." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Levick leans forward. \"The strategy is more nuanced than that,\" he says. \"Let Phil expand a bit.\"\n\nI explain to Spencer that in a crisis, sometimes the best strategy isn't to solve the problem. Sometimes it's to make the problem much, much bigger. So big that someone else has to fix it. I tell him that his tiny Caribbean nation has the power to threaten the balance of global economic stability. All they need to do is refuse to honor American intellectual property laws. I tell him about Kim Dotcom's Megaupload, which trades pirated American movies, music, and software and how Antigua could build a similar platform. All the IP from Mickey Mouse to Microsoft Office available for sale at a massive discount on Antigua's national website. The chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America will dial President Obama's office two minutes after the news hits the wire, asking why a gaming dispute in the Caribbean is about to cost his industry billions.\n\n\"The U. S. only negotiates with a gun to their head,\" I say. \"I'm giving you that gun.\"\n\n\"And what if America issues a travel advisory on my country?\" Spencer asks.\n\n\"You were making billions of dollars a year from online gambling. Tourism doesn't bring in that kind of money.\"\n\nI've got Spencer's attention now. I can see him considering it. \"What would my office have to do?\"\n\n\"You don't have to do anything,\" I say. \"You just have to threaten to do it. I'll leak it to the press. Once we have ink, it's real.\"\n\n\"And you can do this with the blessing of the World Trade Organization,\" Levick adds. \"They have already ruled several times in your favor and will approve any sanctions plan you put forward. I'm a lawyer. I'll be able to help navigate the legal weeds on this.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know a wire reporter who will want this story as an exclusive,\" I say." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If I give him the scoop, he'll run the piece before the U. S. trade representative has a chance to comment.\"\n\nSpencer leans back in his chair, considers apiece of slate-gray wall above my head. Then he stands and holds out his hand.\n\nI call the AP reporter before I hit the hallway.\n\nLevick and I meet Vincent at the St. James's Club. Vincent adjusts his wide-brimmed hat against the glare of a pink sunset, considering a pair of women doing handstands in the oceanfront pool. An island-hopping political consultant who runs elections in the Caribbean, he has been tasked with making sure our plan doesn't explode Spencer's reelection bid. Vincent's Caribbean-chic wardrobe looks Miles Davis cool next to my cargo shorts, which end halfway down my sunburned shins.\n\n\"You're about to set off some big fireworks on a tiny island,\" Vincent says.\n\n\"How else would you threaten the United States?\" I ask.\n\n\"We need to talk somewhere private,\" Vincent says. \"Not here. Lots of ears listening. I know a place.\"\n\nThe next morning, we push out into the Caribbean Sea on a vessel more raft than boat. Aquamarine water sloshes through the boards of the wooden hull. A bottle of rum rattles around the oars. It's strange to see Richard Levick, a storied constitutional lawyer always dressed for the courtroom, in swim trunks. The ocean eases Vincent's paranoia. Out here, the only ears that can hear us are those on the red-billed tropical birds and the skipper, who is chain-smoking joints.\n\n\"Caribbean politics are hyper local,\" Vincent says. \"Anew road is front-page news. If your plan doesn't work, then we're stuck like a fishing boat in a hurricane.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue the story as the author's writing assistant.\nTags: sci-fi, dystopian, dark humor, societal critique, human nature\nAuthor: Phil Elwood\nTitle: All the Worst Humans\nChapter: 13" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nix, in turn, is obsessed with Psy's cloak-and-dagger tactics. Royi says Psy-Group has the capacity to create a large number of highly credible avatars. Enough to man a human resources or staffing agency. Psy's staffing agency creates hundreds of fictional job postings tailored to targets of an intelligence operation. They advertise the job postings over LinkedIn.\n\n\"Creates less suspicion if the target comes to you,\" Royi says, rolling his r 's, a feature of his thick Israeli accent.\n\nWhen the target applies for the job, the intelligence gathering begins. Dangle a high salary and good benefits in front of someone, and they are often willing to discuss their former and current employers. Sometimes, they'll even send proprietary information from their company. Sometimes they accept free travel to a foreign country-ideal fora covert recording of them being'interviewed\" by the avatar. During this interview, areal-world operative extracts more information from the target.\n\nLinkedIn is Psy-Group's first line of offense. The fastest way into the living rooms and lives of their targets. If LinkedIn is Psy's first stop, governments are doing this too. Be careful who you accept on LinkedIn.\n\nNix can't get enough of Royi's tales of espionage.\n\n\"Black Cube rented a hotel room to spy on the chief prosecutor at Romania's National Anticorruption Directorate,\" Royi says, eager to bad-mouth a rival outfit. \"Armed agents caught them red-handed. Everyone went to jail. Idiots! We'd never get caught doing that.\"\n\nRoyi doesn't say Psy-Group wouldn't try to hack a government, just that it wouldn't get caught.\n\nGood enough for Nix. Psy-Group and Cambridge Analytica sign a memorandum of understanding and pitch Project Madison to the U. S. State Department. They want the United States to sponsor a larger version of Madison to dig into anti-American propaganda sponsored by China, Iran, and Russia." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Over the next months, I will introduce Psy-Group to my entire network, conducting well over one hundred introductory meetings with PR, lobbying, law, and security firms. I handout Psy's brochure to every political consultant with an expense account. Almost every segment of the DC influence infrastructure meets with Psy-Group.\n\nRoyi wants to meet in the underground dining room hidden behind a false wall at PJ Clarke's in DC. He orders a steak and fills me in on his latest intelligence op, \"Project Butterfly.\" Psy has been gathering kompromat on university activists backing the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and leaking it to social media through avatars. Objective: defame, fracture, plant seeds of conflict.\n\n\"Anyone can gather intelligence,\" Royi tells me, neatly slicing chunks of beef. \"We want to influence the way people think. Place thoughts we want them to have in their minds.\"\n\n\"Sounds like my job.\"\n\n\"We have fewer limitations.\"\n\nRoyi and I have grown close. Not quite friends. Rather, we have mutual respect based on each one's fear of the other. I fear Royi's ability to manipulate reality in the shadows; Royi fears my ability to make anything public to the world at a moment's notice. We talk almost everyday over WhatsApp. Though he's a spy, he's one of the most disarming clients I've ever had.\n\nWhen the bill comes, Royi hands me a silver laptop. \"Keep this locked in a drawer and running at all times in your office,\" he says.\n\nI don't ask questions. Royi operates on a need-to-know basis, telling me just enough information to let me do my job.\n\nI head to the DC WeWork office of Chester Creek Consulting, the boutique PR firm I founded eight months ago. Chester Creek Consulting has two clients on retainer: a polling firm and Psy-Group. I plugin the laptop, and it whirs to life. I lock it in the bottom drawer of my desk and try to forget it exists." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A few days after Royi gives me the laptop, I throw Psy-Group a networking party at Old Ebbitt Grill, a classic DC haunt just steps from the White House, to announce the opening of its new office-which is really just my WeWork." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Friends from the Middle East Institute sip cocktails with international spies and reporters from BuzzFeed and the Hill. Politico's newsletter Influence writes up the party in its Spotted section and poof, Psy-Group has officially arrived in Washington.\n\nThen things take a turn.\n\nRoyi has begun to move Psy-Group's money through my bank account. \"It's easier for clients to pay an American account. Just generate an invoice from Chester Creek for one hundred fifty thousand,\" he explains, and he WhatsApps me a routing number fora bank in Cyprus, where Psy-Group is apparently headquartered-at least on paper.\n\n\"Why are you based in Cyprus?\" I ask.\n\n\"We have clients in the Gulf States,\" he says. \"They really don't like wiring money to Israel.\"\n\nAnother request comes in short order. This time, tens of thousands bound for an account in the Seychelles. I'm told to generate an invoice fora consulting company. When the money appears in my account, I feel like I'm back in Vegas, handling Mutassim Gaddafi's shrink-wrapped cash. Once again, I'm dealing with very serious people capable of doing very serious things, so I don't ask questions.\n\nI make so many trips to the bank that I become chummy with my banker Greg, a living incarnation of a Ken doll. You can see his delts bulging under the shoulder pads of his suit. \"You are by far my most interesting client,\" Greg comments, but he seems otherwise incurious about the fortunes I'm moving to tax havens around the world.\n\nOne day, I come in wearing a stained button-down and cargo shorts. Seventy-five thousand dollars has been freshly deposited into my account. \"I need to send a wire to the West Bank,\" I tell Greg." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can we do that?\"\n\n\"Check for the West Bank in your system. If it's there, it must be okay.\"\n\n\"That sounds right,\" Greg says, flashing a gigawatt smile. \"I'm not seeing a West Bank, but Palestine is an option.\"\n\n\"That'll work.\"\n\n\"All set,\" Greg says. \"Seventy-five thousand dollars sent to Palestine. Anything else I can help you with?\"\n\n\"You need to be careful,\" Lindsay warns when I come home.\n\nIn July 2017, Royi pops up in DC without warning. Lately, he's just started to appear, like a jump scare in a horror flick. Royi wants to meetup at an Italian restaurant on K Street. As always, I'm twenty minutes early. Royi is already waiting.\n\n\"Do you have your laptop with you?\"\n\n\"Right here.\"\n\n\"Get it out.\"\n\nRoyi tells me to generate three hundred thousand dollars in invoices to an entity with an almost comically shell company– sounding name. I'm to transfer the funds to an account number that he will WhatsApp tome after the invoices clear. When he gets up from the table to use the restroom, I text my accountant.\n\n\"Danger, Will Robinson,\" she replies. \"Don't do this.\"\n\nI inform Royi that I can't move his three hundred large. It would tip the funds that Psy-Group has run through my account to over a million dollars, a threshold that would alert regulators.\n\n\"Smart,\" Royi says. \"We'll find another way.\"\n\nLater that month, I get an email from Royi. I open the attached PDF, titled'Project Rome.\" The document explains that if Psy-Group had been engaged by the Trump campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election, this is how the firm would have done it. It would have covered its tracks better; and it wouldn't have gotten caught." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I remember that in December 2016, shortly after Trump won the election, Royi asked me to setup meetings with both the Republican and Democratic National Committees to pitch them on swaying elections. Lindsay vetoed the idea, citing, among other things, its likely illegality, and I declined.\n\nI archive the Project Rome email, but I don't setup any meetings.\n\nA week later, I get a WhatsApp message from one of Royi's minions. He has many of them. \"A package is going to arrive for you,\" he says. \"Bring it to Nine-two-three Sixteenth Street. Give it to a man named Joel Zamel.\"\n\nLike clockwork, my phone bings. My apartment building's front desk has a FedEx package for me. Big enough to contain a hard drive. I smoke a joint on my roof before hitting the streets of DC. I could do this walk blindfolded, under the influence or sober. I know the pace I need to keep to hit each traffic signal as it changes to'Walk.\" DC is like a giant park lined by office buildings. The architecture is a mix of beautifully constructed neoclassical and modern works of stone and concrete. Other buildings, constructed during grimmer architectural eras, are ugly eyesores that will one day be replaced in the District's constant reconstruction. I pass Archibald's, a strip club where Hunter Biden was once a frequent guest.\n\nOn Sixteenth Street, I enter the St. Regis hotel, the effects of the joint still working. It dawns on me that I don't know what Zamel looks like. I do a Google Image search for'Joel Zamel\" on my cell. Nothing. Guy is a ghost. I fidget with my phone, looking up the history of the St. Regis. Just as I thought. In 2015, the St. Regis hotel was sold to Al Rayyan Tourism Investment Company, based in Qatar, for an undisclosed amount of money." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'm quite stoned. Ina hotel owned by interests aligned with my former client Qatar. Waiting on an Israeli spook. Holding a package I haven't opened.\n\nI jump when I hear someone say my name. Behind me stands a balding middle-aged man with a dark beard. I handover the package. He nods and disappears into a bank of elevators.\n\nIna library on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, I look over my shoulder. Behind me, an old man in a bowling shirt reads a large-print Jeffrey Archer novel called Be Careful What You Wish For. On a weekday at noon, we are the only patrons. Good.\n\nThe old Dell computer in front of me chugs to life. I create the Gmail address 733X@ gmail. com and WhatsApp it to a Psy-Group agent. A document pings through. I print it out. The cover sheet is written in Hebrew. Or Arabic. I try not to look too closely before sealing the document in a manila envelope. The less I know, the better.\n\nThis isn't my first time doing this. Or even my fourth. Royi and I have a system. He WhatsApps a cryptic note, and I leave DC. I drive ninety minutes out to a little town in Maryland with a farmers\" market and sandwich shops that brine their own pickles. In the public library, I fire up one of their'white\" (but rather dirty) computers to generate a burner email address. I use my old phone numbers, changing one digit. I message Psy-Group the email address. They send a document. I print it out. Or I save the file to a flash drive fresh out of the packaging. One use only. Then I close the email, clear the cache, delete the history. I'm instructed not to write down the log-in credentials for these email accounts. Forget they happened. This works. Under penalty of perjury, I could not tell you a single one of those email addresses or passwords. Then I deliver the package to wherever Royi needs it to go." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Today, as I head for the library's exit with the most recent printout in an envelope, my phone buzzes with a WhatsApp message." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An address in Foggy Bottom. I drive east, doing the speed limit. As I cross the bridge over the Chesapeake Bay, the landscape opens into giant, flat prairies of blue water. A waddle of waterfowl beat their wings, flying south toward the Blackwater Wildlife Refuge.\n\nDriving, I think about the old man at the library reading his novel. My father loves Jeffrey Archer and gave me his books to read when I was a teenager. Archer chronicles the follies of media barons and he once hosted Peter Brown– style parties at his penthouse, giving journalists instructions on how to find the bathroom: \"Go past the Picasso, left at the Matisse.\" Archer has had a life worthy of his own pen. His father was a bigamist conman who hoodwinked New York City's upper crust. In his youth, Archer was a world-class runner, winning the highest honors at Oxford. Later on, he served as a member of Parliament and as a confidant to then prime minister Margaret Thatcher. After leaving government service, he fell on hard times and published his first bestseller just after he was declared bankrupt. When one international bestseller followed another, he became quite wealthy and involved himself with a charitable organization investigated by authorities. In the witness box, Archer denied an allegation that turned out to be true. He has lived a life of highs and lows. A life, like Peter Brown's, that I lionized in my youth. Then I remember that the court sentenced Archer to four years in prison for perjury. And that I'm thirty-nine.\n\nAn hour later, I pull up to an office building made of steel. I've never been here, which is unusual. When you've been in DC as long as I have, you've been in every building. Envelope in hand, I'm buzzed through a locked door. Then a second door. A fellow with a gun on his hip approaches." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you Phil?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Then that's for me.\"\n\nHe takes the envelope. I head back out into the street and try to put the errand out of my mind.\n\nLindsay is still in her pajamas when the FBI calls. It's February 8. Six thirty in the morning. As I listen to the agent on the other end of the line, I look at my wife. I've just brought her coffee, as I do every morning. She likes it with a splash of cream. Her face is focused, her fingers shooting off the morning's emails. This is the last image I'll have of her before I have to tell her that our lives are about to change forever. I savor it fora moment before I speak.\n\n\"Lindsay, the FBI is downstairs,\" I say. \"They will be up in one hour. You need to leave.\"\n\nLindsay looks at meas if I'm joking. It's the kind of joke I would tell. But it's real.\n\nKnock.\n\nKnock.\n\nI'm standing in my kitchen, staring at the door. I know what's on the other side of it.\n\nKnock.\n\nKnock.\n\nKnock.\n\nI open up to find a man and a woman wearing pistols on their hips. The woman steps forward.\n\n\"Mr. Elwood, I'm Agent Logan from the FBI,\" she says. \"Is now a good time?\"\n\nIn February, night falls early. I'm sitting in the dark when Lindsay comes home. She switches on a lamp, casting our bedroom in dim orange, and sits cross legged on our bed. Tries to take a breath but comes up short. She concentrates hard on breathing, trying to get enough air into her lungs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's been happening all day,\" she tells me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Every time you messaged, I had to run to the bathroom to try to breathe. It's not like I could tell my boss about the situation.\"\n\n\"I'm so sorry,\" I say. Seems like a good place to start.\n\n\"Phil, we always tell each other everything,\" Lindsay says. I watch her throat muscles constrict. \"Tell me everything.\"\n\nThe FBI agents divulged nothing tome. They weren't thereto provide information; they were thereto extract it. I had a pretty good idea which client the FBI was interested in. Agent Logan did most of the talking. She asked ninety minutes of questions.\n\nWho owns the Psy-Group?\n\nRoyi Burstien.\n\nWhere was the Psy-Group incorporated?\n\nCyprus, for geopolitical reasons, as far as I knew at the time.\n\n\"Do you know any of that for certain?\" Lindsay interjects.\n\n\"They acted like I was giving a lot of wrong answers. I only know what Royi tells me. He speaks in puffs of smoke.\"\n\n\"Right, because you work with...\"\n\n\"Spooks who don't exactly read me in. The FBI were really interested in something called Project Rome. I said I had no clue. And they asked about someone named Joel Zamel. I don't know a Joel Zamel.\"\n\n\"No, no, no,\" Lindsay says. \"You do. His name was on a package in our house. That you delivered...\"\n\n\"To the St. Regis,\" I say, suddenly recalling the shadowy figure disappearing into the elevator bank. A firecracker of anxiety crackles in my stomach.\n\n\"Holy shit,\" Lindsay says. \"You told the FBI you didn't know him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I told them what I remembered.\"\n\nFora split second, Lindsay laughs, taking her first full breath of air. \"Yeah, because that's something normal people forget, Phil.\"\n\n\"They asked for the last two and a half years of my emails. Phone records. Bank records. Text messages. WhatsApp messages.\"\n\n\"Oh God, the bank records.\"\n\n\"That's when I said I needed to talk to a lawyer.\"\n\n\"That's how you should have opened the meeting.\"\n\n\"Right,\" I say, because she is right, a fact that has become stunningly obvious.\n\n\"You need to calla lawyer now.\"\n\nI'm dialing before Lindsay finishes her sentence. David Saltzman picks upon the first ring. I've been friends with Saltzman for ten years. He received my first-ever subpoena, when I worked fora very misunderstood organization. I explain the current situation. He gives me some advice as a friend.\n\n\"You need more than friendly advice right now,\" Lindsay says as soon as I hangup.\n\nSixty seconds later my phone rings.\n\n\"You don't need a friend,\" Saltzman says. \"You need a lawyer.\"\n\nIndeed I do.\n\nThe prosecutor assigned to my case is Zainab N. Ahmad, a counterterrorism specialist. I read a New Yorker profile on her with the subhead'Zainab Ahmad Has Prosecuted Thirteen International Terrorist Suspects for the American Government. She Hasn't Lost Yet.\" According to the piece, Ahmad has spent more hours questioning al-Qaeda than any other American prosecutor.\n\n\"Do they think you're a terrorist?\" Lindsay asks.\n\n\"This is not good,\" I say, visions of black bags and Guantanamo Bay dancing in my head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, this can't be right,\" Lindsay says, and does a deep dive into Google. \"Hold on,\" she says. \"She's one of Robert Mueller's new senior prosecutors.\"\n\nFora very brief moment, we are relieved. I've been caught up in the Mueller investigation. At least I'm not the target of a counterterrorism unit.\n\nThen reality hits. Lindsay is working as the chief spokesperson fora leading university. She is terrified that her colleagues or friends from the Clinton world think tank she has just left will discover any connection with Mueller. Her credibility could be in peril by association.\n\n\"You need to fix this,\" Lindsay says." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CHAPTER 10\n\nTarget or Source\n\nAgent Logan escorts me through the halls of WeWork. I flashback to being frog-marched into the back of a police van and handcuffed to the floor at twenty-one years old. Today, I suspect I am in much, much more trouble. A drunken indiscretion is easier to forgive than being a bagman fora cadre of foreign spies caught up in the Mueller investigation.\n\nWe reach my office, a single desk behind a glass door. I keep nothing at this desk. No photos of Lindsay or Darth Vader. No personal effects of any kind. I open the desk drawer and show the FBI agent the silver laptop, still whirring away. Agent Logan unplugs it and places it in an evidence bag. She hands me a receipt as if I've just bought a cup of coffee, rather than handed over contraband likely brimming with evidence useful to the FBI. This is the last time I'll ever set foot in this office.\n\n\"Come on,\" Logan says, \"I'll drive you home.\"\n\n\"Do I get in the front seat or the back?\"\n\n\"Upfront. You're not under arrest, and this is not an Uber.\"\n\n\"At least you got to ride upfront,\" Lindsay offers when she arrives home from work. She looks exhausted. Hasn't been sleeping through the night. \"Did Agent Logan ask why you made them wait an hour the morning they showed up?\"\n\n\"She was kind enough not to bring it up,\" I say. \"But we're not exactly chummy. Today we had a three-hour meeting previewing my evidence at Saltzman's office. She wasn't happy when I mentioned the Psy-Group gave me a laptop.\"\n\nLindsay looks shocked. \"You hadn't told her this before?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Two-plus years of Royi's weird shit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'm going to forget some details,\" I say.\n\nLindsay has a point. When I recalled the laptop, Agent Logan had the same look on her face as Lindsay does now. Her demeanor changed, as if she believed I had been hiding something-the last thing I want her or Lindsay to suspect.\n\n\"I am giving them everything,\" I say. \"We spent all day dissecting every email, WhatsApp, and bank transfer.\"\n\n\"Sometimes the story you tell isn't quite the whole story,\" Lindsay says. \"This time, make sure it is.\"\n\nI feel like my testimony in front of Lindsay is a dry run for Mueller's people. I've been subpoenaed by the Office of Special Counsel and will soon have to explain myself in a formal interview. But it's more important than anything I will tell the government. I can stomach jail, maybe. I can't stomach losing Lindsay.\n\nA week later, my lawyer, David Saltzman, and I arrive at a concrete-colored Department of Justice office at 395 E Street Southwest. We surrender our phones at security and are ushered into a small interview room by Zainab N. Ahmad herself. Ahmad has dark hair cropped at her shoulders and brown eyes that cut right through you.\n\nWhile prepping for this interview, Saltzman told me, \"Phil, you make a much better witness than a target.\" I'm only too eager to heed his advice and have supplied the FBI with the last two and a half years of my emails, phone records, and text messages. It's the same strategy I've used to keep my name out of the news. Whenever a reporter threatens to include me in a story, I become a source, offering new information in exchange for anonymity. Prove your worth, and you stay invisible. Today, I'm doing it to stay out of federal prison." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ahmad questions me for four hours about Psy-Group." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The trip to Israel. The hundreds of thousands of dollars moved through my account to Cyprus. She has questions about the laptop, which likely generated avatars from a server protected by a virtual private network.\n\n\"Did Royi Burstien ever tell you about pitching Trump's camp an election influence campaign called Project Rome?\" Ahmad asks.\n\nI have the'If We Did It\" email about Project Rome, a PDF marketing brochure that was essentially Psy-Group's explaining how it could have swung the election for Trump if he had hired them. But a meeting with the Trump Organization is news tome, and I fear it will be newsworthy to reporters. Saltzman lawyers me through the interrogation, ensuring I don't perjure myself. Ahmad wants to know if I'm still working with Psy-Group. I answer truthfully, telling her that I terminated our agreement the day the FBI knocked on my door.\n\nI walkout of the Department of Justice's makeshift offices a freeman, thanks to Saltzman's lawyering. But the ramifications of being a Mueller witness extend far beyond the justice system. I've introduced Psy-Group to my entire DC network, every reporter and government contact I spent a lifetime cultivating. Now I'm clientless, and gossip about my connection to the Mueller investigation has hit my business prospects. I've become radioactive in Washington. No new business is coming into Chester Creek until this blows over. And that's not happening anytime soon. Mueller's investigation is a black cloud of suspicion swirling over DC, darkening every aspect of my life.\n\n\"I don't have anyone to talk to about this,\" Lindsay vents that night while furiously constructing a cat tree for Darth Vader in our living room. \"I haven't told any of my friends. I haven't even told my parents. I'm texting cat GIFs to the Ladies' Lounge like nothing is wrong.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The'Ladies'Lounge\" is a group chat for Lindsay's excessively high-performing female friends, all liberal communications professionals with ties to DC. They discuss everything. New gadgets, locations for happy hour, and the ups and downs of their lives. Nothing is spared. Except this.\n\n\"It's not like I can text,\"Guess what? My husband might have helped spies overthrow democracy, \"\" Lindsay says, stacking the cat tree's parts into neat piles. \"They won't find it charming. People are scared of what's happening to our government, Phil. And angry. I'm not like you. I can't bottle up my secrets and drink them down at Commissary.\"\n\n\"Hey.\"\n\n\"Sorry. That wasn't nice,\" she says, sitting on the floor. \"I'm just-ugh, why are these fucking instructions written in pictures?\"\n\n\"Did the thing where you can't catch your breath happen at work again today?\" I ask.\n\n\"Phil, it happens everyday,\" Lindsay says. \"When I can breathe normally, I'll let you know.\"\n\nI try to stick artificial leaves onto the cat tree's plastic trunk. The Xanax I've been taking blurs my coordination, and I fumble, snapping one of the branches.\n\n\"Just let me do it,\" Lindsay says. She stares up at me from among the parts of the half-constructed cat tree, giving me a suspicious look I've come to know too well. \"Did you know anything about the Psy-Group meeting with the Trump campaign?\" she asks, built-up anxieties tumbling out into the open.\n\n\"I swear to you I didn't.\"\n\nIt's the truth. But that doesn't make things any easier on Lindsay. Every target of the Mueller investigation gets washed out in the press a few months later. If my name appears in print, it will blowtorch the smoldering remains of my career." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Everything will be fine,\" I tell her.\n\nBut I have no idea how any of this can, or ever will, be fine. I'm profoundly sad that my risky behavior has made Lindsay feel she's in jeopardy. FBI agents knocking on the door before breakfast is not a normal marital hiccup.\n\nLindsay tries to think of ways to solve or at least control the situation while I lie on the couch, paralyzed by anxiety. I'm waiting fora story with my name in it to drop on the front page of the Washington Post. A headline runs through my mind: \"Former Gaddafi Flak Helps Israeli Intelligence Firm Manipulate American Democracy.\" \"Phil Elwood\" will no longer be a dead jazz reviewer from San Francisco. I'll be one Google search away from my worst mistake and forever unemployable. In my line of work, anonymity is priceless. PR people operate in the shadows by design. I'm paid to be the man behind the curtain, not the sideshow on the stage. If that happens, I'll become a problem not even Lindsay can solve.\n\nMueller's subpoena strongly suggests that I tell no one about this investigation. But anonymity is earned. Not given. My connection to Psy-Group is a bomb that will go off at some point. If I provide valuable intel to reporters, I could keep my name out of the press and control, to some extent, whether the ensuing explosion kills me or someone else.\n\nThe sign on the door of Morton's reads, \"Proper Attire Required.\" I haven't shaved, showered, or changed my cargo pants in a week. The maître d' is kind enough to give me a table on the enclosed patio, the only place in DC where you can smoke with your steak. I start filling the ashtray. In the smoking section, the TVs are tuned to Fox News for the lobbyists chewing on cigars; inside the restaurant, MSNBC plays for the think tank set. Both networks have tunnel vision: Mueller, Mueller, Mueller." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'm a nervous wreck. Lindsay and I argued last night, and I got up at 4 a. m. I've been pacing a circuit between my roof, the marijuana dispensary, and my bed. I suck up half a pack of Camels before Byron Tau arrives. Tau, a reporter, covers the Hill from across the street at the Wall Street Journal.\n\n\"This one is really bad,\" I say.\n\n\"Figured. Haven't heard from you lately.\"\n\nI've given Tau lots of leads over the years. He knows I don't waste reporters'time. We met when he worked as Ben Smith's assistant. It was Tau who ghost-wrote the'World Cup vs. Gym Class?\" piece under Smith's byline.\n\n\"Everything I'm about to tell you is off the record,\" I tell Tau and make sure he affirmatively agrees.\n\n\"Off the record\" is a two-way contract. On September 16,2021, Politico's newsletter West Wing Playbook had the lede'Before Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin became one of the most reliable defenders of the Biden administration, she was one of the Obama administration's most reactionary critics.\" The piece described how when Politico reached out to Rubin and her employer, the Washington Post, for comment on this headline, Rubin fired off one of those emails you should save to Drafts. The subject line: \"OFF THE RECORD.\" Politico stated: \"Since we never agreed to conduct such an off-the-record conversation, we are publishing[Rubin's email] below in full.\" I won't restate what you are free to google yourself, but it was not the columnist's finest hour. If a reporter doesn't affirmatively agree that a conversation is off the record, it isn't.\n\nAfter Tau orders the truffle fries, I push my phone across the table and let him read my subpoena from the Special Counsel's Office." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Holy shit,\" he says.\n\nI fill him in on the last two years of spy games. He licks his reportorial chops when Mueller enters the story. The special counsel's investigation is the biggest news story in Washington. Tau's editors are breathing down his neck for any incremental development in the Mueller investigation, and frankly, the Journal is getting beaten everyday by its crosstown rivals at the Washington Post and the New York Times. Tau is under heavy pressure, and the opportunity to reveal more about the strange path Mueller is treading is tantalizing.\n\n\"I've been spending eighteen hours a day standing in the hall outside Hill meetings in the hope of getting some House Intelligence Committee member alone for five minutes to try to get them to give me a tidbit of information,\" Tau says. \"I want to be ahead of this story.\"\n\nMy next meeting with Tau is at Joe's Stone Crab. I'm glad to have a meal on the Journal, given that I haven't worked in two months. Tau has been doing his homework. He knows who owns the Psy-Group: Joel Zamel, the man to whom I handed a package at the St. Regis. Tau has spoken to Zamel's lawyer. He is in reporter mode, ready to grill me for hours. He wants to harvest primary source documents from my laptop.\n\n\"If we do this,\" I say, \"I've got to remain anonymous.\"\n\n\"I figured as much,\" Tau says.\n\n\"My reasoning here is clear,\" I say. \"I'm informing on former Israeli spies. I fear many things from them, including reprisals. Keeping my name secret is paramount to my safety.\"\n\n\"Fair.\"\n\nTo structure an anonymity deal, you need a monopoly on the information a journalist wants. Check. Or you can position yourself as the second source confirming information they already have but cannot print without confirmation. I'll also be helpful to Tau in this regard, as Psy's spooks won't be going on the record. And as shocking as this is, I am a reliable source. I have never given information to a reporter that I knew was false. Providing good information to Tau for years has earned me points with his editor, who also has to sign off on my anonymity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Journalism would die without anonymous sources. They take risks to leak stories that check the power of the rich and powerful. But the sword has two edges. Anonymous sourcing is used by the powerful to advance their agendas. It is incumbent on the news organization, the reporter, the editors, and their corporate counsel to determine the veracity of the information and the informant's motives. The majority of this responsibility falls on the reporter. While gathering information, they must understand how it fits into a broader agenda, should one exist. It almost always does.\n\nTau is a seasoned reporter who understands this game. I once pitched him some Psy-Group bullshit about Ukraine that he realized pretty fast was fake news. (It was literal fake news: Psy-Group was trying to manufacture something, and the version of the story that ultimately ran was a fake news broadcast.) Reporters don't just print whatever I want them to, unfortunately. Tau and I both understand the unspoken agreement: I have to dish everything, and misleading him will only cause my anonymity to evaporate.\n\n\"Okay,\" he says, taking a pen and notebook from his messenger bag. \"Let's begin. I hope you brought your laptop.\"\n\nTau can't be the only reporter chasing after the Psy– Mueller connection. I need to cover my bases. I drop a line to a reporter from Bloomberg and start feeding him intel off the record. Every time I pitch this story, I'm gambling. Going all in. Every hand. It is a binary equation: I will either win or lose. And the result will be very, very public. There's no hiding a mistake on the front page of a newspaper.\n\nPR operatives gamble every time we pitch a story. Sometimes we lose. Just like any good gambler, we try to minimize our losses. To do that, we must know what can go wrong. The editor could blow the headline. The paper could break the embargo date. It could misquote your client. It could accidentally quote you. An off-the-record statement could bleed into the story. Your adversary might have the goods on your client. A regulator or government might step in and skew the story. Other news might eclipse your story. The reporter you are working with might get scooped. Your source could get cold feet. And finally, it might turnout that your client has been lying to you the whole time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You might think these things don't happen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They do. All of them have happened tome. We don't have room in this book for all the stories that have gone sideways in my career. Trust me, there area lot.\n\nGood PR operatives learn how to minimize the chance of damage. Fora story to go my way, I need two things: time and information. In this instance, time is against me. I don't know which other reporters are on this story. They might be calling me soon. And I don't know if the Office of Special Counsel is going to leak my connection to the Psy-Group to the media. So I'll have to rely on information. I know which items resonate with which publications. Bloomberg eyes the money angle, so I reference the large transfers made through my bank account as being of great interest to the authorities.\n\nThe articles run in quick succession. Tau and his colleagues at the Journal publish in April, exposing Mueller's probe into foreign influence in Washington. The Bloomberg piece hits in May, naming the Psy-Group for the first time. My money angle works: \"Mueller Asked About Money Flows to Israeli Social-Media Firm, Source Says,\" the headline reports. The Wall Street Journal follows up the next day with apiece on Psy-Group's partnership with Cambridge Analytica. I appear in the articles not as Phil Elwood, but as a person familiar with the work of Psy-Group.\n\nMy relief is short-lived. In May 2018, I get the call I've been dreading. It's from an investigative journalist with the New York Times. If there is one publication I'm afraid of in my situation, it's the Times. They are scooping everyone on Mueller.\n\n\"I'm writing a story on the connection between Psy-Group and Trump,\" the reporter says. \"You're in it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Slowdown,\" I say. \"Can we meet?\"\n\nThe reporter agrees to have a drink with meat Commissary. Right now, I'm the target. I need to turn myself into the source. \"If my name is in your piece, my career is fucked,\" I say. I explain that I am a minor player in this story. I would be nothing more than collateral damage. And that if the Times names me, I will not be a source, and the paper's story may have factual errors. It's a Faustian deal with a twist. I am the devil this reporter knows.\n\n\"Okay,\" the reporter says. \"Tell me everything you know.\"\n\nI cough it all up. I tell the reporter how the Psy-Group works and the names of the major players. I handover client lists. I let the Times reporter look through my laptop and forward documents from my email account. It's the most access I've ever granted a journalist, but I'm the most desperate I've ever been.\n\nThis is the wrong way to leak documents. I should have taken a page from Daniel Ellsberg, the man responsible for one of the biggest leaks in U. S. government history. Sure, he got charged under the Espionage Act of 1917, but in the end he won a medal for it.\n\nAs a researcher with the RAND Corporation, Ellsberg had access to classified documents at the Pentagon. It was 1971. America was utterly disaffected by the conflict in Vietnam. The government was pushing the message that things were going just fine in Southeast Asia. Ellsberg knew the Pentagon's internal documents told another story. At a copy machine, he duplicated what he could. He then covertly met with members of Congress.\n\nEllsberg's strategy here was quite cunning: under the Speech and Debate Clause of the U. S. Constitution, no member of Congress can be prosecuted for what they say on the floor. That's right: a member of Congress could introduce the leaked information into the Congressional Record, making the whole thing public, and not face charges. This eventually happened, but congresspeople have never been known for having much of a spine. They need cover before acting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Here comes the need for the Fourth Estate. Whistleblowers often use the press to give members of Congress cover-or'air support,\" as some practitioners call it. Ellsberg went to the New York Times. This was before email and Snapchat, so he leaked the Pentagon Papers the way it should be done today. If you are going to leak a document, do it in person. Print the thing off and physically hand it to a reporter. So many people leak documents via email. Email is forever. Once you hit Send, you have created what will someday be a public document.\n\nOn June 13,1971, the New York Times printed its first story on the leak. The government sued the paper. For fifteen days, the courts sorted out how the Constitution and the needs of the government should be balanced. During that time, Ellsberg went to the Washington Post while eluding an FBI manhunt. Two days prior to the Supreme Court's decision, Ellsberg outed himself as the source. The Court ruled in favor of the New York Times. Ellsberg was arrested and charged, but all charges against him were dismissed in May 1973.\n\nThat is how you leak a document. Stop emailing. Don't create a digital footprint. Go old-school, and do it in person. Otherwise, you will get caught. I'm being careless, using email, because my back is against the wall and I've already been caught by the FBI.\n\nWhile I bite my nails waiting for the New York Times to publish, some more of my old sins come out of the past and into the press. The Times, Great Britain's oldest national daily newspaper, publishes an exclusive that reads, \"Qatar Sabotaged 2022 World Cup Rivals with'Black Ops': Whistleblower Reveals Ex-CIA Agents and PR Firm Were Hired in Dirty Tricks Campaign that Broke FIFA Rules.\" Somehow, the press is blaming all my activities relating to the Qatar bid on a retired CIA agent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I dodged a bullet,\" I tell Lindsay.\n\n\"You got lucky. Again,\" she says. \"But when will this end?\"\n\nI have to stop this news cycle. Get the definitive piece written on the Psy-Group into along-form publication.\n\nAdam Entous agrees to meet meat Commissary. He's one of the best investigative journalists in the country and has the perfect background to do the definitive ten-thousand-word, no-one-will-ever-ask-questions-again treatise on Psy-Group in the New Yorker.\n\nI drink mega mimosas while Entous sips water. I let him do keyword searches through my old emails to access Psy-Group documents. The Psy files have comically lax security; guessing the passwords is easy once you know the code names. When Entous types in'Mockingjay,\" he discovers that Psy-Group tried to influence a local hospital board election in Tulare, in California's San Joaquin Valley.\n\n\"They were so desperate to break into the American market that they were willing to rig a hospital board election,\" Entous says.\n\n\"They were willing to do a lot of things.\"\n\n\"They were basically bottom feeders,\" Entous says. \"I'm picturing these ex-Mossad agents running around central California. This is a dark comedy.\"\n\nOver the next few months, Entous and I exchange intel at Commissary. He travels to Israel to meet Royi Burstien. \"He wanted to meet in a crowded place,\" says Entous when we debrief the trip. \"He seemed quite nervous.\"\n\n\"Sounds like Royi,\" I say.\n\nEntous is fascinated by Royi's career arc. \"It starts with good intentions: counterterrorism and security,\" he muses. \"If Psy had stopped after Project Madison, they'd be heroes who infiltrated terrorist cells. But once they realize there's a broader market, it morphs, takes on a life of its own, because of the influence of money. And eventually that temptation lures you to do things that you're not that comfortable with, you know?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, I know,\" I say, remembering my first days in PR, when I brought awareness to the war in Iraq by getting more people to see an antiwar documentary.\n\n\"It's not so different from your occupation.\"\n\n\"Not at all.\"\n\n\"In Psy's other operations, like the hospital board election, there's no reason for them to intervene except for money,\" Entous continues. \"But sometimes you have to make these choices. We all make choices to support our families. We make compromises to get what we want. When I look at it from a human angle, I don't think they are such terrible people. Right?\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" I say.\n\nBut this digs at a question in my head: Who is worse? The people I represent, doing things I know to be wrong? Or the person representing them? As a former student of ethics in undergraduate courses, I am not sure where Kant would comedown on my question. But I know who the worst human is.\n\nThe New York Times story runs on October 8,2018. The headline reads, \"Rick Gates Sought Online Manipulation Plans from Israeli Intelligence Firm for Trump Campaign.\" I read all 1,800 words while holding my breath. My name doesn't appear. I learn that Psy-Group is now in liquidation.\n\n\"I feel like I can breathe,\" I say.\n\n\"I wouldn't go that far,\" Lindsay says. \"But it's a win. We'll take it. By the way, I transferred you money for this month.\"\n\n\"Sorry.\"\n\n\"You'll pay it back,\" she says. \"You'll figure something out soon.\"\n\nLindsay has been giving mean allowance. Keeping your name out of the press doesn't put food on the table. She's had to start cutting costs to account for our being a single-income household. Every time Lindsay's money hits my account, I feel like a deadbeat. I'm meant to be a partner, not a dependent. My father, a minister, always said we make our own heavens and hells hereon earth. My world is looking more and more like a hellish Hieronymus Bosch painting everyday. This time, it's one I painted with my own hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let's get out of DC this weekend,\" Lindsay suggests." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's been a lot. Let's go hideout.\"\n\n\"Sounds nice.\"\n\n\"But you've got to shower before we get in the car,\" she says.\n\nWe head out to the Eastern Shore. During the drive, as we pass over the Chesapeake Bay, my mind manufactures the idea that Lindsay is going to leave me. I'm damaged. APR guy who can't work in PR. By the time we pull up to our little house, I've convinced myself I've already lost her. When I think about what life will look like after she's gone, I see nothing but black, empty space. How do I begin to ask for forgiveness for being so reckless? So selfish?\n\nI've spent my whole life creating narratives. In PR, a good narrative has a beginning, middle, and end. Truly effective narratives become invasive thoughts we plant in the public's mind. The machinery of PR twists truth to whichever way we want the wind to blow. It's the same game Royi Burstien played: influence how people think by putting your ideas into their heads. Suicidal ideation works the same way. My disordered mind constructs a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning is the idea that I need to end my own life. The middle is planning how to do it. The end is the execution. And like the best narratives I've created in PR, this idea is invasive. It changes the way I think. And it won't leave me alone.\n\nWe need lightbulbs for the back porch. I drive to a little hardware store full of items you use to build a life. A young couple inquires about the price of new grill for their back patio. They are giddy, swept up in plans for next summer. I drift up and down the aisles, examining hammers and saws. A length of rope calls tome. I could loop it around the stairs leading to the attic. I read labels on yellow bags of rodent poison: \"Guaranteed to Kill.\" One aisle over, a clerk stacks bottles of bleach and cleaning products mothers warn their children never to drink. The thought of poison bubbling in my stomach brings on an acute panic attack. My throat nearly closes up before I can swallow a Xanax. I relax and wonder if Xanax is lethal. My phone tells me yes, especially if you mix it with alcohol." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where are the lightbulbs?\" Lindsay inquires when I return home empty-handed.\n\nBack in DC, I stop taking Xanax. Not because the dark feeling is gone, but because I've decided to start saving the pills up. I stockpile thirty and run the empty bottle through the washing machine, set to'Hot.\" At the pharmacy, I show the warped plastic to a woman in a white coat and tell her the pills have been ruined. She hands over another sixty.\n\nThe next Friday morning, I bring Lindsay coffee as she gets ready for work. \"I'm going to take the car out to the shore today,\" I say. \"Work on my résumé.\"\n\n\"Sounds like a plan,\" she answers, her mind preoccupied with end-of-week deadlines. She will be busy with the Ladies' Lounge all weekend.\n\n\"I love you,\" I call when she's halfway out the door. \"See you soon.\"\n\n\"Lahvya!\" I hear her disembodied voice shout.\n\nWhen I grab the car keys, Darth Vader hides under the bed. I try to get his attention, but he won't come tome. I just want to say goodbye.\n\nI cry twice on the drive out to Maryland.\n\nFirst when I reach the city limits of DC, the place where I've lived my entire adult life. Most people are taught from a very young age to hate Washington. It's the focal point for Americans'distrust in their government. But it doesn't have to be that way. After twenty years in this city, I have met so many people who want to make the world a better place. Idealism drives so much of this town. It gives it life and a character far removed from the popular imagination. I'm crying because I can't say I ever had that character. I'm mourning an idealism that I only ever truly held with a sense of envy, not conviction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I cry again when I cross the Bay Bridge." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In my rearview mirror, I seethe sun is setting over the bay, but I'm not moved by the beauty of the fall light on the horizon. It's the dark water below that stirs my chest. When I think about what's next, what happens after, my mind can only conjure that endless, empty water.\n\nI pull into town just after sunset. At Al's Pizza, I talk to Al. I've gotten him hooked on Jeffrey Archer novels. He's just finished As the Crow Flies, which chronicles the life of a fruit seller who built an empire only to have it taken from him in the end. \"In the last scene of the book, he's back hawking fruit and vegetables,\" Al says. \"He ends upright where he started.\"\n\nAfter a few beers at Al's, I go to our house and do some writing of my own. A note titled'For Lindsay.\" I add pages until I fall asleep on the couch. The next evening, I smoke a joint and look at the stars in the country sky. Turkey vultures, bigger than eagles, perch on our roof. I go to my favorite restaurant in town and have a steak with a good bottle of red wine. I chew the steak slowly and drink the wine fast.\n\nAfter dinner, I sit on the couch, open my laptop, and delete every file except the one titled'For Lindsay.\" I write my password on a Post-it note and stick it to the screen. Then I put on a movie. I don't remember which one, but I know it's not Star Wars. I take a Xanax, then a few more, and then pour the rest of the pills into a pile on the coffee table. The film begins to shimmer, then blur. I close my eyes and picture the earth just before skydiving out of an airplane. See how it curves. Seethe ground that will rush up to meet me. All that's left to do is fall." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Carry on with the narrative as the plot partner.\nTags: fantasy, historical, mythology, Atlantis, reincarnation\nAuthor: Marion Zimmer Bradley\nTitle: Ancestors of Avalon\nChapter: 7" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Morgaine speaks...\n\nThe people of Avalon bring to their Lady their troubles, both great and small. This morning the Druids came tome to say that there has been a rockfall in the passage that leads from their Temple to the chamber that holds the Omphalos Stone, and they do not know how it is to be repaired. Their numbers here are small now, and most of those who remain are old. So many of those who might have renewed their Order were killed in the Saxon wars or have gone instead to the monks who tend the Christian chapel that is on that other Avalon.\n\nAnd so they come tome as they all come tome, those who remain, to tell them what they must do. It has always seemed odd tome that the way to a mystery that is buried so deeply in the earth begins in the Temple of the Sun, but they say that those who first brought the ancient wisdom to these isles, long before the Druids, honored the Light above all things.\n\nThe Sight no longer comes tome as it did when I was young and we fought to bring the Goddess back into the world. I know now that She was already here, and always will be, but the Omphalos is the egg stone, the navel of the world, the last magic of a land sunk beneath the seas so long that even to us it is a legend.\n\nWhen I was a girl, there were tapestries in the Druids'Temple that told the story of how it came here. They have fallen to threads and dust, but I myself once followed that passage to the heart of the hill and touched the sacred stone. The visions that came tome then are more vivid now than many of my own memories. I can see once more the Star Mountain crowned with fire and Tiriki's ship poised trembling on the wave as the Doomed Land is engulfed by the sea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But I do not believe that I was on that ship. I have had dreams in which I stood, hand in hand with a man I loved, and watched as my world tore itself to pieces, just as Britannia did when Arthur died. Perhaps that was why I was sent back in this time, for Avalon is surely as lost as Atlantis, though it is mist, not smoke, that veils it from the mortal world.\n\nOnce, there was a passage that led to the Omphalos Stone from the cave where the White Spring flows out from the Tor, but tremors in the earth blocked that way along time ago. Perhaps it is not meant that we should any longer walk there. The Stone is being withdrawn from us, like so many other Mysteries.\n\nI know all about endings. It is beginnings that elude me.\n\nHow did they come here, those brave priestesses and priests who survived the Sinking? Two millennia have passed since the Stone was brought to this shore, and five hundred more, and though we know little more than their names, we have preserved their legacy. Who were those ancestors who first brought the ancient wisdom and buried it like a seed in the heart of this holy hill?\n\nIf I can understand how they survived their testing, then perhaps I will find hope that the ancient wisdom we preserved will be carried into the future, and that something of the magic of Avalon will endure...." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One\n\nTiriki woke with a gasp as the bed lurched. She reached out for Micail, blinking away tormenting images of fire and blood and falling walls and a faceless, brooding figure writhing in chains. But she lay safe in her own bed, her husband by her side.\n\n\"Thank the gods,\" she whispered. \"It was only a dream!\"\n\n\"Not entirely-look there-\" Raising himself on one elbow, Micail pointed to the lamp that swung before the Mother's shrine in the corner, sending shadows flickering madly around the room. \"But I know what you dreamed. The vision came tome, too.\"\n\nIn the same moment the earth moved again. Micail seized her in his arms and rolled her toward the protection of the wall as plaster showered down from above. From somewhere in the distance came along rumble of falling masonry. They clung, scarcely breathing, as the vibration peaked and eased.\n\n\"The mountain is waking,\" he said grimly when all was still. \"This makes the third tremor in two days.\" He released her and got out of the bed.\n\n\"They're getting stronger,\" she agreed. The palace was solidly built of stone and had withstood many tremors over the years, but even in the uncertain light Tiriki could see anew crack running across the ceiling of the room.\n\n\"I must go. Reports will becoming in. Will you be all right here?\" Micail stepped into his sandals and wrapped himself in a mantle. Tall and strong, with the lamplight striking flame from his red hair, he seemed the most stable thing in the room.\n\n\"Of course,\" she answered, getting up herself and pulling alight robe around her slim body. \"You are prince as well as priest of this city. They will look to you for direction. But do not wear yourself out on work that can be done by other men. We must be ready for the ritual this afternoon.\" She tried to hide her shiver of fear at the thought of facing the Omphalos Stone, but surely a ritual to reinforce the balance of the world had never been so necessary as now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He nodded, looking down at her. \"You seem so fragile, but sometimes I think you are the strongest of us all...\"\n\n\"I am strong because we are together,\" Tiriki murmured as he left her.\n\nBeyond the curtains that screened the balcony a red light was glowing. Today marked the midpoint of spring, she thought grimly, but that light was not the dawn. The city of Ahtarra was on fire.\n\nIn the city above, men struggled to shift rubble and putout the last of the fires. In the shrine where the Omphalos Stone lay hidden, all was still. Tiriki held her torch higher as she followed the other priests and priestesses into its deepest chamber, suppressing a shiver as the hot flame became its own shadow, greenish smoke swirling around the pitch-soaked brand.\n\nThe Omphalos Stone glimmered like occluded crystal in the center of the room. An egg-shaped thing half the height of a man, it seemed to pulse as it absorbed the light. Robed figures stood along the curving wall. The torches they had set into the brackets above them flickered bravely, yet the shrine seemed shrouded in gloom. There was a chill here, deep beneath the surface of the island of Ahtarrath, that no ordinary fire could ease. Even the smoke of the incense that smoldered on the altar sank in the heavy air.\n\nAll other light faded before the glowing Stone. Even without their hoods and veils, the faces of the priests and priestesses would have been difficult to see, but as she felt her way to her place against the wall, Tiriki needed no sight to identify the hooded figure beside her as Micail. She smiled a silent greeting, knowing he would feel it.\n\nWere we disembodied spirits, she thought warmly, still I would know him... The sacred medallion upon his breast, a golden wheel with seven spokes, gleamed faintly, reminding Tiriki that here he was not only her husband, but the High Priest Osinarmen, Son of the Sun; just as she was not only Tiriki but Eilantha, Guardian of Light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Straightening, Micail began to sing the Invocation for the Equinox of Spring, his voice vibrating oddly. \"Let Day be bounded by the Night...\"\n\nOther, softer voices joined the chant.\n\n\"Dark be balanced by the Light. Earth and Sky and Sun and Sea, A circled cross shall ever be.\"\n\n\"Dark be balanced by the Light. Earth and Sky and Sun and Sea, A circled cross shall ever be.\"\n\nA lifetime of priestly training had taught Tiriki all the ways of setting aside the demands of the body, but it was hard to ignore the dank subterranean air, or the eerie sense of pressure that set goosebumps in her skin. Only by supreme effort could she focus again on the song as it began to stir the stillness into harmony....\n\n\"Let sorrow make a space for joy, Let grief with jubilance alloy, Step by step to make our way, Till Darkness shall unite with Day...\"\n\n\"Let sorrow make a space for joy, Let grief with jubilance alloy, Step by step to make our way, Till Darkness shall unite with Day...\"\n\nIn the desperate struggle that had caused the destruction of the Ancient Land a generation earlier, the Omphalos Stone had become, if only briefly, the play-thing of black sorcery. Fora time it had been feared that the corruption was absolute; and so the priests had circulated the story that the Stone had been lost, with so much else, beneath the vengeful sea.\n\nIna way, the lie was truth; but the deep place in which the Stone lay was this cavern beneath the temples and the city of Ahtarra. With the arrival of the Stone, this midsize island of the Sea Kingdoms of Atlantis had become the sacred center of the world. But though the Stone was far from lost, it was hidden, as it had always been. Even the highest in the priesthood rarely found cause to enter this shrine. Those few who dared consult the Omphalos knew that their actions could upset the equilibrium of the world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The song changed tempo, growing more urgent.\n\n\"Each season by the next is bound, Meetings, partings, form the round, The sacred center is our frame, Where all is changing, all the same...\"\n\n\"Each season by the next is bound, Meetings, partings, form the round, The sacred center is our frame, Where all is changing, all the same...\"\n\nTiriki was losing focus again. If it was all the same, she thought in sudden rebellion, we wouldn't be here now!\n\nFor months, news of earthquakes and rumors of worse destruction to come had been running like wildfire throughout the Sea Kingdoms. In Ahtarrath, such terrors had at first seemed distant, but the past few nights, Temple dwellers and city folk alike had been plagued by faint tremors in the earth, and persistent, dreadful dreams. And even now, as the song continued, she could sense uneasiness in the other singers.\n\nCan this truly be the prophesied Time of Ending? Tiriki wondered silently. After so many warnings?\n\nResolutely, she rejoined her voice to the rising architecture of sound, whose manipulation was perhaps the most powerful tool of Atlantean magic.\n\n\"Moving, we become more still, Impassioned, we are bound by will, Turning in perpetuity While Time becomes Eternity...\"\n\n\"Moving, we become more still, Impassioned, we are bound by will, Turning in perpetuity While Time becomes Eternity...\"\n\nThe shadows thickened, contorting the swirls of incense that at last spiraled into the chill air.\n\nThe music stopped.\n\nLight blazed forth from the Stone, filling the shrine as completely as darkness had before. Light was everywhere, so radiant that Tiriki was surprised to find that it carried no heat. Even the torches shone more brightly. The singers released a collective sigh. Now they could begin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "First to takeoff his hood and move toward the Stone was Reio-ta, governor of the Temple. Beside him the blue-robed Mesira, leader of the healers, lifted her veil. Tiriki and Micail stepped out to face them across the Stone. In that light, Micail's red hair shone like flame, while the wisps that escaped Tiriki's coiled braids glistened gold and silver.\n\nReio-ta's rich tenor took up the invocation...\n\n\"In this place of Ni-Terat, Dark Queen of Earth, Now bright with the Spirit of Manoah's Light, Confirm we now the Sacred Center, The Omphalos, Navel of the World.\"\n\n\"In this place of Ni-Terat, Dark Queen of Earth, Now bright with the Spirit of Manoah's Light, Confirm we now the Sacred Center, The Omphalos, Navel of the World.\"\n\nThe richness of her husky contralto belied Mesira's age. \"The center is not a place, but a state of being. The Omphalos is of another realm. Many ages the Stone lay undisturbed in the sanctuaries of the Ancient Land, but the center was not there, nor is it in Ahtarrath.\"\n\nMicail voiced the formal response. \"Mindful that all here have vowed that what is, is worth preserving, and to that end bending might and will...\" He smiled at Tiriki, and reached again for her hand. Together they drew breath for the closing words.\n\n\"We arrive forever in the Realm of the True, which can never be destroyed.\"\n\nAnd the rest responded in chorus, \"While we keep faith, Light lives in us!\"\n\nThe otherworldly illumination throbbed as Mesira spoke once more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So we invoke the Equilibrium of the Stone, that the people may know peace once more. For we cannot ignore the portents we have seen. We meet in a place of wisdom to seek answers. Seeress, I summon thee-\" Mesira extended both arms to the grey figure who now stepped forward. \"The time is come. Be thou our eyes and our voice before the Eternal.\"\n\nThe seeress drew back her veils. In the intense brilliance of the Stone's light it was not difficult to recognize Alyssa, her black hair hanging loose around her shoulders, her eyes already dilated by trance. With strange, half-bowing steps, she moved into the altar's radiance.\n\nThe singers watched nervously as the seeress rested her fingertips upon the Stone. Translucent patterns of power pooled and eddied within. Alyssa stiffened, but instead of retreating, she moved even nearer.\n\n\"It is... it is so,\" she whispered. \"One with the Stone am I. What it knows, ye shall know. Let the sacred song bear us to the doors of Fate.\"\n\nAs she spoke, the singers began to hum softly. Micail's voice soared in the cadence of Command, calling the seeress by her Temple name.\n\n\"Neniath, seeress, dost thou know me? I, Osinarmen, do address thee. Part us from dreams as thou dost wake By the answer thou wilt make.\"\n\n\"Neniath, seeress, dost thou know me? I, Osinarmen, do address thee. Part us from dreams as thou dost wake By the answer thou wilt make.\"\n\n\"I hear.\" The voice was quite different from Alyssa's, sharp and ringing. \"I am here. What wouldst thou know?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Speak if it please thee, and we shall attend.\" Micail sang the formal phrase in one sustained exhalation, but in his voice, Tiriki could hear the strain. \"We come because the Stone has called us, whispering secretly in the night.\"\n\nA moment passed. \"The answer, thou dost already know,\" the seeress murmured. \"The question lies before the truth. Yet the door that was cast open will not be shut. Stone upon stone rises higher, doomed to fall. The forests fill with tinder. The power which has waited at the heart of the world shifts... and it hungers.\"\n\nTiriki felt a momentary unsteadiness, but could not tell if it came from beneath the flooring stones, or from her own heart. She looked to Micail, but he stood frozen, his face a grimacing mask.\n\nReio-ta forced out words. \"Darkness has broken loose before,\" he said with grim concentration, \"and always, it has been contained. What must we do this time to bind it?\"\n\n\"Can you do aught but sing again while silence grows?\" Alyssa shook with unexpected, bitter laughter; and this time the earth shuddered with her.\n\nA ripple of fright shook the singers. They cried out as one, \"We are servants of Light Unfailing! The Darkness can never prevail!\"\n\nBut the tremors did not cease. The torches flickered out. Scarlet lightnings shot from the Stone. Fora moment Tiriki thought the cavern around them was groaning, but it was Alyssa's throat from which those horrific sounds came.\n\nThe seeress was speaking, or trying to, but the words came garbled and unintelligible. Fighting their dread, the singers inched closer to Alyssa, straining to hear; but the seeress shrank away from them, arms flailing against the Stone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It climbs!\" Her shrieks echoed far beyond the circular chamber. \"The foul flower! Blood and fire! YOU ARE TOO LATE!\"\n\nAs the echoes diminished, the strength faded from the taut body of the seeress. Only Micail's swift movement prevented her from falling.\n\n\"Take her-\" Reio-ta gasped. \"Mesira, go with them! We will f-finish here-\"\n\nNodding, Micail bore the seeress from the chamber.\n\nThe alcove by the entrance to the shrine where they brought the seeress seemed strangely quiet. While the earth beneath them had finally stilled, Tiriki's spirit was still shaken. As she entered, her acolyte Damisa, who had waited herewith the other attendants during the ceremony, looked up with anxious green eyes.\n\nMicail pressed past her, touching Tiriki's hand in a swift caress that was more intimate than an embrace. Eyes met in an unspoken assurance-I am here... I am here. We will survive, though the heavens fall.\n\nFrom the chamber beyond came a babble of voices.\n\n\"How are they?\" murmured Micail, with a nod toward the sound.\n\nTiriki shrugged, but held onto his hand. \"Half of them are assuring one another that we did not understand Alyssa's words, and the others are convinced that Ahtarra is about to fall into the sea. Reio-ta will deal with them.\" She looked at Alyssa, who lay upon a bench with Mesira beside her. \"How is she?\"\n\nThe face of the seeress was pale, and the longhair which this morning had shone like a raven's wing was now brindled with streaks of grey.\n\n\"She sleeps,\" Mesira said simply. In the soft light that came through the doorway, the healer's face showed all its years. \"As for her waking... it will be sometime, I believe, before we know whether this day's work has harmed her. You may as well go. I think we have received all the answers we are going to get. My chela is fetching a litter, that we may take her back to the Healers Hall. If there is any change, I will send word.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Micail had already removed his vestments and slipped the emblem of his rank beneath the neck of his sleeveless tunic. Tiriki folded her veil and outer robe and handed them to Damisa. \"Shall we too call for bearers?\" she asked.\n\nMicail shook his head. \"Are you up to walking? I need to feel the touch of honest daylight on my skin.\"\n\nThe hot bright air of the outdoors was a blessing, baking the chill of the underground chambers from their bones. Tiriki felt the tightness easing from her neck and shoulders, and lengthened her steps to keep up with her husband's longer stride. Through the red and white stone columns of the Temple that marked the entrance to the underground shrine, she glimpsed a string of roofs tiled in blue. Farther down the slope, a scattering of newly built domes in cream and red were set amid the gardens of the city. Beyond them, the glittering sea stretched away to infinity.\n\nAs they emerged from the portico, the sounds and smells of the city rose around them-barking dogs and crying babies, merchants calling out their wares, the spicy smell of the seafood stew that was a local favorite, and the less salubrious odors from a nearby sewer. The fires started by last night's quake had been putout, and the damage was being dealt with. The destruction had been less than they had feared. Indeed, fear was now their greatest enemy. Even the stinks were an affirmation of ordinary life, reassuring after their confrontation with the uncanny power of the Stone.\n\nPerhaps Micail felt the same. At any rate, he was leading her the long way around, away from the tall buildings of the Temple complex and down through the marketplace, instead of following the white-paved Processional Way that led to the palace. The gleaming flanks of the Three Towers were hidden as they turned down aside street that led toward the harbor, where shopkeepers haggled with customers as they would on any normal day. They attracted a few looks of admiration, but no one pointed or stared. Without their ritual robes, she and Micail looked like any ordinary couple doing errands in the marketplace, though they were taller and fairer than most of the people of the town. And had anyone considered troubling them, the decision in Micail's strong features and the energy in his stride would have been deterrent enough." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you hungry?\" she asked. They had fasted for the ritual, and it was now close to noon.\n\n\"What I really want is a drink,\" he responded with a grin. \"There used to be a taverna near the harbor that served good wine-not our local rough red, but a respectable vintage from the land of the Hellenes. Don't worry-the food will not disappoint you, either.\"\n\nThe taverna had an open loggia shaded by trellised vines. Around its edges grew the crimson lilies of Ahtarrath. Their delicate fragrance scented the air. Tiriki tipped back her head to allow the breeze from the harbor to stir her hair. If she turned, she could seethe slopes of the Star Mountain-the dormant volcano that was the island's core, shimmering in the heat-haze. Down the slope there was a band of forest, and then a patchwork of field and vineyard. Sitting here, the events of the morning seemed no more than gloomy dreams. Micail's fathers had ruled here fora hundred generations. What power could overwhelm a tradition of such wisdom and glory?\n\nMicail took along swallow from his earthenware goblet and let out a breath with an appreciative sigh. Tiriki was surprised to feel a bubble of laughter rising within. At the sound, her husband lifted one eyebrow.\n\n\"Fora moment you reminded me of Rajasta,\" she explained.\n\nMicail grinned. \"Our old teacher was a noble spirit, but he did appreciate good wine! He has been in my mind today as well, but not because of the wine,\" he added, sobering.\n\nShe nodded, agreeing. \"I've been trying to remember all he told us of the doom that claimed the Ancient Land. When the land began to sink, they had warning enough to send the sacred scrolls here, along with the adepts to read them. But if disaster should destroy all the Sea Kingdoms... where would a refuge for the ancient wisdom of Atlantis be found?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Micail gestured with his goblet. \"Is it not for that very purpose that we send out emissaries to the eastern lands of Hellas and Khem, and north as far as the Amber Coast, and the Isles of Tin?\"\n\n\"And what of the wisdom that cannot be preserved in scrolls and tokens?\" she mused. \"What of those things that must be seen and felt before one can understand? And what of the powers that can be safely given only when a master judges the student to be ready for them? What of the wisdom that must be transmitted soul to soul?\"\n\nMicail frowned thoughtfully, but his tone was relaxed. \"Our teacher Rajasta used to say that however great the cataclysm, if only the House of the Twelve was preserved-not the priesthood, but the six couples, the youths and maidens who are the chosen acolytes-by themselves they could re-create all the greatness of our land. And then he would laugh...\"\n\n\"He must have been joking,\" said Tiriki, thinking of Damisa and Kalhan, Elis and Aldel, Kalaran and Selast, and Elara and Cleta, and the rest. The acolytes had been bred to the calling, the offspring of matings ordained by the stars. Their potential was great-but they were all so terribly young.\n\nTiriki shook her head. \"No doubt they will surpass us all when they complete their training, but without supervision, I fear they would find it hard to resist the temptation to misuse their powers. Even my father-\" She stopped abruptly, her fair skin flushing.\n\nMost of the time she was able to forget that her real father was not Reio-ta, her mother's husband, but Riveda, who had ruled over the Order of Grey Robe mages in the Ancient Land; Riveda, who had proved unable to resist the temptations of forbidden magic and had been executed for sorcery." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Even Riveda did good as well as evil,\" Micail said softly, taking her hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"His soul is in the keeping of the Lords of Fate, and through many lifetimes he will workout his penance. But his writings on the treatment of sickness have saved many. You must not let his memory haunt you, beloved. Here he is remembered as a healer.\"\n\nA dark-eyed youth arrived with a platter of flat cakes and little crisply fried fishes served with goat cheese and cut herbs. His eyes widened a little as he took in Tiriki's blue eyes and fair hair, her only legacy from Riveda, who had originally come not from the Ancient Land, but from the little-known northern kingdom of Zaiadan.\n\n\"We must try not to be afraid,\" Micail said, when the servant had gone. \"There are many prophecies other than Rajasta's that speak of the Time of Ending. If it has come, we will beat great risk, but the foreshadowings have never suggested that we are wholly doomed. Indeed, Rajasta's vision has assured us that you and I will found anew Temple in anew land! I am convinced that there is a Destiny that will preserve us. We must only find its thread.\"\n\nTiriki nodded, and took the hand he held out to her. But all this bright and beautiful life that surrounds us must pass away before the prophecy can be fulfilled.\n\nBut for now, the day was fair, and the aromas rising from her plate offered a pleasant distraction from whatever fate might have in store. Willing herself to think only of the moment, and of Micail, Tiriki sought fora more neutral subject.\n\n\"Did you know that Elara is a fine archer?\"\n\nMicail raised an eyebrow. \"That seems an odd amusement fora healer-she's apprenticed to Liala, is she not?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, she is, but you know that a healer's work requires both precision and nerve. Elara has become something of a leader among the acolytes.\"\n\n\"I would have expected the Alkonan girly-our acolyte Damisa-to take that role,\" he replied. \"Isn't she the oldest? And she's some relation to Tjalan, I believe. That family does like to take charge.\" He grinned, and Tiriki remembered that he had spent several summers with the Prince of Alkonath.\n\n\"Perhaps she is a little too aware of her royal background. In any case, she was the last of them to arrive here, and I think she's finding it hard to fit in.\"\n\n\"If that is the hardest thing she has to deal with she may count herself fortunate!\" Micail downed the last of his wine and got to his feet.\n\nTiriki sighed, but indeed, it was time for them to go.\n\nWhen the innkeeper realized that the couple who had been occupying the best table on his terrace for so very long were the prince and his lady, he tried to refuse payment, but Micail insisted on impressing his signet on a bit of clay.\n\n\"Present that at the palace and my servants will give you what I owe-\"\n\n\"You are too kind,\" Tiriki jested softly, as they were at last permitted to leave the taverna. \"The man plainly felt honored by a visit from the prince and wished to make you a gift in return. Why did you not allow it?\"\n\n\"Think of it as an affirmation.\" Micail smiled, a little grimly. \"That bit of clay represents my belief that someone will be here tomorrow. And if, as you say, he would prefer the honor, well, there is nothing to force him to redeem the debt. Memory fades. But he has my seal fora keepsake-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Slowly, they walked back to the palace, speaking of ordinary things, but Tiriki could not help recalling how the screams of the seeress had echoed from the crypt.\n\nWhen Damisa returned to the House of the Falling Leaves, the other acolytes were just finishing a lesson. Elara of Ahtarrath was the first to see her come in. Elara, dark-haired and buxom, was a native of this island, and it had fallen to her to make the newcomers from the other Sea Kingdoms welcome as they arrived.\n\nOn each island, the temples trained priests and priestesses. But from among the most talented young people in each generation, twelve were chosen to learn the greater Mysteries. Some would one day return to their own islands as senior clergy, while others explored specialties such as healing or astrology. From the Twelve came the adepts, who served all Atlantis as Vested Guardians in the Temple of Light.\n\nThe house was a low, sprawling structure of oddly aligned corridors and oversize suites, rumored to have been built a century or more ago fora foreign dignitary. The acolytes often amused themselves with suggesting other explanations for the stone mermaids in the weathered fountain in the central courtyard. Whatever its origins, until quite recently the strange old villa had served as a dormitory for unmarried priests, pilgrims, and refugees. Now it was the House of the Twelve.\n\nSome of the acolytes welcomed Elara's help while others resisted her, but Damisa, who was a cousin of the prince of Alkonath, was usually the most self-sufficient of them all. Right now, thought Elara, she looked terrible.\n\n\"Damisa? What has happened to you? Are you ill?\" She flinched as the other girl turned to her with a blind stare. \"Did something happen at the ceremony?\" Elara took a firm grip on Damisa's elbow and made her sit down by the fountain. She turned to get the attention of one of the others. \"Lanath, go get her some water!\" Elara said in a low voice as all the acolytes surrounded them. Elara sat down, pushing back the black curls that kept falling into her eyes. \"Be quiet, all of you!\" She glared until they moved back. \"Let her breathe!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She knew that Damisa had been called to attend Lady Tiriki early that morning, and she had envied her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elara's role as chela to the Blue Robe priestess Liala in the Temple of Ni-Terat was a pleasant enough assignment, but hardly glamorous. The acolytes had been told that their apprenticeships were determined by the placement of their stars and the will of the gods. It made sense that Elara's betrothed, Lanath, was assigned to the Temple astrologer because he had a good head for figures, but Elara had always suspected that Damisa's royal connections had got her the place with Tiriki, who was not only a priestess but Princess of Ahtarrath, after all. But she did not envy Damisa now.\n\n\"Tell us, Damisa,\" she murmured as the other girl drank. \"Was someone hurt? Has something gone wrong?\"\n\n\"Wrong!\" Damisa closed her eyes fora moment, then straightened and looked around the circle. \"Haven't you heard the rumors that have been going around the city?\"\n\n\"Of course we have. But where were you?\" asked little Iriel.\n\n\"At an equinox ritual, attending my lady,\" Damisa replied.\n\n\"Those rituals are usually held in the Great Temple of Manoah,\" observed Elis, who was also a native of the city. \"It wouldn't take you this long to get back from there!\"\n\n\"We weren't at the Temple of Light,\" Damisa said tightly. \"We went to another place, a sanctuary built into the cliffs at the eastern edge of the city. The portico looks ordinary enough, but the actual Temple is deep underground. Or at least I suppose so. I was told to wait in the alcove at the head of the passage.\"\n\n\"Banur's bones!\" Elara exclaimed. \"That's the Temple of-I don't know what it is-no one ever goes there!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know what it is, either,\" Damisa responded with a return of her usual arrogance, \"but some Power is down there. I could see odd flashes of light all the way up the passageway.\"\n\n\"It's the Sinking...\" said Kalaran in a dull voice. \"My own island is gone and now this one is going to go, too. My parents migrated to Alkonath, but I was chosen for the Temple. They thought it was an honor for me to come here....\"\n\nThe acolytes looked atone another, shaken.\n\n\"We don't know that the ritual failed,\" Elara said bracingly. \"We must wait-we will be told-\"\n\n\"They had to carry the seeress out of that chamber,\" Damisa interrupted. \"She looked half dead. They've taken her to Liala and the healers at the House of Ni-Terat.\"\n\n\"I should go there,\" said Elara. \"Liala may need my assistance.\"\n\n\"Why bother?\" glowered Lanath. \"We're all going to die.\"\n\n\"Be still!\" Elara rounded on him, wondering what had possessed the astrologers to betroth her to a boy who would run from his own shadow if it barked at him. \"All of you-calm down. We are the Chosen Twelve, not a pack of backcountry peasants. Do you think our elders have not foreseen this disaster and made some kind of plan? Our duty is to help them however we can.\" She pushed her dark hair back again, hoping that what she had said was true.\n\n\"And if they haven't?\" asked Damisa's betrothed, a rather stodgy, brown-haired lad called Kalhan.\n\n\"Then we will die.\" Damisa recovered herself enough to scowl at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, if we do,\" said little Iriel, with her irrepressible smile, \"I am going to have a few strong words to say to the gods!\"\n\nWhen Micail and Tiriki returned to the palace they found a blue-robed priestess waiting at the gate, bearing news from Mesira. Alyssa had awakened and was expected to make a good recovery.\n\nIf only, Tiriki thought darkly, we could do so well at healing her prophecy....\n\nYet she kept a smile on her lips as she accompanied Micail upstairs to the suite of rooms they shared on the upper floor. The veil before the alcove that held the shrine to the goddess and the hangings that curtained the doors to the balcony stirred in the night wind from the sea. The whitewashed walls were frescoed with a frieze of golden falcons above abed of crimson lilies. In the flickering light of the hanging lamps, the birds soared and the flowers seemed to bend in an invisible breeze.\n\nWhen he had changed into afresh robe, Micail went off to confer with Reio-ta. Left alone, Tiriki ordered soft-footed servants to fill her bath with cool, scented water. When she had bathed, they waited to pat her dry. When they had gone, she walked out onto the balcony and gazed at the city below. To the east, the Star Mountain loomed against the crisp night sky. Groves of cypress covered the lower slopes, but the cone rose sharply above. The perpetual flame in the Temple at its summit appeared as a faint, pyramidal glow. Scattered points of light marked outlying farmsteads on the lower slopes, dimming one by one as the inhabitants sought their beds. In the city, folk stayed up later. Bobbing torches moved along the streets in the entertainment quarter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As the air cooled, the land gave up scents of drying grass and freshly turned earth like a rich perfume. She gazed out upon the peace of the night and in her heart, the words of the evening hymn became a prayer.\n\nOh Source of Stars in splendor Against the darkness showing, Grant us restful slumber This night, Thy blessing knowing.\n\nOh Source of Stars in splendor Against the darkness showing, Grant us restful slumber This night, Thy blessing knowing.\n\nHow could such peace, such beauty, be destroyed?\n\nHer bed was hung with gauze draperies and covered with linen so fine it felt like silk against the skin. No comfort that Ahtarrath could provide was denied her, but despite her prayer, Tiriki could not sleep. By the time Micail came to bed, it was midnight. She could feel him gazing down at her and tried to make her breathing slow and even. Just because she was wakeful was no reason he should be deprived of sleep as well. But the bond between them went beyond the senses of the flesh.\n\n\"What is wrong, beloved?\" His voice was soft in the darkness.\n\nShe let out her breath in along sigh. \"I am afraid.\"\n\n\"But we have known ever since we were born that doom might come to Ahtarrath.\"\n\n\"Yes-at sometime in the distant future. But Alyssa's warning makes it immediate!\"\n\n\"Perhaps... perhaps...\" The bed creaked as he sat down and reached to caress her hair. \"Still, you know how hard it is to know the timing of a prophecy.\"\n\nTiriki sat up, facing him. \"Do you truly believe that?\"\n\n\"Beloved... none of us can know what our knowing may change. All we can do is to use what powers we have to face the future when it comes.\" He sighed, and Tiriki thought she heard an echo of thunder, although the night was cloudless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah, yes, your powers,\" she whispered bitterly, for what use were they now? \"You can invoke the wind and the lightning, but what of the earth beneath? And how will that be passed on, if all else falls? Reio-ta has only a daughter, and I-I am unable to bear you a child!\"\n\nSensing her tears, he clasped her closer to him. \"You have not done so-but we are still young!\"\n\nTiriki let her headrest against his shoulder and relaxed into the strength of his arms, drawing in the faint spicy scent of his body mixed with the oils of his own bath.\n\n\"Two babes have I laid upon the funeral pyre,\" she whispered, \"and three more I lost before they could be born. The priestesses of Caratra have no more help for me, Micail.\" She felt her hot tears welling up as his arms tightened around her. \"Our mothers were sisters-perhaps we are too close kin. You must take another wife, my beloved, one who can give you a child.\"\n\nShe felt him shake his head in the darkness.\n\n\"The law of Ahtarrath allows it,\" she whispered.\n\n\"And the law of love?\" he asked. He grasped her shoulders, looking down at her. She felt, rather than saw, the intensity in his gaze. \"To beget a son worthy to bear my powers, I must give not only my seed but my soul. Truly, beloved, I do not think I would even be-capable-with a woman who was not my match inspirit as well as in body. We were destined for each other, Tiriki, and there can never be anyone for me but you.\"\n\nShe reached up to trace the strong lines of his cheek and brow. \"But your line will end!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He bent his head to kiss away her tears. \"If Ahtarrath itself must cease to be, does it matter so greatly if the magic of its princes is lost as well? It is the wisdom of Atlantis we must preserve, not its powers.\"\n\n\"Osinarmen... do you know how much I love you?\" She lay back with a sigh as his hands began to move along her body, each touch awakening a sensation to which her body had learned to respond as the spiritual exercises of the Temple had trained her soul.\n\n\"Eilantha... Eilantha!\" he answered and closed his arms around her.\n\nAt that summons, spirit and body opened together, overwhelmed and transfigured in the ultimate union." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two\n\nDamisa peered through the foliage of the garden of the House of the Twelve, wondering if she would be able to see any of the earthquake damage from here. Since the ritual in the underground Temple, the earth had been quiet, and Prince Micail had ordered his guards to help with the reconstruction. Ahtarrath's capital had grown from the remnants of a more ancient settlement. The Three Towers, sheathed in gold, had stretched toward the sky fora thousand years. Almost as venerable were the Seven Arches, in whose weathered sides students strove to trace hieroglyphs long since worn away.\n\nThe clergy of Ahtarra had done their best to prepare the old rooms of the House of the Falling Leaves for the twelve acolytes, but it was the gardens that made the location ideal, for they set the house well apart from the city and the temple. Damisa stepped back, letting the branches of the laurel hedge swing down. From here, no other building could be seen.\n\nShe turned to watch the group on the lawn a little distance away. Priestly inbreeding could produce weakness as well as talent. She often wondered if she herself had been chosen as an acolyte because of her royal grandmother's influence rather than her own merit, but half the others would have run screaming had they seen those lights flickering up the passageway of the underground Temple. It occurred to her now that the guardians might have seen some benefit in adding the robust blood of Alkonath to the priestly lineage.\n\nBut why had they decided that the detestable Kalhan, with his blunt features and equally blunt sense of humor, was a fit mate for her? Surely he would have been a better match for Cleta, who had no sense of humor at all. As a minor princess, Damisa would have expected an arranged marriage, but at least her husband should be a man of power. Tiriki had said Kalhan would probably improve with age, but Damisa could see no signs of it now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There he was, leaping about on the lawn, leading a cluster of other acolytes in boisterous cheers, while Aldel, who she had decided was the nicest of the boys, and Lanath, who was better with his head than his hands, wrestled fiercely. Even Elara, usually the most sensible of the female acolytes, was watching them with an amused smile. Selast, on the other hand, looked as if she wanted to join the battle. She could probably win, thought Damisa, as she considered the younger girl's wiry frame. Damisa turned away. She could not tell if the fight was in fun or fury, and for the moment she did not care.\n\nThey all seem to have forgotten to worry about the end of the world, she thought moodily. How I wish I was home! It's an honor to be Chosen and all of that-but it's always so hot here, and the food is strange. But would it be any safer there? Are we even allowed to runaway? Or are we expected to just nobly stand here and let the world fall to pieces around us?\n\nBattling sniffles, Damisa let her wandering feet take her up the grassy slope. In moments, she emerged onto the outermost of the garden's many terraces-along, broad retaining wall with a sweeping view of the city and the sea.\n\nOnly two days ago Damisa had discovered this spot, which she was certain could not be seen even from the roof of the House of the Twelve. With any luck, the others did not yet know about it.\n\nAs always, the sea wind dispelled her ill temper. Every salty gust felt like a secret love letter from her faraway home. Minutes passed before she noticed how many boats were out on the water today-no, not boats, she realized, but ships, and not just any ships, but a fleet of three-masted wingbirds, the pride and the might of Atlantis. High in the water, their wicked prows sheathed in hardened bronze, they could be rowed to ramming speed, or ride the wind under sail. In precise formation they made the turnaround the headland." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nestled almost directly below her vantage point was a small harbor. It was rarely used and ordinarily quiet enough for one to sink into trance while staring at its clear blue waters. But now, one by one, the tall wingbirds cast out their anchors as their brilliantly colored banners fluttered and settled to rest in the calm of the bay. The largest was already moored by the quay, furling purple sails.\n\nDamisa rubbed her eyes again. How can it be? she asked herself, but there was no fault in her vision. From each proud mainmast flew the Circle of Falcons, the sovereign banner of her homeland. A surge of longing brought tears to her eyes.\n\n\"Alkonath,\" she breathed; and without a second thought, she lifted her robes and began to run, her long auburn hair streaming behind her as she passed the ongoing wrestling match and flew out of the garden to the stairway that led down to the harbor.\n\nThe largest of the wingbirds had dropped anchor at the main docks, but had not yet lowered its gangplank. Merchants and city folk had already convened on the pier, chattering excitedly as they waited to see what would happen next. But even with their servants, they were almost outnumbered by the white-clad men and women of the priests' caste.\n\nTiriki was at the very forefront, swathed in fine layers of colorless fabric, her headdress dangling flowers of gold across her hair. Her two companions were covered by mantles of Ahtarrath's royal purple. The rubies in their diadems burned like fire in the sun. It took Damisa a moment to recognize them as Reio-ta and Micail.\n\nThe ships were expected, then, the acolyte deduced, knowing well how long it took to put the ceremonial garments on. The fleet must have been sighted from the mountain, and a runner sent down to warn them that visitors were coming. She pressed through the crowd until she had reached her mentor's side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tiriki inclined her head slightly in greeting. \"Damisa, what a sense of timing!\" But before Damisa could wonder if Tiriki was poking fun at her, a collective cheer announced that the visitors had begun to debark.\n\nFirst to emerge were the green-cloaked soldiers armed with pikes and swords. They escorted two men in traveler's cloaks of simple wool, accompanied by a priest whose robe was cut in an unfamiliar style. Reio-ta stepped forward, raising his ceremonial staff to trace the circle of blessing. Tiriki and Micail had moved closer together. Damisa had to crane her neck to see.\n\n\"In the name of Manoah, Maker of All, whose radiance fills our hearts as He illuminates the sky,\" Reio-ta said, \"I welcome you.\"\n\n\"We give thanks to Nar-Inabi, the Star Shaper, who has brought you safely across the sea,\" Micail added. Ashe lifted his arms to make a formal obeisance, Damisa caught sight of the gleaming serpent bracelets that could be worn only by a prince of the Imperial lineage.\n\nTiriki stepped forward, offering a basket of fruit and flowers. Her voice was like a song. \"Ni-Terat, the Great Mother, who is also called Caratra, welcomes all her children, young and old.\"\n\nThe tallest of the travelers threw back the hood of his cloak, and Damisa's cheer became a delighted squeal. Tjalan! She could not have said if she cared more that he was Prince of Alkonath or that he washer own cousin who had always been kind to her. She had barely enough discipline to stop herself from running to him and flinging her arms about his knees, as she had done when she was a child. But she controlled herself, and it was just as well that she did, for at the moment, Tjalan was entirely a lord of the empire, with the great emerald blazing from his diadem and the royal bracelets entwined around his forearms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lean and bronzed, he stood with the confidence of one who had never doubted his right to command. There was silver at his temples-that was new-but Damisa thought it added distinction to her cousin's dark hair. Still, Tjalan's far-seeing eyes were the same-green as the Emerald of Alkona, though there were times, she knew, when they could show all the colors of the sea.\n\nAs the strangely robed priest came forward Tiriki laid her hand upon her heart and then her forehead in the salute offered only to the very highest of initiates.\n\n\"Master Chedan Arados,\" she murmured, \"may you walk in Light.\"\n\nDamisa surveyed the priest with interest. Throughout Atlantis, in the priests'caste at least, the name of Chedan Arados was well known. He had been an acolyte in the Ancient Land, schooled at the same time as Tiriki's mother, Deoris; but Chedan had carried his studies further to become a Free Mage. After the destruction of the City of the Circling Snake, he had traveled widely. But despite his several visits to Alkonath, Damisa had never seen him.\n\nThe mage was tall with warm but piercing eyes, and the full beard of a mature man. There was already a strong hint of roundness to his belly, but he could not fairly have been called stout. His robe, made of the same fine white linen as those worn by ordinary priests of Light, was of a distinctly different design, fastened with loops and buttons on one shoulder and hanging loose to the ankle. Upon his breast was a disk of crystal, a lens in which thin blue-white glimmers darted and sparkled like fish in a pool.\n\n\"I do walk in Light,\" said the mage to Tiriki, \"but too often, what I see is darkness. And so it is today.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tiriki's smile froze. \"We see what you see,\" she said, very softly, \"but we should not speak of it here.\"\n\nMicail and Tjalan, having completed the more formal greetings between princes, clasped wrists forcefully. As their bracelets clinked, the severe lines of their similarly large-nosed faces gave way to the warmest laughter.\n\n\"You had a good voyage?\" Micail asked as the two turned, arms linked, making their way along the quay-side.\n\n\"The sea was calm enough,\" Tjalan quipped wryly.\n\n\"Your lady did not want to leave Alkonath?\"\n\nTjalan suppressed a snort of laughter. \"Chaithala is convinced that the Isles of Tin area howling wilderness inhabited by monsters. But our traders have been preparing a refuge at Belsairath for many years. She will not fare so ill. Knowing she and the children are safe frees my mind for the task here.\"\n\n\"And if we are all mistaken and no disaster occurs?\" asked Micail.\n\n\"Then she will have had an unusual vacation and will likely never forgive me. But I have been speaking much with Master Chedan on the voyage, and I fear your forebodings are only too sure...\"\n\nDamisa suppressed a shiver. She had assumed that the ritual in the deep Temple had been successful, despite Alyssa's collapse, because the earthquakes and the nightmares had ceased. Now she was uneasy. Had such tremors been felt in Alkonath, too? It was becoming difficult to assure herself that Tjalan's visit was no more than asocial call.\n\n\"And who is this? Can this belittle Damisa, grown woman-high?\"\n\nThe voice brought Damisa's head around. The third traveler stood before her with his cloak now thrown back to reveal a sleeveless tunic and kilt so emblazoned with embroidery she blinked as the bright garments caught the sun. But she knew the gaudy clothing covered a muscular body, and the long dagger sheathed at the man's side, however ornate, was not aristocratic frippery. He was Antar, Tjalan's bodyguard from the time they were boys." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is Damisa,\" Antar answered himself, his dark eyes, as always, inconstant motion, watching for any threat to his lord.\n\nDamisa blushed, realizing that the others were now looking at her, too.\n\n\"Trust you, Antar, to see her first,\" said Micail, smiling.\n\n\"I trust Antar to see everything first,\" Tjalan commented, with a grin no less wide. \"Damisa. What a pleasure, sweet cousin, to find a flower of Alkona amid so many lilies.\" His attitude was warm and welcoming, but as Damisa walked forward she knew that the days of childish hugs were forever gone. She held out her hand, and her prince bent to it respectfully-if with a twinkle in his sea-colored eyes.\n\n\"Damisa, you are become a woman indeed,\" said Tjalan appreciatively. But he let goof her hand, and turned once more to Tiriki. \"You have taken good care of our flower, I see.\"\n\n\"We do what we may, my noble lord. And now-\" Tiriki handed the basket of fruit and flowers to Damisa as she said, in a ringing voice, \"Let the officers of the city make the Prince of Alkonath most welcome.\" She gestured toward the open square at the entrance to the quay where, as if by magic, crimson pavilions had sprung up to shade tables full of food and drink.\n\nTjalan frowned. \"I hardly think we have time-\"\n\nTiriki delicately took his arm. \"We must delay all serious discussion until the lords arrive from the estates in the countryside. And if the people see us eat and drink together, it will hearten the city. Indulge us, my noble lord, I pray.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As ever, beneath Tiriki's words rang the cadence of a song. A man would have to be made of stone, Damisa thought, to resist the sweetness in that plea.\n\nMicail glanced around the great hall to ascertain that the servants had finished setting out the earthenware pitchers of lemon water and the silver goblets, and then nodded his permission for them to retire. The last of the daylight shafted through narrow windows beneath the soaring dome of the Council Hall, illuminating the circular table and the worried faces of the traders, landowners, and leaders who sat around it. Would the strength of Atlantis ever again be arrayed in such order and dignity?\n\nMicail arose from his couch and waited for the conversations to fade. For this meeting, he retained the regalia that marked him as a prince, although Tiriki had resumed the white robe and veil of a simple priestess and sat a little to one side. Reio-ta, robed as governor of the Temple, had taken a place on the left with the other rulers.\n\nOnce again, Micail felt acutely that he stood between two realms, the worldly and the spiritual. Over the years he had often found his identities as a Vested Guardian and as Prince of Ahtarrath in conflict, but tonight, perhaps, his royalty might give him the authority to enforce the priesthood's wisdom.\n\nIf even that will be enough. At the moment, what Micail felt most strongly was fear. But the die was cast. His friend Jiritaren gave an encouraging nod. The room had silenced. All eyes were on him, tensely expectant.\n\n\"My friends, heirs of Manoah, citizens of Atlantis, we all have felt the tremors that shake our islands. Yes, islands,\" he repeated sharply, seeing the eyes of some of the landowners widen, \"for the same forerunners of disaster have shook Alkonath, Tarisseda, and other kingdoms as well. So we gather together to take counsel against the threat that now faces us all.\" Micail paused and looked slowly about the table." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There is still much that we can do,\" he said encouragingly, \"for as you surely know, the Empire has faced circumstances no less dire, and has survived to see this day. Master Chedan Arados-\" Micail paused, permitting a flurry of whispers to run through the hall. \"Master Chedan, you were among those who escaped the Ancient Land's destruction. Will you speak to us now of the prophecies?\"\n\n\"I will.\" Ponderously, the mage got to his feet and eyed the gathering sternly.\n\n\"It is time for the veil to beset aside,\" he said. \"Some secrets will be shared which have hitherto been spoken only under seal of initiation; but that was done to preserve the truth, that it might be revealed at the appointed hour. To keep these things hidden now would be the true sacrilege. Indeed, for the threat we face has its deepest roots in a sacrilege committed almost thirty years ago in the Ancient Land.\" As Chedan drew breath, the bar of sunlight that had haloed his head moved, leaving him in sudden shadow. Micail knew it was only because the sun was sinking, but the effect was disquieting.\n\n\"And it was not ordinary men but priests,\" Chedan said clearly, \"who in the misguided quest for forbidden knowledge, destabilized the magnetic field that harmonizes the conflicting forces within the earth. All our wisdom and all our power was only enough to delay the moment when the fault gave way; and when at last the City of the Circling Snake sank beneath the inland sea, there were no few who said it was only justice. The city that had permitted the desecration should pay the price, they said. And when, soon after, the Ancient Land itself was swallowed up by the sea, although the seers gave us warning that the repercussions would continue, that the unraveling would expand along the fault line, perhaps to crack the world open like an egg-yet we dared hope we had seen the worst of the destruction.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The priests looked grim-they knew what was coming." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the faces of the rest, Micail read growing apprehension as Chedan continued.\n\n\"The recent tremors in Alkonath, as here, area final warning that the Ascent of Dyaus-the Time of Ending, as some call it-is very near.\"\n\nBy now, much of the hall was in darkness. Micail signaled to a servant to light the hanging lamps, but their illumination seemed too meager for the room.\n\n\"Why were we not told?\" cried a merchant. \"Did you mean to keep this secret so only the priesthood might be saved?\"\n\n\"Were you not listening?\" Micail overrode him. \"The only facts we had were made known as we received them. Should we have created useless panic by proclaiming predictions of a disaster that might not have come to pass fora century?\"\n\n\"Of course not,\" Chedan agreed. \"That was in fact the mistake made in the Ancient Land. Until the foreseen is seen again, its signs cannot be recognized. This is why the greatest seers are helpless against true destiny. When men are braced too long against a danger that does not come, they grow heedless, and cannot respond when the moment does arrive.\"\n\n\"If it has arrived,\" scoffed a prominent landowner. \"I am a simple man, I don't know anything about the meaning of lights in the sky. But I do know that Ahtarrath is a volcanic island. It is entirely natural for it to shake at times. Another layer of ash and lava will only serve to enrich the soil.\"\n\nHearing murmurs of agreement from the village lords, Micail sighed.\n\n\"All that the priesthood can do is to give warning,\" he said, striving to keep rising irritation from his voice. \"What you do about this is up to you. I will not force even my own servants to abandon their homes. I can only advise all here that the majority of the Guardians of the Temple have chosen to entrust ourselves and our goods to the sea, and return to land only when the cataclysm ends. As a prince of the blood I say it, and we shall endeavor to take with us as many as we can.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reio-ta rose, nodding affirmation. \"We must not allow the truth that the Temple safeguards to... die. We will send forth our Twelve Acolytes and as... many more as we can find ships for, with our hopes that at least some of them will come safely to... lands where new temples may rise.\"\n\n\"What lands?\" someone exclaimed. \"The barren rocks where savages and animals rule? Only fools trust to the wind and the sea!\"\n\nChedan spread his arms. \"You forget your own history,\" he chided. \"Though we have stood apart from the world since the war with the Hellenes, we are not ignorant of other lands. Wherever there are goods to be bought or sold, the ships of Atlantis have gone-and since the fall of the Ancient Land, many of our priests have gone with them. In trading stations from Khem and Hellas to the Hesperides and Zaiadan, they have endured a lonely exile, learning the ways of the native peoples, studying their alien gods in search of beliefs held in common, teaching and healing, preparing the way. I believe that when our wanderers arrive, they will find a welcome.\"\n\n\"Those who choose to remain need not fear idleness,\" said the priestess Mesira, unexpectedly. \"Not all who are of the Temple believe that disaster is inevitable. We will continue to work with all our powers to maintain the balance here.\"\n\n\"That, I am glad to hear,\" came a sardonic voice from the western quarter. Micail recognized Sarhedran, a wealthy shipmaster, with his son Reidel behind him. \"Once Ahtarrath ruled the seas, but as my noble lord has reminded us, our gaze turned inward. Even if people could be persuaded to go to these foreign lands, we have not the vessels to carry them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That is just why we come now, with half the fleet of great Alkonath, to offer help.\" The speaker was Dantu, captain of the ship in which Tjalan had arrived. If his smile was less tactful than triumphant, there was reason for it. The traders of Alkonath and Ahtarrath had been fierce rivals in the past.\n\nNow Tjalan spoke. \"In this time of trial, we remember that we are all children of Atlantis. My brothers remain to supervise the evacuation of Alkonath. It is my honor and my great personal pleasure to commit eighty of my finest wingbirds to the preservation of the people and the culture of your great land.\"\n\nSome at the table looked a little sour still, but most faces had begun to blossom in smiles. Micail could not repress a grin at his fellow prince, though even eighty ships, of course, could not save more than a tithe of the population.\n\n\"Then let this be our resolution,\" Micail said, taking charge again. \"You shall go back to your districts and followers, and give them this news in whatever manner you see fit. Where needed, the treasury of Ahtarrath will be opened to secure supplies for the journey. Go now, make your preparations. Do not panic, but neither should anyone needlessly delay. We will pray to the gods that there is time.\"\n\n\"And will you be on one of those ships, my lord? Will the royal blood of Ahtarrath abandon the land? Then we are lost indeed.\" The voice was that of an old woman, one of the principal landowners. Micail strove to remember her name, but before he could, Reio-ta stirred beside him.\n\n\"The gods ordain that Micail must... go into exile.\" The older man took deep breaths to control the stammer that still sometimes afflicted him. \"But I too am a Son of the Sun, blood-bound to Ahtarrath. Whatever fate befalls those remaining here, I will remain and share.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Micail could only stare at his uncle, as Tiriki's shock amplified his own." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reio-ta had said nothing of this! They scarcely heard Chedan's concluding words.\n\n\"It is not for the priesthood to decide who shall live and who shall die. There is no one fit to say whether those who depart will do better than those who stay. Our fates result from our own choices, in this life and every other. Ibid you only remember that, and choose mind-fully, according to the wisdom that is within you. The Powers of Light and Life bless and preserve you all!\"\n\nChedan took off his headdress and tucked it under his arm as he emerged from the Council Hall onto the portico. The wind from the harbor was a blessed breath of coolness.\n\n\"That went better than I... expected,\" said Reio-ta, watching the others streaming down the stairs. \"Chedan, I thank you for your... words and efforts.\"\n\n\"I have done little so far,\" said Chedan, with a wave toward Tjalan, who had come out to join them, \"but even that would have been impossible without the limitless generosity of my royal cousin.\"\n\nPrince Tjalan clenched his fists to his heart and bowed before replying. \"My best reward is the knowledge that I have served the cause of Light.\" Suddenly he grinned at the mage. \"You have been my teacher and my friend, and have never led me falsely.\"\n\nThe door opened again and Micail, having calmed the immediate fears of the most anxious councillors, joined them. He looked worried. Until he actually set foot onboard ship, he would carry the responsibility not only for the evacuation but also for the welfare of those who decided to stay behind.\n\n\"We thank you, my lords,\" Micail said, with a gesture. \"I know I would not wish to endure such a council after a sea voyage. You must be weary. The hospitality of Ahtarra can still provide a bit of food and shelter-\" He managed a smile. \"If you will come with me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I think you need the rest more than I do, boy, thought Chedan, but he knew better than to show his pity.\n\nThe rooms allotted to the mage were spacious and pleasant, with long windows to admit a cooling breeze from the sea. He sensed that Micail would have liked to linger, but Chedan pretended exhaustion and was soon left alone.\n\nAs the sound of footsteps receded, the mage unstrapped his bag and rummaged within it fora pair of brown boots and a dull-colored robe such as any traveler might wear. Donning them, he briskly descended to the street, taking care to remain unnoticed, and set off into the murky twilight with such calm self-assurance that any who saw him pass would have thought he was a lifelong denizen of the tangled alleys and byways of the Temple precincts.\n\nIn fact, Chedan had not visited Ahtarra for many years, but the roads had changed little. Every other step he took was dogged by echoes of lost youth, lost love, lost lives... Chedan paused alongside the vine-draped northern wall of the new Temple. Hoping he was in the right place, he swept aside a handful of vines and found aside door. It opened easily enough. It was more difficult to close it again.\n\nInside it was dark, save fora faintly glowing line of stones in the floor that delineated the way through a narrow service corridor lined with unmarked doorways. Chedan was able to move along the path quickly, until he suddenly came to the low stone archway at its end.\n\nI am getting too old for such shortcuts, the mage thought ruefully as he rubbed his head. I might have gotten there faster by the front door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Beyond the archway was a cramped, vaulted chamber, lit by the glowing steps of a spiral stair. Chedan carefully ascended two flights and emerged through another arch to reach the common reading room, abroad pyramidal room almost at the top of the building. Designed to catch the maximum daylight, it was now almost entirely in shadow. Only a few reading lamps burned here and there.\n\nBeneath one such glow, the Vested Guardian Ardral sat alone at abroad table, examining the contents of a wooden chest. Moving closer, Chedan could hardly seethe tabletop for the clutter that covered it: tattered scrolls, fragments of inscribed stone tablets, and what looked like strings of colorful beads.\n\nArdral's attention was bent upon the prize of the collection, a curious sort of long, narrow book made of bamboo strips sewn together with silken threads.\n\n\"I didn't know you had the Vimana Codex here,\" Chedan commented, but Ardral ignored the attempt at polite interruption.\n\nWith a grimace, the mage appropriated a small bench nearby and dragged it noisily to a spot beside Ardral. \"I can wait,\" he announced.\n\nArdral looked up, with an outright grin. \"Chedan,\" he said softly, \"I really was not expecting you until-\"\n\n\"I know.\" Chedan looked away. \"I suppose I should have waited, but I've just come from the council meeting.\"\n\n\"My condolences,\" Ardral interjected. \"I hope I succeeded in providing everyone with whatever information they needed.\"\n\n\"I thought I saw evidence of your work,\" Chedan put in.\n\n\"But I simply could not face another rehearsal of the inevitable platitudes.\"\n\n\"Yes, there was a lot of that. They're afraid,\" said Chedan." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist in storytelling, proceed with the tale.\nTags: fantasy, historical, mythology, Atlantis, reincarnation\nAuthor: Marion Zimmer Bradley\nTitle: Ancestors of Avalon\nChapter: 9" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Beyond the archway was a cramped, vaulted chamber, lit by the glowing steps of a spiral stair. Chedan carefully ascended two flights and emerged through another arch to reach the common reading room, abroad pyramidal room almost at the top of the building. Designed to catch the maximum daylight, it was now almost entirely in shadow. Only a few reading lamps burned here and there.\n\nBeneath one such glow, the Vested Guardian Ardral sat alone at abroad table, examining the contents of a wooden chest. Moving closer, Chedan could hardly seethe tabletop for the clutter that covered it: tattered scrolls, fragments of inscribed stone tablets, and what looked like strings of colorful beads.\n\nArdral's attention was bent upon the prize of the collection, a curious sort of long, narrow book made of bamboo strips sewn together with silken threads.\n\n\"I didn't know you had the Vimana Codex here,\" Chedan commented, but Ardral ignored the attempt at polite interruption.\n\nWith a grimace, the mage appropriated a small bench nearby and dragged it noisily to a spot beside Ardral. \"I can wait,\" he announced.\n\nArdral looked up, with an outright grin. \"Chedan,\" he said softly, \"I really was not expecting you until-\"\n\n\"I know.\" Chedan looked away. \"I suppose I should have waited, but I've just come from the council meeting.\"\n\n\"My condolences,\" Ardral interjected. \"I hope I succeeded in providing everyone with whatever information they needed.\"\n\n\"I thought I saw evidence of your work,\" Chedan put in.\n\n\"But I simply could not face another rehearsal of the inevitable platitudes.\"\n\n\"Yes, there was a lot of that. They're afraid,\" said Chedan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ardral rolled his eyes. \"Afraid they might remember why they still aren't ready? This has been coming fora longtime, nephew. And it's just as Rajasta predicted-even if he was a little wrong about the date. With the best will in the world, in the Temple as on the farmstead, most people simply cannot goon year after year, looking fora way out of an impossible situation that fails to develop at the expected time! The urge to resume the routine of life-\" Ardral broke off. \"Well, there, you see, even I do it. Speaking of which, I have something put aside that you used to enjoy very much. Perhaps we could go solve the world's problems in private, eh?\"\n\n\"I-\" Chedan blinked, then looked about the gloomy chamber. Fora moment, seeing his uncle, he felt very young again. \"Yes,\" he said, with a chuckle, and then areal smile. \"Thank you, Uncle.\"\n\n\"That's the spirit,\" Ardral approved, and standing up, he proceeded to put the strange book into the wooden chest. \"Just because eternity is trampling our toes, doesn't mean we can't live a little before-\" Locking the chest, he gave Chedan a wink. \"We do whatever dance comes next.\"\n\nDuring Chedan's last visit, Ardral had occupied a rather decrepit dormitory, some little distance from the temple. Now, as curator of the library, he had a spacious room within its very walls.\n\nAfire blazed up in the hearth as they entered, or perhaps it had already been burning. Chedan glanced at the sparse but tasteful furnishings, while Ardral brought out two filigreed silver cups, and opened a black and yellow jar of honey wine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Teli'ir?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "the mage exclaimed.\n\nArdral nodded. \"I daresay there are no more than a dozen bottles in existence.\"\n\n\"You honor me, Uncle. But I fear the occasion will not be worthy of it.\" With a sigh, Chedan settled upon a cushioned couch.\n\nIn his uncle's company, drinking teli'ir, it was almost as if the Bright Empire still ruled both horizons. Time had hardly passed at all. He was no longer the learned Chedan Arados, the great Initiate of Initiates, the one who was expected to set forth answers, solutions, hope. He could be himself.\n\nAlthough the two had not been particularly close before the fall of the Ancient Land, Chedan had known Ardral all his life-indeed, years before he became an acolyte, his uncle had briefly been his tutor. Many years had passed since then, yet Ardral seemed no older. There were, no doubt, newlines and creases in the mobile, expressive face, and the shock of brown hair had faded and thinned... If Chedan looked closely, he could find such marks of age, but these slight details did not change his inner identity, which had somehow remained exactly the same.\n\n\"It is good to see you, Uncle,\" he said.\n\nArdral grinned and refilled their cups. \"I am glad you got here,\" he answered. \"The stars have not been reassuring for travelers.\"\n\n\"No,\" Chedan agreed, \"and the weather is little better, though Tjalan tells me not to worry. But since you raised the subject, let me ask you-your head is always clear-\"\n\n\"For another moment only,\" Ardral joked, and quickly sipped more wine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hah!\" Chedan scoffed. \" You know what I mean. You have never been one who is easily misled by presumptions or legends. You see only what is actually before you, unlike some-but never mind that.\n\n\"Once, years ago,\" Chedan persisted, \"you spoke tome of Rajasta's other prophecies, and your own reasons for believing them. Have those reasons changed?... Have they?\" he repeated, leaning closer to his uncle. \"No one living knows Rajasta's works better than you.\"\n\n\"I suppose,\" said Ardral distantly, as he ate a bit of cheese.\n\nUndeterred, Chedan continued, \"Everyone else has focused on the tragic elements of the prophecy. The destruction of Atlantis, the inevitable loss of life, the slim chance of survival. But you if anyone understands the larger scale of the prophecy-what was, and what is, and-\"\n\n\"You are going to be a pest about this, aren't you?\" Ardral growled, without his usual smile. \"All right. Just this once, I will answer the question you cannot bring yourself to ask. And then we will put the matter aside, for this night at least!\"\n\n\"As you will, Uncle,\" said Chedan, as meekly as a child.\n\nWith a sigh, Ardral ran his fingers through his hair, further disarranging it. \"The short answer is yes. It is as Rajasta feared. The inevitable is happening, and worse, it occurs under just the sort of conditions that give mediocre horologers fits. Bah. They're so easily distracted from the many positive influences-it's as if they want to think the worst. But yes, yes, we can't deny it, Adsar the Warrior Star has definitely changed its course toward the Ram's Horn. And this is precisely the alignment the ancient texts call the War of the Gods. But the ancients plainly do not say that such a configuration will mean anything to the mortal world! The usual human vanity. So predictable.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For some moments there was silence, as Ardral once more refilled his cup and Chedan tried to think of something to say.\n\n\"You see?\" said Ardral, rather gently. \"It does no good to think on such things. We only seethe hem of the garment, as they say. So let it go. Things are going to be hectic enough in the next few days. There won't be a lot of time for sitting quietly and doing nothing. And yet\"-he raised his cup, mock-solemn-\"in times like these-\"\n\nLaughing in spite of his dark thoughts, Chedan joined him in the old refrain, \"There's nothing like nothing to settle the mind!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Three\n\nHow does one pack a life?\n\nMicail looked down at the confusion of items piled upon his couch and shook his head. It seemed a sad little assortment in the early morning light. Three parts need to one part nostalgia?\n\nEvery ship, of course, would be provisioned with practical items such as bedding and seeds and medicines. Meanwhile, the acolytes and a few trusted chelas had been given the task of packing scrolls and regalia, using lists the Temple had prepared long ago. But those items, really, were all for public use. It was left to each passenger to choose as many personal belongings as would fit into a sack to go with him or her across the sea.\n\nHe had done this once before, when he was twelve, leaving the Ancient Land where he had been born to come to this island that was his heritage. Then he had left his boyhood behind.\n\nWell, I will no longer need to lead processions up the Star Mountain. Fora moment longer, he examined the ceremonial mantle, beautifully embroidered with a web of spirals and comets... With the merest twinge of regret, he cast it aside and began to fold a pair of plain linen tunics. The only mantle of office he packed was one woven of white silk, so fine that it was luminous, and the blue mantle that went with it. With the ornaments of his priesthood, it would suffice for ritual work. And without a country I will no longer be a prince. Would that be a relief, he wondered, or would he miss the respect that his title brought him?\n\nThe symbol is nothing, he reminded himself; the reality is everything. A true adept should be able to carry on without any regalia. \"The most important tool of the mage is here,\" old Rajasta used to say, tapping his brow with a smile. Fora moment Micail felt as if he were back in the House of the Twelve in the Ancient Land. I miss Rajasta sorely, thought Micail, but I am glad he did not live to see this day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His gaze drifted to the miniature feather tree in its decorous pot on the windowsill, pale green foliage gleaming in the morning sun. It had been a gift from his mother, Domaris, not long after he had arrived on Ahtarrath, and since then he had watered it, pruned it, cared for it.... Ashe picked it up he heard Tiriki's light step in the hall.\n\n\"My darling, are you really planning to take that little tree?\"\n\n\"I... don't know.\" Micail returned the pot to the window and turned to Tiriki with a smile. \"It seems a pity to abandon it after I have watched over it for so long.\"\n\n\"It will not survive in your sack,\" she observed, coming into his arms.\n\n\"That's so, but there might be room for it somewhere. If deciding whether to bring a little tree is my hardest choice...\" The words died in his throat.\n\nTiriki raised her head, her eyes seeking his and following his gaze to the window. The delicate leaflets of the little tree trembled, quivering, though there was no wind.\n\nSensed, rather than heard, the subsonic groaning below and all around them became a vibration felt in the soles of their feet, more powerful by far than the tremor they had felt the day before.\n\nNot again! Micail thought, pleading, Not yet, not now...\n\nFrom the mountain's summit, a trail of smoke rose to stain the pale sky.\n\nThe floor rolled. He grabbed Tiriki and pulled her toward the door. Braced beneath its frame, they would have some protection if the ceiling fell. Their eyes locked again, and without need of words, they synchronized their breathing, moving into the focused detachment of trance. Each breath took them deeper. Linked, they were both more aware of the unraveling stresses within the earth, and less vulnerable to them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Powers of Earth be still!\" he cried, drawing on the full authority of his heritage. \"I, Son of Ahtarrath, Royal Hunter, Heir-to-the-Word-of-Thunder, command you! Beat peace!\"\n\nFrom the empty sky came thunder, echoed by a rumble that sounded faraway. Tiriki and Micail could hear the tumult and outcry in the palace and the sounds of things crashing and breaking everywhere.\n\nThe shaking finally ceased, but the tension did not. Through the window, Micail could see that the Star Mountain's summit was gone-no, not gone, displaced. Smoke, or dust, rose all about the distinctive little pyramid as, still lighted, it slid slowly toward the city.\n\nMicail closed his eyes tight and reached beyond himself again as a roiling onslaught of energies whipped through him. He tried to visualize the layers of rock that made up the island, but the restraining vision only flickered and shifted, until finally it became the image of the crossed arms of the faceless man, bound and chained but stirring, that had haunted their dreams. His muscles flexed and links popped as the man strained against his bonds.\n\n\"Who are you? WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?\" He did not realize he had been shouting until he felt Tiriki's thoughts within his own.\n\n\"It is-the Unrevealed!\" came her mental cry. \"Dyaus! Do not look at his eyes!\"\n\nAt this, the vision rose, snarling. The floor shook anew, more roughly than before, and would not stop. Micail had grownup with the whispered tales of the god Dyaus, invoked to bring change by Grey Mages of the Ancient Land. Instead, he had brought chaos whose reverberations had eventually destroyed that land and now seemed about to destroy Atlantis as well. But Micail had never been to the crypt where that image was chained." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I cannot hold him!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Help me!\"\n\nAt once Micail felt Tiriki's unflinching rush of compassion.\n\n\"Let Light balance Darkness-\" Her thought became a song.\n\n\"And Reaction, Rest-\" He followed.\n\n\"Let Love balance Hatred-\" Warmth built between their clasped hands.\n\n\"The Male, the Female-\" Light grew between them, generating power to transform the tensions of the opposing forces.\n\n\"There is Light-There is Form There is Shadow and Illusion and Proportion-\"\n\n\"There is Light-There is Form There is Shadow and Illusion and Proportion-\"\n\nIt seemed along time that they stood so, while the vacant howling of the chained god receded, gradually, grudgingly, sullenly.\n\nWhen the shaking ceased at last, Micail drew a deep breath of relief, although his sensitized awareness felt the constant tremors beneath the equilibrium they had imposed upon the island.\n\n\"It's over.\" Tiriki opened her eyes with a sigh.\n\n\"No,\" he said heavily, \"only restrained, fora little while. Beloved-\" Words failed him, and he clasped her more tightly. \"I could not have held back that power alone.\"\n\n\"Do we have-time?\"\n\n\"Ask the gods,\" Micail replied. \"But at least no one will doubt our warning now.\" He looked past her, his shoulders slumping as he saw on the floor beneath the window the shattered pot, spilled earth, and naked roots of his little feather tree.\n\nPeople died in that quake, he told himself. The city is burning. This is no time to weep over a tree. But as he shoved his spare sandals into the bag, his eyes burned with tears.\n\nThe mood of the city had certainly altered, thought Damisa as she picked her way around a pile of rubble and continued toward the harbor. After the terror of the early morning, the bright sunlight seemed a mockery. The smoke from a dozen burning buildings had turned the light a strange, rich gold. Now and again, a vibration in the earth reminded her that though the dust from its toppled summit had dispersed, the Star Mountain was still wakeful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The taverns were doing a roaring business, selling wine to those who preferred to drown their fear rather than take steps to save themselves from the sea, but otherwise the marketplace looked deserted. A few insisted that the morning's quake would be the last, but most people were at home, packing valuables to take on the ship or into the countryside. From the roof of the House of the Twelve, Damisa had seen the roads jammed with wagons. People were heading for the harbors or the inland hills, or anywhere away from the Star Mountain, whose crowning pyramid had come to a precarious stop about halfway down the slope. From the new, flattened summit, a plume of smoke continued to rise, a constant promise of more violence to come.\n\nAnd to think that there had been moments when she had resisted the Temple's orderly serenity, its incessant imposition of patience and discipline. If this morning was a taste of what was coming, she suspected she would soon be remembering her life here as a paradise.\n\nIn the emergency, even the twelve acolytes had been pressed into service as common messengers. Damisa had claimed the note meant for Prince Tjalan, and she meant to deliver it. Determined, she tiptoed around a pool of noxious liquids spilling from a market, and she headed down a reeking alley to the waterfront.\n\nThe harbor yards were crowded and noisy as on any normal day, but now there was a barely restrained hysteria. She tugged her veil into place, and hastened her steps into the hubbub. She heard the drawling accents of Alkonath everywhere she turned. It must have been some kind of instinct that allowed her to distinguish Tjalan's voice, ringing above the babble of men who toiled to stow a hundred different kinds of gear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As she drew nearer, she heard the sailor to whom the prince was speaking. \"What does it matter if the seed grain goes above or below the bales of cloth?\"\n\n\"Do you eat cloth?\" Tjalan asked sharply. \"Wet linen will dry, but salt-soaked barley will mold, not grow. So get back down there, man, and do it right this time!\"\n\nDamisa was relieved to seethe prince's expression lighten as he recognized her.\n\n\"My dear-how goes it up there?\" A wave of his hand indicated the temples and the palace on the hill.\n\n\"How is it everywhere?\" Damisa tried to keep her voice even, but had to look away. \"Oh!\" she brightened. \"But there is good news! The priests who serve at the summit of the Star Mountain actually survived! They came in an hour ago, all except their leader. He sends word that he dwelled on that peak since he was a boy, so if the mountain wishes to be rid of the pyramid, he will return to the summit without it.\"\n\nTjalan laughed. \"I have known men like him-\"deep in the Mercy of the Gods,\" as they say. He may outlast all of us!\"\n\n\"There are some,\" she found herself saying, \"who believe that when the earth began to shake, we should have made... a special offering...\"\n\nTjalan blinked, brows furrowing. \"Sweet child-do not even think such things!\" His bronzed face had gone taut and pale. \"We are not barbarians who sacrifice children! The gods would be right to destroy us if we were!\"\n\n\"But they are destroying us,\" she muttered, unable to tear her gaze from the flattened, smoking peak.\n\n\"They are certainly unmaking the islands,\" Tjalan corrected gently. \"But they granted us warning first, did they not-first by the prophecies and now by the tremors? We were given time to prepare an escape-\" His gesture embraced the ships, the people, the boxes, bags, and barrels of provisions. \"Even the gods cannot do everything for us!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He is as wise as any priest. Damisa admired the strength in his profile as he turned to answer a question from the captain, a man called Dantu. I can be proud to be kin to such a man, she thought, and not for the first time. She had not originally been destined for the Temple-it washer grandmother who proposed her as a candidate for the Twelve. When she had dreamed of a royal marriage as a little girl, Tjalan had been her model fora worthy consort. It was a relief to find that a more mature judgment justified her original opinion. He made Kalhan look like the boy he was!\n\n\"Mind yourselves!\" The prince was glaring at a group of sailors who stopped work to goggle at two buxom, saffron-draped saji girls who were pulling a cart full of parcels from the Temple of Caratra.\n\nOne of the men smacked his lips and made a kissing noise at the girls, who giggled behind their veils. \"Wouldn' mind packing you into my hold...\"\n\n\"You there!\" Tjalan repeated. \"Back to work. They're not for such as you!\"\n\nWhat the sajis were for had been the subject of much wild-eyed speculation among the acolytes. In the old days, it was said, sajis had been trained to assist in certain kinds of magic that involved the sexual energies. Damisa shuddered, glad that she had not experience enough to guess what those might be. The acolytes were free to take lovers before they married, but she had been too fastidious to do so, and Kalhan, chosen as her betrothed by some arcane procedure of astrology, had not tempted her to experiment ahead of time.\n\n\"I almost forgot!\" she exclaimed. \"I have brought a list of candidates to sail in the royal vessel, with-with you.\" As Prince Tjalan turned to her again, she opened her scroll case and gave him the parchment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah yes,\" he murmured, running a finger down the list of names. \"Hmm. I don't know if this is a relief or not-\" He waved the paper at her. \"I can see beside it like a shadow the list of those who will not escape-either because they choose to stay, or because there is not enough room. I had hoped that the only decisions required of me would be whereto stow their gear.\"\n\nDamisa heard his bitterness and had to quell a powerful impulse to reach out to him. \"Lord Micail and Lady Tiriki will be sailing with Captain Reidel, but I am on your list,\" she said softly.\n\n\"Yes, little flower, and I am very glad of it!\" Tjalan's gaze returned to her face, and his grim look lightened. \"Who would have thought my skinny little cousin would have grown so-\"\n\nAnother call from Dantu cutoff whatever he had been about to say, but Damisa was to cherish those parting words fora longtime. He had noticed that she was grownup. He had really seen her. Surely, the word he had not had the chance to say was'fair,\" or'lovely,\" or even'beautiful.\"\n\nThe house where Reio-ta dwelt with Deoris was set into a hillside close to the Temple, with a view of the sea. As a small child, Tiriki had lived in the house of the priestesses with her aunt Domaris. They had brought her to Ahtarrath as an infant to save her from the danger she faced as the child of the Grey Mage whose magic had awakened the evil of Dyaus. Deoris had feared her daughter dead until she came to Ahtarrath and they met once more. By then, Tiriki thought of Domaris as her mother, and it was only after Domaris's death that Tiriki lived with Deoris." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now, as she climbed the broad steps of the house, arm in arm with Micail, she could not restrain a sudden sigh of appreciation for the harmony of the building and the gardens around it. As a child, confused and grieving, she had taken little notice of her surroundings, and by the time the pain of loss had faded, she had learned her way about too well to really seethe place for what it was.\n\n\"How glorious.\" Chedan, ascending close behind them, echoed her thought. \"It is a sad fact that we often appreciate things most deeply when we are about to lose them.\"\n\nTiriki nodded, surreptitiously wiping away a tear. When this is gone, how often will I regret all the times I passed this way without stopping to really look?\n\nFora moment the three paused, gazing westward. From here, the greater part of the broken city was hidden by the glittering roofs of the Temple district. Beyond them was only the ambiguous blue of the sea.\n\n\"It looks so peaceful,\" Chedan said.\n\n\"An illusion,\" Micail gritted, as he led them through the portico. Tiriki shivered as they crossed the decorative bridge that had, she reminded herself, always swayed slightly beneath the lightest step, but since the morning's quake, she had become preternaturally aware of the leashed stresses in the earth. Whenever anything shook, she tensed and wondered if the horror was about to begin again.\n\nHere, she observed, there were no chaotic piles of keepsakes and discards, none of the frantic bustling that rippled through the rest of the city, just a soft-voiced servant, waiting to escort the visitors to Reio-ta and Deoris. Tiriki's heart sank with a premonition that their errand here would fail. Clearly, her parents did not intend to leave." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Chedan had gone ahead of her into the wide chamber that looked out on the gardens, and stood, saluting Deoris." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed to Tiriki that his voice trembled as he spoke the conventional words. What had Chedan been to her mother, she wondered, when they were young together in the Ancient Land? Did he seethe mature priestess, with silver threading auburn-black braids coiled like a diadem above her brow, or the shade of a rebellious girl with stormy eyes and a tangle of dark curls-the girl Domaris had described when she spoke of Tiriki's mother, before Deoris came to Ahtarrath from the Ancient Land?\n\n\"Have you... finished packing?\" Reio-ta was asking. \"Is the Temple prepared for evacuation, and the acolytes ready to... go?\" The governor's speech stumbled no more than usual. From his tone, it might have been a perfectly ordinary day.\n\n\"Yes, all is going well,\" Micail answered, \"or as well as can be expected. Some of the vessels have departed already. We expect to sail out on the morning tide.\"\n\n\"We have saved more than enough space on Reidel's ship for both of you,\" added Tiriki. \"You must come! Mother-Father-\" She held out her hands. \"We will need your wisdom. We will need you!\"\n\n\"I love you too, darling-but don't be foolish.\" Deoris's voice was low and vibrant. \"I need only seethe two of you to know that we have already given you all that you need.\"\n\nReio-ta nodded, his warm eyes smiling. \"Have you forgotten, I... gave my word, in council? So long as any of my beloved people hold the land, I... I, too, shall stay.\"\n\nTiriki and Micail exchanged a quick but meaningful glance. Time to try the other plan.\n\n\"Then, dear Uncle,\" Micail said reasonably, \"we must drink deep of your advice while we can.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"G-gladly,\" said Reio-ta, with a modest inclination of his head. \"Perhaps you, Master Chedan, will... drink, of something sweeter? I can offer several good vintages. We have had some... banner years, in your absence.\"\n\n\"You know me too well,\" the mage said softly.\n\nMicail laughed. \"If Reio-ta hadn't offered,\" he went on, disingenuously, \"no doubt Chedan would have asked.\" Catching Tiriki's eye, Micail jerked his head slightly in the direction of the garden, as if to say, The two of you could talk alone out there.\n\n\"Come, Mother,\" Tiriki said brightly. \"Let the men have their little ceremonies. Perhaps we might walk in your garden? I think that is what I will miss most.\"\n\nDeoris lifted an eyebrow, first at Tiriki and then at Micail, but she allowed her daughter to take her arm without comment. As they passed through the open doors, they could hear Chedan proposing the first toast.\n\nThe courtyard garden Reio-ta had built for his lady was unique in Ahtarrath and, since the fall of the Ancient Land, perhaps in the world. It had been designed as a place of meditation, are-creation of the primal paradise. Even now the breeze was sweet with the continual trilling of songbirds, and the scent of herbs both sweet and pungent perfumed the air. In the shade of the willows, mints grew green and water-loving plants opened lush blossoms, while salvias and artemisia and other aromatic herbs had been planted in raised beds to harvest the sun. The spaces between the flagstones were filled with the tiny leaves and pale blue flowers of creeping thyme." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The path itself turned in a spiral so graceful that it seemed the work of nature rather than art, leading inward to the grotto where the image of the Goddess was enshrined, half veiled by hanging sprays of jasmine, whose waxy white flowers released their own incense into the warm air.\n\nTiriki turned and saw Deoris's large eyes full of tears.\n\n\"What is it? I must admit a hope that you are finally willing to fear what must come, if it will persuade you-\"\n\nDeoris shook her head, with a strange smile. \"Then I am sorry to disappoint you, my darling, but frankly the future has never had any real power to frighten me. No, Tiriki, I was only remembering... it hardly seems seventeen years ago that we were standing in this very spot-or no-it was upon the terrace. This garden was barely planted then. Now look at it! There are flowers here I still can't name. Really I don't know why anyone wants wine; I can grow quite drunken sometimes just on the perfumes here-\"\n\n\"Seventeen years ago?\" Tiriki prompted, a little too firmly.\n\n\"You and Micail were no more than children\"-Deoris smiled-\"when Rajasta came. Do you remember?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" answered Tiriki, \"it was just before Domaris died.\" Fora moment she saw her own pain echoed in her mother's eyes. \"I still miss her.\"\n\n\"She raised me, too, you know, with Rajasta, who was more of a father tome than my own,\" Deoris said in a low voice. \"After my mother died, and my father was too busy running the Temple to pay attention to us. Rajasta helped take care of me, and Domaris was the only mother I knew.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although she had heard these very words a thousand times, Tiriki stretched out her hand in swift compassion. \"I have been fortunate, then, in having two!\"\n\nDeoris nodded. \"And I have been blessed in you, Daughter, late though I came to know you! And in Galara, of course,\" she added, with a look almost of reproof.\n\nThe gap in their ages had given Tiriki and the daughter Deoris had by Reio-ta few opportunities to know each other. She knew much more about Nari, the son Deoris had borne to fulfill her obligation to bear a child of the priestly caste, who had become a priest in Lesser Tarisseda.\n\n\"Galara,\" Tiriki mused. \"She is thirteen now?\"\n\n\"Yes. Just the age you were when Rajasta brought me here. He was an eminent priest in the Ancient Land, perhaps our greatest authority on the meaning of the movements of the stars. He interpreted them to mean that we had seven years-but it was the date of his own death he foretold. We thought then that perhaps he had been completely mistaken. We hoped...\" She plucked a sprig of lavender and turned it in her fingers as they walked. The sharp, sweet scent filled the air. \"But I should not complain; I have had ten more years to love you and to enjoy this beautiful place. I should have died beside your father, many, many years ago!\"\n\nThey had completed a circuit of the spiral path, and stood once more opposite the Mother's shrine.\n\nTiriki stopped, realizing that her mother was speaking not of Reio-ta, who had been a kind stepfather, but of her true father. \"Riveda,\" she muttered, and in her mouth it was like a curse. \"But you were innocent. He used you!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not entirely,\" Deoris said simply, \"I-I loved him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked around at her daughter, fixing her with those stormy eyes whose color could shift so swiftly from grey to blue. \"What do you know of Riveda-or rather, what do you think you know?\"\n\nTiriki hid her frown behind a flower. \"He was a healer, whose treatises on medicine have become a standard for our training today-even though he was executed as a black sorcerer!\" She lowered her voice. \"What else do I need to know?\" she asked, forcing a smile. \"In every way that matters, Reio-ta has been my father.\"\n\n\"Oh, Tiriki, Tiriki.\" Deoris shook her head, her eyes filled with secret thoughts. \"It is true, Reio-ta was born to be a father, and a good one. But still there is a duty of blood that is different than the honor you owe the man who raised you. You need to understand what it was that Riveda was seeking-why it was that he fell.\"\n\nThey had come to the center of the spiral, where the Goddess smiled serenely through her curtain of flowers. Deoris paused, bowing her head in reverence. Behind her was a garden seat carved of stone, inlaid with a golden pattern of turtles. She sank down upon it as if her legs did not have the strength to carry both her and the weight of her memories.\n\nTiriki nodded to the Power the image represented, then leaned against a nearby olive tree and crossed her arms beneath her breasts, waiting. It was not the Great Mother, but the woman who had borne her whose words interested her now.\n\n\"Your father had the most brilliant mind of anyone I have ever known. And except perhaps for Micail's father, Micon, he had the strongest will. We never fell in love with ordinary men, Domaris and I,\" Deoris added with a rueful smile. \"But what you must understand first of all is that Riveda was not a destroyer. Both black and white are mingled in the grey robes his order wore. He knew from his studies and the practice of medicine that any living thing that does not grow and change will die. Riveda tested the laws of the Temple because he desired to make it stronger, and ultimately he broke them for the same reason. He came to believe that the priesthood had become so locked into ancient dogmas that it could not adapt, no matter what disaster might occur.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That is not so,\" Tiriki replied indignantly, defending the traditions and training that had shaped her life.\n\n\"I sincerely hope that it is not.\" Deoris smiled tolerantly. \"But it is up to you and Micail to prove him wrong. And you will never have a better chance. You will lose much that is fair in this exile, but you will escape our old sins as well.\"\n\n\"And so will you, Mother! You must agree to come away-\"\n\n\"Hush,\" said Deoris, \"I cannot. I will not. Riveda was tried and executed not only for his own deeds, but also for much that was done by others-the Black Robes, who were only caught and punished later. It was their work that broke the bonds Riveda had loosened. They sought power, but Riveda wanted knowledge. That was why I helped him. If Riveda deserved his fate-then my guilt is no less.\"\n\n\"Mother-\" Tiriki began, for still she did not entirely understand.\n\n\"Give my place to your sister,\" Deoris said, resolutely changing the subject. \"I have already arranged for an escort to bring Galara and her baggage to your chambers the first thing in the morning, so you will have a hard time turning her away.\"\n\n\"I assumed you would send her,\" Tiriki said, exasperated.\n\n\"Then that's settled. And now,\" said Deoris as she got to her feet, \"I think it's time we rejoined the men. I doubt that Chedan and Micail have had anymore luck in persuading Reio-ta than you have had with me. But they are two against one, and my husband maybe feeling in need of reinforcement by now.\"\n\nDefeated, Tiriki followed her mother back to the porch, where the men were sitting with goblets and two small jugs of Carian wine. But Micail looked thunderous, and Chedan was also glaring at his drink. Only Reio-ta showed any sign of serenity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tiriki shot Micail a glance, as if to say, I take it he is also still determined to stay?\n\nMicail nodded faintly, and Tiriki turned to her stepfather, intending to beg him to go with them.\n\nInstead, she pointed to Deoris, exclaiming, \"You would go fast enough if she decided on it! You are sacrificing each other, for no good reason. You must agree to come with us!\"\n\nDeoris and Reio-ta exchanged tired glances, and Tiriki felt a sudden chill, as if she were a novice priestess chancing upon forbidden mysteries.\n\n\"It is your destiny to carry the truth of the Guardians to anew land,\" said Deoris gently, \"and it is our karma to remain. It is not sacrifice but an atonement, which we have owed since-\"\n\nReio-ta completed her thought. \"Since before the... fall of the Ancient Land.\"\n\nChedan had closed his eyes in pain. Micail looked from one to the other, brows knitting in sudden surmise.\n\n\"Atonement,\" Micail echoed softly. \"Tell me, Uncle-what do you know about the Man with Crossed Hands?\" His voice shook, and Tiriki also felt a tremor in the stone beneath her feet, as if something else had heard his words.\n\n\"What?\" rasped Reio-ta, his dark face going ashen. \"He shows himself to you?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" whispered Tiriki, \"this morning, when the earth shook-he was trying to break his chains. And I-I knew his name! How can that be?\"\n\nOnce more an odd look passed between Deoris and her husband, and he reached out to take her hand.\n\n\"Then you unwittingly bring the clearest proof,\" said Deoris quietly, \"that it is our fate and our duty to stay. Sit.\" She gestured imperiously. \"Tiriki, I see now that I must tell you and Micail the rest of the story, and even you, Chedan, old friend. Great adept though you are, your teachers could not give you the parts of the story that they did not know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reio-ta took a deep breath. \"I... loved my brother.\" His gaze flickered toward Micail in momentary appeal. \"Even in the Temple of Light... there have always been some who... served the darkness. We were... taken by the Black Robes who... sought for themselves the power of Ahtarrath. I agreed to let them use me... if they would spare him. They betrayed me, and tried to kill him. But Micon... forced himself to... live, long enough to sire you and pass to you his power.\" He looked at Micail again, struggling for words.\n\nTiriki gazed at them with quick compassion, understanding now why it was Micail, not Reio-ta, who held the magical heritage of his royal line. If Micon had died before his son was born, the powers of Ahtarrath would have descended to Reio-ta, and thereby to the black sorcerers who then held him in thrall.\n\n\"They... broke... his body,\" stammered Reio-ta. \"And... my mind. I did not know myself till... long after. Riveda took me in and I... helped him....\"\n\nTiriki looked back at her mother. What did this have to do with the Man with Crossed Hands?\n\n\"Reio-ta helped Riveda as a dog will serve the one who feeds him,\" Deoris said defensively, \"not understanding what he did. I assisted Riveda because I loved the spirit in him that yearned to bring new life into the world. In the crypt beneath the Temple of Light there was an... image, whose form seemed different to each one who beheld it. Tome, it always appeared as abound god, crossed arms straining against his chains. But the image was a prison that confined the forces of chaos. Together we worked the rite that would release that power because Riveda thought that by unleashing that force he could wield the energies that power the world. But my sister forced me to tell her what we had done. The wards were already unraveling when Domaris went down into that dark crypt alone, at risk of life and limb, to repair them-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All these things I knew,\" Chedan put in quietly. \"The power of the Omphalos Stone can only slow the destructive forces unleashed by these rites long ago. The disintegration has been gradual, but it is still happening. We can only hope that when Atlantis falls, there will bean end.\"\n\n\"Didn't Rajasta use to say,\"To give in instead of fighting death is cowardice'?\" Micail put in, tartly.\n\n\"But he would also say,\" Deoris replied with painful sweetness, \"\"When you break something, it is your duty to mend it, or at least sweep up the debris.\" Although we meant no evil, we made the choices that brought it forth-we set in motion a chain of events that has doomed our way of life.\"\n\nAlong moment passed in silence. The four of them sat as motionless as the carven friezes that framed the doorway.\n\n\"We must stay because there is one final ritual to perform.\" By Reio-ta's steady speech, they recognized the depth of his emotion. \"When the Man with Crossed Hands breaks his chains, we who know him so well must confront him.\"\n\n\"Spirit to spirit we will address him,\" added Deoris, her great eyes shining. \"There is no Power in the world without a purpose. The chaos that Dyaus brings shall be as a great wind that strips trees and scatters seeds far and wide. You are born to preserve those seeds, my children-glorious branches from the ageless tree of Atlantis, freed of its rot, free to take root in new lands. Perhaps the Maker will understand this, and be appeased.\"\n\nWas it truly so? At this moment, Tiriki knew only that this day offered her the last sight that she would ever have of her mother. Sobbing, she moved forward and folded the older woman in her arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Four\n\nAlthough the long day had been unseasonably cool, the sunset brought winds that were warm and an ominously hot night. Most of those who actually tried to sleep tossed and turned in damp frustration. The city that had been so quiet by day became the opposite that night, as its people wandered the streets and parks. Perhaps surprisingly, few were actually looting the deserted houses and shops; the rest seemed to be searching, but for what, none seemed to know-a cooler place to rest. Perhaps the true goal was to achieve that exhaustion of the body that alone can give peace to the fevered brain.\n\nIn their rooms at the top of the palace, Tiriki sat watching her husband sleep. It was several hours after midnight, but rest eluded her. They had been up late making final preparations to sail in the morning. Then she had sung until Micail fell at last into an uneasy slumber, but there was no one to sing her to sleep. She wondered if her mother, who might have done so, was wakeful as well, waiting for what must come.\n\nIt does not matter, she told herself, looking around the room where she had known so much joy. I will have the rest of my life to sleep... and weep.\n\nBeyond the open doors to the terrace the night sky was red. In that lurid light she could seethe silhouette of Micail's feather tree, which she had rescued and repotted. It was foolish, she knew, to see in that small plant a symbol of all the beautiful and fragile things that must be abandoned. On a sudden impulse she rose, found a scarf to wraparound the pot and the slender branches, and tucked it into the top of her bag. It was an act of faith, she realized. If she could preserve this little life, then perhaps the gods would be equally merciful to her and those she loved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Except for the light that burned before the image of the Great Mother in the corner of the bedchamber, all the lamps had gone out, but she could still seethe disorder in the room. The bags they had filled to take with them stood next to the door, waiting for the last frantic farewell.\n\nThe fitful flicker behind the veil of the shrine focused her gaze. Ahtarra had many temples and priesthoods, but only in the House of Caratra were a high altar and sanctuary consecrated in the Mother's name. And yet, thought Tiriki with a faint smile, the Goddess received more worship than any of the gods. Even the humblest goatherd's hut or fisherman's cottage had a niche for Her image, and if there was no oil to spare fora lamp, one could always find a spray of flowers to offer Her.\n\nShe rose and drew aside the gauze that veiled the shrine. The lamp within was alabaster, and it burned only the most refined of oils, but the ivory image, only a handspan high, was yellowed and shapeless with age. Her aunt Domaris had brought it with her from the Ancient Land, and before that, it had belonged to her mother, the legacy of a lineage of foremothers whose origins predated even the records of the Temple.\n\nFrom the lamp she lit a sliver of pine and held it to the charcoal that was always laid ready on abed of sand in the dish beside the lamp.\n\n\"Be ye far from me, all that is profane.\" As she murmured the ancient words, she felt the familiar dip of shifting consciousness. \"Be far from me, all that lives in evil. Stand afar from the print of Her footsteps and the shadow of Her veil. Here I take refuge, beneath the curtain of the night and the circle of Her own white stars.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The charcoal had begun to glow. She picked up a few grains of incense and scattered them across it, feeling awareness shift further as the pungent sweet smoke spiraled into the air.\n\nBowing her head, she touched her fingers to her brow and her lips and breast. Then her hands lifted in a gesture of adoration so familiar it had become involuntary.\n\n\"Lady...\" the word died on her lips. The time for asking that this fate should pass was gone. \"Mother...\" she tried again, and whatever words might have followed were borne away by a tide of emotion.\n\nAnd in that moment, she became aware that she was not alone.\n\n\"I am the earth beneath your feet...\" The Goddess spoke within.\n\n\"But the island is being destroyed!\" A panicked part of Tiriki's soul objected.\n\n\"I am the burning flame...\"\n\n\"The flame will be drowned by the waves!\"\n\n\"I am the surging sea...\"\n\n\"Then you are chaos and destruction!\" Tiriki's soul protested.\n\n\"I am the night and the circling stars...\" came the calm reply, and Tiriki's soul clung to that certainty.\n\n\"I am all that is, that has been, that will be, and there is no power that can separate you from Me...\"\n\nAnd fora moment outside time, Tiriki knew that it was true.\n\nWhen she returned to awareness of her surroundings, the incense had ceased to burn and the charcoal was grey. But as the lamp flickered, it seemed to her that the image of the Mother was smiling.\n\nTiriki took a deep breath and reached out to lift the image from its stand. \"I know that the symbol is nothing, and the reality is all,\" she whispered, \"but nonetheless I will take you with me. Let the flame continue to burn until it becomes one with the mountain's fire.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had just finished wrapping the image and tucking it into her bag when the chimes at the doorway rang faintly. She ran to the entry, afraid Micail would wake. A few swift steps brought her to the door, where she waved the messenger back out into the hall with her finger at her lips.\n\n\"Beg pardon, Lady,\" he began, red-faced.\n\n\"No,\" she sighed as she cinctured her robe, remembering the orders she had left. \"I know you would not come without need. What brings you?\"\n\n\"You must come to the House of the Twelve, Lady. There is trouble-they will listen to you!\"\n\n\"What?\" She blinked. \"Has something happened to Gremos, their guardian?\" Tiriki frowned. \"It is her duty to-\"\n\n\"Beg pardon, Lady, but it seems that the Guardian of the Twelve is-gone.\"\n\n\"Very well. Wait a moment for me to dress, and I will come.\"\n\n\"Be still-\" Tiriki pitched her voice to carryover the babble of complaint and accusation. \"You are the hope of Atlantis! Remember your training! Surely it is not beyond you all to give me a coherent tale!\"\n\nShe glared around the circle of flushed faces in the entryway to the House of the Falling Leaves and let her mantle slip from her shoulders as she sat down. Her gaze fixed on Damisa; red-faced, the girl came forward. \"Very well then. You say that Kalaran and Vialmar got some wine. How did that happen, and what did they do?\"\n\n\"Kalaran said that wine would help him sleep.\" Damisa paused, her eyes briefly flicking closed as she ordered her thoughts. \"He and the other boys went down to the taverna at the end of the road to get some. There was no one there, so they brought two whole amphorae back with them and drank all of it, as far as I can tell.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tiriki turned her gaze to the three young men sitting on a bench by the door. Kalaran's handsome face was marred by a graze on one cheek, and water dripped down his companions\" necks from wet hair, as if someone had tried to sober them up by plunging their heads into the fountain.\n\n\"And did it put you to sleep?\"\n\n\"Fora while,\" Vialmar said sullenly.\n\n\"He got sick and puked,\" said Iriel brightly, then fell silent beneath Damisa's glare. At twelve, Iriel was the youngest of the Twelve, fair-haired and mischievous, even now.\n\n\"About an hour ago they woke up shouting,\" Damisa went on, \"something about being stalked by half-human monsters with horns like bulls. That woke up Selast, who was already mad because they didn't get back here until all the wine was gone. They started yelling, and that got everyone else into it. Someone threw the wine jug and then they went crazy.\"\n\n\"And you all agree that this is what happened?\"\n\n\"All except for Cleta,\" Iriel sneered. \"As usual, she slept through it all.\"\n\n\"I would have calmed them down in another few minutes,\" said Elara. \"There was no need to disturb the Lady.\"\n\nDamisa sniffed. \"We would have had to tell her in any case because Gremos was gone.\"\n\nTiriki sighed. For the Guardian of the Acolytes to leave her post in normal times would have been cause fora citywide search. But now-if the woman failed to take her place in the boat, it would go to someone more deserving, or luckier. She suspected that the events of the next few days would effect their own winnowing of the priesthood and test their character in ways none of them could have foreseen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Never mind Gremos,\" she said tartly. \"She will have to take care of herself. Nor is there any point in casting blame for what happened. What matters now is how you behave during the next few hours, not how you spent the last.\" She looked at the window, where the approach of dawn was bringing a deceptively delicate pallor to the lurid sky.\n\n\"I have called you the hope of Atlantis, and it is true.\" Her clear gaze moved from one to another until their high color faded and they were ready to meet her eyes. \"Since you are awake, we may as well get ahead start on the day. Each of you has tasks. What I want-\"\n\nThe chair jerked suddenly beneath her. She threw out her hands, brushed Damisa's robe, and clutched instinctively as the floor rocked once more.\n\n\"Take cover!\" cried Elara. Already the acolytes were diving for protection under the long, heavy table. Damisa pulled Tiriki to her feet, and they staggered toward the door, dodging the carved plaster moldings that adorned the upper walls as they cracked and fell to the ground.\n\nMicail! With her inner senses Tiriki felt his shocked awakening. Every fiber of her being wanted the strength of his arms, but he was half a city away. As the earth moved again she sensed that even their united strength would not have been enough to stop the destruction a second time.\n\nShe clung to the doorpost, staring outside as trees tossed wildly in the garden, and a huge column of smoke rose above the mountain. The shape of a great pine tree made of ashes, from whose mighty trunk a canopy of curdled cloud was spreading across the sky. Again and again the ground heaved beneath her. The ash cloud above the mountain sparkled with points of brightness, and glowing cinders began to fall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chedan had told them how other lands had fallen into the sea, leaving only a few peaks to mark their former location. Ahtarrath, it was clear, would not disappear without a battle of titanic proportions. At the moment she could not decide whether to exult in that defiance or to whimper in fear.\n\nA movement in the distance caught her eye-above the trees that surrounded the House of the Falling Leaves she saw one of the gleaming gold towers shiver, then topple. As it vanished from sight, a tremor like another earthquake shook the ground. She winced at the thought of the devastation that now lay beneath it. In the next moment the sound of a crash from the other side of the city reached their ears.\n\n\"The second tower...\" whispered Damisa.\n\n\"The city is already half deserted. Perhaps there were not too many people there-\"\n\n\"Perhaps they were the lucky ones,\" Damisa replied, and Tiriki could not find words to disagree with her. But for the moment at least, it appeared that everything likely to fall was already on the ground.\n\n\"Someone get a broom,\" muttered Aldel. \"We should get the rubble off of this floor-\"\n\n\"And who will sweep the rubble from the streets of the city?\" asked Iriel, her voice trembling on the edge of hysteria. \"The end is upon us! No one will ever live here again!\"\n\n\"Control yourselves!\" Tiriki pulled herself together with an effort. \"You have been told what to do when this moment arrived. Get dressed and put on your strongest shoes. Wear heavy cloaks even if it grows warm-they will protect you when ash and cinders fall. Take your bags and get down to the ships.\"\n\n\"But not everything is loaded,\" exclaimed Kalaran, trying to control his fear. \"We were notable to get half the things we were supposed to take. The shaking has stopped. Surely we have a little time-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tiriki could still feel tremors vibrating through the floor, but it was true that for the moment the violence had passed.\n\n\"Perhaps... but be careful. Some of you are assigned to carry messages for the priests. Do not enter any building that seems damaged-an aftershock might bring it down. And don't take too long. In two hours you should all be onboard. Remember, what men have made they can make again-your lives are more valuable now than anything you might risk them for! Tell me again what you are to do-\"\n\nOne by one they listed their duties, and she approved or gave them new instructions. Calmer now, the acolytes scattered to gather their things. The architects of the House of the Falling Leaves had built better than they knew-though ornamentation littered the floor, the structure of the house was still secure.\n\n\"I must return to the palace. Damisa, get your things and come with me-\"\n\nTiriki waited at the door until her acolyte returned, watching the steady fall of cinders into the garden. Now and again a bit that was still glowing would set one of the plants to smoldering. New smoke was billowing from the city. Numbly she wondered how long before it was all afire.\n\n\"I thought the sun was rising,\" said Damisa at her elbow, \"but the sky is dark.\"\n\n\"The sun has risen, but I do not think that we will see it,\" answered Tiriki, looking up at the dark pall rolling across the sky. \"This will be a day without a dawn.\"\n\nCinders were still falling as Tiriki and Damisa set forth from the House of the Falling Leaves, adding danger from above to the hazards of navigating streets whose pavements were buckled by the earthquake and littered with fallen debris. When a particularly large piece of lava barely missed Tiriki, Damisa dashed into an abandoned inn and came back with two large pillows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hold it over your head,\" she said, handing one to Tiriki. \"It will look silly, but it may protect you if something larger falls.\"\n\nTiriki caught the note of incipient hysteria in her own answering laughter and cut it short, but the thought of what they must look like, scuttling through the shadowed streets like mushrooms with legs, kept a weird smile on her lips as they picked their way toward the palace.\n\nIt was the only amusement she was to find during that journey. Shocking as the devastation from yesterday's quakes had been, she had at least been able to recognize the city. Today's jolts had transformed the skyline into a place she did not know. She told herself that this morning's tremor was only an aftershock, bringing down structures already weakened, but she knew that this time the earth had been wrenched in a different direction, and with every step she became more aware that what she felt beneath her feet now was not equilibrium, but rather a tenuous balance that at any moment might fail.\n\nThe chains that bind the Man with Crossed Hands are breaking... she thought, shivering despite the warmth in the air. One more effort will snap the last of them and he will be free...\n\nThe palace was deserted. When they reached her rooms, she saw that both Micail and his bag were gone. He will be waiting for meat the docks, she told herself. Snatching up her own satchel, she followed Damisa back out to the street and started down the hill.\n\nThe House of the Healers had collapsed, blocking the road. Tiriki paused, listening, but she heard nothing from within. She hoped that everyone had gotten out safely. Indeed, it was sometime since she had seen anybody at all. Obviously, she told herself, the priests and city functionaries who lived and worked here had taken the warning to heart and were already seeking safety on the docks or the hills, but she could not quite suppress the fear that everyone was dead, and that when she and Micail sought Captain Reidel's ship at last they would find the harbor empty, and have only ghosts for company as they waited for the island to fall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Guided by Damisa, whose experience as a messenger had taught her the back ways of the upper city, they retraced their steps, turning toward the House of the Priests just up the hill.\n\nAs they ascended the Processional Walk, littered with fallen statues and the ruins of archways, Tiriki caught sight of a hurrying figure in sea boots and a brown traveling cloak.\n\n\"Chedan!\" she exclaimed. \"What are you doing here? Are the priests-\"\n\n\"Those holy fools! They claim to command spirits, but they cannot control themselves. Your husband is there now, trying to talk some sense into those who remain. Some have gone down to the ships as they were bid, and others have fled, the gods alone know where. They're all half mad, I think, begging him to use his powers to make it stop-\" He shook his head in disgust.\n\n\"But Micail stretched himself to the utmost yesterday, and a little beyond. He can do no more. Can't they understand?\"\n\n\"Can't, or won't-\" Chedan shrugged. \"Frightened men are strangers to reason, but that husband of yours will sort them out. In the meantime, those of us who can still think straight have work to do. And who still survive,\" he added grimly. \"The man who was to have led the team to load the Omphalos Stone was killed by a falling wall. I told Micail I'd take care of it, but there's no one left here, or no one that is of any use, anyhow.\"\n\n\"There's us,\" Damisa said stoutly, \"and the other acolytes will be all right if they have something definite to do!\"\n\nFor the first time, Chedan smiled. \"Then lead us, if you can still find your way in this chaos, and let us find them!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They met Aldel surveying the House of the Healers in disbelief, having found no one to whom he might deliver his message, and Kalaran beside him, clutching an empty sack. Speechless, Tiriki and Damisa returned to the House of the Falling Leaves. Elis and Selast were just inside, packing. Flakes of ash powdered their dark hair.\n\n\"Are you the only ones left here?\" asked Tiriki.\n\nElis nodded. \"I hope the others reached the ships safely.\"\n\n\"Aldel is waiting outside, and so is Kalaran, so at least you and your betrothed will be together,\" said Tiriki bracingly. \"And Kalhan is a strong lad,\" she added to Damisa. \"I'm sure that when we get to the docks he will be waiting for you.\" As Micail will be waiting for me, she added silently.\n\n\"Kalhan? Oh, yes, I'm sure he will....\" Damisa said flatly.\n\nTiriki looked at her curiously. This was not the first time she had thought that Damisa's feelings about the boy to whom the Temple astrologers had mated her seemed tepid. Once more she realized how fortunate she and Micail had been when they were allowed to choose for themselves.\n\n\"Will they be enough?\" asked Chedan as Tiriki shepherded the acolytes out the door.\n\n\"They will have to be,\" she answered as a stronger tremor rocked the town. \"We must go, now!\" As they started down the road two more jolts made them stagger, and behind them they heard a crash as the porch of the House of the Falling Leaves came down.\n\n\"That was a very heavy leaf that just fell!\" said Kalaran, lips twisting as he attempted a smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That was the whole tree,\" corrected Damisa tartly, but there were tears in her eyes, and she did not look back.\n\nElis was weeping softly. Selast, who despised such feminine weakness, looked at her in scorn. But all of them kept moving, picking their way around debris, and passing with no more than a sign of blessing when they saw bodies on the road. It was as well that they found no one in need of assistance. That would have put their discipline to too great a test. Indeed, Tiriki thought that if they had found a hurt child she would not have been entirely sure of her own self-control.\n\nThat which we seek to save will preserve the lives of generations yet unborn, she told herself, but the old sayings seemed meaningless in the face of the kind of catastrophe they were enduring now. Cinders had begun to fall once more. She flinched and drew her mantle over her head-she had discarded the pillow sometime ago-then drew first one deep breath and then another, invoking the trained reflexes that would bring calm. There is no thought... there is no fear... there is only the right moment and the right deed.\n\nWith relief, she caught sight of the entrance to the Temple. Only now did she allow herself to look beyond it to the mountain. The pyramid at its top and the priest who kept it had been engulfed long ago. The smoke that billowed from its summit swirled now in a shapeless cloud, but the side of the mountain had opened, and lava was inscribing its own deadly message down the slope in letters of fire.\n\nFora moment she allowed herself to hope that the escape of lava from within the mountain, like the lancing of a boil, would ease the pressure within. But the vibration beneath her feet spoke of unresolved tensions underground that were greater still." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Quickly-\" Chedan gestured toward the portico. Its structure still seemed sound, although parts of the marble facings littered the road.\n\nInside things were less reassuring, but there was no time to wonder how deep the cracks in the walls might run. The cabinet built to carry the Omphalos was waiting in the alcove, and the lamp still swung on its chains. As soon as they had lit the torches they took up the box by the long handles that supported it from the front and back, and hurried the acolytes past the cracked wall of the entry toward the passageway.\n\nTo descend that passage informal procession with the priests and priestesses of Ahtarrath had been an experience to strain the soul. To hasten toward those depths in the company of a gaggle of half-hysterical acolytes was almost more than Tiriki could bear. They feared the unknown, but it was the memory of what had happened here only a few days ago that made her afraid. Seeing her falter, Chedan grasped her arm, and she drew on his steady strength gratefully.\n\n\"Is that lava?\" came a frightened whisper from Elis as they rounded the last turn.\n\n\"No. The Stone is glowing,\" answered Damisa, but her voice was shaking. As well it might, thought Tiriki, following her into the chamber. Vivid illuminations like those the ritual had wakened in the Omphalos were already pulsing in the depths of the Stone. Eerie light and shadows chased each other around the chamber, and each time the earth moved, flashes bounced from wall to wall.\n\n\"How can we touch it without being blasted?\" breathed Kalaran.\n\n\"That's why we have these wrappings,\" said Chedan, lifting amass of cloth out of the cabinet and dropping it on the floor. \"This is silk, and it will insulate the energies of the Stone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I hope, Tiriki added silently. But the Omphalos had been carried safely from the Ancient Land, so moving it must be possible.\n\nWith their hearts pounding, she and Chedan took the folds of silk and carried them toward the Stone. Closer, its power radiated like afire, though she felt it neither as heat nor any other sensation for which she had a name. Then the silk fell across it, muting the pressure, and she released a breath she had not known she was holding. They veiled it a second time and she felt her fear ease.\n\n\"Bring the cabinet,\" rasped Chedan. White-faced, Kalaran and Aldel dragged the box up until it was almost touching the Stone and raised the panel on its side. Taking a deep breath, the priest set his hands about the Stone and tipped it in.\n\nLight exploded around them with a force that sent Tiriki sprawling. Damisa grabbed more of the silk wrappings and thrust them into the cabinet around the Stone.\n\n\"Cover it-cover it completely!\" Tiriki struggled to her feet again. Chedan was handing the rest of the silk to Damisa, who rolled it up to push into the corners until the pulsing glow of the Omphalos could no longer be seen.\n\nIt could be felt still, but now it was a bearable agony. Unfortunately, without the distraction of the Stone, there was nothing to shield them from the groaning of the rock around them.\n\n\"Pick it up! Aldel and Kalaran, you're the strongest-take the front handles. Damisa and I will take the rear. The rest of you can keep the way clear and carry the torches. When we get out of here you can take a turn on the handles, but we must go, now!\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Co-write with the author and continue the story.\nTags: fantasy, historical, mythology, Atlantis, reincarnation\nAuthor: Marion Zimmer Bradley\nTitle: Ancestors of Avalon\nChapter: 11" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I hope, Tiriki added silently. But the Omphalos had been carried safely from the Ancient Land, so moving it must be possible.\n\nWith their hearts pounding, she and Chedan took the folds of silk and carried them toward the Stone. Closer, its power radiated like afire, though she felt it neither as heat nor any other sensation for which she had a name. Then the silk fell across it, muting the pressure, and she released a breath she had not known she was holding. They veiled it a second time and she felt her fear ease.\n\n\"Bring the cabinet,\" rasped Chedan. White-faced, Kalaran and Aldel dragged the box up until it was almost touching the Stone and raised the panel on its side. Taking a deep breath, the priest set his hands about the Stone and tipped it in.\n\nLight exploded around them with a force that sent Tiriki sprawling. Damisa grabbed more of the silk wrappings and thrust them into the cabinet around the Stone.\n\n\"Cover it-cover it completely!\" Tiriki struggled to her feet again. Chedan was handing the rest of the silk to Damisa, who rolled it up to push into the corners until the pulsing glow of the Omphalos could no longer be seen.\n\nIt could be felt still, but now it was a bearable agony. Unfortunately, without the distraction of the Stone, there was nothing to shield them from the groaning of the rock around them.\n\n\"Pick it up! Aldel and Kalaran, you're the strongest-take the front handles. Damisa and I will take the rear. The rest of you can keep the way clear and carry the torches. When we get out of here you can take a turn on the handles, but we must go, now!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ashe spoke the floor of the chamber trembled ominously. Tiriki snatched up her torch and hurried after them, realizing that only the presence of the Omphalos had kept it stable for this long!\n\nThe bearers staggered and grunted as if their burden were not only immensely heavy, but unstable. Seeing their distress, Elis and Selast set their hands beneath the midpoint of the cabinet and helped to lift it. But as they got farther away from the hidden chamber, the weight seemed to grow less, which was just as well, for with every step their footing was growing more treacherous.\n\nThat last jolt had buckled the floor of the passage in several places. Great cracks now showed in the walls, and in places the ceiling was beginning to give way. As they toiled upward they heard the crash of falling rock behind them, a high, discordant keening that seemed to come from all around.\n\n\"My spirit is the spirit of Life; it cannot be destroyed....\" Tiriki chanted, trying to make that awareness replace the dreadful singing of the stones. \"I am the child of Light, that transcends the Darkness....\" The others joined her, but their words seemed thin and meaningless in this vortex of primordial energies.\n\n\"Hurry-\" Damisa's voice seemed to come from faraway. \"I can feel another quake coming!\" They could seethe pale light of the entryway before them now.\n\nThe earth jerked beneath them. With a crash that transcended all previous measures of sound, the left wall caved in.\n\nThe sounds of rockfall and the screams that followed now faded as dust billowed outward. Tiriki's torch had gone out. She coughed, shielding her eyes. When she could see again, the dim illumination from outside showed her the cabinet knocked onto its side and the acolytes climbing to their feet around it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is everyone all right?\"\n\nOne by one, voices answered her. The last to reply was Kalaran.\n\n\"A little grazed, but whole. I was on the other side of the cabinet, and its bulk protected me. Aldel-\"\n\nThere was a shocked silence. Then one of the girls began to sob.\n\n\"Help me get the rubble off him-\" Chedan dropped to his knees, pulling frantically at the lumps of stone and plaster.\n\n\"Damisa, Selast, Elis! Let's get the cabinet upright and pull it out of the way-\" Tiriki took one handle and heaved. She felt the others take up the weight and they started forward.\n\n\"But Aldel-\" whispered Elis.\n\n\"The others will bring him,\" Tiriki said firmly. \"Let's get the cabinet outside.\" The rock groaned and a little more dust sifted down as they dragged the Omphalos out through the portico. Tiriki looked back apprehensively, but in another moment she saw Chedan and Kalaran emerging from the gloom with the body of Aldel in their arms.\n\n\"He's knocked out, isn't he?\" stammered Elis, looking from one to the other hopefully. \"Let me hold him until he revives.\"\n\n\"No, Elis, he has been taken from us-\" Chedan said compassionately as they laid the body down. Through the dust they could seethe distorted shape of the boy's skull where the rock had crushed it. \"It was over in an instant, without pain.\"\n\nElis shook her head, uncomprehending, then knelt, smoothing the dust from her betrothed's forehead and gazing into his empty eyes. \"Aldel... comeback, beloved. We're going to escape together-we'll always be together. You promised me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He has gone before us, Elis,\" Damisa said with a compassion Tiriki would not have expected." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Come now. Come with me.\" She put her arm around the girl and drew her away.\n\nChedan bent over the still figure and closed Aldel's eyes, then traced the sigil of unbinding upon his brow. \"Go in peace, my son,\" he murmured. \"And in another life may this sacrifice be rewarded.\" He stood and took Elis's arm.\n\n\"But we can't-just leave him there,\" said Selast uncertainly.\n\n\"We must,\" answered Tiriki. \"But the shrine will be a noble tomb.\"\n\nShe was still speaking when the earth heaved once more and propelled them out through the portico. As they sprawled on the roadway a pillar of fire exploded upward from the mountain and the Shrine of the Omphalos collapsed with a rending roar.\n\nMuscles and balance told Tiriki that they were going downhill as they struggled onward. But that was all she knew for sure. She jumped and nearly dropped the handle of the cabinet that held the Omphalos as the front wall of a house slammed into the street. Beyond it a second building was collapsing with gentle deliberation, as if it were falling asleep. A dark figure emerged from one of the homes, hesitated, and then dashed back into the falling building with a cry.\n\n\"I can smell the harbor,\" gasped Damisa. \"We're almost there!\"\n\nA breath of moist air blessed Tiriki's cheeks and brow. Above the crackle of flames and the groans of dying buildings she could hear the almost reassuring sound of human shouts and screams. She had begun to fear they were the only ones left alive on the isle.\n\nAnd now they could seethe water and the masts that tossed in the harbor. Boats bounded across the dark waters, heading out to sea. Two wingbirds had collided and were sinking in a tangled mass while bobbing figures swam for the shore. As they hurried forward the ground shook as if to propel them on their way. Rocks tumbled from the cliffs and splashed into the bay." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's the Crimson Serpent!\" cried Selast. The lines that held it to the stanchions on the dock were still fast, and young Captain Reidel stood poised at the stern, shading his eyes with one hand.\n\nMicail, where are you? Tiriki sent her spirit winging forward.\n\n\"My lady, thank the gods!\" called Reidel. He jumped to the dock and caught her as she swayed. Before she could protest, strong arms were swinging her onto the deck. \"All of you get onboard, fast as you can!\"\n\n\"Someone, take the box,\" Chedan commanded.\n\n\"Yes, yes, but hurry-\" Reidel reached out to give Damisa a hand, but the girl pulled away.\n\n\"I'm supposed to be on Tjalan's ship!\"\n\n\"It would seem not!\" Reidel answered. \"The Alkonath fleet was anchored in the other harbor-and everything between here and there is inflames.\" He gestured, and one of the sailors picked the girl up bodily and tossed her into his arms.\n\nTiriki struggled to her feet, trying to make sense of the confusion of people, bags, and boxes. She recognized the seeress Alyssa huddled in the healer Liala's arms, and Iriel.\n\n\"Where's Micail?\"\n\n\"Haven't seen him,\" answered Reidel, \"nor Galara. We can't wait for them, my lady. If the headland collapses we'll be trapped here!\" He turned and began shouting commands. Sailors began to unwind the lines that held the ship to the harbor.\n\n\"Stop!\" cried Tiriki. \"You can't leave yet-he will come!\" She had been so certain he would be waiting for her, frantic at her delay, and now she was the one who must fear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There are forty souls on this ship whom I must save!\" exclaimed Reidel. \"We've already delayed too long!\" He grabbed a pole and pushed them away from the dock as the last sailor leaped onboard.\n\nThe third great tower, the one that watched over the palace, was falling slowly, as if time itself were reluctant to let it go. Then, with a roar that obliterated all other sounds, it disappeared. Debris exploded into the sky and burst into flame.\n\nReidel's ship lifted and fellas the shock wave passed beneath it. Another craft, still tethered, crashed into the dock. The oarsmen heaved and struggled to pull the ship through the debris that bobbed on the dark waters.\n\nAbove, the sky boiled in a vortex of flame and shadow and fire fell back upon the already burning city in a hail of indescribable destruction. Damisa was weeping. One of the sailors swore in a murmur of meaningless sound. They had already come far enough that the figures who were casting themselves into the water were silhouettes without faces or names. Micail was not among them-Tiriki would have known if he were that near.\n\nThey were passing beneath the cliff now. A boulder splashed down before the bow and the deck canted over, sending Tiriki sprawling into Chedan. He hooked one arm around her and the other around the mast as the ship righted itself and leaped forward.\n\n\"Micail will be on one of the other ships,\" murmured Chedan. \"He will survive-that too is part of the prophecy.\"\n\nThrough eyes that blurred with tears Tiriki stared at the funeral pyre that had been her home. The motion of the ship grew more lively as the sails filled, carrying them out to sea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Black smoke billowed up as the volcano spoke once more, blotting out the sky. In the moment before everything went dark, Tiriki saw the tremendous image of the Man with Crossed Hands covering the sky.\n\nAnd Dyaus laughed and stretched out his arms to engulf the world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Five\n\nTiriki clawed her way out of a nightmare in which she was drowning. Reaching out to Micail for comfort in the dark, her fingers closed on cold wool. As she groped, the floor rolled and she tensed yet again, bracing herself for another earthquake; but no, this was too gentle, too regular a rocking to sustain her fear. Exhausted, she sank back limply upon the hard bed, thankful for woolen winter blankets, her eyes half closed again.\n\nA dream, she assured herself, brought on by the cool breeze through the window...\n\nFor some reason, she had thought that it was spring already, and that the disaster had come-that somehow she and Micail had ended upon different boats. But here we are side by side, as we should be.\n\nSmiling at the foolishness of dreams, she shifted position again, trying to stay comfortable despite a vaguely dizzy feeling and a persistent chill. Something hard through the blankets... And then, close by, someone began to weep.\n\nHer own discomfort she could ignore, but not another's pain. Tiriki forced her eyes to open and sat up, blinking at the dim, recumbent shapes all around her. Beyond them she could see a narrow railing, and the darkly heaving sea.\n\nShe was on a boat. It had not been a dream.\n\nAs she looked about, someone out of sight, toward the bow, began to sing.\n\n\"Nar-Inabi, Star Shaper, Dispense tonight thy bounty...\"\n\n\"Nar-Inabi, Star Shaper, Dispense tonight thy bounty...\"\n\nAs she listened, additional unseen voices joined the song.\n\n\"Illuminate our wingsails As we fly upon the waters. The winds here are all strangers And we are but sailors. Nar-Inabi, Star Shaper, This night reveal Thy glory...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Illuminate our wingsails As we fly upon the waters. The winds here are all strangers And we are but sailors. Nar-Inabi, Star Shaper, This night reveal Thy glory...\"\n\nFora moment the beauty of the song lifted her spirit. The stars were hidden, but no matter what happened here they remained in the heavens, afloat in the sea of space as their ship floated on the sea below. Star father, Sea lord, protect us! her spirit cried, trying to feel in the uneasy rocking of the ship the comfort of mighty arms.\n\nBut whether or not the god was listening, Tiriki could still hear someone crying. Carefully, she peeled away enough of the woolen blankets about the curled-up figure beside her to recognize the youthful face of Elis, fast asleep, her dark hair tangled, her eyes wet with unhappy dreams.\n\nPoor child-we have both lost our mates. Tiriki choked back her own grief before it could overwhelm her. No, she told herself sternly, though we shall surely never see Aldel again, Micail lives! I know it.\n\nTenderly, she soothed Elis into deeper sleep, and only then withdrew enough to stand up. Shivering in the stiff breeze, trying not to let the continual gentle swaying underfoot disturb her stomach, Tiriki tried to will away the lingering tensions of her unrestful sleep and strained her eyes toward the foggy seascape beyond the railing. The wake of the ship glinted redly in the bloody glow that pulsed along the horizon, illuminating avast cloud of smoke and cinders that roiled the heavens and hid the stars.\n\nIt was not the sunrise, she realized abruptly. The raging light was from another source-it came from Ahtarrath, even in its final death throes unwilling to submit to the sea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As the lurid dawn light grew she recognized Damisa standing by the railing, staring forlornly at the distant flames. Tiriki started toward her but Damisa turned away, her shoulders hunching defensively. Tiriki wondered if Damisa was one of those people who preferred to suffer in privacy, and then she wondered whether she wanted Damisa's company for the girl's sake or for her own.\n\nMost of the other people huddled on the deck were strangers, but she could see Selast and Iriel not faraway, lying curled together like kittens as Kalaran snored protectively beside them.\n\nFrom amidships came a quiet voice giving orders; then Reidel appeared carrying a lantern, his bare feet almost silent on the wooden deck. She nodded in automatic greeting. Since yesterday he seemed to have aged ten years. For that matter, she thought, I wonder how much older I must look by now!\n\nReidel returned her greeting, rather anxiously, but before they could exchange words, he was beset by a pair of red-faced merchants wanting something to eat.\n\nA man whom she recognized as Reidel's sailor, Arcor, had been hovering nearby. \"My lady,\" he said, as she finally turned to face him, \"we hoped not to trouble you while you slept, but the captain wishes you to know, there be comfortable beds for you and the young folk below. The honored ones, the adept Alyssa and the priestess Liala, rest there already.\"\n\nTiriki shook her head. \"No-but I thank you-\" She looked at him inquiringly and he murmured his name, once more touching his brow in a gesture of reverence. Living at such close quarters during this voyage, she mused, how long will the old caste distinctions last?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I thank you, Arcor,\" she repeated, in more pleasant tones, \"but so long as there is anything to see here-\" She broke off." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I must go,\" she murmured, and quickly made her way amidships, where she noticed Chedan standing alone, gazing at the waves and the troubled sky.\n\n\"I am sorry. I meant to help keep watch over the Stone,\" she said as she reached Chedan's side. She intended to say more, but found herself coughing, and a sharp, growing ache in her chest reminded her that the very air they were breathing was poisoned with the ashes of Ahtarrath.\n\nChedan smiled at her fondly. \"You needed rest,\" he said, \"and should feel no shame for taking it. In truth, there has been nothing to see. The Stone is at peace, even if we are not.\" He gathered her against him, and fora moment she was content to rest within the steady support of his arms, but the mage's sparkling eyes and ash-whitened beard could not conceal his worried frown.\n\n\"No other ships?\" Her voice was a rasping whisper.\n\n\"Earlier, I glimpsed a few sails, heading on other courses, but in this murk-\" He waved at the smoke and fog. \"A hundred ships might pass unseen! Yet we can be confident that Micail will direct whatever boat he maybe on toward the same destination as we-\"\n\n\"Then you agree he is alive?\" She gazed at him in appeal. \"That my hope is not just a delusion of love?\"\n\nThe mage's expression was solemn, but warm. \"Being who you are and what you are, Tiriki-bound to Micail by karma, and more-you would surely have felt him pass.\" Chedan fell silent, then grimaced and let slip a muffled oath. Following his gaze, Tiriki saw the faraway glow of the dying land rapidly expanding in a swirl of flames." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hold on!\" Reidel's voice rang out behind them. \"Everyone-grab something and hold on!\" He already had one arm around the mainmast, but he and Chedan barely had time to clasp Tiriki between them as the ship's stern lifted, sending unsecured gear and sleepers sliding. With a scream, someone went over the side. The masts groaned, sails flapping desperately as the ship continued to lift until it hung poised on the very crest of the swell. Behind them along slope of shining water stretched back toward the fires of Ahtarrath, perhaps ten miles away. Then the wave passed, and the stern tipped as the ship began along slide back down. Farther and farther yet they plummeted until Tiriki thought the ravening sea meant to swallow them whole. The ship bucked, seeking balance on the water, but the overstressed mainmast cracked and came crashing down. The Crimson Serpent shuddered as waves whipped around it.\n\nIt seemed along time before the ship came to rest again, rocking gently with the tide. Reidel's lantern was nowhere to be seen. The faint phosphorescence that danced along the wave crests was the only light. There were no stars above, and the fires of Ahtarrath had sunk, finally and forever, beneath the sea.\n\nThe next morning Chedan jerked upright with a snort and realized that, against all expectation, he had been fast asleep. It was day, and that, too, he supposed, was more than any of them should have dared to expect after the violence of the night before. It was a daylight, however, in which very little could be seen. He could hear quite clearly the omnipresent creaking of wood as the ship rolled on the swell, the gurgle of water beneath her bows, and the cries of seabirds as they bobbed like corks all around. A clammy grey fog rested between the sea and sky. It felt as if they were sailing through another world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although Chedan had often enough found danger in his wanderings, he could not remember ever having been quite so uncomfortable. His back ached from the odd posture he'd slept in, and there was, he perceived, a splinter in his elbow. That's what I get for not going below, he lectured himself as he plucked it out. He wished a lifetime of experience could help now to take him home.\n\nWith a sigh and a yawn, he drew in his feet as four sailors, sweating even in this chilly dawn, carried the top half of the mainmast past him. The sailors had unstepped the lower half of the mast from its base and cut chunks from both broken ends so that they could befitted back together. Spliced and splinted with rope bindings, the mast might be strong enough to support its sail.\n\nIf the winds stay moderate. If no natural disaster comes to finish what the magic of dead men started... Chedan sighed. Bah! Gloomy thoughts fora gloomy day! At least Reidel has the sense to keep his men busy. He hauled himself to a standing position, just long enough to sit down on one of the row of storage chests permanently bolted to the deck.\n\nAshe sat massaging his aching elbow, he saw Iriel moving with exaggerated caution through the broken crates and other odd items that littered the deck. Dark shadows beneath her eyes betrayed her strain, but she had put a brave face on. Indeed, her look of resolve warmed him more, he guessed, than would the bowl of steaming liquid that she carried so carefully in both hands.\n\nShe held it out to him, saying, \"They have afire going in the galley, and I thought you might like some tea.\"\n\n\"Dear girl, you area lifesaver!\" A poor choice of phrase, he thought as he saw her blanch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are we lost?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her hands shook with the effort she was making to remain calm. \"You can tell me the truth. Are we all going to die out here?\"\n\n\"My child,\" Chedan began, with a startled shake of his head.\n\n\"I am not a child,\" Iriel interrupted, a little sharply. \"You can tell me the truth.\"\n\n\"My dear-all here are like children tome,\" Chedan reminded her, and sipped gratefully at the hot tea. \"More to the point, Iriel, you are asking the wrong question. We are all going to die-eventually. That is the meaning of mortality. But before that happens we must learn to live! So let's not gloom about. You have made a good beginning by helping me.\" He looked around, and saw a torn meal sack lying on the deck, threatening to spill what remained of its contents.\n\n\"See if you can roundup the acolytes. We'll make that meal into porridge and spare some sailor the trouble of cleaning it up.\"\n\n\"What a good idea,\" came anew voice. He turned and saw Tiriki shaking off the tangle of blankets in which she had passed the night. She rose and moved toward him, her steps somewhat uncertain on the gently rolling deck. \"Good morning, Master Chedan. Good morning, Iriel.\"\n\n\"My lady.\" Iriel bowed in the customary greeting, and then again to Chedan, before running off in search of the other acolytes.\n\n\"I don't know how she does it,\" Tiriki commented, as they watched her go. \"I can hardly keep my knees from knocking.\"\n\n\"Sit beside me,\" Chedan invited. \"You look a bit green. Would you like some of this tea?\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" she said, and swiftly lowered herself onto the sea chest beside him. \"But I don't know about drinking anything. My stomach is uneasy this morning. It's not surprising. I... have never cared much for the sea.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The trick is not to focus on the horizon,\" Chedan advised. \"Look beyond that-you just have to get used to it. Putting something in your belly will steady it, believe it or not.\"\n\nHer expression was dubious, but she accepted the tea bowl, and dutifully sipped. \"I heard you talking to Iriel,\" she said, soberly. \"How many more of us are gone?\"\n\n\"We have been lucky, all in all. Two or three persons went overboard when the wave hit, but only Alammos was not recovered. He was a warder in the library. I didn't really know him, but-\" He forced his voice to steady. \"Five of the acolytes made it to this ship. We must hope that the others are with Micail. And there area few others of the priests\" caste-Liala has them all settled, or as well as can be expected. The crew is more of a problem. The greater number of them are from Alkonath and proud of it. In fact, Reidel had to breakup a fistfight only awhile ago.\" Chedan glanced at her and, seeing that her face was troubled, watched her closely as he went on.\n\n\"Considering how difficult that broken mainmast will make everything, we must be thankful that the Crimson Serpent has a fully trained crew. When it comes to having little experience with the sea, well, that's one thing the priests\" caste shares with the townsfolk-we are landlubbers all, although most, at least, are relatively young and strong. No, truly things could be much worse.\"\n\nTiriki nodded, her features again almost as calm as Chedan hoped his were. Both of them might weep bitterly within, but for the sake of those who still depended on them, they must provide a steadfast appearance of hope." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Looking away, he caught sight of Reidel picking his way toward them through the debris on the deck.\n\n\"Why isn't this stowed away already?\" Reidel was muttering, with the fiercest of frowns. \"The moment the mast is up-my apologies.\"\n\n\"No need,\" said Tiriki quickly. \"Your first duty is the seaworthiness of the ship. We are comfortable enough-\"\n\nHe gave her a startled look, and she thought again that he seemed overly stern for one so young. \"With respect, my lady, it was not your pardon I asked. To see my vessel so disarrayed-my father would say it is bad luck.\"\n\nAshamed, Tiriki blushed, and seeing it, Reidel shook his head and laughed. \"Well, I've given offense again, I guess, which I didn't intend either time. We must still learn how to work together, it seems.\"\n\n\"In regard to that-\" Chedan spoke to distract the other two from their embarrassment. \"Can you tell us where we are?\"\n\n\"Yes and no.\" Reidel fumbled with a pouch at his belt and pulled out a rod of cloudy crystal about the thickness of his finger. \"This can catch the light of the sun even in the fog, so we know fairly well where it is above us-and can roughly judge how far north or south we have sailed. But as for east and west-well, for that we await the pleasure of the Star Shaper, but he spurns us still.\" He returned the crystal to its pouch. \"We set sail with provisions fora moon, and that should be enough, but still, if we have a chance to go ashore, it wouldn't hurt to take on fresh supplies. All assuming that the mast...\" The words trailed off as he turned to watch his laboring crewmen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are we on a course toward the Hesperides?\" Tiriki blurted out. More calmly, she continued, \"I know that many refugees from the islands of Tarisseda and Mormallor have already gone to Khem, where the ancient wisdom has long been welcome. And others, I think, intended to seek the western lands across the greater sea. But-Micail and I planned to go north-\"\n\n\"Yes, my lady, I know. The day before-before we left-I had a few minutes with the prince. With both of them, actually. Prince Tjalan told me-\" He broke off, biting his lip. \"If all goes well-\" Reidel paused again as one of the sailors approached, touching hand to forehead in salute. \"What is it, Cadis?\"\n\n\"The lads are done binding the mast; they wait only thy word.\"\n\n\"I will come-excuse me-\" Reidel inclined his head respectfully to Chedan and Tiriki, but his eyes and his attention had already returned to his ship and his crew.\n\nThe wind never left their sails, which allowed the Crimson Serpent to make good time, and though the spliced mainmast creaked alarmingly, it held fast. But the wind also played in the overcast sky, shaping weird cloud creatures from the curtaining mists. Ahtarrath might lie broken in the deeps, but the smoke of its destruction remained in the sky, dimming the sun by day and shrouding the stars at night.\n\nAs agreed, Reidel had set a northerly course, but many days passed and they still had not seen land. They encountered no other ships either, but with the continual fog, it was possibly just as well. A collision would have been one disaster too many.\n\nTiriki made a point of spending a little while everyday with the acolytes, particularly Damisa, who was still brooding over her failure to make it to the ship captained by Prince Tjalan, and Elis, whose grief for Aldel reminded Tiriki that at least she could hope that her own beloved survived. She could only counsel those who were still sunk in depression to follow the example of Kalaran and Selast, who were trying to make themselves useful, a suggestion often met with tears. Tiriki insisted, however, that they at least pursue their singing practice and other studies, even if they were not well enough to help with the chores." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had hoped that Alyssa, as the next-most-senior priestess onboard, would be more helpful, but the seeress took full advantage of what was almost a private cabin to nurse her injured leg and meditate. Tiriki had begun to suspect her of malingering, but Liala assured her that the seeress's leg had indeed been badly sprained during the melee of their escape.\n\nOne afternoon, as Tiriki satin the foredeck, wondering what, if anything, she ought to do about the lesser priest Rendano's repetitive, pointless quarreling with a small cheerful saji woman called Metia, the dreary skies darkened, and a storm whirled down upon them. If Tiriki had thought her first night at sea terrible, by the time the tempest had blotted out even the sight of the towering waves, she was actually wishing that she had stayed in the palace. There, at least, she might have drowned with dignity.\n\nFor an endless time of torment she clung to her bunk below deck, while the ship bucked and plunged. Selast, who had inherited at least the sea legs of the Cosarrath royal line, refilled her flask with freshwater. Mindful of Chedan's advice, Tiriki sipped at it in the occasional gaps between upheaving seas, and tried not to watch the others merrily downing cheesebread and the last of the fresh fruit.\n\nSometimes, between the almost endless sobbing of the elder priestess Malaera and the complaints of the acolytes, there came a respite long enough for her to hear the sailors shouting on the deck above, and Reidel's strong, clear voice responding; but always, just when she was beginning to hope the worst had passed, arising wind would overwhelm every voice, and the ship would tilt until she expected they would go completely under. Reason told her that no vessel could survive such a battering. She did not know whether to pray that Micail's ship was faring better, or that he was already dead and awaiting heron the other side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her misery faded into a stupor of endurance in which her soul retreated into an inner fastness so remote that she did not notice that the gusts were growing gentler, as the roll and pitch of the ship eased almost to normal. Exhaustion became along-awaited, dreamless sleep; nor did she wake until morning.\n\nThe mended mainmast had not survived the storm, but the other two remained still intact, though tall enough to support only small sails. Still, as the weather held fair and the breeze steady, they were able to move slowly forward. Yet at every dimming of the cloudy light, Tiriki stiffened, fearing disaster.\n\nWhat has become of my discipline? she scolded herself, sharply. I have been trained to face anything, even the very darkness beyond the reach of the gods, but here I sit frozen with terror while those children scuffle and chatter and hang off the railing.\n\nThe creak of the ship's timbers, a sudden tilting of the deck, even the scent of burning charcoal from the galley, all had the power to set her heart pounding. Yet it was also a distraction from a deeper anxiety that had set in when the storm lifted and they found themselves the only ship on the calm blue sea. Chedan had said that the other boats, having departed earlier, could have used their sails to run ahead of the storm. Did he believe that? It did no good to tell herself that the acolytes would only be more frightened if their seniors let their own fears show. The fear was there, and it made her feel ashamed.\n\nTiriki took a deep breath and continued on toward the stern of the ship, where Chedan and the captain were taking sightings from the night sky. She was not alone, she reminded herself as she approached the two men. Reidel was an experienced sailor, and Chedan had traveled widely. Surely they would know how to find the way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But that is just what I am saying.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reidel's finger stabbed upward. \"In the month of the Bull, the constellation of the Changer should have risen just after sunset. By this time, the polestar should be high.\"\n\n\"You forget, we are much farther north than you have ever come.\" Chedan lifted the scroll he held so that it caught the light. \"The horizon is different in many small ways.... Well, no wonder you can't find it. This is not the right scroll. Ardral prepared more recent charts for our use.\"\n\n\"So Prince Tjalan said, but they never reached us.\"\n\n\"What of the teaching scrolls?\" said Tiriki as she joined them. \"I told Kalaran to fetch them from the chests-\"\n\n\"Yes, and I thank you for remembering them,\" said Chedan. \"The problem is they are very old. See for yourself.\"\n\nShe peered at the scroll, which concerned the movement of the zodiac. Unhappily, it no longer seemed to her half as detailed as it had when she was a student trying to commit it to memory-and that was the last time she had given any serious thought to the stars.\n\nIt just isn't right, she thought angrily, as her stomach once more began to protest the unsteady movement of the sea. Of all of us, Reio-ta was the sailor! He and Deoris took that trip to Oranderis alone, only five years ago. Either one of them would be more use here than me!\n\nChedan drew a deep breath. \"The chief polar star is Eltanin, of course, as shown in all our charts. But for generations now, the configuration of the stars has been changing-\"\n\n\"What?\" Reidel exclaimed in shock. \"We know that land and sea can change their outlines, but the skies?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The mage nodded solemnly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have many times verified it with a nightglass, and it only became more obvious with every hour. The heavens change just as we do, only more slowly. But over the centuries, the differences become clear. You must know something of the wandering stars-\"\n\n\"I know that they wander along a predictable path.\"\n\n\"Only because they have been observed for so many years. When the polestar upon which so many of our calculations are based suddenly moves-well, such a tremendous change is regarded as foreboding some equally great shift in the affairs of men-\"\n\n\"Yes. A disaster. As we have seen,\" observed Reidel.\n\nShielding her eyes from the glowing lanterns, Tiriki gazed upward. Mists veiled the horizon, but the moon was very new and had already set. Directly overhead the darkness was studded with stars in such profusion, it would be a wonder if she could make out any constellations at all.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" Chedan was saying, \"you may have heard old folks muttering that the days of spring and winter are not as they used to be. Well, they are not forgetful; they are right. Old Temple documents have proved it. The time of the planting season, the coming of the rains, all the cosmos is caught up in some unfathomable change-and we, too, must adapt, or perish.\"\n\nTiriki wrenched her attention away from the confused splendor of the skies to try to make sense of his words. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Ever since the fall of the Ancient Land, the princes have ruled without restraint, forgetting their duty to serve as they pursued power. Perhaps we were saved so that we might revitalize the ancient wisdom in anew land. I am not speaking of Micail, of course, or Reio-ta. And Prince Tjalan, too, is-was-a great man. Or would have been-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Seeing Chedan's distress, she reached to comfort him.\n\n\"No doubt you are right,\" Reidel said briskly, \"but at the moment it is getting us to the new land that must be my concern.\"\n\n\"The stars maybe unconstant,\" Tiriki said, \"but nothing has happened to the sun and moon, has it? By them we can sail east until we find land. And if there is no land-we can take further counsel then.\"\n\nChedan smiled at her approvingly and Reidel nodded, seeing the sense of what she said. She sat back and let her eyes drift up again toward the patch of stars. Cold and high, they mocked her and every mortal being. Rely on nothing, they seemed to say, for your hard-won knowledge will do you little good where you are going now.\n\nTiriki woke to the familiar sway of her hammock and groaned from the nausea that was becoming equally familiar within. It was the third day after the storm.\n\n\"Here,\" said a quiet voice. \"Use the basin.\"\n\nTiriki opened her eyes and saw Damisa holding a brass bowl, and the sight of it intensified her need. After several painful moments she lay back and wiped her face with the damp cloth Damisa offered her.\n\n\"Thank you. I have never been a good sailor, but I would have thought I'd be accustomed to the motion by now.\" Tiriki could not tell whether duty or liking had prompted her assistance, but she needed Damisa's help too much to care. \"How goes it with the ship?\"\n\nThe girl shrugged. \"The wind has come up, and every time the masts creak someone wonders whether they will crack, but without it we scarcely seem to move at all. If the wind blows contrary they complain that we're lost, and when it dies they wail that we'll all starve. Elis and I have cooked up a pot of gruel, by the way. You'll feel better fora little fresh air and a bit of breakfast.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tiriki shuddered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not just yet, I think, but I will come on deck. I promised Chedan to help him work on revising the star maps, though the way I feel, I fear I'll be able to do little more than make approving noises and hold his hand.\"\n\n\"He's not the only one who needs his handheld,\" Damisa replied. \"I've tried to keep the others too busy to get into mischief, but the deck pitches too much for the meditation postures, and we can only debate the sayings of the mages for so long. They maybe young,\" she added from the vantage of her nineteen years, \"but they were selected for intelligence, and they can see our danger.\"\n\n\"I suppose so,\" Tiriki sighed. \"Very well. I will come.\"\n\n\"If you spend the morning with the others, I can do a thorough inventory of the supplies. With your permission, of course,\" she added reluctantly.\n\nTiriki realized just how much of an afterthought that request had been and suppressed a smile. She could remember feeling a similar disdain for the ignorance of her juniors and the weaknesses of her elders when she was that age.\n\n\"Of course,\" she echoed blandly. \"And Damisa-I am grateful to you for taking on this responsibility while I've been ill.\" In the dim light she could not see if the girl was blushing, but when Damisa replied her tone was calm.\n\n\"I was a princess of Alkonath before I was an acolyte. To lead is what I was brought up to do.\"\n\nDamisa had spoken with confidence, but by the time she finished her survey of the supplies stored in the Crimson Serpent, she was beginning to wish she had not claimed so much responsibility. But facing unpleasant truths was also part of the job. She could only hope that Captain Reidel, though he was only a commoner, would be able to do the same." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As expected, she found him with Chedan at the prow of the ship, calculating their position from the noon sighting of the sun.\n\n\"Damisa, my dear,\" said the older man. \"You look grave. What is wrong?\"\n\n\"I have grave news.\" Her gaze moved from him to the captain. \"Our store of meal is going fast. At the rate we are using it,\" she told them steadily, \"the open bag will be empty after the evening meal, and there is only one more. I can make a thinner porridge, but that is not much nourishment for workingmen.\"\n\nReidel frowned. \"Once more I wish that our cook had made it onboard. But I am sure that you are doing all you can. I would welcome any constructive suggestions. Are you telling me that we can feed ourselves for only two days more?\"\n\n\"At this rate, more like one. I have noticed that certain people, and I don't mean just townsfolk-\" Damisa felt herself flushing beneath the intensity of his dark eyes. Strongly built, with bronzed skin and dark hair, he was typical of the Atlantean middle class, but she realized now that he was much younger than he had seemed from a distance, with a mouth that seemed more used to smiling than its present grim line. \"Some people,\" she repeated resolutely, \"have been putting food aside. I know where some of it is hidden-and if your sailors helped me take it away from them, we could distribute it properly, and get at least one more meal for everyone. Perhaps more.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Reidel sighed.\n\nChedan muttered, his eyes still on the curious, delicate apparatus of crystal rods connecting to cones with which he was calculating the angle from the horizon to the sun.\n\n\"I have already discussed all this with the other acolytes,\" Damisa said into the silence. \"We are accustomed to fasting,\" she explained, and blushed again as both captain and mage turned to look at her. \"And we are not working very hard, really. It will do us no harm to goon meditation rations fora while.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reidel's eyes scanned her as if he were seeing her, as someone distinct from the rest of the priests\" caste, for the first time. Damisa felt herself blush beneath his scrutiny, but this time her eyes did not falter, and in the end it was he who looked away.\n\n\"We will come to land soon,\" he murmured, staring at the horizon. \"We must. When you talk to your friends... tell them... thank you.\"\n\n\"I will,\" she said. She turned to Chedan. \"Come with me, Master. The acolytes are waiting in the stern of the ship. We can endure what we must, but we will do so with stronger hearts if you bring words of hope to us.\"\n\nThe mage lifted an ironic eyebrow. \"My dear, I think you have words enough already. No, no, it is not a reproof,\" he hastened to assure her. \"Truly you bring me hope, in the form of the strength you have plainly won from these hardships. We are in your debt.\"\n\nIn the middle part of the deck, some of the sailors were splicing ropes broken in the latest gale while others worked at mending a spare sail. Chedan could feel their eyes on his back as he followed Damisa toward the stern, but the rules of caste kept anyone from questioning him. The acolytes, and one or two others of the priests' caste, sat clustered in an informal semicircle beneath an impromptu awning made from the remains of a sail too torn to be worth repairing. Their conversations came to a ragged stop as they recognized the renowned Master Chedan Arados, and he surveyed them with interest in return.\n\nHe had first met Damisa when she was a child on Alkonath. She had been outspoken then, and if she was introducing him now as if she had gone out and captured him, he supposed she was entitled to do so. He had been too busy struggling with his star charts to pay much attention to the acolytes, but with Tiriki so ill he supposed it was his duty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As Damisa rather ostentatiously seated herself upon the floor mat amid her fellows, the mage settled his aching bones upon a coil of rope, gazing from one youthful face to another with what he hoped was a reassuring smile.\n\n\"I regret that until now I have been too busy to visit you,\" he began, \"but everything that I have heard in these last few days tells me that in these difficult circumstances you have made yourselves useful. Where guidance is not needed, I know better than to provide it. But I understand there are some here who feel that our situation is hopeless. Now it is only reasonable to worry-indeed it is very sensible, placed as we are-but it would be wrong to despair.\"\n\nLittle Iriel made a sound that could have been laughter or a stifled sob. \"Wrong? Master, much of our training is in reading signs. When the sun begins to set, we know the dark will fall. If the stars do not shine, there maybe rain. The signs I see now say we will die out here, for we have neither seen any other ship nor sighted land.\"\n\nA winged shadow crossed the deck and Chedan's gaze followed it, lifting until he saw the bird flash white against the azure sky.\n\n\"I do not dispute what you have seen.\" He turned back to Iriel. \"Although I have traveled more widely than most, even I cannot be absolutely certain of our exact position. But you are drawing your conclusion before all the evidence has come in. Do not fall into the error of those who see change only as decline and say that in the end there will be darkness. In the end, too, is light-light that will show us at last the cosmos and our true place in it, the purpose of our hopes and our losses, our loves, our dreams-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, Master, we do not doubt that our spirits will survive.\" Kalaran's handsome face was contorted in a sneer. \"But if we are so important, why do the gods leave us suspended on the edge of the world?\"\n\n\"Kalaran, Kalaran.\" Chedan shut his eyes and shook his head. \"You come through fire and destruction almost unscathed, and now you complain about a little suspense? No wonder the gods so rarely intervene! By their mercy we have been granted a path out of the devastation, but that is not enough? We must face rough conditions!\" Chedan waggled his fingers, mock-horrified. \"All is surely lost.\" He waited as a little ripple of nervous laughter passed around the circle.\n\n\"Children of bygone Atlantis,\" he went on, more softly, \"we have lost all save one another, but when I say we should be thankful for our troubles I am not merely repeating worn-out philosophies. We would not have those troubles if we had not survived! Surely you do not think it is a mistake to survive, merely because things are changed.\"\n\n\"But we are lost!\" Kalaran objected, and a muttered agreement echoed him.\n\n\"It is worse than that,\" young Selast exclaimed from her place at Damisa's side, her slight frame quivering with nervous energy. \"The sailors say we have sailed right off the world!\"\n\n\"In my experience,\" Chedan answered, glancing back down the ship, \" sailors will say a great many outrageous things to the young and innocent. I would advise you not to believe everything that you hear.\n\n\"But let us consider fora moment that these rumors are true, and we have sailed off the world. How do you know that we will not just as easily sail back onto it? The sea is vast and wild, but it is finite. We will find land, and sooner rather than later. But let me warn you in advance, my dear young friends, when we come again to the shore, we will probably not find warm halls or servants waiting with fine foods and tasty drinks.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And just at that moment, as if the priest's words had been nothing less than prophecy, there came a squawk and then a shout from the sharp-sighted man Reidel had sent up to the masthead.\n\n\"Land! My captain, that be no cloud on the horizon! 'Tis land I see for sure!\"\n\nIn the euphoria of discovery, they forgot that to catch sight of land was not the same as reaching it. As they drew closer, those who were far-sighted described high cliffs of brownish stone, sculpted by wind and water into columns and towers. At their feet waves frothed in a vicious swirl.\n\n\"I think it is the Casseritides, the Isle of Tin, whose southern horn the traders call Beleri'in,\" breathed Chedan. \"These must be the cliffs at the tip of the peninsula. On the southwestern shore, there is a bay with an island where the traders put in.\"\n\nReidel leaned into the tiller, and the sailors did their best, but the wind was from the east, and the most they could do without the midsail was to set the Crimson Serpent wallowing broadside toward the toothed cliffs. Swearing in defeat, Reidel turned his ship toward the relative safety of the open sea once more.\n\n\"Are there other harbors on the northern shore?\" Tiriki asked softly, unable to tear her eyes from the dim coast until it had almost vanished in the evening fog.\n\n\"There are many ports here,\" Chedan assured her. \"It is quite a big island. Many years ago our ships used to put in at a harbor farther up the coast. It was at the mouth of a stream they called Naradek after a river in the Ancient Land. There was a knoll like a pyramid, where they had built a Temple to the sun. But when the Ancient Land sank, contact was lost. I doubt there would be anything left now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reidel managed a smile. \"At least we know where we are. Tomorrow, surely, we will come to shore.\"\n\nBut the wind, it seemed, did not want them to do so. For three days more they fought their way along the craggy coast, battling hostile currents and contrary weather, and everyday were less able to feed themselves with only the few fish they could snatch from the waves.\n\nOn the fourth day, the wind died. Dawn showed them a half circle of mountains that sheltered abroad estuary where earth and water mingled in countless streams. Small tree-clad islands ranged the marshes like the coils of a titanic serpent, winding inward toward a land whose contours the mists still veiled.\n\nOne by one, the refugees gathered on deck to gaze upon the unknown land, almost unable to believe that they had actually reached a destination. Tiriki stood alone in the prow of the ship, fighting tears as she realized that somehow she had expected Micail to be awaiting her when the journey was done.\n\nThey were still some leagues west of the trading station on the Naradek that Chedan had told them of. A trackless wilderness was not the landfall any of them had hoped for. But the tide was relentlessly pulling them landward, and their ship was too battered to tempt the sea again. With a sigh of half relief and half resignation, Reidel brought the tiller around and headed into the estuary.\n\n\"Here at last is the new land-\" The voice was Chedan's, but unusually loud. A little startled, Tiriki turned to watch as he addressed the crowd. \"From now on, there will be no more time for mourning,\" he was saying, \"for we will need all our energy to survive. Therefore let us now bid farewell to Ahtarrath the beautiful, and to Alkonath the mighty. Alas for the Bright Empire that was, and is no more.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then, with even greater poignancy, their grief for the Ten Kingdoms of Atlantis, whose mighty ships had ranged the world, subsided into silence. Their memories of all that they had lost were fora moment too clear; too vivid again was the vision of the Star Mountain as it exploded in fire and thunder and the last bastion of invincible Atlantis surrendered proudly to the sea.\n\n102 Diana L. Paxson\n\n102 Diana L. Paxson" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Six\n\n\"O beautiful upon the horizon of the East, Lift up thy light unto day, O Eastern Star, Day Star, awaken, arise! Lord and giver of Life, awake-Joy and giver of Light, arise-O beautiful upon the horizon of the East, Day Star, awaken, arise!\"\n\n\"O beautiful upon the horizon of the East, Lift up thy light unto day, O Eastern Star, Day Star, awaken, arise! Lord and giver of Life, awake-Joy and giver of Light, arise-O beautiful upon the horizon of the East, Day Star, awaken, arise!\"\n\nMicail drifted toward consciousness upon the rise and fall of the verses that had begun his days for as long as he could remember. The voices had the purity of youth; was it the acolytes who were singing? He could not quite recall why they were with him, but their presence, and the life-affirming cadences of the song, were protection against the nightmares he had already begun to forget.\n\nHe tried to open his eyes, but cool grey cloth covered them. Have I been ill? There was an ache in his chest and behind his eyes... He would have lifted his hand and removed the damp cloth, but his arms felt weak and hot.\n\n\"Tiriki...\" He had enough strength to whisper. \"Tiriki?\" he tried again.\n\n\"Don't try to talk.\" A deft hand smoothed the cloth back from his brow, then lifted his head. \"Here's something for you to drink. Easy now-\" The hard rim of a cup touched his lips. Automatically he swallowed and the liquid, a tart gruel almost leavened by the taste of honey, went down. Something in his chest eased, but the headache remained." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There you are,\" came the voice again, as the strong hands gently lowered Micail's head back to his pillow. \"That ought to calm you...\"\n\nHe tried to focus on the speaker, but his eyes didn't want to stay open. The voice was tantalizingly familiar, with the accent of his own childhood home, but too low to be Tiriki's. Why is she not here, if I am so ill? He tried to summon the strength to call for her again, but whatever had been in the liquid was dragging him back down into warm darkness. He frowned, breathing in the fresh scent of rain and grassy earth as his confused awareness of the present was overwhelmed by memory.\n\n\"The balance is broken!\"\n\n\"The darkness rises! Dyaus is set free!\"\n\n\"It is the Cataclysm! Save us, Micail!\"\n\n\"Save us!\"\n\n\"Micail-can you hear me? Wake up, lad. You've lazed here too long!\"\n\nSinewy hands with the dry skin of age grasped his, and the jolt of energy that passed through them shocked him to full consciousness. His eyes flicked open. The man bending over him was tall, with an expressive face and greying hair that fell like unruly feathers across his highbrow.\n\n\"Ardral!\" What came out was a croak, but Micail was too surprised to care. \"My lord Ardravanant,\" he corrected himself, preferring the more correct form in addressing the Seventh Vested Guardian of the Temple of Light at Ahtarrath... In theory he and Micail were of equal rank, but the old adept had been a legend since Micail was a child, and to use the nickname seemed presumptuous.\n\n\"I like it better the way you said it the first time,\" advised the Seventh Guardian. \"Lately I don't feel at all like a'Knower of the Brightest. \"Besides, it begs the question, don't you think? It is bad enough in ceremonies. No, stick with Ardral. Do I go around calling you Osinarmen?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That is a point. But-\" Micail shook his head and coughed. \"What are you doing here? For that matter\"-he paused again, but didn't cough-\"where are we?\"\n\nArdral's grey eyes narrowed. \"You don't remember?\"\n\nI don't remember anything, Micail thought; but in the next moment, he did. \"We were in the library,\" he gasped. \"You were trying to get a great wooden trunk down the stairs. My friend Jiri and I helped you, but then you ran back inside and-\" His mind was overwhelmed by multiple images: the arguing priests, collapsing pillars, crumbling walls, scrolls scattering like windblown leaves, and the perpetual groaning of the earth, vibrating through stone and bone alike....\n\n\"You saved my life,\" said the adept softly, and again his hands tightened upon Micail's, \"although as I recall, at the time I wasn't very thankful.\"\n\n\"You practically broke my nose.\"\n\n\"Yes... I'm sorry about that. I don't know what came over me. Didn't I make a lot of very fine speeches about accepting the inevitable? So naturally I was the one who couldn't resist the temptation to try and save one more thing-even if flying chunks of lava were setting the city afire! Well, I'm glad you could see it was time to get out.\"\n\n\"How did we ever get to the harbor?\" Micail whispered, his chest tightening. \"I remember the towers falling-blocking the way-\" His memory overflowed with distorted pictures: people staggering as Darokha Plaza pitched, the ageless tiled stones suddenly rippling in a horrible wave-and an old woman falling, trampled by the mob, left lying in the middle of the street like a broken doll.\n\nMicail's fists clenched helplessly as he saw again the red gleam on the roiling waters of the coastline, heard the clattering armor of the elite soldiers Prince Tjalan had sent to find him; and though he struggled not to, he could not keep from seeing, with unbearable clarity, the chaos of shattered cliffs where the harbor should have been-and where the Crimson Serpent had been moored." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And all the while the ash had been falling, coating land and sea with afoul grey powder, as if all life was dead and he no more than a ghost haunting a broken tomb, the tomb of...\n\n\"Tiriki!\" His voice cracked and he fought for breath. \"Where is she?\" Coughs tore painfully at his lungs, but he arched upward, flailing. \"I must find her, before-\"\n\nBut then he felt again the surprising strength in Ardral's hands as the adept murmured a Word of Power that sent Micail spiraling down into sodden dreams once more.\n\nAshe drifted in and out of consciousness, he was aware that a series of different hands tended him. Sometimes even the softest touch was intolerable. At other times his friend Jiritaren was with him, or someone else, talking rather urgently about some crisis, lung fever... Gradually Micail began to understand that he was in danger, but it did not matter. Tiriki was all that mattered. Micail could not remember how he had lost her, but her absence was a wound through which his life was draining away.\n\nAnd then there came a moment when he felt her arms around him. I am dying, he thought, and Tiriki has come to bear me home. But she was swearing at him, yelling about a task he had left undone. He felt himself drowning in a mighty tide...\n\nHe woke to the drumbeat of a drenching rain. That seemed strange; the storm season was past. He took a deep breath and noted that though there was some congestion in his lungs, they no longer pained him.\n\nThe bed was unfamiliar, softer than he preferred. Raising his head from the downy pillow, he looked about at a warmly lit room with whitewashed walls and a narrow window. His heart pulsed as he saw a woman standing beside it, looking out at the sea and the storm, but it was not Tiriki. This woman had dark curls, edged with copper where they caught the light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Deoris?\" he whispered, and as she turned, he saw her golden skin, her huge dark eyes, the adolescent blemish on her nose.... Of course it was not Deoris; this washer younger child, Tiriki's half sister. \"Galara,\" he said, more loudly. \"At least you're alive!\"\n\n\"And so are you!\" she exclaimed, leaning over him excitedly. \"And you are yourself again, aren't you? Thank the Maker! I'd better tell the prince, he'll want to know-\"\n\nMicail began to make sense of his memories. If Prince Tjalan was here, when they found the way to the main harbor blocked he must have taken Micail aboard the Royal Emerald, still safe in the cove, and brought him here... wherever here might be. He was about to ask, but could not get the words out before Galara had run from the room. He attempted to sit up, but the effort was too much, and he lay back on the soft bedding, trying a deeper breath.\n\nThe door banged against the wall as Prince Tjalan himself strode in. There were a few more strands of silver at his temples than Micail remembered, and a deep line or two around his eyes that had not been there before, but his green linen kilt was as finely pressed as ever, and seeing Micail, his face filled with delight.\n\n\"You are awake!\" Tjalan threw off his woolen short-cape and sat down upon the stool by the bed, clasping Micail's hands briefly in his own.\n\n\"Yes... and glad I am to see you. I gather it was you who got me herein one piece?\" Micail found it hard to feel thankful, but he had always had warm feelings for Tjalan, and that at least had not changed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am commissioning myself a medal!\" Tjalan chuckled. \"First I had to wrestle you onto the ship-no one else would dare! Then when we were about halfway out of the harbor you thought you saw Tiriki-\" He stopped himself. \"You jumped overboard, and of course you went straight into a floating spar and got smacked on the head! Lucky you didn't drown, and your rescuer with you! That was me too, by the way. But they hauled us both back in somehow. Since then-between concussion from the head wound and lung fever from the foul water you swallowed, you have been a complete bore, unconscious or raving the entire time. But it was worth a little aggravation to keep you breathing.\"\n\n\"Where is this place?\" Micail asked.\n\n\"The Hesperides-the Isle of Tin-just as you and I intended.\" Tjalan grinned again. \"We have made landfall herein Beleri'in to restock our larders and shakeout the kinks, but as soon as you feel fit to travel again, we'll continue up the coast to Belsairath. It's nothing grand, just an old Alkonan trading station from my great-grandfather's time, but with all these refugees, it'll soon be a thriving town!\"\n\n\"Refugees...\" Micail shivered, despite the blankets and furs. \"Soother ships have come in?\"\n\n\"Oh yes. Not only from Ahtarrath, but there are some from the other islands as well. We saved more of your priesthood than I dared hope for in those last moments when the whole world seemed about to explode. When the road to the harbor was blocked, several of your acolytes made it to the cove. The Royal Emerald was packed full, but she's a good ship, and once we got out of the harbor we weathered the voyage well.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But there was no word-\" He fought for breath.\n\n\"Calm yourself,\" the prince urged, \"my dear friend! We've had no news of Tiriki, no. But ships are still arriving, and some have even sailed past us, no doubt headed to Belsairath as well. She may yet join us. But what goodwill that be, if you have torn yourself in pieces?\"\n\nIn the days that followed, Micail began to fill in more gaps in his memory. The house in Beleri'in where they lodged him was one of several belonging to a native merchant who had grown rich on the tin trade. As his strength returned Micail walked in the spacious gardens, breathing in the clean wind that scoured the green foggy hills half visible beyond the garden wall. The sky looked immense, whether it showed itself as a tapestry of shapeless clouds or an expanse of radiant blue.\n\nSo this is the new world, he realized, and fora moment his grim mood almost lifted. There is much beauty here... but it is cold, very cold. Father Sun, we sing your praises as we have always done. Why will you not warm the earth here? Even the sea wind bears me nothing of you. Must I build your new Temple just to feel a moment's warmth?\n\nHe watched constantly for ships, but not until they were leaving to go to Belsairath did he appreciate the beauty of the sea. The harbor was the same clear blue as the sky. In its midst was a small island that separated a cluster of wingbird ships that bobbed in the tide. The largest was Tjalan's ship, the Royal Emerald, her green sails like bright leaves against the darker green of the island.\n\n\"The summit of that island is so pointed, it looks man-made,\" Micail said to Galara, in an attempt to distract his mind from the rocking of the fish-smelling round coracle in which they were being ferried out to the Emerald." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe so,\" said the native boy, as a skillful dip of his paddle sent them shooting forward. \"Has beacon up top. Light it when tin ships come. But now, no traders,\" he added sadly.\n\n\"Take nothing for granted,\" advised Micail, thinking of what Tjalan had told him of his plans for this new country. But did it really matter? Was there any point in trying to build anew Atlantis if Tiriki was lost?\n\nHe clutched the side of the coracle as the sea grew even more lively, astonished that the boy could govern the motion of so unlikely a craft. But as the oddly pointed islet drew nearer, Micail became aware of another sensation, a kind of subaudible humming that he instinctively associated with the flow of power... He touched Galara's shoulder.\n\n\"Do you feel it?\"\n\n\"I feel sick.\" She looked pale and queasy. He remembered hearing her say that she did not like the sea. That must be why she did not notice the thrumming in the water.\n\nTiriki would have felt it. Awkwardly he patted Galara's arm and then closed his eyes, swamped by anew wave of sorrow. Without her, I am crippled, he thought. The gods will not want me.\n\nWhen they came aboard at last, they found the deck of the Royal Emerald swarming with soldiers. Micail had not realized that Tjalan had brought not only his bodyguard, but a contingent of regular guards as well.\n\nThe soldiers remained on deck throughout the three days it took to sail north and east along the coast to Belsairath. The cabins below were reserved for noble and priestly passengers such as himself. That first night, however, he encountered only the acolyte Elara. He had been told that she had ended upon Prince Tjalan's ship, but had not seen her until now. Micail, glad to leave her with Galara, went in search of his cabin, where he fell into sleep as a rock into an abyss." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the author's co-writer, advance the plot.\nTags: fantasy, historical, mythology, Atlantis, reincarnation\nAuthor: Marion Zimmer Bradley\nTitle: Ancestors of Avalon\nChapter: 13" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe so,\" said the native boy, as a skillful dip of his paddle sent them shooting forward. \"Has beacon up top. Light it when tin ships come. But now, no traders,\" he added sadly.\n\n\"Take nothing for granted,\" advised Micail, thinking of what Tjalan had told him of his plans for this new country. But did it really matter? Was there any point in trying to build anew Atlantis if Tiriki was lost?\n\nHe clutched the side of the coracle as the sea grew even more lively, astonished that the boy could govern the motion of so unlikely a craft. But as the oddly pointed islet drew nearer, Micail became aware of another sensation, a kind of subaudible humming that he instinctively associated with the flow of power... He touched Galara's shoulder.\n\n\"Do you feel it?\"\n\n\"I feel sick.\" She looked pale and queasy. He remembered hearing her say that she did not like the sea. That must be why she did not notice the thrumming in the water.\n\nTiriki would have felt it. Awkwardly he patted Galara's arm and then closed his eyes, swamped by anew wave of sorrow. Without her, I am crippled, he thought. The gods will not want me.\n\nWhen they came aboard at last, they found the deck of the Royal Emerald swarming with soldiers. Micail had not realized that Tjalan had brought not only his bodyguard, but a contingent of regular guards as well.\n\nThe soldiers remained on deck throughout the three days it took to sail north and east along the coast to Belsairath. The cabins below were reserved for noble and priestly passengers such as himself. That first night, however, he encountered only the acolyte Elara. He had been told that she had ended upon Prince Tjalan's ship, but had not seen her until now. Micail, glad to leave her with Galara, went in search of his cabin, where he fell into sleep as a rock into an abyss." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The second day was well advanced when he awoke to the discovery that he shared the cabin with Ardral, who had also let his friend Jiritaren into the room. Jiritaren was not about to allow Micail to wallow in self-pity in his bunk on such a beautiful day.\n\n\"You have to admit, Alkonans build good ships,\" Jiritaren commented as they came on deck, running his hand along the polished wood of the rail. The wind put color into his sallow skin and lifted locks of his lank black hair back from his brow.\n\n\"I suppose,\" said Micail, gazing up at the bravely fluttering green banner whose ring of falcons seemed to flap their golden wings. \"After all, here we are.\"\n\nJiritaren gave him a troubled look. They had been friends fora longtime, and usually did not need to speak to know each other's hearts. After a moment, he put one arm around Micail's shoulder, and raised his other hand to point at the wingbirds that followed them, particularly one a little longer and leaner in construction, with an orange banner at its mast.\n\n\"That's the Orange Swift,\" said Jiritaren, \"from Tarisseda! They arrived with a few empty cabins, so some of our people are with them. Good thing, too, or I'd probably be sleeping on deck with the spearmen.\"\n\nMicail managed something like a smile. \"What's that ship?\" he pointed.\n\n\"Ah-that is the Blue Dolphin. An older ship but solid. There's a gaggle of folks on it, some from our Temple.\"\n\n\"My fellow acolyte Cleta is on the Dolphin, my honored lords,\" said Elara, moving forward to join them, \"with her brother Lanath and Vialmar as well.\" She looked up at Micail with a smile that seemed rather too warm, considering that except for Damisa, whom he had often seen with Tiriki, he hardly knew the acolytes at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But few as they were, strangers or not, they would be the foundation of the new Temple, and they were his responsibility now. He managed to return Elara's smile. She was a pretty girl, old enough not to be flustered by the attention of two senior priests. She was only of middle height, but her features were good, and her curly black tresses, barely secured against the wind with a filigreed hairpin, had a glossy sheen like a raven's wing.\n\n\"You are promised to Lanath, are you not?\" he murmured. \"I am sorry. It must be hard for you to be separated... At least Cleta and Vialmar are together.\"\n\nShe lowered her eyes. \"All thought of marriage must wait, my lord,\" she said. \"We are far from completing our training. I-I wanted to say, it is a great honor to be here, my lords, where I may hope to take instruction directly from you.\"\n\nTo reach the trading port of Belsairath took two days. It lay on the southern coast of the land that the native inhabitants called the'Isle of the Mighty.\" It had been established when Alkonath first sought supremacy over the trade routes of the Sea Kingdoms, but since then had lingered in obscurity.\n\nAs at Beleri'in, a small islet stood a little way offshore from the port, surrounded not by ships at anchor, but by a line of long sandbanks that guarded the shore from storms. As the Royal Emerald headed past it, the soldiers rushed to the side to get a glimpse of their destination. Even Micail felt a faint stirring of curiosity.\n\nHe shivered and rewrapped himself in his newly acquired cape of Alkonan green. It was warmly lined, but it felt odd to him to replace his family's ceremonial crimson with this color. But what does it matter? he asked himself. There is neither Ahtarra nor Alkona anymore. Even the gods seem faraway..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The clouds were drawing in again, foreshadowing rain, and the scene unfolding before him became a mural painted in greys and browns. The low delta at the back of the bay was dotted with pools and reed beds, as if the land had not entirely won its argument with the ocean.... He guessed that storms might occasionally rearrange this landscape entirely. He hoped the Alkonans had built their port on solid ground.\n\nWord of their arrival spread fast. He glanced about and saw that most if not all of the passengers had emerged onto the deck. Elara and Galara stood quite close to him, their attention focusing, it seemed, upon the soldiers rather than the view.\n\nA feather floated landward past them, and Micail realized that the tide was on the flow. Straining his eyes, he looked farther inland toward the rising mainland, a dim bulk of thickly forested hills. At their center he could see a single thin streamer of smoke, rising and curling in the wind. Perhaps that is from the port, he thought. What do they call it? Belsairath? \"Point something port...\"\n\nCaptain Dantu's voice rang out above the hubbub of passengers, calling out orders. The soldiers went to the other side of the ship to balance it, as the helmsman guided the wingbird's sharp prow through an inlet that opened into a foggy, quiet cove where the river at last made its peace with the sea. A bank of efficient-looking docks had been built out into the harbor, but Micail guessed that even so, at low tide the larger ships would all be aground.\n\nThis, then, is journey's end, he thought. A fine place for dying.\n\nClose against the docks stood a palisaded enclosure. Behind it, a string of buildings, at first grey and indistinct, meandered away along the riverbank. Masses of weathered wood, faded paint, and worn-out thatchings suddenly appeared in his vision, and he realized that each building in one way or another reflected the standard Atlantean forms: here an arch, there some balconies, and even, a little way uphill, a newer structure that looked like the beginning of a seven-walled courtyard. The outskirts of the old town were a sprawling expanse of new-looking villas, builtin the aristocratic Alkonan style, with much of the building hidden underground. As elsewhere, wood seemed to be the primary material of construction, but the terraces and foundations at least were all stone, ornamented with the usual carvings and painted plaster. The alien mists made everything look vaguely ominous, but he smiled in spite of himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The fit of amusement did not last. Rajasta the Wise had said that the new Temple would be builtin anew land, but Belsairath looked old, even neglected.\n\nPrince Tjalan had arranged for Micail to stay in an inn on the water, as Micail wished to watch for ships arriving and any news of Tiriki.\n\nYet before he could rest, Prince Tjalan summoned Micail to a reception at his villa. Ashe stood in the midst of a brightly dressed throng, he found himself wishing that he had stayed in his bed at the inn.\n\n\"Prince Micail-you are most welcome!\" a woman said behind him. \"I met you once, that year you spent with Tjalan in Alkona, but of course you would not remember me; I was the merest child then....\"\n\nHer voice had that throaty quality that so many found seductive, and her perfume, which Micail perceived even before he turned to see who had spoken, was blended from the most expensive spikenard. In truth, he needed no other senses to recognize Tjalan's wife, Princess Chaithala. Tjalan had told him that she had sailed from Alkonath well before the Sinking, bringing their three children hereto safety. But he would have guessed that, too, for her hazel eyes, artfully highlighted by kohl, were wholly unshadowed by the grim memories that haunted all who had watched the old world die.\n\nMicail's royal upbringing had trained him in all the right responses. He bowed just so far and spoke softly of the impossibility of forgetting such beauty, but his mind and his heart were faraway.\n\n\"You are too kind,\" said Chaithala with equal composure. \"I do the best I can. My lord says we must keep up our standards-\" She glanced around to make sure that the servants were keeping every cup, goblet, and plate full." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You have done very well,\" he answered automatically. The constant clamor of conversation made his head ring. Worse, he had taken a polite drink with almost everyone so far and strongly suspected he would not remember anyone's name by morning.\n\n\"There is a great deal to do,\" the princess said. \"But I wished to speak with you because, in away, we are both faced with the same task.\" She beckoned him to follow her into along gallery that looked out on a pleasant courtyard open to the sky.\n\n\"Thank you,\" he said gratefully. \"I am afraid I find these underground rooms a little constricting, even with all the light-wells and ventilation shafts-\"\n\n\"A style,\" the princess observed softly, \"which shielded fair Alkonath from the fierce summer sun will serve well hereto conserve heat.\"\n\n\"No doubt you are right,\" Micail demurred. The same tubes of polished bronze that brought in what sunlight there was would also keep out the winds that scourged these cold grey shores. \"But I am too much a son of the Sun,\" Micail finished, with the necessary flourish, \"to thrive where its presence is seen less often than it is implied by shadow.\"\n\n\"That maybe so, but you will find no more sunlight in the windows of the port precinct than you do here.\" Chaithala smiled. \"My lord has told me it is your wish to remain in Domazo's Inn, rather than to lodge with us here. It is your choice, of course, but still I hope you will visit often. I, too, have some need of your counsel.\"\n\n\"So you said.\" Micail tried to look attentive.\n\n\"It concerns the education of my children. My lord has so many responsibilities-their upbringing has been left tome.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Madam, forgive me, but I know nothing of teaching children,\" Micail stammered, suppressing a pang of sorrow as he remembered the babies Tiriki had lost. All my house is dead, he thought. What can I teach the living?\n\n\"You misunderstand me, my lord. They already have a most satisfactory tutor, a learned and patient man. No, rather it is of the content of their education that I wished to consult you, for the acolytes are given into your training-is it not so?\"\n\n\"I-\" He paused and looked at her closely. \"You are entirely correct, madam, but I have had little chance to fulfill my duty to them. The House of the Twelve was moved to Ahtarrath only last year. And only four of them are with us now-\" Fora moment grief for all those lost closed his throat once more.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Chaithala brightly. \"But at least those four are here. Do you think they might visit us from time to time? The gods know we shall have priests enough!\" She gestured back toward the main hall with a rueful smile. \"But it seems tome that most of them have become far too holy to remember how to speak with children. With only their example, I fear that my three will grow up with no appreciation for the true meaning of our religion.\"\n\n\"I will gladly ask if they are willing,\" Micail said slowly. \"Certainly I myself have not yet given them much to do.\" His mind whirled with guilt and speculation. The princess had said before that they faced the same task, and he saw now that it was true. How could the acolytes preserve the wisdom of Atlantis if he did not instruct them? But without Tiriki it seemed that the only thing he could teach was failure and despair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That is all I ask, Sir Prince.\" Chaithala favored him with another charming smile and laid her hand upon his arm, gently drawing him back toward the swirling crowd. Ina moment, she let goof him in order to introduce the priestess Timul, who had served the High Priestess of the Temple of Ni-Terat in Alkonath, and was now the head of the Blue Order in Belsairath. Like the princess, Timul had come to the new land a little more than a year ago and seemed to have transplanted very well.\n\nTiriki would like her, Micail thought sadly.\n\nSomehow he kept his eyes open and greeted everyone. Some were from Ahtarrath, among them his own older cousin Naranshada, the Fourth Vested Guardian. There was also old Metanor, who had been Fifth Vested Guardian in the Temple, and of course Ardral, whose position as Seventh Vested Guardian came nowhere near reflecting his actual prestige.\n\nAs the son of a royal house, Micail had been brought up to function in gatherings like this one. He knew that he ought to be moving around, establishing relationships, distinguishing the powerful from the merely influential, but he could not summon the energy. He had never realized how much he depended on Tiriki in situations like these. They had worked as a team, supporting each other.\n\nA servant came by with a tray of ila'anaat liqueur in ceramic cups as fine as shell, and Micail grabbed two, downing the first in a single swallow. The stuff was tart and sweet and left a trail of fire from throat to belly.\n\n\"Yes, might as well enjoy that while we can,\" said awry voice. \"The ila berry can't be grown in this latitude.\"\n\nThrough his watering eyes Micail recognized the bronzed and mustachioed face of Bennurajos, a muscular, middle-aged priest. Originally from Cosarrath, he had long served in Ahtarrath, and Micail remembered him as a strong singer and a specialist in the art of growing plants." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Micail took a smaller sip from his second cup and let the fire within build and diffuse through his limbs. \"Pity. But I suppose you would know.\"\n\nBennurajos wobbled his head from side to side. \"There are some vines that look promising,\" he said, \"but I won't be able to tell what they're good for until they ripen.\"\n\n\"I'm not even sure what season it is,\" Micail murmured.\n\n\"Yes, it makes an interesting problem. At home, the sun was constant and we prayed for rainfall. Here it must be sunshine men dream of, the gods know there's all the rain they need!\"\n\nMicail nodded. So far, it had rained everyday. \"If this is springtime, I dread the winter.\" He blinked, suddenly queasy, and shook his head sharply, but the odd feeling would not go away. Is it the heat in the room, the noises, smells, liquors-?\n\nBennurajos stepped back, sensing that Micail had lost interest in the conversation. Micail tried to say something courteous and friendly-he had always been fond of Bennurajos-but his self-control was eroding. He shook his head again, tears burning in his eyes.\n\n\"You must forgive him.\" It was Jiritaren, appearing as if from nowhere. \"Lord Micail suffered a severe fever on the voyage here and is not yet entirely well.\"\n\n\"Where were you? Were you watching me?\" Micail accused.\n\n\"Come away, Micail,\" Jiri said softly. \"There are too many people here. It will be cooler in the garden. Come outside with me.\"\n\nThey pushed pasta cluster of priests from Alkonath. He ought to know them-memory supplied the names of First Guardian Haladris, a rather proud and pompous man, and the famous singer Ocathrel, who held the rank of Fifth Guardian. And there were survivors from the Temple on Tarisseda, the priestess Mahadalku and Stathalkha the psychic. A gaggle of lesser priests and priestesses moved about on the fringes. More than a few seemed familiar to him, but that, he decided, was only because they looked so obviously to be priests of Light. But none of them interested Micail. There could never be a big enough crowd until it included the one person he wished for so desperately." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Seven\n\nHow could I possibly know whether I like it here?\"Grimacing, Damisa swatted a midge from her arm.\" Ask me tomorrow!\"\" Will your opinion have changed?\" Iriel's words came muffled through the veils she had swathed around her face and throat to protect herself from the midges and other insects that seemed to swarm everywhere along the river. Reeds edged the shore and willows hungover the brown waters of the channel that the Crimson Serpent was following. Yesterday they had seen the sun and felt a promise of warmth in the air. But today the sky was as gloomy as their spirits, and mists hid the line of hills they had glimpsed from offshore.\n\n\"Not at all,\" Damisa denied, with an envious eye for Iriel's veils, \"but I can't help thinking, if you had asked me yesterday whether it wouldn't be better to go back out to sea, I would have called you an idiot-\"\n\n\"You're the idiot,\" said Iriel automatically, her own eyes still fixed upon the lush riverbank that was slowly passing beyond the railing. Damisa shook her head, suspecting she was not seeing whatever it was the younger girl was staring at.\n\nTo Damisa one meandering stretch of marshland was quite indistinguishable from another. If tangled willow trees weren't overhanging a stretch of murky water, there were tall spiky reeds or thorny stunted shrubs. Either way, they couldn't get anywhere near the solid ground. The interior is probably all just foggy undergrowth anyway, she thought. For three days, they had been misled by the numerous rivers that fed into the estuary, each broad and promising at its mouth, but becoming too choked with half-submerged oaks, willows, and vines for the ship to do anything but retreat. She hoped someone was making a map." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look!\" said Iriel excitedly, as a flock of birds rose noisily from the reeds and scattered like a handful of stones flung across the pale sky.\n\n\"Enchanting,\" Damisa said dully, not so easily shaken from her gloom. She was beginning to suspect that the hills they had seen from the sea were no more than a vision sent by mischievous sprites to entice them into this wilderness in which the Crimson Serpent was doomed to wander until they all sank into the muck and mire below.\n\nOr is the rotten smell I've been noticing all day something recently half eaten by something waiting to eat us?\n\nThe river had in fact become much more brackish as they moved inland, but its level was still determined by the sea. Yesterday the men Captain Reidel sent ashore as scouts stayed out too long and were stranded in the marshes until ebb tide. By the time they could get aboard, they were covered to their necks in mud that was full of leeches and... Damisa shuddered and swatted another tiny-winged predator from her eyebrow, swearing, and Iriel snorted with laughter behind her veils.\n\n\"Oh, shut up,\" Damisa warned, watching Arcor, the grizzled old Ahtarran sailor, taking soundings from the ship's bow. How does he stand it? she wondered. His knotted muscles flexed and released beneath the short sleeves of his tunic as he swung out the line and the lead splashed into the water, again and again. Midges clouded around him, but he never once paused to swat them. Even a few moments\" inattention could leave them stranded on a mudbank until the evening tide.\n\nBy sheer force of will, Damisa ignored the little insect now walking on her elbow. I should not complain, she told herself, thinking that even Arcor had an easier job than the men who rowed the small boat that was laboriously towing this one upriver... She hoped Reidel knew what he was doing. The only thing worse than being eaten alive as they floated through the wilderness would be to get stuck here, unable to move at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly Arcor stood up, peering ahead.\n\n\"What is it?\" came Reidel's calm voice. \"What do you see?\"\n\n\"Sorry, Cap'n. Thought'twas a helmet,\" Arcor joked. \"\"Tis only Teiron's bald pate! And there's our Cadis wit\" him, keepin' the magpies off!\"\n\nThe captain's broad shoulders relaxed in alight laugh, and Damisa, watching, felt her own tension easing as well. Reidel was only a shipmaster, and a lot younger than he looked, but in the past weeks they had all come to depend on his quick mind and ever-ready strength. Even Master Chedan, to say nothing of Tiriki, seemed to defer to him, which seemed vaguely wrong to Damisa. Abruptly she realized that she had been assuming that their journeys would lead them to anew civilization and Temple in the new land. She and the other acolytes had spent quite a lot of time speculating about what the people here would look like and, to a lesser degree, how they lived, or where; but so far it seemed that there simply were no inhabitants.\n\nWhich-she frowned-might be better. At the moment they were quite simply castaways. Reidel had done well enough at sea-maybe even remarkably well-but how would he fare against angry savages?\n\nLost in thought, Damisa jumped when the undergrowth shivered and two men suddenly pushed into view, muddy to their calves and perspiring freely. But she saw their teeth flash in fierce grins and recognized them as Teiron and Cadis, who had been sent out to explore earlier. Arcor tossed a rope over the side and they scrambled aboard to the welcoming jokes and laughter of the other sailors.\n\nTiriki and Chedan emerged from below, accompanied by Selast and Kalaran. It occurred to Damisa that she had not seen Elis since morning. Was she still trapped below deck, assigned to cheer up the priestess Malaera, who was still weeping for all they had lost? Damisa shuddered... That's right, she drew today's duty with the Stone. Ugh. Even with it in its box, just sitting outside the cabin door, it makes me uncomfortable. Better the bog-rats! Or even Malaera's endless tears..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good news, gentles,\" the shaved-head Alkonan sailor Teiron was saying. \"There be someone in these parts! Where \"e live I don't know, but someone made that trackway in the marsh!\"\n\n\"Trackway?\" Chedan repeated. \"What do you mean?\"\n\nTeiron moved his hands tentatively, sketching on air. \"It's-a raised pathway, over the muck. Too weak to take a chariot I guess, but still good an\" solid. Made from split planks-laid across logs-everything pegged into place. An'since some logs are old and some are new, someone must keep'em repaired.\"\n\n\"But where does the path go?\" Iriel wondered out loud. \"Didn't you even look? Are there lions?\"\n\n\"No, no lions, little mistress,\" the Alkonan said mildly. \"At least I didn't see any. But we were under orders to return quickly-\"\n\n\"I'd guess the plank road leads there,\" said Cadis, pointing past the trees that lined the shore. The mist had begun to fade away. Before them they could seethe spreading blue waters of the lake that fed the stream. Beyond it, thin spring sunlight glistened on the green protruding tip of a hillside perhaps a thousand ells farther in.\n\nTiriki gripped Chedan's arm as they advanced across the muddy trackway. The carefully cut planks seemed to sway alarmingly underfoot, but after so many days on shipboard, she suspected she would have felt unsteady walking on the smooth granite stones of the Processional Way in Ahtarrah. She swallowed, fighting back the familiar nausea. She no longer felt as wretched as she had at sea, but she was far from her usual self, and she felt bloated, even though she could see that her wrists were growing thin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the high ground just ahead, a group of marsh dwellers in leather kilts awaited them with faces that were impassive but not, she hoped, implacable. They were small in stature, but wiry and well muscled, and pale where the sun had not browned them. Their dark hair glinted with rusty highlights in the sun.\n\nTiriki focused on her feet. It would not befit the dignity of a priestess of Light to arrive with her backside smeared with mud, even if the hems of her robes were stained already. If I slip now, likely I will drag down Chedan with me, and maybe Damisa and old Liala as well. Taking a deep breath, she kept her steps as measured and solemn as if she walked not amid a ragtag of sailors and refugees, but at the head of the Great Procession to the Star Mountain.\n\nI should have worn my cloak, she told herself as the sweat cooled on her brow. The sun was finally shining, but the sky remained cloudy, and the air held a chilling dampness. Why that should surprise her she did not know. Chedan had said often enough that the weather here was peculiar. But I haven't been truly warm since last Micail held me... Ruthlessly, she put the thought away.\n\nOnly the faint cries of birds disturbed the silence, as the natives continued to stare. Their black eyes seemed to examine every detail as they approached-from the elaborate priestly costumes and the glittering metal that gilded Chedan's ceremonial dagger to Reidel's short-sword and the short pikes of the sailors. Some of the natives carried cudgels or spears, but most were armed with bows of finely worked, polished yew, the arrows flint-pointed. The sailors noticed that the marsh folk did not seem to even have bronze and took heart. A little swagger even came back into their steps." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tiriki took a breath and stopped a few feet away from the natives. Chedan halted just behind her, and then Reidel. The sailors took up positions on the plankway, ready to cover a quick retreat. The silence became absolute.\n\nRaising her open palms to the sky, Tiriki trilled the lilting formal phrase: \"Gods, look kindly upon this meeting.\" Only then did she remember that these people almost certainly would not understand the Atlantean tongue. She tried to smile, wondering if it would help to bow again... but the marsh folk were no longer looking at her. Their eyes had returned to the foreign silhouette that had drawn them here-the high-prowed wingbird just visible through the willows that hid the river.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Tiriki, still smiling tightly, \"that is our ship.\"\n\nPerhaps in response to her words or her gestures, a thickset man with heron plumes waving from his headband stepped forward, showed his palms, and made a series of rippling gutteral sounds. Helplessly, Tiriki turned to Chedan, and after a moment the mage replied, rather slowly, in the same sort of speech. Tiriki blessed again the fate that had sent Chedan to these isles once before. She sensed it was going to be hard enough to reach an understanding with these people even with the help of words.\n\nThe headman's scowls melted away, and he spoke again. Chedan's eyes widened in surprise.\n\n\"Tell me what you're saying,\" Tiriki whispered.\n\nChedan blinked at her. \"Oh. Sorry. This fellow is the chieftain. His name is Heron. He says our arrival is fortunate, or fated. If I understand correctly, these people spend winter in the hills, and have only now returned here for the hunting season-and to celebrate some kind of festival.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As Tiriki nodded thoughtfully, Chedan turned again toward Heron, and initiated another complicated exchange... Tiriki bit her lip and tried to look patient and wise.\n\n\"He says,\" Chedan interpreted at last, \"their priestess-a wise woman of the tribe-has invited you to visit her. Apparently she dreamed about our ship. He says all may come and receive her blessing, but the men must wait apart while she speaks with you-\"\n\n\"What? Lady, you must not go alone!\" Reidel interrupted, with a protective glare that, Tiriki thought, was really meant for Damisa. She had observed such glances often lately and wondered if the girl herself had noticed them.\n\n\"Tell him we will come,\" said Tiriki suddenly, and catching Heron's gaze, gave him a smile and a nod of her head. \"I think that Liala and Damisa and I can handle one old woman by ourselves, no matter how wise she maybe.\"\n\nReidel muttered and cast a dark look around, but Chedan turned and indicated to the chieftain that he should lead the way. To Tiriki, however, the mage said softly, \"Do not underestimate these people. There are some in this land who wield great power. I do not know if that is the case with this wisewoman, but...\" He shrugged, and said again, \"Do not underestimate her.\"\n\nWith Reidel and Cadis at their back to guard against treachery, Tiriki, Damisa, and Liala followed the trackway across the marsh and through a dense stand of beeches and alders to a wide, raised platform made of broad planks. At its center were a number of huts and low-walled buildings, some weathered or even roofless, but several had been freshly daubed with mud and thatched with green reeds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The inhabitants emerged to greet them-a mixed group, old and young. Although the women were no taller than an Atlantean child, many of them clasped even smaller children, who stared at the newcomers out of huge dark eyes. Tiriki wanted to spend sometime there, but the chieftain hurried them on into the marsh again, along yet another wooden trackway, until they reached the banks of an island of solid ground. The distinctive point of the hill they had seen earlier loomed up ahead, between the trees and the clouds.\n\nUntil now, the marsh folk had behaved almost casually, laughing and talking among themselves, with many a sidelong glance at the strangers. Now they all fell silent, and began to move with exaggerated care, as if the spot was somehow as unfamiliar to them as to the Atlanteans. The wooden planks went no farther, but there was a path, old and well trodden, and edged with small rounded stones.\n\nTiriki knew immediately that this was holy ground. The rustle in the leaves made it clear, as did the subtle shift in pressure in the air. It was not only because the path was so level that she found herself straightening and striding more freely. She began to draw strength from the earth and the air. More than relief, she felt a surge of actual hope, and a quick glance showed her that Liala felt the same wonder at the unusual energy here.\n\nThe path wound gently upward along a wooded slope, curving only occasionally to accommodate a particularly venerable tree. From time to time the smooth green rise of the Tor could be seen between the leaves, and this, she realized, was because the trees were thinning.\n\nBefore them lay a small meadow. To the left, a tangle of hawthorns formed an enclosure. From an arched opening in the bushes emerged a small stream, edged by rusty red stones. On the right, farther up the hill, white stones jutted from the ground, half hidden by trees. From among them, a second stream coursed down to join the first. On a knoll just above the point where the rivers joined, nestled a small round hut, its faded close-packed thatching extending almost to the ground. Unlike the simple shelters in the village, this building had clearly been therefor a very longtime." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had not quite reached the edge of the rushing waters when a figure emerged from the hut, leaning on a short staff." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To the Atlanteans, her stature seemed that of a girl often, but as she raised her head to survey them Tiriki saw a face webbed with wrinkles and knew that this was the oldest person she had ever seen.\n\nHeron held out his palms and greeted the wisewoman in his throaty speech, then turned to Chedan and spoke again.\n\n\"This is their priestess. Her name is Taret,\" Chedan interpreted. Tiriki nodded, unable to look away. Though the wisewoman's flesh was ancient, surely no one had ever had such lively and penetrating black eyes.\n\nAs the Atlanteans made their various bows, Taret took another step forward.\n\n\"Welcome,\" said the wisewoman in the tongue of the Sea Kingdoms. \"I wait for you.\" Her words were heavily accented but otherwise entirely understandable. Observing their surprise, she grinned merrily. \"Come now.\"\n\nWith hardly a pause, the priestesses set out across four great steppingstones that bridged the turbulent waters. But when Reidel sought to follow, the chieftain stepped in front of him. Immediately, the sailors rallied to their leader and the scene grew tense, but Chedan put his hand on Reidel's shoulder and drew him gently back.\n\nTaret, standing at the edge of the water, stared at the mage fora long moment, but his only response was to make an odd kind of salute to the sun.\n\n\"Ah! You, then,\" said Taret-it was clear to whom she spoke-\"you shall walk here.\"\n\nChedan looked startled, but Heron appeared even more surprised. He looked from Taret to Chedan and back again several times before, with a conflicted expression, he moved aside, allowing the mage to tread the steppingstones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chuckling softly, the wisewoman settled herself on a sturdy three-legged stool just outside of the doorway of the hut, and motioned to the others to take their ease on a bench carved from a felled tree trunk.\n\nTaret's bright black eyes darted over each person in turn, and came to rest on Tiriki's headdress and the wisps of golden hair that were visible beneath it. The wisewoman smiled again, but more gently.\n\n\"Sun people,\" she said, with evident satisfaction. \"Yes. Children of red snake that I saw in dreams.\"\n\n\"We are very thankful to have found this place,\" answered Tiriki, and though her words were formal, they were enlivened by genuine emotion. \"I am Tiriki, a Guardian of the Light. This is Chedan, Guardian and mage-\"\n\n\"Yes. Man of power,\" said Taret. \"Most men, I don't ask to come here.\" Chedan was flustered at the compliment and made another little bow, but the wisewoman's gaze moved inquisitively to the others.\n\n\"Liala is a priestess of the healers and kinswoman tome,\" said Tiriki, not quite realizing how slowly and carefully she was enunciating the words. \"And Damisa is my chela.\"\n\nTaret inclined her head. \"Welcome. But there is another.\" Again her ageless eyes probed at them. \"With you in my dream... one who sees into closed places. Perhaps-\" She gazed curiously at Liala, then shook her head. \"No. But you are friend to her, maybe?\"\n\nTiriki and Chedan exchanged glances as Liala replied, a little nervously, \"We do have a seeress. Her name is Alyssa. She injured her knee during the journey, and I have tended her, but she is... unready to leave the ship.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you wish,\" Tiriki offered, \"we will bring her to you when we can.\"\n\n\"Good. I like to ask her, did she see what is here? Did she see me?\" The old woman chuckled again.\n\n\"We come here not by intention,\" Chedan said earnestly, \"but by a turn of fate. We ask only to befriends with you and your people. Our home has been destroyed, and we must seek refuge here.\"\n\nTaret shook her head. \"You lose more than old home. And you come here because Shining Ones want you. You feel their power.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Tiriki fervently. \"But we did not know-\"\n\n\"The gods knew,\" Chedan interrupted. \"Indeed, I saw it myself in the stars! But I did not understand until now. We thought we were sent hereto build a Temple, but it maybe that the sanctuary is already here.\"\n\nTaret grinned. \"Not Temple like Sea Kings make, but holy place of safeness, true.\"\n\n\"We don't want to disturb your sacred place,\" Chedan said swiftly.\n\nThis time Taret's wizened shoulders shook with what they soon realized was not a spasm of pain, but uncontrollable laughter. \"Fear not!\" she gasped at last. \"Shining Ones not disturbed!\" Her wrinkled face could not contain her smiles. \"In dreams I see. I know you belong. And dreams be true, or you not be here. Anyway, sacred place not belong me.\" She gestured toward the Tor. \"I show somethings. Then, if Shining Ones wish, they show more.\"\n\n\"The Shining Ones,\" Chedan repeated, as if not certain he had heard her correctly. \"You will introduce us to them?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\" Taret bobbed her head and almost laughed again. \"No, no. I just say-you people live here. New home. Shining Ones-find you.\"\n\nChedan grew thoughtful, then said, \"Wise one, your generosity is far greater than we could have hoped. We sought this place because it is well above the flood line. But I was beginning to get the impression that building here would not be allowed.\"\n\nTaret nodded. \"For my people, no. All this valley a spirit place, but the Tor-special. Agate. Only wisefolk live here.\" She sat back fora moment, seeming to look within, and then pointed a bony finger at the mage. \"So now you know. And you go now, yes?\" She smiled, almost coquettishly. \"Tell others, all is well. But priestess and priestess must speak-of other things.\"\n\nChedan clasped his hands and bowed his head. \"I think I understand. Thank you once more, wise Taret. You greatly honor me.\" The mage stood and gave her the salute that one adept accords to another who stands high in the Mysteries. Then he made his way back to Reidel and the sailors, who looked relieved to have at least one of their charges safely back in their care.\n\n\"Tiriki,\" the old woman said when he had gone, \"little singer... You serve the Sun but, for true, you are priestess of the Mother.\" Her fingers curved in a sign that Tiriki had thought unknown to anyone but an initiate of Ni-Terat and Caratra. Even as her fingers moved reflexively in the answering sign, Tiriki's eyes widened at a sudden, clear memory of the vow her mother, Deoris, had made before she was born. Tiriki's work in the temple had followed other paths, but always that primal allegiance was there, the foundation of her soul." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You think us wild folk.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Taret's youthful laughter cackled anew. \"But we know Mysteries. In this land, nine wisewomen serve Her... Sometimes, we meet priestess from other lands. So I learn your talk, long ago.\"\n\n\"You speak our language very well,\" Damisa complimented.\n\n\"Not be so kind.\" Taret gave the girl a smile. \"But, know enough to teach the maiden Mysteries of red and white.\" Damisa frowned in confusion, and Taret went on, \"Soon you see. Rocks white where one stream comes-white rocks, white cave. Other spring leaves red stain, like moon blood. And you will go there.\"\n\n\"You offer initiation into your Mysteries?\" Tiriki asked doubtfully. \"It is a great honor, but none of us can submit to any rite that may conflict with oaths we have already sworn-\"\n\n\"We call on Thee, O Mother, Woman Eternal.\" Taret tilted her head like some bright-eyed bird. \"No conflict that oath-Eilantha.\"\n\nHearing her sacred name, Tiriki felt the blood leave her face. What the old woman had said was the very oath that Tiriki's aunt and mother had sworn for themselves and their offspring before her birth. \"How-?\" Fora moment, her voice would not obey her. She had come to this new land to preserve the high magic of Atlantis, but this was something far more profound. On Ahtarrath the worship of Ni-Terat had been a minor cult, honored, but not particularly important; yet Taret plainly welcomed Tiriki not as a Guardian of the Light, but as a priestess of the Great Mother, as if that was a higher distinction. \"How can you know?\"\n\nTaret only smiled. \"Mysteries, Mysteries. Everywhere the same. Now you believe me? The Mother welcomes you... and your child...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tiriki swayed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Damisa reached out to support her, brows lifting in surprise.\n\n\"What?\" Taret laughed, tipping her head to one side like some ancient bird. \"You do not know?\"\n\n\"I thought I was seasick,\" she whispered, mind whirling back to her symptoms. She had never suspected. In sorrow for the children she had lost, she had repressed the very memory of what pregnancy was like. Without volition her hands moved to protect her belly, which was now no longer empty, if what the wisewoman said was true.\n\nTiriki shook her head. \"How could I still be carrying a child, after what we have gone through? All the healers of Atlantis could not keep me from losing my babes before!\"\n\n\"How you come hereto Hidden Isle?\" Taret laughed once more. \"She wants you here-you and your kin!\"\n\nTiriki curled forward, cradling her womb, remembering that last night when she had lain with Micail. Had his seed taken root in that moment of ecstasy? And if so, was it that part of him that lived within her that she was sensing, when she felt so certain he survived...? Tiriki blinked, and then found herself weeping openly in Damisa's arms, not knowing if it was joy or grief in her tears.\n\nThe news of Tiriki's pregnancy spread like wildfire and was a ray of hope in a situation that seemed bleak despite the marsh dwellers\" welcome. The Atlanteans first needed housing, and in the days that followed, Tiriki was not the only one who found herself doing work she had not been trained for. Even if they had not all been heartily tired of life on shipboard, the Crimson Serpent could not serve as along-term shelter. In fact, the vessel herself was in need of protection while undergoing repair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chedan had in his day supervised the construction of more than one Temple-and not all of them had been built from stone-but his expertise was limited to the esoteric requirements for sacred space, and the aesthetics of design. And though he understood the magic by which song might be used to move stone, without enough trained bass and baritone voices to makeup even a single stand of singers, there was little they could do. And the actual cutting of stone was the guarded specialty of the guild of stonemasons, none of whose members had ended upon the Crimson Serpent.\n\nThe marsh folk built with wood, a craft with which the priesthood was not familiar. But in the more rural communities of the Sea Kingdoms, where most if not all of the sailors had been raised, the peasants lived in huts that were not too different from those they saw here. Moreover, shipbuilding itself required a woodworker's skills, and Reidel, the son of a shipmaster, had learned quite a lot about the craft.\n\nOnce again, Damisa found herself grumbling, our bold captain takes charge. She had to admit he was doing a good job. In next to no time, he had set the seamen to the work of construction, but Damisa had to wonder how they would take to it. Sailors from Ahtarrath or elsewhere might not mind, but on Alkonath the men of the sea were a privileged caste. Damisa had grownup near the Great Harbor, and remembered all too well their scorn of landsmen's tasks.\n\nNow, pausing at the edge of the woods with an arm-load of willow branches, she heard raised voices and detoured around a hawthorn bush to see what was happening.\n\n\"Not another log will I lift, an' I dare ye give me reason why I should!\" From the thick Alkonan accent, Damisa identified the speaker as the sailor Aven, threatening Chedan with balled fists and a ferocious frown." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You'll need a roof to sleep under, will you not?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Surely that should be ample reason.\" Chedan's tone was perfectly level.\n\nWho can argue with that? Damisa thought, as she pulled up her hood. The blue skies that greeted the morning had already disappeared behind grey clouds that seemed ready to dissolve into rain.\n\n\"Our tents serve well enough!\" Aven argued. \"If all of us get back t'work on the Crimson Serpent-\" The Alkonan had already lowered his hands. Now his manner eased even more. \"Ina week we could be away from this benighted foul backwater!\"Tis no place for the likes of us, holy one! Let us be off t' some civilized land!\"\n\n\"I have told you that this place is our destiny.\" Chedan's voice was stern. \"Do you question the wisdom of the priests\" caste?\"\n\n\"Not I!\" Aven answered with a smirk. \"All I know o'destiny is, I'm no tree-grubber! And beggin'your flip-pin\" pardon, but I'm not your slave neither.\"\n\n\"Well then, my good man,\" said Chedan in a controlled tone, \"if your destiny is so different, we must not detain you here. Can we assume that you will not be attempting to claim any further share of our food and drink?\"\n\n\"What?\" Once more Aven's stance became threatening-and that was enough for Damisa. She dropped her load of branches and began to rundown the path to the shore.\n\nAs she had hoped, the captain was close by the ship, planing down apiece of wood to replace a plank that had been cracked by a sunken rock. The day was chilly, but the work had made him warm enough to be comfortable, and he was stripped to his clout. In Ahtarrah, that would not have been worth noting, but here, the cold made most of the exiles go about layered in every garment they owned. To see his muscular bronze body flexing in easy motion as the plane rasped down the plank was... a surprise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had no time to analyze her reaction, for at the sound of her swift footsteps Reidel had straightened, eyes widening in alarm.\n\n\"What is it? Are you-no, I see you are unhurt. What has happened?\"\n\n\"It's what's going to happen!\" she replied. \"Aven is close to mutiny. Says we should be working on the ship instead of-\"\n\n\"Damned fool!\" A dangerous glow lit Reidel's eyes. He snatched up his tunic and strode off so swiftly that Damisa had to run to catch up with him.\n\nIn moments they had reached the clearing. She had not been gone long, and Aven apparently had not progressed beyond insulting words and postures, but the air had a charged tingle that she did not like. Chedan stood immobile as a pillar of stone, but his hair was bristling and the pupils of his eyes expanded with the focus of the force within. The air was becoming super heated. Everyone could feel it, especially Aven, though he tried to seem unaffected as sweat began to pour from his face and shoulders.\n\n\"Owwat last!\" he croaked defiantly. \"A warm breeze. The wind gods do confirm me words to yez!\" With uncommon impudence he reached toward Chedan, but his nerve failed as the cuff of his shirt caught fire, and he withdrew his hand with a gasp.\n\n\"Master, please!\" Damisa shrieked. \"He's just an ignorant man-\"\n\n\"No, don't stop!\" Reidel's voice cracked like a whip.\n\n\"But Cap'n,\" Aven wailed, childlike, \"this be no work for honest sailors! Just le\" me return to the ship. I'll blister me fingers for ye, only we leave these marshes and get back where we belong!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh?\" asked Reidel very softly. \"And where might that be?\"\n\n\"Back on Al-on-\" Aven's voice faltered.\n\n\"Indeed\"-Reidel nodded-\"that's just where you would be, were it not for Master Chedan-on Alkonath, or Ahtarrath-at the bottom of the sea!\"\n\nDamisa released her breath in along sigh as the last of the defiance went out of her countryman.\n\n\"Truth, I grant,\" said Aven desperately, \"but why here?\"\n\nReidel's gaze flicked to Chedan, who appeared quite relaxed, though his voice was edged with strain.\n\n\"The error is mine,\" said the mage, \"for while this is the haven which the gods have vouchsafed us, I forget sometimes that not all of us have sworn the vows of a servant of Light. Why were we saved when so many died? Precisely so that we might come here. Though you see it not, there is power here enough to make this place a beacon for all the world. And in this life and beyond, I am bound to do all that I may to further that possibility. Will you not consider, at least, that you also may have been brought here fora purpose, and lend us what help you can?\"\n\nAven stared at the ground, as sulky as a boy. Chedan yawned and declared his intention to go and have a drink from the White Spring while Reidel, hands on his hips, shook his head.\n\n\"Master Chedan is too kind,\" he observed. \"When this community is secure, Aven, you shall go where you will, but until that day comes, we will all work together-and you will obey Master Chedan as you would a prince of the blood!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After that, there was no further defiance and surprisingly little grumbling. A week of hard work got them all under some sort of shelter. The construction was simple enough-following the example of the villagers, they had made walls by weaving slender branches of willow between log posts driven into the soil and thatched the roofs with bundles of reeds. Plastering the walls with mud to make them wind and watertight would take longer, but at least they were out of the rain.\n\nAlyssa had finally been carried up from the ship to share a large round hut with the Blue Robes, Liala and Malaera. Close by was a small enclosure in which the Omphalos Stone waited, still in its cabinet, wrapped with silks. Nearby, two more huts, small but private, had been erected for Tiriki and Chedan. Around these were three larger dwellings. The female acolytes were lodged in one; the saji Metia and her sisters occupied another. Kalaran had abed in a third, which he shared with a white-robed priest named Rendano. Reidel and the crew, along with the merchant Jarata, and a few other surviving Ahtarran townsfolk, had built another scatter of shelters for themselves near the place where the wingbird had come to ground.\n\nIt was well on the way to becoming a community. But though the results of their work were good enough to keep them dry, by Atlantean standards none of it could be called homelike, or even warm. Huddling over a peat fire in her drafty hut, Tiriki shivered and sniffled and wondered if she was coming down with a premonition of disaster or only a cold. She cast a beseeching glance at the image of the Mother she had setup in a little alcove of stones, but in the flickering firelight even the Goddess seemed to be shivering. The ache and tingle of her breasts supported the mysterious Taret's diagnosis, but what hope had she of carrying a child to term in this wilderness? Had the refugees survived the fall of Atlantis and the voyage only to be defeated by the climate of this new land?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even allowing fora certain amount of exaggeration, Damisa's account of the confrontation between Aven and Chedan left Tiriki's belly clenching with a pain quite different from the pregnancy-induced nausea that had finally begun to subside. It did not help that she understood, as her acolyte had not, that Aven had challenged not merely the mage's authority but that of all the priesthood. And Chedan was of the Old Temple. There was no real choice for him but to defend his caste.\n\nHe does not do this for his own glory, she had reminded Damisa. What he does, he does for you and for me. And there is noway of judging how the confrontation would have turned out without your interference.\n\nDamisa had gone away suitably chastened, but the tale continued to haunt Tiriki, as palpable a presence in the drafty hut as a bowl of spoiled milk. Tiriki did not doubt that he was capable of it, but could not quite accept the notion that Chedan, whom she knew to be gentle and reasonable, would actually have burned an Alkonan sailor to ash. But that did not prevent her thanking the gods and goddesses that Reidel had put a stop to it, even though the real problem had only been suppressed, not resolved.\n\nAven was not the problem. He had only been the first to say out loud what she had already heard others mutter when they thought no one was listening.\n\n\"Micail, Micail,\" she whispered, \"why did we even try? It would have been better to meet fate with our own people, hand in hand. By now the pain would be ended, and we would beat peace.\"\n\nYou know why, the voice of her spirit answered. You are sworn to the Light and the prophecy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A sudden shift in the wind sent the billowing smoke into her eyes. By the time she had stopped coughing she was weeping in earnest.\n\n\"Damn the prophecy!\" Roughly she thrust aside the deerskin tacked across her doorway and went outside. The air was fresh and sweet with the scent of greenery, a powerful reminder of her mother's garden, and of Galara, who should also have been at her side. She blinked away tears and only then realized that the clouds had gone. The sun shone full and bright overhead, and she raised her arms, exultantly voicing the ageless hymn of greeting-\n\n\"Lift up thy light unto day, O eastern star, Joy and giver of Light, awake!\"\n\n\"Lift up thy light unto day, O eastern star, Joy and giver of Light, awake!\"\n\nShe let her arms lower slowly, eyes half closed, luxuriating in the benign radiance that shone on every land. What month was it now? The moon had shown full and the Dark Sisters dimmed since the equinox. Even in these misty hills, summer should have begun sometime ago... Chedan's theory about the gradual slowing of seasons came to mind.\n\nSun Children, Taret called us... Of course! Tiriki's hands fell at last to her sides. Atlanteans do not like to huddle in the dark! No wonder everything seems so grim and gloomy. I've got to getaway from here.\n\nAware that the others might be watching, she found herself moving quickly through the trees. Without any clear idea of where she was going, her feet found a pathway. In moments she was alone, beyond sight and sound of the settlement.\n\nInstinctively Tiriki chose the way that led upward. The path disappeared; not even a deer run or rabbit track marked the ascent. She felt strongly that she must getaway from the encampment and the marshes, and respond to the whisper of the breeze and the clarion call of the sun. Since their arrival she had wondered what lay at the top of the Tor, and so she was not surprised to realize that every footstep was taking her closer to it, though the undergrowth forced her to double back upon her tracks in order to find away through, so that she ended up tracing her way back and forth around the Tor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Soon, perspiring, she pulled off her mantle and looked about. She was high enough up that the trees had mostly given way to scattered shrubs and bracken, but between them stretched grass-brilliant with the sun, more vibrantly green than anything she had ever seen. Once more, tears sprang to her eyes, but they were tears of joy. Silly girl, she told herself, did you actually think there could be no beauty in the new land?\n\nA last scramble brought her to the summit-a gently rounded oval expanse with a coverlet of the same richly green turf. Even in that first moment, half blinded by glorious sunlight, she was aware of it, like another kind of radiance...\n\nHer eyes adjusted quickly. From here, high above the primeval forest that girdled the Tor, even the marshes below revealed to her a strange, wild beauty, for the vast fields of green spring reeds were spangled and veined with pale blue whenever the water reflected the sun.\n\nMagnificent, she told herself, but her sigh of appreciation at once gave way to a sudden stab of nostalgia. In Ahtarrath she and Micail had often greeted the day from the summit of the Star Mountain, where the blazing sun above the diamond sea had revealed each and every feature of the countryside and glittered on a thousand decorated rooftops with breathtaking clarity. Here, even on a cloudless day, the view fell away into a misty shadow of rolling hills backed by a foreign sea.\n\nIn Ahtarrath she had always known who and where she was. Here she had no such clarity. Instead, what she saw in the subtly veiled landscape before her was... possibility.\n\nSlowly she turned, noting how the long ridge to the south and the higher hills to the north sheltered the levels between. To the east, the mist was turning to a brown haze, but Tiriki scarcely noticed. Before her, at the summit of the Tor, was a circle of standing stones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Compared to the massive edifices of Atlantis, it was not particularly impressive. For one thing, these stones still were shaped as the gods of earth had made them, the tallest scarcely breast-high. But the very fact that such a thing could exist here forced her to a sudden re-assessment of the skills, or perhaps the will, of the people who had made it.\n\nThe real question, she thought then, is why? She straightened and took a deep breath, remembering her own skills. Near the center of the stone circle she could see a darkened area and the remains of afire. Moving sunwise around the perimeter of the circle, she entered through a slightly wider gap on the eastern side. With the first step, she knew she had been right about the power here; as she continued inward, her awareness of the energy in the earth grew even stronger, increasing yet again as she reached the circle's center. Only her training enabled her to stay upright.\n\nClosing her eyes, she let her senses seep into the earth, rooting herself evermore deeply, and feeling the swirling currents of power as they rayed out in every direction, but most powerfully to the southwest and northeast. Yet more strongly still she felt the vitality that surged in the ground beneath her, flowing upward through her body until her arms again rose by themselves and stretched toward the heavens, making herself a living conduit between earth and sky.\n\nTiriki had thought to use this moment to lay claim to the new land, but instead she found herself surrendering.\n\n\"Here I am... Here I am!\" she cried. \"What would you have me do?\"\n\nKeen as the wind, radiant as the sun, steady as all the earth below, the answer came.\n\n\"Live, love... laugh... and know that you are welcome here....\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tiriki's eyes flew open in shock, for the voice was not that of her spirit. She was hearing it with her physical ears. Fora brief and angry moment she thought that someone had followed her uphill from the encampment, but the woman before her, clad in garments of sunlight and spiderweb, was no one she had ever seen before.\n\nNoting the slender limbs and cloud of dark hair, she thought this must be another of the marsh folk. But there was something in the line of the cheek and brow, and even more in the way the slanting light played about the figure-at times shining on her, and at other moments glowing through her-that proclaimed this was no being of the mortal world.\n\nTiriki bowed her head in instinctive reverence.\n\n\"That is well,\" said the woman, with awry but gentle smile, \"yet I am not one of your gods, either. I am... what I am.\"\n\n\"And that is-\" Tiriki's mind raced, her heart pounding so that she could hardly speak. In the Temple they had called such beings devas, but here it seemed more natural to echo Taret's words-\"You are one of the Shining Ones...?\"\n\nThe woman's strange eyes widened, and she seemed to dance a little above the ground. \"So some say,\" she allowed, still with that faint air of amusement.\n\n\"But what shall I call you?\" There was a pause, and Tiriki felt a tingle as if a delicate hand had brushed her soul.\n\n\"If a name is so important, you may call me-the Queen.\" She lifted a hand to her hair and Tiriki realized that the Lady's brows were crowned with a wreath of white hawthorn bloom. \"Yes,\" she added with a hint of laughter, \"thus I maybe sure you will respect me!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Assuredly!\" Tiriki breathed, kneeling; spirit though the woman might be, she had the stature of the Lake dwellers, and it seemed discourteous to look down at her. \"But what should I offer you?\"\n\n\"An offering?\" The Queen frowned, and fora moment Tiriki felt that glancing touch upon her soul once more. \"Do you think I am one of your... merchants... requiring payment for the gifts I bring? You have already offered yourself to this land,\" she said more kindly. \"What else could I ask of you? What do you desire?\"\n\nTiriki felt herself flushing. \"Your blessing...\" she said, her handover her womb. Surely the best safeguard she could have would be the favor of the power in this land. \"I ask your blessing on my child.\"\n\n\"You have it-\" The answer came soft as the fragrance of flowers. \"And so long as they shall remain true to the hallows here, I promise you also that your line shall never fail.\"\n\n\"This hill?\" Tiriki asked.\n\n\"The Tor is only the outward semblance, as your womb is the shelter for your child. In time you will learn to know the Mysteries that lie within the Red Spring and the White, and the Crystal Cave.\"\n\nTiriki's eyes widened. \"How shall I learn about these things?\"\n\nThe Queen lifted one dark eyebrow. \"You have met the wisewoman. She will teach you. You have been a servant of the sun, but now you shall learn the moon's secrets as well. You... and your daughters... and those who come after....\"\n\nShe smiled, and the radiance around her intensified until Tiriki could see nothing but light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Eight\n\nThe days since Micail's arrival in Belsairath stretched into weeks, and still Tiriki did not come. He had always thought of himself as the strong one, but he was beginning to realize that despite her apparent fragility, her bright spirit had supported his. By day, he participated in rituals and attended meetings, hoping to hear some word of her or persuade the Alkonans to mount a search, though he had no idea where the other refugees might be found. Every night in his dreams he retraced the bygone streets of Ahtarra, searching for Tiriki as the light went out of every shop and home and temple.\n\nSometimes, fora moment, she seemed so close he thought he touched her. And then he would wake and realize that she never drew away because she was always gone.\n\nThe days were almost as depressing. The existence of Belsairath proved that Atlanteans could indeed survive, even thrive in anew land, but somehow the number of new buildings going up, with their grandiose imitations of antique architectures, only contributed to Micail's deepening gloom.\n\nTjalan would have installed Micail in his villa, indeed in his own suite, but Micail protested in the strongest terms. Belsairath was noisy and less than sanitary, and the inn was at the center of it, but he needed to be able to seethe harbor.\n\n\"Tiriki might come. If I were somewhere I could not see her ship, then-\" He shook his head. \"She might leave. Some of the ships that come here do not stay. No, I need to be here.\"\n\nAfter that, Micail was exempt from the council meetings at Tjalan's villa. Of course he was glad enough to miss the unending scholarly debates over astral influences and power flows in the land. It was certainly not difficult to enjoy the regular temptation of the finest foods, spiced with loore, marinated in raf ni'iri... Still, Micail would have preferred more solitude. Continually, it seemed, there was a soldier nearby to protect him, a Blue Robe or other healer looking after him, Jiritaren or even Bennurajos visiting, offering heady liqueurs and a steady stream of quips and diversions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stoically, Micail had tolerated the special treatment and endless interruptions, for at some level he knew he walked close to madness... Perhaps most difficult of all were the bracing visits from Tjalan, who repeatedly made it known that he was prepared to provide anything that might breakthrough Micail's lethargy, up to and including fetching young women for his diversion.\n\nHis cousin Naranshada came once or twice, but Micail could never decide whether Ansha's visits brought comfort or more pain. When they had been junior priests he and Ansha had been close, but as Ansha moved more deeply into the engineering studies that were his specialty, they had grown apart again. Now what they had in common was their loss, for in the chaos of the escape from Ahtarrath, Ansha's wife and children had drowned. The Royal Emerald, searching for survivors, had found him clinging to a spar, half mad with grief.\n\nAt times Micail envied his cousin, who could put aside the vain torment of waiting for news and move on. But then he would see again the mute pain in Ansha's eyes and realize that the slightest hope was better than a certainty of despair. If he had seen Tiriki sink beneath the waves, he would not have survived.\n\nLate one afternoon, Ardral came unexpectedly to call on Micail, offering ajar of honey wine from Forrelaro's cellars and a platter of succulent roast pig direct from Tjalan's personal chef. The day was warm, but less than sunny, so they dragged a low table and a pair of benches closer to the open balcony and attacked the repast fiercely.\n\nSome little while later, mere appetite sated, they began to speak of plans for the new Temple.\n\n\"You ought to attend some of those meetings, my boy. Haladris and Mahadalku make a formidable team, and you're the only priest with the rank to challenge them,\" said Ardral, seriously. \"If they have their way, the new Temple will faithfully reproduce all the flaws of the old.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Help keep the tale going for the author.\nTags: fantasy, historical, mythology, Atlantis, reincarnation\nAuthor: Marion Zimmer Bradley\nTitle: Ancestors of Avalon\nChapter: 17" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tumult outside was getting louder. He lurched out of bed, stumbled across the woven mat, and fumbled open the shutters that kept out some of the damp night air. To the west anew storm front was rolling in, trailing streamers of rain behind it, but the new moon, Manoah's messenger, slid among the streamers of clouds, seeking rest beneath the horizon, and the stars shone cold and dim.\n\nAll the world was at rest, dark and silent-except for Belsairath. The muddy crossroads outside the inn were alive with torches, and in the square an immense bonfire blazed. People were dancing around it, shouting.\n\nHas another ship come in? He strained to seethe harbor, but the docks were dark and still. He rubbed his eyes, unable at that moment to imagine what other reason people might have for such frenzied celebration.\n\nThe door to his chamber opened and he saw Jiritaren's angular shape against the light of the lamp that was always left burning in the hall.\n\n\"You are awake! I thought you must be, with all the racket outside!\" As usual, Jiritaren sounded as if he were on the brink of laughter.\n\n\"Did I have a choice?\" Micail gestured toward the window. \"What in the name of all the gods is that commotion about?\"\n\n\"Didn't anyone tell you? This is how they celebrate midwinter here!\"\n\n\"Oh.\" Micail shrugged and pulled the shutters closed, which dulled the noise slightly. He had known it was the winter solstice and had chosen not to attend the ritual of the New Fire at Prince Tjalan's villa.... \"I haven't been myself lately.\"\n\n\"You sound a lot better than you have in sometime. Let's have a little light!\" Jiritaren thrust a splinter into the flame and brought it back to kindle the lamp in Micail's room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ye-e-s,\" he said then, as he looked into Micail's ear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Someone home there, all right, and just in time.\"\n\n\"Oh stop!\" Micail aimed a mock punch at his friend and turned, looking for his cup and the water he hoped was still in it. \"But I am glad you're here. I'm even glad for the damned festival! It's high time something cheerful happened around here.\" He stopped, peering at Jiritaren. \"In time for what?\"\n\n\"Haladris and Mahadalku have called a special meeting-relax, they won't actually start until after dawn prayers. But since I just got back from the ritual and happen to know you're often up late, I thought you'd like to know-\"\n\n\"Indeed I would,\" Micail growled, \"if you'd be so kind as to tell me anything!\"\n\nJiritaren's dark eyes glowed. \"What I was about to say is that the Tarissedan psychics that Stathalka has been working with have found the place, and it's not too faraway.\"\n\n\"The place?\"\n\n\"The power source we need to build our Temple! Naranshada has been able to confirm that the energies probably coordinate, too. It's in the place Prince Tjalan was talking about, the Ai-Zir lands.\"\n\nMicail frowned, his mind beginning to engage as it had not for many moons. \"If Ansha agrees it's the right place, then we should start planning-\" He stopped short at Jiritaren's laughter.\n\n\"No, no, goon-it's just that you sound more like yourself than you have in, oh, far too long.\"\n\n\"I suppose you're right.\" Even if his dream were only illusion, Micail blessed the gods for sending it to give him the strength to fulfill his responsibilities. If Tiriki should sail into the harbor today, he thought, he would be almost too ashamed to face her. I have done nothing, he told himself sternly, but that will end now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jiritaren nodded, sober again. \"They want you to lead the expedition. Tjalan says he means to go with you, but he will almost certainly have to return here, just to keep an eye on things. You are the only one with both the rank to command a detachment of soldiers and the status to control the priests they will guard.\"\n\nMicail shook his head in wonder. What Jiri was saying surprised him less than the fact that for the first time since the Sinking he found himself genuinely interested.\n\nMicail lay awake for what seemed along time after his friend had left, listening to the noise of the revelers outside. The rain that presently began to rattle against the tiles of the roof dampened their spirits not at all. It reminded him of waves on the shore of Ahtarrath, and he found himself smiling.\n\nHe closed his eyes at last, going over the bright images of his dream once more. And just as the first birds were beginning to herald the day, the vision changed. He heard a voice proclaiming, \"The Daughter of Manoah brings life back into the world!\" and from the babe he held grew ablaze of light as the midwinter sun began to rise.\n\nAs the first anniversary of their arrival in Belsairath came and went, even the dead winter foliage seemed to celebrate, giving way to brilliant green, filling the world with a sweetness that seemed to linger in the air. The cycles of the sun, which at home had been measured and perceptible only to priests, were the very heart of the native religion in this northern land. Certainly Micail had never before been so aware of the lengthening days. Caught up in preparations for the expedition to the country of the Ai-Zir, he found himself too busy for much brooding, but that was not the only reason." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His grief was not gone, but it had grown distant. He was beginning to accept that Tiriki was lost to him. He had spoken to traders who came to the town, and even persuaded Prince Tjalan to send a ship around Beleri'in to check the more likely landfalls, but there had been no word. Though Micail mourned for the form of flesh in which he had loved her, he told himself that in another life they would come together again. And sometimes he even believed it.\n\nThe day of departure came, and Micail stood on the docks with his white robes girdled up for walking, stout sandals on his feet, and a staff in his hand that could be used for more than magic. Behind him he could hear a confusion of voices as the column formed, the white robes of the acolytes who had been selected to go with them pale against the green tunics the soldiers wore. The waves were blue today, with sparkles of foam. His gaze caught agleam of reddish gold and he stiffened fora moment, sure that he saw a wingbird rounding the point, heading in... But the wind shifted, flattening the waves. It had only been a trick of the sunlight.\n\nDo not mistake the signpost for the destination, old Rajasta murmured in his memory.\n\n\"Micail! Come on, man, we can't leave without you!\" The voice of Jiritaren roused him.\n\n\"Farewell,\" he whispered, lifting his hands in salute to the glimmer of light on the waves. Then he turned and strode away from the harbor to take his place in the column beside Prince Tjalan.\n\nFor the first hour of that first day's journey the rutted road was all Micail saw, and he paid little heed to anything he heard until someone behind him exclaimed in surprise. Micail looked up to see a turf-covered embankment along the side of a hill to the left of the road." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The natives here built that?\" he asked Tjalan. \"I would not have thought them capable of it.\"\n\n\"They built it,\" responded Tjalan, \"or rather their ancestors did. And they lived in it, until we came. My great-grandfather established the port-\" He gestured, thumb over his shoulder. \"My father regarded the Tin Isle ports as a total loss, but in local terms, they've done well. In fact, Domazo, who runs that inn you like so well, is the direct descendant of that chief. I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't have as much real authority there as I do! Anyway, as you can see, nobody lives here now. It gives us plenty of space for expansion...\"\n\n\"Impressive,\" Micail said at last.\n\n\"Yes, it is. We should not forget that when properly led and motivated, these people can accomplish a great deal.\"\n\nMicail looked at him sharply but Tjalan only walked on, scanning the horizon. Surely Tjalan did not mean what he seemed to be suggesting, that the native people wanted only fora strong leader. Himself, perhaps? In their planning, they had only discussed scouting the Ai-Zir lands and asking the native king for permission to build there. Micail did not recall an Atlantean empire built on the labor of subject peoples as being part of Rajasta's prophecies.\n\nOn the morning of the second day, Micail dropped back far enough to join the younger members of the expedition. He was far from sure what kind of welcome to expect-they were often rather stiff and uncomfortable in his presence-but today all seemed glad to see him.\n\nAfter his recent exposure to the prickly vanities of his fellow priests, he was glad to see that the acolytes were making no attempt to lord it over the chelas who served the other priests and priestesses. Li'ija and Karagon were not being treated as anything less than equals, and neither Galara's semiroyal status nor the fact that she was Micail's sister-in-law won her any favors. But the boy, Lanath, worried him. He continually lagged a little behind the rest, his eyes vague, as if remembering some evil dream. Micail stepped off the rutted road and bent, pretending to retie his sandals." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You look tired,\" he said, straightening as Lanath started to pass him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did you not sleep well?\"\n\nStartled, Lanath peered up at him. \"W-well enough,\" he stammered, hand going to his chin in the nervous habit he had developed since his beard had finally started to come in. \"Last night, anyway...\"\n\nMicail nodded. \"We all dream of what we have lost. But we have to goon,\" he said, knowing he was speaking to himself as well. \"I dream of my lost wife. Last night I saw her as if she were here before me.\"\n\n\"When I'm not having nightmares, and I can never remember them, thank the gods!\" said Lanath haltingly. \"I dream of Kanar-the Temple astrologer on Ahtarrath. You know.\"\n\n\"Yes?\" said Micail, with an encouraging lift of his eyebrows.\n\n\"Well, I had just been apprenticed to him-I've always been good at numbers. But in the dreams, I-it's nothing too strange at first, I mean I just see him in his observatory or walking on the beach. But then he gets-it's like he's trying to tell me something, but I can't quite seem to understand...\"\n\n\"Yes, but aren't the stars usually counted among the things no one can really understand?\" Micail replied. Suddenly his mind was whirling with a hundred self-doubts that were not his own. Lanath was broadcasting his feelings. No wonder the others seemed uncomfortable when he was around.\n\nThe boy needed training. Micail cleared his throat. \"Well, Lanath, if you are called to the star lore, you really ought to talk to Ardral-or Jiritaren,\" he went on, as Lanath flinched. \"You should not fear the Seventh Guardian. His jokes can teach you more than the sober wisdom of many, but I imagine you'll find Jiri more approachable. But right now, there is another thing you need to learn. Your voice has finally finished changing, is it not so?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes-I'm going to be a tenor, they say.\" Lanath flushed. \"Like you.\"\n\n\"Very good,\" said Micail, \"and that is no mere polite encouragement. When it comes time to build the new Temple, we will need trained singers-so I think you ought to begin working with me now. What do you say?\"\n\n\"Right now? I mean, I have a lot of trouble concentrating.\" Lanath reddened again. \"Especially in public like this. But-but I would be happy to try!\"\n\nMicail nodded. \"That is all I ask. Let's start with a basic centering exercise. Can you intone the fifth note and hold it? Yes, yes, that's good, but now listen, very carefully-\"\n\n\"It's so beautiful!\" exclaimed Elara. The road along which the native trader Heshoth led them wound north-eastward. To their left rose a line of low, tree-covered hills. Even the turf between the deeply cut wheel ruts was brilliantly green, starred with spring flowers. \"Our journey must have been blessed by the gods!\"\n\n\"Which gods,\" muttered Lanath, \"ours or theirs? I still hurt from yesterday's walking!\" Galara and Li'ija groaned agreement.\n\n\"If you had got off your rear end more often when we were in Belsairath you would be in better shape now,\" snapped Elara, surveying him with disfavor.\n\nAlmost without warning, Lanath had grown taller than she, but what muscle he had was still overlaid with a layer of what she could only describe as'pudge.\" His dark brown hair still flopped over his eyes like a child's, but he had the beginnings, finally, of a beard. Elara was resigned to their betrothal, but in no hurry for marriage, not when there were so many other interesting men around." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lord Ardravanant kept me more than busy enough,\" Lanath was saying, self-righteously. \"Studying the stars mostly requires you to sit still.\"\n\n\"And to sleep late,\" added Cleta rather wistfully. She was sturdily built, and sober and smart, and when she had had a full night's sleep, she was good-tempered, too....\n\n\"I expect the journey will toughen us all,\" said Li'ija brightly.\n\nKaragon, who had joined the expedition with his master Valadur, snorted disdainfully. \"Just a pleasant stroll to you, is it?\"\n\n\"Absolutely. If we were not tied to the pace of those Ai-Zir oxcarts,\" Li'ija persisted, with a smile that suggested she might not be entirely serious, \"then we could go twice as fast!\"\n\nLanath groaned at the thought, but the others laughed. Ardral was riding in one of those oxcarts with their supplies and baggage, and Valadur to keep him company. Everyone else walked, as in fact they would have done at home, where only the powerful, or the aged and feeble, rode in sedan chairs.\n\nConsidering the state of the road, she wondered how long it would be before the Seventh Guardian was walking along with the rest of them, despite his advanced years... however many they might be.\n\nShe had inquired more than once, but no one seemed to know how old Ardral was. \"Old enough to know better-and how I wish I did!\" was his usual answer to anyone bold enough to ask. And there were other, darker, rumors about him. Some said that in his younger days Ardral had used his powers to kill. He himself denied it, or rather, he would say, no, his enemies only went mad and ran away... which was not exactly reassuring. Still, the densely forested hills they were passing through might conceal any number of dangers, from wild animals to bandits. She was glad to be traveling with any sort of mage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of course there were the soldiers, too. Half of them brought up the rear, while the others formed a protective vanguard around Heshoth, a pair of native guides, and Prince Tjalan. Micail walked sometimes with the prince and his bodyguards, but no less often with the other priests. There were the engineers, Naranshada and Ocathrel, and Jiritaren, whose job, Elara suspected, was partly to nursemaid Micail, but mostly to assist Ardral with his astronomical calculations...\n\nElara was much less sure what the priestess Kyrrdis was doing there. If they wanted a singer, she's good, but Mahadalku is better; and if they just wanted a woman along they could have brought one of the sajis.... She blushed.\n\nThen there was Valadur. She was entirely mystified as to his function. The Grey Order had a very mixed reputation.... Ardral will keep him inline, she decided. That leaves... Valorin. Of course.\n\nShe slowed her steps, looking about, but still did not see Valorin anywhere. A priest from Alkonath who had been selected because of his vast knowledge of growing things, Valorin was continually leaving the beaten path to investigate some unfamiliar shrub or flower.\n\n\"Look-is that a village over there?\" Galara exclaimed, pointing toward an irregular collection of carefully laid-out plots radiating out from around hut with a roof of green turf. Atone end of the field along green mound seemed to stand guard.\n\n\"A farm, at least,\" Cleta ventured, \"though it does not look like the ones at home.\"\n\n\"Several farms,\" observed Karagon as they crested the road and more fields and buildings came into view. The plots were small, divided by hedges or ditches, and as they drew closer they saw the dirty brown backs of a flock of sheep being driven along by a small boy in a brown tunic with a stick and a yapping dog." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's water in those ditches!\" Lanath said in surprise. \"Just lying there.\"\n\nAs they drew closer, a man hoeing between rows of young grain called out a greeting in the local tongue, and Greha, one of the ferocious-looking native guides, replied. Both natives had the curly brown hair and grey eyes typical of these people, though Greha was both exceptionally broad and tall.\n\n\"You've learned a few words of the local patois, haven't you, Cleta?\" Galara asked. \"What are they saying?\"\n\n\"Something about shepherds and sheep. I think they are talking about us!\" Cleta's round face grew slightly pink. \"Oh my. I hope the prince didn't hear that!\"\n\nWith his bodyguard prowling around him, Prince Tjalan strode forward as boldly as the falcons that fluttered on his banners.\n\nBehold the great lord of Atlantis, taking possession of the new land, Elara thought, but what will the new land take from him?\n\nThe journey took on a rhythm of its own as the days passed. They rose early and walked, with occasional pauses, until the middle of the afternoon, when the vanguard would seek out a campsite with good water. One night they were troubled by the howling of wolves, and more than once Lanath woke them with his nightmares, but otherwise all seemed peaceful. The acolytes and chelas soon grew accustomed to the exercise, and once they lost their fear of the unknown terrain, they were eager to go exploring.\n\nMicail had not wanted them to go off on their own, but the trader Heshoth assured them that the folk here were not only peaceful but timid. When the natives saw the Atlanteans coming, with their brilliant white tunics and brightly colored mantles, not to mention the banners, spears, and swords, the pigherds and woodcutters of the forest ran away even faster than had the lads tending sheep or cattle in the meadows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The next day the expedition turned gradually northward, tediously following the road around the end of a line of densely wooded hills. By late afternoon, the travelers approached a solitary hill with the oblong hump of an old barrow on its top, commanding the countryside.\n\n\"We should probably stop here-\" Heshoth pointed to abroad clearing between the road and the stream. \"Once people came to this hill for the summer's-end ceremony, but then there was a war. No one left to come here now but us.\"\n\nThe day had been fair, and the long afternoon gave way to a lingering sunset as Prince Tjalan's servants prepared the pavilions and gathered wood to cook the evening meal. Until they had finished, there would belittle for the acolytes and chelas to do. Meanwhile the hill beckoned, with its leafy slopes and dark hints of ancient tragedies.\n\n\"Let's climb it,\" Karagon suggested. \"From the top we should get a fine view of the countryside.\"\n\n\"Haven't you had enough walking today?\" Elara grumbed; but except for Lanath, who was muttering something about ghosts, the others seemed eager for the adventure. Li'ija and Karagon soon found a path that led almost directly up the hillside to the summit, and they made good progress. Presently they came to a ditch and a low bank, both quite overgrown. Oddly enough, the ditch had been dug in segments, with a walkway of solid ground left between them.\n\n\"Neither ditch nor bank seems very defensible,\" Karagon observed. \"There must be another purpose here than fortification.\"\n\nOn the north face they found the timber posts of a gatehouse, still leaning against each other although the roof must have fallen in long ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If it's not a fort,\" asked Li'ija, \"what was this for?\"\n\n\"It feels... odd...\" Lanath shivered, then hastened to add, \"Not unfriendly-odd, just very ancient. There's an echo of many voices-\"\n\n\"Yes,\" agreed Li'ija, \"I can hear them too-\"\n\n\"It's wind. But something has been digging in one of those pits,\" said Cleta. She moved closer and squatted down, brushing away the soil. \"There's a quern here, like the ones the native women use for grinding grain. But it's broken.\"\n\n\"Smashed,\" volunteered Elara.\n\n\"Sacrificed,\" Karagon whispered dramatically.\n\n\"Is that a pot?\" Galara leaned over to see.\n\n\"It's a skull,\" Elara answered. \"Maybe the woman who used the quern.\"\n\n\"Let's see what's inside,\" suggested Karagon, picking his way through the ruins of the gatehouse. Lanath and Galara protested again, then shrugged and followed the others.\n\n\"It's a stone circle!\" said Elara, and stopped only a few steps inside, testing that expectant stillness as she had been trained to do, but there was no altar, only grasses waving in the twilit breeze and a few sapling hazel trees.\n\n\"I think,\" said Galara tremulously, \"we've found their cemetery.\"\n\n\"Then why wasn't that body buried?\" Li'ija pointed to the interior of the circle, where bleached bones lay scattered on the grass.\n\n\"Could have been burned,\" Cleta mused. That was done in Atlantis, in hope of loosening the ties of karma that bound the spirit and freeing it to seek a higher path; but there were no marks of charring on these bones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They laid the bodies out here so the birds and beasts could receive the flesh,\" Lanath said then, in a strange still voice. \"The skull was placed in the family's pit with the offerings.\"\n\nElara looked at her betrothed in surprise. Lanath had never been able to read the history of a place this way before. She glanced at Li'ija as if to say, I thought this kind of thing was your talent?\n\nOcathrel's daughter shrugged and turned away.\n\n\"It's getting really late,\" said Galara with an exaggerated shiver. \"Shouldn't we be going back? That slope will be harder going down.\"\n\nOnce outside the gatehouse, they all felt better, but the path that they took down the hill did not lead back to the encampment. Instead they found themselves entering what was obviously another enclosure, much more extensive than the first. Tangled vegetation covered fallen house-posts, and a series of overgrown hedges marked out paddocks for animals, and plots where a few sparse stalks of native wheat still grew.\n\n\"This one only seems deserted,\" Lanath said, \"like somebody's about to comeback. But at the same time-it's like it was never really lived in.\"\n\n\"Perhaps they were temporary dwellings,\" Elara suggested. \"The guide said people came here fora festival...\"\n\n\"They should have stayed away, if they wanted to live,\" said Li'ija in an odd voice. Elara turned and saw her standing very still, staring at something in her hand.\n\n\"You found an arrowhead!\" exclaimed Karagon. \"Say, I didn't know you were a sensitive. What else do you pickup from it?\"\n\n\"Blood,\" the girl said, \"and hate. Cattle. A raid... men running... walls of flames...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"These house-posts do look-charred,\" said Galara uneasily.\n\n\"And that,\" Cleta pointed out, \"is not an old wood-pile. Those are bones.\"\n\nElara put her arms around Li'ija and gently turned the chela's hand so that the bit of flint fell to the ground. The Alkonan girl shuddered and relaxed against her with a sigh.\n\n\"Are you all right?\"\n\n\"I will be.\" Li'ija shivered again. \"That was strange.\" She straightened, moving a little away from Elara. \"I remembered my father telling me that there was a place near Belsairath that used to be a famous mine for flint, and I thought about the road we've been on, and that arrowhead-it was like it appeared out of the ground, winking at me. So I picked it up, and it just-\"\n\n\"It was calling you. There area lot of spirits here.\" Lanath looked around uneasily. \"Their skulls were not buried. No one made the offerings. They're still waiting.\"\n\nEveryone had moved closer together. The setting sun crowned the trees with fire, and bars of bloody light slanted across the ground, making wavering lines in the dim air.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Cleta, unexpectedly, \"even I can feel that. Ugh! I hate this kind of thing. Let's get out of here!\" she exclaimed, taking Li'ija by the hand.\n\nBy the time everyone had made it out of the enclosure, the first stars were beginning to appear. Li'ija seemed to recover quickly, but Cleta and Lanath continued to mutter about spirits. Everyone else seemed to expect Elara to know what to do. Grounding their energies might not be the best remedy-it was from the earth, after all, that the trouble came. Caratra's other face, she thought, and shuddered again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The obvious solution was to get completely off the hill, but that proved to be more difficult than expected. Though the sky was fairly clear, there was no moon. Beneath the trees it was darker still, while every possible path turned and twisted as if trying to lead them astray. In the end, all they could do was to force their way downward through thorny shrubs and tangled saplings until they smelled wood smoke and heard Tjalan's servants chattering as they cooked the evening meal.\n\nMost of the explorers stumbled the rest of the way down into the camp as fast as they were able, but Lanath tarried, and after a moment, Elara climbed backup to rejoin him. \"Come along,\" she said softly. \"It's over.\"\n\n\"No. We have not escaped...\" Lanath whispered. \"The one in the barrow on the hill. She is very old, the Mother of all her tribe. And she doesn't want anyone here...\"\n\nAnd no wonder, thought Elara, after the way we went blundering about among the bones! She gave Lanath a gentle push toward the campfire. \"It's going to be all right,\" she said again. When he had gone, she turned back toward the woods, lifting her hands in salutation.\n\n\"Grandmother, our apologies. We mean only good to you and your people, honor to the dead and the living alike. Let me set out an offering for you in the forest, and in the morning we will depart from here. This one night I ask for your protection. Send us no evil dreams!\"\n\nThroughout the following day the acolytes and chelas remained unusually close together, but walked mostly in silence. The next day, the travelers turned to the east once more. Micail found himself oddly reluctant to head in that direction, for that night in the camp beneath the barrow-crowned hill, Micail had dreamed of Tiriki as she might have become if she had reached this chilly land. For the first time in a year he had awakened smiling. So clear had the image been that he almost seemed to see her still, crowned with hawthorn bloom, framed by lush green hills..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But as they moved toward the rising sun, that awareness of Tiriki began to fade. What do you expect? It was just a dream, he told himself sternly.\n\nThey camped that night at the edge of the hills. Before them lay anew countryside whose gentle undulations flattened into abroad plain that rolled away to a misty horizon. The countryside here seemed more thickly settled than any they had yet seen, but the same hedge and ditch system defined the fields where new wheat stood thick and green. Beyond that lay more open pastures where little brown sheep or wide-horned cattle grazed. The round farmhouses were much larger than the ones they had seen near the coast and were roofed with straw thatch instead of grassy turves.\n\n\"This is Azan-the Bullpen-where King Khattar rules!\" Heshoth proclaimed. Clearly the trader was proud of his ruler. \"At the noon meal we will stop, and you may put on festival clothing to honor him.\"\n\nTjalan caught Micail's eye with an amused smile, but plainly he found the counsel good. \"We begin,\" the prince murmured, \"by impressing this native chieftain, but soon, I think, he will honor us the more.\"\n\n\"Do you know anything of this king?\" Micail asked, just as softly.\n\n\"From what Heshoth has said, Khattar is lord over the many chieftains whose holdings ring this plain. They war with one another overgrazing rights, then gather at a central shrine for their great festivals-over which the king presides. They say that he carried off and married the woman who is now high priestess for all the people of the Bull. His reputation as a warrior was apparently great enough to discourage retribution.\" He shrugged. \"But Heshoth tells me that it's not his wife but his sister who is called queen. Her name is Khayan-e-Durr, and her son will be his heir. It's all rather complex and primitive, and as I say, I don't fully understand it. But you know what they say, when in Khem, walk sideways.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How will he receive us, do you think?\" Micail cast a quizzical look at his old friend. \"As allies, or as a threat to his supremacy?\"\n\n\"Ah, well, that will depend on how we handle this embassy,\" Tjalan answered with a laugh. \"I hope you brought your best bracelets.\"\n\nThey came to Azan-Ylir, the home and stronghold of the high king, at the time when the cookfires had been lit and the savor of roast meat was beginning to scent the air. The village was set on arise above willow-clad banks where the river Aman flowed gently down from the north. The afternoon sunlight shone sweetly through the new leaves. Heshoth's ferocious bodyguard, Greha, had disappeared during the noon rest, so Micail was not surprised to find that they were expected.\n\nGreha was waiting, with a line of warriors dressed as he was, in tanned leathers and furs, and armed with bronze weapons. They stood in two groups on each side of gateposts made out of gigantic tree trunks that towered above the logs of the palisade, twice the height of a man. As the Atlanteans marched through the gate, the guards fell in behind them.\n\nAre they threat or protection? Micail wondered. And then, remembering his conversation with Tjalan, Which are we?\n\nThe village consisted of a collection of roundhouses whose conical roofs were thatched with straw, interspersed with storage structures and pens for valued livestock. But a single central building dominated-a great roundhouse whose roof was builtin two sections, the inner cone lifted on pillars above the outer ring so that smoke could filter out beneath it. Inside, light filtering down from above added to the illumination of the central fire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The hall was filled with people, but in that first moment, Micail saw only the man who lounged on a high seat placed between the tallest posts and closest to the fire." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was as broad as a barrel, but the shape of his shoulders suggested that most of his girth was muscle as well. His neck needed to be strong as well to support his headdress, crowned by the horns of a bull. But the man's grey eyes were clear and intelligent.\n\nAs the newcomers came to a halt before the hearth, the king said something in the guttural tongue of the tribes.\n\n\"Khattar, son of Sayet, heir of heroes, Great Bull of Azan, and King of Kings, bids you welcome to his hall-\" translated Heshoth.\n\nTjalan was murmuring a polite thanks, introducing himself and his company to the trader, who translated it in turn. It was a courteous way to let the rest of them know what was being said. Tjalan had been studying the native language since his first voyage to this land, several years before. I have wasted my time, Micail realized. I ought to have spent the past year learning the native ways as well. But what he did know of native manners suggested that it would not be until much later that they would get down to discussion of the Atlanteans' purpose here.\n\nThere was another interchange, and Heshoth motioned the men in the group to benches set before trestle tables on the southern side of the hall. Only then did Micail realize that, except for Tjalan's faithful shadow Antar, their military escort had been kept outside.\n\nThe Atlantean women were gently escorted to a separate section in the east, near a sort of lesser throne, where a woman draped in a shawl sewn with small bits of gold sat facing the king. Now that he had leisure to look about, Micail saw a golden lozenge sewn to the front of the king's sleeveless tunic and bracelets of gold that flashed on his arms. A few of the native men who sat at the other benches also wore gold or bronze, but mostly their ornaments were of jet or finely worked antler or bone. Micail understood then why Tjalan had insisted that he have anew set of royal dragon bracelets and headband made for him in Belsairath. It was still not as grand as his own regalia, of course, but that had perished with Ahtarrath..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "More compliments were exchanged, and great slabs and joints of smoking beef and mutton were brought in, arranged on beds of boiled grain on wooden trays. There was drink as well, a yeasty brew with a hint of honey, served in finely made pottery beakers. King Khattar, he noticed, drank from a beaker made of gold.\n\nThe king's bards sang of his victories in battle, and a leather-robed man called Droshrad, whom Micail recognized as some kind of priest, boasted of how the gods had given Khattar power.\n\nBy the time darkness had fallen, Micail was beginning to suspect the king's plan was to stupefy them with food and drink. Their situation did not seem certain enough to allow him to comfortably take more than a few polite sips of the brew, but the demands of courtesy required him to eat more meat than he was accustomed to tasting in a month. Tjalan, however, was in fine form, joking with Heshoth and commiserating with the king on difficulties with crops or neighbors, just the kind of conversation that had bored Micail to madness in Ahtarrath, and which he found no more interesting in translation... But the ordeal did at last seem to draw to an end. Singly and in groups, the feasters took leave of the court.\n\nThe king and queen themselves, however, remained in their places with a few attendants around them. The shaman Droshrad and his fellows stayed behind as well. Micail caught Ardral's eye and found the old man observing the situation with his usual sardonic smile.\n\n\"Yes, of course we have the manpower to build barrows for our honored chieftains,\" Heshoth translated the king's most recent words, \"but in the old days many tribes came together to make greater monuments. To build anew one with mighty stones would surely prove my power!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There were many such monuments in my country,\" answered Tjalan, \"and they have uses that you have never dreamed...\"\n\n\"Maybe so\"-the king grinned back-\"but your laborers lie under the sea, and with them, your power.\"\n\n\"No, my lord, the men who have the magic to raise the stones for you are here...\" Tjalan spoke very softly, holding Khattar's gaze with his own.\n\nMicail came to full attention, eyeing his cousin narrowly. They had discussed asking this king for permission to investigate the site identified by their calculations, and then perhaps to build there. What game was Tjalan playing?\n\n\"The men of my race have many powers,\" the prince continued, \"but as you have said, our people are, at the moment, few. Yours are many, and if we work together, you will become-greater. The People of the Bull will rule this land forever.\"\n\nKhattar pulled at his beard, eyes narrowing, as the shaman whispered in his ear. Micail watched them, and realized how hard he had been gripping his beaker only when he let go and saw the corded pattern imprinted upon his hand.\n\n\"What advantage for you is in this offer?\" Khattar asked at last.\n\nTjalan gazed back at him with grave sincerity. When he and Micail were boys playing at the game of Feathers, that look usually meant that the Alkonan was about to make some decisive, or possibly deceptive, move.\n\n\"The Sea Kingdoms are no more. We need a place where our arts can flourish. We need a homeland...\"\n\n\"Droshrad can call spirits and compel the hearts of men,\" Khattar said obliquely, \"but only the sweat of men can move stone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Or their song...\" Tjalan said softly. He turned toward Ardral and Micail. \"To move large things requires a full stand of singers, but the great among our priests can work alone. Will you show them, my friends, what the power of Atlantis can do?\"\n\nNow that winning smile was turned on them. Micail glared, but Ardral's dry chuckle defused his anger.\n\n\"Why not?\" said the Seventh Guardian, lifting his cup in salute to the king and then draining it. He turned to Micail and whispered, \"The old Bull should toast us in return, don't you think?\" He cast a meaningful look at the golden beaker, and then, without waiting for Micail's answer, began to sing.\n\nArdral's baritone was both deep and resonant, whatever his age. The note he produced was wordless, but focused very precisely. Khattar set the golden cup down rather hastily as it began to vibrate in his hand. A sidelong look from Ardral invited Micail to join the game.\n\nWhy shouldn't I? he thought suddenly. Who are these barbarians to sneer at the son of a hundred kings? He took a deep breath, and with equal precision, produced a second note, a halftone higher than Ardral's, directed to the same target. The beaker rattled and danced on the wood of the table-then rose and fora long moment hovered in midair, slowly turning on its own axis, until finally, with equal deliberation, it sank back down to rest beside the high king's trembling hand.\n\nFora moment Khattar simply stared. Then he slapped his hand down upon the table. As the beaker fell over, he began to laugh in a booming voice that seemed to grow louder and louder, until Micail's ears could hardly bear the sound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Eleven\n\nWhen the archpriest Bevor first told me I was to bean acolyte, the year before the Sinking,\"Selast observed-\" can you believe that was three years ago? Anyway, he said I would be required to discipline mind and body beyond anything I had ever known... But I thought the fasting was supposed to be voluntary!\"\n\nDamisa nodded, but kept her eyes on the three Lake women she and Selast were following down the narrow path edged with spiky weeds. \"Willed hunger is only a discomfort of the flesh,\" she quoted, without sarcasm. Damisa really thought she was becoming almost accustomed to the empty feeling in her belly, and the way her clothing hung loosely on her once-sturdy frame...\"To discipline the spirit against the body's demands,\" she finished the quote, \"is the only surety against the illusions of wealth and security.\"\n\n\"Uh-huh, lovely,\" Selast muttered, \"but it's one thing to understand how the marsh folk live, never knowing if their supplies will be sufficient, trusting in the gods-\" She glanced at Damisa and forced a laugh. \"But I thought we'd done that on the ship! Besides, we did a lot better than this last year. We did better than this the year we got here! Plenty of food then.\"\n\n\"Hush,\" Damisa advised. \"You're getting yourself worked up for nothing. Anyway, this year is always harder than last year-haven't you noticed? And you're always hungry, every year.\"\n\nThe other girl grimaced, but did not deny it. Even in her homeland of Cosarrath, where she had been allowed to eat whenever and whatever she wanted, there had never been an ounce of fat on Selast. Prowling along the path in a short blue tunic, she looked every inch a creature of the wilderness, ever wary, muscles rippling beneath the taut brown flesh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet just the other day she heard one of the boys say she looked about as cuddly as a skinned rabbit, Damisa reflected with a shake of her head. That can't be right.\n\nIn the old days, or so she had heard, even a betrothed acolyte had been free to take a lover, sometimes even more than one. Here, apparently, no one had done so. But it didn't help that there were hardly any men around, at least not men of the priests\" caste. There's Kalaran, who just doesn't seem all that appealing, and Rendano, who obviously isn't interested, and of course Master Chedan, but, well-\n\nUnbidden, an image of Reidel came to mind, his deep warm eyes, his strong shoulders... Damisa banished the thought with a shake of her head. In Atlantis, the genealogists of the Temple would have been horrified at the very idea of such a connection, and she agreed. But lately Tiriki had mentioned the possibility of inviting someone from among the sailors or merchants into the priesthood. Of course, Damisa knew that in the troubled times before the rise of the Sea Kings, a fair number from the other castes had been taken in. She herself came of the royalty of Alkonath, and Selast was of the pure noble stock as well, but the majority of the acolytes had ancestors of more humble origins.\n\nNot that it mattered anymore. Damisa sighed. We girls will just have to lie down with one another, as they say the warrior women do on the plains of the Ancient Land... She stifled a snort of laughter, but her gaze returned speculatively to Selast. Almost unconsciously, she began to copy the Cosarran's stealthy gait... until she caught herself doing it, blushed, and tripped over her own sandals." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just around the turn in the path, the marsh women had paused to make an offering atone of their forest shrines, a primitive affair of braided straw and feathers set in the hollow of an oak tree. Damisa felt a renewed pang of hunger as she glimpsed the tubers of wild onion laid there. How strange to realize that here a few roots were a sacrifice more precious than incense... But if the way-shrines were more modest than the pyramids and towers of Atlantis, she had to admit the powers here were well served, for they seemed to reward such simplicity.\n\nAs far as Damisa could tell-although all the hunting and foraging severely limited the time available for theological analysis-the spirits of this land were much more approachable than the gods of Atlantis, who were in essence nonhuman forces who dwelt beyond the mortal sphere. For all their legendary quirks and feuds, Manoah or Ni-Terat seemed less like individuals than signifiers, representatives of the immeasurable powers that moved the sun and the stars.\n\nAlthough sailors prayed to the Star Shaper because he was the Lord of the Sea, and children prayed to the Great Maker because it helped them to sleep at night, not even Ni-Terat, the Dark Mother of All, had interceded to save a single human life. Only Caratra, the Nurturer, the Child Who Becomes the Mother, was traditionally believed to demonstrate a genuine interest in ordinary people, and that was only a few times a year.\n\nIn contrast, the Lake folk honored the simple spirits of field and forest. But they did not treat them as great gods; they were not magnificent beings who might eventually grant a favor, but... The Lake gods seem more like good neighbors, Damisa decided, inclined to be helpful whether they notice you or not...\n\nShe shivered a little as she approached the tree, wondering as always if what she felt at such rustic shrines was an illusion somehow created by the beliefs of the marsh folk or something more genuine-the actual presence of areal spirit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Shining One, accept my offering,\" she muttered as she tucked a spray of white hawthorn blooms into the straw. \"Help us find food for our people.\" She stood back to let Selast kneel and add some primroses. As they gazed up into the branches where the new leaves filtered the sunlight to lucent pale green, all the air seemed to shimmer and dance.\n\nFora moment, then, Damisa seemed to feel the touch of a presence on her soul-curious, a little amused, but not unfriendly. Instinctively she sank to her knees, resting her hands upon the damp soil. Someone was listening, and that was more than she had ever felt in any of the splendid temples of Alkona or Ahtarra.\n\n\"Bright One! Help me! I am so hungry here!\" her heart cried, and in that moment she realized that her emptiness was not that of the body, but of the soul.\n\nSelast had already gone after the Lake women. Damisa got to her feet, glad that the other girl had not seen her moment of weakness. Her business just now was to find food for their bodies, and until they did her spirit would just have to fend for itself.\n\nIn the first year, the refugees had cleared ground near the springs and planted the seeds they had brought with them, but perhaps they had not done so at the right time, for their first harvest had failed entirely. Without the nut flour the saji women made, the preserves of fruits, the good fortune of the sailors in their incessant hunting, and the hearty cooperation of one and all, the refugees might have fought a hunger more gnawing than they had ever known.\n\nThey did better in someways the following year, but the amount of food ripe enough to be harvested had been small indeed. If Elis had not had areal talent for growing things, their survival would have been even more doubtful. Although she could hardly'make a rock bear fruit,\" as Liala often said, nevertheless, every seed Elis had personally planted took root and lived. She had even been able to persuade the battered feather tree that had once belonged to Lord Micail to thrive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "According to the marsh folk, there were tribes farther inland who sowed grain and kept cattle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The marsh folk lived by the fruits of the earth because the land was unsuitable for farming. Yet the natives had never hesitated to share what they had, and were always willing to take the Atlanteans with them to hunt or forage for edible plants and waterfowl, fish and shellfish, and a wealth of other resources for those who knew whereto find them. That was, after all, why Heron's tribe came here.\n\nBut life by the lake is not so bountiful when the warm season ends! They probably think we're all idiots because we stay. Damisa laughed, then quickened her pace to catch up with the others. She grimaced, envying the efficient way Selast had of loping along. Perhaps she could catch up if she took a shortcut across the meadow... but the ground beneath the soft grass was part bog. With the next step, her foot went through the soft surface and with a cry she went down. She had just managed to get free, leg muddy to the knee, when Selast ran back to her.\n\n\"Don't try to sit up!\" the younger girl snapped. \"Where does it hurt? Let me see!\" Her clever fingers probed Damisa's ankle and then her knee.\n\n\"I'm fine, really, just muddy,\" Damisa insisted, though in truth, it was rather pleasant to feel those warm fingers on her skin. She plucked a handful of grass and tried to wipe her leg clean.\n\nWith a sigh of relief, Selast sat down beside her.\n\n\"Thank you!\" Sudden warmth filled Damisa and she reached out to give the other girl a hug of gratitude. Selast was all muscle and bone; it was like holding some supple wild thing. Fora moment everything was very still, but then Selast hugged back, hard, but not roughly..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We had better rest until we can be sure that foot will bear you,\" Selast said a few moments later. But Damisa, astonished by how pleasant it felt to hold the other girl in her arms, did not let go.\n\n\"Do you remember the shop in Ahtarra,\" she asked wistfully, \"just by the pylon, where they sold those delicious little cakes dribbled with honey?\" She eased back upon the soft grass and Selast went with her, nestling into the curve of her arm.\n\n\"Oh yes,\" Selast was saying, with her eyes half closed. \"I'd die for just one! This year the stupid emmer and barley seeds had better figure out how to grow! Nuts make good flour in a pinch I guess, but-it's not the same.\"\n\nDamisa sighed, half consciously stroking Selast's strong shoulders. \"When I was a little girl in Alkona, they would bring in cartloads of grapes and ila berries from the vineyards in the hills at summer's end, so many they didn't even care if they spilled over the wagon-sides. And more and more of them fell off, getting crushed on the cobbles, until the gutters looked as if they were running with wine.\"\n\n\"Never be able to grow good grapes here. Not enough sun...\" But there was light enough to turn Selast's skin to gold, glowing warm against the wind-ruffled meadow grass.\n\nDamisa pushed herself upon one arm and looked down at her. \"Your lips are just the color of those grapes,\" she whispered.\n\nSelast stared up at her, her face filled with light. \"Taste them,\" she dared, and smiled.\n\nBy the time they caught up with the others, it was past midday. The marsh women clustered, softly gossiping as they poked into the dense reeds around the lakeside. Hearing Damisa and Selast approach, one of the women gabbled excitedly and pointed; then, as the two girls clearly did not understand, the woman flapped her hands, and cupped them, as if she were cradling something between her palms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Eggs?\" asked Damisa. After two years, all of the acolytes had made some progress in learning the Lake folk tongue, but Iriel and Kalaran were the only ones who could actually speak it. Damisa herself had not yet progressed beyond a limited vocabulary. The small woman grinned and simply crooked her hand in a summoning gesture.\n\nAs she followed, Damisa took the precaution of kirtling up her skirts, and she was glad she had: their destination was the nest of some strange duck, which had evidently thought itself well hidden among the reeds.\n\nIt would have been hard to say who was less happy with the encounter, the duck or the acolyte, as it degenerated into a furious mix of swearwords and squawking. She left each mother duck at least one egg to hatch, but that didn't seem to soothe them. Damisa would not have thought a duck could bite, but she had nicks and scratches on both hands before they moved off toward higher ground to search for spring greens.\n\nThe tender new leaves of chickweed and goosefoot and mustard could be eaten raw, and there were lilies whose bulbs would provide more solid fare. Nettles were edible too, stewed as greens or steeped to make tea, but the native women always laughed when the acolytes tried to harvest them, for there was noway not to get stung, which made the girls curse in a manner most unbecoming to future priestesses.\n\nSelast sucked her sore fingers and sulked, even after they turned toward home. \"It could be worse,\" Damisa said, taking the other girl's hand and kissing the reddened stings. \"Kalaran had to go outwith the hunters. Nettles sting, but you don't have to chase them. And they don't sneak upon you. And they don't have claws and big teeth!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'd rather be hunting,\" Selast growled, \"except then I'd have to be with Kalaran.\"\n\nDamisa sighed, wracked with conflicting emotions. She had long ago come to terms with the fact that what she felt about having lost her own destined husband was mainly relief. But Selast and Kalaran were still officially betrothed and would be expected to marry someday, even though they had about as much interest in one another as a couple of rocks. Why is it, she thought, that however often somebody tells us the rules have changed, that things are different here-she felt her face warm as she remembered the events of the afternoon-why is it we still have to keep doing pretty much whatever we would have done in Atlantis? If they could have kept the splendid ways of old Atlantis she would not have minded, but it was the rules, not the rewards that seemed to have survived.\n\n\"But there are so few of us,\" she said finally. \"Can you honestly say you wouldn't care if something happened to him?\"\n\n\"He's got the luck of a drunk!\" Selast scoffed. \"He never gets hurt-except for his feelings. Besides, animal attacks have not been our worry.\"\n\nDamisa frowned, but she knew what the other girl meant. Early last summer, two sailors had gone missing. The marsh folk sent out trackers, but found no sign of them. The straggling scatter of huts where the sailors who had taken native wives lived with the merchants and others who were not of the priesthood was full of stories. Some thought that the missing seamen had grown tired of waiting for the Crimson Serpent to head out to sea again, and had gone back to the coast, where they had been picked up by a passing ship, but few took the tale seriously. Whether they said so or not, most believed that the sailors had simply fallen into a bog and been sucked down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was less ambiguity about Malaera's death. Morose from the beginning, the elderly Blue Robe priestess had finally succeeded in drowning herself in the lake. Damisa suspected that Liala blamed her personally for allowing the older woman to die. It wasn't even my turn to sit with her, she told herself, with a pang of guilt, though it was true that she had been the one most often assigned to help.\n\n\"That's cruel,\" Damisa said suddenly. \"You really wouldn't miss Kalaran at all, would you!\"\n\n\"Depends,\" said Selast darkly. \"Will I get his dinner?\"\n\n\"You're terrible,\" Damisa said, not even noticing the tear in her own eye. \"You wouldn't even miss me, I guess!\"\n\n\"What? Oh, don't be stupid,\" Selast began, but before she could say more, they emerged from the woods and found the settlement buzzing like a hive.\n\n\"A ship is coming!\" Iriel was running toward them. \"Reidel and his men sailed out to guide them in!\"\n\n\"They left hours ago,\" Elis added, approaching them. \"We shouldn't have to wait much longer.\"\n\nEveryone turned as Tiriki came out of her hut, waving cooing farewells to her baby, although little Domara seemed quite oblivious in the saji woman Metia's arms. The birth and healthy growth of the child seemed to have made the high priestess into afar more cheerful person, but as Tiriki turned toward them and smiled in greeting, Damisa saw that the old familiar haunted pain had returned to Tiriki's eyes.\n\n\"She's hoping they bring news of Micail,\" said Elis in a low voice.\n\n\"After all this time? Not too likely,\" Selast scoffed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's all very well for you to sneer!\" Elis snapped. \"Your betrothed is still alive and well. And at least I know what happened to Aldel-I can mourn him properly. But not knowing...\" She shook her head, eyes wet with compassion. \"That must be the worst of all.\"\n\nDamisa grimaced, but she and her betrothed had only known each other fora year. She could hardly even remember what Kalhan looked like after all this time.\n\nFrom the lake came the watchman's high, clear call.\n\n\"Finally!\" Iriel shouted and started running down the path that led to the river. Laughing, the others followed her.\n\nThey arrived just in time to watch the Crimson Serpent dropping anchor alongside another, smaller craft, not a warship but a midsize fishing boat, with only one mast and what looked like a crude shelter inside the ship. Her once-bright blue-and-copper paint had been worn away by wind and wave. Next to Reidel's wingbird, she looked like a mule beside a racehorse; but mules are sturdy beasts. This craft had not only survived the Sinking but made it here...\"How many of them, I wonder,\" Damisa muttered.\n\nSelast said, \"I hope they brought something good to eat.\"\n\n\"There you go again,\" Elis reproved. \"Just as likely, they're hungrier than we are, and we'll have to cast lots for every bite.\"\n\n\"Good,\" Selast growled. \"I'm feeling lucky!\"\n\nBy now, everyone for acres around must have heard about the arrival. At every moment someone else joined the crowd until the muddy shore was three-deep with marsh folk and Atlanteans, jostling one another and chattering excitedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As Reidel's ship settled into place beside the other craft, some men on the shore swung planed logs to her side, and then two groups of sailors leaped lightly down to finish the job of securing the ships to the tree stump that served as a mooring post. Damisa found herself holding her breath as the huddle of shapes on deck separated enough for them to seethe first passenger, a strongly built man with a grizzled black beard. Cautiously, he made his way across the plank, carrying a little girl who looked to be about five years old. Ashe stepped onto the narrow promenade, the child at last loosened her grip on the man's neck and shoulders and looked about, allowing Damisa a quick glimpse of her face-well-shaped eyebrows, a noble nose, and a heart-shaped mouth.\n\nThe big man turned and watched anxiously as the sailors helped a slender woman step off the plank. She gazed at the watching crowd, and then, weeping gratefully, ran into the bearded man's embrace.\n\n\"A family!\" Iriel whispered. \"Areal family!\"\n\n\"As opposed to a false one?\" Selast scoffed.\n\nBut Damisa understood, or thought she did. Married or not, the priesthood did not always choose to live together in family units; among those who had escaped on the Crimson Serpent, there had been no such couples. There were, of course, many families of Lake folk, but these were Atlanteans, and possibly even of the priests' caste... Damisa realized that the stinging in her eyes came from tears. Furtively she dashed them away as Tiriki hurried toward the newcomers, holding out her hands.\n\nDamisa started after her with a spurt of resentment. The high priestess had apparently forgotten how to form a proper escort... But would these people even realize that Tiriki was a priestess? Damisa blinked, trying to reconcile her memory of the ethereal figure who had welcomed the Prince of Alkonath to Ahtarra so long ago with this woman whose wispy fair hair was already coming free from a simple braid. Yet if Tiriki's coarse robe was badly woven, ragged at the hem and stained with mud, still she addressed the strangers with all the gravity and formal poise of a Guardian of Light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chedan had by now also joined the escort. Damisa noted with pride that he was at least wearing the golden cord of the Robe of Ceremony, although it was cinctured around a faded tunic... Of course, she thought, these new people look pretty shabby too. But they have an excuse-they've been at sea!\n\nSomehow, without ever quite letting goof the woman or the little girl, the bearded man bowed. \"Honored Ones!\" he said, in a warm voice that could be heard to the back of the crowd, \"I am Forolin, merchant of the city of Ahtarra. And this is Adeyna, my beloved wife, who also greets you in great respect-and my daughter, Kestil. We-there was another, born just after the Sinking, but-\" Realizing he was babbling, Forolin stopped. His chin twitched briefly. \"We give thanks to the gods!\" He touched his heart and extended the hand skyward. \"For we have found you!\"\n\n\"And you are most welcome here!\" said Tiriki again, as she offered further blessings to the trio. \"Forolin, Adeyna-and let this welcome be a personal one, for I have a little daughter of my own, just over a year old. Perhaps Kestil will like to play with Domara?\"\n\n\"Indeed you are welcome,\" Chedan said to Forolin. \"But may I inquire where you have come from? Please tell me you have not spent two years upon the sea in that little boat!\"\n\n\"No! No, indeed-\" Forolin's face grew grim again, as he delivered his daughter into his wife's waiting arms. \"We sought refuge on the mainland, in Olbairos, where my merchant house once maintained a trading station. We found it deserted, mostly, but we hoped to make anew start there. But there were so few of us-and then the plague came. We are the only ones who survived.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But how did you know whereto look for us?\" asked Chedan.\n\n\"I told you-Olbairos used to be a well-known trading station. The merchant fleet is long gone, of course, but natives still pass through therefrom time to time-even some from these isles. We had more than one report of others of our kind settling hereabouts.\"\n\n\"More than one?\" Tiriki turned toward him with anew sharpness in her voice. \"You know of others?\"\n\n\"Well, my lady, I have not seen them myself. And of course my informants mostly did their trading with the coastal settlements. The tribes that dwell inland are said to be strong and fierce. But it was said that several wingbirds had been sighted at Beleri'in, so we went there; it looked quite deserted, which is why we did not fight very hard when the storm drove us back out to sea. We were forced to turn west and northward, and when at last we were able to come to shore, we encountered a group of native hunters who told us you were here. As we were seeking you, your captain came to guide us in his ship. Please thank him for me! We are eternally in his debt, and yours.\"\n\n\"It was storm winds that drove us here as well,\" Chedan mused. \"Maybe none can find this place, except they are called by the gods...\"\n\n\"What we may offer you is little enough,\" said Tiriki, \"but we had some warning of your arrival, and so a hot meal awaits you, and dry, warm dwellings for you to rest in. Come now, let us begin to befriends.\" She drew the merchant and his family toward the wooden trackway that led to the settlement below the Tor...\n\n\"I suppose,\" Selast grumbled, \"this means we will have to go to bed hungry-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But no one was listening. Iriel clutched Damisa's arm and pointed at a strange figure just crossing the plank from the fishing boat. \"Who is that?\"\n\nTall, rather gaunt, the stranger wore a dingy white robe that, after a moment's examination, identified him as a priest of the Temple of Light. In each hand, he clutched a large leather satchel. Frowning, he stopped at the center of the plank, peering nervously at the curious crowd, but his face brightened as he recognized Chedan.\n\n\"Wise One!\" He bowed as well as he could without dropping his bags in the mud of the wharf. \"I am Dannetrasa of Caris. I doubt that you will remember me, but in Ahtarra I served with the Guardian Ardravanant in the Hall of Records-\"\n\n\"Ardral!\" Chedan explained. \"Have you news of him? Did he escape?\"\n\n\"Ah, if I only knew,\" said Dannetrasa apologetically. \"But if you knew him-\"\n\n\"He was my uncle.\"\n\n\"Then you know there is no reason to believe he would not escape! He was prepared, if any man ever was-\" Dannetrasa paused again, and then hefted his satchels. \"Of course you know, it was our duty to preserve what we could. And I have with me still a number of maps and several treatises about the stars-and some other things that maybe useful-\" Dannetrasa broke off again, as some sad memory seemed to pass before his eyes.\n\nChedan's expression grew concerned. \"Come with me, friend. I can see you have had a bitter time-let us make you welcome. You shall join the feast, such as it is, and then you will show me what treasures you bring in these sacks of yours!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Many things,\" Dannetrasa repeated, with a grimace, \"but no texts on healing, alas... Still, maybe they would not have helped. The sickness that drove us from Olbairos was unlike anything we had known.\"\n\nDespite the still-bright sunlight, Damisa shuddered, just as glad she could not hear the further details of their conversation as the two men moved away. Reidel, she observed, had taken it upon himself to arrange a proper welcome for the crew of the fishing craft. It was strange how relieved she felt at seeing him safely returned.\n\n\"A whole family of survivors!\" Iriel was bubbling. \"And the man said there were others, too. Maybe we will not always be so isolated here! But did you see that little girl? What incredible sparkly eyes! I hope-\"\n\n\"It's not like we don't already have a family,\" Damisa said suddenly, but only realized she had spoken aloud when the other two turned to her, Selast frowning, Iriel curious. \"Ina way we do,\" Damisa insisted. \"Chedan is our father, and Tiriki our mother. And aren't they always saying we are all sisters and brothers here?\"\n\n\"Then come, sisters,\" said Iriel with a grin, as she linked their arms in her own. \"The headman's son Otter promised me some cuts from that deer he killed yesterday, and I will gladly share them with you...\"\n\n\"Sweet Iriel!\" said Selast merrily. \"Why couldn't I be betrothed to you?\"\n\nOn the day after the new ship came to the Tor, Chedan met with the priestesses beneath the willow tree by the stream to discuss the implications of the recent arrivals. It was one of those spring days in which sun and cloud become intermingled, atone moment almost as warm as summer, at another threatening rain. At first the conversation focused on food and housing, but in the mage's midnight ponderings, other issues had occurred to him." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the author's co-writer, advance the plot.\nTags: fantasy, historical, mythology, Atlantis, reincarnation\nAuthor: Marion Zimmer Bradley\nTitle: Ancestors of Avalon\nChapter: 20" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Liala says that Alyssa is still feeling ill,\" Damisa said briskly, \"so she wishes you to fetch her some more of the dried yarrow blossoms the next time you come up the hill.\"\n\nIriel neither spoke nor stirred.\n\n\"You can take it to her after class, which is where you should be, by the way... What are you doing? It's not the season for berries-\"\n\n\"Hush.\" However softly voiced, it was a command, and Damisa found herself obeying before she had time to question it. Instinctively she sank to her knees beside the younger girl. A moment passed... and another. There was no sound but the wind that whispered in the willows and the gurgling of the stream trickling past. She could see nothing to explain Iriel's transfixed stare.\n\n\"You're spending entirely too much time with Taret-you're seeing things!\" Damisa muttered, \"Now look. It's lovely here, but we have to-\"\n\n\"Hush.\" This time there was a clear hint of fear in the word, and catching it, Damisa's tongue stilled again. Shaken, she started to withdraw from Iriel, more than half expecting that the other girl would suddenly grab her and laugh.\n\n\"Please!\" insisted Iriel. \"Don't move!\" There was no sound in the words, only the movement of the girl's lips, and all the while Iriel never blinked, never glanced away from whatever she had been so fixedly staring at-a deeper darkness in the underbrush that Damisa had not yet noticed.\n\nAnd then there was a noise, a wet kind of ripping, and a rustling in the brambles. Unexpectedly, Iriel relaxed.\n\n\"What is it?\" Damisa could not keep from saying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A spirit of the forest,\" Iriel whispered with an odd smile, \"but it has stopped listening now. If you move very softly and very slowly, you can see it too.\"\n\nDamisa unfroze a little, but before she could so much as twitch her shoulder, Iriel hissed again, \"Slowly, I said! It's almost finished. When it does finish it will go. Then we can go.\"\n\nHer neck hair prickling, Damisa shifted by inches until she could focus on the shadow in the brambles. At first it looked exactly like a hundred other places in the marshy woods, but as the wind shifted she could smell blood, and something else: a rank, wild smell.\n\nEither we've both gone competely crazy, Damisa decided, or something is out there.\n\nShe scanned the quiet scene again, focusing fiercely on every mushroom, every patch of grass, until she noticed a thick brown branch at the edge of the darkness-a furry branch that ended in a black, shiny, cloven hoof. She had skinned enough deer by now to recognize that is what it was, but why was it lying there like that?\n\nThe dead deer's leg twitched spasmodically, and she heard again the odd tearing, crunching sound.\n\nPerhaps in her shock she made some noise, for the brambles shifted and suddenly she saw clearly a massive, heavy-jawed head, muzzle dripping with blood, and the glow of dark amber eyes. The brambles heaved again as the creature lurched to its feet, jaws still clamped around the deer's haunch, and began to drag it away.\n\nFora moment Damisa saw the animal in its entirety, a dark silhouette against the daylight, its shape like that of a man clad in thick dark brown fur. A strong instinct that owed nothing to her temple training held her utterly still, in awe of a power more ancient than Atlantis itself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ashe-bear!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Iriel exclaimed, as the crackle of breaking branches faded. \"Did you see her swollen dugs? She must have cubs hidden nearby!\"\n\n\"A bear...\" That seemed a small word to contain such power. Damisa had seen a bear once, in Alkonath's Great Zoo of Wonders, but it had been considerably smaller, and differently colored, and she had been assured that it only ate vegetables. But then, there had been very few animals in the Sea Kingdoms, other than those that served men.\n\n\"That is all we need.\" Damisa tried to pull herself together. \"But didn't Otter say there are no dangerous animals in this valley?\"\n\n\"There aren't-usually. That is why this is so wonderful,\" said Iriel, her face alight with enthusiasm. \"Taret says that Bear Mother is the oldest spirit, mother of all the animal powers. It's good luck to see her!\"\n\nDamisa wasn't sure about luck, but she did not doubt the power. Looking into those golden eyes, she had felt a frisson of awe in the depths of her spirit unlike anything raised by ritual.\n\nIriel continued, \"Taret says the Old Ones who lived here worshipped her. They had caves where they worked magic. Some of them might still survive! Not the Old Ones, the caves. Maybe the she-bear has found one and lives there now! It would be a place of great power-\"\n\n\"This is a marsh, Iriel!\" Damisa gritted, exasperated. \"How could there be caves here?\"\n\nIriel turned, eyes narrowing. \"There are caves in the Tor,\" she said, as if it settled the matter. \"Come on,\" she added, getting up at last, \"didn't you say they were waiting for us?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "One custom of Atlantis that the immigrants had been able tore-create was that of coming together for the evening meal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On Ahtarrath, the acolytes had dined in a square chamber lit by hanging lamps and frescoed with interlacing images of the octopi whose tender flesh was a basic part of Atlantean cuisine.\n\nUnlike the native dwellings, the dining hall the Atlanteans had built at the Tor was rectangular, with doors set along the woven walls that could be opened when the weather allowed. Here, the whole community-except fora few sailors who had married native women and lived with them in the village-gathered around along central hearth whose smoke spiraled upward through the thatch of the peaked roof.\n\nAtone end, the little statue of Caratra stood upon a plinth made from a stout log. Tiriki noticed with a smile that someone had already laid a spray or two of purple asters before the Goddess. She wondered who it had been, and what words, if any, had been used.\n\nThe refugees still often spoke of Caratra as Ni-Terat, while the natives called Her Hearthmother, but all drew comfort from Her sweet regard. Today, though, Tiriki found herself suddenly feeling a little more out of place than usual. At home, she had served Light in the form of mighty but distant Manoah, whose presence was experienced only in the most rarified ecstasies of trance. But at the Tor they lived close to the earth and it seemed more fitting that the Mother who never abandons Her children should have Her home here at the center of the community.\n\nTiriki looked again about the crowded dining hall and smiled, remembering her teacher Rajasta's words, \"But it is man, not Manoah, who needs testimonials in stone. He can never be forgotten. The Sun is His own monument...\" And besides, she realized, this is a place of Light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And so it was. In summer, as if to makeup for its lack of strength by length of light, the sun lingered into the evening, its long rays slanting through the western doors, filling the space with a golden glow. The honeyed light veiled the deficiencies of their clothing, turning the countless stains and patches into subtle decorations. Tiriki felt an unexpected rush of pride. Although she could still recognize the same proud priesthood that had ruled the Ancient Land, the faces that now turned to welcome her were marked bylines of endurance and lit with a radiance she had never seen in the Temple at Ahtarrath, and it seemed to her that anew wisdom glowed even in wise old Chedan's eyes.\n\nAs Tiriki took her seat at the head of one of the long tables, Domara close beside her, she began a mental roll call. Reidel and the unmarried sailors sat together atone table, even now maintaining shipboard discipline. Chedan headed another group, with Forolin and his family on one side and the priests Rendano and Dannetrasa on the other. The saji women were not present-they generally took their meals privately with Liala and Alyssa-but Tiriki's table was far from quiet because the acolytes sat there.\n\nDamisa and Selast sat together as they usually did these days, and Elis was arguing with Kalaran, also a common occurrence. Even now, Kalaran did not seem to get on well with any of the others, as if grief for the companions he had lost still prevented him from taking joy in those who remained. Tiriki frowned, noticing that the place next to him was empty.\n\n\"Where,\" she asked aloud, \"is Iriel?\"\n\nThe acolytes looked at her and then atone another." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I haven't seen her since class this afternoon,\" said Elis. \"You never told us why the two of you were so late, Damisa. Was she working on some project that she might have returned to and forgotten the time again?\"\n\nDamisa shook back her auburn head, brows creasing in thought. \"Not a project,\" she said at last. \"But-I meant to tell you-we were late because we saw a bear.\" Her voice had risen, and folk from the other tables turned to see.\n\n\"A what?\" exclaimed Reidel. \"Are there bears here?\"\n\n\"I gather there haven't been fora longtime,\" Damisa answered. \"Iriel was ecstatic. Apparently Bear Mother is a great power here, and the marsh folk used to do rituals for her in sacred caves.\" She rolled her eyes, still unconvinced about the last part.\n\n\"She wouldn't have gone looking for the bear?\" Elis voiced the thought that was in everyone's mind. Tiriki's eyes met Chedan's in alarm.\n\n\"We must find her!\" Reidel pushed back his bench and stood up, reassuming the authority of command. \"The marshes can be treacherous, and we don't want to lose anyone else. We will form teams to search-Tiriki and Chedan can coordinate from here, and Elis should stay too, in case you need a messenger. Cadis, I want you to look around the settlement; make sure she isn't here. Teiron, search the area around the lake, and then rundown to the village and ask Heron to send hunters to track the bear. Otter will want to help. He seems to have a fondness for Iriel. Damisa, you and Selast and Kalaran-come with me. We must search the Tor, and the villagers do not go there...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Damisa clutched at another branch as her foot slipped again, and clung, catching her breath in hoarse gasps. Above her the slope of the Tor bulked like the Star Mountain against the night. She let out a little shriek as hard fingers closed on her arm.\n\n\"It's just me,\" Reidel murmured in her ear. She relaxed against his strong arm with a sigh, a little surprised at the sense of security his support gave her. Their torches had failed sometime ago, and the world had relapsed into a jumble of shadows. Reidel's arm was one point of certainty in all the wild world.\n\n\"Has the Tor gotten bigger, or are we covering the same ground over and over again?\" she asked, when she could speak again.\n\n\"It does seem that way,\" Reidel said ruefully. \"All these trees-they make me nervous. Almost makes me wish I were back at sea!\"\n\n\"At least we can seethe stars.\" She could feel no wavering in his arm. \"Will they not guide you as well on land as on sea?\"\n\n\"That's true-\" He tipped his head skyward, where an interlace of branches seemed to net the gleaming Wheel. \"And in truth...\" He paused fora moment, and when he spoke again there was a constraint in his voice that had not been there before. \"In truth, I do not wish myself anywhere but here.\" Very gently he released her. \"I hope Selast and Kalaran have fared better than we,\" he added, and looked upward once more, not giving Damisa a chance to reply.\n\nWhat should I have said? she wondered. How can I ask him what he means when I already know? In the old world, even if she had not been destined for the Temple of Light, a girl of her rank might never have spoken to someone like Reidel, much less wondered what it might be like to lie encircled by those strong arms. She felt his warmth again, as he stopped to help her cross a fallen tree. She dreaded the necessity of mating, but for the first time it occurred to her that it might not be so terrible after all. Smiling in the darkness, she followed Reidel uphill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Poor old Alyssa..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes, I know what you're thinking!\" The seeress parted the frizz of unkempt hair that veiled her face and peered at Tiriki with a skewed smile. \"If I am crazy, though, why ask me if you've lost another acolyte? And if I am sane-why wait until midnight to ask me?\"\n\nTiriki could find no answer. Her startled gaze sought Liala, who only shrugged and shook her head. The seeress was usually washed and combed whenever Liala brought her to any event, but apparently Liala's control did not extend to Alyssa's own dwelling, which was a mess of half-eaten foodstuffs, with bits and pieces of strange keepsakes from the Ancient Land lying alongside oddly shaped rocks and strange constructions of twigs and pinecones...\n\n\"Sanity is not the issue here-I need your vision!\" Tiriki stopped short, realizing how anxiety had betrayed her. Ordinarily, she weighed her words more carefully. She relaxed a little as Alyssa began to laugh.\n\n\"Oh yes. Madness sees clearest when fate costs dearest. And since the Omphalos Stone never stops speaking tome-\" She gestured toward the wall beyond which the Stone rested, swathed in silks in its wooden cabinet in the hut built to house it.\n\nThat was another thing, Tiriki realized with a shudder, that she had not thought about for far too long. She held Alyssa's gaze with her own, waiting.\n\nAlyssa closed her eyes and looked away. \"The girl is unhurt. I cannot say if she is safe.\"\n\n\"What? Where?\"\n\n\"Seek the heart of the hill. You will learn your fill.\" Her hair swung forward over her face once more as she resumed slowly rocking back and forth on her stool." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do you mean? What do you see?\" Tiriki demanded, but Alyssa's only answer was a wordless crooning.\n\n\"I hope that was helpful,\" said Liala with a sigh, \"because you will get no more from her tonight.\"\n\n\"It gives mean idea,\" said Tiriki after a moment. \"Others have searched the caves, but perhaps I will see signs they could not...\" She gasped as her eye was drawn again to the strange assembly of stones, twigs, and oddments on Alyssa's floor. They were, she suddenly understood, a model of the Tor as it must look from high above...\"If someone has not already seen them,\" she added, with new confidence.\n\n\"I will go with you.\" Liala arose and reached for her shawl. \"Happily Teviri the saji is here, and can keep watch. Ordinarily, Alyssa passes from this state into deep sleep and will not wake till afternoon.\"\n\nAs Tiriki and Liala approached, torch flames wavered sharply in the chill current of air from the mouth of the cave. Taret had told her many things about this place, but Tiriki had always found herself too busy to take time to explore. Or perhaps she had been afraid. She peered with mingled excitement and apprehension into the darkness.\n\n\"Perhaps we should leave this for one of the younger folk.\" Liala eyed the uneven footing dubiously.\n\n\"You have grown soft! Besides,\" Tiriki added more soberly, \"if Iriel needs us, she cannot wait for us to find them.\" Not waiting to see if Liala followed, she started forward along the edge of the stream.\n\nThe stones, whitened by the lime-rich waters, glistened in the torchlight. In some places the minerals had crystallized in midflow and hung from the ceiling of the tunnel in an irregular series of upside-down pyramids. At their tips, drops of water formed and fell. When she reached out to steady herself against the sloping wall, the rock was cold and damp beneath her hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Was this passage natural, or had it been shaped by men? Inmost spots the stone had been worn smooth by water, but there were places overhead that seemed to have been chipped away. Curious, Tiriki quickened her pace, somehow keeping her footing on the slick stones. It was not until a sudden turning stopped her that she realized that Liala was no longer behind her. Softly she called the woman's name, but the sound was soon swallowed in the whisper of water over stone.\n\nFora moment she stood, considering. There had been no divergence in the passageways, so Liala could not have gotten lost-and she would have heard the splash if she had fallen from the slippery rocks. More likely, the older priestess had simply given up and turned back again. Pulling her shawl more tightly around her, Tiriki started forward once more. She was no more alone than she had been before, of course, but after a few steps she realized that knowing Liala was not behind her had made her more wary. She noticed that there was a secondary passageway on the far side of the stream, leading off to her left. As she raised the torch, she could seethe sensuous curves of a running spiral pecked into the stone around the opening. Damisa had said that Iriel might be looking fora temple hidden in an ancient cave. With her lips tightening indecision, Tiriki bent and drew a leftward-pointing arrow in the mud to show where she was going, and then stepped across the glittering stream.\n\nTo the eye, there was little difference between this passage and the one she had been following, but she could sense a definite change. Frowning a little, she put a fingertip to the carving and began to trace the spiral inward to the center and then out again.\n\nShe stood, transfixed by the pattern, until suddenly she realized that her arm had dropped to her side and the torch was flaring dangerously near to her skirts. Startled, she jerked it away, peering around her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "How long had the pattern held her in trance?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How far had she come? Tiriki shook her head; she ought to have known better than to touch the spiral. Taret had warned her that there was, somewhere on the island, amaze which would lead to the Otherworld if one trod it to the end.\n\nThe curved passage before her seemed less shadowed, but she could see neither very far ahead, nor back the way she had come. I am not lost, she told herself firmly. She had only to follow the spiral back to find the stream. And with that self-assurance, she set her hand to the stone and went forward once more...\n\nIn the next turning she found herself under open sky.\n\nThe torchlight seemed suddenly pale and she blinked at the light around her. Could it be morning already? The sky had all the silver pallor of dawn, but mists swathed the base of the Tor, and its slope hid the horizon.\n\nTiriki continued climbing, but when she reached what appeared to be the top she saw only the ring of stones, taller than she remembered, and glowing as if with their own light. The sun was not the source of that illumination, for the eastern sky was no brighter than the west. The air was not cold, but a shiver passed through her as she scanned the horizon. I am no longer in the world I know...\n\nShifting veils of mist drifted across the land, but not the smoke from the settlement's morning cookfires; indeed there was no sign of any habitation whatsoever... and yet the mists themselves were luminous, as if whatever they concealed was lit from within. Holding her breath, Tiriki strained to focus her eyes.\n\n\"You strive too hard,\" said a soft, amused voice behind her. \"Have you forgotten your training? Eilantha... breathe out... and in... open your inner vision, and see...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not since childhood had anyone had the power to command her perceptions, but before Tiriki could think to resist, she responded, and instead of trees and meadows saw glimmering lattices of radiance. Dazzled, she turned and perceived the Tor itself as a single crystalline structure through which currents of energy, spiraling around the peak of the Tor, formed a dazzling circle ascending to the sky. Tiriki lifted her hand and saw instead of a human arm, a dragon dance of radiance that refracted and interacted with all the rest in turn, as intricately interconnected as the serpents on herring.\n\n\"Why are you surprised?\" She could no longer tell if the thought came from without or within. \"Did you not know that you are also apart of this world?\"\n\nThe truth of it was evident. Tiriki was simultaneously aware of her own being and of a myriad of interlocking lattices of light, layered from one dimension to the next, and containing every entity from pure spirit to stone and dust. She was aware of Alyssa's disorderly spirit as a scatter of sparks, Chedan's steady glow of faith and power, and the bright flicker that was Iriel, her soul-spark so close to that of Otter that they were nearly one. The power of the Tor rippled through the landscape in rivers of light. Her excitement rose as she extended her perceptions, for here, where all planes of existence were one, was where she might surely find Micail...\n\nAnd fora moment, then, she touched his spirit. But the surge of emotion was too great, and Tiriki plunged dizzily back into her body-or rather, to whatever form her body had here, for her own flesh glowed like that of the woman whom she saw standing before her, robed in light, crowned with stars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Micail lives!\" Tiriki exclaimed.\n\n\"All things live,\" came the answer, \"past, present, future, each in its own plane.\"\n\nBeneath the leathery leaves of unknown plants, monstrous forms moved; but also ice covered the world, and nothing grew. She saw the Tor at once tree-clad and cleared, a slope of close-cropped grass crowned withstanding stones, and also a strange stone building which in the same moment fell, leaving only a tower. She saw people dressed in skins, in blue robes, in garments of many colors, and buildings, fields, and pasture overlaying the marshes that she knew... Her perceptions overwhelmed her, and she felt as though she knew nothing at all.\n\n\"All of them are real,\" the voice in her mind explained. \"Each time you make a choice, the world changes, and another level is revealed.\"\n\n\"How shall I find Micail?\" Tiriki's spirit cried. \"How shall I find you?\"\n\n\"Only follow the Spiral, up or down...\"\n\n\"My lady, are you all right?\" a man's voice inquired.\n\n\"Tiriki! What are you doing here?\"\n\nThe voices converged, distinct, but with an underlying harmony. Tiriki opened her eyes and realized that she was lying on the grass just inside the circle of stones at the top of the Tor. She struggled to sit up, squinting against the light of the rising sun.\n\n\"Were you out wandering all night too?\" A sturdy figure she recognized as Reidel reached out to help her to stand.\n\n\"Wandering indeed,\" said Tiriki giddily, \"but where?\"\n\n\"My lady?\"\n\n\"Never mind...\" She was stiff in every joint, but though the thick grasses were damp with dew, her clothing was almost entirely dry. Blinking, she looked about again, comparing what she saw with her memories." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She seems dazed,\" Damisa said with an undertone of exasperation. \"Best get her downhill as soon as we can.\"\n\n\"Come then, my lady,\" said Reidel softly, \"you can lean on me. We may not have located Iriel, but at least we have found you.\"\n\n\"Iriel is safe...\" Tiriki's voice was a croak and she tried again. \"Take me to Chedan. What I have seen... he needs to know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fourteen\n\nA pillar of dust was moving across the plain, marking the progress of yet another mighty piece of stone. Micail climbed upon the embankment that circled the henge and gazed northward across the ditch, shading his eyes with his hand to make out the line of sweating men who hauled it. Others ran ahead, ready to dart in and replace anyone whose strength failed, clearing the track ahead for the rounded wooden runners that carried the load.\n\nA stand of singers could lift such a stone fora short time; seven times that number might even transport it overland if the distance was not too great, but there were no longer enough singers left in all the world to levitate one of the great sarsens all the way across the plain. And to raise the stones once they had been brought to the circle would require the talents of all the trained singers who remained.\n\nThey had tried moving the stones with oxen, but men worked harder and longer, and they were easier to train. King Khattar seemed unable to comprehend why Micail thought that a problem. For generations, once the emmer wheat and barley were well up and the cattle had been driven to the hill pastures in the care of girls and young men, the king would call out the levy. One able-bodied man from each farmstead or hamlet was expected to report for community labor. That was how the great ditched enclosures had been made, and the barrows, the wooden henges, and probably the older circles of standing stones as well.\n\nThere is still so much that we do not know, thought Micail. I only hope we do not come to rue the gaps in our knowledge. Turning, he surveyed the five pairs of sarsen stones that already stood within the circle. Despite his misgivings, he felt a thrill of satisfaction at the sight of those sharply hewn shapes against the sky. Atlantean magic could not do all the work, but it had certainly helped speed it. It was beginning to seem as if a task that would have taken the entire labor force of all the tribes dominated by King Khattar nearly ten years to accomplish was going to be finished in less than three. Ina single year they had prepared five pairs of monoliths for the inner semicircle. The great lintels too were ready, and lay waiting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the rest of the singers arrived from Belsairath, and the lintels were raised to their places on wings of sound, then the shamans would understand the need to work with, rather than against, this new power. And after that, we will be able to complete the new Temple without further interference. It occurred to Micail that he had been so focused on the construction of the stone circle for the last two and a half years that he was finding it difficult to envision the work that would follow.\n\n\"My lord?\" A touch on his elbow roused him from his reverie and he saw Lanath waiting there.\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"Will it please you to inspect the third stone now?\" The acolyte's bronze skin had a healthy glow in the summer sunlight, and the rigorous work had made the boy a man. It had been quite sometime, Micail reflected, as he followed Lanath back into the semicircle of stones, since he had to rouse the lad from a nightmare.\n\nThe third stone was surrounded by a timber framework, from whose top a native workman was grinning down.\n\n\"Is like the other side, aye? You look and see-\"\n\nMicail walked around the stone once, then again, comparing its sides with each other and with the second stone as well. All of the monoliths had been roughly dressed before being erected, and each had one side that had been made particularly smooth, and slightly concave. But not until such a stone had been raised could the narrowing of top and bottom which made the sides appear straight be adjusted to perfection.\n\n\"Yes, it is good. You may comedown now. Tell them I said to give you an extra ration of beer.\" He smiled genially.\n\nMicail laid a hand against the rough surface. Whenever he touched a dressed sarsen he could feel the subtle thrum of energy within it. When the construction was complete, he suspected, he would be able to sense its power without touching it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Common people might think of stones as lifeless things, but within these stones he sensed a potential for far greater cumulative power. Already it could be perceived somewhat at dawn and sunset. Many of the native workers refused to come into the site at those times. They said the stones had begun to talk to one another, and Micail half believed it.\n\n\"Soon all shall hear you,\" he murmured to the monolith. \"When you are joined to your brother and the others stand beside you, we will invoke your spirit, and all will understand...\" And fora moment, the subliminal vibration became an audible hum. He started, and noticed that Lanath had heard it too.\n\n\"It is easy in this savage place to forget all the glories that are gone,\" he told the boy, \"but our true treasure was always the wisdom of the stars. We shall make in this place a monument that will, when the very name of Atlantis is forgotten, still proclaim that we were here.\"\n\n\"There it is!\" Elara pointed past the line of trees that marked the river Aman's winding course. \"You can seethe timbers of the palisade.\"\n\nTimul shaded her eyes with her hand. \"Ah, yes. At first I thought those posts were more trees... What's that atop them? Bull's horns? Ah. Barbaric, but effective.\"\n\nThe others, too, were chattering with relief and curiosity as the rest of the Ai-Zir village came into view. Micail had sent word that work on the circle of stones was reaching a stage where everyone would be needed, and even those who until now had remained in Belsairath had answered his call.\n\nElara glanced back down the line. Ocathrel had returned, this time with all three of his daughters and Micail's cousin Galara as well. There were the great singers Sahurusartha and her husband, Reualen, along with Aderanthis and Kyrrdis and Valadur and Valorin with their various chelas, most of whom had been here at least once before. But now the senior Guardians were with them-grim Haladris and stern Mahadalku, and even, riding in sedan chairs, frail Stathalkha and old Metanor-and there was Vialmar, almost at the end of the line, looking about nervously as if he expected at any moment to be attacked by something, despite the presence of Tjalan's men-at-arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Almost every priest and priestess who had sailed to Belsairath was present-at least those who had also survived last winter's coughing sickness. Prince Tjalan's wife and two of his children were among those who died. Elara had been in Belsairath when the epidemic began, and Timul had immediately pressed her into service as a healer. For so long, it seemed, the acolyte had been facing misery and death; she found herself surprisingly eager to seethe village of Azan again. Poor Lanath, he must have been bored to tears. I wonder if he ever convinced Micail to learn how to play Feathers.\n\n\"I know it looks small compared to Belsairath,\" said Elara, \"but the other tribal centers are no more than a few houses near the barrows, although tents and reed huts spring up allover the hillside during the festivals. Azan is the only place here that could even qualify as a village.\"\n\n\"Quit babbling, girl. I understand.\" Timul's dark eyes continued to flick alertly over the scene.\n\nMicail's letter had summoned all the singers to help him complete, consecrate, and activate the Sun Wheel. It had apparently become an event of some importance for the tribe as well. She wondered if the queen would be there. At the time Elara left, Micail had been putting off all talk of marriage by protesting that he must remain celibate in order to work with the stones. She wondered if anyone would ever manage to get into Micail's bed.\n\nMicail surveyed the assembled priests and priestesses who sat waiting beneath the willow trees by the river. How is it that we have become so strange to one another? He sighed. Or is it only I who have changed?\n\nOnce, presiding over such meetings had been part of his daily routine. He found himself mentally rehearsing the traditional salutations, the little compliments and discreet formalities that had been his best tools in administering the Temple and the city of Ahtarrath, then winced, as if the memories were muscles gone stiff from disuse. These days he was more accustomed to the rough courtesies of the Ai-Zir, or the easy cameraderie of Jiri and Ansha." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He took another breath and began, \"I thank all of you for answering my call. In truth I did not know how many of you would be able to make this journey, but it is most important that we successfully demonstrate our power to move the stones.\" He turned to Ardral. \"My lord, is there anything you would like to add?\"\n\nThe old adept arched one eyebrow and shook his head. \"No indeed, dear boy. Now that we are at the stage of physical manipulations, I am happy to defer to you.\"\n\nMicail suppressed another sigh. The other thing that he had not really considered when he had sent his message was that, in general, Guardians did not attain their rank until middle life. Most of the men and women who sat with him here were old. Fortunately, the Temple disciplines had kept them relatively healthy, and a good night's rest had eased some of their fatigue. Ardral, of course, was evidently ageless, but old Metanor was looking more than ordinarily grey-they would have to watch out for his heart if the work grew heavy. Stathalkha too seemed halfway to the Otherworld, but then she was a farseer.\n\nHaladris of Alkonath and Makadalku of Tarisseda, on the other hand, presented a curiously solid front that reminded him of the sarsen stones, though why that simile should occur to him he did not know, since they had not shown themselves to be particularly stubborn, obstinate, or inflexible... There is so much that I do not know, he repeated to himself with awry smile. But even great Guardians did not always guard their tongues around the junior priesthood. He made a mental note to ask Elara what she had heard; or Vialmar, who had been in Belsairath since their arrival in the new land..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Of course we had to come,\" Mahadalku was saying now, her demeanor as majestic as if she addressed them from beneath the portico of the Temple of Light on Tarisseda, not a thatched sunshade in Azan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The trade town offers only... survival. Here is where you are building our future. We would not wish to be elsewhere.\"\n\nMost of the crowd murmured polite agreement.\n\n\"Yes, well-\" Micail struggled to recollect the high temple formula for what he wanted to say, but could not. He bit his lip and settled fora gesture that signified alack of time fora more exacting presentation. It would open the subject for general discussion, but he had expected that anyway.\n\n\"If we all come together, along with the acolytes and chelas, we should be able to raise three stands of singers-which should be more than enough to lift the lintels for the trilithons. My lord Haladris will act as director.\"\n\n\"Oh, Haladris could probably lift the stone all by himself,\" Ardral interjected.\n\nHaladris shook his head, his eyes hooding as he frowned. \"No-I can fully levitate a boulder the weight of a small woman, no more, and I must confess I am exhausted thereafter. I will be very glad of the help, I assure you.\"\n\nMicail pursed his lips, thoughtful. He had remembered the Alkonan First Guardian's talent for telekinesis. What he had forgotten was that the man had no sense of humor at all.\n\n\"We will first complete the tallest trilithon, which represents King Khattar's tribe,\" Micail continued.\n\n\"Which the king believes to represent his tribe,\" Mahadalku corrected, in a voice like silk.\n\n\"Which does not affect the outcome,\" Micail interrupted. \"I pray thee forgive my impertinence, Most Honored Lady, but it would serve us well to remember how they will think. We are no longer in the Sea Kingdoms-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As if anyone could forget,\" Mahadalku exclaimed, and turned to glare across the river, where the grass-lands rolled away to disappear in a golden haze...\"But the Wheel turns.\"\n\nThere was a little silence then, broken only by a rueful cough from Ardral.\n\n\"I do agree that what Khattar believes should not be discounted,\" Naranshada said at last. \"We are few and they are many. It is their land, and we build using their labor, their stones...\"\n\n\"Technically, yes, of course,\" Haladris answered coolly. \"I am not suggesting that we cast him aside. He seems a useful ally-there is no need to insult him. But surely these barbarian warriors would be no match for Tjalan's spearmen. However, you are correct, my lord Micail. Whatever the native folk think the stones mean, the circle will still be a device to amplify and direct the vibrations of sound. Once the Sun Wheel is completed, we will be able to use its power-howsoever we will.\"\n\nHaladris had spoken as if there could be no possible objection to his assessment of the situation. Micail caught Ardral's eye, pleading for further intervention, but the adept shook his head.\n\nIn any case, Micail sighed, we need Haladris to move the stones. No one can match his focus. The question of who was using whom, and for what purpose, could wait until after the work was done.\n\n\"How long do we have,\" Mahadalku asked quietly, \"until this... king's festival... when you intend to raise the stones?\"\n\n\"I rely on my lord Adravanant's figures, which I have always found to be precise. The festival will begin in half a moon, when the herds will be driven back down from the hills. It is the custom of the tribes to gather at the henges at that time. There is a cattle fair and races, and offerings are made to the ancestors. All their shamans will be there-\" And the Sacred Sisters from Carn Ava as well, Micail thought uneasily. He had met Anet's mother on more than one occasion, but so far had avoided more than superficial conversation. Since the dinner where Micail first laid eyes on Anet, she made him uneasy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So, we will not only raise the stone, we will be seen to do so-\" There was no warmth in Mahadalku's smile. \"I like that,\" she said. \"It should serve us very well.\"\n\nTimul gazed with interest at the people who thronged the great fair that was held here at the end of summer every year. \"I think I understand the folk who visit the Temple in Belsairath a little better,\" she said, \"now that I see them in their native habitat, as it were.\"\n\nElara smiled dutifully, thinking that she had always rather enjoyed the various tribal celebrations even though the noise and bustle made her homesick for Ahtarra on market day. For all of them, she supposed, the inevitable memories of the Sea Kingdoms were becoming less poignant. A sudden scent or sight still had the power to pierce her heart with its deceptive familiarity, but such moments came less often. And today there were many sights, sounds, and smells the like of which she was sure she had never encountered before.\n\nThe lonely plain beyond the henge had been transformed by the influx of people. The five tribes had raised their circles of skin tents and made booths of woven branches, each marked by a pole topped with the horned skull of a bull, and painted in the colors of the tribe: red, blue, black, yellow-ochre, or white, which had seemed redundant until she had seen it. King Khattar's people followed the red bull, and his standard, like the pillars of his chosen trilithon, stood the highest.\n\n\"Where are we going?\" Timul asked, as Elara led her through the chattering hordes that were gathering where the craftsmen displayed their wares: pottery cups and bowls and beakers, fine leatherwork and woodcarving, fleeces and bundles of carded wool, stone axes and arrowheads and blades for plows. But there was no bronze. The highly prized metal weapons were owned and distributed solely by kings." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"To the Blue Bull-\" Elara pointed toward the woad-stained skull just visible over the heads of the crowd. Hanks of blue-dyed wool hung from its base, lifting gently in the breeze. The horns were twined with summer flowers. \"They are the northernmost tribe of the Ai-Zir. Their sacred center is Carn Ava.\"\n\n\"Ah. Where the priestess lives.\" Timul nodded, with barely suppressed excitement. \"I had hoped she would be here. Lead on.\"\n\nAyo's tent was easy to find-it was as large as a chieftain's. The posts were richly carved, and the hide cover was painted with sacred signs in blue woad. The eyes of the Goddess above the entrance watched as they drew closer. A young woman who had been grinding grain in a quern by the doorway rose.\n\n\"Enter, honored ones. My lady expects you.\"\n\nThe day was warm and the sides of the tent had been tied up to let in light and air. The girl who had welcomed them now motioned for them to sit on leather cushions stuffed with grass, and she offered them cool water in clay cups imprinted with cord marks that made them easy to hold. As she eased back out again, the curtain that separated the front part of the tent from the private area was pulled aside and Ayo herself appeared.\n\nLike her attendant, the priestess wore a simple sleeveless garment of blue fastened at the shoulders with pins of bone. Her hair was coiled in a net held across the forehead by a band. Unlike every other woman of rank Elara had seen, Ayo wore no necklaces. She hardly needed them-she bore a mantle of power that reminded Elara of Mahadalku or even Timul. Micail's wife, Tiriki, had looked that way when she was leading a ritual, Elara remembered sadly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Timul offered the other woman the salutation due a high priestess of Caratra and, smiling, Ayo made the appropriate response.\n\n\"It is true what they say. You are of the sisterhood of the far lands.\" Ayo was older than she had at first seemed, but she took her seat with a supple grace that reminded Elara of her daughter Anet.\n\n\"But our land is no more,\" Timul answered flatly. \"We must learn which face the Lady wears in this one or She may overlook us.\"\n\n\"That is good.\" Ayo smiled. \"You speak our language well, but with the accent of the Black Bull tribe. I had heard that someone was offering service to our sisters when they visit the strange stone houses by the sea. It is a pleasure to meet you. But I wonder, why do you come here?\"\n\n\"The priests of my people will perform a great magic tomorrow. I was called to attend.\"\n\n\"And you, child? You are skilled in healing, I understand.\" Ayo's grey gaze had shifted and Elara found it hard to look away.\n\n\"I am also a singer,\" she answered. \"And I will be helping build the stone circle.\"\n\n\"Ah. And this magic will serve what ends?\"\n\nElara bit her lip, uncertain how to answer. The acolytes and chelas had not been told everything, but she had heard enough to know that the Guardians did not believe that King Khattar understood the purpose of the circle and that they preferred that things remain that way. And this was Khattar's wife, however independent of him she might be. Elara did not like to lie, so she was going to have to choose her words carefully.\n\n\"I am a servant of the Light,\" she said slowly, \"and I believe that when the circle is completed, the stones will bring light into the land.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Light is in the land already." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It runs like a river. The souls of the ancestors ride its currents to the Otherworld and then return to the wombs of our women once more.\" Ayo frowned thoughtfully.\n\n\"I have heard that the shamans are not happy with what we do,\" Timul said suddenly, \"and they would stop the work except that our priests are supported by the king. Do you too think we are-wrong?\"\n\n\"Perhaps. Perhaps not. But you are few,\" said Ayo, \"and there are many things you do not understand.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" Elara eyed her uncertainly.\n\n\"If I could tell you, I would not need to.\" Ayo smiled. \"But we will all become one people in time.\"\n\n\"Are you speaking of a marriage between your daughter and Lord Micail?\"\n\nAyo laughed. \"It is Khattar and Queen Khayan who want that mating. But my daughter is not destined for the hearth of any man. She will give herself as the Goddess bids, not the king. Is it not so with you?\"\n\nTimul nodded. \"In my order, yes, we are free.\"\n\n\"Khattar wishes only to bind your people to him,\" said Ayo. \"If not through the marriage bed, he will seek his goal by other means. His hopes maybe too high, but look you to your own,\" she said, grinning.\n\nIs that a threat or a warning? thought Elara, shocked. At that moment, the attendant came in with a basket of flat cakes glazed with honey and the conversation became self-consciously social. But afterward, as Elara escorted Timul back to the Atlantean encampment, both were still puzzling over the meaning of Ayo's enigmatic smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the day chosen to raise the stones, the people gathered outside the ditch that encircled the village, humming like a gigantic beehive. Facing the entrance, a bench had been set for King Khattar.\n\nFor Micail, it was wrenching to see and greet the singers who awaited within the circle like so many ghosts of his past life, their fine white garments still redolent of the distinctively Atlantean spices in which they had been packed. His own garb, a very beautifully made but rather large robe borrowed from Ocathrel, drew exclamations of admiration from the others and even a number of reminiscent tears. But soon most of the singers settled back into their places, ranked according to voice range.\n\nWhen the silence was complete, Micail nodded and cast a handful of frankincense into each of the three incense pots on tripods at the place of Nar-Inabi, in the eastern quarter. The hot coals blinked like red stars as the resin began to melt, releasing the fragrant smoke to billow upward into the air. The familiar heavy sweetness caught in his throat, and fora moment, Micail was again in the Temple of Light on Ahtarrath; but at the same moment Jiritaren, standing in the south, whispered the other Word of Fire and his black torch burst into light.\n\nSahurusartha knelt before a small marble bowl set on a low altar in the west and intoned the Alkonan form of the Hymn of Placation to Four-Faced Banur, Destroyer and Preserver, God of Winter and of Water, while the Tarissedan priest Delengirol twice raised and then lowered a filigreed platter of salt to the north, for Ni-Terat was honored without words." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Micail strode to the southern edge of the embankment, his staff held high. The orichalcum knob on its head blazed like a star in the noonday sun.\n\n\"By the power of Holy Light let this place be purified!\" he cried. \"By the wisdom of Holy Light let it be warded! By the strength of Holy Light let it be secure!\"\n\nHe turned to his right and slowly began to pace around the circle as the other three followed, purifying each quarter with the four sacred elements. As they did so, the other priests and priestesses softly sang-\n\n\"Manoah's rising frees the world From darkest night; From age to age we are reborn, And greet the Light!\"\n\n\"Manoah's rising frees the world From darkest night; From age to age we are reborn, And greet the Light!\"\n\nMicail could feel the familiar slip and shift of gravity that told him the warding was rising around them. It was not only the copious incense smoke that caused everything beyond the circle to waver as if seen through water. The singers were separating the stones from the ordinary world...\n\n\"Within this holy fane we see With spirit sight-Ye Lords of Faith and Wisdom come And bless our rite!\"\n\n\"Within this holy fane we see With spirit sight-Ye Lords of Faith and Wisdom come And bless our rite!\"\n\nHe completed the circuit as the chant ended and stood fora moment, listening. They had shaped the stones well to contain both sound and energy. Whatever noise the Ai-Zir might be making outside the circle was less than the whisper of wind in the trees. He let out his breath in relief. Speaking with the native workers, he had grown accustomed to thinking of the stones as a Sun Wheel, but what they had designed was intended to function as a resonator, amplifying soundwaves into a force that could be directed along the lines of energy that flowed through the land. With that power at their command they could build anew Temple to rival the old. Strictly speaking, so powerful awarding should not be necessary for this sort of Working, but he had enough respect for the power of Droshrad's shamans to take precautions against any chance of magical interference." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once the sacred elements had been returned to their altars, Micail and the other hierarchs removed their masks and joined the ranks of the singers. He took a moment to examine each one as he passed by-the more experienced priests were already expressionless with concentration, the younger ones wide-eyed with last-minute nerves.\n\nHaladris had taken up his position and now addressed them all. \"You know what you are to do-\" He fixed each stand-leader in turn with his hooded glare. \"I will give you the keynotes, and then the bass singers will project the sound toward the stone. As the chord builds, it will rise, and I will direct it. Remember! It is focus, not volume, that is needed here. Let us begin.\" Very softly, he hummed the short and innocuous-seeming sequence of notes that they had been practicing for the last few days.\n\nHaladris lifted his hand, and the three bassos, Delengirol, Immamiri, and Ocathrel, emitted a wordless hum so deep it seemed to vibrate out of the earth itself. The stone did not move yet, of course, but the first, responsive stirring of the particles within were apparent to Micail's inner eye.\n\nThe baritones came in, Ardral and Haladris dominating until they modulated their voices, blending with Metanor, Reualen, and the others in that range until all their throats were producing the same rich note. The shimmering energy about the target stone became almost perceptible to ordinary vision as Micail and the other tenors eased into the growing resonance, balancing the middle range.\n\nThe sarsen was shaking, its concave face glittering weirdly with inner light. Now was the time when care was needed, lest they shatter the stone instead of raising it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The contraltos joined the developing harmony, and then the sopranos came in, doubling the volume, and the song became a rainbow of overwhelming sound." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The stone moved-empty space could be seen beneath it.\n\nSmoothly, the singers modulated the great chord upward. The sarsen lifted past their knees, and then waist-high, moving upward with the music until it was even with their shoulders... and had passed them. Micail could feel the massive power flowing around and through Haladris, even as he used his own gift to augment and refine it.\n\nThe uprights of the trilithon were three times the height of a man. As the sarsen lintel floated toward its destination, the heads of the singers tipped back to keep it in view.\n\nOnce more Micail's stern will controlled his emotions as the slowly rising arms of the archpriest lifted their voices and, with them, the great sarsen stone. Watching it riding the tide of sound, Micail felt his spirit expanding with a joy that was entirely pure. This-the thought flitted through his awareness-this is what we are seeking. Not power, but harmony...\n\nThe stone hesitated, hovering alongside the tops of the uprights. Haladris nudged it a fraction higher so that it would clear the bumps of the tenons in the center of each, then eased it forward until the hollows on the underside of the lintel were just above them; and lowering his hands a little, he modulated the volume of the singing and allowed the stone to settle into place.\n\nMicail straightened and let out his breath in along sigh. They had done it! He nodded to the singers, whose faces glowed with quiet pride. But their shoulders sagged and he knew they shared his exhaustion as well. Once more he could hear the murmur of the crowd outside, shrill now with wonder. King Khattar was grinning as though he had won a battle. Already the drums were booming. Micail winced with each beat as if the blows fell upon his very flesh, but he knew that they would not cease. As well ask wild geese not to fly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "King Khattar, ecstatic at the success of the Working, was as determined to celebrate as if he himself had raised the stone. The other priests and priestesses had been allowed to retire to their dwellings, but the king had insisted that Micail stay to represent them at the feast. He yawned and tried to focus his bleary eyes. The night was fair and almost windless, and the fires at which each clan and tribal chieftain feasted glowed like scattered stars. King Khattar's tents were closest to the henge. He was enthroned now on an oddly shaped bench over which his men had thrown a red cowhide. His nephew and heir, Khensu, sat upon a stool at his feet. For the important guests, there were other benches, but the king's warriors lounged at their ease on hides laid upon the ground. Tjalan and Antar and their officers squatted somewhat farther off, beside the sons of the chiefs of other tribes.\n\nTorches had been raised in front of the completed trilithon so that the king could continue to gaze raptly upon it. Red light played on the two massive uprights and the heavy lintel that crowned them, stark against the crisp stars, and Micail suddenly had the odd fancy that it had become a gigantic doorway to the Otherworld. And what would I find if I passed between them? Does Tiriki await me on the other side?\n\nHolding out his beaker to be refilled, he realized too late that the graceful maiden carrying the jar was Anet.\n\n\"Your magic is indeed great,\" she said as she bent closer than was necessary merely to pour the beer. At least she was fully clad this time, but still Micail drew back a little, dizzied by the scent of her hair. At that, she laughed softly and, handing off her jar to one of the other girls, slid onto the bench beside him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now that the stone is up, you need sleep alone no longer, yes?\"\n\n\"You know my prince will not allow me to marry-\"\n\nShe shook her head, eyes flashing. \"I laugh! Those are words for you to say to my father, not tome. I know, in rank, you are equal. But you need not fear. Marriage was my father's idea, not mine.\" She leaned against him with an alluring smile, her flesh warm even through his rough tunic.\n\nMicail lifted a hand to push her away, but somehow it settled instead upon her silky hair. His brows bent in confusion. \"Then why-? Why are you-\" What are you doing? was what he meant to say, but his tongue would not obey him.\n\n\"You serve the truth,\" she said then. \"Can you truly say you do not want me?\"\n\nHe felt the blood rush to his face, and elsewhere as well, and without a conscious decision he pulled her closer and his lips met hers. Her mouth was very sweet, and he was painfully aware of how long it had been since he had held a woman in his arms.\n\n\"You have answered me,\" she said when he let her goat last. \"Now I will answer you. I do not wish to be your wife, O prince from the far lands. But I want to bear your child.\"\n\nHer hand drifted lower. He certainly could not deny that he wanted her now. \"Not here, not yet,\" he said hoarsely. \"Your father is watching...\" And, indeed, within the moment he heard King Khattar call his name.\n\nMicail jerked around. The king was smiling. Had he seen?\n\n\"Now the stones are up, eh? Now all the world sees my power!\" The royal laughter echoed from the walls. \"Now comes time to use it!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Micail stiffened in alarm.\n\nKhattar leaned forward, his breath reeking of wine and meat. \"We show them, aye! All people who do not follow the Bull! The People of the Hare, the Ai-Akhsi who live in the land you call Beleri'in-they defy us. And the Ai-Ilf, the Boar Tribe to the north, they steal our cows! We will attack them now, not to raid but to conquer, for we will have swords that do not bend or break in battle! Swords that cut through wood and leather and bone!\"\n\nMicail shook his head, trying to clear it of the double effect of arousal and alcohol, as Anet slid away from his side and slipped off into the crowd. Prince Tjalan was sitting up now as well, eyes narrowing as he tried to hear what was happening on the other side of the fire.\n\n\"You have good blades of strong bronze,\" Micail began, but the king pounded his knee.\n\n\"No! I have seen your blades with the white edges cut wood as readily as our knives cut grass!\" Khattar clapped his hand to the sheathed dagger that hung around his neck by a braided thong, making the tiny golden nails that studded its grip flash in the firelight. Khensu had risen and now loomed behind his uncle, hand on the hilt of his own blade.\n\nMicail stifled a groan. He had counseled Tjalan against allowing his men to demonstrate the sharpness of those blades so casually. \"We do not have enough of them to arm your warriors,\" he began, but Khattar wouldn't stop bellowing.\n\n\"But you are the great shamans foretold in our tales! We have seen it! You will make more.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Micail shook his head, wondering if he dared admit they could not do so even if they willed. In time, even the orichalcum that edged the swords they had would begin to flake away, until at last it dissolved into its component minerals; and among all the priests and mages who had escaped the Sinking, there was not one-so far as he knew-who had the talent needed to forge the sacred metal anew.\n\n\"You will give your oath to do this-\" Khensu's hoarse whisper sounded in his ear, as one strong arm clamped both his own to his sides and he felt the cold kiss of metal at his throat. \"Or you taste this.\"\n\nMicail cast a frantic glance toward Tjalan, but the Alkonan prince was nowhere to be seen. If Tjalan could reach his men, at least they would be able to protect the others. He took a deep breath, and then another, and as his pounding pulse grew calmer he thought he heard shouting from beyond the fire. Great Maker, he prayed fervently, don't let them catch Tjalan!\n\nA crowd of men pushed forward and Micail recognized two chieftains from other tribes, with warriors behind them.\n\n\"Why does King Khattar wish to kill the stranger shaman before he has finished raising the stones?\" came a girl's voice, teasingly familiar. Was it Anet? He strained to see her, struggling to understand.\n\n\"You are high king, Red Bull, but you are not alone!\" called the man who ruled the land where Carn Ava lay. \"Let the outland priest go.\"\n\nKhensu's arm tightened, muscles rope-hard beneath the skin, and Micail felt a warm trickle of blood rundown his neck. The younger man smelled of wood smoke and fear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you wish to be king after your father, you should obey them now,\" said Micail, but Khensu was not listening. Even through the tumult and uproar, the regular tramping of feet could be heard. Tjalan had returned with his soldiers.\n\nMicail did not know whether to be glad or sorry, but he had no time to wonder. Ina disciplined rush, the spearmen forced a wedge through friend and foe-and a single javelin arced through the air.\n\nLater, Micail thought the guardsman's throw had been meant only to frighten the king. But Khattar, rising from his seat like an enraged bear, was caught full in the right shoulder. With a dull cry, he spun around and fell. Khensu's grip loosened, the knife dropping away from Micail's throat. Seizing the chance, Micail grabbed his captor's knife hand and twisted it away, leaping free-suddenly the soldiers were all around him.\n\nA careful swallow reassured Micail that his throat had not been cut. He saw Khensu struggling with one of the soldiers, while Khattar lay curled upon the ground, cursing and gripping his pierced shoulder. Micail broke through the protective circle of soldiers and knelt at the king's side, prying up the man's bloody fingers to examine the damage. Khattar gazed up at him with uncomprehending fury as Micail drove the heel of his own hand hard against the wound to control the bleeding. Turning, he drew a deep breath.\n\n\"Be still!\" It was the voice that had helped raise the stone, and it shocked the crowd to silence. \"King Khattar lives!\"\n\n\"Return to your firesides! We will hold council in the morning-\" Tjalan's voice echoed his, and if it held no compulsion, still everyone recognized the note of command. Slowly the crowd began to disperse. Tjalan bent over and placed his hand upon Micail's shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you all right?\"\n\n\"I'll live,\" said Micail tightly, \"and so will he. Fetch me a strap and a pad of cloth!\" Not until Micail had finished binding Khattar's wound did he lookup at his cousin. \"This was an evil deed.\"\n\nTjalan only grinned. \"What, are you sorry I rescued you?\"\n\n\"The boy was already panicking. In another moment I would have talked myself free.\"\n\n\"Perhaps-\" The prince's hawklike gaze rested fora moment upon his guards, who had taken up position around them. \"But this moment was bound to come. As well now as later, wouldn't you say?\"\n\nNo, thought Micail with a grimace, better never. Rajasta's prophecy did not predict this day... but some inner warning kept him silent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fifteen\n\nDuring high summer in the marshes, the skies sometimes stayed clear for as long as a week. Standing in full sunlight with closed eyes, Damisa could almost imagine herself basking in the radiant heat of Ahtarrath. Even in the shade of the enclosure they had built for Selast to dwell in during the month of seclusion that preceded marriage, it was warm.\n\nToo warm, she thought, fanning her cheeks with her hand. I have grown used to living in the mists, and then, I have been in this land too long. And yet if they had been in the Sea Kingdoms, she still would not have had Selast to herself forever.\n\nAs Iriel and Elis stripped off the robe Selast had worn to her ritual bath in the Red Spring, sunlight falling through the branches that thatched the enclosure dappled her skin like the hide of a fawn. Five years in the fogs of the new land had faded her bronze skin to gold, and constant physical labor had given her angular limbs a wiry strength and a grace in movement that reminded Damisa once more of some creature more graceful than humankind. But Selast was not a fawn, she thought with a sudden pang; she was a young mare with a thick mane of wavy black hair and fire in her dark eyes.\n\n\"And now for the robe-\" said Iriel, lifting the folds of blue linen in her arms, \"and then we will crown you with flowers!\" She looked around her, frowning as she realized the basket was empty. \"Kestil and the other children were to have gathered them this morning! If they have forgotten...\"\n\n\"I'll rundown to the village,\" said Elis, starting for the door.\n\n\"If both of you go, you can cover the ground more quickly,\" put in Damisa. \"I will stay to watch over our bride.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When they had gone, Selast paced about the enclosure. She picked up the white linen shift, and then the blue gown-made of linen from flax they had grown themselves and dyed with native woad. It was not quite the blue worn by the priestesses of Caratra at home, but close enough to make Damisa uncomfortable. To don that blue was to offer oneself to the service of the Mother. Damisa felt a little ill at the thought of Selast's slender body swollen with child.\n\n\"Are you nervous?\"\n\n\"Nervous?\" Selast answered with the quick turn of the head that Damisa had learned to love. \"A little, I suppose. What if I forget my lines?\"\n\nDamisa did not think it very likely. They had been trained in memorization since they were chosen for the Temple as children.\n\n\"Nervous about being married, I mean.\"\n\n\"To Kalaran?\" Selast laughed. \"I have known him since I was nine years old, even before we were chosen as acolytes, though I have to admit I didn't think much about him until that night last year when we were looking for Iriel. He always seemed so angry with everyone. It wasn't until then that I realized how guilty he still feels for surviving when Kalhan and Lanath and the others were lost. That's why he's so... sarcastic sometimes. He's trying to hide his pain.\"\n\n\"Oh, is that the reason?\" Damisa heard the sarcasm in her own voice and tried to smile. \"Are you marrying him from pity, then, instead of duty?\"\n\nSelast stood still finally, staring at her with a frown. \"Perhaps a little of both. And at least we are friends. Does it matter? This day had to come.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In Ahtarrath, yes, but here?\" Damisa rose suddenly and gripped Selast's slim shoulders. \"We have no Temple, and little remains of our priesthood. Why should we ruin our lives in order to breed up more?\"\n\nSelast's eyes widened, and she lifted her own hand to touch Damisa's hair. \"Are you jealous of Kalaran? It won't change anything between you and me...\"\n\nBut it already has, thought Damisa, staring down at her friend, wild-eyed. \"You will sleep by his side and care for his home and bear his children, and you think you will not change?\" She realized that she was shouting as Selast recoiled. \"You don't have to do this!\" she pleaded, \"Remember Taret's tales of the island to the north where the warrior women train? We could go there and be together-\"\n\nSelast shook her head sharply, and with an abrupt movement slipped from Damisa's grasp. \" And to think that I was always the rebel, and you the proper priestess with her nose in the air! You don't mean what you're saying, Damisa-you are Tiriki's acolyte!\n\n\"Kalaran needs me,\" Selast continued. \"That night on the mountain he told me that after the Sinking he lost all faith-he could no longer feel the unseen powers. But when we clung together, lost and shivering, he realized that he was not alone.\"\n\n\"I need you!\" Damisa exclaimed, but Selast shook her head.\n\n\"You want me, but you are strong enough to live without me. Do you think it was so we might seek our own pleasure that we were spared when so many others died?\"\n\n\"Damn those who died, and damn Tiriki, too!\" muttered Damisa. \"Selast-I love you-\" She reached out to take the other girl in her arms again, her heart full of everything she couldn't say. She let go quickly as the gate swung open and Iriel and Elis pushed through, their arms filled with flowers. Face flaming, tongue-tied, Damisa fled the bride-house, and only the sound of laughter followed her." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Serve as the author's scribe, continue the tale.\nTags: fantasy, historical, mythology, Atlantis, reincarnation\nAuthor: Marion Zimmer Bradley\nTitle: Ancestors of Avalon\nChapter: 22" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In Ahtarrath, yes, but here?\" Damisa rose suddenly and gripped Selast's slim shoulders. \"We have no Temple, and little remains of our priesthood. Why should we ruin our lives in order to breed up more?\"\n\nSelast's eyes widened, and she lifted her own hand to touch Damisa's hair. \"Are you jealous of Kalaran? It won't change anything between you and me...\"\n\nBut it already has, thought Damisa, staring down at her friend, wild-eyed. \"You will sleep by his side and care for his home and bear his children, and you think you will not change?\" She realized that she was shouting as Selast recoiled. \"You don't have to do this!\" she pleaded, \"Remember Taret's tales of the island to the north where the warrior women train? We could go there and be together-\"\n\nSelast shook her head sharply, and with an abrupt movement slipped from Damisa's grasp. \" And to think that I was always the rebel, and you the proper priestess with her nose in the air! You don't mean what you're saying, Damisa-you are Tiriki's acolyte!\n\n\"Kalaran needs me,\" Selast continued. \"That night on the mountain he told me that after the Sinking he lost all faith-he could no longer feel the unseen powers. But when we clung together, lost and shivering, he realized that he was not alone.\"\n\n\"I need you!\" Damisa exclaimed, but Selast shook her head.\n\n\"You want me, but you are strong enough to live without me. Do you think it was so we might seek our own pleasure that we were spared when so many others died?\"\n\n\"Damn those who died, and damn Tiriki, too!\" muttered Damisa. \"Selast-I love you-\" She reached out to take the other girl in her arms again, her heart full of everything she couldn't say. She let go quickly as the gate swung open and Iriel and Elis pushed through, their arms filled with flowers. Face flaming, tongue-tied, Damisa fled the bride-house, and only the sound of laughter followed her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wedding procession was coming, curving around through the forest and starting up the path that led up the eastern slope of the Tor. Tiriki glimpsed their bright robes through the trees as the chime of bells was carried through the wind. Carefully, Chedan lit a waxed splinter from the lamp and thrust it into the kindling laid on the altar stone.\n\nThe wind whipped the spark into flame and fluttered the draperies of the priests and priestesses who waited within the circle of stones. The weight of necklet and diadem felt strange to Tiriki, who for so long had worn no ornament at all, and the silken draperies oddly smooth to one who had become accustomed to leather and coarse wool.\n\nI will remember, thought Tiriki as the wedding party crested the rim of the hill, but I will not weep. I will cast no shadow on Selast and Kalaran's day.\n\nTiriki and Micail had been married in the temple that crowned the Star Mountain-the most sacred precinct of Ahtarrath. Their union was witnessed by Deoris and Reio-ta and the senior clergy of the Temple, and blessed by the old Guardian Rajasta in one of the last rites he had performed before he died.\n\nNow it was Chedan who stood to welcome the bridal pair with the sacred symbols that adorned his tabard gleaming in the sun. Instead of the Star Mountain, their temple was this rough circle of stones atop the Tor. But though this sanctuary in the marsh lacked Ahtarrath's majesty, Tiriki had learned enough in the past five years to suspect it might be a match in power.\n\nMicail had been resplendent in white, the band of gold across his brow no brighter than his hair, and she had for the first time donned the blue robe and fillet of Caratra, though she herself had been little more than a child. Did I seek to begin bearing too young? she wondered then. Was that why I could never birth a living child? Until we came here, she added as Kestil and Domara came dancing ahead of the procession, strewing the path with flowers. But Selast had reached her twentieth year, and life in this wilderness had made her healthy and strong. Her babes would thrive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Domara emptied her basket of flowers and came running to her mother's side. Tiriki gathered her up gratefully, delighting in the child's warm weight and the wildflower scent of her red hair. Micail is lost tome, but in his daughter, apart of him lives still...\n\nHer preoccupation had kept her from hearing Chedan's words of welcome. She had been so excited at her own wedding, so completely focused on Micail, that she had scarcely heard them that first time, either. Already the mage was binding Kalaran's right wrist to Selast's left and passing them, still linked, over the flickering flame. Then, still bound together, the couple processed sunwise around the altar stone.\n\nChedan led them through the formal oaths in which they promised to bring up their children in the service of Light, and act as priest and priestess to each other. There were no words of love, Tiriki noticed now, but for herself and Micail the love had been there already.\n\nThe stars themselves foretold our union! her heart cried, released by the stress of the moment from the control that had enabled her to survive. So why were we torn apart so soon?\n\nKalaran's voice wavered, but Selast's responses were loud and firm. They had respect for each other, and perhaps in time the love would grow. As the lengthy oaths were finished, Chedan lifted his hands in benediction and faced them across the fire.\n\n\"To this woman and this man grant wisdom and courage, O Great Unknown! Grant them peace and understanding! Grant purity of purpose and true knowledge to the two souls who stand here before you. Give unto them growth according to their needs, and the fortitude to do their duty in the fullest measure. O Thou Who Art, both female and male and more than either, let these two live in Thee, and for Thee.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This part, Tiriki remembered. Bound wrist to wrist, she had felt Micail's warmth as her own, and in the invocation, something further, a third essence that enfolded them both in a power that united them even as it transcended. She could sense that sphere of energy now, even though she stood on its fringes, aware fora moment not only of the link between Selast and Kalaran, but of the web of energy that connected everyone in the circle, and beyond that, the land around them, resonating into realms she now knew existed within and beyond it, but could not see.\n\n\"O Thou Who Art,\" Tiriki's heart cried, still thinking of Micail. \"Let us all live in Thee!\"\n\nIt was strange, thought Chedan as he set down the deer rib he had been gnawing, how scarcity changed one's attitude to food. Watching Tiriki and the others tuck into the feast which the folk of the Lake village had created to honor the newlyweds, he remembered how, in the Ancient Land, the priesthood had seen food as a distraction from the cultivation of the soul. But in the Sea Kingdoms, whatever land and sea might lack, the trading ships could supply. In Alkonath, not so many years ago, Chedan had been on the verge of becoming portly. He could count his own ribs now.\n\nThere had been times, particularly during the winter months when the only thing left to eat was millet gruel, when Chedan had wondered why he fought so hard to keep the body alive. But even the Temple had recognized that the pleasures of the table and the marriage bed helped reconcile men to incarnation in physical bodies, whose lessons were necessary to the evolution of the soul. And so he chewed slowly, savoring the interplay of salt and fat and the flavors of the herbs with which the roast had been rubbed, and the juicy red meat of the deer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That was a beautiful ceremony,\" Liala commented. \"And the power in the Tor is-even more than we had thought. Is it not?\" She had been ill for much of the spring, but she had refused to miss this celebration.\n\n\"I suppose someone must have known that, even here, because they built the circle of stones to focus the power,\" observed Rendano, who was sitting on the other side of the table. He frowned as if doubting that these primitives could manage such a feat.\n\n\"We are not the first of our kind to come here,\" said Alyssa in a flat voice. \"The Temple of the Sun that stood beside the river Naradek on the coast of this land is in ruins now, but the wisewoman of these people is an initiate of sorts.\"\n\n\"Of sorts!\" Rendano said disdainfully. \"Is that all we will leave behind us? What will her children know of the greatness of Atlantis?\" He gestured toward Selast, who was attempting to feed apiece of bannock to a laughing Kalaran.\n\n\"Atlantis is lost,\" Chedan said quietly, \"but the Mysteries remain. There is much for us to do here.\"\n\n\"Yes... Do you remember the maze below the temple on the Star Mountain?\" Tiriki asked then. \"Was it not intended to teach the way to pass between the worlds?\"\n\n\"Only in legends,\" Rendano scoffed. \"Such devices area training for the soul.\"\n\n\"That night when Iriel was lost...\" She struggled to find the right words. \"I walked the maze in the heart of the hill and came to a place that was not this world.\"\n\n\"You wandered in the spirit while you slept on the mountainside,\" Rendano said with a thin smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, I believe her,\" objected Liala. \"I followed her into the passage made by the waters of the White Spring and went back to the entrance to wait for her when my hip pained me. She did not emerge that way, and we found heron top of the Tor.\"\n\n\"Then there was another exit-\"\n\n\"The acolytes have scoured that hill by daylight and found none,\" observed Chedan. \" I have myself explored the passage to the spring, without finding the tunnel-I believe it is there, though I find no rationale for it.\n\n\"You have spoken much with Taret, lately...\" Chedan turned to Alyssa. \"What does she say?\" Washed, combed, and dressed in her ceremonial garments, the seeress seemed to have recovered some degree of mental and emotional stability. They might as well take advantage of her fleeting moments of clarity.\n\n\"Much that I may not tell,\" answered Alyssa with a smile that reminded them of the woman they had known in Ahtarrath. \"But I have seen-\" Her voice wavered, and Liala putout a hand to steady her. \"I have seen a crystal hill with the pattern of the maze gleaming with light.\" She shuddered and looked around as if wondering what she was doing there.\n\nLiala cast an accusing glance at Chedan and then handed Alyssa an earthen mug of water.\n\n\"Thank you, Alyssa,\" Tiriki said softly, patting her shoulder. \"That is what I was trying to say.\" She turned to the others. \"Perhaps it was some rare conjunction of the stars that opened the way, or perhaps it was only meant for me. But I wonder-if we were to cut the pattern of the maze upon the outside of the hill, somehow I feel-that we might learn how to reach the Otherworld by walking it. And who knows what we might learn then?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fancies and notions,\" Rendano muttered, not so softly.\n\nBut Chedan frowned thoughtfully. \"For so long, our work here has been directed toward mere survival. Is it time now to build on that foundation, to gather our singers together and create something new?\"\n\n\"Do you mean we should raise stones and build a great city around the Tor? I do not think the marsh folk would be very comfortable there...\" Liala said dubiously.\n\n\"No,\" Chedan murmured. \"Cities arise fora reason. I think this place will never be able to support such a population, nor should it. I am beginning to glimpse something different. Perhaps... Let us begin by simply tracing the maze upon the surface of the hill and learning to walk that spiral path... I think that what we have been granted is an opportunity to create in this place the kind of spiritual harmony that once existed on the Star Mountain.\"\n\n\"Anew Temple?\" asked Rendano doubtfully.\n\n\"Yes, but it will be unlike anything that has gone before.\"\n\n\"Young Otter is a furry snake-Ai, ya, ai ya ya! What a hunter he will make, Ai, ya, ya...\"\n\n\"Young Otter is a furry snake-Ai, ya, ai ya ya! What a hunter he will make, Ai, ya, ya...\"\n\nA dozen voices joined in as Otter rose from his bench and gyrated around the circle, pretending to pounce on one or another feaster as he passed.\n\nIn honor of the wedding, the marsh folk had brewed a quantity of something they called heather beer. It was only moderately alcoholic, but as the Atlanteans usually abstained from alcohol, and the natives drank only at festivals, even a little went along way. Though she had at first grimaced at the mix of herbal flavors only slightly lightened by a hint of honey, Damisa had progressed to an expansive enjoyment that kept her going back to the skin that hung from the oak tree for more. After cup number four she had stopped counting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Elis digging in the mud-Ai ya, ai, ya, ya! Tell us if you find some food! Ai, ya, ya...\"\n\n\"Elis digging in the mud-Ai ya, ai, ya, ya! Tell us if you find some food! Ai, ya, ya...\"\n\nShe noted without surprise that the singers had run out of villagers to tease and were starting on the Atlanteans. Such foolishness would never have been tolerated at home. Nor would there have been so public a celebration after a mere wedding. It was a measure of the degree to which the new and the old inhabitants of the Tor had become one community that the villagers had offered to prepare a feast for the newlyweds in the broad meadow by the shore. Tiriki and Chedan had accepted only after some serious debate with the others. In Atlantis, the matings of the priestly class had been occasions of high ceremony, not of bad jokes and strong drink.\n\nBut why should I care? Damisa asked herself as the buzz in her ears grew louder. Neither by the old custom nor the new will there be a mate for me...\n\n\"Liala in your gown of blue-Ai ya, ai ya, ya! Won't you tell us what to do? Ai, ya, ya...\"\n\n\"Liala in your gown of blue-Ai ya, ai ya, ya! Won't you tell us what to do? Ai, ya, ya...\"\n\nThe game required that the person being'honored\" getup and dance around the circle. Liala, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright, made a slow circle and then, to the accompaniment of enthusiastic cheering, bestowed a hearty kiss on the leader of the singers, a grey-bearded elder who was the closest thing the villagers had to a bard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Selast, like the wind you run-Ai, ya, ai ya, ya! Won't you stop and have some fun? Ai, ya, ya...\"\n\n\"Selast, like the wind you run-Ai, ya, ai ya, ya! Won't you stop and have some fun? Ai, ya, ya...\"\n\nNot anymore... thought Damisa, glumly. She'll be hobbled now, at Kalaran's beck and call...\n\nThe brilliance of the long summer's day was softening now to a luminous twilight. Treetops edged the clearing with an interlace of branches, black against the shell pink of the western sky, but eastward, the long slope of the Tor still caught the light. Fora moment it seemed to Damisa that the glow came from within. Or perhaps it was only the drink, she told herself then, for when she blinked and looked again, all she could see was a dim bulk above the trees.\n\n\"Kalaran taught us how to row-Ai ya, ai ya, ya! Teach him how to tup his doe! Ai, ya, ya...\"\n\n\"Kalaran taught us how to row-Ai ya, ai ya, ya! Teach him how to tup his doe! Ai, ya, ya...\"\n\nSomeone called out in the marsh folk tongue and was answered by cheers and laughter. It took Damisa a few moments to realize they were calling for volunteers to escort the bridal couple to their bedding. She allowed herself one look at her beloved. Selast's flower crown was askew, her eyes bright with mingled excitement and apprehension.\n\n\"Go with your husband...\" she muttered, lifting her cup in ironic salutation, \"and when you lie in his arms, may you wish that you were still in mine.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The escort returned and the dancing started up once more." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reidel had taken over one of the drums. His teeth flashed white in his dark face as he grinned, his fingers flickering above the taut skin. She observed a little resentfully that he seemed to behaving a good time. Some of the sailors whirled by hand in hand with village girls. Iriel was sitting with Elis on a log at the edge of the clearing. Otter stood by them, and as Damisa watched, Iriel laughed at something he said and allowed him to lead her into the dance.\n\nAs Damisa got up to refill her cup, she encountered Tiriki, who was getting ready to leave the celebration, holding a sleepy Domara by the hand. Chedan and the other senior clergy had already gone.\n\n\"It is well past her bedtime,\" said Tiriki with a smile, \"but she did want to seethe dancing.\"\n\n\"It certainly is different from the way we celebrated things in the Temple,\" Damisa answered sourly, remembering the exquisitely prepared meals and the stately dances.\n\n\"But you can see why. Survival is so uncertain here. It's no wonder that when people have food and fire in abundance they revel in it. It's an affirmation of life for them, and for us, as well. But now it's time for sleep, isn't it, my darling?\" Tiriki added as Domara yawned. \"Will you walk with us back to the Tor?\"\n\nDamisa shook her head. \"I'm not ready to seek my bed.\"\n\nTiriki eyed the cup in Damisa's hand and frowned, as if considering whether or not to exert her authority. \"Don't stay here and brood. I know that you and Selast were close, but-\"\n\n\"But it is possible to live unmated, you would say? Like you?\" Even as Damisa spoke she knew the beer had betrayed her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tiriki straightened, eyes flashing, and Damisa took an involuntary step backward.\n\n\"Like me?\" Tiriki spoke with quiet intensity. \"Pray to the gods that you never know the joy I had, lest you also one day feel my pain.\" She turned abruptly and strode away, leaving Damisa staring stupidly.\n\nEvents after that became a little hazy. Atone point she looked up to see Otter and Iriel heading for the bushes, arms entwined. She got to her feet, blinking. Only a few people were left beside the fire. Reidel was one of them.\n\n\"My lady, are you well?\" He came quickly toward her. \"Can I help you back to the House of Maidens?\"\n\n\"Well? Very well...\" Damisa giggled and steadied herself against his shoulder. He smelled of heather beer and sweat. \"But I'm... a little drunk.\" She hiccuped and laughed again. \"P'raps we'd better wait... awhile.\"\n\n\"Walking will help,\" he said firmly, tucking her arm in his. \"We'll take the path that circles the Tor.\"\n\nDamisa was not entirely sure that she wanted to lose the warm buzz of the beer. But she had noticed before that Reidel's arm was strong and comforting. Holding onto him did make her feel better, and when they sat down to rest on a grassy bank with a view of moonlight on the water, it seemed natural to rest her head against his shoulder. Gradually her dizziness began to ease.\n\nIt took a little while for her to notice that fine tremors were shaking the hard muscle beneath her cheek. She straightened, shaking her head.\n\n\"You are trembling-are you cold, or was I too heavy for you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No...\" His voice, too, seemed strained. \"Never. I was foolish to think I could... that you would not know...\"\n\n\"Know what?\"\n\nHe released her abruptly and turned away, his body a dark shape against the stars. \"How hard it is for me to hold you and do no more...\"\n\nThat heather beer has loosened your control too, she thought then, or you would not dare to say so! But why should she deny him, she wondered then, since Selast was lost to her?\n\n\"Then do it-\" she said, grasping his arm and drawing him back to face her.\n\nReidel came closer in a single smooth movement that took her by surprise, one arm tightening around her waist while the other lifted to tangle in her hair. In another moment he had pulled her against him and his lips sought hers, at first tentative, then hard as her own need responded to his. The stars whirled overhead as he bore her down upon the grass, his hands first questioning, then demanding, as lacings and pins gave way.\n\nHer breath came faster as a slow fire that owed nothing to the heather beer began to burn beneath her skin. In those moments when his lips were not otherwise busied, Reidel's voice was a whispered accompaniment of wonder and adoration.\n\nThis is not right, thought Damisa in a moment of clear thought as he released her in order to pull off his tunic. I am only driven by lust, and he by love...\n\nBut then Reidel rolled back and his wandering hand found the sanctuary between her thighs. Desire descended upon Damisa like the coming of a goddess, melting all her thoughts of restraint, and she welcomed his hard strength as his body covered hers.\n\nTiriki lay wakeful upon her narrow bed, but sleep would not come. She could hear the drumming from the fire circle like the throbbing pulse of a man and woman in the throes of love. Her lips twitched with wry amusement. There had been gasps and laughter from among the bushes as she carried Domara back to bed, and she had been grateful the child was not awake to ask her what was making the noise. Weddings were celebrated at times propitious for matings, so it was no wonder if others found themselves stirred by the same energies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Unfortunately she could feel that yearning as well as anyone else, and she was alone. She could imagine herself in Micail's arms, but the stimulation of memory was no substitute for the exchange of magnetism that took place with a physical partner.\n\nOh my beloved... it is not only my body that longs for yours... when our spirits touched, we remade the world.\n\nFrom beyond the curtain Tiriki could hear Domara's regular breathing, and an occasional snore from Metia, who still served as the child's nursemaid. Moving softly so as not to wake them, Tiriki got up and pulled a shawl over the shift in which she slept.\n\nShe would go and see if Taret, who customarily kept late hours, was also wakeful. The older woman's wisdom had supported her through many crises-perhaps Taret could teach her how to survive the endless loneliness of the coming years.\n\n\"Will it be permitted... do you think they will they let us marry?\"\n\nDamisa came back to full awareness with a start as she realized that Reidel was talking to her. He had been speaking for quite sometime, actually, words of love which she had ignored as she tried to understand just what had happened between them and why.\n\n\"Marriage?\" She looked at him in surprise. Reidel had always seemed so self-contained. Who would have suspected he had so much passion dammed up inside?\n\n\"Did you think I would have dared to touch you if my intent had been dishonorable?\" He sat up, shocked.\n\nDo you think that if mine had been honorable I would have let you? Damisa bit back the bitter words, remembering that she had wanted this as much as he, if for different reasons. She sat up in turn, reaching for her gown." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The matings of acolytes are ordained by the stars...\"\n\n\"But I am of the priesthood now, so surely-\"\n\n\"Nothing is sure!\" snapped Damisa, driven beyond patience suddenly. \"Least of all me! Do you consider what we just did a commitment? I descend from the princes of Alkonath and may not mingle my blood with any lesser breed!\"\n\n\"But you lay with me...\" he repeated, uncomprehending.\n\n\"Yes. I did. I have needs, just like you-\"\n\n\"Not like me...\" Reidel drew along, shuddering breath. She felt a twinge of compunction as she realized he understood her at last. \"I love you.\"\n\n\"Well...\" she said when the silence had gone on too long. \"I am sorry.\"\n\nReidel grabbed his tunic and belt and got to his feet, slinging them over his shoulder as if disdaining to hide his nakedness. \"Sorry! I could find a cruder word.\" But he did not say it, and by that she understood that what he felt for her was indeed love. Fora moment she saw the graceful line of muscled shoulder and tapering hips stark against the stars, then he turned and strode down the path, leaving her alone.\n\nI spoke truth, she told herself. I don't love him! So why, she wondered, washer last sight of that departing figure suddenly blurred by tears?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sixteen\n\nThe evening is cold and the wind plucks at hair and garments like a mischievous child, but Chedan's travel cloak keeps him warm. His body is young again, responding to every command of his will. Grinning, he lurches through rough-leafed high hedges, following a deer path downhill.\n\nThe sudden cry of a bird of prey rips through the silence-\"Skiriiiiii!\"-the falcon is at once behind him and above him. Instinctively Chedan ducks, but there is no attack.\n\nAfter a moment, he moves forward toward the glowing ring of standing stones. Five great trilithons loom through the mist, and in their shaping he recognizes the touch of Atlantis. But the statue of a dragon stands between him and the stones. He pauses, listening, as a voice thinned by pain but oddly familiar keens, \"Tiriki, Tiriki.\"\n\n\"Are you there?\" Chedan sings. \"Micail? Is it you?\"\n\nBut the dragon has become a falcon with Micail's face, beating against the grey mist with shining dark wings.\n\n\"Osinarmen? You would disguise yourself? Here?\"\n\n\"Skiriiiii!\" The same savage cry is his only answer.\n\n\"Wait!\" Chedan calls, but Micail's spirit has flown into a darker dreamland, and though Chedan is mage, and great in power, he dares not follow.\n\n\"This is why you have failed to find him.\"\n\nChedan turns but sees only the glowing ring of stones.\n\n\"He will not recognize you. Though he needs your counsel as never before, you can no longer guide him. Least of all here! He believes you are dead. He fears you bear a message that he does not wish to receive. But it does not matter-the testis for Micail. By his own deeds, he must endure or fall. You cannot prevent him from fulfilling his fate.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who are you?\" Chedan sings, commanding. \"Reveal thy truth!\"\n\n\"Alas, I cannot be revealed to one who will not see. When you can see,\" the voice murmurs, \"you shall. But men are never so entangled in the pastas when they glimpse the future...\" The voice becomes a hurricane, hurling him head over heels away from the ring of stones.\n\n\"Go back, Chedan,\" the voice commands. \"When the time comes for you to pass on your legacy, the way will open. You will not wonder who or when or why-you will know. But until then-go back. Complete the work that you must do.\"\n\nChedan woke sweating in his rough blankets, his mind still reeling from images of standing stones dancing wildly, whirling away in the mist.\n\nMicail! his spirit cried. Where are you?\n\nSince coming to the Tor he had dreamed of Micail often. At times they were back in Ahtarrath or even in the Ancient Land. They would be walking together or sitting over a carafe of Hellenic wine, indulging in the kind of far-ranging conversations both men loved. Chedan was half aware that the talks were a kind of teaching, as if in sleep he was trying to pass on all the wisdom he had not been given time to impart in the waking world.\n\nWhere, he wondered, was all that information going? He knew that Tiriki, in her secret heart, believed her beloved was still alive somewhere in this world. But Chedan knew that it was equally possible he had been meeting with Micail in his dreams to prepare Micail's spirit for rebirth in this new land... Yet this last vision, if that was what it had been, was different. He felt the same sense of release that always followed trance. And though Micail had fled from him, Chedan had been able to contact him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But I was young again. The memory of that vigor still filled his awareness-and yet with every moment, his body reminded him more painfully that it had served his soul for more than seventy years. And the five years that had passed since they arrived at the Tor had been hard ones. He would not be sorry to lay down this aching flesh and fare to the Halls of Karma, even though it meant he must face judgment.\n\nHe shook his head ruefully. \"Complete the work that you must do,\" the voice had said. At this moment Chedan would be doing well to get out of bed. Perhaps it was a promise, he thought hopefully.\n\nA brisk wind stroked across the plain, flattening the new grass beneath the stalks bleached by winter, then letting the blades spring back one by one-green, silver, and green again.\n\nThe afternoon sun had warmed the air, but the day was fading, and the hope that had lifted Micail's heart contracted like some winter-chilled bloom. A memory of the dream that work had driven from his head returned-he had been a dragon, or a hawk-some creature fierce and wild-struggling wildly to escape the stones. And once more, Chedan had been there.\n\nMicail eyed the men working before him ruefully. Tjalan's dream was, he now realized, simply to create something that would outlast them all; but there were times when the five great trilithons seemed to project an arrogance beyond even the imaginings of a prince...\n\nThe unfinished sarsen ring was less daunting, at least to Micail, perhaps because it was incomplete. Twenty-four uprights had been raised around the trilithons, including one shorter stone that allowed even casual users to sight down the Avenue to the point of the midsummer sunrise... The six missing stones would be hauled in next summer, by levies which would probably be drawn from the Blue Bull tribe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Six more lintels had already been brought in, and two of them raised to better suggest the final effect-a Sun Wheel a hundred feet across. Finding and transporting the remaining twenty-four stones to complete the pattern might take another year of labor.\n\nThanks largely to the efforts of Timul and Elara, the king had survived the wound's fever, but the javelin blow had permanently ruined his shoulder. Khattar would never again wield any battle-ax, of bronze or of orichalcum. There was talk, mostly from the younger warriors, that he ought to abdicate as high king and allow Khensu to take his place. But only the matriarchs could make that decision, and the Women's Side had conspicuously refused to decide.\n\nDid they too fear Prince Tjalan's spearmen? There were times when Micail himself felt uneasy with the continual display of Alkonan potency, yet he had to admit that Tjalan's show of strength might be necessary. Until Khattar's ability to rule was proven, the Red Bull tribe had declared they would provide no further assistance. So far the other tribes had not joined the rebellion, but Micail knew that they could not rely on their full support.\n\nThey think we have only a hundred swords to defend ourselves, and it is true-for now. Luckily for us, the tribes want to seethe henge completed too. When the last stone is set in place, they will make their move-but it will be the worst time for them to do so! They cannot begin to imagine what powers we will be able to draw on once the circuit of force is closed.\n\n\"Lord Prince, dark is coming,\" said the old man who acted as foreman for the White Bull work gang. \"We go back to our fires?\"\n\n\"Yes, it is time,\" Micail nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sat down against one of the half-polished stones and watched the men walkaway one by one toward their camp by the river." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would not have had to go far, either, to find food and shelter and the company of his own kind, but he found himself reluctant to move. Too much speech-that was the problem-the petty bickering, the constant maneuvering for status, was driving him mad.\n\nHe continued to sit, half watching the cryptic play of twilight and clouds, thinking that if he came in late enough, he might persuade Cleta or Elara to bring him some food in his hut, away from the others. It occurred to him that he rarely felt any need to be on his guard against the acolytes-not even after Elara had told him that if the king became too insistent that he take a mate, she herself was willing to bear him a child. But she had not pressed him, and now as he sat alone in the sunset he found himself beginning to actually consider her offer, if only because it distracted him from the disturbing memory of how Anet had felt in his arms.\n\nJust thinking about her lithe dancer's body lit afire in his flesh. He frowned, the half-illicit visions washed away by the sudden memory of a native legend that he had recently heard, in which the stones in some of the older circles were said to wake with the darkness, and even dance at the times of the great festivals. The stones here were already moving toward awareness, the whispers ran.\n\nThe original ring of stones had obviously been part of a simple cremation cemetery, like the earthwork that had so frightened the acolytes on their journey here. Most of the other circles had apparently been built for that purpose as well. Yet it could not be denied that nightfall always made this place seem a little more distant, and at the same time a bit larger, turning it into a looming presence that made it difficult to think about other things. Sighing, Micail got to his feet and, trying not to think at all, began the long walk back across the plain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That night, sleep was slow incoming." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But in the still hour before the dawn his troubled dreams yielded to a vision of far green hills and a golden pathway whereon he saw Tiriki approaching, robed in blue light.\n\nSpring was always a time of hope in the marshlands, when the earth grew green and the sky clamored with the cries of migrating birds. Whenever the waterfowl settled on the pools, their muted calling turned even more musical, as if the wind gods themselves were singing hymns for the earth. It was a time to gather eggs and tender new leaves, and the increased food supply renewed the confidence and the energy of those who lived around the lake. It was a time of fair weather and improved circumstances, but it was also a time to get back to work on the spiral maze, which after the wedding feast for Kalaran and Selast they had started to cut into the Tor.\n\nTiriki straightened, digging the knuckles of her left hand into the small of her back to ease its aching, while she rested the antler points that tipped her hoe on the ground. The priests' caste was never bred for such labor, she thought ruefully, surveying her segment of the new pathway of the spiral maze that they were making around the hill. The shadow she cast was, she observed, quite slender, and what flesh she had, she knew, was mostly muscle. It occurred to her that she was probably healthier than she had ever been.\n\nThe same was true of the rest of them. Ahead and behind her she glimpsed other diggers, bending and rising as their hoes dug into the soft ground. She and Chedan and a few of the others had sung to the earth along the track and loosened it a little, but she doubted that even an experienced stand of singers could have shifted so many particles at once... though they certainly could have moved that boulder by the foot of the path much more easily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just ahead of her, Domara stabbed her digging stick into the ground and laughed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had turned five the preceding winter, and a recent growth spurt had stolen away the plump sweetness of babyhood forever. Now Tiriki could glimpse the child she was becoming. Not the woman-thank the gods, that was still far in the future-but the slim, leggy youngster with the mop of red curls. She is going to be like Micail, thought Tiriki, tall and strong.\n\nThe adults might complain about the seemingly unending regimen of strenuous labor, but the children were in their element, happy to dig until they were muddy from head to heels. If only the youngsters could have been depended upon to stick to the work, the elders could have left the job to them, thought Tiriki as the divots flew. But even Domara, who was so insistent on helping in every grown-up task that they called her'little priestess,\" could be distracted by a butterfly.\n\nAs Tiriki hacked into the earth again she felt something give. The bindings that held the antler tine to the stock were loose again. She sighed. \"Domara, my love, will you take this back down to Heron and ask if he can fix it?\"\n\nWhen the child had started down the hill, Tiriki picked up a bone shoulder blade and knelt on the path to smooth the earth and shift the displaced dirt to the downhill side. Soon it would be time to stop. She had cleared a full length this morning, and had almost reached the point where Kalaran's section began. Except for Liala and Alyssa, who were sick, and Selast, who was pregnant, everyone in the community was working on the maze, even the Lake folk, although they found this kind of exercise as foreign to their normal lifestyle as did any Atlantean priest or priestess." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chedan had been forbidden to work. Of course he had protested, saying that inaction would only make him feel worse, but she knew how his bones pained him. He had done his part and more, she had told him, when he had taken the image of the pathway through the hill from Tiriki's memory and translated it into the pattern of an oval maze that wound back and forth along the slopes of the Tor. Starting as if it meant to go straight up the spine of the hill, the way led sunwise around the middle slope and then dipped and turned back. It circled widdershins almost to the beginning before dropping again and skirting the base of the hill, only to turn and start upward again, a little above the initial path. From there it wound back and forth to nearly touch the summit, but instead doubled back in another curve that brought it at last to the stone circle at the crest.\n\nIt had taken a year's effort to dig out the full three-foot width of pathway for the initial circuit alone. Now they were working down and around on the first return course. The rest of the way was carefully marked out by sticks thrust into the soil, but already it had been trodden often enough to wear a narrow footpath, scarcely wider than a deer trail, into the ground.\n\nTiriki swayed with a faint sense of vertigo as she visualized the maze-even Chedan's first sketches had dizzied her, reminding her of a symbol or inscription she was certain she had seen before, though she could not remember where or when. The mage had assured her that its shape was unlike any character or hieroglyph that he was familiar with, and Dannetrasa, who was even more widely read, echoed his conclusion, yet the notion continued to haunt her.\n\nAncient or new, the pattern worked. She and Chedan had walked it more than once, and each time felt the proximity of another world and touched the inner spirit of the land. This was not the Temple that the prophecies had described, but its power was profound and manifest. When the path was completed, anyone, she was sure, would be able to follow it, and they would find a blessing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tiriki scraped the bone blade across the soil again, breathing deeply as the rich scent filled the air. Here, beneath the trees that clothed the base of the Tor, the earth was rich with the humus of many centuries of fallen leaves. The digging would be more difficult on the grassy upper slopes, where the rocky substrate was barely covered with topsoil. She rooted her fingers in the earth and felt its strength flow up into her, as if she were herself part of the complex of life on the Tor, growing from wind and rain, sun and soil-\n\n\"Drink deep... reach high... we will survive the storm...\"\n\nStartled, she lifted her hands and the eerie voice silenced.\n\nStorm? wondered Tiriki, gazing at the cloudless sky. But the old ship gong was ringing to announce the noonday meal, and her belly told her it would be welcome.\n\nLong red rays from the westering sun slanted through the trees above the hedges. To the east, a sliver of moon was rising over the Tor. Damisa stood in the pool of the Red Spring, ladling water with her hands and then letting it pour down over her body. The iron-rich water had passed first through a shallow pool where it absorbed some slight heat from the sun, but its chill still set goosebumps in her flesh.\n\nTaret had taught them to seek the spring, weather permitting, on the day after their monthly courses were done. This, too, was a rite of passage. \"Women are like the moon,\" the wisewoman would say. \"Every month we start new.\" Damisa hoped it was true. Sometimes she felt that she would like to start her whole life over. It was all wasted anyway. She had been born into the luxuries of Alkonan nobility and trained to serve the Temple of Light, not to work herself ragged in the gritty world of hoes and cookpots." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fora time, at least, she had found some hope for joy-or at least a little happiness-but that was plainly over now. Not only was Selast lost to her, fixated on her approaching child, but Damisa herself had driven Reidel away. She liked to think that it was honor that kept her from seeking him out again when all she had desired was the comfort of someone's arms. But in all this time, she had found no one else to whom she was willing to turn. She dribbled more water over her head and watched the drops catch like jewels, twinkling red and gold in her long auburn hair.\n\nOn impulse, she turned and kissed her hand to the slender rind of pearl that floated in the twilit sky.\n\n\"New moon, true moon-Bring me new luck soon!\"\n\n\"New moon, true moon-Bring me new luck soon!\"\n\nA silly child's rhyme, Damisa thought with a smile, wondering what the moon would have wanted to teach her today.\n\nA sudden burst of wind stirred the treetops and she shivered. As she turned toward the bank where her clothing waited, she remembered that she had promised to bring Alyssa some water from the spring. She stretched to hold a ceramic jug beneath the little waterfall that fed the pool, then climbed out and began to scrub her skin vigorously with a woolen towel.\n\nBy the time Damisa reached the hut where the seeress lived, dusk was laying gentle blue veils across the land. She tapped gently on the doorpost, but heard no answer. These days the Grey Adept slept a good deal, but one or another of the saji women who tended her should have been somewhere near. She was tempted to simply leave the jug by the door and go away, but as she bent, she heard an odd sound from within." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hesitantly she drew aside the hide that curtained the door and saw what she at first took to be a pile of grey cloth heaped beside the hearth. Then she realized that it was shaking and from it came the strange noise. A swift step brought her to Alyssa's side.\n\n\"Where are your helpers?\" Damisa said, as she carefully plucked the cloth away from the old woman's face and tried to straighten her contorting limbs. It occurred to her that whoever had been here had probably already gone to summon assistance. \"It's all right now-be easy-I'm here,\" Damisa said, knowing even as she murmured the words that they were untrue. Alyssa was most definitely not all right.\n\n\"The circle is unbalanced!\" the seeress muttered. \"If they use it they will die...\"\n\n\"What? Who will die?\" Damisa asked desperately. \"Tell me!\"\n\n\"The Falcon of the Sun runs like a serpent in the sky...\" Alyssa's eyes blinked open, staring wildly. \"The circle is square, but the sun goes round, while the stone unbound grows round with sound...\"\n\nFora moment then Damisa saw a plain where three vast squared arches stood within a circle of mighty pillars, as if Alyssa had somehow transmitted the image mind to mind. Then the woman's head began to twitch and Damisa had to struggle to keep her from battering it against the hearthstones.\n\nShe heard muffled voices and looked up in relief to see Virja pullback the curtain. Then Chedan came limping in, with Tiriki following.\n\n\"She has not wakened?\" the mage asked sharply.\n\n\"She has spoken,\" answered Damisa. \"She even made me see what she... was looking at! But I couldn't understand it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ruddy light cast by the fire on the Grey Adept's face created an illusion of health." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But her closed eyes were sunken pools of shadow. She looked like a dead woman already, save that she was breathing...\n\nChedan lowered himself carefully to a stool and, leaning his weight on his carved staff, bent to take Alyssa's waxen hand in his own. \"Alyssa of Caris!\" he said sternly. \"Neniath! You hear my voice, you know me. Out of space and time I do summon you, return!\"\n\nVirja was whispering to Tiriki, \"All day she was sleepy. First I could not get her to eat, and then I could not wake her-\"\n\n\"I hear you, son of Naduil-\" The words were strong and clear, but Alyssa's eyes remained tightly shut.\n\n\"Tell me, seeress, what do you see?\"\n\n\"Joy where there has been sorrow-fear where there should be joy. The one who will open the door is among you, but look beyond him. Little singer-\"\n\nThey all looked at Tiriki, since that was the meaning of her name. Quickly she knelt between Chedan and Alyssa.\n\n\"I am here, Neniath. What would you say tome?\"\n\n\"I say beware. Love is your foe-only through loss can that love be fulfilled. You preserved the Stone-but now it becomes the seed of Light. That must be planted deeper still.\"\n\n\"The Omphalos Stone,\" breathed Chedan, as if unaware that he had spoken the words aloud. He had once said he still had nightmares in which he alone had to wrestle it down to the ship...\n\nWith all else that was lost, thought Damisa, why could not the Stone too have slipped beneath the sea?\n\n\"You spoke of-a foe-disguised as love?\" Tiriki was saying, with confusion. \"I do not understand! What must I do?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You will know...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alyssa's voice weakened. \"But can you risk all... to gain all...?\" They listened tensely, but there was only a rasping as the seeress struggled to breathe.\n\n\"Alyssa, how do you fare?\" Chedan asked, after a little while had passed.\n\n\"I am weary-and Ni-Terat awaits. Her dark veils wrap me round. Please-give me leave to go-\"\n\nThe mage passed his hands above Alyssa's body, but his smile was sad. Fora moment dappled light swirled above the body of the seeress, then faded away.\n\n\"Stay but a little while, my sister, and we will sing you on your journey,\" the mage said gently.\n\nTiriki touched Damisa's arm. \"Go now and fetch the others-\"\n\nAs Damisa ducked through the door, she heard Chedan's voice begin the Evening Hymn.\n\n\"Oh Maker of all things mortal, We call Thee at Day's ending. Oh Light beyond all shadows, This world of Forms transcending...\"\n\n\"Oh Maker of all things mortal, We call Thee at Day's ending. Oh Light beyond all shadows, This world of Forms transcending...\"\n\nFor many hours, the priests and priestesses sang in shifts to ease Alyssa's passing, but Chedan and Tiriki stayed with the Grey Adept until the end, hoping for another moment of clarity. Even when they were not seers, the sight of those who stood on the threshold of death often extended far indeed; but when she did speak again, Alyssa seemed to think she was on the isle of Caris where she had been born. It would have been cruelty to call her back again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They agreed that Alyssa's body would be burned the next night, on top of the Tor. Until then, work on the path had been suspended. Domara was sent off with the village children to gather wildflowers to adorn the bier. It relieved the child from the sorrow of her elders, but Tiriki thought the house seemed very silent without her. With no other duties to keep her occupied, Tiriki decided to join Liala on her afternoon visit to Taret's hut, slowing her swift steps to match the careful progress of the other priestess, who could not get around these days without a walking stick.\n\n\"We have suffered other deaths, of course,\" said Liala heavily as they made their way along the path, \"but she is the first of her kind to go.\" Tiriki nodded. She knew what the older woman meant. Even poor sad Malaera had been only a simple priestess, with no special talents or powers. Alyssa was the first seeress to die in the new land. Would her troubled soul find rest or continue to wander, caught between the past and the future?\n\n\"It was that last Temple ritual, with the Omphalos Stone.\" Without meaning to, Tiriki found herself glancing back toward the hut where that egg of ill-omen now lay. \"Something in her mind broke, even before Ahtarrath did. After that... she was never the same again.\"\n\n\"Caratra rest her!\" Liala made the sign of the Goddess on her breast and brow.\n\n\"Yes, she walks with the Nurturer now,\" said Tiriki, but her thoughts were faraway. She had thought to come along to help Liala, but now realized that she very much needed the comfort of Taret's wisdom. The old wisewoman had served the Great Goddess for longer than she could imagine. She would help them to understand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The door to Taret's house was propped open, and as they approached it, they could hear her saying, in the tongue of the Lake tribe, \"You see, she is here now, just as I told you... Come in, my daughters,\" Taret added. \"My visitor has a message for you.\"\n\nSeated on the far side of the fire was a young woman wearing a short, sleeveless tunic of blue-dyed wool. She was slim and supple, and her dun-colored hair was caught up in a tail at the back of her head. She had taken off her journey shoes, and her feet were those of a dancer, high-arched and strong.\n\nSeeing the blue tunic, Liala offered the salute of one priestess of Caratra to another-as did Tiriki. The stranger's dark eyes grew wide.\n\n\"They both serve the Mother, too, yes,\" said Taret, her birdlike glance darting between them. \"This is Anet, daughter to Ayo, Sacred Sister for the people of Azan. They send her with news they cannot entrust to other messengers.\"\n\nRising from her bench, Anet bent with liquid grace in the salutation a neophyte makes to a high priestess. Tiriki raised one eyebrow. Did the girl think they would doubt her credentials, or did she have some other reason for wanting to impress them?\n\n\"Heralding Stars, child, you need not be so formal!\" said Liala with a smile.\n\n\"I would not wish to presume,\" Anet replied as she settled gracefully into her cross-legged pose once again. Tiriki had a sense that whatever had motivated that salutation, it had not been humility. \"The other Sea People are very ceremonious, especially with us. Very proud.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tiriki felt the blood pound suddenly in her ears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sea People? What do you mean-?\"\n\n\"The strangers,\" Anet said simply. \"The priests and priestesses who came in winged boats from the sea. People of your kind.\"\n\nTiriki barely stopped herself from seizing the girl's arm. \"Who were they? Can you tell us any names?\"\n\n\"When they first came we thought the old shaman was their leader. The one they call Ar-dral.\"\n\nTiriki gasped. \"Ardral?\" she echoed. \"Not Ardral of Atalan! Seventh Guardian of the Temple at Ahtarrath? Ardravanant?\"\n\n\"I have heard him called that. But we do not see him so much anymore, since their prince-\" Anet grimaced. \"Tjalan-with his soldiers, brought the other priests to sing up the stones. But I see now that you two dress much the way some of their priestesses do. Maybe you know them too. There is Timul, and Elara-\"\n\n\"Elara!\" It was Liala's turn to be excited. \"Do you mean the acolyte Elara?\"\n\n\"Yes, that is familiar...\" Anet nodded slowly, eyes wide.\n\n\"And she's a healer? I knew it!\" Liala exclaimed with a grin.\n\n\"That's-\" Tiriki's voice wavered. \"You said there were other priests. What are their names?\"\n\n\"Oh, so many-\" The girl paused, blinking prettily. \"There is Haladris, and Ocathrel, and Immamiri-many. I regret I did not get to know all their names, because my father so much wished me to marry their other prince to bring his blood into our line.\" Anet gave Tiriki a sidelong smile. \"A tall and handsome man with hairlike new fire. Lord Micail.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a pity, thought Chedan, that this news should come just now. Poor Alyssa had not even received their full attention at her funeral.\n\nIt did not take long to call the community together, nor much longer to hear what the Ai-Zir girl had to say about the Atlanteans and their plans to build a great circle of stones in Azan. Tiriki wanted to set off on the journey at once, and when they sought to restrain her, she had collapsed. It was ironic, considering how well she had coped with their countless perils, that she should be undone by joy. But it was often so, he remembered, after along period of mourning.\n\nOnce Tiriki had been put to bed, and the guests settled in shelters for the night, Chedan sat for many hours before the council fire. The heavens wheeled above him, revealing both familiar and still unknown stars in the unusually clear night sky. Tiriki had been given herbs to make her sleep, but one by one the others came to join him, minds too awhirl with speculation for speech. By the time the fire had sunk to a smolder of coals and some white curls of smoke, each face could be clearly seen, for it was dawn.\n\n\"We must join them,\" Rendano was saying, \"and the sooner, the better. These Ai-Zir tribes clearly command more resources than the natives here. We would have some hope of reestablishing our own way of living.\" The glance he cast toward the rude structures whose thatched roofs could just be seen through the trees was eloquent of disdain.\n\n\"I am not so sure,\" Liala put in. \"Before Alyssa died... she spoke of danger from circles and stones. Now we learn our compatriots are just on the other side of those hills, building-a circle of stones. Is it not possible that the danger Alyssa warned of will come from them?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"From our own people?\" exclaimed Damisa in amazement.\n\n\"Not to speak ill of the dead, but we all know Alyssa was crazy,\" Reidel echoed her.\n\nAt this, Chedan looked up, but he bit back the words. Reidel had made great progress, but he understood nothing about the strange forces a seeress must contend with-no one who had not walked that path could truly understand.\n\n\"Since when did madness ever prevent one from seeing the truth?\" asked little Iriel, who-Chedan suddenly noticed-was not so little anymore. In the past six years she had become a woman. At home, he mused, all of the acolytes would have been advanced to full priest or priestess by now.\n\n\"Alyssa lived in her own world,\" Iriel continued. \"But when we could make sense of her ravings, there was usually some truth in them. So-so I think Liala's right. What if these plains people are forcing our priests to build for them? Taret says they area powerful tribe.\"\n\n\"I think that girl did not begin to tell us all she knows,\" Forolin put in unexpectedly. \"Her father is the king-if Prince Tjalan has really taken over, how does that sit with the other tribes? If one of them wanted to revolt we would be valuable hostages-something of the sort happened on a trade route I used to travel when younger. I am as eager as anyone hereto go somewhere more civilized,\" Forolin went on earnestly, \"but we shouldn't rush in. Things are not so bad here.\"\n\n\"Yes, life is hard, but we are secure.\" Selast laid a protective handover her belly. \"And I can hardly go a-wandering just now.\"\n\nChedan stroked his beard, thoughtful. He was willing enough to let the others speculate on danger from the natives, but Alyssa's words still echoed in his memory. She had not spoken of danger from people, but from the stones themselves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The others had grown quiet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Looking up, Chedan realized that they had been watching him. He looked from one face to another. \"I sense we maybe moving toward some sort of decision,\" he observed, \"but if experience has taught me anything, it is that someone always has a last word...\"\n\nDamisa's frown had been growing. \"Well, no one has asked for my opinion!\" she said sharply. \"How can we not go? Not only are these our own people, but Micail and a lot of other Guardians are there. Surely whatever they are building is part of the new Temple, just as it says in the prophecy that everybody used to make so much noise about! Do you really believe a lot of savages could control so many adepts and priests-especially if Tjalan is thereto guard them? Or is it Tjalan you are worrying about? He will protect us too-or don't you trust anybody who isn't from Ahtarrath?\"\n\n\"No, no, no,\" Chedan said soothingly. \"Dear Damisa, where does this come from? Selast and Kalaran are hardly Ahtarrans. Indeed I am Alkonan myself, you might recall... No, for good or for ill, my friends, we are all Atlanteans together in this new land.\"\n\n\"It is not Prince Tjalan we doubt,\" said Kalaran, \"but the people between us and him.\"\n\nLiala nodded. \"Forolin made an important point. If Tjalan has enough men to threaten the tribes, the natives may indeed think of using us as a shield against them. And if Tjalan is not strong enough to deter them-need I say more?\"\n\n\"Why not send a few to make contact?\" Liala suggested. \"Some of the younger folk, who can go swiftly. If all is well, the prince can send an escort for the rest of us. After so long a separation, surely we can wait a little longer to rejoin our friends and countrymen.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have been thinking much the same thing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dannetrasa nodded.\n\n\"So it seems that most of us agree,\" observed Chedan. \"Perhaps Damisa should be one of the party, since she is familiar not only with the ways of the local wildlife, but is also Tjalan's cousin. Damisa? What do you say?\"\n\n\"I will go with some of my men to guard her,\" Reidel offered when he saw Damisa's eager nod.\n\n\"But should we not send someone-more senior?\" asked Rendano.\n\n\"I hope you don't mean me.\" Chedan shook his head. \"Do you wish to go? Besides, Damisa is the eldest of the Chosen Twelve, and thus under law has rank and standing in any Atlantean court or temple.\"\n\n\"But what about Tiriki?\" asked Damisa. \"She'll want to go-\"\n\n\"But she should not just now, I think. She needs time to recover,\" Chedan responded. Alyssa's words still bothered him, and it would hardly be tactful to point out that the high priestess was not expendable...\"But somehow I doubt that she will agree with me. I suggest that you and Reidel gather some men and supplies and leave, soon-as soon as possible,\" he added wryly, \"preferably before she awakens. I do not wish to have to tie her up to keep her from following you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Seventeen\n\nDid you hear the news? Anet is back from the Lake lands-\"\n\nThe voice was that of one of the native slave women the Alkonans had recently bought to help with the work of the new community.\n\nMicail, passing behind the kitchen hut on his way to the gate, could not help hearing them.\n\n\"Is she?\" another slave said. \"Did she bring her bow and arrows? That's the only way she will capture Fire-hair!\"\n\nMicail felt a slow flush burn his cheeks as the women laughed. He had been aware of his nickname, but he had not realized that Anet's interest in him was common knowledge.\n\nThe first voice spoke again. \"The news is she travels with strangers. More Sea People-different ones.\"\n\n\"Where do they come from?\" someone asked.\n\n\"Somewhere in the marshes. They have been therefor years, they say. I hear they don't look much like the new masters; they dress like marsh people. But taller, so maybe.\"\n\n\"Say, I heard one of them is-\"\n\n\"Hush,\" anew voice interrupted, probably a supervisor. \"Anyone could hear you shrieking. We will know all about it soon enough. No doubt the Falcon lords will want to see them.\" The scrape, scrape, scrape of the grinding stones never ceased, but otherwise, there was deafening silence from within the kitchen hut.\n\nPresently Micail turned away and began to walk back toward the central court. With a detached curiosity he realized that his heart was still pounding heavily, though he had been standing still. Perhaps, he thought, I had better stop in and see Tjalan...\n\nBy the time Anet and her traveling companions arrived, everyone in the community had heard that they were coming. Rumors flew wildly, some less absurd than others. Mahadalku and most of the senior priesthood declined to join the crowd waiting on the commons, but Haladris was there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A second drop of water struck Elara's head and she frowned up at the sky. More clouds were rushing into blot out the morning's fragile blue. The natives counted the beginning of summer from a point halfway between equinox and solstice, but one shouldn't try to tell the season by the weather, Elara thought grimly. She pulled her shawl up over her head as the first spatterings turned into alight rain.\n\nSomeone at the front was pointing, and Elara realized that she had arrived just in time. A group of people was approaching across the plain. Even at a distance she recognized Anet's dun hair and her easy way of moving, and the two Blue Bull warriors that always escorted her. Behind them she could see a knot of tall, bronze-skinned men in wool and leather, and gleaming from among them, one head of long auburn hair that had never been born to the tribes.\n\n\"Who is that?\" asked Cleta, stretching on tiptoes beside her and wiping rain out of her eyes. \"Can you see?\"\n\n\"They are Atlanteans, that's for sure... Heart of Manoah! I think it's Damisa!\" Elara blinked, trying to reconcile her memories of a gawky adolescent with the young goddess who was striding toward them.\n\nAs Anet's group reached the crowd, Micail stepped forward from his place beside Prince Tjalan as if unable to standstill any longer. Some of the stiffness seemed to leave his shoulders, but there was still tension in his stance. Elara felt her heart wrench with pity, then noticed that Anet was watching Micail as well, her expression like that of a fox who eyes a cock pheasant, wondering whether it will be able to flyaway. You still do not see he is not for you, Elara thought grimly. Or for me... she reflected ruefully. His rejection of her offer had been polite, but clear. If Tiriki lives, he will go to her. And if she does not... I think he will remain as he is." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tjalan, too, stepped forward now, all smiles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Seeing him, Damisa bent in the salutation due a reigning prince, her face radiant. She then performed the proper obeisances to Ardral and to Micail, as lords of the Temple, but her gaze, it seemed, could not quite tear itself away from the Prince of Alkonath.\n\n\"Why, it is my little cousin!\" exclaimed Tjalan. \"Praise to the God of Roads for your arrival! Now enter in a good hour, and let no fear trouble you while you are in my domain. Welcome! Welcome indeed, cousin. This is joy beyond imagining.\"\n\nAs Damisa straightened, her blushes barely contained, Elara saw her surreptitiously tug down the skirts of her gown and suppressed a grin. She has grown taller, too!\n\n\"My prince,\" Damisa was saying, \"I am grateful indeed to find you here. I bring greetings from the Summer Country, and from the leaders of our community-the Guardian Chedan Arados and the Guardian Tiri-Eilantha.\"\n\nAs Damisa spoke her gaze had gone to Micail. Help him, someone! thought Elara as she saw the color leave his face entirely. And Ardral stepped forward, his hand gripping Micail's elbow.\n\n\"We rejoice to see you, O acolyte. Your message of hope heals our hearts.\" Ardral's words flowed smoothly, but was there an unaccustomed roughness in his voice? Eyebrows quirking, his piercing gaze darted to the young man who stood behind Damisa.\n\nShe did not wait for him to ask. \"I present to you Reidel, son of Sarhedran, formerly captain of the Crimson Serpent, and consecrated now to the Sixth Order of the Temple of Light-\" Under the shocked stares of the clergy, Reidel's weathered face grew even more impassive, but he managed a fairly graceful bow." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist the writer by carrying on with the story.\nTags: fantasy, historical, mythology, Atlantis, reincarnation\nAuthor: Marion Zimmer Bradley\nTitle: Ancestors of Avalon\nChapter: 25" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Someone else could have carried it,\" she muttered.\n\n\"Our community is not so large we can count anyone expendable,\" he said dryly. \"And I knew the way. Besides-how could you think I would leave you here a prisoner? Although\"-his gaze moved from the cushions of the carven chair to the finely wrought table where a matching flagon and goblet gleamed like orichalcum in the sun-\"they seem to be treating you well!\"\n\n\"Oh yes, the cage is quite luxurious.\" She poured wine into the goblet and held it out to him. Ashe leaned forward into the sunlight she saw the red mark of someone's fist on his cheekbone.\n\n\"Are you ready to leave?\" Reidel sipped and set the goblet down.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said at once, but then turned away, not wanting him to see her blushes. \"No,\" she began again, but once more stopped short. \"How can I choose when I see hazards on every road? If only Tjalan would trust me!\"\n\n\"You believe him?\" Reidel sprang to his feet, staring down at her.\n\n\"He wants to restore the glory of Atlantis. Don't you?\"\n\n\"Ah. Let me rephrase that...\" Reidel paced a few steps away and suddenly turned. \"Do you believe in him? Do you believe that his vision of the future is what you are meant to promote in this land?\"\n\n\"I? But-\" She found she could not meet his eyes. \"I don't know what you mean.\"\n\nReidel moved closer, replying softly, \"Don't you? Then why didn't you just tell Tjalan how to find the Tor?\"\n\n\"It is not for me to make decisions for Master Chedan!\" Damisa in turn paced away, covering the distance to the wall and back again before she even tried to speak again. \"Or for Tiriki,\" she began. \"I mean... we all have to choose... I don't know!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, that's clear.\" Reidel leaned against the oak tree, arms crossed. She was not quite sure, but she thought that the expression on his face was a smile.\n\nWhat an exasperating man, she thought. Since her cruelty to him after their encounter the year before, he had never again spoken of love to her, and yet today he was no longer radiating that horrid, resentful pain. It was as if, without a word said, they had arrived at anew relationship-or he had-and his new certainty made Damisa feel more confused than ever.\n\n\"I'll ask you a question,\" she said. \"You say you came back because of me-if I decide that Tjalan's right, will you support me?\"\n\n\"You strike shrewdly,\" he said, after some moments had passed. \"I'd bet Tjalan has no idea how strong you are, has he? For that matter-do you? I really suspect that if need be, you could climb this tree and get over the garden wall all by yourself. I've seen you do things a good bit more difficult!\"\n\nDamisa blushed in annoyance as Reidel shook his head and sighed. \"I give you the same answer you gave me-yes and no. What I have seen here convinces me Tjalan is no fit ruler. I do not think I wish to help him. But do not mistake me, Damisa. One way or another, I have had a lot of time to think recently. I realized finally that whether or not you ever care for me, it is my fate to love you. And to protect you, I will gladly shed the last drop of my blood.\"\n\n\"We parted on terms of the highest courtesy,\" said Tiriki bitterly, \"but we must prepare to defend ourselves all the same. We have only purchased a little time.\" She looked around her at the other members of her community, her family, who were sitting on the rough benches around the council fire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was midafternoon, but she had coaxed a few logs into flame, not for warmth but as a symbolic illumination. In the Temple of Light the altar had borne an eternal flame, fed by some unknown source, burning in a lamp of purest gold. It was afar cry from this simple wood fire among the trees, but the light was the same, a splinter of the sun. And I am no less a priestess, she told herself. That is something I would have expected Micail to understand...\n\n\"How?\" asked Kalaran. \"You say that Reidel is still-again-their prisoner?\"\n\nElis nodded. \"We have to assume so.\"\n\n\"You think, then, that Tjalan will find someone to lead his soldiers here-to attack us?\" Liala asked, in an unsteady voice.\n\nTiriki nodded. \"And that is the least of our worries. Micail told me something of what he and the others have spent the last four years building-a structure of stones they call the Sun Wheel. According to Tjalan, it somehow controls sound.\"\n\n\"Adsar's Eye!\" Chedan swore. He looked around at the circle of uncomprehending faces. \"But of course you wouldn't understand. The theory of such devices was always taught only to the highest priesthood. I don't think anyone has actually built one for centuries.\" He sighed. \"You all know that the vibrations of sound can move matter... Ina properly designed space the vibrations are amplified. A trained group of singers can focus that vibration into a pulse that will travel quite along way.\"\n\n\"To move something?\" asked Kalaran.\n\n\"To destroy?\" whispered Elis, her face growing pale.\n\n\"He told me it was meant as a source of power for the new Temple,\" Tiriki said quietly. \"But as you know, it can be directed anywhere along the network of energies that already flow through the earth... It is not finished. But I believe that enough stones have been placed for it to be used.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But they don't know where we are!\" exclaimed Selast.\n\nRendano sighed. \"Not yet. But Prince Tjalan is quite proud of his new kingdom, and while we waited for Tiriki and Micail he boasted a great deal. For one thing, Stathalkha is with them, and she has been training other sensitives. They did a survey of all the power points in this land-\"\n\nElis added, \"Including this one. The prince said... they knew we were here months ago. They just didn't think it mattered until now.\"\n\n\"So you see, they don't have to send soldiers,\" Rendano said. \"All they need to do is focus power along the ley line that connects the Sun Wheel to the Tor.\"\n\n\"Does Prince Tjalan know they can do this?\"\n\nRendano shrugged. \"Not yet, I think. But I suspect he soon will.\"\n\nChedan was shaking his head. \"I do not believe it. I thought Ardral at least would be too wise to allow-\"\n\n\"He is a great adept,\" Rendano interrupted, \"but only one among many: Mahadalku and Haladris and Ocathrel of Alkonath-even Valadur the Grey! They are Tjalan's most ardent supporters.\"\n\nChedan's expression grew bleaker with each name, for he knew them all. \"They support this madness?\" he repeated blankly.\n\n\"I too could hardly believe my ears,\" Tiriki answered, as she quickly reached to clasp his hands in her own. \"But Micail is not without his supporters. Jiritaren and Naranshada are there, among others, and the acolytes seem to regard him highly. But still, they are effectively outnumbered. And Tjalan somehow dominates them all. But how can any of them truly understand what they are risking! Except for Micail, they did not seethe face of the power that broke Atlantis-\" Tiriki's voice broke. \"They have never seen Dyaus.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hush,\" said Chedan. Hauling himself upright, he took his turn in trying to comfort her... With a little shock she realized that his beard was now completely white. Fora moment Tiriki allowed herself to rest her head against his chest, angered anew as she remembered Micail's jealousy. It was like accusing her of sleeping with her grandfather.\n\nGently the mage patted her hair. \"Neither Ardral nor Micail will allow them to misuse their powers in such away.\"\n\n\"Do you truly think so?\" She straightened, wiping her eyes. \"I wish I could be so sure. I thought I knew Micail-but there is something new in him. For four years his whole life has been dedicated to building that ring of stones. I don't know if he can abandon it.\"\n\n\"If they douse it to send power against us-what can we do?\" Liala asked.\n\nHer voice wavered, and pity wrenched Tiriki's heart. She is too old to have to face such atrial! And Chedan...\n\n\"Alyssa!\" Tiriki surprised even herself with the answer. \"She said something in her last ravings-at least I thought she was raving at the time,\" said Tiriki slowly. \"She was muttering about a war in heaven and a ring of power, and then she cried out very loudly, \"The Seed of Light must be planted in the heart of the hill!\"\"\n\nThere was silence, in which they all stared at Tiriki, plainly waiting for something more explicit.\n\nTiriki swallowed, and tried, \"I think she meant... that we must use the Omphalos Stone. You said it yourself, Chedan, before I left.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the mage, taken aback, \"but all it can do is balance the energies-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" Tiriki contradicted, \"forgive me, but no. There is more! But how it can be achieved... I must rest,\" she decided. \"Perhaps when my head stops spinning the answer will come.\"\n\n\"This is not a map of the physical landscape,\" Stathalkha said haughtily, her white-robed arm gesturing at the rainbow-colored parchment scroll that lay spread out upon one of Prince Tjalan's tables. \"It shows the paths in which energy flows.\" With one thin finger she identified the various local points of power. \"You already know of this major flow, passing south to north through both the Sun Wheel and Carn Ava.\"\n\nTjalan nodded eagerly. Micail's expression was more ambivalent. It was always desirable to have accurate knowledge, but the thought of a Guardian using his magical gifts against another Guardian-even for remote viewing-filled him with revulsion. Haladris was powerful, and with the backing of Mahadalku and Ocathrel, there was little he could not do-but Micail had a deeper understanding of the stones.\n\n\"Then there is this other very powerful flow-\" The old priestess traced another line on her scroll. \"It continues from the southwest, roughly at the tip of Beleri'in, and then runs northeast, all across the island.\"\n\n\"I still don't quite see how this helps us put pressure on Chedan and Tiriki,\" said Tjalan, with remarkable restraint.\n\nStathalkha tilted her head and stared at the prince, birdlike, then shuffled the pile to produce another parchment upon which a surprisingly detailed map of Azan and the Lake lands had been drawn. \"Our perception puts them-just about here-\" She indicated a point on the Beleri'in line.\n\nTjalan peered at the parchment, then touched two points on the map, asking, \"This is Azan? And this other, the Summer Country?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tjalan peered at the map again, angled his head, then examined it more closely." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At last he looked up again with a wide smile. \"This\"-he held up the map-\"this gives us a significant tactical advantage!\" He then turned to Micail and put a hand on his knee, saying earnestly, \"Now I feel certain we can conclude this matter without harming anyone.\"\n\nMicail bristled, but somehow managed to smile, quelling his anger and disbelief with the thought that if he allowed them to push just a little-enough for Tiriki to comprehend their power-then she would have to admit that maybe Chedan could not protect her better after all.\n\nChedan's staff slipped on the muddy path and Iriel reached out to steady him. Ahead of them, Kalaran, Cadis, Arcor, and Otter staggered beneath the weight of the cabinet. Battered and scarred by its long voyage from the crypts of Ahtarrath, the wooden chest still contained, if only barely, the Omphalos Stone-although the weight of it seemed constantly to change, as if the box itself resisted their every effort to keep moving it along the path.\n\n\"I'm all right,\" the mage muttered. \"Help the others. Iriel-light their way.\"\n\nHe was not all right, Tiriki knew, but no human hand could steady his spirit. Just as the Stone, struggling not to be moved, shook and twisted in its cabinet, that same roiling energy shook and seared their souls.\n\nJust ahead of them, the mouth of the cave yawned out of the darkness, its base dimly whitened by the stream that gurgled toward its confluence with the waters of the Red Spring. Tiriki was about to step into the cave, but just there she paused, bending a little to let the light of her torch illuminate the interior. At least, she thought grimly, we do not have to worry about earthquakes bringing this hill down around our ears." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Over the past five years all of them-except, of course, poor Alyssa, whose sensitivities gave her little choice-had tried not to think about the Omphalos Stone.\n\nChedan had said that much of what they were doing even now had been prophesied, but so long ago that the prophecies had mostly been forgotten. Was everything foreknown and forgotten? Was she only another puppet in a drama, dancing for the pleasure of jaded gods? Surely Rajasta had never predicted that the survivors of Atlantis would war against each other... or had he?\n\nStruck by the sudden return of all her doubts, she turned to look back imploringly at Chedan, but he only shook his head. Closing her eyes, she steadied herself for what was to come. If Micail could not dissuade the other priests from using the Sun Wheel against them, or worse still, if he were persuaded, or deluded, or constrained, to help them, she would find herself pitted against him. As she advanced into the cave, she found herself almost wishing that she, like Alyssa, had died before seeing this day.\n\nAs Iriel cautiously followed Tiriki inside with another torch, the mage, summoning an inner reserve of strength, helped to guide the movement of the carriers as they struggled and fought to get the cabinet into the grotto. But Chedan's thoughts were distracted with visions, not of the future, but of the events that had brought him to this dreaded moment. Yet the life that he had lived and the many incarnations in which he had served the gods before that had taught him only too well that death could but delay one's fate, not change it. Putting off destiny only made the next life harder.\n\nBut he did wish that he did not always feel so very tired. It is the Stone, he reminded himself. It knows that we mean to use its power, and it will have its price..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With heartfelt grunts, the carriers struggled wearily along the passage, following the flickering torches. Often they were not even sure if they were climbing or descending.\n\nThe air was cool, at least, but it was dank, and the density of earth and stone above weighed on their spirits. \"We are children of Light, We fear not the Night,\" Kalaran began singing, rather grimly, and with relief, the others joined the song-\n\n\"Let sorrow make a space for joy, Let grief with jubilance alloy, Step by step to make our way, Till Darkness shall unite with Day...\"\n\n\"Let sorrow make a space for joy, Let grief with jubilance alloy, Step by step to make our way, Till Darkness shall unite with Day...\"\n\n\"Here-\" Tiriki's voice echoed back down the tunnel. \"This is the arrow I drew to mark the spot. You see-there is the spiral pattern pecked into the stone. Don't touch it!\" she warned as Iriel reached out. \"It has the power to hypnotize us and distract us from our necessary task.\"\n\nThe footing here was smoother and the bearers could go more quickly-the Stone was becoming less restive too, as if it now understood where it was being taken, and approved. The passage curved around and doubled back upon itself several times, but it did not take long for Chedan to recognize, with a small jolt of satisfaction, that it was in fact the same pattern that they had been carving upon the surface of the Tor.\n\nWhen walking amaze, the final turnings may draw one inward swiftly. Chedan hurried after the bearers as if caught up in the current of a stream-but this was a current of power, that carried them all into another tufa-crusted chamber, barely big enough for them all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We have done the right thing to bring the Stone here, Chedan thought as he and Tiriki bent to unfasten the latches. Although the shielding effect of the many feet of earth and stone around it made its energies less disruptive than before, he could feel the power of the Omphalos surging even before the heavy lid began to open.\n\n\"Gently, gently,\" he urged, as Tiriki freed the side panels of the cabinet from the framework and laid them aside. The Stone was already glowing in its silken wrappings like the sun through clouds.\n\n\"Truly the gods have guided us,\" whispered Tiriki. \"See, there-\" She pointed to the center of the chamber. \"A hollow that might have been made to hold the Stone!\"\n\nAllowing Kalaran to assist, they dragged the broken cabinet closer; then Chedan set his hands around the swathed, egg-shaped Stone and began to rock it back and forth inside its box. At his touch, its inner fires awakened and the frame cracked in three places, the pieces falling to the ground. Chedan gasped as a surge of power ran up his arms, and hearing him, Iriel dropped her torch and shrieked. Everyone else froze in place.\n\n\"Let me help!\" Tiriki cried. Her torch too had failed, but the chamber was becoming brighter and the white tufa surfaces glittered.\n\n\"No!\" he insisted, gesturing to them to stand aside as he ripped away the last of the silken cloths. Alone, he could use the Stone's own power to move it, but it was like trying to hold a burning coal. All at once the Stone's power surged again, teetering dangerously before him fora long moment before it settled onto the waiting hollow. Tiriki caught him as he staggered back, his palms throbbing furiously. He held them up, amazed to see no burns." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, then,\" he said softly to the Stone. \"Well, then-have you found a home at last?\"\n\nAs if in reply, the eerie surface dulled, absorbing its own glow. But then, as if the sun had risen inside it, the chamber filled with white-hot light. They all cried out in wonder.\n\n\"The sacred center is our frame...\" Chedan intoned. \"Where all is changing, all the same...\"\n\nAll together they sang the verses, palms extended toward the Stone, until its overwhelming brilliance muted to something more bearable to mortal eyes. With along sigh, Chedan groped for the staff he had leaned against the wall.\n\nAs the others, too, fell silent, Tiriki laughed a little breathlessly.\n\n\"My betrothed died to save this thing,\" said Iriel quietly. \"I hope that it will save us now...\"\n\n\"Pray instead that its powers will never be needed!\" said Chedan roughly. \"Think only that we have done well to give it a proper setting. Where the Omphalos rests is the navel of the world! Once it lay hidden and unknown in the Ancient Land, until Ardral and Rajasta and I were called to carry it to Ahtarrath. Now it has come to this place. Here let it remain and bring only balance and light unto the world. May it be so!\"\n\n\"So let it be,\" the others answered in chorus, voices chastened.\n\n\"Now let us go,\" the mage said sternly, \"and fervently pray that we need never think of the Stone again!\"\n\nBut even as he spoke, he knew that they would not be so fortunate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nineteen\n\nAfter the Omphalos Stone was laid to rest, the Tor seemed to glow with rays of light that swirled like red and white dragons twining in a ceaseless dance. Waking, Tiriki could feel them; asleep, they sometimes haunted her dreams. But those dreams were better than the nightmares-the twisted shadowy figures who followed her, only to corner her at last and reveal the leering face of... Micail.\n\nAfter the third night in which such dreams robbed her of rest, she took refuge with Taret. Before Chedan and the others she still thought it best to pretend confidence in Micail's good faith, but keeping her doubts to herself was plainly not helping. Taret was close enough to care about the outcome, but not immediately involved. And the old woman was wise. Another such night, she thought grimly, and I'll be raving like Alyssa-Caratra rest her.\n\nLeaving Domara in the care of the nursemaids, she started up the path, pausing once to note the condition of her favorite patch of wild garlic, and a little farther on, to pluck a spray of wild thyme. She also offered her respects to the old oak tree, thinking even as she did so how surprised Micail would be to know that she could even identify such things. Here I am like Deoris in her garden, she thought with a sad smile. If only we had her here. Destiny be damned! I should have grabbed her and dragged her down to the ships. She could have done so much good... And she had so much more experience with Temple politics, and for that matter, in dealing with nobles.\n\nPrince Tjalan had made it quite plain that his goal was nothing less than continuation of the civilization of Atlantis, and Micail had not seemed to question that. It had not occurred to either man to ask if Tiriki supported that goal. Even two years ago she might have agreed, she thought, as she passed the yew trees that flanked the pathway to the Blood Spring. But from the moment the Crimson Serpent had arrived here, the lack of resources had forced them to forsake their old way of life. Only by learning from the marsh folk had they had been able to survive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Was she only making a virtue of necessity? Happy as she was here, she had to admit there was much about the old world that she still missed, and she knew that there were others in the community at the Tor who longed for lost customs far more than she. But Tiriki could not help feeling that those who persisted in clinging to the goals and ambitions of a vanished empire were only wasting their efforts and their resources. Even so, she would not have strenuously objected if any of her followers had chosen to leave the Tor and live as Tjalan thought best. But the prince had not offered them any choice at all.\n\nThe thought that this peaceful place might be invaded made her shudder. That is the only argument forgiving into Tjalan's demands. Then at least they would leave the Tor alone... But that, she realized suddenly, was wishful thinking. Whatever the virtues of their intentions, Tjalan's priests were power hungry, and even without the Omphalos Stone, the Tor had been a place of considerable power. The new currents that writhed about it now would call like twin beacons to Stathalkha's sensitives. If they had ignored it before, they would not do so again. One way or another, there would be a conflict between what they wanted, and what she had come to believe she was destined to do here.\n\nBut even that certainly brought her little reassurance. Something Chedan had said the previous night had reminded her that the truest destiny was not a thing to be worked out in a single life, but a greater purpose that arose again and again throughout many lives. What she had begun here was right and necessary, and ultimately its promise would be fulfilled; of that she was no longer in doubt. But that fulfilment might take three days or three thousand years.\n\nShe found the wisewoman sitting on a stool before her house, using a flint knife to scrape the outer rind from waterlily roots. She turned her head as Tiriki came up the path." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The blessing of the evening be upon you.\"\n\n\"The Lady give you rest,\" Taret replied, with a slight smile. \"I had thought you were keeping talk-fire with your people.\"\n\n\"The council fire is lit,\" Tiriki said with a sigh, \"but nothing is being said that has not been discussed seven times since breakfast.\" She sank down beside Taret and took up another flake of flint. \"So I shall help you pare these roots. My mother used to say there is comfort in such ordinary tasks, an affirmation that life will goon. I did not listen to her then. Perhaps it is not too late.\"\n\n\"It is never too late,\" said Taret gently, \"and I shall be glad of your help.\"\n\nAfter a few moments had passed, and she had cut several roots, she said, \"I suppose that I have really come to apologize.\" She admitted, \"For I fear we have brought disaster upon you and your people-and that is poor thanks for all your kindness. I have warned the villagers, but they will not leave. Will you go to them and lead them out of danger?\"\n\n\"This is the place where the Mother has planted me.\" Taret smiled. \"My roots go too deep to pull them up now.\"\n\nTiriki sighed. \"You don't understand! Alyssa's vision led us to move the Stone to the cave within the Tor, but if she saw how it would help us afterward, she did not say, or I did not understand. We cannot all take refuge there-even if our minds could bear to be so near it, there is not room for us all!\"\n\n\"You look at the Stone. That is good. Now, look at the Tor.\" Taret sliced through a root and reached for the next.\n\nTiriki stared at her in frustration. \"But-how?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You can no longer go to one and not be in the wind of the other.\"\n\nTiriki closed her eyes, wondering how her own language could be so hard to interpret.\n\nThe old woman did lookup, and her eyes sparkled as if she was restraining herself from laughter. \"Sun Girl, Sea Child, you ask too much of an old servant of the sacred waters. But there is one who knows all its secrets. She has blessed you before. Perhaps She will do so again... if you ask her nicely.\" Taret chuckled. \"Maybe She has some housework for you to do.\"\n\nTiriki sat pensively, remembering. She did indeed have reason to know that the Tor was a place where the many worlds drew very close together.\n\n\"Yes,\" she whispered, and made the gesture of a chela to an adept in the old woman's direction. \"As always, Taret, you redirect my eyes to the wisdom that lies in plain sight. That was the mistake we Atlanteans made, perhaps-to fix our eyes on the heavens and forget that our feet, like the earth on which we stand, are clay.\" She set down the flint and stood up. \"If any come to seek me, tell them I hope to return soon, with better news.\"\n\nOnce, Tiriki had walked this way by chance, and once, by following the winding ways within the Tor. This time she walked the maze on the surface of the hill with the setting sun behind her, passing between day and night as she sought, for the first time by intention, the way between the worlds.\n\nThe summit of the Tor wavered and receded as another landscape loomed up around it, blotting out the valley she had come to know so well. Yet she perceived still the cluster of life energies at the foot of the hill, those of the villagers warm and golden, the Atlanteans at once more pale, yet brighter. Her heart seized on the tiny sparkle that washer daughter, then caught at another familiar glow, so incandescent in its purity that at first she did not recognize it as Chedan. Her eyes blurred with a surge of affection for them all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But this vision showed her nothing she had not already known. She turned impatiently, seeking eastward for the focus of power that was Micail's henge of stones.\n\nWhy did I never think to do this before? she wondered then. I have been so embedded in the daily struggle, I never made time to explore the spiritual landscape here. She directed her attention eastward.\n\nMost certainly the Sun Wheel was there-a circular pulsing of energy in which the white-hot sparks of the initiates dazzled amid the reddish glows that could only be Tjalan and his men.\n\nAs she watched, the ring of light grew brighter, pulsing with a rhythm that even from here she knew was based on song. They were loading the henge with power on which they might draw when the time came. And if she could see them, surely they could sense the Tor. She shivered as the distant beam rippled and quivered like the sun seen from underwater.\n\nShe had hoped that Tjalan would be content to attack them physically. By the time he had marched his soldiers to the Tor, she might have been able to negotiate some accommodation, either with Micail, or with the tribes of Azan. But the prince had found anew weapon, and her vision suggested that he did not mean to wait until it was finished to try it out.\n\nDisheartened, she sank to her knees.\n\n\"Lady of Light, Shining One, in my great need you came tome before, unsummoned. Now I call you, I implore you, hear me. Those who should have been our protectors have become our enemies. I do not know whether they will send the forces of the body or of the spirit first, but I am afraid, for my enemies are very strong. Tell me that we will be safe here, and I will believe you. But if you cannot, then I beg you, show me how I may protect those I love...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The answer came as a gentle teasing. \"Safe! You mortals use language so strangely. You have had bodies before this one and you will have others after. You die, or your enemy dies, but both of you will live again. Why be afraid?\"\n\n\"Because-we are taught that each life is precious!\" Tiriki looked around, hoping to seethe one who had spoken, but there was only a shimmering, a fullness in the air. Yet that, too, was an answer. How could she explain her fears to a being whose form was never destroyed but, rather, was constantly transforming, in ways she could not even imagine? \"Surely,\" said Tiriki haltingly, \"each life has its own lessons, its own meaning. I would not have this one cut short before I have found out what it has to teach me!\"\n\n\"That is a good answer.\" The voice sounded serious.\n\n\"And I do not seek destruction of our enemies, only to keep them from doing us harm,\" Tiriki continued. \"Please-will you help us?\"\n\nAs if in answer, the shimmering intensified, seeming to surround her, but the brilliance was fired by anew source, blazing deep within the hill.\n\n\"The Omphalos Stone!\" she whispered in awe, and saw it pulse in response to her words.\n\n\"The Seed of Light,\" the voice echoed. \"You have planted it, little singer. Your songs can make it grow.\"\n\n\"I still say there is no need to do anything just yet,\" Micail insisted. \"The Lake people are poor, with no resources to stand against us.\" But he knew all too well that he had been saying the same thing ever since they returned from the meeting with Tiriki, and with as little result. And now it was almost too late for talking. With Tjalan's blessing, indeed, with his overt encouragement, Haladris had yet again called the entire priesthood to the henge. They meant to finish the awakening of the stones as quickly as possible. Within a day or two at the most, Micail knew there would be nothing remaining to prevent the Sun Wheel from being used in whatever way they saw fit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What you say would be true if they were marsh people,\" Mahadalku observed with maddening reason-ability, \"but they are in fact priests and Guardians like us. They may have gone native to some degree, but they have got something more.\" The Tarissedan high priestess clutched her veils tightly against the wind off the plain. \"Stathalkha says that over the previous days the intensity of power at the Tor has tripled. Why should that be happening, unless it is because they now know we are here? Best to deal with them before they strike at us!\"\n\n\"But the Sun Wheel is not complete,\" Micail objected. \"We have not even had time to determine if it will-\"\n\n\"Unfinished it maybe,\" Mahadalku interrupted, \"but all preliminary tests show it to be fully capable of containing and projecting the necessary vibrations. Ardravanant and Naranshada have both affirmed this conclusion.\" She spoke in a calm flat tone that discouraged objection. With a sinking heart, Micail looked around at the other priests and priestesses who, in return, discreetly avoided his eye.\n\nNo doubt Jiritaren would follow him if he walked out now, and Naranshada had expressed more than a few doubts about the wisdom of what they were doing. Bennurajos and Reualen, perhaps... if Micail pressed the point. He felt fairly sure that Galara and the acolytes might follow him as well. But was that the best option?\n\nTjalan would probably place us under house arrest, and use the threat to the other prisoners to ensure I did nothing to affect the outcome... But if I stay... He sighed. Then I could end up killing Tiriki myself! And in that case I should cut my own throat and apologize to her in the afterlife... and be damned to the prophecies!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the days since his meeting with Tiriki, it had often occurred to him that he ought to have gone with her, not meekly returned here. He had told himself then that Tjalan might not have permitted either one of them to leave; he had thought of his duty to the acolytes and the fulfillment of his other vows. Now, though, as he gazed at the sharp silhouettes of the tall stones standing against the blue summer sky, he realized that it was a craftsman's love for his creation that kept him here.\n\nI am like a man whose son falls into evil company. Reason says he must be renounced, but the good father continues to hope that the boy will turn to the right path once more. The henge has such great potential for good...\n\n\"How does this preserve our traditions?\" he tried again. \"Tiriki and Chedan have not been charged as heretics-we have not declared war. It is simply not legitimate for us to act against our fellow priests in this way! And it is wrong at an even deeper level to give over this kind of power to such a prideful purpose.\" He gestured at the line of soldiers just outside the ditch and bank that surrounded the circle. It was not clear whether they were thereto protect the priests against interference from outside or to keep them in.\n\n\"Why should we help Prince Tjalan build his empire?\" Micail continued.\n\n\"Because that empire will support the new Temple,\" Ocathrel answered, and the rest seemed to share his exasperation. It occurred to Micail that perhaps he had better stop talking before they all decided he was not just prone to moral misgivings but actually unreliable-possibly a heretic himself. Then they would take the choice regarding whether he should stay or go out of his hands.\n\nAt least Ardral was not present to lend his power to this disaster. When the gong had summoned them that morning, the old adept had pleaded wine-sickness and kept to his quarters. But despite the knowing nods of the chelas, Micail knew that Ardral was rarely ill. Was he merely staying away or going away?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wearily turning away from Ocathrel and Haladris and the rest, Micail satin the shadow of one of the sarsen uprights, and let his thoughts return to the events of the night before.\n\nHe had gone to Ardral's quarters to plead for his support and found him sorting through parchments. Some of them had been burning merrily in a charcoal brazier beneath the smokehole. That sight alone had been enough to strike Micail speechless for several moments-Ardral had been curator of the Temple library at Ahtarrath, after all.\n\n\"No, no,\" the old Guardian had reassured him, \"I am just clearing out a few odd notes and poems and personal musings. No ancient secrets, or at least none that I feel any obligation to pass on. One might argue that all my secrets are ancient! But after a lifetime of study, meditation and practice-all I really know is how little any of us knows.\" And he had laughed.\n\nMicail remembered the gleam of firelight on aquiline features as Ardral flipped his faintly silvered hair out of his eyes once more.\n\n\"Would you like to join me in the last of the teli'ir?\" he'd asked then, as if they had been sitting on a gilded terrace, watching the sunset over Ahtarra's harbor or possibly over Atalan itself. Micail had been too nonplussed to do anything but agree.\n\nIt had been a pleasant time. They had spoken of many things, most of them amusing. But by the time Micail managed to bring the conversation around to what troubled him, he'd been seeing both Ardral and the firelit room through a perfumed haze. Yet the adept's diction had remained crisp throughout, even if his meaning was sometimes obscure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you really think my arguments might move Tjalan when yours have not? I am a fine speaker if I do say so myself, but you are his cousin and, moreover, he considers you a close friend.\" Ardral shook his head. \"I admit, I found Princess Chaithala and the children charming, and I enjoyed their company immensely, but the Prince of Alkonath and I have never had much to say to each other beyond the usual pleasantries. And none of them will have much to miss when I am gone.\"\n\n\"Gone?\" Micail had stared, wondering if the rumors of illness could possibly be true. Ardral certainly had not looked ill, but then he did not look his age either, and he had been old when Micail's parents were babes in arms. \"You are healthy!\" he had exclaimed, not sure whether it was a statement or a prayer. Ardral had quirked one eyebrow and Micail flushed in confusion.\n\n\"Of course I am. That is why I must go. Every night, everyday, Tjalan, or someone, thinks up another question I don't care to answer. I suspect I have been here too long already... and I know too many things that man is no longer meant to know.\"\n\nEven for Ardral, Micail thought now, that had been cryptic. \"Does that mean you will not join in the Working at the Sun Wheel?\" Micail's flogged wits had seemed suddenly sodden, making him wish he had not had that second glass of teli'ir.\n\n\"Oh, I will be working.\" Ardral's teeth had flashed in awry smile as he briefly patted Micail's shoulder. \"Do not trouble yourself over me.\"\n\nMicail had retained enough wit not to say that it wasn't Ardral he was worrying about, but Tiriki, and perhaps the rest of the world. And then the old adept was ushering him to the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I suspect this will be our farewell, Micail, but who can say what fate intends? Time is along and twisted trail, my boy, and it has many aside road. Our paths may cross again!\"\n\nNar-Inabi in Thy splendor Against the darkness ever rising, Grant us tonight a restful slumber And all Thy-all Thy-\n\nNar-Inabi in Thy splendor Against the darkness ever rising, Grant us tonight a restful slumber And all Thy-all Thy-\n\nThe first verse of the evening hymn faltered, for night had fallen, fallen finally. Above it, its slayer stood, horned like a bull. Victorious darkness drenched the stars, and all had turned to dim mist and hard stone, grey substances crumbling, adrift...\n\nChedan opened his eyes with a start, surprised to see pale light shafting through the open door of his hut.\n\n\"Are you all right?\" Kalaran bent over him with a frown.\n\n\"I will be,\" said the mage. He rubbed his temples, trying to dispel the mists of dream sufficiently to face the day.\n\nKalaran still looked worried, but he held out the carven staff that had become Chedan's constant companion. As they emerged from his hut he could see that the sky beyond the slope of the Tor was a translucent blue. It was going to be a beautiful day.\n\n\"I had a rather odd dream.\"\n\nKalaran looked expectant, and Chedan suppressed a smile. Since he had become so lame, the young people had taken to treating him like some rare treasure that would soon fall apart. It might even be true, he thought then. Besides, talking about one's dreams sometimes brought understanding, and this one could be a warning he should not deny." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was back in Ahtarra, visiting my uncle Ardral in his chambers by the library." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We were drinking some exotic liqueur from the Ancient Land-that man had the most wonderful cellars. It wrenches the heart to think of those delicate vintages mingling with the salt sea. Anyway, he lifted his glass tome in a toast and said that I must go and he must stay, but that between us we had trained my heir.\"\n\n\"Your heir,\" echoed Kalaran, looking rather alarmed. \"What did he mean?\"\n\n\"What did Ardral ever mean? I would have said it was Micail, but now... I do not know.\" He shook his head, his heart aching anew at the thought that Micail might have become their enemy. \"In any case, Ardral hardly knew him. At least he didn't then. They may have grown closer.\"\n\n\"Oh... But Master, but when you said \"odd\"-you laughed. Well, almost.\"\n\n\"Yes, I did, because I'd been remembering how Ardral finished his drink and set it down and then-he was sitting cross-legged on a low chair-he simply floated upward and out of the window and away.\"\n\n\"He levitated?\" Kalaran's voice squeaked.\n\n\"Well-actually I have heard rumors that he could. But I suppose it was symbolic, in my dream. Because, you see-though Anet told us he was there, I sent him no message. I could not think what to say. And he sent me no answer. So I suppose we flew away from each other.\"\n\nAs Kalaran's brows knitted in perplexity, Chedan gave him a fond smile. \"Thank you, my boy. I was afraid I had dreamed something important, and you have helped me to see otherwise. If my dream means anything, it means he has gone away-I thought he might have died, but now I rather doubt that. I think I would know. Still, I have been thinking about him. I suppose I have only made anew song out of words he used to say. When one is dreaming it often happens that way.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have a lot of strange dreams,\" said Kalaran, after an awkward moment, \"but everything looks better after a good breakfast!\"\n\n\"That I will not argue with,\" said Chedan, and he permitted his acolyte to help him down the hill. As they walked, a thin trail of smoke brought the rich scent of hot meat through the trees. Certainly a good meal would help him get through this dreadful day.\n\n\"Have you heard?\" Vialmar murmured to Elara. \"Lord Ardral is gone!\"\n\n\"What do you mean? Prince Tjalan has guards at every gate of the compound to \"protect\" us. They would not let him simply walkaway!\"\n\n\"That's the best part of it,\" said Vialmar, with a grin, \"and I've heard it from several different people now-he just came out of his doorway, floated up off the ground and over the wall-gone! Like that!\"\n\n\"Does Tjalan know?\" came Cleta's awed whisper.\n\n\"If he does,\" answered Elara, \"he's not letting it interfere with his plans. Look-he's brought Damisa!\"\n\n\"And Reidel,\" added Cleta. \"Does the prince think he can persuade them to join us, or does he simply want to showoff our power?\" She traded glances with Elara.\n\nHow, indeed, have we come to this? Elara wondered. Surely there are too few of us in this land to beat odds... But so long as her elders were in agreement, her vows required her to obey them.\n\nShe had even taken the risk of being late, going out of her way to speak to Khayan-e-Durr, but the Ai-Zir were no match for Atlantean swords or Atlantean magic. She had meant to ask their help and had ended by warning them to stay away. She was not sure, even now, if she had succeeded in convincing the queen of the danger. The shamans might be planning something. She had heard drumming from Droshrad's big roundhouse, but now that she thought about it, that was nothing unusual." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If Tiriki dies because of this-what will Micail do then?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Could he live with that? She remembered the raw pain in his face when he returned from that meeting between Tjalan and Tiriki, and knew that he could not bear a more final parting. Her own emotions twisted, and she felt an overwhelming sympathy, mixed with the unbearable thought of a world without Micail in it...\n\nThere was Micail, she suddenly noticed, sitting by himself against one of the stones. She had not seen that look on his face since they left Belsairath. Why didn't he simply refuse to participate? Denounce them all?\n\nThe gleam of sunlight on an orichalcum-edged spear caught her eye. Tjalan had stationed his soldiers at regular intervals just beyond the outer ring of stones... That's one reason, I guess. Elara blushed again.\n\nNot, she realized glumly, that her Temple vows would have allowed her to hope for Tiriki's death even if she had thought that she had any hope of replacing her in Micail's bed. But how they were to come out of this without serious damage to one side or the other was more than she could imagine.\n\nCleta tapped heron the shoulder. Haladris was summoning them all to take their places. The ordeal was about to begin.\n\n\"I don't understand,\" said Damisa. \"What are you planning to do to persuade the people at the Tor to join you? What can you do, from here?\" Actually, even in her gilded cage, some rumors had reached her. It was just that she found them difficult to believe.\n\nTjalan turned to her, his eyes gleaming more brightly than the golden dragon bracelets he wore. Fora thousand generations those bracelets had been the prerogative of a prince of the royal line." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Something I would rather not do. But birthing anew empire always requires some initial... adjustments,\" he said. \"When the Bright Empire gave way to the Sea Kingdoms it was the same. Believe me, my dear, I do regret the necessity for decisive action. But it is clear that Tiriki is going to be stubborn. Better one sharp disciplinary strike than a lingering conflict, don't you agree? Then we can put all our energies into establishing the new order. Come now, you must agree, Damisa-for I cannot do all this alone.\" His long fingers stroked along her arm. \"Now that I have lost Chaithala, I will need a woman to stand beside me, to bear mesons... What use a crown with no heir?\"\n\nDamisa's pulse quickened. Was he really suggesting that she might be his... empress... one day? It made sense-the royal blood of Alkonath ran in her veins too-but after all that had happened, it seemed unreal to be offered what had once been her fantasy. Suddenly she understood why Tiriki had gone back to the Tor instead of returning herewith Micail. She has become a mover of events, not simply a support to her man, she thought. What could I become, on my own?\n\nBut she must not let Prince Tjalan suspect her conflicting emotions. Her glance slid away from his and she saw that soldiers were bringing up Reidel, his wrists still bound. His lip was puffy where someone had hit him-hit him back, she corrected, noting the skinned knuckles on his right hand.\n\n\"My prince, you honor me,\" she said a little breathlessly. \"But I must not distract you with such considerations now.\"\n\nHe smiled sardonically, but her answer had clearly satisfied him. His attention was already shifting to Haladris, who had begun to organize the singers within the circle of stones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Reidel was looking at her with-anger?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "appeal? He had no right to either emotion. But even when she turned away, she could still feel his dark gaze.\n\nTiriki forced herself to look away from the dim haze to the east where she knew Micail and the others were preparing to strike against the Tor, and to look instead into the faces of the men and women who waited atop the Tor to defend it.\n\nShe cleared her throat and managed a smile. \"The spirit of this place, the Shining One I call the Queen, has shown me what we are to do-\"\n\n\"But how do we know if they will act today?\" asked Elis.\n\n\"Or at all?\" muttered someone else.\n\n\"I have seen the power building,\" answered Tiriki. \"But even if I had not, surely it will do us all no harm to practice our own skills.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said Iriel archly, \"more training!\" And the tension eased a little as the other acolytes laughed.\n\n\"Yes, if you will,\" said Tiriki blandly, and waited for quiet to return. \"We have walked the spiral maze we cut into the hill to get here, and that puts us halfway to the Otherworld already. I would like everyone to sit in a circle and join hands-\" Tiriki glanced at Chedan and he nodded.\n\nDespite the exertion of getting up here, Chedan's face was pale. He should have been in bed, she thought then, but they needed him too badly, and in truth, they were all hazarding their lives today. At least Domara was safe with Taret. Whatever happened, she would survive.\n\nTiriki stood in the center of the circle and lifted her hands to the pure light that streamed down from above. It was the second verse of the Evening Hymn that came to her now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh Holiest and Highest, Sole wisdom worth the winning, In Thee, we find our purpose, Our end and our beginning.\"\n\n\"Oh Holiest and Highest, Sole wisdom worth the winning, In Thee, we find our purpose, Our end and our beginning.\"\n\nShe made the sign of blessing on breast and brow, then took her place in the circle across from Chedan.\n\n\"Oh great Manoah, King of Gods, and Thou, Most High, who art the power behind all gods, to You we make our prayer-\" She added then, \"Not for glory or gain, but for the preservation of life, and of the knowledge You have given us. Protect this holy hill and all who shelter here, and let us bring those who work against us to the path of true wisdom...\"\n\nHer gaze was drawn eastward once more. What were those opponents-for even now she would not think of them as enemies-doing now?\n\n\"We are the inheritors of an ancient tradition,\" said Haladris, \"and today we shall demonstrate its strength. Our henge will protect our spirits, and Prince Tjalan's soldiers will guard our bodies. Fear not, therefore, to put forth all of your power. Project a hammer of force from this circle that will strike terror into our foes.\"\n\nAnd what if we succeed? thought Micail grimly. He cast a quick glance at Naranshada and Jiritaren, who stood with him among the tenors near the midpoint of the crescent. Both their faces were lined with strain, their eyes narrowed and haunted by regrets, and in the moment, he knew that their unease was nothing new. They don't like this either. I should have voiced my protests long ago... before things had gone so far... And yet if he had done so Tjalan would have put it beyond his power to act at all, and here, even now, he might be able to alter the outcome." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Haladris took his place in the center of the crescent of vested priests and priestesses, their bodies completing the circle outlined by the five trilithons, surrounded by the outer ring." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hummed a series of notes, and section by section, the singers released their tones. One would not have thought that so soft a sound could be powerful, but in a few moments Micail could hear the first response from the stones.\n\nIt was only a whisper, like the sound of many other voices chanting somewhere faraway, but Micail felt the hairs stand up along his forearms. And then fora moment, pride in his achievement surged above his fear.\n\nWhen Tiriki clasped hands with Kalaran and Iriel, Chedan felt a tingle of power and knew that the circle of energy had closed. As one, they slowed their breathing, seeking the deeper rhythm of trance. He felt the familiar dip and lurch of shifting consciousness, and he reached out to touch Tiriki's mind. They gathered the attention of the others into a single awareness and opened their lips in a single soft note.\n\nOur task is easier, he thought, trying to steady his nerves as a dozen voices swelled in sound. Our opponents must shape and guide an unwieldy energy to attack us, but we have only to affirm the power that is already here, at what is now the sacred center.\n\nThe tone grew louder, pulsing as the singers circled their breathing around the sound. Already the pure radiance of the sunlight was altering to the shimmering illumination of the Otherworld. And then, from the depths beneath them, Chedan heard the reverberation as the Omphalos Stone caught and amplified their song. His eyes met Tiriki's then, and fora moment, their wonder balanced their fear.\n\nElara let her breath out in a pure exhalation of sound, trembling a little as the sopranos' higher note matched it in harmony. Exhilaration tingled through every vein at the energy those vibrations were raising, resounding from the smooth surfaces of the stones. Whatever happened after, Elara thought she would never forget the sheer beauty of this sound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But even as the thought was completed, she realized that the music was changing. Haladris was conducting the lower ranges into an oddly discordant note that rattled her heart. She heard two or three singers waver, but Mahadalku's glares brought them swiftly back on pitch. She almost could seethe sound vibrations shifting as they bounced from stone to stone, and spiraled westward toward the Tor.\n\nTiriki felt the attack as a change in pressure, a tension in the air like an oncoming thunderstorm. She tightened her grip on Selast's hand and felt a ripple of added alertness pass around their circle.\n\n\"Maintain the note,\" came Chedan's mental command. \"Do not be afraid. Remember, all we have to do is hold on...\"\n\nAs we did when the great wave struck our boat after the Sinking? wondered Tiriki as the first shock buffeted them. Somehow, she forced her focus back to the chambered lattices of stone beneath her and the Seed of Light within them, the twin powers that fountained up from the Red and White Springs in the depths, the vibrant ringing of her soul...\n\nThe pressure increased, as if, having been rebuffed, Tjalan's priests had turned up the intensity of their own singing. The brilliance flashed and refracted as if she satin the heart of a crystal, while weird lightnings crackled above the Tor.\n\nShe reached deeper, drawing on the power of the Omphalos Stone. She fought to maintain the vision of a bubble, a sphere of protection against which all the waves of power she could feel coming against them would break in vain. She could feel the others setting themselves to resist as well. Handgrips tightened until bones creaked and knuckles whitened, but that was the least of their agony." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For Domara... she thought with gritted teeth, and Selast and her unborn child.\n\nFor Otter... came Iriel's plea. For Forolin and Adeyna and Kestil... for Heron and Taret...\n\nFor all of those they had learned to love in this land, the litany of names went on, and they held on, fiercely enduring in the name of all that they had already lost.\n\n\"Damisa, I can't see into the circle!\" exclaimed Tjalan. \"Is something wrong?\"\n\nDamisa twitched free of his proprietary hand. Already, she had heard what sounded like a distant rumbling from the circle of stones, and realized that the Working had begun. But there was surprisingly little noise. It must be true, then, that the circle of stones captured sound. Now the figures of the people within it appeared to be wavering, as a distant scene might be distorted on a very hot day. But she did not think this country could produce the kind of heat needed for that to occur.\n\n\"My eyes see no more than yours do,\" she muttered. \"It is a by-product, I think of the vibration. Dust maybe rising from the soil, or perhaps the light is simply... distorted. You can feel it through the ground.\"\n\nAt least I can, she thought, though Tjalan's sturdy soldier's sandals might insulate him from the tremor that came through the thin soles of her own sandals, queasily reminiscent of the way the earth of Ahtarrath had trembled before the Sinking. She considered advising him to bend down and put his ear to the ground, but that would probably not have accorded with his dignity. What must it be like to be inside the circle, working with all that power? she wondered, repressing a pang of envy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The stones at Azan were dancing.\n\nMicail blinked, but his vision was not the problem. The ground beneath his feet was shaking, and as Mahadalku guided the singing of the sopranos even higher, the sarsen uprights vibrated in time with the sound. This was not the precise and ordered singing that had raised the stones, but a calculated disharmony that scraped and seared in every nerve and bone.\n\nMicail realized that he was not the only one who had fallen silent, but with three full stands in the choir, there were still enough singers to maintain the vibration. He wondered how anything could stand against this onslaught, but clearly the Tor was doing so. He could feel the distortion as the waves struck something that repelled them and then rolled them back again.\n\nWe cannot breakthrough! he exulted. But did Haladris know it? The Alkonan priest was singing even more loudly, warping the harmonies. From the scraped chalk surface within the circle a fine white dust was rising. The priest was pale and perspiring, with the fixed stare of one whose vision is focused within. Micail realized that Haladris could not see what was happening around him. The upright stones had been set deeply and braced in the pits that held them, but they had never been designed to resist such a protracted shaking. Stone groaned and rasped as one of the sarsen pillars in the northernmost trilithon shifted, jiggled, twisted, only kept in place by the knob that linked it to its lintel...\n\nAlthough Micail refused to contribute his full strength to the Working, even in his detachment he felt the expanding waver that shuddered through the flow of power. He suspected that the resistance from the Tor was about to break. But it would make no difference to the unraveling energies here; in fact without direction those forces would cause far greater havoc, both in the circle and at the Tor, than the simple warning slap that Haladris had intended." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I have to stop this before the whole henge comes down! He reached out to his beloved stones and, suddenly, a voice he knew to be that of his father reverberated in his heart-\n\n\"Speak with the powers of the storm and the wind-of sun and rain, water and air, earth and fire!\" He realized that this moment was the reason for the reawakening of his inherited powers.\n\n\"I am the Heir-to-the-Word-of-Thunder!\" Micail cried. \"And I claim this land!\"\n\nThe line of soldiers staggered, casting frantic glances toward Tjalan, as a tremor ran through the soil outside the henge.\n\n\"We're winning!\" cried the prince, gripping Damisa's arm. \"No one can stay conscious if that hits them! Do you feel the power?\"\n\n\"Never!\" Reidel shouted. \"Not while I live!\" As the earth heaved again, he broke from his captors and staggered toward the circle of stones.\n\n\"Reidel, no!\" cried Damisa. The idiot was going to get himself killed!\n\n\"Stop him!\" roared Tjalan, but it was all his soldiers could do to stay upright. With a curse he let goof Damisa and lurched after Reidel, drawing his sword.\n\nDamisa was hard on his heels. Both of them were idiots. This whole situation was mad. Between fear and fury, her thoughts were scarcely coherent, but with a burst of unexpected energy, she caught up with Tjalan, grabbed his sword arm, and spun him aside. The prince screamed in frustration, but she kept going, and in a moment she had tackled and brought down Reidel. His body was warm and solid, and she held onto him, gasping, as once she had gripped him while they made love." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You will live, damn you!\" she whispered as his eyes widened in surprise.\n\nMicail bestrode chaos and wielded thunder. In the Word of his Power he found anew sound to counter the escalating vibrations that threatened to unmake the land. But the energy had to go somewhere. Fora hot white instant that seemed an eon, doom hung around him like a frozen explosion. He had time to calculate the forces, note the position of every life-spark and measure the gaps between the stones.\n\n\"Get back!\" he cried to the others. \"Get clear if you can!\" And then he sang out the note that he hoped would angle the energy away from the other singers, holding it with all the strength that was in him as shrilling forces blasted outward through the trilithons.\n\nChedan felt the ebb of the assault and swayed as if the wind against which he stood had suddenly failed. Only now, when the pressure was gone, did he realize how the effort had drained him. Tiriki, sagging against Kalaran, had gone as white as her linen gown, but she was smiling. In the faces of each of the others he saw the same astonished joy.\n\nWe have survived! he thought, feeling his tired heart pound in his breast. And in that moment, the forces that they had thought vanquished came roiling through the relapsing barrier like a stampede of maddened bulls.\n\nResponses honed by a lifetime's disciplined trance-work brought Chedan back to his feet with the speed of instinct, his staff swinging outward.\n\n\"Begone!\" His shout reverberated across the land. In desperation he flung his spirit after it into the windy heavens, driving those terrible energies before him. He never knew when the flesh he had worn slumped to the earth, to move no more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From the northeast to the southwest sides of the henge the power blasted free, radiating out in a semicircle that toppled the trilithon of the Yellow Bulls in the north, spraying fragments of rock outward to fell the nearest singers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One upright of the great central trilithon of the Red Bull tribe stood firm, but its lintel was flung aside and its partner split into two pieces as it crashed down across the altar stone. From there the burgeoning force rushed outward, toppling most of the uprights on the circle's western side. The soldiers who had not yet fled were pelted by flying stones. A large chunk brought Prince Tjalan down, while shards fell on Damisa, whose body still sheltered that of Reidel.\n\nBut at the center of the henge Micail still stood, surrounded by a few cowering figures. Still singing, he stood until the last reverberation faded, and only billowing dust remained to bear witness to the violence that had passed over the plain. Only then did he fall, with the same slow deliberation as the stones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Twenty\n\n\"The sun is rising, darkness flees, The flame is rising, the spirit frees. All hail to the soul ascended, All mortal ill now mended, Hail and farewell!\"\n\n\"The sun is rising, darkness flees, The flame is rising, the spirit frees. All hail to the soul ascended, All mortal ill now mended, Hail and farewell!\"\n\nSmoke swirled westward as if driven toward the shadowed horizon by song as the flames flared beneath the funeral pyre. Everyone who could crowd onto the top of the Tor was present-priests and priestesses of Atlantis mingling with sailors and merchants and the folk of the marshes-united by a common sorrow. Tiriki had seen more splendid funerals on Ahtarrath, but nevermore heartfelt grief; Chedan Arados had been beloved by all.\n\nIt had seemed the most bitter of betrayals to recover from that final attack only to find Chedan's body deserted. Most of them understood what must have happened; they knew that if Chedan had not acted they might all have died. But all their wisdom was little consolation for the loss.\n\nOn the Crimson Serpent, Tiriki remembered, she and Chedan had been forced to perform an amputation on a sailor whose hand had been crushed by a falling mast. The man had lived, but she remembered how wrenching it had been to see him reach out for something and then realize that his hand was gone. Now I am as he was-Tiriki wept-but you are not hereto make me a hook for my missing hand... Chedan, Chedan, I wish that I had been crippled in my body rather than being left alone without your wisdom... your counsel... your patient smile..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sun Hawk has left us!\" wailed a woman of the marsh folk whose children the mage had saved from the plague. But even as the keening of the mourners faded, Otter pointed upward, and all their tears turned to wonder. A falcon-Tiriki thought it was a merlin-circled above the Tor, hovering high in the pillar of smoke as if Chedan's spirit had taken the form of his namesake for one final farewell. And even as they gazed, the hawk abruptly angled its wings and went spiraling eastward through the brightening air.\n\n\"I understand,\" whispered Tiriki, bending in salutation as if the mage himself stood again before her. She felt his warmth then, like a palpable thing. Perhaps that was why she found herself thinking about the last evening before the battle, when Chedan had spoken to her-really, had forced her to listen, as he spoke of his continued faith in the prophecy. \"You were not to know, but Micail was elected as my successor,\" he had told her, \"and for that reason, despite everything that has happened, I still believe he is destined to establish the new Temple.\"\n\nShe had not wanted to think about it, but Chedan had persisted, saying, \"Of all the things we mortals are called upon to do, the most difficult is forgiveness; in order to truly do it, you will probably have to behave as if you already have forgiven for quite awhile before you have actually done so.\"\n\nEven then, when Tiriki dared not think beyond the conflict, Chedan believed that they would survive it, and that when it was over, she would have to go to the land of the Ai-Zir and find Micail.\n\nShe managed a smile, and said softly, \"I hear you now, old friend. I only hope that this time I understand.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Keep the narrative going for the author.\nTags: fantasy, historical, mythology, Atlantis, reincarnation\nAuthor: Marion Zimmer Bradley\nTitle: Ancestors of Avalon\nChapter: 27" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sun Hawk has left us!\" wailed a woman of the marsh folk whose children the mage had saved from the plague. But even as the keening of the mourners faded, Otter pointed upward, and all their tears turned to wonder. A falcon-Tiriki thought it was a merlin-circled above the Tor, hovering high in the pillar of smoke as if Chedan's spirit had taken the form of his namesake for one final farewell. And even as they gazed, the hawk abruptly angled its wings and went spiraling eastward through the brightening air.\n\n\"I understand,\" whispered Tiriki, bending in salutation as if the mage himself stood again before her. She felt his warmth then, like a palpable thing. Perhaps that was why she found herself thinking about the last evening before the battle, when Chedan had spoken to her-really, had forced her to listen, as he spoke of his continued faith in the prophecy. \"You were not to know, but Micail was elected as my successor,\" he had told her, \"and for that reason, despite everything that has happened, I still believe he is destined to establish the new Temple.\"\n\nShe had not wanted to think about it, but Chedan had persisted, saying, \"Of all the things we mortals are called upon to do, the most difficult is forgiveness; in order to truly do it, you will probably have to behave as if you already have forgiven for quite awhile before you have actually done so.\"\n\nEven then, when Tiriki dared not think beyond the conflict, Chedan believed that they would survive it, and that when it was over, she would have to go to the land of the Ai-Zir and find Micail.\n\nShe managed a smile, and said softly, \"I hear you now, old friend. I only hope that this time I understand.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the time the mourners came down the hill, the sun was high. Even Domara's ebullient spirits had been chastened by the pervasive grief, but as they left the ashes of the pyre behind them, the little girl ran ahead, racing the other children down the path.\n\nOnly a moment later, it seemed, she was bouncing back again.\n\n\"Eggs!\" she exclaimed. \"Mama, come see! Big giant magic eggs!\"\n\nTiriki traded an apprehensive glance with Liala and hurried after her. Had the Omphalos Stone somehow burst from its hiding place beneath the hill?\n\nThen she realized that she was seeing whitish stones, lying scattered in the grass that grew along the slopes of the Tor-some almost the size of boulders, others as small as eggs indeed, but all of them rounded and surprisingly smooth.\n\n\"Caratra, preserve us!\" Liala exclaimed, panting as she reached Tiriki's side. \"The dratted Omphalos has littered! It's clutched! It's laid eggs! Don't touch them! The gods alone know what they might do.\"\n\nTorn between laughter and tears, Tiriki could only agree. The force that blasted from the Omphalos Stone must have somehow produced these replicas. Fortunately, there was no sign that they had inherited their parent's power. Oh Chedan, she thought, with another red-faced glance at the sputtering Liala, is this your last joke on me?\n\nWhen Tiriki reached her dwelling she found that the saji woman Metia had prepared food fora journey and repacked Tiriki's satchel. Dannetrasa, now the senior priest, was there as well, offering his well-reasoned protest against her plan, but none of them had authority over a Vested Guardian." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kalaran all but demanded to accompany her, but with the birth of Selast's child so close at hand, she would not permit them to be separated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The merchant Forolin's offer of help was harder to refuse; all of the sailors wanted to rescue Reidel, so she agreed they could escort her.\n\nIn addition to these, she decided, she would take the saji women who had served Alyssa as well. When Forolin protested, she spoke to him as Chedan had once scolded her when she had admitted her own prejudice against them. \"Above all, the sajis are skilled healers,\" she finished, fighting back tears at the memory, \"and I fear healers will be needed more than priestesses.\"\n\nAnd though at first blush the idea had seemed presumptuous, she decided to take Chedan's intricately carved staff.\n\nThe one thing she did not want was a guide. \"No,\" she explained patiently to Rendano, \"I no longer need one. My spirit is connected to Micail's once again. All I have to do is to follow it.\" That certainty kept her from despair, more than the knowledge that he was still living; she still was not sure what kind of man Micail had become.\n\nBut she had been careful, and wise, for too long. Her people were safe. Whatever had happened to Micail-whatever he had done-she knew that she must seek him now.\n\nMicail struggled unwillingly toward consciousness. Everything hurt, even the softness of the bed on which he lay.\n\n\"Is he awake?\"\n\nThat was Galara's voice. He winced as a cool cloth was laid across his brow, tried to speak but could only groan.\n\n\"He walks in a nightmare.\" Elara replied. \"I wish Tiriki were here!\"\n\nTiriki? Micail shook his head. He would not be fooled again. Tiriki was dead, drowned with Ahtarrath, her ship crushed by huge stones in the harbor-he could still see them, huge blocks tilting, hurtling through the air. People died where they fell. He had a sudden vivid image of his friend Ansha's blood reddening the white chalk where he had been struck down, and it seemed to him too that he had heard voices raised in an Alkonan chant for the death of a prince. He had only dreamed that they escaped; now the dream was trying to drag him back into its clutches. He would not give in this time. There was no escape. They were all dead-all except him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I swore I would not survive her death, he told himself sternly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was time to give up, and let darkness bear him off to the City of Bones.\n\nIf only I could escape my dreams...\n\nTiriki remembered the paths they had taken to their meeting with Prince Tjalan. She knew that the plain lay another day's journey to the east, and she had only to keep walking toward the rising sun. By then she could not only feel Micail's wavering life force, but a roil of displaced energies that could only come from the broken ring of stones. Her feet hurt, and a sun that shone with mocking cheerfulness reddened her fair skin, yet she hurried down the last hill unafraid of what waited for her-four warriors with the horns of the Blue Bull tribe tattooed on their brow, and the young woman Anet, who had finally lost her faintly mocking smile.\n\n\"Hunters saw you coming,\" Anet said, and flinched a little from Tiriki's gaze. \"My men can carry your burdens so we will go faster.\"\n\nTiriki nodded. It was strange, considering how she had feared this girl, even hated her, but she had no emotion to spare for Anet now.\n\n\"I know that Micail was not killed,\" she said harshly. \"But he is hurt. How badly?\"\n\n\"He was struck by falling stones. He has some wounds, nothing from which he cannot recover. But he sleeps without waking. He does not wish to heal.\"\n\nTiriki could only give a wordless nod. She had been certain that Micail was alive-but with every step she had taken toward Azan she had wondered-what if she was wrong?\n\n\"Who else was injured?\" she asked, as they once more began to walk along the path." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When the stones-shattered-some flew far,\" said Anet, \"others fell nearer. Prince Tjalan is dead, and many of his soldiers too. The ceremonies of his pyre ended only last night. Many of the other priests and priestesses-all are dead, too, or-ran away. If they could.\"\n\nAs they crossed the plain toward it, the Sun Wheel slowly became large enough to see. Some of the trilithons still stood, proclaiming the skill of those who had raised them; others were tumbled, as if some giant child had tired of his building blocks and left them scattered on the grass.\n\nAnd there seemed to be a presence there among them, a wiry shadow like a drifting curl of smoke.\n\nI will deal with you later, Tiriki said silently as they passed. Ahead she could seethe real smoke rising from the hearth fires of Azan-Ylir, where Micail was waiting.\n\nAs they reached the great ditch at the edge of the village, a dark-haired young woman whom Tiriki recognized with difficulty as Elara ran out to meet them.\n\n\"Oh my lady-\" Elara stumbled as if undecided whether to make a formal Temple obeisance or throw herself at Tiriki's feet. \"How I have prayed the Mother would bring you-\"\n\n\"And by Her grace, I am here,\" Tiriki answered. \"I am glad to see you unhurt.\"\n\n\"Yes, well, almost,\" Elara said distractedly. \"It seems Lord Micail managed to direct the force away from our end of the crescent-only one of the sopranos was killed but Cleta was badly injured.\"\n\nIn his dream, Micail stood atop the Star Mountain, gazing up at the wicked image of Dyaus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"By the power of my blood I bind you!\" he cried, but the gigantic figure of darkness only laughed.\n\n\"I am unbound... and I will set the rest free...\"\n\nWind and fire whirled around him. Micail cried out as reality dissolved-but he felt a slim arm take hold of him, bracing him against the blast. Tiriki... He recognized the touch of her spirit, though his eyes were still blinded by chaos. Have I finally died? He had hoped for peace in the afterlife-was he condemned to keep fighting the same battles over and over again?\n\nYet his heart took fire at her strength, and he looked once more for his eternal foe. The tumult around him had eased, but Tiriki was shaking him. Why was she doing that? If he let her recall him to the waking world, she would begone...\n\n\"Micail! Osinarmen! Wake up! I have walked for three days to get here. The least you can do is open your eyes and welcome me!\"\n\nThat did not sound like something from a dream!\n\nMicail realized that light was beating against his closed eyelids. He took a deep breath, wincing as his sore ribs complained, but suddenly every sense was clamoring with awareness of Tiriki's presence. Her soft lips brushed his brow and he grabbed her and clung fiercely as her mouth moved to his.\n\nHis heart pounded furiously as their kiss burned through his every nerve. Ina rush his flesh awakened to the certainty that he was alive, and Tiriki was in his arms!\n\nHe opened his eyes.\n\n\"That's better.\" Tiriki raised her head just enough to let him see her smile.\n\n\"You're here!\" he whispered. \"Truly here! You won't leave me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I will neither leave you nor let you go,\" she answered, sobering." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We have too much work to do!\"\n\nMicail felt his own face change. \"I-am not worthy,\" he grated. \"Too many have died because of me.\"\n\n\"That is right,\" she said sharply. \"And all the more reason to live and do what you canto make amends. And the first step toward that is for you to get well!\" She sat up and gestured to Elara, who was hovering in the doorway with a wooden bowl in her hands.\n\n\"This is stew, and quite good,\" said Tiriki. \"I had some earlier. At least in this place there is plenty of food. You are going to eat it-there is nothing wrong with your jaws-and then we will see.\"\n\nWordless, Micail stared at her, but she did not seem to expect a reply. It seemed simpler to allow them to help him to sit upright than to argue. And when he tasted the stew he found that he was hungry.\n\n\"Tiriki has changed,\" said Galara, handing the basket of freshly chopped willow bark to Elara. \"Not that I ever saw so much of her back at home. She married Micail when I was only a baby. She always seemed tome sort of fragile somehow-you know, soft-voiced and pale.\"\n\n\"I know what you mean. She has certainly taken charge!\" She dipped a wooden spoon into a pot set among the coals, testing the temperature of the water there.\n\nIn the week since her arrival, Tiriki had blown through the Atlantean compound like a summer storm, arranging for the dead to be given proper rites and reorganizing the nursing of those who lived. In the practical tasks she assigned, the survivors found a certain relief from their shock and sorrow.\n\n\"We are so accustomed to letting men exercise authority,\" Elara said, \"but in the Temple of Caratra they teach that the active force is female, and that each god must have his goddess to arouse him to action. Without women, men might never get anything done at all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, that's certainly true for Micail and Tiriki!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Galara agreed. \"He did things-some of which I wish he hadn't-but without her he was only half there. It's funny. I always thought he was the strong one, but she survived without him better than he did without her! I think maybe Damisa's right-we don't really need men at all.\"\n\n\"Well, don't tell them!\" Elara laughed. Then she shook her head. \"I, for one, would not like to live without them, though. And I suppose if we did not have them to serve as a warning, we women would go astray just as badly on our own.\"\n\nShe sobered suddenly, remembering Lanath. He had never regained consciousness after the flying stone had struck him, and she was still not sure how she felt about his loss. She had not loved him, but he had always been there...\n\n\"Will you go with Tiriki to this Tor she's been telling us about?\" Galara asked. \"She is still my guardian, and I suppose I will go where she says, but you are of age.\"\n\nI do have a choice, Elara realized suddenly. For the first time since the Temple chose me, I can decide what I want my life to be. She closed her eyes, and was surprised by a vivid image of the shrine room in Timul's temple. In memory she gazed from one wall to the next, ending at the image of the Goddess with the sword. How odd, she thought then. She had always thought she would serve the Lady of Love, but suddenly she could feel the weight of that sword in her own hand.\n\n\"I think I will go back to Belsairath with Timul,\" she said slowly. \"Lodreimi is getting old, and she will need someone to help her run the Temple there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perhaps I can visit you,\" Galara said wistfully.\n\n\"Well, you would be welcome.\" Elara spooned up a little tea and grimaced at its bitter flavor, but took the dipper and began to transfer the concoction into the beakers. \"Put a little honey in these,\" she advised. \"Cleta and Jiritaren should be ready for another dose of painkiller about now.\"\n\n\"Do you remember, my love, how you cared for your little feather tree?\" Tiriki asked, keeping her voice briskly casual. \"It is still alive-indeed, it is flourishing.\"\n\n\"In this climate? Impossible!\"\n\n\"Why would I lie? And after living with it for so many years,\" she teased, \"do you think I could mistake it for anything else? When you come to the Tor you will see. I tell you, Elis has a rare gift when it comes to plants.\"\n\nShe took Micail's arm and drew him closer as they continued along the river path. Tiriki had gotten him out of bed the day after her arrival, and each day made him walk farther. This was the first time they had gone outside the compound, though. Imperceptibly he felt himself beginning to relax. His ribs gave a protesting twinge at every movement, but they were only cracked, and would heal.\n\nThe greater pain was knowing that people were watching-he could feel their eyes upon him, judging, blaming him for living when so many had died-Stathalkha, Mahadalku, Haladris, Naranshada, even poor Lanath-so many. And there might yet be other victims. Jiritaren, he was told, was not nearly as well as he looked. Micail's guilt was evermore piercing, perhaps, because his own injuries had kept him from sharing the first, anguished mourning with the other survivors. Now, they were trying to get on with their lives, while he was still trying to find a reason for living." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As they neared the river they heard children's voices and found a group of native boys and girls playing in the shallows, their sun-browned skins almost the same shade as their hair.\n\n\"Ah, just to see them makes me miss Domara more. When you come to the Tor you will see,\" said Tiriki again.\n\n\"When I come to the Tor?\" he echoed. \"You seem so sure that I should do so. But when I have brought such bad fortune to the people here, perhaps-\"\n\n\"You are coming home with me! I am not going to raise your child alone!\" she exclaimed. \"Ever since she learned you were alive Domara has been asking about you. She is only a girl, not a son who could inherit your powers, but-\"\n\nHis hand shot out to grip her suddenly. \"Don't... say... that!\" he groaned. \"Do you think that magic matters tome?\" Fora moment the harsh rasp of his breathing was the only sound.\n\n\"Everyone assures me that if you had not been able to wield those powers,\" Tiriki said evenly, \"the damage done by the Sun Wheel would have been far more terrible.\"\n\n\"I thought I had the strength to contain the forces Haladris was using the stones to raise-that is why I let him start,\" he whispered. \"This disaster came from my pride no less than Tjalan's. My powers have led only to trouble! Because the Black Robes tried to take them, back in the Ancient Land, my father died and Reio-ta was almost destroyed. And I-I all but gave them away! Better they die with me.\"\n\n\"That is a discussion for another day-\" Tiriki smiled. \"You should have seen your daughter, though, standing therewith feet planted and her fists on her hips, insisting that she should go along and help find her father. Yes, she has inherited more from you than magic. Only you can teach her how to deal with such pride.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Micail found himself smiling as, for the first time, he thought of his daughter not as a simple abstraction, nor even an inspiration, but as areal person, someone to teach, to learn from... to love.\n\n\"Your people are healing,\" said the Queen of Azan. It was not quite a question. She had invited Tiriki and Micail to take the noon meal with her beneath the oak trees by the village, where a cool breeze off the river balanced the heat of the sun.\n\nMicail nodded. \"Yes, those who will recover have mostly done so.\"\n\nTiriki's gaze sought the new mound that the Ai-Zir had raised over those who had died. She suppressed an impulse to grip Micail's arm and reassure herself again that he was not among them. She had wanted this formal meeting to wait until Micail was stronger, but it was time to begin planning for the future.\n\n\"And what will you do now?\" Khayan asked, with a sidelong glance at the priestess Ayo that Tiriki could not interpret.\n\n\"Our wounded are almost well enough to travel. Many of our people wish to return to Belsairath,\" Micail replied. \"Tjalan's second-in-command has taken charge of the surviving soldiers, and he can be trusted, I think, to keep them out of trouble and deal with whatever ships may pass through there. But almost all of the priesthood will travel with us to the Lake lands.\"\n\n\"There are some,\" said the queen, with a swift glance at the shaman Droshrad, who squatted in the shade of one of the trees, \"who have suggested that you should all be slain and allowed to go nowhere. But we have taken your magic weapons, or as many of them as we could find, at least. With them in the hands of our warriors, your remaining soldiers are not enough to challenge us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That news would have disturbed Tiriki more if she had not known that no matter who possessed them, within a few decades at most, the orichalcum plating on the Atlantean arrows, spears, and swords would begin to decay, and any advantage they might give would begone. And also, she thought with a smile, we will not need them. The people at the Tor had another kind of protection.\n\n\"Prince Tjalan and some of the others did not understand that we must learn the ways of this new land, not impose our own,\" said Tiriki firmly. \"But in the Lake lands, as Anet will tell you, we live in peace with the marsh folk. Indeed, we are becoming one tribe.\"\n\n\"It is so,\" agreed Ayo. \"My sister Taret speaks well of all you have done there.\"\n\nTiriki lifted an eyebrow at this evidence of the link between all the wisewomen of the tribes. In Ayo, as in Taret, she sensed the mark of Caratra. She had no difficulty in accepting the Sacred Sister as a priestess whose status, though different, was equal to her own.\n\n\"You promised glory for King Khattar's tribe,\" Droshrad growled unexpectedly, \"but you lied. You sought to make us slaves to your power.\"\n\n\"That is true,\" Micail sighed, \"but surely we have endured our own punishment. Let the lives we have lost be payment for the harm we have done.\"\n\n\"Easy words,\" the shaman growled, but he subsided at a glance from the queen.\n\n\"But why these things were done-that is the thing I do not understand,\" Ayo said then. \"Was it conquest only? I do not feel that desire in you.\"\n\n\"Because it is not there,\" Tiriki put in, when it was clear that Micail either could not or would not answer. \"You must understand. From childhood we knew our homeland faced destruction. But there was a prophecy that my husband would found anew Temple in anew land.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I did not understand,\" Micail said heavily. \"I thought it must be a great and splendid building such as we had on Ahtarrath and in the Ancient Land. But I was mistaken. I think now that what we are meant to establish is a tradition-\"\n\n\"A tradition,\" said Tiriki, completing his thought, \"in which the wisdom of the Temple of Light-and it is great, though we have given you little reason to think so until now-is joined with the earth power of those who live in this land.\"\n\nAyo sat up straighter, eyeing them intently. \"Does that mean that you will teach us your magic?\"\n\n\"If that is what you wish, yes. Send us a few of your clever young women and we will train them, if the Sacred Sisters will agree to teach some of our own.\"\n\n\"And your young men, too,\" added Micail, meeting Droshrad's scowl. \"But you will have to send food with them-\" He patted Tiriki's shoulder. \"My wife needs your good beef and bread to put some meat on her bones!\"\n\n\"It is true that our resources are meager...\" said Tiriki. \"In the vales around the Tor, there is little solid land for farming, and it is a hard trial to be continuously gathering wild food.\"\n\n\"It is true,\" Khayan-e-Durr said, smiling. \"The fields and pastures of the Ai-Zir are rich. If the Sacred Sisters agree, we will ensure the children we send you do not starve.\"\n\n\"Young Cleta's leg is still healing,\" said Ayo thoughtfully. \"Let her stay with us and send another of your maidens to join her. We will allow some of our young priestesses to join you in return.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What about Vialmar?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "asked Micail. \"He is Cleta's betrothed, after all.\"\n\n\"That one!\" grunted Droshrad. \"He pisses himself with fear when I look at him...\"\n\n\"If he thinks he is needed to look after Cleta, he will find his courage fast enough,\" said Micail.\n\n\"Maybe-\" The shaman still did not look convinced, but he nodded at last. \"I have a nephew. Maybe you can teach him something. He only makes trouble here! He thinks the sun talks to him.\"\n\nThe air throbbed as if the plains of Azan had become avast drumskin, vibrating to the rhythm beat out by the feet of the Ai-Zir. Even the stars seemed to blink in time to the rhythm, their sparkling reflected in the leaping fires below. Damisa had never seen anything like it-certainly not in the modest celebrations that were all that the marsh folk could manage-but it was more than that. There was something here that had not been evident even in the four-day festivals she had known as a child in Alkonath. She fussed with the sling that immobilized her shoulder, trying to make it more comfortable. At least the dizziness that had followed her concussion was mostly gone.\n\n\"If it wasn't for us, they wouldn't even know the exact date of the summer solstice,\" said Cleta sourly, as they watched the dancers circling the bonfire. Damisa glanced down at the other girl's splinted leg. She supposed it must be hurting again. Between us, she thought, we might just about put together one whole priestess.\n\nOn the far side of the bonfire they had heaped up a low mound where King Khattar satin state on a bench covered with the hide of a red bull. Even the firelight could not make him look healthy. Damisa almost sympathized, but she had been assured that in time her shoulder would heal. Khattar was still acknowledged as high king, but it was clear that the power was passing to the nephew who sat beside him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Already Damisa had learned more than she had ever wanted to know about tribal politics, which were beginning to remind her uncomfortably of the palace intrigues she had heard about on Alkonath as a child. It all made clear, she thought, the fact that the differences between the Atlanteans and the Ai-Zir were not so very real.\n\n\"Here come our valiant protectors now,\" said Cleta, as Vialmar and Reidel threaded their way among the dancers toward them, a strangely painted beaker gripped in each hand.\n\n\"Cleta,\" said Damisa, with raised eyebrows, \"you are slipping! I do believe that was a joke.\" The other girl weakly returned her smile, but said nothing; both of them knew that Vialmar's thigh had been deeply gashed by the first of the flying stone fragments. He walked with a limp even now. And she remembered quite clearly that when the power exploded from the henge it had been she who had protected Reidel. Ashe handed her a beaker she was still wondering what madness had compelled her to do so.\n\n\"It's called mead,\" said Vialmar with enthusiasm. \"Give it a try-it's pretty good.\"\n\nDamisa took a cautious sip. The liquor was sweet and tasted very faintly like teli'ir, but fortunately for her head, did not seem to be nearly so strong. Still it seemed strange to be sitting here drinking when Tjalan and so many others were gone.\n\nThey sat talking fora time until Cleta had to admit that her leg was giving her a lot of pain. Vialmar, who was tall enough to do so, simply picked her up in his arms and, limping only a little, slowly carried her back to the compound, leaving Reidel and Damisa alone. Suddenly restless, she stood up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This stuff is going to my head. I need to walk a little while.\"\n\n\"I'll walk with you,\" said Reidel, rising in turn.\n\nShe flushed, remembering what had happened the last time she accepted his escort from a celebration, but she knew it would not be wise to wander alone in such a crowd. There were not a few among the natives who had no love left for the Atlanteans. Silent, she let him lead her toward the path by the river. His hand was strong and warm, callused from labor, but then her own was not exactly soft and ladylike either.\n\n\"I have not thanked you for my life,\" he said as the tumult of the festival faded behind them. \"I was mad to think I could have done anything to stop the Working. I never imagined that you-\"\n\n\"At least you tried!\" she responded. \"I just stood there watching.\"\n\nThey walked fora little while in silence, listening to the ripple of the water and the wind in the trees.\n\n\"I am sorry for the death of Prince Tjalan,\" Reidel said finally. \"I know that you loved him.\"\n\nHer good shoulder lifted in a shrug. \"Was it love, or only that he dazzled me?\" Even now she felt a tremor at the memory of that lean, broad-shouldered figure and his flashing smile. It had taken her far too long to wonder what lay behind it. \"Even though he was my cousin, in the end, I found I could not trust him.\"\n\nShe frowned a little, wondering when she had abandoned that dream... Her eyes were stinging, and she blinked back tears.\n\n\"You're weeping,\" said Reidel. \"Forgive me, I should not have said-\"\n\n\"Be still!\" she exclaimed. \"Don't you understand? Until now, I haven't been able to let him go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He was a great man...\" Reidel said with difficulty. \"And he was royal, and your kin. I wanted you to know\"-he swallowed-\"to know that I understand now. It was madness for me to think that you and I-\" He stopped again as Damisa turned and gripped the front of his tunic.\n\n\"There is something I want you to know,\" she said softly. \"I have had a lot of time to think, lying in that bed while the healers fussed over me. A lot of what happened at the Sun Wheel is blurred in my memory. But one thing I do remember. When the stones started falling, you were the one I felt I had to save. Not Tjalan-you!\"\n\n\"Yes. You ordered me to live.\"\n\nIt sounded as if he were smiling. Breath quickening, she dared to lookup at him, and very gently, he eased his arms around her. Did she love him? Even now, she did not quite know. But it felt good to stand therein the circle of his arms.\n\n\"I will lead you a sad life, Reidel,\" she said, in a voice so small she could hardly believe it washer own. \"But I need you! I know that now.\"\n\n\"I'll consider myself lucky to have you under any circumstances.\" Now he was the one who sounded breathless. \"I always loved the challenge of sailing into a storm...\"\n\nIn the dark hour that falls just before dawn, Tiriki stood with Micail before the broken ring of stones. Festival fires still glimmered here and there like fallen stars upon the plain. But the heavens were more constant. The moon was hidden, and offered no challenge to the amazing glow of the stars. Chedan could have read their message easily, but she realized that she had absorbed more of his astrological lore than she had thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Above, the stars of Purity and Righteousness and Choice glittered in the belt of Manoah-the Hunter of Destiny, as the constellation was named by the people here. A year ago, Chedan had told her that when the star called the Sorcerer and the sun walked in the Sign of the Torch, new light came into the world. But at that time, the Sovereign and the Blood Star had opposed them. Now the Red Star dwelt with the Peacemaker, and Caratra's star had moved to calm the Winged Bull. There was hope in the heavens, but on earth there were conflicts which remained to be resolved.\n\nHer future with Micail was one of them, and that, she supposed, must depend on whether he was able to take up his priesthood once more. During these past weeks she had nursed him, challenged him, loved him-and the love at least would not change. But she was no longer simply his mate and priestess. She had grown, and she did not yet know whether Micail had emerged from his own testing with a strength to balance hers.\n\nMicail had put on the diadem of a First Guardian, but she wore Caratra's blue. Before them, the surviving stones of the great henge bulked blacker than the space between the stars. Only three of the trilithons in the inner horseshoe still stood intact, and there were gaps in the part of the outer circle that had been completed before. Even from here she could feel the power of those stones, confused and angry despite the peaceful night.\n\nTiriki's left hand was enfolded in Micail's. In the other she carried Chedan's staff, marked with the sigil of a mage. Micail had not asked her about that, and she had not yet decided what to say. In the past week she had gradually drawn him back into the world of the living and watched him gain in strength and sureness with each day. But Chedan had left a powerful legacy unclaimed. Was Micail strong enough to bear it? Was he worthy? In this, she could not afford to be blinded by her love for him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Why had he brought her, garbed in the regalia of a priestess, to the Sun Circle at this hour?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She shivered in the cold wind that blows before dawn. They were to start the journey to the Tor tomorrow. Perhaps, she thought, he has come to say a private farewell. This, after all, was his life and his work for four years-his cruel son, he called it.\n\nShe blinked as a sudden red light glowed on the stones. But they were looking westward-she clutched at Micail, remembering again the lurid glow in the heavens as Ahtarrath had died.\n\n\"What is it?\" His arm tightened around her.\n\n\"The flames! Can't you see them?\" Memories overwhelmed her like the wave that had drowned the Sea Kingdoms. \"I can see it all-Ahtarrath is burning-the islands of Ruta and Tarisseda and all Atlantis sinking beneath the waves!\" She strove for control.\n\n\"No, it is only some guardsman, building up his fire,\" Micail said soothingly, but she shook her head.\n\n\"That fire will burn for so long as we remember. Why did the gods allow this to happen? Why are we still alive when so many others are gone?\"\n\nMicail sighed, but she could feel the arm that held her trembling. \"My beloved, I do not know. Was it a reward to be saved in order that we might fulfill the prophecy, or will we be punished because we carried away the secrets of the Temple-even though we were commanded to do so?\"\n\nYes, he had certainly been doing some thinking. Within her breast Tiriki felt hope. \"Do you think, in lives to come, that we will remember?\" she asked then.\n\n\"So long as the Wheel carries us from life to life upon this earth, how can we forget? Our mothers' oaths still bind us, is it not so? The manner of our remembering may alter, as new lives bring us new griefs and challenges, but maybe we will dream of this moment. There are somethings that will always be the same...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My love for you, and yours for me?\" She turned in his arms and he held her tightly until her shivering began to ease. He kissed her then, and she felt the warmth of life surge through her limbs once more.\n\n\"That above all,\" he answered, a little breathless as their lips parted. \"Perhaps that is the greatest treasure we brought out of Atlantis, for no matter how we try to preserve the ancient wisdom, it is bound to change in this new land.\"\n\n\"The secrets will be lost, and the knowledge will fade,\" she said somberly. \"Atlantis will become a legend, a fading rumor of glory, and a warning to those who would manipulate powers never meant to be grasped by humankind.\"\n\nHe turned to look at the henge. The stars were fading as the world turned toward morning. \"I poured all my knowledge into building this-but not my wisdom, for that is not what I was seeking. Only power...\"\n\n\"If you could,\" she asked then, \"would you restore the fallen stones, and finish the Sun Wheel as it was designed?\"\n\nMicail shook his head. \"The chieftains of the tribes have asked me to do it, but I told them that too many of our adepts died. Let the stones lie. If Droshrad or someone else cares enough to try to restore them through brute manpower alone, so be it. But the tribesmen fear to touch them, and by the time that fear has faded, they will no longer remember what the Sun Wheel was intended to do.\"\n\n\"They are right to fear,\" murmured Tiriki. \"There is still anger in these stones.\" She had sensed it in the smoky shadow coiling among them when she had passed on the way to the village. Now her inner senses perceived it as an angry glow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Enough of the sarsens remain upright to calculate the movements of the heavens and to mark the crossing of the flow of power. The true Temple is within our hearts. We need raise no edifice of orichalcum and gold.\"\n\n\"It is not only our love for each other that will bind us,\" Tiriki said then, \"but our love for this land. I fought to save the Tor itself as much as I did the people in my care. In future lives, we may fare elsewhere, but I think that these places will always draw us back again.\"\n\n\"And yet you have changed the Tor by burying the Omphalos there.\"\n\n\"Do you think I have not had nightmares of what might happen if its power was loosed upon this land? But I had the blessing of the powers that dwell there, and the world is balanced once again.\"\n\n\"Fora time,\" Micail said quietly. \"When Dyaus breaks loose, he brings destruction, but also... things change. As they must. As they are meant to. We are lord and lady of Ahtarrath no longer. The men of Alkonath who survived have given me the falcon banner-they look tome now to lead them, but the only realm I wish to rule is that of my own soul.\"\n\n\"That banner is not all you have inherited.\" Tiriki suddenly realized that she had made her decision. \"Chedan said you were his heir. This is his staff...\" She held it out, and after a moment of wonder, he took it in his hand.\n\n\"It's curious,\" she went on. \"I think I told you the marsh folk call me Morgan, the woman from the sea. But they called Chedan Sun Hawk. Or sometimes Merlin. Both are names for the native falcon.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I used to dream that Chedan was instructing me,\" Micail said in a shaken voice. He turned to look once more at the stones. \"Watch and bear witness, Tiriki! Now I know why I had to come here, and what I must do. When we sang we left a residue of power in the circle. I must sing the stones back to stillness, or there will never be peace in this land.\"\n\nShe wanted to protest, to haul him away from the angry energies that pulsed through those broken stones. But as a priestess she knew that what he said was true, and as a priest it was his duty to heal where he had harmed. If he could...\n\nAnd so she watched, trembling as he moved past the fallen sarsens and into the circle. With all her senses focused upon it, she could both see and feel the turgid red glimmer that pulsed uneasily from stone to stone. She swayed, wondering how he could bear the red heat, staying upright herself only by grounding into the earth below...\n\nMicail's tall shape was a pale blur as the sarsens responded to his presence like coals wakened by the wind. Would he be able to master them? Instinctively Tiriki lifted her arms, drawing up power from the ground she stood on, channeling it toward him through the palms of her hands.\n\nTiriki could see that he was singing. Be still! her heart cried to the stones. Beat peace! Find balance, and rest...\n\nMicail continued to pace among them, leaning on Chedan's carven staff. But whether because of his song or her prayer, the pulsing glow was-not dimming, but changing-from angry red to sullen gold, which only slowly faded from sight.\n\nBy the time he had finished, the sky was growing pale. Tiriki quivered from the cold, but as he walked back toward her, Micail was radiant with the heat of rightly used power." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is done,\" he said softly, warming her hands between his own. \"Now the ring will anchor the lines of power as it was meant to, and mark the wheel of the seasons. A day will come when people will forget, and this will be no more than a ring of ancient stones. But I will remember what we did here, and I will comeback to you, beloved. Through life and beyond life, that I swear.\"\n\n\"In the name of the Goddess, I swear the same to you.\" For you have returned tome already, my love! her heart added silently. Both of us have won our victory!\n\n\"Look-\" he said then, pointing across the ring toward the short, southeastern stone.\n\nThe plain was dark, the earth still covered by night's veil, but in the eastern sky, the new day was coming, rose-pink shading to a refulgent gold. It was not like fire at all, Tiriki realized, but rather like the blossoming of a flower, whose rosy reflection brought sudden life to the great sarsens.\n\n\"Behold, Manoah comes, robed in Light-\"\n\n\"Ni-Terat is made fertile in His embrace,\" Tiriki answered him. The words were ancient, but she had never truly understood their meaning until now.\n\n\"Hail, Lord of the Day!\"\n\n\"Hail, Dark Mother!\"\n\nAline of brightness flared along the horizon, light washed across the world, and suddenly the dim earth was robed in glowing green.\n\n\"Hail, Lady of Life-\" they cried together as that radiance bloomed, and the Daughter of Ni-Terat and Manoah arose and blessed them with the first sunlight of midsummer day." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Take on the role of the writer's aide and proceed with the narrative.\nTags: epic fantasy, war, sacrifice, journey, rebellion\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Deadhouse Gates\nChapter: 0" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bhok'arala seem to have originated in the wastes of Raraku. Before long, these social creatures spread outward and were soon seen throughout Seven Cities. As efficacious rat control in settlements, the bhok'arala were not only tolerated, but often encouraged. It was not long before a lively trade in domesticated breeds became a major export...\n\nThe usage and demonic investment of this species among mages and alchemists is a matter for discussion within treatises more specific than this one. Bank's Three Hundred and Twenty-first Treatise offers a succinct analysis for interested scholars...\n\nDenizens of Raraku Imrygyn Tallobant\n\nWith the exception of the sandstorm– which they had waited out in Trob– and the unsettling news of a massacre at Ladro Keep, told to them by an outrider from a well-guarded caravan bound for Ehrlitan, the journey to within sight of G'danisban had proved uneventful for Fiddler, Crokus and Apsalar.\n\nAlthough Fiddler knew that the risks that lay ahead, south of the small city out in the Pan'potsun Odhan, were severe enough to eat holes in his stomach, he had anticipated a lull in the final approach to G'danisban. What he had not expected to find was a ragtag renegade army encamped outside the city walls.\n\nThe army's main force straddled the road but was shielded by a dun line of hills on the north side. The canal road led the three unsuspecting travellers into the camp's perimeter lines. There had been no warning.\n\nA company of footmen commanded the rosad from flanking hills and oversaw diligent questioning of all who sought entry to the city. The company was supported by a score of Arak tribal horsewarriors who were evidently entrusted with riding down any traveller inclined to flee the approach to the makeshift barricade." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fiddler and his charges would have to ride on through and trust to their disguises. The sapper was anything but confident, although this lent atypically Gral scowl to his narrow features which elicited a wholly proper wariness in two of the three guards who stepped forward to intercept them at the barricade.\n\n\"The city is closed,\" the unimpressed guard nearest them said, punctuating his words by spitting between the hooves of Fiddler's mount.\n\nIt would later be said that even a Gral's horse knew an insult when it saw one. Before Fiddler could react, his mount's head snapped forward, stripping the reins from the sapper's hands, and bit the guardsman in the face. The horse had twisted its head so that the jaws closed round the man's cheeks and tore into cheeks, upper lip and nose. Blood gushed. The guardsman dropped like a sack of stones, a piercing, keening sound rising from him.\n\nFor lack of anything else to grip, Fiddler snagged the gelding's ears and pulled hard, backing the beast away even as it prepared to stomp on the guard's huddled form. Hiding his shock behind an even fiercer frown, the sapper unleashed a stream of Gral curses at the two remaining men, who had both backed frantically clear before lowering their pikes. \"Foul snot of rabid dogs! Anal crust of dysenteried goats! Such a sight for two young newlyweds to witness! Will you curse their marriage but two weeks since the blessed day? Shall I loose the fleas on my head to rend your worthless flesh from your jellied bones?\"\n\nAs Fiddler roared every Gral utterance of disgust he could recall in an effort to keep the guards unbalanced, a troop of the Arak horsewarriors rode up with savage haste." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Gral! Ten jakatas for your horse!\"\n\n\"Twelve, Gral! Tome!\"\n\n\"Fifteen and my youngest daughter!\"\n\n\"Five jakatas for three tail hairs!\"\n\nFiddler turned his fiercest frown on the riders. \"Not one of you is fit to smell my horse's farts! \"But he grinned, unstrapping a beer-filled bladder and tossing it one-handed to the nearest Arak.\"But let us camp with your troop this night and fora sliver you may feel its heat with your palms– once only! For more you must pay! '\n\nWith wild grins, the Araks passed the skin between them, each taking deep swigs to finalize the ritual exchange. By sharing beer, Fiddler had granted them status as equals, the gesture stripping the cutting barb from the insult he had thrown their way.\n\nFiddler glanced back at Crokus and Apsalar. They looked properly shaken. Biting back his own nausea, the sapper winked.\n\nThe guards had recovered but before they could close in, the tribesmen drove their mounts to block them.\n\n\"Ride with us!\" one of the Araks shouted to Fiddler. As one, the troop wheeled about. Regaining the reins, Fiddler spurred the gelding after them, sighing when he heard behind him the newlyweds following suit.\n\nIt was to be a race to the Arak camp, and, true to its sudden legendary status, the Gral horse was determined to burst every muscle in its body to win. Fiddler had never before ridden such a game beast, and he found himself grinning in spite of himself, even as the image of the guardsman's ravaged face remained like a chill knot in the pit of his stomach." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Arak tipis lined the edges of a nearby hill's windswept summit, each set wide apart so that no shade from a neighbour's could cast insult." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Women and children came to the crest to watch the race, screaming as Fiddler's mount burst through the leading line, swerving to throw a shoulder into the fastest competitor. That horse stumbled, almost pitching its rider from his wood and felt saddle, then righted itself with a furious scream at being driven from the race.\n\nUnimpeded, Fiddler leaned forward as his horse reached the slope and surged up its grassy side. The line of watchers parted as he reached the crest and reined in amidst the tipis.\n\nAs any plains tribe would, the Arak chose hilltops rather than valley floors for their camps. The winds kept the insects to a minimum– boulders held down the tipi edges to prevent the hide tents from blowing away– and the rising and setting of the sun could be witnessed to mark ritual thanksgiving.\n\nThe camp's layout was a familiar one to Fiddler, who had ridden with Wickan scouts over these lands during the Emperor's campaigns. Marking the centre of the ring of tipis was a stone-lined hearth. Four wooden posts off to one side, between two tipis, and joined together with a single hemp rope, provided the corral for the horses. Bundles of rolled felt lay drying nearby, along with tripods bearing stretched hides and strips of meat.\n\nThe dozen or so camp dogs surrounded the snapping gelding as Fiddler paused in the saddle to take his bearings. The scrawny, yipping mongrels might prove a problem, he realized, but he hoped that their suspicions would apply to all strangers, Gral included. If not, then his disguise was over.\n\nThe troop arrived moments later, the horsewarriors shouting and laughing as they reined in and threw themselves from their saddles. Appearing last on the summit's crest were Crokus and Apsalar, neither of whom seemed ready to share in the good humour." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Seeing their faces reminded Fiddler of the mangled guardsman on the road below." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He regained his scowl and slipped from the saddle. \"The city is closed?\" he shouted. \"Another Mezla folly!\"\n\nThe Arak rider who'd spoken before strode up, a fierce grin on his lean face.\"Not Mezla! G'danisban has been liberated! The southern hares have fled the Whirlwind's promise. '\n\n\"Then why was the city closed to us? Are we Mezla?\"\n\n\"A cleansing, Gral! Mezla merchants and nobles infest G'danisban. They were arrested yesterday and this day they are being executed. Tomorrow morning you shall lead your blessed couple into a free city. Come, this night we celebrate! '\n\nFiddler squatted in Gral fashion. \"Has Sha'ik raised the Whirlwind, then? \"He glanced back at Crokus and Apsalar, as if suddenly regretting having taken on the responsibility.\"Has the war begun, Arak? '\n\n\"Soon,\" he said. \"We were cursed with impatience,\" he added with a smirk.\n\nCrokus and Apsalar approached. The Arak went off to assist in the preparations for the night's festivities. Coins were flung at the gelding's hooves and hands cautiously reached out to rest lightly on the animal's neck and flanks. For the moment the three travellers were alone.\n\n\"That was a sight I will never forget,\" Crokus said, \"though I wish to Hood I could. Will the poor man live?\"\n\nFiddler shrugged. \"If he chooses to.\"\n\n\"We're camping here tonight? ' Apsalar asked, looking around.\n\n\"Either that or insult these Arak and risk disembowelling.\"\n\n\"We will not fool them for much longer,\" Apsalar said. \"Crokus doesn't speak a word of this land's tongue, and mine is a Malazan's accent. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That soldier was my age,\" the Daru thief muttered.\n\nFrowning, the sapper said, \"Our only other choice is to ride into G'danisban, so that we may witness the Whirlwind's vengeance.\"\n\n\"Another celebration of what's to come? \"Crokus demanded.\"This damned Apocalypse you're always talking about? I get the feeling that this land's people do nothing but talk. '\n\nFiddler cleared his throat. \"Tonight's celebration in G'danisban,\" he said slowly, \"will be the flaying alive of a few hundred Malazans, Crokus. If we show eagerness to witness such an event, these Arak may not be offended by our leaving early.\"\n\nApsalar turned to watch half a dozen tribesmen approach. \"Try it, Fiddler,\" she said.\n\nThe sapper came close to saluting. He hissed a curse. \"You giving me orders, Recruit?\"\n\nShe blinked. \"I think I was giving orders... when you were still clutching the hem of your mother's dress, Fiddler. I know– the one who possessed me. It's his instincts that are ringing like steel on stone right now. Do as I say.\"\n\nThe chance fora retort vanished as the Arak arrived. \"You are blessed, Gral!\" one of them said. \"A Gral clan is on its way to join the Apocalypse! Let us hope that like you they bring their own beer!\"\n\nFiddler made akin gesture, then soberly shook his head. \"It cannot be,\" he said, mentally holding his breath. \"I am outcast. More, these newlyweds insist we enter the city... to witness the executions in further blessing of their binding. I am their escort, and so must obey their commands.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Apsalar stepped forward and bowed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We wish no offence,\" she said.\n\nIt wasn't going well. The Arak faces arrayed before them had darkened.\"Outcast? No kin to honour your trail, Gral? Perhaps we shall hold you for your brothers'vengeance, and in exchange they leave us your horse.\"\n\nWith exquisite perfection, Apsalar stamped one foot to announce the rage of a pampered daughter and new wife. \"I am with child! Defy me and be cursed! We go to the city! Now!\"\n\n\"Hire one of us for the rest of your journey, blessed lady! But leave the riven Gral! He is not fit to serve you!\"\n\nTrembling, Apsalar prepared to lift her veil, announcing the intention to voice her curse.\n\nThe Araks flinched back.\n\n\"You covet the gelding! This is nothing more than greed! I shall now curse you all-\"\n\n\"Forgive!\" \"We bow down, blessed lady!\" \"Touch not your veil!\" \"Ride on, then! To the city below! Ride on!\"\n\nApsalar hesitated. Fora moment Fiddler thought she would curse them anyway. Instead she spun about. \"Escort us once more, Gral,\" she said.\n\nSurrounded by worried, frightened faces, the three mounted up.\n\nAn Arak who had spoken earlier now stepped close to the sapper. \"Stay only the night, then ride on hard, Gral. Your kin will pursue you.\"\n\n\"Tell them,\" Fiddler said, \"I won the horse in a fair fight. Tell them that.\"\n\nThe Arak frowned. \"Will they know the story?\"\n\n\"Which clan?\"\n\n\"Sebark.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sapper shook his head.\n\n\"Then they shall ride you down for the pleasure of it. But I shall tell them your words, anyway. Indeed, your horse was worth killing for.\"\n\nFiddler thought back to the drunken Gral he'd bought the gelding from in Ehrlitan. Three jakata. The tribesmen who moved into the cities lost much.\"Drink my beer this night, Arak? '\n\n\"We shall. Before the Gral arrive. Ride on.\"\n\nAs they rode onto the road and approached G'danisban's north gate, Apsalar said to him, \"We are in trouble now, aren't we? '\n\n\"Is that what your instincts tell you, lass?\"\n\nShe grimaced.\n\n\"Aye,\" Fiddler sighed. \"That we are. I made a mistake with that outcast story. I think now, given your performance back there, that the threat of your curse would have sufficed.\"\n\n\"Probably.\"\n\nCrokus cleared his throat. \"Are we going to actually watch these executions, Fid?\"\n\nThe sapper shook his head. \"Not a chance. We're riding straight through, if we can. \"He glanced at Apsalar.\"Let your courage falter, lass. Another temper tantrum and the citizens will rush you out the south gate on abed of gold. '\n\nShe acknowledged him with awry smile.\n\nDon't fall in love with this woman, Fid, old friend, else you loosen your guard of the lad's life, and call it an accident of fate...\n\nSpilled bloodstained the worn cobbles under the arched north gate and a scatter of wooden toys lay broken and crushed to either side of the causeway. From somewhere close came the screams of children dying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We can't do this, \"Crokus said, all the colour gone from his face. He rode at Fiddler's side, Apsalar holding her mount close behind them. Looters and armed men appeared now and then farther down the street, but the way into the city seemed strangely open. A haze of smoke hungover everything, and the burnt-out shells of merchant stores and residences gaped desolation on all sides.\n\nThey rode amidst scorched furniture, shattered pottery and ceramics, and bodies twisted in postures of violent death. The children's dying screams, off to their right, had mercifully stopped, but other, more distant screams rose eerily from G'danisban's heart.\n\nThey were startled by a figure darting across their paths, a young girl, naked and bruised. She ran as if oblivious to them, and clambered under a broken-wheeled cart not fifteen paces from Fiddler and his party. They watched her scramble undercover.\n\nSix armed men approached from aside street. Their weapons were haphazard, and none wore armour. Blackened bloodstained their ragged telaban. One spoke. \"Gral! You see a girl? We're not done with her. '\n\nEven as he asked his question, another of them grinned and gestured to the cart. The girl's knees and feet were clearly visible.\n\n\"A Mezla?\" Fiddler asked.\n\nThe group's leader shrugged.\"Well enough. Fear not, Gral, we'll share.\"\n\nThe sapper heard Apsalar draw along, slow breath. He eased back in his saddle.\n\nThe group split in passing around Fiddler, Crokus and Apsalar. The sapper casually leaned after the nearest man and thrust the point of his long-knife into the base of his skull. The Gral gelding pivoted beneath Fiddler and kicked outwith both rear hooves, shattering another man's chest and propelling him backward, sprawling on the cobbles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Regaining control of the gelding, Fiddler drove his heels into its flanks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They bolted forward, savagely riding down the group's generous leader. From under the horse's stamping hooves came the sound of snapping bones and the sickening crushing of his skull. Fiddler twisted in the saddle to find the remaining three men.\n\nTwo of them writhed in keening pain near Apsalar, who sat calm in the saddle, a thick-bladed kethra knife in each gloved hand.\n\nCrokus had dismounted and was now crouching over the last body, removing a throwing knife from a blood-drenched throat.\n\nThey all turned at a grinding of potsherds to seethe girl claw her way clear of the cart, scramble to her feet, then race into the shadows of an alley, disappearing from view.\n\nThe sound of horsemen coming from the north gate reached them.\n\n\"Ride on!\" Fiddler snapped.\n\nCrokus leapt onto his mount's back. Apsalar sheathed her blades and gave the sapper a nod as she gathered up the reins.\n\n\"Ride through– to the south gate!\"\n\nFiddler watched the two of them gallop on, then he slipped from the gelding's back and approached the two men Apsalar had wounded.\"Ah, \"he breathed when he came close and saw their slashed-open crotches,\"that's the lass I know.\"\n\nThe troop of horsemen arrived. They all wore ochre sashes diagonally across their chain-covered chests. Their commander opened his mouth to speak but Fiddler was first.\n\n\"Is no man's daughter safe in this seven-cursed city? She was no Mezla, by my ancestors! Is this your Apocalypse? Then I pray the pit of snakes awaits you in the Seven Hells! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The commander was frowning. \"Gral, you say these men were rapists?\"\n\n\"A Mezla slut gets what she deserves, but the girl was no Mezla.\"\n\n\"So you killed these men. All six of them.\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"Who were the other two riders with you?\"\n\n\"The pilgrims I am sworn to protect.\"\n\n\"And yet they ride into the city's heart... without you at their side. '\n\nFiddler scowled.\n\nThe commander scanned the victims. \"Two yet live.\"\n\n\"May they be cursed with a hundred thousand more breaths before Hood takes them.\"\n\nThe commander leaned on his saddlehorn and was silent a moment. \"Rejoin your pilgrims, Gral. They have need of your services.\"\n\nGrowling, Fiddler remounted. \"Who rules G'danisban now? '\n\n\"None. The army of the Apocalypse holds but two districts. We shall have the others by the morrow.\"\n\nFiddler pulled the horse around and kicked it into a canter. The troop did not follow. The sapper swore under his breath– the commander was right, he should not have sent Crokus and Apsalar on. He knew himself lucky in that his remaining with therapists could so easily be construed as typically Gral– the opportunity to brag to the red-swathed riders, the chance to voice curses and display a tribesman's unassailable arrogance– but it risked offering up to contempt his vow to protect his charges. He'd seen the mild disgust in the commander's eyes. In all, he'd been too much of a Gral horsewarrior. If not for Apsalar's frightening talents, those two would now be in serious trouble." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He rode hard in pursuit, noting belatedly that the gelding was responding to his every touch. The horse knew he was no Gral, but it'd evidently decided he was behaving in an approved manner, well enough to accord him some respect. It was, he reflected, this day's lone victory.\n\nG'danisban's central square was the site of past slaughter. Fiddler caught up with his companions when they had just begun walking their horses through the horrific scene. They both turned upon hearing his approach, and Fiddler could only nod at the relief in their faces when they recognized him.\n\nEven the Gral gelding hesitated at the square's edge. The bodies covering the cobbles numbered several hundred. Old men and old women, and children, for the most part. They had all been savagely cut to pieces or, in some cases, burned alive. The stench of sun-warmed blood, bile and seared flesh hung thick in the square.\n\nFiddler swallowed back his revulsion, cleared his throat. \"Beyond this square,\" he said, \"all pretences of control cease.\"\n\nCrokus gestured shakily. \"These are Malazan?\"\n\n\"Aye, lad.\"\n\n\"During the conquest, did the Malazan armies do the same to the locals here?\"\n\n\"You mean, is this just reprisal?\"\n\nApsalar spoke with an almost personal vehemence. \"The Emperor warred against armies, not civilians-\"\n\n\"Except at Aren,\" Fiddler sardonically interjected, recalling his words with the Tanno Spiritwalker. \"When the T'lan Imass rose in the city-'\n\n\"Not by Kellanved's command! \"she retorted.\"Who ordered the T'lan Imass into Aren? I shall tell you. Surly, the commander of the Claw, the woman who took upon herself anew name-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Laseen.\" Fiddler eyed the young woman quizzically. \"I have never before heard that assertion, Apsalar. There were no written orders– none found, in any case-\"\n\n\"I should have killed her there and then,\" Apsalar muttered.\n\nAstonished, Fiddler glanced at Crokus. The Daru shook his head.\n\n\"Apsalar,\" the sapper said slowly, \"you were but a child when Aren rebelled then fell to the T'lan Imass. '\n\n\"I know that,\" she replied. \"Yet these memories... they are so clear. I was... sent to Aren... to seethe slaughter. To find out what happened. I... I argued with Surly. No-one else was in the room. Just Surly and... and me.\"\n\nThey reached the other end of the square. Fiddler reined in and regarded Apsalar fora long moment.\n\nCrokus said, \"It was the Rope, the patron god of assassins, who possessed you. Yet your memories are-\"\n\n\"Dancer's. \"As soon as he said it, Fiddler knew it was true.\"The Rope has another name. Cotillion. Hood's breath, so obvious! No-one doubted that the assassinations occurred. Both Dancer and the Emperor... murdered by Laseen and her chosen Clawmasters. What did Laseen do with the bodies? No-one knows.\"\n\n\"So Dancer lived,\" Crokus said with a frown. \"And ascended. Became a patron god in the Warren of Shadow.\"\n\nApsalar said nothing, watching and listening with a carefully controlled absence of expression on her face.\n\nFiddler was cursing himself fora blind idiot. \"What House appeared in the Deck of Dragons shortly afterward? Shadow. Two new Ascendants. Cotillion... and Shadowthrone...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Crokus's eyes widened.\"Shadowthrone is Kellanved, \"he said.\"They weren't assassinated– either of them. They escaped by ascending.\"\n\n\"Into the Shadow Realm.\" Fiddler smiled wryly. \"To nurse their thoughts of vengeance, leading eventually to Cotillion possessing a young fishergirl in Itko Kan, to begin what would be along, devious path to Laseen. Which failed. Apsalar?\"\n\n\"Your words are true,\" she said without inflection.\n\n\"Then why,\" the sapper demanded, \"didn't Cotillion reveal himself to us? To Whiskeyjack, to Kalam? To Dujek? Dammit, Dancer knew us all– and if that bastard understood the notion of friendship at all, then those I've just mentioned were his friends-\"\n\nApsalar's sudden laugh rattled both men.\"I could lie and say he sought to protect you all. Do you really wish the truth, Bridgeburner? '\n\nFiddler felt himself flushing. \"I do,\" he growled.\n\n\"Dancer trusted but two men. One was Kellanved. The other was Dassem Ultor, the First Sword. Dassem is dead. I am sorry if this offends you, Fiddler. Thinking on it, I would suggest that Cotillion trusts no-one. Not even Shadowthrone. Emperor Kellanved... well enough. Ascendant Kellanved– Shadowthrone– ah, that is something wholly different.\"\n\n\"He was a fool,\" Fiddler pronounced, gathering up his reins.\n\nApsalar's smile was strangely wistful.\n\n\"Enough words,\" Crokus said. \"Let's get out of this damned city. '\n\n\"Aye.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The short journey from the square to the south gate was surprisingly uneventful, for all the commander's warnings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dusk shrouded the streets and smoke from a burning tenement block spread an acrid haze that made breathing tortured. They rode through the silent aftermath of slaughter, when the rage has passed and awareness returns with shock and shame.\n\nThe moment was a single indrawn breath in what Fiddler knew would bean ever-burgeoning wildfire. If the Malazan legions had not been withdrawn from nearby Pan'potsun, there would have been the chance of crushing the life from this first spark, with a brutality to match the renegades\". When slaughter is flung back on the perpetrators, the thirst for blood is quickly quenched.\n\nThe Emperor would have acted swiftly, decisively. Hood's breath, he would never have let it slide this far.\n\nLess than a tenth of a bell after leaving the square they passed beneath the smoke-blackened arch of an unguarded south gate. Beyond stretched the Pan'potsun Odhan, flanked to the west by the ridge that divided the Odhan from the Holy Desert Raraku. The night's first stars flickered alight overhead.\n\nFiddler broke the long silence. \"There is a village a little over two leagues to the south. With luck it won't be a carrion feast. Not yet, anyway. '\n\nCrokus cleared his throat. \"Fiddler, if Kalam had known... about Dancer, I mean, Cotillion...\"\n\nThe sapper grimaced, glanced at Apsalar. \"She'd be with him right now. '\n\nWhatever response Crokus intended was interrupted by a squealing, flapping shape that dropped down out of the darkness to collide with the lad's back. Crokus let out a shout of alarm as the creature gripped his hair and clambered onto his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's just Moby, \"Fiddler said, trying to shake off the jitters the familiar's arrival had elicited. He squinted. \"Looks like he's been in a scrap, ' he observed.\n\nCrokus pulled Moby down into his arms. \"He's bleeding everywhere! '\n\n\"Nothing serious, I'd guess, ' Fiddler said.\n\n\"What makes you so sure?\"\n\nThe sapper grinned. \"Ever seen bhok'arala mate? '\n\n\"Fiddler,\" Apsalar's tone was tight.\"We are pursued. '\n\nReining in, Fiddler rose in the stirrups and twisted around. In the distant gloom was a cloud of dust. He hissed a curse. \"The Gral clan.\"\n\n\"We ride weary mounts,\" Apsalar said.\n\n\"Aye. Queen grant us there's fresh horses to be had in New Velar. '\n\nAt the base of three converging gorges, Kalam left the false path and carefully guided his horse through a narrow drainage channel. The old memories of the ways into Raraku felt heavy in his bones. Everything's changed, yet nothing has changed.\n\nOf the countless trails that passed through the hills, all but a few led only to death. The false routes were cleverly directed away from the few waterholes and springs. Without water, Raraku's sun was a fatal companion. Kalam knew the Holy Desert, the map within his head– decades old– was seared anew with every landmark he recognized. Pinnacles, tilted rocks, the wend of a flood channel– he felt as if he had never left, for all his new loyalties, his conflicting allegiances. Once more, a child of this desert. Once more, servant to its sacred need." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As the wind and sun did to the sand and stone, Raraku shaped all who had known it. Crossing it had etched the souls of the three companies that would come to be called the Bridgeburners. We could imagine no other name. Raraku burned our pasts away, making all that came before a trail of ashes.\n\nHe swung the stallion onto a scree, rocks and sand skittering and tumbling as the beast scrambled up the slope, regaining the true path along the ridge line that would run in a slow descent westward to Raraku's floor.\n\nStars glittered like knife-points overhead. The bleached limestone crags shone silver in the faint moonlight, as if reflecting back memories of the day just past.\n\nThe assassin led his horse between the crumbled foundations of two watchtowers. Potsherds and fractured brick crunched under the stallion's hooves. Rhizan darted from his path with a soft flit of wings. Kalam felt he had returned home.\n\n\"No farther,\" a rasping voice warned.\n\nSmiling, Kalam reined in.\n\n\"A bold announcement,\" the voice continued. \"A stallion the colour of sand, red telaba...\"\n\n\"I announce what I am,\" Kalam replied casually. He had pinpointed the source of the voice, in the deep shadows of a sinkhole just beyond the left-hand watchtower. There was a crossbow trained on the assassin, but Kalam knew he could dodge the quarrel, rolling from the saddle with the stallion between him and the stranger. Two well-thrown knives into the darker shape amidst the shadows would punctuate the exchange. He felt at ease.\n\n\"Disarm him,\" the voice drawled.\n\nTwo massive hands closed on his wrists from behind and savagely pulled both his arms back, until he was dragged, cursing with rage, over the stallion's rump. As soon as he cleared the beast, the hands twisted his body around and drove him hard, face first, into the stony ground. The air knocked from his lungs, Kalam was helpless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He heard the one who'd spoken rise up from the sinkhole and approach. The stallion snapped his teeth but was swiftly calmed at a soft word from the stranger. The assassin listened as the saddlebags were lifted away and set on the ground. Flaps opened.\"Ah, he's the one, then.\"\n\nThe hands released Kalam. Groaning, the assassin managed to rollover. A giant of a man stood over him, his face tattooed like shattered glass. Along single braid hung down the left side of his chest. The man wore a cloak of bhederin hide over a vest of armour that seemed made of clam shells. The wooden handle and stone pommel of a bladed weapon of some kind jutted from just under his left arm. The broad belt over the man's loincloth was oddly decorated with what looked to Kalam like dried mushroom caps of various sizes. He was over seven foot tall, yet muscled enough to seem wide, and his flat, broad face gazed down without expression.\n\nRegaining his breath, the assassin sat up. \"A sorcerous silence,\" he muttered, mostly to himself.\n\nThe man who now held the Book of the Apocalypse heard the gruff whisper and snorted. \"You fancy no mortal could get that close to you without your hearing him. You tell yourself it must have involved magic. You are wrong. My companion is Toblakai, an escaped slave from the Laederon Plateau of Genabackis. He's seen seventeen summers and has personally killed forty-one enemies. Those are their ears on his belt. \"The man rose, offering Kalam his hand.\"You are most welcome to Raraku, Deliverer. Our long vigil is ended. '\n\nGrimacing, Kalam accepted the man's hand and felt himself pulled effortlessly to his feet. The assassin brushed the dust from his clothes.\"You are not bandits, then. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The stranger barked a laugh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, we are not. I am Leoman, Captain of Sha'ik's Bodyguard. My companion refuses his name to strangers, and we shall leave it at that. We are the two she chose.\"\n\n\"I must deliver the Book into Sha'ik's hands,\" Kalam said. \"Not yours, Leoman.\"\n\nThe squat warrior– by his colour and clothing a child of this desert– held out the Book. \"By all means.\"\n\nCautiously, the assassin retrieved the heavy, battered tome.\n\nA woman spoke behind him. \"You may now give it tome, Deliverer.\"\n\nKalam slowly closed his eyes, struggling to gather the frayed ends of his nerves. He turned.\n\nThere could be no doubting. The small, honey-skinned woman standing before him radiated power in waves, the smell of dust and sand whipped by winds, the taste of salt and blood. Her rather plain face was deeply lined, giving her an appearance of being around forty years old, though Kalam suspected she was younger– Raraku was a harsh home.\n\nInvoluntarily, Kalam dropped to one knee. He held out the Book. \"I deliver unto you, Sha'ik, the Apocalypse. ' And with it, a sea of blood– how many innocent lives shattered, to bring hasten down? Hood take me, what have I done?\n\nThe Book's weight left his hands as she accepted it.\"It is damaged. '\n\nThe assassin looked up, slowly rose.\n\nSha'ik was frowning, one finger tracing a torn corner of the leather cover.\"Well, one should not be surprised, given that it is a thousand years old. I thank you, Deliverer. Will you now join my band of soldiers? I sense great talents in you. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kalam bowed. \"I cannot. My destiny lies elsewhere.\" Flee, Kalam, before you test the skills of these bodyguards. Flee, before uncertainty kills you.\n\nHer dark eyes narrowed on his searchingly, then widened. \"I sense something of your desire, though you shield it well. Ride on, then, the way south is open to you. More, you shall have an escort-\"\n\n\"I need no escort, Seer-\"\n\n\"But you shall have one in any case.\" She gestured and a bulky, ungainly shape appeared from the gloom.\n\n\"Holy One,\" Leoman hissed warningly.\n\n\"You question me?\" Sha'ik snapped.\n\n\"The Toblakai is as an army, nor are my skills lacking, Holy One, yet-\"\n\n\"Since I was a child,\" Sha'ik cut in, her voice brittle,\"one vision has possessed me above all others. I have seen this moment, Leoman, a thousand times. At dawn I shall open the Book, and the Whirlwind shall rise, and I shall emerge from it... renewed. \"Blades in hands and unhanded in wisdom,\" such are the wind's words. Young, yet old. One life whole, another incomplete. I have seen, Leoman!\" She paused, drew a breath. \"I see no other future but this one. We are safe.\" Sha'ik faced Kalam again.\"I acquired a... a pet recently, which I now send with you, for I sense... possibilities in you, Deliverer. ' She gestured again.\n\nThe huge, ungainly shape moved closer and Kalam took an involuntary step backward. His stallion voiced a soft squeal and stood trembling.\n\nLeoman spoke. \"An aptorian, Deliverer, from the realm of Shadow. Sent into Raraku by Shadowthrone... to spy. It belongs to Sha'ik now. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The beast was a nightmare, close to nine feet tall, crouching on two thin hind limbs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alone foreleg, long and multijointed, jutted down from its strangely bifurcated chest. From a hunched, angular shoulder blade, the demon's sinuous neck rose to a flat, elongated head. Needle fangs ridged its jawline, which was sweptback and naturally grinning like a dolphin's. Head, neck and limbs were black, while its torso was a dun grey. A single, flat black eye regarded Kalam with appalling awareness.\n\nThe assassin saw barely healed scarring on the demon. \"It's been in a fight? '\n\nSha'ik scowled.\"A D'ivers. Desert wolves. She drove them off-\"\n\n\"More like a tactical withdrawal,\" Leoman added dryly. \"The beast does not eat or drink, so far as we've seen. And though the Holy One believes otherwise, it appears to be entirely brainless– that look in its eye is likely a mask hiding very little. '\n\n\"Leoman plagues me with doubts,\" Sha'ik said.\"It is his chosen task and I grow increasingly weary of it. '\n\n\"Doubts are healthy,\" Kalam said, then snapped his mouth shut.\n\nThe Holy One only smiled. \"I sensed you two were alike. Leave us, then. The Seven Holies know, one Leoman is enough.\"\n\nWith a final glance at the young Toblakai, the assassin vaulted back into the saddle, swung the stallion to the south trail and nudged him into a trot.\n\nThe aptorian evidently preferred some distance between them; it moved parallel to Kalam at over twenty paces away, a darker stain in the night, striding awkwardly yet silently on its three bony legs.\n\nAfter ten minutes of riding at a fast trot, the assassin slowed the stallion to a walk. He had delivered the Book, personally seen to the rise of the Whirlwind. Answered his blood's call, no matter how stained the motivation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The demands of his other life lay ahead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would kill the Empress, to save the Empire. If he succeeded, Sha'ik's rebellion was doomed. Control would be restored. And if I fail, they will bleed each other to exhaustion, Sha'ik and Laseen, two women of the same cloth– Hood, they even looked alike. It was not afar reach, then, for Kalam to see in his shadow a hundred thousand deaths. And he wondered if, throughout Seven Cities, readers of the Deck of Dragons now held a newly awakened Herald of Death in their trembling hands.\n\nQueen's blessing, it's done.\n\nMinutes before dawn, Sha'ik sat down cross-legged before the Book of the Apocalypse. Her two guards flanked her, each in the ruins of a watchtower. The Toblakai youth leaned on his two-handed ironwood sword. A battered bronze helmet missing a cheek-guard was on his head, his eyes hidden in the shadow of a slitted half-visor. His companion's arms were crossed. A crossbow leaned against one hide-wrapped leg. Two one-handed morning stars were thrust through his broad leather belt. He wore a colourless telaba scarf over a peaked iron helm. Below it, his smooth-shaven face showed, latticed by thirty years of sun and wind. His light-blue eyes were ever restless.\n\nThe dawn's rays swept over Sha'ik. The Holy One reached down and opened the Book.\n\nThe quarrel struck her forehead an inch above her left eye. The iron head shattered the bone, plunging inward a moment before the spring-driven barbs opened like a deadly flower inside her brain. The quarrel's head then struck the inside of the back of her skull, exiting explosively.\n\nSha'ik toppled.\n\nTene Baralta bellowed and watched with satisfaction as Aralt Arpat and Lostara Yil led the twelve Red Blades in a charge towards the two hapless bodyguards." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The desert warrior had dropped and rolled a moment after Sha'ik's death. The crossbow now in his hands bucked. Aralt Arpat's chest visibly caved inward as the quarrel drove through his breastbone. The tall sergeant was knocked backward, sprawling in the dust.\n\nThe commander bellowed in fury, drew his tulwars and joined the attack.\n\nLostara's squad threw lances in staggered succession when but fifteen paces from the Toblakai.\n\nTene Baralta's eyes widened in astonishment as not one of the six lances struck home. Impossibly lithe for one of such bulk, the Toblakai seemed to simply step through them, shifting weight and dipping a shoulder before springing to close, his archaic wooden sword sweeping across in a backswing that connected with the leading Red Blade's knees. The man went down in a cloud of dust, both legs shattered.\n\nThen the Toblakai was in the squad's midst. As Tene Baralta sprinted to reach them, he saw Lostara Yil reel back, blood spraying from her head, her helmet spinning away to bounce across the potsherd gravel. A second soldier fell, his throat crushed by a thrust from the wooden sword.\n\nArpat's squad attacked the desert warrior. Chains snapped as the morning stars lashed out and struck with deadly accuracy. There was no more difficult a weapon to parry than a morning star– the chain wrapped over any block, sending the iron ball unimpeded to its target. The weapon's greatest drawback was that it was slow to recover, but in the instant that Tene Baralta glanced over to gauge the battle, he saw that the desert warrior fought equally well with either hand, and was staggering his attacks, resulting in a perpetual sequence of blows that none of the soldiers facing him could penetrate. A helmed head crumpled under the impact in the momentary span of the commander's glance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In an instant Tene Baralta's tactics shifted. Sha'ik was dead. The mission was a success– there would be no Whirlwind. It was pointless throwing lives away against these two appalling executioners– who had, after all, failed in guarding Sha'ik's life and now sought naught but vengeance. He barked out the recall, and watched as his soldiers battled to extricate themselves from the two men. The effort proved costly, as three more fell before the remaining fighters cleared a space in which to turn and run.\n\nTwo of Lostara Yil's soldiers were loyal enough to drag the dazed sergeant with them in their retreat.\n\nBristling at the sight of the routed Red Blades, Tene Baralta swallowed down a stream of bitter curses. Tulwars held out, he shielded the soldiers' withdrawal, his nerves on fire at the thought of either bodyguard accepting the challenge.\n\nBut the two men did not pursue, resuming their positions at the watchtowers. The desert warrior crouched to reload his crossbow.\n\nThe sight of the weapon readied was the last Tene Baralta had of the two killers, as the commander then ducked out of sight and jogged with his soldiers back to the small canyon where the horses were tethered.\n\nIn the high-walled arroyo, the Red Blades stationed their lone surviving crossbowman on the south-facing crest, then paused to staunch wounds and regain their breaths. Behind them, their horses nickered at the smell of blood. A soldier splashed water on Lostara's red-smeared face. She blinked, awareness slowly returning to her eyes.\n\nTene Baralta scowled down at her. \"Recover yourself, Sergeant,\" he growled. \"You are to regain Kalam's trail– at a safe distance. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She nodded, reaching up to probe the gash on her forehead. \"That sword was wood.\"\n\n\"Yet as hard as steel, aye. Hood take the Toblakai– and the other one at that. We'll leave them be. '\n\nA slightly wry expression coming to her face, Lostara Yil simply nodded again.\n\nTene reached down a gauntleted hand and pulled the sergeant to her feet. \"A fine shot, Lostara Yil. You killed the god-cursed witch and all that went with her. The Empress shall be pleased. More than pleased.\"\n\nWeaving slightly, Lostara went to her horse, pulled herself into the saddle.\n\n\"We ride to Pan'potsun, \"Tene Baralta told her.\"To spread the word, \"he added with a dark grin.\"Do not lose Kalam, Sergeant. '\n\n\"I've yet to fail in that, ' she said.\n\nYou know I'll count these losses as yours, don't you! Too clever, lass.\n\nHe watched her ride away, then swung his glare on his remaining soldiers. \"Cowards! Lucky for you that I guarded your retreat. Mount up.\"\n\nLeoman laid out the blanket on the flat ground between the two watchtower foundations, and rolled Sha'ik's linen-wrapped body onto it. He knelt beside it a moment, motionless, then wiped grimy sweat from his brow.\n\nThe Toblakai stood nearby. \"She is dead.\"\n\n\"I see that,\" Leoman said dryly, reaching to collect the blood-spattered Book, which he slowly rewrapped in cloth.\n\n\"What do we do now?\"\n\n\"She opened the Book. It was dawn.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nothing happened, except a quarrel going through her head.\"\n\n\"Damn you, I know!\"\n\nThe Toblakai crossed his massive arms, fell silent.\n\n\"The prophecy was certain,\" Leoman said after a few minutes. He rose, wincing at his battle-stiffened muscles.\n\n\"What do we do now?\" the young giant asked again.\n\n\"She said she would be... renewed...\" He sighed, the Book heavy in his hands. \"We wait.\"\n\nThe Toblakai raised his head, sniffed. \"There's a storm coming. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Death shall be my bridge.\n\nToblakai saying\n\nBurning wagons, the bodies of horses, oxen, mules, men,. women and children, pieces of furniture, clothing and other household items lay scattered on the plain south of Hissar, for as far as Duiker could see. Here and there mounds of bodies rose like earthless barrows, where warriors had made a last, desperate stand. There'd been no mercy to the killing, no prisoners taken.\n\nThe sergeant stood a few paces in front of the historian, as silent as his men as he took in the scene that was the Vin'til Basin and the battle that would become known for the village less than a league distant, Bat'rol.\n\nDuiker leaned in his saddle and spat. \"The wounded beast had fangs,\" he said sourly. Oh, well done, Coltaine! They'll hesitate long before closing with you again. The bodies were Hissari– even children had been flung into the fighting. Black, scorched scars crossed the battlefield as if a god's claws had swept down to join the slaughter. Pieces of burned meat clogged the scars– human or beast, there was no means of telling. Capemoths fluttered like silent madness over the scene. The air stank of sorcery, the clash of warrens had spread greasy ash over everything. The historian felt beyond horror, his heart hardened enough to feel only relief.\n\nSomewhere to the southwest was the Seventh, remnants of loyal Hissari auxiliaries, and the Wickans. And tens of thousands of Malazan refugees, bereft of their belongings... but alive. The peril remained. Already, the army of the Apocalypse had begun regrouping– shattered survivors contracting singly and in small groups towards the Meila Oasis where awaited the Sialk reinforcements and latecoming desert tribes. When they renewed the pursuit, they would still vastly outnumber Coltaine's battered army." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of the sergeant's men returned from his scouting to the west.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kamist Reloe lives, \"he announced.\"Another High Mage brings anew army from the north. There will be no mistakes next time. '\n\nThe words were less reassuring to the others than they would have been a day ago. The sergeant's mouth was a thin slash as he nodded.\"We join the others at Meila, then. '\n\n\"Not I,\" Duiker growled.\n\nEyes narrowed on him.\n\n\"Not yet,\" the historian added, scanning the battlefield. \"My heart tells me I shall find the body of my nephew... out there.\"\n\n\"Seek first among the survivors,\" one soldier said.\n\n\"No. My heart does not feel fear, only certainty. Goon. I shall join you before dusk.\" He swung a hard, challenging gaze to the sergeant. \"Go.\"\n\nThe man gestured mutely.\n\nDuiker watched them stride westward, knowing that should he see them again, it would be from the ranks of the Malazan army. And somehow they would be less than human then. The game the mind must play to unleash destruction. He'd stood amidst the ranks more than once, sensing the soldiers alongside him seeking and finding that place in the mind, cold and silent, the place where husbands, fathers, wives and mothers became killers. And practice made it easier, each time. Until it becomes a place you never leave.\n\nThe historian rode out into the battlefield, almost desperate to rejoin the army. It was not a time to be alone, in the heart of slaughter, where every piece of wreckage or burnt and torn flesh seemed to cry out silent outrage. Sites of battle held onto a madness, as if the blood that had soaked into the soil remembered pain and terror and held locked within it the echoes of screams and death cries." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were no looters, naught but flies, capemoths, rhizan and wasps– Hood's myriad sprites, wings fanning and buzzing in the air around him as he rode onward. Half a mile ahead a pair of riders galloped across the south ridge, heading west, their telaban whipping twisted and wild behind them.\n\nThey had passed out of his sight by the time Duiker reached the low ridge. Before him the dusty ground was rutted and churned. The column that had departed the battlesite had done so in an orderly fashion, though its width suggested that the train was huge. Nine, ten wagons abreast. Cattle. Spare mounts... Queen of Dreams! How can Coltaine hope to defend all this? Two score thousand refugees, perhaps more, all demanding a wall of soldiers protecting their precious selves– even Dassem Ultor would have balked at this.\n\nFar to the east the sky was smeared ruddy brown. Like Hissar, Sialk was aflame. But there had only been a small Marine garrison in that city, a stronghouse and compound down at the harbour, with its own jetty and three patrol craft. With Oponn's luck they'd made good their withdrawal, though in truth Duiker held little hope in that. More likely they would have sought to protect the Malazan citizens– adding their bodies to the slaughter.\n\nIt was simple enough to follow the trail Coltaine's army and the refugees had made, southwestward, inland, into the Sialk Odhan. The nearest city in which they might find succour, Caron Tepasi, was sixty leagues distant, with the hostile clans of the Tithan occupying the steppes in between. And Kamist Reloe's Apocalypse in pursuit. Duiker knew he might rejoin the army only to die with them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nevertheless, the rebellion might well have been crushed elsewhere. There was a Fist in Caron Tepasi, another in Guran. If either or both had succeeded in extinguishing the uprising in their cities, then a feasible destination was available to Coltaine. Such a journey across the Odhan, however, would take months. While there was plenty of grazing land for the livestock, there were few sources of water, and the dry season had just begun. No, even to contemplate such a journey is beyond desperation. It is madness.\n\nThat left... counterattack. A swift, deadly thrust, retaking Hissar. Or Sialk. A destroyed city offered more opportunity for defence than did steppe land. Moreover, the Malazan fleet could then relieve them– Pormqual might be a fool, but Admiral Nok is anything but. The 7th Army could not be simply abandoned, for without it any hope of quickly ending the rebellion was lost.\n\nFor the moment, however, it was clear that Coltaine was leading his column to Dryj Spring, and despite the headstart, Duiker expected to rejoin him well before then. The foremost need for the Malazans now was water. Kamist Reloe would know this as well. He had Coltaine trapped into predictability, a position no commander desired. The fewer choices the Fist possessed, the more dire was the situation.\n\nHe rode on. The sun slowly angled westward as he continued following the detritus-strewn trail, its mindless regard making Duiker feel insignificant, his hopes and fears meaningless. The occasional body of a refugee or soldier who had died of wounds lay on the trackside, dumped without ceremony. The sun had swelled their corpses, turning the skin deep red and mottled black. Leaving such unburied bodies in their wake would have been a difficult thing to do. Duiker sensed something of the desperation in that beleaguered force." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An hour before dusk a dust cloud appeared a half-league inland. Tithan horsewarriors, the historian guessed, riding hard towards Dryj Spring. There would be no peace for Coltaine and his people. Lightning raids on horseback would harry the encampment's pickets; sudden drives to peel away livestock, flaming arrows sent into the refugee wagons... a night of unceasing terror.\n\nHe watched the Tithansi slowly pull ahead, and contemplated forcing his weary mount into a canter. The tribal riders no doubt led spare mounts, however, and the historian would have to kill his horse in the effort to reach Coltaine before them. And then he could do naught but warn of the inevitable. Besides, Coltaine must know what's coming. He knows, because he once rode as a renegade chieftain, once harried a retreating Imperial army across the Wickan plains.\n\nHe continued on at a steady trot, thinking about the challenge of the night ahead: the ride through enemy lines, the unheralded approach to the Seventh's nerve-frayed pickets. The more he thought on it, the less likely seemed his chances of surviving to seethe dawn.\n\nThe red sky darkened with that desert suddenness, suffusing the air with the colour of drying blood. Moments before he lost the last of the light, Duiker chanced to glance behind him. He saw a grainy cloud, visibly expanding as it swept southward. It seemed to glitter with a hundred thousand pale reflections, as if a wind was flipping the underside of birch leaves at the edge of avast forest. Capemoths, surely in their millions, leaving Hissar behind, flying to the scent of blood.\n\nHe told himself that it was a mindless hunger that drove them. He told himself that the blots, stains and smudges in that billowing, sky-filling cloud were only by chance finding the shape of a face. Hood, after all, had no need to manifest his presence. Nor was he known as a melodramatic god– the Lord of Death was reputed to be, if anything, ironically modest. Duiker's imaginings were the product of fear, the all too human need to conjure symbolic meaning from meaningless events. Nothing more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Duiker kicked his horse into a canter, eyes fixed once more on the growing darkness ahead.\n\nFrom the crest of the low rise, Felisin watched the seething floor of the basin. It was as if insanity's grip had swept out, from the cities, from the minds of men and women, to stain the natural world. With the approach of dusk, as she and her two companions prepared to break camp for the night's walk, the basin's sand had begun to shiver like the patter of rain on a lake. Beetles began emerging, each black and as large as Baudin's thumb, crawling in a glittering tide that soon filled the entire sweep of desert before them. In their thousands, then hundreds of thousands, yet moving as one, with a singular purpose. Heboric, ever the scholar, had gone off to determine their destination. She had watched him skirt the far edge of the insect army, then vanish beyond the next ridge.\n\nTwenty minutes had passed since then.\n\nCrouching beside her was Baudin, his forearms resting on the large backpack, squinting to pierce the deepening gloom. She sensed his growing unease but had decided that she would not be the one to give voice to their shared concern. There were times when she wondered at Heboric's grasp of what mattered over what didn't. She wondered if the old man was, in fact, a liability.\n\nThe swelling had ebbed, enough so that she could see and hear, but a deeper pain remained, as if the bloodily larvae had left something behind under her flesh, a rot that did more than disfigure her appearance, but laid a stain on her soul as well. There was a poison lodged within her. Her sleep was filled with visions of blood, unceasing, a crimson river that carried her like flotsam from sunrise to sunset. Six days since their escape from Skullcup, and apart of her looked forward to the next sleep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Baudin grunted.\n\nHeboric reappeared, jogging steadily along the basin's edge towards their position. Squat, hunched, he was like an ogre shambling out from a child's bedtime story. Blunt knobs where his hands should be, about to be raised to reveal fang-studded mouths. Tales to frighten children. I could write those. I need no imagination, only what I see all around me. Heboric, my boar-tattooed ogre. Baudin, red-scarred where one ear used to be, the hair growing tangled and bestial from the puckered skin. A pair to strike terror, these two.\n\nThe old man reached them, kneeling to sling his arms through his backpack. \"Extraordinary,\" he mumbled.\n\nBaudin grunted again. \"But can we get around them? I ain't wading through, Heboric'\n\n\"Oh, aye, easily enough. They're just migrating to the next basin. '\n\nFelisin snorted. \"And you find that extraordinary?\"\n\n\"I do,\" he said, waiting as Baudin tightened the pack's straps.\"Tomorrow night they'll march to the next patch of deep sand. Understand? Like us they're heading west, and like us they'll reach the sea.\"\n\n\"And then?\" Baudin asked. \"Swim?\"\n\n\"I have no idea. More likely they'll turnaround and march east, to the other coast. '\n\nBaudin strapped on his own pack and stood. \"Like a bug crawling the rim of a goblet,\" he said.\n\nFelisin gave him a quick glance, remembering her last evening with Beneth. The man had been sitting at his table in Bula's, watching flies circle the rim of his mug. It was one of the few memories that she could conjure up. Beneth, my lover, the Fly King circling Skullcup. Baudin left him to rot, that's why he won't meet my eye. Thugs never lie well. He'll pay for that, one day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Follow me,\" Heboric said, setting off, his feet sinking into the sand so that it seemed he walked on stumps to match those at the end of his arms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He always started out fresh, displaying an energy that struck Felisin as deliberate, as if he sought to refute that he was old, that he was the weakest among them. The last third of the night he would be seven or eight hundred paces behind them, head ducked, legs dragging, weaving with the weight of the pack that nearly dwarfed him.\n\nBaudin seemed to have a map in his head. Their source of information had been precise and accurate. Even though the desert seemed lifeless, a barrier of wasting deadliness, water could be found. Spring-fed pools in rock outcroppings, sinks of mud surrounded by the tracks of animals they never saw, where one could dig down an arm-span, sometimes less, and find the life-giving water.\n\nThey had carried enough food for twelve days, two more than was necessary for the journey to the coast. It was not a large margin but it would have to suffice. For all that, however, they were weakening. Each night, they managed less distance in the hours between the sun's setting and its rise. Months at Skullcup, working the airless reaches, had diminished some essential reserve within them.\n\nThat knowledge was plain, though unspoken. Time now stalked them, Hood's most patient servant, and with each night they fell back farther, closer to that place where the will to live surrendered to a profound peace. There's a sweet promise to giving up, hut realizing that demands a journey. One of spirit. You can't walk to Hood's Gate, you find it before you when the fog clears.\n\n\"Your thoughts, lass?\" Heboric asked. They had crossed two ridge lines, arriving on a withered pan. The stars were spikes of iron overhead, the moon yet to rise.\n\n\"We live in a cloud,\" she replied. \"All our lives.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Baudin grunted. \"That's durhang talking. '\n\n\"Never knew you were so droll,\" Heboric said to the man.\n\nBaudin fell silent. Felisin grinned to herself. The thug would say little for the rest of the night. He did not take well being mocked. I must remember that, for when he next needs cutting down.\n\n\"My apologies, Baudin,\" Heboric said after a moment. \"I was irritated by what Felisin said and took it out on you. More, I appreciated the joke, no matter that it was unintended.\"\n\n\"Give it up,\" Felisin sighed. \"A mule comes out of a sulk eventually, but it's nothing you can force. '\n\n\"So,\" Heboric said, \"while the swelling's left your tongue, its poison remains. '\n\nShe flinched. If you only knew the full truth of that.\n\nRhizan flitted over the cracked surface of the pan, their only company now that they'd left the mindless beetles behind. They had seen no-one since crossing Sinker Lake the night of the Dosii mutiny. Rather than loud alarms and frenetic pursuit, their escape had effected nothing. For Felisin, it made the drama of that night now seem somehow pathetic. For all their self-importance, they were but grains of sand in a storm vaster than anything they could comprehend. The thought pleased her.\n\nNevertheless, there was cause for worry. If the uprising had spread to the mainland, they might arrive at the coast only to die waiting fora boat that would never come.\n\nThey reached a low serrated ridge of rock outcroppings, silver in the starlight and looking like the vertebrae of an immense serpent. Beyond it stretched a wavelike expanse of sand. Something rose from the dunes fifty or so paces ahead, angled like a toppled tree or marble column, though, as they came nearer, they could see that it was blunted, crooked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A vague wind rustled on the sands, twisting as if in the wake of a spider-bitten dancer. Gusts of sand caressed their shins as they strode on. The bent pillar, or whatever it was, was proving farther away than Felisin had first thought. As anew sense of scale formed in her mind, her breath hissed between her teeth.\n\n\"Aye,\" Heboric whispered in reply.\n\nNot fifty paces away. More like five hundred. The wind-blurred surface had deceived them. The basin was not a flat sweep of land, but avast, gradual descent, rising again around the object– a wave of dizziness followed the realization.\n\nThe scythe of the moon had risen above the southern horizon by the time they reached the monolith. By unspoken agreement, Baudin and Heboric dropped their packs, the thug sitting down and leaning against his, already dismissive of the silent edifice towering over them.\n\nHeboric removed the lantern and the firebox from his pack. He blew on the hoarded coals, then set alight a taper, which he used to light the lantern's thick wick. Felisin made no effort to help, watching with fascination as he managed the task with a deftness belying the apparent awkwardness of the scarred stumps of his wrists.\n\nSlinging one forearm under the lantern's handle, he rose and approached the dark monolith.\n\nFifty men, hands linked, could not encircle the base. The bend occurred seven or eight man-lengths up, at about three-fifths of the total length. The stone looked both creased and polished, dark grey under the colourless light of the moon.\n\nThe glow of the lantern revealed the stone to be green, as Heboric arrived to stand before it. She watched his head tilt back as he scanned upward. Then he stepped forward and pressed a stump against the surface. A moment later he stepped back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Water sloshed beside her as Baudin drank from a waterskin. She reached out and, after a moment, he passed it to her. Sand whispered as Heboric returned. The ex-priest squatted.\n\nFelisin offered him the bladder. He shook his head, his toadlike face twisted into a troubled frown.\n\n\"Is this the biggest pillar you've seen, Heboric? \"Felisin asked.\"There's a column in Aren... or so I've heard... that's as high as twenty men, and carved in a spiral from top to bottom. Beneth described it tome once.\"\n\n\"Seen it,\" Baudin grumbled. \"Not as wide, but maybe higher. What's this one made of, Priest? '\n\n\"Jade.\"\n\nBaudin grunted phlegmatically, but Felisin saw his eyes widen slightly. \"Well, I've seen taller. I've seen wider-\"\n\n\"Shut up, Baudin,\" Heboric snapped, wrapping his arms around himself. He glared up at the man from under the ridge of his brows. \"That's not a column over there, \"he rasped.\"It's a finger.\"\n\nDawn stole into the sky, spreading shadows on the landscape. The details of that carved jade finger were slowly prised from the gloom. Swells and folds of skin, the whorls of the pad, all became visible. So too did a ridge in the sand directly beneath it– another finger.\n\nFingers, to hand. Hand to arm, arm to body... For all the logic of that progression, it was impossible, Felisin thought. No such thing could be fashioned, no such thing could stand or stay in one piece. A hand, but no arm, nobody." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Heboric said nothing, wrapped around himself, motionless as the night's darkness faded. He held the wrist that had touched the edifice tucked under him, as if the memory of that contact brought pain. Staring at him in the growing light, Felisin was struck anew by his tattoos. They seemed to have deepened somehow, become sharper.\n\nBaudin finally rose and began pitching the two small tents, close to the base of the finger, where the shadows would hold longest. He ignored the towering monolith as if it was nothing more than the bole of a tree, and set about driving deep into the sand the long, thin spikes through the first tent's brass-hooped corners.\n\nAn orange tint suffused the air as the sun climbed higher. Although Felisin had seen that colour of sky before on the island, it had never before been so saturated. She could almost taste it, bitter as iron.\n\nAs Baudin began on the second tent, Heboric finally roused himself, his head lifting as he sniffed the air, then squinted upward. \"Hood's breath! \"he growled.\"Hasn't there been enough?\"\n\n\"What is it?\" Felisin demanded. \"What's wrong? '\n\n\"There's been a storm, \"the ex-priest said.\"That's Otataral dust.\"\n\nAt the tents, Baudin paused. He ran a hand across one shoulder, then frowned at his palm. \"It's settling, ' he said.\n\n\"We'd best get undercover-'\n\nFelisin snorted. \"As if that will do any good! We've mined the stuff, in case you've forgotten. Whatever effect it's had onus, it's happened long ago.\"\n\n\"Back at Skullcup we could wash ourselves at day's end, \"Heboric said, slinging an arm through the food pack's strap and dragging it towards the tents." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue the tale as the plot helper for the writer.\nTags: epic fantasy, war, sacrifice, journey, rebellion\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Deadhouse Gates\nChapter: 1" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Heboric said nothing, wrapped around himself, motionless as the night's darkness faded. He held the wrist that had touched the edifice tucked under him, as if the memory of that contact brought pain. Staring at him in the growing light, Felisin was struck anew by his tattoos. They seemed to have deepened somehow, become sharper.\n\nBaudin finally rose and began pitching the two small tents, close to the base of the finger, where the shadows would hold longest. He ignored the towering monolith as if it was nothing more than the bole of a tree, and set about driving deep into the sand the long, thin spikes through the first tent's brass-hooped corners.\n\nAn orange tint suffused the air as the sun climbed higher. Although Felisin had seen that colour of sky before on the island, it had never before been so saturated. She could almost taste it, bitter as iron.\n\nAs Baudin began on the second tent, Heboric finally roused himself, his head lifting as he sniffed the air, then squinted upward. \"Hood's breath! \"he growled.\"Hasn't there been enough?\"\n\n\"What is it?\" Felisin demanded. \"What's wrong? '\n\n\"There's been a storm, \"the ex-priest said.\"That's Otataral dust.\"\n\nAt the tents, Baudin paused. He ran a hand across one shoulder, then frowned at his palm. \"It's settling, ' he said.\n\n\"We'd best get undercover-'\n\nFelisin snorted. \"As if that will do any good! We've mined the stuff, in case you've forgotten. Whatever effect it's had onus, it's happened long ago.\"\n\n\"Back at Skullcup we could wash ourselves at day's end, \"Heboric said, slinging an arm through the food pack's strap and dragging it towards the tents." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She saw that he still held his other stump– the one that had touched the edifice– tight against his midriff.\n\n\"And you think that made a difference?\" she asked. \"If that's true, why did every mage who worked there die or go mad? You're not thinking clearly, Heboric-\"\n\n\"Sit there, then,\" the old man snapped, ducking under the first tent's flap and pulling the pack in after him.\n\nFelisin glanced at Baudin. The thug shrugged, resumed readying the second tent, without evident haste.\n\nShe sighed. She was exhausted, yet not sleepy. If she took to the tent, she would in all likelihood simply lie there, eyes open and studying the weave of the canvas above her face.\n\n\"Best get inside,\" Baudin said.\n\n\"I'm not sleepy. '\n\nHe stepped close, the motion fluid like a cat's.\"I don't give a damn if you're sleepy or not. Sitting out under the sun will dry you out, meaning you'll drink more water, meaningless for us, meaning get in this damned tent, lass, before I lay a hand to your backside.\"\n\n\"If Beneth was here you wouldn't-'\n\n\"The bastard's dead! \"he snarled.\"And Hood take his rotten soul to the deepest pit! '\n\nShe sneered. \"Brave now– you wouldn't have dared stand up against him. '\n\nHe studied her as he would a bloodfly caught in a web. \"Maybe I did,\" he said, a sly grin showing a moment before he turned away.\n\nSuddenly cold, Felisin watched the thug stride over to the other tent, crouch down and crawl inside. I'm not fooled, Baudin. You were a mongrel skulking in alleys, and all that's changed is that you've left the alleys behind. You'd squirm in the sand at Beneth's feet, if he were here. She waited another minute in defiance before entering her own tent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Unfurling her bedroll, she lay down. Her eagerness to sleep was preventing her from doing so. She stared up at the dark imperfections in the canvas weave, wishing she had some durhang or a jug of wine. The crimson river of her dreams had become an embrace, protective and welcoming. She conjured from memory an echo of the image, and all the feelings that went with it. The river flowed with purpose, ordered and in-exorable; when in its warm currents, she felt close to understanding that purpose. She knew she would discover it soon, and with that knowledge her world would change, become so much more than it was now. Not just a girl, plump and out of shape and used up, the vision of her future reduced to days when it should be measured in decades– a girl who could call herself young only with sneering irony. For all that the dream promised her, there was a value in self-contempt, a counterpoint between her waking and sleeping hours, what was and what could be. A tension between what was real and what was imagined, or so Heboric would put it from his acid-pocked critical eye. The scholar of human nature held it in low opinion. He would deride her notions of destiny, and her belief that the dream offered something palpable would give him cause to voice his contempt. Not that he's needed cause. I hate myself, but he hates everyone else. Which of us has lost the most?\n\nShe awoke groggy, her mouth parched and tasting of rust. The air was grainy, a dim grey light seeping through the canvas. She heard sounds of packing outside, a short murmur from Heboric, Baudin's answering grunt. Felisin closed her eyes, trying to recapture the steady, flowing river that had carried her through her sleep, but it was gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She sat up, wincing as every joint protested. The others experienced the same, she knew. A nutritional deficiency, Heboric guessed, though he did not know what it might be. They had dried fruit, strips of smoked mule and some kind of Dosii bread, brick-hard and dark.\n\nMuscles aching, she crawled from the tent into the chill morning air. The two men sat eating, the packets of rations laid out before them. There was little left, with the exception of the bread, which was salty and tended to make them desperately thirsty. Heboric had tried to insist that they eat the bread first– over the first few days– while they were still strong, not yet dehydrated, but neither she nor Baudin had listened, and for some reason he abandoned the idea with the next meal. Felisin had mocked him for that, she recalled. Unwilling to follow your own advice, eh, old man? Yet the advice had been good. They would reach the salt-laden, deathly coast with naught but even saltier bread to eat, and little water to assuage their thirst.\n\nMaybe we didn't listen because none of us believed we would ever reach the coast. Maybe Heboric decided the same after that first meal. Only I wasn't thinking that far ahead, was I? Nowise acceptance of the futility of all this. I mocked and ignored the advice out of spite, nothing more. As for Baudin, well, rare was the criminal with brains, and he wasn't at all rare.\n\nShe joined the breakfast, ignoring their looks as she took an extra mouthful of lukewarm water from the bladder when washing down the smoked meat.\n\nWhen she was done, Baudin repacked the food.\n\nHeboric sighed. \"What a threesome we are!\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You mean our dislike of each other?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Felisin asked, raising a brow. \"You shouldn't be surprised, old man, \"she continued.\"In case you haven't noticed, we're all broken in someway. Aren't we? The gods know you've pointed out my fall from grace often enough. And Baudin's nothing more than a murderer– he's dispensed with all notions of brotherhood, and is a bully besides, meaning he's a coward at heart...\" She glanced over to see him crouched at the packs, flatly eyeing her. Felisin gave him a sweet smile. \"Right, Baudin?\"\n\nThe man said nothing, the hint of a frown in his expression as he studied her.\n\nFelisin returned her attention to Heboric. \"Your flaws are obvious enough– hardly worth mentioning-\"\n\n\"Save your breath, lass,\" the ex-priest muttered. \"I don't need no fifteen-year-old girl telling me my failings. '\n\n\"Why did you leave the priesthood, Heboric? Skimmed the coffers, I suppose. So they cut your hands off, then tossed you onto the rubbish heap behind the temple. That's certainly enough to make anyone take up writing history as a profession. '\n\n\"Time to go,\" Baudin said.\n\n\"But he hasn't answered my question-'\n\n\"I'd say he has, girl. Now shut up. Today you carry the other pack, not the old man. '\n\n\"A reasonable suggestion, but no thanks.\"\n\nFace darkening, Baudin rose.\n\n\"Leave it be,\" Heboric said, moving to sling the straps through his arms. In the gloom Felisin saw the stump that had touched the jade finger for the first time. It was swollen and red, the puckered skin stretched. Tattoos crowded the end of the wrist, turning it nearly solid dark. She realized then that the etchings had deepened everywhere on him, grown riotous like vines." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's happened to you? '\n\nHe glanced over. \"I wish I knew.\"\n\n\"You burned your wrist on that statue.\"\n\n\"Not burned,\" the old man said. \"Hurts like Hood's own kiss, though. Can magic thrive buried in Otataral sand? Can Otataral give birth to magic? I've no answers, lass, for any of this.\"\n\n\"Well,\" she muttered, \"it was a stupid thing to do– touching the damned thing. Serves you right.\"\n\nBaudin started off without comment. Ignoring Heboric, Felisin fell in behind the thug. \"Is there a waterhole ahead this night?\" she asked.\n\nThe big man grunted. \"Should've asked that before you took more than your ration. '\n\n\"Well, I didn't. So, is there? '\n\n\"We lost half a night yesterday.\"\n\n\"Meaning?\"\n\n\"Meaning no water until tomorrow night.\" He looked back at her as he walked. \"You'll wish you'd saved that mouthful.\"\n\nShe made no reply. She had no intention of being honourable when the time came for her next drink. Honour's for fools. Honour's a fatal flaw. I'm not going to die on a point of honour, Baudin. Heboric's probably dying anyway. It'd be wasted on him.\n\nThe ex-priest trudged in her wake, the sound of his footfalls dimming as he fell farther back as the hours passed. In the end, she concluded, it would be she and Baudin, just the two of them, standing facing the sea at the western edge of this Queen-forsaken island. The weak always fall to the wayside. It was the first law of Skullcup; indeed, it was the first lesson she'd learned– in the streets of Unta on the march to the slaveships." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Back then, in her naivety, she'd looked upon Baudin's murder of Lady Gaesen as an act of reprehensible horror." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If he were to do the same today– putting Heboric out of his misery– she would not even blink. Along journey, this one. Where will it end? She thought of the river of blood, and the thought warmed her.\n\nTrue to Baudin's prediction, there was no waterhole to mark the end of the night's journey. The man selected as a campsite a sandy bed surrounded by wind-sculpted projections of limestone. Bleached human bones littered the bed, but Baudin simply tossed them aside when laying out the tents.\n\nFelisin sat down with her back to rock and watched for Heboric's eventual appearance at the far end of the flat plain they had just crossed. He had never lagged behind this distance before– the plain was over a third of a league across– and as the dawn's blush lightened the skyline before her, she began to wonder if his lifeless body wasn't lying out there somewhere.\n\nBaudin crouched beside her. \"I told you to carry the food pack,\" he said, squinting eastward.\n\nNot out of sympathy for the old man, then. \"You'll just have to go find it, won't you?\"\n\nBaudin straightened. Flies buzzed around him in the still-cool air as he stared eastward fora long moment.\n\nShe watched him set off, softly gasping as he loped into a steady jog once clear of the rocks. For the first time she became truly frightened of Baudin. He's been hoarding food– he has a hidden skin of water– there's no other way he could still have such reserves. She scrambled to her feet and rushed over to the other pack.\n\nThe tents had been raised, the bedrolls set out within them. The pack satin a deflated heap close by. Left in it was a wrapped pouch that she recognized as containing their first-aid supplies, a battered flint and tinderbox that she'd not seen before– Baudin's own– and, beneath a flap sewn along one edge at the bottom of the pack, a small, flat packet of deer hide." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No skin of water, no hidden pockets of food. Unaccountably, her fear of the man deepened.\n\nFelisin sat down in the soft sand beside the pack. After a moment she reached to the hide packet, loosened its drawstrings and unfolded it to reveal a set of fine thief's tools– an assortment of picks, minute saws and files, knobs of wax, a small sack of finely ground flour, and two dismantled stilettos, the needlelike blades deeply blued and exuding a bitter, caustic smell, the bone hafts polished and dark-stained, the small hilts in pieces that hinged together to form an X-shaped guard, and holed and weighted pommels of iron wrapped around lead cores. Throwing weapons. An assassin's weapons. The last item in the packet was tucked into a leather loop: the talon of some large cat, amber-coloured and smooth. She wondered if it held poison, painted invisibly on its surface. The item was ominous in its mystery.\n\nFelisin rewrapped the packet, returning it and everything else to the pack. She heard heavy footsteps approach from the east and straightened.\n\nBaudin appeared from between the limestone projections, the pack on his shoulders and Heboric in his arms.\n\nThe thug was not even out of breath.\n\n\"He needs water,\" Baudin said as he strode into the camp and laid the unconscious man down on the soft sand. \"In this pack, lass, quickly-\"\n\nFelisin did not move. \"Why? We need it more, Baudin.\"\n\nThe man paused fora heartbeat, then slipped his arms free of the pack and dragged it around. \"Would you want him saying the same, if you were the one lying here? Soon as we get off this island, we can go our separate ways. But for now, we need each other, girl.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's dying. Admit it. '\n\n\"We're all dying. \"He unstoppered the bladder and eased it between Heboric's cracked lips. \"Drink, old man. Swallow it down.\"\n\n\"Those are your rations you're giving him, \"Felisin said.\"Not mine. '\n\n\"Well,\" he said with a cold grin, \"no-one would think you anything but noble-born. Mind you, opening your legs for anyone and everyone back in Skullcup was proof enough, I suppose.\"\n\n\"It kept us all alive, you bastard.\"\n\n\"Kept you plump and lazy, you mean. Most of what me and Heboric ate came from the favours I did for the Dosii guards. Beneth gave us dregs to keep you sweet. He knew we wouldn't tell you about it. He used to laugh at your noble cause. '\n\n\"You're lying. '\n\n\"As you say,\" he said, still grinning.\n\nHeboric coughed, his eyes opening. He blinked in the dawn's light.\n\n\"You should see yourself,\" Baudin said to him. \"From five feet away you're one solid tattoo– as dark as a Dal Honese warlock. Up this close and I can see every line– every hair of the Boar's fur. It's covered your stump, too, not the one that's swollen but the other one. Here, drink some more-\"\n\n\"Bastard!\" Felisin snapped. She watched as the last of their water trickled into the old man's mouth. He left Beneth to die. Now he's trying to poison the memory of him, too. It won't work. I did what I did to keep them both alive, and they hate that fact– both of them. It eats them inside, the guilt for the price I paid. And that's what Baudin's now trying to deny. He's cutting his conscience loose, so when he slips one of those knives into me he won't feel a thing. ] ust another dead noble-born. Another Lady Gaesen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She spoke loudly, meeting Heboric's eyes.\"I dream a river of blood every night. I ride it. And you're both there, at first, but only at first, because you both drown in that river. Believe anything you like. I'm the one who's going to live through this. Me. Just me.\"\n\nShe left the two men to stare at her back as she walked to her tent.\n\nThe next night, they found the spring an hour before the moon rose. It revealed itself at the base of a stone depression, fed from below by some unseen fissure. The surface appeared to be grey mud. Baudin went down to its edge, but made no move to scoop out a hole and drink the water that would seep into it. After a moment, her head spinning with weakness, Felisin dropped the food pack from her shoulders and stumbled down to kneel beside him.\n\nThe grey was faintly phosphorescent and consisted of drowned capemoths, their wings spread out and overlapping to cover the entire surface. Felisin reached to push the floating carpet aside but Baudin's hand snapped out, closing on her wrist.\n\n\"It's fouled, \"he said.\"Full of capemoth larvae, feeding off the bodies of their parents. '\n\nHood's breath, not more larvae.\"Strain the water through a cloth, ' Felisin said.\n\nHe shook his head. \"The larvae piss poison, fill the water with it. Eliminates any competition. It'll be a month before the water's drinkable.\"\n\n\"We need it, Baudin.\"\n\n\"It'll kill you. '\n\nShe stared down at the grey sludge, her desire desperate, an agonized fire in her throat, in her mind. This can't be. We'll die without this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Baudin turned away. Heboric had arrived, weaving as he staggered down the bedrock slope. His skin was black as the night, yet shimmering silver as the etched highlights of the boar hair reflected the stars overhead. Whatever infection had seized the stump of his right wrist had begun to fade, leaving a suppurating, crackled network of split skin. It exuded a strange smell of powdered stone.\n\nHe was an apparition, and in answer to his nightmarish appearance Felisin laughed, on the edge of hysteria. \"Remember the Round, Heboric? In Unta? Hood's acolyte, the priest covered in flies... who was naught but flies. He had a message for you. And now, what do I see? Staggering into view, a man aswarm– not in flies but in tattoos. Different gods, but the same message, that's what I see. Let Fener speak through those peeling lips, old man. Will your god's words echo Hood's? Is the world truly a collection of balances, the infinite tottering to and fro of fates and destinies? Boar of Summer, Tusked Sower of War, what do you say?\"\n\nThe old man stared at her. His mouth opened, but no words came forth.\n\n\"What was that?\" Felisin cupped an ear. \"The buzzing of wings? Surely not!\"\n\n\"Fool,\" Baudin muttered. \"Let's find a place to camp. Not here. '\n\n\"Ill omens, murderer? I never knew they meant anything to you.\"\n\n\"Save your breath, girl,\" Baudin said, facing the stone slope.\n\n\"Makes no difference,\" she replied. \"Not now. We're still dancing in the corner of a god's eye, but it's only for show. We're dead, for all our twitching about. What's Hood's symbol in Seven Cities? They call him the Hooded One here, don't they? Outwith it, Baudin, what's carved on the Lord of Death's temple in Aren? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'd guess you already know, ' Baudin said.\n\n\"Capemoths, the harbingers, the eaters of rotting flesh. It's the nectar of decay for them, the rose bloating under the sun. Hood delivered us a promise in the Round at Unta, and it's just been fulfilled.\"\n\nBaudin climbed to the rim of the depression, her words following him up. Orange-tinged by the rising sun, he turned and looked down on her. \"So much for your river of blood,\" he said in a low, amused voice.\n\nDizziness washed through her. Her legs buckled and she abruptly sat down, jarring her tailbone on the hard bedrock. She glanced over to see Heboric lying huddled an arm-span away. The soles of his moccasins had worn through, revealing ravaged, glistening flesh. Was he already dead? As good as. \"Do something, Baudin.\"\n\nHe said nothing.\n\n\"How far to the coast?\" she asked.\n\n\"Doubt it would matter,\" he replied after a moment. \"The boat was to have patrolled for three or so nights, no longer. We're at least four days from the coast and getting weaker by the hour. '\n\n\"And the next water?\"\n\n\"About seven hours\" walk. More like fourteen, the shape we're in.\"\n\n\"You seemed spry enough last night!\" she snapped. \"Running off to collect Heboric. You don't seem as parched as us, either-'\n\n\"I drink my own piss.\"\n\n\"You what?\"\n\nHe grunted. \"You heard me.\"\n\n\"Not a good enough answer,\" she decided after thinking a moment. \"And don't tell me you're eating your own shit, too. It still wouldn't explain things. Have you made a pact with some god, Baudin? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You think doing something like that's a simple task? Hey, Queen of Dreams, save me and I'll serve you. Tell me, how many of your prayers have been answered? Besides, I ain't got faith in anything but me. '\n\n\"So you haven't given up yet? '\n\nShe thought he wouldn't answer, but after along minute in which she'd begun to sink into herself, he startled her awake with a blunt \"No.\"\n\nHe removed his pack, then skidded back down the slope. Something in the able economy of his movements filled her with sudden dread. Calls me plump, eyes me like apiece of flesh– not to use like Beneth did, but more as if he's eyeing his next meal. Heart hammering, she watched for the first move, a hungry flash in his small, bestial eyes.\n\nInstead he crouched down beside Heboric, pulling the unconscious man onto his back. He leaned close to listen for breath, then sat back, sighing.\n\n\"He's dead? \"Felisin asked.\"You do the skinning– I won't eat tattooed skin no matter how hungry I am.\"\n\nBaudin glanced at her momentarily, but said nothing, returning to his examination of the ex-priest.\n\n\"Tell me what you're doing, ' she finally said.\n\n\"He lives, and that alone may save us.\" He paused. \"How far you fall, girl, matters nothing tome. Just keep your thoughts to yourself.\"\n\nShe watched him peel Heboric's rotting clothing away, revealing the astonishing weave of tattooing beneath. Baudin then moved to keep his own shadow behind him before bending close to study the dark patterning on the ex-priest's chest. He was looking for something." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A raised nape,\" she said dully, \"the ends pulled down and almost touching, almost a circle. It surrounds a pair of tusks.\"\n\nHe stared, eyes narrowing.\n\n\"Fener's own mark, the one that's sacred,\" she said. \"It's what you're looking for, isn't it? He's excommunicated, yet Fener remains within him. That much is obvious by those living tattoos.\"\n\n\"And the mark?\" he asked coolly. \"How did you come to know such things?\"\n\n\"A lie I spun for Beneth,\" she explained as the man resumed his examination of the ex-priest's crowded flesh.\"I needed Heboric to support it. I needed details of the cult. He told me. You mean to call on the god. '\n\n\"Found it,\" he said.\n\n\"Now what? How do you reach another man's god, Baudin? There's no keyhole in that mark, no sacred lock you can pick.\"\n\nHe jerked at that, his eyes glittering as they bore into her own.\n\nShe didn't blink, revealed nothing.\n\n\"How do you think he lost his hands?\" Felisin asked innocently.\n\n\"He was a thief, once.\"\n\n\"He was. But it was the excommunication that took them. There was a key, you see. The High Priest's warren to his god. Tattooed on the palm of his right hand. Held to the sacred mark– hand to chest, basically– as simple as a salute. I spent days healing from Beneth's beating, and Heboric talked. Told me so many things– I should have forgotten all of it, you know. Drinking durhang tea by the gallon, but that brew just dissolved the surface, that filter that says what's important, what isn't. His words poured in unobstructed, and stayed. You can't do it, Baudin. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He raised Heboric's right forearm, studied the glistening, flushed stump in the growing light.\n\n\"You can never go back,\" she said. \"The priesthood made sure of that. He isn't what he was, and that's that.\"\n\nWith a silent snarl Baudin pulled the forearm around to push the stump against the sacred mark.\n\nThe air screamed. The sound battered them, flung them both down to scrabble, claw, mindlessly dig into the rock– away... away from the pain. Away! There was such agony in that shriek, it descended like fire, darkening the sky overhead, spreading hairline fissures through the bedrock, the cracks spreading outward from under Heboric's motionless body.\n\nBlood streaming from her ears, Felisin tried to crawl away, up the trembling slope. The fissures– Heboric's tattoos had blossomed out from his body, leapt the unfathomable distance from skin to stone– swept under her, turning the rock into something slick and greasy under her palms.\n\nEverything had begun to shake. Even the sky seemed to twist, yanked down into itself as if a score of invisible hands had reached through unseen portals, grasping the fabric of the world with cold, destructive rage.\n\nThe scream was unending. Rage and unbearable pain meshed together like twin strands in an ever-tightening rope. Closing in a noose around her neck, the sound blocked the outside world– its air, its light.\n\nSomething struck the ground, the bedrock under her shuddering, throwing her upward. She came back down hard on one elbow. The bones of her arm shivered like the blade of a sword. The glare of the sun dimmed as Felisin fought for air. Her wide eyes caught a glimpse of something beyond the basin, lifting ponderously from the plain in a heaving cloud of dust. Two-toed, a fur-snarled hoof, too large for her to fully grasp, rising up, pulled skyward into a midnight gloom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tattoo had leapt from stone to the air itself, a woadstained web growing in crazed, jerking blots, snapping outward in all directions.\n\nShe could not breathe. Her lungs burned. She was dying, sucked airless into the void that was a god's scream.\n\nSudden silence, out beyond the ringing echoes in her skull. Air flooded her, cold and bitter, yet sweeter than anything she had known. Coughing, spitting bile, Felisin pushed herself onto her hands and knees, shakily raised her head.\n\nThe hoof was gone. The tattoo hung like an after-image across the entire sky, slowly fading as she watched. Movement pulled her gaze down, to Baudin. He'd been on his knees, hands cupping the sides of his head. He now slowly straightened, tears of blood filling the lines of his face.\n\nThe ground under her feeling strangely fluid, Felisin tottered to her feet. She looked down, blinking dumbly at the mosaic of limestone. The swirling furred patterns of the tattoo still trembled, rippling outward from her moccasins as she struggled for balance. The cracks, the tattoos... they go down, and down, all the way down. As if I'm standing atop abed of league-deep nails, each nail kept upright only by the others surrounding it. Have you come from the Abyss, Fener? It's said your sacred warren borders Chaos itself. Fener? Are you among us now? She turned to meet Baudin's eyes. They were dull with shock, though she could detect the first glimmers of fear burning through.\n\n\"We wanted the god's attention, \"she said.\"Not the god himself. \"A trembling seized her. She wrapped her arms around herself, forcing more words forth.\"And he didn't want to come!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His flinch was momentary, then he rolled his shoulders in something that might have been a shrug. \"He's gone now, ain't he?\"\n\n\"Are you sure of that?\"\n\nHe shook off the need to answer, looking instead at Heboric. After a moment's study, he said,\"He breathes steadier now. Nor so wrinkled and parched. Something's happened to him.\"\n\nShe sneered. \"The reward for missing getting stomped on by a hair's breadth. '\n\nBaudin grunted, his attention suddenly elsewhere.\n\nShe followed his gaze. The pool of water was gone, drained away until only a carpet of capemoth corpses remained. Felisin barked a laugh. \"Some salvation we've had here. '\n\nHeboric slowly curled himself into a ball. \"He's here, ' he whispered.\n\n\"We know,\" Baudin said.\n\n\"In the mortal realm...\" the ex-priest continued after a moment. \"Vulnerable.\"\n\n\"You're looking at it the wrong way, \"Felisin said.\"The god you no longer worship took your hands. So now you pulled him down. Don't mess with mortals.\"\n\nEither her cold tone or brutal words in someway steeled through Heboric. He uncurled, raised his head, then sat up. His gaze found Felisin. \"Out of the mouth of babes,\" he said with a grin that knew nothing of humour.\n\n\"So he's here, \"Baudin said, looking around.\"How can a god hide? '\n\nHeboric rose to his feet. \"I'd give what's left of an arm to study afield of the Deck right now. Imagine the maelstrom among the Ascendants. This is not a fly-specked visitation, not a pluck and strum on the strands of power.\" He lifted his arms, frowning down at the stumps. \"It's been years, but the ghosts are back. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Watching Baudin's confusion was a struggle in itself.\"Ghosts? '\n\n\"The hands that aren't there, \"Heboric explained.\"Echoes. Enough to drive a man mad. \"He shook himself, squinted sunward.\"I feel better. '\n\n\"You look it,\" Baudin said.\n\nThe heat was building. In an hour it would soar.\n\nFelisin scowled. \"Healed by the god he rejected. It doesn't matter. If we stay in our tents today we'll be too weak to do anything come dusk. We have to walk now. To the next water-hole. If we don't we're dead.\" But I'll outlive you, Baudin. Enough to drive the dagger home.\n\nBaudin shouldered his pack. Grinning, Heboric slung his arms through the straps of the pack she'd been carrying. He rose easily, though taking a step to catch his balance once he straightened.\n\nBaudin led the way. Felisin fell in behind him. A god stalks the mortal realm, ) yetis afraid. He has power unimaginable, yet he hides. And somehow Heboric had found the strength to withstand all that had happened. And the fact that he's responsible. This should have broken him, shattered his soul. Instead, he bends. Could his wall of cynicism withstand such a siege for long? What did he do to lose his hands?\n\nShe had her own inner turmoil to manage. Her thoughts plundered every chamber in her mind. She still envisaged murder, yet felt a vaguely mocking wave of comradeship for her two companions. She wanted to run from them, sensing that their presence was a vortex tugging her into madness and death, yet she knew that she was also dependent on them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Heboric spoke behind her. \"We'll make it to the coast. I smell water. Close. To the coast, and when we get there, Felisin, you will find that nothing has changed. Nothing at all. Do you grasp my meaning? '\n\nShe sensed a thousand meanings to his words, yet understood none of them.\n\nUp ahead, Baudin gave a shout of surprise.\n\nMappo Trell's thoughts travelled westward almost eight hundred leagues, to a dusk not unlike this one but two centuries past. He saw himself crossing a plain of chest-high grass, but the grass had been plastered down, laden with what looked like grease, and as he walked the very earth beneath his hide boots shifted and shied. He'd known centuries already, wedded to war in what had become an ever-repeating cycle of raids, feuding and bloody sacrifices before the god of honour. Youth's game, and he'd long grown weary of it. Yet he'd stayed, nailed to a singletree but only because he'd grown used to the scenery around it. It was amazing what could be endured when in the grip of inertia. He had reached a point where anything strange, unfamiliar, was cause for fear. But unlike his brothers and sisters, Mappo could not ride that fear across the full span of his life. For all that, it had taken the horror he now approached to prise him from the tree.\n\nHe had been young when he walked out of the trader town that was his home. He was caught– like so many of his age back then– in a fevered backlash, rejecting the rotting immobility of the Trell towns and the elder warriors who'd become merchants trading in bhederin, goats and sheep, and now relived their fighting paths in the countless taverns and bars. He embraced the wandering ways of old, willingly suffered initiation into one of the back-land clans that had retained the traditional lifestyle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chains of his convictions held for hundreds of years, snapped at last in away he could never have foreseen.\n\nHis memories remained sharp, and in his mind he once again strode across the plain. The ruins of the trader town where he'd been born were now visible. A month had passed since its destruction. The bodies of the fifteen thousand slain– those that had not burned in the raging fires– had long since been picked clean by the plain's scavengers. He was returning home to bleached bone, fragments of cloth and heat-shattered brick.\n\nThe ancient shoulder-women of his adopted clan had divined the tale from the flat bones they burned, as the Nameless Ones had predicted months earlier. While the Trell of the towns had become strangers to them all, they were kin. The task that remained was not, however, one of vengeance. This pronouncement silenced the many companions who, like Mappo, had been born in the destroyed town. No, all notions of vengeance must be purged in the one chosen for the task ahead. Thus were the words of the Nameless Ones, who foresaw this moment.\n\nMappo still did not understand why he had been chosen. He was no different from his fellow warriors, he believed. Vengeance was sustenance. More than meat and water, the very reason to eat and drink. The ritual that would purge him would destroy all that he was. You will bean unpainted hide, Mappo. The future will offer its own script, writing and shaping your history anew. What was done to the town of our kin must never happen again. You will ensure that. Do you understand?\n\nExpressions of dreadful necessity. Yet, without the horrific destruction of the town of his birth Mappo would have defied them all. He'd walked the overgrown main street, with its riotous carpet of weeds and roots, and had seen the glimmer of sun-bleached bones at his feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Near the market round, he discovered a Nameless One awaiting him, standing in the clearing's centre, grey-faded robes flickering in the prairie wind, hood drawn back to reveal astern woman's visage. Pale eyes met his as he approached. The staff she held in one hand seemed to writhe in her grip.\n\n\"We do not see in years,\" she hissed.\n\n\"But in centuries,\" Mappo replied.\n\n\"It is well. Now, warrior, you must learn to do the same. Your elders shall decree it so.\"\n\nThe Trell slowly gazed around, squinting at the ruins. \"It has more the feel of a raider's army– it's said that such forces exist south of Nemil-\"\n\nHer sneer surprised him with its unveiled contempt. \"One day he shall return to his home, as you've done here and now. Until that time, you must attend-'\n\n\"Why me, damn you!\"\n\nHer answer was a faint shrug.\n\n\"And if I defy you?\"\n\n\"Even that, warrior, will demand patience.\" She raised the staff then, the gesture drawing his eye. The twisting, buckling wood seemed to reach hungrily for the Trell, growing, filling his world until he was lost in its tortured maze.\n\n\"Strange how a land untravelled can look so familiar.\"\n\nMappo blinked, the memories scattered by the sound of that familiar soft voice. He glanced up at Icarium. \"Stranger still how the mind's eye can travel so far and so fast, yet return in an instant. '\n\nThe Jhag smiled. \"With that eye you might explore the entire world.\"\n\n\"With that eye you might escape it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Icarium's gaze narrowed as he scanned the rubble-strewn sweep of desert below." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They'd climbed a tel the better to seethe way ahead. \"Your memories always, fascinate me, since I seem to have so few of my own, and more so since you have always been so reluctant to share them.\"\n\n\"I was recalling my clan,\" Mappo said, shrugging. \"It is astonishing the trivial things one comes to miss. Birthing season for the herds, the way we winnowed the weak in unspoken agreement with the plains\" wolves. \"He smiled.\"The glory I earned when I'd snuck into a raiding party's camp and broken the tips of every warrior's knife, then sneaked back outwith no-one awakening.\" He sighed. \"I carried those points in a bag for years, tied to my war belt.\"\n\n\"What happened to them?\"\n\n\"Stolen back by a cleverer raider.\" Mappo's smile broadened.\"Imagine her glory! '\n\n\"Was that all she stole?\"\n\n\"Ah, leave me some secrets, friend.\" The Trell rose, brushing sand and dust from his leather leggings. \"If anything,\" he said after a pause, \"that sandstorm has grown a third in size since we stopped.\"\n\nHands on his hips, Icarium studied the dark wall bisecting the plain. \"I believe it has marched closer, as well,\" he said. \"Born of sorcery, perhaps the very breath of a goddess, its strength still grows. I can feel it reaching out to us.\"\n\n\"Aye.\" Mappo nodded, repressing a shiver. \"Surprising, assuming that Sha'ik is indeed dead. '\n\n\"Her death may have been necessary,\" Icarium said. \"After all, can mortal flesh command this power? Can a living being stay alive being the gateway between Dryjhna and this realm?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're thinking she's become Ascendant? And in doing so left her flesh and bones behind?\"\n\n\"It's possible. '\n\nMappo fell silent. The possibilities multiplied each time they discussed Sha'ik, the Whirlwind and the prophecies. Together, he and Icarium were sowing their own confusion. And whom might that serve? Iskaral Pust's grinning face appeared in his mind. Breath hissed through his teeth. \"We're being manipulated, \"he growled.\"I can feel it. Smell it. '\n\n\"I've noted your raised hackles, \"Icarium said with a grim smile.\"For myself, I've become numb to such notions– I have felt manipulated all my life.\"\n\nThe Trell shook himself to disguise his flinch. \"And,\" he asked softly, \"who would be doing that?\"\n\nThe Jhag shrugged, glanced down with a raised eyebrow. \"I stopped asking that question long ago, friend. Shall we eat? The lesson needed here is that mutton stew is a taste superior to that of sweet curiosity.\"\n\nMappo studied Icarium's back as the warrior strode down into camp. But what of sweet vengeance, friend?\n\nThey rode down the ancient road, harried by banshee gusts of sand-filled wind. Even the Gral gelding was stumbling with exhaustion, but Fiddler had run out of options. He had no answer to what was happening.\n\nSomewhere in the impenetrable sweeps of sand to their right a running battle was underway. It was close– it sounded close, but of the combatants they could see no sign, nor was Fiddler of a mind to ride to investigate. In his fear and exhaustion, he'd arrived at a fevered, panicky conviction that staying on the road was all that kept them alive. If they left it they would be torn apart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The battle sounds were not clashing steel, nor the death cries of men. The sounds were of beasts– roars, snaps, snarls, keening songs of terror and pain and savage fury. Nothing human. There might have been wolves in the unseen struggle, but other, wholly different throats voiced their own frantic participation. The nasal groans of bears, the hiss of large cats, and other sounds– reptilian, avian, simian. And demons. Mustn't forget those demonic barks– Hood's own nightmares couldn't be worse.\n\nHe rode without reins. Both hands gripped the sand-pitted stock of his crossbow. It was cocked, a flamer quarrel nocked in place, and had been since the scrap began, ten hours ago. The gut-wound cord was weary by now, he well knew. The wider than usual spread of the steel ribs told him as much. The quarrel would not fly far, and its flight would be soft. But he needed neither accuracy nor range for the flamer to be effective. The knowledge that to drop the weapon would result in their being engulfed– he and his horse both– in raging fire, kept reminding him of that efficacy each time his aching, sweat-slick hands let the weapon slip slightly in his grip.\n\nHe could not goon much longer. A single glance back over his shoulder showed Apsalar and Crokus still with him, their horses past the point of recovery and now running until life fled their bodies. Not long now.\n\nThe Gral gelding screamed and slewed sideways. Fiddler was suddenly awash in hot liquid. Blinking and cursing, he shook the fluid from his eyes. Blood. A Fener-born Hood-damned gushing fountain of blood. It had shot out from the impenetrable air-borne sand. Something got close. Something else stopped it from getting any closer. Queen's blessing, what in the Abyss is going on?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Crokus shouted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fiddler looked back in time to see him leap clear of his collapsing mount. The animal's front legs folded under it. He watched the horse's chin strike hard on the cobbles, leaving a smear of blood and froth. It jerked its head clear in one last effort to recover, then rolled, legs kicking in the air a moment before sagging and falling still.\n\nThe sapper pried a hand loose from the crossbow, gathered the reins and drew his gelding to a halt. He swung the stumbling beast around. \"Dump the tents!\" he shouted to Crokus, who had regained his feet. \"That's the freshest of the spare mounts. Quickly, damn you! '\n\nSlumped in her saddle, Apsalar rode close. \"It's no use, \"she said through cracked lips.\"We have to stop. '\n\nSnarling, Fiddler glared out into the biting sheets of sand. The battle was getting closer. Whatever was holding them back was giving ground. He saw a massive shape loom into view, then vanish again as quickly. It seemed to have leopards riding its shoulders. Off to one side four hulking shapes appeared, low to the ground and rolling forward black and silent.\n\nFiddler swung the crossbow around and fired. The bolt struck the ground a half-dozen paces from the four beasts. Sheets of flame washed over them. The creatures shrieked.\n\nHe spared no time to watch, pulling at random another quarrel from the hardened case strapped to the saddle. He'd only a dozen quarrel-mounted Moranth munitions to start with. He was now down to nine, and of those only one more cusser. He spared a glance as he loaded the quarrel– another flamer– then resumed scanning the wall of heaving sand, leaving his hands to work by memory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shapes were showing, flashing like grainy ghosts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A dozen dog-sized winged reptiles shuddered into view twenty feet up, rising on a column of air. Esanthan'el– Hood's breath, these are D'ivers and Soletaken! A huge cape-shape swept over the esanthan'el, engulfing them.\n\nCrokus was frantically rummaging in a pack for the short sword he'd purchased in Ehrlitan. Apsalar crouched beside him, daggers glinting in her hands as she faced down the road.\n\nFiddler was about to shout that the enemy was to her left, when he saw what she'd seen. Three Gral hunters rode shoulder to shoulder in full charge, less than a dozen horse-strides from their position. Their lances lowered.\n\nThe range was too close fora safe shot. The sapper could only watch as the warriors closed in. Time seemed to slowdown as Fiddler stared, helpless to intervene. A massive bear bolted up from the side of the road, colliding with the Gral rider on the left. The Soletaken was as big as the horse it pulled down. Its jaws closed sideways around the warrior's waist, between ribs and hips, the canines sinking in almost past the far side. The jaws squeezed seemingly without effort. Bile and blood sprayed from the warrior's mouth.\n\nApsalar sprang at the other two men, flashing beneath the lanceheads, both knives thrusting up and out as she slipped between the horses. Neither Gral had time to parry. As if in mirror reflection, each blade vanished up and under the ribcage, the one on the left finding a heart, the one on the right rupturing a lung.\n\nThen she was past, leaving both weapons behind. A dive and a shoulder roll avoided the lance of a fourth rider Fiddler hadn't seen earlier. Ina single, fluid motion, Apsalar regained her feet and sprang in an astonishing surge of strength, and was suddenly sitting behind the Gral, her right arm closing around his throat, her left reaching down over the man's head, two fingers sinking deep into each eye, then yanking back in time for the small knife that suddenly appeared in her right hand to slide back across the warrior's exposed throat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fiddler's rapt attention was violently broken by something large and scaled whipping across his face, knocking him from the saddle, sending his crossbow flying from his hands. He struck the road surface in an explosion of pain. Ribs snapped, the shattered ends grinding and tearing as he rolled onto his stomach. Any thoughts of trying to rise were quickly killed as a vicious battle burst into life directly above him. Hands behind his head, Fiddler curled himself tight, willed himself smaller. Bony hooves battered him, clawed feet scored his chain armour, ravaged his thighs. One sudden push crushed his left ankle, then pivoted on what was left before lifting away.\n\nHe heard his horse screaming, not in pain, but in terror and rage. The sound of the gelding's hooves connecting with something solid was a momentary flash of satisfaction amidst the pain flooding Fiddler's mind.\n\nA huge body thumped to the ground beside the sapper, rolling to press a scaled flank against him. He felt the muscles twitching, sending sympathetic shivers through his own pummelled body.\n\nThe sounds of battle had ceased. Only the moaning wind and hissing sand was left. He tried to sit up but found he could barely lift his head. The scene was one of carnage. Immediately in front of him, within an arm's reach, stood the four trembling legs of his gelding. Off to one side lay his crossbow, flamer gone– the weapon must have discharged when it struck the ground, catapulting the deadly quarrel into the storm. Just ahead the lung-stabbed Gral lay coughing blood. Standing over him speculatively was Apsalar, the assassin's throat-slitter held loosely in one hand. A dozen paces past her, the hulking brown back of the Soletaken bear was visible, rippling as it tore at the meat of the horse it had brought down. Crokus stepped into view– he'd found his short sword but had yet to unsheathe it. Fiddler felt a wave of compassion at the expression on the lad's face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sapper reached one arm behind him, groaning with the effort. His hand found and rested against scaled hide. The twitches had ceased.\n\nThe bear roared in sudden alarm. Fiddler twisted around in time to seethe beast bolt away. Oh, Hood, if he's fleeing...\n\nThe trembling of the mare's legs increased, making them almost blurry to Fiddler's eyes, but the animal did not run, stepping only to interpose herself between the sapper and whatever was coming. The gesture rent the man's heart.\"Dammit, beast, \"he rasped.\"Get out of here! '\n\nApsalar was backing towards him. Crokus stood motionless, the sword falling unheeded from his hands.\n\nHe finally saw the newcomer. Newcomers. Like a seething, lumpy black carpet, the D'ivers rolled over the cobbles. Rats, hundreds. Yet one. Hundreds? Thousands. Oh, Hood, I know of this one.\"Apsalar! '\n\nShe glanced at him, expressionless.\n\n\"In my saddlebag,\" the sapper said. \"A cusser-\"\n\n\"Not enough,\" she said coolly. \"Too late anyway.\"\n\n\"Not them. Us.\"\n\nHer reaction was a slow blink, then she stepped up to the gelding.\n\nA stranger's voice rose above the wailing wind.\"Gryllen! '\n\nYes, that's the D'ivers's name. Gryllen, otherwise known as the Tide of Madness. Flushed out of Y'ghatan in the fire. Oh, it comes around, don't it just!\n\n\"Gryllen!\" the voice bellowed again. \"Leave here, D'ivers! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hide-bound legs stepped into view." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fiddler looked up, saw an extraordinarily tall man, lean, wearing a faded Tano telaba. His skin was somewhere between grey and green, and he held in his long-fingered hands a recurved bow and a rune-wrapped arrow nocked and ready. His long, grey hair showed remnants of black dye, making his mane appear spotted. The sapper saw the ragged tips of tusks bulging the line of his thin lower lip. A] hag. Didn't know they travelled this far east. Why in Hood's name that should matter, I don't know.\n\nThe Jhag took another step towards the heaving mass of rats that now covered what was left of the bear-killed horse and rider, and laid a hand on the shoulder of the mare. The trembling stilled. Apsalar stepped back, warily studying the stranger.\n\nGryllen was hesitating– Fiddler could not believe his eyes. He glanced again at the Jhag. Another figure had appeared beside the tall bowman. Short and wide as a siege engine, his skin a deep, warm brown, his black hair braided and studded with fetishes. If anything, his canines were bigger than his companion's, and looking much sharper. A Trell. A Jhag and a Trell. That rings a towerful of bells, if only I could get through the pain to spare it another thought.\n\n\"Your quarry has fled,\" the Jhag said to Gryllen. \"These people here do not pursue the Trail of Hands. Moreover, I now protect them.\"\n\nThe rats hissed and twittered in a deafening roar, and surged higher on the road. Dust-grey eyes glittered in a seething storm.\n\n\"Do not,\" the Jhag said slowly, \"try my patience.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A thousand bodies flinched. The tide withdrew, a wave of greasy fur. A moment later they were gone.\n\nThe Trell squatted beside Fiddler. \"You will live, soldier?\"\n\n\"Seems I'll have to, \"the sapper replied,\"if only to make some sense of what just happened. I should know you two, shouldn't I?\"\n\nThe Trell shrugged. \"Can you stand?\"\n\n\"Let's see. ' He pulled an arm under him, pushed himself up an inch, then remembered nothing more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Malazan engineers area unique breed. Cantankerous, foul-mouthed, derisive of authority, secretive and thick-headed. They are the heartstone of the Malazan Army...\n\nThe Imperial Military Senjalle\n\nAshe descended into the Orbala Odhan, Kalam came upon the first signs of the uprising. A train of Malazan refugees had been ambushed while travelling along a dried stream bed. The attackers had come from the high grass lining both banks, first with arrow fire, then a rush to close with the hapless Malazans.\n\nThree wagons had been set aflame. The assassin sat motionless on his horse, studying the smoke-hazed heaps of charred wood, ash and bone. A small bundle of child's clothing was all that remained of the victims\" possessions, a small knot of colour ten paces from the smouldering remains of wagons.\n\nAfter one last glance around in search of Apt– the demon was nowhere to be seen, though he knew it was close– Kalam dismounted. Tracks revealed that the train's livestock had been led away by the ambushers. The only bodies were those that had been burned in the wagons. His search revealed that there had been survivors, a small group abandoning the scene and fleeing south, out across the Odhan. It did not appear that they had been pursued, but Kalam well knew that there was little chance of salvation out on the plain. The town of Orbal was five, perhaps six days away on foot, and it was likely that it was in rebel hands in any case, since the Malazan detachment there had always been undermanned.\n\nHe wondered where the refugees had come from. There was little to be found for leagues in any direction.\n\nMaking a sound on the sand like the beat of a skin drum, Apt ambled into view from downstream. The beast's wounds had healed, more or less, leaving puckered scars on its black hide. Five days had passed since the D'ivers attack. There had been no sign that the shapeshifter still pursued them, and Kalam hoped that it had taken enough damage to be discouraged from persisting in the hunt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nevertheless, they were being trailed by... someone. The assassin felt it in his bones. He was tempted to lay an ambush of his own, but he was one man alone and his pursuers might be many. Moreover, he was uncertain whether Apt would assist his efforts– he suspected not. His only advantage was the swiftness of his travel. He'd found his horse after the battle without much trouble, and the animal seemed impervious to the rigours of the journey. He'd begun to suspect that an issue of pride had arisen between the stallion and the demon– his mount's bolting from the fight must have stung, and it was as if the horse was determined to recover whatever delusions of dominance he possessed.\n\nKalam climbed back into the saddle. Apt had found the trail left by the fleeing survivors and was sniffing the air, swinging its long, blunt head from side to side.\n\n\"Not our problem,\" Kalam told it, loosening the lone surviving long-knife at his belt. \"We've enough troubles of our own, Apt. ' He nudged his mount and set off in a direction that would take him well around the trail.\n\nIn deepening dusk he rode across the plain. Despite its size, the demon seemed to vanish within the gloom. A demon born in the Shadow Realm, I shouldn't be surprised.\n\nThe grassland dipped ahead– another ancient river track. Ashe approached, figures rose from cover along the nearest bank. Cursing under his breath, Kalam slowed his mount, raising both hands, palms forward.\n\n\"Mekral, Obarii,\" Kalam said. \"I ride the Whirlwind!\"\n\n\"Closer then,\" a voice replied.\n\nHands still raised, Kalam guided his horse forward with his heels and knees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mekral,\" the same voice acknowledged. A man stepped clear of the high grasses, a tulwar in one hand. \"Come join us in our feast, rider. You have news of the north?\"\n\nRelaxing, Kalam dismounted. \"Months old, Obarii. I've not spoken aloud in weeks– what stories can you tell me? '\n\nThe spokesman was simply another bandit who now marauded behind the rebellion's noble mask. He showed the assassin a gap-toothed smile.\"Vengeance against the Mezla, Mekral. Sweet as spring water, such vengeance. '\n\n\"The Whirlwind has seen no defeat, then? Have the Mezla armies done nothing?\"\n\nLeading his horse, Kalam strode with the raiders down into the encampment. It had been carelessly laid out, revealing a sloppy mind in command. A large pile of wood was about to beset alight, promising a cooking fire that would be visible across half the Odhan. A small herd of oxen had been paddocked inside a makeshift kraal just downwind of the camp.\n\n\"The Mezla armies have done nothing but die,\" the leader said, grinning. \"We have heard that but one remains, far to the southeast. Led by a Wickan with a heart of black, bloodless stone.\"\n\nKalam grunted. A man passed him a wineskin and, nodding his thanks, he drank deep. Saltoan, booty from the Mezla– probably the wagons I saw earlier. Same for the oxen. \"Southeast? One of the coastal cities?\"\n\n\"Aye, Hissar. But Hissar is now in Kamist Reloe's hands. As are all the cities but Aren, and Aren has the Jhistal within. The Wickan flees overland, chained with refugees by the thousand– they beg his protection even as they lap his blood. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not black-hearted enough, then,\" Kalam muttered.\n\n\"True. He should leave them to Reloe's armies, but he fears the wrath of the coddled fools commanding in Aren, not that they'll breathe much longer.\"\n\n\"What is this Wickan's name? '\n\n\"Coltaine. It's said he is winged like a crow, and finds much to laugh about amidst slaughter. Along, slow death awaits him, this much Kamist Reloe has promised. '\n\n\"May the Whirlwind reap every reward it's earned, ' the assassin said, drinking again.\n\n\"A beautiful horse you have, Mekral.\"\n\n\"And loyal. Beware the stranger seeking to ride him.\" Kalam hoped the warning was not too subtle for the man.\n\nThe bandit leader shrugged. \"All things can be tamed.\"\n\nThe assassin sighed, set down the wineskin. \"Are you betrayers of the Whirlwind?\" he asked.\n\nAll motion around him ceased. Off to his left the fire's bone-dry wood crackled in arising flame.\n\nThe leader spread his hands, an offended expression on his face. \"A simple compliment, Mekral! How have we earned such suspicion? We are not thieves or murderers, friend. We are believers! Your fine horse is yours, of course, though I have gold-\"\n\n\"Not for sale, Obarii.\"\n\n\"You have not heard my offer!\"\n\n\"All Seven Holy Treasures will not sway me,\" Kalam growled.\n\n\"Then no more shall be said of such matters.\" The man retrieved the wineskin and offered it to Kalam.\n\nHe accepted but did no more than wet his lips." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"These are sad times,\" the bandit leader continued, \"when trust is a rare thing among fellow soldiers. We all ride in Sha'ik's name, after all. We share a single, hated enemy. Nights such as these, granted peace under the stars amidst this holy war, are cause for celebration and brotherhood, friend.\"\n\n\"Your words have captured the beauty of our crusade,\" Kalam said. Words can so easily glide over mayhem and terror and horror, it's a wonder trust exists at all.\n\n\"You will now give me your horse and that fine weapon at your belt.\"\n\nThe assassin's laugh was a soft rumble.\"I count seven of you, four before me, three hovering behind. \"He paused, smiling as he met the bandit leader's fire-lit eyes. \"It will be a close thing, but I will be certain to kill you first, friend.\"\n\nThe man hesitated, then answered with his own smile. \"You've no sense of humour. Perhaps it is due to travelling so long without company that you have forgotten the games soldiers play. Have you eaten? We came upon a party of Mezla only this morning, and they were all too generous with their food and possessions. We shall visit them again, at dawn. There are women among them. '\n\nKalam scowled. \"And this is your war against the Mezla? You are armed, you are mounted– why have you not joined the armies of the Apocalypse? Kamist Reloe needs warriors like you. I ride south to join in the siege of Aren, which must surely come.\"\n\n\"As do we– to walk through Aren's yawning gates! \"the man replied fervently.\"And more, we bring livestock with us, to help feed our brothers in the army! Do you suggest we ignore the rich Mezla we come upon? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Odhan will kill them without our help,\" the assassin said. \"You have their oxen.\" Aren's yawning gates... the Jhistal within. What does that mean? Jhistal, not a familiar word, not Seven Cities. Falari?\n\nThe man's expression had cooled in response to Kalam's words. \"We attack them at dawn. Do you ride with us, Mekral?\"\n\n\"They are south of here?\"\n\n\"They are. Less than an hour's ride. '\n\n\"Then it is the direction I am already travelling, so I shall join you.\"\n\n\"Excellent!\"\n\n\"But there is nothing holy in rape,\" Kalam growled.\n\n\"No, not holy.\" The man grinned. \"But just.\"\n\nThey rode in the night, beneath avast scatter of stars. One of the bandits had stayed behind with the oxen and other booty, leaving Kalam riding with a party of six. All carried short recurved bows, though their supply of arrows was low– not a single quiver held more than three, and all with ragged fletching. The weapons would be effective at close range only.\n\nBordu, the bandit leader, told the assassin that the Malazan refugees consisted of one man– a Malazan soldier– two women and two young boys. He was certain that the soldier had been wounded in the first ambush. Bordu did not expect much of a fight. They would take down the men first. \"Then we can play with the women and boys– perhaps you will change your mind, Mekral.\"\n\nKalam's only response was a grunt. He knew men such as these. Their courage held so long as they outnumbered their victims, the hollow glory they thirsted for came with overpowering and terrorizing the helpless. Such creatures were common in the world, and a landlocked in war left them to run free, the brutal truths behind every just cause. They were given a name in the Ehrlii tongue: e'ptarh le'gebran, the vultures of violence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The withered skin of the prairie broke up ahead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hump-shouldered knobs of granite were visible above the grasses, studding the slopes of a series of low hills. Faint firelight blushed the air behind one such large outcropping. Kalam shook his head. Far too careless in a hostile land– the soldier with them should have known better.\n\nBordu raised a hand, slowing them to a halt about fifty paces from the monolithic outcrop. \"Keep your eyes from the hearth,\" he whispered to the others. \"Let those fools be cursed with blindness, not us. Now, spread out. The Mekral and I will ride around to the other side. Give us fifty breaths, then attack.\"\n\nKalam's eyes narrowed on the bandit leader. Coming at the camp from the opposite side, he would run an obvious risk of taking an arrow or three from these attackers in the melee. More soldier's humour, I take it. But he said nothing, pulling away when Bordu did and riding side by side on a route that would circumvent the refugees' camp.\n\n\"Your men are skilled with their bows?\" the assassin asked a few minutes later.\n\n\"Like vipers, Mekral.\"\n\n\"With about the same range,\" Kalam muttered.\n\n\"They'll not miss. '\n\n\"No doubt.\"\n\n\"You are afraid, Mekral? You, such a large, dangerous-looking man. A warrior, without doubt. I am surprised.\"\n\n\"I've a bigger surprise, \"Kalam said, reaching over and sliding a blade across Bordu's throat.\n\nBlood sprayed. Gurgling, the bandit leader reeled back in his saddle, his head flopping horribly.\n\nThe assassin sheathed his knife. He rode closer in time to prop the man backup in his saddle and hold him balanced there, one hand to Bordu's back.\"Ride with me awhile longer, \"Kalam said,\"and may the Seven Holies flay your treacherous soul. ' As they will mine, when the time comes." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Partnering with the author, carry on with the tale.\nTags: epic fantasy, war, sacrifice, journey, rebellion\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Deadhouse Gates\nChapter: 3" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Apt spoke in a rapid, rasping series of clicks and hisses.\n\n\"Of course Kalam wanted to save them!\" Shadowthrone shrieked. \"But he knew it was impossible! Only vengeance was possible! But now! Now I must exhaust my powers healing a thousand maimed children! And for what?\"\n\nApt spoke again.\n\n\"Servants? And precisely how big do you think Shadow Keep is, you one-armed imbecile!\"\n\nThe demon said nothing, her slate-grey multifaceted eye glimmering in the starlight.\n\nShadowthrone hunched suddenly, his gauzelike cloak wrapping close as he hugged himself. \"An army of servants,\" he whispered. \"Servants. Abandoned by the Empire, left to their fates at the hand of Sha'ik's bloodlusted bandits. There will be... ambivalence... in their scarred, malleable souls...\" The god glanced up at the demon. \"I see long-term benefits in your precipitous act, demon. Lucky for you!\"\n\nApt hissed and clicked.\n\n\"You wish to claim for your own the one in your clutches? And– if indeed you are to resume your guardianship of the Bridgeburner assassin– how precisely will you co-ordinate such conflicting responsibilities?\"\n\nThe demon replied.\n\nShadowthrone spluttered. \"Such nerve, you coddled bitch! No wonder you fell from the Aptorian Lord's favour! \"He fell silent, then, after a moment, flowed forward.\"Forced healing demands a price, \"Shadowthrone murmured.\"The flesh recovers while the mind writhes with the memory of pain, that bludgeon of helplessness. \"He raised a sleeve-shrouded hand to the boy's forehead. \"This child who shall ride you shall be... unpredictable.\" He hissed a laugh as the wounds began closing, as new flesh formed on the boy's ravaged face.\"What manner of eyes do you wish him to have, my dear? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Apt answered.\n\nShadowthrone seemed to flinch, then he laughed again, harsh and cold this time. \"\"The eyes are love's prism,\" are they now? Will you go hand in hand to the fishmonger's on Market Day, my dear?\"\n\nThe boy's head jerked back, bones altering shape, the twin gaping orbits merging to form a single larger one above a nose bridge that branched to either side, then ran up the outer edge of the socket in a thin, raised ridge. An eye to match the demon's blurred into existence.\n\nShadowthrone stepped back to examine his handiwork. \"Aai,\" he whispered. \"Who then is it who now looks upon me through such a prism? Abyss Below, answer not!\" The god spun abruptly to stare at the portalway. \"Cunning Quick Ben– I know his handiwork. He could have gone far under my patronage...\"\n\nThe Malazan boy clambered to sit behind Apt's narrow, jutting shoulder blade. His frail body shook with the trauma of forced healing, and an eternity nailed to across, but his ghastly face showed a slightly ironic smile in a line that perfectly matched the demon's.\n\nApt approached the portalway.\n\nShadowthrone gestured. \"Go on then, trail the ones trailing the Bridgeburner. Whiskeyjack's soldiers were ever loyal, I seem to recall. Kalam does not intend to kiss Laseen's cheeks when he finds her, of that I'm certain. '\n\nApt hesitated, then spoke one last time.\n\nA grimace entered the god's tone as he replied.\"That High Priest of mine alarms even me. If he cannot deceive the hunters on the Path of Hands, my precious realm– which has seen more than its share of intruders of late– will become very crowded indeed... \"Shadowthrone wagged his head.\"It was a simple task, after all. \"He began to drift away, his Hounds following suit.\"Can anyone find reliable, competent help these days, I wonder... '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A moment later Apt was alone, the shadows slipping away.\n\nThe portalway had begun to weaken, slowly closing the wound between the realms. The demon rasped words of comfort. The boy nodded.\n\nThey slid into the Imperial Warren." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An exquisite match of dog to master, the Wickan cattle-dog is a vicious, unpredictable breed, compact yet powerful, though by far its most notable characteristic is its stubborn will.\n\nLives of the Conquered Ilem Trauth\n\nAs Duiker strode between the large, spacious tents, a chorus of shouts erupted ahead. A moment later one of the Wickan dogs appeared, head low, a surging rush of muscle, heading straight for the historian.\n\nDuiker fumbled for his sword, already knowing it was far too late. At the last instant the huge animal dodged lithely around him, and the historian saw that it held in its mouth a lapdog, its eyes dark pools of terror.\n\nThe cattle-dog ran on, slipping between two tents and disappearing from sight.\n\nAhead of the historian, a number of figures appeared, armed with large rocks and– bizarrely– Kanese parasols. One and all, they were dressed as if about to attend a royal function, although in their expressions Duiker saw raw fury.\n\n\"You there!\" one yelled imperiously. \"Old man! Did you see a mad hound just now?\"\n\n\"I saw a running cattle-dog, aye,\" the historian quietly replied.\n\n\"With a rare Hengese roach dog in its mouth?\"\n\nA dog that eats cockroaches? \"Rare? I assumed it was raw.\"\n\nThe nobles grew quiet as gazes focused on Duiker.\n\n\"A foolish time for humour, old man,\" the spokesman growled. He was younger than the others, his honey-coloured skin and large eyes denoting his Quon Talian lineage. He was lean, with the physical assurance of a duellist– the identification confirmed by the basket-hiked rapier at his belt. Moreover, there was something in the man's eyes that suggested to Duiker that here was someone who enjoyed killing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man approached, his walk becoming a swagger. \"An apology, peasant– though I'll grant it won't save you from a beating, at least you'll stay breathing... '\n\nA horseman approached from behind at a canter.\n\nDuiker saw the duellist's eyes dart over the historian's shoulder.\n\nCorporal List reined in, ignoring the nobleman. \"My apologies, sir,\" he said. \"I was delayed at the smithy. Where is your horse?\"\n\n\"With the main herd,\" Duiker replied. \"A day off for the poor beast– long overdue.\"\n\nFora young man of low rank, List managed an impressive expression of cold regard as he finally looked down at the nobleman. \"If we arrive late, sir,\" he said to Duiker, \"Coltaine will demand an explanation.\"\n\nThe historian addressed the nobleman. \"Are we done here?\"\n\nThe man gave a curt nod. \"For now,\" he said.\n\nEscorted by the corporal, Duiker resumed his journey through the nobles'camp. When they had gone a dozen paces, List leaned over his saddle.\"Alar looked ready to call you out, Historian. '\n\n\"He's known, then? Alar. '\n\n\"Pullyk Alar-\"\n\n\"How unfortunate for him.\"\n\nList grinned.\n\nThey came to a central clearing in the encampment and discovered a whipping underway. The short, wide man with the leather cat-tail in one heat-bloated hand was familiar. The victim was a servant. Three other servants stood off to one side, their eyes averted. A few other noble-born stood nearby, gathered around a weeping woman and voicing murmurs of consolation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lenestro's gold-brocaded cloak had lost some of its brilliant sheen, and in his red-faced frenzy as he swung the cat-tail he looked like a frothing ape performing the traditional King's Mirror farce at a village fair.\n\n\"I seethe nobles are pleased by the return of their servant-folk,\" List said dryly.\n\n\"I suspect this has more to do with a snatched lapdog,\" the historian muttered. \"In any case, this stops now.\"\n\nThe corporal glanced over. \"He'll simply resume it later, sir. '\n\nDuiker said nothing.\n\n\"Who would steal a lapdog?\" List wondered, staying alongside the historian as he approached Lenestro.\n\n\"Who wouldn't? We've water but we're still hungry. In any case, one of the Wickan cattle-dogs thought it up before the rest of us– to our collective embarrassment. '\n\n\"I blame preoccupation, sir.\"\n\nLenestro noted their approach and paused his whipping, his breath loud as a bellows.\n\nIgnoring the nobleman, Duiker went to the servant. The man was old, down on his elbows and knees, hands held protectively behind his head. Red welts rode his knuckles, his neck and down the length of his bony back. Beneath the ruin were the tracks of older scars. A jewel-studded leash with a broken collar lay in the dust beside him.\n\n\"Not your business, Historian,\" Lenestro snapped.\n\n\"These servants stood a Tithansi charge at Sekala,\" Duiker said. \"That defence helped to keep your head on your shoulders, Lenestro.\"\n\n\"Coltaine stole property!\" the nobleman squealed. \"The Council so judged him, the fine has been issued!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Issued,\" List said, \"and duly pissed on.\"\n\nLenestro wheeled on the corporal, raised his whip.\n\n\"A warning,\" Duiker said, straightening. \"Striking a soldier of the Seventh– or, for that matter, his horse– will see you hung.\"\n\nLenestro visibly struggled with his temper, his arm still raised, the whip quivering.\n\nOthers were gathering, their sympathy clearly united with Lenestro. Even so, the historian did not anticipate violence. The nobles might well possess unrealistic notions, but they were anything but suicidal.\n\nDuiker spoke, \"Corporal, we'll take this man to the Seventh's healers.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" List replied, briskly dismounting.\n\nThe servant had passed out. Together they carried him to the horse and laid him belly-down across the saddle.\n\n\"He shall be returned tome once healed,\" Lenestro said.\n\n\"So you can do it allover again? Wrong, he'll not be returned to you. ' And if you and your comrades are outraged, wait till an hour from now.\n\n\"All such acts contrary to Malazan law are being noted,\" the nobleman said shrilly. \"There shall be recompense, with interest.\"\n\nDuiker had heard enough. He suddenly closed the distance to grasp Lenestro's cloak collar with both hands, and gave the man a teeth-rattling shake. The whip fell to the ground. The nobleman's eyes were wide with terror– reminding the historian of the lapdog's as it rode the hound's mouth.\n\n\"You probably think,\" Duiker whispered, \"that I'm about to tell you about the situation we're all in. But it's already quite evident that there'd belittle point. You area small-brained thug, Lenestro. Push me again, and I'll have you eating pigshit and liking it. ' He shook the pathetic creature again, then dropped him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lenestro collapsed.\n\nDuiker frowned down at the man.\n\n\"He's fainted, sir, ' List said.\n\n\"So he has.\" Old man scared you, did he?\n\n\"Was that really necessary?\" a voice asked plaintively. Nethpara emerged from the crowd. \"As if our ongoing petition is not crowded enough, now we have personal bullying to add to our grievances. Shame on you, Historian-\"\n\n\"Excuse me, sir,\" List said, \"but you might wish to know– before you resume berating the historian– that scholarship came late to this man. You will find his name among the Noted on the First Army's Column at Unta, and had you not just come late to this scene, you would have witnessed an old soldier's temper. Indeed, it was admirable restraint that the historian elected to use both hands to grip Lenestro's cloak, lest he use one to unsheathe that well-worn sword at his hip and drive it through the toad's heart.\"\n\nNethpara blinked sweat from his eyes.\n\nDuiker slowly swung to face List.\n\nThe corporal noted the dismay in the historian's face and answered it with a wink.\"We'd best move on, sir,\" he said.\n\nThey left behind a gathering in the clearing that broke its silence only after they'd entered the opposite aisle.\n\nList walked alongside the historian, leading his horse by the reins. \"It still astonishes me that they persist in the notion that we will survive this journey.\"\n\nDuiker glanced over in surprise. \"Are you lacking such faith, then, Corporal?\"\n\n\"We'll never reach Aren, Historian. Yet the fools compile their petitions, their grievances– against the very people keeping them alive. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's great need to maintain the illusion of order, List. In us all. '\n\nThe young man's expression turned wry.\"I missed your moment of sympathy back there, sir. '\n\n\"Obviously.\"\n\nThey left the nobles'encampment and entered the mayhem of the wagons bearing wounded. Voices moaned a constant chorus of pain. A chill crept over Duiker. Even wheeled hospitals carried with them that pervasive atmosphere of fear, the sounds of defiance and the silence of surrender. Mortality's many comforting layers had been stripped away, revealing wracked bones, a sudden comprehension of death that throbbed like an exposed nerve.\n\nAwareness and revelations thickened the prairie air in a manner priests could only dream of for their temples. To fear the gods is to fear death. In places where men and women are dying, the gods no longer stand in the spaces in between. The soothing intercession is gone. They've stepped back, back through the gates, and watch from the other side. Watch and wait.\n\n\"We should've gone around, ' List muttered.\n\n\"Even without that man in need on your horse,\" Duiker said, \"I would have insisted we pass through this place, Corporal.\"\n\n\"I've learned this lesson already, ' List replied, a tautness in his tone.\n\n\"From your earlier words, I would suggest that the lesson you have learned is different from mine, lad.\"\n\n\"This place encourages you, Historian?\"\n\n\"Strengthens, Corporal, though in a cold way, I admit. Never mind the games of Ascendants. This is what we are. The endless struggle laid bare. Gone is the idyllic, the deceit of self-import as well as the false humility of insignificance. Even as we battle wholly personal battles, we are unified. This is the place of level earth, Corporal. That is its lesson, and I wonder if it is an accident that that deluded mob in gold threads must walk in the wake of these wagons.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Either way, few revelations have bled back to stain noble sentiments.\"\n\n\"No? I smelled desperation back there, Corporal.\"\n\nList spied a healer and they delivered the servant into the woman's blood-smeared hands.\n\nThe sun was low on the horizon directly ahead by the time they reached the Seventh's main camp. The faint smoke from the dung fires hung like gilded gauze over the ordered rows of tents. Off to one side two squads of infantry had set to in a contest of belt-grip, using a leather-strapped skullcap fora ball. A ring of cheering, jeering onlookers had gathered. Laughter rang in the air.\n\nDuiker remembered the words of an old marine from his soldiering days. Sometimes you just have to grin and spit in Hood's face. The contesting squads were doing just that, running themselves ragged to sneer at their own exhaustion besides, and well aware that Tithansi eyes watched from a distance.\n\nThey were a day away from the River P'atha, and the impending battle was a promise that thickened the dusk.\n\nTwo of the Seventh's marines flanked Coltaine's command tent, and the historian recognized one of them.\n\nShe nodded. \"Historian.\"\n\nThere was a look in her pale eyes that seemed to lay an invisible hand against his chest, and Duiker was stilled to silence, though he managed a smile.\n\nAs they passed between the drawn flaps, List murmured, \"Well now, Historian.\"\n\n\"Enough of that, Corporal.\" But he did not glance over to nail the young man's grin, as he was tempted to do. A man gets to an age where he's wise not to banter on desire with a comrade half his age. Too pathetic by far, that illusion of competition. Besides, that look of hers was likely more pitying than anything else, no matter what my heart whispered. Put an end to your foolish thoughts, old man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Coltaine stood near the centre pole, his expression dark. Duiker and List's arrival had interrupted a conversation. Bult and Captain Lull sat on saddle-chairs, looking glum. Sormo stood wrapped in an antelope hide, his back to the tent's far wall, his eyes hooded in shadow. The air was sweltering and tense.\n\nBult cleared his throat. \"Sormo was explaining about the Semk godling,\" he said. \"The spirits say something damaged it. Badly. The night of the raid– a demon walked the land. Lightly, I gather, leaving a spoor not easily sniffed out. In any case, it appeared, mauled the Semk, then left. It seems, Historian, that the Claw had company.\"\n\n\"An Imperial demon?\"\n\nBult shrugged and swung his flat gaze to Sormo.\n\nThe warlock, looking like a black vulture perched on a fence pole, stirred slightly. \"There is precedent,\" he admitted. \"Yet Nil believes otherwise.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Duiker asked.\n\nThere was along pause before Sormo answered. \"When Nil fled into himself that night... no, that is, he believed that it was his own mind that sheltered him from the Semk's sorcerous attack... \"It was clear that the warlock was in difficulty with his words.\"The Tano Spiritwalkers of this land are said to be able to quest through a hidden world– not a true warren, but a realm where souls are freed of flesh and bone. It seems that Nil stumbled into such a place, and there he came face to face with... someone else. At first he thought it but an aspect of himself, a monstrous reflection-'\n\n\"Monstrous?\" Duiker asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A boy of Nil's own age, yet with a demonic face. Nil believes it was bonded with the apparition that attacked the Semk. Imperial demons rarely possess human familiars. '\n\n\"Then who sent it?\"\n\n\"Perhaps no-one.\"\n\nNo wonder Coltaine's had his black feathers ruffled.\n\nAfter a few minutes Bult sighed loudly, stretching out his gnarled, bandy legs. \"Kamist Reloe has prepared a welcome for us the other side of the River P'atha. We cannot afford to go around him. Therefore we shall go through him. '\n\n\"You ride with the marines,\" Coltaine told Duiker.\n\nThe historian glanced at Captain Lull.\n\nThe red-bearded man grinned. \"Seems you've earned a place with the best, old man. '\n\n\"Hood's breath! I'll not last five minutes in a line of battle. My heart nearly gave out after a skirmish lasting all of three breaths the other night-\"\n\n\"We won't be front line, \"Lull said.\"There ain't enough of us left for that. If all goes as planned we won't even get our swords nicked. '\n\n\"Oh, very well.\" Duiker turned to Coltaine. \"Returning the servants to the nobles was a mistake,\" he said. \"It seems the noble-born have concluded that you'll not take them away again if they're not fit to stand.\"\n\nBult said, \"They showed spine, those servants, at Sekala Crossing. Just holding shields, mind, but hold is what they did.\"\n\n\"Uncle, do you still have that scroll demanding compensation?\" Coltaine asked.\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"And that compensation was calculated based on the worth of each servant, in coin?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bult nodded.\n\n\"Collect the servants and pay for them in full, in gold jakatas.\"\n\n\"Aye, though all that gold will burden the nobles sorely.\"\n\n\"Better them than us.\"\n\nLull cleared his throat. \"That coin's the soldiers'pay, ain't it? '\n\n\"The Empire honours its debts,\" Coltaine growled.\n\nIt was a statement that promised to grow in resonance in the time to come, and the momentary silence in the tent told Duiker that he was not alone in that recognition.\n\nCapemoths swarmed across the face of the moon. Duiker sat beside the flaked embers of a cooking fire. A nervous energy had driven the historian from his bedroll. On all sides the camp slept, a city exhausted. Even the animals had fallen silent.\n\nRhizan swept through the warm air above the hearth, plucking hovering insects on the wing. The soft crunch of exoskeletons was a constant crackle.\n\nA dark shape appeared at Duiker's side, lowered itself into a squat, held silent.\n\nAfter awhile, Duiker said, \"A Fist needs his rest.\"\n\nColtaine grunted. \"And a historian?\"\n\n\"Never rests.\"\n\n\"We are denied in our needs,\" the Wickan said.\n\n\"It was ever thus.\"\n\n\"Historian, you joke like a Wickan.\"\n\n\"I've made a study of Bult's lack of humour.\"\n\n\"That much is patently clear.\"\n\nThere was silence between them fora time. Duiker could make no claim to know the man at his side. If the Fist was plagued by doubts he did not show it, nor, of course, would he. A commander could not reveal his flaws. With Coltaine, however, it was more than his rank dictating his recalcitrance. Even Bult had occasion to mutter that his nephew was a man who isolated himself to levels far beyond the natural Wickan stoicism." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Coltaine never made speeches to his troops, and while he was often seen by his soldiers, he did not make a point of it as many commanders did. Yet those soldiers belonged to him now, as if the Fist could fill every silent space with a physical assurance as solid as a gripping of forearms.\n\nWhat happens the day that faith is shattered? What if we are but hours from that day?\n\n\"The enemy hunts our scouts,\" Coltaine said. \"We cannot see what has been prepared for us in the valley ahead.\"\n\n\"Sormo's allies? '\n\n\"The spirits are preoccupied.\"\n\nAh, the Semk godling.\n\n\"Can'eld, Debrahl, Tithan, Semk, Tepasi, Halafan, Ubari, Hissari, Sialk and Guran. '\n\nFour tribes now. Six city legions. Am I hearing doubt?\n\nThe Fist spat into the embers. \"The army that awaits us is one of two holding the south.\"\n\nHow in Hood's name does he know this?\"Has Sha'ik marched out of Raraku, then?\"\n\n\"She has not. A mistake.\"\n\n\"What holds her back? Has the rebellion been crushed in the north?\"\n\n\"Crushed? No, it commands all. As for Sha'ik... \"Coltaine paused to adjust his crow-feather cape.\"Perhaps her visions have taken her into the future. Perhaps she knows the Whirlwind shall fail, that even now the Adjunct to the Empress assembles her legions– Unta's harbour is solid with transports. The Whirlwind's successes will prove but momentary, a first blood-rush that succeeded only because of Imperial weakness. Sha'ik knows... the dragon has been stirred awake, and moves ponderously still, yet when the full fury comes, it shall scour this land from shore to shore.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This other army, herein the south... how faraway?\"\n\nColtaine straightened. \"I intend to arrive at Vathar two days before it.\"\n\nWord must have reached him that Ubaryd has fallen, along with Devral and Asmar. Vathar– the third and last river. If we make Vathar, it's a straight run south to Aren– through the most forbidding wasteland on this Hood-Cursed continent.\"Fist, the River Vathar is still months away. What of tomorrow? '\n\nColtaine pulled his gaze from the embers and blinked at the historian. \"Tomorrow we crush Kamist Reloe's army, of course. One must think far ahead to succeed, Historian. You should understand that. '\n\nThe Fist strolled away.\n\nDuiker stared at the dying fire, a sour taste in his mouth. That taste is fear, old man. You've not got Coltaine's impenetrable armour. You cannot see pasta few hours from now, and you await the dawn in the belief that it shall be your last, and therefore you must witness it. Coltaine expects the impossible, he expects us to share in his implacable confidence. To share in his madness.\n\nA rhizan landed on his boot, delicate wings folding as it settled. A young capemoth was in the winged lizard's mouth, its struggles continuing even as the rhizan methodically devoured it.\n\nDuiker waited until the creature had finished its meal before a twitch of his foot sent it winging away. The historian straightened. The sounds of activity had risen in the Wickan encampments. He made his way towards the nearest one.\n\nThe horsewarriors of the Foolish Dog Clan had gathered to ready their equipment beneath the glare of torch poles. Duiker strode closer. Ornate boiled leather armour had appeared, dyed in deep and muddy shades of red and green. The thick, padded gear was in a style the historian had never seen before. Wickan runes had been burned into it. The armour looked ancient, yet never used." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Duiker approached the nearest warrior, a peach-faced youth busy rubbing grease into a horse's brow-guard.\"Heavy armour fora Wickan, \"the historian said.\"And fora Wickan horse as well. '\n\nThe young man nodded soberly, said nothing.\n\n\"You're turning yourselves into heavy cavalry. '\n\nThe lad shrugged.\n\nAn older warrior nearby spoke up. \"The warleader devised these during the rebellion... then agreed peace with the Emperor before they could be used.\"\n\n\"And you have been carrying them around with you all this time?\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you use this armour at Sekala Crossing? '\n\n\"Didn't need to. '\n\n\"And now?\"\n\nGrinning, the veteran raised an iron helm with new bridge and cheek-guards attached. \"Reloe's horde hasn't faced heavy cavalry yet, has it?\"\n\nThick armour doesn't make heavy cavalry. Have you fools ever trained for this? Can you gallop in an even line? Can you wheel? How soon before your horses are winded beneath all that extra weight?\"You'll look intimidating enough,\" the historian said.\n\nThe Wickan caught the scepticism and his grin broadened.\n\nThe youth set down the brow-guard and began strapping on a sword belt. He slid the blade from the scabbard, revealing four feet of blackened iron, its tip rounded and blunt. The weapon looked heavy, oversized in the lad's hands.\n\nHood's breath, one swing'll yank him from his saddle.\n\nThe veteran grunted. \"Limber up there, Temul,\" he said in Malazan.\n\nTemul immediately launched into a complex choreography, the blade blurring in his hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you intend to dismount once you reach the enemy?\"\n\n\"Sleep would have done much for your mind's cast, old man. '\n\nPoint taken, bastard.\n\nDuiker wandered away. He'd always hated the hours before a battle. None of the rituals of preparation had ever worked for him. A check of weapons and gear rarely took an experienced soldier more than twenty heartbeats. The historian had never been able to repeat that check mindlessly, again and again, as did so many soldiers. Keeping the hands busy while the mind slowly slid into a sharp-edged world of saturated colours, painful clarity and a kind of lustful hunger that seized body and soul.\n\nSome warriors ready themselves to live, some ready themselves to die, and in these hours before the fate unfolds, it's damned hard to tell one from the other. The lad Temul's dance a moment ago might be his last. That damned sword may never again leap from its sheath and sing on the end of his hand.\n\nThe sky was lightening in the east, the cool wind beginning to warm. The vast dome overhead was cloudless. A formation of birds flew high to the north, the pattern of specks almost motionless.\n\nThe Wickan camp behind him, Duiker entered the regimental rows of tents that marked the Seventh. The various elements maintained their cohesion in the encampment's layout, and each was clearly identifiable to the historian. The medium infantry, who formed the bulk of the army, were arranged by company, each company consisting of cohorts that were in turn made up of squads. They would go into battle with full-body shields of bronze, pikes and short swords. They wore bronze scale hauberks, greaves and gauntlets, and bronze helmets reinforced with iron bars wrapped in a cage around the skullcap. Chain camails protected their necks and shoulders. The other footmen consisted of marines and sappers, the former a combination of heavy infantry and shock troops– the old Emperor's invention and still unique to the Empire. They were armed with crossbows and short swords as well as long swords. They wore blackened chain beneath grey leathers. Every third soldier carried a large, round shield of thick, softwood that would be soaked for an hour before battle. These shields were used to catch and hold enemy weapons ranging from swords to flails. They would be discarded after the first few minutes of a fight, usually studded with an appalling array of edged and spiked iron. This peculiar tactic of the Seventh had proved effective against the Semk and their undisciplined, two-handed fighting methods. The marines called it puffing teeth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sappers'encampment was set somewhat apart from the others– as faraway as possible when they carried Moranth munitions. Though he looked, Duiker could not see its location, but he knew well what he'd find. Look for the most disordered collection of tents and foul-smelling vapours aswarm with mosquitoes and gnats and you'll have found Malazan Engineers. And in that quarter you'll find soldiers shaking like leaves, with splash-bum pockmarks, singed hair and a dark, manic gleam in their eyes.\n\nCorporal List stood with Captain Lull atone end of the Marine encampment, close to the attachment of loyal Hissari Guards– whose soldiers were readying their tulwars and round shields in grim silence. Coltaine held them in absolute trust, and the Seven Cities natives had proved themselves again and again with fanatic ferocity– as if they had assumed a burden of shame and guilt and could only relieve it by slaughtering everyone of their traitorous kin.\n\nCaptain Lull smiled as the historian joined them. \"Got a cloth for your face? We'll be eating dust today, old man, in plenty. '\n\n\"We will be the back end of the wedge, sir,\" List said, looking none too pleased.\n\n\"I'd rather swallow dust than a yard of cold iron, \"Duiker said.\"Do we know what we're facing yet, Lull?\"\n\n\"That's\"Captain\" to you. '\n\n\"As soon as you stop calling me'old man\", I'll start calling you by your rank. '\n\n\"I was jesting, Duiker,\" Lull said. \"Call me what you like, and that includes pig-headed bastard if it pleases you.\"\n\n\"It just might.\"\n\nLull's face twisted sourly.\"Didn't get any sleep, did you?\" He swung to List. \"If the old codger starts nodding off, you've my permission to give him a clout on that bashed-up helmet of his, Corporal. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If I can stay awake myself, sir. This good cheer is wearing me out.\"\n\nLull grimaced at Duiker. \"The lad's showing spark these days. '\n\n\"Isn't he just. '\n\nThe sun was burning clear of the horizon. Pale-winged birds flitted over the humped hills to the north. Duiker glanced down at his boots. The morning dew had seeped through the worn leather. Strands of snagged spiderwebs made a stretched, glittering pattern over the toes. He found it unaccountably beautiful. Gossamer webs... intricate traps. Yet it was my thoughtless passage that left the night's work undone. Will the spiders go hungry this day because of it?\n\n\"Shouldn't dwell on what's to come,\" Lull said.\n\nDuiker smiled, looked up at the sky. \"What's the order? '\n\n\"The Seventh's marines are the spear's point. Crow riders to either side are the flanking barbs. Foolish Dog– now a Toggthundering heavy cavalry– are the weight behind the marines. Then come the wounded, protected on all sides by the Seventh's infantry. Taking up the tail are the Hissari Loyals and the Seventh's cavalry.\"\n\nDuiker was slow to react, then he blinked and faced the captain.\n\nLull nodded. \"The refugees and herds are being held back, this side of the valley but slightly south, on a low shelf of land the maps call the Shallows, with a ridge of hills south of that. The Weasel Clan guards them. It's the safest thing to do– that clan's turned dark and nasty since Sekala. Their horse-warriors have all filed their teeth, if you can believe that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We go to this battle unencumbered,\" the historian said.\n\n\"Excepting the wounded, aye.\"\n\nCaptains Sulmar and Chenned emerged from the infantry encampment. Sulmar's posture and expression radiated outrage, Chenned's was mocking if slightly bemused.\n\n\"Blood and guts!\" Sulmar hissed, his greased moustache bristling. \"Those damned sappers and their Hood-spawned captain have done it this time!\"\n\nChenned met Duiker's gaze and shook his head.\"Coltaine went white at the news. '\n\n\"What news?\"\n\n\"The sappers lit outlast night!\" Sulmar snarled. \"Hood rot the cowards one and all! Poliel bless them with pestilence, pox their illegitimate brood with her pus-soaked kiss! Togg trample that captain's ba-'\n\nChenned was laughing in disbelief. \"Captain Sulmar! What would your friends in the Council say to such foul-mouthed cursing?\"\n\n\"Burn take you, too, Chenned! I'm a soldier first, damn you. A trickle to a flood, that's what we're facing-'\n\n\"There won't be any desertions, \"Lull said, his battered fingers slowly raking through his beard.\"The sappers ain't runaway. They're up to something, I'd hazard. It's not easy reining in that unwashed, motley company when you can't even track down its captain– but I don't imagine Coltaine will make the same mistake again. '\n\n\"He'll not have the chance, \"Sulmar muttered.\"The first worms will crawl into our ears before the day's done. It's the oblivious feast for us all, mark my words. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lull raised his brows. \"If that's as encouraging as you can manage, Sulmar, I pity your soldiers. '\n\n\"Pity's for the victors, Lull. '\n\nAlone horn wailed its mournful note.\n\n\"Waiting's over, \"Chenned said with obvious relief.\"Save me a patch of grass when you go down, gentlemen. '\n\nDuiker watched the two Seventh captains depart. He'd not heard that particular send-off in along time.\n\n\"Chenned's father was in Dassem's First Sword,\" Lull said.\n\n\"Or so goes the rumour– even when names are swept from official histories, the past shows its face, eh, old man?\"\n\nDuiker was in no mood to rise to either jibe. \"Think I'll check my gear, ' he said, turning away.\n\nIt was noon before the final positioning was completed. There had been a near riot when the refugees finally understood that the main army was to make the crossing without them. Coltaine's selection of the Weasel Clan as their escort– the horsewarriors presented a truly terrifying visage with their threaded skin, black tattooing and filed teeth– proved his cunning yet again, although the Weasel riders almost took it too far with their bloodthirsty taunts flung at the very people they were sworn to protect. Desultory calm was established, despite the frenzied, fear-stricken efforts of the noble-born's Council and their seemingly inexhaustible capacity to deliver protests and writs.\n\nWith the main force finally assembled, Coltaine issued the command to move forward.\n\nThe day was blisteringly hot, the parched ground rising in clouds of dust as soon as the brittle grass was worn away by hooves and tramping boots. Lull's prediction of eating dust proved depressingly accurate, as Duiker once more raised his tin belt-flask to his lips, letting water seep into his mouth and down the dry gully of his throat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Marching on his left was Corporal List, his face caked white, helmet sliding down over his sweat-sheened forehead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the historian's right strode the veteran marine– he did not know her name, nor would he ask. Duiker's fear of what was to come had spread through him like an infection. His thoughts felt fevered, spinning around an irrational terror of... of knowledge. Of the details that remind one of humanity. Names to faces are like twinned serpents threatening the most painful bite of all. I'll never return to the List of the Fallen, because I see now that the unnamed soldier is a gift. The named soldier– dead, melted wax– demands a response among the living... a response no-one can make. Names are no comfort, they're a call to answer the unanswerable. Why did she die, not him? Why do the survivors remain anonymous– as if cursed– while the dead are revered? Why do we cling to what we lose while we ignore what we still hold?\n\nName none of the fallen, for they stood in our place, and stand there still in each moment of our lives. Let my death hold no glory, and let me die forgotten and unknown. Let it not be said that I was one among the dead to accuse the living.\n\nThe River P'atha bisected a dry lake bed two thousand paces east to west and over four thousand north to south. As the vanguard reached the eastern ridge and proceeded down into the basin, Duiker was presented with a panoramic view of what would become the field of battle.\n\nKamist Reloe and his army awaited them, the glitter of iron vast and bright in the morning glare, city standards and tribal pennons hanging dull and listless above the sea of peaked helms. The arrayed soldiers rustled and rippled as if tugged by unseen currents. Their numbers were staggering.\n\nThe river was a thin, narrow strip six hundred paces ahead, studded with boulders and lined in thorny brush on both sides. A trader track marked the traditional place of crossing, then wound westward to what had once been a gentle slope to the opposite ridge– but Reloe's sappers had been busy: a ramp of sandy earth had been constructed, the natural slope to either side carved away to create a steep, high cliff. To the south of the lake bed was a knotted jumble of arroyos, basoliths, screes and jagged outcroppings; to the north rose a serrated ridge of hills bone white under the sun. Kamist Reloe had made sure there was only one point of exit westward, and at the summit waited his elite forces." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hood's breath! \"muttered Corporal List.\"The bastard's rebuilt Gelor Ridge, and look to the south, sir, that column of smoke– that was the garrison at Melm.\"\n\nSquinting that way, Duiker saw another feature closer at hand. Set atop a pinnacle looming over the southeast end of the lake bed was a fortress. \"Who did that belong to?\" he wondered aloud.\n\n\"A monastery,\" List said. \"According to the only map that showed it.\"\n\n\"Which Ascendant?\"\n\nList shrugged. \"Probably one of the Seven Holies.\"\n\n\"If there's anyone still in there, they'll get quite a view of what's to come. '\n\nKamist Reloe had positioned forces down and to either side of his elite companies, blocking the north and south ends of the basin. Standards of the Sialk, Halafan, Debrahl and Tithansi contingents rose from the southern element; Ubari the northern. Each of the three forces outnumbered Coltaine's by a large margin. A roar began building from the army of the Apocalypse, along with a rhythmic clash of weapons on shields.\n\nThe marines marched towards the crossing in silence. Voices and clangour rolled over them like a wave. The Seventh did not falter.\n\nGods below, what will come of this?\n\nThe River P'atha was an ankle-deep trickle of warm water, less than a dozen paces across. Algae covered the pebbles and stones of the bottom. The larger boulders were splashed white with guano. Insects buzzed and danced in the air. The river's cool breath vanished as soon as Duiker stepped onto the opposite bank, the basin's baked heat sweeping over him like a cloak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sweat soaked the quilted undergarment beneath his chain hauberk; it ran down in dirty runnels beneath gauntlets and into the historian's palms. He tightened his grip on the shield strap, his other hand resting on the pommel of his short sword. His mouth was suddenly bone dry, though he resisted the urge to drink from his flask. The air stank of the soldiers he followed, a miasma of sweat and fear. There was a sense of something else, as well, a strange melancholy that seemed to accompany the relentless forward motion of the company.\n\nDuiker had known that sense before, decades ago. It was not defeat, nor desperation. The sadness arose from whatever lay beyond such visceral reactions, and it felt measured and all too aware.\n\nWe go to partake of death. And it is in these moments, before the blades are unsheathed, before blood wets the ground and screams fill the air, that the futility descends upon us all. Without our armour, we would all weep, I think. How else to answer the impending promise of incalculable loss?\n\n\"Our swords will be well notched this day,\" List said beside him, his voice dry and breaking. \"In your experience, sir, what's worse– dust or mud? '\n\nDuiker grunted. \"Dust chokes. Dust blinds. But mud slips the world from under your feet.\" And we'll have mud soon enough, when enough blood and bile and piss have soaked the ground. An equal measure of both curses, lad.\"Your first battle, then? '\n\nList grimaced. \"Attached to you, sir, I've not been in the thick of things yet. '\n\n\"You sound resentful.\"\n\nThe corporal said nothing, but Duiker understood well enough. The soldier's companions had all gone through their first blooding, and that was a threshold both feared and anticipated. Imagination whispered untruths that only experience could shatter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nevertheless, the historian would have preferred a more remote vantage point. Marching with the ranks, he could see nothing beyond the press of humanity around him. Why did Coltaine put me here? He's taken from me my eyes, damn him.\n\nThey were a hundred paces from the ramp. Horsewarriors galloped across the front of the flanking enemy forces, ensuring that all held position. The drumming shields and screams of rage promised blood and would not beheld in check for much longer. Then we will be assailed from three sides, and an effort will be made to cut us away from the Seventh's infantry while they struggle to defend the wounded. They'll behead the serpent, if they can.\n\nThe Crow horsewarriors were readying bows and lances to either side, heads turned and fixed on the enemy positions. A horn announced the command to ready shields, the front line locking while the centre and rear lofted theirs overhead. Archers were visible, scrambling into position at the top of the ramp.\n\nThere was no wind, the motionless air heavy.\n\nIt may have been disbelief that held the flanking forces back. Coltaine had displayed no reaction to the enemy's positions and strength; indeed the Seventh simply marched on and, reaching the ramp, began the ascent without pause.\n\nThe slope was soft, boulders and sand, deliberately treacherous underfoot. Soldiers stumbled.\n\nSuddenly arrows filled the sky, sweeping down like rain. Horrendous clattering racketed over Duiker's head as shafts snapped, skidded across the upraised shields, some slipping through to strike armour and helms, some piercing flesh. Voices grunted beneath the turtle's back. Cobbles pitched underfoot. Yet the carapaced wedge climbed on without pause." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The historian's elbows buckled as an arrow struck his shield a solid blow. Three more rapped down in quick succession, all glancing impacts that then skittered away across other shields.\n\nThe air beneath the shields grew sour and turgid– sweat, urine and a growing anger. An attack that could not be answered was a soldier's nightmare. The determination to reach the crest, where waited howling Semk and Guran heavy infantry, burned like a fever. Duiker knew that the marines were being driven towards a threshold. The first contact would be explosive.\n\nThe ramp was banked on either side closer to the ridge, steep and high, its top flattened and broad across. Warriors from a tribe Duiker could not identify– Can'eld? – began assembling on the banks and readying shorthorn bows. They'll fire down onus from both sides once we lock with the Semk and Guran. An enfilade.\n\nBult rode with the flanking Crow horsewarriors, and the historian clearly heard the veteran's bellowing command. Ina flash of dust andiron, riders wheeled and swept towards the banks. Arrows flew. The Can'eld– caught by the swiftness of the Wickan response– scattered. Bodies fell, tumbling down to the ramp. The Crow warriors rode along the ditch, raking the high bank with murderous missile fire. Within moments the flattop was clear of standing tribesmen.\n\nA second shout reined in the horsewarriors, their lead riders less than a dozen paces from the bristling line of Semk and Guran. The sudden halt drew the wild Semk forward. Throwing axes flew end over end through the intervening space. Arrows darted in return fire.\n\nThe forward tip of the wedge surged as the marines saw the disorder in the enemy front line. Crow riders spun their horses, rising high in their saddles as they careered to avoid being pinned between the closing footsoldiers and inadvertently breaking up the marines' momentum. They pulled clear with moments to spare." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wedge struck.\n\nThrough the shield Duiker felt the impact's thunder, a resounding roll that jarred his bones. He could see little from his position apart from a small patch of blue sky directly above the heads of the soldiers, and into that air spun a snapped pike-shaft and a helm that might have still held in its strap a bearded jaw, before dust rose up in an impenetrable shroud.\n\n\"Sir!\" A hand tugged at his shield arm. \"You're to turn now! '\n\nTurn? Duiker glared at List.\n\nThe corporal pulled him round. \"So you can see, sir-\"\n\nThey were standing in the next to last line of the wedge. A space often paces yawned between the marines and the mounted, arcanely armoured Foolish Dog horsewarriors, who stood motionless, heavy swords bared and resting crossways across their saddles. Beyond them, the basin stretched– the historian's position high on the earthen ramp afforded him a view of the rest of the battle.\n\nTo the south were closed ranks of Tithansi archers supported by Debrahl cavalry. Legions of Halafan infantry marched east of them– to their right– and in their midst a company of Sialk heavy infantry. Further east were more cavalry and archers. One jaw, and to the north, the other. Now inexorably snapping shut.\n\nHe looked to the north. The Ubari legions– at least three– along with Sialk and Tepasi cavalry, were less than fifty paces from contacting the Seventh's infantry. Among the standards jutting from the Ubari, Duiker saw a flash of grey and black colours. Marine-trained locals, now there's irony for you." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "East of the river a huge battle was underway, if the vast pall of drifting dust was any indication. The Weasel Clan had found their fight after all. The historian wondered which of Kamist Reloe's forces had managed to circle round. A strike for the herds, and the gift of slaughter among the refugees. Hold fast, Weasels, you'll get no relief from the rest of us.\n\nJostling from the soldiers around him brought Duiker's attention back to his immediate surroundings. The clash of weapons and screams from the ridge was growing as the wedge slowly flattened out against an anvil of stiff, disciplined resistance. The first reeling knock-back rippled through the press.\n\nTogg's three masks of war. Before the day's done we'll each of us wear them all. Terror, rage and pain. We won't take the ridge-\n\nA deeper roar sounded in the basin behind them. The historian twisted around. The jaws had closed. The Seventh's hollow box around the wagons of the wounded was crumpling, writhing, like a worm beset by ants. Duiker stared, a wave of dread rising within him, expecting to see that box disintegrate, torn apart by the ferocity assailing it.\n\nThe Seventh resisted, impossible though it seemed to the historian's mind. On all sides the enemy reared back as if those jaws had closed on poisonous thorns and the instinct was to flinch away. There was a pause, a visceral chill that kept the two sides apart– the space between them carpeted with the dead and dying– then the Seventh did the unexpected. Ina silence that raised the hair on the historian's nape, they rushed forward, the box bulging, distorting into an oval, pikes levelled.\n\nEnemy ranks crumbled, melted, suddenly broke." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stop!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Too far! Too thin! Stop!\n\nThe oval stretched, paused, then drew back with a measured precision that was almost sinister– as if the Seventh had become some kind of mechanism. And they'll do it again. Little surprise the next time, but likely just as deadly. Like a lung drawing breath, a rhythm of calm sleep, again and again.\n\nHis attention was snared by movement among the Foolish Dog. Nil and Nether had emerged from the front line, on foot, the latter leading a Wickan mare. The animal's head was high, ears pricked forward. Sweat glistened on its ruddy flanks.\n\nThe two warlocks halted to either side of the mare, Nether leaving the reins to dangle, and laid hands on the beast.\n\nA moment later Duiker was stumbling, as the rear lines of the wedge were pulled forward, up the ramp, as if carried on an indrawn breath.\n\n\"Ready close weapons!\" a sergeant shouted nearby.\n\nOh, Hood's wet dream-\n\n\"This is it,\" List said beside him, his voice as taut as a bowstring.\n\nThere was no time fora reply, no time for thought itself, for suddenly they were among the enemy. Duiker caught a flash of the scene before him. A soldier stumbling and cursing, his helm slipped down over his eyes. A sword flying through the air. A shrieking Semk warrior being pulled backward by his braid, his scream cut to a wet gurgle as the point of a short sword burst from under his chest amidst a coiled mass of intestines. A woman marine wheeling from an attack, her own urine splattering the tops of her boots. And everywhere... Togg's three masks and a cacophony of noise, throats making sounds they were never meant to make, blood gushing, people dying– everywhere, people dying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ware your right!\"\n\nDuiker recognized the voice– his nameless marine companion– and pivoted in time to parry a spear blade, his short sword skittering along the tin-sheathed shaft. He stepped in past the thrust and drove his sword point into a Semk woman's face. She sank down in red ruin, but it was the historian's cry of pain that ripped the air, a savage piercing of his soul. He stumbled back and would have fallen if not fora solid shield thudding against his back. The unnamed woman's voice was close by his ear.\"Tonight I'll ride you till you beg, old man!\"\n\nIn that baffling twist that was the human mind, Duiker mentally wrapped himself around those words, not in lust, but as a drowning man clings to a mooring pole. He drew a sobbing breath, straightened away from the shield's support, stepped forward.\n\nAhead battled the front line of marines, horribly thinned, yielding step after step as the Guran heavy infantry pushed down the slope. The wedge was about to shatter.\n\nSemk warriors ranged in the midst of the marines in wild, frenzied mayhem, and it was these ash-stained warriors that the rear ranks had been driven forward to deal with.\n\nThe task was quickly done, brutal discipline more than a match for individual warriors who held no line, offered no support weapon-side, and heard no voice except their own manic battle cries.\n\nFor all that sudden deliverance, the marines began to buckle.\n\nThree horns sounded in quick, braying succession: the Imperial call to split. Duiker gaped, spun round to look for List– but the corporal was nowhere insight. He saw his marine companion and staggered over to her. \"Four's the withdraw, were there four blasts? I heard-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She bared her teeth. \"Three, old man. Split! Now!\"\n\nShe pulled away. Baffled, Duiker followed. The slope was treacherous, blood-and bile-soaked mud over shifting cobbles. They stumbled with the others this side of the divide– the south– towards the high bank, and descended into the narrow ditch, finding themselves ankle-deep in a stream of blood.\n\nThe Guran heavy infantry had paused, sensing a trap– no matter how improbable events had made that possibility– as they shuffled to close ranks four strides down from the crest. A ram's horn bleated, pulling the formation back to the summit in ragged back-step.\n\nDuiker turned in time to see, seventy paces farther down the ramp, the Foolish Dog heavy cavalry edging forward, parting around Nil and Nether, who still stood on either side of the stationary mare, their hands pressed against the animal.\n\n\"Lord's push, ' cursed the woman at his side.\n\nThey mean to charge up this ramp, with its bodies and wreckage and mud and stones. A slope steep enough to force the riders onto their mounts'necks– and all that weight onto their forelegs. Coltaine means them to charge. Into the face of heavy infantry-\"No! ' the historian whispered.\n\nRocks and sand pattered down the bank. Around Duiker helmed heads turned in sudden alarm– someone was on the bank's top. More dirt slewed down on them.\n\nA stream of Malazan curses sounded from above, then a helmed head peered over the edge.\n\n\"It's a Hood-damned sapper! ' one of the marines grunted.\n\nThe dirt-smeared face above them grinned. \"Guess what turtles do in the winter?\" he shouted down, then pulled back and out of sight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Duiker glanced back at the Foolish Dog horsewarriors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their forward motion had ceased, as if suddenly uncertain. The Wickans had their heads raised, gazes fixed on the tops of the banks to either side.\n\nThe Guran heavy infantry and surviving Semk stared as well.\n\nThrough the dust rolling down the ramp from the crest, Duiker squinted towards the north bank. Activity swarmed along it– sappers, wearing shields on their backs, had begun moving forward, dropping down onto the ramp in the body-piled space below the crest.\n\nAnother horn sounded, and the Foolish Dog horsewarriors rolled forward again, pushing their mounts into a trot, then a clambering canter. But now a company of sappers blocked their path to the ridge.\n\nA turtle burrows come winter. The bastards snuck onto the banks last night– under the very noses of Reloe– and buried them. \"selves. What in Hood's name for?\n\nThe sappers, still wearing their shields on their backs, milled about, preparing weapons and other gear. One stepped free to wave the Foolish Dog riders forward.\n\nThe ramp trembled.\n\nThe armour-clad horses surged up the steep slope in an explosion of muscle, swifter than the historian thought possible. Broadswords lifted skyward. In their arcane, bizarre armour, the Wickans sat their saddles like demonic conjurations above equally nightmarish mounts.\n\nThe sappers rushed the Guran line. Grenados flew, followed by the rap of explosions and dreadful screams.\n\nEvery munition left to the sappers arced a path into the press of heavy infantry. Sharpers, burners, flamers. The solid line of Reloe's elite soldiers disintegrated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Foolish Dog's galloping charge reached the sappers, who went down beneath the hooves in resounding clangs that beat a dreadful rhythm as horse after horse surged over them.\n\nInto the gutted, chaotic maelstrom that had moments before been a solid line of heavy infantry, the Wickan horse-warriors cleared the crest and plunged, broadswords swinging down in fearful slaughter.\n\nAnother signal wailed above the din.\n\nThe woman at Duiker's side rapped a gauntleted hand against his chest.\"Forward, old man! '\n\nHe took a step, then hesitated. Aye, time for the soldier to go forward. But I'm a historian– I have to see, I have to witness, and to Hood with arrow-fire!\"Not this time, ' Duiker said, turning to scramble his way up the embankment.\n\n\"See you tonight!\" she shouted after him, before joining the rest of the marines as they marched forward.\n\nDuiker pulled himself to the top, gaining a mouthful of sandy earth in the bargain. Coughing and gagging, he pushed himself to his feet, then looked around.\n\nThe bank's flat surface was honeycombed with angled shafts. Cocoons of tent cloth lay half in, half out of some of the man-sized holes. The historian stared at them a moment longer in disbelief, then swung his attention to the ramp.\n\nThe marines' forward momentum had been stalled by the retrieval of the trampled sappers. There were broken bones aplenty, Duiker could see, but the shields– now battered into so much scrap– and their dented helms had for the most part protected the crazed soldiers.\n\nBeyond the crest, on the flatland to the west, the Foolish Dog horsewarriors pursued the routed remnants of Kamist Reloe's vaunted elites. The commander's own tent, situated on a low hill a hundred paces from the crest, was sinking beneath flames and smoke. Duiker suspected that the rebel High Mage had set that fire himself, destroying anything of potential use to Coltaine before fleeing through whatever paths his warren offered him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Duiker turned to survey the basin.\n\nThe battle down there still raged. The Seventh's ring of defence around the wagons of the wounded remained, though distorted by a concerted, relentless push from the Ubari heavy infantry on the northern side. The wagons themselves were rolling southward. Tepasi and Sialk cavalry harried the rearguard, where the Hissari Loyals stood fast... and died by the score.\n\nWe could lose this one yet.\n\nA double blast of horns from the crest commanded the Foolish Dog's recall. Duiker could see Coltaine, his black feather cape grey with dust, sitting astride his charger on the crest. The historian saw him gesture to his staff and the recall horns sounded again, in quicker succession. We need you now!\n\nBut those mounts will be spent. They did the impossible. They charged uphill, with a speed that grew and grew, with a speed like nothing I have ever seen before. The historian frowned, then spun around.\n\nNil and Nether still stood to either side of the lone mare. Alight wind was ruffling the beast's mane and tail, but it did not otherwise move. A ripple of unease chilled Duiker. What have they done?\n\nDistant howling caught the historian's attention. A large mounted force was crossing the river, their standards too distant to discern their identity. Then Duiker spied small tawny shapes streaming out ahead of the riders. Wickan cattle\" dogs. That's the Weasel Clan.\n\nThe horsewarriors broke into a canter as they cleared the riverbed.\n\nThe Tepasi and Sialk cavalry were caught completely unawares, first by a wave of ill-tempered dogs that ignored horses to fling themselves at riders, sixty snarling pounds of teeth and muscle dragging soldiers from their saddles, then by the Wickans themselves, who announced their arrival by launching severed heads through the air before them and raising an eerie, blood-freezing cry a moment before striking the cavalry's flank." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Within a score of heartbeats the Tepasi and Sialk riders were gone– dead or dying or in full flight. The Weasel horsewarriors barely paused in re-forming before wheeling at a canter to close with the Ubari, the mottle-coated cattle-dogs loping alongside them.\n\nThe enemy broke on both sides, flinching away with a timing that, although instinctive, was precise.\n\nFoolish Dog riders poured back down the ramp, parting around the warlocks and their motionless horse, then wheeling to the south in pursuit of the fleeing Halafan and Sialk infantry and the Tithansi archers.\n\nDuiker sank to his knees, suddenly overwhelmed, his emotions a cauldron of grief, anger and horror. Speak not of victory this day. No, do not speak at all.\n\nSomone stumbled onto the bank, breath ragged. Footsteps dragged closer, then a gauntleted hand fell heavily on the historian's shoulder. A voice that Duiker struggled to identify spoke.\"They mock our noble-born, did you know that, old man? They've a name for us in Dhebral. You know what it translates into? The Chain of Dogs. Coltaine's Chain of Dogs. He leads, yetis led, he strains forward, yetis held back, he bares his fangs, yet what nips at his heels if not those he is sworn to protect? Ah, there's profundity in such names, don't you think? '\n\nThe voice was Lull's, yet altered. Duiker raised his head and stared into the face of the man crouched beside him. A single blue eye glittered from a ravaged mass of torn flesh. A mace had caught him a solid blow, driving the cheek guard into his face, shattering cheek, bursting one eye and tearing away the captain's nose. The horrifying ruin that was Lull's face twisted into something like a grin.\"I'm a lucky man, Historian. Look, not a single tooth knocked out– not even a wobble.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The count of losses was a numbing litany to war's futility." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To the historian's mind, only Hood himself could smile in triumph.\n\nThe Weasel Clan had awaited the Tithansi lancers and the godling commander who led them. An ambush by earth spirits had taken the Semk warleader down, tearing his flesh to pieces in their hunger to rip apart and devour the Semk god's remnant. Then the Weasel Clan had sprung their own trap, and it had held its own horror, for the refugees had been the bait, and hundreds had been killed or wounded in the trap's clinical, cold-blooded execution.\n\nThe Weasel Clan's warleaders could claim that they had been outnumbered four to one, that some among those they were sworn to protect had been sacrificed to save the rest. All true, and providing a defensible justification for what they did. Yet the warleaders said nothing, and though that silence was met with outrage by the refugees and especially by the Council of Nobles, Duiker saw it in a different light. The Wickan tribe held voiced reasons and excuses in contempt– they accepted none from others and were derisive of those who tried. And in turn, they offered none, because, Duiker suspected, they held those who were sacrificed– and their kin– in a respect that could not survive something so base and self-serving as its utterance.\n\nIt was unfortunate for them that the refugees understood none of this, that for them the Wickans' silence was in itself an expression of contempt, a disdain for the lives lost.\n\nThe Weasel Clan had, however, offered yet another salute to those refugees who had died. With the slaughter of the Tithansi archers in the basin added to the Weasel Clan's actions, an entire plains tribe had effectively ceased to exist. The Wickans\" retribution had been absolute. Nor had they stopped there, for they had found Kamist's peasant army, arriving late to the battle from the east. The slaughter exacted there was a graphic revelation of the fate the Tithansi sought to inflict on the Malazans. This lesson, too, was lost on the refugees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For all that scholars tried, Duiker knew there was no explanation possible for the dark currents of human thought that roiled in the wake of bloodshed. He need only look upon his own reaction, when stumbling down to where Nil and Nether stood, their hands gummed with congealing sweat and blood on the flanks of a mare standing dead. Life forces were powerful, almost beyond comprehension, and the sacrifice of one animal to gift close to five thousand others with appalling strength and force of will was on the face of it worthy and noble.\n\nIf not fora dumb beast's incomprehension at its own destruction beneath the loving hands of two heartbroken children.\n\nThe Imperial Warren's horizon was a grey shroud on all sides. Details were blurred behind the gauze of the still, thick air. No wind stirred, yet echoes of death and destruction remained, suspended as if trapped outside time itself.\n\nKalam settled back in his saddle, eyes on the scene before him.\n\nAshes and dust shrouded the tiled dome. It had collapsed in one place, revealing the raw edges of the bronze plates that covered it. A grey haze layover the gaping hole. From the dome's curvature, it was clear that less than a third of it was above the surface.\n\nThe assassin dismounted. He paused to pluck at the cloth wrapped over his nose and mouth to loosen the caked grit, glanced back at the others, then approached the structure.\n\nSomewhere beneath their feet stood a palace or a temple. Reaching the dome, the assassin leaned forward and brushed the ash from one of the bronze tiles. A deeply carved symbol revealed itself.\n\nA breath of cold recognition swept through him. He had last seen that stylized crown on another continent, in an unexpected war against resistance that had been purchased by desperate enemies. Caladan Brood and Anomander Rake, and the Rhivi and the Crimson Guard. A gathering of disparate foes to challenge the Mahzan Empire's plans for conquest. The Free Cities of Genabackis were a squabbling, back-stabbing lot. Gold-hungry rulers and thieving factors squealed loudest at the threat to their freedom..." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Advance the storyline as the writer's tale partner.\nTags: epic fantasy, war, sacrifice, journey, rebellion\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Deadhouse Gates\nChapter: 4" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For all that scholars tried, Duiker knew there was no explanation possible for the dark currents of human thought that roiled in the wake of bloodshed. He need only look upon his own reaction, when stumbling down to where Nil and Nether stood, their hands gummed with congealing sweat and blood on the flanks of a mare standing dead. Life forces were powerful, almost beyond comprehension, and the sacrifice of one animal to gift close to five thousand others with appalling strength and force of will was on the face of it worthy and noble.\n\nIf not fora dumb beast's incomprehension at its own destruction beneath the loving hands of two heartbroken children.\n\nThe Imperial Warren's horizon was a grey shroud on all sides. Details were blurred behind the gauze of the still, thick air. No wind stirred, yet echoes of death and destruction remained, suspended as if trapped outside time itself.\n\nKalam settled back in his saddle, eyes on the scene before him.\n\nAshes and dust shrouded the tiled dome. It had collapsed in one place, revealing the raw edges of the bronze plates that covered it. A grey haze layover the gaping hole. From the dome's curvature, it was clear that less than a third of it was above the surface.\n\nThe assassin dismounted. He paused to pluck at the cloth wrapped over his nose and mouth to loosen the caked grit, glanced back at the others, then approached the structure.\n\nSomewhere beneath their feet stood a palace or a temple. Reaching the dome, the assassin leaned forward and brushed the ash from one of the bronze tiles. A deeply carved symbol revealed itself.\n\nA breath of cold recognition swept through him. He had last seen that stylized crown on another continent, in an unexpected war against resistance that had been purchased by desperate enemies. Caladan Brood and Anomander Rake, and the Rhivi and the Crimson Guard. A gathering of disparate foes to challenge the Mahzan Empire's plans for conquest. The Free Cities of Genabackis were a squabbling, back-stabbing lot. Gold-hungry rulers and thieving factors squealed loudest at the threat to their freedom..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His mind over a thousand leagues away, Kalam lightly touched the engraved sigil. Blackdog... we were warring against mosquitoes and leeches, poisonous snakes and blood-sucking lizards. Supply lines cut, the Moranth putting back when we needed them the most... and this sigil I remember, thereon a ragged standard, rising above a select company of Brood's forces.\n\nWhat did that bastard call himself? The High King? Kallor... the High King without a kingdom. Thousands of years old, if legends speak true, perhaps tens of thousands. He claimed to have once commanded empires, each one making the Malazan Empire no larger than a province. He then claimed to have destroyed them by his own hand, destroyed them utterly. Kallor boasted he had made worlds lifeless...\n\nAnd this man now stands as Caladan Brood's second in command. And when I left, Dujek, the Bridgeburners and the reformed Fifth Army were about to seek an alliance with Brood.\n\nWhiskeyjack... Quick Ben... keep your heads low, friends. There's a madman in your midst...\n\n\"If you're done daydreaming... '\n\n\"The thing I hate most about this place,\" Kalam said, \"is how the ground swallows footfalls.\"\n\nMinala's startling grey eyes were narrow above the scarf covering the lower half of her face as she studied the assassin.\"You look frightened. '\n\nKalam scowled, turning back to the others. He raised his voice. \"We're leaving this warren now. '\n\n\"What?\" Minala scoffed. \"I see no gate!\"\n\nNo, but it feels right. We've covered enough distance, and I've suddenly realized that the power of deliberation is not as much in the travelling as in the arriving. He closed his eyes, shutting Minala and everyone else out as he forced his mind into stillness. One final thought escaped: I hope I'm right." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A moment later a portal formed, making a tearing sound as it spread wider.\n\n\"You thick-headed bastard,\" Minala snapped with sharp comprehension. \"A little discussion might have led us to this a little sooner– unless you were deliberately delaying our progress. Hood knows what you're about, Corporal. '\n\nInteresting choice of words, woman. I imagine he does.\n\nKalam opened his eyes. The gate was an impenetrable black stain a dozen paces away. He grimaced. As simple as that. Kalam, you area thick-headed bastard. Mind you, fear can focus even the most insipid of creatures.\n\n\"Follow closely,\" the assassin said, loosening the long-knife in its sheath before striding towards the portal and plunging through.\n\nHis moccasins slid on sandy cobbles. It was night, stars bright overhead through the narrow slit between two high brick buildings. The alley wound on ahead in a tortuous path that Kalam knew well. There was no-one insight.\n\nThe assassin moved to the wall on his left. Minala appeared, leading her own horse and Kalam's. She blinked, head turning.\"Kalam? Where-'\n\n\"Right here,\" the assassin replied.\n\nShe started, then hissed in frustration. \"Three breaths in a city and you're already skulking. '\n\n\"Habit.\"\n\n\"No doubt.\" She led the horses farther on. A moment later Keneb and Selv appeared, followed by the two children.\n\nThe captain glared around until he spotted Kalam. \"Aren?\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"Damned quiet.\"\n\n\"We're in an alley that winds through a necropolis. '\n\n\"How pleasant,\" Minala remarked. She gestured at the buildings flanking them. \"But these look like tenements.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They are..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "for the dead. The poor stay poor in Aren.\"\n\nKeneb asked, \"How close are we to the garrison?\"\n\n\"Three thousand paces,\" Kalam replied, unwinding the scarf from his face.\n\n\"We need to wash,\" Minala said.\n\n\"I'm thirsty, ' Vaneb said, still astride his horse.\n\n\"Hungry,\" added Kesen.\n\nKalam sighed, then nodded.\n\n\"I hope,\" added Minala, \"a walk through dead streets isn't an omen. '\n\n\"The necropolis is ringed by mourners\" taverns, \"the assassin muttered.\"We won't have much of a walk.\"\n\nSquall Inn claimed to have seen better days, but Kalam suspected it never had. The floor of the main room sagged like an enormous bowl, tilting every wall inward until angled wooden posts were needed to keep them upright. Rotting food and dead rats had with inert patience migrated to the floor's centre, creating a mouldering, redolent heap like an offering to some dissolute god.\n\nChairs and tables stood on creatively sawed legs in a ring around the pit, only one still occupied by a denizen not yet drunk into senselessness. Aback room no less disreputable provided the more privileged customers with some privacy, and it was there that Kalam had deposited his group to eat while a washtub was being prepared in the tangled garden. The assassin had then made his way to the main room and sat himself down opposite the solitary conscious customer.\n\n\"It's the food, isn't it?\" the grizzled Napan said as soon as the assassin took his seat.\n\n\"Best in the city.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Or so voted the council of cockroaches.\"\n\nKalam watched the blue-skinned man raise the mug to his lips, watched his large Adam's apple bob.\"Looks like you'll have another one.\"\n\n\"Easily.\"\n\nThe assassin twisted slightly in his chair, caught the drooped gaze of the old woman leaning against a support post beside the ale keg, raised two fingers. She sighed, pushed herself upright, paused to adjust the rat-cleaver tucked through her apron belt, then went off in search of two tankards.\n\n\"She'll break your arm if you paw, ' the stranger said.\n\nKalam leaned back and regarded the man. He could have been anywhere between thirty and sixty, depending on his life's toll. Deeply weathered skin was visible beneath the iron-streaked snarl of beard. The dark eyes roved restlessly and had yet to fix on the assassin. The man was dressed in baggy, threadbare rags.\"You force the question, \"the assassin said.\"Who are you and what's your story?\"\n\nThe man straightened up. \"You think I tell that to just anyone?\"\n\nKalam waited.\n\n\"Well,\" the man continued. \"Not everyone. Some people get rude and stop listening.\"\n\nAn unconscious patron at a nearby table toppled from his chair, his head crunching as it struck the flagstones. Kalam, the stranger and the serving woman– who had just reappeared with two tin mugs– all watched as the drunk slid down on grease and vomit to join the central heap.\n\nIt turned out one of the rats had been just playing at being dead, and it popped free and clambered onto the patron's body, nose twitching." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The stranger opposite the assassin grunted. \"Everyone's a philosopher. '\n\nThe serving woman delivered the drinks, her peculiar shuffle to their table displaying long familiarity with the pitched floor. Eyeing Kalam, she spoke in Dhebral. \"Your friends in the back have asked for soap.\"\n\n\"Aye, I imagine they have.\"\n\n\"We got no soap.\"\n\n\"I have just realized that.\"\n\nShe wandered away.\n\n\"Newly arrived, I take it,\" the stranger said. \"North gate?\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"That's quite a climb, with horses yet. '\n\n\"Meaning the north gate's locked. '\n\n\"Sealed, along with all the others. Maybe you arrived by the harbourside.\"\n\n\"Maybe.\"\n\n\"Harbour's closed. '\n\n\"How do you close Aren Harbour?\"\n\n\"All right, it's not closed. '\n\nKalam took a mouthful of ale, swallowed it down and went perfectly still.\n\n\"Gets even worse after a few,\" the stranger said.\n\nThe assassin set the tankard back down on the table. He struggled a moment to find his voice. \"Tell me some news.\"\n\n\"Why should I?\"\n\n\"I've bought you a drink. '\n\n\"And I should be grateful? Hood's breath, man, you've tasted it!\"\n\n\"I'm not usually this patient. '\n\n\"Oh, very well, why didn't you say so? \"He finished the first tankard, picked up the new one.\"Some ales grow on you. Some grow in you. To your health, sir. ' He quaffed the ale down.\n\n\"I have slit uglier throats than yours,\" the assassin said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man paused, his eyes flicking for the briefest of moments to skitter over Kalam, then he set his tankard down. \"Kornobol's wives locked him outlast night– the poor bastard was left wandering the streets till one of the High Fist's patrols picked him up for breaking curfew. It's becoming common practice. Wives allover the city are having revelations. What else? Can't get a decent fillet without paying an arm and a leg for it– there's more maimed beggars than ever crowding the streets where the markets used to be. Can't buy a reading without Hood's Herald poking upon the field– tell me, do you think it's even possible that the High Fist is casting someone else's shadow like they say? Of course, who can cast a shadow hiding in the palace wardrobe? Fish ain't the only slippery things in this city, let me tell you. Why, I've been arrested four times in the last two days, had to identify myself and show my Imperial charter, if you can believe it. Turned out lucky, though, since I found my crew in one of those gaols. With Oponn's smile I'll have them outcome tomorrow– got a deck to scrub and believe you me, those drunken louts will be scrubbing till the Abyss swallows the world. What's worse is the way some people step right around that charter, make demands of a person so he's left with an aching head delivering messages beneath common words, as if life's not complicated enough– any idea how a hold groans when it's full of gold? And now you're going to say, \"Well, Captain, it just so happens that I'm looking to buy passage back to Unta,\" and I'll say, \"The gods are smiling upon you, sir! It just so happens that I'm sailing in two days'time, with twenty marines, the High Fist's treasurer and half of Aren's riches onboard– but we've room, sir, oh, yes indeed. Welcome aboard!\" '\n\nKalam was silent fora dozen heartbeats, then he said, \"The gods are smiling indeed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The captain's head bobbed.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Smooth and beguiling, them smiles. '\n\n\"Who do I thank for this arrangement?\"\n\n\"Says he's a friend of yours, though you've never met– though you will aboard my ship, Ragstopper, in two days.\"\n\n\"His name?\"\n\n\"Salk Elan, he called himself. Says he's been waiting for you. '\n\n\"And how did he know I would come to this inn? I did not know of its existence an hour ago.\"\n\n\"A guess, but an informed one. Something about this being the first one you come to down from the gate in the necropolis. Too bad you weren't here last night, friend, it was even quieter, at least until the wench fished a drowned rat out of that keg over yonder. Too bad you and your friends missed this morning's breakfast.\"\n\nKalam slammed the rickety door behind him, pausing to regain control. Quick Ben's arrangements? Not likely. Impossible, in fact-\n\n\"What's wrong? ' Minala was sitting at the table, a wedge of melon in one hand. Voices from the garden indicated parents bathing reluctant children.\n\nThe assassin closed his eyes fora long moment, then opened them with a sigh. \"You've been delivered to Aren– and now we must go our separate ways. Tell Keneb to go out until he finds a patrol or one finds him, and then make his report to the City Guard's commander– leaving me entirely out of that report-\"\n\n\"And how does he explain us getting into the city?\"\n\n\"A fisherman brought you in. Keep it simple.\"\n\n\"And that's it? You won't even say goodbye to Keneb, or Selv, or the children? You won't even let them show their gratitude for saving their lives? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you can, Minala, get yourself and your kin out of Aren– go back to Quon Tali.\"\n\n\"Don't do it like this, Kalam. '\n\n\"It's the safest way. \"The assassin hesitated, then said,\"I wish it could have been... different. '\n\nThe wedge of melon caught him flush on one cheek. He spent a moment wiping his face, then picked up his saddlebags and threw them over one shoulder. \"The stallion's yours, Minala. '\n\nIn the main room, Kalam made his way to the captain's table.\"All right, I'm ready.\"\n\nSomething like disappointment flickered in the man's eyes, then he sighed and tottered upright.\"So you say. It's a middling long walk to where Ragstopper's moored– with luck I'll only have to show my charter a dozen or so times. Hood knows, what else do you do with an army camped in a city, eh?\"\n\n\"That rag of a shirt you're wearing won't help matters, Captain. I imagine you're looking forward to ditching the disguise. '\n\n\"What disguise? This is my lucky shirt.\"\n\nLostara Yil leaned back against the wall of the small room, her arms crossed as she watched Pearl pacing back and forth near the window.\n\n\"Details,\" he muttered, \"it's all in the details. Don't blink or you might miss something.\"\n\n\"I must report to the Red Blade commander,\" Lostara said. \"Then I shall return here.\"\n\n\"Will Orto Setral give you leave, lass?\"\n\n\"I am not relinquishing this pursuit... unless you forbid me.\"\n\n\"Gods forbid! I enjoy your company.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are being facetious.\"\n\n\"Only slightly. Granted, you've displayed little ease of humour. However, we have shared quite an adventure thus far, have we not? Why end it now? '\n\nLostara examined her uniform. Its weight was a comfort– the armour she had worn when disguised was a shattered mess and she had happily discarded it after the Claw's healing of her wounds.\n\nPearl had offered nothing to relieve the mystery of the demon that had appeared during the night engagement out on the plain, but it was clear to the Red Blade that the incident still troubled the man. As it does me, but that is past now. We have made it to Aren, still on the assassin's trail. All is as it should be.\n\n\"Will you wait here for me?\" she asked.\n\nPearl's smile broadened.\"Until the end of time, my dear. '\n\n\"Dawn will suffice.\"\n\nHe bowed. \"I shall count the heartbeats until then.\"\n\nShe left the room, shutting the door behind her. The inn's hallway led to a wooden staircase that took her into the crowded main room. The curfew made fora captive clientele, although the mood was anything but festive.\n\nLostara ducked under the staircase and passed through the kitchen. The eyes of the cook and her helpers followed her as she walked to the backdoor, which had been left ajar to provide a draught. It was a reaction she was used to. The Red Blades were much feared.\n\nShe pushed open the door and stepped out into the alley. The river's breath, mingled with the salt of the bay, was cool against her face. I pray I never travel the Imperial Warren again.\n\nShe walked to the main street, her boots loud on the cobbles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A dozen soldiers of the High Fist's army accosted her as she reached the first intersection on her way to the garrison compound." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sergeant commanding them stared at her with disbelief.\n\n\"Good evening, Red Blade,\" he said.\n\nShe nodded. \"I understand that the High Fist has imposed a curfew. Tell me, do the Red Blades patrol the streets as well?\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" the sergeant replied.\n\nThere was an expectancy among the soldiers that Lostara found vaguely disturbing.\n\n\"They are tasked with other responsibilities, then?\"\n\nThe sergeant slowly nodded. \"I imagine they are. From your words and from... other things, I gather you are newly arrived.\"\n\nShe nodded.\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"By warren. I had an... an escort.\"\n\n\"The makings of an interesting story, no doubt,\" the sergeant said. \"I will have your weapons now.\"\n\n\"Excuse me?\"\n\n\"You wish to join your fellow Red Blades, yes? Speak with Commander Orto Setral?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"By the High Fist's order, issued four days ago, the Red Blades are under detention. '\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"And await trial for treason against the Malazan Empire. Your weapons, please.\"\n\nStunned, Lostara Yil made no resistance as the soldiers disarmed her. She stared at the sergeant. \"Our loyalty has been... challenged?\"\n\nThere was no malice in his eyes as he nodded. \"I am sure your commander will have more to say on the situation.\"\n\n\"He's gone. '\n\nKeneb's jaw dropped.\"Oh, \"he managed after a moment. Frowning, he watched Minala packing her gear.\"What are you doing? '\n\nShe whirled on him. \"Do you think he gets away leaving it like that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Minala-\"\n\n\"Be quiet, Keneb! You'll wake the children. '\n\n\"I wasn't shouting. '\n\n\"Tell your commander everything, you understand me? Everything– except about Kalam.\"\n\n\"I am not stupid, no matter what you may think.\"\n\nHer glare softened. \"I know. Forgive me.\"\n\n\"You'd better ask that of your sister, I think. And Kesen and Vaneb. '\n\n\"I will.\"\n\n\"Tell me, how will you pursue a man who does not want to be pursued?\"\n\nA hard grin flashed on her dark features. \"You ask that of a woman?\"\n\n\"Oh, Minala...\"\n\nShe reached up to brush his cheek with one hand. \"No need for tears, Keneb.\"\n\n\"I blame my sentimental streak,\" he said with a weary smile. \"But know this, I shall remain hopeful. Now, go and say goodbye to your sister and the children.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A god walking mortal earth trails blood.\n\nSayings of the Fool Thenys Bule\n\n\"The chain of dogs,\" the sailor growled, his voice as dark and heavy as the air of the hold. \"Now there's a curse no man would wish upon his worst enemy. What, thirty thousand starving refugees? Forty? Sweat-jowled noble-born among \"em, too, bleating this and that. Coltaine's hourglass is about run out, I'd wager.\"\n\nKalam shrugged in the gloom, his hands still running along the damp hull. Name a ship Ragstopper and worry starts before you weigh anchor. \"He's survived this long, ' he muttered.\n\nThe sailor paused in his stacking of bales. \"Look at this, will ya? Three-fifths\" stowage gone before e'en the food and water comes'board. Korbolo Dom's collected Reloe and his army– added up with his own and making what? Fifty thousand swords in all? Sixty? The traitor will catch hold o\" that chain at Vathar. Then with the tribes massing to the south, aye, Beru fend, that Wickan mongrel's all but done for.\" The man grunted as he heaved another canvas-wrapped bale. \"Heavy as gold... and that ain't no empty rumour, I'd say. That blob of whale grease calling himself High Fist has his nose up in the wind-look here, his seal's on everything. The rotten worm's turning tail with his loot. Why else is the Imperial Treasurer comin\" \"board, hey? And twenty marines besides...\"\n\n\"You may have a point,\" the assassin said, distracted. He'd yet to find a dry plank." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You the caulker's man, then, eh? Got a woman herein Aren? Bet you wish you was comin'wi\" us, hey? Mind you, we'll be cramped enough what with the Treasurer and two perfumed elects.\"\n\n\"Perfumed elects?\"\n\n\"Aye, saw one of'em come \"board not ten minutes ago. Smooth as rat-spit, that one, all airs and dainty but no amount of flower juice could hide the spunk, if you know what I mean.\"\n\nKalam grinned in the darkness. Not precisely, you old swab, but I can guess. \"What of the other one?\" he asked.\n\n\"I'd hazard the same, only I ain't seen him yet. Came'board with the captain, I heard. Seven Cities blood, if you can believe that. That was before the captain sprung us from the harbour hole– not that we deserved to be arrested in the first place– Hood's breath, when a squad of soldiers comes on ya demanding this and that, it's only natural to put a fist in their mawks, hey? We wasn't ten paces from the gangplank– so much for shore leave!\"\n\n\"Your last port of call?\"\n\n\"Falar. Big red-haired women all gruff and muscle just like I like'em. Ah, that was a time! '\n\n\"Your haul?\"\n\n\"Weapons, in advance of Tavore's fleet. Rode the waves like a sow, let me tell you– like we're gonna do this one, too, all the way to Unta. Bulge the belly like that and your master's got wet hands and feet, hey? Good coin, though, I wager. '\n\nKalam straightened. \"There won't be time fora full refit, ' he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Never is, but Beru bless you– do what you can.\"\n\nThe assassin cleared his throat. \"Sorry to say, you've got meas the wrong man. I'm not one of the caulker's men. '\n\nThe sailor paused over a bale. \"Hey?\"\n\nKalam dried his hands on his cloak. \"I'm the other perfumed elect. '\n\nThere was silence from the other side of the hold, then a soft muttering, followed by, \"Beg your pardon, sir.\"\n\n\"No need for that,\" the assassin said. \"What's the likelihood of finding one of the captain's guests down here pressing the planks? I'm a cautious man and, alas, my nerves haven't been eased.\"\n\n\"She ships, to be true,\" the sailor said, \"but captain's got three dedicated hands on the pumps, workin'through every flip o\" the glass, sir. And she'll ride any blow and that she has, more than once. Captain's got a lucky shirt, y'see.\"\n\n\"I've seen it, \"Kalam said, stepping over a row of chests each bearing the High Fist's seal. He made his way to the hatch, laid a hand on the ladder rail, then paused. \"What's the rebel activity out in the Sahul? '\n\n\"Gettin\" hotter, sir. Bless them Marines, \"cause we won't be outrunnin'a scow on this run.\"\n\n\"No escort?\"\n\n\"Pormqual's commanded Nok's fleet to hold this harbour. We'll have cover crossing Aren Bay out to the edge of Dojal Hading Sea, at least. '\n\nKalam grimaced at that, but said nothing. He climbed the ladder to the main deck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ragstopper wallowed heavily at the Imperial berth. Stevedores and crewmen were busy with their tasks, making it difficult for the assassin to find a place out of anyone's path. He finally found a spot on the sterncastle near the wheel, from which he could observe. A huge Malazan transport, high in the water, sat on the opposite side of the broad stone dock. The horses it had brought from Quon had been unloaded an hour earlier, with only a dozen dockhands left behind with the task of removing the butchered remains of the animals that had not survived the lengthy journey. It was common practice to salt the meat from such losses, provided the ship's cutter pronounced it edible. The hides found innumerable uses onboard. The dockhands were left with heads and bones and no shortage of eager buyers crowding the harbour front on the other side of the Imperial barrier.\n\nKalam had not seen the captain since the morning they had boarded, two days past. The assassin had been shown to the small stateroom Salk Elan had purchased for Kalam's passage, then promptly left to his own devices while the captain went off to manage the release of his gaoled crew.\n\nSalk Elan... I weary of waiting to make your acquaintance...\n\nVoices barked from the gangplank and Kalam glanced over to seethe captain arrive on deck. Accompanying him was a tall, stooped man of middle years, his hatchet face painfully thin, his gaunt cheeks powdered light blue in some recent court fashion, and wearing oversized Napan sea gear. This man was flanked by a pair of bodyguards, both huge, their red faces buried in black, snarled beards and rudely plaited moustaches. They wore pot helms with bridge-guards, full shirts of mail, and broad-bladed tulwars at their hips. Kalam was unable to guess at their cultural origins. Neither the bodyguards nor their master stood comfortably on the mildly rocking deck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ah,\" said a soft voice behind the assassin, \"that would be Pormqual's treasurer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'\n\nStartled, Kalam turned to find the speaker leaning against the stern rail. A knife's thrust away.\n\nThe man smiled. \"You were well described indeed.\"\n\nThe assassin studied the stranger. He was lean, young, dressed in a loose, sickly green silk shirt. His face was handsome enough, though a touch too sharp-featured to be called friendly. Rings glittered on his long fingers. \"By whom?\" Kalam snapped, disconcerted by the man's sudden appearance.\n\n\"Our mutual friend in Ehrlitan. I am Salk Elan.\"\n\n\"I have no friends in Ehrlitan.\"\n\n\"Poor choice of word, then. One who was indebted to you, and to whom I was in turn indebted, with the result that I was tasked with arranging your departure from Aren, which I have now done, thus freeing me of further obligations– which has proved timely, I might add.\"\n\nKalam could see no obvious weapons on the man, which told him plenty. He sneered. \"Games.\"\n\nSalk Elan sighed. \"Mebra, who entrusted you with the Book, which was duly delivered to Sha'ik. You were bound for Aren, or so Mebra concluded. He further suspected that, with your, uh, talents, you were determined to take the Holy Cause into the heart of the Empire. Or rather, through one heart in particular. Among other preparations, I arranged fora tripwire of sorts to beset at the Imperial Warren's gate, which when activated would immediately trigger various prearranged events.\" The man swung his head, scanning the sprawling rooftops of the city. His smile broadened. \"Now, as it turned out, my activities in Aren have been curtailed somewhat of late, making such arrangements difficult to maintain. Even more disconcerting, a bounty has been placed on my head– all a dreadful misunderstanding, I assure you, yet I've little faith in Imperial justice, especially when the High Fist's own Guard are involved. Hence, I booked not one berth but two– the cabin opposite yours, in fact.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The captain does not strike meas a man with cheap loyalties,\" Kalam said, struggling to conceal his alarm– If Mebra worked out I was planning to kill the Empress, who else might have?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And this Salk Elan, whoever he is, clearly doesn't know when to shut up... unless, of course, he's fishing fora reaction. Besides, there's a classic tactic that might beat work here. No time to test veracity when you're reeling...\n\nThe treasurer's high-pitched voice wheedled up from the main deck behind him, in varied complaints flung at the captain– who if he made reply did sounder his breath.\n\n\"No, not cheap,\" Salk Elan agreed. \"Nonexistent would be more accurate.\"\n\nKalam grunted, both disappointed at the failed feint and pleased that he'd heard confirmation of his assessment of the captain's character. Hood's breath, Imperial charters aren't worth the oilskin they're written on these days...\n\n\"Yet another source of consternation,\" Elan continued, \"the man's far above average in wits, and seems to find his only intellectual stimulus in gestures of subterfuge and obfuscation. No doubt he went overboard– as it were– in his mysterious meeting with you at the inn. '\n\nKalam grinned in spite of himself. \"No wonder I took an instant liking to him.\"\n\nElan's laugh was soft, yet appreciative.\"And it should be no surprise that I so look forward to our meals at his table each night of this pending voyage. '\n\nKalam held his smile as he said, \"I'll not make the mistake of leaving my back open to you again, Salk Elan. '\n\n\"You were distracted, of course,\" the man said, unperturbed. \"I do not expect such a potential opportunity to recur.\"\n\n\"I'm glad we're understood, because your explanation thus far has more leaks than this ship.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Glad?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Such understatement, Kalam Mekhar! I am delighted we're so clearly understood! '\n\nKalam stepped to one side and glanced back down at the main deck. The treasurer was continuing his tirade against the captain. The crew was motionless, all eyes on the scene.\n\nSalk Elan tsked. \"An appalling breach of etiquette, wouldn't you say? '\n\n\"Ship's command is the captain's,\" the assassin said. \"If he'd the mind to, he'd have put a halt to things by now. Looks tome like the captain's letting this squall run out. '\n\n\"Nonetheless, I suggest you and I join the proceedings.\"\n\nKalam shook his head. \"Not our business and there's no value in making it so. Mind you, don't let my opinion stop you.\"\n\n\"Ah, but it is our business, Kalam. Would you have all the passengers tarred by the crew? Unless you enjoy the cook's spit in your gruel, that is. '\n\nThe bastard has a point.\n\nHe watched Salk Elan step casually down to the main deck, and, after a moment, followed suit.\n\n\"Noble sir!\" Elan called out.\n\nThe treasurer and his two bodyguards all turned.\n\n\"I trust you are fully appreciative of the captain's patience, \"Elan continued, still approaching.\"On most ships you and your effete servants would be over the side by now, and at least two of you would have sunk like ballast stones– a most pleasing image. '\n\nOne of the bodyguards growled and edged forward, a large, hairy hand closing on the grip of his tulwar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The treasurer was strangely pale beneath the sealskin hood, his face showing not a drop of sweat despite the heat and the heavy swaths of the Napan raincloak covering his thin frame. \"You insolent excuse fora crab's anus! \"he squealed.\"Roll back into your hole, blood-smeared turd, before I call on the harbour magistrate to throw you in chains! \"The man raised one pallid, long-fingered hand.\"Megara, beat this man senseless! '\n\nThe bodyguard with his hand on his weapon stepped forward.\n\n\"Belay that!\" the captain bellowed. Half a dozen sailors closed in, moving between the moustached bodyguard and Salk Elan. Pins and knives waved about menacingly. The bodyguard hesitated, then backed away.\n\nThe captain smiled, anchoring his hands on his hips. \"Now,\" he said in a quiet, reasonable tone, \"me and the coin-stacker will resume our discussion in my cabin. In the meantime, my crew will help these two servants out of their Hood-damned chain and stow it somewhere safe. Said servants will then bathe and ship's cutter will examine them for vermin– which I don't tolerate'board Ragstopper– and when the delousing's done they can help load the last of their master's provisions, minus the leadwood bench which we'll donate to the customs officer to ease our departure. Finally, any further cursing on this ship– no matter how inventive– comes from me and no-one else. That, gentlemen, will be all.\"\n\nIf the treasurer intended a challenge, it was pre-empted by his sudden collapse onto the deck. The two bodyguards spun about at the loud thump, then stood stock still, staring down at their unconscious master." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After a moment, the captain said, \"Well, not all, it seems. Get the coin-stacker below and get him out of those sealskins. Ship's cutter has more work to do, and we ain't even castoff yet.\" He swung to Salk Elan and Kalam. \"Now, you two gentlemen can join me in my cabin.\"\n\nThe room was not much larger than the assassin's own, and almost empty of possessions. It was a few minutes before the captain managed to find three tankards into which he poured local sour ale from a clay jug. Without offering a toast, the man drained half his tankard's contents, then wiped his mouth with the back of one hand. His eyes roved restlessly, not once settling on the two men before him. \"The rules,\" he said, grimacing. \"Simple. Stay out of the treasurer's way. The situation is... confused. With the Admiral under arrest-'\n\nKalam choked on the ale, then managed to rasp, \"What? By whose command?\"\n\nThe captain was frowning down at Elan's shoes.\"That would be the High Fist's, of course. No other means, you see, of keeping the fleet in the bay.\"\n\n\"The Empress-\"\n\n\"Probably doesn't know. There's been no Claw in the city for months– no-one knows why.\"\n\n\"And their absence,\" Elan said, \"gives implicit authority to Pormqual's decisions, I take it. '\n\n\"More or less,\" the captain conceded, his eyes now fixed on a crossbeam. He finished his ale, poured more. \"In any case, the High Fist's personal treasurer has arrived with a writ granting him commander status for this voyage, meaning he has the privilege of overriding me if he so chooses. Now, while I hold an Imperial charter, neither me nor my ship and crew are actually in the Imperial Navy, which leaves things, like I said earlier, confused. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kalam set his tankard down on the room's lone table.\"Right opposite us is an Imperial transport ship, getting ready to leave as much as we are. Why in Hood's name hasn't Pormqual sent his treasurer and his loot there? It's bigger and better defended, after all-\"\n\n\"So it is. And it has indeed been commandeered by the High Fist, and will depart for Unta shortly after we do, loaded with Pormqual's household and his precious breeding stallions, meaning it will be very crowded, and rank to boot. \"He shrugged as if his shoulders had been tugged upwards by invisible hands. He glanced nervously towards the door before returning his somewhat desperate gaze to the cross-beam overhead.\"Ragstopper's fast when she has to be. Now, that's all. Drink up. The marines will board any moment now, and I mean for us to castoff within the hour. '\n\nIn the companionway outside the captain's cabin, Salk Elan shook his head and muttered,\"He couldn't have been serious.\"\n\nThe assassin eyed the man. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"The ale was atrocious. \"Drink up\" indeed.\"\n\nKalam scowled. \"No Claw in the city– now why would that be?\"\n\nThe man's shrug was loose.\"Aren's not its old self, alas. Filled with monks and priests and soldiers, the gaols crowded with innocents while Sha'ik's fanatics– only the most cunning left alive, of course– spread murder and mayhem. It's also said the warrens aren't what they used to be, either, though I gather you know more about that than I.\" Elan smiled.\n\n\"Was that an answer to my question?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And am Ian expert on the activities of the Claw?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not only have I never run into one of those horrid throat-slitters, I make it policy that my curiosity about them is thoroughly curtailed.\" He brightened suddenly. \"Perhaps the treasurer will not survive his heat prostration! Now there's a pleasing thought! '\n\nKalam swung about and made his way to his cabin. He heard Salk Elan sigh, then head in the opposite direction, ascending the companionway ladder to the main deck.\n\nThe assassin closed the door behind him and leaned against it. Better to walk into a trap that you can see than one you can't. Yet the thought gave him scant comfort. He wasn't even sure if there was a trap. Mebra's web was vast– Kalam had always known that, and had himself plucked those strands more than once. Nor, it seemed, had the Ehrlitan spy betrayed him when it came to delivering the Book of Dryjhna– Kalam had placed it into Sha'ik's hands, after all.\n\nSalk Elan was likely a mage, and he also had the look of a man capable of handling himself in a fight. He had not so much as flinched when the treasurer's bodyguard had closed on him.\n\nNone of which puts meat ease.\n\nThe assassin sighed. And the man knows bad ale when he tastes it...\n\nWhen the High Fist's breeding stallions were led through the gate into the Imperial yard, chaos ensued. Stamping, nervous horses jostled with stablers, dockhands, soldiers and various officials. The Master of the Horse shrieked and ran about in an effort to impose some order, fomenting even more confusion in the seething press.\n\nThe woman holding the reins of one magnificent stallion was notable only for her watchful calm, and when the Master finally managed to arrange the loading, she was among the first to lead her charge up the broad gangplank onto the Imperial transport. And though the Master knew everyone of his workers and everyone of the breeders in his care, his attention was so tugged and strained in multiple directions that he did not register that both woman and horse were unknown to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Minala had watched Ragstopper castoff two hours earlier, following the boarding of two squads of marines and their gear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The trader was towed clear of the inside harbour before being allowed to stretch sails, flanked by Imperial galleys that would provide escort crossing Aren Bay. Four similar warships awaited the Imperial transport a quarter-league out.\n\nThe complement of Marines aboard the Imperial transport was substantial, at least seven squads. Clearly, the Dojal Hading Sea was not secure.\n\nKalam's stallion tossed his head as he stepped down onto the main deck. The massive hatch that led down into the hold was in fact an elevator, raised and lowered by winches. The first four horses had been led onto the platform.\n\nAn old, grizzled stabler standing near Minala eyed her and the stallion. \"The latest in the High Fist's purchases? ' he asked.\n\nShe nodded.\n\n\"Magnificent animal,\" the man said. \"He's a good eye, has the High Fist. '\n\nAnd not much else worth mentioning. The bastard's making a show of his imminent flight, and when he finally leaves, he'll have an entire fleet of warships for escort, no doubt. Ah, Keneb, is this what we've delivered you to?\n\nGet out of Aren, Kalam had said. She'd urged the same to Selv before saying goodbye, but Keneb was among the army's ranks now. Attached to Blistig's City Garrison. They were going nowhere.\n\nMinala suspected she would never see any of them again.\n\nAll to chase a man I don't understand. A man I'm not even sure I like. Oh, woman, you're old enough to know better...\n\nThe southern horizon ran in a thin, grey-green vein that wavered in the streams of heat rising from the road. The land that stretched before it was barren, studded with stones except along the path of the potsherd-strewn trader track that branched out from the Imperial Road." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The vanguard sat their horses at the crossroads. To the east and southeast lay the coast, with its clustering of villages and towns and the Holy City of Ubaryd. The skyline in that direction was bruised with smoke.\n\nSlumped in his saddle, Duiker listened with the others as Captain Sulmar spoke.\n\n\"-and the consensus on this is absolute, Fist. We've no choice but to hear Nethpara and Pullyk out. It is, after all, the refugees who will suffer the most. '\n\nCaptain Lull grunted his contempt.\n\nSulmar's face paled beneath the dust, but he went on,\"Their rations are at starvation level as it is– oh, there'll be water at Vathar, but what of the wasteland beyond?\"\n\nBult raked fingers through his beard. \"Our warlocks say they sense nothing, but we are still distant– a forest and a wide river between us and the drylands. It maybe that the spirits of the land down there are simply buried deep– Sormo has said as much.\"\n\nDuiker glanced at the warlock, who offered nothing and who sat wrapped in an Elder's cloak atop his horse, his face hidden beneath the hood's shadow. The historian could seethe now constant tremble in Sormo's long-fingered hands where they rested on the saddlehorn. Nil and Nether were still recovering from their ordeal at Gelor Ridge, not once emerging from the covered wagon that carried them, and Duiker had begun to wonder whether they still lived at all. Our last three mages, and two of them are either dead or too weak to walk, while the third has aged ten years for every week of this Hood-cursed journey.\n\n\"The tactical advantages must be clear to you, Fist,\" Sulmar said after a moment. \"No matter how sundered Ubaryd's walls maybe, they'll provide a better defence than a land devoid even of hills-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Captain!\" Bult barked.\n\nSulmar subsided, lips pressing into a thin, bloodless line.\n\nDuiker shivered in response to a chill that had nothing to do with the dying day's slow cooling. Such avast concession, Sulmar, according to a Wickan war chief the rules of courtesy expected from one of lower rank. What skin is this that's wearing so thin on you, Captain? No doubt quickly castoff when you sup wine with Nethpara and Pullyk Alar...\n\nColtaine did not take Sulmar to task. He never did. He met every jibe and dig of noble-born presumption and arrogance in the same manner that he dealt with everything else: cold indifference. It may well have worked for the Wickan, but Duiker could see how bold it was making Sulmar and others like him.\n\nAnd the captain was not finished. \"This is not just a military concern, Fist. The civil element of the situation-\"\n\n\"Promote me, Commander Bult,\" Lull said, \"so that I may whip this dog until his hide's just a memory. \"He bared his teeth at his fellow captain.\"Otherwise, a word with you somewhere private, Sulmar... '\n\nThe man replied with a silent sneer.\n\nColtaine spoke. \"There is no civil element. Ubaryd will prove a fatal trap should we retake it. Assailed from the land and the sea, we would never hold. Explain that to Nethpara, Captain, as your last task.\"\n\n\"My last task, sir?\"\n\nThe Fist said nothing.\n\n\"Last,\" Bult rumbled. \"Means just that. You've been stripped of rank, drummed out. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Begging the Fist's pardon, but you cannot do that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'\n\nColtaine's head turned and Duiker wondered if the captain had finally got to the Fist.\n\nSulmar shrugged. \"My Imperial commission was granted by a High Fist, sir. Based on that, it is within my right to ask for adjudication. Fist Coltaine, it has always been the strength of the Malazan Army that a tenet of our discipline insists that we speak our mind. Regardless of your commands– which I will obey fully– I have the right to have my position duly recorded, as stated. If you wish, I can recite the relevant Articles to remind you of these rights, sir.\"\n\nThere was silence, then Bult swung in his saddle to Duiker. \"Historian, did you understand any of that?\"\n\n\"As well as you, Uncle.\"\n\n\"Will his position be duly recorded?\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"And presumably adjudication requires the presence of advocates, not to mention a High Fist.\"\n\nDuiker nodded.\n\n\"Where is the nearest High Fist?\"\n\n\"Aren.\"\n\nBult nodded thoughtfully. \"Then, to resolve this matter of the captain's commission, we must make all haste to Aren. \"He faced Sulmar.\"Unless, of course, the views of the Council of Nobles are to take precedence over the issue of the fate of your career, Captain. '\n\n\"Retaking Ubaryd will allow relief from Admiral Nok's fleet, \"Sulmar said.\"Through this avenue, a swift and safe journey to Aren can be effected. '\n\n\"Admiral Nok's fleet is in Aren, ' Bult pointed out.\n\n\"Yes, sir. However, once news reaches them that we are in Ubaryd, the obvious course will be clear.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You mean they will hasten to relieve us?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bult's frown was exaggerated.\"Now I am confused, Captain. The High Fist holds his army in Aren. More, he holds the entire Seven Cities fleet as well. Neither has moved in months. He has had countless opportunities to despatch either force to our aid. Tell me, Captain, in your family's hunting estates, have you ever seen a deer caught in lantern light? How it stands, frozen, unable to do anything. The High Fist Pormqual is that deer. Coltaine could deliver this train to a place three miles up the coast from Aren and Pormqual would not set forth to deliver us. Do you truly believe that an even greater plight, such as you envisage for us in Ubaryd, will shame the High Fist into action?\"\n\n\"I was speaking more of Admiral Nok-\"\n\n\"Who is dead, sick or in a dungeon, Captain. Else he would have sailed long ere now. One man rules Aren, and one man alone. Will you place your life in his hands, Captain?\"\n\nSulmar's expression had soured.\"It seems I have in either case, Commander. \"He drew on his riding gloves.\"And it also seems that I am no longer permitted to venture my views-'\n\n\"You are,\" Coltaine said. \"But you are also a soldier of the Seventh.\"\n\nThe captain's head bobbed.\"I apologize, Fist, for my presumption. These are strained times indeed. '\n\n\"I wasn't aware of that, ' Bult said, grinning.\n\nSulmar swung to Duiker suddenly. \"Historian, what are your views on all this?\"\n\nAs an objective observer... \"My views on what, Captain?\"\n\nThe man's mouth twitched into a smile.\"Ubaryd, or the River Vathar and the forest and wastes southward? As a civilian who knows well the plight of the refugees, do you truly believe they will survive such a fraught journey? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The historian said nothing fora long minute, then he cleared his throat and shrugged. \"As ever, the greater of the threats has been the renegade army. The victory at Gelor Ridge has purchased for us time to lick our wounds-\"\n\n\"Hardly,\" Sulmar interjected. \"If anything, we have been pushed even harder since then.\"\n\n\"Aye, we have, and for good reason. It is Korbolo Dom who now pursues us. The man was a Fist in his own right, and is a very able commander and tactician. Kamist Reloe is a mage, not a leader of soldiers– he wasted his army, thinking to rely upon numbers and numbers alone. Korbolo will not be so foolish. If our enemy arrives at the River Vathar before we do, we are finished-\"\n\n\"Precisely why we should surprise him and recapture Ubaryd instead!\"\n\n\"A short-lived triumph,\" Duiker replied. \"We'd be left with two days at the most to prepare the city's defences before Korbolo's arrival. As you said, I am a civilian, not a tactician. Yet even I can see that retaking Ubaryd would prove suicidal, Captain. '\n\nBult shifted in his saddle, making a show of looking around. \"Let us find a cattle-dog, so that we may have yet another opinion. Sormo, where's that ugly beast that's adopted you? The one the marines call Bent?\"\n\nThe warlock's head lifted slightly.\"Do you really wish to know? ' His voice was a rasp.\n\nBult frowned. \"Aye, why not?\"\n\n\"Hiding in the grass seven paces from you, Commander.\"\n\nIt was inevitable that everyone began looking, including Coltaine. Finally, Lull pointed and, after peering fora moment longer, Duiker could make out a tawny body amidst the high prairie spikegrass. Hood's breath!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am afraid,\" Sormo said, \"that he will offer little in the way of opinion, Uncle. Where you lead, Bent follows.\"\n\n\"A true soldier, then,\" Bult said, nodding.\n\nDuiker guided his horse around on the crossroads, then looked back over the vast column stretching its length northward. The Imperial Road was designed for the swift travel of armies. It was wide and level, the cobbles displaying geometric precision. It could manage a troop of fifteen horsewarriors riding abreast. Coltaine's Chain of Dogs was over an Imperial league long, even with the three Wickan clans riding the grasslands to either side of the road.\n\n\"Discussion is ended,\" Coltaine announced.\n\nBult said, \"Report to your companies, captains.\" It was not necessary to add, We march for the River Vathar. The command meeting had revealed positions, in particular Sulmar's conflicting loyalties, and beyond the mundane discussion of troop placement, supply issues and soon, nothing else was open to debate.\n\nDuiker felt a wave of pity for Sulmar, realizing the level of pressure the man must be under from Nethpara and Pullyk Alar. The captain was noble-born, after all, and the threat of displeasure visited upon his kin made Sulmar's position untenable.\n\n\"The Malazan Army shall know but one set of rules,\" Emperor Kellanved had proclaimed, during the first \"cleansing\" and \"restructuring\" of the military early in his reign. \"One set of rules, and one ruler...\" His and Dassem Ultor's imposition of merit as the sole means of advancement had triggered a struggle for control within the hierarchies of the Army and Navy commands. Blood was spilled on the palace steps, and Laseen's Claw was the instrument of that surgery. She should have learned from that episode. We had our second cull, but it came far too late." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Captain Lull interrupted Duiker's thoughts.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ride back with me, old man. There's something you should see.\"\n\n\"Now what?\"\n\nLull's grin was ghastly in his raw, ravaged face.\"Patience, please. '\n\n\"Ah, well, I've acquired that with plenty to spare, Captain. \"Waiting to die, and such along wait it's been.\n\nLull clearly understood Duiker's comment. He squinted his lone eye out across the plain, northwest, to where Korbolo Dom's army was, less than three days away and closing fast. \"It's an official request, Historian. '\n\n\"Very well. Ride on, then.\"\n\nColtaine, Bult and Sormo had ridden down to the trader track. Voices shouted from the Seventh's advance elements as preparations began to leave the Imperial Road. Duiker saw the cattle-dog Bent loping ahead of the three Wickans. And so we follow. We are indeed well named.\n\n\"How fares the corporal?\" Lull asked as they rode down the corridor towards Lull's company.\n\nDuiker frowned. List had taken a vicious wound at Gelor Ridge. \"Mending. We face difficulties with the healers– they're wearing down, Captain. '\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"They've drawn so much on their warrens that it's begun to damage their own bodies– I saw one healer's arm snap like a twig when he lifted a pot from a hearth. That frightened me more than anything else I've yet to witness, Captain.\"\n\nThe man tugged at the patch covering his ruined eye. \"You're not alone in that, old man. '\n\nDuiker fell silent. Lull had nearly succumbed to aseptic infection. He had become gaunt beneath his armour, and the scars on his face had set his features into a tortured expression that made strangers flinch. Hood's breath, not just strangers. If the Chain of Dogs has a face, it is Lull's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They rode between columns of soldiers, smiled at the shouts and grim jests thrown their way, though for Duiker the smile was strained. It was well that spirits were high, the strange melancholy that came with victory drifting away, but the spectre of what lay ahead nevertheless loomed with monstrous certainty. The historian had felt his own spirits deepening to sorrow, for he'd long since lost the ability to will himself into blind faith.\n\nThe captain spoke again. \"This forest beyond the river, what do you know of it?\"\n\n\"Cedar,\" Duiker replied. \"Source of Ubaryd's fame in shipbuilding. It once covered both sides of the River Vathar, but now only the south side remains, and even that has dwindled close to the bay. '\n\n\"The fools never bothered replanting?\"\n\n\"A few efforts, when the threat was finally recognized, but herders had already claimed the land. Goats, Captain. Goats can turn a paradise into a desert in no time at all. They eat shoots, they strip bark entirely around the boles of trees, killing them as surely as a wildfire. However, there's plenty of forest left upriver– we'll be a week or more travelling through it.\"\n\n\"So I'd heard. Well, I'll welcome the shade...\"\n\nA week or more, indeed. More like eternity– how does Coltaine defend his vast winding train amidst a forest, where ambushes will come from every direction, where troops cannot wheel and respond with anything like swiftness and order? Sulmar's concerns about the dry lands beyond the forest are moot, as far as I'm concerned. And I wonder if I'm alone in thinking that?\n\nThey rode between wagons loaded with wounded soldiers. The air was foul herewith flesh rotting where forced healing had failed to stem the advance of infection. Soldiers in fever raved and rambled, delirium prying open the doors of their minds to countless other realms– from this nightmare world into countless others. Only Hood's gift offers surcease..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Off to their left on the flat grassland, the train's dwindling herds of cattle and goats moved amidst turgid clouds of dust. Wickan cattle-dogs patrolled the edges, accompanied by Weasel Clan riders. The entire herd would be slaughtered at the River Vathar, for the lands beyond the forest would not sustain them. For there are no spirits of the land there.\n\nThe historian found himself musing as he eyed the herd. The animals had matched them step for step on this soul-destroying journey. Month after month of suffering. That is one curse we all share– the will to live. Their fates had been decided, though thankfully they knew nothing of that. Yet even that will change in the last moments. The dumbest of beasts seems capable of sensing its own impending death. Hood grants every living thing awareness at the very end. What mercy is that?\n\n\"The horse's blood had burned black in its veins, ' Lull said suddenly.\n\nDuiker nodded, not needing to ask which horse the captain meant. She carried them all, such a raging claim on her life force, it seared her from within. Such thoughts took him past words, into a place of raw pain.\n\n\"It's said, \"Lull went on,\"that their hands are stained black now. They are marked forevermore. '\n\nAs am I. He thought of Nil and Nether, two children curled foetally beneath the hood of the wagon, therein the midst of their silent kin. The Wickans know that the gift of power is never free. They know enough not to envy the chosen among them, for power is never a game, nor are glittering standards raised to glory and wealth. They disguise nothing in trappings, and so we all see what we'd rather not, that power is cruel, hard as iron and bone, and it thrives on destruction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am falling into your silences, old man,\" Lull said softly.\n\nDuiker could only nod again.\n\n\"I find myself impatient for Korbolo Dom. For an end to this. I can no longer see what Coltaine sees, Historian.\"\n\n\"Can you not?\" Duiker asked, meeting the man's eye.\"Are you certain that what he sees is different from what you see, Lull? '\n\nDismay slowly settled on his twisted features.\n\n\"I fear,\" Duiker continued, \"that the Fist's silences no longer speak of victory. '\n\n\"A match to your own growing silence, then.\"\n\nThe historian shrugged. An entire continent pursues us. We should not have lived this long. And I can take my thoughts no further than that, and am diminished by that truth. All those histories I've read... each an intellectual obsession with war, the endless redrawing of maps. Heroic charges and crushing defeats. We are all naught but twists of suffering in a river of pain. Hood's breath, old man, your words weary even yourself-why inflict them on others?\n\n\"We need to stop thinking,\" Lull said. \"We're well past that point. Now we simply exist. Look at those beasts over there. We're the same, you and I, the same as them. Struggling beneath the sun, pushed and ever pushed to our place of slaughter.\"\n\nDuiker shook his head. \"It is our curse that we cannot know the bliss of being mindless, Captain. You'll find no salvation where you're looking, I'm afraid. '\n\n\"Not interested in salvation,\" Lull growled. \"Just away to keep going.\"\n\nThey approached the captain's company. In the midst of the Seventh's infantry stood a knot of haphazardly armed and armoured men and women, perhaps fifty in all. Faces were turned expectantly towards Lull and Duiker." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Time to be a captain,\" Lull muttered under his breath, his tone so dispirited that it stung the historian's heart.\n\nAwaiting sergeant barked out a command to stand at attention and the motley gathering made a ragged but deter-mined effort to comply. Lull eyed them fora moment longer, then dismounted and approached.\n\n\"Six months ago you knelt before purebloods,\" the captain addressed them. \"You shied away your eyes and had the taste of dusty floors on your tongues. You exposed your backs to the whips and your world was high walls and foul hovels where you slept, where you loved, and gave birth to children who would face no better future. Six months ago I wouldn't have wasted a tin jakata on the lot of you. ' He paused, nodding to his sergeant.\n\nSoldiers of the Seventh came forward, each carrying folded uniforms. Those uniforms were faded, stained and restitched where weapons had pierced the cloth. Resting atop each pressed bundle was an iron sigil. Duiker leaned forward on his saddle to examine one more closely. The medallion was perhaps four inches in diameter, a circlet of chain affixed to a replica Wickan dog-collar, and in the centre was a cattle-dog's head– not snarling, simply staring outward with hooded eyes.\n\nSomething twisted inside the historian so that he barely managed to contain it.\n\n\"Last night,\" Captain Lull said, \"a representative of the Council of Nobles came to Coltaine. They were burdened with a chest of gold and silver jakatas. It seems the nobles have grown weary of cooking their own food, mending their own clothes... wiping their own asses-\"\n\nAt another time such a comment would have triggered dark looks and low grumbling– just one more spit in the face to join a lifetime of others. Instead, the former servants laughed. The antics of when they were children. Children no more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lull waited for the laughter to fall away. \"The Fist said nothing. The Fist turned his back on them. The Fist knows how to gauge value...\" The captain paused, a slow frown descending on his scarred features. \"There comes a time when a life can't be bought by coin, and once that line's crossed, there's no going back. You are soldiers now. Soldiers of the Seventh. Each of you will join regular squads in my infantry, to stand alongside your fellow soldiers– and not one of them gives a damn what you were before. \"He swung to the sergeant.\"Assign these soldiers, Sergeant. '\n\nDuiker watched the ritual in silence, each issuing of uniform as a manor woman's name was called out, the squads coming forward to collect their new member. Nothing was overplayed, nothing was forced. The perfunctory professionalism of the act carried its own weight, and a deep silence enveloped the scene. The historian saw inductees in their forties, but none was unfit. Decades of hard labour and the culling of two battles had ensured a collection of stubborn survivors.\n\nThey will stand, and stand well.\n\nThe captain appeared at his side. \"As servants,\" Lull softly rumbled, \"they might have survived, been sold onto other noble families. Now, with swords in their hands, they will die. Can you hear this silence, Duiker? Do you know what it signifies? I imagine you do, all too well.\"\n\nWith all that we do, Hood smiles.\n\n\"Write of this, old man.\"\n\nDuiker glanced at the captain and saw a broken man.\n\nAt Gelor Ridge, Corporal List had leapt down into the ditch beside the earthen ramp to avoid a swarm of arrows. His right foot had landed on a javelin head thrust up through the dirt. The iron point had driven through the sole of his boot, then the flesh between his big toe and the next one along." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A small wound, naught but mischance, yet punctures were the most feared of all battle wounds. They carried a fever that seized joints, including those of the jaw, that could make the mouth impossible to open, closing the throat to all sustenance and bringing agonizing death.\n\nThe Wickan horsewives had experience of treating such injuries, yet their supply of powders and herbs had long since dwindled, leaving them with but one treatment– burning the wound, and the burning had to be thorough. The hours after the battle of Gelor Ridge, the air was foul with the stench of burned hair and the macabre, sweetly enticing smell of cooked meat.\n\nDuiker found List hobbling in a circle with a determined expression on his thin, sweat-beaded face. The corporal glanced up as the historian approached. \"I can ride as well, sir, though for only an hour at a time. The foot goes numb and it's then that infection could return– or so I'm told.\"\n\nFour days ago the historian had walked alongside the travois that carried List, looking down on a young man that he was certain was dying. A harried Wickan horsewife had quickly checked on the corporal during the march. Duiker had seen a grim expression settle into her lined features as she probed with her fingers the swollen glands beneath List's sparsely bearded chin. Then she had glanced up at the historian.\n\nDuiker recognized her then, and she him. The woman who once offered me food.\n\n\"It's not good, \"he'd said.\n\nShe hesitated, then reached under the folds of her hide cloak to withdraw a knuckle-sized, misshapen object that looked to Duiker like nothing more than a knob of mouldy bread. \"A jest of the spirits, no doubt,\" she said in Malazan. Then she bent down, grasped List's injured foot– which had been left unbandaged and open to the hot, dry air– and pressed the knob against the puncture wound, binding it in place with a strip of hide." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Carry on with the narrative as the plot partner.\nTags: epic fantasy, war, sacrifice, journey, rebellion\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Deadhouse Gates\nChapter: 5" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A small wound, naught but mischance, yet punctures were the most feared of all battle wounds. They carried a fever that seized joints, including those of the jaw, that could make the mouth impossible to open, closing the throat to all sustenance and bringing agonizing death.\n\nThe Wickan horsewives had experience of treating such injuries, yet their supply of powders and herbs had long since dwindled, leaving them with but one treatment– burning the wound, and the burning had to be thorough. The hours after the battle of Gelor Ridge, the air was foul with the stench of burned hair and the macabre, sweetly enticing smell of cooked meat.\n\nDuiker found List hobbling in a circle with a determined expression on his thin, sweat-beaded face. The corporal glanced up as the historian approached. \"I can ride as well, sir, though for only an hour at a time. The foot goes numb and it's then that infection could return– or so I'm told.\"\n\nFour days ago the historian had walked alongside the travois that carried List, looking down on a young man that he was certain was dying. A harried Wickan horsewife had quickly checked on the corporal during the march. Duiker had seen a grim expression settle into her lined features as she probed with her fingers the swollen glands beneath List's sparsely bearded chin. Then she had glanced up at the historian.\n\nDuiker recognized her then, and she him. The woman who once offered me food.\n\n\"It's not good, \"he'd said.\n\nShe hesitated, then reached under the folds of her hide cloak to withdraw a knuckle-sized, misshapen object that looked to Duiker like nothing more than a knob of mouldy bread. \"A jest of the spirits, no doubt,\" she said in Malazan. Then she bent down, grasped List's injured foot– which had been left unbandaged and open to the hot, dry air– and pressed the knob against the puncture wound, binding it in place with a strip of hide." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A jest to make Hood frown.\n\n\"You should be ready to rejoin the ranks soon, then,\" Duiker now said.\n\nList nodded, approached. \"I must tell you something, sir,\" he said quietly. \"My fever showed me visions of what's ahead-'\n\n\"That happens sometimes.\"\n\n\"A god's hand reached out from the darkness, grasped my soul and dragged it forward, through days, weeks. Historian-\"List paused to wipe the sweat from his brow–\"the land south of Vathar... we're going to a place of old truths.\"\n\nDuiker's gaze narrowed.\"Old truths? What does that mean, List? '\n\n\"Something terrible happened there, sir. Long ago. The earth– it's lifeless-'\n\nThat is something only Sormo and the High Command know. \"This god's hand, Corporal, did you see it? '\n\n\"No, but I felt it. The fingers were long, too long, with more joints than there should be. Sometimes that grip comes back, like a ghost's, and I start shivering in its icy clutch. '\n\n\"Do you recall that ancient slaughter at Sekala Crossing? Did your visions echo those, Corporal?\"\n\nList frowned, then shook his head. \"No, what lies ahead of us now is much older, Historian.\"\n\nShouts arose as the train readied to lurch into motion again, down off the Imperial Road and onto the trader track.\n\nDuiker looked out over the studded plain to the south. \"I will walk alongside your travois, Corporal,\" he said, \"while you describe for me in detail these visions of yours.\"\n\n\"They might be naught but fevered delusions, Historian-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But you don't believe so... and neither do I. \"His eyes remained on the plain. A many-jointed hand. Not a god's hand, Corporal, though one of such power that you might well have thought so. You've been chosen, lad, for whatever reason, to witness an Elder vision. Out from the darkness comes the cold hand of a Jaghut.\n\nFelisin sat on a block of masonry that had fallen from the ancient gate, her arms wrapped around herself, her eyes on the ground before her, steadily rocking in a slow cadence. The motion brought peace to her mind, as if she was nothing more than a vessel filled with water.\n\nHeboric and the giant warrior were arguing. About her, about prophecies and ill chance, about the desperation of fanatics. Mutual contempt swirled and bubbled between the two men, seemingly born in the instant they met, and growing darker with every moment that passed.\n\nThe other warrior, Leoman, crouched nearby, matching her silence. He had before him the Holy Book of Dryjhna, guarding the tome in her stead, awaiting what he seemed to see as her inevitable acceptance that she was indeed Sha'ik reborn.\n\nReborn. Renewed. Heart of the Apocalypse. Delivered by the unhanded in the suspended breath of the goddess. Who waits still. Waits as Leoman waits. Felisin, hinge of the world.\n\nA smile cracked her features.\n\nShe rocked to distant cries, the ancient echoes of sudden, soul-jarring deaths– they seemed so faraway now. Kulp, devoured beneath a seething mound of rats. Gnawed bones and a shock of white hair streaked red. Baudin, burned in afire of his own making– oh, the irony of that, he lived by his own rule and died with that same godless claim. Even as he gave up his life for someone else. Still, he'd say he made his vow freely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These are the things that bring stillness.\n\nDeaths that had already withdrawn, far down the endless, dusty track, too distant to make their demands heard or felt. Grief rapes the mind, and I know all about rape. It's a question of acquiescence. So I shall feel nothing. No rape, no grief.\n\nStones grated beside her. Heboric. She knew the feeling of his presence and had no need to lookup. The one-time priest of Fener was muttering under his breath. Then he fell silent, as if steeling himself to reach into her silence. Rape. A moment later he spoke, \"They want to get moving, lass. They're both far gone. The oasis– Sha'ik's encampment– is along walk. There's water to be found on the way, but little in the way of food. The Toblakai will hunt, but game's gone very scarce– the Soletaken and D'ivers, I gather. In any case, whether you open the Book or not, we have to move.\"\n\nShe said nothing, continued rocking.\n\nHeboric cleared his throat. \"For all I rage against their mad, fevered notions, and counsel most strongly against your accepting them... we need these two, and the oasis. They know Raraku– better than anyone else. If we're to have any chance of surviving... '\n\nSurviving.\n\n\"I'll grant you, \"Heboric went on after a moment,\"I've acquired... senses... that make my blindness less of a liability. And these hands of mine, reborn... Nonetheless, Felisin, I'm not enough to guard you. And besides, there is no guarantee that these two will let us walkaway from them, if you understand my meaning. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Surviving.\n\n\"Wake up, lass! You've got some decisions to make. '\n\n\"Sha'ik drew her blade against the Empire, ' she said, eyes still on the dusty ground.\n\n\"A foolish gesture-\"\n\n\"Sha'ik would face the Empress, would send the Imperial armies into a blood-filled Abyss. '\n\n\"History recounts similar rebellions, lass, and the tale is an endless echo. Glorious ideals lend a vigour of health to Hood's bleached grin, but it's naught but a glamour, and righteousness-\"\n\n\"Who cares about what's righteous, old man? The Empress must needs answer Sha'ik's challenge. '\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"And shall despatch an army from Quon Tali.\"\n\n\"Likely already on the way.\"\n\n\"And,\" Felisin continued, feeling a cold breath touch her flesh, \"who commands this army?\"\n\nShe heard him draw a sharp breath of his own and felt him flinch back.\n\n\"Lass-\"\n\nShe snapped out a hand as if batting away a wasp, and rose to her feet. She turned to find Leoman staring at her, his sun-scoured face striking her suddenly as Raraku's own. Harder than Beneth's, without any of the affectations. Sharper than Baudin, oh, there's wit there, in those cold, dark eyes.\"To Sha'ik's encampment, ' she said.\n\nHe glanced down at the Book, then back to her.\n\nFelisin raised an eyebrow. \"Would you rather walk through a storm? Let the goddess wait a little longer before renewing her fury, Leoman.\"\n\nShe saw him reappraise her, a glimmer of uncertainty newly arriving in his eyes, and was pleased. After a moment, he bowed his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Felisin,\" Heboric hissed, \"have you any idea-\"\n\n\"Better than you, old man. Now keep quiet.\"\n\n\"Perhaps we should part ways now-\"\n\nShe swung to him. \"No. I think I shall have need for you, Heboric\"\n\nHe gave her a bitter smile. \"As your conscience, lass? I'm a poor choice. '\n\nYes, you are, and all the better for that.\n\nThe ancient path showed signs of having once been a road, running the length of a ridge that twisted like a crooked spine towards a distant mesa. Cobbles showed like bone where the wind had scoured away the sandy soil. The path was littered with red-glazed potsherds that crunched underfoot.\n\nThe Toblakai scouted five hundred paces ahead, unseen in the ochre haze, while Leoman led Felisin and Heboric at a measured pace, rarely speaking. The man was frighteningly gaunt and moved so silently over the ground that Felisin had begun to imagine him no more than a spectre. Nor did Heboric stumble in his blindness as he walked behind her.\n\nGlancing back, she saw him smiling. \"Something amusing you?\"\n\n\"This road is crowded, lass.\"\n\n\"The same ghosts as in the buried city?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"Not as old. These are memories of an age that followed the First Empire.\"\n\nLeoman stopped and turned at that.\n\nHeboric's broad mouth extended into a grin.\"Oh aye, Raraku is showing me her secrets. '\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nThe ex-priest shrugged.\n\nFelisin eyed the desert warrior. \"Does that make you nervous, Leoman?\" Because it should." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He glanced at her, his eyes dark and appraising. \"What is this man to you?\"\n\nI don't know.\"My companion. My historian. Of great value since I am to make Raraku my home. '\n\n\"The Holy Desert's secrets are not his to possess. He plunders them as would any foreign raider. If you desire Raraku's truths, look within yourself.\"\n\nShe almost gave a laugh at that, but knew its bitterness would frighten even her.\n\nThey continued on, the morning's heat rising, the sky turning into gold fire. The ridge narrowed, revealing the ancient road's foundation stones, tenor more feet down on either side, the slope beyond falling away a further fifty or sixty feet. The Toblakai awaited them at a place where the roadbed had collapsed to create large, dark holes in the ground. From one of them issued the soft trickle of water.\n\n\"An aqueduct beneath the road,\" Heboric said. \"It used to flow in a torrent.\"\n\nFelisin saw the Toblakai scowl.\n\nLeoman gathered the waterskins and proceeded to crawl down into the hole.\n\nHeboric sat down to rest. After a moment, he cocked his head. \"Sorry you had to wait for us, Toblakai-with-the-secret-name, though I imagine you'd have trouble getting your head through that cave mouth in any case. '\n\nThe giant savage sneered, revealing filed teeth. \"I collect tokens of the people I kill. Tied hereon my belt. One day I will have yours.\"\n\n\"He means your ears, Heboric,\" Felisin said.\n\n\"Oh, I know, lass,\" the ex-priest said. \"Tortured spirits writhe in this bastard's shadow– every man, woman and child that he's killed. Tell me, Toblakai, did those children beg to live? Did they weep, cry out for their mothers?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No more than grown men did,\" the giant said, yet Felisin saw that he had paled, though she sensed that it was not his killing of children that bothered him. No, there was something else in what Heboric had said.\n\nTortured spirits. He's haunted by the ghosts of those he's slain. Forgive me, Toblakai, if I spare you no pity.\n\n\"This land is not home to Toblakai,\" Heboric said. \"Has the Rebellion's lure of slaughter called you here? From where did you crawl, bastard? '\n\n\"I have said to you all that I shall say. When I speak to you next it will be when I kill you.\"\n\nLeoman emerged from the hole, cobwebs snagged in his bound hair, the waterskins bulging at his back. \"You will kill no-one until I say so,\" he growled to the Toblakai, then swung a glare on Heboric. \"And I've not yet said so. '\n\nThere was something in the giant's expression that spoke of immense patience coupled with unwavering certainty. He rose to his full height, accepted a waterskin from Leoman, then set off down the trail.\n\nHeboric stared sightlessly after him. \"The wood of that weapon is soaked in pain. I cannot imagine he sleeps well at night.\"\n\n\"He barely sleeps at all,\" Leoman muttered. \"You shall cease baiting him.\"\n\nThe ex-priest grimaced. \"You've not seen the ghosts of children tied to his heels, Leoman. But I shall make the effort to keep my mouth shut. '\n\n\"His tribe made few distinctions,\" Leoman said. \"There was kin, and those who were not kin were the enemy. Now, enough talk.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A hundred paces on, the road suddenly widened, opening out onto the flat of the mesa. To either side ran row upon row of oblong humps of fired, reddish clay, each hump seven feet long and three wide. Despite the foreshortened horizons created by the suspended dust, Felisin could see that the rows, scores deep, encircled the entire plateau– entirely surrounding the ruined city that lay before them.\n\nThe cobbles were fully exposed now, revealing abroad causeway that ran in a straight line towards what had once been a grand gate, worn down by centuries of wind to knee-high stumps of bleached stone– as was the entire city beyond.\n\n\"A slow death,\" Heboric whispered.\n\nThe Toblakai was already striding through the distant gates.\n\n\"We must cross through to the other side, down to the harbour,\" Leoman said. \"Where we shall find a hidden camp. And a cache... unless it has been pillaged.\"\n\nThe city's main street was a dusty mosaic of shattered pottery: red-glazed body sherds, grey, black and brown rims.\"I will think of this, \"Felisin said,\"when I next carelessly break a pot. '\n\nHeboric grunted. \"I know of scholars who claim they can map entire extinct cultures through the study of such detritus.\"\n\n\"Now there's a lifetime of excitement, ' Felisin drawled.\n\n\"Would that I could trade places with one of them!\"\n\n\"You are not serious, Heboric\"\n\n\"I am not? Fener's tusk, lass, I am not the adventurous type-'\n\n\"Perhaps not at first, but then you were broken. Shattered. Like these pots here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I appreciate the observation, Felisin.\"\n\n\"You cannot be remade unless you are first broken.\"\n\n\"You have become very philosophic in your advanced years, I see.\"\n\nMore than you realize. \"Tell me you've learned no truths, Heboric'\n\nHe snorted. \"Aye, I've learned one. There are no truths. You'll understand that yourself, years from now, when Hood's shadow stretches your way. '\n\n\"There are truths,\" Leoman said ahead of them, not turning as he continued. \"Raraku. Dryjhna. The Whirlwind and the Apocalypse. The weapon in the hand, the flow of blood.\"\n\n\"You've not made our journey, Leoman, ' Heboric growled.\n\n\"Your journey was rebirth– as she has said– and so there was pain. Only fools would expect otherwise.\"\n\nThe old man made no reply to that.\n\nThey walked on in the city's sepulchral silence. The foundation stones and the low ridges of inner walls mapped the floor plans of the buildings to either side. A precise geometric plan was evident in the layout of streets and alleys, a half-circle of concentric rings, with the flat side the harbour itself. The remains of a large, palatial structure were visible ahead; the massive stones at the centre had been more successful in withstanding the centuries of erosion.\n\nFelisin glanced back at Heboric. \"Still plagued by ghosts?\"\n\n\"Not plagued, lass. There was no great unleashing of brutality here. Only sadness, and even that was naught but a subcurrent. Cities die. Cities mimic the cycle of every living thing: birth, vigorous youth, maturity, old age, then finally... dust and potsherds. In the last century of this place, the sea was already receding, even as anew influence arrived, something foreign. There was a brief renaissance– we'll see evidence of that ahead, at the harbour– but it was short-lived. \"He was silent fora dozen or so paces.\"You know, Felisin, I begin to understand something of the lives of the Ascendants. To live for hundreds, then thousands of years. To witness this flowering in all its futile glory, ah, is it any wonder that their hearts grow hard and cold? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This journey has brought you closer to your god, Heboric.\"\n\nThe comment stung him to silence.\n\nShe saw what Heboric had hinted at when they reached the city's harbour. What had once been the bay had silted in, yet four cyclopean channels had been constructed, reaching out to vanish in the haze. Each was as wide as three city streets and almost as deep.\n\n\"The last ships sailed out from these canals,\" Heboric said at her side. \"The heaviest transports scraped bottom at the far mouths, and could only make way with the tide at peak. A few thousand denizens remained, until the aqueducts dried up. This is one story of Raraku, but alas, not the only one, and the others were far more violent, far more bloody. Yet I wonder, which was the more tragic?\"\n\n\"You waste your thoughts on the past-\" Leoman began, but was interrupted by a shout from the Toblakai. The giant had appeared near one of the canal heads. Falling silent, the desert warrior set off towards his companion.\n\nAs Felisin moved to follow, Heboric grasped her arm, the unseen hand a cool, tingling contact. He waited until Leoman was beyond earshot, then said, \"I have fears, lass-\"\n\n\"I'm not surprised, \"she cut in.\"That Toblakai means to kill you. '\n\n\"Not that fool. I mean Leoman.\"\n\n\"He was Sha'ik's bodyguard. If I am to become her I'll not need to mistrust his loyalty, Heboric. My only concern is that he and the Toblakai did such a poor job of protecting Sha'ik the first time around.\"\n\n\"Leoman is no fanatic,\" the ex-priest said. \"Oh, he might well make appropriate noises to lead you to believe otherwise, but there is an ambivalence in him. I don't fora moment believe he thinks you are truly Sha'ik reborn. The simple fact is the rebellion needs a figurehead– a young, strong one, not the worn-down old woman that the original Sha'ik must have been. Hood's breath, she was a force in this desert twenty-five years ago. You might want to consider the possibility that these two bodyguards didn't break a sweat in their efforts to defend her. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked at him. The tattoos made an almost solid whirling pattern on his weathered, toadlike face. His eyes were red and rimmed in dried mucus and a thin, grey patina dulled his pupils. \"Then I can also assume they will have greater cause this time around.\"\n\n\"Provided you play their game. Leoman's game, to be more precise. He will be the one to speak for you to the army at the encampment– if he has cause he will hint at doubts, and they will tear you apart-'\n\n\"I have no fear of Leoman,\" Felisin said. \"I understand men like him, Heboric.\"\n\nHis lips closed to a thin line.\n\nShe drew her arm away from that unnatural grip and began walking.\n\n\"Beneth was less than a child to this Leoman,\" the ex-priest hissed behind her. \"He was a thug, a bully, a tyrant to a handful of the downtrodden. Any man can preen with great ambitions, no matter how pathetic his station, Felisin. You are doing worse than clinging to the memory of Beneth– you are clinging to the airs he projected, and they were naught but delusions-\"\n\nShe whirled. \"You know nothing!\" she hissed, trembling with fury. \"You think I fear what a man can do? Any man? You think you know me? That you can know my thoughts, know what I feel? You presumptuous bastard, Heboric-\"\n\nHis laughter struck her like a blow, shocking her into silence. \"Dear lass,\" he said. \"You would keep meat your side. As what? An ornament? A macabre curiosity? Would you burnout my tongue to balance my blindness? I am hereto keep you amused, then, even as you accuse me of presumption. Oh, that is sweet indeed-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stop talking, Heboric,\" Felisin said quietly, suddenly weary. \"If one day we do come to understand each other, it will be without words. Who needs swords when we have our tongues, you and I? Let us sheathe them and have done with it.\"\n\nHe cocked his head. \"One last question, then. Why would you have me stay, Felisin?\"\n\nShe hesitated before answering him, wondering at how he would take this particular truth. Well, that is something. Not long ago I would not have cared. \"Because it means survival, Heboric. I offer... for Baudin.\"\n\nHead still cocked, the ex-priest slowly wiped one forearm across his dusty brow. \"Perhaps,\" he said, \"we'll yet come to understand each other. '\n\nThe canal mouth was marked by abroad series of stone steps, over a hundred in all. At the base, on what had once been the seabed, a more recent stonewall had been constructed, providing attachment points fora canvas shelter. A ring of stones surrounded an ash-stained firepit nearby, and the old cobbles that had once covered the cache were now tumbled about, a gutted cairn.\n\nThe subject of the Toblakai's outcry were the seven half-eaten corpses scattered about the camp, each amass of flies. The blood in the fine, white sand was only a few hours old, still gummy to the touch. The stench of loosened bowels soured the hazy air.\n\nLeoman crouched by the stairs, studying the bestial prints that marked a bloodstained ascent backup into the city. After along moment, he glanced over at the Toblakai. \"If you want this one, you'll goon your own, ' he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The giant bared his teeth. \"I will have no-one else crowding me,\" he replied, unslinging his waterskin and bedroll and letting them drop to the ground. He unsheathed his wooden sword, holding it as if it was no more than a twig.\n\nHeboric snorted from where he leaned against the stonewall. \"You plan to hunt down this Soletaken? I take it that in your tribe you are nearing the end of the average expected lifespan, assuming your kin areas stupid as you. Well, I for one will not grieve your death.\"\n\nThe Toblakai maintained his vow, refusing to address Heboric, though his grin broadened. He swung to Leoman. \"I am Raraku's vengeance against such intruders. '\n\n\"If you are, then avenge my kin,\" the desert warrior replied.\n\nThe Toblakai set off, taking the steps three at a time and not slowing until he reached the top, where he paused to study tracks. A moment later he slipped beyond their line of sight.\n\n\"The Soletaken will kill him,\" Heboric said.\n\nLeoman shrugged. \"Perhaps. Sha'ik saw far into his future, however... '\n\n\"And what did she see?\" Felisin asked.\n\n\"She would not say. Yet it... appalled her.\"\n\n\"The Seer of the Apocalypse was appalled?\" Felisin looked at Heboric. The ex-priest's expression was drawn taut, as if he'd just heard confirmation of some glimmer of the future he had himself sensed. \"Tell me, Leoman,\" she said, \"of her other visions.\"\n\nThe man had begun dragging the bodies of his kin to one side. He paused at her question, glanced over. \"When you open the Holy Book, they shall be visited upon you. This is Dryjhna's gift... among others. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You expect me to go through with this ritual before we reach the encampment.\"\n\n\"You must. The ritual is the proof that you are truly Sha'ik reborn. '\n\nHeboric grunted. \"And what does that mean, precisely?\"\n\n\"If she is false, the ritual shall destroy her.\"\n\nThe ancient island rose in a flat-topped hump above the cracked clay plain. Grey, weathered stumps marked mooring poles and more substantial piers just beyond what had once been the shoreline, along with remnants of the usual garbage that had once been dumped over the sides of ships. Sinkholes in what had been the bay's muddy bottom glittered with compacted layers of glittering fish-scale.\n\nCrouching beside Fiddler, Mappo watched as Icarium made his way up the crumbled remains of a seawall. Crokus stood just behind the Trell, near the hobbled horses. The lad had fallen strangely silent since their last meal stop, a certain economy coming to his movements, as if he had chained himself to his own vow of patience. And seemingly unconsciously, the Daru had begun to emulate Icarium in his speech and mannerisms. Mappo was neither amused nor displeased when he noticed. The Jhag had always been an overwhelming presence, all the more so because he made no affectation or pretence.\n\nStill, better for Crokus had he looked to Fiddler. This soldier's a wonder in his own right.\n\n\"Icarium climbs like he knows where he's going, ' the sapper observed.\n\nMappo winced. \"I had come to the same observation,\" he ruefully admitted.\n\n\"Have you two been here before?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have not, Fiddler. But Icarium... well, he's wandered this land before. '\n\n\"But in returning to a place he'd been to before, how would he know? '\n\nThe Trell shook his head. He shouldn't. He never has before. Are those blessed barriers breaking down? Queen of Dreams, return Icarium to the bliss of not knowing. I beg you...\n\n\"Let us join him,\" Fiddler said, slowly straightening.\n\n\"I'd rather-'\n\n\"As you wish,\" the soldier replied, setting off after the Jhag, who had vanished into the thorn-choked city ruins beyond the seawall. After a moment, Crokus strode past Mappo as well.\n\nThe Trell grimaced. I must begetting old, to let being distraught cow me so. He sighed, rising from his crouch and lumbering after the others.\n\nThe slope of detritus at the base of the seawall was a treacherous scree of splintered wood, slabs of plaster, brick and potsherds. Halfway up, Fiddler grunted and paused, reaching down to pull free a shaft of grey wood. \"I've some rethinking to do, \"he said, glancing back down.\"All this wood's turned to stone.\"\n\n\"Petrified,\" Crokus said. \"My uncle described the process tome once. The wood soaks up minerals. But that's supposed to take tens of thousands of years. '\n\n\"Well, a High Mage of the D'riss Warren could manage the same in the blink of an eye, lad. '\n\nMappo pulled free a fragment of pottery. Not much thicker than an eggshell, the shard was sky blue in colour and very hard. It revealed the torso of a figure painted on the surface, black with a green outline. The image was stiff, stylized, but without doubt human. He let the sherd drop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This city was dead long before the sea dried up,\" Fiddler said, resuming his climb.\n\nCrokus called up after him, \"How do you know?\"\n\n\"Because everything's water-worn, lad. Waves crumbled this seawall. Century after century of waves. I grew up in a port city, remember. I've seen what water can do. The Emperor had Malaz Bay dredged before the Imperial piers were built– revealed old seawalls and the like.\" Reaching the top, he paused to catch his breath. \"Showed everyone that Malaz City's older than anybody'd realized.\"\n\n\"And that the sea levels have risen since,\" Mappo observed.\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\nAt the top of the seawall the city stretched out before them. While the remains were weathered, it was clear that the city had been deliberately destroyed. Every building had been reduced to rubble, revealing a cataclysmic use of force and fury. Scrub brush filled every open space that remained and low, gnarled trees clung to foundation stones and surmounted the mounds of wreckage.\n\nStatuary had been a primary feature of the architecture, lining the broad colonnades and set in niches on every building wall. Marble body parts lay everywhere, each displaying the rigid style that Mappo had seen on the potsherd. The Trell began to sense a familiarity with the assortment of human figures portrayed.\n\nA legend, told on the Jhag Odhan... a tale told by the elders in my tribe...\n\nIcarium was nowhere to be seen.\n\n\"Now where?\" Fiddler asked.\n\nA frail keening rising in his head, bringing sweat to his dark skin, Mappo stepped forward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Caught ascent of something, have you?\"\n\nHe barely heard the sapper's question.\n\nThe city's pattern was hard to distinguish from what remained, yet Mappo followed his own mental map, born of his memory of the legend, its cadence, its precise metering when recounted in the harsh, clashing dialect of archaic Trell. People who possessed no written language carried the use of speech to astonishing extremes. Words were numbers were codes were formulae. Words held secret maps, the measuring of paces, the patterns of mortal minds, of histories, of cities, of continents and warrens.\n\nThe tribe Mappo had adopted all those centuries ago had chosen to return to the old ways, rejecting the changes that were afflicting the Trell. The elders had shown Mappo and the others all that was in danger of being lost, the power that resided in the telling of tales, the ritual unscrolling of memory.\n\nMappo knew where Icarium had gone. He knew what the Jhag would find. His heart thundering savagely in his chest, his pace increased as he scrambled over the rubble, pushing through thickets of thorn which lacerated even his tough hide.\n\nSeven main avenues within each city of the First Empire. The Sky Spirits look down upon the holy number, seven scorpion tails, seven stings facing the circle of sand. To all who would make offerings to the Seven Holies, look to the circle of sand.\n\nFiddler called out somewhere behind him, but the Trell did not respond. He'd found one of the curving avenues and was making for the centre.\n\nThe seven scorpion-sting thrones had once towered over the enclosure, each seventy-seven arm-spans high. Each had been shattered... by sword blows, by an unbreakable weapon in hands powered by a rage almost impossible to comprehend." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Little remained of the offerings and tributes that had once crowded the circle of sand, with one exception, before which Icarium now stood. The Jhag was motionless, his head tilted upwards to take in the immense construction that rose before him.\n\nIts iron gears showed no rust, no corrosion, and would still be moving in a measure that could not be seen by mortal eyes. The enormous disc that dominated the structure stood at an angle, its marble face smothered with etched symbols. It faced the sun, though that fiery orb was barely visible through the sky's golden haze.\n\nMappo slowly walked towards Icarium and stopped two paces behind him.\n\nHis presence was sensed, for Icarium spoke. \"How can this be, friend?\"\n\nIt was the voice of a lost child, and it twisted like a barbed shaft in the Trell's heart.\n\n\"This is mine, you see,\" the Jhag continued. \"My... gift. Or so I can read, in this ancient Omtose script. More, I have marked– with knowing– its season, its year of construction. And see how the disc has turned, so that I may seethe Omtose correspondence for this year... allowing me to calculate...\"\n\nHis voice fell away.\n\nMappo hugged himself, unable to speak, unable even to think. Anguish and fear filled him until he too felt like a child, come face to face with a nightmare.\n\n\"Tell me, Mappo,\" Icarium continued after along moment, \"why did the destroyers of this city not destroy this as well? True, sorcery invested it, made it immune to time's own ravages... but so too were these seven thrones... so too were many other gifts in this circle. All things made can be broken, after all. Why, Mappo? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Trell prayed his friend would not turnaround, would not reveal his face, his eyes. The child's worst fears, the nightmare's face– a mother, a father, all love stripped away, replaced by cold intent, or blind disregard, the simple lack of caring... and so the child wakens shrieking...\n\nDo not turn, Icarium, I cannot bear to see your face.\n\n\"Perhaps I made an error,\" Icarium said, still in that quiet, innocent tone. Mappo heard Fiddler and Crokus arrive on the sand behind him. Something in the air held them to silence, stalled their approach. \"A mistake in the measurement, a slip of the script. It's an old language, Omtose, faint in my memory– perhaps as faint back then, when I first built this. The knowledge I seem to retain feels... precise, yet I am not perfect, am I? My certainty could be a self-delusion. '\n\nNo, Icarium, you are not perfect.\n\n\"I calculate that ninety-four thousand years have passed since I last stood here, Mappo. Ninety-four thousand. There must be some error in that. No city ruin could survive that long, could it?\"\n\nMappo found himself shrugging. How could we know one way or the other?\n\n\"The investiture of sorcery, perhaps...\"\n\nPerhaps.\n\n\"Who destroyed this city, I wonder?\"\n\nYou did, Icarium, yet even in your rage apart of you recognized what you yourself had built, and left it intact.\n\n\"They had great power, whoever they were,\" the Jhag continued. \"T'lan Imass arrived here, sought to drive the enemy back– an old alliance between the denizens of this city and the Silent Host. Their shattered bones lie buried in the sand beneath us. In their thousands. What force was there that could do such a thing, Mappo? Not Jaghut, even in their preeminence a thousand millennia past. And the K'Chain Che'Malle have been extinct for even longer. I do not understand this, friend... '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A callused hand fell on Mappo's shoulder, offered a solid grip briefly, then withdrew as Fiddler stepped past the Trell.\n\n\"The answer seems clear enough tome, Icarium,\" the soldier said, halting at the Jhag's side.\"An Ascendant power. The fury of a god or goddess unleashed this devastation. How many tales have you heard of ancient empires reaching too high in their pride? Who were the Seven Holies to begin with? Whoever they were, they were honoured here, in this city and no doubt its sister cities throughout Raraku. Seven thrones, look at the rage that assailed each of them. Looks... personal, tome. A god's or a goddess's hand slapped down here, Icarium– but whoever it was has since drifted away from mortal minds, for I, at least, cannot think of any known Ascendant able to unleash such power on the mortal plain as we see here-'\n\n\"Oh, they could,\" Icarium said, a hint of renewed vigour in his voice, \"but they have since learned the greater value of subtlety when interfering in the activities of mortals– the old way was too dangerous in every respect. I suspect you have answered my question, Fiddler...\"\n\nThe sapper shrugged.\n\nMappo found his heart slowing. Just do not again think of that lone, surviving artefact, Icarium. Sweat dripping in an uneven patter on the sand, he shivered, drew a deep breath. He glanced back at Crokus. The lad's attention was elsewhere in such a studied pose of casual indifference that the Trell was left wondering at his state of mind.\n\n\"Ninety-four thousand years– that must bean error,\" Icarium said. He turned from the structure, offering the Trell a weak smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The scene blurred in Mappo's eyes. He nodded and looked away to fightback a renewed surge of sorrow.\n\n\"Well,\" Fiddler said, \"shall we resume our pursuit of Apsalar and her father?\"\n\nIcarium shook himself, then murmured, \"Aye. We are close... to many things, it seems.\"\n\nA perilous journey indeed.\n\nThe night of his leavetaking all those centuries ago, in the hours when the last of his old loyalties was ritually shriven from him, Mappo had knelt before the tribe's eldest shoulder-woman in the smoky confines of her yurt.\"I must know more, \"he'd whispered. \"More of these Nameless Ones, who would so demand this of me. Are they sworn to a god?\"\n\n\"Once, but no more,\" the old woman had replied, unable or unwilling to meet his eye. \"Cast out, cast down. In the time of the First Empire which was not, in truth, the first– for the T'lan Imass claimed that title long before. They were the left hand, another sect the right hand– both guiding, meant to be clasped. Instead, those who would come to be Unnamed, in their journeys into mysteries-\"She chopped with one hand, a gesture Mappo had not seen before among the tribe's elders. A gesture, he realized with a start, of a Jhag. \"Mysteries of another led them astray. They bowed to anew master. That is all there is to say.\"\n\n\"Who was this new master?\"\n\nThe woman shook her head, turned away.\n\n\"Whose power resides in those staves they carry?\"\n\nShe would not answer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the passage of time, Mappo believed he had found the answer to that question, but it was a knowledge devoid of comfort.\n\nThey left the ancient island behind and struck out across the clay plain as the day's light slowly faded from the sky. The horses were suffering, needing water that even Icarium and Mappo's desert craft could not find. The Trell had no idea how Apsalar and her father fared, yet they'd managed to stay ahead, day after day.\n\nThis trail and its goal has naught to do with Sha'ik. We have been led far from the places of such activity, far from where Sha'ik was killed, far from the oasis. Fiddler knows our destination. He has divined the knowledge from whatever secrets he holds within him. Indeed, we all suspect, though we speak nothing of it– perhaps Crokus alone remains ignorant, but I may well be underestimating the young man. He's grown within himself... Mappo glanced across to Fiddler. We go to the place you sought all along, soldier.\n\nDusk closed in on the barren landscape, but enough light remained to reveal a chilling convergence of tracks. Soletaken and D'ivers by the score, the number frightening to contemplate, closing to join the twin footsteps of Apsalar and her father.\n\nCrokus fell back a dozen paces as they walked their horses. Mappo took little note of the detail until, a short while later, he whirled at a shout from the Daru. Crokus was on the ground, grappling with a man in the dusty gloom. Shadows flitted across the cracked clay. The lad managed to pin the man down, gripping his wrists.\n\n\"I knew you were lurking about, you weasel!\" Crokus snarled. \"For hours and hours, since before the island! All I had to do was wait and now I've got you! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The others backtracked to where Crokus straddled Iskaral Pust. The High Priest had ceased his writhing efforts to escape. \"Another thousand paces!\" he hissed. \"And the deceit is complete! Have you seen the signs of my glorious success? Any of you? Are you all dimwits? Oh, so unkind in my nefarious thoughts! But see me respond to their accusations with manly silence, hah!\"\n\n\"You might let him up,\" Icarium said to Crokus. \"He'll not run now. '\n\n\"Let him up? How about stringing him up?\"\n\n\"The next tree we come to, lad,\" Fiddler said, grinning, \"and that's a promise. '\n\nThe Daru released the High Priest. Iskaral scrambled to his feet, crouching like a rat deciding which way to dart. \"Deadly proliferation! Do I dare accompany them? Do I risk the glory of witnessing with my own eyes the fullest yield of my brilliant efforts? Well disguised, this uncertainty, they know nothing!\"\n\n\"You're coming with us, \"Crokus growled, hands on the two daggers jutting from his belt.\"No matter what happens. '\n\n\"Why, of course, lad!\" Iskaral spun to face the Daru, his head bobbing. \"I was but hastening to catch up!\" He ducked his head. \"He believes me, I can see it in his face. The soft-brained dolt! Who is a match for Iskaral Pust? No-one! I must remain quietly triumphant, so very quietly. The key to understanding lies in the unknown nature of warrens. Can they be torn into fragments? Oh yes, oh, yes indeed. And that is the secret of Raraku! They wander more than one world, all unknowing... and before us, ah, the slumbering giant that is the heart! The true heart, not Sha'ik's grubby oasis, oh, such fools abound!\" He paused, looked up at the others. \"Why do you stare so? We should be walking. A thousand paces, no more, to your heart's desire, hee hee! ' He broke into a dance, knees jerking high as he jumped in place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, for Hood's sake! \"Crokus grasped the High Priest's collar, flung him stumbling forward. \"Let's go. '\n\n\"The cajoling good-humoured jostling of youth,\" Iskaral murmured. \"Such warm comradely gestures, oh, I am softened, am I not?\"\n\nMappo glanced at Icarium and found the Jhag staring at him. Their gazes locked. A fragmented warren. What on earth has happened to this land? The question was shared in silence, though in the Trell's mind a further thought ensued. The legends claim that Icarium emerged from this place, strode out from Raraku. A warren torn to pieces– Raraku changes all who stride its broken soil– gods, have we indeed come to the place where Icarium's living nightmare was born?\n\nThey continued on. Overhead, the sky's faded bronze deepened to impenetrable black, a starless void that seemed to be slowly sinking, lowering itself around them. Iskaral Pust's muttering dwindled as if swallowed up by the night. Mappo could see that both Fiddler and Crokus were having difficulty, though both continued walking, hands held out like blind men.\n\nA dozen strides in front of the others, Icarium halted, turned.\n\nMappo tilted his head, acknowledging that he too had spied the two figures standing fifty paces further on. Apsalar and Servant– the only name by which I know that old man, a simple but ominous title.\n\nThe Jhag strode over to take one of Crokus's outstretched hands.\"We have found them, \"he said in a low tone that nevertheless carried, bringing everyone to a stop.\"They await us, it seems, \"Icarium continued,\"before a threshold. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Threshold?\" Fiddler snapped. \"Quick Ben never mentioned anything like that. Threshold to what?\"\n\n\"A knotted, torn piece of warren!\" Iskaral Pust hissed. \"Oh, see how the Path of Hands has led into it– the fools followed, one and all! The High Priest of Shadow was tasked to set a false trail, and look, oh, look how he has done so!\"\n\nCrokus turned to the sound of Iskaral Pust's voice.\"But why did her father lead us here? So that we may all beset upon and slaughtered by a horde of Soletaken and D'ivers?\"\n\n\"Servant journeys home, you withered mole carcass!\" The High Priest danced in place again. \"If the convergence does not kill him first, of course! Hee hee! And takes her, and the sapper, too– and you, lad. You! Ask the Jhag what waits within the warren! Waits like a clenched hand holding down this fragment of realm!\"\n\nApsalar and her father approached side by side.\n\nMappo had wondered at this reunion, but no expectations he'd envisioned would match the reality. Crokus had yet to notice them, and was instead drawing his daggers and preparing to close in on the sound of the High Priest's voice. Icarium stood behind the Daru, a moment from disarming him. The scene was almost comic, for Crokus could see nothing, and Iskaral Pust began throwing his voice so that it emerged from a dozen places at once, while he continued his capering dance.\n\nFiddler, cursing under his breath, had removed a battered lantern from his pack and was now hunting fora flint." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you dare tread the path?\" Iskaral Pust sang out. \"Do you dare? Do you dare?\"\n\nApsalar halted before Mappo. \"I knew you would win through,\" she said. She swung her head. \"Crokus! I am here-\"\n\nHe whirled, sheathed his daggers and closed.\n\nSparks flashed and bounced from where Fiddler crouched.\n\nThe Trell watched as the Daru's reaching arms were captured by Apsalar and guided around her in a tight embrace. Oh, lad, you do not know how poignant your blindness is...\n\nAn aura that was an echo of a god clung to her, yet it had become wholly her own. The Trell's sense of it did not leave him at ease.\n\nIcarium came close to Mappo. Tremorlor, ' he said.\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"There are some who claim the Azath are in truth benign, a force to keep power in check, that they arise where and when there is need. My friend, I am beginning to see much truth in those claims.\"\n\nThe Trell nodded. This torn warren possesses such pain. If it could wander, drift, it would deliver horror and chaos. Tremorlor holds it here– Iskaral Pust speaks the truth– but even so, how Raraku has twisted on all sides...\n\n\"I sense Soletaken and D'ivers within, \"Icarium said.\"Closing, seeking to find the House-'\n\n\"Believing it to be agate.\"\n\nThe lantern glowed into light, a lurid yellow that reached no more than a few paces in any direction. Fiddler rose from his crouch, eyes on Mappo. \"There is agate there, just not the one the shapeshifters seek. Nor will they get to it– the grounds of the Azath will take them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As it might all of us,\" spoke anew voice.\n\nThey turned to see Apsalar's father standing nearby.\"Now, \"he grated,\"I'd be obliged if you could bend your efforts into talkin\" my daughter out of going any farther– we can't try the gate,\"cause it's inside the House...\"\n\n\"Yet you led her here,\" Fiddler said. \"Granted, we were looking for Tremorlor in any case, but whatever reasons you have are Iskaral Pust's, aren't they?\"\n\nMappo spoke, \"Do you have a name, Servant?\"\n\nThe old man grimaced. \"Rellock.\" Glancing back to Fiddler, he shook his head. \"I can't guess the High Priest's motives. I only did what I was told. A final task for the High Priest, one to clear the debt and I always clears my debt, even to gods.\"\n\n\"They gave you back the arm you'd lost, ' the sapper said.\n\n\"And spared me and the life of my daughter, the day the Hounds came. No-one else survived, you know...\"\n\nFiddler grunted. \"It was their Hounds, Rellock.\"\n\n\"Even so, even so. It's the false trail, you see, the one that leads the shapeshifters astray, leads them-'\n\n\"Away from the true gate,\" Icarium said, nodding. \"The one beneath Pust's temple. '\n\nRellock nodded. \"We had to finish the false trail, is all, me and my daughter. Plantin\" signs, leaving trails and the like. Now that's done. We hid in shadow while the shapeshifters rushed in. If I'm fated to die in bed in my village in Itko Kan, then it don't matter how long's the walk. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Rellock wants to go back to fishing, hee hee!\" Iskaral Pust sang. \"But the place you left is not what you return to, oh no. From one day to the next, never mind years. Rellock's done work guided by the hands of gods, yet he dreams of dragging nets, with the sun on his face and lines between his toes! He is the heart of the Empire– Laseen should take note! Take note! '\n\nFiddler returned to his horse, drew out the crossbow and set the crank, then locked it. \"The rest of you can choose as you like; I've got to go in. \"He paused, glancing back at the horses.\"And we should let the beasts go. \"He walked over to his mount and began loosening the girth straps. He sighed, patting the Gral gelding on the neck.\"You've done me proud, but you'll do better out here– lead the others, friend, to Sha'ik's camp... '\n\nAfter a moment, the others strode to their own mounts.\n\nIcarium turned to the Trell. \"I too must go.\"\n\nMappo closed his eyes, willing a stillness to his inner turmoil. Gods, I am a coward. In all ways imaginable, a coward.\n\n\"Friend?\"\n\nThe Trell nodded.\n\n\"Oh, you will all go!\" the High Priest of Shadow crooned, still dancing. \"Seeking answers and yet more answers! But in my silent thoughts I snigger and warn you all with words that you will not hear– beware sleight of hand. Compared to the Azath, my immortal lords are but fumbling children!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One who was many On the blood trail Came hunting his own voice Savage murder Sprites buzzing in the sun Came hunting his own voice But Hood's music is all He heard, the siren song Called silence.\n\nSeglora's Account Seglora\n\nThe captain had begun swaying, though not in time with the heaving ship. He poured wine allover the table as well as into the four goblets arrayed before him. \"Ordering thick-skulled sailors this way and that makes fora considerable thirst. I expect the food will be along shortly.\"\n\nPormqual's treasurer, who did not consider the company worthy of knowing his name, raised painted eyebrows.\"But, Captain, we have already eaten. '\n\n\"Have we? That explains the mess, then, though the mess still has some explaining to do, because it must have been awful. You there,\" he said to Kalam, \"you're as solid as any Fenn bear, was that palatable? Never mind, what would you know, anyway? I hear Seven Cities natives grow fruit just so they can eat the larvae in them. Gobble the worm and toss the apple, hey? If you want to know how you folk seethe world, it's all therein that one custom. Now that we're all chums, what were we talking about? '\n\nSalk Elan reached out and collected his goblet, sniffing cautiously before taking a swallow. \"The dear treasurer was surprising us with a complaint, Captain.\"\n\n\"Was he now?\" The captain leaned over the small table to stare at the treasurer. \"A complaint? Aboard my ship? You bring those tome, sir.\"\n\n\"I just have,\" the man replied, sneering.\n\n\"And deal with it I shall, as a captain must.\" He leaned back with an air of satisfaction. \"Now, what else should we talk about?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Salk Elan met Kalam's eye, winked.\"What if we were to touch on the small matter of those two privateers presently pursuing us? '\n\n\"They're not pursuing, \"the captain said. He drained his goblet, smacked his lips, then refilled it from the webbed jug.\"They are keeping pace, sir, and that is entirely different, as you must surely grasp. '\n\n\"Well, I admit, I seethe distinction less clearly than you do, Captain.\"\n\n\"How unfortunate.\"\n\n\"You might,\" the treasurer rasped, \"endeavour to enlighten us.\"\n\n\"What did you say? Lightendeavourus? Extraordinary, man!\" He settled back in his seat, a contented expression on his face.\n\n\"They want a stronger wind,\" Kalam ventured.\n\n\"Quickening,\" the captain said. \"They want to dance around us, aye, the ale-pissing cowards. Toe to toe, that's how I'd like it, but no, they'd rather duck and dodge. \"He swung surprisingly steady eyes on Kalam.\"That's why we'll take them unawares, come the dawn. Attack! Hard about! Marines prepare to board enemy vessel! I won't truck complaints aboard Ragstopper. Not a one, dammit. The next bleat I hear and the bleater loses a finger. Bleats again, loses another one. And soon. Each one nailed to the deck. Tap tap!\"\n\nKalam closed his eyes. They had sailed four days now without an escort, the tradewinds pushing them along at a steady six knots. The sailors had run up every sheet of canvas they possessed and the ship sang a chorus of ominous creaks and groans, but the two pirate galleys could still sail circles around Ragstopper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And the madman wants to attack.\n\n\"Did you say attack?\" the treasurer whispered, his eyes wide. \"I forbid it!\"\n\nThe captain blinked owlishly at the man. \"Why, sir,\" he said in a calm voice, \"I looked into my tin mirror, did I not? It's lost its polish, on my word so it has. Between yesterday and today. I plan to take advantage of that. '\n\nSince the voyage began, Kalam had managed to stay in his cabin for the most part, electing to emerge on deck only at the quietest hour, late in the last watch before dawn. Eating with the crew in the galley had also reduced the number of encounters with either Salk Elanor the treasurer. This night, however, the captain had insisted on his joining them at dinner. The appearance of the pirates at midday had made the assassin curious about how the captain would deal with the threat, so he had agreed.\n\nIt was clear that Salk Elan and the treasurer had established a truce of sorts as things never went beyond the occasional sardonic swipe. The exaggerated airs of civil discourse made their efforts at self-control obvious.\n\nBut it was the captain who was the true mystery aboard the Ragstopper. Kalam had heard enough talk in the galley and between the First and Second Mates to gauge that the man was viewed with both respect and some kind of twisted affection. In the manner that you'd view a touchy dog. Pat once and the tail wags, pat twice and lose a hand. He shifted roles with random alacrity, dismissive of propriety. He revealed a sense of humour that yanked taut comprehension. Too long in his company– especially when wine was the drink of choice– and the assassin's head ached with the effort of following the captain's wending ways. What was worse, Kalam sensed a thread of cool purpose within the scattered weave, as if the captain spoke two languages at once, one robust and divergent, the other silken with secrets. I'd swear the bastard's trying to tell me something. Something vital. He'd heard of a certain sorcery, from one of the less common warrens, that could lay a glamour upon a person's mind, a kind of mental block that the victim– in absolute, tortured awareness– could circle round but never manage to penetrate. All, now I'm venturing into the absurd. Paranoia's the assassin's bedmate, and no rest comes in that clamouring serpent's nest. Would that I could speak with Quick Ben now-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"-sleep with your eyes open, man?\"\n\nKalam started, frowned at the captain.\n\n\"The master of this fine sailing ship was saying,\" Salk Elan purred, \"that it's been a strange passing of days since we reached open water. It was an interrogative seeking your opinion, Kalam. '\n\n\"It's been four days since we left Aren Bay, ' the assassin growled.\n\n\"Has it now?\" the captain asked. \"Are you certain?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Someone keeps knocking over the hisser, you see.\"\n\n\"The what?\" Oh, the hissing of sand– I'd swear he's making up words as he goes along. \"Are you suggesting you have but one hourglass on Ragstopper?\"\n\n\"Official time is so kept by a single glass,\" Elan said.\n\n\"While none of the others onboard agree,\" the captain added, filling his goblet yet again. \"Four days... or fourteen?\"\n\n\"Is this some kind of philosophic debate?\" the treasurer demanded suspiciously.\n\n\"Hardly,\" the captain managed to say during a belch. \"We left harbour with the first night of a quarter moon.\"\n\nKalam tried to think back to the previous night. He'd stood on the forecastle, beneath a brilliantly clear sky. Had the moon already set? No, it rode the horizon, directly beneath the tip of the constellation known as the Dagger. End of a three-quarter moon. But that's impossible.\n\n\"Ten weevils a handful,\" the captain went on. \"As good as a hisser in gauging passage. You'd have ten in close on a fortnight, unless the flour was foul from the start, only the cook swears otherwise-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just as he'd swear he'd cooked us dinner here tonight,\" Salk Elan said with a smile, \"though our bellies groan that what we've just eaten was anything but food. In any case, thank you for dispelling the confusion. '\n\n\"Well, sir, you've a point there, sharp enough to prick skin, though mine's thicker than most and I ain't anything if not stubborn. '\n\n\"For which I cannot help but admire you, Captain.\"\n\nWhat in Hood's name are these two talking about, or, rather, not talking about?\n\n\"A man gets so he can't even trust the beat of his own heart– mind you, I can't count past fourteen in any case, so's I could not help but lose track and tracking's what we're talking about here if I'm not mistaken.\"\n\n\"Captain,\" the treasurer said, \"you cause me great distress with your words.\"\n\nSalk Elan commented, \"You're not alone in that. '\n\n\"Do I offend you, sir?\" The captain's face had reddened as he glared at the treasurer.\n\n\"Offend? No. Baffle. I daresay I am led to conclude that you have lost the grip on your own mind. Thus, to ensure the safety of this ship, I have no choice-\"\n\n\"No choice?\" the captain erupted, rising from his seat. \"Words and grips like sand. What slips through your fingers can knock you over! I'll show you safety, you sweaty stream of lard! '\n\nKalam leaned back clear of the table as the captain went to the cabin door and began struggling with his cloak. Salk Elan had not moved from his seat, watching with a tight smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A moment later the captain flung open the cabin door and barrelled into the passageway, bellowing a call for his First Mate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His boots thumped like fists hammering a wall as he made for the galley.\n\nThe cabin's door creaked back and forth on its hinges.\n\nThe treasurer's mouth opened and closed, then opened again.\"What choice? ' he whispered to no-one in particular.\n\n\"Not yours to make,\" Elan drawled.\n\nThe noble swung to him. \"Not mine? And who else, if not the man entrusted with the Aren treasury-\"\n\n\"Is that what it's officially called, then? How about Pormqual's ill-gotten loot? Those seals on the crates below have the High Fist's sigil on them, not the Imperial sceptre-'\n\nAnd so you have been in the hold, Salk Elan? Interesting.\n\n\"To lay hands upon those crates is punishable by death,\" the treasurer hissed.\n\nElan sneered his disgust. \"You're doing the dirty work of a thief, so what does that make you? '\n\nThe noble went white. In silence he rose and, using his hands to steady himself as the ship pitched, made his way across the small room, then out into the passageway.\n\nSalk Elan glanced at Kalam. \"So, my reluctant friend, what do you make of this captain of ours?\"\n\n\"Nothing I'd share with you, ' Kalam rumbled.\n\n\"Your constant efforts to avoid me have been childish.\"\n\n\"Well, it's either that or I kill you outright. '\n\n\"How unpleasant of you, Kalam, after all the efforts I have made on your behalf.\"\n\nThe assassin rose. \"Rest assured I'll repay the debt, Salk Elan. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You could do that with your company alone– intelligent conversation aboard this ship is proving hard to come by.\"\n\n\"I'll spare a thought in sympathy, ' Kalam said, heading to the cabin door.\n\n\"You wrong me, Kalam. I am not your enemy. Indeed, we two are much alike.\"\n\nThe assassin paused in the portalway. \"If you're seeking friendship between us, Salk Elan, you've just taken along step back with that observation.\" He stepped out into the passage and made his way forward.\n\nHe emerged onto the main deck and found himself in the midst of furious activity. Gear was being battened down, sailors checking the rigging and others taking in sail. It was past the tenth bell and the night sky was solid clouds, not a star showing.\n\nThe captain reeled down to Kalam's side.\"What did I tell you? Lost its polish! '\n\nA squall was coming– the assassin could feel it in the wind that now swirled as if the air had nowhere to go.\n\n\"From the south,\" the captain laughed, clapping Kalam on the shoulder. \"We'll turn on the hunters, aye, won't we just! Storm-jibbed and marines crowding the forecastle, we'll ram \"em down their throats! Hood take these smirking stalkers– we'll see how long their grins last with a short sword jabbing \"em in the face, hey?\" He leaned close, the wine sour on his breath. \"Look to your daggers, man, it'll be a night for close work, aye, won't it just.\" His face spasmed suddenly and he jerked away, began screaming at his crew.\n\nThe assassin stared after him. Perhaps I'm not being paranoid, after all. The man's afflicted with something." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The deck heeled as they came hard about." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The storm's wind arrived at the same time, lifting Ragstopper to run before it on stiff, shortened sails. Lanterns shuttered and the crew settling into their tasks, they plunged on, northward.\n\nA sea battle in a raging storm, and the captain expects the marines to board the enemy craft, to stand on a pitching, wave-whipped deck and take the fight to the pirates. This is beyond audacious.\n\nTwo large figures appeared from behind, flanking the assassin. Kalam grimaced. Both of the treasurer's bodyguards had been incapacitated by seasickness since the first day, and neither looked in any condition to be able to do anything except puke his guts out on the assassin's boots, yet they stood their ground, hands on weapons.\n\n\"Master wishes to speak with you,\" one of them growled.\n\n\"Too bad,\" Kalam growled back.\n\n\"Now.\"\n\n\"Or what, you kill me with your breath? Master can speak with corpses, can he?\"\n\n\"Master commands-\"\n\n\"If he wants to talk, he can come here. Otherwise, like I said, too bad.\"\n\nThe two tribesmen retreated.\n\nKalam moved forward, past the mainmast, to where the two squads of marines crouched low before the forecastle. The assassin had weathered more than his share of squalls while serving in the Imperial campaigns, in galleys, transports and triremes, on three oceans and half a dozen seas. This storm was– thus far at least– comparatively tame. The marines were grim-faced, as would be expected before an engagement, but otherwise laconic as they readied their assault crossbows in the blunted glow of a shuttered lantern." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Aid the author by keeping the plot going.\nTags: epic fantasy, war, sacrifice, journey, rebellion\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Deadhouse Gates\nChapter: 13" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Icarium, a mixed-blood Jaghut wanderer\n\nMappo, his Trell companion\n\nIskaral Pust, a High Priest of Shadow\n\nRyllandaras, the White Jackal, a D'ivers\n\nMessremb, a Soletaken\n\nGryllen, a D'ivers\n\nMogora, a D'ivers\n\nFelisin, youngest daughter of House Paran\n\nHeboric Light Touch, exiled historian and ex-priest of Fener\n\nBaudin, companion to Felisin and Heboric\n\nFiddler, 9th Squad, Bridgeburners\n\nCrokus, a visitor from Darujhistan\n\nApsalar, 9th Squad, Bridgeburners\n\nKalam, a corporal in the 9th Squad, Bridgeburners\n\nDuiker, Imperial Historian\n\nKulp, cadre mage, 7th Army\n\nMallick Rel, chief adviser to the High Fist of the Seven Cities\n\nSawark, commander of the guard in the Otataral mining camp, Skullcup\n\nPella, a soldier stationed at Skullcup\n\nPormqual, High Fist of the Seven Cities, in Aren\n\nBlistig, Commander of Aren Guard\n\nTopper, Commander of the Claw\n\nLull, a captain in the Sialk Marines\n\nChenned, a captain in the 7th Army\n\nSulmar, a captain in the 7th Army\n\nList, a corporal in the 7th Army\n\nMincer, a sapper" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cuttle, a sapper\n\nGesler, a corporal in the Coastal Guard\n\nStormy, a soldier in the Coastal Guard\n\nTruth, a recruit in the Coastal Guard\n\nSquint, a bowman\n\nPearl, a Claw\n\nCaptain Keneb, a refugee\n\nSelv, Keneb's wife\n\nMinala, Selv's sister\n\nKesen, Keneb and Selv's first-born son\n\nVaneb, Keneb and Selv's second-born son\n\nCaptain, owner and commander of the trader craft Ragstopper\n\nBent, a Wickan cattle-dog\n\nRoach, a Hengese lapdog\n\nColtaine, Fist, 7th Army\n\nTemul, a young lancer\n\nSormo E'nath, a warlock\n\nNil, a warlock\n\nNether, a warlock\n\nBult, a veteran commander and Coltaine's uncle\n\nBaria Setral (Dosin Pali)\n\nMesker Setral, his brother (Dosin Pali)\n\nTene Baralta (Ehrlitan)\n\nAralt Arpat (Ehrlitan)\n\nLostara Yil (Ehrlitan)\n\nNethpara\n\nLenestro\n\nPullyk Alar\n\nTumlit\n\nSha'ik, leader of the rebellion\n\nLeoman, captain in the Raraku Apocalypse\n\nToblakai, a bodyguard and warrior in the Raraku Apocalypse\n\nFebryl, a mage and elder adviser to Sha'ik\n\nKorbolo Dom, renegade Fist leading the Odhan army" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kamist Reloe, High Mage with the Odhan army\n\nL'oric, a mage with the Raraku Apocalypse\n\nBidithal, a mage with the Raraku Apocalypse\n\nMebra, a spy in Ehrlitan\n\nSalk Elan, a traveller on the seas\n\nShan, a Hound of Shadow\n\nGear, a Hound of Shadow\n\nBlind, a Hound of Shadow\n\nBaran, a Hound of Shadow\n\nRood, a Hound of Shadow\n\nMoby, a familiar\n\nHentos Ilm, a T'lan Imass Bonecaster\n\nLegana Breed, a T'lan Imass\n\nOlar Ethil, a T'lan Imass Bonecaster\n\nKimloc, a Tanno Spiritwalker\n\nBeneth, a crime lord\n\nIrp, a small servant\n\nRudd, an equally small servant\n\nApt, an aptorian demon\n\nPanek, a child\n\nKarpolan Demesand, a merchant\n\nBula, an innkeeper\n\nCotillion, patron god of assassins\n\nShadowthrone, Ruler of High House Shadow\n\nRellock, a servant" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ancient wars of the T'lan Imass and the Jaghut saw the world torn asunder. Vast armies contended on the ravaged lands, the dead piled high, their bone the bones of hills, their spilled blood the blood of seas. Sorceries raged until the sky itself was fire...\n\nKinick Karbar'n Ancient Histories, Vol. 1\n\nMaeth'ki lm (Pogrom of the Rotted Flower), the 33rd Jaghut War 298,665 years before Burn's Sleep\n\nSwallows darted through the clouds of midges dancing over the mudflats. The sky above the marsh remained grey, but it had lost its mercurial wintry gleam, and the warm wind sighing through the air above the ravaged land held the scent of healing.\n\nWhat had once been the inland freshwater sea the T'lan called Jaghra Til– born from the shattering of the Jaghut ice-fields– was now in its own death-throes. The pallid overcast was reflected in dwindling pools and stretches of knee-deep water for as far south as the eye could scan, but nonetheless, newly birthed land dominated the vista.\n\nThe breaking of the sorcery that had raised the glacial age had returned to the region the old, natural seasons, but the memories of mountain-high ice lingered. The exposed bedrock to the north was gouged and scraped, its basins filled with boulders. The heavy silts that had formed the floor of the inland sea still bubbled with escaping gases, as the land, freed of the enormous weight with the glacier's passing eight years ago, slowly rose.\n\nJaghra Til's life had been short, yet the silts that had settled on its bottom were thick. And treacherous." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pran Chole, Bonecaster of Cannig Tol's clan among the Kron T'lan, sat motionless atop a mostly buried boulder along an ancient beach ridge. The descent before him was snarled in low, wiry grasses and withered driftwood. Twelve paces beyond, the land dropped slightly, then stretched out into abroad basin of mud. Three ranag had become trapped in a boggy sinkhole twenty paces into the basin. A bull male, his mate and their calf, ranged in apathetic defensive circle. Mired and vulnerable, they must have seemed easy kills for the pack of ay that found them. But the land was treacherous indeed. The large tundra wolves had succumbed to the same fate as the ranag. Pran Chole counted six ay, including a yearling. Tracks indicated that another yearling had circled the sinkhold dozens of times before wandering westward, doomed no doubt to die in solitude.\n\nHow long ago had this drama occurred? There was noway to tell. The mud had hardened on ranag and ay alike, forming cloaks of clay latticed with cracks. Spots of bright green showed where windborn seeds had germinated, and the Bonecaster was reminded of his visions when spiritwalking– a host of mundane details twisted into something unreal. For the beasts, the struggle had become eternal, hunter and hunted locked together for all time.\n\nSomeone padded to his side, crouched down beside him. Pran Chole's tawny eyes remained fixed on the frozen tableau. The rhythm of footsteps told the Bonecaster the identity of his companion, and now came the warm-blooded smells that were as much a signature as resting eyes upon the man's face.\n\nCannig Tol spoke. \"What lies beneath the clay, Bonecaster?\"\n\n\"Only that which has shaped the clay itself, Clan Leader.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You see no omen in these beasts?\"\n\nPran Chole smiled. \"Do you?\"\n\nCannig Tol considered fora time, then said, \"Ranag are gone from these lands. So too the ay. We see before us an ancient battle. These statements have depth, for they stir my soul.\"\n\n\"Mine as well,\" the Bonecaster conceded.\n\n\"We hunted the ranag until they were no more, and this brought starvation to the ay, for we had also hunted the tenag until they were no more too. The agkor who walk with the bhederin would not share with the ay, and now the tundra is empty. From this, I conclude that we were wasteful and thoughtless in our hunting.\"\n\n\"Yet the need to feed our own young-\"\n\n\"The need for more young was great.\"\n\n\"It remains so, Clan Leader.\"\n\nCannig Tol grunted. \"The Jaghut are powerful in these lands, Bonecaster. They did not flee– not at first. You know the cost in Imass blood.\"\n\n\"And the land yields its bounty to answer that cost.\"\n\n\"To serve our war.\"\n\n\"Thus, the depths are stirred.\"\n\nThe Clan Leader nodded and was silent. Pran Chole waited. In their shared words they still tracked the skin of things. Revelation of the muscle and bone was yet to come. But Cannig Tol was no fool, and the wait was not long.\n\n\"We areas those beasts.\"\n\nThe Bonecaster's eyes shifted to the south horizon, tightened.\n\nCannig Tol continued. \"We are the clay, and our endless war against the Jaghut is the struggling beast beneath. The surface is shaped by what lies beneath.\" He gestured with one hand. \"And before us now, in these creatures slowly turning to stone, is the curse of eternity.\" There was still more. Pran Chole said nothing. \"Ranag and ay,\" Cannig Tol resumed. \"Almost gone from the mortal realm. Hunter and hunted both.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"To the very bones,\" the Bonecaster whispered.\n\n\"Would that you had seen an omen,\" the Clan Leader muttered, rising.\n\nPran Chole also straightened. \"Would that I had,\" he agreed in atone that only faintly echoed Cannig Tol's wry, sardonic utterance.\n\n\"Are we close, Bonecaster?\"\n\nPran Chole glanced down at his shadow, studied the antlered silhouette, the figure hinted at within the furred cape, ragged hides and headdress. The sun's angle made him seem tall– almost as tall as a Jaghut.\"Tomorrow, \"he said.\"They are weakening. A night of travel will weaken them yet more. '\n\n\"Good. Then the clan shall camp here tonight.\"\n\nThe Bonecaster listened as Cannig Tol made his way back down to where the others waited. With darkness, Pran Chole would spiritwalk into the whispering earth, seeking those of his own kind. While their quarry was weakening, Cannig Tol's clan was yet weaker. Less than a dozen adults remained. When pursuing Jaghut, the distinction of hunter and hunted had little meaning.\n\nHe lifted his head and sniffed the crepuscular air. Another Bonecaster wandered this land. The taint was unmistakable. He wondered who it was, wondered why it travelled alone, bereft of clan and kin. And, knowing that even as Pran had sensed its presence so it in turn had sensed his, he wondered why it had not yet sought them out.\n\nShe pulled herself clear of the mud and dropped down onto the sandy bank, her breath coming in harsh, laboured gasps. Her son and daughter squirmed free of her leaden arms, crawled further onto the island's modest hump. The Jaghut mother lowered her head until her brow rested against the cool, damp sand. Grit pressed into the skin of her forehead with raw insistence. The burns there were too recent to have healed, nor were they likely to. She was defeated, and death had only to await the arrival of her hunters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were mercifully competent, at least. These T'lan Imass cared nothing for torture. A swift killing blow. For her, then for her children. And with them– this meagre, tattered family– the last of the Jaghut would vanish from this continent. Mercy arrived in many guises. Had they not joined in chaining Raest, they would all– Imass and Jaghut both– have found themselves kneeling before the Tyrant. A temporary truce of expedience. She'd known enough to flee once the chaining was done; she'd known, even then, that the Imass clan would resume the pursuit. The mother felt no bitterness, but that made her no less desperate.\n\nSensing anew presence on the small island, her head snapped up. Her children had frozen in place, staring up in terror at the Imass woman who now stood before them. The mother's grey eyes narrowed.\"Clever, Bonecaster. My senses were tuned only to those behind us. Very well, be done with it. '\n\nThe young, black-haired woman smiled. \"No bargains, Jaghut? You always seek bargains to spare the lives of your children. Have you broken the kin-threads with these two, then? They seem young for that.\"\n\n\"Bargains are pointless. Your kind never agree to them.\"\n\n\"No, yet still your kind try.\"\n\n\"I shall not. Kill us, then. Swiftly.\"\n\nThe Imass was wearing the skin of a panther. Her eyes were as black and seemed to match its shimmer in the dying light. She looked well-fed, her large, swollen breasts indicating that she had recently birthed. The Jaghut mother could not read the woman's expression, only that it lacked the typical grim certainty she usually associated with the strange, rounded faces of the T'lan Imass." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Bonecaster spoke. \"I have enough Jaghut blood on my hands. I leave you to the Kron clan that shall find you tomorrow.\"\n\n\"To me,\" the mother growled, \"it matters naught which of you kills us, only that you kill us.\"\n\nThe woman's broad mouth quirked.\"I can see your point. '\n\nWeariness threatened to overwhelm the Jaghut mother, but she managed to pull herself into a sitting position. \"What,\" she asked between gasps, \"do you want?\"\n\n\"To offer you a bargain.\"\n\nBreath catching, the Jaghut mother stared into the Bonecaster's dark eyes, and saw nothing of mockery. Her gaze then dropped, for the briefest of moments, on her son and daughter, then backup to hold steady on the woman's own.\n\nThe T'lan Imass nodded slowly.\n\nThe earth had cracked sometime in the past, a wound of such depth as to birth a molten river wide enough to stretch from horizon to horizon. Vast and black, the river of stone and ash reached southwestward, down to the distant sea. Only the smallest of plants had managed to find purchase, and the Bonecaster's passage– a Jaghut child in the crook of each arm– raised sultry clouds of dust that hung motionless in her wake.\n\nShe judged the boy at perhaps five years of age; his sister perhaps four. Neither seemed entirely aware, and clearly neither had understood their mother when she'd hugged them goodbye. The long flight down the L'Amath and across the Jaghra Til had driven them both into shock. No doubt witnessing the ghastly death of their father had not helped matters. They clung to her with their small, grubby hands, grim reminders of the child she had but recently lost. Before long, both began suckling at her breasts, evincing desperate hunger. Sometime later, the children slept." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lava flow thinned as she approached the coast. A range of hills rose into distant mountains on her right. A level plain stretched directly before her, ending at a ridge half a league distant. Though she could not see it, she knew that on the other side of the ridge, the land slumped down to the sea. The plain itself was marked by regular humps, the mounds were arrayed in concentric circles, and at the centre was a larger dome– all covered in a mantle of lava and ash. The rotted tooth of a ruined tower rose from the plain's edge, at the base of the first line of hills. Those hills, as she had noted the first time she had visited this place, were themselves far too evenly spaced to be natural.\n\nThe Bonecaster lifted her head. The mingled scents were unmistakable, one ancient and dead, the other... less so. The boy stirred in her clasp, but remained asleep.\n\n\"Ah,\" she murmured, \"you sense it as well.\"\n\nSkirting the plain, she walked towards the blackened tower.\n\nThe gate was just beyond the ragged edifice, suspended in the air at about six times her height. She saw it as a red welt, a thing damaged, but no longer bleeding. She could not recognize the warren– the old damage obscured the portal's characteristics. Unease rippled faintly through her.\n\nThe Bonecaster set the children down by the tower, then sat on a block of tumbled masonry. Her gaze fell to the two young Jaghut, still curled in sleep, lying on their beds of ash. \"What choice?\" she whispered. \"It must be Omtose Phellack. It certainly isn't Tellann. Starvald Demelain? Unlikely. \"Her eyes were pulled to the plain, narrowing on the mound rings.\"Who dwelt here? Who else was in the habit of building in stone? \"She fell silent fora long moment, then swung her attention back to the ruin.\"This tower is the final proof, for it is naught else but Jaghut, and such a structure would not be raised this close to an inimical warren. No, the gate is Omtose Phellack. It must be so. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still, there were additional risks. An adult Jaghut in the warren beyond, coming upon two children not of its own blood, might as easily kill them as adopt them. \"Then their deaths stain another's hands, a Jaghut's.\" Scant comfort, that distinction. It matters not which of you kills us, only that you kill us. The breath hissed between the woman's teeth.\"What choice? ' she asked again.\n\nShe would let them sleep a little longer. Then, she would send them through the gate. A word to the boy– take care of your sister. The journey shall not belong. And to them both– your mother waits beyond. A lie, but they would need courage. If she cannot find you, then one of her kin will. Go then, to safety, to salvation.\n\nAfter all, what could be worse than death?\n\nShe rose as they approached. Pran Chole tested the air, frowned. The Jaghut had not unveiled her warren. Even more disconcerting, where were her children?\n\n\"She greets us with calm,\" Cannig Tol muttered.\n\n\"She does,\" the Bonecaster agreed.\n\n\"I've no trust in that– we should kill her immediately. '\n\n\"She would speak with us,\" Pran Chole said.\n\n\"A deadly risk, to appease her desire.\"\n\n\"I cannot disagree, Clan Leader. Yet... what has she done with her children?\"\n\n\"Can you not sense them?\"\n\nPran Chole shook his head. \"Prepare your spearmen,\" he said, stepping forward.\n\nThere was peace in her eyes, so clear an acceptance of her own imminent death that the Bonecaster was shaken. He walked through shin-deep water, then stepped onto the island's sandy bank to stand face to face with the Jaghut.\"What have you done with them? ' he demanded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The mother smiled, the skin peeling back to reveal her tusks. \"Gone.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"Beyond your reach, Bonecaster.\"\n\nPran Chole's frown deepened.\"These are our lands. There is no place here that is beyond our reach. Have you slain them with your own hands? '\n\nThe Jaghut cocked her head, studied the T'lan Imass.\"I had always believed you were united in your hatred of our kind. I had always believed that such concepts as compassion and mercy were alien to your natures. '\n\nThe Bonecaster stared at the woman, then his gaze dropped away, past her, and scanned the soft clay ground. \"A T'lan Imass has been here, \"he said.\"A woman. The Bonecaster-\"The one I could not find in my spiritwalk. The one who chose not to be found.\"What has she done? '\n\n\"She has explored this land,\" the Jaghut replied. \"She has found agate far to the south. It is Omtose Phellack.\"\n\n\"I am glad,\" Pran Chole said, \"I am not a mother.\" And you, woman, should be glad I am not cruel. He gestured. Heavy spears flashed past the Bonecaster. Six long, fluted heads of flint punched through the skin covering the Jaghut's chest. She staggered, then folded to the ground in a clatter of spearshafts.\n\nThus ended the 33rd Jaghut War.\n\nPran Chole whirled. \"We've no time fora pyre. We must strike southwards. Quickly. '\n\nCannig Tol stepped forward as his warriors went to retrieve their weapons. The Clan Leader's eyes narrowed on the Bonecaster.\"What distresses you? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A renegade Bonecaster has taken the children.\"\n\n\"South?\"\n\n\"To Morn.\"\n\nThe Clan Leader's brows knitted.\n\n\"The renegade believes the Rent to be Omtose Phellack.\"\n\nPran Chole watched the blood leave Cannig Tol's face.\"Go to Morn, Bonecaster, \"he whispered.\"We are not cruel. Go now. '\n\nPran Chole bowed. The Tellann warren engulfed him.\n\nThe faintest release of her power sent the two Jaghut children upward, into the gate's maw. The girl cried out a moment before reaching it, a longing wail for her mother, whom she imagined waited beyond. Then the two small figures vanished within.\n\nThe Bonecaster sighed and continued to stare upward, seeking any evidence that the passage had gone awry. It seemed, however, that no wound had reopened, no gush of wild power from the portal. Did it look different? She could not be sure. This was new land for her; she had nothing of the bone-bred sensitivity that she had known all her life among the lands of the Tarad clan, in the heart of the First Empire.\n\nThe Tellann warren opened behind her. The woman spun around, moments from veering into her Soletaken form. An arctic fox bounded into view, slowed upon seeing her, then sembled back into its Imass form. She saw before her a young man, wearing the skin of his totem animal across his shoulders, and a battered antler headdress. His expression was twisted with fear, his eyes not on her, but on the portal beyond.\n\nThe woman smiled. \"I greet you, fellow Bonecaster. Yes, I have sent them through. They are beyond the reach of your vengeance, and this pleases me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His tawny eyes fixed on her. \"Who are you? What clan?\"\n\n\"I have left my clan, but I was once counted among the Logros. I am named Kilava.\"\n\n\"You should have let me find you last night,\" Pran Chole said. \"I would then have been able to convince you that a swift death was the greater mercy for those children than what you have done here, Kilava.\"\n\n\"They are young enough to be adopted-\"\n\n\"You have come to the place called Morn,\" Pran Chole interjected, his voice cold. \"To the ruins of an ancient city-\"\n\n\"Jaghut-\"\n\n\"Not Jaghut! This tower, yes, but it was built long afterwards, in the time between the city's destruction and the T'ol Ara'd, which but buried something already dead. \"He raised a hand, pointed towards the suspended gate.\"It was this– this wounding– that destroyed the city, Kilava. The warren beyond– do you not understand? It is not Omtose Phellack! Tell me this– how are such wounds sealed? You know the answer, Bonecaster! '\n\nThe woman slowly turned, studied the Rent. \"If a soul sealed that wound, then it should have been freed... when the children arrived-\"\n\n\"Freed,\" Pran Chole hissed, \"in exchange!\"\n\nTrembling, Kilava faced him again. \"Then where is it? Why has it not appeared?\"\n\nPran Chole turned to study the central mound on the plain. \"Oh,\" he whispered, \"but it has.\" He glanced back at his fellow Bonecaster. \"Tell me, will you in turn give up your life for those children? They are trapped now, in an eternal nightmare of pain. Does your compassion extend to sacrificing yourself in yet another exchange?\" He sighed. \"I thought not, so wipe away those tears, Kilava. Hypocrisy ill suits a Bonecaster.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What...\" the woman managed after a time, \"what has been freed?\"\n\nPran Chole shook his head. He studied the mound again. \"I am not sure, but we shall have to do something about it, sooner or later, Kilava. I suspect we have plenty of time. The creature must now free itself of its tomb, and that has been thoroughly warded. More, there is the T'ol Ara'd\"s mantle of stone still clothing the barrow. \"After a moment, he added,\"but time we shall have. '\n\n\" \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"The Gathering has been called. The Ritual of Tellann awaits us, Bonecaster.\"\n\nShe spat. \"You are all insane. To choose immortality for the sake of a war– madness. I shall defy the call, Bonecaster.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"Yet the Ritual shall be done. I have spiritwalked into the future, Kilava. I have seen my withered face of two hundred thousand and more years hence. We shall have our eternal war.\"\n\nBitterness filled Kilava's voice.\"My brother shall be pleased. '\n\n\"Who is your brother?\"\n\n\"Onos T'oolan, the First Sword. '\n\nPran Chole turned at this. \"You are the Defier. You slaughtered your clan– your kin-\"\n\n\"To break the link and thus achieve freedom, yes. Alas, my eldest brother's skills more than matched mine. Yet now we are both free, though what I celebrate, Onos T'oolan curses.\" She wrapped her arms around herself, and Pran Chole saw upon her layers and layers of pain. Hers was a freedom he did not envy. She spoke again. \"This city, then. Who built it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"K'Chain Che'Malle.\"\n\n\"I know the name, but little else of them.\"\n\nPran Chole nodded. \"We shall, I expect, learn.\"\n\nKorelri and Jacuruku, in the Time of Dying 119,736 Years before Burn's Sleep (three years after the Fall of the Crippled God)\n\nThe Fall had shattered a continent. Forests had burned, the firestorms lighting the horizon in every direction, bathing crimson the heaving ash-filled clouds blanketing the sky. The conflagration had seemed unending, world-devouring, and through it all could be heard the screams of a god.\n\nPain gave birth to rage. Rage to poison, an infection sparing no-one.\n\nScattered survivors remained, reduced to savagery, wandering a landscape pocked with huge craters now filled with murky, lifeless water, the sky churning endlessly above them. Kinship had been dismembered, love had proved a burden too costly to carry. They ate what they could, often each other, and scanned the ravaged world around them with rapacious intent.\n\nOne figure walked alone. Wrapped in rotting rags, he was of average height, his features blunt and unprepossessing. There was a dark cast to his face, a heavy inflexibility in his eyes. He walked as if gathering suffering unto himself, unmindful of its vast weight, walked as if incapable of yielding, of denying the gifts of his own spirit.\n\nIn the distance, ragged bands eyed the figure as he strode, step by step, across what was left of the continent that would one day be called Korelri. Hunger might have driven them closer, but there were no fools left among the survivors of the Fall, and so they maintained a watchful distance, their curiosity dulled by fear. For the man was an ancient god, and he walked among them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Beyond the suffering he absorbed, K'rul would have willingly embraced their broken souls, yet he had fed– was feeding– on the blood spilled onto this land, and the truth was this: the power born of that would be needed.\n\nIn K'rul's wake, men and women killed men, killed women, killed chidren. Dark slaughter was the river the Elder God rode.\n\nElder Gods embodied a host of harsh unpleasantries.\n\nThe foreign god had been torn apart in his descent to earth. He had comedown in pieces, in streaks of flame. His pain was fire, screams and thunder, a voice that had been heard by half the world. Pain, and outrage. And, K'rul reflected, grief. It would be along time before the foreign god could begin to reclaim the remaining fragments of its life, and so begin to unveil its nature. K'rul feared that day's arrival. From such a shattering could only come madness.\n\nThe summoners were dead, destroyed by what they had called down upon them. There was no point in hating them, no need to conjure up images of what they in truth deserved byway of punishment. They had, after all, been desperate. Desperate enough to part the fabric of chaos, to open away into an alien, remote realm; to then lure a curious god of that realm closer, ever closer to the trap they had prepared. The summoners sought power.\n\nAll to destroy one man.\n\nThe Elder God has crossed the ruined continent, had looked upon the still-living flesh of the Fallen God, had seen the unearthly maggots that crawled forth from that rotting, pulsing meat and broken bone. Had seen what those maggots flowered into. Even now, as he reached the battered shoreline of Jacuruku, the ancient sister continent to Korelri, they wheeled above him on their broad, black wings. Sensing the power within him, they were hungry for its taste. But a strong god could ignore the scavengers that trailed in his wake, and K'rul was a strong god. Temples had been raised in his name. Blood had for generations soaked countless altars. The nascent cities were wreathed in the smoke of forges, pyres, the red glow of humanity's dawn. The First Empire had risen, on a continent half a world away from where K'rul now walked. An empire of humans, born from the legacy of the T'lan Imass." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it had not been alone for long. Here, on Jacuruku, in the shadow of long-dead K'Chain Che'Malle ruins, another empire had emerged. Brutal, a devourer of souls, its ruler was a warrior without equal. K'rul had come to destroy him, had come to snap the chains of twelve million slaves– even the Jaghut Tyrants had not commanded such heartless mastery over their subjects. No, it took a mortal human to achieve this level of tyranny over his kin.\n\nTwo other Elder Gods were converging on the Kallorian Empire. The decision had been made. The three– last of the Elders– would bring to a close this High King's despotic rule. K'rul could sense his companions. Both were close; both had been comrades once, but they all, K'rul included, had changed, had drifted far apart. This would mark the first conjoining in millennia.\n\nHe could sense a fourth presence as well, a savage, ancient beast following his spoor. A beast of the earth, of winter's frozen breath, a beast with white fur bloodied, wounded almost unto death by the Fall. A beast with but one surviving eye to look upon the destroyed land that had once been its home long before the empire's rise. Trailing, but coming no closer. And, K'rul well knew, it would remain a distant observer to all that was about to occur. The Elder god could spare it no sorrow, yet was not indifferent to its pain.\n\nWe each survive as we must, and when time comes to die, we find our places of solitude...\n\nThe Kallorian Empire had spread to every shoreline of Jacuruku, yet K'rul saw no-one as he took his first steps inland. Lifeless wastes stretched out on all sides. The air was grey with ash and dust, the skies overhead churning like lead in a smith's cauldron. The Elder God experienced the first breath of unease, sidling chill across his soul. Above him the god-spawned scavengers cackled as they wheeled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A familiar voice spoke in K'rul's mind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Brother, I am upon the north shore.\n\nAnd I the west. '\n\nAre you troubled?\n\n\"I am. All is... dead.\"\n\nIncinerated. The heat remains deep beneath the beds of ash. Ash... and bone.\n\nA third voice spoke. Brothers, I am come from the south, where once dwelt the cities. All destroyed. The echoes of a continent's death\" cry still linger. Are we deceived? Is this illusion?\n\nK'rul addressed the first Elder who had spoken in his mind.\"Draconus, I too feel that death-cry. Such pain... indeed, more dreadful in its aspect than that of the Fallen One. If not a deception as our sister suggests, what has he done? '\n\nWe have stepped onto this land, and so all share what you sense, K'rul, Draconus replied. I, too, am not certain of its truth. Sister, do you approach the High King's abode?\n\nThe third voice spoke. I do, brother Draconus. Would you and brother K'rul join me now, that we may confront this mortal as one?\n\n\"We shall.\"\n\nWarrens opened, one to the far north, the other directly before K'rul.\n\nThe two elder Gods joined their sister upon a ragged hilltop where wind swirled through the ashes, spinning funereal wreathes skyward. Directly before them, on a heap of burnt bones, was a throne.\n\nThe man seated upon it was smiling. \"As you can see,\" he rasped after a moment of scornful regard, \"I have... prepared for your arrival. Oh yes, I knew you were coming. Draconus, of Tiam's kin. K'rul, Opener of the Paths.\" His grey eyes swung to the third Elder. \"And you. My dear, I was under the impression that you had abandoned your... old self. Walking among the mortals, playing the role of middling sorceress– such a deadly risk, though perhaps this is what entices you so to the mortal game. You've stood on fields of battles, woman. One stray arrow... ' He slowly shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We have come, Kallor,\" K'rul said,\"to end your reign of terror. '\n\nThe man's brows rose.\"You would take from me all that I have worked so hard to achieve? Fifty years, dear rivals, to conquer an entire continent. Oh, perhaps Ardatha still held out– always late in sending me my rightful tribute– but I ignored such petty gestures. She has fled, did you know? The bitch. Do you imagine yourselves the first to challenge me? The Circle brought down a foreign god. Aye, the effort went awry, thus sparing me the task of killing the fools with my own hand. And the Fallen One? Well, he'll not recover for sometime, and even then, do you truly imagine he will accede to anyone's bidding? I would have-'\n\n\"Enough,\" Draconus growled. \"Your prattling grows wearisome, Kallor.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" the High King sighed. He leaned forward. \"You've come to liberate my people from my tyrannical rule. Alas, I am not one to relinquish such things. Not to you, not to anyone. \"He settled back, waved a languid hand.\"Thus, what you would refuse me, I now refuse you. '\n\nThough the truth was before K'rul's eyes, he could not believe it. \"What have-\"\n\n\"Are you blind?\" Kallor shrieked, clutching at the arms of his throne. \"It is gone! They are gone! Break the chains, will you? Go ahead– no, I surrender them! Here, all about you, is now free! Dust! Bones! All free!\"\n\n\"You have in truth incinerated an entire continent?\" the sister Elder whispered. \"Jacuruku-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is more, and never again shall be. What I have unleashed will never heal. Do you understand me? Never. And it is all your fault. Yours. Paved in bone and ash, this noble road you chose to walk. Your road.\"\n\n\"We cannot allow this-\"\n\n\"It is done, you foolish woman!\"\n\nK'rul spoke within the minds of his kin. It must done. I will fashion a... a place for this. Within myself.\n\nA warren to holdall this? Draconus asked in horror. My brother-\n\nNo, it must be done. Join with me now, this shaping will not be easy-\n\nIt will break you, K'rul, his sister said. There must be another way.\n\nNone. To leave this continent as it is... no, this world is young. To carry such a scar...\n\nWhat of Kallor? Draconus inquired. What of this... this creature?\n\nWe mark him, K'rul replied. We know his deepest desire, do we not? And the span of his life?\n\nLong, my friends.\n\nAgreed.\n\nK'rul blinked, fixed his dark, heavy eyes on the High King.\"For this crime, Kallor, we deliver appropriate punishment. Know this: you, Kallor Eiderann Tes'thesula, shall know mortal life unending. Mortal, in the ravages of age, in the pain of wounds and the anguish of despair. In dreams brought to ruin. In love withered. In the shadow of Death's spectre, ever a threat to end what you will not relinquish. '\n\nDraconus spoke. \"Kallor Eiderann Tes'thesula, you shall never ascend. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their sister said, \"Kallor Eiderann Tes'thesula, each time you rise, you shall then fall. All that you achieve shall turn to dust in your hands. As you have wilfully done here, so it shall be in turn visited upon all that you do. '\n\n\"Three voices curse you,\" K'rul intoned.\"It is done. '\n\nThe man on the throne trembled. His lips drew back in a rictus snarl. \"I shall break you. Each of you. I swear this upon the bones of twelve million sacrifices. K'rul, you shall fade from the world, you shall be forgotten. Draconus, what you create shall be turned upon you. And as for you, woman, unhuman hands shall tear your body into pieces, upon afield of battle, yet you shall know no respite– thus, my curse upon you, Sister of Cold Nights. Kallor Eiderann Tes'thesula, one voice, has spoken three curses. Thus.\"\n\nThey left Kallor upon his throne, upon its heap of bones. They merged their power to draw chains around a continent of slaughter, then pulled it into a warren created for that sole purpose, leaving the land itself bared. To heal.\n\nThe effort left K'rul broken, bearing wounds he knew he would carry for all his existence. More, he could already feel the twilight of his worship, the blight of Kallor's curse. To his surprise, the loss pained him less than he would have imagined.\n\nThe three stood at the portal of the nascent, eternally lifeless realm, and looked upon their handiwork.\n\nThen Draconus spoke. \"I am forging a sword.\"\n\nK'rul and the Sister of Cold Nights nodded, for this was known to them both." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The power I have invested possesses a... a finality.\"\n\n\"Then,\" K'rul whispered,\"you must make alterations in the final shaping. '\n\n\"So it seems. I shall need to think long on this.\"\n\nAfter along moment, K'rul and his brother turned to their sister.\n\nShe shrugged. \"I shall endeavour to guard myself. When my destruction comes, it will be through betrayal and naught else. There can be no precaution against such a thing, lest my life become its own nightmare of suspicion and mistrust. To this, I shall not surrender. Until that moment, I shall continue to play the mortal game.\"\n\n\"Careful, then,\" K'rul murmured,\"whom you choose to fight for. '\n\n\"Find a companion,\" Draconus advised. \"A worthy one.\"\n\n\"Wise words from you both. I thank you.\"\n\nThere was nothing more to be said. The three had come together, with an intent they had now achieved. Perhaps not in the manner they would have wished, but it was done. And the price had been paid. Willingly. Three lives and one, each destroyed. For the one, the beginning of eternal hatred. For the three, a fair exchange.\n\nElder Gods, it has been said, embodied a host of unpleasantries.\n\nIn the distance, the beast watched the three figures part ways. Riven with pain, white fur stained and dripping blood, the gouged pit of its lost eye glittering wet, it held its hulking mass on trembling legs. It longed for death, but death would not come. It longed for vengeance, but those who had wounded it were dead. There but remained the man seated on the throne, the one who had laid waste to the beast's home. Time enough for the settling of that score." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A final longing filled the creature's ravaged soul. Somewhere, amidst the conflagration of the Fall and the chaos that followed, it had lost its mate and was now alone. Perhaps she still lived. Perhaps she wandered, wounded as he was, searching the broken wastes fora sign of him. Or, perhaps she had fled, in pain and terror, to the warren that had given fire to her spirit. Wherever she had gone– assuming she still lived– he would find her.\n\nThe three distant figures unveiled warrens, each vanishing into their Elder realms. The beast elected to follow none of them. They were young entities as far as he and his mate were concerned, and the warren she might have fled to was, in comparison to those of the Elder Gods, ancient. The path that awaited him was perilous, and he knew fear in his labouring heart. The portal that opened before him revealed a grey-streaked, swirling storm of power. The beast hesitated, then strode into it.\n\nAnd was gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "1163rd Year of Burn's Sleep Ninth Year of the Rule of Empress Laseen Year of the Cull\n\nHe came shambling into Judgement's Round from the Avenue of Souls, a misshapen mass of flies. Seething lumps crawled on his body in mindless migration, black and glittering and occasionally falling away in frenzied clumps that exploded into fragmented flight as they struck the cobbles. The Thirsting Hour was coming to a close and the priest staggered in its wake, blind, deaf and silent. Honouring his god on this day, the servant of Hood, Lord of Death, had joined his companions in stripping naked and smearing himself in the blood of executed murderers, blood that was stored in giant amphorae lining the walls of the temple's nave. The brothers had then moved in procession out onto the streets of Unta to greet the god's sprites, enjoining the mortal dance that marked the Season of Rot's last day.\n\nThe guards lining the Round parted to let the priest pass, then parted further for the spinning, buzzing cloud that trailed him. The sky over Unta was still more grey than blue, as the flies that had swept at dawn into the capital of the Malazan Empire now rose, slowly winging out over the bay towards the salt marshes and sunken islands beyond the reef. Pestilence came with the Season of Rot, and the Season had come an unprecedented three times in the past ten years.\n\nThe air of the Round still buzzed, was still speckled as if filled with flying grit. Somewhere in the streets beyond a dog yelped like a thing near death but not near enough, and close to the Round's central fountain the abandoned mule that had collapsed earlier still kicked feebly in the air. Flies had crawled into the beast through every orifice and it was now bloated with gases. The animal, stubborn by its breed, was now over an hour in dying. As the priest staggered sightlessly past, flies rose from the mule in a swift curtain to join those already enshrouding him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was clear to Felisin from where she and the others waited that the priest of Hood was striding directly towards her. His eyes were ten thousand eyes, but she was certain they were all fixed on her. Yet even this growing horror did little to stir the numbness that lay like a smothering blanket over her mind; she was aware of it rising inside but the awareness seemed more a memory of fear than fear now alive within her.\n\nShe barely recalled the first Season of Rot she'd lived through, but had clear memories of the second one. Just under three years ago, she had witnessed this day secure in the family estate, in a solid house with its windows shuttered and cloth-sealed, with the braziers set outside the doors and on the courtyard's high, broken-glass-rimmed walls billowing the acrid smoke of istaarl leaves. The last day of the Season and its Thirsting Hour had been a time of remote revulsion for her, irritating and inconvenient but nothing more. Then she'd given little thought to the city's countless beggars and the stray animals bereft of shelter, or even to the poorer residents who were subsequently press-ganged into cleanup crews for days afterwards.\n\nThe same city, but a different world.\n\nFelisin wondered if the guards would make any move towards the priest as he came closer to the Cull's victims. She and the others in the line were the charges of the Empress now– Laseen's responsibility– and the priest's path could be seen as blind and random, the imminent collision one of chance rather than design, although in her bones Felisin knew differently. Would the helmed guards step forward, seek to guide the priest to one side, lead him safely through the Round?\n\n\"I think not,\" said the man squatting on her right. His half-closed eyes, buried deep in their sockets, flashed with something that might have been amusement. \"Seen you flicking your gaze, guards to priest, priest to guards.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The big, silent man on her left slowly rose to his feet, pulling the chain with him. Felisin winced as the shackle yanked at her when the man folded his arms across his bare, scarred chest. He glared at the approaching priest but said nothing.\n\n\"What does he want with me?\" Felisin asked in a whisper. \"What have I done to earn a priest of Hood's attention? '\n\nThe squatting man rocked back on his heels, tilting his face into the late afternoon sun. \"Queen of Dreams, is this self-centred youth I hear from those full, sweet lips? Or just the usual stance of noble blood around which the universe revolves? Answer me, I pray, fickle Queen!\"\n\nFelisin scowled. \"I felt better when I thought you asleep– or dead.\"\n\n\"Dead men do not squat, lass, they sprawl. Hood's priest comes not for you but for me. '\n\nShe faced him then, the chain rattling between them. He looked more of a sunken-eyed toad than a man. He was bald, his face webbed in tattooing, minute, black, square-etched symbols hidden within an overall pattern covering skin like a wrinkled scroll. He was naked but fora ragged loincloth, its dye a faded red. Flies crawled allover him; reluctant to leave they danced on– but not, Felisin realized, to Hood's bleak orchestration. The tattooed pattern covered the man– the boar's face overlying his own, the intricate maze of script-threaded, curled fur winding down his arms, covering his exposed thighs and shins, and the detailed hooves etched into the skin of his feet. Felisin had until now been too self-absorbed, too numb with shock to pay any attention to her companions in the chain line: this man was a priest of Fener, the Boar of Summer, and the flies seemed to know it, understand it enough to alter their frenzied motion. She watched with morbid fascination as they gathered at the stumps at the ends of the man's wrists, the old scar tissue the only place on him unclaimed by Fener, but the paths the sprites took to those stumps touched not a single tattooed line. The flies danced a dance of avoidance– but for all that, they were eager to dance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The priest of Fener had been ankle-shackled last in the line." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone else had the narrow iron bands fastened around their wrists. His feet were wet with blood and the flies hovered there but did not land. She saw his eyes flick open as the sun's light was suddenly blocked.\n\nHood's priest had arrived. Chain stirred as the man on Felisin's left drew back as far as the links allowed. The wall at her back felt hot, the tiles– painted with scenes of imperial pageantry– now slick through the thin weave of her slave tunic. Felisin stared at the fly-shrouded creature standing wordless before the squatting priest of Fener. She could see no exposed flesh, nothing of the man himself– the flies had claimed all of him and beneath them he lived in darkness where even the sun's heat could not touch him. The cloud around him spread out now and Felisin shrank back as countless cold insect legs touched her legs, crawling swiftly up her thighs– she pulled her tunic's hem close around her, clamping her legs tight.\n\nThe priest of Fener spoke, his wide face split into a humourless grin. \"The Thirsting Hour's well past, Acolyte. Go back to your temple. '\n\nHood's servant made no reply but it seemed the buzzing changed pitch, until the music of the wings vibrated in Felisin's bones.\n\nThe priest's deep eyes narrowed and his tone shifted.\"Ah, well now. Indeed I was once a servant of Fener but no longer, not for years– Fener's touch cannot be scrubbed from my skin. Yet it seems that while the Boar of Summer has no love for me, he has even less for you.\"\n\nFelisin felt something shiver in her soul as the buzzing rapidly shifted, forming words that she could understand. \"Secret... to show... now...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Go on then,\" the one-time servant of Fener growled, \"show me.\"\n\nPerhaps Fener acted then, the swatting hand of a furious god– Felisin would remember the moment and think on it often– or the secret was the mocking of immortals, a joke far beyond her understanding, but at that moment the rising tide of horror within her broke free, the numbness of her soul seared away as the flies exploded outward, dispersing in all directions to reveal... no-one.\n\nThe former priest of Fener flinched as if struck, his eyes wide. From across the Round half a dozen guards cried out, wordless sounds punched from their throats. Chains snapped as others in the line jolted as if to flee. The iron loops set in the wall snatched taut, but the loops held as did the chains. The guards rushed forward and the line shrank back into submission.\n\n\"Now that,\" the tattooed man shakily muttered, \"was uncalled for.\"\n\nAn hour passed, an hour in which the mystery, shock and horror of Hood's priest sank down within Felisin to become but one more layer, the latest but not the last in what had become an unending nightmare. An acolyte of Hood... who was not there. The buzzing of wings that formed words. Was that Hood himself? Had the Lord of Death come to walk among mortals? And why stand before a once-priest of Fener– what was the message behind the revelation?\n\nBut slowly the questions faded in her mind, the numbness seeping back, the return of cold despair. The Empress had culled the nobility, stripped the Houses and families of their wealth followed by a summary accusation and conviction of treason that had ended in chains. As for the ex-priest on her right and the huge, bestial man with all the makings of a common criminal on her left, clearly neither one could claim noble blood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She laughed softly, startling both men.\n\n\"Has Hood's secret revealed itself to you, then, lass? ' the ex-priest asked.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"What do you find so amusing?\"\n\nShe shook her head. I had expected to find myself in good company, how's that for an upturned thought? There you have it, the very attitude the peasants hungered to tear down, the very same fuel the Empress has touched to flame-\n\n\"Child!\"\n\nThe voice was that of an aged woman, still haughty but with an air of desperate yearning. Felisin closed her eyes briefly, then straightened and looked along the line to the gaunt old woman beyond the thug. The woman was wearing her night-clothes, torn and smeared. With noble blood, no less. \"Lady Gaesen.\"\n\nThe old woman reached out a shaking hand. \"Yes! Wife to Lord Hilrac! I am Lady Gaesen...\" The words came as if she'd forgotten who she was, and now she frowned through the cracked make-up covering her wrinkles and her red-shot eyes fixed on Felisin.\"I know you, \"she hissed.\"House of Paran. Youngest daughter. Felisin! '\n\nFelisin went cold. She turned away and stared straight ahead, out into the compound where the guards stood leaning on pikes passing flasks of ale between them and waving away the last of the flies. A cart had arrived for the mule, four ash-smeared men clambering down from its bed with ropes and gaffs. Beyond the walls encircling the Round rose Unta's painted spires and domes. She longed for the shadowed streets between them, longed for the pampered life of a week ago, Sebry barking harsh commands at her as she led her favourite mare through her paces. And she would lookup as she guided the mare in a delicate, precise turn, to seethe row of green-leafed leadwoods separating the riding ground from the family vineyards." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Beside her the thug grunted. \"Hood's feet, the bitch has some sense of humour. '\n\nWhich bitch? Felisin wondered, but she managed to hold her expression even as she lost the comfort of her memories.\n\nThe ex-priest stirred. \"Sisterly spat, is it?\" He paused, then dryly added, \"Seems a bit extreme.\"\n\nThe thug grunted again and leaned forward, his shadow draping Felisin. \"Defrocked priest, are you? Not like the Empress to do any temples a favour.\"\n\n\"She didn't. My loss of piety was long ago. I'm sure the Empress would rather I'd stayed in the cloister. '\n\n\"As if she'd care, ' the thug said derisively as he settled back into his pose.\n\nLady Gaesen rattled, \"You must speak with her, Felisin! An appeal! I have rich friends-\"\n\nThe thug's grunt turned into a bark.\"Farther up the line, hag, that's where you'll find your rich friends! '\n\nFelisin just shook her head. Speak with her, it's been months. Not even when Father died.\n\nA silence followed, dragging on, approaching the silence that had existed before this spate of babble, but then the ex-priest cleared his throat, spat and muttered, \"Not worth looking for salvation in a woman who's just following orders, Lady, never mind that one being this girl's sister-\"\n\nFelisin winced, then glared at the ex-priest. \"You presume-\"\n\n\"He ain't presuming nothing, \"growled the thug.\"Forget what's in the blood, what's supposed to be in it by your slant on things. This is the work of the Empress. Maybe you think it's personal, maybe you have to think that, being what you are...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What I am?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Felisin laughed harshly. \"What House claims you as kin?\"\n\nThe thug grinned. \"The House of Shame. What of it? Yours ain't looking any less shabby. '\n\n\"As I thought,\" Felisin said, ignoring the truth of his last observation with difficulty. She glowered at the guards. \"What's happening? Why are we just sitting here? '\n\nThe ex-priest spat again. \"The Thirsting Hour's past. The mob outside needs organizing. \"He glanced up at her from under the shelf of his brows.\"The peasants need to be roused. We're the first, girl, and the example's got to be established. What happens herein Unta is going to rattle every noble-born in the Empire. '\n\n\"Nonsense!\" Lady Gaesen snapped. \"We shall be well treated. The Empress shall have to treat us well-\"\n\nThe thug grunted a third time– what passed for laughter, Felisin realized– and said, \"If stupidity was a crime, lady, you would've been arrested years ago. The ogre's right. Not many of us are going to make it to the slave ships. This parade down Colonnade Avenue is going to be one long bloodbath. Mind you,\" he added, eyes narrowing on the guards, \"old Baudin ain't going to be torn apart by any mob of peasants... '\n\nFelisin felt real fear stirring in her stomach. She fought off a shiver. \"Mind if I stay in your shadow, Baudin?\"\n\nThe man looked down at her. \"You're a bit plump for my tastes. \"He turned away, then added,\"But you do what you like. '\n\nThe ex-priest leaned close. \"Thinking on it, girl, this rivalry of yours ain't in the league of tattle-tails and scratch-fights. Likely your sister wants to be sure you-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She's Adjunct Tavore, \"Felisin cut in.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She's not my sister anymore. She renounced our House at the call of the Empress.\"\n\n\"Even so, I've an inkling it's still personal.\"\n\nFelisin scowled. \"How would you know anything about it?\"\n\nThe man made a slight, ironic bow. \"Thief once, then priest, now historian. I well know the tense position the nobility finds itself in.\"\n\nFelisin's eyes slowly widened and she cursed herself for her stupidity. Even Baudin– who could not have helped overhearing– leaned forward fora searching stare.\"Heboric, \"he said.\"Heboric Light Touch. '\n\nHeboric raised his arms. \"As light as ever.\"\n\n\"You wrote that revised history,\" Felisin said. \"Committed treason-\"\n\nHeboric's wiry brows rose in mock alarm.\"Gods forbid! A philosophic divergence of opinions, nothing more! Duiker's own words at the trial– in my defence, Fener bless him.\"\n\n\"But the Empress wasn't listening, \"Baudin said, grinning.\"After all, you called her a murderer, and then had the gall to say she bungled the job! '\n\n\"Found an illicit copy, did you?\"\n\nBaudin blinked.\n\n\"In any case,\" Heboric continued to Felisin, \"it's my guess your sister the Adjunct plans on your getting to the slave ships in one piece. Your brother disappearing on Genabackis took the life out of your father... so I've heard,\" he added, grinning. \"But it was the rumours of treason that put spurs to your sister, wasn't it? Clearing the family name and all that-'\n\n\"You make it sound reasonable, Heboric,\" Felisin said, hearing the bitterness in her voice but not caring anymore. \"We differed in our opinions, Tavore and I, and now you seethe result.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your opinions of what, precisely?\"\n\nShe did not reply.\n\nThere was a sudden stirring in the line. The guards straightened and swung to face the Round's West Gate. Felisin paled as she saw her sister– Adjunct Tavore now, heir to Lorn who'd died in Darujhistan– ride upon her stallion, a beast bred out of Paran stables, no less. Beside her was the ever-present T'amber, a beautiful young woman whose long, tawny mane gave substance to her name. Where she'd come from was anyone's guess, but she was now Tavore's personal aide. Behind these two rode a score of officers and a company of heavy cavalry, the soldiers looking exotic, foreign.\n\n\"Touch of irony,\" Heboric muttered, eyeing the horsesoldiers.\n\nBaudin jutted his head forward and spat. \"Red Swords, the bloodless bastards.\"\n\nThe historian threw the man an amused glance. \"Travelled well in your profession, Baudin? Seen the seawalls of Aren, have you?\"\n\nThe man shifted uneasily, then shrugged. \"Stood a deck or two in my time, ogre. Besides,\" he added, \"the rumour of them's been in the city a week or more. '\n\nThere was a stirring from the Red Sword troop, and Felisin saw mailed hands close on weapon grips, peaked helms turning as one towards the Adjunct. Sister Tavore, did our brother's disappearance cut you so deep? How great his footing you must imagine, to seek this recompense... and then, to make your loyalty absolute, you chose between me and Mother for the symbolic sacrifice. Didn't you realize that Hood stood on the side of both choices? At least Mother is with her beloved husband now... She watched as Tavore scanned her guard briefly, then said something to T'amber, who edged her own mount towards the East Gate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Baudin grunted one more time. \"Look lively. The endless hour's about to begin. '\n\nIt was one thing to accuse the Empress of murder, it was quite another to predict her next move. If only they'd heeded my warning. Heboric winced as they shuffled forward, the shackles cutting hard against his ankles.\n\nPeople of civilized countenance made much of exposing the soft underbellies of their psyche– effete and sensitive were the brands of finer breeding. It was easy for them, safe, and that was the whole point, after all: a statement of coddled opulence that burned the throats of the poor more than any ostentatious show of wealth.\n\nHeboric had said as much in his treatise, and could now admit a bitter admiration for the Empress and for Adjunct Tavore, Laseen's instrument in this. The excessive brutality of the midnight arrests– doors battered down, families dragged from their beds amidst wailing servants– provided the first layer of shock. Dazed by sleep deprivation, the nobles were trussed up and shackled, forced to stand before a drunken magistrate and a jury of beggars dragged in from the streets. It was a sour and obvious mockery of justice that stripped away the few remaining expectations of civil behaviour– stripped away civilization itself, leaving nothing but the chaos of savagery.\n\nShock layered on shock, a rending of those fine underbellies. Tavore knew her own kind, knew their weaknesses and was ruthless in exploiting them. What could drive a person to such viciousness?\n\nThe poor folk mobbed the streets when they heard the details, screaming adoration for their Empress. Carefully triggered riots, looting and slaughter followed, raging through the Noble District, hunting down those few selected highborns who hadn't been arrested– enough of them to whet the mob's bloodlust, give them faces to focus on with rage and hate. Then followed the reimposition of order, lest the city take flame." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Empress made few mistakes. She'd used the opportunity to roundup malcontents and unaligned academics, to close the fist of military presence on the capital, drumming the need for more troops, more recruits, more protection against the treasonous scheming of the noble class. The seized assets paid for this martial expansion. An exquisite move even if forewarned, rippling outwith the force of Imperial Decree through the Empire, the cruel rage now sweeping through each city.\n\nBitter admiration. Heboric kept finding the need to spit, something he hadn't done since his cut-purse days in the Mouse Quarter of Malaz City. He could seethe shock written on most of the faces in the chain line. Faces above nightclothes mostly, grimy and filthy from the pits, leaving their wearers bereft of even the social armour of regular clothing. Dishevelled hair, stunned expressions, broken poses– everything the mob beyond the Round lusted to see, hungered to flail-\n\nWelcome to the streets, Heboric thought to himself as the guards prodded the line into motion, the Adjunct looking on, straight in her high saddle, her thin face drawn in until nothing but lines remained– the slit of her eyes, the brackets around her uncurved, almost lipless mouth– damn, but she wasn't born with much, was she? The looks went to her young sister, to the lass stumbling a step ahead of him.\n\nHeboric's eyes fixed on Adjunct Tavore, curious, seeking something– a flicker of malicious pleasure, maybe– as her icy gaze swept the line and lingered for the briefest of moments on her sister. But the pause was all she revealed, a recognition acknowledged, nothing more. The gaze swept on.\n\nThe guards opened the East Gate two hundred paces ahead, near the front of the chained line. A roar poured through that ancient arched passageway, a wave of sound that buffeted soldier and prisoner alike, bouncing off the high walls and rising up amidst an explosion of terrified pigeons from the upper eaves. The sound of flapping wings drifted down like polite applause, although to Heboric it seemed that he alone appreciated that ironic touch of the gods. Not to be denied a gesture, he managed a slight bow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hood keep his damned secrets. Here, Fener you old sow, it's that itch I could never scratch. Look on, now, closely, see what becomes of your wayward son.\n\nSome part of Felisin's mind held onto sanity, held with a brutal grip in the face of a maelstrom. Soldiers lined Colonnade Avenue in ranks three deep, but again and again the mob seemed to find weak spots in that bristling line. She found herself observing, clinically, even as hands tore at her, fists pummelled her, blurred faces lunged at her with gobs of spit. And even as sanity held within her, so too a pair of steady arms encircled her– arms without hands, the ends scarred and suppurating, arms that pushed her forward, ever forward. No-one touched the priest. No-one dared. While ahead was Baudin– more horrifying than the mob itself.\n\nHe killed effortlessly. He tossed bodies aside with contempt, roaring, gesturing, beckoning. Even the soldiers stared beneath their ridged helmets, heads turning at his taunts, hands tightening on pike or sword hilt.\n\nBaudin, laughing Baudin, his nose smashed by a well-flung brick, stones bouncing from him, his slave tunic in rags and soaked with blood and spit. Everybody that darted within his reach he grasped, twisted, bent and broke. The only pause in his stride came when something happened ahead, some breach in the soldiery– or when Lady Gaesen faltered. He'd grasp her arms under the shoulders, none too gently, then propel her forward, swearing all the while.\n\nA wave of fear swept ahead of him, a touch of the terror inflicted turning back on the mob. The number of attackers diminished, although the bricks flew in a constant barrage, some hitting, most missing." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Move the story forward in your role as narrative aide.\nTags: epic fantasy, war, sacrifice, journey, rebellion\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Deadhouse Gates\nChapter: 19" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's– he's nothing-\"\n\nThe back of his hand when it struck her face was like a sack of rocks. Light exploded behind Felisin's eyes as she sprawled sideways. Blood streamed from her nose as she lay unmoving in the alley's rotting refuse. Staring dumbly at the ground six inches away, she watched the red pool spread in the dust.\n\nBeneth dragged her upright and threw her up against a wood-slatted wall. \"Your full name, lass. Tell me!\"\n\n\"Felisin,\" she mumbled. \"Just that-\"\n\nSnarling, he raised his hand again.\n\nShe stared at the marks her teeth had left just above the knuckles. \"No! I swear it! I was a foundling-\"\n\nDisbelief crazed his eyes. \"A what?\"\n\n\"Found outside the Fener Monastery on Malaz Island– the Empress made accusations– followers of Fener. Heboric-\"\n\n\"Your ship came from Unta, lass. What do you take me for? You're noble-born-'\n\n\"No! Only well cared for. Please, Beneth, I'm not lying. I don't understand Sawark. Maybe Baudin spun a tale, a lie to save his own skin-\"\n\n\"Your ship sailed from Unta. You've never even been to Malaz Island. This monastery, near which city? '\n\n\"Jakata. There's only two cities on the island. The other's Malaz City, I was sent therefor a summer. Schooling. I was in training to be a priestess. Ask Heboric, Beneth. Please.\"\n\n\"Name me the poorest quarter of Malaz City.\"\n\n\"Poorest?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Name it!\"\n\n\"I don't know! The Fener Temple is in Dockfront! Is it the poorest? There were slums outside the city, lining the Jakata Road. I was therefor but a season, Beneth! And I hardly saw Jakata– we weren't allowed! Please, Beneth, I don't understand any of this! Why are you hurting me? I've done everything you wanted me to do– I slept with your friends, I let you trade me, I made myself valuable-\"\n\nHe struck her again, no longer seeking answers or away through her frantic lies– anew reason had appeared in his eyes, birthing a bright rage. He beat her systematically, in silent, cold fury. After the first few blows, Felisin curled herself tight around the pain, the shadow-cooled alley dust feeling like a balm where her flesh lay upon it. She struggled to concentrate on her breathing, closing in on that one task, drawing the air in, fighting the waves of agony that came with the effort, then releasing it slowly, a steady stream that carried the pain away.\n\nEventually she realized that Beneth had stopped, that perhaps he'd only struck her a few times, and that he had left. She was alone in the alley, the thin strip of sky overhead darkening with dusk. She heard occasional voices in the street beyond, but no-one approached the narrow aisle she huddled in.\n\nShe woke again later. Apparently she had passed out while crawling towards the alley mouth. The torchlit Work Road was a dozen paces away. Figures ran through her line of sight. Through the constant ringing in her ears, she heard shouts and screams. The air stank of smoke. She thought to resume crawling, then consciousness slipped away again.\n\nCool cloth brushed her brow. Felisin opened her eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Heboric was bending over her and seemed to be studying her pupils, each in turn. \"You with us, lass?\"\n\nHer jaw ached, her lips were crusted together with scabs. She nodded, only now realizing that she was lying in her own bed.\n\n\"I'm going to rub some oil on your lips, see if we can prise them open without it hurting too much. You need water. '\n\nShe nodded again, and steeled herself against the pain of his ministrations as he dabbed at her mouth with the oil-soaked cloth strapped onto the stub of his left arm. He spoke as he worked. \"Eventful night for us all. Baudin escaped the gaol, lighting a few buildings to flame for diversion. He's hiding somewhere herein Skullcup. No-one tried the cliff walls or Sinker Lake– the cordon of guards lining Beetle Road up top reported no attempts to breach, in any case. Sawark's posted a reward– wants the bastard alive, not least because Baudin went and killed three of his men. I suspect there's more to the tale, what do you think? Then Beneth reports you missing from the Twistings work line this morning, starts me wondering. So I go to talk to him at the midday break– says he last saw you at Bula's last night, says he's cut you loose because you're all used up, sucking more smoke into your lungs than air, as if he ain't to blame for that. But all the while he's talking, I'm studying those cut marks on his knuckles. Beneth was in a fight last night, I see, and the only damage he's sporting is what was done by somebody's teeth. Well, the weeding's done and nobody's keeping an eye on old Heboric, so I spend the afternoon looking, checking alleys, expecting the worst I admit-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Felisin pushed his arm away. Slowly she opened her mouth, wincing at the pain and feeling the cool prick of reopened gashes. \"Beneth,\" she managed. Her chest hurt with every breath.\n\nHeboric's eyes were hard.\"What of him? '\n\n\"Tell him... from me... tell him I'm... sorry. '\n\nThe old man slowly leaned back.\n\n\"I want him... to take me back. Tell him. Please.\"\n\nHeboric rose. \"Get some rest,\" he said in a strangely flat voice as he moved out of her line of sight.\n\n\"Water.\"\n\n\"Coming up, then you sleep.\"\n\n\"Can't, ' she said.\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Can't sleep... without a pipe. Can't.\"\n\nShe sensed him staring at her. \"Your lungs are bruised. You've some cracked ribs. Will tea do? Durhang tea. '\n\n\"Make it strong.\"\n\nHearing him fill a cup of water from the cask, she closed her eyes.\n\n\"Clever story, lass,\" Heboric said. \"A foundling. Lucky for you I'm quick. I'd say there's a good chance Beneth believes you now. '\n\n\"Why? Why do you tell me this?\"\n\n\"To put you at ease. I guess what I mean is–\" he approached with the cup of water between his forearms\"-he just might take you back, lass.\"\n\n\"Oh. I... I don't understand you, Heboric'\n\nHe watched her raise the clay cup to her lips. \"No,\" he said, \"you do not.\"\n\nLike an enormous wall, the sandstorm descended down the west slope of the Estara Hills and approached the coastal road with a deathly moan. While such inland storms were rare on the peninsula, Kalam had faced their wrath before. His first task was to leave the road. It ran too close to the sea cliff in places, and such cliffs were known to collapse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The stallion complained as he angled him down the road's scree bank." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fora thick-muscled, vicious beast, the horse was overfond of comforts. The sands were hot, the footing treacherous with hidden sinkholes. Ignoring the stallion's neck tugs and head-tossing, he drove him down and onto the basin, then kicked the animal into a canter.\n\nA league and a half ahead was Ladro Landing, and beyond that, on the banks of a seasonal river, Ladro Keep. Kalam did not plan on staying there if he could help it. The Keep's commander was Malazan, and so too were his guards. If he could, the assassin would outrun the worst of the storm, hoping to regain the coastal road beyond the Keep, then continue on south to the village of Intesarm.\n\nKeening, the ochre wall drew the horizon on Kalam's left ever closer. The hills had vanished. A turgid gloom curtained the sky. The flap and skitter of fleeing rhizan surrounded him. Hissing a curse, the assassin spurred the stallion into a gallop.\n\nAs much as he detested horses in principle, the animal was magnificent when in full stride, seeming to flow effortlessly over the ground with a rhythm forgiving of Kalam's modest skills. He would come no closer to admitting a growing affection towards the stallion.\n\nAshe rode, he glanced to seethe edge of the storm less than a hundred paces away. There would be no outrunning it. A swirling breaker of whipped sand marked where the wind met the ground. Kalam saw fist-sized rocks in that rolling surf. The wall would crash over them within minutes. Its roar filled the air.\n\nSlightly ahead and on a course that would intercept them, Kalam saw within the ochre cloud a grey stain. He threw himself back in the saddle, sawing the reins. The stallion shrilled, broken out of his rhythm, slewing with his hooves as he stumbled to a stop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You'd thank me if you had half a brain, ' Kalam snarled. The grey stain was a swarm of chigger fleas. The voracious insects waited for storms like this one, then rode the winds in search of prey. The worst of it was, one could not see them straight on; only from the side were they visible.\n\nAs the swarm swept past ahead of them, the storm struck.\n\nThe stallion staggered when the wall rolled over them. The world vanished inside a shrieking, whirling ochre haze. Stones and gravel pelted them, drawing flinches from the stallion and grunts of pain from Kalam. The assassin ducked his hooded head and leaned into the wind. Through the slit in his telaba scarf, he squinted ahead, nudging his mount forward at a walk. He leaned down over the animal's neck, reached out one gloved hand and cupped it over the stallion's left eye to shield it from flying stones and grit. For being out here, the assassin owed him that much.\n\nThey continued on for another ten minutes, seeing nothing through the cloak of flying sand. Then the stallion snorted, rearing. Snapping and crunching sounds rose from beneath them. Kalam squinted down. Bones, on all sides. The storm had blown out a graveyard– a common enough occurrence. The assassin regained control of his mount, then tried to pierce the ochre gloom. Ladro Landing was nearby, but he could see nothing. He nudged the stallion forward, the animal stepping daintly around the skeletal clumps.\n\nThe coastal road appeared ahead, along with guardhouses flanking what had to be the bridge. The village must be on his right– if the damned thing hasn't blown away. Beyond the bridge, then, he would find Ladro Keep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The single-person guardhouses both gaped empty, like sockets in a massive geometric skull.\n\nHis horse stabled, Kalam crossed the compound, leaning against the wind and wincing at the ache in his legs as he approached the keep's gatehouse entrance. Ducking within the alcove, he found himself beyond the storm's howl for the first time in hours. Drifts of fine sand filled the gatehouse's corners, but the dusty air was calm. No guardsman held the post: the lone stone bench was vacant.\n\nKalam raised the heavy iron ring on the wood door, slamming it down hard. He waited. Eventually he heard the bars being drawn on the other side. The door swung back with a grating sound. An old kitchen servant regarded him with his one good eye.\n\n\"Inside, then,\" he grumbled. \"Join the others.\"\n\nKalam edged past the old man and found himself in a large common room. Faces had turned with his entrance. At the far end of the main table, which ran the length of the rectangular chamber, sat four of the keep's guardsmen, Malazans, looking foul-tempered. Three jugs squatted in puddles of wine on the tabletop. To one side, next along the table, was a wiry, sunken-eyed woman, her face painted in a style best left to young maidens. At her side was an Ehrlii merchant, probably the woman's husband.\n\nKalam bowed to the group, then approached the table. Another servant, this one younger than the doorman by only a few years, appeared with afresh jug and a goblet, hesitating until the assassin settled on where he would sit– opposite the merchant couple. He set the goblet down and poured Kalam a half-measure, then backed away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The merchant showed durhang-stained teeth in a welcoming smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Down from the north, then?\"\n\nThe wine was some kind of herbal concoction, too sweet and cloying for the climate. Kalam set the goblet down, scowling. \"No beer in this hold?\"\n\nThe merchant's head bobbed.\"Aye, and chilled at that. Alas, only the wine is free, courtesy of our host. '\n\n\"Not surprised it's free, \"the assassin muttered. He gestured to the servant.\"A tankard of beer, if you please. '\n\n\"Costs a sliver,\" the servant said.\n\n\"Highway robbery, but my thirst is master.\" He found a clipped Jakata and set it on the table.\n\n\"Has the village fallen into the sea, then?\" the merchant asked. \"On your way down from Ehrlitan, how stands the bridge?\"\n\nKalam saw a small velvet bag on the tabletop in front of the merchant's wife. Glancing up, he met her pitted eyes. She gave him a ghastly wink.\n\n\"He'll not add to your gossip, Berkru darling. A stranger come in from the storm, is all you'll learn from this one.\"\n\nOne of the guardsmen raised his head. \"Got something to hide, have ya? Not guarding a caravan, just riding alone? Deserting the Ehrlitan Guard, or maybe spreading the word of Dryjhna, or both. Nowhere ya come, expecting the hospitality of the Master– Malazan born and bred.\"\n\nKalam eyed the men. Four belligerent faces. Any denial of the sergeant's accusations would not be believed. The guards had decided he belonged in the dungeon for the night at least, something to break the boredom. Yet the assassin was not interested in shedding blood. He laid his hands flat on the table, slowly rose.\"A word with you, Sergeant, \"he said.\"In private. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man's dark face turned ugly.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So you can slit my throat? '\n\n\"You believe me capable of that?\" Kalam asked in surprise. \"You wear chain, you've a sword at your belt. You've three companions who no doubt will stay close– if only to eavesdrop on the words we exchange between us.\"\n\nThe sergeant rose. \"I can handle you well enough on my own,\" he growled. He strode to the back wall.\n\nKalam followed. He withdrew a small pendant from under his telaba and held it up. \"Do you recognize this, Sergeant?\" he asked softly.\n\nCautiously, the man leaned forward to study the symbol etched on the pendant's flat surface. Recognition paled his features as he involuntarily mouthed,\"Clawmaster. '\n\n\"An end to your questions and accusations, Sergeant. Do not reveal what you now know to your men– at least until after I am gone. Understood?\"\n\nThe sergeant nodded. \"Pardon, sir,\" he whispered.\n\nKalam hooked a half-smile. \"Your unease is earned. Hood's about to stride this land, and you and I both know it. You erred today, but do not relax your mistrust. Does the Keep Commander understand the situation beyond these walls? '\n\n\"Aye, he does.\"\n\nThe assassin sighed. \"Makes you and your squad among the lucky ones, Sergeant.\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"Shall we return to the table now?\"\n\nThe sergeant simply shook his head in answer to his squad's querying expressions.\n\nAs Kalam returned to his beer, the merchant's wife reached for the velvet bag.\"The soldiers have each requested a reading of their futures, \"she said, revealing a Deck of Dragons. She held the deck in both hands, her unblinking eyes on the assassin.\"And you? Would you know of your future, stranger? Which gods smile upon you, which gods frown-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The gods have little time or inclination to spare us any note,\" Kalam said with contempt. \"Leave me out of your games, woman.\"\n\n\"So you cow the sergeant,\" she said, smiling, \"and now seek to cow me. Seethe fear your words have wrought in me? I shake with terror.\"\n\nWith a disgusted snort, Kalam slid his gaze away.\n\nThe common room boomed as the front door was assailed.\n\n\"More mysterious travellers!\" the woman cackled.\n\nEveryone watched as the doorman reappeared from aside chamber and shuffled towards the door. Whoever waited outside was impatient– thunder rang imperiously through the room even as the old man reached for the bar.\n\nAs soon as the bar cleared the latch, the door was pushed hard. The doorman stumbled back. Two armoured figures appeared, the first one a woman. Metal rustled and boots thumped as she strode into the centre of the chamber. Flat eyes surveyed the guards and the other guests, held briefly on each of them before continuing on. Kalam saw no special attention accorded him.\n\nThe woman had once held rank– perhaps she still did, although her accoutrements and colours announced no present status; nor was the man behind her wearing anything like a uniform.\n\nKalam saw weals on both their faces and smiled to himself. They'd run into chigger fleas, and neither looked too pleased about it. The man jerked suddenly as one bit him somewhere beneath his hauberk, cursing, he began loosening the armour's straps.\n\n\"No,\" the woman snapped.\n\nThe man stopped.\n\nShe was Pardu, a southern plains tribe; her companion had the look of a northerner– possibly Ehrlii. His dusky skin was a shade paler than the woman's and bare of any tribal tattooing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hood's breath! \"the sergeant snarled at the woman.\"Not another step closer! You're both crawling with chiggers. Take the far end of the table. One of the servants will prepare a cedar-chip bath– though that will cost you.\"\n\nFora moment the woman seemed ready to resist, but then she gestured to the unoccupied end of the table with one gloved hand and her companion responded by pulling two chairs back before seating himself stiffly in one of them. The Pardu took the other. \"A flagon of beer,\" she said.\n\n\"The Master charges for that,\" Kalam said, giving her awry smile.\n\n\"The Seven's fate! The cheap bastard– you, servant! Bring me a tankard and I'll judge if it's worth any coin. Quickly now! '\n\n\"The woman thinks this a tavern,\" one of the guards said.\n\nThe sergeant spoke. \"You're hereby the grace of this Keep's commander. You'll pay for the beer, you'll pay for the bath, and you'll pay for sleeping on this floor. '\n\n\"And this is grace?\"\n\nThe sergeant's expression darkened– he was Malazan, and he shared the room with a Clawmaster.\"The four walls, the ceiling, the hearth and the use of the stables are free, woman. Yet you complain like a virgin princess– accept the hospitality or begone. '\n\nThe woman's eyes narrowed, then she removed a handful of jakatas from a belt pouch and slammed them on the tabletop.\"I gather, \"she said smoothly,\"that your gracious master charges even you for beer, Sergeant. So be it, I've no choice but to buy everyone here a tankard.\"\n\n\"Generous,\" the sergeant said with a stiff nod." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The future shall now be prised loose,\" the merchant's wife said, trimming the Deck.\n\nKalam saw the Pardu flinch upon seeing the cards.\n\n\"Spare us,\" the assassin said. \"There's nothing to be gained from seeing what's to come, assuming you've any talent at all, which I doubt. Save us all from the embarrassment of your performance. '\n\nIgnoring him, the old woman angled herself to face the guardsmen. \"All your fates rest upon... this!\" She laid out the first card.\n\nKalam barked a laugh.\n\n\"Which one is that?\" one of the guards demanded.\n\n\"Obelisk,\" Kalam said. \"The woman's a fake. As any seer of talent would know, that card's inactive in Seven Cities.\"\n\n\"An expert in divination, are you?\" the old woman snapped.\n\n\"I visit a worthy seer before any overland journey,\" Kalam replied. \"It would be foolish to do otherwise. I know the Deck, and I've seen when the reading was true, when power showed the hand. No doubt you intended to charge these guardsmen once the reading was done, once you'd told them how rich they were going to become, how they'd live to ripe old ages, fathering heroes by the score-'\n\nHer expression unveiling the charade's end, the old woman screamed with rage and flung the Deck at Kalam. It struck him on the chest, cards clattering on the tabletop in a wild scatter– which settled into a pattern.\n\nThe breath hissed from the Pardu woman, the only sound to be heard within the common room.\n\nSuddenly sweating, Kalam looked down at the cards. Six surrounded a single, and that single card– he knew with certainty– was his. The Rope, Assassin of Shadow. The six cards encircling it were all of one House. King, Herald, Mason, Spinner, Knight, Queen... High House Death, Hood's House all arrayed... around the one who carries the Holy Book of Dryjhna.\"Ah, well, \"Kalam sighed, glancing up at the Pardu woman,\"I guess I sleep alone tonight. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Red Blade Captain Lostara Yil and her companion soldier were the last to leave Ladro Keep, over an hour after their target had departed on his stallion, riding south through the dusty wake of the sandstorm.\n\nThe forced proximity with Kalam had been unavoidable, but just as he was skilled at deception, so too was Lostara. Bluster could be its own disguise, arrogance a mask hiding an altogether deadlier assurance.\n\nThe Deck of Dragons'unexpected fielding had revealed much to Lostara, not only about Kalam and his mission. The Keep's sergeant had shown himself by his expression to have been a co-conspirator– yet another Malazan soldier prepared to betray his Empress. Evidently, Kalam's stop at the Keep had not been as accidental as it appeared.\n\nChecking their horses, Lostara turned as her companion emerged from the Keep. The Red Blade grinned up at her. \"You were thorough, as always,\" he said. \"The commander led me a merry chase, however. I found him in the crypt, struggling to climb into a fifty-year-old suit of armour. He was much thinner in his youth, it seems.\"\n\nLostara swung herself into the saddle. \"None still breathing? You're certain you checked them all? What of the servants in the back hallway– I went through them perhaps too quickly. '\n\n\"You left not a single heart still beating, Captain.\"\n\n\"Very good. Mount up. That horse of the assassin's is killing these ones– we shall acquire fresh horses in Intesarm. '\n\n\"Assuming Baralta got around to arranging them.\" Lostara eyed her companion. \"Trust Baralta,\" she said coolly.\n\n\"And be glad that– this time– I shall not report your scepticism.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tight-lipped, the man nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you, Captain.\"\n\nThe two rode down the keep road, turning south on the coastal road.\n\nThe entire main floor of the monastery radiated in a circular pattern around a single room that was occupied by a circular staircase of stone leading down into darkness. Mappo crouched beside it.\n\n\"This would, I imagine, lead down to the crypt.\"\n\n\"If I recall correctly,\" Icarium said from where he stood near the room's entrance,\"when nuns of the Queen of Dreams die the bodies are simply wrapped in linen and placed on recessed ledges in the crypt walls. Have you an interest in perusing corpses? '\n\n\"Not generally, no,\" the Trell said, straightening with a soft grunt. \"It's just that the stone changes as soon the stairs descend below floor level. '\n\nIcarium raised a brow. \"It does?\"\n\n\"The level we're on is carved from living rock– the cliff's limestone. It's rather soft. But beneath it there are cut granite blocks. I believe the crypt beneath us is an older construct. Either that or the nuns and their cult hold that a crypt's walls and approach must be dressed, whereas living chambers need not be.\"\n\nThe Jhag shook his head, approaching. \"I would be surprised. The Queen of Dreams is Life-aspected. Very well, shall we explore?\"\n\nMappo descended first. Neither had much need for artificial light, the darkness below offering no obstacle. The spiral steps showed the vestiges of marble tiling, but the passage of many feet long ago had worn most of them away. Beneath, the hard granite defied all evidence of erosion.\n\nThe stairs continued down, and down. At the seventieth step they ended in the centre of an octagonally walled chamber. Friezes decorated each wall, the colours hinted at in the many shades of grey. Beyond the staircase's landing, the floor was honeycombed with rectangular pits, cut down through the tiles and the granite blocks beneath removed. These blocks were now stacked over what was obviously a portalway. Within each pit was a shrouded corpse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The air was dry, scentless.\n\n\"These paintings do not belong to the cult of the Queen,\" Mappo said, stating the obvious, for the scenes on the walls revealed a dark mythos. Thick fir trees reared black, moss-stained boles on all sides. The effect created was of standing in a glade deep in an ancient forest. Between the trunks here and there was the hint of hulking, four-legged beasts, their eyes glowing as if in reflected moonlight.\n\nIcarium crouched down, running a handover the remaining tiles. \"This floor held a pattern,\" he said, \"before the nuns\" workers cut graves in it. Pity. '\n\nMappo glanced at the blocked doorway. \"If answers to the mysteries here exist, they lie beyond that barricade.\"\n\n\"Recovered your strength, friend?\"\n\n\"Well enough.\" The Trell went to the barrier, pulled down the highest block. Ashe tipped it down into his arms, he staggered, voicing a savage grunt. Icarium rushed to help him lower the granite block to the floor. \"Hood's breath! Heavier than I'd expected.\"\n\n\"I'd gathered that. Shall we work together, then? '\n\nTwenty minutes later they had cleared sufficient blocks to permit their passage into the hallway beyond. The final five minutes they had an audience, as a squall of bhok'aral appeared on the staircase, silently watching their efforts from where they clung from the railings. When first Mappo and then Icarium clambered through the opening, however, the bhok'arala did not follow.\n\nThe hallway stretched away before them, a wide colonnade lined by twin columns that were nothing less than the trunks of cedars. Each bole was at least an arm-span in diameter. The shaggy, gouged bark remained, although most of it had fallen away and now lay scattered over the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mappo laid a hand on one wooden pillar. \"Imagine the effort of bringing these down here.\"\n\n\"Warren,\" Icarium said, sniffing. \"The residue remains, even after all these centuries.\"\n\n\"After centuries? Can you sense which warren, Icarium?\"\n\n\"Kurald Galain. Elder, the Warren of Darkness.\"\n\n\"Tiste Andii? In all the histories of Seven Cities that I am aware of, I've never heard mention of Tiste Andii present on this continent. Nor in my homeland, on the other side of the Jhag Odhan. Are you certain? This does not make sense. '\n\n\"I am not certain, Mappo. It has the feel of Kurald Galain, that is all. The feel of Dark. It is not Omtose Phellack nor Tellann. Not Starvald Demelain. I know of no other Elder Warrens.\"\n\n\"Nor I.\"\n\nWithout another word the three began walking.\n\nBy Mappo's count, the hallway ended three hundred and thirty paces later, opening out into another octagonal chamber, this one with its floor raised a hand's width higher than that of the hallway. Each flagstone was also octagonal, and on each of them images had been intricately carved, then defaced with gouges and scoring in what seemed entirely random, frenzied destruction.\n\nThe Trell felt his hackles stiffening into a ridge on his neck as he stood at the room's threshold. Icarium was beside him.\n\n\"I do not,\" the Jhag said, \"suggest we enter this chamber.\"\n\nMappo grunted agreement. The air stank of sorcery, old, stale and clammy and dense with power. Like waves of heat, magic bled from the flagstones, from the images carved upon them and the wounds many of those images now bore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Icarium was shaking his head. \"If this is Kurald Galain, its flavour is unknown tome. It is... corrupted.\"\n\n\"By the defilement?\"\n\n\"Possibly. Yet the stench from those claw marks differs from what rises from the flagstones themselves. Is it familiar to you? By Dessembrae's mortal tears it should be, Mappo. '\n\nThe Trell squinted down at the nearest flagstone bearing scars. His nostrils flared. \"Soletaken. D'ivers. The spice of shapeshifters. Of course. \"He barked out a savage laugh that echoed in the chamber.\"The Path of Hands, Icarium. The gate– it's here.\"\n\n\"More than agate, I think,\" Icarium said. \"Look upon the undamaged carvings– what do they remind you of?\"\n\nMappo had an answer to that. He scanned the array with growing certainty, but the realization it offered held no answers, only more questions. \"I seethe likeness, yet there is an... unlikeness, as well. Even more irritating, I can think of no possible linkage...\"\n\n\"No such answers here,\" Icarium said. \"We must go to the place we first intended to find, Mappo. We approach comprehension– I am certain of that.\"\n\n\"Icarium, do you think Iskaral Pust is preparing for more visitors? Soletaken and D'ivers, the imminent opening of the gate. Is he– and by extension Shadow Realm– the very heart of this convergence? '\n\n\"I do not know. Let's ask him. '\n\nThey stepped back from the threshold.\n\n\"We approach comprehension.\" Three words evoking terror within Mappo. He felt like a hare in a master archer's sights, each direction of flight so hopeless as to leave him frozen in place. He stood at the side of powers that staggered his mind, power past and powers present. The Nameless Ones, with their charges arid hints and visions, their cowled purposes and shrouded desires. Creatures of fraught antiquity, if the Trellish legends held any glimmer of truth. And Icarium, oh, dear friend, I can tell you nothing. My curse is silence to your every question, and the hand I offer as a brother will lead you only into deceit. In love's name, I do this, at my own cost... and such a cost." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bhok'arala awaited them at the stairs and followed the two men at a discreet distance up to the main level.\n\nThey found the High Priest in the vestibule he had converted into his sleeping chamber. Muttering to himself, Iskaral Pust was filling a wicker rubbish container with rotted fruit, dead bats and mangled rhizan. He threw Mappo and Icarium a scowl over one shoulder as they stood at the room's entrance.\n\n\"If those squalid apes are following you, let them'ware my wrath, \"Iskaral hissed.\"No matter which chamber I choose, they insist on using it as repository for their foul leavings. I have lost patience! They mock a High Priest of Shadow at their peril! '\n\n\"We have found the gate,\" Mappo said.\n\nIskaral did not pause in his cleaning. \"Oh, you have, have you? Fools! Nothing is as it seems. A life given fora life taken. You have explored every corner, every cranny, have you? Idiots! Such overconfident bluster is the banner of ignorance. Wave it about and expect me to cower? Hah. I have my secrets, my plans, my schemes. Iskaral Pust's maze of genius cannot be plumbed by the likes of you. Look at you two. Both ancient wanderers of this mortal earth. Why have you not ascended like the rest of them? I'll tell you. Longevity does not automatically bestow wisdom. Oh no, not at all. I trust you are killing every spider you spy. You had better be, for it is the path to wisdom. Oh yes indeed, the path!\n\n\"Bhok'arala have small brains. Tiny brains inside their tiny round skulls. Cunning as rats, with eyes like glittering black stones. Four hours, once, I stared into one's eyes, he into mine. Never once pulling gaze away, oh no, this was a contest and one I would not lose. Four hours, face to face, so close I could smell his foul breath and he mine. Who would win? It was in the lap of the gods.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mappo glanced at Icarium, then cleared his throat. \"And who, Iskaral Pust, won this... this battle of wits?\"\n\nIskaral Pust fixed a pointed stare on Mappo. \"Look upon him who does not waver from his cause, no matter how insipid and ultimately irrelevant, and you shall find in him the meaning of dull-witted. The bhok'aral could have stared into my eyes forever, for there was no intelligence behind them. Behind his eyes, I mean. It was proof of my superiority that I found distraction elsewhere. '\n\n\"Do you intend to lead the D'ivers and Soletaken to the gate below, Iskaral Pust? '\n\n'Blunt are the Trell, determined in headlong stumbling and headlong in stumbling determination. As I said. You know nothing of the mysteries involved, the plans of Shadowthrone, the many secrets of the Grey Keep, the Shrouded House where stands the Throne of Shadow. Yet I do. I, alone among all mortals, have been shown the truth arrayed before me. My god is generous, my god is wise, as cunning as a rat. Spiders must die.\n\nThe bhok'arala have stolen my broom and this quest I set before you two guests. Icarium and Mappo Trell, famed wanderers of the world, I charge you with this perilous task– find me my broom.\"\n\nOut in the hallway, Mappo sighed. \"Well, that was fruitless. What shall we do now, friend?\"\n\nIcarium looked surprised. \"It should be obvious, Mappo. We must take on this perilous quest. We must find Iskaral Pust's broom. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We have explored this monastery, Icarium,\" the Trell said wearily. \"I noticed no broom.\"\n\nThe Jhag's mouth quirked slightly.\"Explored? Every corner, every cranny? I think not. Our first task, however, is to the kitchen. We must outfit ourselves for our impending explorations. '\n\n\"You are serious.\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\nThe flies were biting in the heat, as foul-tempered as everything else beneath the blistering sun. People filled Hissar's fountains until midday, crowded shoulder to shoulder in the tepid, murky waters, before retiring to the cooler shade of their homes. It was not a day forgoing outside, and Duiker found himself scowling as he drew on a loose, thinly woven telaba while Bult waited by the door.\n\n\"Why not under the moon,\" the historian muttered. \"Cool night air, stars high overhead with every spirit looking down. Now that would ensure success!\"\n\nBult's sardonic grin did not help matters. Strapping on his rope belt, Duiker turned to the grizzled commander.\"Very well, lead on, Uncle. '\n\nThe Wickan's grin widened, deepening the scar until it seemed he had two smiles instead of one.\n\nOutside, Kulp waited with the mounts, astride his own small, sturdy-looking horse. Duiker found the cadre mage's glum expression perversely pleasing.\n\nThey rode through almost empty streets. It was marrok: early afternoon, when sane people retired indoors to wait out the worst of the summer heat. The historian had grown accustomed to napping during marrok; he was feeling grumpy, all too out of sorts to attend Sormo's ritual. Warlocks were notorious for their impropriety, their deliberate discombobulating of commonsense. For the defence of decency done, the Empress might be excused the executions. He grimaced– clearly not an opinion to be safely voiced within hearing range of any Wickans." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They reached the city's northern end and rode out on a coastal track for half a league before swinging inland, into the wastes of the Odhan. The oasis they approached an hour later was dead, the spring long since dried up. All that remained of what had once been a lush, natural garden amidst the sands was a stand of withered, gnarled cedars rising from a carpet of tumbled palms.\n\nMany of the trees bore strange projections that drew Duiker's curiosity as they led their horses closer.\n\n\"Are those horns in the trees?\" Kulp asked.\n\n\"Bhederin, I think,\" the historian replied. \"Jammed into a fork, then grown past, leaving them embedded deep in the wood. These trees were likely a thousand years old before the water vanished.\"\n\nThe mage grunted. \"You'd think they'd be cut down by now, this close to Hissar.\"\n\n\"The horns are warnings,\" Bult said. \"Holy ground. Once, long ago. Memories remain.\"\n\n\"As well they should,\" Duiker muttered. \"Sormo should be avoiding hallowed sand, not seeking it out. If this place is aspected, it's likely an inimical one to a Wickan warlock. '\n\n\"I've long since learned to trust Sormo E'nath's judgement, Historian. You'd do well to learn the like.\"\n\n\"It's a poor scholar who trusts anyone's judgement,\" Duiker said. \"Even and perhaps especially his own.\"\n\n\"\"You walk shifting sands,\"\" Bult sighed, then gave him another grin, \"as the locals would say.\"\n\n\"What would you Wickans say?\" Kulp asked.\n\nBult's eyes glittered with mischief.\"Nothing. Wise words are like arrows flung at your forehead. What do you do? Why, you duck, of course. This truth a Wickan knows from the time he first learns to ride– long before he learns to walk. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They found the warlock in a clearing. The drifts of sand had been swept aside, revealing a heaved and twisted brick floor– all that remained of a structure of some sort. Chips of obsidian glittered in the joins.\n\nKulp dismounted, eyeing Sormo who stood in the centre, hands hidden within heavy sleeves. He swatted at a fly. \"What's this, then, some lost, forgotten temple? '\n\nThe young Wickan slowly blinked. \"My assistants concluded it had been a stable. They then left without elaborating.\"\n\nKulp scowled at Duiker. \"I despise Wickan humour,\" he whispered.\n\nSormo gestured them closer. \"It is my intention to open myself to the sacred aspect of this kheror, which is the name Wickans give to holy places open to the skies-\"\n\n\"Are you mad?\" Kulp's face had gone white.\"Those spirits will rip your throat out, child. They are of the Seven-'\n\n\"They are not,\" the warlock retorted. \"The spirits in this kheror were raised in the time before the Seven. They are the land's own and if you must liken them to a known aspect, then it must be Tellann. '\n\n\"Hood's mercy, \"Duiker groaned.\"If it is indeed Tellann, then you will be dealing with T'lan Imass, Sormo. The undead warriors have turned their backs on the Empress and all that is the Empire, ever since the Emperor's assassination. '\n\nThe warlock's eyes were bright.\"And have you not wondered why? '\n\nThe historian's mouth snapped shut. He had theories in that regard, but to voice them– to anyone– would be treason." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kulp's dry question to Sormo broke through Duiker's thoughts. \"And has Empress Laseen tasked you with this? Are you hereto seek a sense of future events or is that just a feint?\"\n\nBult had stood a few paces from them saying nothing, but now he spat. \"We need no seer to guess that, Mage.\"\n\nThe warlock raised his arms out to his sides. \"Stay close,\" he said to Kulp, then his eyes slid to the historian. \"And you, see and remember all you will witness here.\"\n\n\"I am already doing so, Warlock.\"\n\nSormo nodded, closed his eyes.\n\nHis power spread like a faint, subtle ripple, sweeping over Duiker and the others to encompass the entire clearing. Daylight faded abruptly, replaced by a soft dusk, the dry air suddenly damp and smelling of marshlands.\n\nRinging the glade like sentinels were cypresses. Mosses hung from branches in curtains, hiding what lay beyond in impenetrable shadow.\n\nDuiker could feel Sormo E'nath's sorcery like a warm cloak; he had never before felt a power such as this one. Calm and protective, strong yet yielding. He wondered at the Empire's loss in exterminating these warlocks. An error she's clearly corrected, though it might well be too late. How many warlocks were lost in truth?\n\nSormo loosed an ululating cry that echoed as if they stood within avast cavern.\n\nThe next moment the air was alive with icy winds, arriving in warring gusts. Sormo staggered, his eyes now open and widening with alarm. He drew a breath, then visibly recoiled at the taste and Duiker could not blame him. Bestial stench rode the winds, growing fouler by the moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Taut violence filled the glade, a sure promise announced in the sudden thrashing of the moss-laden branches. The historian saw a swarming cloud approach Bult from behind and shouted a warning. The Wickan whirled, long-knives in his hands. He screamed as the first of the wasps stung.\n\n\"D'ivers! \"Kulp bellowed, one hand grasping Duiker's telaba and pulling the historian back to where Sormo stood as if dazed.\n\nRats scampered over the soft ground, shrilly screaming as they attacked a writhing bundle of snakes.\n\nThe historian felt heat on his legs, looked down. Fire ants swarmed him up to his thighs. The heat rose to agony. He screamed.\n\nSwearing, Kulp unleashed his warren in a pulse of power. Shrivelled ants fell from the historian's legs like dust. The attacking swarm flinched back, the D'ivers retreating.\n\nThe rats had overrun the snakes and now closed in on Sormo. The Wickan frowned at them.\n\nOff where Bult crouched slapping futilely at the stinging wasps, liquid fire erupted in a swath, the flames tumbling over the veteran.\n\nTracking back to the fire's source, Duiker saw that an enormous demon had entered the clearing. Midnight-skinned and twice the height of a man, the creature voiced a roar of fury and launched a savage attack on a white-furred bear– the glade was alive with D'ivers and Soletaken, the air filled with shrieks and snarls. The demon landed on the bear, driving it to the ground with a snap and crunch of bones. Leaving the animal twitching, the black demon leapt to one side and roared a second time, and this time Duiker heard meaning within it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's warning us! ' he shouted at Kulp.\n\nLike a lodestone the demon's arrival drew the D'ivers and Soletaken. They fought each other in a frenzied rush to attack the creature.\n\n\"We have to get out of here!\" Duiker said. \"Pull us out, Kulp– now!\"\n\nThe mage hissed in rage. \"How? This is Sormo's ritual, you damned book-grub! '\n\nThe demon vanished beneath a mob of creatures, yet clearly remained upright, as the D'ivers and Soletaken clambered up what seemed a solid pillar of stone. Black-skinned arms appeared, flinging away dead and dying creatures. But it could not last.\n\n\"Hood take you, Kulp! Think of something!\"\n\nThe mage's face tightened.\"Drag Bult to Sormo. Quickly! Leave the warlock tome. ' With that, Kulp bolted to Sormo, shouting in an effort to wake the youth from whatever spell held him. Duiker spun to where Bult lay huddled five paces away. His legs felt impossibly heavy beneath the prickling pain of the ant bites as he staggered to the Wickan.\n\nThe veteran had been stung scores of times, his flesh was misshapen with fiery swelling. He was unconscious, possibly dead. Duiker gripped the man's harness and dragged him to where Kulp continued accosting Sormo E'nath.\n\nAs the historian arrived, the demon gave one last shriek, then disappeared beneath the mound of attackers. The D'ivers and Soletaken then surged towards the four men.\n\nSormo E'nath was oblivious, his eyes glazed, unheeding of the mage's efforts to shout him into awareness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wake him or we're dead, ' Duiker gasped, stepping over Bult to face the charging beasts with naught but a small knife.\n\nThe weapon would little avail him as a seething cloud of hornets swiftly closed the distance.\n\nThe scene was jolted, and Duiker saw they were back in the dead oasis. The D'ivers and Soletaken were gone. The historian turned to Kulp.\"You did it! How? '\n\nThe mage glanced down at a sprawled, moaning Sormo E'nath.\"I'll pay for it,\" he muttered, then met Duiker's eyes.\"I punched the lad. Damn near broke my hand doing it, too. It was his nightmare, wasn't it?\"\n\nThe historian blinked, then shook himself and crouched down beside Bult. \"This poison will kill him long before we can get help-\"\n\nKulp squatted, ran his good handover the veteran's swollen face.\"Not poison. More like an infecting warren. I can deal with this, Duiker. As with your legs. ' He closed his eyes in concentration.\n\nSormo E'nath slowly pushed himself into sitting position. He looked around, then tenderly touched his jaw, where the ridged imprint of Kulp's knuckles stood like puckered islands in a spreading flush of red.\n\n\"He had no choice,\" Duiker told him.\n\nThe warlock nodded.\n\n\"Can you talk? Any loose teeth?\"\n\n\"Somewhere,\" he said clearly, \"a crow flaps broken-winged on the ground. There are but ten left.\"\n\n\"What happened there, Warlock?\"\n\nSormo's eyes flicked nervously.\"Something unexpected, Historian. A convergence is underway. The Path of Hands. The gate of the Soletaken and the D'ivers. An unhappy coincidence.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Duiker scowled. \"You said Tellann-\"\n\n\"And so it was,\" the warlock cut in. \"Is there a blending between shapeshifting and Elder Tellann? Unknown. Perhaps the D'ivers and Soletaken are simply passing through the warren– imagining it unoccupied by T'lan Imass and therefore safer. Indeed, no T'lan Imass to take umbrage with the trespass, leaving them with only each other to battle. '\n\n\"They're welcome to annihilate each other, then, ' the historian grumbled, his legs slowly giving way beneath him until like Sormo he sat on the ground.\n\n\"I shall help you in a moment,\" Kulp called over.\n\nNodding, Duiker found himself watching a dung beetle struggle heroically to push aside a fragment of palm bark. He sensed something profound in what he watched, but was too weary to pursue it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Coltaine rattles slow across the burning land. The wind howls through the bones of his hate-ridden command. Coltaine leads a chain of dogs ever snapping at his hand.\n\nColtaine's fist bleeds the journey home along rivers of red-soaked sand. His train howls through his bones in spiteful reprimand. Coltaine leads a chain of dogs ever snapping at his hand.\n\nColtaine A marching song of the Bonehunters" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Advance the story as the writer's narrative assistant.\nTags: epic fantasy, complex plot, multiple characters, dark themes, intricate world-building\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Dust of Dreams\nChapter: 11" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elan Plain, west of Kolanse\n\nThere was light, and then there was heat.\n\nHe knelt, carefully taking each brittle fold in his hands, ensuring that every crease was perfect, that nothing of the baby was exposed to the sun. He drew the hood in until little more than a fist-sized hole was left for her face, her features grey smudges in the darkness, and then he gently picked her up and settled her into the fold of his left arm. There was no hardship in this.\n\nThey'd camped near the only tree in any direction, but not under it. The tree was a gamleh tree and the gamlehs were angry with people. In the dusk of the night before, its branches had been thick with fluttering masses of grey leaves, at least until they drew closer. This morning the branches were bare.\n\nFacing west, Rutt stood holding the baby he had named Held. The grasses were colourless. In places they had been scoured away by the dry wind, wind that had then carved the dust out round their roots to expose the pale bulbs so the plants withered and died. After the dust and bulbs had gone, sometimes gravel was left. Other times it was just bedrock, black and gnarled. Elan Plain was losing its hair, but that was something Badalle might say, her green eyes fixed on the words in her head. There was no question she had a gift, but some gifts, Rutt knew, were curses in disguise.\n\nBadalle walked up to him now, her sun-charred arms thin as stork necks, the hands hanging at her sides coated in dust and looking oversized beside her skinny thighs. She blew to scatter the flies crusting her mouth and intoned:\n\n\"Rutt he holds Held Wraps her good In the morning And then up he stands-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Badalle,\" he said, knowing she was not finished with her poem but knowing, as well, that she would not be rushed, \"we still live.\"\n\nShe nodded.\n\nThese few words of his had become a ritual between them, although the ritual never lost its taint of surprise, its faint disbelief. The ribbers had been especially hard on them last night, but the good news was that maybe they had finally left the Fathers behind.\n\nRutt adjusted the baby he'd named Held in his arm, and then he set out, hobbling on swollen feet. Westward, into the heart of the Elan.\n\nHe did not need to look back to see that the others were following. Those who could, did. The ribbers would come for the rest. He'd not asked to be the head of the snake. He'd not asked for anything, but he was the tallest and might be he was the oldest. Might be he was thirteen, could be he was fourteen.\n\nBehind him Badalle said,\n\n\"And walks he starts Out of that morning With Held in his arms And his ribby tail It snakes out Like a tongue From the sun. You need the longest Tongue When searching for Water Like the sun likes to do...\"\n\nBadalle watched him fora time, watched as the others fell into his wake. She would join the ribby snake soon enough. She blew at the flies, but of course they came right back, clustering round the sores puffing her lips, hopping up to lick at the corners of her eyes. She had been a beauty once, with these green eyes and her long fair hairlike tresses of gold. But beauty bought smiles for only so long. When the larder gapes empty, beauty gets smudged. \"And the flies,\" she whispered, \"make patterns of suffering. And suffering is ugly.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She watched Rutt. He was the head of the snake. He was the fangs, too, but that last bit was for her alone, her private joke.\n\nThis snake had forgotten how to eat.\n\nShe'd been among the ones who'd come up from the south, from the husks of homes in Korbanse, Krosis and Kanros. Even the isles of Otpelas. Some, like her, had walked along the coast of the Pelasiar Sea, and then to the western edge of Stet which had once been a great forest, and there they found the wooden road, Stump Road they sometimes called it. Trees cut on end to make flat circles, pounded into rows that went on and on. Other children then arrived from Stet itself, having walked the old stream beds wending through the grey tangle of shattered tree-fall and diseased shrubs. There were signs that Stet had once been a forest to match its old name which was Forest Stet, but Badalle was not entirely convinced-all she could see was a gouged wasteland, ruined and ravaged. There were no trees standing anywhere. They called it Stump Road, but other times it was Forest Road, and that too was a private joke.\n\nOf course, someone had needed lots of trees to make the road, so maybe there really had once been a forest there. But it was gone now.\n\nAt the northern edge of Stet, facing out onto the Elan Plain, they had come upon another column of children, and a day later yet another one joined them, down from the north, from Kolanse itself, and at the head of this one there had been Rutt. Carrying Held. Tall, his shoulders, elbows, knees and ankles protruding and the skin round them slack and stretched. He had large, luminous eyes. He still had all his teeth, and when the morning arrived, each morning, he was there, at the head. The fangs, and the rest just followed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They all believed he knew where he was going, but they didn't ask him since the belief was more important than the truth, which was that he was just as lost as all the rest.\n\n\"All day Rutt holds Held And keeps her Wrapped In his shadow. It's hard Not to love Rutt But Held doesn't And no one loves Held But Rutt.\"\n\nVisto had come from Okan. When the starvers and the bone-skinned inquisitors marched on the city his mother had sent him running, hand in hand with his sister who was two years older than he was, and they'd rundown streets between burning buildings and screams filled the night and the starvers kicked indoors and dragged people out and did terrible things to them, while the bone-skins watched on and said it was necessary, everything here was necessary.\n\nThey'd pulled his sister out of his grip, and it washer scream that still echoed in his skull. Each night since then, he had ridden it on the road of sleep, from the moment his exhaustion took him until the moment he awoke to the dawn's paleface.\n\nHe ran for what seemed forever, westward and away from the starvers. Eating what he could, savaged by thirst, and when he'd outdistanced the starvers the ribbers showed up, huge packs of gaunt dogs with red-rimmed eyes and no fear of anything. And then the Fathers, all wrapped in black, who plunged into the ragged camps on the roads and stole children away, and once he and a few others had come upon one of their old night-holds and had seen for themselves the small split bones mottled blue and grey in the coals of the hearth, and so understood what the Fathers did to the children they took.\n\nVisto remembered his first sight of Forest Stet, a range of denuded hills filled with torn-up stumps, roots reminding him of one of the bone-yards that ringed the city that had been his home, left after the last of the livestock had been slaughtered. And at that moment, looking upon what had once been a forest, Visto had realized that the entire world was now dead. There was nothing left and nowhere to go." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet onward he trudged, now just one among what must be tens of thousands, maybe even more, a road of children leagues long, and for all that died along the way, others arrived to take their place. He had not imagined that so many children existed. They were like a great herd, the last great herd, the sole source of food and nourishment for the world's last, desperate hunters.\n\nVisto was fourteen years old. He had not yet begun his growth-spurt and now never would. His belly was round and rock hard, protruding so that his spine curved deep just above his hips. He walked like a pregnant woman, feet splayed, bones aching. He was full of Satra Riders, the worms inside his body endlessly swimming and getting bigger by the day. When they were ready-soon-they would pour out of him. From his nostrils, from the corners of his eyes, from his ears, from his bellybutton, his penis and his anus, and from his mouth. And to those who witnessed, he would seem to deflate, skin crinkling and collapsing down into weaving furrows running the length of his body. He would seem to instantly turn into an old man. And then he would die.\n\nVisto was almost impatient for that. He hoped ribbers would eat his body and so take in the eggs the Satra Riders had left behind, so that they too would die. Better yet, Fathers-but they weren't that stupid, he was sure-no, they wouldn't touch him and that was too bad.\n\nThe Snake was leaving behind Forest Stet, and the wooden road gave way to a trader's track of dusty, rutted dirt, wending out into the Elan. So, he would die on the plain, and his spirit would pull away from the shrunken thing that had been its body, and begin the long journey back home. To find his sister. To find his mother." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And already, his spirit was tired, so tired, of walking.\n\nAt day's end, Badalle forced herself to climb an old Elan longbarrow with its ancient tree at the far end-grey leaves fluttering-from which she could turn and look back along the road, eastward, as far as her eyes could retrace the day's interminable journey. Beyond the mass of the sprawled camp, she saw a wavy line of bodies stretching to the horizon. This had been an especially bad day, too hot, too dry, the lone waterhole a slough of foul, vermin-ridden mud filled with rotting insect carcasses that tasted like dead fish.\n\nShe stood, looking fora longtime on the ribby length of the Snake. Those that fell on the track had not been pushed aside, simply trampled on or stepped over, and so the road was now a road of flesh and bone, fluttering threads of hair, and, she knew, staring eyes. The Snake of Ribs. Chal Managal in the Elan tongue.\n\nShe blew flies from her lips.\n\nAnd voiced another poem.\n\n'On this morning We saw a tree With leaves of grey And when we got closer The leaves flew away.\n\nAt noon the nameless boy With the eaten nose Fell and did not move And down came the leaves To feed.\n\nAt dusk there was another tree Grey fluttering leaves Settling in for the night Come the morning They'll fly again.\"\n\nAmpelas Rooted, the Wastelands\n\nThe machinery was coated in oily dust that gleamed in the darkness as the faint glow of the lantern light slid across it, conveying motion where none existed, the illusion of silent slippage, as of reptilian scales that seemed, as ever, cruelly appropriate. She was breathing hard as she hurried down the narrow corridor, ducking every now and then to avoid the lumpy black cables slung along from the ceiling. Her nose and throat stung with the rank metal reek of the close, motionless air. Surrounded by the exposed guts of Root, she felt besieged by the unknowable, the illimitable mystery of dire arcana. Yet, she had made these unlit, abandoned passageways her favoured haunt, knowing full well the host of self-recriminating motivations that had guided her to such choices." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Root invited the lost, and Kalyth was indeed lost. It was not that she could not find her way among the countless twisting corridors, or through the vast chambers of silent, frozen machines, evading the pits in the floors over which flagstones had never been installed, and staying clear of the chaos of metal and cables spilling out from unpanelled walls-no, she knew her way round, now, after months of wandering. This curse of helpless, hopeless bewilderment belonged to her spirit. She was not who they wanted her to be, and nothing she said could convince them of that.\n\nShe had been born in a tribe on the Elan Plain. She had grown into adulthood there, from child to girl, from girl to woman, and there had been nothing to set her apart, nothing to reveal her as unique, or gifted with unexpected talents. She had married a month after her first blooding. She had borne three children. She had almost loved her husband, and had learned to live with his faint disappointment in her, as her youthful beauty gave way to weary motherhood. She had, in truth, lived a life no different from that of her own mother, and so had seen clearly-without any special talent-the path of her life ahead, year after year, the slow decay of her body, the loss of suppleness, deepening lines upon her face, the sag of her breasts, the miserable weakening of her bladder. And one day she would find herself unable to walk, and the tribe would leave her where she was. To die in solitude, as dying was always a thing of solitude, as it must ever be. For the Elan knew better than the settled peoples of Kolanse, with their crypts and treasure troves for the dead, with the family servants and advisors all throat-cut and packed in the corridor to the sepulchre, servants beyond life itself, servants forever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone died in solitude, after all. A simple enough truth. A truth no one need fear. The spirits waited before they cast judgement upon a soul, waited for that soul-in its dying isolation-to set judgement upon itself, upon the life it had lived, and if peace came of that, then the spirits would show mercy. If torment rode the Wild Mare, why, then, the spirits knew to match it. When the soul faced itself, after all, it was impossible to lie. Deceiving arguments rang loud with falsehood, their facile weakness too obvious to ignore.\n\nIt had been a life. Far from perfect, but only vaguely unhappy. A life one could whittle down into something like contentment, even should the result prove shapeless, devoid of meaning.\n\nShe had been no witch. She had not possessed the breath of a shaman, and so would never be a Rider of the Spotted Horse. And when the end of that life had come for her and her people, on a morning of horror and violence, all that she had revealed then was a damning selfishness-in refusing to die, in fleeing all that she had known.\n\nThese were not virtues.\n\nShe possessed no virtues.\n\nReaching the central, spiral staircase-each step too shallow, too broad for human strides-she set off, her gasps becoming shallower and quicker with the exertion as she ascended level after level, up and out from Root, into the lower chambers of Feed, where she made use of the counterweighted ramp that lifted her byway of a vertical shaft past the seething vats of fungi, the stacked pens of orthen and grishol, drawing to a grating, shivering halt on the base level of Womb. Here, the cacophony of the young assailed her, the hissing shrieks of pain as the dread surgeries were performed-as destinies were decreed in bitter flavours-and, having regained some measure of her wind, she hastened to ascend past the levels of terrible outrage, the stench of wastes and panic that shone like oil on soft hides among shapes writhing on all sides-shapes she was careful to avoid with her eyes, hurrying with her hands clapped over her ears." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From Womb to Heart, where she now passed among towering figures that paid her no heed, and from whose paths she had to duck and dodge lest they simply trample her underclaw. Ve'Gath Soldiers stood flanking the central ramp, twice her height and in their arcane armour resembling the vast machinery of Root far below. Ornate grilled visors hid their faces save their fanged snouts, and the line of their jaws gave them ghastly grins, as if the implicit purpose of their breed delighted them. More so than the J'an or the K'ell, the true soldiers of the K'Chain Che'Malle frightened Kalyth to the very core of her being. The Matron was producing them in vast numbers.\n\nNo further proof was needed-war was coming.\n\nThat the Ve'Gath gave the Matron terrible pain, each one thrust out from her in a welter of blood and pungent fluid, had become irrelevant. Necessity, Kalyth well knew, was the cruellest master of all.\n\nNeither soldier guarding the ramp impeded her as she strode onto it, the flat stone underfoot pitted with holes designed to hold claws, and from which cold air flowed up around her-the plunge in ambient temperature on the ramp evidently served somehow to quell the instinctive fear the K'Chain experienced as the conveyance lifted with squeals and groans up past the levels of Heart, ending at Eyes, the Inner Keep, Acyl Nest and home of the Matron herself. Riding the ramp alone, however, the strain of the mechanism was less pronounced, and she heard little more than the rush of air that ever disoriented her with a sense of falling even as she raced upward, and the sweat on her limbs and upon her brow quickly cooled. She was shivering by the time the ramp slowed and then halted at the base level of Eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "J'an Sentinels observed her arrival from the foot of the half-spiral stairs that led to the Nest. As with the Ve'Gath, they were seemingly indifferent to her-no doubt aware that she had been summoned, but even were that not so they would see in her no threat whatsoever to the Matron they had been bred to protect. Kalyth was not simply harmless; she was useless.\n\nThe hot, rank air engulfed her, cloying as a damp cloak, as she made her way to the stairs and began the awkward climb to the Matron's demesne.\n\nAt the landing one last sentinel stood guard. At least a thousand years old, Bre'nigan was gaunt and tall-taller even than a Ve'Gath-and his multilayered scales bore a silvered patina that made the creature seem ghostly, as if hewn from sun-bleached mica. Neither pupil nor iris was visible in his slitted eyes, simply a murky yellow, misshapen with cataracts. She suspected the bodyguard was blind, but in truth there was noway to tell, for when Bre'nigan moved, the J'an displayed perfect sureness, indeed, grace and liquid elegance. The long, vaguely curved sword slung through a brass ring at his hip-a ring half embedded in the creature's hide-was as tall as Kalyth, the blade a kind of ceramic bearing a faint magenta hue, although the flawless edge gleamed silver.\n\nShe greeted Bre'nigan with a nod that elicited no reaction whatsoever, and then stepped past the sentinel.\n\nKalyth had hoped-no, she had prayed-and when she set eyes upon the two K'Chain standing before the Matron, and saw that they were unaccompanied, her spirits plummeted. Despair welled up, threatened to consume her. She fought to draw breath into her tight chest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Beyond the newcomers and huge on the raised dais, Gunth'an Acyl, the Matron, emanated agony in waves-and in this she was unchanged and unchanging, but now Kalyth felt from the enormous queen a bitter undercurrent of... something.\n\nUnbalanced, distraught, Kalyth only then discerned the state of the two K'Chain Che'Malle, the grievous wounds half-healed, the chaotic skeins of scars on their flanks, necks and hips. The two creatures looked starved, driven to appalling extremes of deprivation and violence, and she felt an answering pang in her heart.\n\nBut such empathy was shortlived. The truth remained: the K'ell Hunter Sag'Churok and the One Daughter Gunth Mach had failed.\n\nThe Matron spoke in Kalyth's mind, although it was not speech of any sort, simply the irrevocable imposition of knowledge and meaning.\" Destriant Kalyth, an error in choice. We remain broken. I remain broken. You cannot mend, not alone, you cannot mend. '\n\nNeither knowledge nor meaning proved gifts to Kalyth. For she could sense Gunth'an Acyl's madness beneath the words. The Matron was undeniably insane. So too the course of action she had forced upon her children, and upon Kalyth herself. No persuasion was possible.\n\nIt was likely that Gunth'an Acyl comprehended Kalyth's convictions-her belief that the Matron was mad-but this too made no difference. Within the ancient queen, there was naught but pain and the torment of desperate need.\n\n\"Destriant Kalyth, they shall try again. What is broken must be mended.\"\n\nKalyth did not believe Sag'Churok and the One Daughter could survive another quest. And that was another truth that failed in swaying Acyl's imperative." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Destriant Kalyth, you shall accompany this Seeking. K'Chain Che'Malle are blind to recognition.\"\n\nAnd so, at last, they had reached what she had known to be inevitable, despite her hopes, her prayers. \"I cannot,\" she whispered.\n\n\"You shall. Guardians are chosen. K'ell Sag'Churok, Rythok, Kor Thuran. Shi'gal Gu'Rull. One Daughter Gunth Mach.\"\n\n\"I cannot,\" Kalyth said again. \"I have no... talents. I am no Destriant-I am blind to whatever it is a Destriant needs. I cannot find a Mortal Sword, Matron. Nora Shield Anvil. I am sorry.\"\n\nThe enormous reptile shifted her massive weight, and the sound was as of boulders settling in gravel. Lambent eyes fixed upon Kalyth, radiating waves of stricture.\n\n\"I have chosen you, Destriant Kalyth. It is my children who are blind. The failure is theirs, and mine. We have failed every war. I am the last Matron. The enemy seeks me. The enemy will destroy me. Your kind thrives in this world-to that not even my children are blind. Among you, I shall find new champions. My Destriant must find them. My Destriant leaves with the dawn.\"\n\nKalyth said no more, knowing any response was useless. After a moment, she bowed and then walked, feebly, as if numb with drink, from the Nest.\n\nA Shi'gal would accompany them. The significance of this was plain. There would be no failure this time. To fail was to receive the Matron's displeasure. Her judgement. Three K'ell Hunters and the One Daughter, and Kalyth herself. If they failed... against the deadly wrath of a Shi'gal Assassin, they would not survive long." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Come the dawn, she knew, she would begin her last journey.\n\nOut into the wastelands, to find Champions that did not even exist.\n\nAnd this, she now understood, was the penance set upon her soul. She must be made to suffer for her cowardice. I should have died with the rest. With my husband. My children. I should not have runaway. I now must pay for my selfishness.\n\nThe one mercy was that, when the final judgement arrived, it would come quickly. She would not even feel, much less see, the killing blow from the Shi'gal.\n\nA Matron never produced more than three assassins at anyone time, and their flavours were anathema, preventing any manner of alliance. And should one of them decide that the Matron must be expunged, the remaining two, by their very natures, would oppose it. Thus, each Shi'gal warded the Matron against the others. Sending one with the Seeking was a grave risk, for now there would be only two assassins defending her at anytime.\n\nFurther proof of the Matron's madness. To so endanger herself, whilst at the same time sending away her One Daughter-her only child with the potential to breed-was beyond all commonsense.\n\nBut then, Kalyth was about to march to her own death. What did she care about these terrifying creatures? Let the war come. Let the mysterious enemy descend upon Ampelas Rooted and all the other Rooted, and cut down every last one of these K'Chain Che'Malle. The world would not miss them.\n\nBesides, she knew all about extinction. The only real curse is when you find yourself the last of your kind. Yes, she well understood such a fate, and she knew the true depth of loneliness-no, not that paltry, shallow, self-pitying game played out by people everywhere-but the cruel comprehension of a solitude without cure, without hope of salvation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes, everyone dies alone. And there maybe regrets. There maybe sorrows. But these areas nothing to what comes to the last of a breed. For then there can be no evading the truth of failure. Absolute, crushing failure. The failure of one's own kind, sweeping in from all sides, finding this last set of shoulders to settle upon, with a weight no single soul can withstand.\n\nThere had been a residual gift of sorts with the language of the K'Chain Che'Malle, and it now tortured Kalyth. Her mind had awakened, far beyond what she had known in her life before now. Knowledge was no blessing; awareness was a disease that stained the entire spirit. She could gouge out her own eyes and still see too much.\n\nDid the shamans of her tribe feel such crushing guilt, when recognition of the end finally arrived? She remembered anew the bleakness in their eyes, and understood it in ways she had not comprehended before, in the life she had once lived. No, she could do naught but curse the deadly blessings of these K'Chain Che'Malle. Curse them with all her heart, all her hate.\n\nKalyth began her descent. She needed the closeness of Root; she needed the decrepit machinery on all sides, the drip of viscid oils and the foul, close air. The world was broken. She was the last of the Elan, and now her sole remaining task on this earth was to oversee the annihilation of the last Matron of the K'Chain Che'Malle. Was there satisfaction in that? If so, it was an evil kind of satisfaction, making its taste all the more alluring.\n\nAmong her people, death arrived winging across the face of the setting sun, a black, tattered omen low in the sky. She would be that dread vision, that shred of the murdered moon. Driven to the earth as all things were, eventually." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is all true.\n\nSeethe bleakness in my eyes.\n\nShi'gal Gu'Rull stood upon the very edge of Brow, the night winds howling round his tall, lean form. Eldest among the Shi'gal, the assassin had fought and defeated seven other Shi'gal in his long service to Acyl. He had survived sixty-one centuries of life, of growth, and was twice the height of a full-grown K'ell Hunter, for unlike the Hunters-who were flavoured with mortality's sudden end at the close often centuries-the Shi'gal possessed no such flaw in their making. They could, potentially, outlive the Matron herself.\n\nBred for cunning, Gu'Rull held no illusions regarding the sanity of Mother Acyl. Her awkward assumption of godly structures of faith ill fitted both her and all the K'Chain Che'Malle. The matron sought human worshippers, human servants, but humans were too frail, too weak to be of any real value. The woman Kalyth was proof enough of that, despite the flavour of percipience Acyl had given her-a percipience that should have delivered certitude and strength, yet had been twisted by a weak mind into new instruments of self-recrimination and self-pity.\n\nThat flavour would fade in the course of the Seeking, as Kalyth's swift blood ever thinned Acyl's gift, with no daily replenishment possible. The Destriant would revert to her innate intelligence, and that was a meagre one by any standard. She was already useless, as far as Gu'Rull was concerned. And upon this meaningless quest, she would become a burden, a liability.\n\nBetter to kill her as soon as possible, but alas, Mother Acyl's command permitted no such flexibility. The Destriant must choose a Mortal Sword and a Shield Anvil from among her own kind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sag'Churok had recounted the failure of their first selection. The mass of flaws that had been their chosen one: Redmask of the Awl. Gu'Rull did not believe the Destriant would fare any better. Humans might well have thrived in the world beyond, but they did so as would feral orthen, simply by virtue of profligate breeding. They possessed no other talents.\n\nThe Shi'gal lifted his foreshortened snout and opened his nostril slits to scent the chill night air. The wind came from the east and, as usual, it stank of death.\n\nGu'Rull had plundered the pathetic memories of the Destriant, and therefore knew that no salvation would be found to the east, on the plains known as the Elan. Sag'Churok and Gunth Mach had set out westward, into the Awl'dan, and there too they found only failure. The north was a forbidding, lifeless realm of ice, tortured seas and bitter cold.\n\nThus, they must journey south.\n\nThe Shi'gal had not ventured outside Ampelas Rooted in eight centuries. In that short span of time, it was likely that little had changed in the region known to humans as the Wastelands. Nonetheless, some advance scouting was tactically sound.\n\nWith this in mind, Gu'Rull unfolded his month-old wings, spreading the elongated feather-scales so that they could flatten and fill out under the pressure of the wind.\n\nAnd then the assassin dropped over the sheer edge of Brow, wings snapping out to their fullest extent, and there arose the song of flight, a low, moaning whistle that was, for the Shi'gal, the music of freedom.\n\nLeaving Ampelas Rooted... it had been too long since Gu'Rull felt this... this exhilaration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The two new eyes beneath the lines of his jaw now opened for the first time, and the compounded vision-of the sky ahead and the ground below-momentarily confused the assassin, but after a time Gu'Rull was able to enforce the necessary separation, so that the vistas found their proper relationship to one another, creating avast panorama of the world beyond.\n\nAcyl's new flavours were ambitious, indeed, brilliant. Was such creativity implicit in madness? Perhaps.\n\nDid that possibility engender hope in Gu'Rull? No. Hope was not possible.\n\nThe assassin soared through the night, high above a blasted, virtually lifeless landscape. Like a shred of the murdered moon.\n\nThe Wastelands\n\nHe was not alone. Indeed, he had no memory of ever having been alone. The notion was impossible, in fact, and that much he understood. As far as he could tell, he was incorporeal, and possessed of the quaint privilege of being able to move from one companion to another almost at will. If they were to die, or somehow find a means of rejecting him, why, he believed he would cease to exist. And he so wanted to stay alive, floating as he did in the euphoric wonder of his friends, his bizarre, disjointed family.\n\nThey traversed a wilderness ragged and forlorn, a place of broken rock, wind-rippled fans of grey sand, screes of volcanic glass that began and ended with random indifference. Hills and ridges clashed in wayward confusion, and not a singletree broke the undulating horizon. The sun overhead was a blurred eye that smeared a path through thin clouds. The air was hot, the wind constant.\n\nThe only nourishment the group had been able to find came from the strange swarms of scaled rodents-their stringy meat tasting of dust-and an oversized breed of rhizan that possessed pouches under their wings swollen with milky water. Day and night capemoths tracked them, waiting ever patient for one to fall and not rise, but this did not seem likely. Flitting from one person to the next, he could sense their innate resolve, their unfailing strength." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Such fortitude, alas, could not prevent the seemingly endless litany of misery that seemed to comprise the bulk of their conversation.\n\n\"What a waste,\" Sheb was saying, clawing at his itching beard. \"Sink a few wells, pile these stones into houses and shops and whatnot. Then you'd have something worth something. Empty land is useless. I long for the day when it's all put to use, everything, right over the surface of the world. Cities merging into one-\"\n\n\"There'd be no farms, \"objected Last, but as always it was a mild, diffident objection.\"Without farms, nobody eats-'\n\n\"Don't bean idiot, \"snapped Sheb.\"Of course there'd be farms. Just none of this kind of useless land, where nothing lives but damned rats. Rats in the ground, rats in the air, and bugs, and bones-can you believe all the bones?\"\n\n\"But I-\"\n\n\"Be quiet, Last,\" said Sheb. \"You never got nothing useful to say, ever.\"\n\nAsane then spoke in her frail, quavering voice. \"No fighting, please. It's horrible enough without you picking fights, Sheb-'\n\n\"Careful, hag, or you're next. '\n\n\"Care to try me, Sheb?\" Nappet asked. He spat. \"Didn't think so. You talk, Sheb, and that's all you do. One of these nights, when you're asleep, I'm gonna cutout your tongue and feed it to the fuckin\" capemoths. Who'd complain? Asane? Breath? Last? Taxilian? Rautos? Nobody, Sheb, we'd all be dancing. '\n\n\"Leave me out of this,\" said Rautos. \"I suffered enough fora lifetime when I was living with my wife and, needless to say, I don't miss her. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Here goes Rautos again,\" snarled Breath. \"My wife did this, my wife said that. I'm sick of hearing about your wife. She ain't here, is she? You probably drowned her, and that's why you're on the run. You drowned her in your fancy fountain, just held her down, watching as her eyes went wide, her mouth opened and she screamed through the water. You watched and smiled, that's what you did. I don't forget, I can't forget, it was awful. You're a murderer, Rautos.\"\n\n\"There she goes,\" said Sheb, \"talking about drowning again.\"\n\n\"Might cutout her tongue, too,\" said Nappet, grinning. \"Rautos's, too. No more shit about drowning or wives or complainin\"-the rest of you are fine. Last, you don't say nothing and when you do, it don't rile nobody. Asane, you mostly know when to keep your mouth shut. And Taxilian hardly ever says nothing anyway. Just us, and that'd be-'\n\n\"I see something,\" said Rautos.\n\nHe felt their attentions shift, find focus, and he saw with their eyes a vague smudge on the horizon, something thrusting skyward, too narrow to be a mountain, too massive to be a tree. Still leagues away, rising like a tooth.\n\n\"I want to see that,\" announced Taxilian.\n\n\"Shit,\" said Nappet, \"ain't nowhere else to go. '\n\nThe others silently agreed. They had been walking for what seemed forever, and the arguments about where they should go had long since withered away. None of them had any answers, none of them even knew where they were." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And so they set out for that distant, mysterious edifice.\n\nHe was content with that, content to go with them, and he found himself sharing Taxilian's curiosity, which grew in strength and if challenged would easily overwhelm Asane's fears and the host of obsessions plaguing the others-Breath's drowning, Rautos's miserable marriage, Last's meaningless life of diffidence, Sheb's hatred and Nappet's delight in viciousness. And now the conversations fell away, leaving naught but the crunch and thud of bare feet on the rough ground, and the low moan of the ceaseless wind.\n\nHigh above, a score of capemoths tracked the lone figure walking across the Wastelands. They had been drawn by the sound of voices, only to find this solitary, gaunt figure. Skin of dusty green, tusks framing its mouth. Carrying a sword but otherwise naked. Alone wanderer, who spoke in seven voices, who knew himself by seven names. He was many, but he was one. They were all lost, and so was he.\n\nThe capemoths hungered for his life to end. But it had been weeks. Months. In the meantime, they just hungered.\n\nThere were patterns and they demanded consideration. The elements remained disarticulated, however, in floating tendrils, in smears of loose black like stains swimming in his vision. But at least he could now see, and that was something. The rotted cloth had pulled away from his eyes, tugged by currents he could not feel.\n\nThe key to unlocking everything would be found in the patterns. He was certain of that. If only he could draw them together, he would understand; he would know all he needed to know. He would be able to make sense of the visions that tore through him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The strange two-legged lizard, all clad in black gleaming armour, its tail nothing more than a stub, standing on a stone landing of some sort, whilst rivers of blood flowed down gutters to each side. Its unhuman eyes fixed unblinking on the source of all that blood-a dragon, nailed to a latticework of enormous wooden beams, the spikes rust-hued and dripping with condensation. Suffering roiled down from this creature, a death denied, a life transformed into an eternity of pain. And from the standing lizard, cold satisfaction rose in a cruel penumbra.\n\nIn another, two wolves seemed to be watching him from a weathered ridge of grasses and bony outcrops. Guarded, uneasy, as if measuring a rival. Behind them, rain slanted down from heavy clouds. And he found himself turning away, as if indifferent to their regard, to walk across a denuded plain. In the distance, dolmens of some sort rose from the ground, scores of them, arranged without any discernible order, and yet all seemed identical-perhaps statues, then. He drew closer, frowning at the shapes, so oddly surmounted by jutting cowls, their hunched, narrow backs to him, tails curled round. The ground they crouched on glittered as if strewn with diamonds or crushed glass.\n\nEven as he closed in on these silent, motionless sentinels, moments from reaching the nearest one, a heavy shadow slipped over him and the air was suddenly frigid. In wrought despair, he halted, looked up.\n\nNothing but stars, each one drifting as if snapped from its tether, like motes of dust on a slowly draining pool. Faint voices sinking down, touching his brow like flecks of snow, melting in the instant, all meaning lost. Arguments in the Abyss, but he understood none of them. To stare upward was to reel, unbalanced, and he felt his feet lift from the earth until he floated. Twisting round, he looked down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "More stars, but emerging from their midst a dozen raging suns of green fire, slashing through the black fabric of space, fissures of light bleeding through. The closer they came, the more massive they grew, blinding him to all else, and the maelstrom of voices rose to a clamour, and what had once felt like flakes of snow, quickly melting upon his heated brow, now burned like fire.\n\nIf he could but draw close the fragments, make the mosaic whole, and so comprehend the truth of the patterns. If he could-\n\nSwirls. Yes, they are that. The motion does not deceive, the motion reveals the shape beneath.\n\nSwirls, in curls of fur.\n\nTattoos-see them now-see them!\n\nAll at once, as the tattoos settled into place, he knew himself.\n\nI am Heboric Ghost Hands. Destriant to a cast-down god. I see him-\n\nI see you, Fener.\n\nThe shape, so massive, so lost. Unable to move.\n\nHis god was trapped, and, like Heboric, was mute witness to the blazing jade suns as they bore down. He and his god were in their path, and these were forces that could not be pushed aside. No shield existed solid enough to block what was coming.\n\nThe Abyss cares nothing for us. The Abyss comes to deliver its own arguments, against which we cannot stand.\n\nFener, I have doomed you. And you, old god, you have doomed me.\n\nYet, I no longer regret. For this is as it should be. After all, war knows no other language. In war we invite our own destruction. In war we punish our children with a broken legacy of blood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He understood now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The gods of war and what they meant, what their very existence signified. And as he stared upon those jade suns searing ever closer, he was overwhelmed by the futility hiding behind all this arrogance, this mindless conceit.\n\nSee us wave our banners of hate.\n\nSee where it gets us.\n\nA final war had begun. Facing an enemy against whom no defence was possible. Neither words nor deeds could fool this clear-eyed arbiter. Immune to lies, indifferent to excuses and vapid discourses on necessity, on the weighing of two evils and the facile righteousness of choosing the lesser one-and yes, these were the arguments he was hearing, empty as the ether they travelled.\n\nWe stood tall in paradise. And then called forth the gods of war, to bring destruction down upon ourselves, our world, the very earth, its air, its water, its myriad life. No, show me no surprise, no innocent bewilderment. I see now with the eyes of the Abyss. I see now with my enemy's eyes, and so I shall speak with its voice.\n\nBehold, my friends, I am justice.\n\nAnd when at last we meet, you will not like it.\n\nAnd if irony awakens in you at the end, see me weep with these tears of jade, and answer with a smile.\n\nIf you've the courage.\n\nHave you, my friends, the courage?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I will walk the path forever walked\n\nOne step ahead of you And one step behind I will choke in the dust of your passing And skirl more into your face It all tastes the same Even when you feign otherwise\n\nBut hereon the path forever walked\n\nThe old will lie itself anew We can sigh like kings Like empresses on gift-carts Resplendent in imagined worth.\n\nI will walk the path forever walked\n\nThough my time is short As if the stars belong Cupped herein my hands Showering out these pleasures That so sparkle in the sun When down they drift settling flat\n\nTo make this path forever walked\n\nBehind you behind me Between the step past, the step to come Lookup lookup once Before I am gone\n\nTELLER OFT ALES\n\nFASSTAN OF K OLANSE" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Abject misery lies not in what the blanket reveals, but in what it hides.\n\nKING T EHOL THE ONLY OF L ETHER\n\nWar had come to the tangled, overgrown grounds of the dead Azath tower in the city of Letheras. Swarms of lizards had invaded from the river's shoreline. Discovering a plethora of strange insects, they began a feeding frenzy.\n\nOddest among the arcane bugs was a species of two-headed beetle. Four lizards spied one such creature and closed in, surrounding it. The insect noted threats from two directions and made a careful half-turn, only to find two additional threats, whereupon it crouched down and played dead.\n\nThis didn't work. One of the lizards, a wall-scampering breed with abroad mouth and gold-flecked eyes, lunged forward and gobbled up the insect.\n\nThis scene was played out throughout the grounds, a terrible slaughter, a rush to extinction. The fates, this evening, did not appear kind to the two-headed beetles.\n\nNot all prey, however, was as helpless as it might initially seem. The role of the victim in nature is ephemeral, and that which is fed upon might in time feed upon the feeders in the eternal drama of survival.\n\nAlone owl, already engorged on lizards, was the sole witness to the sudden wave of writhing deaths on the rumpled earth below, as from the mouths of dying lizards, grotesque shapes emerged. The extinction of the two-headed beetles proved not as imminent a threat as it had seemed only moments earlier.\n\nBut owls, being among the least clever of birds, are unmindful of such lessons. This one watched, wide-eyed and empty. Until it felt a strange stirring in its own gut, sufficient to distract it from the wretched dying below, that array of pale lizard bellies blotting the dark ground. It did not think of the lizards it had eaten. It did not take note, even in retrospect, of the sluggish efforts some of them had displayed at escaping its swooping talons." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The owl was in fora long night of excruciating regurgitation. Dimwitted as it was, from that moment on and forevermore, lizards were off its menu.\n\nThe world delivers its lessons in manners subtle or, if required, cruel and blunt, so that even the thickest of subjects will comprehend. Failing that, they die. For the smart ones, of course, incomprehension is inexcusable.\n\n______\n\nA night of heat in Letheras. Stone dripped sweat. The canals looked viscid, motionless, the surface strangely flattened and opaque with swirls of dust and rubbish. Insects danced over the water as if seeking their reflections, but this smooth patina yielded nothing, swallowing up the span of stars, devouring the lurid torchlight of the street patrols, and so the winged insects spun without surcease, as though crazed with fever.\n\nBeneath abridge, on stepped banks buried in darkness, crickets crawled like droplets of oozing oil, glistening, turgid, haplessly crunched underfoot as two figures drew together and huddled in the gloom.\n\n\"He never would've went in, \"one of them said in a hoarse whisper.\"The water reeks, and look, no ripples, no nothing. He's scarpered to the other side, somewhere in the night market where he can get lost fast.\"\n\n\"Lost,\" grunted the other, a woman, lifting up the dagger in one gloved hand and examining the edge, \"that's a good one. Like he could get lost. Like any of us could. '\n\n\"You think he can't wrap himself up like we done? '\n\n\"No time for that. He bolted. He's on the run. Panicked. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Looked like panic, didn't it, \"agreed her companion, and then he shook his head.\"Never seen anything so... disappointing. '\n\nThe woman sheathed her dagger. \"They'll flush him out. He'll comeback across, and we jump him then.\"\n\n\"Stupid, thinking he could getaway.\"\n\nAfter a few moments, Smiles unsheathed her dagger again, peered at the edge.\n\nBeside her, Throatslitter rolled his eyes but said nothing.\n\nBottle straightened, gestured for Koryk to join him, then watched, amused, as the broad-shouldered half-blood Seti shoved and elbowed his way through the crowd, leaving awake of dark glares and bitten-off curses-there was little risk of trouble, of course, since clearly the damned foreigner was looking for just that, and instincts being what they were the world over, no one was of a mind to take on Koryk.\n\nToo bad. It'd be a thing worth seeing, Bottle smiled to himself, if a mob of irate Letherii shoppers descended on the glowering barbarian, pummelling him into the ground with loaves of crusty bread and bulbous root-crops.\n\nThen again, such distractions wouldn't do. Not right now, anyway, when they'd found their quarry, with Tarr and Corabb moving round back of the tavern to cover the alley bolt-hole, and Maybe and Masan Gilani upon the roof by now, in case their target got imaginative.\n\nKoryk arrived, in a sweat, scowling and grinding his teeth. \"Miserable turds,\" he muttered. \"What's with this lust to spend coin? Markets are stupid. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Keeps people happy,\" said Bottle, \"or if not exactly happy, then..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "temporarily satiated. Which serves the same function.\"\n\n\"Which is?\"\n\n\"Keeping them outa trouble. The disruptive kind of trouble,\" he added, seeing Koryk's knotted forehead, his darting eyes.\"The kind that comes when a population finds the time to think, really think, I mean-when they start realizing what apiece of shit all this is. '\n\n\"Sounds like one of the King's speeches-they put me to sleep, like you're doing right now, Bottle. Where exactly is he, then?\"\n\n\"One of my rats is crouching at the foot of a banister-\"\n\n\"Which one?\"\n\n\"Baby Smiles-she's the best for this. Anyway, she's got her beady eyes fixed right on him. He's at a table in the corner, just under a shuttered window-but it doesn't look like the kind anyone could actually climb through. Basically,\" Bottle concluded, \"he's cornered. '\n\nKoryk's frown deepened.\"That's too easy, isn't it? '\n\nBottle scratched at his stubble, shifted from one foot to the other, and then sighed. \"Aye, way too easy.\"\n\n\"Here come Balm and Gesler.\"\n\nThe two sergeants arrived.\n\n\"What are we doing here?\" Balm asked, eyes wide.\n\nGesler said, \"He's in his funk again, never mind him. We got us a fight ahead, I figure. A nasty one. He won't go down easy.\"\n\n\"What's the plan, then? ' Koryk asked.\n\n\"Stormy leads the way. He's going to spring him loose-if he heads for the backdoor your friends will take him down. Same for if he goes up. My guess is, he'll dodge round Stormy and try for the front door-that's what I'd do. Stormy's huge and mean but he ain't fast. And that's what we're counting on. The four of us will be waiting for the bastard-we'll take him down. With Stormy coming up behind him and holding the doorway to stop any retreat. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's looking nervous and in a bad mood in there, \"Bottle said.\"Warn Stormy-he just might stand and fight. '\n\n\"We hear a scrap start and in we go,\" said Gesler.\n\nThe gold-hued sergeant went off to brief Stormy. Balm stood beside Koryk, looking bewildered.\n\nPeople were rolling in and out of the tavern like it was a fast brothel. Stormy then appeared, looming over almost everyone else, his visage red and his beard even redder, as if his entire face was aflame. He tugged loose the peace-strap on his sword as he lumbered towards the door. Seeing him, people scattered aside. He met one more customer at the threshold and took hold of the man by the front of his shirt, then threw him into his own wake-the poor fool yelped as he landed face first on the cobbles not three paces from the three Malazans, where he writhed, hands up at his bloodied chin.\n\nAs Stormy plunged into the tavern, Gesler arrived, stepping over the fallen citizen, and hissed, \"To the door now, all of us, quick!\"\n\nBottle let Koryk take the lead, and held back even for Balm who almost started walking the other way-before Gesler yanked the man back. If there was going to be a scrap, Bottle preferred to leave most of the nasty work to the others. He'd done his job, after all, in tracking and finding the quarry.\n\nChaos erupted in the tavern, furniture crashing, startled shouts and terrified screams. Then something went thump! And all at once white smoke was billowing out from the doorway. More splintering furniture, a heavy crash, and then a figure sprinted out from the smoke." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An elbow cracked hard on Koryk's jaw and he toppled like a tree.\n\nGesler ducked a lashing fist, just in time to meet an upthrust knee, and the sound the impact made was of two coconuts in collision. The quarry's leg spun round, taking the rest of the man with it in a wild pirouette, whilst Gesler rocked back to promptly sit down on the cobbles, his eyes glazed.\n\nShrieking, Balm back-stepped, reaching for his short sword-and Bottle leapt forward to pin the sergeant's arm-as the target lunged past them all, running hard but unevenly for the bridge.\n\nStormy stumbled out from the tavern, his nose streaming blood. \"You didn't get him? You damned idiots-look at my face! I took this for nothing! '\n\nOther customers pushed out round the huge Falari, eyes streaming and coughing.\n\nGesler was climbing upright, wobbly, shaking his head. \"Come on,\" he mumbled, \"let's get after him, and hope Throatslitter and Smiles can slow him down some. '\n\nTarr and Corabb showed up and surveyed the scene. \"Corabb,\" said Tarr, \"stay with Koryk and try bringing him round.\" And then he joined Bottle, Gesler, Stormy and Balm as they set out after their target.\n\nBalm glared across at Bottle. \"I coulda had him!\"\n\n\"We need the fool alive, you idiot,\" snapped Bottle.\n\nThe sergeant gaped. \"We do?\"\n\n\"Look at that,\" hissed Throatslitter. \"Here he comes!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Limping bad, too,\" observed Smiles, sheathing her dagger once more. \"We come up both sides and go for his ankles.\"\n\n\"Good idea.\"\n\nThroatslitter went left, Smiles went right, and they crouched at either end of the landing on this side of the bridge. They listened to the step-scruff of the limping fugitive as he reached the span, drawing ever closer. From the edge of the market street on the opposite side, shouts rang through the air. The scuffling run on the bridge picked up pace.\n\nAt the proper moment, as the target reached the end and stepped out onto the street's cobbles, the two Malazan marines leapt out from their hiding places, converging, each wrapping arms round one of the man's legs.\n\nThe three went down in a heap.\n\nMoments later, amidst a flurry of snarled curses, gouging thumbs and frantic kicking, the rest of the hunters arrived, and finally succeeded in pinning down their quarry.\n\nBottle edged closer to gaze down at their victim's bruised, flushed visage.\"Really, Sergeant, you had to know it was hopeless. '\n\nFiddler glared.\n\n\"Look what you did to my nose!\" Stormy said, gripping one of Fiddler's arms and apparently contemplating breaking it in two.\n\n\"You used a smoker in the tavern, didn't you? \"Bottle asked.\"What a waste. '\n\n\"You'll all pay for this, \"said Fiddler.\"You have no idea-'\n\n\"He's probably right, \"said Gesler.\"So, Fid, we gonna have to hold you down here forever, or will you come peacefully now? What the Adjunct wants, the Adjunct gets. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Easy for you,\" hissed Fiddler. \"Just look at Bottle there. Does he look happy?\"\n\nBottle scowled. \"No, I'm not happy, but orders are orders, Sergeant. You can't just runaway.\"\n\n\"Wish I'd brought a sharper or two, \"Fiddler said,\"that would've settled it just fine. All right now, you can all let me up-I think my knee's busted anyway. Gesler, you got a granite jaw, did you know that? '\n\n\"And it cuts me a fine profile besides,\" said Gesler.\n\n\"We was hunting Fiddler?\" Balm suddenly asked. \"Gods below, he mutiny or something?\"\n\nThroatslitter patted his sergeant on the shoulder. \"It's all right now, Sergeant. Adjunct wants Fiddler to do a reading, that's all.\"\n\nBottle winced. That's all. Sure, nothing to it. I can't wait.\n\nThey dragged Fiddler to his feet, and wisely held onto the man as they marched him back to the barracks.\n\nGrey and ghostly, the oblong shape hung beneath the lintel over the dead Azath's doorway. It looked lifeless, but of course it wasn't.\n\n\"We could throw stones,\" said Sinn. \"They sleep at night, don't they? '\n\n\"Mostly,\" replied Grub.\n\n\"Maybe if we're quiet. '\n\n\"Maybe.\"\n\nSinn fidgeted. \"Stones?\"\n\n\"Hit it and they'll wake up, and then out they'll come, in a black swarm.\"\n\n\"I've always hated wasps. For as long as I can remember-I must've been bad stung once, do you think?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who hasn't? ' Grub said, shrugging.\n\n\"I could just set it on fire.\"\n\n\"No sorcery, Sinn, not here.\"\n\n\"I thought you said the house was dead.\"\n\n\"It is... I think. But maybe the yard isn't. '\n\nShe glanced round. \"People been digging here.\"\n\n\"You ever gonna talk to anybody but me?\" Grub asked.\n\n\"No.\" The single word was absolute, immutable, and it did not invite any further discussion on that issue.\n\nHe eyed her. \"You know what's happening tonight, don't you?\"\n\n\"I don't care. I'm not going anywhere near that.\"\n\n\"Doesn't matter. '\n\n\"Maybe, if we hide inside the house, it won't reach us. '\n\n\"Maybe,\" Grub allowed. \"But I doubt the Deck works like that.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't. Only, Uncle Keneb told me Fiddler talked about me last time, and I was jumping into the sea around then-I wasn't in the cabin. But he just knew, he knew exactly what I was doing.\"\n\n\"What were you doing?\"\n\n\"I went to find the Nachts.\"\n\n\"But how did you know they were there? You don't make sense, Grub. And anyway, what use are they? They just follow Withal around. '\n\n\"When they're not hunting little lizards, ' Grub said, smiling.\n\nBut Sinn was not in the mood for easy distraction. \"I look at you and I think... Mockra.\"\n\nTo that, Grub made no reply. Instead, he crept forward on the path's uneven pavestones, eyes fixed on the wasp nest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sinn followed. \"You're what's coming, aren't you? '\n\nHe snorted. \"And you aren't? '\n\nThey reached the threshold, halted. \"Do you think it's locked? '\n\n\"Shh.\"\n\nGrub crouched down and edged forward beneath the huge nest. Once past it, he slowly straightened and reached for the door's latch. It came off in his hand, raising a puff of sawdust. Grub glanced back at Sinn, but said nothing. Facing the door again, he gave it alight push.\n\nIt crumpled like wafer where his fingers had prodded. More sawdust sifted down.\n\nGrub raised both hands and pushed against the door.\n\nThe barrier disintegrated in clouds and frail splinters. Metal clunked on the floor just beyond, and a moment later the clouds were swept inward as if on an indrawn breath.\n\nGrub stepped over the heap of rotted wood and vanished in the gloom beyond.\n\nAfter a moment, Sinn followed, ducking low and moving quickly.\n\nFrom the gloom beneath a nearly dead tree in the grounds of the Azath, Lieutenant Pores grunted. He supposed he should have called them back, but to do so would have revealed his presence, and though he could never be sure when it came to Captain Kindly's orders-designed and delivered as they were with deliberate vagueness, like flimsy fronds over a spike-filled pit-he suspected that he was supposed to maintain some sort of subterfuge when following the two runts around.\n\nBesides, he'd made some discoveries. Sinn wasn't mute at all. Just a stubborn little cow. What a shock. And she had a crush on Grub, how sweet-sweet as tree sap, twigs and trapped insects included-why, it could make a grown man melt, and then rundown a drain into that depthless sea of sentimentality where children played, and, occasionally, got away with murder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Well, the difference was Pores had a very good memory." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He recalled in great detail his own childhood, and could he have reached back, into his own past, he'd give that snot-faced jerk a solid clout to the head. And then look down at that stunned, hurt expression, and say something like'Get used to it, little Pores. One day you'll meet a man named Kindly...\"\n\nAnyway, the mice had scurried into the Azath House. Maybe something would take care of them in there, bringing to a satisfying conclusion this stupid assignment. A giant, ten-thousand-year-old foot, stomping down, once, twice. Splat, splot, like stinkberries, Grub a smear, Sinn a stain.\n\nGods no, I'd get blamed! Growling under his breath, he set out after them.\n\nIn retrospect, he supposed he should have remembered that damned wasp nest. At the very least, it should have caught his attention as he leapt for the doorway. Instead, it caught his forehead.\n\nSudden flurry of enraged buzzing, as the nest rocked out and then back, butting his head a second time.\n\nRecognition, comprehension, and then, appropriately enough, blind panic.\n\nPores whirled and ran.\n\nA thousand or so angry black wasps provided escort.\n\nSix stings could drop a horse. He shrieked as afire ignited on the back of his neck. And then again, as another stinger stabbed, this time on his right ear.\n\nHe whirled his arms. There was a canal somewhere ahead-they'd crossed abridge, he recalled, off to the left.\n\nAnother explosion of agony, this time on the back of his right hand.\n\nNever mind the canal! I need a healer-fast!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could no longer hear any buzzing, but the scene before him had begun to tilt, darkness bleeding out from the shadows, and the lights of lanterns through windows blurred, lurid and painful in his eyes. His legs weren't working too well, either.\n\nThere, the Malazan Barracks.\n\nDeadsmell. Or Ebron.\n\nStaggering now, struggling to fix his gaze on the compound gate-trying to shout to the two soldiers standing guard, but his tongue was swelling up, filling his mouth. He was having trouble breathing. Running...\n\nRunning out of time-\n\n\"Who was that?\"\n\nGrub came back from the hallway and shook his head. \"Someone. Woke up the wasps.\"\n\n\"Glad they didn't come inhere. '\n\nThey were standing in a main chamber of some sort, a stone fireplace dominating one wall, framed by two deep-cushioned chairs. Trunks and chests squatted against two other walls, and in front of the last one, opposite the cold hearth, there was an ornate couch, above it a large faded tapestry. All were little more than vague, grainy shapes in the gloom.\n\n\"We need a candle or a lantern,\" said Sinn. \"Since,\" she added with an edge to her tone, \"I can't use sorcery-'\n\n\"You probably can,\" said Grub, \"now that we're nowhere near the yard. There's no one here, no, um, presence, I mean. It really is dead.\"\n\nWith a triumphant gesture Sinn awakened the coals in the fireplace, although the flames flaring to life there were strangely lurid, spun through with green and blue tendrils.\n\n\"That's too easy for you, \"Grub said.\"I didn't even feel a warren.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She said nothing, walking up to study the tapestry.\n\nGrub followed.\n\nA battle scene was depicted, which for such things was typical enough. It seemed heroes only existed in the midst of death. Barely discernible in the faded weave, armoured reptiles of some sort warred with Tiste Edur and Tiste Andii. The smoke-shrouded sky overhead was crowded with both floating mountains-most of them burning-and dragons, and some of these dragons seemed enormous, five, six times the size of the others even though they were clearly more distant. Fire wreathed the scene, as fragments of the aerial fortresses broke apart and plunged down into the midst of the warring factions. Everywhere was slaughter and harrowing destruction.\n\n\"Pretty,\" murmured Sinn.\n\n\"Let's check the tower, \"said Grub. All the fires in the scene reminded him of Y'Ghatan, and his vision of Sinn, marching through the flames-she could have walked into this ancient battle. He feared that if he looked closely enough he'd see her, among the hundreds of seething figures, a contented expression on her round-cheeked face, her dark eyes satiated and shining.\n\nThey set off for the square tower.\n\nInto the gloom of the corridor once more, where Grub paused, waiting for his eyes to adjust. A moment later green flames licked out from the chamber they had just quit, slithering across the stone floor, drawing closer.\n\nIn the ghoulish glow, Sinn smiled.\n\nThe fire followed them up the saddled stairs to the upper landing, which was bare of all furnishings. Beneath a shuttered, web-slung window was slumped a desiccated corpse. Leathery strips of skin here and there were all that held the carcass together, and Grub could seethe oddity of the thing's limbs, the extra joints at knee, elbow, wrist and ankle. The very sternum seemed horizontally hinged midway down, as were the prominent, birdlike collarbones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He crept forward fora closer look. The face was frontally flattened, sharpening the angle where the cheekbones sweptback, almost all the way to the ear-holes. Every bone he could see seemed designed to fold or collapse-not just the cheeks but the mandibles and brow-ridges as well. It was a face that in life, Grub suspected, could manage a bizarre array of expressions-far beyond what a human face could achieve.\n\nThe skin was bleached white, hairless, and Grub knew that if he so much as touched the corpse, it would fall to dust.\n\n\"Forkrul Assail,\" he whispered.\n\nSinn rounded on him. \"How do you know that? How do you know anything about anything?\"\n\n\"On the tapestry below,\" he said, \"those lizards. I think they were K'Chain Che'Malle.\" He glanced at her, and then shrugged. \"This Azath House didn't die, \"he said.\"It just... left. '\n\n\"Left? How?\"\n\n\"I think it just walked out of here, that's what I think. '\n\n\"But you don't know anything! How can you say things like that? '\n\n\"I bet Quick Ben knows, too.\"\n\n\"Knows what?\" she hissed in exasperation.\n\n\"This. The truth of it all.\"\n\n\"Grub-\"\n\nHe met her gaze, studied the fury in her eyes. \"You, me, the Azath. It's all changing, Sinn. Everything-it's all changing.\"\n\nHer small hands made fists at her sides. The flames dancing from the stone floor climbed the frame of the chamber's entranceway, snapping and sparking.\n\nGrub snorted, \"The way you make it talk...\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Co-writing with the writer, continue the narrative.\nTags: epic fantasy, complex plot, multiple characters, dark themes, intricate world-building\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Dust of Dreams\nChapter: 13" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ursto cackled. \"Ceda? Mealyoats, y'hear that? Ceda! \"He reeled a step closer to Seren Pedac.\"O round one, blessed Mahybe, we maybe old, me and Pinosel, compared to the likes a you. But against this one \"ere, we're just babies! Elder, yes, Elder, as in Elder God! '\n\n\"Time to party!\" crowed Pinosel.\n\nFiddler halted just within the entrance. And stared at the Letherii warrior standing near the huge table. \"Adjunct, is this one anew invite?\"\n\n\"Excuse me, Sergeant?\"\n\nHe pointed. \"The King's Sword, Adjunct. Was he on your list? '\n\n\"No. Nonetheless, he will stay.\"\n\nFiddler turned a bleak look on Bottle, but said nothing.\n\nBottle scanned the group awaiting them, did a quick headcount. \"Who's missing? ' he asked.\n\n\"Banaschar,\" Lostara Yil said.\n\n\"He is on his way,\" said the Adjunct.\n\n\"Thirteen,\" muttered Fiddler. \"Gods below. Thirteen.\"\n\nBanaschar paused in the alley, lifted his gaze skyward. Faint seepage of light from various buildings and lantern-poled streets, but that did not reach high enough to devour the spray of stars. He so wanted to get out of this city. Find a hilltop in the countryside, soft grass to lie on, wax tablet in his hands. The moon, when it showed, was troubling enough. But that new span of stars made him far more nervous, a swath like sword blades, faintly green, that had risen from the south to slash through the old familiar constellations of Reacher's Span. He could not be certain, but he thought those swords were getting bigger. Coming closer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thirteen in all-at least that was the number he could make out. Perhaps there were more, still too faint to burn through the city's glow. He suspected the actual number was important. Significant.\n\nBack in Malaz City, the celestial swords would not even be visible, Banaschar surmised. Not yet, anyway.\n\nSwords in the sky, do you seek an earthly throat?\n\nHe glanced over at the Errant. If anyone could answer that, it would be this one. This self-proclaimed Master of the Tiles. God of mischance, player of fates. A despicable creature. But no doubt powerful. \"Something wrong?\" Banaschar asked, for the Errant's face was ghostly white, slick with sweat.\n\nThe one eye fixed his gaze fora moment and then slid away. \"Your allies do not concern me,\" he said. \"But another has come, and now awaits us.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\nThe Errant grimaced. \"Change of plans. You go in ahead of me. I will await the full awakening of this Deck.\"\n\n\"We agreed you would simply stop it before it can begin. That was all.\"\n\n\"I cannot. Not now.\"\n\n\"You assured me there would be no violence this night.\"\n\n\"And that would have been true,\" the god replied.\n\n\"But now someone stands in your way. You have been outmanoeuvred, Errant.\"\n\nA flash of anger in the god's lone eye.\"Not for long. '\n\n\"I will accept no innocent blood spilled-not my comrades\". Take down your enemy if you like, but no one else, do you understand me? '\n\nThe Errant bared his teeth. \"Then just keep them out of my way.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After a moment, Banaschar resumed his journey, emerging along one side of the building and then walking towards the entrance. Ten paces away he halted once more, fora final few mouthfuls of wine, before continuing on.\n\nBut that's the problem with the Bonehunters, isn't it?\n\nNobody can keep them out of anyone's way.\n\nStanding motionless in the shadows of the alley-after the ex-priest had gone inside-waited the Errant.\n\nThe thirteenth player in this night's game.\n\nHad he known that-had he been able to pierce the fog now thickening within that dread chamber and so make full count of those present-he would have turned round, discarding all his plans. No, he would have run for the hills.\n\nInstead, the god waited, with murder in his heart.\n\nAs the city's sand clocks and banded wicks-insensate and indifferent to aught but the inevitable progression of time-approached the sounding of the bells.\n\nTo announce the arrival of midnight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Do not come here old friend\n\nIf you bring bad weather I was down where the river ran Running no more Recall that span of bridge?\n\nGone now the fragments grey And scattered on the sand Nothing to cross You can walk the water's flow Wending slow into the basin And find the last place where Weather goes to die If I see you hove into view I'll know your resurrection's come In tears rising to drown my feet In darkening sky You walk like a man burned blind Groping hands out to the sides I'd guide you but this river Will not wait Rushing me to the swallowing sea Beneath fleeing birds of white Do not come here old friend If you bring bad weather\n\nBRIDGE OF THE SUN\n\nFISHER KEL T ATH\n\nHe stood amidst the rotted remnants of ship timbers, tall yet hunched, and if not for his tattered clothes and long, wind-tugged hair, he could have been a statue, a thing of bleached marble, toppled from the Meckros city behind him to land miraculously upright on the colourless loess. For as long as Udinaas had been watching, the distant figure had not moved.\n\nA scrabble of pebbles announced the arrival of someone else coming up from the village, and a moment later Onrack T'emlava stepped up beside him. The warrior said nothing fora time, a silent, solid presence.\n\nThis was not a world to be rushed through, Udinaas had come to realize; not that he'd ever been particularly headlong in the course of his life. Fora longtime since his arrival herein the Refugium, he had felt as if he were dragging chains, or wading through water. The slow measure of time in this place resisted hectic presumptions, forcing humility, and, Udinaas well knew, humility always arrived uninvited, kicking down doors, shattering walls. It announced itself with a punch to the head, a knee in the groin. Not literally, of course, but the result was the same. Driven to one's knees, struggling for breath, weak as a sickly child. With the world standing, looming over the fool, slowly wagging one finger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There really should be more of that. Why, if I was the god of all gods, it's the only lesson I would ever deliver, as many times as necessary.\n\nThen again, that'd make me one busy bastard, wouldn't it just.\n\nThe sun overhead was cool, presaging the winter to come. The shoulder-women said there would be deep snow in the months ahead. Desiccated leaves, caught in the tawny grasses of the hilltop, fluttered and trembled as if shivering in dread anticipation. He'd never much liked the cold-the slightest chill and his hands went numb.\n\n\"What does he want?\" Onrack asked.\n\nUdinaas shrugged.\n\n\"Must we drive him off?\"\n\n\"No, Onrack, I doubt that will be necessary. For the moment, I think, there's no fight left in him. '\n\n\"You know more of this than me, Udinaas. Even so, did he not murder a child? Did he not seek to kill Trull Sengar?\"\n\n\"He crossed weapons with Trull?\" Udinaas asked. \"My memories of that are vague. I was preoccupied getting smothered by a wraith at the time. Well, then, friend, I can understand how you might want to seethe last of him. As for Kettle, I don't think any of that was as simple as it looked. The girl was already dead, long dead, before the Azath seeded her. All Silchas Ruin did was crack the shell so the House could send down its roots. In the right place and at the right time, thus ensuring the survival of this realm. '\n\nThe Imass was studying him, his soft, brown eyes nested in lines of sorrow, in lines that proved that he felt things too deeply. This fierce warrior who had-apparently-once been naught but leathery skin and bones was now as vulnerable as a child. This trait seemed true of all the Imass. \"You knew, then, all along, Udinaas? The fate awaiting Kettle?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Knew? No. Guessed, mostly.\"\n\nOnrack grunted. \"You rarely err in your guesses, Udinaas. Very well, go then. Speak with him.\"\n\nUdinaas smiled wryly. \"Not bad at guessing yourself, Onrack. Will you wait here?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nHe was glad of that, for despite his conviction that Silchas Ruin did not intend violence, with the White Crow there was no telling. If Udinaas ended up cut down by one of those keening swords, at least his death would be witnessed, and unlike his son, Rud Elalle, Onrack was not so foolish as to charge out seeking vengeance.\n\nAshe drew closer to the albino Tiste Andii, it became increasingly evident that Silchas Ruin had not fared well since his sudden departure from this realm. Most of his armour was shorn away, leaving his arms bare. Old bloodstained the braided leather collar of his scorched gambeson. He bore new, barely healed gashes and cuts, and mottled bruises showed below skin like muddy water beneath ice.\n\nHis eyes, alas, remained hard, unyielding, red as fresh blood in their shadowed sockets.\n\n\"Longing for that old Azath barrow?\" Udinaas asked as he halted ten paces from the gaunt warrior.\n\nSilchas Ruin sighed. \"Udinaas. I had forgotten your bright gift with words.\"\n\n\"I can't recall anyone ever calling it a gift, \"he replied, deciding to let the sarcasm pass, as if his stay in this place had withered his natural acuity.\"A curse, yes, all the time. It's amazing I'm still breathing, in fact. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" the Tiste Andii agreed, \"it is.\"\n\n\"What do you want, Silchas Ruin?\"\n\n\"We travelled together fora longtime, Udinaas.\"\n\n\"Running in circles, yes. What of it?\"\n\nThe Tiste Andii glanced away. \"I was... misled. By all that I saw. An absence of sophistication. I imagined the rest of that world was no different from Lether... until that world arrived.\"\n\n\"The Letherii version of sophistication is rather narcissistic, granted. Comes with being the biggest lump of turd on the heap. Locally speaking.\"\n\nRuin's expression soured.\"A turd thoroughly crushed under heel, now. '\n\nUdinaas shrugged. \"Comes to us all, sooner or later.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nSilence stretched between them, and still Ruin would not meet his gaze. Udinaas understood well enough, and knew too that it would be unseemly to show any pleasure at the White Crow's humbling.\n\n\"She will be Queen,\" Silchas Ruin said abruptly.\n\n\"Who?\"\n\nThe warrior blinked, as if startled by the question, and then fixed his unhuman attention once more upon Udinaas. \"Your son is in grave danger.\"\n\n\"Is he now?\"\n\n\"I thought, incoming here, that I would speak to him. To offer what meagre advice of any worth I might possess.\" He gestured at the place where he stood. \"This is as far as I could manage.\"\n\n\"What's holding you back? '\n\nRuin's expression soured.\"To the Blood of the Eleint, Udinaas, any notion of community is anathema. Or of alliance. If inspirit the Letherii possess an ascendant, it is the Eleint. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ah, I see." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Which was why Quick Ben managed to defeat Sukul Ankhadu, Sheltatha Lore and Menandore.\"\n\nSilchas Ruin nodded. \"Each intended to betray the others. It is the flaw in the blood. More often than not, a fatal one.\" He paused, and then said, \"So it proved with me and my brother Anomander. Once the Draconic blood took hold of us, we were driven apart. Andarist stood between us, reaching with both hands, seeking to hold us close, but our newfound arrogance surpassed him. We ceased to be brothers. Is it any wonder that we-\"\n\n\"Silchas Ruin,\" Udinaas cut in, \"why is my son in danger?\"\n\nThe warrior's eyes flashed.\"My lesson in humility very nearly killed me. But I survived. When Rud Elalle's own lesson arrives, he may not be so fortunate.\"\n\n\"Ever had a child, Silchas? I thought not. Giving advice to a child is like flinging sand at an obsidian wall. Nothing sticks. The brutal truth is that we each suffer our own lessons-they can't be danced round. They can't be slipped past. You cannot gift a child with your scars-they arrive like webs, constricting, suffocating, and that child will struggle and strain until they break. No matter how noble your intent, the only scars that teach them anything are the ones they earn themselves.\"\n\n\"Then I must ask you, as his father, fora boon.\"\n\n\"Are you serious?\"\n\n\"I am, Udinaas.\"\n\nFear Sengar had tried to stab this Tiste Andii in the back, had tried to step into Scabandari Bloodeye's shadow. Fear had been a difficult man, but Udinaas, for all his jibes and mockery, his bitter memories of slavery, had not truly disliked him. Nobility could be admired even when not met eye to eye. And he had seen Trull Sengar's grief. \"What would you ask of me, then?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Give him tome.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nThe Tiste Andii held up a hand. \"Make no answer yet. I will explain the necessity. I will tell you what is coming, Udinaas, and when I am done, I believe you will understand.\"\n\nUdinaas found he was trembling. And as Silchas Ruin continued to speak, he felt the once-solid ground inexorably shifting beneath his feet.\n\nThe seemingly turgid pace of this world was proved an illusion, a quaint conceit.\n\nThe truth was, everything was pitching headlong, a hundred thousand boulders sliding down a mountainside. The truth was, quite simply, terrifying.\n\nOnrack stood watching the two figures. The conversation had stretched on much longer than the Imass had anticipated, and his worry was burgeoning along with it. Little good was going to come of this, he was certain. He heard a coughing grunt behind him and turned to seethe two emlava crossing his trail a hundred or so paces back. They swung their massive, fanged heads in his direction and eyed him warily, as if seeking permission-but he could see by their loping gait and ducked tail-stubs that they were setting out on a hunt. The guilt beneath their intent seemed instinctive, as did their wide-eyed belligerence. They might begone a day, or weeks. In need of a major kill, with winter fast approaching.\n\nOnrack turned his attention back to Udinaas and Silchas Ruin, and saw that they were now walking towards him, side by side, and the Imass could read well enough Udinaas's battered spirit, his fugue of despair.\n\nNo, nothing good was on its way here.\n\nHe heard the scrabble behind him as the emlava reached the point where the trail they'd taken would move them out of Onrack's line of sight, and both animals bolted to escape his imagined attention. But he had no interest in calling them back. He never did. The beasts were simply too stupid to take note of that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Intruders into this realm rode an ill tide, arriving like vanguards to legions of chaos. Change stained the world the hue of fresh blood more often than not. When the truth was, the one thing all Imass desired was peace, affirmed in the ritual of living, secure and stable and exquisitely predictable. Heat and smoke from the hearths, the aromas of cooking meats, tubers, melted marrow. The nasal voices of the women singing as they went about their day's modest demands. The grunts and gasps of love-making, the chants of children. Someone might be working an antler tine, the spiral edge of a split long-bone, or a core of flint. Another kneeling by the stream, scraping down a hide with polished blades and thumbnail scrapers, and nearby there was the faint depression marking a pit of sand where other skins had been buried. When anyone needed to urinate they would squat over the pit to send their stream down. To cure the hides.\n\nElders sat on boulders and watched the camp and all their kin going about their tasks, and they dreamed of the hidden places and the pathways that opened in the fever of droning voices and drumming and swirling scenes painted on torch-lit stone, deep in the seethe of night when spirits blossomed before the eyes in myriad colours, when the patterns rose to the surface and floated and flowed in the smoky air.\n\nThe hunt and the feast, the gathering and the shaping. Days and nights, births and deaths, laughter and grief, tales told and retold, the mind within unfolding to reveal itself like a gift to every kin, every warm, familiar face.\n\nThis, Onrack knew, was all that mattered. Every appeasement of the spirits sought the protection of that precious peace, that perfect continuity. The ghosts of ancestors hovered close to stand sentinel over the living. Memories wove strands that bound everyone together, and when those memories were shared, that binding grew ever stronger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the camp behind him, his beloved mate, Kilava, reclined on heaps of soft furs, only days away from giving birth to their second child." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shoulder-women brought her wooden bowls filled with fat, delicious grubs still steaming from the hot flat-rocks lining the hearths. And cones of honey and pungent teas of berry and bark. They fed her continuously and would do so until her labour pains began, to give her the strength and reserves she would need.\n\nHe recalled the night he and Kilava went to the home of Seren Pedac, in that strange, damaged city of Letheras. To hear of Trull Sengar's death had been one of the hardest moments of Onrack's life. But to find himself standing before his friend's widow had proved even more devastating. Setting eyes upon her, he had felt himself collapse inside and he had wept, beyond any consolation, and he had-sometime later-wondered at Seren's fortitude, her preternatural calm, and he had told himself that she must have gone through her own grief in the days and nights immediately following her love's murder. She had watched him weep with sorrow in her eyes but no tears. She'd made tea, then, methodical in its preparation, while Onrack huddled inside the embrace of Kilava's arms.\n\nOnly later would he rail at the injustice, the appalling senselessness of his friend's death. And for the duration of that night, as he struggled to speak to her of Trull-of the things they had shared since that moment of frail sympathy when Onrack elected to free the warrior from his Shorning-he was reminded again and again of fierce battles, defiant stands, acts of breathtaking courage, anyone of which would have marked a worthy end, a death swollen with meaning, shining with sacrifice. And yet Trull Sengar had survived those, everyone of them, fashioning a kind of triumph in the midst of pain and loss." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Had Onrack been there, in the blood-splashed arena of sand, Trull's back would not have been unguarded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The murderer would never have succeeded in his act of brutal treachery. And Trull Sengar would have lived to see his own child growing in Seren Pedac's belly, would have witnessed, in awe and wonder, that glow of focused inwardness in the expression of the Acquitor. No male could know such a sense of completeness, of course, for she had become a vessel of that continuity, an icon of hope and optimism for the future world.\n\nOh, if Trull could have witnessed that-no one deserved it more, after all the battles, the wounds, the ordeals and the vast solitude that Onrack could never pierce-so many betrayals and yet he had stood unbowed and had given of himself all that he could. No, there had been nothing fair in this.\n\nSeren Pedac had been kind and gracious. She had permitted Kilava's ritual ensuring a safe birth. But she had also made it clear that she desired nothing else, that this journey would be her own, and indeed, she was strong enough to make it.\n\nYes, women could be frightening. In their strengths, their capacity to endure.\n\nAs much as Onrack would have treasured being close to Kilava now, to treat her with gifts and morsels, any such attempt would have been met with ridicule from the shoulder-women and a warning snarl from Kilava herself. He had learned to keep his distance, now that the birthing was imminent.\n\nIn any case, he had grown fond of Udinaas. True, a man far more inclined to edged commentary than Trull had been, prone to irony and sarcasm, since these were the only weapons Udinaas could wield with skill. Yet Onrack had come to appreciate his wry wit, and more than that, the man had displayed unexpected virtues in his newfound role as father-ones that Onrack noted and resolved to emulate when his time arrived." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had missed such an opportunity the first time round, and the man who was his first son, Ulshun Pral, had been raised by others, by adopted uncles, brothers, aunts. Even Kilava had been absent more often than not. And so, while Ulshun was indeed of their shared blood, he belonged more to his people than he did to his parents. There was only faint sorrow in this, Onrack told himself, fragments of regret that could find no fit in his memories of the Ritual's deathless existence.\n\nSo much had changed. This world seemed to rush past, ephemeral and elusive, days and nights slipping through his hands. Time and again he was almost paralysed by a sense of loss, overwhelmed with anguish at the thought of another moment gone, another instant dwindling in his wake. He struggled to remain mindful, senses bristling to every blessed arrival, to absorb and devour and luxuriate in its taste, and then would come a moment when everything flooded over him and he would be engulfed, flailing in the blinding, deafening deluge.\n\nToo many feelings, and it seemed weeping was his answer to so much in this mortal life-in joy, in sorrow, in gifts received and in the losses suffered. Perhaps he had forgotten all the other possible ways of responding. Perhaps they were the first to go once time became meaningless, cruel as a curse, leaving tears as the last thing to dry up.\n\nUdinaas and Silchas Ruin drew closer.\n\nAnd once more, Onrack felt like weeping.\n\nThe D'rhasilhani coast looked gnawed and rotted, with murky silt-laden rollers thrashing amidst pitted limestone outcrops and submerged sandbars overgrown with mangroves. Heaps of foam the hue of pale flesh lifted and sagged with every breaker, and through the eyeglass Shield Anvil Tanakalian could see, above the tideline where crescent pockets of sand and gravel were visible, mounds of dead fish, swarmed by gulls and something else-long, low and possibly reptilian-that heaved and bulled through the slaughter every now and then, sending the gulls flapping and screeching." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was relieved he was not standing on that shore, so alien from the coast he had known almost all of his life-where the water was deep, clear and deathly cold; where every inlet and reach was shrouded in the gloom of black cliffs and thick forests of pine and fir." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had not imagined that such shorelines as he was seeing now even existed. Squalid, fetid, like some overripe pig slough. Northeastward along the coastline, at the base of a young range of mountains angling south, what must be a huge river emptied out into this vast bay, filling the waters with its silts. The constant inflow of freshwater, thick and milky-white, had poisoned most of the bay, as far as Tanakalian could determine. And this did not seem right. He felt as if he was looking upon the scene of avast crime of some sort, a fundamental wrongness spreading like sepsis.\n\n\"What is your wish, sir?\"\n\nThe Shield Anvil lowered the eyeglass and frowned at the coast filling the view to the north. \"Make for the river mouth, Captain. I gauge the outflow channel lies upon the other side, closest to that eastern shore-the cliffs seem sheer.\"\n\n\"Even from here, sir,\" said the captain, \"the barely submerged banks upon this side are plain to our sight.\" He hesitated. \"It is the ones we cannot see that concern me, Shield Anvil. I am not even appeased should we await the tide.\"\n\n\"Can we not withdraw, further out to sea, and then make our approach closer to the eastern coastline?\"\n\n\"Into the head of the river's current? Possibly, although in the clash with the tide, that current will be treacherous. Shield Anvil, this delegation we seek-not a seafaring people, I assume? '\n\nTanakalian smiled. \"A range of virtually impassable mountains blocks the kingdom from the coast, and even on the landward side of that range a strip of territory is claimed by pastoral tribes-there is peace between them and the Bolkando. Nonetheless, to answer you, sir, no, the Bolkando are not a seafaring people.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thus, this river mouth...\"\n\n\"Yes, Captain. By gracious agreement with the D'rhasilhani, the Bolkando delegation is permitted an encampment on the east side of the river. '\n\n\"The threat of invasion can make lifelong enemies into the closest allies,\" observed the captain.\n\n\"So it seems,\" agreed Tanakalian. \"What is extraordinary is that the alliances seem to beholding, even now when there will be no invasion from the Lether Empire. I suspect certain benefits from peace became evident.\"\n\n\"Profitable, you mean.\"\n\n\"Mutually so, yes, Captain.\"\n\n\"I must attend to the ship now, sir, if we are to revise our approach to the place of landing.\"\n\nThe Shield Anvil nodded and, as the captain departed, Tanakalian raised the eyeglass once more, leaning for support against the starboard figurehead as he steadied himself. The seas were not especially rough this far inside the nameless bay, but in moments the Throne of War would begin to come about, and he was intent on making use of the hard pitch to scan further along the sheer cliffs of the eastern shoreline.\n\nThe Mortal Sword Krughava remained in her cabin. Since his return from visiting the Adjunct, Destriant Run'Thurvian had elected to begin an extended period of secluded meditation, and was also below decks. The presence of either one would have imposed a degree of formality that Tanakalian found increasingly chafing. He understood the necessity for propriety, and the burden of tradition that ensured meaning to all that they did-and all that they were-but he had spent time on the command ship of the Adjunct, in the company of Malazans. They displayed an ease in shared hardship that had at first shocked the Shield Anvil, until he comprehended the value of such behaviour. There could be no challenging the discipline of the Bonehunters when battle was summoned. But the force that truly held them together was found in the camaraderie they displayed during those interminably long periods of inactivity, such as all armies were forced to endure. Indeed, Tanakalian had come to delight in their brash lack of decorum, their open irreverence and their strange penchant for revelling in the absurd." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps an ill influence, as Run'Thurvian's faintly disapproving frowns implied, whenever Tanakalian attempted his own ironic commentary. Of course, the Destriant possessed no shortage in his list of disappointments regarding the Order's new Shield Anvil. Too young, woefully inexperienced, and dismayingly inclined to rash judgement-this last flaw simply unacceptable in one bearing the title of Shield Anvil.\n\n\"Your mind is too active, sir,\" the Destriant had said once. \"It is not for the Shield Anvil to make judgement. Not for you to decide who is worthy of your embrace. No, sir, but you have never disguised your predilections. I give you that.\"\n\nGenerous of the man, all things considered.\n\nAs the ship lost headway in its long, creaking coming-about, Tanakalian studied that forbidding coast, the tortured mountains-many of them with cones shrouded in smoke and foul gases. It would not do to find themselves thrown against that deadly shoreline, although given the natural inclination of outflow currents, the risk was very real. Leading the Shield Anvil to one of those ghastly judgements, and in this case, even the Destriant could not find fault.\n\nWith a faint smile, Tanakalian lowered the eyeglass once more and returned it to its sealskin sheath slung beneath his left arm. He descended from the forecastle and made his way below decks. They would require Run'Thurvian and his sorcery to ensure safe passage into the river mouth, and this, Tanakalian concluded, was fair justification for interrupting the Destriant's meditation, which had been going on for days now. Run'Thurvian might well cherish his privilege of solitude and unmitigated isolation, but certain necessities could not be avoided even by the Order's Destriant. The old man could do with the fresh air, besides." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The command ship was alone in this bay." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The remaining twenty-four serviceable Thrones of War held position far out to sea, more than capable of weathering whatever the southern ocean could muster, barring a typhoon, of course, and that season had passed, according to local pilots.\n\nSince they had relinquished the Froth Wolf to the Adjunct, the Listral now served as the Order's flagship. The oldest ship in the fleet-almost four decades since the laying of the keels-the Listral was the last survivor of the first line of trimarans, bearing antiquated details in style and decoration. This lent the ship a ferocious aspect, with every visible span of ironwood carved into the semblance of a snarling wolf's head, and the centre hull was entirely shaped as a lunging wolf, three-quarters submerged so that the crest of foam at the bow churned from the beast's gaping, fanged mouth.\n\nTanakalian loved this ship, even the archaic row of inside-facing cabins lining the corridor of the first level below deck. Listral could manage but half as many passengers as could the second and third lines of Thrones of War. At the same time, each cabin was comparatively spacious, indeed, almost luxurious.\n\nThe Destriant's abode encompassed the last two cabins of this, the starboard hull. The wall between them now bore a narrow, low door. The stern chamber served as Run'Thurvian's private residence, whilst the forward cabin had been sanctified as a temple of the Wolves. As expected, Tanakalian found the Destriant kneeling, head bowed, before the twin-headed altar. Yet something was wrong-the air reeked of charred flesh, burnt hair, and Run'Thurvian, his back to Tanakalian, remained motionless as the Shield Anvil swung in through the corridor hatch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Destriant?\"\n\n\"Come no closer,\" croaked Run'Thurvian, his voice almost unrecognizable, and Tanakalian now heard the old man's desperate wheezing of breath. \"There is not much time, Shield Anvil. I had... concluded... that none would disturb me after all, no matter how overlong my absence.\" A hacking, bitter laugh. \"I had forgotten your... temerity, sir.\"\n\nTanakalian drew a step closer. \"Sir, what has happened?\"\n\n\"Stay back, I beg you!\" gasped the Destriant. \"You must take my words to the Mortal Sword.\"\n\nSomething glittered on the polished wooden floor around the kneeling form, as if the man had leaked out on all sides-but the smell was not one of urine, and the liquid, while thick as blood, seemed almost golden in the faint lantern light. Real fear flowed through Tanakalian upon seeing it, and the Destriant's words barely reached him over the thumping of his own heart.\"Destriant-'\n\n\"I travelled far,\" Run'Thurvian said.\"Doubts... a growing unease. Listen! She is not as we believed. There will be... betrayal. Tell Krughava! The vow-we have made a mistake! '\n\nThe puddle was spreading, thick as honey, and it seemed the robed shape of the Destriant was diminishing, collapsing into itself.\n\nHe is dying. By the Wolves, he is dying. \"Destriant,\" Tanakalian said, forcing his terror down, swallowing against the horror of what he was witnessing, \"will you accept my embrace?\"\n\nThe laugh that made its way out sounded as if it had bubbled up through mud. \"No. I do not.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stunned, the Shield Anvil staggered back.\n\n\"You... you are... insufficient. You always were-another one of Krughava's errors in... in judgement. You fail me, and so you shall fail her. The Wolves shall abandon us. The vow betrays them, do you understand? I have seen our deaths-this one here before you, and the ones to come. You, Tanakalian. The Mortal Sword too, and every brother and sister of the Grey Helms. ' He coughed, and something gushed out in the convulsion, spraying the altar with liquid and shapeless gobbets that slid down into the folds of stone fur, traversing the necks of the Wolves.\n\nThe kneeling figure slumped, folded in the middle at an impossible angle. The sound made when Run'Thurvian's forehead struck the floor was that of a hen's egg breaking, and that span of bone offered little resistance, so that the man's face collapsed as well.\n\nAs Tanakalian stared, drawn forward once more, he saw watery streams leaking out from the Destriant's ruined head.\n\nThe man had simply... melted. He could see that greyish pulp boiling, thinning down into clear streams of fat.\n\nAnd he so wanted to scream, to unleash his horror, but a deeper dread had claimed him. He would not accept my embrace. I have failed him, he said. I will fail them all, he said.\n\nBetrayal?\n\nNo, that I cannot believe.\n\nI will not.\n\nAlthough he knew Run'Thurvian was dead, Tanakalian spoke to him nonetheless.\"The failure, Destriant, was yours, not mine. You journeyed far, did you? I suggest... not far enough. \"He paused, struggling to quell the trembling that had come to him.\"Destriant. Sir. It pleases me that you rejected my embrace. For I see now that you did not deserve it. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No, he was not simply a Shield Anvil, in the manner of all those who had come before, all those who had lived and died beneath the burden of that title. He was not interested in passive acceptance. He would take upon himself mortal pain, yes, but not indiscriminately.\n\nI too am mortal, after all. It is my essence that I am able to weigh my judgement. Of what is worthy. And what is not.\n\nNo, I shall not be as other Shield Anvils. The world has changed-we must change with it. We must change to meet it. He stared down at the heaped mess that was all that remained of Destriant Run'Thurvian.\n\nThere would be shock. Dismay and faces twisted into distraught fear. The Order would be flung into disarray, and it would fall to the Mortal Sword, and to the Shield Anvil, to steady the rudder, until such time as anew Destriant was raised among the brothers and sisters.\n\nOf more immediate concern, however, as far as Tanakalian was concerned, was that there would be no sorcerous protection in traversing the channel. In his assessment-shaky as it might beat the moment-he judged that news to be paramount.\n\nThe Mortal Sword would have to wait.\n\nHe had nothing to tell her in any case.\n\n\"Did you embrace our brother, Shield Anvil?\"\n\n\"Of course, Mortal Sword. His pain is with me, now, as is his salvation.\"\n\nThe mind shaped its habits and habits reshaped the body. A lifelong rider walked with bowed legs, a seafarer stood wide no matter how sure the purchase. Women who twirled strands of their hair would in time come to sit with heads tilted to one side. Some people prone to worry might grind their teeth, and years of this would thicken the muscles of the jaws and file the molars down to smooth lumps, bereft of spurs and crowns." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yedan Derryg, the Watch, wandered down to the water's edge. The night sky, so familiar to one who had wrapped his life about this late stretch of time preceding the sun's rise, was now revealed to him as strange, jarred free of the predictable, the known, and the muscles of his jaw worked in steady, unceasing rhythm.\n\nThe reflected smear of vaguely green comets rode the calm surface of the inlet, like slashes of luminous glow-spirits, as were wont to gather in the wake of ships. There were strangers in the sky. Drawing closer night after night, as if summoned. The blurred moon had set, which was something of a relief, but Yedan could still observe the troubled behaviour of the tide-the things that had once been certain were certain no longer. He was right to worry.\n\nSuffering was coming to the shore, and the Shake would not be spared. This was a knowledge he shared with Twilight, and he had seen the growing fear in the rheumy eyes of the witches and warlocks, leading him to suspect that they too had sensed the approach of something vast and terrible. Alas, shared fears did not forge any renewed commitment to co-operation-for them the political struggle remained, had indeed intensified.\n\nFools.\n\nYedan Derryg was not a loquacious man. He might well possess a hundred thousand words in his head, open to virtually infinite rearrangement, but that did not mean he laboured under the need to give them voice. There seemed to belittle point in that, and in his experience comprehension diminished as complexity deepened-this was not a failing of skills in communication, he believed, but one of investment and capacity. People dwelt in a swamp of feelings that stuck like gobs of mud to every thought, slowing those thoughts down, making them almost shapeless. The inner discipline demanded in order to cleanse such maladroit tendencies was usually too fierce, too trying, just too damned hard. This, then, marked the unwillingness to make the necessary investment. The other issue was afar crueller judgement, in that it had to do with the recognition that in the world there were numerically far more stupid people than there were smart ones. The difficulty was in the innate cleverness of the stupid in disguising their own stupidity. The truth was rarely displayed in an honest frown or a sincere knotting of the brow. Instead, it was revealed in a flash of suspicion, the hint of diffidence in an offhand dismissal, or, perversely, muteness offered up to convey a level of thoughtful consideration which, in truth, did not exist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yedan Derryg had little time for such games. He could smell an idiot from fifty paces off. He watched their sly evasions, listened to their bluster, and wondered again and again why they could never reach that essential realization, which was that the amount of effort engaged in hiding their own stupidity would serve them better used in cogent exercise of what little wits they possessed. Assuming, of course, that improvement was even possible.\n\nThere were too many mechanisms in society designed to hide and indeed coddle its myriad fools, particularly since fools generally held the majority. In addition to such mechanisms, one could also find various snares and traps and ambushes, one and all fashioned with the aim of isolating and then destroying smart people. No argument, no matter how brilliant, can defeat a knife in the groin, after all. Nor an executioner's axe. And the bloodlust of a mob was always louder than alone, reasonable voice.\n\nThe true danger, Yedan Derryg understood, was to be found in the hidden deceivers-those who could play the fool yet possessed a kind of cunning that, while narrowly confined to the immediate satisfaction of their own position, proved of great skill in exploiting the stupid and the brilliant alike. These were the ones who hungered for power and more often than not succeeded in acquiring it. No genius would willingly accept true power, of course, in full knowledge of its deadly invitations. And fools could never succeed in holding onto it for very long, unless they were content as figureheads, in which case the power they held was an illusion.\n\nGather a modest horde of such hidden deceivers-those of middling intelligence and clever malice and avaricious ambition-and serious trouble was pretty much assured. A singular example of this was found in the coven of witches and warlocks who, until recently, had ruled the Shake-inasmuch as a scattered, dissolute and depressed people could be ruled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jaws bunching, Yedan Derryg crouched down. Ripples from the faint waves rolled round the toes of his boots, gurgled into the pits they made in the soft sand. His arms trembled, every muscle aching with exhaustion. The brine from the shoreline could not wash the stench from his nostrils.\n\nBehind him, in the squalid huddle of huts beyond the berm, voices had awakened. He heard someone come onto the shore, staggering it seemed, drawing closer in fits and starts.\n\nYedan Derryg reached down his hands until the cold water flowed over them, and what was clear suddenly clouded in dark blooms. He watched as the waves, sweeping out so gently, tugged away the stains, and in his mind uttered a prayer.\n\nThis to the sea This from the shore This I give freely Until the waters run clear\n\nShe came up behind him. \"In the name of the Empty Throne, Yedan, what have you done?\"\n\n\"Why,\" he replied to his sister's horrified disbelief,\"I have killed all of them but two, my Queen. '\n\nShe stepped round, splashed into the water until she faced him, and then set a palm against his forehead and pushed until she could see his face, until she could stare into his eyes. \"But... why? Did you think I could not handle them? That we couldn't? '\n\nHe shrugged. \"They wanted a king. One to control you. One they could control in turn.\"\n\n\"And so you murdered them? Yedan, the longhouse has become an abattoir! And you truly think you can just wash your hands of what you have done? You've just butchered twenty-eight people. Shake. My people! Old men and old women! You slaughtered them! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He frowned up at her. \"My Queen, I am the Watch.\"\n\nShe stared down at him, and he could read her expression well enough. She believed her brother had become a madman. She was recoiling in horror.\n\n\"When Pully and Skwish return,\" he said, \"I will kill them, too.\"\n\n\"You will not.\"\n\nHe could see that a reasonable conversation with his sister was not possible, not at this moment, with the cries of shock and grief rising ever higher in the village. \"My Queen-\"\n\n\"Yedan,\" she gasped. \"Don't you see what you have done tome? Don't you realize the wound you have delivered-that you would do such a thing in my name...\" She seemed unable to finish the statement, and he saw tears in her eyes now. And then that gaze iced over and her tone hardened as she said, \"You have two choices left, Yedan Derryg. Stay and be given to the sea. Or accept banishment.\"\n\n\"I am the Watch-\"\n\n\"Then we will be blind to the night.\"\n\n\"That cannot be permitted,\" he replied.\n\n\"You fool-you've left me no choice! '\n\nHe slowly straightened. \"Then I shall accept the sea-\"\n\nShe turned round, faced the dark waters. Her shoulders shook as she lowered her head. \"No,\" she managed in a grating voice. \"Get out of here, Yedan. Go north, into the old Edur lands. I will not accept one more death in my name-not one. No matter how deserved it is. You are my brother. Go.\"\n\nShe was not one of the deceivers, he knew. Nor was she a fool. Given the endless opposition from the coven, she had possessed less power than her title proclaimed. And perhaps, intelligent as Yan Tovis was, she had been content to accept that limitation. Had the witches and warlocks been as wise and sober in their recognition of the deadly lure of ambition, he could well have left things as they were. But they had not been interested in a balance. They wanted what they had lost. They had not shown the intelligence demanded by the situation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And so he had removed them, and now his sister's power was absolute." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Understandable, then, that she was so distraught. Eventually, he told himself, she would come to comprehend what was now necessary. Namely, his return, as the Watch, as the balance to her potentially unchecked power.\n\nHe would need to be patient.\n\n\"I shall do as you say,\" he said to her.\n\nShe would not turn round, and so, with a nod, Yedan Derryg set out, northward along the shoreline. He'd left his horse and pack-mount tethered two hundred paces along, just above the high-watermark. One sure measure of intelligence, after all, was in the accurate anticipation of consequences. Emotions stung to life could drown one as easily as a riptide, and he had no desire to deepen her straits.\n\nSoon the sun would rise, although with rain on the way its single glaring eye would likely not be visible for long, and that too was well. Leave the cloud's tears to wash away all the blood, and before too long the absence of over a score of brazen, incipient tyrants would rush in among the Shake like a sudden fresh and bracing wind.\n\nStrangers rode the night sky, and if the Shake had any hope of surviving what was coming, the politics of betrayal must be swept away. With finality.\n\nIt was his responsibility, after all. Perhaps his sister had forgotten the oldest vows that bound the Watch. But he had not. And so he had done what was necessary.\n\nThere was no pleasure in the act. Satisfaction, yes, as would be felt by anywise, intelligent person who succeeds in sweeping aside a multitude of shortsighted sharks, thus clearing the water. But no pleasure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To his right, as he walked the shoreline, the land was growing light.\n\nBut the sea to his left remained dark.\n\nSometimes the verge between the two grew very narrow indeed.\n\nShifting weight from one foot to the other, Pully stared down into the pit. Snakes swarmed by the hundred in that hole, sluggish at first but now, as the day warmed, they writhed like worms in an open wound. She tugged at her nose, which had a tendency to tingle whenever she fell back into the habit of chewing her lips, but the tingling wouldn't leave. Which meant, of course, that she was gnawing away at those wrinkled flaps covering what was left of her teeth.\n\nGetting old was a misery. First the skin sagged. Then aches settled into everyplace and places that didn't even exist. Pangs and twinges and spasms, and all the while the skin kept sagging, lines deepening, folds folding, and all beauty going away. The lilt of upright buttocks, the innocence of wide, shallow tits. The face still able to brave the weather, and lips still sweet and soft as pouches of rendered fat. All gone. What was left was a mind that still imagined itself young, its future stretching out, trapped inside a sack of loose meat and brittle bones. It wasn't fair.\n\nShe yanked at her nose again, trying to get the feeling back. And that was another thing. The wrong parts kept on growing. Ears and nose, warts and moles, hairs sprouting everywhere. The body forgot its own rules, the flesh went senile and the bright mind within could wail all it wanted, but nothing that was real ever changed except for the worse.\n\nShe widened her stance and sent a stream of piss down into the stony earth. Even simple things got less predictable. Oh, what a misery ageing was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Skwish's head popped up amidst seething snakes, eyes blinking.\n\n\"Yah,\" said Pully, \"I'm still here. '\n\n\"How long?\"\n\n\"Day and a night and now it's morning. Y'amby get what yer needed? I got aches.\"\n\n\"An\" I got reck'lections I ain't ever wanted. ' Skwish started working herself free of the heaps of serpents, none of which minded much or even noticed, busy as they were, breeding in a frenzy that seemed to last forever.\n\n\"T'which we might want, iyerplease? '\n\n\"Mebee.\"\n\nSkwish reached up and, grunting, Pully helped her friend out of the pit. \"Yee, y'smell ripe, woman. Snake piss and white smear, there'll be onward eggs in yer ears.\"\n\n\"It's a cold spirit t'travel on, Pully, an\" I ain't ever doin it agin, so's if I rank it's the leese of our perbems. Gaf, I need a dunk in the sea.\"\n\nThey set off for the village, a half day's journey coastward.\n\n\"An ya tervilled afar, Skwish, did yee?\"\n\n\"It's bad an'it's bad, Pully. Cold blood t'the east no sun could warm. I seen solid black clouds rollin down, an\" iron rain an gashes in th'geround. I seethe stars go away an\" nothing but green glows, an'them green glows they is cold, too, cold as th'east blooding. All stems but one branch, y'see. One branch.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So's we guessed right, an'next time Twilight goes an\" seal barks on \"bout a marchin\" the Shake away from the shore, you can talk up an'cuter down and down. An\" then we vote and get er gone. Er and the Watch, too. '\n\nSkwish nodded, trying to work globs of snake sperm out of her hair, without much success. \"Comes to what's d'served, Pully. The Shake did ever'ave clear eyes. Y'can't freck on an'on thinkin\" th'world won't push back. It'll push awright. Till the shore breaks an\" breaks it will an'when it does, we ever do drown. I sawdust, Pully, but it wasn't no puffy earth. T'was specks a bone an\" skin an'dreams an\" motes a surprise, hah! We's so freckered, sister, it's all we can do is laughter an prance into the sea. '\n\n\"Goo\" anough frame, \"Pully grumbled.\"I got so many aches I might be the def'nition a ache irrself.\"\n\nThe two Shake witches-the last left alive, as they were soon to learn-set out for the village.\n\nTake a scintillating, flaring arm of the sun's fire, give it form, a life of its own, and upon the faint cooling of the apparition, a man such as Rud Elalle might emerge, blinking with innocence, unaware that all he touched could well explode into destructive flames-had he been of such mind. And to teach, to guide him into adulthood, the singular aversion remained: no matter what you do, do not awaken him to his anger.\n\nSometimes, Udinaas had come to realize, potential was a force best avoided, for the potential he sensed in his son was not a thing for celebration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No doubt every father felt that flash of blinding, burning truth-the moment when he sensed his son's imminent domination, be it physical or something less overtly violent in its promise. Or perhaps such a thing was in fact rare, conjured from the specific. After all, not every father's son could veer into the shape of a dragon. Not every father's son held the dawn's golden immanence in his eyes.\n\nRud Elalle's gentle innocence was a soft cloak hiding a monstrous nature, and that was an unavoidable fact, the burning script of his son's blood. Silchas Ruin had spoken to that, with knowing, with the pained truth in his face. The ripening harvest of the Eleint, a fecund brutality that sought only to appease itself-that saw the world (any world, every world) as a feeding ground, and the promise of satisfaction waited in the bloated glut of power.\n\nRare the blood-fouled who managed to overcome that innate megalomania. \"Ah, Udinaas,\" Silchas Ruin had said. \"My brother, perhaps, Anomander. Osserc? Maybe, maybe not. There was a Bonecaster, once... and a Soletaken Jaghut. A handful of others-when the Eleint blood within them was thinner-and that is why I have hope for Rud Elalle, Udinaas. He is third-generation-did he not clash with his mother's will? '\n\nWell, it was said that he had.\n\nUdinaas rubbed his face. He glanced again at the tusk-framed hut, wondering if he should march inside, put an end to that parley right now. Silchas Ruin, after all, had not included himself among those who had mastered their Draconean blood. A sliver of honesty from the White Crow, plucked from that wound of humility, no doubt. It was all that was holding Udinaas back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Crouched beside him, shrouded by gusts of smoke from the hearth, Onrack released along sigh that whistled from his nostrils-break a nose enough times and every breath was tortured music." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At least it was so with this warrior. \"He will take him, I think.\"\n\nUdinaas nodded, not trusting himself to speak.\n\n\"I am... confused, my friend. That you would permit this... meeting. That you would excuse yourself and so provide no counter to the Tiste Andii's invitation. That hut, Udinaas, maybe a place filled with lies. What is to stop the White Crow from offering your son the sweet sip of terrible power? '\n\nThere was genuine worry in Onrack's tone, deserving more than bludgeoning silence. Udinaas rubbed again at his face, unable to determine which was the more insensate: his features or his hands; and wondering why an answer seemed to important to him.\"I have walked in the realm of Starvald Demelain, Onrack. Among the bones of countless dead dragons. At the gate itself, the corpses were heaped like glitter flies along a windowsill. '\n\n\"If it is indeed in the nature of the Eleint to lust for self-destruction,\" ventured Onrack, \"would it not be better to guide Rud away from such a flaw?\"\n\n\"I doubt that would work,\" Udinaas said. \"Can you turn nature aside, Onrack? Every season the salmon return from the seas and heave their dying bodies upstream, to find where they were born. Ancient tenag leave the herds to die amid the bones of kin. Bhederin migrate into the heart of the plains every summer, and return to forest fringes every winter-\"\n\n\"Simpler creatures one and all-\"\n\n\"And I knew slaves in the Hiroth village-ones who'd been soldiers once, and they withered with the anguish of knowing that there were places of battle-places of their first blooding-that they would never again see. They longed to return, to walk those old killing grounds, to stand before the barrows filled with the bones of fallen friends, comrades. To remember, and to weep. \"Udinaas shook his head.\"We are not much different from the beasts sharing our world, Onrack. The only thing that truly sets us apart is our talent for rejecting the truth-and we're damned good at that. The salmon does not question its need. The tenag and the bhederin do not doubt what compels them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then you would doom your son to his fate?\"\n\nUdinaas bared his teeth. \"The choice isn't mine to make. '\n\n\"Is it Silchas Ruin's? '\n\n\"It may seem, Onrack, that we are protected here, but that's an illusion. The Refugium is a rejection of so many truths it leaves me breathless. Ulshun Pral, you, all your people-you have willed yourself this life, this world. And the Azath at the gate-it holds you to your convictions. This place, wondrous as it is, remains a prison. \"He snorted.\"Should I chain him here? Can I? Dare I? You forget, I was a slave. '\n\n\"My friend,\" said Onrack, \"I am free to travel the other realms. I am made flesh. Made whole. This is a truth, is it not?\"\n\n\"If this place is destroyed, you will become a T'lan Imass once more. That's the name for it, isn't it? That immortality of bones and dried flesh? The tribe here will fall to dust. '\n\nOnrack was staring at him with horror-filled eyes. \"How do you know this?\"\n\n\"I do not believe Silchas Ruin is lying. Ask Kilava-I have seen a certain look in her eyes, especially when Ulshun Pral visits, or when she sits beside you at the fire. She knows. She cannot protect this world. Not even the Azath will prevail against what is coming.\"\n\n\"Then it is we who are doomed.\"\n\nNo. There is Rud Elalle. There is my son.\n\n\"And so,\" said Onrack after along pause, \"you will send your son away, so that he may live.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No, friend. I send him away... to save you all. But he could not say that, could not reveal that. For he knew Onrack well now; and he knew Ulshun Pral and all the others here. And they would not accept such a potential sacrifice-they would not see Rud Elalle risk his life in their name. No, they would accept their own annihilation, without a second thought. Yes, Udinaas knew these Imass. It was not pride that made them what they were. It was compassion. The tragic kind of compassion, the kind that sacrifices itself and sees that sacrifice as the only choice and thus no choice at all, one that must be accepted without hesitation.\n\nBetter to take the fear and the hope and all the rest and hold it inside. What could he give Onrack now, at this moment? He did not know.\n\nAnother pause, and then the Imass continued, \"It is well, then. I understand, and approve. There is no reason that he must die with us. No reason, indeed, that he must witness such a thing when it comes to pass. You would spare him the grief, as much as such a thing is possible. But, Udinaas, it is not acceptable that you share our fate. You too must depart this realm.\"\n\n\"No, friend. That I will not do.\"\n\n\"Your son's need for you remains. '\n\nOh, Rud loves you all, Onrack. Almost as much as he seems to love me. I will stay nonetheless, to remind him of what he fights to preserve. \"Where he and Silchas Ruin will go, I cannot follow,\" he said. And then he grunted and managed to offer Onrack awry smile. \"Besides, here and only here, in your company-in the company of all the Imass-I am almost content. I'll not willingly surrender that. ' So many truths could hide inside glib lies. While the reason was a deceit, the sentiments stacked so carefully within it were not." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So much easier, he told himself, to think like a tenag, or a bhederin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Truth from surface to core, solid and pure. Yes, that would indeed be easier than this.\n\nRud Elalle emerged from the hut, followed a moment later by Silchas Ruin.\n\nUdinaas could see in his son's face that any formal parting would prove too fraught. Best this was done with as little gravitas as possible. He rose, and Onrack did the same.\n\nOthers stood nearby, watchful, instincts awakened that something grave and portentous was happening. Respect and courtesy held them back one and all.\n\n\"We should keep this... casual,\" Udinaas said under his breath.\n\nOnrack nodded. \"I shall try, my friend.\"\n\nHe is no dissembler, oh no. Less human than he looks, then. They all are, damn them. \"You feel too much,\" Udinaas said, as warmly as he could manage, for he did not want the observation to sting.\n\nBut Onrack wiped at his cheeks and nodded, saying nothing.\n\nSo much for making this casual. \"Oh, come with me, friend. Even Rud cannot withstand your gifts.\"\n\nAnd together, they approached Rud Elalle.\n\nSilchas Ruin moved off to await his new charge, and observed the emotional farewells with eyes like knuckles of blood.\n\nMortal Sword Krughava reminded Tanakalian of his childhood. She could have stridden out from any of a dozen tales of legend he had listened to curled up beneath skins and furs, all those breathtaking adventures of great heroes pure of heart, bold and stalwart, who always knew who deserved the sharp end of their sword, and who only ever erred in their faith in others-until such time, at the tale's dramatic climax, when the truth of betrayal and whatnot was revealed, and punishment soundly delivered. His grandfather always knew when to thicken the timbre of his voice, whereto pause to stretch out suspense, when to whisper some awful revelation. All to delight the wide-eyed child as night drew in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her hair was the hue of iron." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her eyes blazed like clear winter skies, and her face could have been carved from the raw cliffs of Perish. Her physical strength was bound to a matching strength of will and neither seemed assailable by any force in the mortal world. It was said that, even though she was now in her fifth decade of life, no brother or sister of the Order could best her in any of a score of weapons: from skinning knife to mattock.\n\nWhen Destriant Run'Thurvian had come to her, speaking of fraught dreams and fierce visions, it was as tinder-dry kindling to the furnace of Krughava's inviolate sense of purpose, and, it turned out, her belief in her own imminent elevation to heroic status.\n\nFew childhood convictions survived the grisly details of an adult's sensibilities, and although Tanakalian accounted himself still young, still awaiting the temper of wisdom, he had already seen enough to comprehend the true horror waiting beneath the shining surface of the self-avowed hero known to all as the Mortal Sword of the Grey Helms of Perish. Indeed, he had come to suspect that no hero, no matter what the time or the circumstance, was anything like the tales told him so many years ago. Or perhaps it was his growing realization that so many so-called virtues, touted as worthy aspirations, possessed a darker side. Purity of heart also meant vicious intransigence. Unfaltering courage saw no sacrifice as too great, even if that meant leading ten thousand soldiers to their deaths. Honour betrayed could plunge into intractable insanity in the pursuit of satisfaction. Noble vows could drown a kingdom in blood, or crush an empire into dust. No, the true nature of heroism was a messy thing, a confused thing of innumerable sides, many of them ugly, and almost all of them terrifying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So the Destriant, in his last breaths, had made a grim discovery." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Grey Helms were betrayed. If not now, then soon. Words of warning to awaken in the Mortal Sword all those blistering fires of outrage and indignation. And Run'Thurvian had expected the Shield Anvil to rush into Krughava's cabin to repeat the dire message, to seethe fires alight in her bright blue eyes.\n\nBrothers and sisters! Draw your swords! The streams must run crimson in answer to our besmirched honour! Fight! The enemy is on all sides!\n\nWell.\n\nNot only had Tanakalian found himself unwilling to embrace the Destriant and his mortal pain, he was reluctant to launch such devastating frenzy upon the Grey Helms. The old man's explanations, his reasons-the details-had been virtually non-existent. Essential information was lacking. A hero without purpose was like a blinded cat in a pit of hounds. Who could predict the direction of Krughava's charge?\n\nNo, this needed sober contemplation. The private, meditative kind.\n\nThe Mortal Sword had greeted the dreadful news of the Destriant's horrid death in pretty much the expected manner. A hardening of already hard features, eyes glaring like ice, the slow, building rise of questions that Tanakalian either could not hope to answer, or, as it turned out, was unwilling to answer. Questions and unknowns were the deadliest foes for one such as Mortal Sword Krughava, who thrived on certainty regardless of its relationship to reality. He could see how she was rocked, all purchase suddenly uncertain beneath her boots; and the way her left hand twitched-as if eager for the grip of her sword, the sure promise of the heavy iron blade; and the way she instinctively straightened-as if awaiting the weight of her chain surcoat-for this surely was news that demanded she wear armour. But he had struck her unawares, in her vulnerability, and this might well constitute its own version of betrayal, and he knew to be careful at that moment, to display for her a greater helplessness than she herself might be feeling; to unveil in his eyes and in his seemingly unconscious gestures enormous measures of need and need for reassurance. To, in short, fling himself like a child upon her stolid majesty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If this made him into something despicable, a dissembler, a creature of intrigue and cunning manipulation, well, these were dire charges indeed. He would have to consider them, as objectively as possible, and withhold no judgement no matter how self-damning, no matter how condign.\n\nThe Shield Anvils of old, of course, would not have bothered. But absence of judgement in others could only emerge from absence of judgement in oneself, a refusal to challenge one's own assumptions and beliefs. Imagine the atrocities such inhuman postures invited! No, that was a most presumptuous game and not one he would play.\n\nBesides, giving the Mortal Sword what she needed most at that moment-all his apparently instinctive nudges to remind her of her noble responsibilities-was in fact the proper thing to do. It would serve no one to have Krughava display extreme distress or, Wolves forbid, outright panic. They were sailing into war, and they had lost their Destriant. Matters were fraught enough in bare facts alone.\n\nShe needed to steel herself, and she needed to be seen doing so by her Shield Anvil in this moment of privacy, and in the wake of presumed success she would then find the necessary confidence to repeat the stern ritual before the brothers and sisters of the Order.\n\nBut that latter scene must wait, for the time had come to greet the Bolkando emissaries, and Tanakalian was comforted in the solid crunch of his and her boots on the strand of crushed coral that served as a beach in this place of landing. One pace behind the Mortal Sword-and while curiosity and wonder at the Destriant's absence might trouble the crew of the skiff and the captain and all the others aboard the Listral, now firmly anchored in the broad disc of a slow eddy in the river mouth, neither Krughava nor her Shield Anvil seemed to be displaying anything untoward as they set out for the elaborate field tent of the Bolkando. And such was their faith in their commanders that minds settled back into peaceful repose." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the writer's helper, keep the story going.\nTags: epic fantasy, complex plot, multiple characters, dark themes, intricate world-building\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Dust of Dreams\nChapter: 15" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They stand between your child and that power-as do I, Acquitor. We... we can withstand. We must-\"\n\n\"Who is doing this?\"\n\n\"Not malign-just vast. Abyss below, this is no ordinary caster of the Tiles!\" She sat, terrified now, her fear for her unborn son white-hot in her soul, and stared at Pinosel and Ursto Hoobutt-who burned and burned, and beneath the flames they were melting like wax.\n\nIna crowded room on the top floor of an inn, a flurry of once-dead beasts now scampered, snarled and snapped jaws. The black-furred rat, trailing entrails, had suddenly fallen upward to land on the ceiling, claws digging into the plaster, intestines dangling like tiny sausages in a smoke-house. The blue bat-turtle had bitten off the iguana's tail and that creature escaped in a slithering dash and was now butting at the window's shutters as if desperate to get out. The flicker bird, shedding oily feathers, flapped in frantic circles over the heads of everyone-none of whom had time to notice, as bottles smashed down, wine spilling like thinned blood, and the barely begun carving of riders on charging horses now writhed and reared on Crump's lap, whilst he stared bug-eyed, mouth gaping-and moments later the first tiny horse dragged itself free and leapt down from the sapper's thigh, wooden hoofs clopping across the floor, misshapen lump of rider waving a splinter.\n\nBellowing, shouts, shrieks-Ebron vomited violently, and, ducking to avoid that gush, Limp slipped in a puddle of wine and shattered his left knee. He howled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Deadsmell started crawling fora corner. He saw Masan Gilani roll under the fancy bed as the flicker bird cracked headlong into a bedpost, exploding in a cloud of rank feathers.\n\nSmart woman. Now, if only there was room under therefor me, too.\n\nIn another section of the city, witnesses would swear in the Errant's name, swear indeed on the Empty Throne and on the graves of loved ones, that two dragons burst from the heart of an inn, wreckage sailing out in a deadly rain of bricks, splinters, dust and fragments of sundered bodies that cascaded down into streets as far as fifty paces away-and even in the aftermath the next morning no other possible explanation sufficed to justify that shattered ruin of an entire building, from which no survivors were pulled.\n\n______\n\nThe entire room trembled, and even as Hellian drove her elbow into a bearded face and heard a satisfying crunch, the wall opposite her cracked like fine glass and then toppled into the room, burying the figures thrashing about in pointless clinches on the floor. Women screamed-well, the fat one did, and she was loud enough and repetitive enough in those shrieks to fill in for everyone else-all of whom were too busy scrabbling out from the wreckage.\n\nHellian staggered back a step, and then, as the floor suddenly heaved, she found herself running although she could not be sure of her precise direction, but it seemed wise to find the door wherever that might be.\n\nWhen she found it, she frowned, since it was lying flat on the floor, and so she paused and stared down fora time.\n\nUntil Urb stumbled into her. \"Something just went up across the street!\" he gasped, spitting blood. \"We got to get out of here-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where's my corporal? '\n\n\"Already down the stairs-let's go! 'But, no, it was time fora drink-\n\n\"Hellian! Not now!\"\n\n\"Gare away! If not now, when?\"\n\n\"Spinner of Death, Knight of Shadow, Master of the Deck.\" Fiddler's voice was a cold, almost inhuman growl.\"Table holds them, but not the rest. ' And he started flinging cards, and each one he threw shot like a plate of iron to a lodestone, striking one person after another-hard against their chests, staggering them back a step, and with each impact-as Brys stared in horror-the victim was lifted off the floor, chair tumbling away, and slammed against the wall behind them no matter the distance.\n\nThe collisions cracked bones. Backs of heads crunched bloodily on the walls.\n\nIt was all happening too fast, with Fiddler standing as if in the heart of a maelstrom, solid as a deep-rooted tree.\n\nThe first struck was the girl, Sinn. \"Virgin of Death.\" As the card smacked into her chest it heaved her, limbs flailing, up to a section of wall just beneath the ceiling. The sound she made when she hit was sickening, and she went limp, hanging like a spiked rag doll.\n\n\"Sceptre.\"\n\nGrub shrieked, seeking to fling himself to one side, and the card deftly slid beneath him, fixing onto his chest and shoving him bodily across the floor, up against the wall just left of the door.\n\nQuick Ben's expression was one of stunned disbelief as Fiddler's third card slapped against his sternum. \"Magus of Dark.\" He was thrown into the wall behind him with enough force to send cracks through the plaster and he hung there, motionless as a corpse on a spike." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mason of Death.\" Hedge bleated and made the mistake of turning round. The card struck his back and hammered him face first into the wall, whereupon the card began pushing him upward, leaving a red streak below the unconscious man.\n\nThe others followed, quick as a handful of flung stones. In each, the effect was the same. Violent impact, walls that shook. Sandalath Drukorlat, Queen of Dark. Lostara Yil, Champion of Life.\n\n\"Obelisk.\" Bottle.\n\nGesler, Orb.\n\nStormy, Throne.\n\nAnd then Fiddler faced Brys. \"King of Life.\"\n\nThe card flashed out from his hand, glittering like a dagger, and Brys snatched a breath the instant before it struck, eyes closing-he felt the blow, but nowhere near as viciously as had the others, and nothing touched his breast. He opened his eyes to seethe card hovering, shivering, in the air before him.\n\nAbove it, he met Fiddler's flat eyes.\n\nThe sapper nodded. \"You're needed. '\n\nWhat?\n\nTwo remained untouched, and Fiddler turned to the first and nearest of these. \"Banaschar,\" he said. \"You keep poor company. Fool in Chains.\" He drew a card and snapped out his hand. The ex-priest grunted and was flung back over his chair, whereupon he shot upward to the domed ceiling. Dust engulfed the man at the impact.\n\nFiddler now faced the Adjunct. \"You knew, didn't you? '\n\nStaring, pale as snow, she said nothing.\n\n\"For you, Tavore Paran... nothing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She flinched.\n\nThe door suddenly opened, hinges squealing in the frozen silence.\n\nTurudal Brizad stepped into the chamber and then halted. Turudal... no, of course not. The Errant. Who stands unseen behind the Empty Throne. I wondered when you would show yourself. Brys realized he had drawn his sword; realized, too, that the Errant was hereto kill him-a deed without reason, a desire without motive-at least none fathomable to anyone but the Errant himself.\n\nHe will kill me.\n\nAnd then Fiddler-for his audacity.\n\nAnd then everyone else here, so that there be no witnesses.\n\nFiddler slowly turned to study the Errant. The Malazan's smile was chilling.\"If that card was for you, \"he said,\"it would have left the table the moment you opened the door. I know, you think it belongs to you. You think it's yours. You are wrong.\"\n\nThe Errant's lone eye seemed to flare.\"I am the Master of the Tiles-'\n\n\"And I don't care. Goon then. Play with your tiles, Elder. You cannot stand against the Master of the Deck-your time, Errant, is past. '\n\n\"I have returned!\"\n\nAs the Errant, raw power building round him, took another stride into the chamber, Fiddler's low words cut into his path.\"I wouldn't do that.\"\n\nThe Elder God sneered. \"Do you think Brys Beddict can stop me? Can stop what I intend here?\"\n\nFiddler's brows lifted.\"I have no idea. But if you take one more step, Errant, the Master of the Deck will come through. Here, now. Will you face him? Are you ready for that? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And Brys glanced to that card lying on the table. Inanimate, motionless. It seemed to yawn like the mouth of the Abyss itself, and he suddenly shivered.\n\nFiddler's quiet challenge had halted the Errant, and Brys saw uncertainty stirred to life on the once-handsome features of Turudal Brizad.\n\n\"For what it is worth,\" Brys Beddict said then, \"you would not have made it past me anyway, Errant.\"\n\nThe single eye flicked to him. \"Ridiculous.\"\n\n\"I have lived in stone, Elder One. I am written with names beyond counting. The man who died in the throne room is not the man who has returned, no matter what you see.\"\n\n\"You tempt me to crush you,\" the Errant said in a half-snarl.\n\nFiddler swung round, stared down at the card on the table. \"He is awakened.\" He faced the Elder God. \"It maybe too late... for you.\"\n\nAnd Brys saw the Errant suddenly step back, once, twice, the third time taking him through the doorway. A moment later and he vanished from sight.\n\nBodies were sliding slowly towards the floor. As far as Brys could see, not one was conscious. Something eased in the chamber like the release of a breath held far too long.\n\n\"Adjunct.\"\n\nTavore's attention snapped from the empty doorway back to the sapper.\n\nSpring the ambush. Find your enemy.\n\n\"This wasn't a reading, \"Fiddler said.\"No one here was found. No one was claimed. Adjunct, they were marked. Do you understand? '\n\n\"I do,\" she whispered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think,\" Fiddler said, as grief clenched his face, \"I think I can seethe end.\"\n\nShe nodded.\n\n\"Tavore,\" said Fiddler, his voice now ragged. \"I am so sorry.\"\n\nTo that, the Adjunct simply shook her head.\n\nAnd Brys knew that, while he did not understand everything here, he understood enough. And if it could have meant anything, anything at all, he would have repeated Fiddler's words to her. To this Adjunct, this Tavore Paran, this wretchedly lonely woman.\n\nAt that moment, the limp form of Banaschar settled onto the tabletop, like a corpse being lowered on a noose. Ashe came to rest, he groaned.\n\nFiddler walked over and collected the card called the Master of the Deck. He studied it fora moment, and then returned it to the deck in his hands. Glancing over at Brys, he winked.\n\n\"Nicely played, Sergeant.\"\n\n\"Felt so lifeless... still does. I'm kind of worried. '\n\nBrys nodded. \"Even so, the role did not feel... vacant.\"\n\n\"That's true. Thanks. '\n\n\"You know this Master?\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"Sergeant, had the Errant called your bluff-\"\n\nFiddler grinned. \"You would've been on your own, sir. Still, you sounded confident enough. '\n\n\"Malazans aren't the only ones capable of bluffing. '\n\nAnd, as they shared a true smile, the Adjunct simply stared on, from one man to the other, and said nothing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bugg stood at the back window, looking out on Seren Pedac's modest garden that was now softly brushed with the silvery tones reflected down from the dusty, smoky clouds hanging over the city. There had been damage done this night, far beyond one or two knocked-down buildings. The room had been silent behind him for sometime now, from the moment that the reading had ended a short while ago. He still felt... fragile, almost fractured.\n\nHe heard her stir into motion behind him, the soft grunt as she climbed upright, and then she was beside him. \"Are they dead, Bugg?\"\n\nHe turned and glanced at the now conjoined, colourless puddles on the floor beneath the two chairs. \"I don't know, \"he admitted, and then added,\"I think so. '\n\n\"Th-that was not... expected-please tell me, Ceda, that such a fate was not in the plans tonight.\"\n\n\"No, Acquitor.\"\n\n\"Then... what happened?\"\n\nHe rubbed at the bristles on his chin, and then sighed and shook his head. \"She chooses a narrow path-gods, the audacity of it! I must speak with the King. And with Brys-we need to decide-\"\n\n\"Ceda! Who killed Pinosel and Ursto?\"\n\nHe faced her, blinked. \"Death but passed through. Even the Errant was... dismissed.\" He snorted. \"Yes. Dismissed. There is so much power in this Deck of Dragons. In the right hands, it could drain us all dry. Every god, new and elder. Every ascendant cast into a role. Every mortal doomed to become a face on a card.\" He resumed his gaze out the window. \"He dropped one onto the table. Your son's. The table would hold it, he said. Thus, he made no effort to claim your son. He let it be. He let him be. \"And then he shivered.\"Pinosel and Ursto-they just sat too close to the fire. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They... what?\"\n\n\"The caster held back, Acquitor. No one attacked Ursto and Pinosel. Even your unborn son's card did not try for him. The caster locked it down. As would a carpenter driving a nail through a plank of wood. Abyss take me, the sheer brazen power to do that leaves me breathless. Acquitor, Ursto and Pinosel were hereto defend you from the Errant. And yes, we felt him. We felt his murderous desire. But then he was thrown back, his power scattered. What arrived in its place was like the face of the sun, ever growing, becoming so vast as to fill the world-they were pinned there, trapped in those chairs, unable to move... \"He shook himself.\"We all were. \"He looked down at the puddles.\"Acquitor, I truly do not know if they are dead. The Lord of Death fed on no one this night, beyond a few hapless souls in a destroyed inn. They maybe simply... reduced... and after a time they will reconstitute themselves, find their shapes-their flesh and bone-once more. I do not know, yet I will hope. '\n\nHe saw her studying his face, and wondered if he'd managed to hide any of his anxiety, his grief. The look in her eyes spoke of his failure.\n\n\"Speak with this caster,\" she said. \"And... ask him... to refrain. Never again in this city. Please.\"\n\n\"He was unwilling, Acquitor. He did what he could. To protect... everyone.\" Except, I think, himself. \"I do not think there will be another reading.\"\n\nShe stared out the window. \"What awaits him? My... son,\" she asked in a whisper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He understood her question. \"He will have you, Seren Pedac. Mothers possess a strength, vast and strange-\"\n\n\"Strange?\"\n\nBugg smiled. \"Strange to us. Unfathomable. Also, your son's father was much loved. There will be those among his friends who would not hesitate-'\n\n\"Onrack T'emlava, ' she said.\n\nBugg nodded. \"An Imass.\"\n\n\"Whatever that is.\"\n\n\"Acquitor, the Imass are many things, and among those things, one virtue stands above all the others. Their loyalty cannot be sundered. They feel such forces with a depth vast and-\"\n\n\"Strange?\"\n\nBugg said nothing fora moment, knowing that he could, if he so chose, be offended by the implication in that lone word she had added to his sentence. Instead, he smiled. \"Even so.\"\n\n\"I am sorry, Ceda. You are right. Onrack was... remarkable, and a great comfort tome. Still, I do not expect him to visit again.\"\n\n\"He will, when your son is born.\"\n\n\"How will he know when that happens?\"\n\n\"Because his bonecaster wife, Kilava, set a blessing upon you and your child. By this means she remains aware of you and your condition.\"\n\n\"Oh. Would she have sensed tonight, then? The risk? The danger?\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" Bugg replied. \"She would have been... attentive. And had some form of breach occurred to directly threaten you, then I suspect that yes, she would have... intervened.\"\n\n\"How could she have hoped to defend me,\" Seren said, \"if three ancient gods had already failed?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bugg sighed. \"A conviction I am slowly coming to accept. People do not understand power. They view it exclusively as a contest, this against that; which is the greater? Which wins, which fails? Power is less about actual conflict-recognizing as it does the mutual damage conflict entails, with such damage making one vulnerable-less about actual conflict, then, than it is about statements. Presence, Acquitor, is power's truest expression. And presence is, at its core, the occupation of space. An assertion, if you will. One that must be acknowledged by other powers, lesser or greater, it matters not. '\n\n\"I am not sure I understand you.\"\n\n\"Kilava would have invoked her presence, Acquitor. One that embraced you. Now, if you still insist on simplistic comparisons, then I tell you, she would have been as a stone in a stream. The water may dream of victory, may even yearn for it, but it had best learn patience, yes? Consider every dried stream bed you have seen, Acquitor, and judge who was the ultimate victor in that war of patience.\"\n\nThe woman sighed, and Bugg heard her exhaustion.\n\nHe bowed to her. \"I shall leave-matters remain pressing for me-but the danger to you and your unborn son has passed.\"\n\nShe glanced back at the puddles. \"Do I just... mop that up?\"\n\n\"Leave it for the morning-it maybe that you will find little more than a stain by then.\"\n\n\"I can point to it when I have guests and say: \"This is where two gods melted.\"\"\n\nYes, she had need to defend herself against the events of this night. No room in her thoughts, for the moment, for anything but the child within her. Despite her words, she was not indifferent to the sundering of Pinosel and Ursto. Everything right now was about control-and this, Bugg understood, came from that ineffable strength within a woman who was or would be a mother. \"They are stubborn, those two. I would not discount them quite yet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hope you are right. Thank you, Ceda-even if the threat did not come to pass, I do appreciate your willingness to protect us. Please do not be offended if I add that I hope I never experience another night like this.\"\n\n\"I take no offence. Goodnight, Acquitor.\"\n\nBeyond the moment's heat, in the cool trickle that was the aftermath of a confrontation, bleak realizations shook free in the mind of the Errant. While he did not know if indeed the Master of the Deck had awakened-as the Malazan had claimed-the risk of such a premature clash had been too great. As for Brys Beddict and his bold arrogance, ah, that was a different matter.\n\nThe Errant stood in an alley, not far from the Malazan headquarters, and he trembled with rage and something else, something that tasted delicious. The promise of vengeance. No, Brys Beddict would not survive his return journey to the palace. It did not matter the fool's skills with a sword. Against the raw assault of the Errant's sorcery, no flickering blade could defend.\n\nTrue, this would be no gentle, unseen nudge. But old habits, by their very predictability, could be exploited. Defended against. Besides, at times, the subtle did not satisfy. He recalled, with a rush of pleasure, holding Feather Witch's head under the water, until her feeble struggles ceased. Yes, there was glory in being so forceful, so direct in the implementation of one's own will.\n\nIt could become addictive, and indeed, he welcomed the invitation.\n\nSo much gnawed at him at the moment, however, that he was anxious and wary about doing much of anything. The caster had been... frightening. The ones who were made miserable by the use of their own power ever disturbed the Errant, for he could not fathom such creatures, did not understand their reluctance, the self-imposed rules governing their behaviour. Motives were essential-one could not understand one's enemy without a sense of what they wanted, what they hungered for. But that caster, all he had hungered for was to be left alone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps that in itself could be exploited. Except that, clearly, when the caster was pushed, he did not hesitate to push back. Unblinking, smiling, appallingly confident. Leave him for now. Think of the others-any threats tome?\n\nThe Acquitor's child had guardians assembled to defend it. Those squalid drunks. Mael. Other presences, as well. Something ancient, black-furred with glowing eyes-he'd heard its warning growl, like a rumble of thunder-and that had been enough to discourage the Errant's approach.\n\nWell, the child could wait.\n\nOh, this was a vicious war indeed. But he had potential allies. Banaschar. A weak man, one he could use again. And Fener, the cowering god of war-yes, he could feed on the fool's power. He could take what he wanted, all in exchange for the sanctuary he offered. Finally, there were other forces, far to the east, who might well value his alliance.\n\nMuch still to do. But for now, this night, he would have his vengeance against that miserable heap of armour, Brys Beddict.\n\nAnd so he waited for the fool to depart the headquarters. No nudge this time. No, only his hands on the bastard's throat would appease the depth of the Errant's malice. True enough, the man who had died was not the same man who returned. More to Brys Beddict than just an interminable skein of names written into the stone of his soul. There was something else. As if the man cast more than one shadow. If Brys was destined for something else, for something more than he was now, then it behoved the Errant to quell the threat immediately." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Remove him from the game, and this time make certain he stayed dead.\n\nNothing could be worse than to walk into a room in a middling inn, stride up to the bed, and fling back the woollen blanket, only to find a dragon. Or two. All unwillingly unveiled. And in a single miserable instant, the illusions of essential, mutual protection, are castoff. Violent transformation and lo, it turns out, one small room in an inn cannot hold two dragons.\n\nIt is the conviction of serving staff the world over that they have seen everything. The hapless maid working at the inn in question could now make claim to such an achievement. Alas, it was a shortlived triumph.\n\nTelorast and Curdle, sembled once more into their quaint, tiny skeletal forms-which had become so much apart of them, so preciously adorable, that neither could bear to part with the lovely lizards-were now on a hilltop a few leagues north of the city. Once past the indignity of the unexpected event and their panicked flight from Letheras, they had spent the last bell or so howling in laughter.\n\nThe expression on the maid's face was truly unforgettable, and when Curdle's draconic head had smashed through the wall to fill the corridor, why, every resident guest had then popped out from their rooms fora look at the source of the terrible ruckus, my, such consternation-Curdle squealed in gut-busting hilarity, or would have, had she a gut.\n\nTelorast's tiny fangs still glistened with blood, although when she'd last used them they had been much, much larger. An instinctive snap-no one could blame her, not really-had collected up a fat merchant in the street below, a moment before she herself landed to fill it amidst crashing bricks and quarried limestone, and was it not essential among carnivores to indulge in blubber on occasion? It must be so, for some scholar had said it, once, somewhere. In any case, he had been delicious!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Could one blame the shark that takes a swimmer's leg? The coiling serpent that devours a toddler? The wolves that rundown an old woman? Of course not. One might decry the deed and weep for the slain victims, but to then track and hunt the killer down-as if it was some kind of evil murderer-was simply ridiculous. Indeed, it was hubris of the worst sort.\"It's the way of the world that there are hunters and the hunted, Curdle. And to live in the world is to accept that as a truth. Beasts eat other beasts, and the same is true for all these precious humans-do they not thrive and preen as hunters? Of course they do. But sometimes the hunter becomes the hunted, yes? Consider if you will and you will: some bow-legged yokel traps a hare for supper-should the rest of the hares all gather and incite themselves into deadly vengeance against that yokel? Would this be proper and just?\"\n\n\"I daresay the hares would think so!\" cried Curdle, spiny tail lashing the short grasses.\n\n\"No doubt, no doubt, but think of the outrage among the yokel's family and friends! Why, there'd be a war, a feud! Soldiers would be called in, slit-eyed scouts and master hunters wearing green floppy hats, the king would raise taxes and a thousand whores would follow in the baggage train! Poets would sing rousing ballads to fan the flames of righteousness! Entire epics would be penned to recount the venal escapades!\"\n\n\"They're just puffed upon themselves, Telorast. That's all. They're all emperors and empresses in their own puny minds, don't you see? With all in the domain theirs to do with as they will. How dare some dumb beast bite back!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We'll get them in the end, Curdle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'\n\n\"Us and the hares!\"\n\n\"Exactly! Rule the domain, will you? No, my friends, the domain rules you!\"\n\nTelorast fell silent then, as grim thoughts whispered through her. \"Curdle,\" she ventured, lifting her small reptilian skull. \"We'll need to act soon. '\n\n\"I know. It's awful! '\n\n\"Someone in the city's causing trouble. We don't like trouble, do we? At least, I don't think we do. '\n\n\"Unless it's ours, Telorast. If we're the ones causing trouble, that's just fine. Perfect, in fact. '\n\n\"Until it all goes wrong, like last time. And wasn't that your fault? That's how I remember it, Curdle. All your fault. This time round, watch yourself. Do as I say, everything I say.\"\n\n\"Should we tear him apart then?\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"The one who likes keeping the throne empty. In out in out in out, just shuffle them through. Nobody get comfortable! Chaos and confusion, civil wars and betrayals and blood everywhere! What a creep!\"\n\n\"You think we should tear him apart, Curdle?\"\n\n\"I thought I was supposed to be following your lead. So lead, Telorast! Do we rend him into little messy pieces or don't we? '\n\n\"That depends.\" Telorast leapt to her taloned feet and began pacing, tiny forearms twitching. \"Is he the enemy?\"\n\n\"Is he-what? Sweetness, aren't they all our enemies? '\n\n\"Agh! You're right! What got into me? '\n\n\"Simple, he just thought to ignore us. We don't like being ignored. People who ignore us die. That's the rule we've always lived by. Snub us and we'll chew you into mangled flaps of skin and hair! Chips of bone, things that drip and leak!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Should we go and kill him then?\"\n\n\"Maybe.\"\n\n\"Oh, tell me what to do! I can't tell you to follow my lead unless I get guidance from you first! '\n\n\"It's a partnership all right, \"agreed Curdle.\"Let me think. '\n\nTelorast paused, head lifting yet higher. \"Gah! What's those green blobs in the sky? '\n\n\"Don't come near me. '\n\nWithal eyed his wife, decided he'd seen this before, and so kept his distance.\"Why did she want you thereat all? That's what I can't figure. '\n\nSandalath sat down, the effort a protracted procedure measured in winces, grunts and cautious sighs. \"I didn't anticipate a physical assault, that's for sure.\"\n\nWithal almost stepped forward then, but managed to restrain his instinctive gesture. \"She beat you up? Gods below, I knew the Adjunct was a hard woman, but that's going too far! '\n\n\"Oh, be quiet. Of course she didn't beat me up. Let's just say the cards were assigned with some, uh, force. As if that would convince us of anything. The whole sorcery surrounding the Deck of Dragons is an affront to sensible creatures-like me.\"\n\nSensible? Well, I suppose. \"The caster found you a card, then. Which one?\"\n\nHe watched as she weighed the value of answering him. \"It threw me into a wall.\"\n\n\"What did?\"\n\n\"The card, you idiot! Queen of Dark! As if I could be anything like that-stupid deck, what does it know of High House Dark? The past is dead, the thrones abandoned. There is no King and certainly no Queen! It's senseless-how can Quick Ben be Magus of Dark? He's not even Tiste Andii. Bah, all nonsense, all of it-gods, I think my ribs are cracked. Make some tea, love, be useful.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Glad I waited up for you,\" Withal muttered, setting off to brew a pot. \"Any preferences?\"\n\n\"No, but add a drop of d'bayang oil, will you? Next time, I'll wear armour. Is it cold inhere? Feed the hearth, I don't want to get a chill. Throw me those furs. Is that water pipe just ornamental? Do we have any durhang? Gods, it hurts to talk. '\n\nNews tome, darling.\n\nThe dead iguana's last animate act had been to clamp its jaws on Limp's right ear. The soldier was weeping softly as Deadsmell knelt beside him and tried to prise loose the lizard's savage grip. Blood flowed and it looked as if Limp was going to be left with half an ear on that side.\n\nEbron was sitting on the bed, head in his hands. \"It'll be all right, Limp. We'll get the knee fixed up. Maybe sew that bit of ear back on-\"\n\n\"No we won't, \"said Deadsmell.\"That'll go septic for sure and then spread out. Iguana saliva, especially a dead iguana's saliva, is bound to be nasty stuff. As it is, I'll need to work a ritual to purge whatever toxins have already slipped into him.\" He paused. \"Masan, you can crawl out from under the bed now.\"\n\n\"So you say,\" the woman replied, then coughed. \"Hood-damned hairballs-I'll never be clean again. '\n\nLimp squealed when Deadsmell worked a knife-blade between the iguana's jaws and, failing to open them, simply started cutting at the tendons and muscle tissue at the hinges. A moment later and the creature fell away, startling everyone when it whistled an exhalation through its slitted nostrils." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I thought you said it was dead!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cord accused, walking over to slam his boot heel down on the iguana's head. Things splatted out to the sides.\n\n\"Now it is,\" Deadsmell affirmed. \"Lie still, Limp. Let's get the healing started-'\n\n\"You should never let necromancers heal people,\" Crump complained, glowering from the corner of the room. The various components of his woodcarving, shapeless riders on shapeless horses, had all vanished out into the corridor after breaching the door, which seemed to have been achieved by a combination of chewing and hacking and who knew what else.\n\nDeadsmell scowled over at the sapper. \"You wouldn't be saying that if you were dying of some wound and I was your only hope. '\n\n\"Yes I would.\"\n\nThe necromancer offered him a nasty smile. \"We'll see someday, won't we?\"\n\n\"No we won't. I'll kill you first before I get wounded.\"\n\n\"And then we'd both be dead. '\n\n\"That's right, so there! Just what I was saying-nothing good comes of no necromancers nohow! '\n\nThe flicker bird was a mashed heap of feathers on the floor. The bat-turtle had fled through the hole in the door, possibly in pursuit of the wooden troop. The black-furred rat still clung on all fours to the ceiling.\n\nShard moved to stand opposite Ebron. \"Was Deadsmell right, mage? Did the Lord of Death show up here?\"\n\n\"No. Not as such. Why don't you ask him yourself-'\n\n\"Because he's busy healing. I want to hear from you, Ebron. '\n\n\"More like all the warrens woke up all at once. Corporal, I don't know what the Adjunct's playing at, but it won't be fun. We're gonna march soon-I think tonight's decided it. The roles are set, only I doubt anybody-even Tavore-knows all the players. Noses are gonna get bloodied. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Deadsmell had of course been listening. Working on the wreck that was Limp's knee had become rote for the healer-as it was for virtually every healer in the company, not one of whom had escaped delivering ministrations to the hapless fool.\"Ebron's right. I don't envy your squad, if you end up as Sinn's escort again-she's right in the middle of it. '\n\n\"I don't like her neither, ' said Crump.\n\nEbron sneered at Deadsmell. \"How close we happen to be with anybody won't make any difference. We're all in trouble.\"\n\nAn odd, frothy, bubbling sound drew everyone's attention, and all eyes fixed on the crushed head of the iguana, as it exhaled yet again.\n\nA snort came from under the bed. \"I ain't leaving here until the sun comes up. '\n\nThe others had left, their departure more a headlong flight than a solemn dismissal, until only the Adjunct, Lostara Yil and Brys Beddict remained. Plaster dust hazed the light from the lanterns, and the floor ground and crunched underfoot.\n\nBrys watched as the Adjunct slowly sat down in the chair at the head of the table, and it was hard to determine which woman was more shaken or distraught. Whatever sorrow was buried within Lostara Yil now seemed much closer to the surface, and she had said not a word since Fiddler's exit, standing with arms crossed-a gesture that likely had as much to do with aching ribs as anything else.\n\n\"Thank you,\" said the Adjunct, \"for being here, sir.\"\n\nStartled, Brys frowned. \"I may well have been the reason for the Errant's attention, Adjunct. You would perhaps be more justified in cursing me instead. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I do not believe that,\" she replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We are in the habit of acquiring enemies.\"\n\n\"This is the Errant's backyard, \"Brys pointed out.\"Naturally, he resents intruders. But even more, he despises the other residents who happen to share it with him. People like me, Adjunct. '\n\nShe glanced up at him. \"You were dead, once. Or so I understand. Resurrected.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"It is extraordinary how little choice one has in such matters. If I mull on that overlong I become despondent. I do not appreciate the notion of being so easily manipulated. I would prefer to think of my soul as my own.\"\n\nShe looked away, and then settled her hands flat on the table before her-a strange gesture-whereupon she seemed to study them. \"Fiddler spoke of the Errant's... rival. The Master of the Deck of Dragons. \"She hesitated, and then added,\"That man is my brother, Ganoes Paran. '\n\n\"Ah. I see.\"\n\nShe shook her head but would not lookup, intent on her hands. \"I doubt that. We may share blood, but in so far as I know, we are not allies. Not... close. There are old issues between us. Matters that cannot be salved, not by deed, not byword.\"\n\n\"Sometimes,\" Brys ventured, \"when nothing can be shared except regret, then regret must serve as the place to begin. Reconciliation does not demand that one side surrender to the other. The simple, mutual recognition that mistakes were made is in itself a closing of the divide.\"\n\nShe managed a half-smile. \"Brys Beddict, your words, however wise, presume communication between the parties involved. Alas, this has not been the case.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Perhaps, then, you might have welcomed the Master's attention this night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet, if I did indeed understand Fiddler, no such contact was in truth forthcoming. Your soldier bluffed. Tell me, if you would, is your brother aware of your... predicament? '\n\nShe shot him a look, sharp, searching. \"I do not recall sharing any details of my predicament.\"\n\nBrys was silent. Wondering what secret web he had just set trembling.\n\nShe rose, frowned over at Lostara fora moment, as if surprised to find her still there, and then said, \"Inform the King that we intend to depart soon. We will be rendezvousing with allies at the border to the Wastelands, whereupon we shall march east.\" She paused. \"Naturally, we must ensure that we are well supplied with all necessities-of course, we shall pay in silver and gold for said materiel.\"\n\n\"We would seek to dissuade you, Adjunct,\" said Brys. \"The Wastelands are aptly named, and as for the lands east of them, what little we hear has not been promising.\"\n\n\"We're not looking for promises, ' the Adjunct replied.\n\nBrys Beddict bowed. \"I shall take my leave now, Adjunct.\"\n\n\"Do you wish an escort?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"That will not be necessary. Thank you for the offer.\"\n\nThe roof would have to do. He'd wanted a tower, something ridiculously high. Ora pinnacle and some tottering, ragged keep moments from plunging off the cliff into the thrashing seas below. Or perhaps a cliff-side fastness on some raw mountain, slick with ice and drifts of snow. An abbey atop a mesa, with the only access through a rope and pulley system with a wicker basket to ride in. But this roof would have to do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Quick Ben glared at the greenish smear in the south sky, that troop of celestial riders not one of whom had any good news to deliver, no doubt. Magus of Dark. The bastard! You got a nasty nose, Fid, haven't you just. And don't even try it with that innocent look. One more disarming shrug from you and I'll ram ten warrens down your throat.\n\nMagus of Dark.\n\nThere was a throne once... no, never mind.\n\nJust stay away from Sandalath, that's all. Stay away, ducked out of sight. It was just a reading, after all. Fiddler's usual mumbo jumbo. Means nothing. Meant nothing. Don't bother me, I'm busy.\n\nMagus of Dark.\n\nFiddler was now drunk, along with Stormy and Gesler, badly singing old Napan pirate songs, not one of which was remotely clever. Bottle, sporting three fractured ribs, had shuffled off to find a healer he could bribe awake. Sinn and Grub had runaway, like a couple of rats whose tails had just been chopped off by the world's biggest cleaver. And Hedge... Hedge was creeping up behind him right now, worse than an addled assassin.\n\n\"Go away.\"\n\n\"Not a chance, Quick. We got to talk.\"\n\n\"No we don't. '\n\n\"He said I was the Mason of Death.\"\n\n\"So build a crypt and climb inside, Hedge. I'll be happy to seal it for you with every ward I can think of. '\n\n\"The thing is, Fid's probably right. '\n\nEyes narrowing, Quick Ben faced the sapper. \"Hood's been busy of late. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You'd know more of that than me, and don't deny it.\"\n\n\"It's got nothing to do with us. '\n\n\"You sure?\"\n\nQuick Ben nodded.\n\n\"Then why am I the Mason of Death?\"\n\nThe shout echoed from the nearby rooftops and Quick Ben flinched. \"Because you're needed, ' he said after a moment.\n\n\"To do what?\"\n\n\"You're needed, \"Quick Ben snarled,\" to build us a road. '\n\nHedge stared. \"Gods below, where are we going?\"\n\n\"The real question is whether we'll ever get there. Listen, Hedge, she's nothing like you think. She's nothing like any of us thinks. I can't explain-I can't get any closer than that. Don't try anticipating. Or second-guessing-she'll confound you at every turn. Just look at this reading-'\n\n\"That was Fid's doing-'\n\n\"You think so? You're dead wrong. He knows because she told him. Him and no one else. Now, you can try to twist Fiddler for details all you like-it won't work. The truth as much as cutout his tongue.\"\n\n\"So what's made you the Magus of Dark? What miserable piss-sour secret you holding back on now, Quick? '\n\nThe wizard turned away once more, stared out over the city, and then stiffened. \"Shit, what now?\"\n\nThe sorcery erupted from an alley mouth, striking Brys Beddict from his left side. The impact sent him sprawling, grey tendrils writhing like serpents about his body. In the span of a single heartbeat, the magic had bound him tight, arms trapped. The coils began constricting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lying on his back, staring up at the night sky-that had at last begun to pale-Brys heard footsteps and a moment later the Errant stepped into the range of his vision." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The god's single eye gleamed like a star burning through mist.\n\n\"I warned you, Brys Beddict. This time, there will be no mistakes. Yes, it was me who nudged you to take that mouthful of poisoned wine-oh, the Chancellor had not anticipated such a thing, but he can be forgiven that. After all, how could I have imagined that you'd found a guardian among Mael's minions?\" He paused, and then said, \"No matter. I am done with subtlety-this is much better. I can look into your eyes and watch you die, and what could be more satisfying than that?\"\n\nThe sorcery tautened, forcing Brys's breath from his lungs. Darkness closed in round his vision until all he could see was the Errant's face, a visage that had lost all grace as avid hunger twisted the features. He watched as the god lifted one hand and slowly clenched the fingers-and the pressure around Brys's chest built until his ribs creaked.\n\nThe new fist that arrived hammered like a maul against the side of the Errant's head, snapping it far over. The gleaming eye seemed to wink out and the god crumpled, vanishing from Brys's dwindling vision.\n\nAll at once the coils weakened, and then frayed into dissolving threads.\n\nBrys drew a ragged, delicious breath of chill night air.\n\nHe heard horse hoofs, a half dozen beasts, maybe more, approaching at a canter from up the street. Blinking sweat from his eyes, Brys rolled onto his stomach and then forced himself to his knees.\n\nA hand closed on his harness and lifted him to his feet.\n\nHe found himself staring up at a Tarthenal-a familiar face, the heavy, robust features knotted absurdly into a fierce frown." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I got a question for you. It was for your brother and I was on my way but then I saw you.\"\n\nThe riders arrived, horses skidding on the dew-slick cobbles-a Malazan troop, Brys saw, weapons unsheathed. One of them, a dark-skinned woman, pointed with a sword. \"He crawled into that alley-come on, let's chop the bastard into stewing meat! ' She made to dismount and then seemed to sag and an instant later she collapsed onto the street, weapon clattering.\n\nOther soldiers dropped down from their mounts. Three of them converged on the unconscious woman, while the others fanned out and advanced into the alley.\n\nBrys was still having difficulty staying upright. He found himself leaning with one forearm against the Tarthenal. \"Ublala Pung,\" he sighed, \"thank you.\"\n\n\"I got a question.\"\n\nBrys nodded. \"All right, let's hear it. '\n\n\"But that's the problem. I forgot what it was. '\n\nOne of the Malazans crowded round the woman now straightened and faced them. \"Sinter said there was trouble,\" he said in heavily accented trader tongue. \"Said we needed to hurry-to here, to save someone.\"\n\n\"I believe,\" Brys said, \"the danger has passed. Is she all right, sir?\"\n\n\"I'm a sergeant-people don't\"sir\" me... sir. She's just done in. Both her and her sister. \"He scowled.\"But we'll escort you just the same, sir-she'd never forgive us if something happened to you now. So, wherever you're going...\"\n\nThe other soldiers emerged from the alley, and one said something in Malazan, although Brys needed no translation to understand that they'd found no one-the Errant's survival instincts were ever strong, even when he'd been knocked silly by a Tarthenal's fist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It seems,\" Brys said, \"I shall have an escort after all.\"\n\n\"It is not an offer you can refuse, sir,\" said the sergeant.\n\nNor will I. Lesson learned, Adjunct.\n\nThe soldiers were attempting to heave the woman named Sinter back into her saddle. Ublala Pung stepped up to them. \"I will carry her,\" he said. \"She's pretty. '\n\n\"Do as the Toblakai says,\" said the sergeant.\n\n\"She's pretty, \"Ublala Pung said again, as he took her limp form in his arms.\"Pretty smelly, too, but that's okay.\"\n\n\"Perimeter escort,\" snapped the sergeant, \"crossbows cocked. Anybody steps out, nail'em. '\n\nBrys prayed there would be no early risers between here and the palace. \"Best we hurry,\" he ventured.\n\nOn a rooftop not faraway, Quick Ben sighed and then relaxed.\n\n\"What was all that about?\" Hedge asked beside him.\n\n\"Damned Toblakai... but that's not the interesting bit, though, is it? No, it's that Dal Honese woman. Well, that can all wait.\"\n\n\"You're babbling, wizard. '\n\nMagus of Dark. Gods below.\n\nAlone in the cellar beneath the dormitories, Fiddler stared down at the card in his hand. The lacquered wood glistened, dripped as if slick with sweat. The smell rising from it was of humus, rich and dark, ascent of the raw earth.\n\n\"Tartheno Toblakai,\" he whispered.\n\nHerald of Life.\n\nWell, just so." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He set it down and then squinted at the second card he had withdrawn to close this dread night. Unaligned. Chain. Aye, we all know about those, my dear. Fret naught, it's the price of living.\n\nNow, if only you weren't so... strong. If only you were weaker. If only your chains didn't reach right into the heart of the Bonehunters-if only I knew who was dragging who, why, I might have reason to hope.\n\nBut he didn't, and so there wasn't." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Behold these joyful devourers\n\nThe land laid out skewered in silver Candlesticks of softest pewter Rolling the logs down cut on end To make roads through the forest That once was-before the logs (Were rolled down cut on end)-We called it stump road and we Called it forest road when Our imaginations starved You can make fans with ribs Of sheep and pouches for baubles By pounding flat the ears Of old women and old men-Older is best for the ear grows Forever it's said, even when There's not a scrap anywhere to eat So we carried our wealth In pendulum pouches wrinkled And hairy, diamonds and gems Enough to buy a forest or a road But maybe not both Enough even for slippers of Supplest skin feathered in down Like a baby's cheek There is a secret we know When nothing else is left And the sky stops its tears A belly can bulge full On diamonds and gems And a forest can make a road Through what once was You just won't find any shade\n\nPENDULUMS WERE ONCE TOYS B ADALLE OF K ORBANSE SNAKE\n\nTo journey into the other worlds, a shaman or witch of the Elan would ride the Spotted Horse. Seven herbs, softened with beeswax and rolled into a ball and then flattened into an oblong disc that was taken into the mouth and held between lip and gum. Coolness slowly numbing and saliva rising as if the throat was the mouth of a spring, a tingling sensation lifting to gather behind the eyes in coalescing colours and then, in a blinding flash, the veil between worlds vanished. Patterns swirled in the air; complex geometries played across the landscape-a landscape that could be the limitless wall of a hide tent, or the rolling plains of a cave wall where ran the beasts-until the heart-stains emerged, pulsing, blotting the scene in undulating rows, sweet as waves and tasting of mother's milk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So arrived the Spotted Horse, a cascade of heart-stains rippling across the beast, down its long neck, sweeping along its withers, flowing like seed-heads from its mane and tail.\n\nRide into the alien world. Ride among the ancestors and the not-yet-born, among the tall men with their eternally swollen members, the women with their forever-filled wombs. Through forests of black threads, the touch or brush of anyone of them an invitation to endless torment, for this was the path of return for all life, and to be born was to pass through and find the soul's fated thread-the tale of a future death that could not be escaped. To ride the other way, however, demanded a supple traverse, evading such threads, lest one's own birth-fate become entangled, knotted, and so doom the soul to eternal prison, snared within the web of conflicted fates.\n\nProphecies could be found among the black threads, but the world beyond that forest was the greatest gift. Timeless, home to all the souls that ever existed; this was where grief was shed, where sorrow dried up and blew away like dust, where scars vanished. To journey into this realm was to be cleansed, made whole, purged of all regrets and dark desires.\n\nRiding the Spotted Horse and then returning was to be reborn, guiltless, guileless.\n\nKalyth knew all this, but only second-hand. The riders among her people passed on the truths, generation upon generation. Anyone of the seven herbs, if taken alone, would kill. The seven mixed in wrong proportions delivered madness. And, finally, only those chosen as worthy by the shamans and witches would ever know the gift of the journey.\n\nFor one such as Kalyth, mired in the necessary mediocrity so vital to the maintenance of family, village and the Elan way of living, to take upon herself such a ritual-to even so much as taste the seven herbs-was a sentence to death and damnation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of course, the Elan were gone. No more shamans or witches to be found. No families, no villages, no clans, no herds-every ring of tipi stones, spanning the rises tucked at the foot of yet higher hilltops, now marked the motionless remnant of a final camp, a camp never to be returned to, the stones destined to sink slowly where they lay, the lichen on their undersides dying, the grasses so indifferently crushed beneath them turning white as bone. Such boulder rings were now maps of extinction and death. They held no promises, only the sorrow of endings.\n\nShe had suffered her own damnation, one devoid of any crime, any real culpability beyond her cowardly flight: her appalling abandonment of her family. There had been no shamans left to utter the curse, but that hardly mattered, did it?\n\nShe sat, as the sun withered in the west and the grasses surrounding her grew wiry and grey, staring down at the disc lying in the palm of her hand.\n\nElan magic. As foreign to her world now as the Che'Malle machines in Ampelas Rooted had been when she'd first set eyes upon them. To ride the Spotted Horse through the ashes of her people invited... what? She did not know, could not know. Would she find the spirits of her kin-would they truly look upon her with love and forgiveness? Was this her secret desire? Not a quest into the realms of prophecy seeking hidden knowledge; not searching fora Mortal Sword and a Shield Anvil for the K'Chain Che'Malle?\n\nDire confusion-her motivations were suspect-hah, rotted through and through!\n\nAnd might there not be another kind of salvation she was seeking here? The invitation into madness, into death itself? Possibly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Beware the leader who has nothing to lose.\"\n\nHer people were proud of their wise sayings. And yet now, in their mortal silence, wisdom and pride proved a perfect match in value. Namely: worthless.\n\nThe Che'Malle were camped-if one could call it that-behind the rise at her back. They had built afire inviting Kalyth's comfort, but this night she was not interested in comfort.\n\nThe Shi'gal Assassin still circled high in the darkening sky above them-their nightly sentinel who never tired and never spoke and yet was known to all (she suspected) as their potential slayer, should they fail. Blessings of the spirits, that was a ghastly creature, a demon to beggar her worst nightmares. Oh, how it sailed the night winds, a cold-eyed raptor, a conjuration of singular purpose.\n\nKalyth shivered. Then, squeezing shut her eyes as the sun's sickle of fire dipped below the horizon, she slid the disc into her mouth.\n\nStinging like a snake's bite, and then numbness, spreading, spreading...\n\n\"Never trust a leader who has nothing to lose.\"\n\nAt these muttered words from the human female, drifting over the hummock down to where stood the K'Chain Che'Malle, the K'ell Hunter Sag'Churok swung round his massive, scarred head. Over his eyes, three distinct lids blinked in succession, reawakening the camp's reflected firelight in a wet gleam. The Matron's daughter, Gunth Mach, seemed to flinch, but she remained closed to Sag'Churok's tentative query.\n\nThe other two K'ell Hunters, indifferent to anything the human might say, were half-crouched and facing away from the ring of stones that surrounded a half-dozen bricks of burning bhederin dung, away from the flames that could steal their night vision. The enormous cutlasses at the ends of their wrists rested point-down, their arms stretched out to the sides. By nature, K'ell disliked such menial tasks as sentry duty. They existed to pursue quarry, after all. But the Matron had elected to send them out without J'an Sentinels; further proof that in keeping all her guardians close, Gunth'an Acyl feared for her own life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Senior among these K'ell, Sag'Churok was Gunth Mach's protector, and should the time come when the Destriant found a Mortal Sword and a Shield Anvil, then he would also assume the task of escorting them on the return to Acyl Nest.\n\nErrors in judgement plagued Ampelas Rooted. A flawed Matron produced flawed spawn. This was a known truth. It was not a thing that could be defeated or circumvented. The spawn must follow. Even so, Sag'Churok knew an abiding sense of failure, a dull, persistent anguish.\n\nBeware the leader...\n\nYes. The one they had chosen, known as Redmask, had proved as flawed as any K'Chain Che'Malle of the Hive, and the cruel logic of that still stung. Perhaps the Matron was correct in electing a human to undertake the search this time.\n\nVisions bound with intent whispered through Sag'Churok. The Shi'gal Assassin, wheeling in the darkness far above them, had thrust a sending into the brain of the K'ell Hunter. Cold, rough-skinned, careless of the pain the sending delivered-indeed, it was of such power that Gunth Mach's head snapped up, eyes fixing on Sag'Churok as ripples overflowed to brush her senses.\n\nIntruders in vast herd, countless fires.\n\n\"Perhaps, then, among these ones?\" Sag'Churok sent in return.\n\nThe one who leads is not for us.\n\nA bestial scent followed that statement, one that Sag'Churok recognized. Glands awakened beneath the heavy armoured scales along the K'ell's spine, the first of the instinctive preparations for hunting, for battle, and as those scales seemed to lift and float on the thickening layer of oil, the innermost lids closed over his eyes, rising from below to entirely sheathe his vision. Boulders on a distant hill suddenly glowed, still bearing the heat of the sun. Small creatures moved in the grasses, revealed by their breaths, their rapidly beating hearts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "K'ell Rythok and Kor Thuran both caught the bitter signature of the oil, and they straightened from their crouches, swinging free their swords.\n\nA final thought reached Sag'Churok. Too many to slay. Best avoid.\n\n\"How do we avoid, Shi'gal Gu'Rull? Do they bestride our chosen path?\"\n\nBut the Assassin did not deem such questions worth an answer, and Sag'Churok felt the Shi'gal's contempt.\n\nGunth Mach sent her guardian a private thought. He wishes that we fail.\n\n\"If he so hungers to slay, then why not these strangers?\"\n\nIt is not for me to say, she replied. Gu'Rull spoke not tome, after all, but to you. He would admit to nothing, but he holds you in respect. You have Hunted and like me you have borne wounds and tasted your own blood and in that taste we both saw our mortality. This, Gu'Rull shares with you, while Rythok and Kor Thuran do not.\n\n\"And yet in his careless power his thoughts leak to you-\"\n\nDoes he know of my growth? I think not. Only you know the truth, Sag'Churok. To all others I reveal nothing. They believe me still little more than a drone, a promise, a possibility. I am close, first love, so very close.\n\nYes, he had known, or thought he had. Now, shock threatened to reveal itself and the K'ell struggled to contain it.\"Gunth'an Acyl?\"\n\nShe cannot see past her suffering.\n\nSag'Churok was not certain of that, but he sent nothing. It was not for him to counsel Gunth Mach, after all. Also, the notion that the Shi'gal Assassin sought to share anything with him was troubling. The taste of mortality was the birth of weakness, after all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rythok addressed him suddenly, gruffly pushing through his inner turmoil." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You waken to threat, yet we sense nothing. Even so, should we not quench this useless fire?\"\n\nYes, Rythok. The Destriant sleeps and we have no need.\n\n\"Do you hunt?\"\n\nNo. But we are not alone in this land-human herds move to the south.\n\n\"Is this not what Acyl desires? Is this not what the Destriant must find?\"\n\nNot these ones, Rythok. Yet, we shall pass through this herd... you will, I think, taste your own blood soon. You and Kor Thuran. Prepare yourselves.\n\nAnd, with faint dismay, Sag'Churok saw that they were pleased.\n\nThe air thickened, clear as the humour of an eye, and all that Kalyth could see through it shimmered and shifted, swam and blurred. The sweep of stars flowed in discordant motion; the grasses of the undulating hills wavered, as if startled by wayward winds. Motes of detritus drifted about, shapeless and faintly pulsing crimson, some descending to roll across the ground, others wandering skyward as if on rising currents.\n\nEveryplace held every memory of what it had once been. A plain that had been the bottom of a lake, the floor of a shallow sea, the lightless depths of avast ocean. A hill that had been the peak of a young mountain, one of a chain of islands, the jagged fang of the earth buried in glacial ice. Dust that had been plants, sand that had been stone, stains that had been bone and flesh. Most memories, Kalyth understood, remain hidden, unseen and beneath the regard of flickering life. Yet, once the eyes were awakened, every memory was then unveiled, a fragment here, a hint there, a host of truths whispering of eternity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Such knowledge could crush a soul with its immensity, or drown it beneath a deluge of unbearable futility." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As soon as the distinction was made, that separation of self from all the rest, from the entire world beyond-its ceaseless measure of time, its whimsical game with change played out in slow siege and in sudden catastrophe-then the self became an orphan, bereft of all security, and face to face with a world now become at best a stranger, at worst an implacable, heartless foe.\n\nIn arrogance we orphan ourselves, and then rail at the awful solitude we find on the road to death.\n\nBut how could one step back into the world? How could one learn to swim such currents? In self-proclamation, the soul decided what it was that lay within in opposition to all that lay beyond. Inside, outside, familiar, strange, that which is possessed, that which is coveted, all that is within grasp and all that is forever beyond reach. The distinction was a deep, vicious cut of a knife, severing tendons and muscles, arteries and nerves.\n\nA knife?\n\nNo, that was the wrong weapon, apathetic construct from her limited imagination. Indeed, the force that divided was something... other.\n\nIt was, she now believed, maybe even alive.\n\nThe multilayered vista before her was suddenly transformed. Grasses withered and blew away. High dunes of sand humped the horizon, and in a basin just ahead of her she saw a figure, its back to her as it knelt in the hard-edged shadow of a monolith of some sort. The stone-if that was what it was-was patinated with rust, the mottled stains looking raw, almost fresh against the green-black rock.\n\nShe found herself drawing closer. The figure was not simply kneeling in worship or obeisance, she realized. It was digging, hands thrust deep into the sands, almost up to the elbows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was an old man, his skin blue-black. Bald, the skin covering the skull scarred. If he heard her approaching, he gave no sign.\n\nWas this some moment of the past? Millennia unfolding as all those layers fleeted away? Was she now witness to a memory of the Wastelands?\n\nThe monolith, Kalyth suddenly comprehended, was carved in the likeness of a finger. And the stone that she had first seen as green and black was growing translucent, serpentine green, revealing inner flaws and facets. She saw seams like veins of deep emerald, and masses that might be bone, the colour of true jade, deep within the edifice.\n\nThe old man-whose skin was not blue and black as she had first believed, but so thickly tattooed in swirling fur that nothing of its natural tone remained-now spoke, though he did not cease thrusting his hands into the sand at the base of the monolith. \"There is a tribe in the Sanimon,\" he said, \"that claims it was the first to master the forging of iron. They still make tools and weapons in the traditional manner-quenching blades in sand, just as I'm doing right now, do you see? '\n\nThough she did not know his language, she understood him, and at his question she squinted once more at his arms-if his hands gripped weapons, then he had pushed them deep into the sands indeed.\n\nYet she saw no forge-not even a firepit-anywhere insight.\n\n\"I do not think,\" the man continued, gasping every now and then, as if in pain, \"I do not think, however, that I have it exactly right. There must be some other secrets involved. Quenching in water or manure piles-I have no experience in such things.\" He paused. \"At least, I don't think I do. So much... forgotten. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are not Elan,\" Kalyth said.\n\nHe smiled at her words, although instead of looking at her he fixed his gaze on the monolith. \"But here is a thing,\" he said. \"I can name, oh, a hundred different tribes. Seven Cities tribes, Quon Talian tribes, Korel tribes, Genabackan-and they all share one thing and one thing only and do you know what that is?\"\n\nHe waited, as if he had addressed the monolith rather than Kalyth, who stood beside him, close enough to reach out and touch. \"I will tell you,\" he then said. \"Every one of them is or is about to be extinct. Melted away, in the fashion of all peoples, eventually. Sometimes some semblance of their blood lives on, finds new homes, watered down, forgetful. Or they're nothing but dust, even their names gone, forever gone. No one to mourn the loss... and all that. '\n\n\"I am the last Elan,\" she told him.\n\nHe resumed pushing his hands deep into the sand, as deep as he could manage. \"I am readying myself... to wield a most formidable weapon. They thought to hide it from me. They failed. Weapons must be tempered and tempered well, of course. They even thought to kill it. As if such a thing is remotely possible\"-he paused-\"then again, perhaps it is. The key to everything, you see, is to cut clean, down the middle. A clean cut-that's what I dream of. '\n\n\"I dream of... this,\" she said. \"I have ridden the Spotted Horse. I have found you in the realms beyond-why? Have you summoned me? What am Ito you? What are you tome?\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Take the role of the writer's aide, proceed with the narrative.\nTags: epic fantasy, complex plot, multiple characters, dark themes, intricate world-building\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Dust of Dreams\nChapter: 16" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are not Elan,\" Kalyth said.\n\nHe smiled at her words, although instead of looking at her he fixed his gaze on the monolith. \"But here is a thing,\" he said. \"I can name, oh, a hundred different tribes. Seven Cities tribes, Quon Talian tribes, Korel tribes, Genabackan-and they all share one thing and one thing only and do you know what that is?\"\n\nHe waited, as if he had addressed the monolith rather than Kalyth, who stood beside him, close enough to reach out and touch. \"I will tell you,\" he then said. \"Every one of them is or is about to be extinct. Melted away, in the fashion of all peoples, eventually. Sometimes some semblance of their blood lives on, finds new homes, watered down, forgetful. Or they're nothing but dust, even their names gone, forever gone. No one to mourn the loss... and all that. '\n\n\"I am the last Elan,\" she told him.\n\nHe resumed pushing his hands deep into the sand, as deep as he could manage. \"I am readying myself... to wield a most formidable weapon. They thought to hide it from me. They failed. Weapons must be tempered and tempered well, of course. They even thought to kill it. As if such a thing is remotely possible\"-he paused-\"then again, perhaps it is. The key to everything, you see, is to cut clean, down the middle. A clean cut-that's what I dream of. '\n\n\"I dream of... this,\" she said. \"I have ridden the Spotted Horse. I have found you in the realms beyond-why? Have you summoned me? What am Ito you? What are you tome?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He laughed. \"Now that amuses me! I see where you're pointing-you think I don't? You think I am blind to this, too?\"\n\n\"I ride the-\"\n\n\"Oh, enough of that! You took something. That's how you get here, that's how everyone gets here. Or they dance and dance until they fall into and out from their bodies. Whatever you took just eased you back into the rhythm that exists in all things-the pulse of the universe, if you like. With enough discipline you don't need to take anything at all-which is a good thing, since after tenor twenty years of eating herbs or whatever, most shamans are inured to their effects anyway. So the ingesting serves only as ritual, as permission to journey. \"He suddenly halted all motions.\"Spotted Horse... yes, visual hallucinations, patterns floating in front of the eyes. The Bivik called it Wound Drumming-like blossoming bloodstains, I suppose they meant. Thump thump thump... And the Fenn-'\n\n\"The Matron looks to our kind,\" she cut in. \"The old ways have failed.\"\n\n\"The old ways ever fail,\" the old man said. \"So too the new ways, more often than not.\"\n\n\"She is desperate-\"\n\n\"Desperation delivers poison counsel.\"\n\n\"Have you nothing worthwhile to tell me?\"\n\n\"The secret lies in the tempering,\" he said. \"That is a worthwhile thing to tell you. Your weapon must be well tempered. Soundly forged, ingeniously annealed, the edges honed with surety. The finger points straight towards them, you see-well, if this were a proper sky, you'd see. ' His broad face split in a smile that was more a grimace than a signature of pleasure-and she thought that, despite his words suggesting otherwise, he might be blind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is a flaw,\" he continued, \"to view mortals and gods as if they were on opposite sides. A flaw. An error most fundamental. Because then, when the blade comes down, why, they are forever lost to each other. Now, does she understand? Possibly, but if so, then she terrifies me-for such wisdom seems almost... inhuman.\" He shook himself and leaned back, withdrawing his arms from the sand.\n\nShe stared, curious and wondering at the weapons he held-only to find he held none. And that his hands, the hue of rust, gleamed as if polished.\n\nHe held them up. \"Expected green, did you? Green jade, yes, and glowing. But not this time, not for this, oh no. Are they ready? Ready to grasp that most deadly weapon? I think not.\"\n\nAnd down went those hands, plunging into the sands once more.\n\nAfoot troop of human scouts, ranging well north of the main herd, had caught sight of the lone campfire. They now moved towards it-even as the distant flickering flames winked out-and, spreading out into a crescent formation, they displayed great skill in stealth, moving virtually unseen across the plain.\n\nOne of the scouts, white-painted face covered in dark cloth, came near a motionless hare and the creature sensed nothing of the warrior edging past, no more than five paces away.\n\nFew plains were truly flat or featureless. Dips and rises flowed on all sides; stretches tilted and in so doing mocked all sense of distance and perspective; burrow mounds hid beneath tufts of grass; gullies ran in narrow, treacherous channels that one could not see until one stumbled into them. To move unseen across this landscape was to travel as did the four-legged hunters and prey, from scant cover to scant cover, in fits and starts, eloquent as shadows. Even so, the Wastelands were aptly named, for much of the natural plain had been scoured away, and spans of little more than broken rock and windblown sand challenged any measure of skill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Despite such restrictions, these scouts, eighteen in number, betrayed not a breath as they closed in on where that campfire had been. Although all bore weapons-javelins and odd single-edged cutlasses-the former remained slung across their broad backs, while the swords were strapped tight, bound and muffled at their sides.\n\nClearly, then, curiosity drove them to seek out the lone camp, to discover with whom they shared this land.\n\nTwo thousand paces and closing, the scouts slipped into abroad basin, and all that lit them now was the pale jade glow of the mysterious travellers in the night sky.\n\nThe crescent formation slowly inverted, the central scout moving ahead to form its apex. When the troop reached a certain distance, the lead scout would venture closer on his own.\n\nGu'Rull stood awaiting him. The towering K'Chain Che'Malle should have been clearly visible, but not a single human saw him. When it was time to kill, the Shi'gal Assassin could cloud the minds of his victims, although this was generally only effective while such targets were unsuspecting; and against other Shi'gal, J'an Sentinels and senior Ve'Gath Soldiers, no such confusion was possible.\n\nThese humans, of course, were feeble, and for all their stealth, the heat of their bodies made them blaze like beacons in Gu'Rull's eyes.\n\nThe lead scout padded directly towards the Assassin, who waited, wings folded and retracted. The hinged claws on his narrow, long fingers slowly emerged from their membrane sheaths, slick with neural venom-although in the case of these soft-skinned humans, poison was not necessary.\n\nWhen the warrior came into range, Gu'Rull saw the man hesitate-as if some instinct had awakened within him-but it was too late. The Assassin lashed out one hand. Claws sliced into the man's head from one side, through flesh and bone, and the strength of the blow half tore the scout's head from his neck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Long before the first victim fell, Gu'Rull was on the move, an arching scythe of night rushing to the next warrior. Claws plunged into the man's midsection, hooked beneath the rib cage, and the assassin lifted him from his feet and then flung the flailing, blood-spewing body away.\n\nDaggers flashed in the air as the rest of the scouts converged. Two of the thrown weapons struck Gu'Rull, both skidding off his thick, sleek scales. Javelins were readied, poised for the throw-but the Shi'gal was already amongst them, batting aside panicked thrusts, claws raking through bodies, head snapping out on its long neck, jaws crushing skulls, chests, biting through shoulders. Blood spattered like sleet on the rough, stony ground, and burst in dark mists in the wake of the Assassin's deadly blows.\n\nTwo scouts pulled back, sought to flee, and for the moment Gu'Rull let them go, occupied as he was with the last warriors surrounding him. He understood that they were not cowards-the two now running as fast as they could southward, each choosing his own path-no, they sought to bring word of the slaughter, the new foe, to the ruler of the herd.\n\nThis was unacceptable, of course.\n\nMoments later and the Assassin stood alone, tail lashing, hands shedding long threads of blood. He drew a breath into his shallow lungs, and then into his deep lungs, restoring strength and vigour to his muscles.\n\nHe unfolded his wings.\n\nThe last two needed to die.\n\nGu'Rull launched himself into the air, wings flapping, feather-scales whistling a droning dirge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once aloft, the bright forms of the two scouts shone like pyres on the dark plain. While, in the Assassin's wake as he swept towards the nearer of the two, sixteen corpses slowly cooled, dimming like fading embers from a scattered hearth.\n\nSag'Churok could smell blood in the air. He heard, as well, the frustrated snorts from the two unblooded Hunters who stood, limbs quivering with the sweet flood of the Nectar of Slaying that now coursed through their veins and arteries, their tails lashing the air. They had indeed lost control of their fight glands, a sign of their inexperience, their raw youth, and Sag'Churok was both amused and disgusted.\n\nAlthough, in truth, he himself struggled against unleashing the full flow of the nectar, forcing open his sleep glands to counteract the ferocious fires within.\n\nThe Shi'gal had hunted this night, and in so doing, he had mocked the K'ell, stealing their glory, denying them the pleasure they sought, the pleasure they had been born to pursue.\n\nCome the dawn, Sag'Churok would lead the Seeking well away from that scene of slaughter. Destriant Kalyth need not know anything of it-the frame of her mind was weak enough as it was. The Seeking would work eastward, further out into the wastes, where no food could be found for the strangers. Of course, this caution would likely fail, if the herd was as vast as Gu'Rull had intimated.\n\nAnd so Sag'Churok knew that his fellow Hunters would find their blood before too long.\n\nThey hissed and snorted, quivered and yawned with their jaws. The heavy blades thumped and grated over the ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It did not occur to Gu'Rull that the scores upon scores of dogs plaguing the human herd were anything but scavengers, such as the beasts that had once tracked the K'Chain Che'Malle Furies in times of war." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And so the Assassin paid no attention whatsoever to the six beasts that had moved parallel to the scouts, and had made no effort to cloud their senses. And even as these beasts now fled south, clearly making for the human herd, Gu'Rull attributed no special significance to their peregrinations. Scavengers were commonplace, their needs singular and far from complex.\n\nThe Assassin killed the scouts, both times descending from above, tearing their heads from their shoulders when they each halted upon hearing the moan of Gu'Rull's wings. Task completed, the Shi'gal rose high into the dark sky, seeking the strong flows of air that he would ride through the course of the day to come-air cold enough to keep him from overheating, for he had discovered that during the day his wings, when fully outstretched, absorbed vast amounts of heat, which in turn strained his equanimity and naturally calm repose.\n\nAnd that would not do.\n\nKalyth watched the scene before her fragment and then vanish as if blown away in a gust of wind she could not feel. The old man, the monolith, his polished hands and all his words-they had been a distraction, proof of her ignorance that she had so easily been snared by something-and someone-not meant for her.\n\nBut it seemed that willpower alone was not enough, particularly when she had no real destination in mind-she had but mentally reached out fora notion, a vague feeling of the familiar-was it any wonder she stumbled about, aimless, lost, pathetically vulnerable?\n\nFaintly, as if from the ether, she heard the old man say, \"It ever appears dead, spiked so cruelly and no, you will see no motion, not a twitch. Even the blood does not drip. Do not be deceived. She will be freed. She must. It is necessary.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She thought he might have said something more, but his voice dwindled, and the landscape before her found anew shape." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wreckage or pyres burned across an unnaturally flat plain. Smoke rolled black and hot, stinging her eyes. She could make no sense of what she saw; the horizons seethed, as if armies contended on all sides but nowhere close.\n\nHeavy shadows scudded over the littered ground and she looked up, but beyond the columns of smoke rising from the pyres, the sky was empty, colourless. Something about those untethered shadows frightened Kalyth, the way they seemed to be converging, gathering speed, and she could feel herself drawn after them, swept into their wake.\n\nIt seemed then that she truly left her body behind, and now sailed on the same currents, casting her own paltry, shapeless shadow, and she saw that the wreckage looked familiar-not pyres as such, after all, but crushed and twisted pieces of the kinds of mechanism she had seen in Ampelas Rooted. Her unease deepened. Was this a vision of the future? Or some frayed remnant of the distant past? She suspected that the K'Chain Che'Malle had fought vast wars centuries ago, yet she also knew that anew war was coming.\n\nThe horizon drew closer, at a point where the massive shadows seemed destined to converge. Its seething edge was indeed armies locked in battle, yet she could make out little detail. Humans? K'Chain Che'Malle? She could not tell, and even as she swept towards them, they grew indistinct, as if swallowed in dust.\n\nThere would be nothing easy in any of this, Kalyth realized. No gifts delivered with simple clarity, with unambiguous meaning. She floundered in sudden panic, trying to pull herself back as the shadows swarmed to a single point, only to vanish, as if plunging through agate-she did not want to follow. She wanted none of this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Twin suns blazed to life, blinding her. Searing heat washed over her, building, and she screamed as she withered in the firestorm-but it was too late-\n\nShe awoke lying on the damp grasses, lids fluttering open, to find herself staring up at a paling sky. Dull motes still drifted across her vision, but she could feel their loss of strength. Kalyth had returned, no wiser, no surer of the path ahead.\n\nGroaning, she rolled onto her side, and then to her hands and knees. Every bone in her body ached; twinges speared every muscle, and she shivered, chilled right down to the roots of her soul. Lifting her head, she saw that Sag'Churok stood beside her, the Hunter's terrible eyes fixed on her as if contemplating a hare trapped under his talons.\n\nShe looked away and then climbed to her feet. The thin odour of dung smoke reached her and she turned to see Gunth Mach hunkered down before the campfire, her huge hands deftly turning skewers of dripping meat.\n\nThe damned creatures had been obsessed with meat from the moment they departed the Nest-on this journey she'd yet to see them unwrap a single root crop or lump of bread (or what passed for bread, for although on the tongue it possessed the consistency of afresh mushroom, she had seen loaves in countless shapes and sizes). Meat to break the night's fast, meat at the mid-morning rest stop, meat whilst on the move at afternoon's waning, and meat at the final meal well after the sun's setting. She suspected that, if not for her, it would have been eaten raw. The Wastelands offered little else, she had discovered-even the grasses, berries and tubers that had once been common on the plains of the Elan were entirely absent here." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Feeling miserable, and terribly alone, she went over to collect her breakfast.\n\nStavi looked to her sister and saw, as ever, her own face, although the expression was never a match to her own. Twins they might be, but they were also two sides of a coin, and took turns in what they offered to the world. Hetan knew as much, and had observed more than once how, when one of her first daughters set eyes upon the other, there grew a look of surprise and something like guilt in the child's face-as if in seeing an unexpected attitude displayed in her other self, she had perhaps ambushed her own innermost feelings.\n\nNot surprisingly, Stavi and Storii were in the habit of avoiding one another's regard, as much as was possible, as if neither welcomed that flash of confusion. They much preferred to sow confusion in everyone else, particularly, Hetan noted yet again, their adopted father.\n\nAlthough not within hearing range of the conversation, Hetan could well see how it was proceeding. The girls had stalked the poor man, wicked as a pair of hunting cats, and whatever it was that they wanted from him, they would get. Without fail.\n\nOr so it would be, each and every time, if not for their cruel and clever mother, who, when she took it upon herself, could stride into the midst of the ambush and, with a bare word or gesture, send the two little witches scampering. Knowing this, of course, at least one of the twins would have her attention fixed on Hetan's location, measuring distances and the intensity of their mother's attention. Hetan knew that, should she so much as turn towards them, the girls would break off the wheedling, crassly manipulative assault on their father, and, flicking dark, sharp glares her way, scuttle off in the manner of frustrated evil imps the world over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Oh, they could be lovable enough, when it suited them, and, in sly gift from their true father, both possessed a natural talent for conveying innocence, so pure and so absolute it verged on the autistic, guaranteed to produce nausea in their mother, and other mothers besides. Why, Hetan had seen great-aunts-normally indulgent as befitted their remote roles-narrow their gazes when witnessing the display.\n\nOf course, it was no easy thing to measure evil, or even to be certain that the assignation was appropriate. Was it not a woman's gift to excel in the entirely essential guidance of every aspect of her chosen man's life? It most certainly was. Accordingly, Hetan pitied the future husbands of Storii and Stavi. At the same time, however, she was not about to see her own man savaged by the two creatures. The issue was down to simple possession. And the older the twins grew, the more brazen their efforts at stealing him away from her.\n\nYes, she understood all of this. It was not anything direct, or even conscious on the part of the girls. They were simply trying out their skills at capturing, rending and devouring. And it was also natural that they would decide upon their own mother as competition. There were times, Hetan reflected, when she wished she could track down their distant, wayward and diabolical father, and thrust both rotters onto his plump lap-yes, Kruppe of Darujhistan was indeed welcome to his inadvertent get.\n\nAlas, she could well see that the man who now stood in Kruppe's stead would not have accepted such a gesture, no matter how just Hetan might deem it. Such were the myriad miseries of parenthood. And her bad luck in choosing an honourable mate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was vulnerable, apt to descend into indulgence, and the twins knew it and like piranhas they had closed in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wasn't that Stavi and Storii were uniquely insensitive-like all girls of their age, they just didn't care. They wanted whatever they wanted and would do whatever was necessary to get it.\n\nLong before their coming of age, of course, tribal life among the White Face Barghast would beat that out of them, or at least repress its more vicious impulses, all of which were necessary to a proper life.\n\nStorii was the first to note Hetan's approach, and the dark intent in her mother's eyes was reflected in a sudden flash of terror and malice in the girl's sweet, rounded face. She flicked her fingertips against her sister's shoulder and Stavi flinched at the stinging snap and then caught sight of Hetan. Ina heartbeat the twins were in full flight, bounding away like a pair of stoats, and their adopted father stared after them in surprise.\n\nHetan arrived. \"Beloved, you have all the wit of a bhederin when it comes to those two.\"\n\nOnos Toolan blinked at her, and then he sighed. \"I am afraid I was frustrating them nonetheless. It is difficult to concentrate-they speak too fast, so breathless-I lose all sense of what they mean, or want.\"\n\n\"You can be certain that whatever it was, its function was to spoil them yet further. But I have broken their siege, Tool, to tell you that the clan chiefs are assembling-well, those who managed to heed the summons.\" She hesitated. \"They are troubled, husband.\"\n\nEven this did little to penetrate the sorrow that he had folded round him since the brutal death of Toc the Younger. \"How many clans sent no one?\" he asked.\n\n\"Almost a third.\"\n\nHe frowned at that, but said nothing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mostly from the southern extremes,\" Hetan said. \"That is why those here are now saying that they must have mutinied-lost their way, their will. That they have broken up and wandered into the kingdoms, the warriors hiring on as bodyguards and such to the Saphin and the Bolkando.\"\n\n\"You said'mostly\", Hetan. What of the others?\"\n\n\"All outlying clans, those who travelled farthest in the dispersal-except for one. Gadra, which had found a decent bhederin herd in a pocket between the Akryn and the Awl'dan, enough to sustain them fora time-'\n\n\"The Gadra warchief-Stolmen, yes? I sensed no disloyalty in him. Also, what chance of mutiny in that region? They would have nowhere to go-that makes no sense.\"\n\n\"You are right, it doesn't. We should have heard from them. You must speak to the clan chiefs, Tool. They need to be reminded why we are here. ' She studied his soft brown eyes fora moment, and then looked away. The crisis, she knew, dwelt not just in the minds of the Barghast clan chiefs, but also in the man standing beside her. Her husband, her love.\n\n\"I do not know,\" said Tool, slowly, as if searching for the right words, \"if I can help them. The shoulder-seers were bold in their first prophecies, igniting the fires that have brought us here, but with each passing day it seems their tongues wither yet more, their words dry up, and all I can see in them is the fear in their eyes.\"\n\nShe took him by the arm and tugged until he followed her out from the edge of the vast encampment. They walked beyond the pickets and then the ring-trench dry-latrines, and still further, onto the hard uneven ground where the herds had tracked not so long ago, in the season of rains." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We were meant to wage war against the Tiste Edur,\" Tool said as they drew up atop a ridge and stared northward at distant dust-clouds. \"The shoulder-seers rushed their rituals in finding pathways through the warrens. The entire White Face Barghast impoverished itself to purchase transports and grain. We hurried after the Grey Swords.\" He was silent fora moment longer, and then he said, \"We sought the wrong enemy.\"\n\n\"No glory to be found in crushing a crushed people,\" Hetan observed, tasting the bitterness of her own words.\n\n\"Nor a people terrorized by one of their own.\"\n\nThere had been fierce clashes over this. Despite his ascension to Warchief, a unanimous proclamation following the tragic death of her father, Onos Toolan had almost immediately found himself at odds with all the clan chiefs. War against the Lether Empire would bean unjust war, the Edur hegemony notwithstanding. Not only were the Letherii not their enemy, even these Tiste Edur, crouching in the terrible shadow of their emperor, likely bore no relationship whatsoever to those ancient Edur who had preyed upon the Barghast so many generations past. The entire notion of vengeance, or that of a war resumed, suddenly tasted sour, and for Tool, an Imass who felt nothing of the old festering wounds in the psyche of the Barghast-who was indeed deaf to the fury of the awakened Barghast gods... well, he'd shown no patience with those so eager to shed blood.\n\nThe shoulder-seers had by this time lost all unity of vision. The prophecy, which had seemed so simple and clear, was all at once mired in ambiguity, seeding such discord among the seers that even their putative leader, Cafal, brother to Hetan, failed in his efforts to quell the schisms among the shamans. Thus, they had been no help in the battle of wills between Tool and the chiefs; and they were no help now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cafal persisted in travelling from tribe to tribe-she had not seen her brother in months. If he had succeeded in repairing any damage, she'd not heard of it; even among the shoulder-seers in this camp, she sensed a pervasive unease, and a sour reluctance to speak with anyone.\n\nOnos Toolan had been unwilling to unleash the White Faces upon the Lether Empire-and his will had prevailed, until that one fated day, when the last of the Awl fell-when Toc the Younger had died. Not only had Hetan's own clan, the Senan, been unleashed, so too had the dark hunger of Tool's own sister, Kilava.\n\nHetan missed that woman, and knew that her husband's grief was complicated by her departure-a departure that he might well see as her abandoning him in the moment of his greatest need. Hetan suspected, however, that in witnessing Toc's death-and the effect it had had upon her brother, Kilava had been brutally reminded of the ephemeral nature of love and friendship-and so she had set out to rediscover her own life. A selfish impulse, perhaps, and an unfair wounding of a brother already reeling from loss.\n\nYes, Kilava deserved a good hard slap to the side of that shapely head, and Hetan vowed that she would be the one to deliver it, when next they met.\n\n\"I see no enemy,\" her husband said now.\n\nShe nodded. Yes, this was the crisis afflicting her people, and so they looked to their Warchief. In need of a direction, a purpose. Yet he gave them nothing. \"We have too many young warriors,\" she said. \"Trained in the ancient ways of fighting, eager to see their swords drink blood-slaughtering a half-broken, exhausted Letherii army did little to whet the appetites of those in our own clan-yet it was enough to ignite envy and feuding with virtually everyone else.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Things were simpler among the Imass,\" said Tool.\n\n\"Oh, rubbish!\"\n\nHe shot her a glare, and then looked away once more, shoulders slumping. \"Well, we had purpose.\"\n\n\"You had a ridiculous war against a foe that had no real desire to fight you. And so, instead of facing the injustice you were committing, you went and invoked the Ritual of Tellann. Clever evasion, I suppose, if rather insane. What's so frightening about facing your own mistakes? '\n\n\"Dear wife, you should not ask that question.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nHe met her eyes again, not with anger this time, but bleak despair. \"You may find that mistakes are all you have.\"\n\nShe grew very still, chilled despite the burgeoning heat of the morning. \"Oh, and for you, does that include me?\"\n\n\"No, I speak to help you understand an Imass who was once a T'lan. \"He hesitated, and then said,\"With you, with our children, I had grown to believe that such things were at last behind me-those dread errors and the burden of all they yielded. And then, in an instant... I am reminded of my own stupidity. It does no good to ignore one's own flaws, Hetan. The delusion comforts, but it can prove fatal.\"\n\n\"You're not dead. '\n\n\"Am I not?\"\n\nShe snorted and turned away. \"You're just as bad as your sister! \"Then wheeled back to him.\"Wake up! Your twenty-seven clans are down to nineteen-how many more will you lose because you can't be bothered to make a decision?\"\n\nHis eyes narrowed on her. \"What would you have me decide?\" he asked quietly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We are White Face Barghast!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Find us an enemy!\"\n\nThe privilege of being so close to home was proving too painful, even as Torrent-the last warrior of the Awl-sought to exult in the anguish. Punishment for surviving, for persisting, like one last drop of blood refusing to soak into the red mud; he did not know what held him upright, breathing, heart pounding on and on, thoughts clawing through endless curtains of dust. Somewhere, deep inside, he prayed he would find his single, pure truth, squeezed down into a knucklebone, polished by all the senseless winds, the pointless rains, the spiralling collapse of season upon season. A little knot of something like bone, to stumble over, to roll across, to send him sprawling.\n\nHe might find it, but he suspected not. He did not possess the wit. He was not sharp in the way of Toc Anaster, the Mezla who haunted his dreams. Thundering hoofs, a storm-wracked night sky, winds howling like wolves, and the dead warrior's single eye fixed like an opal in its shadowed socket. A face horrifying in its red, glistening ruin-the skin cutaway, smeared teeth exposed in a feral grin-oh, perhaps indeed the Mezla rode into Torrent's dreams, a harbinger of nightmares, a mocker of his precious, fragile truth. One thing seemed clear-the dead archer was hunting Torrent, fired by hatred for the last Awl warrior, and the pursuit was relentless, Torrent's steps dragging even as he ran for his life, gasping, shrieking-until with a start he would awaken, sheathed in sweat and shivering.\n\nIt seemed that Toc Anaster was in no hurry to bring the hunt to its grisly conclusion. The ghost's pleasure was in the chase. Night after night after night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Awl warrior no longer wore a copper mask." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The irritating rash that had mottled his face was now gone. He had elected to deliver himself and the children into the care of the Gadra clan, camped as they were at the very edge of the Awl'dan. He had not wished to witness the devastating grief of the strange warrior named Tool, over Toc Anaster's death.\n\nShortly after joining the clan, and with the fading of his rash, Gadra women had taken an interest in him, and they were not coy, displaying a boldness that almost frightened Torrent-he had fled a woman's advance more than once-but of late the dozen or so intent on stalking and trapping him had begun cooperating with one another.\n\nAnd so he took to his horse, riding hard out from the camp, spending the entire span of the sun's arc well away from their predations. Red-eyed with exhaustion, miserable in his solitude, and at war with himself. He had never lain with a woman, after all. He had no idea what it involved, beyond those shocking childhood memories of seeing, through the open doorways of huts, adults clamped round one another grunting and moaning and sighing. But they had been Awl-not these savage, terrifying Barghast who coupled with shouts and barks of laughter, the men bellowing like bears and the women clawing and scratching and biting.\n\nNo, none of it made any sense. For, even as he endeavoured to escape these madwomen with their painted faces and bright eyes, he wanted what they offered. He fled his own desire, and each time he did so the torture he inflicted upon himself stung all the worse.\n\nSuch misery as no man deserves!\n\nHe should have rejoiced in his freedom, hereon the vast plains so close to the Awl'dan. To seethe herds of bhederin-which his own people had never thought to tame-and the scattering of rodara, too, that the surviving children of the Awl now cared for-and to know that the cursed Letherii were not hunting them, not slaughtering them... he should be exulting in the moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Was he not alive? Safe? And was he not the Clan Leader of the Awl? Undisputed ruler of avast tribe of a few score children, some of whom had already forgotten their own language, and now spoke the barbaric foreign tongue of the Barghast, and had taken to painting their bodies with red and yellow ochre and braiding their hair?\n\nHe rode his horse at a slow canter, already two or more leagues from the Gadra encampment. The herds had swung round to the southeast the night before, so he had seen no one on his journey out. When he first caught sight of the Barghast dogs, he thought they might be wolves, but upon seeing Torrent they altered their route straight towards him-something no pack of wolves would do-and as they drew closer he could see their short-haired, mottled hides, their shortened muzzles and small ears. Larger than any Awl or Letherii breed, the beasts were singularly savage. Until this moment, they had ignored Torrent, beyond the occasional baring of fangs as they trotted past in the camp.\n\nHe slipped his lance from its sling and anchored it in the stirrup step just inside his right foot. Six dogs, loping closer-they were, he realized, exhausted.\n\nTorrent reined into await them, curious.\n\nThe beasts slowed, and then encircled the warrior and his horse. He watched as they sank down onto their bellies, jaws hanging, tongues lolling and slick with thick threads of saliva.\n\nConfused, Torrent settled back in the saddle. Could he just ride through this strange circle, continue on his way?\n\nIf these were Awl dogs, what would their behaviour signify? He shook his head-maybe if they were drays, then he would imagine that an enemy had drawn near. Frowning, Torrent stood in his stirrups and squinted to the north, whence the dogs had come. Nothing... and then he shaded his eyes. Yes, nothing on the horizon, but above that horizon-circling birds? Possibly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What to do? Return to the camp, find a warrior and tell him or her of what he had seen? Your dogs found me. They laid themselves down. Far to the north... some birds. Torrent snorted. He gathered the reins and nudged his mount between two of the prone dogs, and then swung his horse northward. Birds were not worth reporting-he needed to see what had drawn them.\n\nOf the six dogs he left behind him, two fell into his wake, trotting. The remaining four rose and set out for the camp to the south.\n\nIn the time of Redmask, Torrent had known something close to contentment. The Awl had found someone to follow. A true leader, a saviour. And when the great victories had come-the death of hundreds of Letherii invaders in fierce, triumphant battles-they were proof of Redmask's destiny. He could not be certain when things began to go wrong, but he recalled the look in Toc Anaster's eye, the cynical set of his foreign face, and with every comment the man uttered, the solid foundations of Torrent's faith seemed to reverberate, as if struck deadly blows... until the first cracks arrived, until Torrent's very zeal was turned upon itself, jaded and mocking, and what had been a strength became a weakness.\n\nSuch was the power of scepticism. A handful of words to dismantle certainty, like seeds flung at a stonewall-tender greens and tiny roots, yes, but in time they would take down that wall.\n\nContentment alone should have made Torrent suspicious, but it had reared up before him like a god of purity and willingly he had knelt, head bowed, to take comfort in its shadow. In any other age, Redmask could not have succeeded in commanding the Awl. Without the desperation, without the succession of defeats and mounting losses, without extinction itself looming before them like a cliff's edge, the tribes would have driven him away-as they had done once before. Yes, they had been wiser, then." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some forces could not be defeated, and so it was with the Letherii. Their hunger for land, their need to possess and rule overall that they possessed-these were terrible desires that spread like the plague, poisoning the souls of the enemy. Once the fever of seeing the world as they did erupted like fire in one's brain, the war was over, the defeat absolute and irreversible.\n\nEven these Barghast-his barbaric saviours-were doomed. Akrynnai traders setup camps up against the picket lines. D'rhasilhani horse sellers drove herd after herd in a mostly futile parade past the encampment, and every now and then a Barghast warrior would select one of the larger animals, examine it fora time, and then, with a dismissive bark of laughter, send it back to the herd. Before too long, Torrent believed, a breed of sufficient height and girth would arrive, and that would be that.\n\nInvaders did not stay invaders forever. Eventually, they became no different from every other tribe or people in a land. Languages muddied, blended, surrendered. Habits were exchanged like currency, and before too long everyone saw the world the same way as everyone else. And if that way was wrong, then misery was assured, for virtually everyone, for virtually ever.\n\nThe Awl should have bowed to the Letherii. They would be alive now, instead of lying in jumbled heaps of mouldering bones in the mud of a dead sea.\n\nRedmask had sought to stop time itself. Of course he failed.\n\nSometimes, belief was suicide.\n\nTorrent had castaway his faiths, his certainties, his precious beliefs. He did nothing to resist the young ones losing their language. He saw the ochre paint on their faces, the spiked hair, and was indifferent to it. Yes, he was the leader of the Awl, the last there would ever be, and it was his task to oversee the peaceful obliteration of his culture. Ways will pass. He vowed he would not miss them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No, Torrent wore no copper mask. Not anymore. And his face was clear as his eyes.\n\nHe slowed his horse's canter as soon as he made out the corpses, the bodies scattered about. Crows and gold-beaked vultures moved here and therein the carrion dance, whilst rhinazan flapped about, disturbing capemoths into flight-sudden blossoms of white petals that settled almost as quickly as they appeared. A scene of the plains that Torrent knew well.\n\nA troop of Barghast had been ambushed. Slaughtered.\n\nHe rode closer.\n\nNo obvious tracks, neither foot nor hoof, led away from the killing ground. He saw how the Barghast had been in close formation-and that was odd, contrary to what Torrent had seen of their patrols. Perhaps, he thought, they had contracted defensively, which suggested an enemy in overwhelming numbers. But then... there was no sign of that. And whoever had murdered these warriors must have taken their own dead with them-he walked his horse in a circuit round the bodies-saw no trailing smears of blood, no swaths through the grasses to mark dragged heels.\n\nThe bodies, he realized then, had not been looted. Their beautiful weapons were scattered about, the blades devoid of blood.\n\nTorrent felt his nerves awaken, as if brushed by something unholy. He looked once more at the corpses-not a contraction, but a converging... upon a single foe. And the wounds-despite the efforts of the scavengers-displayed nothing of what one would expect. As if they closed upon a beast, and see how the blows struck downward upon them. A plains bear? No, there are none left. The last surviving skin of one of those beasts-among my people-was said to be seven generations old. He remembered the thing, vast, yes, but tattered. And the claws had been removed and since lost. Still..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Torrent glanced at the two dogs as they trotted up. The beasts looked preternaturally cowed, stubby tails ducked, the glances they sent him beseeching and frightened. If they had been Awl drays, they would now be moving onto the enemy's trail, eager, hackles raised. He scowled down at the quivering beasts.\n\nHe swung his horseback round and set off for the Gadra camp. The dogs hurried after him.\n\nA beast, yet one that left no trail whatsoever. A ghost creature.\n\nPerhaps his solitary rides had come to an end. He would have to surrender to those eager women. They could takeaway his unease, he hoped.\n\nLeave the hunt to the Barghast. Give their shamans something worthwhile to do, instead of getting drunk on D'ras beer every night. Report to the chief, and then be done with it.\n\nHe already regretted riding out to find the bodies. For all he knew the ghost creature was close, had in fact been watching him. Or something of its foul sorcery lingered upon the scene, and now he was marked, and it would find him no matter where he went. He could almost smell that sorcery, clinging to his clothes. Acrid, bitter as a snake's belly.\n\nSetoc, who had once been named Stayandi, and who in her dreams was witness to strange scenes of familiar faces speaking in strange tongues, of laughter and love and tenderness-an age in the time before her beasthood-stood facing the empty north.\n\nShe had seen the four dogs come into the camp, in itself an event unworthy of much attention, and if the patrol was late in returning, well, perhaps they had surprised a mule deer and made a kill, thus explaining the absence of two dogs from the pack, as the beasts would have been strapped to a travois to carry back the meat. Explanations such as these served for the moment, despite the obvious flaws in logic (these four would have remained with the patrol in such a case, feeding on the butchered carcass and its offal and whatnot); although the truth of it was Setoc spared few thoughts for what interpretations the nearby Barghast might kick up in small swirls of agitated dust, as they tracked with their eyes the sweat-lathered beasts, or for their growing alarm when the dogs then sank down onto their bellies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So, she watched as a dozen or so warriors gathered weapons and slowly converged on the exhausted beasts, and then returned her attention to the north.\n\nYes, the animals stank of death.\n\nAnd the wild wolves in the emptiness beyond, who had given her life, had howled with the dawn their tale of terror.\n\nYes, her first family ever remained close by, accorded a kind of holy protection in the legend that was the girl's finding-no Barghast would hunt the animals, and now even the Akrynnai had been told the story of her birth among the pack, of the lone warrior's discovery of her. Spirit-blessed, they now all said when looking upon her. The holder of a thousand hearts.\n\nAt first, that last title had confused Setoc, but her memories slowly awakened, with each day that she grew older, taller, sharper-eyed. Yes, she held within herself a thousand hearts, even more. Wolf gifts. Milk she had suckled, milk of blood, milk of a thousand slain brothers and sisters. And did she not recall a night of terror and slaughter? A night fleeing in the darkness?\n\nThey spoke of her legend, and even the shoulder-seers made her offerings and would come up and touch her to ease their troubled expressions.\n\nAnd now the Great Warlock, the Finder of the Barghast Gods, the one named Cafal, had come to the Gadra, to speak with her, to search her soul if she so permitted it.\n\nThe wild wolves cried out to her, their minds a confused tumult of fear and worry. Anxious for their child, yes, and fora future time when storms gathered from every horizon. They understood that she would beat the very heart of that celestial conflagration. They begged to sacrifice their own lives so that she might live. And that, she would not permit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If she was spirit-blessed, then the wolves were the spirits that had so blessed her. If she was a thing to be worshipped here among the Barghast, then she was but a symbol of the wild and it was this wild that must be worshipped-if only they could see that.\n\nShe glanced back at the cowering dogs, and felt a rush of sorrowful regret at what such beasts could have been, if their wildness was not so chained, so bound and muzzled.\n\nGod, my children, does not await us in the wilderness. God, my children, is the wilderness.\n\nWitness its laws and be humbled.\n\nIn humility, find peace.\n\nBut know this: peace is not always life. Sometimes, peace is death. In the face of this, how can one not be humble?\n\nThe wild laws are the only laws.\n\nShe would give these words to Cafal. She would see in his face their effect.\n\nAnd then she would tell him that the Gadra clan was going to die, and that many other Barghast clans would follow. She would warn him to look to the skies, for from the skies death was coming. She would warn him against further journeys-he must return to his own clan. He must make peace with the spirit of his own kin. The peace of life, before the arrival of the peace of death.\n\nWarriors had gathered round the dogs, readying weapons and such. Tension flowed out from them in ripples, spreading through the camp. In moments a warleader would be selected from among the score or so milling about. Setoc pitied them all, but especially that doomed leader.\n\nA wind was blowing in from the east, scratching loose her long sun-bleached hair until it whispered across her face like withered grass. And still the stench of death filled her senses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cafal's heavy features had broadened, grown more robust since his youth, and there were deeply etched lines of stress between his brows and framing his mouth. Years ago, in a pit beneath a temple floor, he had spoken with the One Who Blesses, with the Malazan captain, Ganoes Paran. And, seeking to impress the man-seeking to prove that, somehow, his wisdom belied his few years-he had uttered words he had heard his father use, claiming them as his own.\n\n\"A man possessing power must act decisively... else it trickle away through his fingers.\"\n\nThe observation, while undoubtedly true, now echoed sourly. The voice that made that pronouncement, back then, was all wrong. It had no right to the words. Cafal could not believe his own pretensions uttered by that younger self, that bold, clear-eyed fool.\n\nA pointless, stupid accident had stolen away his father, Humbrall Taur. For all that the huge, wise warrior had wielded his power, neither wisdom nor that power availed him against blind chance. The lesson was plain, the message bleak and humbling. Power was proof against nothing, and that was the only wisdom worth recognizing.\n\nHe wondered what had happened to that miserable Malazan captain, chosen and cursed (and was there any real difference between the two?), and he wondered, too, why he now longed to speak with Ganoes Paran, to exchange anew set of words, these ones more honest, more measured, more knowing. Yes, the young were quick with judgement, quick to chastise their torpid elders. The young understood nothing about the value of sober contemplation.\n\nGanoes Paran had been indecisive, in Cafal's eyes back then. Pitifully, frustratingly so. But to the Cafal of this day, hereon this foreign plain under foreign skies, that Malazan of years ago had been rightly cautious, measured by a wisdom to which young Cafal had been woefully blind. And this is how we gauge a life, this is how we build the bridge from what we were to what we are. Ganoes Paran, do you ever look down? Do you ever stand frozen in place by that depthless chasm below?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Do you ever dream of jumping?\n\nOnos Toolan had been given all the power Cafal's own father had once commanded, and there was nothing undeserved in that. And now, slowly, inexorably, it was trickling away through the fingers of that ancient warrior. Cafal could do nothing to stop it-he was as helpless as Tool himself. Once again, blind chance had conspired against the Barghast.\n\nWhen word reached him that wardogs had returned to the camp-beasts bereft of escort and therefore mutely announcing that something ill had befallen a scouting troop-and that a war-party was forming to set out on the back-trail, Cafal drew on his bhederin-hide cloak, grunting beneath its weight, and kicked at the ragged, tufted doll crumpled on the tent floor near the foot of his cot. \"Wake up.\"\n\nThe sticksnare spat and snarled as it scrambled upright. \"Very funny. Respect your elders, O Great Warlock.\"\n\nThe irony oozing like pine sap from the title made Cafal wince, and then he cursed himself when Talamandas snorted in amusement upon seeing the effect of his mockery. He paused at the entrance. \"We should have burned you on a pyre long ago, sticksnare.\"\n\n\"Too many value me to let you do that. I travel the warrens. I deliver messages and treat with foreign gods. We speak of matters of vast importance. War, betrayals, alliances, betrayals-\"\n\n\"You're repeating yourself. '\n\n\"-and war.\"\n\n\"And are the Barghast gods pleased with your efforts, Talamandas? Or do they snarl with fury as you flit this way and that at the behest of human gods?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They cannot live in isolation! We cannot! They are stubborn! They lack all sophistication! They embarrass me!\"\n\nSighing, Cafal stepped outside.\n\nThe sticksnare scrambled after him, skittish as a stoat. \"If we fight alone, we will all die. We need allies!\"\n\nCafal paused and looked down, wondering if Talamandas was, perhaps, insane. How many times could they repeat this same conversation? \"Allies against whom?\" he asked, as he had done countless times before.\n\n\"Against what comes!\"\n\nAnd there, the same meaningless answer, the kind of answer neither Cafal nor Tool could use. Hissing under his breath, the Great Warlock set off once more, ignoring Talamandas who scrambled in his wake.\n\nThe war-party had left the camp. At a trot, the warriors were already reaching the north ridge. Once over the crest, they would vanish from sight.\n\nCafal saw the wolf-child, Setoc, standing at the camp's edge, evidently watching the warriors, and something in her stance suggested she longed to lope after them, teeth bared and hackles raised, eager to join in the hunt.\n\nHe set out in that direction.\n\nThere was no doubt that she was Letherii, but that legacy existed only on the surface-her skin, her features, the traits of whatever parents had given her birth and then lost her. But that nascent impression of civilization had since faded, eroded away. She had been given back to the wild, a virgin sacrifice whose soul had been devoured whole. She belonged to the wolves, and, perhaps, to the Wolf God and Goddess, the Lord and Lady of the Beast Throne.\n\nThe Barghast had come to find the Grey Swords, to fight at their side-believing that Toc Anaster and his army knew the enemy awaiting them. The Barghast gods had been eager to serve Togg and Fanderay, to run with the bold pack in search of blood and glory. They had been, Cafal now understood, worse than children." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Grey Swords were little more than rotting meat when the first scouts found them.\n\nSo much for glory.\n\nWas Setoc the inheritor of the blessing once bestowed upon the Grey Swords? Was she now the child of Togg and Fanderay?\n\nEven Talamandas did not know.\n\n\"Not her!\" the sticksnare now snarled behind him. \"Cast her out, Cafal! Banish her to the wastes where she belongs!\"\n\nBut he continued on. When he was a dozen paces away, she briefly glanced back at him before returning her attention upon the empty lands to the north. Moments later, he reached her side.\n\n\"They are going to die,\" she said.\n\n\"What? Who?\"\n\n\"The warriors who just left. They will die as did the scout troop. You have found the enemy, Great Warlock... but it is the wrong enemy. Again.\"\n\nCafal swung round. He saw Talamandas squatting in the grasses five paces back. \"Chase them down,\" he told the sticksnare. \"Bring them back.\"\n\n\"Believe nothing she says!\"\n\n\"This is not a request, Talamandas.\"\n\nWith a mocking cackle the sticksnare darted past, bounding like a bee-stung hare onto the trail of the war-party.\n\n\"There is no use in doing that,\" Setoc said. \"This entire clan is doomed.\"\n\n\"Such pronouncements weary me,\" Cafal replied. \"You are like a poison thorn in this clan's heart, stealing its strength, its pride. '\n\n\"Is that why you've come? \"she asked.\"To... pluck out this thorn? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If I must.\"\n\n\"Then why are you waiting?\"\n\n\"I would know the source of your pronouncements, Setoc. Are you plagued with visions? Do spirits visit your dreams? What have you seen? What do you know?\"\n\n\"The rhinazan whisper in my ear,\" she said.\n\nWas she taunting him? \"Winged lizards do not whisper anything, Setoc.\"\n\n\"No?\"\n\n\"No. Is nonsense all you can give me? Am Ito be nothing but the object of your contempt?\"\n\n\"The Awl warrior, the one so aptly named Torrent, has found the war-party. He adds to your doll's exhortations. But... the warleader is young. Fearless. Why do the fools choose one such as that? '\n\n\"When older warriors see a pack of wardogs drag themselves into the camp,\" said Cafal, \"they hold a meeting to discuss matters. The young ones clutch their weapons and leap to their feet, eyes blazing.\"\n\n\"It is a wonder,\" she observed, \"that any warrior ever manages to get old.\"\n\nYes. It is.\n\n\"The Awl has convinced them.\"\n\n\"Not Talamandas?\"\n\n\"No. They say dead warlocks never have anything good to say. They say your sticksnare kneels at the foot of the Death Reaper. They call it a Malazan puppet.\"\n\nBy the spirits, I cannot argue against any of that!\n\n\"You sense all that takes place on these plains, Setoc. What do you know of the enemy that killed the scouts?\"\n\n\"Only what the rhinazan whisper, Great Warlock.\"\n\nWinged lizards again... spirits below! \"In our homeland, on the high desert mesas, there are smaller versions that are called rhizan.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Smaller, yes.\"\n\nHe frowned. \"Meaning?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"Just that. Smaller.\"\n\nHe wanted to shake her, rattle loose her secrets. \"Who killed our scouts?\"\n\nShe bared her teeth but did not face him. \"I have already told you, Great Warlock. Tell me, have you seen the green spears in the sky at night?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"What are they?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Things have been known to fall from the sky, whilst others simply pass by like wagons set ablaze, crossing the firmament night after night for weeks or months... and then vanishing as mysteriously as they arrived. '\n\n\"Uncaring of the world below.\"\n\n\"Yes. The firmament is speckled with countless worlds no different from ours. To the stars and to the great burning wagons, we areas motes of dust.\"\n\nShe turned to study him as he spoke these words. \"That is... interesting. This is what the Barghast believe?\"\n\n\"What do the wolves believe, Setoc?\"\n\n\"Tell me,\" she said, \"when a hunter throws a javelin at a fleeing antelope, does the hunter aim at the beast?\"\n\n\"Yes and no. To strike true, the hunter must throw into the space in front of the antelope-into the path it will take.\" He studied her. \"Are you saying that these spears of green fire are the javelins of a hunter, and that we are the antelope?\"\n\n\"And if the antelope darts this way, dodges that?\"\n\n\"A good hunter will not miss.\"\n\nThe war-party had reappeared on the ridge, and accompanying it was the Awl warrior on his horse, along with two more dogs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cafal said, \"I will find Stolmen, now. He will want to speak with you, Setoc.\" He hesitated, and then added, \"Perhaps the Gadra warchief can glean clearer answers from you, for in that I have surely failed.\"\n\n\"The wolves are clear enough,\" she replied, \"when speaking of war. All else confuses them.\"\n\n\"So you indeed serve the Lady and Lord of the Beast Throne. As would a priestess.\"\n\nShe shrugged.\n\n\"Who,\" Cafal asked again, \"is the enemy?\"\n\nSetoc looked at him. \"The enemy, Great Warlock, is peace.\" And she smiled.\n\nThe ribbers had dragged Visto's body a dozen or so paces out into the flat, until something warned them against eating the wrinkled, leathery flesh of the dead boy. With the dawn, Badalle and a few others walked out to stand round the shrunken, stomach-burst thing that had once been Visto.\n\nThe others waited for Badalle to find her words.\n\nRutt was late in arriving as he had to check on Held and make adjustments to the baby's wrap. By the time he joined them, Badalle was ready.\"Hear me, then, \"she said,\"at Visto's deading.\"\n\nShe blew flies from her lips and then scanned the faces arrayed round her. There was an expression she wanted to find, but couldn't. Even remembering what it looked like was hard, no, impossible. She'd lost it, truth be told. But wanted it, and she knew she would recognize it as soon as she saw it again. An expression... some kind of expression... what was it? After a moment, she spoke,\n\n\"We all come from someplace And Visto was no different He come From some Place And it was different and It was the same no different If you know what I mean And you do You have to All you standing here The point is that Visto He couldn't remember Anything about that place Except that he come from it And that's like lots of you So let's say now He's gone back there To that place Where he come from And everything he sees He remembers And everything he remembers Is new\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They always waited, never knowing if she was finished until it became obvious that she was, and in that time Badalle looked down at Visto." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The eggs of the Satra Riders clung like crumbs to Visto's lips, as if he had been gobbling down cake. The adult riders had chewed out through his stomach and no one knew where they went, maybe into the ground-they did all that at night.\n\nMaybe some of the ribbers had been careless, with their eager jaws and all, which was good since then there'd be fewer of them strong enough to launch attacks on the ribby snake. It wasn't as bad having them totter along in the distance, keeping pace, getting weaker just as the children did, until they lay down and weren't trouble anymore. You could live with that, no different from the crows and vultures overhead. Animals showed, didn't they, how to believe in patience.\n\nShe lifted her head and as if that was a signal the others turned away and walked slowly back to the trail where the ones who could were standing, getting ready for the day's march.\n\nRutt said, \"I liked Visto.\"\n\n\"We all liked Visto.\"\n\n\"We shouldn't have. '\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Because that makes it harder.\"\n\n\"The Satra Riders liked Visto too, even more than we did.\"\n\nRutt shifted Held from the crook of his right arm into the crook of his left arm. \"I'm mad at Visto now. '\n\nBrayderal, who had showed up to walk at the snake's head only two days ago-maybe coming from back down the snake's body, maybe coming from somewhere else-walked out to stand close to them, as if she wanted to be part of something. Something made up of Rutt and Held and Badalle. But whatever that something was, it had no room for Brayderal. Visto's deading didn't leave a hole. The space just closed up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Besides, something about the tall, bony girl made Badalle uneasy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her face was too white beneath all this sun. She reminded Badalle of the bone-skins-what were they called again? Quisiters? Quitters? Could be, yes, the Quitters, the bone-skins who stood taller than anyone else and from that height they saw everything and commanded everyone and when they said Starve and die, why, that's just what everyone did.\n\nIf they knew about the Chal Managal, they would be angry. They might even chase after it and find the head, find Rutt and Badalle, and then do that quitting thing with the hands, the thing that broke the necks of people like Rutt and Badalle.\n\n\"We would be... quitted unto deading.\"\n\n\"Badalle?\"\n\nShe looked at Rutt, blew flies from her lips, and then-ignoring Brayderal as if she wasn't there-set off to rejoin the ribby snake.\n\nThe track stretched westward, straight like an insult to nature, and at the distant end of the stony, lifeless ground, the horizon glittered as if crusted with crushed glass. She heard Rutt's scrabbling steps coming up behind her, and then veering slightly as he made for the front of the column. She might be his second but Badalle wouldn't walk with him. Rutt had Held. That was enough for Rutt.\n\nBadalle had her words, and that was almost too much.\n\nShe saw Brayderal follow Rutt. They were almost the same height, but Rutt looked the weaker, closer to deading than Brayderal, and seeing that, Badalle felt a flash of anger. It should have been the other way round. They needed Rutt. They didn't need Brayderal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Unless she was planning on stepping into Rutt's place when Rutt finally broke, planning on being the snake's new head, its slithery tongue, its scaly jaws. Yes, that might be what Badalle was seeing. And Brayderal would take up Held all wrapped tight and safe from the sun, and they'd all set out on another day, with her instead of Rutt leading them.\n\nThat made a kind of sense. No different than with the ribber packs-when the leader got sick or lame or just wasn't strong enough anymore, why, that other ribber that showed up and started trotting alongside it, it was there just for this moment. To takeover. To keep things going.\n\nNo different from what sons did to fathers and daughters did to mothers, and princes to kings and princesses to queens.\n\nBrayderal walked almost at Rutt's side, up thereat the head. Maybe she talked with Rutt, maybe she didn't. Somethings didn't need talking about, and besides, Rutt wasn't one to say much anyway.\n\n\"I don't like Brayderal. '\n\nIf anyone nearby heard her, they gave no sign.\n\nBadalle blew to scatter the flies. They needed to find water. Even half a day without it and the snake would get too ribby, especially in this heat.\n\nOn this morning, she did as she always did. Eating her fill of words, drinking deep the spaces in between, and mad-so mad-that none of it gave her any strength.\n\nSaddic had been Rutt's second follower, the first being Held. He now walked among the four or so moving in a loose clump a few paces behind Rutt and the new girl. Badalle was a little way back, in the next clump. Saddic worshipped her, but he would not draw close to her, not yet, because there would be no point. He had few words of his own-he'd lost most of them early on in this journey. So long as he was in hearing range of Badalle, he was content." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She fed him. With her sayings and her seeings. She kept Saddic alive.\n\nHe thought about what she had said for Visto's deading. About how some of it wasn't true, the bit about Visto not remembering anything about where he'd come from. He'd remembered too much, in fact. So, Badalle had knowingly told an untruth about Visto. At his deading. Why had she done that?\n\nBecause Visto was gone. Her words weren't for him because he was gone. They were for us. She was telling us to give up remembering. Give it up so when we find it again it all feels new. Not the remembering itself but the things we remembered. The cities and villages and the families and the laughing. The water and the food and full stomachs. Is that what she was telling us?\n\nWell, he had his meal for the day, didn't he? She was generous that way.\n\nThe feet at the ends of his legs were like wads of leather. They didn't feel much and that was a relief since the stones on the track were sharp and so many others had bleeding feet making it hard to walk. The ground was even worse to either side of the trail.\n\nBadalle was smart. She was the brain behind the jaws, the tongue. She took what the snake's eyes saw. She made sense of what the tongue tasted. She gave names to the things of this new world. The moths that pretended to be leaves and the trees that invited the moths to be leaves so that five trees shared one set of leaves between them, and when the trees got hungry off went the leaves, looking for food. No other tree could do that, and so no other tree lived on the Elan.\n\nShe talked about the jhaval, the carrion birds no bigger than sparrows, that were the first to swarm a body when it fell, using their sharp beaks to stab and drink. Sometimes the jhaval didn't even wait for the body to fall. Saddic had seen them attacking a wounded ribber, even vultures and crows. Sometimes each other, too, when the frenzy was on them." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Keep the narrative going for the author.\nTags: epic fantasy, complex plot, multiple characters, dark themes, intricate world-building\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Dust of Dreams\nChapter: 17" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lieutenant Pores satin the captain's chair behind the captain's desk, and held his hands folded together on the surface before him as he regarded the two women who had, until recently, been rotting in cells in some Letherii fort. \"Sisters, right?\"\n\nWhen neither replied, Pores nodded. \"Some advice, then. Should either of you one day achieve higher rank-say, captain-you too will learn the art of stating the obvious. In the meantime, you are stuck with the absurd requirement of answering stupid questions with honest answers, all the while keeping a straight face. You will need to do a lot of this with me.\"\n\nThe woman on the right said, \"Aye, sir, we're sisters. '\n\n\"Thank you, Sergeant Sinter. Wasn't that satisfying? I'm sure it was. What I will find even more satisfying is watching you two washing down the barracks\" latrines for the next two weeks. Consider it your reward for being so incompetent as to be captured by these local fools. And then failing to escape. \"He scowled.\"Look at you two-nothing but skin and bones! Those uniforms look like shrouds. I order you to regain your lost weight, in all the right places, within the same fortnight. Failure to do will result in a month on half-rations. Furthermore, I want you both to get your haircut, down to the scalp, and to deposit said sheared hair on this desk precisely at the eighth bell this evening. Not earlier, not later. Understood? '\n\n\"Yes, sir!\" barked Sergeant Sinter.\n\n\"Very good,\" nodded Pores. \"Now get out of here, and if you see Lieutenant Pores in the corridor remind him that he has been ordered to a posting on Second Maiden Fort, and the damned idiot should be on his way by now. Dismissed!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As soon as the two women were gone, Pores leapt up from behind the captain's desk, scanned the surface to ensure nothing had been knocked askew, and then carefully repositioned the chair just so. With a nervous glance out the window, he hurried out into the reception room and sat down behind his own, much smaller desk. Hearing heavy boots in the corridor he began shuffling the scrolls and wax tablets on the surface in front of him, planting a studious frown on his features in time for his captain's portentous arrival.\n\nAs soon as the door opened, Pores leapt to attention. \"Good morning, sir!\"\n\n\"It's mid-afternoon, Lieutenant. Those wasp stings clearly rotted what's left of your brain.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir!\"\n\n\"Have those two Dal Honese sisters reported yet?\"\n\n\"No, sir, not hide nor... hair, sir. We should be seeing one or both anytime now-\"\n\n\"Oh, and is that because you intend to physically hunt them down, Lieutenant?\"\n\n\"As soon as I've done this paperwork, sir, I will do just that, even if it takes me all the way to Second Maiden Fort, sir. '\n\nKindly scowled. \"What paperwork?\"\n\n\"Why, sir,\" Pores gestured, \"this paperwork, sir.\"\n\n\"Well, don't dally, Lieutenant. As you know, I need to attend a briefing at half seventh bell, and I want them in my office before then. '\n\n\"Yes, sir!\"\n\nKindly walked past and went inside. Where, Pores imagined, he would spend the rest of the afternoon looking at his collection of combs.\n\n\"Everyone's right, \"Kisswhere muttered as she and her sister made their back to the dormitory,\"Captain Kindly is not only a bastard, but insane. What was all that about our hair? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sinter shrugged. \"No idea.\"\n\n\"Well, there's no regulations about our hair. We can complain to the Fist-'\n\n\"No we won't, \"Sinter cut in.\"Kindly wants hair on his desk, we give him hair on his desk. '\n\n\"Not mine!\"\n\n\"Nor mine, Kisswhere, nor mine.\"\n\n\"Then whose?\"\n\n\"Not whose. What's. '\n\nCorporal Pravalak Rim was waiting at the entrance. \"Did you get commendations then?\" he asked.\n\n\"Oh love,\" said Kisswhere, \"Kindly doesn't give out commendations. Just punishments. '\n\n\"What?\"\n\nSinter said, \"The captain ordered us to put on weight,\" and then she stepped past him, \"among other things.\" And then she paused and turned back to Pravalak. \"Corporal, find us some shears, and a large burlap sack.\"\n\n\"Aye, Sergeant. Shears-how big?\"\n\n\"I don't care, just find some. '\n\nKisswhere offered the young man abroad smile as he hurried off, and then she went inside, marching halfway down the length of the dormitory. She halted at the foot of a cot where the bedding had been twisted into something resembling a nest. Squatting in the centre of this nest was a wrinkled, scarified, tattooed bad dream with small glittering eyes. \"Nep Furrow, I need a curse.\"\n\n\"Eh? Geen way! Groblet! Coo!\"\n\n\"Captain Kindly. I was thinking hives, the real itchy kind. No, wait, that'll just make him even meaner. Make him cross-eyed-but not so he notices, just everyone else. Can you do that, Nep? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"War butt wod i'meen, eh? '\n\n\"How about a massage?\"\n\n\"Kissands?\"\n\n\"My very own, yes.\"\n\n\"Urble ong eh? Urble ong?\"\n\n\"Bell to bell, Nep.\"\n\n\"Nikked?\"\n\n\"Who, you or me?\"\n\n\"Bat!\"\n\n\"Fine, but we'll need to rent a room, unless of course you want an audience? '\n\nNep Furrow was getting excited, in all the wrong ways, she saw. He jumped round, squirmed, his skin glistening with sweat. \"Blether squids, Kiss, blether squids!\"\n\n\"With the door barred,\" she said. \"I won't have any strangers walking in. '\n\n\"Hep haw! Curseed?\"\n\n\"Aye, cross-eyed, but he can't know it-'\n\n\"Impable, lees in glusion.\"\n\n\"Illusion? A glamour? Oh, that's very good. Get on it, then, thanks. '\n\nBadan Gruk rubbed at his face as Sinter collapsed onto the cot beside him. \"What in Hood's name are we doing here? ' he asked.\n\nHer dark eyes flicked to his-the momentary contact sweet as a caress-and then she looked away. \"You're the only kind of soldier a body can trust, Badan, did you know that? '\n\n\"What? No, I-\"\n\n\"You're reluctant. You're not cutout for violence and so you don't go looking for it. You use your wits first and that silly bonekisser as a last resort. The dangerous ones do it the other way round and that costs lives every time. Every time. \"She paused.\"Did I hear right? Some drunk marine sergeant crossed this damned empire from tavern to tavern? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He nodded. \"And left a trail of local sympathizers, too. But she wasn't afraid of spilling blood, Sinter, she just picked out the right targets-people nobody liked. Tax collectors, provosts, advocates. '\n\n\"But she's a drunk? '\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\nShaking her head, Sinter fell back onto the cot. She stared at the ceiling. \"How come she doesn't get busted down? '\n\n\"Because she's one of the Y'Ghatan Stormcrawlers, that's why. Them that went under. '\n\n\"Oh, right.\" A moment's consideration, and then:\"Well, we're marching soon.\"\n\nBadan rubbed at his face again. \"But nobody knows where, or even why. It's a mess, Sinter. \"He hesitated, and then asked,\"You got any bad feelings about it? '\n\n\"Got no feelings at all, Badan. About anything. And no, I don't know what took me by the throat the night of Fid's reading, either. In fact, I don't even remember much of that night, not the ride, nor what followed. '\n\n\"Nothing followed. Mostly, you just passed out. Some Fenn had already stepped in, anyway. Punched a god in the side of the head.\"\n\n\"Good.\"\n\n\"That's it? That's all you're going to say? '\n\n\"Well, like the one-eyed hag says, there's all kinds of worship in the world, Badan. '\n\n\"I don't... \"but the look she shot him ground the words down to dust in his mouth. He flinched and glanced away.\"That thing you said about wits, Sinter, was that a joke, too? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She sighed, closing her eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, Badan. No. Wake me when Rim gets back, will you?\"\n\nTrailed by Lostara Yil, Keneb, Blistig and Quick Ben, the Adjunct Tavore strode down the length of the throne room and halted ten paces from the two thrones.\n\n\"Welcome to you all,\" said King Tehol. \"Adjunct, my Chancellor here informs me that you have a list of requests, most of which will contribute to a happy burgeoning of the royal coffers. Now, if I was the venal sort I would say let's get right to that. But I am no such sort and so I would like to broach an entirely different matter, one of immense importance. '\n\n\"Of course, sire,\" said Tavore. \"We are at your disposal and will assist in anyway we can.\"\n\nThe King beamed.\n\nLostara wondered at the Queen's sigh, but not for long.\n\n\"Wonderful! Now, as soon as I recall the specific details of what I wanted to ask, why, I will. In the meantime, my Ceda tells me that you have stirred awake a sorcerous nest of trouble. My Chancellor, alas, assures me that the confusion is exaggerated-which of the two am Ito believe? Please, if you can, break asunder this dreadful deadlock.\"\n\nFrowning, Tavore turned and said, \"High Mage, can you address this matter, please?\"\n\nQuick Ben moved to stand beside the Adjunct. \"Sire, both your Chancellor and your Ceda are, essentially, correct.\"\n\nLostara saw Bugg smile, and then scowl from where he stood to the right of Tehol's throne.\n\n\"How fascinating,\" the King murmured, leaning forward to settle his chin in one hand. \"Can you elaborate, High Mage?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Probably not, but I will try. The situation, terrifying as it is, is probably temporary. The reading of the Deck of Dragons, which Preda Brys Beddict attended, seems to have illuminated a structural flaw in the... uhm... fabric of reality, a wounding of sorts. It seems, sire, that someone-someone very powerful-attempted to impose anew structure upon the already existing warrens of sorcery.\"\n\nBrys Beddict, positioned to the left of the Queen, asked, \"High Mage, can you explain these'warrens\" which seem so central to your notions of magic?\"\n\n\"Unlike the sorcery that prevailed on this continent until recently, Preda, magic everywhere else exists in a more formalized state. The power, so raw here, is elsewhere refined, aspected, organized into something like themes, and these themes are what we call warrens. Many are accessible to mortals and gods alike; others are\"-and he glanced at Bugg-\"Elder. Some are virtually extinct, or inaccessible due to ignorance or deliberate rituals of sealing. Some, in addition, are claimed and ruled over by elements either native to those warrens, or so fundamentally related to them as to make the distinction meaningless.\"\n\nKing Tehol lifted a finger. \"A moment, whilst I blink the glaze from my eyes. Now, let's mull on what has been said thus far-I'm good at mulling, by the way. If I understand you, High Mage, the realm the Tiste Edur called Kurald Emurlahn represents one of these warrens, yes?\"\n\n\"Aye,\" Quick Ben responded, and then hastily added, \"sire. The Tiste warrens-and there are three that we know of-are all Elder. Two of them, by the way, are no longer ruled by the Tiste. One is virtually sealed. The other has been usurped.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And how do these warrens relate to your Deck of Dragons?\"\n\nThe High Mage flinched. \"Not my Deck, sire, I assure you. There is no simple answer to your question-\"\n\n\"It's about time! I was beginning to feel very stupid. Please understand, I have no problem about being stupid. Feeling stupid is entirely another matter. '\n\n\"Ah, yes, sire. Well, the Deck of Dragons probably originated as a means of divination-less awkward than tiles, burnt bones, silt patterns, random knots, knucklebones, puke, faeces-\"\n\n\"Understood! Please, there are ladies present, good sir!\"\n\n\"Forgive me, sire. In some obvious ways, the High Houses of the Deck relate to certain warrens and as such they present a kind of window looking in on those warrens-conversely, of course, things can in turn lookout from the other side, which is what makes a reading so... risky. The Deck is indifferent to barriers-in the right hands it can reveal patterns and relationships hidden to mortal eyes.\"\n\n\"Even what you describe,\" said Brys, \"hardly matches what happened at that reading, High Mage.\"\n\n\"Aye, Preda, which brings us back to the wound that is this city. Someone drew a knife and carved anew pattern here. New, and yet ancient beyond belief. There was an attempt at a reawakening, but what awoke was broken.\"\n\n\"And do you know who that'someone\" might have been?\" King Tehol asked.\n\n\"Icarium Lifestealer, sire. A Champion intended to cross blades with Emperor Rhulad Sengar.\"\n\nTehol leaned back and said, \"Ceda, do you have anything to add at this moment?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bugg started and then winced. \"The High Mage's knowledge is most impressive, sire. Uncannily so. '\n\nQueen Janath asked, \"Can this wound be healed, Ceda? And if not, what is the threat to Letheras should it continue to... bleed?\"\n\nThe old man made a face that suggested he'd just tasted something unpleasant.\"Letheras is now like a pool of water with all the silts stirred up. We are blinded, groping, and none of us can draw more than a thin, shallow handful of magic. The effect ripples outward and will soon incapacitate the mages throughout the kingdom. '\n\n\"High Mage,\" Janath then said, \"you said earlier that the effect is temporary. Does this presume a healing is imminent?\"\n\n\"Most wounds heal themselves, overtime, Highness. I expect that will begin... as soon as we Malazans get the Hood out of here. The reading gave that wound a sharp poke. Blood flowed out, and in this instance, blood is power.\"\n\n\"Well now,\" mused the King. \"How fascinating, how curious, how alarming. I think we had best proceed with haste to the matter of filling the royal coffers. Adjunct Tavore, you wish to supply a baggage train sufficient to see you into and, presumably, across the Wastelands. This we are happy to provide, at a complimentary, reduced rate-to show our appreciation of your exemplary efforts in ousting the Edur tyranny. Now, my Chancellor has already begun arranging matters from our end, and he informs me that his projected estimate to meet your needs is substantial. It will take us approximately four weeks to assemble such a train and hopefully only moments for you to pay for it. Of course, Brys will arrange his escort's resupply, so you need not worry about that. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He paused then, noting the Adjunct's involuntary start.\"Ah, your escort. Yes, my brother insists that he accompany you through the neighbouring kingdoms. Quite simply, neither Saphinand nor Bolkando can be trusted to do anything but betray and undermine you at every turn. Depressing neighbours-but then, so were we to them not so long ago. I am considering announcing a Royal Project to construct the world's highest fence forever separating our respective territories, with some fine hedging to soften the effect. Yes yes, dear wife, I am now rambling and yes, it was fun!\"\n\n\"Sire,\" said Tavore, \"thank you for the offer of an escort, but I assure you, there is no need. Those kingdoms we seek to pass through may well be treacherous, but I doubt they can succeed in surprising us.\" Her tone was flat and though she couldn't see, Lostara was certain that the Adjunct's eyes were if anything even flatter.\n\n\"They are thieves,\" said Brys Beddict. \"Your baggage train, Adjunct, will be enormous-the lands you seek are bereft-it maybe that even Kolanse itself is unable to accommodate you.\"\n\n\"Excuse me,\" said Tavore. \"I do not recall stating our intended destination.\"\n\n\"There's little else out there, ' said Brys, shrugging.\n\nThe Adjunct said nothing and all at once the atmosphere was tense.\n\n\"Preda Brys,\" said the King, \"will be assisting in policing your train as you pass through two entire nations of pickpockets.\"\n\nStill Tavore hesitated. \"Sire, we have no desire to embroil your kingdom in a war, should Saphinand or Bolkando attempt to betray the passage agreements.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It will be our very presence,\" said Brys, \"that will ensure nothing so overt on their part, Adjunct. Please understand, if we do not escort you and you subsequently find yourselves in a vicious war with no retreat possible, then we in turn will have no choice but to march to your rescue.\"\n\n\"Just so,\" agreed the King. \"So accept the escort, Adjunct, or I shall hold my breath until I achieve a most royal shade of purple.\"\n\nTavore bowed her head in acquiescence. \"I withdraw all objections, sire. Thank you for the escort.\"\n\n\"That's better. Now, I must now seek reassurance from my staff on three distinct issues. Chancellor, are you content with everything pertaining to outfitting the Adjunct's forces?\"\n\n\"I am, sire,\" said Bugg.\n\n\"Excellent. Royal Treasurer, are you confident that the Malazans have sufficient funds for this enterprise?\"\n\n\"So I am assured, sire,\" said Bugg.\n\n\"Good. Ceda, do you concur that the departure of the Malazans will hasten the healing that has befallen the city?\"\n\n\"I do, sire,\" said Bugg.\n\n\"Consensus at last! How delightful! Now what should we do?\"\n\nQueen Janath stood. \"Food and wine awaits us in the dining hall. Allow me to lead our guests.\" And she stepped down from the dais.\n\n\"Darling wife,\" said Tehol, \"for you I make all manner of allowances.\"\n\n\"I am relieved that you so willingly assume such a burden, husband.\"\n\n\"So am I,\" he replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The beetle that walks slowly has nothing to fear.\n\nSAPHII SAYING\n\nCoated in dust-spattered blood, Vedith rode out of the billowing smoke, in his wake piteous screams and the raucous roar of flames as they engulfed the three-storey government building in the town's centre. Most of the other structures lining the main street were already gutted, although fires still licked the blackened frames and the foul smoke lifted pillars skyward.\n\nFour other riders emerged behind Vedith, scimitars unsheathed, the Aren steel blades streaked with gore.\n\nHearing their wild whoops, Vedith scowled. The mangled round shield strapped to his right forearm had driven splinters through the wrist and that hand could not grip the reins. In his left hand he held his own scimitar, the blade snapped a hand's-width above the hilt-he would have thrown it away but he valued the hilt, grip and pommel too much to part with it.\n\nHis horse's reins dragged between the beast's front legs and at any moment the galloping mount, in her fear and pain, might slam a hoof down on them, which would snap her neck down and send her rider tumbling.\n\nHe rose in his stirrups, leaned forward-pounded by the horse's pitching neck-and bit the animal's left ear, tugging backwards. Squealing, the beast's head lifted, her plunging hoofs slowing, drawing up. This gave Vedith time to sheathe what was left of his father's sword and then slip his arm round the horse's neck, easing the pressure of his teeth.\n\nMoments later, the wounded mare pitched and wobbled down off the cobbled road into the high grasses of the ditch and clumped to a halt, body trembling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Murmuring calming words, the warrior released the animal's ear and settled back on the saddle, collecting the reins with his one usable hand.\n\nHis four companions rode up and, beasts jostling on the road, they held their swords high in triumph, even as they spat dust and blood from their mouths.\n\nVedith felt sick. But he understood. The growing list of proscriptions, the ever-dwindling freedom, the indignities and undisguised contempt. Each day in the past week more Bolkando soldiers had arrived, fortlets springing up round the Khundryl encampment like mushroom knuckles on dung. And tensions twisted ever tighter. Arguments burst to lifelike spotfires, and then, all at once-\n\nHe guided his horseback onto the road and glared back at the burning town. And then scanned the horizons to either side. Columns of coiling black smoke rose everywhere like crooked spears-yes, the patience of the Burned Tears was at an end, and he knew that a dozen villages, twice as many hamlets, scores of farms and, now, one town, had felt the wrath of the Khundryl.\n\nVedith's raiding party, thirty warriors-most of them barely into their third decade-had clashed with a garrison. The fighting had been ferocious. He'd lost most of his troop, and this had been fuel enough to set ablaze the Khundryl fury, inflicting wrathful vengeance upon wounded soldiers and the civilian inhabitants of the town.\n\nThe taste of that slaughter left a bitter, toxic stain, inside and out.\n\nHis horse could not hold still. Her slashed flank still bled freely. She circled, head tossing, kicking with the wounded hind leg.\n\nThey'd left scores of corpses in that nameless town. This very morning it had been a peaceful place, life awakening and crawling onto the old familiar trails, a slow beating heart. Now it was ruin and charred meat-they'd not even bothered looting, so fierce upon them was the lust for slaughter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To a proud people, the contempt of others drives the deepest wound. These Bolkando had thought the Khundryl knives were dull. Dull knives, dull minds. They had thought they could cheat the savages, mock them, ply them with foul liquor and steal their wealth.\n\nWe are Seven Cities-did you think you were the first to try to play such games with us?\n\nStragglers were still emerging-three, two, alone wounded warrior slumped over his saddle, two more.\n\nThe soldiers of the garrison had not understood how to meet a cavalry charge. It was as if they had never before seen such a thing, gaping at the precise execution, the deadly timing of the javelins launched when the two sides were but a dozen paces apart. The Bolkando line-formed up across the main street-had crumpled as the barbed javelins punched through shield and scale armour, as figures reeled, buckled and fouled others.\n\nThe Khundryl warhorses and their howling, scimitar-slashing riders then smashed into that tattered formation.\n\nA slaughter. Until the rear sections of the Bolkando dispersed, scattering into clumps, pelting into the side avenues, the alleys, the sheltered mouths of stone-faced shops. The battle broke up then, knots spinning away. Khundryl warriors were forced to dismount, unable to press into the narrower alleys, or drawback out into the open soldiers crouched behind drawn-up shields in the niches of doorways. Still outnumbered, warriors of the Burned Tears began falling.\n\nIt had taken most of the morning to hunt down and butcher the last garrison soldier. And barely a bell to murder the townsfolk who had not fled-who had, presumably, imagined that seventy-five soldiers would prevail against a mere thirty savages-and then set fire to the town, roasting alive the few who had successfully hidden themselves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Such scenes, Vedith knew, were raging across the entire countryside now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one was spared, and to deliver the message in the clearest way imaginable, every Bolkando farm was being stripped of anything and everything edible or otherwise useful. The revolt had been ignited by the latest Bolkando price hike-a hundred percent, applicable only to the Khundryl-on all necessities, including fodder for the horses. Revile us, yes, even as you take our silver and gold.\n\nHe had a dozen warriors with him now, one of them likely to die soon-well before they reached the encampment. And thick splinters rode up his forearm like extra longbones, pain throbbing.\n\nYes, the losses had been high. But then, what other troop had attacked a garrisoned town?\n\nStill, he wondered if, perhaps, the Burned Tears had kicked awake the wrong nest.\n\n\"Bind Sidab's wounds, \"he now said in a growl.\"Has he his sword? '\n\n\"He has, Vedith.\"\n\n\"Give it tome-mine broke.\"\n\nAlthough he was dying and knew it, Sidab lifted his head at this and showed Vedith a red smile.\n\n\"It shall weight my hand as did my father's sword, \"Vedith said.\"I shall wield it with pride, Sidab. '\n\nThe man nodded, smile fading. He coughed out a gout of blood and then slid out of his saddle, thumping heavily onto the cobbled road.\n\n\"Sidab stays behind.\"\n\nThe others nodded and spat to make a circle round the corpse, thus sanctifying the ground, completing the only funeral ceremony needed for Khundryl warriors on the path of war. Vedith reached out and took up the reins of Sidab's horse. He would take the beast as well, and ride it, to ease his own mount's discomfort. \"We return to Warleader Gall. Our words shall make his eyes shine.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Warleader Gall sagged back into his antler and rope throne, the knots creaking. \"Coltaine's sweet breath, ' he sighed, squeezing shut his eyes.\n\nJarabb, Tear Runner to the warleader and the only other occupant of Gall's tent, removed his helmet, and then the padded doeskin cap, and raked thick fingers through his hair, before stepping forward and dropping to one knee.\"Command me, ' he said.\n\nGall groaned. \"Not now, Jarabb. The time for play's over-my Fall-damned young braves have given us a war. Twenty raids have howled back into camp, sacks filled with hens and pups and whatnot. I'd wager nigh on a thousand innocent farmers and villagers already dead-\"\n\n\"And hundreds of soldiers, Warleader,\" reminded Jarabb. \"The fortlets burn-\"\n\n\"And I've been coughing from the smoke all morning-we didn't need to torch them-that timber would have been useful. So we spit and snarl like a desert lynx in her lair, and what do you think King Tarkulf is going to do? Wait, never mind him-the man's got fungi for brains-it's the Chancellor and his cute Conquestor we have to worry about. Let me tell you what they'll do, Jarabb. They won't demand we return to this camp. They won't insist on reparations and blood-coin. No, they'll raise an army and march straight for us.\"\n\n\"Warleader,\" Jarabb said, straightening, \"wildlands beckon us north and east-once out on the plains, no one can catch us.\"\n\n\"All very well, but these Bolkando aren't our enemy. They were supplying us-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We loot all we can before fleeing.\"\n\n\"And won't the Adjunct be thrilled by how we've smoothed the sand before her. This is a mess, Jarabb. A mess.\"\n\n\"What, then, will you do, Warleader?\"\n\nGall finally opened his eyes, blinked, and then coughed. After a moment he said, \"I won't try to mend what cannot be undone. This aids the Adjunct nothing. No, we need to seize the bull's cock.\" He surged to his feet, collected up his crow-feather cloak. \"Break this camp-kill all livestock and start curing the meat. It will be weeks before the Bolkando muster the numbers they need against us. To ensure safe passage of the Bonehunters-not to mention the Grey Helms-we're going to march on the capital. We're going to pose such a threat that Tarkulf voids his bladder and overrules his advisors-I want the King thinking he might be facing a three-pronged invasion of his piss-ass latrine pit of a kingdom.\"\n\nJarabb smiled. He could seethe embers glowing in his warleader's dark eyes. Which meant that, once all the orders were barked and all the other runners were scrambling dust-trails, Gall's mood would be much improved.\n\nSufficient, perhaps, to once more invite some... play.\n\nAll he need do was make sure the old man's wife was nowhere close.\n\nShield Anvil Tanakalian shifted uncomfortably beneath his chain surcoat. The quilted underpadding had worn through on his right shoulder-he should have patched it this morning and would have done so had he not been so eager to witness the landing of the first cohort of Grey Helms on this wretched ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For all his haste he found Mortal Sword Krughava already positioned on the rise overlooking the shoreline, red-faced beneath her heavy helm. Though the sun was barely above the mountain peaks to the east, the air was stifling, oppressive, swarming with sand flies. Ashe approached he could see in her eyes the doom of countless epic poems, as if she had devoted her life to absorbing the tragedies of a thousand years' worth of fallen civilizations, finding the taste savagely pleasing.\n\nYes, she was a holy terror, this hard, iron woman.\n\nUpon arriving at her side, he bowed in greeting. \"Mortal Sword. This is a portentous occasion.\"\n\n\"Yet but two of us stand here, sir,\" she rumbled in reply, \"when there should be three.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"A new Destriant must be chosen. Who among the elders have you considered, Mortal Sword?\"\n\nFour squat, broad-beamed avars-the landing craft of the Thrones of War-were fast closing on the channel wending through the mudflats, oar blades flashing. The tide wasn't cooperating at all. The bay should be swelling with inflow; instead the water churned, as if confused. Tanakalian squinted at the lead avar, expecting it to run aground at any moment. The heavily burdened brothers and sisters would have to disembark and then slog on foot-he wondered how deep the mud was out there.\n\n\"I am undecided,\" Krughava finally admitted. \"None of our elders happens to be very old.\"\n\nTrue enough. This long sea voyage had worn through the lives of a score or more of the most ancient brothers and sisters. Tanakalian swung round to study the two encampments situated two thousand paces inland, one on this side of the river and the other on the opposite, west side. As yet there had been no direct contact with the Akrynnai delegation-if the mob of spike-haired, endlessly singing, spear-waving barbarians truly justified such an honorific. So long as they stayed on the other side of the river, the Akrynnai could sing until the mountains sank into the sea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Bolkando camp, an ever burgeoning city of gaudy tents, was already aswarm-as if the imminent landing of the Perish had sent them into a frenzy. Strange people, these Bolkando. Scar-faced yet effete, polite yet clearly bloodthirsty. Tanakalian did not trust them, and it looked as if their escort through the mountain passes and into the kingdom amounted to an entire army-three or four thousand strong-and though he didn't think the average Bolkando soldier could hope to match a Grey Helm, still their sheer numbers were cause for concern.\"Mortal Sword, \"he said, facing her once more,\"do we march into betrayal? '\n\n\"This journey must be considered one through hostile territory, Shield Anvil. We will march in armour, weapons at hand. Should the Bolkando escort precede us into the pass, then I shall have no cause for worry. Should they divide to form advance and rear elements, I will be forced to take measure of the strength of that rearguard. If it is modest then we need have little concern. If it is overstrength relative to the advance element, then one must consider the possibility that a second army awaits us at the far end of the pass. Given,\" she added, \"that we must travel in column, such an ambush would put us at a disadvantage, initially at least.\"\n\n\"We had best hope,\" observed Tanakalian, \"that they intend treating with us honourably.\"\n\n\"If not, they will regret their temerity, sir.\"\n\nThree legions, eighteen cohorts and three supply companies. Five thousand brothers and sisters in the land force. The remaining legions would accompany the Thrones of War on the ill-mapped sea-lanes south of the coast, seeking the Pelasiar Sea. It had been the judgement of both the Adjunct and Krughava that the Burned Tears needed support. Given the reported scarcity of resources in the Wastelands, the Bonehunters would travel independent of the more southerly forces consisting of the Khundryl mounted and the Perish foot legions. The two elements would march eastward on parallel tracks, with perhaps twenty leagues between them, until reaching the borders of the first kingdom beyond the Wastelands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In Krughava's mind, Tanakalian well knew, a holy war awaited them, the singular purpose of their existence, and upon that foreign soil the Grey Helms would find their glory, their heroic triumph in service to the Wolves of Winter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He shared with her that sense of purpose, fate's bold promise, and like her he did not fear war. They were trained in the ways of violence, sworn to those cusps of history hacked into shape on battlefields. With sword and will, they could change the world. Such was the truth of war, for all that soft fools might wish otherwise, might dream of peace and harmony between strangers.\n\nRomantics with their wishful notions invariably delivered the asp's bite, whether they sought to or not. Hope and faith seeped through like the sweetest nectar, only to sour into vile poison. Most virtues, Tanakalian well knew, were defenceless. Abused and corrupted with ease, ever made to turn in the wielder's hand. It took a self-deluded mind to force justice upon a world when that world cared for nothing; when all reality mocked the righteous with its indifference.\n\nWar swept such games aside. It was pure, unapologetic in its brutality. Justice arrived with the taste of blood, both sweet and bitter and that too was as it should be.\n\nNo, he would tell the Mortal Sword nothing of the Destriant's final words of terror, of his unmanned panic, the shrill clangour of his warnings. Such failings served no one, after all.\n\nEven so, Tanakalian vowed to remain watchful, wary, trusting nothing and expecting betrayal from every stranger.\n\nRun'Thurvian was too old for war. Fear took his life-I could see that clearly enough. He was blind, driven to madness. Babbling. It was all so... undignified.\n\nThe avars had run aground over a hundred paces from the high-tidemark. Burdened soldiers stumbled shin-deep in fly-swarmed mud, whilst the crews struggled to drag the boats free to retrace their route back to the anchored Thrones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were in fora long day.\n\n\"Well now,\" muttered Chancellor Rava as he perused the coded missive, \"our dear King seems to have led our precious kingdom into a royal mess.\"\n\nAvalt paced in front of the old man, from one side of the tent's shrouded chamber to the other. He could guess at most of the details hidden on the parchment in Rava's hands. The Chancellor's comment was, if the truth was laid bare, entirely inaccurate. The'mess'didn't come from King Tarkulf. In fact, it was without question the product of certain excesses among servants of the Chancellor and, indeed, of Conquestor Avalt himself. \"What we now need to determine,\" he said, his voice still cracking from the tirade he had delivered a short time earlier to a select company of merchant agents and spies, \"is the nature of the relationship between our Perish friends and these Khundryl bandits.\"\n\n\"True,\" Rava replied. \"However, do recall that the Perish seem to hold to an absurdly elevated notion of honour. Once we present to them our version of the Khundryl's sudden, inexplicable rampage... once we speak of the atrocities and the slaughter of hundreds, if not thousands of innocents... \"he smiled,\"I believe we shall see, to our blessed relief, a most stern disavowal from the Mortal Sword. '\n\nAvalt's nod was sharp.\"Which will permit me to concentrate my forces on crushing the Khundryl without having to worry about the Perish. '\n\nRava's watery eyes seemed to slide from Avalt as he asked,\"Is there cause for worry, Conquestor? Do we not possess the military might to obliterate both forces if necessary? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Avalt stiffened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course, Chancellor. But have you forgotten our latest intelligence from Lether? The third element in this foreign alliance intends to march through our kingdom. Perhaps, even then, we could crush all three forces. But at a dreadful cost. Furthermore, we do not know yet what agreements have been fashioned between the Letherii and these Malazans-we could well end up with the very war we did everything we could to avoid-\"\n\n\"Resulting in the exposure of our deceptions with regard to our putative allies, the Saphii and the Akrynnai.\"\n\n\"Said deceptions making obvious the betrayals we intended-yet with us suddenly incapable of backing them with force. It is one thing to make promises only to abandon our allies in the field-if we cannot then occupy the lands of those allies once their armies have been annihilated, then the entire enterprise fails.\"\n\n\"Let us assume, for the moment,\" said Rava, \"that the Letherii threat no longer exists, and so the great Bolkando Alliance need never show its paper fangs. What we presently face, at its worst, is three disconnected armies marching every which way across our kingdom. One of those has now given us a bloody nose, but it is likely that the Khundryl will beat a hasty retreat, now that they've satisfied their bloodlust. They will take their loot and flee into the Wastelands. Naturally, that will be a fatal error-we need only move a few legions of your Third Regulars to occupy the border forts and trenchworks-so that whatever remnants of the Khundryl come crawling back will not present any sort of threat. \"He raised a finger.\"We must be sure to have our own commanders in charge, to profit from enslaving the Khundryl refugees. '\n\n\"Of course.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"To continue, then, we are left with the Perish and the Malazans, and both, by all counts, appear eminently civilized." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of a sort to deplore the Khundryl excesses, and indeed they may end up feeling somewhat responsible. They may, in fact, offer reparations.\"\n\nAvalt had ceased pacing and he now stood, staring down at the Chancellor. \"What, then, of the ambush we were planning in the pass?\"\n\n\"I would advise that it remain in place, for the moment, Conquestor. At least until we are able to gauge the Mortal Sword's reaction when we deliver the news of the Khundryl and their unwarranted depredations. '\n\n\"I assume you will assure the Mortal Sword of our faith in her and her Grey Helms,\" said Avalt. \"And that we recognize that the actions of barbarians-allies or not-cannot be predicted, and that we in noway hold the Perish responsible.\"\n\nRava was nodding. \"And so, having said just that, the fact that we are observed to array our escort in a defensive posture will simply indicate our... cautious natures.\"\n\n\"Thus encouraging the Mortal Sword to make allowances, in her desire to alleviate our newfound uncertainty.\"\n\n\"Precisely. Well said, Conquestor.\"\n\nAvalt resumed pacing. \"So, we drive the Khundryl into the Wastelands, and then enslave whoever makes it back. We ambush the Perish, resulting in a treasure trove of exquisite weaponry and armour-sufficient to outfit anew elite element-\"\n\n\"Two units,\" Rava reminded him. \"Your private guard and one for meas well.\"\n\n\"As agreed, Chancellor. To resume, we are then facing one remaining army. The Malazans.\"\n\n\"We must assume that word will reach them of the fate of their allies.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"To which they will react, either with a perception of sudden vulnerability, in which case they will beat a retreat, or with anger, inciting aggression on their part.\"\n\n\"Less than ten thousand of the fools,\" observed Rava. \"If we invite our allies among the Akrynnai and Saphii, we can divide the spoils-\"\n\n\"I want those crossbows of theirs,\" Avalt said. \"I cannot tell you how frustrating it has been to fail again and again in stealing one thus far. With a legion or two armed with those weapons I could overrun Saphinand in a month.\"\n\n\"All in due course,\" Rava said.\n\n\"All of this assumes the Letherii do not get involved.\"\n\nThe Chancellor sighed, and then made a face. \"My finest spies fall one after another in that court, and those few who have managed to escape are convinced that King Tehol is even worse than Tarkulf. A useless, bumbling idiot.\"\n\n\"But you are not convinced, Chancellor?\"\n\n\"Of course not.\" He paused, and then said, \"most of the time. We maybe dealing with a situation there uncannily identical to our own.\"\n\nAvalt caught his breath, frozen in place once again. \"Errant's nudge, can it be, Rava? '\n\n\"I wish I knew. Tehol Beddict's wife remains an unknown entity. '\n\n\"But surely not in a position to match Queen Abrastal?\"\n\nRava shrugged. \"On the face of it, it seems unlikely. She possesses no private army. No elite units like Abrastal's Evertine Legion or anything comparable. If she has spies-and what queen doesn't-they seem to be engaged in intelligence gathering only, rather than active sabotage.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yet,\" said Avalt, \"someone is clearly hunting down your spies-\"\n\n\"Even there, I cannot be certain. Each has died in mysterious circumstances-well, ones that I find mysterious. Tragic mishaps, each and everyone. As if the Errant himself was giving each one his personal... attention.\"\n\n\"Now that is an alarming thought, Chancellor.\"\n\n\"Well, blessedly, not one has been exposed or captured. The accidents that have befallen them invariably resulted in sudden death.\"\n\nAvalt frowned. \"The only situation I can imagine that fits the situation, Chancellor, is that our own networks have been so compromised by the Letherii that neither public exposure nor torture is deemed necessary. Such a notion chills me to the bone.\"\n\n\"You assume the Letherii have managed that infiltration,\" said Rava. \"Is it not more likely that the compromise originates from within our own kingdom?\"\n\n\"Surely not Tarkulf's spies-'\n\n\"No, we have them all in hand. No, my friend, is it truly inconceivable that the Queen has her own agents ensconced in Tehol's palace? '\n\n\"Actively eliminating rivals, yes, that seems terrifyingly possible,\" conceded Avalt. \"Then, what is she planning?\"\n\n\"I wish I knew.\" And Rava sat forward, fixing Avalt with a hard stare. \"Assure me, Conquestor, that at no time will this situation force the Queen into the fore-at no time, Avalt, will we give her reason to shove her useless husband aside and sound the call.\"\n\nAvalt was suddenly trembling. The thought of the Evertine Legion stirred awake, actually on the march to cleanup whatever mess the kingdom had been plunged into... no, that must not be. \"Surely,\" he said, voice breaking, \"this present game is too small to concern Queen Abrastal.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rava's face was grave." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He lifted the parchment note and fluttered it like a tiny white flag.\"An addendum informs me, Conquestor, that the King's fourteenth daughter and her handmaiden are no longer resident in the palace.\"\n\n\"What? Where have they gone?\"\n\nTo that, the Chancellor had no answer.\n\nAnd that silence filled Avalt with dread.\n\nThe Bolkando commanders took their time to emerge from their encampment and ascend, with great ceremony, to the rise where Tanakalian and the Mortal Sword stood. It was late afternoon. The Perish legions, in full kit, had formed up and were now marching to the floodplain a thousand paces inland, where the supply units had already begun staking out the tent rows and service blocks. The insects swarming over the brothers and sisters formed sunlit, glittering clouds that spun and whirled even as orange-winged martins flickered through them.\n\nThe river lizards that had been basking on the banks for most of the day had begun rising upon their stubby legs and slinking their way into the water, warily eyed by the herons and storks stalking the reedy shallows.\n\nNights in this country, Tanakalian suspected, would not be pleasant. He could imagine all manner of horrid, poisonous creatures creeping, crawling and flying in the sweltering, steamy darkness. The sooner they climbed into the mountain passes the better he would feel. This notion of insanely inimical nature was new to him, and most unwelcome.\n\nHis attention was drawn back to Chancellor Rava and Conquestor Avalt as the unlikely pair-both riding chairs affixed to the saddled shoulders of four burly slaves slowly climbing the slope-rocked back and forth, like kings on shaky thrones. Others flanked them with feather fans, keeping insects at bay. A train of a dozen more trailed the two men. This time, at least, there were no armoured guards-nothing so obvious, although Tanakalian suspected that more than a few of those supposed slaves were in fact bodyguards." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Solemn greetings!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "called the Chancellor, waving one limp hand. He then snapped something to his porters and they set down his chair. He stepped daintily onto the ground, adjusting his silken robes, and was joined moments later by Avalt. They strode up to the Perish.\n\n\"A flawlessly executed landing-congratulations, Mortal Sword. Your soldiers are indeed superbly trained.\"\n\n\"Kind words, Chancellor,\" Krughava rumbled in reply. \"Strictly speaking, however, they are not my soldiers. They are my brothers and sisters. We areas much a priesthood as we area military company.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" murmured Rava, \"and this is certainly what makes you unique on this continent.\"\n\n\"Oh?\"\n\nConquestor Avalt smiled and provided explanation, \"You arrive possessing a code of conduct unmatched by any native military force. We seek to learn much from you-matters of discipline and behaviour that we can apply to our own people to the benefit of all.\"\n\n\"It distresses me,\" said Krughava, \"that you hold your own soldiers in such low opinion, Conquestor.\"\n\nTanakalian squinted as if he'd caught a glare of sunlight from some distant weapon, and hoped that this seemingly unconscious expression hid his smile.\n\nWhen he looked back he saw Avalt's own eyes widening within their cage of dyed scars, and then thinning.\"You misunderstand, Mortal Sword. '\n\nRava said, \"You have perchance already sensed something of the incessant intrigue compounding alliances and agreements of mutual protection between the border nations, Mortal Sword. Such things, while regrettable, are necessary. The Saphii do not trust the Akrynnai. The Akrynnai do not trust the Awl nor the D'rhasilhani. And the Bolkando trust none of them. Foreign armies, we have all long since learned, cannot beheld to the same high comportment as one holds one's own forces.\" He spread his hands. \"Conquestor Avalt was simply expressing our unexpected pleasure in finding in you such unimpeachable honour.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah,\" said Krughava, with all the percipient wit of a cliff goat.\n\nAvalt was struggling to master his anger, and Tanakalian knew that the Mortal Sword-for all her seemingly oblivious insensitivity-was well taking note of this interesting flaw in the commander overseeing Bolkando Kingdom's combined military might. A commander with a temper and, evidently, poor discipline in mastering it-particularly in front of strangers and potential enemies-was one who would squander his soldiers to answer some insult, real or imagined. He was, therefore, both more dangerous and less threatening, the former for the risk of his doing the unexpected, the precipitous; and the latter for what would likely be a blunt, unsubtle execution, fuelled by an overwhelming need for satisfaction.\n\nTanakalian ran through these details in his mind, forcing himself to inwardly articulate the lessons that he knew Krughava had comprehended in an instant. Now that the Destriant was gone, it fell to the Shield Anvil to seek a path as close as possible to the Mortal Sword, to find away into her mind, to how she thought and those duties that drove her.\n\nDuring these moments of reflection, Chancellor Rava had been speaking: \"... unexpected tragedies, Mortal Sword, which have put us in a most awkward position. It is necessary, therefore, that we take measured pause here, whilst your formidable forces are poised outside the kingdom's boundaries. '\n\nKrughava had cocked her head. \"Since you have not yet described these tragedies, Chancellor, I can only observe that, from my experience, most tragedies are unexpected, and invariably lead to awkwardness. Since it seems that the fact that we have not yet crossed into your kingdom is, for you, a salient point, am Ito assume that your'unexpected tragedies\" have in someway jeopardized our agreement?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now it was the Chancellor's turn to fail in disguising his irritation.\"You Perish, \"he now said, tone brittle,\"have acknowledged a binding alliance with the Khundryl Burned Tears who are guests of the kingdom at the moment-guests who have ceased to behave in a civilized fashion. '\n\n\"Indeed? What leads you to this assessment, Chancellor?\"\n\n\"This-this assessment?\"\n\nAs Rava spluttered, speechless, Conquestor Avalt spoke sardonically: \"How might you assess the following, Mortal Sword? The Khundryl have broken out of their settlement and are now raiding throughout the countryside. Burning and looting farms, stealing herds, putting to the torch forts and hamlets and indeed an entire town. But I am remiss in speaking only of material depredations. I forgot to mention scores of murdered soldiers and thousands of slaughtered civilians. I failed inciting the rapes and butchering of children-\"\n\n\"Enough!\" Krughava's bellow sent all the Bolkando flinching back.\n\nThe Chancellor was first to recover. \"Is this to be the manner of your vaunted honour, Mortal Sword?\" he demanded, red-faced, eyes bright. \"Can you not comprehend our newfound caution-nay, our distrust? Have we been led to expect such treachery-\"\n\n\"You go too far,\" said Krughava, and Tanakalian saw the faint curl of a smile on her lips-a detail that took his breath away.\n\nIt seemed to exert a similar effect upon the Bolkando dignitaries, as Rava paled and Avalt settled a mailed hand on his sword.\n\n\"What,\" demanded Rava in a rasp, \"does that mean?\"\n\n\"You describe a local history of internecine treachery and incessant betrayal, sirs, so much so as to be part of your very natures, and then you express horror and outrage at the supposed betrayal of the Khundryl. Your protestations are melodramatic, sirs. False in their extremity. I begin to see in you Bolkando a serpent delighting in the cleverness of its own forked tongue.\" She paused in the shocked silence, and then added, \"When I invited you into the illusion of my ignorance, sirs, you slithered with eager glee. Who here among us, then, is the greater fool?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tanakalian gave credit to both men as he saw the rapid reassessment betrayed in their features." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After a tense moment, Krughava continued in a quieter tone, \"Sirs, I have known Warleader Gall of the Khundryl Burned Tears for sometime now. In the course of along ocean voyage, no duplicities of character remain hidden. You assert the uniqueness of the Grey Helms, and in this you clearly reveal tome your lack of understanding with respect to the Khundryl. The Burned Tears, sirs, are in fact a warrior cult. Devoted to the very heart of their souls to a legendary warleader. This warleader, Coltaine, was of such stature, such honour, that he earned worship not among his allies, but among his putative enemies. Such as the Khundryl Burned Tears.\" She paused, and then said, 'I am assured, therefore, that Warleader Gall and his people were provoked. Possessed of admirable forbearance, as I know him to be, Gall would have bowed as a sapling to the wind. Until such time as the insults demanded answer.\n\n\"They have raided and conducted wholesale looting? From this detail I conclude Bolkando merchants and the King's agents sought to take advantage of the Khundryl, imposing usurious increases in the price of essential supplies. Furthermore, you state that they broke out of their settlement. What manner of settlement requires a violent exit? The only one that comes to mind is one under siege. Accordingly, and inconsideration of such provocation, I reaffirm the alliance between the Khundryl Burned Tears and the Grey Helms. If enemies to us you choose to be, sirs, then we must consider that we are now at war. Attend to your brigade, Conquestor-it is tactically imperative that we obliterate your presence here prior to invading your kingdom. '\n\nFor all his doubt and suspicions and, indeed, fears, Tanakalian was not averse to revelling in pride at this moment; seeing the effect of the Mortal Sword's words upon the Chancellor and the Conquestor he felt savage pleasure. Play games with us, will you? The Khundryl may sting, but the Perish shall rend and tear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They would not call Krughava's bluff, for it was no bluff, and they both clearly knew it.\n\nNor, Tanakalian knew, would they accede to a state of war-not here against the Perish, and not, by extension, against the Burned Tears. The fools had miscalculated, badly miscalculated.\n\nAnd now would begin the desperate renewal of negotiations, and the footing that had heretofore been on a matching level-as courtesy demanded-was level no longer.\n\nAfter all, you may at this moment face two bridling, angry armies, my friends, and find yourselves shaking with terror.\n\nWait until you meet the Bonehunters.\n\nHe watched as, following hasty reiterations of a desire to work things through peacefully, the Chancellor and the Conquestor retreated back down the slope-not even bothering with the ridiculous chairs. The slaves stumbled after them in a fan-waving mob.\n\nBeside him, Krughava sighed, and then said, \"It occurs tome, sir, that the Bolkando expected the Khundryl to prove little more than a minor irritant, confined to the region surrounding their settlement. Easily contained, or, indeed, quickly driven over the border into the Wastelands. That notion led, inevitably, to the conceit that we here could be isolated and dealt with at their leisure.\"\n\n\"Then an ambush was intended all along?\"\n\n\"Or the threat thereof, to win further concessions.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Tanakalian, \"if the Khundryl will neither remain close to their settlement nor retreat over the border, then it follows that but one course remains.\"\n\nShe nodded. \"As a barbed spear,\" she said, \"Gall will lead his people into the very heart of the kingdom.\" She rolled her shoulders in a rustle of chain and buckles. \"Shield Anvil, inform the legion commands that we are to march two bells before dawn-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Even if that means we are pursued by the Bolkando escort?\"\n\nShe bared her teeth. \"Have you gauged those troops, sir? They could be naked and not keep up with us. Their baggage train alone is thrice the size of their combatants in column. That,\" she pronounced, \"is an army used to going nowhere.\"\n\nShe set off, then, to beat down the two Bolkando delegates, from flickering daggers to misshapen lumps of lead.\n\nTanakalian, on the other hand, made his way to the Perish camp.\n\nThe insects were maddening, and from the rushes lining the river birds screamed.\n\nThe rain thrashed down, making the world grey and turning the stony track into a foaming stream. The tall black boles of the trees to either side loomed into view and then receded in rippling waves as Yan Tovis guided her horse down the now treacherous trail. Her waxed cloak was drawn tight about her, the hood pulled over her helm. Two days and three nights of this and she was chilled and soaked through. Ever since she had departed the Cities Road, five leagues from Dresh, cutting northward to where she had left her people, league after league of this forest had begun to weigh upon her. Her descent to the coast was also a journey into the past, civilization fading into ghostly hopes in her wake. Patches of clear-cut meadow, bordered by snarled bomas of cut branches, hacked brush and root stumps, the triple ruts of log-tracks wending in and out; the rubbish of old camps and the ash heaps and trenches of charcoal makers: these marked the brutal imposition of Dresh's hunger and need.\n\nAs with the islands of Katter Bight, desolation was the promise. As she had ridden through the old timber camps, she had seen the soil erosion, the deep rocky channels cutting through every clearing. And when in Dresh, resigning her commission, she had noted the nervousness among the garrison troops. Following a royal decree halting logging operations, there had been riots-much of the city's wealth came from the forest, after all, and while the prohibition was a temporary one, during which the King's agents set about devising anew system-one centred on sustainability-the stink of panic clogged the city streets." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yan Tovis was not surprised that King Tehol had begun challenging the fundamental principles and practices of Lether, but she suspected that he would soon find himself a solitary, beleaguered voice of reason." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even commonsense was an enemy to the harvesters of the future. The beast that was civilization ever faced forward, and in making its present world it devoured the world to come. It was an appalling truth that one's own children could be so callously sacrificed to immediate comforts, yet this was so and it had always been so.\n\nDreamers were among the first to turn their backs on historical truths. King Tehol would be swept aside, drowned in the inexorable tide of unmitigated growth. No one, after all, can stand between the glutton and the feast.\n\nShe wished him well, even as she knew he would fail.\n\nIn the midst of pelting rain she had left the camps behind, taking one of the old wood-bison migration routes through virgin forest. The mud of the ancient track swarmed with leeches and she was forced to dismount every bell or so to tug the mottled black and brown creatures from her horse's legs, until the path led down onto a sinkhole basin that proved to be a salt-trap-the plague of leeches ended abruptly and, as she continued down-slope, did not return.\n\nSigns of the old dwellers began to appear-perhaps they were Shake remnants, perhaps they belonged to a people now forgotten. She saw the slumping humps of round huts covered in wax-leaved vines. She saw on the massive trunks of the most ancient trees crumbled visages, carved by hands long since rotted to nothing. The wooden faces were smeared in black-slime, moss and lumps of sickly fungi. She halted her mount beside one such creation and stared at it through the rain fora longtime. She could think of no finer symbol of impermanence. The blunted expression, its pits of sorrow that passed for eyes: these things haunted her long after she had left the ruined settlement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The track eventually merged with a Shake road that had once joined two coastal villages, and this was the path she now took.\n\nThe rain had become a deluge, and its hissing rose to a roar on her hood, a curtain of water sheeting down in front of her eyes.\n\nHer horse halted suddenly and she lifted her head to see alone rider blocking her path.\n\nHe seemed a figure sculpted in flowing water. \"Listen tome,\" she said, loud, unexpectedly harsh. \"Do you truly imagine that you can follow us, brother?\"\n\nYedan Derryg made no reply-his typical statement of obstinacy.\n\nShe wanted to curse him, but knew that even that would be useless. \"You killed the witches and warlocks. Pully and Skwish are not enough. Do you understand what you have forced upon me, Yedan?\"\n\nHe straightened in his saddle at that. Even in the gloom she saw his jaws bunching as he chewed fora time on his reply, before saying, \"You cannot. You must not. Make the journey, sister, upon the mortal path.\"\n\n\"Because it is the only one you can follow, banished as you are.\"\n\nBut he shook his head. \"The road you seek is but a promise. Never attempted. A promise, Yan Tovis. Will you risk the lives of our people upon such a thing?\"\n\n\"You have left me no choice.\"\n\n\"Take the mortal path, as you said you would. Eastward to Bluerose and thence across the sea-\"\n\nShe wanted to scream at him. Instead, she bared her teeth. \"You damned fool, Yedan. Have you seen the camp of our-my-people? The population of the whole island-old prisoners and their families, merchants and hawkers, cut-throats and pirates-everyone joined us! Not even including the Shake, there are close to ten thousand Letherii refugees in my camp! What am Ito do with them all? How do I feed them?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They are not your responsibility, Twilight. Disperse them-the islands are very nearly underwater now-this crisis belongs to King Tehol-to Lether.\"\n\n\"You forget,\" she snapped, \"Second Maiden proclaimed its independence. And made me Queen. The moment we arrived on the mainland, we became invaders.\"\n\nHe cocked his head. \"It is said the King is a compassionate man-\"\n\n\"He may well be, but how will everyone else think-all those people whose lands we must cross? When we beg for food and shelter? When our hunger grasps tight our souls, so that begging becomes demands? The northern territories have not yet recovered from the Edur War-fields lie fallow; the places where sorcery was unleashed now seethe with nightmare creatures and poisonous plants. I will not descend upon King Tehol's most fragile subjects with fifteen thousand desperate trespassers! '\n\n\"Take me back, then,\" Yedan said. \"Your need for me-\"\n\n\"I cannot! You area Witchslayer! You would be torn to pieces!\"\n\n\"Then find a worthy mate-a king-\"\n\n\"Yedan Derryg, move aside. I will speak with you no longer.\"\n\nHe collected his reins and made way for her to pass. \"The mortal path, sister. Please.\"\n\nComing alongside, she raised a gloved hand as if to strike him, then lowered it and kicked her horse forward. Feeling his gaze upon her back was not enough to twist her round in her saddle. The weight of his disapproval settled on her shoulders, and with a faint shock she discovered that it was not entirely unfamiliar. Perhaps, as a child... well, some traits refused to go away, no matter the span of years. The notion made her even more miserable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A short time later she caught the rank smell of cookfires dying in the rain.\n\nMy people, my realm, I am home.\n\nPithy and Brevity sat on a rolled-up, half-buried log at what used to be the high-watermark, their bare feet in the lukewarm water of the sea's edge. The story went that this precious, magical mix of fresh rain and salty surf was a cure for all manner of foot ailments, including bad choices that sent one walking in entirely the wrong direction. Of course, life being what it is, you can't cure what you ain't done yet, though it never hurts to try.\n\n\"Besides,\" said Brevity, her short dark hair flattened onto her round cheeks, \"if we didn't swing the vote, you and me, why, we'd be swimming to the nearest tavern right about now.\"\n\n\"Praying that there's still some beer on tap, ' Pithy added.\n\n\"It was the ice melt, dearie, that done in the island, and sure, maybe it would've subsided some, maybe even enough, but who wanted to hold their breaths waiting for that? \"She pulled a sodden rustleaf stick from some fold in her cloak and jammed it in the corner of her mouth.\"Anyway, we got us a Queen now and a government-'\n\n\"A divided government, Brevity. Shake on one side, Forters on the other, and the Queen hogtied and stretched in between-I can hear her creaking day and night. What we're looking at here is an impasse and it won't hold that way for much longer.\"\n\n\"Well, with only two witches left, it's not like the Shake can do nothing but wave a bony fist our way. \"Pithy kicked her feet, making desultory splashes quickly beaten down by the rain.\"We need to make our move soon. We need to swing the Queen over to our side. You and me, Brev, we should be leading the contingent to King Tehol, with a tidy resettlement scheme that includes at least three chests heaped with coins. '" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist in storytelling, proceed with the tale.\nTags: epic fantasy, complex plot, multiple characters, dark themes, intricate world-building\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Dust of Dreams\nChapter: 18" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A short time later she caught the rank smell of cookfires dying in the rain.\n\nMy people, my realm, I am home.\n\nPithy and Brevity sat on a rolled-up, half-buried log at what used to be the high-watermark, their bare feet in the lukewarm water of the sea's edge. The story went that this precious, magical mix of fresh rain and salty surf was a cure for all manner of foot ailments, including bad choices that sent one walking in entirely the wrong direction. Of course, life being what it is, you can't cure what you ain't done yet, though it never hurts to try.\n\n\"Besides,\" said Brevity, her short dark hair flattened onto her round cheeks, \"if we didn't swing the vote, you and me, why, we'd be swimming to the nearest tavern right about now.\"\n\n\"Praying that there's still some beer on tap, ' Pithy added.\n\n\"It was the ice melt, dearie, that done in the island, and sure, maybe it would've subsided some, maybe even enough, but who wanted to hold their breaths waiting for that? \"She pulled a sodden rustleaf stick from some fold in her cloak and jammed it in the corner of her mouth.\"Anyway, we got us a Queen now and a government-'\n\n\"A divided government, Brevity. Shake on one side, Forters on the other, and the Queen hogtied and stretched in between-I can hear her creaking day and night. What we're looking at here is an impasse and it won't hold that way for much longer.\"\n\n\"Well, with only two witches left, it's not like the Shake can do nothing but wave a bony fist our way. \"Pithy kicked her feet, making desultory splashes quickly beaten down by the rain.\"We need to make our move soon. We need to swing the Queen over to our side. You and me, Brev, we should be leading the contingent to King Tehol, with a tidy resettlement scheme that includes at least three chests heaped with coins. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One for you, one for me, and one for Twilight's treasury. '\n\n\"Precisely.\"\n\n\"Think she'll go for it? '\n\n\"Why not? We can't stay hereon this rotten coast much longer, can we? '\n\n\"Good point. She saved us from drowning on the island, didn't she? No point in then having us drown herein the Errant's endless piss. Fent's Toes, what a miserable place this is. '\n\n\"You know,\" said Pithy after a time, \"you and me, we could just abandon'em all. Make our way to Letheras. How long do you think it'd take us to get reestablished?\"\n\nBrevity shook her head. \"We'd get recognized, dearie. Worse, our scheme ain't going to work a second time-people will seethe signs and know it for what it is.\"\n\n\"Bah, every five years by my count you can find another crop of fools with too much money. Happy to hand it over.\"\n\n\"Maybe, but it's not the marks I was thinking about-it's the authorities. I ain't in no mood to get arrested allover again. Twice offending means the Drownings for sure. '\n\nPithy shivered. \"Got a point there. All right, then we go the honest politician route, we climb the ladder of, uh, secular power. We soak and scam legitimately.\"\n\nBrevity sucked on the stick and then nodded. \"We can do that. Popularity contest. We divide up our rivals in the Putative Assembly. You bed one half, I bed the other, we set ourselves up as bitter rivals and makeup two camps. Get voted as the Assembly's official representatives to the court of the Queen. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And then we become the choke-point.\"\n\n\"Information and wealth, up and down, down and up. Neither side knowing anything but what we decide to tell'em. '\n\n\"Precisely. No real difference from being the lying, cheating brokers we once were.\"\n\n\"Right, only even more crooked.\"\n\n\"But with a smile.\"\n\n\"With a smile, always, dearie.\"\n\n______\n\nYan Tovis rode down into the camp. The place stank. Figures stumbled in the mud and rain. The entire shallow bay offshore was brown with churned-up runoff. They were short of food. All the boats anchored in the bay sat low, wallowing in the rolling waves.\n\nThe mortal path. Twilight shook her head.\n\nUnmindful of the countless eyes finding her as she rode into the makeshift town, she continued on until she reached the Witch's Tent. Dismounting, she stepped over the drainage trench and ducked inside.\n\n\"We's in turble, \"croaked Skwish from the far end.\"People getting sick now-we's running outa herbs and was'not. ' She fixed baleful eyes on Twilight.\n\nAt her side, Pully smacked her gums fora moment, and then asked, \"What you going t'do, Queenie? Nafore everone dies? '\n\nShe did not hesitate. \"We must journey. But not on the mortal path.\"\n\nCould two ancient women be shocked?\n\nSeemed they could.\n\n\"By my Royal Blood,\" Twilight said, \"I will open the Road to Gallan.\" She stared down at the witches, their gaping mouths, their wide eyes. \"To the Dark Shore. I am taking us home.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wished he could remember his own name. He wished for some kind of understanding. How could such a disparate collection of people find themselves stumbling across this ravaged landscape? Had the world ended? Were they the last ones left?\n\nBut no, not quite, not quite accurate. While none of his companions, bickering and cursing, showed any inclination to glance back on their own trail, he found his attention drawn again and again to that hazy horizon whence they had come.\n\nSomeone was there.\n\nSomeone was after them.\n\nIf he could find out all the important things, he might have less reason to fear. He might even discover that he knew who hunted them. He might find a moment of peace.\n\nInstead, the others looked ahead, as if they had no choice, no will to do otherwise. The edifice they had set out towards-what seemed weeks ago-was finally drawing near. Its immensity had mocked their sense of distance and perspective, but even that was not enough to account for the length of their trek. He had begun to suspect that his sense of time was awry, that the others measured the journey in away fundamentally different from him-for was he not a ghost? He could only slip into and through them like a shadow. He felt nothing of the weight of each step they took. Even their suffering eluded him.\n\nAnd yet, by all manner of reason, should he not be the one to have found time compacted, condensed to a thing of ephemeral ease? Why then the torture in his soul? The exhaustion? This fevered sense of crawling along every increment inside each of these bodies, one after another, round and round and round? When he first awoke among them, he had felt himself blessed. Now he felt trapped.\n\nThe edifice reared into the scoured blue sky. Grey and black, carved scales possibly rent by fractures and mottled with rusty stains, it was a tower of immense, alien artistry. At first, it had seemed little more than wreckage, a looming, rotted fang rendered almost shapeless by centuries of abandonment. But the closing of distance had, perversely, altered that perception. Even so... on the flatland spreading out from its base, there was no sign of settlement, no ancient, blunted furrows betraying once-planted fields, no tracks, no roads." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They could discern the nature of the monument now. Perhaps a thousand reaches tall, it stood alone, empty-eyed, a dragon of stone balanced on its hind limbs and curling tail. One of its forelimbs reached down to sink talons into the ground; the other was drawn up and angled slightly outward, as if poised to swipe some enemy from its path. Even its hind limbs were asymmetrically positioned, tensed, coiled.\n\nNo real dragon could match its size, and yet as they edged closer-mute now, diminished-they could seethe astonishing detail of the creation. The iridescence of the whorls in each scale, lightly coated in dust; the folded-back skin encircling the talons-talons which were at least half again as tall as a man, their polished, laminated surfaces scarred and chipped. They could see creases in the hide that they had first taken to be fractures; the weight of muscles hanging slack; the seams and blood vessels in the folded, arching wings. A grainy haze obscured the edifice above its chest height, as if it was enwreathed in a ring of suspended dust.\n\n\"No,\" whispered Taxilian, \"not suspended. That ring is moving... round and round it swirls, do you see?\"\n\n\"Sorcery,\" said Breath, her tone oddly flat.\n\n\"As might a million moons orbit a dead sun,\" Rautos observed. \"Countless lifeless worlds, each one no bigger than a grain of sand-you say magic holds it in place, Breath-are you certain?\"\n\n\"What else?\" she snapped, dismissive. \"All we ever get from you. Theories. About this and that. As if explanations meant anything. What difference does knowing make, you fat oaf?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It eases the fire in my soul, witch,\" Rautos replied.\n\n\"The fire is the reason for living.\"\n\n\"Until it burns you up.\"\n\n\"Oh, stop it, you two,\" moaned Asane.\n\nBreath wheeled on her. \"I'm going to drown you, \"she pronounced.\"I don't even need water to do it. I'll use sand. I'll hold you under and feel your every struggle, your every twitch-\"\n\n\"It's not just a statue, ' said Taxilian.\n\n\"Someone carved down a mountain,\" said Nappet. \"Means nothing. It's just stupid, useless. We've walked for days and days. For this. Stupid. I'm of a mind to kick you bloody, Taxilian. For wasting my time. '\n\n\"Wasting your time? Why, Nappet, what else were you planning to do?\"\n\n\"We need water. Now we're going to die out here, just so you could look at this piece of stone. \"Nappet lifted a battered fist.\"If I kill you, we can drink your blood-that'll hold us fora time.\"\n\n\"It will kill you in turn,\" Rautos said. \"You will die in great pain.\"\n\n\"What do you know about it? We'll cook you down and drink all that melted fat. '\n\n\"It's not just a statue, ' Taxilian repeated.\n\nLast, who was not much for talking, surprised everyone when he said, \"He's right. It was alive, once, this dragon. '\n\nSheb snorted. \"Errant save us, you're an idiot, Last. This thing was never anything but a mountain. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It was no mountain,\" Last insisted, brow darkening. \"There are no mountains here and there never were-anybody can see that. No, it was alive.\"\n\n\"He's right, I think, \"said Taxilian,\"only maybe not in the way you think, Sheb. This was built, and then it was lived in. \"He spread his hands.\"It is a city. And we're going to find away inside.\"\n\nThe ghost, who had been hovering, swept this way and that, impatient and fearful, anxious and excited, now wanted to cry outwith joy, and would have, had he a voice.\n\n\"A city?\" Sheb stared at Taxilian fora long moment, and then spat. \"But abandoned now, right? Dead, right?\"\n\n\"I would say so,\" Taxilian replied. \"Long dead.\"\n\n\"So,\" and Sheb licked his lips, \"there might be... loot. Forgotten treasure-after all, who else has ever come out here? The Wastelands promise nothing but death. Everyone knows that. We're probably the first people to have ever seen this-'\n\n\"Barring its inhabitants,\" murmured Rautos. \"Taxilian, can you see away inside?\"\n\n\"No, not yet. But come, we'll find one, I'm certain of it.\"\n\nBreath stepped in front of the others as if to block their way. \"This place is cursed, can't you feel that? It doesn't belong to people-people like you and me-we don't belong here. Listen tome! If we go inside, we'll never leave!\"\n\nAsane whimpered, shrinking back. \"I don't like it either. We should just go, like she says. '\n\n\"We can't! \"barked Sheb.\"We need water! How do you think a city this size can survive here? It's sitting on a source of water-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Which probably dried up and that's why they left!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'\n\n\"Dried up, maybe, for ten thousand thirsty souls. Not seven. And who knows how long ago? No, you don't understand-if we don't find water in there, we're all going to die. '\n\nThe ghost was oddly baffled by all this. They had found a spring only two evenings back. They all carried waterskins that still sloshed-although, come to think of it, he could not recall where they had found them-did his companions always have those skins? And what about the broad hats they wore, shielding them from the bright, hard sunlight? The walking sticks? Taxilian's rope-handled scribe box? Rautos's map-case that folded out into a desktop? Breath's cloak of sewn pockets, each pocket carrying a Tile? Nappet and his knotted skull-breaker tucked into his belt? Sheb's brace of daggers? Asane's spindle and the bag of raw wool from which she spun out her lacy webs? Last's iron pot and fire kit; his hand-sickle and collection of cooking knives-where, the ghost wondered-in faint horror-had all these things come from?\n\n\"No food, no water,\" Nappet was saying, \"Sheb's right. But, most importantly, if we find a door, we can defend it. '\n\nThe words hung in the silence that followed, momentarily suspended and then slowly rising like grit-the ghost could see them, the way they lost shape but not meaning, definition but not dread import. Yes, Nappet had spoken aloud the secret knowledge. The words that terror had carved bloody on their souls.\n\nSomeone was hunting them.\n\nAsane began weeping, softly, sodden hitches catching in her throat.\n\nSheb's hands closed into fists as he stared at her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Nappet had turned to face Last, and was eyeing the huge man speculatively. \"I know,\" he said, \"you're a thick-skulled farmer, Last, but you look strong. Can you handle a sword? If we need someone to hold the portal, can you do that? '\n\nThe man frowned, and then nodded. \"Maybe I ain't never used a sword, but nobody will get past. I swear it. Nobody gets past me. '\n\nAnd Nappet was holding a sheathed sword, which he now offered to Last.\n\nThe ghost recoiled upon seeing that weapon. He knew it, yet knew it not. A strange, frightening weapon. He watched as Last drew the sword from its sheath. Single-edged, dark, mottled iron, its tip weighted and slightly flaring. The deep ferule running the length of the blade was a black, nightmarish streak, like an etching of the Abyss itself. It stank of death-the whole weapon, this terrible instrument of destruction.\n\nLast hefted the sword in his hand. \"I would rather a spear,\" he said.\n\n\"We don't like spears, \"Nappet hissed.\"Do we? '\n\n\"No,\" the others chorused.\n\nLast's frown deepened.\"No, me neither. I don't know why I... why I... wanted one. An imp's whisper in my head, I guess. ' And he made awarding gesture.\n\nSheb spat to seal the fend.\n\n\"We don't like spears, \"Rautos whispered.\"They're... dangerous.\"\n\nThe ghost agreed. Fleshless and yet chilled, shivering. There had been a spear in his past-yes? Perhaps? A dreadful thing, lunging at his face, his chest, slicing the muscles of his arms. Reverberations, shivering up through his bones, rocking him back, one step, then another-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gods, he did not like spears!\n\n\"Come on,\" Taxilian said. \"It is time to find away in.\"\n\nThere was away in. The ghost knew that. There was always away in. The challenge was in finding it, in seeing it and knowing it for what it was. The important doors stayed hidden, disguised, shaped in ways to deceive. The important doors opened from one side only, and once you were through they closed in a gust of cold air against the back of the neck. And could never be opened again.\n\nSuch was the door he sought, the ghost realized.\n\nDid it wait in this dead city?\n\nHe would have to find it soon. Before the hunter found him-found them all. Spear Wielder, slayer, the One who does not retreat, who mocks in silence, who would not flinch-no, he's not done with me, with us, with me, with us.\n\nWe need to find the door.\n\nThe way in.\n\nThey reached the dragon's stone forelimb with its claws that stood arrayed like massive, tapering pillars of marble, tips sunk deep into the hard earth. Everywhere surrounding the foundations the ground was fissured, fraught with cracks that tracked outward. Rautos grunted as he crouched down to peer into one such rent.\"Deep, \"he muttered.\"The city is settling, suggesting that it has indeed sucked out the water beneath it. '\n\nTaxilian was scanning the massive tower that comprised the limb in front of them, tilting his head back, and back. After a moment he staggered, cursing. \"Too much,\" he gasped. \"This one leg could encompass a half-dozen Ehrlii spires-if it is indeed hollow, it could hold a thousand inhabitants all by itself.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And yet,\" Rautos said, coming up alongside him, \"look at the artistry-the genius of the sculptors-have you ever seen such skill, on such a scale, Taxilian?\"\n\n\"No, it surpasses... it surpasses.\"\n\nSheb stepped in between two of the talons, slipped into shadows and out of sight.\n\nThere were no obvious entranceways, no formal portals or ramps, no gates; no windows or apertures higher up.\n\n\"It seems entirely self-contained,\" said Taxilian. \"Did you notice-no evidence of outlying farms or pastureland.\"\n\n\"None that survived the interval of abandonment,\" Rautos replied. \"For all we know, after all, this could be a hundred thousand years old.\"\n\n\"That would surprise me-yes, the surface is eroded, worn down, but if it was as old as you suggest, why, it would belittle more than a shapeless lump, a giant termite tower.\"\n\n\"Are you certain of that?\"\n\n\"No,\" Taxilian admitted. \"But I recall once, in a scriptorium in Erhlitan, seeing a map dating from the First Empire. It showed a line of rugged hills inland of the city. They ran like a spine parallel to the coast. Elevations had been noted here and there. Well, those hills are still there, but not as bold or as high as what was noted on the map.\"\n\n\"And how old was the map?\" Rautos asked.\n\nTaxilian shrugged. \"Twenty thousand? Fifty? Five? Scholars make a career of not agreeing on anything.\"\n\n\"Was the map on hide? Surely, no hide could last so long, not even five thousand years-\"\n\n\"Hide, yes, but treated in some arcane way. In any case, it had been found in a wax-sealed container. Seven Cities is mostly desert. Without moisture, nothing decays. It just shrinks, dries up.\" He gestured with one hand at the stone façade before them. \"Anyway, this should be much more weathered if it was so old as to outlast signs of farming.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rautos nodded, convinced by Taxilian's reasoning.\n\n\"Haunted,\" said Breath. \"You're going to get us all killed, Taxilian. So I now curse your name, your soul. I will make you pay for killing me. '\n\nHe glanced at her, said nothing.\n\nRautos spoke. \"See that hind foot, Taxilian? It is the only one on a pedestal.\"\n\nThe two men headed off in that direction.\n\nBreath walked up to Asane. \"Spin that cocoon, woman, make yourself somewhere you can hide inside. Until you're nothing but a rotted husk. Don't think you can crawl back out. Don't think you can show us all your bright, painted wings. Your hopes, Asane, your dreams and secrets-all hollow. \"She held up a thin spidery hand.\"I can crush it all, so easily-'\n\nLast stepped up to her, then pushed her back so that she stumbled. \"I grow tired of listening to you,\" he said. \"Leave her alone.\"\n\nBreath cackled and danced away.\n\n\"Thank you,\" said Asane. \"She is so... hurtful.\"\n\nBut Last faced her and said, \"This is not a place for fears, Asane. Conquer yours, and do it soon.\"\n\nNearby, Nappet snickered. \"Dumb farmer's maybe not so dumb after all. Doesn't make him any less ugly though, does it?\" He laughed.\n\nAs Rautos and Taxilian drew closer to the hind limb they could see that the pedestal was rectangular, like the foundation of a temple. The vertical wall facing them, as tall as they were, bore the faint remnants of a frieze, framed in an elaborate border. All too eroded to interpret. But no sign of an entranceway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We are confounded again,\" Rautos said.\n\n\"I do not think so,\" Taxilian replied. \"You look wrongly, friend. You search out what rises in front of you. You scan right and left, you crane your sight upward. Yes, the city encourages such deception. The dragon invites it, perched as it is. And yet...\" He pointed.\n\nRautos followed the line of that lone finger, and grunted in surprise. At the base of the pedestal, wind-blown sands formed a hollow. \"The way in is downward.\"\n\nSheb joined them. \"We need to dig.\"\n\n\"I think so,\" agreed Taxilian. \"Call the others, Sheb.\"\n\n\"I don't take orders from you. Errant piss on you highborn bastards. '\n\n\"I'm not highborn, ' said Taxilian.\n\nSheb sneered. \"You make like you are, which is just as bad. Get back down where you belong, Taxilian, and if you can't manage on your own then I'll help and that's a promise. '\n\n\"I just have some learning, Sheb-why does that threaten you so?\"\n\nSheb rested a hand on one of his daggers. \"I don't like pretenders and that's what you are. You think big words make you smarter, better. You like the way Rautos here respects you, you think he sees you as an equal. But you're wrong in that-you ain't his equal. He's just humouring you, Taxilian. You're a clever pet.\"\n\n\"This is how Letherii think,\" said Rautos, sighing. \"It's what keeps everyone in their place, upward, downward-even as people claim they despise the system they end up doing all they canto keep it in place. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Taxilian sighed in turn. \"I do understand that, Rautos. Stability helps remind you of where you stand. Affirms you've got a legitimate place in society, for good or ill. '\n\n\"Listen to you two shit-eaters.\"\n\nBy this time the others had arrived. Taxilian pointed at the depression. \"We think we've found away in, but we'll have to dig.\"\n\nLast approached with a shovel in his hands. \"I'll start. '\n\nThe ghost hovered, watching. Off to the west, the sun was settling into horizon's lurid vein. When Last needed a rest, Taxilian took his place. Then Nappet, followed by Sheb. Rautos tried then, but by this point the pit was deep and he had difficulty making his way down, and an even harder time flinging the sand high enough to keep it from sifting back. His stint did not last long before, with a snarl, Sheb told him to get out and leave the task to the lowborns who knew this business. Last and Taxilian struggled to lift Rautos out of the pit.\n\nIn the dusty gloom below, the excavation had revealed one edge of stone facing, the huge blocks set without mortar.\n\nThe argument from earlier disturbed the ghost, although he was not sure why it was so. He was past such silly things, after all. The games of station, so bitter, so self-destructive-it all seemed such a waste of time and energy, the curse of people who could look outward but never inward. Was that a measure of intelligence? Were such hapless victims simply dimwitted, incapable of introspection and honest self-judgement? Or was it a quality of low intelligence that its possessor instinctively fled the potentially deadly turmoil of knowing too many truths about oneself?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes, it was this notion-of self-delusion-that left him feeling strangely anxious, exposed and vulnerable. He could see its worth, after all. When the self was a monster-who wouldn't hide from such a thing? Who wouldn't run when it loomed close? Close enough to smell, to taste? Yes, even the lowest beast knew the value of not knowing itself too well.\n\n\"I've reached the floor, \"announced Sheb, straightening. When the others crowded to the uncertain edge, he snarled,\"Keep your distance, fools! You want to bury me? '\n\n\"Tempting,\" said Nappet. \"But then we'd have to dig out your miserable corpse. '\n\nThe shovel scraped on flagstones. After a time Sheb said, \"Got the top of the doorway herein front of me-it's low... but wide. There's a ramp, no steps.\"\n\nYes, thought the ghost, that is as it should be.\n\nSheb wasn't interested in handing off the task, now that he could seethe way in. He dug swiftly, grunting with every upward heave of heavy, damp sand.\"I can smell the water, \"he gasped.\"Could be the tunnel's flooded-but at least we won't die of thirst, will we? '\n\n\"I'm not going down there, \"said Breath,\"if there's water in the tunnel. I'm not. You'll all drown.\"\n\nThe ramp angled downward for another six or seven paces, enough to leave Sheb exhausted. Nappet took over and a short time later, with dusk gathering at their backs, a thrust of the shovel plunged into empty space. They were through.\n\nThe tunnel beyond was damp, the air sweet with rotting mould and sour with something fouler. The water pooled on the floor was less than a finger's width deep, slippery underfoot. The darkness was absolute." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone lit lanterns. Watching this, the ghost found himself frightened yet again. As with all the other accoutrements; as with the sudden appearance of the shovel, he was missing essential details-they could not simply veer into existence as needed, after all. Reality didn't work that way. No, it must be that he was blind to things, a vision cursed to be selective, yielding only that which was needed, that which was relevant to the moment. For all he knew, he suddenly realized, there might be a train of wagons accompanying this group. There might be servants. Bodyguards. An army. The real world, he comprehended with a shock, was not what he saw, not what he interacted with instant by instant. The real world was unknowable.\n\nHe thought he might howl. He thought he might give voice to his horror, his abject revelation. For, if indeed the world was unknowable, then so too were the forces acting upon him, and how could one guard against that?\n\nFrozen, unable to move. Until the group descended into the tunnel, and then yet another discovery assailed him, as chains dragged him down into the pit, pulling him-shrieking now-into the passageway.\n\nHe was not free.\n\nHe was bound to the lives of these strange people, not one of whom knew he even existed. He was their slave, yet rendered so useless that he had no voice, nobody, no identity beyond this fragile mockery of self-and how long could such a entity survive, when it was invisible to everyone else? When even the stonewalls and pools of slimy water did not acknowledge his arrival?\n\nWas this, then, the torment of all ghosts?\n\nThe possibility was so terrible, so awful, that he recoiled. How could mortal souls deserve such eternal penitence? What vast crime did the mere act of living commit? Or had he been personally consigned to this fate? By some god or goddess cruel in judgement, devoid of all mercy?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At that thought, even as he flailed about in the wake of his masters, he felt a sudden rage. A blast of indignation. What god or goddess dares to presume the right to judge me? That is arrogance too vast to have been earned.\n\nWhoever you are, I will find you. I swear it. I will find you and I will cut you down. Humble you. Down to your knees. How dare you! How dare you judge anyone, when you ever hide your face? When you strip away all possible truth of your existence? Your wilful presence?\n\nHiding from me, whoever-whatever-you are, is a childish game. An unworthy game. Face your child. Face all your children. Show me the veracity of your right to cast judgement upon me.\n\nDo this, and I will accept you.\n\nRemain hidden, even as you consign my soul to suffering, and I will hunt you down.\n\nI will hunt you down.\n\nThe ramp climbed until it reached abroad, low-ceilinged chamber.\n\nCrowded with reptilian corpses. Rotting, reeking, in pools of thick ichor and rank blood. Twenty, perhaps more.\n\nK'Chain Che'Malle. The makers of this city.\n\nEach one throat-cut. Executed like goats on an altar.\n\nBeyond them, a spiralling ramp climbed steeply upward. No one said a thing as they picked careful, independent paths through the slaughter. Taxilian in the lead, they began the ascent.\n\nThe ghost watched as Breath paused to bend down and run a finger through decaying blood. She slipped that finger into her mouth, and smiled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I heard a story Of a river Which is where water flows over the ground glistening in the sun It's a legend And untrue In the story the water is clear and that's why it's untrue We all know Water Is the colour Of blood People makeup legends To teach lessons So I think The story is about us About a river of blood And one day We'll run clear\n\nOF AR IVER B ADALLE" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The horrid creatures jostle in their line A row of shields and a row of painted faces They marched out of my mouth As slayers are wont to do When no one was looking busy as they were With their precious banners and standards And with the music of stepping in time As the righteous are wont to do Now see all these shiny weapons so eager To clash in the discord of stunned agreement Blind as millipedes in the mud As between lovers words may do In the murky depths swans slip like seals Scaling the ice walls of cold's prison All we dream is without tether\n\nCONFESSIONS OF THE CONDEMNED B ANATHOS OF B LUEROSE\n\nThe errant walked the flooded tunnel, remembering the bodies that had once drifted there, shifting like logs, flesh turning to jelly. Now on occasion, in pushing afoot forward, he kicked aside unseen bones. Darkness promised no solitude, no true abandonment, no final resting place. Darkness was nothing more than a home for the forgotten. Which was why sarcophagi had lids and crypts were sealed under stone and barrows beneath heaped earth. Darkness was the vision behind shuttered eyes, little more than the dismissal of light when details ceased to be relevant.\n\nHe could find such a world. All he needed to do was close his one remaining eye. It should work. He did not understand why it didn't. The water, bitter cold, lapped round his thighs. He welcomed its gift of numbness. The air was foul, but he was used to that. There should be nothing to hold him here, chaining him to this moment.\n\nEvents were unfolding, so many events, and not all of them shifting to his touch, twisting to his will. Anger was giving way to fear. He had sought out the altar Feather Witch had consecrated in his name. He had expected to find her soul, her fleshless will curling in sinew currents round the submerged rubble, but there had been nothing, no one. Where had she gone?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could still feel her hair beneath his hand, the muted struggles as some remnant of her sanity groped for air, for one more moment of life. His palm tingled with the echo of her faint convulsions beginning in that moment when she surrendered and filled her lungs with water, once, twice, like a newborn trying out the gifts of an unknown world, only to retreat, fade away, and slide like an eel back into the darkness, where the first thing forgotten was oneself.\n\nThis should not be haunting him. His act had been one of mercy. Gangrenous, insane, she'd had little time left. It had been the gentlest of nudges, not at all motivated by vengeance or disgust. Still, she might well have cursed him in that last exhaled, soured breath.\n\nHer soul should be swimming these black waters. But the Errant knew that he had been alone. The altar chamber had offered him little more than desolation.\n\nWading, the tunnel's slimy floor descending with each step, his feet suddenly lost all grip and the water rose yet higher, past his chest, closing over his shoulders and lapping at his throat. The top of his head brushed the gritty stone of the tunnel's ceiling, and then he was under, blinking the sting from his eye.\n\nHe pushed onward through the murk, until the water turned salty, and light, reflecting down from a vague surface fathoms overhead, flashed like dulled, smeared memories of lightning. He could feel the heavy tugs of wayward currents and he knew that a storm did indeed rage, thereupon the ceiling of this world, but it could do little to him down here. Scraping through thick mud, he walked the ocean floor.\n\nNothing decayed in this place, and all that had not been crushed to dust by the immense pressures now lay scattered beneath monochrome draperies of silt, like furniture in avast, abandoned room. Everything about this realm invited horror. Time lost its way here, wandering until the ceaseless rain of detritus weighed it down, brought it to its knees, and then buried it. Anything-anyone-could fall to the same fate. The danger, the risk, was very real. No creature of sentience could withstand this place for long. Futility delivered its crushing symphony and the dread music was eternal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He found himself walking down the length of avast skeleton, jagged uneven ribs rising like the columns of a colonnade to either side, a roofless temple sagging under its own senseless burden. He passed the snaking line of boulders that was the immense creature's spine. Four scapulae formed broad concave platforms just ahead, from which bizarre long bones radiated out like toppled pillars. He could just make out, in the gloom, the massive crown of the back of the monster's skull. Here, then, awaited another kind of temple. Precious store of self, a space insisting on its occupation, an existence that demanded acknowledgement of its own presence.\n\nThe Errant sympathized with the notion. Such delicate conceits assembled the bones of the soul, after all. He moved past the last of the scapulae, noting the effect of some crushing, no doubt crippling impact. The bone looked like a giant broken plate.\n\nComing alongside the skull, he saw that the cave of its nearest orbital socket was shattered, above and behind an elongated, partly collapsed snout crowded with serrated teeth. The Elder God paused and studied that damage for sometime. He could not imagine what this beast had been; he suspected it was a child of these deep currents, a swimmer through ancient ages, entirely uncomprehending that its time was past. He wondered if mercy had delivered that deathblow.\n\nAh, but he could not fight his own nature, could he? Most of his nudges were fatal ones, after all. The impetus might find many justifications, and clearly mercy numbered among them. This was, he told himself, a momentary obsession. The feel of her hair under his hand... a lapse of conscience, then, this tremor of remorse. It would pass.\n\nHe pushed on, knowing that at last, he'd found the right trail." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were places that could only be found by invitation, by the fickle generosity of the forces that gave them shape, that made them what they were." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Such barriers defied the hungers and needs of most seekers. But he had learned the secret paths long, long ago. He required no invitations, and no force could stand in the way of his hunger.\n\nThe dull gleam of the light in the tower reached him before he could make out anything else, and he flinched at seeing that single mocking eye floating in the gloom. Currents swept fiercely around him as he drew closer, buffeting his body as if desperate to turn him aside. Silts swirled up, seeking to blind him. But he fixed his gaze on that fitful glow, and before long he could make out the squat, blockish house, the black, gnarled branches of the trees in the yard, and then the low stonewall.\n\nDunes of silt were heaped up against the tower side of the Azath. The mounds in the yard were sculpted, half-devoured, exposing the roots of the leaning trees. As the Errant stepped onto the snaking flagstones of the path, he could see bones scattered out from those sundered barrows. Yes, they had escaped their prisons at long last, but death had arrived first.\n\nPatience was the curse of longevity. It could lure its ageless victim into somnolence, until flesh itself rotted off, and the skull rolled free.\n\nHe reached the door. Pushed it open.\n\nThe currents within the narrow entranceway swept over him warm as tears. As the portal closed behind him, the Errant gestured. A moment later he was standing on dry stone. Hovering faint on the air around him was the smell of wood-smoke. A wavering globe of lantern light approached from the corridor beyond.\n\nThe threadbare figure that stepped into view sent a pang through the Errant. Memories murky as the sea-bottom spun up to momentarily blind him. The gaunt Forkrul Assail was hunched at the shoulders, as if every proof of justice had bowed him down, left him broken. His pallid face was amass of wrinkles, like crushed leather. Tortured eyes fixed on the Errant fora moment, and then the Assail turned away. \"Fire and wine await us, Errastas-come, you know the way.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They walked through the double doors at the conjunction of the corridors, into the dry heat of the hearth room. The Assail gestured at a sideboard as he hobbled to one of the chairs flanking the fireplace. Ignoring the invitation to drink-for the moment-the Errant walked to the other chair and settled into it.\n\nThey sat facing one another.\n\n\"You have suffered some,\" said the Assail, \"since I last saw you, Errastas.\"\n\n\"Laughter from the Abyss, Setch, have you seen yourself lately?\"\n\n\"The forgotten must never complain.\" He'd found a crystal goblet and he now held it up and studied the flickering flames trapped in the amber wine.\"When I look at myself, I see... embers. They dim, they die. It is, \"he added,\"well. ' And he drank.\n\nThe Errant bared his teeth. \"Pathetic. Your hiding is at an end, Knuckles.\"\n\nSechul Lath smiled at the old title, but it was a bitter smile. \"Our time is past.\"\n\n\"It was, yes. But now it shall be reborn.\"\n\nSechul shook his head. \"You were right to surrender the first time-\"\n\n\"That was no surrender! I was driven out!\"\n\n\"You were forced to relinquish all that you no longer deserved.\" The haunted eyes lifted to trap the Errant's glare.\"Why the resentment? '\n\n\"We were allies!\"\n\n\"So we were.\"\n\n\"We shall be again, Knuckles. You were the Elder God who stood closest to my throne-\"\n\n\"Your Empty Throne, yes.\"\n\n\"A battle is coming-listen tome! We can cast aside all these pathetic new gods. We can drown them in blood!\" The Errant leaned forward. \"Do you fear that it will be you and me alone against them? I assure you, old friend, we shall not be alone.\" He settled back once more, stared into the fire. \"Your mortal kin have found new power, made new alliances.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Knuckles snorted. \"You would trust to the peace and justice of the Forkrul Assail? After all they once did to you?\"\n\n\"I trust the necessity they have recognized.\"\n\n\"Errastas, my time is at an end.\" He made a rippling gesture with his fingers. \"I leave it to the Twins.\" He smiled. \"They were my finest cast.\"\n\n\"I refuse to accept that. You will not stand aside in what is to come. I have forgotten nothing. Remember the power we once wielded?\"\n\n\"I remember-why do you think I'm here? '\n\n\"I want that power again. I will have it.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Knuckles asked softly. \"What is it you seek?\"\n\n\"Everything that I have lost!\"\n\n\"Ah, old friend, then you do not remember everything.\"\n\n\"No?\"\n\n\"No. You have forgotten why you lost it in the first place.\"\n\nAlong moment of silence.\n\nThe Errant rose and went over to pour himself a goblet of wine. He returned and stood looking down upon his fellow Elder God. \"I am not here,\" he said, \"for you alone.\"\n\nKnuckles winced.\n\n\"I intend, as well, to summon the Clan of Elders-all who have survived. I am Master of the Tiles. They cannot deny me.\"\n\n\"No,\" Knuckles muttered, \"that we cannot do.\"\n\n\"Where is she?\"\n\n\"Sleeping.\"\n\nThe Errant grimaced. \"I already knew that, Setch.\"\n\n\"Sit down, Errastas. For now, please. Let us just... sit here. Let us drink in remembrance of friendship. And innocence.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When our goblets are empty, Knuckles.\"\n\nHe closed his eyes and nodded. \"So be it.\"\n\n\"It pains me to see you so,\" the Errant said as he sat back down. \"We shall return you to what you once were.\"\n\n\"Dear Errastas, have you not learned? Time cares nothing for our wants, and no god that has ever existed can be as cruel as time.\"\n\nThe Errant half-closed his remaining eye. \"Wait until you seethe world I shall make, Setch. Once more, you shall stand beside the Empty Throne. Once more, you shall know the pleasure of mischance, striking down hopeful mortals one by one.\"\n\n\"I do remember,\" Knuckles murmured, \"how they railed at misfortune.\"\n\n\"And sought to appease ill fate with evermore blood. Upon the altars. Upon the fields of battle.\"\n\n\"And in the dark bargains of the soul.\"\n\nThe Errant nodded. Pleased. Relieved. Yes, he could wait for this time, this brief healing span. It served and served well.\n\nHe could grant her a few more moments of rest.\n\n\"So tell me,\" ventured Knuckles, \"the tale.\"\n\n\"What tale?\"\n\n\"The one that took your eye.\"\n\nThe Errant scowled and looked away, his good mood evaporating. \"Mortals,\" he said, \"will eat anything.\"\n\nIn the tower of the Azath, within a chamber that was an entire realm, she slept and she dreamed. And since dreams existed outside of time, she was walking anew a landscape that had been dead for millennia. But the air was sharp still, the sky overhead as pure in its quicksilver brilliance as the day of its violent birth. On all sides buildings, reduced to rubble, formed steep-sided, jagged mounds. Passing floods had caked mud on everything to a height level with her hips. She walked, curious, half-disbelieving." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Was this all that remained?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was hard to believe.\n\nThe mounds looked strangely orderly, the chunks of stone almost uniform in size. No detritus had drifted down into the streets or lanes. Even the flood silts had settled smooth on every surface.\n\n\"Nostalgia,\" a voice called down.\n\nShe halted, looked up to see a white-skinned figure perched atop one of the mounds. Gold hair hanging long, loose, hinting of deep shades of crimson. A white-bladed two-handed sword leaned against one side of his chest, the multifaceted crystal pommel flashing in the brightness. He took many forms, this creature. Some pleasant, others-like this one-like a spit of acid in her eyes.\n\n\"This is your work, isn't it? '\n\nOne of his hands stroked the sword's enamel blade, the sensuality of the gesture making her shiver. He said,\"I deplore your messiness, Kilmandaros. '\n\n\"While you make death seem so... tidy.\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"Tell me, if on your very last day-day or night, it makes no difference-you find yourself in a room, on abed, even. Too weak to move, but able to look around-that's all. Tell me, Kilmandaros, will you not be comforted by the orderliness of all that you see? By the knowledge that it will persist beyond you, unchanged, bound to its own slow, so slow measure of decay? '\n\n\"You ask if I will be what, Osserc? Nostalgic about a room I'm still in? '\n\n\"Is that not the final gift of dying?\"\n\nShe held up her hands and showed him her fists. \"Come down here and receive just such a gift, Osserc. I know this body-this face that you show me now. I know the seducer and know him too well. Comedown-do you not miss my embrace?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And in the dread truths of dreams, Osserc then chuckled. The kind of laugh that cut into its victim, that shocked tight the throat. Dismissive, devoid of empathy. A laugh that said: You no longer matter tome. I see your hurt and it amuses me. I see how you cannot let goof the very thing I have so easily flung away: the conceit that we still matter to each other.\n\nSo much, yes, in a dream's laugh.\n\n\"Emurlahn is in pieces,\" he said. \"And most of them are now as dead as this one. Would you blame me? Anomander? Scabandari?\"\n\n\"I'm not interested in your stupid finger-pointing. The one who accuses has nothing to lose and everything to hide. '\n\n\"Yet you joined with Anomander-\"\n\n\"He too was not interested in blame. We joined together, yes, to save what we could.\"\n\n\"Too bad, then,\" Osserc said, \"that I got here first.\"\n\n\"Where have the people gone, Osserc? Now that you've destroyed their city. '\n\nHis brows lifted. \"Why, nowhere.\" He gestured, abroad sweep of one hand, encompassing the rows of mounds around them. \"I denied them their moment of... nostalgia.\"\n\nShe found herself trembling. \"Come down here,\" she said in a rasp, \"your death is long overdue.\"\n\n\"Others concur,\" he admitted. \"In fact, it's why I'm, uh, lingering here. Only one portal survives. No, not the one you came through-that one has since crumbled.\"\n\n\"And who waits for you there, Osserc?\"\n\n\"Edgewalker.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kilmandaros bared her massive fangs in abroad smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then threw a laugh back at him. She moved on.\n\nHis voice sounded surprised as he called out behind her. \"What are you doing? He is angry. Do you not understand? He is angry!\"\n\n\"And this is my dream,\" she whispered. \"Where all that has been is yet to be.\" And still, she wondered. She had no recollection, after all, of this particular place. Nor of meeting Osserc among the shattered remnants of Kurald Emurlahn.\n\nSometimes it is true, she told herself, that dreams prove troubling.\n\n\"Clouds on the horizon. Black, advancing in broken lines.\" Stormy knuckled his eyes and then glared across at Gesler from a momentarily reddened face. \"What kind of stupid dream is that?\"\n\n\"How should I know? There are cheats who make fortunes interpreting the dreams of fools. Why not try one of those?\"\n\n\"You calling me a fool?\"\n\n\"Only if you follow my advice, Stormy.\"\n\n\"Anyway, that's why I howled. '\n\nGesler leaned forward, clearing tankards and whatnot to make room for his thick, scarred forearms. \"Falling asleep in the middle of a drinking session is unforgivable enough. Waking up screaming, why, that's just obnoxious. Had half the idiots inhere clutching at their chests. '\n\n\"We shouldn't\"ve skipped out on the war-game, Ges.\"\n\n\"Not again. It wasn't like that. We volunteered to go and find Hellian. \"He nodded to the third occupant of the table, although only the top of her head was visible, the hair sodden along one side where it had soaked up spilled ale. Her snores droned through the wood of the table like a hundred pine beetles devouring a sick tree.\"And look, we found her, only she was in no shape to lead her squad. In fact, she's in no shape for anything. She could get mugged, raped, even murdered. We needed to stand guard.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stormy belched and scratched at his beard. \"It wasn't a fun dream, that's all.\"\n\n\"When was the last fun dream you remember having?\"\n\n\"Don't know. Been sometime, I think. But maybe we just forget those ones. Maybe we only remember the bad ones. '\n\nGesler refilled their tankards. \"So there's a storm coming. Impressive subtlety, your dreams. Prophetic, even. You sleep to the whispers of the gods, Stormy. '\n\n\"Now ain't you in a good mood, Ges. Remind me not to talk about my dreams no more. '\n\n\"I didn't want you talking about them this time round. It was the scream. '\n\n\"Not a scream, like I told you. It was a howl.\"\n\n\"What's the difference? '\n\nScowling, Stormy reached for his tankard. \"Only, sometimes, maybe, gods don't whisper. '\n\n\"Furry women still haunting your dreams?\"\n\nBottle opened his eyes and contemplated throwing a knife into her face. Instead, he slowly winked. \"Good afternoon, Captain. I'm surprised you're not-\"\n\n\"Excuse me, soldier, but did you just wink at me?\"\n\nHe sat upon his cot. \"Was that a wink, Captain? Are you sure?\"\n\nFaradan Sort turned away, muttering under her breath as she marched towards the barracks door.\n\nOnce the door shut behind her, Bottle sat back, frowning. Now, messing with an officer's head was just, well, second nature. No, what disturbed him was the fact that he was suddenly unsure if she'd spoken at all. As a question, it didn't seem a likely fit, not coming from Faradan Sort. In fact, he doubted she even knew anything about his particular curse-how could she? There wasn't a fool alive who confided in an officer. Especially ones who viciously killed talented, happily married scorpions for no good reason. And if she did indeed know something, then it meant someone had traded that bit of information in exchange for something else. A favour, a deal, which was nothing less than a behind-the-back betrayal of every common soldier in the legion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Who was vile enough to do that?\n\nHe opened his eyes and looked around. He was alone in the barracks. Fiddler had taken the squad out for that field exercise, the war-game against Brys Beddict's newly assembled battalions. Complaining of a bad stomach, Bottle had whined and groaned his way out of it. Not for him some useless trudging through bush and farmland; besides, it hadn't been so long ago that they were killing Letherii for real. There was a good chance someone-on either side-would forget that everyone was friends now. The point was, he'd been the first one quick enough with the bad-stomach complaint, so no one else could take it up-he'd caught the vicious glare from Smiles, which of course he'd long got used to since he was always faster off the mark than she was.\n\nSmiles. Bottle fixed his gaze on her cot, studied it through a suspicious squint. Behind-the-back shit washer forte, wasn't it? Aye, and who else had it in for him?\n\nHe swung his feet to the floor and-gods, that stone was cold!-padded over to her berth.\n\nIt paid to approach these things cautiously. If anyone was in the habit of rigging booby traps to just about everything they didn't want anyone else to touch, it was that spitting half-mad kitten with the sharp eye-stickers. Bottle drew his eating knife and began probing under the thin mattress, leaning close to peer at seams and seemingly random projections of tick straw-anyone of which could be coated in poison-projections which, he discovered, turned out to be, uh, random projections of tick straw. Trying to lull me into something... I can smell it.\n\nHe knelt and peeked under the frame. Nothing obvious, and that made him even more suspicious. Muttering, Bottle crawled round to kneel in front of her lockbox. Letherii issue-not something they'd betaking with them. She'd not have had much time to rig it, not deviously, anyway. No, the needles and blades would be poorly hidden." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd sold him out, but she would learn to regret doing that.\n\nFinding nothing on the outside of the trunk, he slipped his knife point into the lock and began working the mechanism.\n\nDiscovering that the lockbox wasn't even locked froze him into along moment of terror, breath held, sudden sweat beading his forehead. A snare for sure. A killer snare. Smiles doesn't invite people in, oh no, not her. If I just lift this lid, I'm a dead man.\n\nHe whirled upon hearing the scrape of boots, and found himself looking up at Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas.\"Hood's breath, soldier, stop sneaking upon me like that!\"\n\n\"What're you doing? ' Corabb asked.\n\n\"Me? What're you doing? Don't tell me the scrap's already over-'\n\n\"No. I lost my new sword. Sergeant got mad and sent me home.\"\n\n\"Bad luck, Corabb. No glory for you.\"\n\n\"Wasn't looking for any-wasn't real fighting, Bottle. I don't seethe point in that. They'd only learn anything if we could use our weapons and kill a few hundred of them.\"\n\n\"Right. That makes sense. Bring it up with Fiddler-\"\n\n\"I did. Just before he sent me back.\"\n\n\"He's getting more unreasonable by the day. '\n\n\"Funny,\" Corabb said, \"that's exactly what I said to him. Anyway, what're you doing? This isn't your bunk. '\n\n\"You're a sharp one all right, Corabb. See, it's like this. Smiles is trying to murder me.\"\n\n\"Is she? Why?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Women like her don't need reasons, Corabb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She's set booby traps. Poison, is my guess. Because I was staying behind, you see? She's set a trap to kill me. '\n\n\"Oh,\" said Corabb. \"That's clever. '\n\n\"Not clever enough, friend. Because now you're here. '\n\n\"I am, yes.\"\n\nBottle edged back from the lockbox. \"It's unlocked, \"he said,\"so I want you to lift the lid. '\n\nCorabb stepped past and flung the lid back.\n\nAfter he'd recovered from his flinch, Bottle crawled up fora look inside.\n\n\"Now what?\" Corabb asked behind him. \"Was that practice?\"\n\n\"Practice?\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"No, Corabb-gods, this is strange-look at this gear! Those clothes.\"\n\n\"Well, what I meant was, do you want me to open Smiles's box next? '\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"That's Cuttle's. You're at Cuttle's bunk, Bottle.\" He pointed. \"Hers is right there.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Bottle muttered as he stood up and dropped the lid on the lockbox. \"That explains the codpiece.\"\n\n\"Oh... does it?\"\n\nThey stared at each other.\n\n\"So, just how many bastards do you think you've sired by now? '\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"You just say something, Corabb?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Before that.\"\n\n\"Before what?\"\n\n\"Something about bastards.\"\n\n\"Are you calling me a bastard?\" Corabb demanded, his face darkening." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, of course not. How would I know?\"\n\n\"How-\"\n\n\"It's none of my business, right? \"Bottle slapped the man on one solid shoulder and set off to find his boots.\"I'm going out.\"\n\n\"Thought you were sick.\"\n\n\"Better now.\"\n\nOnce he'd made his escape-in all likelihood narrowly avoiding being beaten to death by the squad's biggest fist over some pathetic misunderstanding-Bottle glared up at the mid-afternoon sun fora moment, and then set off. All right, you parasite, I'm paying attention now. Whereto?\n\n\"It's about time. I was having doubts-'\n\nQuick Ben! Since when were you playing around with Mockra? And do you have any idea how our skulls will ache by this evening?\n\n\"Relax, I got something for that. Bottle, I need you to go to the Old Palace. I'm down in the crypts. '\n\nWhere you belong.\n\n\"First time anybody's expressed that particular sentiment, Bottle. Tell me when you get to the grounds. '\n\nWhat are you doing in the crypts, Quick Ben?\n\n\"I'm at the Cedance. You need to see this, Bottle. '\n\nDid you find them, then?\n\n\"Who?\"\n\nSinn and Grub. Heard they went missing.\n\n\"No, they're not here, and no sign that anyone's been down herein sometime. As I've already told the Adjunct, the two imps are gone. '\n\nGone? Gone where?\n\n\"No idea. But they're gone. '\n\nBad news for the Adjunct-she's losing her mages-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's got me. She doesn't need anyone else.\"\n\nAnd all my fears are laid to rest.\n\n\"You may not have realized, Bottle, but I was asking you about your furry lover fora reason.\"\n\nJealousy?\n\n\"Hurry up and get here so I can throttle you. No, not jealousy. Although, come to think on it, I can't even recall the last time-'\n\nYou said you had a reason, Quick Ben. Let's hear it.\n\n\"What's Deadsmell been telling you? '\n\nWhat? Nothing. Well.\n\n\"Hah, I knew it! Don't believe him, Bottle. He hasn't any idea-any idea at all-about what's in the works. '\n\nYou know, Quick Ben, oh... never mind. So, I'm on the grounds. Whereto now?\n\n\"Anybody see you?\"\n\nYou didn't tell me to do this sneakily!\n\n\"Anybody insight?\"\n\nBottle looked round. Wings of the Old Palace were settled deep in mud, plaster cracking or simply gone, to reveal fissured, slumping brick walls. Snarls of grasses swallowed up old flagstone pathways. A plaza of some sort off to his left was now a shallow pond. The air was filled with spinning insects. No.\n\n\"Good. Now, follow my instructions precisely, Bottle.\"\n\nYou sure? I mean, I was planning on ignoring every third direction you gave me.\n\n\"Fiddler needs to have a few words with you, soldier. About rules of conduct when it comes to High Mages.\"\n\nLook, Quick Ben, if you want me to find this Cedance, leave me to it. I have a nose for those kinds of things." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I knew it!\"\n\nYou knew what? I'm just saying-\n\n\"She's been whispering in your ear-'\n\nGods below, Quick Ben! The noises she makes aren't whispers. They're not even words. I don't-\n\n\"She gives you visions, doesn't she? Flashes of her own memories. Scenes. '\n\nHow do you know that?\n\n\"Tell me some.\"\n\nWhy do you think it's any of your business?\n\n\"Choose one, damn you.\"\n\nHe slapped at a mosquito. Some would be easier than others, he knew. Easier because they were empty of meaning. Most memories were, he suspected. Frozen scenes. Jungle trails, the bark of four-legged monkeys from cliff-sides. Huddled warmth in the night as hunting beasts coughed in the darkness. But there was one that returned again and again, in innumerable variations.\n\nThe sudden blossoming of blue sky, an opening ahead, the smell of salt. Soft rush of gentle waves on white coral beach. Padding breathless onto the strand in a chorus of excited cries and chatter. Culmination of terrifying journeys overland where it seemed home would never again find them. And then, in sudden gift... Shorelines, Quick. Bright sun, hot sand underfoot. Coming home... even when the home has never been visited before. And, all at once, they gather to begin building boats.\n\n\"Boats?\"\n\nAlways boats. Islands. Places where the tawny hunters do not stalk the night. Places, where they can be... safe.\n\n\"The Eres-\"\n\nLived for the seas. The oceans. Coming from the great continents, they existed in a state of flight. Shorelines fed them. The vast emptiness beyond the reefs called to them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Boats?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What kind of boats?\"\n\nIt varies-I don't always travel with the same group. Dug-outs. Reed boats and bamboo rafts. Skins, baskets bridged by saplings-like nests in toppled trees. Quick Ben, the Eres'al-they were smart, smarter than you might think. They weren't as different from us as they might seem. They conquered the entire world.\n\n\"So what happened to them?\"\n\nBottle shrugged. I don't know. I think, maybe, we happened to them.\n\nHe had found a sundered doorway. Walking the length of dark, damp corridors and following the narrow staircases spiralling downward to landings ankle-deep in water. Sloshing this way and that, drawing unerringly closer to that pulsing residue of ancient power. Houses, Tiles, Holds, Wandering-that all sounds simple enough, doesn't it, Quick Ben? Logical. But what about the roads of the sea? Where do they fit in? Or the siren calls of the wind? The point is, we see ourselves as the great trekkers, the bold travellers and explorers. But the Eres'al, High Mage, they did it first. There isn't a place we step anywhere in this world that they haven't stepped first. Humbling thought, isn't it? He reached a narrow tunnel with an uneven floor that formed islands between pools. A massive portal with a leaning lintel stone beckoned. He stepped through and saw the causeway, and the broader platform at the end, where stood Quick Ben.\n\n\"All right, I'm here, Quick Ben. With soaked feet. '\n\nThe vast chamber was bathed in golden light that rose like mist from the Tiles spreading out from the disc. Quick Ben, head tilted to one side, watched Bottle approach up the causeway, an odd look in his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\"\n\nHe blinked, and then gestured. \"Look around, Bottle. The Cedance is alive.\"\n\n\"Signifying what?\"\n\n\"I was hoping you could tell me. The magic here should be waning. We've unleashed the warrens, after all. We've brought the Deck of Dragons. We've slammed the door on Chaos. It's like bringing the wheel to a tribe that has only used sleds and travois-there's been a revolution among this kingdom's mages. Even the priests are finding everything upside down-it'd be nice to sneak a spy into the cult of the Errant. Anyway, this place should be dying, Bottle. '\n\nBottle looked round. One Tile close by displayed a scatter of bones carved like impressions into the stone surface, impressions that glowed as if filled with embers. Nearby was another showing an empty throne. But the brightest Tile of all lifted its own image above the flat surface, so that it floated, swirling, in three dimensions. A dragon, wings spread wide, jaws open. \"Hood's breath, ' he muttered, repressing a shiver.\n\n\"Your roads of the sea, Bottle,\" said Quick Ben. \"They make me think about Mael.\"\n\n\"Well, hard not to think about Mael in this city, High Mage.\"\n\n\"You know, then.\"\n\nBottle nodded.\n\n\"That's not nearly as worrisome as what was happening back in the Malazan Empire. The ascension of Mallick Rel, the Jhistal. '\n\nBottle frowned at Quick Ben. \"How can that be more worrying than finding an Elder God standing next to the Letherii throne?\"\n\n\"It's not the throne he's standing beside. It's Tehol. From what I gather, that relationship has been therefor sometime. Mael's hiding here, trying to keep his head down. But he hasn't much say when some mortal manages to grasp some of his power, and starts forcing concessions. '" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the writer's narrative assistant, advance the story.\nTags: epic fantasy, complex plot, multiple characters, dark themes, intricate world-building\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Dust of Dreams\nChapter: 20" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\"\n\nHe blinked, and then gestured. \"Look around, Bottle. The Cedance is alive.\"\n\n\"Signifying what?\"\n\n\"I was hoping you could tell me. The magic here should be waning. We've unleashed the warrens, after all. We've brought the Deck of Dragons. We've slammed the door on Chaos. It's like bringing the wheel to a tribe that has only used sleds and travois-there's been a revolution among this kingdom's mages. Even the priests are finding everything upside down-it'd be nice to sneak a spy into the cult of the Errant. Anyway, this place should be dying, Bottle. '\n\nBottle looked round. One Tile close by displayed a scatter of bones carved like impressions into the stone surface, impressions that glowed as if filled with embers. Nearby was another showing an empty throne. But the brightest Tile of all lifted its own image above the flat surface, so that it floated, swirling, in three dimensions. A dragon, wings spread wide, jaws open. \"Hood's breath, ' he muttered, repressing a shiver.\n\n\"Your roads of the sea, Bottle,\" said Quick Ben. \"They make me think about Mael.\"\n\n\"Well, hard not to think about Mael in this city, High Mage.\"\n\n\"You know, then.\"\n\nBottle nodded.\n\n\"That's not nearly as worrisome as what was happening back in the Malazan Empire. The ascension of Mallick Rel, the Jhistal. '\n\nBottle frowned at Quick Ben. \"How can that be more worrying than finding an Elder God standing next to the Letherii throne?\"\n\n\"It's not the throne he's standing beside. It's Tehol. From what I gather, that relationship has been therefor sometime. Mael's hiding here, trying to keep his head down. But he hasn't much say when some mortal manages to grasp some of his power, and starts forcing concessions. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Elder God of the Seas,\" said Bottle, \"was ever a thirsty god. And his daughter isn't much better. '\n\n\"Beru?\"\n\n\"Who else? The Lady of Fair Seas is an ironic title. It pays,\" he added, eyeing the dragon Tile, \"not to take things so literally.\"\n\n\"I'm thinking, \"said Quick Ben,\"of asking the Adjunct to elevate you to High Mage. '\n\n\"Don't do that, \"snapped Bottle.\"Give me a reason not to. And not one of those pathetic ones about comradeship and how you're so needed in Fid's squad. '\n\n\"All right. See what you think of this one, then. Keep me where I am... as your shaved knuckle in the hole.\"\n\nThe High Mage's glittering eyes narrowed, and then he smiled.\"I may not like you much, Bottle, but sometimes... I like what you say. '\n\n\"Lucky you. Now, can we get out of this place?\"\n\n\"I think it is time,\" she said, \"for us to leave.\"\n\nWithal squinted at her, and then rubbed at the bristle on his chin. \"You want better accommodation, love?\"\n\n\"No, you idiot. I mean leave. The Bonehunters, this city, all of it. You did what you had to do. I did what I had to do-my miserable family of Rake's runts are gone, now. Nothing holds us here anymore. Besides, \"she added,\"I don't like where things are going.\"\n\n\"That reading-\"\n\n\"Meaningless.\" She fixed a level gaze on him. \"Do I look like the Queen of High House Dark?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Withal hesitated.\n\n\"Do you value your life, husband?\"\n\n\"If you want us to leave, why, I don't expect anyone will try to stop us. We can book passage... somewhere. \"And then he frowned.\"Hold on, Sand. Where will we go? '\n\nScowling, she rose and began pacing round their small, sparsely furnished room. \"Remember the Shake? On that prison island?\"\n\n\"Aye. The ones that used old Andii words for somethings.\"\n\n\"Who worship the shore, yes.\"\n\n\"Well?\" he asked.\n\n\"Who also seemed to think that the shore was dying.\"\n\n\"Maybe the one they knew-I mean, there's always some kind of shore. '\n\n\"Rising sea levels.\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"Those sea levels,\" she continued, now facing the window and looking out over the city, \"have been kept unnaturally low... fora longtime.\"\n\n\"They have?\"\n\n\"Omtose Phellack. The rituals of ice. The Jaghut and their war with the T'lan Imass. The vast ice fields are melting, Withal. \"She faced him.\"You're Meckros-you've seen for yourself the storms-we saw it again at Fent Reach-the oceans are in chaos. Seasons are awry. Floods, droughts, infestations. And where does the Adjunct want to take her army? East. To Kolanse. But it's a common opinion herein Lether that Kolanse is suffering a terrible drought.\" Her dark eyes hardened. \"Have you ever seen an entire people starving, dying of thirst?\"\n\n\"No. Have you?\"\n\n\"I am old, husband. I remember the Saelen Gara, an offshoot Andii people in my home world. They lived in the forests. Until the forests died. We begged them, then, to come to Kharkanas. To the cities of the realm. They refused. Their hearts were broken, they said. Their world had died, and so they elected to die with it. Andarist begged...\" Her gaze clouded then and she turned away, back to the window. \"Yes, Withal, to answer you. Yes, I have. And I will not see it again.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Very well. Whereto, then?\"\n\n\"We will begin,\" she said, \"with a visit to the Shake.\"\n\n\"What have they to tell you, Sand? Garbled memories. Ignorant superstitions.\"\n\n\"Withal. I fell in battle. We warred with the K'Chain Che'Malle. Until the Tiste Edur betrayed us, slaughtered us. Clearly, they were not as thorough as they perhaps should have been. Some Andii survived. And it seems that there were more than just K'Chain Che'Malle dwelling in that region. There were humans.\"\n\n\"The Shake.\"\n\n\"People who would become the Shake, once they took in the surviving Andii. Once the myths and legends of both groups knitted together and became indistinguishable.\" She paused, and then said, \"But even then, there must have been a schism of some sort. Unless, of course, the Tiste Andii of Bluerose were an earlier population, a migration distinct from our own. But my thinking is this: some of the Shake, with Tiste Andii among them, split away, travelled inland. They were the ones who created Bluerose, a theocracy centred on the worship of the Black-Winged Lord. On Anomander Rake, Son of Darkness.\"\n\n\"Is it not equally possible,\" ventured Withal, \"that all the Tiste Andii left? Leaving just the Shake, weakly blood-mixed here and there, perhaps, but otherwise just human, yet now possessing that knitted skein of myths and such?\"\n\nShe glanced at him, frowned. \"That's a thought, husband. The Tiste Andii survivors used the humans, to begin with, to regain their strength-to stay alive on this unknown world-even to hide them from Edur hunting parties. And then, when at last they judged they were ready, and it was safe, they all left. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But wouldn't the Shake have then rejected them? Their stories? Their words? After all, they certainly didn't worship the Tiste Andii, did they? They worshipped the shore-and you have to admit, that's one strange religion they have. Praying to a strip of beach and whatnot. '\n\n\"And that is what interests me more than those surviving Tiste Andii. And that is why I wish to speak with their elders, their witches and warlocks.\"\n\n\"Deadsmell described the horrid skeletons his squad and Sinn found on the north end of the island. Half reptilian, half human. Misbegotten-\"\n\n\"That were quickly killed, disposed of. The taint, Withal, of K'Chain Che'Malle. And so, before we Tiste even arrived, they lived in the shadow of the Che'Malle. And it was not in isolation. No, there was some form of contact, some kind of relationship. There must have been. '\n\nHe thought about that, still uncertain as to where her thoughts were taking her. Why it had become so important that she uncover the secrets of the Shake. \"Sandalath, why did you Tiste war against the K'Chain Che'Malle?\"\n\nShe looked startled. \"Why? Because they were different.\"\n\n\"I see. And they fought against you in turn. Because you were different, or because you were invading their world?\"\n\nShe reached up and closed the shutters, blocking out the cityscape and sky beyond. The sudden gloom was like a shroud on their conversation. \"I'm going out now, \"she said.\"Start packing. '\n\nWith delicate precision, Telorast nipped at the eyelid, clasping it and lifting it away from the eye. Curdle leaned in fora closer look, then pulled back, hind claws scrabbling to maintain their grip on the front of Banaschar's tunic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's piss drunk, all right. Snuffed candle. Doused fire, gutted lamp, the reeking dead. '\n\nTelorast released the lid, watched it sink back down. Banaschar sighed wetly, groaned and shifted in the chair, head lolling.\n\nThe two skeletal creatures scrambled down and rendezvoused on the windowsill on the other side of the small room. They tilted their heads closer together.\n\n\"What now?\" Curdle whispered.\n\n\"What kind of question is that? What now? What now? Have you lost your mind?\"\n\n\"Well, what now, Telorast?\"\n\n\"How should I know! But listen, we need to do something! That Errant-he's... he's-well, I hate him, is what! And worse, he's using Banaschar, our very own ex-priest. '\n\n\"Our pet.\"\n\n\"That's right. Our pet-not his! '\n\n\"We should kill him.\"\n\n\"Who? Banaschar or the Errant?\"\n\n\"If we kill Banaschar, then nobody has a pet. If we kill the Errant, then we can keep Banaschar all to ourselves.\"\n\n\"Right, Curdle,\" Telorast said, nodding, \"but which one would make the Errant angrier?\"\n\n\"Good question. We need something to make him go mad, completely mad-that's the best revenge for stealing our pet. '\n\n\"And then we kill him.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter! Why are you being so thick? Oh, what a ridiculous question! Listen, Curdle, now we got ourselves a plan and that's good. It's a start. So let's think some more. Vengeance against the Errant.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Elder God.\"\n\n\"Right.\"\n\n\"Who's still around. '\n\n\"Right.\"\n\n\"Stealing pets.\"\n\n\"Curdle-\"\n\n\"I'm just thinking out loud, that's all!\"\n\n\"You call that thinking? No wonder we ended up torn to pieces and dead and worse than dead!\"\n\n\"Oh, and what are you thinking, then?\"\n\n\"I didn't have anytime to, since I had to answer all your questions! '\n\n\"You always got an excuse, Telorast, did you know that? Always.\"\n\n\"And you're it, Curdle, did you know that? '\n\nA voice croaked from the other side of the room, \"What are you two whispering about over there?\"\n\nThe two skeletons flinched. Then, tail lashing about, Telorast ducked ahead in Banaschar's direction.\"Absolutely nothing, and that's a fact. In fact, beloved pet, that's the problem! Every time! It's Curdle. She's an idiot! She drives me mad! Drives you to drink, too, I bet. '\n\n\"The Errant's game is one of fate, \"Banaschar said, rubbing at his face.\"He uses-abuses-proclivities, tendencies. He nudges, pushes over the edge. \"He blinked blearily at the two skeletons.\"To take him down, you need to take advantage of that selfsame obsession. You need to set a trap. '\n\nTelorast and Curdle hopped down from the sill and advanced on the seated man, tails flicking, heads low. \"A trap,\" whispered Telorast. \"That's good. We thought you'd switched gods, that's what we thought-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't tell him what we thought!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "' Curdle hissed.\n\n\"It doesn't matter now-he's on our side! Weren't you listening? '\n\n\"The Errant wants all he once had,\" said Banaschar. \"Temples, worshippers, domination. Power. To do that, he needs to take down the gods. The High Houses... all in ruins. Smouldering heaps. This coming war with the Crippled God presents him with his chance-a few nudges on the battlefield-who'd notice? He wants spilled blood, my friends, that's what he wants.\"\n\n\"Who doesn't? ' asked Curdle.\n\nThe two creatures had reached Banaschar's scuffed boots and were now bobbing and fawning.\"The chaos of battle, \"murmured Telorast,\"yes, that would be ideal. '\n\n\"For us,\" nodded Curdle.\n\n\"Precisely. Our chance.\"\n\n\"To do what?\" Banaschar asked. \"Find yourselves a couple of thrones?\" He snorted. Ignoring them as they prostrated themselves at his feet, he held up his hands and stared at them. \"See this tremble, friends? What does it truly signify? I will tell you. I am the last living priest of D'rek. Why was I spared? I lost all the privileges of worship within a temple. I lost a secular game of influence and power, diminished in the eyes of my brothers and sisters. In the eyes of everyone, I imagine. But I never gave up worshipping my god. \"He squinted.\"I should be dead. Was I simply forgotten? Has it taken longer than D'rek thought? To hunt us all down? When will my god find me?\" After a moment longer he lowered his hands onto his thighs. \"I just... wait.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Our pet's disenchanted, ' whispered Telorast.\n\n\"That's bad, ' Curdle whispered back.\n\n\"We need to find him a woman.\"\n\n\"Or a child to eat.\"\n\n\"They don't eat children, Curdle. '\n\n\"Well, some other kind of treat, then.\"\n\n\"A bottle!\"\n\n\"A bottle, yes, that's good! '\n\nThey went hunting.\n\nBanaschar waited.\n\nKoryk trained his crossbow on the back of the scout's helmed head. His finger edged down to the iron press.\n\nThe point of a knife hovered into view opposite his right eye. \"I got orders,\" whispered Smiles, \"to kill you if you kill anyone.\"\n\nHe drew his finger back. \"Like Hood you have. Besides, it might bean accident.\"\n\n\"Oh, I saw that for sure, Koryk. Your trigger finger just accidentally slipping down like that. And then, oh, in went my knife point-another accident. Tragedies! We'll burn you on a pyre Seti style and that's a promise.\"\n\nHe lowered the crossbow and rolled onto his side, out of sight of the clumsy scout on the track below. \"Right, that makes perfect sense, Smiles. A pyre for the people who live on the grasslands. We like our funerals to involve, why, everyone. We burn down whole villages and scorch the ground for leagues in every direction.\"\n\nShe blinked at him, and then shrugged. \"Whatever you do with your dead, then.\"\n\nHe worked his way down the slope, Smiles following.\n\n\"My turn,\" she said when they reached the draw. \"Get backup there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You waited till we got down hereto say that?\"\n\nShe grinned.\n\nLeaving him to scrabble back into position, Smiles set off through the brush. It wasn't that the Letherii scouts were especially bad. It was more the case that their tradition of warfare kept them trapped in the idea of huge armies clashing on open fields. Where scouts were employed simply to find the enemy encampments. The notion of a foe that could melt into the landscape the way the Malazans could, or even the idea that the enemy might split its forces, avoid direct clashes, and whittle the Letherii down with raids, ambushes and disrupted supply lines-none of that was part of their military thinking.\n\nThe Tiste Edur had been tougher by far. Their fighting style was much closer to the Malazan one, which probably explained why the Edur conquered the Letherii the first time round.\n\nOf course, the Malazans could stand firm in a big scrap, but it made sense to have spent sometime demoralizing and weakening their foe beforehand.\n\nThese Letherii had a lot still to learn. After all, one day the Malazans might be back. Not the Bonehunters, but the imperial armies of the Empress. Anew kingdom to conquer, anew continent to subjugate. If King Tehol wanted to hold onto what he had, his brother had better be commanding a savvy, nasty army that knew how to face down Malazan marines, heavies, squad mages, sappers with munitions, and decent cavalry.\n\nShe quietly grunted as she approached the hidden camp. Poor Brys Beddict. They might as well surrender now.\n\n\"If you was any less ugly,\" a voice said, \"I'd a killed you for sure. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She halted, scowling. \"Took your time announcing yourself, picket.\"\n\nThe soldier that edged into view was dark-skinned, barring a piebald blotch of pink disfiguring half his face and most of his forehead. The heavy crossbow in his hands was cocked but no quarrel rested in the slot.\n\nSmiles pushed past him. \"Talk about ugly-you live in my nightmares, Gullstream, you know that?\"\n\nThe man stepped in behind her. \"Can't help being so popular with the ladies, \"he said.\"Especially the Letherii ones. '\n\nDespite the blotch, there was indeed something about Gullstream that made women take a second and third look. She suspected he might have some Tiste Andii blood in his veins. The almond-shaped eyes that never seemed to settle on anyone colour; his way of moving-as if he had all the time in the world-and the fact that he was, according to rumour, well-hung. Shaking her head to clear away stupid thoughts, she said, \"Their scouts have gone right past-staying on the track mostly. So the Fist can move us all up. We'll fall on the main column screaming our lungs out and that will be that. '\n\nAs she was saying this, they entered the camp-a few hundred soldiers sitting or lying quietly amidst the trees, stumps and brush.\n\nSeeing Keneb, Smiles headed over to make her report.\n\nThe Fist was sitting on a folding camp stool, using the point of his dagger to scrape mud from the soles of his boots. A cup of steaming herbal tea rested on a stump beside him. Sprawled on the ground a few paces away was Sergeant Fiddler, and just beyond him Sergeant Balm sat crosslegged, studying the short sword he was holding, his expression confused. A dozen heavies waited nearby, grouped together and seeming to be engaged in comparing their outthrust hands-counting knuckle hairs, I bet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fist, Scout Smiles reporting, sir.\"\n\nKeneb glanced up. \"As predicted?\"\n\n\"Aye, sir. Can we go kill'em all now? '\n\nThe Fist looked over at Fiddler, \"Looks like you lost your bet, Sergeant.\"\n\nEyes still closed, Fiddler grunted, then said, \"We ain't done any killing yet, sir. Brys Beddict's been fishin in our brains for sometime now, he's bound to have snagged a fin or gill or two. Smiles, how many scouts on the track? '\n\n\"Just the one, Sergeant. Picking his nose.\"\n\nFiddler opened his eyes and squinted over at Keneb. \"Like that, Fist. Beddict's reconfigured his scouting patrols-they pair up. If Smiles and Koryk saw only one, then where was the other one? \"He shifted to get more comfortable and closed his eyes again.\"And he runs five units-five pairs-in advance of his main body. So. '\n\n\"So,\" repeated Keneb, frowning. He rose, slipped the dagger into his scabbard. \"If he's sent one or two down the track, they were meant to be seen. Sergeant Balm, find me that map. '\n\n\"Map, sir? What map?\"\n\nMuttering under his breath, Keneb walked over to the heavies. \"You there-yes, you-name?\"\n\n\"Reliko, sir.\"\n\n\"What are you doing with those heavies, Reliko?\"\n\n\"Why, cos I am one, sir.\"\n\nWatching this, Smiles snorted. The top of Reliko's gnarly head barely reached her shoulder. The man looked like a prune with arms and legs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who's your sergeant?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "' Keneb asked the Dal Honese soldier.\n\n\"Badan Gruk, sir. But he stayed back sick, sir, along with Sergeant Sinter and Kisswhere. Me and Vastly Blank here, we squadding up with Drawfirst and Shoaly, under Sergeant Primly, sir.\"\n\n\"Very well. Go into the command tent and bring me the map.\"\n\n\"Aye sir. You want the table with it?\"\n\n\"No, that won't be necessary. '\n\nAs the soldier walked off, Fiddler said, \"Coulda been there and back by now, sir. All by yourself.\"\n\n\"I could have, yes. And just for that observation, Sergeant, go and get that map-table for me.\"\n\n\"Thought it wasn't necessary, sir? '\n\n\"I changed my mind. On your feet.\"\n\nGroaning, Fiddler sat up, nudged Balm and said, \"You and me, we got work to do.\"\n\nBlinking, Balm stared at him a moment. Then he leapt upright, sword in his hand. \"Where are they, then?\"\n\n\"Follow me,\" Fiddler said, climbing to his feet. \"And put that thing away before you poke me with it.\"\n\n\"Why would I stab you? I mean, I know you, right? I think. Aye, I know you.\"\n\nThey passed Reliko on their way to the tent.\n\nAs the soldier stepped up, Keneb took the rolled-up hide. \"Thank you. Reliko, before you go, a question-why are all the heavies examining their hands?\"\n\n\"We was adding up lost bits, sir, t'see if it made up a whole hand. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Does it?\"\n\n\"We're missing a thumb, but we heard there's a heavy without any thumbs-might be over in Blistig's legion. '\n\n\"Indeed, and what would his name be?\"\n\n\"Nefarias Bredd, sir.\"\n\n\"And how would this soldier be able to wield any weapons, without thumbs?\"\n\nReliko shrugged. \"Can't say, sir, as I only seen \"im once, and that was from too faraway. I expect he ties'em up sort of, somehow. '\n\n\"Perhaps,\" ventured Keneb, \"he's missing only one thumb. Shield hand, perhaps. '\n\n\"Might be, sir, might be, in which case as soon as we find a thumb, why, we'll let him know. ' Reliko returned to his companions.\n\nKeneb stared after the soldier, frowning.\n\n\"Kingdoms toppled one by one,\" said Smiles, \"because of soldiers like him, sir. Keep telling yourself that-that's how I do it. '\n\n\"Do what, scout?\"\n\n\"Stay sane, sir. He's the one, you know. '\n\n\"Who, what?\"\n\n\"The shortest heavy in the history of the Malazan Empire, sir.\"\n\n\"Really? Are you certain of that, scout?\"\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\nBut he'd unfurled the map and was now studying it.\n\nFiddler and Balm were approaching, a heavy table between them. As soon as they arrived, Keneb rolled up the map and set it on the tabletop. \"You can take that back now, Sergeants. Thank you.\"\n\nSmiles jogged her way back to where Koryk was hidden along the ridge. Behind her clunked Corporal Tarr, sounding like a damned tinker's cart. She shot him a glare over one shoulder.\"You shoulda strapped down, you know that, don't you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is a damned feint,\" said Tarr, \"what difference does it make?\"\n\nThey reached the base of the ridge.\n\n\"I'll wait here. Go collect the fool, Smiles, and be quick about it. '\n\nBiting back a retort, she set off up the slope. It'd be different, she knew, if she was the corporal. And this was a perfect example. If she was corporal, it'd be Tarr doing this climb and that was a fact.\n\nKoryk heard her coming and worked his way down to meet her. \"No column, huh?\"\n\n\"No, how'd you guess? '\n\n\"Didn't have to. I waited. And... no column. '\n\nThey descended the slope side by side to where Tarr waited.\n\n\"We lost the enemy, Corporal?\"\n\n\"Something like that, Koryk. And now the Fist's got us on the move-we're going to be buggered trying catch-up, too. He's now thinking we've stuck our heads in a wasp nest.\"\n\n\"These Letherii couldn't turn an ambush onus, \"Koryk pronounced.\"We would've sniffed it out by now.\"\n\n\"But we didn't, \"Smiles pointed out.\"We been flushed, Koryk. '\n\n\"Lazy,\" pronounced Tarr. \"Overconfident. Fiddler was right.\"\n\n\"Of course he was,\" said Smiles. \"He's Fiddler. It's always the problem, the people in charge never listen to the people in the know. It's like two different worlds, two different languages. '\n\nShe stopped when she noticed both men looking at her. \"What?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nothing,\" said Tarr, \"except, well, that was a sharp observation there, Smiles.\"\n\n\"Oh, and did that shock you two?\"\n\n\"Shocked me,\" admitted Koryk.\n\nShe scowled at him.\n\nBut secretly, she was pleased. That's right. I ain't the fool you think I am. I ain't the fool nobody thinks I am. Everybody, I mean. Well, they're the real fools, anyway.\n\nThey hurried on, but long before they caught up to the company, it was allover.\n\nThe Letherii ambush caught Keneb's mob coming down a forested slope that funnelled before reaching the basin. Enemy ranks rose upon both sides from fast-dug foxholes and loosed a few hundred un-fletched arrows with soft clay balls instead of barbed iron points. If the flights had been real, half the Malazans would have been downed, dead or wounded. A few more salvos and most of the rest would be out of commission.\n\nBrys Beddict made an appearance in the midst of Letherii catcalls and cheering, walking up to Fist Keneb and painting with one dripping finger a red slash across his boiled-leather cuirass.\n\n\"Sorry, Fist, but you have just been wiped out.\"\n\n\"Indeed, Commander,\" Keneb acknowledged. \"Three hundred dead Bonehunters, cut down in a pocket. Very well done, although I suspect it highlights a lesson as yet undiscovered.\"\n\nThe smile on Brys's face faded slightly.\"Fist? I'm afraid I don't understand you. '\n\n\"Sometimes, one's tactics must prove brutal in the execution, Commander. Especially when the timing's off and nothing can be done for it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sorry? '\n\nHorns sounded suddenly, from the ridge lines beyond the Letherii units-on all sides, in fact.\n\nKeneb said, \"Three hundred dead Bonehunters, Commander, and eight hundred dead Letherii, including their supreme commander. Not an ideal exchange for either side, but in a war, probably one the Adjunct could stomach.\"\n\nBrys sighed, his expression wry. \"Lesson delivered, Fist Keneb. My compliments to the Adjunct.\"\n\nAt that moment, Fiddler walked up to them. \"Fist, you owe me and my squad two nights\" leave, sir. '\n\nKeneb grinned at Brys Beddict. \"As much as the Adjunct would appreciate the compliments, Commander, they in fact belong to this sergeant here.\"\n\n\"Ah, I see.\"\n\n\"That's another lesson to mull over, \"Keneb said,\"the one about listening to your veterans, regardless of rank. '\n\n\"Well,\" mused Brys, \"I may have to go hunting for my few surviving veterans, then. None the less, Fist, the sacrifice of three hundred of your soldiers strikes meas a loss you can ill afford, regardless of the battle's outcome. '\n\n\"True. Hence my comment about timing, Commander. I sent a rider to Fist Blistig but we could not respond in time to your ambush. Obviously, I would rather have avoided all contact with your troops. But since I know we'd all prefer to sleep in real beds tonight, I thought it more instructive to invite the engagement. Now, \"he added, smiling,\"we can all march back to Letheras. '\n\nBrys drew out a handkerchief, wetted it from his canteen, and then stepped up to Fist Keneb, and carefully cleaned off the streak of red paint." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Captain Faradan Sort entered Kindly's office to find her counterpart standing to one side of his desk and staring down at an enormous mound of what looked like hair heaped on the desktop.\n\n\"Gods below, what is that?\"\n\nKindly glanced over. \"What does it look like?\"\n\n\"Hair.\"\n\n\"Correct. Animal hair, as best as I can determine. A variety of domestic beasts.\"\n\n\"It reeks. What is it doing on your desk?\"\n\n\"Good question. Tell me, was Lieutenant Pores in the outer office?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"No one there, I'm afraid. '\n\nHe grunted. \"Hiding, I expect.\"\n\n\"I doubt he'd do something like this, Kindly-'\n\n\"Oh, never directly. No, but I would wager a wagonload of imperials he's had a hand in it. He imagines himself very clever, does my lieutenant. '\n\n\"If he owns anything he values greatly,\" she said, \"crush it under a heel. That's how I took care of the one I sensed was going to give me trouble. That was back in Seven Cities, and to this day he looks at me with hurt in his eyes. '\n\nHe glanced at her. \"Hurt? Truly?\"\n\n\"Truly.\"\n\n\"That's... exceptional advice, Faradan. Thank you. '\n\n\"You're welcome. Anyway, I was coming by to see if you'd had any better luck finding our two wayward mages.\"\n\n\"No. We need to get High Mage Quick Ben involved in the search, I believe. Assuming,\" he added, \"they're worth finding. '\n\nShe turned away, walked to the window. \"Kindly, Sinn saved many, many lives at Y'Ghatan. She did so the night of the assault and again with the survivors under the city. Her brother, Corporal Shard, is beside himself with worry. She is precipitous, yes, but I do not consider that necessarily a fault. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And the Adjunct has, it seems, desperate need for mages,\" said Kindly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why is that?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"I know as little as you, Kindly. We will march soon, away from the comforts of Letheras.\"\n\nThe man grunted. \"Never let a soldier get too comfortable. Leads to trouble every time. She's right in kicking us into motion. Still, it'd be a comfort to know what we're heading into. '\n\n\"And a greater comfort to have more than one half-mad High Mage to support eight thousand soldiers.\" She paused, and then said, \"We won't find ourselves another Beak hiding among the squads. We've had our miracle, Kindly.\"\n\n\"You're starting to sound as grim as Blistig. '\n\nShe shook herself. \"You're right. Apologies. I'm just worried about Sinn, that's all. '\n\n\"Then find Quick Ben. Get him looking into those closets or Whatever they're called-'\n\n\"Warrens.\"\n\n\"Right.\"\n\nSighing, she swung round and went to the door. \"I'll send Pores to you if I see him. '\n\n\"You won't, \"Kindly said.\"He'll come up for air sooner or later, Faradan. Leave the lieutenant tome.\"\n\nSergeant Sinter and her sister sat playing the Dal Honese version of bones with Badan Gruk. The human finger bones were polished with use, gleaming amber. The legend was that they'd belonged to three Li Heng traders who'd come to the village, only to be caught thieving. They'd lost more than their hands, naturally. Dal Honese weren't much interested in delivering lessons; they preferred something more succinct and, besides, executing the fools just left the path open for more to come wandering in, and everyone liked a good torture session." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was before things got civilized, of course." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kellanved had put an end to torture. \"A state that employs torture invites barbarism and deserves nothing better than to suffer the harvest of its own excesses.\" That was said to have been from the Emperor himself, although Sinter had her doubts. Sounded too... literate, especially fora damned Dal Honese thief.\n\nAnyway, life stopped being much fun once civilization arrived, or so the old ones muttered. But then, they were always muttering. It was the last career to take up before dying of oldness, the reward for living so long, she supposed. She didn't expect to survive her career as a soldier. It was interesting to see how it was the green, fresh ones who did all the complaining. The veterans just stayed quiet. So maybe all that bitching was at both ends of life, the young and the old trapped inside chronic dissatisfaction.\n\nKisswhere collected up the bones and tossed them again. \"Hah! Poor Badan Gruk-you won't ever match that, let's see you try!\"\n\nIt was a pretty good cast, Sinter had to acknowledge. Four of the core patterns with only a couple of spars missing and one true bridge. Badan would need a near perfect throw to top Kisswhere's run.\n\n\"I'll stop there, I said. Toss \"em, Badan. And no cheating.\"\n\n\"I don't cheat, ' he said as he collected up the bones.\n\n\"Then what's that you just palmed? '\n\nBadan opened his hand and scowled. \"This one's gummed! No wonder you got those casts! '\n\n\"If it was gummed,\" Kisswhere retorted, \"then it was from my sister's last throw! '\n\n\"Hood's breath, \"sighed Sinter.\"Look, you fools, we're all cheating. It's in our blood. So now we've got to accept the fact that none of us is going to admit they were the one using the gum to get a stick. Clean the thing off and let's get on with it. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The others subsided and Sinter was careful to hide her relief. That damned gum had been in her pouch too long, making it dirty, and she could feel the stuff on her fingers. She surreptitiously brought her hands down to her thighs and rubbed as if trying to warm up.\n\nKisswhere shot her a jaded look. The damned barracks was hot as ahead-shrinker's oven.\n\nThey made a point of ignoring the clump of boots as someone marched up to their table. Badan Gruk threw the bones-and achieved six out of six in the core.\n\n\"Did you see that! Look!\" Badan's smile was huge and hugely fake.\"Look, you two, look at that cast! '\n\nBut they were looking at him instead, because cheaters couldn't stand that for long-they'd twitch, they'd bead up, they'd squirrel on the chair.\n\n\"Look!\" he said again, pointing, but the command sounded more like a plea, and all at once he sagged back and raised his hands. \"Fingers clean, darlings-\"\n\n\"That would be a first,\" said the man standing now at their table.\n\nBadan Gruk's expression displayed hurt and innocence, with just a touch of indignation.\"That wasn't called for, sir. You saw my throw-you can see my fingers, too. Clean as clean can be. No gum, no tar, no wax. Soldiers can't be smelly or dirty-it's bad for morale.\"\n\n\"You sure about that?\"\n\nSinter twisted in her chair. \"Can we help you, Lieutenant Pores?\"\n\nThe man's eyes flickered in surprise.\"You mistake me, Sergeant Sinter. I am Captain-'\n\n\"Kindly was pointed out to us, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I thought I ordered you to cut your hair.\"\n\n\"We did,\" said Kisswhere. \"It grew back. It's a trait among Dal Honese, right in the blood, an aversion-is that the word, Sint? Sure it is. Aversion. To bad haircuts. We get them and our hair insists on growing back to what looks better. Happens overnight, sir. '\n\n\"You might be comfortable,\" said Pores, \"believing that I'm not Captain Kindly; that I'm not, in fact, the man who was pointed out to you. But can you be certain that the right one was pointed out to you? If Lieutenant Pores was doing the pointing, for example. He's one for jokes in bad taste. Infamous for it, in fact. He could have elected to take advantage of you-it's a trait of his, one suspects. In the blood, as it were.\"\n\n\"So,\" asked Sinter, \"who might he have pointed to, sir?\"\n\n\"Why, anyone at all.\"\n\n\"But Lieutenant Pores isn't a woman now, is she? '\n\n\"Of course not, but-\"\n\n\"It was a woman,\" continued Sinter, \"who did the pointing out.\"\n\n\"Ah, but she might have been pointing to Lieutenant Pores, since you asked about whoever was your immediate superior. Well,\" said Pores, \"now that that's cleared up, I need to check if you two women have put on the weight you were ordered to. '\n\nKisswhere and Sinter both leaned back to regard him.\n\nThe man gave them a bright smile.\n\n\"Sir,\" said Sinter, \"how precisely do you intend to do that?\"\n\nThe smile was replaced by an expression of shock. \"Do you imagine your captain to be some dirty old codger, Sergeant? I certainly hope not! No, you will come to my office at the ninth bell tonight. You will strip down to your undergarments in the outer office. When you are ready, you are to knock and upon hearing my voice you are to enter immediately. Am I understood, soldiers?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes sir,\" said Sinter.\n\n\"Until then.\"\n\nThe officer marched off.\n\n\"How long,\" asked Kisswhere after he'd left the barracks,\"are we going to run with this, Sint? '\n\n\"Early days yet,\" she smiled, collecting the bones. \"Badan, since you're out of the game for being too obvious, I need you to do a chore for me-well, not much of a chore-anyway, I need you to go out into the city and find me two of the fattest, ugliest whores you can. '\n\n\"I don't like where this is all going, ' Badan Gruk muttered.\n\n\"Listen to you,\" chided Sinter, \"you're getting old. '\n\n\"What did she say?\"\n\nSandalath Drukorlat scowled. \"She wondered why we'd waited so long. '\n\nWithal grunted. \"That woman, Sand...\"\n\n\"Yes.\" She paused just inside the doorway and glared at the three Nachts huddled beneath the windowsill. Their long black, muscled arms were wrapped about one another, forming a clump of limbs and torsos from which three blunt heads made an uneven row, eyes thinned and darting with suspicion. \"What's with them? '\n\n\"I think they're coming with us, \"Withal replied.\"Only, of course, they don't know where we're going. '\n\n\"Tie them up. Lock them up-do something. Just keep them here, husband. They're grotesque. '\n\n\"They're not my pets, ' he said.\n\nShe crossed her arms. \"Really? Then why do they spend all their time under your feet?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Honestly, I have no idea.\"\n\n\"Who do they belong to?\"\n\nHe studied them fora long moment. Not one of the Nachts would meet his eyes. It was pathetic.\n\n\"Withal.\"\n\n\"All right. I think they're Mael's pets.\"\n\n\"Mael!?\"\n\n\"Aye. I was praying to him, you see. And they showed up. On the island. Or maybe they showed up before I started praying-I can't recall. But they got me off that island, and that was Mael's doing.\"\n\n\"Then send them back to him!\"\n\n\"That doesn't seem to be the way praying works, Sand. '\n\n\"Mother bless us,\" she sighed, striding forward. \"Pack up-we're leaving tonight. '\n\n\"tonight? It'll be dark, Sand! '\n\nShe gave him the same glare she'd given Rind, Pule and Mape.\n\nDark, aye. Never mind.\n\nThe worst of it was, in turning away, he caught the looks of sympathy in the Nachts' beady eyes, tracking him like mourners at a funeral.\n\nWell, a man learns to take sympathy where he can get it.\n\n\"If this is anew warren,\" whispered Grub, \"then I think I'd rather we kept the old ones. '\n\nSinn was quiet, as she had been for most of what must have been an entire day, maybe longer, as they wandered this terrible world.\n\nWindswept desert stretched out in all directions. The road they walked cut across it straight as a spear. Here and there, off to one side, they spied fields of stones that might have once been dwellings, and the remnants of sun-fired mud-brick pen or garden walls, but nothing grew here, nothing at all. The air was acrid, smelling of burning pitch-and that was not too surprising, as black pillars of smoke stalked the horizons." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the road itself, constructed of crushed rock and, possibly, glass, they came upon scenes of devastation. Burnt-out hulks of carriages and wagons, scorched clothing and shattered furniture. Fire-blackened corpses, limbs curled like tree roots and hands like bird feet, mouths agape and hollow sockets staring at the empty sky. Twisted pieces of metal lay scattered about, none remotely identifiable to Grub.\n\nBreathing made his throat sore, and the bitter chill of the morning had given way to blistering heat. Eyes stinging, feet dragging, he followed in Sinn's wake until her shadow lengthened to a stretched-out shape painted in pitch, and to his eyes it was as if he was looking down upon the woman she would one day become. He realized that his fear of her was growing-and her silence was making it worse.\n\n\"Will you now be mute tome as well?\" he asked her.\n\nShe glanced back over her shoulder. Momentarily.\n\nIt would soon grow cold again-he'd lost too much fluid to survive a night of shivering.\"We need to camp, Sinn. Make afire-'\n\nShe barked a laugh, but did not turn round. \"Fire,\" she said. \"Yes. Fire. Tell me, Grub, what do you believe in?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Some things are more real than others. For everyone. Each one, different, always different. What's the most real to you? '\n\n\"We can't survive this place, that's what's most real, Sinn. We need water. Food. Shelter. '\n\nHe saw her nod. \"That's what this warren is telling us, Grub. Just that. What you believe has to do with surviving. It doesn't go any further, does it? What if I told you that it used to be that for almost everybody? Before the cities, before people invented being rich.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Being rich? I don't know what you're talking about.\"\n\n\"Before some people found other things to believe in. Before they made those things more real than anything else. Before they decided it was all right even to kill for them. Or enslave people. Or keep them stupid and poor.\" She shot him a look. \"Did you know I had a Tanno tutor? A Spiritwalker.\"\n\n\"I don't know anything about them. Seven Cities priests, right? '\n\n\"He once told me that an untethered soul can drown in wisdom.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Wisdom grows by stripping away beliefs, until the last tether is cut, and suddenly you float free. Only, because your eyes are wide open, you see right away that you can't float in what you're in. You can only sink. That's why the meanest religions work so hard at keeping their followers ignorant. Knowledge is poison. Wisdom is depthless. Staying ignorant keeps you in the shallows. Every Tanno one day takes a final spiritwalk. They cut the last tether, and the soul can't go back. When that happens, the other Tannos mourn, because they know that the spiritwalker has drowned.\"\n\nHis mouth was too dry, his throat too sore, but even if that had been otherwise, he knew he would have nothing to say to any of that. He knew, after all, about his own ignorance.\n\n\"Look around, Grub. See? There are no gifts here. Look at these stupid bodies and their stupid wagonloads of furniture. The last thing that was real for them, the only thing, was fire.\"\n\nHis attention was drawn to a dust-cloud, rising in a slanted shroud of gold. Something was on a track that would converge with this road. A herd? An army?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fire is not the gift you think it is, Grub.\"\n\n\"We'll die tonight without it. '\n\n\"We need to stay on this road.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"To find out where it leads.\"\n\n\"We'll die here, then. '\n\n\"This land, Grub,\" she said, \"has generous memories.\"\n\nThe sun was low by the time the army arrived. Horse-drawn chariots and massive wagons burdened with plunder. The warriors were dark-skinned, tall and thin, bedecked in bronze armour. Grub thought there might be a thousand of them, maybe more. He saw spearmen, archers, and what must be the equivalent of heavy infantry, armed with sickle-bladed axes and short curved swords.\n\nThey cut across the track of the road as if blind to it, and as Grub stared he was startled to realize that the figures and their horses and chariots were vaguely transparent. They are ghosts. \"These,\" he said to Sinn who stood beside him, \"are this land's memories? '\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Can they see us?\"\n\nShe pointed atone chariot that had thundered past only to turn round at the urging of the man behind the driver, and was now drawing up opposite them. \"See him-he's a priest. He can't see us, but he senses us. Holiness isn't always in a place, Grub. Sometimes it's what's passing through. '\n\nHe shivered, hugged himself. \"Stop this, Sinn. We're not gods. '\n\n\"No, we're not. We're\"-and she laughed-\"more like divine messengers.\"\n\nThe priest had leapt down from the chariot-Grub could now seethe old blood splashed across the spokes of the high wheels, and saw where blades were fitted in times of battle, projecting out from the hubs. Amass charge by such instruments of war would deliver terrible slaughter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hawk-faced man was edging closer, groping like a blind man.\n\nGrub made to step back but Sinn caught him by the arm and held him fast.\n\n\"Don't, \"she murmured.\"Let him touch the divine, Grub. Let him receive his gift of wisdom. '\n\nThe priest had raised his hands. Beyond, the entire army had halted, and Grub saw what must be a king or commander-perched on a huge, ornate chariot-drawing up to observe the strange antics of his priest.\n\n\"We can give him no wisdom,\" Grub said. \"Sinn-\"\n\n\"Don't be a fool. Just stand here. Wait. We don't have to do anything.\"\n\nThose two outstretched hands came closer. The palms were speckled with dried blood. There were, however, no calluses upon them. Grub hissed, \"He is no warrior.\"\n\n\"No,\" Sinn agreed, \"but he so likes the blood.\"\n\nThe palms hovered, slipped forward, and unerringly settled upon their brows.\n\nGrub saw the priest's eyes widen, and he knew at once that the man was seeing through-through to this road and its litter of destruction-to an age either long before or yet to come: the age in which Grub and Sinn existed, solid and real.\n\nThe priest lurched back and howled.\n\nSinn's laughter was harsh.\"He saw what was real! He saw! \"She spun to face Grub, her eyes bright.\"The future is a desert! And a road! And no end to the stupid wars, the insane slaughter-\"She whirled back and jabbed a finger at the wailing priest who was staggering back to his chariot.\"He believed in the sun god! He believed in immortality-of glory, of wealth-golden fields, lush gardens, sweet rains and sweet rivers flowing without cease! He believed his people are-hah!-chosen! They all do, don't you see? They do, we do, everyone does! See our gift, Grub? See what knowledge yields him? The sanctuary of ignorance-is shattered! Garden into wilderness, cast out into the seas of wisdom! Is not our message divine?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Grub did not think he had any tears left in him. He was wrong.\n\nThe army and its priest and its king all fled, wild as the wind. But, before they did, slaves appeared and raised a cairn of stones. Which they then surrounded with offerings: jars of beer and wine and honey, dates, figs, loaves of bread and two throat-cut goats spilling blood into the sand.\n\nThe feast was ghostly, but Sinn assured Grub that it would sustain them. Divine gifts, she said, were not gifts at all. The receiver must pay for them.\n\n\"And he has done that, has he not, Grub? Oh, he has done that.\"\n\nThe Errant stepped into the vast, impossible chamber. Gone now the leisure of reminiscences, the satisfied stirring of brighter days long since withered colourless, almost dead. Knuckles trailed a step behind him, as befitted his role of old and his role to come.\n\nShe was awake, hunched over a scattering of bones. Trapped in games of chance and mischance, the brilliant, confounding offerings of Sechul Lath, Lord of the Hold of Chance-the Toppler, the Conniver, the Wastrel of Ruin. Too foolish to realize that she was challenging, in the Lord's cast, the very laws of the universe which were, in truth, far less predictable than any mortal might believe.\n\nThe Errant walked up and with one boot kicked the ineffable pattern aside.\n\nHer face stretched into a mask of rage. She reared, hands lifting-and then froze as she fixed her eyes upon the Errant.\n\n\"Kilmandaros.\"\n\nHe saw the flicker of fear in her gaze.\n\n\"I have come,\" he said to her, \"to speak of dragons.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In my lifelong study of the scores of species of ants to be found in the tropical forests of Dal Hon, I am led to the conviction that all forms of life are engaged in a struggle to survive, and that within each species there exists a range of natural but variable proclivities, of physical condition and of behaviour, which in turn weighs for or against in the battle to survive and procreate. Further, it is my suspicion that in the act of procreation, such traits are passed on. By extension, one can see that ill traits reduce the likelihood of both survival and procreation. On the basis of these notions, I wish to propose to my fellow scholars at this noble gathering a law of survival that pertains to all forms of life. But before I do so, I must add one more caveat, drawn from the undeniable behavioural characteristics of, in my instance of speciality, ants. To whit, success of one form of life more often than not initiates devastating population collapse among competitors, and indeed, sometimes outright extinction. And that such annihilation of rivals may in fact be a defining feature of success.\n\nThus, my colleagues, I wish to propose a mode of operation among all forms of life, which I humbly call-in my four-volume treatise-\"The Betrayal of the Fittest\".\n\nOBSESSIONAL SCROLLS SIXTH DAY PROCEEDINGS ADDRESS OF S KAVAT GILL U NTA, M ALAZAN EMPIRE, 1097 BURN'S SLEEP\n\nAs if riding ascent on the wind; or through the tremble in the ground underfoot; or perhaps the air itself carried alien thoughts, thoughts angry, malign-whatever the cause, the K'Chain Che'Malle knew they were now being hunted. They had no patience for Kalyth and her paltry pace, and it was Gunth Mach whose posture slowly shifted, spine drawing almost horizontal to the ground-as if in the course of a single morning some force reshaped her skeleton, muscles and joints-and before the sun stood high she had gathered up the Destriant and set her down behind the humped shoulder-blades, where the dorsal spikes had flattened and where the thick hide had formed something like a saddle seat. And Kalyth found herself riding a K'Chain Che'Malle, the sensation far more fluid than that she recalled of sitting on the back of a horse, so that it seemed they flowed over the broken scrubland, at a speed somewhere between a canter and a gallop. Gunth Mach made use of her forelimbs only as they skirted slopes or ascended the occasional low hill; mostly the scarred, scale-armoured arms remained drawn up like the pincers of a mantis." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The K'ell Hunters Rythok and Kor Thuran flanked her, with Sag'Churok almost a third of a league ahead-even from her vantage point atop Gunth Mach, Kalyth rarely caught sight of the huge creature, a speck of motion betrayed only by its shadow. All of the K'Chain Che'Malle now bore on their scaled hides the mottled hues of the ground and its scant plant cover.\n\nAnd yet... and yet... they were afraid.\n\nNot of those human warriors who pursued them-that was little more than an inconvenience, an obstacle to their mission. No, instead, the fear within these terrible demons was deeper, visceral. It rode out from Gunth'an Acyl, the Matron, in ice-laden ripples, crowding up against each and everyone of her children. The pressure built, grinding, thunderous.\n\nA war is coming. We all know this. But as to the face of this enemy, I alone am blind.\n\nDestriant-what does it mean to be one? To these creatures? What faith am I supposed to shape? I have no history to draw from, no knowledge of K'Chain Che'Malle legends or myths-assuming they have any. Gunth'an Acyl has fixed her eyes upon humankind. She would pillage the beliefs of my kind.\n\nShe is indeed mad! I can give them nothing!\n\nShe would pluck not a single fragment from her own people. They were all dead, after all. Betrayed by their own faiths-that the rains would always come; that the land would ever provide; that children would be born and mothers and aunts would raise them; that there would be campfires and singing and dancing and loves and passions and laughter. All lies, delusions, false hopes-there was no point in stirring those ashes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What else was left to her, then, to make this glorious new religion? When countless thousands of lizard eyes fixed unblinking on her, what could she offer them?\n\nThey had travelled east for the morning but were now angling southward once more, and Kalyth sensed a gradual slowing of pace, and as they slipped over a low rise she caught sight of Sag'Churok, stationary and apparently watching their approach.\n\nSomething had happened. Something had changed.\n\nAgleam of weathered white-the trunk of a fallen tree?-amidst the low grasses directly ahead, and for the first time Kalyth was jolted as Gunth Mach leapt to one side to avoid it. As they passed the object, the Destriant saw that it was along bone. Whatever it had belonged to, she realized, must have been enormous.\n\nThe other K'Chain Che'Malle were reacting in alike manner as each came upon another skeletal remnant, dancing away as if the splintered bones exuded some poison aura that assailed their senses. Kalyth saw that the K'ell's flanks glistened, dripping with oil from their glands, and so she knew that they were all afflicted by an extremity of emotion-terror, rage? She had no means of reading such things.\n\nWas this yet another killing field? She wasn't sure, but something whispered to her that all of these broken bones belonged to a single, gargantuan beast. A dragon? Think of the Nests, the Rooted. Carved in the likeness of dragons... dawn's breath, can this be the religion of the K'Chain Che'Malle? The worship of dragons?\n\nIt made a kind of sense-were these reptiles not physically similar to such mythical beasts? Though she had never seen a dragon, even among her own people there were legends, and in fact she recalled one tale told to her as a child-a fragmented, confused story, which made its recounting rare since it possessed little entertainment value. \"Dragons swim the sky. Fangs slash and blood rains down. The dragons warred with one another, scores upon scores, and the earth below, and all things that dwelt upon it, could do naught but cower. The breath of the dragons made a conflagration of the sky...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They arrived where waited Sag'Churok. As soon as Gunth Mach halted, Kalyth slipped down, her legs almost folding under her. Righting herself, she looked around.\n\nSkull fragments. Massive fangs chipped and split. It was as if the creature had simply blown apart.\n\nKalyth looked upward and saw, directly overhead, a dark speck, wheeling, circling. He shows himself. This, here, this is important. She finally understood what had so agitated the K'Chain Che'Malle. Not fear. Not rage. Anticipation. They expect something from me.\n\nShe fought down a moment of panic. Mouth dry, feeling strangely displaced inside her own body, she wandered into the midst of the bone-field. There were gouges scored into the shattered plates of the dragon's skull, the tracks of bites or talons. She found a dislodged tooth and pulled it up from its web of grasses, heavy as a club in her hands. Sun-bleached and polished on one side, pitted and stained amber on the other. She thought she might laugh-apart of her had never even believed in dragons.\n\nThe K'Chain Che'Malle remained at a respectful distance, watching her. What do you want of me? Should I pray? Raise a cairn from these bones? Let blood? Her searching gaze caught something-a large fragment of the back of the skull, and embedded in it... she walked closer, crouched down.\n\nA fang, much like the one she still carried, only larger, and strangely discoloured. The sun had failed to bleach this one. The wind and the grit it carried had not pitted its enamel. The rain had not polished its surface. It had been torn from its root, so deeply had it impaled the dragon's skull. And it was the hue of rust." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She set down the tooth she had brought over, and knelt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reaching out, she ran her fingers along the reddish fang. Cold as metal, a chill defying the sun and its blistering heat. Its texture reminded Kalyth of petrified wood. She wondered what creature this could have belonged to-an iron dragon? But how can that be? She attempted to remove the tooth, but it would not budge.\n\nSag'Churok spoke in her mind, in a voice strangely faint.\" Destriant, in this place it is difficult to reach you. Your mind. The otataral would deny us. '\n\n\"The what?\"\n\n\"There is no single god. There can never be a single god. For thereto be one face, there must be another. The Nah'ruk did not see it in such terms, of course. They spoke of forces in opposition, of the necessity of tension. All that binds must be bound to two foci, at the minimum. Even should a god exist alone, isolated in its perfection, it will come to comprehend the need fora force outside itself, beyond its omniscience. If all remains within, Destriant-exclusively within, that is-then there is no reason for anything to exist, no reason for creation itself. If all is ordered, untouched by chaos, then the universe that was, is and will ever be, is without meaning. Without value. The god would quickly comprehend, then, that its own existence is also without meaning, and so it would cease. It would succumb to the logic of despair. '\n\nShe was studying the rusty fang as Sag'Churok's words whispered through her head. \"I'm sorry, \"she sighed,\"I don't understand.\" But then, maybe she did.\n\nThe K'Chain Che'Malle resumed: \"In its knowledge, the god would understand the necessity for that which lies outside itself, beyond its direct control. In that tension meaning will be found. In that struggle value is born. If it suits you and your kind, Destriant, fill the ether with gods, goddesses, First Heroes, spirits and demons. Kneel to one or many, but never-never, Kalyth-hold to a belief that but one god exists, that all that is resides within that god. Should you hold such a belief, then by every path of reasoning that follows, you cannot but conclude that your one god is cursed, a thing of impossible aspirations and deafening injustice, whimsical in its cruelty, blind to mercy and devoid of pity. Do not misunderstand me. Choose to live within one god as you like, but in so doing be certain to acknowledge that there is an'other\", an existence beyond your god. And if your god has a face, then so too does that other. In such comprehension, Destriant, will you come to grasp the freedom that lies at the heart of all life; that choice is the singular moral act and all one chooses can only be considered in amoral context if that choice is free.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Freedom. That notion mocked her. \"What-what is this'otataral\" you spoke of, Sag'Churok? '\n\n\"We are reviled for revealing the face of that other god-that god of negation. Your kind have a flawed notion of magic. You cut the veins of other worlds and drink of the blood, and this is your sorcery. But you do not understand. All life is sorcery. In its very essence, the soul is magical, and each process of chemistry, of obeisance and cooperation, of surrender and of struggle-at every scale conceivable-is a consort of sorcery. Destroy magic and you destroy life.\" There was along pause, and then a flood of bitter amusement flowed through Kalyth. ' When we kill, we kill magic. Consider the magnitude of that crime, if you dare.\n\n' What is otataral, you ask? Otataral is the opposite of magic. Negation to creation, absence to presence. If life is your god, then otataral is the other god, and that god is death. But, please understand, it is not an enemy. It is the necessary manifestation of a force in opposition. Both are essential, and together they are bound in the nature of existence itself. We are reviled for revealing the truth.\n\n\"The lesser creatures of this and every other world do not question any of this. Their comprehension is implicit. When we kill the beasts living on this plain, when we close our jaws about the back of the neck. When we grip hard to choke off the windpipe. When we do all this, we watch, with intimate compassion, with profound understanding, the light of life leave our victim's eyes. We seethe struggle give way to acceptance, and in our souls, Destriant, we weep. '\n\nStill she knelt, but now there were tears streaming down her face, as all that Sag'Churok felt was channelled through her, cruel as sepsis, sinking deep into her own soul." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Carry on with the narrative as the plot partner.\nTags: epic fantasy, complex plot, multiple characters, dark themes, intricate world-building\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Dust of Dreams\nChapter: 21" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Freedom. That notion mocked her. \"What-what is this'otataral\" you spoke of, Sag'Churok? '\n\n\"We are reviled for revealing the face of that other god-that god of negation. Your kind have a flawed notion of magic. You cut the veins of other worlds and drink of the blood, and this is your sorcery. But you do not understand. All life is sorcery. In its very essence, the soul is magical, and each process of chemistry, of obeisance and cooperation, of surrender and of struggle-at every scale conceivable-is a consort of sorcery. Destroy magic and you destroy life.\" There was along pause, and then a flood of bitter amusement flowed through Kalyth. ' When we kill, we kill magic. Consider the magnitude of that crime, if you dare.\n\n' What is otataral, you ask? Otataral is the opposite of magic. Negation to creation, absence to presence. If life is your god, then otataral is the other god, and that god is death. But, please understand, it is not an enemy. It is the necessary manifestation of a force in opposition. Both are essential, and together they are bound in the nature of existence itself. We are reviled for revealing the truth.\n\n\"The lesser creatures of this and every other world do not question any of this. Their comprehension is implicit. When we kill the beasts living on this plain, when we close our jaws about the back of the neck. When we grip hard to choke off the windpipe. When we do all this, we watch, with intimate compassion, with profound understanding, the light of life leave our victim's eyes. We seethe struggle give way to acceptance, and in our souls, Destriant, we weep. '\n\nStill she knelt, but now there were tears streaming down her face, as all that Sag'Churok felt was channelled through her, cruel as sepsis, sinking deep into her own soul." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The slayer, the Otataral Dragon, has been bound. But it will be freed. They will free it. For they believe that they can control it. They cannot. Destriant, will you now give us the face of our god?\"\n\nShe whirled round. \"How am I supposed to do that?\" she demanded. \"Is this Otataral Dragon your god?\"\n\n\"No, Destriant,\" Sag'Churok replied in sorrow,\" it is the other. '\n\nShe ran her hands through the brittle tangles of her hair. \"What you want... that face.\" She shook her head. \"It can't be dead. It must be alive, a living thing. You built keeps in the shape of dragons, but that faith is ruined, destroyed by failure. You were betrayed, Sag'Churok. You all were.\" She gestured, encompassing this killing field. \"Look here-the'other\" killed your god.\"\n\nAll of the K'Chain Che'Malle were facing her now.\n\n\"My own people were betrayed as well. It seems,\" she added wryly, \"we share something after all. It's a beginning, of sorts. \"She scanned the area once more.\"There is nothing here, for us. '\n\n\"You misunderstand, Destriant. It is here. It is all here.\"\n\n\"What do you want me to do?\" She was close to tears yet again, but this time from helplessness. \"They're just... bones. '\n\nShe started as Rythok stepped forward, massive blades lifting threateningly.\n\nSome silent command visibly battered the Hunter and he halted, trembling, jaws half agape.\n\nIf she failed, she realized, they might well kill her. Cut her down as they had done Redmask, the poor fool. These creatures managed failure no better than humans. \"I'm sorry, \"she whispered.\"But I don't believe in anything. Not gods, not anything. Oh, they might exist, but about us they don't care. Why should they? We destroy to create. But we deny the value of everything we destroy, which serves to make its destruction easier on our consciences. All that we reshape to suit us is diminished, its original beauty forever lost. We have no value system that does not beggar the world, that does not slaughter the beasts we share it with-as if we are the gods. \"She sank back down onto her knees and clutched the sides of her head.\"Where are these thoughts coming from? It was all so much simpler, once, here-in my mind-so much simpler. Spirits below, I so want to go back! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She only realized she had been beating at her temples when two massive hands grasped her wrists and pulled down her arms. She stared up into Gunth Mach's emerald eyes.\n\nAnd for the first time, the Daughter spoke inside her mind. \"Release, now. Breathe deep my breath, Destriant.\"\n\nKalyth's desperate gasping now caught a strange, pungent scent, emanating from Gunth Mach.\n\nThe world spun. She sagged back, sprawled to the ground. As something unfolded in her skull like an alien flower, virulent, beguiling-she lost grip of her own body, was whipped away.\n\nAnd found herself standing on cold, damp stone, nostrils filling with a pungent, rank stench. Her eyes adjusted to the gloom, and she cried out and staggered back.\n\nA dragon reared above her, its slick scales the colour of rust. Enormous spikes pinned its forelimbs, holding the creature up against a massive, gnarled tree. Other spikes had been driven into it but the dragon's immense weight had pulled them loose. Its wedge-shaped head, big as a migrant's wagon, hung down, streaming drool. The wings were crumpled like storm-battered caravan tents. Fresh blood surrounded the base of the tree, so that it seemed that the entire edifice rose from a gleaming pool.\n\n\"The slayer, the Otataral Dragon, has been bound. But it will be freed...\" Sag'Churok's words echoed in her mind. \"They will free it.\" Who? No matter, she realized. It would be done. This Otataral Dragon would be loosed upon the world, upon every world. A force of negation, a slayer of magic. And they would lose control of it-only mad fools could believe they could enslave such an entity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wait,\" she hissed, thoughts racing, \"wait. Forces in opposition. Takeaway one-spike it to a tree-and the other is lost. It cannot exist, cannot survive looking across the Abyss and seeing nothing, no one, no foe. This is why you have lost your god, Sag'Churok. Or, if it still lives, it has been driven into the oblivion of insanity. Too alone. An orphan... just like me. '\n\nA revelation, of sorts. What could she make of it?\n\nKalyth stared up at the dragon. \"When you are finally freed, then perhaps your'other\" will return, to engage with you once more. In that eternal battle.\" But even then, this scheme had failed before. It would fail again, because it was flawed-something was wrong, something was... broken. \"Forces in opposition, yes, that I do understand. And we each play our roles. We each fashion our'others\" and chart the course of our lives as that eternal campaign, seasons of gain, seasons of loss. Battles and wounds and triumphs and bitter defeats. In comforts we fashion our strongholds. In convictions we occupy our fortifications. In violence we forge our peace. In peace, we win desolation.\"\n\nSomewhere far behind her, Kalyth's body was lying on half-dead grasses, cast down onto the heart-stone of the Wastelands.\" It is here. It is all here. '\n\n\"We are broken indeed. We are... fallen.\"\n\nWhat do to, then, when the battle cannot be won? No answers burgeoned before her. The only truth rearing to confront her was this blood-soaked sacrifice, destined to be un-done. \"Is it true, then, that a world without magic is a dead world? Is this what you promise? Is this to be your future? But no, for when you are at last freed, then your enemy will awaken once more, and the war will resume.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no place in that scheme for mortals. Anew course for the future was needed. For the K'Chain Che'Malle. For all humans in every empire, every tribe. If nothing changed in the mortal world, then there would be no end to the conflicts, to the interminable forces in opposition, be they cultures, religions, whatever.\n\nShe had no idea that intelligent life could be so stupid.\n\n\"They want a faith from me. A religion. They want to return to the vanity of the righteous. I can't do it. I can't. Rythok had better kill me, for I will offer them nothing they want to hear.\"\n\nAbruptly, she was staring up at a cloudless blue sky, heat rustling across her bare limbs, her face, the tracks of dried tears tight on her cheeks. She sat up. Her muscles ached. A sour taste thickened her tongue.\n\nStill the K'Chain Che'Malle faced her.\n\n\"Very well,\" she said, rising to her feet. \"I give you this. Find your faith in each other. Look no further. The gods will war, and all that we do will remain beneath their notice. Stay low. Move quietly. Out of sight. We are ants in the grass, lizards among the rocks.\" She paused. \"Somewhere, out there, you will find the purest essence of that philosophy. Perhaps in one person, perhaps in ten thousand. Looking to no other entity, no other force, no other will. Bound solely in comradeship, in loyalty honed absolute. Yet devoid of all arrogance. Wise in humility. And that one, or ten thousand, is on a path. Unerring, it readies itself, not to shake a fist at the heavens. But to lift alone hand, a hand filled with tears.\" She found she was glaring at the giant reptiles. \"You want a faith? You want someone or something to believe in? No, do not worship the one or the ten thousand. Worship the sacrifice they will make, for they make it in the name of compassion-the only cause worth fighting and dying for.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly exhausted, she turned away, kicked aside the bleached fang at her feet. \"Now, let us go find our champions.\"\n\nShe led the way, and the K'Chain Che'Malle were content with that. Sag'Churok watched the frail, puny human taking her meagre strides, leaving behind the rise where two dragons had done battle.\n\nAnd the K'ell Hunter was well pleased.\n\nHe sensed, in a sweet wave, Gunth Mach's pride.\n\nPride in their Destriant.\n\nDrawn by four oxen the large wagon rolled into the camp, mobbed by mothers, husbands, wives and children who raised their voices in ululating grief. Arms reached out as if to grab hold of their dead loved ones who lay stacked like felled boles on the flatbed, as the burden of the slain rocked to a halt. The mob churned. Dogs howled.\n\nOn a nearby hill, Setoc stood watching the bedlam in the camp, the only motion from her the stirring of her weathered hair. Warriors were running back to their yurts to ready themselves for war, although none knew the enemy's face, and there was no trail to track. Would-be war leaders shouted and bellowed, beating on their own chests or waving weapons in the air. For all the grief and anger, there was something pathetic to the whole scene, something that made her turn away, suddenly weary.\n\nNo one liked being a victim of the unknown. They were driven to lash out, driven to deliver indiscriminate violence upon whoever happened to be close. She could hear some of those warriors vowing vengeance upon the Akrynnai, the D'rhasilhani, even the Letherii.\n\nThe Gadra Clan was going to war. Warchief Stolmen was under siege in his own tent, and to deny the murderous hunger of his warriors would see him deposed, bloodily. No, he would need to stand tall, drawing his bhederin cloak about his broad shoulders, and take up his twin-bladed axe. His wife, if anything fiercer than Stolmen himself, would begin painting the white mask of death, the slayer's bone-grin, upon her husband's scarred features. Her own mother, a wrinkled hatchet-faced hag, would do the same to her. Edges singing on whetstones, the Barghast were going to war." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She saw Cafal emerging from Stolmen's tent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even at this distance, she could read his frustration as he marched towards the largest crowd of warriors. And when his steps slowed and he finally halted, Setoc understood him well enough. He had lost the Gadra. She watched as he looked round until he caught sight of yet another solitary figure.\n\nTorrent was already saddling his horse. Not to join in this madness. But to leave.\n\nAs Cafal set out towards the Awl warrior, Setoc went down to meet them.\n\nWhatever words they exchanged before she arrived were terse, unsatisfying to the Great Warlock. He noted her approach and faced her. \"You too?\" he asked.\n\n\"I will go with you,\" she said. \"The wolves will join none of this. It is empty.\"\n\n\"The Gadra mean to wage war against the Akrynnai,\" said Cafal. \"But the Akrynnai have done nothing.\"\n\nShe nodded, reaching up to pull her long fair hair from her face as the hot wind gusted.\n\nTorrent was lifting himself onto his horse. His face was bleak, haunted. He had the look of a man who did not sleep well at night. He gathered his reins.\n\nCafal turned to him. \"Wait! Please, Torrent, wait.\"\n\nThe man grimaced. \"Is this to be my life? Dragged from one woman's tent to the next? Am Ito rut my days away? Or do I choose instead to fight at your side? Why would I do that? You Barghast-you are no different from my own people, and you will share their fate. \"He nodded towards Setoc.\"The wolf-child is right. The scavengers of this land will grow fat. '\n\nSetoc caught a flash of something crouched behind a tuft of grass-a hare, no, Talamandas, that thing of twine and sticks. Child of the mad Barghast gods, child of children. Spying on them. She sneered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But,\" asked Cafal, \"where will you go, Torrent?\"\n\n\"I shall ride to Tool, and beg my leave of him. I shall ask for his forgiveness, for I should have been the warrior to fall against the Letherii, in defence of the Awl children. Not his friend. Not the Mezla.\"\n\nCafal's eyes had widened at Torrent's words, and after a moment he seemed to sag. \"Ah, Torrent. Malazans have away...\" He lifted a sad smile to the Awl. \"They do humble us all. Tool will reject your words-there is nothing to forgive. There is no crime set against you. It was the Mezla's way, his choice. '\n\n\"He rode out in my place-\"\n\nThe Great Warlock straightened. \"And could you have fared as well as he did, Torrent?\"\n\nThat was a cruel question and Setoc saw how it stung the young warrior. \"That is not the-\"\n\n\"But it is,\" Cafal snapped. \"If Toc had judged you his superior in battle he would have exhorted you to ride against the Letherii. He would have taken the children away. And if it was that Malazan sitting hereon his horse before me right now, he would not bemoaning about forgiveness. Do you understand me, Torrent?\"\n\nThe man looked cruelly bludgeoned by Cafal's words.\"Even if it is so, I ride to Tool, and then I shall set off, on my own. I have chosen. Tie no strands to my fate, Great Warlock. '\n\nSetoc barked a laugh. \"He is not the one to do that, Torrent.\"\n\nHis eyes narrowed on her. She thought he might retort-accusations, anger, bridling indignation. Instead, he said nothing, simply drawing up his reins. A last glance back to Cafal. \"You walk, but I ride. I am not interested in slowing my pace to suit you-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And what if I told you I could travel in such away as to reach Tool long before you will?\"\n\n\"You cannot.\"\n\nSetoc saw the Great Warlock lick dry lips; saw the sweat that had appeared upon his broad, flat brow, and her heart began thudding hard in her chest. \"Cafal,\" she said, her voice flat, \"this is not your land. The warrens you people speak of are weak here-I doubt you can even reach them. Your gods are not ready-\"\n\n\"Speak not of the Barghast gods!\" squealed a voice. Talamandas, the sticksnare, scrambled out from cover and came closer in fits and starts. \"You know nothing, witch-\"\n\n\"I know enough,\" she replied. \"Yes, your kind once walked these plains, but how long ago was that? You warred with the Tiste Edur. You were driven from this place. A thousand years ago? Ten thousand? So now you return, to avenge your ancestors-but you found the Edur nothing like your legends. Unlike you Barghast, they had moved on-\"\n\n\"As the victorious ever do,\" the sticksnare hissed. \"Their wounds heal quickly, yes. Nothing festers, nothing rots, there is no bitterness on their tongues.\"\n\nShe spat in disbelief. \"How can you say that? Their Emperor is dead. They are driven from all the lands they conquered!\"\n\n\"But not by our hands!\"\n\nThe shriek snatched heads round. Warriors drew closer. Cafal remained silent, his expression suddenly closed, while Torrent leaned forward on the saddle, squinting down at the sticksnare as if doubting his own sanity.\n\nSetoc smiled at Talamandas. \"Yes, that is what galls, isn't it? So. Now, \"and she turned to face the score or so warriors half-encircling them,\"now, yes, you would deliver such defeat upon the Akrynnai. Wounds that will fester, rot that sinks deep into the soul, that cruel taste riding every breath. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her tirade seemed to buffet them. She spat again. \"They did not kill your scouts. You all know this. And you do not even care.\" She pointed at Cafal. \"And so the Great Warlock now goes to Tool, and he will say to him: War Master, yet another clan has broken away. They wage senseless war upon the wrong enemy, and so it will come to pass that, by the actions of the Gadra Clan, every people in this land will rise up against the Barghast. Akrynnai, D'rhasilhani, Keryn, Saphinand, Bolkando. You will be assailed from all sides. And those of you not killed in battle will be driven into the Wastelands, that vast ocean of nothing, and there you will vanish, your bones turning to dust. '\n\nThere was movement in the crowd, and warriors stepped aside as a scowling Warchief Stolmen lumbered forward, his wife a step behind him. That woman's eyes were dark, savage with hatred as she fixed her glare upon Setoc.\n\n\"This is what you do, witch,\" she said in a rasp. \"You weaken us. Again and again, you seek to weaken us!\"\n\n\"Are you so eager to see your children die?\" Setoc asked her.\n\n\"Eager to see them win glory!\"\n\n\"For themselves or for you, Sekara?\"\n\nSekara would have flung herself at Setoc then, but Stolmen held out a staying arm, knocking her back. Though he could not see it, his wife then shot him a look of venomous malice.\n\nTorrent spoke quietly to Setoc. \"Come with me, wolf-child. We will ride out of this madness.\" He reached down with one hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She grasped hold of his forearm and he swung her easily onto the horse's back. As she closed her arms round his waist he said,\"Do you need to collect anything, Setoc? From your tent? '\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Send them off!\" snarled Sekara. \"Go, you foreign liars! Akrynnai spies! Go and poison your own kind! With terror-tell them, we are coming! The White Face Barghast! And we shall make of this land our home once again! Tell them, witch! They are the invaders, not us!\"\n\nSetoc had long sensed the animosity building among the women in this clan. She drew too many eyes among the men. Her wildness made them hungry, curious-she was not blind to any of this. Even so, this burst of spite startled her, frightened her. She forced herself to meet Sekara's blazing eyes.\"I am the holder of a thousand hearts. \"Saying this, she looked to Sekara's husband and smiled a knowing smile.\n\nStolmen was forced to restrain his wife as she sought to lunge forward, a knife in one hand.\n\nTorrent backed his horse, and she could feel how he tensed. \"Enough of that!\" he snapped over his shoulder. \"Do you want us skinned alive?\"\n\nThe mob had grown and now surrounded them. And, she saw at last, there were far more women than men in it. She felt herself withering beneath the hateful stares fixed upon her. Not just wives, either. That she was sitting snug against Torrent was setting fires in the eyes of the younger women, the maidens.\n\nCafal stepped closer, his face pale in dread mockery of the white paint of the warriors. \"I am going to open a warren,\" he said in a low voice. \"With the help of Talamandas. We leave together, or you will be killed here, do you understand? It's too late for the Gadra-your words, Setoc, held too many truths. They are shamed. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Be quick, then,\" Torrent said in a growl.\n\nHe swung round. \"Talamandas.\"\n\n\"Leave them to their fate,\" muttered the sticksnare, crouched like a miniature ghoul. It seemed to be twitching as if plucked and prodded by unseen hands.\n\n\"No. All of us.\"\n\n\"You will regret your generosity, Cafal.\"\n\n\"The warren, Talamandas.\"\n\nThe sticksnare snarled wordlessly and then straightened, spreading wide its scrawny twig arms.\n\n\"Cafal!\" hissed Setoc. \"Wait! There is a sickness-\"\n\nWhite fire erupted around them in a sudden deafening roar. The horse screamed, reared. Setoc's grip broke and she tumbled back. Searing heat, stunning cold. As quickly as the flames arrived, they vanished with a thunderous clap that reverberated in her skull. A kick from a hoof sent her skidding, pain throbbing from a bruised thigh. There was darkness now-or, she thought with a shock-she was blind. Her eyes curdled in their sockets, cooked like eggs-\n\nThen she caught a glimmer, something smeared, a reflected blade. Torrent's horse was backing, twisting from side to side-the Awl warrior still rode the beast and she could hear him cursing as he fought to steady the animal. He had drawn his scimitar.\n\n\"Gods below!\"\n\nThat cry had come from Cafal. Setoc sat up. Stony, damp earth, clumps of mould or guano squishing beneath her. She smelled burning grasses. Crawling to the vague blot in the gloom whence came the Warlock's voice, she struggled against waves of nausea.\"You fool, \"she croaked.\"You should have listened. Cafal-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Talamandas. He's... he's destroyed.\"\n\nThe stench of something smouldering was stronger now, and she caught the gleam of scattered embers. \"He burned? He burned, didn't he? The wrong warren-it ate him, devoured him-I warned you, Cafal. Something has infected your warrens-'\n\n\"No, Setoc,\" Cafal cut in. \"It is not like that, not like what you say-we knew of that poison. We were warded against it. This was... different. Spirits fend, we have lost our greatest shaman-\"\n\n\"You did not know it, did you? That gate? It was unlike anything you've ever known, wasn't it? Listen tome! It is what I have been trying to tell you!\"\n\nThey heard Torrent dismount, his moccasins thudding on the yielding, strangely soft ground. \"Be quiet, both of you. Argue what happened later. Listen to the echoes-I think we are trapped inside a cavern.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Setoc, carefully climbing to her feet. \"There must be away out.\"\n\n\"How do you know that?\"\n\n\"Because, there's bats. '\n\n\"But I have my damned horse! Cafal-take us somewhere else!\"\n\n\"I cannot.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"The power belonged to Talamandas. A binding of agreements, promises, with countless human gods. With Hood, Lord of Death. The Barghast gods are young, too young. I-I cannot even sense them. I am sorry, I do not know where we are.\"\n\n\"I am cursed to follow fools!\"\n\nSetoc flinched at the anguish in that shout. Poor Torrent. You just wanted to leave there, to ride out. Away. Your stupid sense of honour demanded you visit Tool. And now look..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one spoke fora time, the only sounds their breathing and anxious snorts from the horse. Setoc sought to sense some flow of air, but there was nothing. Her thigh aching, she sank back down. She then chose a direction at random and crawled. The guano thickened so that her hands plunged through up to her wrists, and then she found a stone barrier. Wiping the mess from her hands, she tracked with her fingers. \"Wait! These stones are set-I've found a wall. '\n\nScrabbling sounds behind her, and then the scratch of flint andiron. Sparks, actinic flashes, and then a burgeoning glow. Moments later Torrent had a taper lit and was setting the flame to the wick of a small camp lantern. The chamber took shape around them.\n\nThe entire cavern was constructed of set stones, the ones overhead massive, wedged in place in seemingly precipitous disorder. In seething patches here and there clung bats, chittering and squeaking now in agitation.\n\n\"Look, there!\" Cafal pointed.\n\nThe bats were converging on a conjoining of ill-set stones, wriggling into cracks.\n\n\"There's the way out. '\n\nTorrent's laugh was bitter.\"We are entombed. One day, looters will break in, find the bones of two men, a child, and a damned horse. For us to ride into the deathworld, or so they might think. Then again, they might wonder at the gnaw marks on all but one set of bones, and at the scratchings and gougings on the stone. Tiny bat bones and heaps of dried-out scat... '\n\n\"Crush that imagination of yours, Torrent,\" advised Cafal. \"Though the way out is nothing but cracks, we know the world outside is close. We need only dig our way out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is a stone barrow or something much like it, Cafal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If we start dragging stones loose the whole thing is likely to comedown onus.\"\n\n\"We have no choice.\" He walked over to the wall where the bats had swarmed through moments earlier. Drawing a dagger, he began probing. A short time later, Torrent joined him, using his hunter's knife.\n\nTo the sounds of scraping and sifting earth, Setoc sat down closer to the lantern. Memories of that white fire haunted her. Her head ached as if the heat had seared parts of her brain, leaving blank patches that pulsed behind her eyes. She could hear no muted howls-the Wolves were lost to her in this place. What world have we found? What waits beyond these stonewalls? Does a sunshine out there? Does it blaze with death, or is this a realm forever dark, lifeless?\n\nWell, someone built this place. But... if this is indeed a barrow, where are the bones? She picked up the lantern, wincing at the hot handle which had not been tilted to one side. Gingerly rising, she played the light over the damp, mottled ground at her feet. Guano, a few stones dislodged from above. If there had ever been a body interred in this place, it had long since rotted down to crumbs. And it had not been adorned with jewellery; no buckles nor clasps to evince clothing of any sort. \"This,\" she ventured, \"is probably thousands of years old. There's nothing left of whoever was buried here. '\n\nA muted mutter from Torrent, answered by a grunt from Cafal, who then glanced back at her. \"Where we're digging, Setoc-someone has been through this way before. If this is a barrow, it's been long since looted, emptied out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Since when does loot include the corpse itself?\"\n\n\"The guano is probably acidic,\" Cafal said. \"It probably dissolved the bones. The point is, we can dig our way out and it's not likely everything will collapse down onus-'\n\n\"Don't be so certain of that, \"Torrent said.\"We need to make a hole big enough to get my horse out. The looters had no need to be so ambitious. '\n\n\"You had best prepare yourself for the notion of killing your mount,\" Cafal said.\n\n\"No. She is an Awl horse. The last Awl horse, and she is mine-no, we belong to each other. Both alone. If she must die, then I will die with her. Let this barrow be our home in the deathworld.\"\n\n\"You have a morbid cast of mind,\" Cafal said.\n\n\"He has earned the right,\" Setoc murmured, still scanning the ground as she walked a slow circuit. \"Ah!\" She bent down, retrieved a small, half-encrusted object. \"A coin. Copper.\" She scraped the green disk clean and held it close to the lantern. \"I recognize nothing-not Letherii, nor Bolkando.\"\n\nCafal joined her. \"Permit me, Setoc. My clan was in the habit of collecting coins to make our armour. It was his damned hauberk of coins that dragged my father to the sea bottom.\"\n\nShe handed it to him.\n\nHe studied it fora longtime, one side, then the other, over and over. And finally sighed and handed it back. \"No. Some empress, I imagine, looking so regal. The crossed swords on the other side could be Seven Cities, but the writing is all wrong. This is not our world, Setoc.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I didn't think it was. '\n\n\"Done with that, Cafal?\" Torrent asked from where he worked at the wall, impatience giving an edge to his tone.\n\nCafal offered her awry smile and then returned to Torrent's side.\n\nAloud scrape followed by a heavy thud, and cool dew-heavy air flowed into the chamber.\n\n\"Smell that? It's a damned forest. '\n\nAt Cafal's words, Setoc joined them. She held up the lantern. Night, cool... cooler than the Awl'dan. \"Trees,\" she said, peering at the ragged boles faintly visible in the light.\n\nThere was possibly a bog out there-she could hear frogs.\n\n\"If it was night,\" Torrent wondered, \"what were the bats doing inside here?\"\n\n\"Perhaps it was only nearing dusk when we arrived. Or dawn is but moments away.\" Cafal tugged at another stone. \"Help me with this one,\" he said to Torrent. \"It's too heavy for one man-Setoc, please, stand back, give us room. '\n\nAs they dragged the huge stone free, other rough-hewn boulders tumbled down. A large lintel stone ground its way loose and both men leapt back as it crashed onto the rubble. Clouds of dust billowed and a terrible grating groan sounded from the barrow's ceiling.\n\nCoughing, Cafal waved at Setoc. \"Quickly! Out!\"\n\nShe scrambled over the stones, eyes stinging, and staggered outside. Three paces and then she turned about. She heard the thump of stones from the ceiling. The horse shrilled in pain. From the gaping entrance Cafal appeared, followed a moment later by Torrent, who had somehow brought his mount down onto its knees. He held the reins and with rapid twitches on them he urged his horse forward. Its head thrust into view, eyes flashing in the reflected lantern light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Setoc had never before seen a horse crawl-she had not thought it even possible, but here this mare was lurching through the gap, sheathed in dust and streaks of sweat. More rocks tumbled behind the beast and she squealed in pain, lunging, forelimbs scrabbling as she lifted herself up from the front end.\n\nMoments after the animal finally lumbered clear the moss-humped roof of the barrow collapsed in thunder and dust. Decades-old trees that had grown upon it toppled in a thrash of branches and leaves. Wood splintered.\n\nBlood streamed from the mare's haunches. Torrent had calmed the beast once more and was tending to the gashes.\"Not so bad, \"he muttered.\"Had she broken a hip... '\n\nSetoc saw that the warrior was trembling. This bond he had forged with his hapless mare stood in place of all those ties that had been so cruelly severed from his young life, and it was fast becoming something monstrous. \"If she must die, then I will die with her.\" Madness, Torrent. It's a damned horse, a dumb beast with its spirit broken by bit and rein. If she'd a broken hip or leg, we'd eat well this day.\n\nShe watched Cafal observing the Awl fora time, before he turned away and scanned the forest surrounding them. Then he lifted his eyes to the heavens. \"No moons,\" he said. \"And the stars seem... hazy-there's not enough of them. No constellations I recognize. '\n\n\"There are no wolves here.\"\n\nHe faced her.\n\n\"Their ghosts, yes. But... none living. They last ran here centuries past. Centuries.\"\n\n\"Well, there's deer scat and trails-so they didn't starve to death.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No. Hunted.\" She hugged herself. \"Tell me the mind of those who would kill every last wolf, who would choose to never again hear their mournful howls, or to see-with a shiver-a pack standing proud on arise. Great Warlock, explain this tome, for I do not understand.\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"We hate rivals, Setoc. We hate seeing the knowing burn in their eyes. You have not seen civilized lands. The animals go away. And they never return. They leave silence, and that silence is filled with the chatter of our kind. Given the ability, we kill even the night.\" His eyes fell to the lantern in her hand.\n\nScowling, she doused it.\n\nIn the sudden darkness, Torrent cursed. \"That does not help, wolf-child. We light fires, but the darkness remains-in our minds. Cast light within and you will not like what you see.\"\n\nApart of her wanted to weep. For the ghosts. For herself. \"We need to find away home.\"\n\nCafal sighed. \"There is power here. Unfamiliar. Even so, perhaps I can make use of it. I sense it... fragmented, shredded. It has, I think, not been used in along, longtime.\" He looked round. \"I must clear a space. Sanctify it.\"\n\n\"Even without Talamandas?\" Torrent asked.\n\n\"He would have been of little help here,\" Cafal replied. \"His bindings all severed.\" He glanced at Setoc. \"You, wolf-child, can help.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"Summon the wolf ghosts.\"\n\n\"No.\" The thought made her feel wretched. \"I can give them nothing in return.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perhaps, away through. Into another world, even our own, where they will find living kin, where they will run unseen shoulder to shoulder with them, and remember the hunt, old loyalties, sparks of love.\"\n\nShe eyed him. \"Is such a thing possible?\"\n\n\"I don't know. But, let us try. I do not like this world. Even in this forest, the air is tainted. Foul. We have most of the night ahead of us. Let us do what we canto begone before the sunrises. Before we are discovered. '\n\n\"Sanctify your ground, then,\" Setoc said.\n\nShe walked off into the wood, sat down upon the mossy trunk of a fallen tree-no, a tree that had been cut down, cleanly-no axe could have managed such level precision. Why then had it been simply left here? \"There is madness here,\" she whispered. Closing her eyes, she sought to drive the bleak thoughts away.\n\nGhosts! Wolves! Listen to my mind's howl! Hear the sorrow, the anger! Hear my promise-I will guide you from this infernal realm. I will find you kin. Kin of hot blood, warm fur, the cry of newborn pups, the snarl of rival males-I will show you grasslands, my children. Vistas unending!\n\nAnd she felt them, the beasts that had fallen in pain and grief herein this very forest, so long, long ago. The first to come to her was the last survivor of that time, the last to be cornered and viciously slain. She heard the echo of snarling hounds, the cries of human voices. She felt the wolf's terror, its despair, its helpless bemusement. She felt, as well, as the beast's lifeblood spilled into the churned-up soil, its surrender, its understanding-in that final moment-that its terrible loneliness was at last coming to an end." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And her mind howled anew, a silent cry that nevertheless sent rooks thrashing from tree branches in raucous flight. That froze deer and hares in their tracks, as some ancient terror within them was stirred to life.\n\nHowls answered her. Closing from all sides.\n\nCome tome! Gather all that remains of your power!\n\nShe could hear thrashing in the brush, as will and memory alone bulled through the bracken. And she sensed, with a shock, more than one species. Some dark, black-furred and low to the ground, eyes blazing yellow; others tall at the shoulders, rangy, with ebon-tipped silver fur. And she saw their ancestors, even larger beasts, short-nosed, massively muscled.\n\nThey came in multitudes beyond comprehension, and each bore their death wounds, the shafts of spears jutting from throat and flank, blood-gushing punctures streaming from chest. Snares and traps clanking and dragging from broken limbs. Bloated from poison-she saw, with mounting horror, a legacy of such hateful, spiteful slaughter that she cried out, a shriek tearing at her own throat.\n\nTorrent was shouting, fighting to control his panicked horse as wolf ghosts flooded in, thousands, hundreds of thousands-this was an old world, and here, before her, crowding close with need, was the toll amassed by its insane victors, its triumphant tyrants.\n\nOh, there were other creatures as well, caught in the rushing tide, beasts long since crumbled to dust. She saw stags, bhederin, large cats. She saw huge furred beasts with broad heads and horns jutting from black snouts-so many, gods, so many-\n\n\"Setoc! Stop! The power-it is too great-it overwhelms!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But she had lost all control. She had not expected anything like this. The pressure, crushing in from all sides now, threatened to destroy her. She wept like the last child on earth, the last living thing, sole witness to the legacy of all that her kind had achieved. This desolation. This suicidal victory over nature itself.\n\n\"Setoc!\"\n\nAll at once she saw something glowing before her: a portal, pathetically small, nothing more than a bolt-hole. She raised a trembling hand and pointed towards it. \"My loved ones,\" she whispered, \"the way through. Make it bigger.\"\n\nThey had wandered far beyond the chamber of slaughter, where scores of K'Chain Che'Malle had seemingly been sacrificed. Lanterns cast fitful light against metal entrails embedded in niches along the walls of the corridors, and from the ceiling thick cables sagged, dripping some kind of viscous oil. The air was rank with acidic vapours, making their eyes water. Side passages opened to rooms crowded with strange, incomprehensible machinery, the floor slick with spilled oils.\n\nTaxilian led the others in their exploration, wending ever deeper into the maze of wide, low-ceilinged corridors. Moving a step behind him, Rautos could hear the man muttering, but he could not make out the words-he feared Taxilian might be going mad. This was an alien world, shaped by alien minds. Sense and understanding eluded them all, and from this was born fear.\n\nBehind Rautos, almost on his heels, was Breath, coughing, gasping, as if her endless talk of drowning had thickened the air around her.\n\n\"Tunnels!\" she hissed. \"I hate tunnels. Pits, caves. Dark-always dark-rooms. Where is he leading us? We've passed countless ramps leading to higher levels-what is the fool looking for? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rautos had no answers, so he said nothing.\n\nBehind Breath, Sheb and Nappet were bickering. Those two would come to blows soon; they were too much alike. Both vicious, both fundamentally amoral, both born betrayers. Rautos wished they would kill each other-they would not be missed.\n\n\"Ah!\" cried Taxilian. \"Found it!\"\n\nRautos moved up to the man's side. They stood at the threshold of avast eight-walled chamber. A narrow ledge encircled it level with the passage they had just traversed. The actual floor was lost in darkness below. Taxilian edged out to the right, lifting his lantern.\n\nThe monstrous mechanism filling the centre of the expanse towered past level after level-only a few with balconies to match the one they were on-until it vanished high overhead. It seemed to be constructed entirely of metal, gleaming like brass and the purest iron, eight cylinders each the size of a city tower. Spigots jutted out from bolted collars that fastened the segments every second level, and attached to these were black, pliant ropes of some sort that reached out like the strands of an abandoned spider's web, converging on huge boxes of metal affixed to the walls. Peering downward, Rautos could just make out a change in the configuration of the towers, as if each one sat upon a beehive dome.\n\nHis gaze caught and held upon one piece of metal, bent so perfectly between two fittings, and he frowned as if silts had been brushed from some deeply submerged memory. He groped towards it, fighting back a whimper, and then the blinding clouds returned, and he was swept away once more. He reeled and would have fallen from the ledge had not Breath roughly pulled him back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Idiot! Do you want to kill yourself?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"Sorry. Thank you.\"\n\n\"Don't bother. I acted on instinct. If I'd thought about it, I probably would have let you go. You're nothing tome, fat old man. Nothing. No one is, not here, not one of you. '\n\nShe had raised her voice to make certain everyone else heard her last words.\n\nSheb snorted. \"Bitch needs a lesson or two, I think.\"\n\nBreath spun to face him. \"Hungry fora curse, are you? What part of your body do you want to rot off first? Maybe I'll do the choosing-'\n\n\"Set your magic on me, woman, and I will throttle you.\"\n\nShe laughed, turned away. \"Play with Asane if you have the need.\"\n\nRautos, after a few deep, calming breaths, set out after Taxilian, who had begun walking round the ledge, eyes fixed on the edifice.\n\n\"It's an engine, ' he said when Rautos drew close.\n\n\"A what? As in a mill? But I see nothing like gears or-\"\n\n\"Like that, yes. You can hide gears and levers inside, in housings to keep them clean of grit and whatnot. Even more relevantly, you can seal things and make use of alternating pressures, and so move things from one place to another. It's a common practice in alchemy, especially if one conjures such pressures using heat and cold. I once saw a sorcerous invention that could draw the ether out of a glass jar, thus quenching the lit candle within it. A pump bound inwards was used to draw out the life force that exists in the air. \"He waved one hand at the towers.\"Heat, cold-I think these are vast pressure chambers of some sort. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For what purpose?\"\n\nTaxilian looked at him with glittering eyes. \"That's what I mean to find out. '\n\nThere were no ladders or bridges across to the towers. Taxilian led him back to the entranceway. \"We're going up now, ' he said.\n\n\"We need food,\" said Last, his expression worried, frightened. \"We could get lost inhere-\"\n\n\"Stop whimpering,\" growled Nappet. \"I could walk us out of herein no time.\"\n\n\"None of you,\" cut in Asane, startling everyone, \"wants to talk about what we found in the first room. That's what you're all running from. Those-those monsters-they were all slaughtered.\" She glared at them, diffident, and rushed on. \"What killed them could still be here! We don't know anything about any of this-'\n\n\"Those monsters didn't die in battle, \"said Sheb.\"That was a ritual killing we saw. Sacrifices, that's what they were.\"\n\n\"Maybe they had no choice.\"\n\nSheb snorted. \"I can't think of many beasts choosing to be sacrificed. Of course they had no choice. This place is abandoned-you can feel it. Smell it in the stale air. '\n\n\"When we climb higher,\" said Last, \"we'll get out of the wet, and we can see if there's tracks in the dust.\"\n\n\"Gods below, the farmer's good for something after all, ' said Nappet with a hard grin.\n\n\"Let's go, then, ' said Taxilian, and he set off. Once more the others fell in behind him.\n\nDrifting between all of them, voiceless, half-blinded with sorrow that swept down like curtains of rain, the ghost yearned to reach through. To Taxilian, Rautos, even stolid, slow-thinking Last. In their journey through the bowels of the Dragon Keep, knowledge had erupted, thunderous, pounding concussions that sent him reeling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He knew this place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He knew its name. Kalse Rooted. A demesne of the K'Chain Che'Malle, a border keep. Avast body now drained of all life, a corpse standing empty-eyed on the plain. And he knew that a Shi'gal Assassin had slain those K'ell Hunters. To seal the failure of this fortress.\n\nDefeat was approaching. The whispering chant, the song of scales. The great army sent out from here had been annihilated. Naught but apathetic rearguard left behind. The J'an Sentinels would have taken the Matron away, to the field of the fallen, thereto entomb her forevermore.\n\nTaxilian! Hear me. What is lifeless is not necessarily dead. That which falls can rise again. Take care-take great care-in this place...\n\nBut his cries were not heard. He was trapped outside, made helpless with all that he understood, with this cascade of secrets that could do little more than tumble into an abyss of ignorance.\n\nHe knew how Asane railed in her own mind, how she longed to escape her own flesh. She wanted out from all that had failed her. Her damned flesh, her dying organs, her very mind. She had been awakened to the comprehension that the body was a prison, but one prone to terrible, inexorable decay. Oh, there was always that final flight, when the corroded bars ceased to pose a barrier; when the soul was free to fly, towing out in search of unseen shores. But with that release-for all she knew-all that she called herself would be lost. Asane would end. Cease, and that which was born from the ashes held no regard for the living left behind, no regard for that world of aches, pain, and suffering. It was transformed into indifference, and all that was past-all that belonged to the mortal life now done-meant nothing to it; she could not comprehend such a cruel rebirth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She longed for death none the less. Longed to escape her withered husk with all its advancing decrepitude, its sundering into the pathos of the broken. Fear alone held her back-back from that ledge in the eight-sided chamber, back from that fatal drop to some unseen floor far below. And that same fear clawed at her now. Demons stalked this keep. She dreaded what was coming.\n\nWalking a step behind her was Last, aptly choosing a rearguard position. His shoulders were hunched, head ducked as if the corridor's ceiling were much lower than it was. He was a man born to open spaces, boundless skies overhead, the sweep of vistas. Within this haunted maze, he felt diminished, almost crippled. Vertigo lunged at him with each turn and twist. He saw how the walls closed in. He felt the mass looming over them all, the unbearable weight of countless storeys overhead.\n\nHe had a sudden memory of his childhood. He had been helping his father-before the debts arrived, before everything was taken away that meant anything at all-he had been helping his father, he recalled, dismantle ashed behind the stables. They had prised loose the warped planks and were stacking them in a disordered heap this side of the pen's fence. Finishing a task begun months earlier, before the planting. By late afternoon the shed was down, and his father had told him to rearrange the boards, sorting them by length and condition.\n\nHe had set to the task. Recollection grew hazy then, up until the moment he lifted a grey, weathered plank-one from last season's work-and saw how its recent shifting from the day's work just done had crushed a nest of mice, the woven bundle of grasses flattened, smeared in a tangle of blood and tiny entrails. Hairless, pink pups scattered about, crushed, each one yielding up their single drop of lifeblood. Both parents suffocated beneath the weight of the overburden." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kneeling before this tableau, his presence looming like a god come too late, he stared down at this destroyed family." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Silly to weep, of course. There were plenty of other mice-Errant knew the yard's cats stayed fat. So, foolish, these tears.\n\nYes, he'd been just a child. A sensitive age, no doubt. And later that night his father took him by the hand and led him out to the modest barrow on the old plot, continuing what had been their the post-supper ritual ever since his mother was put into the ground, and they burned knotted hoops of wrinkle grass with their dried blossoms that flared bright the instant flames touched them. Bursts of fire that blotted the eyes with pulsing afterglows. And when his father saw the tears on his son's cheeks he drew him close and said, \"I've been waiting for that. '\n\nYes, the levels above seemed well built, the walls solid and sturdy. No reason to think it would all comedown at the careless toss of some child god. These kinds of thoughts, well, they could only make a man angry. In ways every child would understand.\n\nHe walked with his huge hands balled into fists.\n\nSheb was fairly certain that he had died in prison, or come close enough to dead that the cell cutter simply ordered the bearers to carry him out to the lime pits, and they spilled him down onto abed of dusted corpses. Searing pain from the lime had roused him from his fevered oblivion, and he must have climbed his way out, pushed through the bodies that had been dumped on top of him.\n\nHe recalled struggling. Vast, unshifting weights. He recalled even thinking that he had failed. That he was too weak, that he would never get free. He even remembered seeing swaths of red, blistered skin on his arms, sloughing away in his frenzied thrashing. And a nightmare instant where he gouged out his own burning eyes to bring an end to their agony." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mad delusions, of course." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had won free. Had he not, would he be alive now? Walking at Nappet's side? No, he had cheated them all. Those Hivanar agents who brought the embezzlement charges against him, the advocates who bribed him out of the Drownings (where, he knew, he would have survived), seeing him instead sent to the work camps. Ten years\" hard labour-no one survived that.\n\nExcept me. Sheb the unkillable. And one day, Xaranthos Hivanar, I will comeback to steal the rest of your wealth. I still know what I know, don't I? And you will pay to keep me quiet. And this time round I won't get careless. I'll see your corpse lying in a pauper's pit. I swear it before the Errant himself. I swear it!\n\nWalking at Sheb's side, Nappet held onto his cold, hard grin. He knew Sheb wanted to be the bully in this crowd. The man had a viper's heart, a stony knuckle of a thing, beating out venom in turgid spurts. One of these nights, he vowed, he'd throw the fool on his back and give him the old snake-head where it counted.\n\nSheb had been in a Letherii prison-Nappet was certain of it. His habits, his manners, his skittish way of moving-they told him all he needed to know about ratty little Sheb. He'd been used and used well in those cells. Calluses on the knees. Fish Breath. Slick cheeks. There were plenty of names for men like him.\n\nSheb had got it enough to start liking it, and all this bitching back and forth between Nappet and Sheb, well, that was just seeing who'd be the first one doing the old cat stretch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Four years'back-breaking quarrying up near Bluerose." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That had been Nappet's sentence for that little gory mess back in Letheras, the sister's husband who'd liked throwing the frail thing around-well, no brother was going to let that just sidle past. No brother worth anything.\n\nThe only damned shame was that he hadn't managed to kill the bastard. Close, though. Enough broken bones so that the man had trouble sitting up, never mind stalking the housebreaking things and hitting defenceless women.\n\nNot that she'd been grateful. Family loyalty only went one way, it turned out. He forgave her quick enough for ratting on him. She'd walked in on a messy scene, after all. Screams aplenty. Her poor mind was confused-she'd never been very sharp to begin with. If she had been, why, she'd never have married that nub-nosed swaggering turd in the first place.\n\nAnyway, Nappet knew he'd get Sheb sooner or later. So long as Sheb understood that between them he was the man in charge. And he knew that Sheb would want it rough, at least to start with, so he could look outraged, wounded and all that. The two of them, they'd played in the same yard, after all.\n\nBreath stumbled and Nappet shoved her forward. \"Stupid woman. Frail and stupid, that's what you are, like every other woman. Almost as bad as the hag back there. You got a swamp drying out in that blonde hair, did you know that? You stink of the swamp-not that we been through one. '\n\nShe shot him a glare, before hurrying on.\n\nBreath could smell mud. Its stench seemed to ooze from her pores. Nappet was right in that, but that didn't stop her thinking about ways to kill him. If not for Taxilian, and maybe Last, he and Sheb would have raped her by now. Once or twice, to convince her about who was in charge. After that, she knew, they'd be happy enough with each other." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd been told a story, once, although she could not recall who had told it to her, or where they had been. It was a tale about a girl who was a witch, though she didn't know it yet. She was a seer of the Tiles long before she saw her first Tile. A gift no one thought to even look for in this small, wheat-haired child.\n\nEven before her first bloodflow, men had been after her. Not the tall grey-skinned ones, though the girl feared them the most-for reasons never explained-but men living in the same place as her. Letherii. Slaves, yes, slaves, just like she'd been. That girl. That witch.\n\nAnd there was one man, maybe the only one among them all, who did not look on her with hunger. No, in his eyes there had been love. That real thing, that genuine thing that girls dreamed of finding. But he was lowborn. He was nothing. A mender of nets, a man whose red hands shed fish scales when he returned from his day's work.\n\nThe tragedy was this, then. The girl had not yet found her Tiles. Had she done so early enough, she would have taken that man to her bed. She would have made him her first man. So that what was born between her legs was not born in pain. So that it would not become so dark in its delicious desires.\n\nBefore the Tiles, then, she had given herself to other men, unloving men. She'd given herself over to be used.\n\nThe same men who then in turn gave her anew name, one born of the legend of the White Crow, who once offered the gift of flight to humans, in the form of a single feather. And, urged on by promises, men would grasp hold of that feather and seek to fly. Only to fall to their deaths. With the crow laughing as they fell. Crows needed to eat just like everything else, after all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am the White Crow, and I will feed on your dreams. And feed well.\"\n\nThey called her Feather, for the promise she offered, and never delivered. Had she found the Tiles, Breath was certain, she would have been given a different name. That little blonde girl. Whoever she was.\n\nRautos, who had yet to discover his family name, was thinking of his wife. Trying to recall something of their lives together, something other than the disgusting misery of their last years.\n\nA man does not marry a girl, nor a woman. He marries a promise, and it shines with a bright purity that is ageless. It shines, in other words, with the glory of lies. The deception is self-inflicted. The promise was simple in its form, as befitted the thick-headedness of young men, and in its essence it offered the delusion that the present moment was eternal; that nothing would change; not the fires of desire, not the flesh itself, not the intense look in the eye.\n\nNowhere he was, at the far end of a marriage-where she was at this moment he had no idea. Perhaps he'd murdered her. Perhaps, as was more likely given the cowardice in his soul, he had simply fled her. No matter. He could look back with appalling clarity now, and see how her dissolution had matched his own. They had each settled like a lump of wax, melting season by season, descending into something shapeless, something not even hinting at the forms they had once possessed. Smeared, sagging, two heaps of sour smells, chafed skin, groans born of fitful motion. Fools that they both were, they had not moved through the years hand in hand-no, they'd not possessed that wisdom, that ironic recognition of the inevitable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Neither had mitigated their youthful desires with the limits imposed so cruelly by age. He had dreamed of finding a younger woman, someone nubile, soft, unblemished. She had longed fora tall, sturdy benefactor to soften her bedding with romance and delight her with the zealotry of the enchanted.\n\nThey had won nothing for all their desires except misery and loneliness. Like two burlap sacks filled with tarnished baubles, each squatting alone in its own room. In dust and cobwebs.\n\nWe stopped talking-no, be truthful, we never talked. Oh, past each other often enough in those early years. Yes, we talked past each other, avid and sharp, too humourless to be wry-fools that we were. Could we have learned how to laugh back then? So much might have turned out differently. So much...\n\nRegrets and coin, the debt ever mounts.\n\nThis nightmarish keep was the perfect match to the frightening chaos in his mind. Incomprehensible workings, gargantuan machines, corridors and strange ramps leading upward to the next levels, mysteries on all sides. As if... as if Rautos was losing his sense of himself, was losing talents he had long taken for granted. How could knowledge collapse so quickly? What was happening to him? Could the mind sink into a formless, unstructured thing to match the flesh that held it?\n\nPerhaps, he thought with a start, he had not fled at all. Instead, he was lying on his soft bed, eyes open but seeing nothing of the truth, whilst his soul wandered the maze of a broken brain. The thought horrified Rautos and he physically picked up his pursuit of Taxilian, until he trod on the man's heel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A glance back, brows raised.\n\nRautos mumbled an apology, wiped sweat from his jowly face.\n\nTaxilian returned his attention to this steep ramp before him, and the landing he could now see ahead and above. The air was growing unbearably warm. He suspected there were chutes and vents that moved currents of warmth and cold throughout this alien city, but as yet he'd found none, not a single grated opening-and there were no draughts flowing past. If currents flowed in this air, they were so muted, so constrained, that human skin could not sense their whispering touch.\n\nThe city was dead, and yet it lived, it breathed, and somewhere a heartbeat a slow syncopation, a heart of iron and brass, of copper and acrid oil. Valves and gears, rods and hinges, collars and rivets. He had found the lungs, and he knew that in one of the levels still awaiting them he would find the heart. Then, higher still, into the dragon's skull, where slept the massive mind.\n\nAll his life, dreams had filled his thoughts, his inner world, that played as would a god, maker of impossible inventions, machines so complex, so vast, they would strike like bolts of lightning should a mortal mind suddenly comprehend them. Creations to carry people across great distances, swifter than any horse or ship. Others that could surround a human soul, preserve its every thought and sense, its very knowledge of itself-and keep it all safe beyond the failing of mortal flesh. Creations to end all hunger, all poverty, to crush avarice before it was born, to cast out cruelty and indifference, to defy every inequity and deny the lure of sadistic pleasure.\n\nMoral constructs-oh, they were a madman's dreams, to be sure. Humans insisted on others behaving properly, but rarely forced the same standards upon themselves. Justifications dispensed with logic, thriving on opportunism and delusions of pious propriety." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As a child he had heard tales of heroes, tall, stern-faced adventurers who claimed the banners of honour and loyalty, of truthfulness and integrity. And yet, as the tales spun out, Taxilian would find himself assailed by a growing horror, as the great hero slashed and murdered his way through countless victims, all in pursuit of whatever he (and the world) deemed a righteous goal. His justice was sharp, but it bore but one edge, and the effort of the victims to preserve their lives was somehow made sordid, even evil.\n\nBut amoral machine, ah, would it not be forced by mechanics alone to hold itself to the same standard it set upon every other sentient entity? Immune to hypocrisy, its rule would be absolute and absolutely just.\n\nA young man's dreams, assuredly. Such a machine, he now knew, would quickly conclude that the only truly just act was the thorough annihilation of every form of intelligent life in every realm known to it. Intelligence was incomplete-perhaps it always would be-it was flawed. It could not distinguish its own lies from its own truths. Upon the scale of the self, they often weighed the same. Mistakes and malice were arguments of intent alone, not effect.\n\nThere would always be violence, catastrophe, shortsighted stupidity, incompetence and belligerence. The meat of history, after all, was the flyblown legacy of such things.\n\nAnd yet. And yet. The dragon is home to a city, the city that lives when not even echoes survive to walk its streets. Its very existence is a salutation.\n\nTaxilian believed-well, he so wanted to believe-that he would discover an ancient truth in this place. He would come, yes, face to face with amoral construct. And as for Asane's words earlier, her fretting on the slaughtered K'Chain Che'Malle in the first chamber, such a scene made sense now to Taxilian. The machine mind had come to its inevitable conclusion. It had delivered the only possible justice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If only he could awaken it once more, perfection would return to the world.\n\nTaxilian could sense nothing, of course, of the ghost's horror at such notions. Justice without compassion was the destroyer of morality, a slayer blind to empathy.\n\nLeave such things to nature, to the forces not even the gods can control. If you must hold to a faith, Taxilian, then hold to that one. Nature maybe slow to act, but it will find a balance-and that is a process not one of us can stop, for it belongs to time itself.\n\nAnd, the ghost now knew, he had a thing about time.\n\nThey came upon vast chambers crowded with vats in which grew fungi and a host of alien plants that seemed to need no light. They stumbled upon seething nests of scaled rats-orthen-that scattered squealing from the lantern's harsh light.\n\nDormitories in rows upon rows, assembly halls and places of worship. Work stalls and low-ceilinged expanses given over to arcane manufacture-stacks of metal, each one identical, proof of frightening precision. Armouries bearing ranks of strange weapons, warehouses with stacked packages of foodstuffs, ice-rooms filled with butchered, frozen meat hanging from hooks. Niches in which were stored bolts of cloth, leather, and scaled hides. Rooms cluttered with gourds arranged on shelves.\n\nA city indeed, awaiting them.\n\nAnd still, Taxilian led them ever upward. Like a man possessed.\n\n______\n\nA riot had erupted. Armed camps of islanders raged back and forth along the shoreline, while mobs plunged into the forests, weapons slick and dripping, into the makeshift settlements, conducting pathetic looting and worse among the poorest refugees. Murder, rapes, and everywhere, flames lifting orange light into the air. Before dawn, the fires had ignited the forest, and hundreds more died in smoke and heat." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Carry on with the narrative as the plot partner.\nTags: epic fantasy, complex plot, multiple characters, dark themes, intricate world-building\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Dust of Dreams\nChapter: 23" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And a moment later he saw, farther up the trail, Benden Ledag, that scrawny young warrior with the quick smile that always made Zaravow want to smash his even white teeth into bloody stumps. Tall, thin, awkward, with hands big as the wooden paddles used to pattern grain pots.\n\nAnd, in a flash, Zaravow knew what those hands had been doing a short time earlier. And he knew, as well, the mocking secret behind the smile he offered Zaravow every time their paths crossed.\n\nNot widows after all, for his wife. She'd moved past complaining about her husband. She'd decided to shame him.\n\nHe would make the shame hers.\n\nThis day, then, he would challenge Benden. He would cut the bastard to pieces, with his wife right therein the crowd, a witness, and she would know-everyone would know-that her punishment would follow. He'd take the front half of her feet, a single merciful chop of his cutlass, once, twice. And then he'd rape her. And then he'd throw her out and all his friends would take their turn. They'd fill her. Her mouth, the places between her thighs and cheeks. Three could take her all at once-\n\nBreath hissed from his nostrils. He was growing hard.\n\nNo, there would be time for that later. Zaravow unsheathed his cutlass and worked a thumb crossways, back and forth down the cutting edge. The iron lived for the blood it would soon drink. He'd never liked Benden anyway.\n\nHe rose, adjusting his patchy bhederin half-cloak with a rippling shrug of his broad shoulders, and leaned the cutlass against the side of his right leg as he worked the chain gauntlets onto his hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His wife, he saw from the corner of his eye, had seen him, had halted at the last low ridge girdling the hill, and was watching." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With sudden, icy comprehension. Hearing her shout backup the hill, he collected his cutlass and, mind blackening with rage, wheeled round-no, that rutting shit wasn't going to getaway-\n\nBut her screams were not being flung back at Benden. And she was still facing the camp, and even at this distance Zaravow could see her terror.\n\nBehind him, other voices rose in scattered alarm.\n\nZaravow spun.\n\nThe bank of storm clouds filled half the sky-he had not even seen their approach-why, he could have sworn-\n\nDust descended like the boles of enormous columns beneath each of at least a dozen distinct thunderheads, and those grey, impenetrable pillars formed a cordon that was marching straight for the camp.\n\nZaravow stared, mouth suddenly dry.\n\nAs the base of those pillars began to dissolve, revealing-\n\nSome titles were worthy of pride, and Sekara, wife to Warchief Stolmen and known to all as Sekara the Vile, was proud of hers. She would burn to the touch and everyone knew it, knew the acid of her sweat, the vitriol of her breath. Wherever she walked, the path was clear, and when the sun's light cut upon her, someone would always move to stand so that blessed shade settled over her. The tough gristle that would make her gums bleed was chewed first by someone else. The paint she used to awaken her husband's Face of Slaying was ground from the finest pigments-by someone else's hand-and all of this was what her vileness had won her.\n\nSekara's mother had taught her daughter well. The most rewarding ways of living-rewarding in the sense of personal gain, which was all that truly counted-demanded a ruthlessness in the manipulation of others. All that was needed was a honed intelligence and an eye that saw clearly every weakness, every possible advantage to exploit. And a hand that did not hesitate, ever, to deliver pain, to render punishment for offences real or fabricated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By how she was seen, by all that she had made of herself, she was a presence that could now slink into the heads of every Gadran, vicious as a wardog patrolling the perimeter of the camp, cruel as an adder in the bedding. And this was power.\n\nHer husband's power was less subtle, and because it was less subtle, it was not nearly as efficient as her own. It could notwork the language of silent threat and deadly promise. Besides, he was as a child in her hands; he had always been, from the very first, and that would never change.\n\nShe was regal in her attire, bedecked in gifts from the most talented among the tribe's weavers, spinners, seamstresses, bone and antler carvers, jewel-smiths and tanners-gifts that were given to win favour, or deflect Sekara's envy. When one had power, after all, envy ceased to be a flaw of character; instead, it became a weapon, a threat; and Sekara worked it well, so that now she was counted among the wealthiest of all the White Face Barghast.\n\nShe walked, back straight, head held high, reminding all who saw her that the role of Barghast Queen belonged to her, though that bitch Hetan might hold to that title-one that she refused, stupid woman. No, Sekara was known to all as its rightful bearer. By virtue of breeding, and by the brilliance of her cruelty. And were her husband not apathetic oaf, why, they would have long since wrested control away from that bestial Tool and his insatiable slut of a wife.\n\nThe cape of sewn hides she wore trailed in the dust behind her as she traversed the stony path, slipping in and out of the shadows cast by the X-shaped crucifixes lining the ridge. It would not do to glance up at the skinless lumps hanging from the crosses-the now lifeless Akrynnai, D'ras and Saphii traders, the merchants and horsemongers, their stupid, useless guards, their fat mates and dough-fleshed children. In this stately promenade, Sekara was simply laying claim to the expression of her power. To walk this path, eyes fixed straight ahead, was enough proof of possession. Yes, she owned the tortured deaths of these foreigners." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was Sekara the Vile.\n\nSoon, she would seethe same done to Tool, Hetan and their spoiled runts. So much had already been achieved, her allies in place and waiting for her command.\n\nShe thought back to her husband, and the soft ache between her legs throbbed with the memory of his mouth, his tongue, that made obvious his abject servility. Yes, she made him work, scabbing his knees, and gave him nothing in return. The insides of her thighs were caked in white paint, and she had slyly revealed that detail to her handmaidens when they dressed her-and now word would be out once again among all the women. Chatter and giggles, snorts of contempt. She'd left her husband hastily reapplying the paint on his face.\n\nShe noted the storm clouds to the west, but they were too distant to be of any concern, once she had determined that they were not drawing any closer. And through the thick soles of her beaded bhederin moccasins, she felt nothing of the thunder. And when a pack of camp dogs cut across just ahead, she saw in their cowering gaits nothing more than their natural fear of her, and was content.\n\n______\n\nHetan lounged in the yurt, watching her fat imp of a son scrabbling about on the huge wardog lying on the cheap Akryn rug they had traded for when it finally became obvious that child and dog had adopted each other. She was ever amazed at the dog's forbearance beneath the siege of grubby, tugging, poking and yanking hands-the beast was big even by Barghast standards, eight or nine years old and scarred with the vicious scraps for dominance among the pack-no other dog risked its ire these days. Even so, permitting the rank creature into the confines of the yurt was virtually unheard of-another one of her husband's strange indulgences. Well, it could foul up that ugly foreign rug, and it seemed it knew the range of this unnatural gift and would push things no further." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" she muttered to it, and saw how its ears tilted in her direction, \"a fist to your damned head if you try for any real bedding.\" Of course, if she raised a hand to the dog, her son would be the one doing all the howling.\n\nHetan glanced over as the hide flap was tugged aside and Tool, ducking to clear the entrance, entered the yurt. \"Look at your son,\" she accused. \"He's going to poke out the damn thing's eyes. And get a hand bitten off, or worse.\"\n\nHer husband squinted down at the squirming toddler, but it was clear he was too distracted to offer anything in the way of comment. Instead, he crossed the chamber and collected up his fur-bound flint sword.\n\nHetan sat straighter. \"What's happened? '\n\n\"I am not sure,\" he replied. \"On this day, Barghast blood has been spilled.\"\n\nShe was on her feet-noting that the hound lifted its head at the sudden tension-and, taking her scabbarded cutlasses, she followed Tool outside.\n\nShe saw nothing awry, barring the growing attention her husband garnered as he set out purposefully up the main avenue that bisected the encampment, heading westward. He still possessed some of the sensitivities of the T'lan Imass he had once been-Hetan did not doubt his assertion. Moving up alongside him, acutely aware of other warriors falling into their wake, she shot him a searching look, saw his sorrow stung afresh, his weariness furrowing deep lines on his brow and face.\n\n\"One of the outlying clans?\"\n\nHe grimaced. \"There is no place on this earth, Hetan, where the Imass have not walked. That presence greets my eyes thick as fog, a reminder of ancient things, no matter where I look.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Does it blind you?\"\n\n\"It is my belief,\" he replied, \"that it blinds all of us.\"\n\nShe frowned, unsure of his meaning. \"To what?\"\n\n\"That we were not the first to do so.\"\n\nHis response chilled her down in her bones. \"Tool, have we found our enemy?\"\n\nThe question seemed to startle him. \"Perhaps. But...\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I hope not.\"\n\nBy the time they reached the encampment's western edge, at least three hundred warriors were following them, silent and expectant, perhaps even eager although they could know nothing of their Warleader's intent. The sword in Tool's hands had been transformed into a standard, a brandished sigil held so loosely, in a manner suggesting careless indifference, that it acquired the gravity of an icon-Onos Toolan's deadly slayer, drawn forthwith such reluctance-the promise of blood and war.\n\nThe far horizon was a black band soon to swallow the sun.\n\nTool stood staring at it.\n\nBehind them the crowd waited amidst the rustle of weapons, but no one spoke a word.\n\n\"That storm,\" she asked him quietly, \"is it sorcery, husband?\"\n\nHe was long in replying. \"No, Hetan.\"\n\n\"And yet...\"\n\n\"Yes. And yet.\"\n\n\"Will you tell me nothing?\"\n\nHe glanced at her and she was shocked at his ravaged expression. \"What shall I say?\" he demanded in sudden anger. \"Half a thousand Barghast are dead. Killed in twenty heartbeats. What do you want me to say to you?\"\n\nShe almost recoiled at his tone. Trembling, she broke contact with his hard glare. \"You have seen this before, haven't you? Onos Toolan-say it plain! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I will not.\"\n\nSo many bonds forged between them, years of passion and the deepest of loves, all snapped with his denial. She reeled inside, felt tears spring to her eyes. \"All that we have-you and me-all of it, does it mean nothing, then?\"\n\n\"It means everything. And so if I must, I will cut my tongue from my mouth, rather than reveal to you what I now know.\"\n\n\"We have our war, then.\"\n\n\"Beloved.\" His voice cracked on the word and he shook his head. \"Dearest wife, forge of my heart, I want to run. With you, with our children. Run, do you hear me? An end to this rule-I do not want to be the one to lead the Barghast into this-do you understand?\" The sword fell at his feet and a shocked groan erupted from the mob behind them.\n\nShe so wanted to take him into her arms. To protect him, from all this, from the knowledge devouring him from the inside out. But he gave her no opening, no pathway back to him. \"I will stand with you,\" she said, as the tears spilled loose and tracked down her cheeks. \"I will always do so, husband, but you have taken away all my strength. Give me something, please, anything. Anything.\"\n\nHe reached up to his own face and seemed moments from clawing deep gouges down its length. \"If-if I am to refuse them. Your people, Hetan. If I am to lead them away from here, from this prophesied fate you are all so desperate to embrace, do you truly believe they will follow me?\"\n\nNo. They will kill you. And our children. And for me, something far worse. Ina low whisper she then asked, \"Shall we flee, then? In the night, unseen by anyone?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He lowered his hands and, eyes on the storm, offered up a bleak smile that lanced her heart. \"I am to be the coward I so want to be? And I do, beloved, I so want to be a coward. For you, for our children. Gods below, for myself.\"\n\nHow many admissions could so crush a manlike this? It seemed that in these past few moments she had seen them all.\n\n\"What will you do?\" she asked, for it seemed that her role in all of this had vanished.\n\n\"Select for me a hundred warriors, Hetan. My worst critics, my fiercest rivals.\"\n\n\"If you will lead a war-party, why just a hundred? Why so few?\"\n\n\"We will not find the enemy, only what they have left behind.\"\n\n\"You will set fire to their rage. And so bind them to you.\"\n\nHe flinched. \"Ah, beloved, you misunderstand. I mean to set fire not to rage, but fear.\"\n\n\"Am I permitted to accompany you, husband?\"\n\n\"And leave the children? No. Also, Cafal will return soon, with Talamandas. You must keep them here, to await our return.\"\n\nWithout another word, she turned about and walked down to the throng. Rivals and critics, yes, there were plenty of those. She would have no difficulty in choosing a hundred. Or, indeed, a thousand.\n\nWith the smoke of cookfires spreading like grey shrouds through the dusk, Onos Toolan led a hundred warriors of the White Face Barghast out from the camp, the head of the column quickly disappearing in the darkness beyond.\n\nHetan had chosen a raised ridge to watch them leave. Off to her right a massive herd of bhederin milled, crowded together as was their habit when night descended. She could feel the heat from their bodies, saw the plume of their breaths drifting in streams. The herds had lost their caution with an ease that left Hetan faintly surprised. Perhaps some ancient memory had been stirred to life, the muddled comprehension that such proximity to the two-legged creatures kept away wolves and other predators. The Barghast knew to exercise tact in culling the herd, quietly separating the beasts they would slay from all the others." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So too, she realized, were the Barghast scattered, pulled apart, but not by the malevolent intent of some outside force. No, they had done this to themselves. Peace delivered a most virulent poison to those trained as warriors. Some fell into indolence; others found enemies closer to hand. \"Warrior, fix your gaze outward.\" An ancient saying among the Barghast. An admonition born of bitter experience, no doubt. Reminding her that little had changed among her people.\n\nShe looked away from the bhederin-but the column was well and truly gone, swallowed by the night. Tool had not waited long to set the league-devouring pace that made Barghast war-parties so dangerous to complacent enemies. Even in that, she knew her husband could run those warriors into the ground. Now that would humble those rivals.\n\nHer thoughts about her own people, as the two thousand or so bhederin stood massed and motionless a stone's throwaway, had left her depressed, and the squabbling of the twins in the yurt only awaited her return before commencing once again, since the girls adored an audience. She was not quite ready for them. Too fragile with the battering she had received.\n\nShe missed the company of her brother with an intensity that ached in her chest.\n\nThe faintly lurid glow of the Jade Slashes drew her eyes to the south horizon. Lifting skyward to claw furrows across the breadth of the night-too easy to find omens beneath such heavenly violence; the elders had been bleating warnings for months now-and she suddenly wondered, with a faint catch of breath, if it had been too convenient to dismiss their dire mutterings as the usual disgruntled rubbish voiced by aching old men the world over. Change as the harbinger of disaster was an attitude destined to live forever, feeding off the inevitable as it did and woefully blind to its own irony." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But some omens were just that. True omens. And some changes proved to be genuine disasters, and to stir sands already settled yielded shallow satisfaction.\n\nWhen ruin is coming, we choose not to see it. We shift our focus, blurring the facts, the evidence before us. And we ready our masks of surprise, along with those of suffering and self-pity, and keep our fingers nimble for that oh-so-predictable cascade of innocence, that victim's charade.\n\nBefore reaching for the sword. Because someone's to blame. Someone is always to blame.\n\nShe spat into the gloom. She wanted to lie with a man this night. It almost did not matter who that man might be. She wanted her own method of escaping grim realities.\n\nOne thing she would never play, however, was that game of masks. No, she would meet the future with a knowing look in her eye, unapologetic, yet defying the prospect of her own innocence. No, be as guilty as everyone else, but announce the admission with bold courage. She would point no fingers. She would not reach for her weapons blazing with the lie of retribution.\n\nHetan found she was glaring at those celestial tears in the sky.\n\nHer husband wanted to be a coward. So weakened by his love for her, for the children they shared, he would break himself to save them. He had, she realized, virtually begged her for permission to do just that. She had not been ready for him. She had failed in understanding what he sought from her.\n\nInstead, I just kept asking stupid questions. Not understanding how each one tore out the ground beneath him. How he stumbled, how he fell again and again. My idiotic questions, my own selfish need to find something solid under my own feet-before deciding, before making bold judgement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had unknowingly cornered him. Refused his cowardice. She had, in fact, forced him out into that darkness, into leading his warriors to a place of truths-where he would seek to frighten them but already knowing-as she did-that he would fail.\n\nAnd so we have our wish. We go to war.\n\nAnd our Warleader stands alone in the knowledge that we will lose. That victory is impossible. Will he command with any less vigour? Will he slow the sword in his hands, knowing all that he knows?\n\nHetan bared her teeth with fierce, savage pride, and spoke to the jade talons in the sky. \"He will not.\"\n\n______\n\nThey emerged in darkness, and a moment later relief flooded through Setoc. The blurred, swollen moon, the faint green taint limning the features of Torrent and Cafal, casting that now familiar sickly sheen on the metal fittings of the horse's bit and saddle. Yet the skirl of stars overhead seemed twisted, subtly pushed-and it was a few heartbeats before she recognized constellations.\n\n\"We are far to the north and east,\" said Cafal. \"But not insurmountably so.\"\n\nThe ghosts from the other realm had flooded the plain, flowing outward and growing evermore ephemeral, finally vanishing entirely from her senses. She felt that absence with a deepening anguish, a sense of loss warring with pleasure at their salvation. Living kin awaited many of them, but not, she was certain, all. There had been creatures in that other world's past unlike anything she had seen or even heard of-limited as her experience was, to be sure-and they would find themselves as lost in this world as in the one they had fled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Avast empty plain surrounded them, flat as an ancient seabed.\n\nTorrent swung himself back into the saddle. She heard him sigh. \"Tell me, Cafal, what do you see?\"\n\n\"It's night-I can't see much. We are on the northern edge of the Wastelands, I think. And so, around us, there is nothing.\"\n\nTorrent grunted, clearly amused by something in the Barghast's reply.\n\nCafal nosed the bait. \"What makes you laugh? What do you see, Torrent?\"\n\n\"At the risk of melodrama,\" he said, \"I seethe landscape of my soul.\"\n\n\"It is an ancient one,\" Setoc mused, \"which makes you old inside, Torrent.\"\n\n\"The Awl dwelt here hundreds of generations ago. My ancestors looked out upon this very plain, beneath these same stars.\"\n\n\"I am sure they did,\" acknowledged Cafal. \"As did mine.\"\n\n\"We have no memory of you Barghast, but no matter, I will not gainsay your claims.\" He paused fora time, and then spoke again, \"it would not have been so empty back then, I imagine. More animals, wandering about. Great beasts that trembled the ground.\" He laughed again, but this time it was bitter. \"We emptied it and called that success. Fucking unbelievable.\"\n\nWith that he reached down to Setoc.\n\nShe hesitated. \"Torrent, where will you ride from here?\"\n\n\"Does it matter?\"\n\n\"It didn't before. But I believe it does now. '\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"Not for you-I see nothing of the path awaiting you. No. For me. For the ghosts I have brought to this world. I am not yet quit of them. Their journey remains incomplete.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He lowered his hand and studied her in the gloom. \"You hold yourself responsible for their fate.\"\n\nShe nodded.\n\n\"I will miss you, I think.\"\n\n\"Hold a moment,\" said Cafal, \"both of you. Setoc, you cannot wander off all alone-\"\n\n\"Have no fear,\" she cut in, \"for I will accompany you.\"\n\n\"But I must return to my people.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" But she would say no more. She was home to a thousand hearts, and that blood still ran sizzling like acid in her soul.\n\n\"I shall run at apace you cannot hope to match-\"\n\nSetoc laughed. \"Let us play this game, Cafal. When you catch up tome, we shall rest.\" She turned to Torrent. \"I shall miss you as well, warrior, last of the Awl. Tell me, of all the women who hunted you, was there one you would have let snare Torrent of the Awl?\"\n\n\"None other than you, Setoc... in about five years from now.\"\n\nFlashing a bright smile at Cafal, she set off, fleet as a hare.\n\nThe Barghast grunted. \"She cannot maintain such apace for long.\"\n\nTorrent gathered his reins. \"The wolves howl for her, Warlock. Chase her down, if you can.\"\n\nCafal eyed the warrior. \"Your last words to her,\" he said in a low voice, and then shook his head. \"No matter, I should not have asked.\"\n\n\"But you didn't, ' Torrent replied.\n\nHe watched Cafal find his loping jog, long legs taking him swiftly into Setoc's wake." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The city seethed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Unseen armies struggled against the ravages of decay, gathered in unimaginable numbers to wage pitched battles with neglect. Leaderless and desperate, legions massing barely a mote of dust sent out scouts ranging far from the well-travelled tracks, into the narrowest of capillaries threading senseless stone. One such scout found a Sleeper, curled and motionless-almost lifeless-in along abandoned rest chamber in the beneath-the-floor level of Feed. A drone, forgotten, mind so somnolent that the Shi'gal Assassin that had last stalked Kalse Rooted had not sensed its presence, thus sparing it from the slaughter that had drenched so many other levels.\n\nThe scout summoned kin and in a short time a hundred thousand soldiers swarmed the drone, forming sheets of glistening oil upon its scaled hide, seeping potent nectars into the creature's body.\n\nA drone was a paltry construct, difficult to work with, an appalling challenge to physically transform, to awaken with the necessary intelligence required to take command. A hundred thousand quickly became a million, and then a hundred million, soldiers dying once used up, hastily devoured by kin that then birthed anew, in new shapes with altered functions.\n\nThe drone's original purpose had been as an excretor, producing an array of flavours to feed newborn Ve'Gath to increase muscle mass and bone density. It was fed in turn by armies serving the Matron as they delivered her commands-but this Matron had been late in the breeding of Ve'Gath. She had produced fewer than three hundred before the enemy manifested and battle was joined. The drone, therefore, was far from exhausted. This potential alone gave purpose to the efforts of the unseen armies, but the desperation belonged to another cause-exotic flavours now marred Kalse Rooted. Strangers had invaded and had thus far proved insensible to all efforts at conjoining." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At long last the drone stirred. Two newborn eyes opened, seven distinct lids peeling back in each one, and a mind that had known only darkness-for excretors had no need for sight-suddenly looked upon a realm both familiar and unknown. Old senses merged with the new ones, quickly reconfiguring the world. Lids flickered up and down, constructing an evermore complete comprehension-heat, current, charge, composition-and many more, few of which the ghost understood beyond vague, almost formless notions.\n\nThe ghost, who did not even know his own name, had been drawn away from his mortal companions, swept along on currents that none of them could sense-currents that defied his own efforts at description. In helpless frustration, he settled upon the familiar concepts of armies, legions, scouts, battles and war, though he knew that none of these was correct. Even to attribute life to such minuscule entities was quite probably wrong; and yet they conveyed meaning to him, or perhaps he was simply capable of stealing knowledge from the clamouring host of instructions that raced through all of Kalse Rooted in a humming buzz too faint for mortal ears.\n\nAnd now he found himself looking down upon a drone, a K'Chain Che'Malle unlike any he had ever seen before. No taller than a grown male human, thin-limbed, with amass of tentacles instead of fingers at the ends of those arms. The broad head bulged behind the eyes, and at the base of the skull. The slash of a mouth was that of a lizard, lined with multiple rows of fine, sharp fangs. The colour of the two large, oversized eyes was a soft brown.\n\nHe watched it twitch fora time, knowing the creature was simply exploring the extent of its transformation, unfurling its ungainly limbs, turning its head from side to side in rapid flickers as it caught new and strange flavours. He saw then its growing agitation, its fear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The smell of unknown invaders. The drone was able to gather, enclose and then discard the information that belonged to feral orthen and grishol; and this permitted it to isolate the location of the invaders. Alive, yes. Distant, discordant sounds, multiple breaths, soft feet on the floor, fingers brushing mechanisms.\n\nThe flavours the drone had once fed to Ve'Gath were now turned upon itself. In time, it would increase in size and strength. If the strangers had not departed by then, the drone would have to kill them.\n\nThe ghost struggled against panic. He could not warn them. This creature, so flush now with necessities and enormous tasks-the great war against the deterioration of Kalse Rooted, the ghost assumed-could not but seethe clumsy explorations of Taxilian, Rautos and the others as a threat. To be eradicated.\n\nThe drone, named Sulkit-this being a name derived from birth-month and status, indeed a name once shared by two hundred identical drones-now rose on its hind limbs, thin, prehensile tail slithering across the floor. Oils dripped from its slate-grey hide, pooled and then quickly vanished as the unseen army, emboldened, purified and enlivened by the commander it had itself created, dispersed to renew its war.\n\nAnd the ghost withdrew, raced back to his companions.\n\n\"If this was a mind,\" said Taxilian, \"it has died.\" He ran his hand along the sleek carapace, frowning at the ribbons of flexible, clear glass rippling out from the iron dome. Was something flowing through that glass? He could not be certain.\n\nRautos rubbed his chin. \"Truly, I do not see how you can tell,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There should be heat, vibration. Something.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nTaxilian scowled. \"Because that would tell us it's working. '\n\nBreath barked a laugh behind them. \"Does a knife talk? Does a shield drum? You've lost your mind, Taxilian. A city only lives when people are in it, and even then it's the people doing the living, not the city.\"\n\nIn the chamber they had just left, Sheb and Nappet bickered as they cleared rubbish from the floor, making room for everyone to sleep. They had climbed level after level and, even now, still more waited above them. But everyone was exhausted. A dozen levels below, Last had managed to kill a nest of orthen, which he had skinned and gutted, and he was now arranging the six scrawny carcasses on skewers, while off to one side bhederin dung burned in a stone quern, the fire's heat slowly driving back the chilly, lifeless air. Asane was preparing herbs to feed into a tinpot filled with freshwater.\n\nBewildered, the ghost drifted among them.\n\nBreath strode back into the chamber, eyes scanning the floor. \"Time,\" she said, \"for a casting of the Tiles.\"\n\nAnticipation fluttered through the ghost, or perhaps it was terror. He felt himself drawn closer, staring avidly as she drew out her collection of Tiles. Polished bone? Ivory? Glazed clay? All kinds, he realized, shifting before his eyes.\n\nBreath whispered, \"See? Still young. So much, so much to decide.\" She licked her lips, her hands twitching.\n\nThe others drew closer, barring Taxilian who had remained in the other room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't recognize none of them, ' said Sheb.\n\n\"Because they're new, \"snapped Breath.\"The old ones are dead. Useless. These\"-she gestured-\"they belong to us, just us. For now. And the time has come to give them their names. ' She raked them together in a clatter, scooped them up and held the Tiles in the enclosed bowl of her hands.\n\nThe ghost could see her flushed face, the sudden colour making her skin almost translucent, so that he could discern the faint cage of bones beneath. He saw her pulse through the finest vessels in her flesh, the rush and swish of blood in their eager circuit. He saw the sweat beading on her highbrow, and the creatures swimming within it.\n\n\"First,\" she said, \"I need to remake some old ones. Give them new faces. The names may sound like ones you've heard before, but these are new anyway. '\n\n\"How?\" demanded Sheb, still scowling. \"How are they new?\"\n\n\"They just are.\" She sent the Tiles onto the floor. \"No Holds, you see? Each one is unaligned, all of them are unaligned. That's the first difference. \"She pointed.\" Chance-Knuckles-but see how it's at war with itself? That's the truth of Chance right there. Fortune and Misfortune are mortal enemies. And that one: Rule-no throne, thrones are too obvious. \"She flipped that Tile.\"And Ambition on the other side-they kill each other, you see? \"She began flipping more Tiles.\"Life and Death, Light and Dark, Fire and Water, Air and Stone. Those are the old ones, remade. \"She swept those aside, leaving three remaining Tiles.\"These are the most potent. Fury, and on its opposite side, Starwheel. Fury is just what it says. Blind, a destroyer of everything. Starwheel, that's Time, but unravelled-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Meaning what?\" Rautos asked, his voice strangely tight, his face pale.\n\nBreath shrugged. \"Before and after are meaningless. Ahead and behind, then and soon, none of them mean anything. All those words that try to force order and, uh, sequence.\" She shrugged again. \"You won't see Starwheel in the castings. You'll just see Fury.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\nHer smile was chilling. \"I just do.\" She pointed at the second to last Tile. \"Root, and on the other side, Ice Haunt-they both seek the same thing. You get one or the other, never both. This last one, Blueiron there, that's the sorcery that gives life to machines-it's still strong in this place, I can feel it.\" She turned the Tile onto its other side. \"Oblivion. Ware this one, it's a curse. A demon. It eats you from the inside out. Your memories, yourself. \"She licked her lips once more, this time nervously.\"It's very strong right now. And getting stronger... someone's coming, someone's coming to find us.\" She hissed suddenly and swept up the last Tiles. \"We need-we need to feed Blueiron. Feed it!\"\n\nTaxilian spoke from the doorway. \"I know, Breath. It is what I am trying to do.\"\n\nShe faced him, teeth bared. \"Can you taste this place?\"\n\n\"I can.\"\n\nFrom one side Asane whimpered, and then flinched as Nappet lashed out afoot to kick her. He would have done more but Last interposed himself between the two, arms crossed, eyes flat. Nappet sneered and turned away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't understand, \"said Rautos.\"I taste nothing-nothing but dust. '\n\n\"It wants our help,\" Taxilian announced.\n\nBreath nodded.\n\n\"Only I don't know how. '\n\nBreath held up a knife. \"Open your flesh. Let the taste inside, Taxilian. Let it inside.\"\n\nWas this madness, or the only path to salvation? The ghost did not know. But he sensed anew flavour in the air. Excitement? Hunger? He could not be certain.\n\nBut Sulkit was on its way. Still gaunt, still weak. On its way, then, not to deliver slaughter.\n\nThe flavour, the ghost realized, was hope.\n\n______\n\nSome roads, once set out upon, reveal no possible path but forward. Every other track is blocked by snarls of thorns, steaming fissures or rearing walls of stone. What waits at the far end of the forward path is unknown, and since knowledge itself may prove a curse, the best course is simply to place one foot in front of the other, and think not at all of fate or the cruel currents of destiny.\n\nThe seven or eight thousand refugees trudging in Twilight's wake were content with ignorance, even as darkness closed in as inexorable as a tide, even as the world to either side of the Road of Gallan seemed to lose all substance, fragments drifting away like discarded memories. Linked one to another by ropes, strands of netting, torn strips of cloth and hide-exhausted but still alive, far from terrible flames and coils of smoke-they need only follow their Queen.\n\nMost faith was born of desperation, Yan Tovis understood that much. Let them see her bold, sure strides on this stony road. Let them believe she had walked this path before, or that by virtue of noble birth and title, she was cloaked with warm, comforting knowledge of the journey they had all begun, this flowing river of blood. My blood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She would give them that comfort. And hold tight to the truth that washer growing terror, her surges of panic that left her undergarments soaked with chill sweat, her heart pounding like the hoofs of a fleeing horse-no, they would see none of that. Nothing to drive stark fear into them, lest in blind horror the human river spill out, pushed off the road, and in screams of agony find itself shredded apart by the cold claws of oblivion.\n\nNo, best they know nothing.\n\nShe was lost. The notion of finding away off this road, of returning to their own world, now struck her as pathetically naïve. Her blood had created agate, and now its power was thinning; with each step she grew weaker, mind wandering as if stained with fever, and even the babble of Pully and Skwish behind her was drifting away-their wonder, their pleasure at the gifts of Twilight's blood had grown too bitter to bear.\n\nOld hags no longer. Youth snatched back, the sloughing away of wrinkles, dread aches, frail bones-the last two witches of the Shake danced and sung as if snake-bitten, too filled with life to even take note of the dissolution closing in on all sides, nor their Queen's slowing pace, her drunken weaving on the road. They were too busy drinking her sweet blood.\n\nForward. Just walk. Yedan warned you, but you were too proud to listen. You thought only of your shame. Your brother, Witchslayer. And, do not forget, your guilt. At the brutal reprieve he gave you. His perfect, logical solution to all of your problems.\n\nThe Watch is as he must be. Yet see how you hated his strength-but it was nothing more than hating your own weakness. Nothing more than that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Walk, Yan Tovis. It's all you need do-\n\nWith the sound of a sundered sail, the world tore itself wide open. The road dropped from beneath the two witches, then thundered and cracked like a massive spine as it slammed down atop rolling hills. Dust shot skyward, and sudden sunlight blazed down with blinding fire.\n\nPully staggered to where Twilight had collapsed, seeing the spatters of blood brown and dull on the road's cracked, broken surface.\"Skwish, y'damned fool! We was drunk! Drunk on'er an now ye look! '\n\nSkwish dragged herself loose from the half-dozen Shake who had tumbled into her. \"Oh's we in turble now-this anna Gallan! It's the unnerside a Gallan! The unnerside! Iz she yor an dead, Pully? Iz she?\"\n\n\"Nearby, Skwish, nearby-she went on too long-we shoulda paid attention. Kept an eye on'er. '\n\n\"Get'er back, Pully! We can't be'ere. We can't!\"\n\nAs the two now young women knelt by Yan Tovis, the mass of refugees was embroiled in its own chaotic recovery. Broken limbs, scattered bundles of possessions, panicked beasts. The hills flanking the road were denuded, studded with sharp outcrops. Not a tree insight. Through the haze of dust, now drifting on the wind, the sky was cloudless-and there were three suns.\n\nYedan Derryg scanned his troop of soldiers, was satisfied that none had suffered more than bruises and scrapes. \"Sergeant, attend to the wounded-and stay on the road-no one is to leave it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sir.\"\n\nHe then set out, picking his way round huddled refugees-wide-eyed islanders silent with fear, heads lifting and turning to track his passage. Yedan found the two captains, Pithy and Brevity, directing one of their makeshift squads in the righting of a toppled cart.\n\n\"Captains, pass on the command for everyone to stay on the road-not a single step off it, understood?\"\n\nThe two women exchanged glances, and then Pithy shrugged. \"We can do that. What's happened? '\n\n\"It was already looking bad,\" Brevity said, \"wasn't it? '\n\n\"And now,\" added Pithy, \"it's even worse. Three suns, for Errant's sake!\"\n\nYedan grimaced. \"I must make my way to the front of the column. I must speak with my sister. I will know more when I return.\"\n\nHe continued on.\n\nThe journey was cruel, as the Watch could not help but observe the wretched state of the refugees, islanders and Shake alike. He well comprehended the necessity of leaving the shore, and the islands. The sea respected them no longer, not the land, not the people clinging to it. His sister had no choice but to take them away. But she was also leading them. Ancient prophecies haunted her, demanding dread sacrifices-but her Shake were poor creatures for the most part. They did not belong in legends, in tales of hard courage and resolute defiance-he'd seen as much in the faces of the witches and warlocks he'd cut down. And he saw the same here, as he threaded through the crowds. The Shake were a diminished people, in numbers, inspirit. Generation upon generation, they had made themselves small, as if meekness was the only survival strategy they understood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yedan Derryg did not know if they were capable of rising again.\n\nThe islanders, he mused, might well prove more competent than the Shake, if Pithy and Brevity were any measure. He could use them. Letherii understood the value of adaptability, after all. And since these were the ones who had chosen Yan Tovis as their Queen, he could exploit that loyalty.\n\nThey needed an army. The two captains were right. And they were looking to him to lead it. That seemed plain enough. His task now was to convince his sister.\n\nOf course, their paramount need at the moment was to leave this place. Before its residents found them.\n\nPushing clear of the last huddle of refugees he saw that a perimeter of sorts had been established by-he noted with a frown-two young women and a half-dozen Shake youths armed with fishing spears. The women were busy scratching furrows in the road with antler picks, spirals and wavy circles-fashioning wards, Yedan realized with a start-in the gap between the guards and a small tent surrounded by a rough palisade of carved poles.\n\nWitching poles. Yedan Derryg walked up to the guards, who parted to let him pass-saving him the effort of beating the fools senseless-and halted before the women. \"Do you know what you're doing? \"he demanded.\"Such rituals belong to Elder Witches, not their apprentices-where is my sister? In the tent? Why? '\n\nThe woman closest to him, curvaceous beneath her rags, her black hair glistening in the sunlight, placed two fingers beneath her large, dark eyes, and then smiled. \"The Watch sees but remains blind, an yer blind an blind.\" Then she laughed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yedan narrowed his gaze, and then shot the other woman a second look.\n\nThis one straightened from etching the road. She lifted her arms as if to display herself-the tears and holes in her shirt revealing smooth flesh, the round fullness of her breasts. \"Hungry, Witchslayer?\" She ran a hand through her auburn hair and then smiled invitingly.\n\n\"See what her blood done t'us? \"the first one exclaimed.\"Ya didn't nearby kill us. Leff the two a us, an that made us rich wi\" \"er power, and see what it done?\"\n\nYedan Derryg slowly scowled. \"Pully. Skwish.\"\n\nBoth women pranced the opening steps to the Shake Maiden Dance.\n\nGrowling under his breath, he walked between them, taking care not to scrape the patterns cut into the packed earth of the road.\n\nThe one he took to be Pully hurried up to his side. \"Careful, ya fat walrus, these are highest-\"\n\n\"Wards. Yes. You've surrounded my sister with them. Why? '\n\n\"She's sleepin-don't asturb'er. '\n\n\"I am the Watch. We need to speak.\"\n\n\"Sleeps!\"\n\nHe halted, stared at the witch. \"Do you know where we are?\"\n\n\"Do you?\"\n\nYedan stared at her. Saw the tremor behind her eyes. \"If not,\" he said, \"the hold of the Liosan, then a neighbouring realm within their demesne.\"\n\nPully flinched. \"The Watch sees and is not blind,\" she whispered.\n\nAshe moved to continue to the tent the witch snapped out a hand to stay him. \"Lissen. Not sleep. Nearby a coma-she didn't know to slow \"er own blood, just let it pour out-nearby killt'er. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He ground his teeth, chewed silently fora moment, and then asked, \"You bound her wounds?\"\n\n\"We did,\" answered Skwish behind them. \"But mebbe we was too late-\"\n\n\"Too busy dancing.\"\n\nNeither woman replied.\n\n\"I will look upon my sister.\"\n\n\"An then stay close,\" said Pully, \"an bring up your soljers.\"\n\nYedan pointed to one of the Shake guards. \"Send that one back to Captains Pithy and Brevity. They are to take command of the rearguard with their company. Then have your lad lead my troop back here.\"\n\nSkwish turned away to comply with his commands.\n\nThey were flush, yes, these two witches. And frightened. Two forces he could use to ensure their cooperation. That and the guilt they must now be feeling, having drunk deep when-if not for Yedan's slaying of the others-they would have but managed a sip with the rest shared out among scores of parched rivals. He would keep them down from now on, he vowed. Serving the Royal Family.\"Pully, \"he now said.\"If I discover you ever again withholding information from me-or my sister-I will see you burned alive. Am I understood? '\n\nShe paled and almost stepped back.\n\nHe stepped closer, permitting her no retreat. \"I am the Watch.\"\n\n\"Aye. You are the Watch.\"\n\n\"And until the Queen recovers, I command this column-including you and Skwish.\"\n\nShe nodded.\n\n\"Make certain your sister witch understands.\"\n\n\"I will.\"\n\nHe turned and made his way to the tent. Crouched at the entrance. He hesitated, thinking, and then reached out to tug aside the hide flap-enough to give him a view inside. Hot, pungent air gusted out. She was lying like a corpse, arms at her sides, palms up. He could just make out the black-gut stitchwork seaming the knife cuts. Reaching in, he took one of her bare feet in his hand. Cold, but he could detect the faintest of pulses. He set the foot down, closed the flap, and straightened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pully.\"\n\nShe was standing where he'd left her.\"Yes. '\n\n\"She might not recover left just as she is.\"\n\n\"Na, she might not.\"\n\n\"She needs sustenance. Wine, meat. Can you force that into her without choking her?\"\n\nPully nodded. \"Need us a snake tube.\"\n\n\"Find one.\"\n\n\"Skwish!\"\n\n\"I heard.\"\n\nYedan made his way back through the wards. Four horses were tethered to his sister's supply wagon. He selected the biggest one, a black gelding with a white blaze on its forehead. The beast was unsaddled but bridled. He drew it out from the others and then vaulted onto its back.\n\nPully was watching him. \"Can't ride through the wards! '\n\n\"I don't mean to, ' he replied, gathering the reins.\n\nThe witch stared, baffled. \"Then where?\"\n\nYedan chewed fora time, and then brought his horse round to face the nearest hills.\n\nPully shrieked and then leapt to block his path. \"Not off the road, ya fool!\"\n\n\"When I return,\" he said, \"you will have her awake.\"\n\n\"Don't be stupid! They might not find us at all! '\n\nHe thought about dismounting, walking up and cuffing her. Instead, he simply stared down at her, and then said in a low voice, \"Now who is being the fool, witch? I go to meet them, and if need be, I will slow them down. Long enough for you to get my sister back on her feet.\"\n\n\"And then we wait for you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As soon as she is able, you will leave this realm. This time,\" he added, \"you will help her. You and Skwish.\"\n\n\"Of course! We was just careless.\"\n\n\"When my troop arrives, inform my sergeant that they are to defend the Queen. Detail them to surround the tent-do not overcrowd them with your wards, witch.\"\n\n\"Hold to yourself, Witchslayer,\" said Pully. \"Hold tight-if your mind wanders, for e'en an instant-'\n\n\"I know,\" Yedan replied.\n\nShe moved to one side, then stepped close and set a hand upon the gelding's head.\"This one should do, \"she muttered with eyes closed.\"Wilful, fearless. Keep it collected-'\n\n\"Of that I know far more than you, witch.\"\n\nSighing, she edged back. \"A commander does not leave his command. A prince does not leave his people.\"\n\n\"This one does.\"\n\nHe kicked his horse into motion. Hoofs thumped onto the hard-packed ground beyond the road.\n\nThis was dependent on his sister reviving-enough to lead them away from this infernal place-a prince must choose when he is expendable. Yedan understood the risk. If she did not awaken. If she died, then well and truly his leaving had damned his people-but then, if his sister did not recover, and quickly, then the entire column was doomed anyway. Yes, he could let his own blood, and the witches could take hold of it and do what must be done-but they would also try to enslave him-they could not help it, he knew. He was a man and they were women. Such things simply were. The greater danger was that they would lose control of the power in their hands-two witches, even ancient, formidable ones, were not enough. Tenor twenty were needed in the absence of a Queen to fashion a simulacrum of the necessary focus demanded upon the Road of Gallan. No, he could not rely on Pully and Skwish." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Skwish came up alongside her sister witch. They watched Yedan Derryg riding up the slope of the first hill. \"That's bad, Pully. A prince does not-'\n\n\"This one does. Listen, Skwish, we got to be careful now.\"\n\nSkwish held up the snake tube. \"If we left her t\" jus live or die like we planned afirst-'\n\n\"He'll know-he will cut her open an check. '\n\n\"He ain't comin'back-\"\n\n\"Then we do need'er alive, don we? We can't use'im like we planned-he's too ken-he won't let us take \"im-I lookt up inta his eyes, him on that'orse, Skwish. His eyes an his eyes, an so I tell ya, he's gonna be bad turble if he comes back.\"\n\n\"He won't. An'we can keep'er weak, weak enough, I mean-'\n\n\"Too risky. She needs t'get us out. We can try something later, once we're all safe-we can take'em down then. The one left or e'en both. But not this time, Skwish. Now, best go an feed'er something. Start with wine, that'll loosen'er throat. '\n\n\"I know what I'm about, Pully, leave off. '\n\nThe gelding had abroad back, making fora comfortable ride. Yedan rode at a canter. Ahead, the hills thickened with scrub, and beyond was a forest of white trees, branches like twisted bones, leaves so dark as to be almost black. Just before them and running the length of the wooded fringe rose dolmens of grey granite, their edges grooved and faces pitted with cup-shaped, ground-out depressions. Each stone was massive, twice the height of a grown man, and crowding the foot of each one that he could see were skulls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He slowed his mount, reined in a half-dozen paces from the nearest standing stone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sat motionless, flies buzzing round the horse's flickering ears, and studied those grisly offerings. Cold judgement was never short of pilgrims. Alas, true justice had no reason to respect secrets, as those close-fisted pilgrims had clearly discovered. A final and fatal revelation.\n\nMinute popping sounds in the air announced the approach of dread power, as the buzzing flies ignited in mid-flight, black bodies bursting like acorns in afire. The horse shied slightly, muscles growing taut beneath Yedan, and then snorted in sudden fear.\n\n\"Hold,\" Yedan murmured, his voice calming the beast.\n\nThose of the royal line among the Shake possessed ancient knowledge, memories thick as blood. Tales of ancient foes, sworn enemies of the uncertain Shore. More perhaps than most, the Shake rulers understood that a thing could be both one and the other, or indeed neither. Sides possessed undersides and even those terms were suspect. Language itself stuttered in the face of such complexities, such rampant subtleties of nature.\n\nIn this place, however, the blended flavours of compassion were anathema to the powers that ruled.\n\nYet the lone figure that strode out from the forest was so unexpected that Yedan Derryg grunted as if he had been punched in the chest. \"This realm is not yours,\" he said, fighting to control his horse.\n\n\"This land is consecrated for adjudication,\" the Forkrul Assail said. \"I am named Repose. Give me your name, seeker, that I may know you-\"\n\n\"Before delivering judgement upon me?\"\n\nThe tall, ungainly creature, naked and weaponless, cocked his head. \"You are not alone. You and your followers have brought discord to this land. Do not delay me-you cannot evade what hides within you. I shall be your truth.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am Yedan Derryg.\"\n\nThe Forkrul Assail frowned. \"This yields me no ingress-why is that? How is it you block me, mortal?\"\n\n\"I will give you that answer,\" Yedan replied, slipping down from the horse. He drew his sword.\n\nRepose stared at him. \"Your defiance is useless.\"\n\nYedan advanced on him. \"Is it? But, how can you know for certain? My name yields you no purchase upon my soul. Why is that?\"\n\n\"Explain this, mortal.\"\n\n\"My name is meaningless. It is my title that holds my truth. My title, and my blood.\"\n\nThe Forkrul Assail shifted his stance, lifting his hands. \"One way or another, I will know you, mortal.\"\n\n\"Yes, you will.\"\n\nRepose attacked, his hands a blur. But those deadly weapons cut empty air, as Yedan was suddenly behind the Forkrul Assail, sword chopping into the back of the creature's elongated legs, the iron edge cutting between each leg's two hinged knees, severing the buried tendons-Repose toppled forward, arms flailing.\n\nYedan chopped down a second time, cutting off the Assail's left arm. Blue, thin blood sprayed onto the ground.\n\n\"I am Shake,\" Yedan said, raising his sword once more. \"I am the Watch.\"\n\nThe sudden hiss from Repose was shortlived, as Yedan's sword took off the top of the Forkrul Assail's head.\n\nHe wasted little time. He could hear the pounding of hoofs. Vaulting onto his horse's back, he collected the reins in one hand and, still, gripping his blue-stained sword, wheeled the beast round." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Five Tiste Liosan were charging towards him, lances levelled.\n\nYedan Derryg drove his horse straight for them.\n\nThese were scouts, he knew. They would take him down and then send one rider back to gather a punitive army-they would then ride to the column. Where they would slaughter everyone. These were the ones he had been expecting.\n\nThe line of standing stones lay to Yedan's left. At the last moment before the gap between him and the Tiste Liosan closed, Yedan dragged his horse in between two of the stones. He heard a lance shatter and then snarls of frustration as the troop thundered past. The gelding responded with alacrity as he guided it back through the line, wheeling to come up behind the nearest Tiste Liosan-the one who'd snapped his lance on one of the dolmens and who was now reaching for his sword even as he reined in.\n\nYedan's sword caught beneath the rim of his enamelled helm, slicing clean through his neck. The decapitated head spun to one side, cracking against a dolmen.\n\nThe Watch slapped the flat of his blade on the white horse's rump, launching it forward in a lunge, and then, driving his heels into his own horse's flanks, he pulled into the other horse's wake.\n\nThe remaining four Liosan had wheeled information, out and away from the standing stones, and were now gathering fora second charge.\n\nTheir fallen comrade's horse galloped straight for them, forcing the riders to scatter once more.\n\nYedan chose the Liosan nearest the dolmens, catching the man before he could right his lance. A crossways slash severed the scout's right arm halfway between the shoulder and elbow, the edge cutting into and snapping ribs as Yedan's horse carried him past the shrieking warrior." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A savage yank on the reins brought him up alongside another scout. He saw the woman's eyes as she twisted round in her saddle, heard her snarled curse, before he drove the point of his sword into the small of her back, punching between the armour's plates along the laced seam.\n\nHis arm was twisted painfully as in her death roll she momentarily trapped his sword, but he managed to tear the weapon free.\n\nThe other two riders were shouting to each other, and one pulled hard away from the fight, setting heels to his horse. The last warrior brought his mount round and lowered his lance.\n\nYedan urged his gelding into a thundering charge, but at an angle away from his attacker-in the direction of the fleeing scout. An instant's assessment told him he would not catch the man. Instead he lifted himself upward, knees anchored tight to either side of the gelding's spine. Drew back his arm and threw his sword.\n\nThe point slammed up and under the rider's right arm, driven a hand's breadth between his ribs, deep enough to sink into the lung. He toppled from his horse.\n\nThe last rider arrived, coming at Yedan from an angle. Yedan twisted to hammer aside the lashing blade of the lance, feeling it cleave through his vambrace and then score deep into the bones of his wrist. Pain seared up his arm.\n\nHe dragged his horse into the rider's wake-the Liosan was pulling up. A mistake. Yedan caught up to him and flung himself onto the man's back, dragging him from the saddle.\n\nThere was a satisfying snap of a bone as the Watch landed atop the warrior. He brought his good hand up and round to the Liosan's face, thumb digging into one eye socket and fingers closing like talons on the upper lip and nose. He jammed his wounded arm with its loosened vambrace into the man's mouth, forcing open the jaws." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hands tore at him, but feebly, as Yedan forced his thumb deeper, in as far as it could go, then angled it upwards-but he failed to reach the brain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He got onto his knees, lifting the Liosan's head by hooking his embedded thumb under the ridge of the brow. And then he forced it round, twisting even as he pressed down with his bloodied, armoured arm jammed across the man's mouth. Joints popped, the jaw swung loose, and then, as the Liosan's body thrashed in a frenzy, the vertebrae parted and the warrior went limp beneath him.\n\nYedan struggled to his feet.\n\nHe saw the scout with the punctured lung attempting to clamber back onto his horse. Collecting a lance, Yedan strode over. He used the haft to knock the warrior away from the horse, sending the man sprawling, and then stepped up and set the point against the Liosan's chest. Staring down into the man's terror-filled eyes, he pushed down on the lance, using all his weight. The armour's enamel surface crazed, and then the point punched through.\n\nYedan pushed harder, twisting and grinding the serrated blade into the Liosan's chest.\n\nUntil he saw the light leave the warrior's eyes.\n\nAfter making certain the others were dead, he bound his wounded arm, retrieved his sword and then the surviving lances and long-knives from the corpses, along with the helms. Rounding up the horses and tying them to a staggered lead, he set out at a canter back the way he had come.\n\nHe was a prince of the Shake, with memories in the blood.\n\nYan Tovis opened her eyes. Shadowed figures slid back and forth above her and to the sides-she could make no sense of them, nor of the muted voices surrounding her-voices that seemed to come from the still air itself. She was sheathed in sweat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tent walls-ah, and the shadows were nothing more than silhouettes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The voices came from outside. She struggled to sit up, the wounds on her wrists stinging as the sutures stretched. She frowned down at them, trying to recall... things. Important things.\n\nThe taste of blood, stale, the smell of fever-she was weak, lightheaded, and there was... danger.\n\nHeart thudding, she forced her way through the entrance, on her hands and knees, the world spinning round her. Bright, blinding sunlight, scorching fires in the sky-two, three, four-four suns!\n\n\"Highness!\"\n\nShe sat back on her haunches, squinted up as a figure loomed close. \"Who?\"\n\n\"Sergeant Trope, Highness, in Yedan's company. Please, crawl no further, the witches-there're wards, all round, Highness. All round you. A moment, the witches are on their way.\"\n\n\"Help me up. Where's my brother? '\n\n\"He rode out, Highness. Sometime ago. Before the fourth sun rose-and now we're burning alive-'\n\nShe took his proffered arm and pulled herself onto her feet. \"Not suns, Sergeant. Attacks.\"\n\nHe was a scarred man, face bludgeoned by decades of hard living. \"Highness?\"\n\n\"We are under attack-we need to leave here. We need to leave now!\"\n\n\"O Queen!\" Pully was dancing her way closer, evading the scored lines of the wards encircling the tent. \"He's coming back! Witchslayer! We must ready ourselves-drip drip drip some blood, Highness. We brought ya back, mean Skwish an we did. Leave off her, you oaf, let \"er stand!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Yan Tovis held onto the sergeant's wrist-solid as a rooted tree, and she needed that. She glared at Pully.\"Drank deep, I see. '\n\nThe witch flinched. \"Careless, anus all, Queen. But see, the Watch comes-with spare horses, white horses!\"\n\nYan Tovis said to Trope, \"Guide me out of these wards, Sergeant.\" And get this pretty witch out of my face.\n\nShe could hear the horses drawing closer, and, from the road, the suffering of thousands of people swept over her in an inundating tide-she almost gagged beneath that deluge.\n\n\"Clear, Highness-\"\n\nShe straightened. A fifth sun was flaring to life on the horizon. The iron fastenings of Trope's armour were searing hot and she winced at their touch, but still would not let goof his arm. She felt her skin tightening-We're being roasted alive.\n\nHer brother, one arm bound in blood-soaked rags, reined in at the side of the road. Yan Tovis stared at the trailing horses. Liosan horses, yes. That clutch of lances, the sheathed long-knives and cluster of helms. Liosan.\n\nSkwish and Pully were suddenly there, on the very edge of the road. Pully cackled a laugh.\n\nYan Tovis studied her brother's face.\"How soon? ' she asked.\n\nShe watched his bearded jaw bunch as he chewed on his answer, before squinting and saying, \"We have time, Queen.\"\n\n\"Good,\" she snapped. \"Witches, attend tome. We begin-not in haste, but we begin.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two young women, scampering and bobbing their heads like the hags they once were. New ambitions, yes, but old, old fears.\n\nYan Tovis met Yedan's eyes once more, and saw that he knew. And was prepared. Witchslayer, mayhap you're not done with that, before this is allover." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the first five years of King Tehol the Only's reign, there were no assassination attempts, no insurrections, no conspiracies of such magnitude as to endanger the crown; no conflicts with neighbouring realms or border tribes. The kingdom was wealthy, justice prevailed, the common people found prosperity and unprecedented mobility.\n\nThat all of this was achieved with but a handful of modest proclamations and edicts makes the situation all the more remarkable.\n\nNeedless to say, dissatisfaction haunted Lether. Misery spread like a plague. No one was happy, the list of complaints as heard on the crowded, bustling streets grew longer with each day that passed.\n\nClearly, something had to be done...\n\nLIFE OFT EHOL J ANATH\n\nClearly, \"said King Tehol,\"there's nothing to be done.\" he held up the Akrynnai gift and peered at it fora time, and then sighed.\n\n\"No suggestions, sire?\" Bugg asked.\n\n\"I'm at a loss. I give up. I keep trying, but I must admit: it's hopeless. Darling wife?\"\n\n\"Don't ask me. '\n\n\"Some help you are. Where's Brys? '\n\n\"With his legions, husband. Preparing to march.\"\n\n\"The man's priorities area mess. I remember how our mother despaired. '\n\n\"Of Brys?\" Janath asked, surprised.\n\n\"Well, no. Me, mostly. Never mind. The issue here is that we're facing a disaster. One that could scar this nation for generations to come. I need help, and see how none of you here can manage a single useful suggestion. My advisors are even more pathetic than the man they purport to advise. The situation is intolerable. \"He paused, and then frowned over at Bugg.\"What's the protocol? Find me that diplomat so I can chase him out of here again-no, wait, send for the emissary.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the author's assistant, please continue the story.\nTags: epic fantasy, complex plot, multiple characters, dark themes, intricate world-building\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Dust of Dreams\nChapter: 25" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were enough warriors nearby to hear his commands and a low, ominous hhunn chant rumbled through the ranks.\n\nIrkullas squinted at the scout. \"Ride back out to your wing, Ildas-ride down their pickets if you can.\"\n\n\"It's said the Barghast women areas dangerous as the men. '\n\n\"No doubt. We kill every adult and every youth near blooding-the children we will make Akrynnai and those who resist we will sell as slaves to the Bolkando. Now, enough talking-loosen the arrows in your quiver, Ildas-we have kin to avenge!\"\n\nSceptre Irkullas liked playing the bear to his grandchildren. He was well suited to the role. Stubborn, slow to anger, but as the Letherii and others had discovered, ware the flash of red in his eyes-he had led the warriors of the Akrynnai for three decades, at the head of the most-feared cavalry on the plains, and not once had he been defeated.\n\nA commander needed more than ferocity, of course. A dozen dead Letherii generals had made the mistake of underestimating the Sceptre's cunning.\n\nThe Barghast had lashed out to slay traders and drovers. Irkullas was not interested in chasing the damned raiding parties this way and that-not yet, in any case. No, he would strike at the very homes of these White Face Barghast-and leave in his wake nothing but bones and ashes.\n\nTwenty thousand. Seven to ten thousand combatants is probably a high estimate-although it's said they've few old and lame, for their journey into these lands was evidently a hard one.\n\nThese Barghast were formidable warriors; of that Irkullas had no doubt. But they thought like thieves and rapists, with the belligerence and arrogance of bullies. Eager for war, were they? Then Sceptre Irkullas shall bring them war." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Formidable warriors, yes, these White Faces.\n\nHe wondered how long they would last.\n\nKamz'tryld despised picket duty. Tripping over bhederin dung-and more than a few bones of late, as the slaughter to ready for winter had begun-while biting flies chased him about and the wind drove grit and sand into his face so that by day's end his white deathmask was somewhere between grey and brown. Besides, he was not so old that he could not have trotted outwith Talt's war-party yesterday-not that Talt agreed, the one-fanged bastard.\n\nKamz was reaching an age when loot became less a luxury than a need. He had a legacy to build, something to leave his kin-he should not be wasting his last years of prowess here, so far from-\n\nThunder?\n\nNo. Horses.\n\nHe was on a ridge that faced a yet higher one just to the north-he probably should have walked out to that one, but he'd decided it was too far-and as he turned to squint in that direction he caught sight of the first outriders.\n\nAkrynnai. A raid-ah, we shall have plenty of blood to spill after all! He snapped out a command and his three wardogs spun and bolted for the camp. Kamz voiced a cry and saw that his fellow sentinels, two off to his left, three to his right, had all seen and heard the enemy, and dogs were tearing down towards the camp-where he discerned a sudden flurry of activity-\n\nYes, these Akrynnai had made a terrible mistake.\n\nHe shifted grip on his lance, as he saw one of the riders charging directly for him. A fine horse: it would make his first trophy of this day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then, along the ridge behind the first scatter of riders, amass of peaked helms-a blinding glare rising like the crest of an iron wave, and then the flash of scaled armour-\n\nKamz involuntarily stepped back, the rider closing on him forgotten in his shock.\n\nHe was a seasoned warrior. He could gauge numbers in an instant, and he counted as he watched the ranks roll down the slope. Spirits below! Twenty-no, thirty thousand-and still more! I need to-\n\nThe first arrow took him high between his neck and right shoulder. Staggered by the blow, he recovered and looked up only to greet the second arrow, tearing like fire into his throat.\n\nAs blood spurted down his chest, the biting flies rushed in.\n\nWarleader Talt probed with his tongue his single remaining upper canine and then glared at the distant horse-warriors. \"They lead us ever on, and not once do they turn and fight! We are in a land of cowards!\"\n\n\"So we must scrape it clean,\" said Bedit in a growl.\n\nTalt nodded. \"Your words ringlike swords on shields, old friend. These Akrynnai start and dance away like antelope, but their villages are not so fleet, are they? When we are killing their children and raping their young ones, when we are burning their huts and slaughtering their puny horses, then they will fight us!\"\n\n\"Or run in terror, Warleader. Torture kills them quick-we've seen that. They are spineless. \"He pointed with the tip of his spear.\"We must choose our own path here, I think, for it is likely they seek to lead us away from their village. '\n\nTalt studied the distant riders. No more than thirty-they had spied them at dawn, waiting, it seemed, on a distant rise. Talt had half-exhausted his warriors attempting to chase them down. A few scattered arrows sent their way was the extent of their belligerence. It was pathetic. The warleader glanced back at his warriors. Eight hundred men and women, their white paint streaked now with sweat, most of them sitting, hunched over in the heat. \"We shall rest fora time,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I shall remain here,\" Bedit said, lowering himself into a crouch.\n\n\"If they move sound the call.\"\n\n\"Yes, Warleader.\"\n\nTalt hesitated, turning to squint at a mountainous mass of storm clouds to the southwest. Closer, yes.\n\nBedit must have followed his gaze. \"We are in its path. It will do much to cool us down, I think.\"\n\n\"Be sure to leave this hilltop before it arrives,\" Talt advised. \"And hold that spear to the ground.\"\n\nNodding, Bedit grinned and tapped the side of his bone and horn helm. \"Tell the fools below who are wearing iron peaks.\"\n\n\"I will, although it's the Akrynnai who should be worried. '\n\nBedit barked a laugh.\n\nTalt turned and trotted back down to his warriors.\n\nInthalas, third daughter of Sceptre Irkullas, leaned forward on her saddle.\n\nBeside her, Sagant shook himself and said, \"They're done, I think. '\n\nShe nodded, but somewhat distractedly. She had lived her entire life on these plains. She had weathered the fiercest prairie storms-she recalled, once, seeing a hundred dead bhederin on a slope, each one killed by lightning-but she had never before seen clouds like these ones.\n\nHer horse was trembling beneath her.\n\nSagant gusted out a breath. \"We have time, I think, if we strike now. Get it over with quickly and then try to outride the storm.\"\n\nAfter a moment, Inthalas nodded.\n\nSagant laughed and swung his horse round, leaving the small troop of outriders to ride down to where waited-unseen by any Barghast-three wings of Akrynnai horse-archers and lancers, along with nine hundred armoured, axe-wielding shock troops: in all, almost three thousand warriors. Ashe drew closer, he gestured with his freehand, saw with pleasure the alacrity with which his troops responded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Sceptre's great success had been founded, in part, on the clever adoption of the better qualities of the Letherii military-foot-soldiers capable of maintaining tight, disciplined ranks, for one, and an adherence to a doctrine of formations, as well as dictating the field of battle in situations of their own choosing.\n\nLeading the Barghast ever onward, until they were exhausted-leading them straight to their waiting heavy infantry, to a battle in which the White Faces could not hope to triumph-Inthalas had learned well from her father.\n\nThis would be a fine day of slaughter. He laughed again.\n\n______\n\nInthalas had done her part. Now it was time for Sagant. They would finish with these Barghast quickly-she glanced again at the storm-front-yes, it would have to be quickly. The blackened bellies of those clouds seemed to be scraping the ground, reminding her of smoke-but she could not smell anything like a grass fire-no, this was uncanny, troubling. Still a league or more distant, but fast closing.\n\nShe shook herself, faced her fellow outriders. \"We will ride to find a better vantage point once the battle is engaged-and should any Barghast break free, I give you leave to chase them down. You have done well-the fools are spent, unsuspecting, and even now the great village they left behind is likely burning to the Sceptre's touch. '\n\nAt that she saw cold smiles.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" she added, \"we can capture a few here, and visit upon them the horrors they so callously delivered upon our innocent kin.\"\n\nThis pleased them even more.\n\nBedit had watched one of the riders disappear down the other side of the ridge, and this struck him with a faint unease. What reason for that, except to join another troop-hidden in the hollow beyond? Then again, it might be that the entire village waited there, crowded with hundreds of terrified fools." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He slowly straightened-and then felt the first rumble beneath his feet.\n\nBedit turned to face the storm, and his eyes widened. The enormous, swollen clouds were suddenly churning, lifting. Walls of dust or rain spanned the distance between them and the ground, but not-as one would expect-a single front; rather, countless walls, shifting like curtains in a broken row of bizarre angles-and he could now see something like white foam tumbling out from the base of those walls.\n\nHail.\n\nBut if that was true, then those hailstones must be the size of fists-even larger-else he would not be able to see anything of them at this distance. The drumming beneath him shook the entire hill. He shot the Akrynnai a glance and saw them riding straight for him.\n\nBeneath hail and lightning then! He tilted his head back and shrieked his warning to Talt and the others, then collected up his spear and ran down to join them.\n\nHe had just reached the ranks when Akrynnai horse-warriors appeared behind the Barghast, and then on both sides, reining up and closing at the ends to form a three-sided encirclement. Cursing, Bedit spun to face the hill he had just descended. The scouts were there, but well off to one side, and as he stared-half-hearing the shouts of dismay from his fellow warriors through the tumult of thunder-he saw the first ranks of foot-soldiers appear above the crest. Rectangular shields, spiked axes, iron helms with visors and nose-guards, presenting a solid line advancing instep. Rank after rank topped the rise.\n\nWe have the battle we so lusted after. But it shall be our last battle. He howled his defiance, and at his side-stunned, appalled, young Talt visibly flinched at Bedit's cry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then Talt straightened, drawing his sword. \"We shall show them how true warriors fight!\" He pointed at the closing foot-soldiers. \"Nith'rithal! Charge! '\n\nInthalas gasped, eyes widening. The Barghast were rushing the foot-soldiers in a ragged mass, uphill. True, they were bigger, but against that disciplined line they would meet nothing but an iron wall and descending axe blades.\n\nShe expected them to break, reel back-and the Akrynnai ranks would then advance, pressing the savages until they routed-and as they fled, the cavalry would sweep in from the flanks, arrows sleeting, while at the far end of the basin the lancers would level their weapons and then roll down in a charge into the very face of those fleeing Barghast.\n\nNo one would escape.\n\nThunder, flashes of lightning, a terrible growing roar-yet her eyes held frozen on the charging Barghast.\n\nThey hammered into the Akryn ranks, and Inthalas shouted in shock as the first line seemed to simply vanish beneath a crazed flurry of huge Barghast warriors, swords slashing down. Shield edges crumpled. Fragments of shattered helms spat into the air. The three front rows were driven back by the concussion. The chop and clash rose amidst screams of pain and rage, and she saw the Akryn legion bow inward as the remainder of the Barghast pushed their own front ranks ever deeper into the formation. It was moments from being driven apart, split in half.\n\nSagant must have seen the same from where he waited with the lancers. In actual numbers, the Barghast almost matched the foot-soldiers, and their ferocity was appalling. Darkness was swallowing the day, and the flashes of lightning from the west provided moments of frozen clarity as the battle was joined now on all sides-arrows lashing into the Barghast flanks in wave after wave. The plunging descent of Sagant and his lancers closed fast on the rearmost enemy warriors-who seemed indifferent to the threat at their backs as they pushed their comrades in front of them, clawing forward in a frenzy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But that made sense-carve apart the Akryn legion and away would be suddenly open before the Barghast, and in the ensuing chaos of the breakout the lancers would end up snarled with the foot-soldiers, and the archers would hunt uselessly in the gloom to make out foe from friend. All order, and with it command, would be lost.\n\nShe stared, still half-disbelieving, as the legion buckled. The Barghast had now formed a wedge, and it drove ever deeper.\n\nShould the enemy push through and come clear, momentarily uncontested, they could wheel round and set weapons-they could even counter-attack, slaughtering disordered foot-soldiers and tangled lancers.\n\nInthalas turned to her thirty-odd scouts. \"Ride with me!\" And she led them down the back slope of the ridge, cantering and then galloping, to bring her troop round opposite the likely fissure in the legion.\n\n\"When the Barghast fight clear-we charge, do you understand? Arrows and then sabres-into the tip of the wedge. We tumble them, we slow them, we bind them-if with our own dead horses and our own dying bodies, we bind them!\"\n\nShe could see a third of awing of horse-archers pulling clear to the east-they were responding to the threat, but they might not be ready in time.\n\nDamn these barbarians!\n\nInthalas, third daughter of the Sceptre, rose on her stirrups, gaze fixed on the writhing ranks of the legion. My children, your mother will not be returning home. Never again to see your faces. Never-\n\nA sudden impact sent the horses staggering. The ground erupted-and she saw figures wheeling through the air, flung to one side as the storm struck the flank of the hills to the west, struck and tumbled over those hills, swallowing them whole. Inthalas, struggling to stay on her mount, stared in horror as a seething crest of enormous boulders and jagged rocks lifted over the nearest ridge-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something huge and solid loomed within the nearest cloud-towering to fill half the sky." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And its base was carving a bow-wave before it, as if tearing up the earth itself. The avalanche poured over the crest and down the slope of the basin in a roaring wave.\n\nAn entire wing of horse-archers was simply engulfed beneath the onslaught, and then the first of the broken boulders-many bigger than a trader's wagon-crashed into the milling mass of Barghast and Akryn. As the rocks rolled and bounced through the press, pieces of crushed, smeared bodies spun into the air.\n\nAt that moment the lightning struck. Lashing, actinic blades ripping out from the dark, heaving cloud, cutting blackened paths through Sagant's lancers and the clumps of reeling foot-soldiers. The air was filled with burning fragments-bodies lit like torches-men, women, horses-lightning danced from iron to iron in a crazed, terrifying web of charred destruction. Flesh burst in explosions of boiling fluid. Hair ignited like rushes-\n\nSomeone was shrieking in her ear. Inthalas turned, and then gestured-they had to getaway. Away from the storm, away from the slaughter-they had to-\n\nDeafening white light. Agony, and then-\n\nAs if a god's sword had slashed across the hills on the other side of the valley, not a single ridge remained. Something vast and inexorable had pushed those summits down into the valley, burying the Snakehunter camp in amass of deadly rubble. Here and there, Tool could see, remnants were visible among the shattered boulders-torn sections of canvas and hide, snarled shreds of clothing, guy-rope fetishes and feather-bundles, splintered shafts of ridge-poles-and there had been mangled flesh once, too, although now only bleached bones remained, broken, crushed, jutting-yet worse, to Tool's mind, was the black hair, torn loose from flaps of scalp by the beaks of crows, and now wind-blown over the entire slope before them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Riggis had shouldered aside a speechless Bakal and now glared down into that nightmarish scene. After a moment he shook his huge frame and spat. \"This is our enemy, Warleader? Bah! An earthquake! Shall we war against the rocks and soil, then? Stab the hills? Bleed the rivers? You have led us to this? Hoping for what? That we beg you to take us away from an angry earth?\" He drew his tulwar. \"Enough wasting our time. Face me, Onos T'oolan-I challenge your right to lead the White Face Barghast! '\n\nTool sighed. \"Use your eyes, Riggis. What shifting of the earth leaves no cracks? Pushes to one side hilltops without touching their roots? Drives three-possibly more-furrows across the plain, each one converging on this valley, each one striking for the heart of the Snakehunter camp?\" He pointed to the north channel of the valley. \"What earthquake cuts down fleeing Barghast in the hundreds? See them, Riggis-that road of bones?\"\n\n\"Akryn raiders, taking advantage of the broken state of the survivors. Answer my challenge, coward!\"\n\nTool studied the enormous warrior. Not yet thirty, his belt crowded with trophies. He turned to the others and raised his voice, \"Do any of you challenge Riggis and his desire to be Warleader of the White Face Barghast?\"\n\n\"He is not yet Warleader,\" growled Bakal.\n\nTool nodded. \"And should I kill Riggis here, now, will you draw your weapon and voice your challenge tome, Bakal?\" He scanned the others. \"How many of you will seek the same? Shall we stand here over the broken graveyard of the Snakehunter clan and spill yet more Barghast blood? Is this how you will honour your fallen White Faces?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They will not follow you,\" Riggis said, his eyes bright." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Unless you answer my challenge.\"\n\n\"Ah, and so, if I do answer you, Riggis, they will then follow me?\"\n\nThe Senan warrior's laugh was derisive.\"I am not yet ready to speak for them-'\n\n\"You just did.\"\n\n\"Spar no more with empty words, Onos Toolan.\" He widened his stance and readied his heavy-bladed weapon, teeth gleaming amidst his braided beard.\n\n\"Were you Warleader, Riggis,\" Tool said, still standing relaxed, hands at his sides, \"would you slay your best warriors simply to prove your right to rule?\"\n\n\"Any who dared oppose me, yes!\"\n\n\"Then, you would command out of a lust for power, not out of a duty to your people.\"\n\n\"My finest warriors,\" Riggis replied, \"would find no cause to challenge me in the first place.\"\n\n\"They would, as soon as they decided to disagree with you, Riggis. And this would haunt you, in the back of your mind. With every decision you made, you would find yourself weighing the risks, and before long you would gather to yourself an entourage of cohorts-the ones whose loyalty you have purchased with favours-and you would sit like a spider in the centre of your web, starting at every tremble of the silk. How well can you trust your friends, knowing how you yourself bought them? How soon before you find yourself swaying to every gust of desire among your people? Suddenly, that power you so hungered for proves to be a prison. You seek to please everyone and so please no one. You search the eyes of those closest to you, wondering if you can trust them, wondering if their smiles are but lying masks, wondering what they say behind your back-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Enough!\" Riggis roared, and then charged.\n\nThe flint sword appeared as if conjured in Tool's hands. It seemed to flicker.\n\nRiggis staggered to one side, down onto one knee. His broken tulwar thumped to the ground four paces away, the warrior's hand still wrapped tight about the grip. He blinked down at his own chest, as if looking for something, and blood ran from the stump of his wrist-ran, but the flow was ebbing. With his remaining hand he reached up to touch an elongated slit in his boiled-leather hauberk, from which the faint glisten of blood slowly welled. A slit directly above his heart.\n\nHe looked up at Tool, perplexed, and then sat back.\n\nA moment later, Riggis fell onto his side, and no further movement came from him.\n\nTool faced Bakal. \"Do you seek to be Warleader, Bakal? If so, you can have it. I yield command of the White Face Barghast. To you\"-he turned to the others-\"to any of you. I will be the coward you want me to be. For what now comes, someone else shall be responsible-not me, not anymore. In my last words as Warleader, I say this: gather the White Face Barghast, gather all the clans, and march to the Lether Empire. Seek sanctuary. A deadly enemy has returned to these plains, an ancient enemy. You are in a war you cannot win. Leave this land and save your people. Or remain, and the White Faces shall all die.\" He ran the tip of his sword through a tuft of grass, and then slung it back into the sheath beneath his left arm. \"A worthy warrior lies dead. The Senan has suffered a loss this day. The fault is mine. Now, Bakal, you and the others can squabble over the prize, and those who fall shall not have me to blame.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I do not challenge you, Onos Toolan,\" said Bakal, licking dry lips.\n\nTool flinched.\n\nIn the silence following that, not one of the other warriors spoke.\n\nDamn you, Bakal. I was almost... free.\n\nBakal spoke again, \"Warleader, I suggest we examine the dead at the end of the valley, to determine what manner of weapon cut them down.\"\n\n\"I will lead the Barghast from this plain,\" Tool said.\n\n\"Clans will breakaway, Warleader.\"\n\n\"They already are doing so.\"\n\n\"You will have only the Senan.\"\n\n\"I will?\"\n\nBakal shrugged. \"There is no value in you killing a thousand Senan warriors. There is no value in challenging you-I have never seen a blade sing so fast. We shall be furious with you, but we shall follow.\"\n\n\"Even if I am a leader with no favours to grant, Bakal, no loyalty I would purchase from any of you?\"\n\n\"Perhaps that has been true, Onos Toolan. In that, you have been... fair. But it need not remain so... empty. Please, you must tell us what you know of this enemy-who slays with rocks and dirt. We are not fools who will blindly oppose what we cannot hope to defeat-\"\n\n\"What of the prophecies, Bakal?\" Tool then smiled wryly at the warrior's scowl.\n\n\"Ever open to interpretation, Warleader. Will you speak to us now?\"\n\nTool gestured at the valley below. \"Is this not eloquent enough?\"\n\n\"Buy our loyalty with the truth, Onos Toolan. Gift us all with an even measure.\" Yes, this is how one leads. Anything else is suspect. Every other road proves amaze of deceit and cynicism. After a moment, he nodded. \"Let us look upon the fallen Snakehunters.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sun was low on the horizon when the two scouts were brought into Maral Eb's presence where he sat beside a dung fire over which skewers of horse meat sizzled. The scouts were both young and he did not know their names, but the excitement he observed in their faces awakened his attention. He pointed to one.\"You shall speak, and quickly now-I am about to eat. '\n\n\"A Senan war-party,\" the scout said.\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"We were the ones backtracking the Snakehunters\" trail, Warchief. They are camped in a hollow not a league from here. '\n\n\"How many?\"\n\n\"A hundred, no more than that. But, Warchief, there is something else-\"\n\n\"Out with it!\"\n\n\"Onos Toolan is with them.\"\n\nMaral Eb straightened. \"Are you certain? Escorted by a mere hundred? The fool!\"\n\nHis two younger brothers came running at his words and Maral Eb grinned at them. \"Stir the warriors-we eat on the march.\"\n\n\"Are you sure of this, Maral?\" his youngest brother asked.\n\n\"We strike,\" the warchief snarled. \"In darkness. We kill them all. But be certain every warrior understands-no one is to slay Tool. Wound him, yes, but not unto death-if anyone gets careless I will have him or her skinned alive and roasted over afire. Now, quickly-the gods smile down upon us!\"\n\nThe Barahn warchief led his four thousand warriors across the rolling plains at aground-devouring trot. One of the two scouts padded twenty paces directly ahead, keeping them to the trail, whilst others ranged further out on the flanks. The moon had yet to rise, and even when it did, it would be weak, shrouded in perpetual haze-these nights, the brightest illumination came from the jade streaks to the south, and that was barely enough to cast shadows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The perfect setting for an ambush. None of the other tribes would ever know the truth-after all, with Tool and a hundred no doubt elite warriors dead the Senan would be crippled, and the Barahn Clan would achieve swift ascendancy once Maral Eb attained the status of Warleader overall the White Face Barghast. And was it not in every Barahn warrior's interest to hide the truth? The situation was ideal.\n\nWeapons and armour were bound, muffled against inadvertent noise, and the army moved in near silence. Before long, the lead scout hurried back to the main column. Maral Eb gestured and his warriors halted behind him.\n\n\"The hollow is two hundred paces ahead, Warchief. Fires are lit. There will be pickets-\"\n\n\"Don't tell me my business, \"Maral Eb growled. He drew his brothers closer.\"Sagal, take your Skullsplitters north. Kashat, you lead your thousand south. Stay a hundred paces back from the pickets, low to the ground, and form into a six-deep crescent. There is noway we can kill those sentinels silently, so the surprise will not be absolute, but we have overwhelming numbers, so that will not matter. I will lead my two thousand straight in. When you hear my war-cry, brothers, rise and close. No one must escape, so leave a half hundred spread wide in your wake. It maybe we will drive them west fora time, so be sure to be ready to wheel your crescents to close that route. \"He paused.\"Listen well to this. Tonight, we break the most sacred law of the White Faces-but necessity forces our hand. Onos Toolan has betrayed the Barghast. He dishonours us. I hereby pledge to reunite the clans, to lead us to glory. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The faces arrayed before him were sober, but he could seethe gleam in their eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were with him. \"This night shall stain our souls black, my brothers, but we will spend the rest of our lives cleansing them. Now, go!\"\n\nOnos Toolan sat beside the dying fire. The camp was quiet, as his words of truth now sank into hearts like the flames, flaring and winking out.\n\nThe stretch of ages could humble the greatest of peoples, once all the self-delusions were stripped away. Pride had its place, but not at the expense of sober truth. Even back on Genabackis, the White Faces had strutted about as if unaware that their culture was drawing to an end; that they had been pushed into inhospitable lands; that farms and then cities rose upon ground they once held to be sacred, or rightly theirs as hunting grounds or pasture lands. All around them, the future showed faces ghastlier and more deadly than anything white paint could achieve-when Humbrall Taur had led them here, to this continent, he had done so in fullest comprehension of the extinction awaiting his Barghast should they remain on Genabackis, besieged by progress.\n\nProphecies never touched on such matters. By nature, they were proclamations of egotism, rife with pride and bold fates. Humbrall Taur had, however, managed a clever twist or two in making use of them.\n\nToo bad he is gone-I would rather have stood at his side than in his place. I would rather-\n\nTool's breath caught and he lifted his head. He reached out and settled one hand down on the packed earth, and then slowly closed his eyes. Ah, Hetan... my children... forgive me.\n\nThe Imass rose, turned to the nearest other fire. \"Bakal.\"\n\nThe warrior looked over. \"Warleader?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Draw your dagger, Bakal, and come tome.\"\n\nThe warrior did not move fora moment, and then he rose, sliding the gutting knife from its scabbard. He walked over, cautious, uncertain.\n\nMy warriors... enough blood has been shed. \"Drive the knife deep, directly under my heart. When I fall, begin shouting these words-as loud as you can. Shout'Tool is dead! Onos Toolan lies slain! Our Warleader lies dead!\" Do you understand me, Bakal?\"\n\nThe warrior, eyes wide, slowly backed away. Others had caught the words and were now rising, converging.\n\nTool closed on Bakal once again. \"Be quick, Bakal-if you value your life and the lives of everyone of your kin here. You must slay me-now!\"\n\n\"Warleader! I will not-\"\n\nTool's hands snapped out, closed on Bakal's right hand and wrist.\n\nThe warrior gasped, struggled to tug free, but against Tool's strength, he was helpless. The Imass pulled him close.\"Remember-shout out my death, it is your only hope-'\n\nBakal sought to loosen his grip on his knife, but Tool's huge, spatulate hand wrapped his own as would an adult's a child's. The other, closed round his wrist, dragged him inexorably forward.\n\nThe blade's tip touched Tool's leather armour.\n\nWhimpering, Bakal sought to throw himself backward-but the imprisoned arm did not move. He tried to drop to his knees, and his elbow dislocated with a pop. He howled in pain.\n\nThe other warriors-who had stood frozen-suddenly rushed in.\n\nBut Tool gave them no time. He drove the dagger into his chest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sudden, blinding pain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Releasing Bakal's wrist, he staggered back, stared down at the knife buried to its hilt in his chest.\n\nHetan, my love, forgive me.\n\nThere was shouting all round him now-horror, terrible confusion, and then, on his knees, Bakal lifted his head and met Tool's gaze.\n\nThe Imass had lost his voice, but he sought to implore the man with his eyes. Shout out my death! Spirits take me-shout it out loud! He stumbled, lost his footing, and fell heavily onto his back.\n\nDeath-he had forgotten its bitter kiss. So long... so long.\n\nBut I knew a gift. I tasted the air in my lungs... after so long... after ages of dust. The sweet air of love... but now...\n\nNight-stained faces crowded above him, paint white as bone.\n\nSkulls? Ah, my brothers... we are dust-\n\nDust, and nothing but-\n\nHe could hear shouting, alarms rising from the Senan encampment. Cursing, Maral Eb straightened, saw the sentinels clearly now-all running back into the camp.\n\n\"Damn the gods! We must charge-\"\n\n\"Listen!\" cried the scout. \"Warchief-listen to the words!\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nAnd then he did. His eyes slowly widened. Could it be true? Have the Senan taken matters into their own hands?\n\nOf course they have! They are Barghast! White Faces! He raised his sword high in the air. \"Barahn!\" he roared. \"Hear the words of your warchief! Sheathe your weapons! The betrayer is slain! Onos Toolan is slain! Let us go down to meet our brothers!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Voices howled in answer.\n\nThey will have someone to set forward-they will not relinquish dominance so easily-I might well draw blood this night after all. But none will stand long before me. I am Maral Eb, slayer of hundreds.\n\nThe way lies open.\n\nIt lies open.\n\nThe Barahn warchief led his warriors down into the hollow.\n\nTo claim his prize.\n\nHetan woke in the night. She stared upward, eyes wide but unseeing, until they filled with tears. The air in the yurt was stale, darkness heavy and suffocating as a shroud. My husband, I dreamed the flight of your soul... I dreamed its brush upon my lips. A moment, only a moment, and then it was as if avast windswept you away.\n\nI heard your cry, husband.\n\nOh, such a cruel dream, beloved.\n\nAnd now... I smell dust in the air. Rotted furs. The dry taste of ancient death.\n\nHer heart pounded like a mourner's drum in her chest, loud, heavy, the beat stretching with each deep breath she took. That taste, that smell. She reached up to touch her own lips. And felt something like grit upon them.\n\nObeloved, what has happened?\n\nWhat has happened-\n\nTo my husband-to the father of my children-what has happened?\n\nShe let out a ragged sigh, forcing out the unseemly fear. Such a cruel dream.\n\nFrom the outer room, the dog whined softly, and a moment later their son suddenly sobbed, and then bawled.\n\nAnd she knew the truth. Such a cruel truth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ralata crouched in the high grasses and studied the figures gathered round the distant fire." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "None had stirred in the time she had been watching. But the horses were tugging at their stakes and even from here she could smell their terror-and she did not understand, for she could see nothing-no threat in any direction.\n\nEven so, it was strange that none of her sisters had awakened. In fact, they did not move at all.\n\nHer confusion was replaced by unease. Something was wrong.\n\nShe glanced back at the hollow where waited her horse. The animal seemed calm enough. Collecting her weapons, Ralata rose and padded forward.\n\nHessanrala might be a headstrong young fool, but she knew her trade as well as any Ahkrata warrior-she should be on her feet by now, drawing the others in with silent hand gestures-was it just a snake slithering among the horses' hoofs? Ascent on the wind?\n\nNo, something was very wrong.\n\nAs she drew within ten paces, she could smell bile, spilled wastes, and blood. Mouth dry, Ralata crept closer. They were dead. She knew that now. She had failed to protect them-but how? What manner of slayer could creep upon five Barghast warriors? As soon as night had fallen, she had drawn near enough to watch them preparing camp. She had watched them rubdown the horses; had watched them eat and drink beer from Hessanrala's skin. They had set no watch among themselves, clearly relying upon the horses should danger draw near. But Ralata had remained wakeful, had even seen when the horses first wakened to alarm.\n\nBeneath the stench of death there was something else, an oily bitterness reminding her of serpents. She studied the movements of the Akryn mounts-no, they were not shying from any snake in the grasses. Heads tossed, ears cocking in one direction after another, eyes rolling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ralata edged towards the firelight. Once lit, dried dung burned hot but not bright, quick to sink into bricks of pulsating ashes; in the low, lurid reflection, she could see fresh blood, glistening meat from split corpses.\n\nNo quick knife thrusts here. No, these were the wounds delivered by the talons of a huge beast. Bear? Barbed cat? If so, why not drag at least one body away... to feed upon? Why ignore the horses? And how was it that Ralata had seen nothing; that not one of her kin had managed to utter a death-cry?\n\nGutted, throat-slit, chests ripped open-she saw the stubs of ribs cut clean through. Talons sharp as swords-or swords in truth? All at once she recalled, years ago, on the distant continent they had once called home, visions of giant undead, two-legged lizards. K'Chain Che'Malle, arrayed in silent ranks in front of the city called Coral. Swords at the end of their wrists instead of hands-but no, the wounds she looked upon here were different. What then had triggered that memory?\n\nRalata slowly inhaled once more, deeply, steadily, running the acrid flavours through her. Yes, the smell. Although, long ago, it was more... stale, rank with death.\n\nBut the kiss upon the tongue-it is the same.\n\nThe horses ducked and fanned out, heads snapping back as they reached the ends of their tethers. A faint downdraught of wind-the whish of wings-\n\nRalata threw herself flat, rolled, making for the legs of the horses-anything to put between her and whatever hovered above.\n\nThuds in the air, leathery hissing-she stared up into the night, caught avast winged silhouette that devoured a sweep of stars. A flash, and then it was gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hoofs kicked at her, and then settled.\n\nShe heard laughter in her head-not her own, something cold, contemptuous, fading now into some inner distance, until even the echoes were gone.\n\nRalata rose to her feet. The thing had flown northeastward. Of course, there could be no tracking such a creature, but at least she had a direction.\n\nShe had failed to protect her kin. Perhaps, however, she could avenge them.\n\nThe Wastelands were well named, but Torrent had always known that. He had last found water two days past, and the skins strapped to his saddle would suffice him no more than another day. Travelling at night was the only option, now that the full heat of summer had arrived, but his horse was growing gaunt, and all that he could see before them beneath dull moonlight was avast, flat stretch of sunbaked clay and shards of broken stone.\n\nThe first night following the gate and his parting ways with Cafal and Setoc, he had come upon a ruined tower, ragged as a rotten fang, the walls of which seemed to have melted under enormous heat. The destruction was so thorough not a single window or dressed facing survived, and much of the structure's skeleton was visible as sagging latticework snarled with twisted ropes of rusting metal wire. He had never before seen anything remotely like it, and superstitious fear kept him from riding closer.\n\nSince then, Torrent had seen nothing of interest, nothing to break the monotony of the blasted landscape. No mounds, no hills, not even ancient remnants of myrid, rodara and goat pens, as one often found on the Awl'dan.\n\nIt was nearing dawn when he made out a humped shape ahead, directly in his path, barely rising above the cracked rock. The ripple of furs-a torn, frayed hide riding hunched, narrow shoulders. Thin, grey hair seeming to float up from the head in the faint, sighing wind. A girdled skirt of rotted strips of snakeskin flared out from the seated form. He drew closer. The figure's back was to Torrent, and beyond the wind-tugged hair and accoutrements, it remained motionless as he walked his horse up and halted five paces behind it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A corpse?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From the weathered pate beneath the sparse hair, it was likely. But who would have simply left one of their own out on this lifeless pan?\n\nWhen the figure spoke, Torrent's horse started back, nostrils flaring.\"The fool. I needed him. '\n\nThe voice was rough as sand, hollow as a wind-sculpted cave. He could not tell if it belonged to a manor a woman.\n\nIt uttered something between a sigh and a hissing snarl, and then asked, \"What am Ito do now?\"\n\nThe Awl warrior hesitated, and then said, \"You speak the language of my people. Are you Awl? No, you cannot be. I am the last-and what you wear-\"\n\n\"You have no answer, then. I amused to disappointment. Indeed, surprise is an emotion I have not known for so long, I believe I have forgotten its taste. Be on your way then-this world and its needs are too vast for one such as you. He would have fared better, of course, but now he's dead. I am so... irritated. '\n\nTorrent dismounted, collecting one of his waterskins. \"You must be thirsty, old one.\"\n\n\"Yes, my throat is parched, but there is nothing you can do for that.\"\n\n\"I have some water-\"\n\n\"Which you need more than I do. Still, it is a kind gesture. Foolish, but most kind gestures are.\"\n\nWhen he walked round to face the elder, he frowned. Much of the face was hidden in the shadow of protruding brows, but it seemed it was adorned in rough strings of beads or threads. He caught the dull gleam of teeth and a shiver whispered through him. Involuntarily he made awarding gesture with his freehand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rasping laughter. \"Your spirits of wind and earth, warrior, are my children. And you imagine such fends work on me? But wait, there is this, isn't there? The long thread of shared blood between us. I might be foolish, to think such things, but if anyone has earned the right to be a fool, it must surely be me. Thus yielding this... gesture. '\n\nThe figure rose in a clatter of bones grating in dry sockets. Torrent saw the long tubes of bare, withered breasts, the skin patched and rotted; a sagging belly cut and slashed, the edges of the wounds dry and hanging, and in the gashes themselves there was impenetrable darkness-as if this woman was as dried up inside as she was on the outside.\n\nTorrent licked parched lips, struggled to swallow, and then spoke in a hushed tone, \"Woman, are you dead?\"\n\n\"Life and death is such an old game. I'm too old to play. Did you know, these lips once touched those of the Son of Darkness? In our days of youth, in a world far from this one-far, yes, but little different in the end. But what value such grim lessons? We see and we do, but we know nothing. \"A desiccated handmade a fluttering gesture.\"The fool presses a knife to his chest. He thinks it is done. He too knows nothing, because, you see, I will not let go. '\n\nThe words, confusing as they were, chilled Torrent nonetheless. The waterskin dangled in his hand, and its pathetic weight now mocked him.\n\nThe head lifted, and beneath those jutting brow ridges Torrent saw a face of dead skin stretched across prominent bones. Black pits regarded him above a permanent grin. The beaded threads he had thought he'd seen turned out to be strips of flesh-as if some clawed beast had raked talons down the old woman's face. \"You need water. Your horse needs fodder. Come, I will lead you and so save your useless lives. Then, if you are lucky, I will eventually find a reason to keep you alive.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something told Torrent that refusing her was impossible. \"I am named Torrent,\" he said.\n\n\"I know your name. The one-eyed Herald begged me on your behalf.\" She snorted. \"As if I am known for mercy.\"\n\n\"The one-eyed Herald?\"\n\n\"The Dead Rider, out from Hood's Hollow. He knows little respite of late. An omen harsh as a crow's laugh, thus comes Toc the Younger-but do I not cherish the privacy of my dreams? He is rude.\"\n\n\"He haunts my dreams as well, Old One-\"\n\n\"Stop calling me that. It is... inaccurate. Call me by my name, and that name is Olar Ethil.\"\n\n\"Olar Ethil,\" said Torrent, \"will he come again?\"\n\nShe cocked her head, was silent a moment. \"As they shall, to their regret, soon discover, the answer is yes.\"\n\nSunlight spilled over a grotesque scene. Cradling his injured arm, Bakal stood with a half-dozen other Senan. Behind them, the new self-acclaimed Warleader of the White Faces, Maral Eb, was cajoling his warriors to wakefulness. The night had been long. The air smelled of spilled beer and puke. The Barahn were rising rough and loud, unwilling to relinquish their abandon.\n\nBefore Bakal and the others was the flat where their encampment had been-not a tent remained, not a single cookfire still smouldered. The Senan, silent, grim-faced, were ready to begin the march back home. A reluctant escort to the new Warleader. They sat on the ground to one side, watching the Barahn.\n\nFlies were awakening. Crows circled overhead and would soon land to feed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Onos Toolan's body had been torn apart, the flesh deboned and pieces of him scattered everywhere. His bones had been systematically shattered, the fragments strewn about. His skull had been crushed. Eight Barahn warriors had tried to break the flint sword and had failed. In the end, it was pushed into afire built from dung and Tool's furs and clothing, and then, when everything had burned down, scores of Barahn warriors pissed on the blackened stone, seeking to shatter it. They had failed, but the desecration was complete.\n\nDeep inside Bakal, rage seethed black and biting as acid upon his soul. Yet for all its virulence, it could not destroy the knot of guilt at the very centre of his being. He could still feel the handle of his dagger in his hand, could swear that the wire impressions remained on his palm, seared like a brand. He felt sick.\n\n\"He has agents in our camp,\" said the warrior beside him, his voice barely a murmur. \"Barahn women married into the Senan. And others. Stolmen's wife, her mother. We know what Hetan's fate will be-and Maral Eb will not permit us to travel ahead of him-he does not trust us.\"\n\n\"Nor should he, Strahl,\" replied Bakal.\n\n\"If there were more of us and less of them.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"Bakal, do we tell the Warleader? Of the enemy Onos Toolan described?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Then he will lead us all to our deaths.\"\n\nBakal glared across at the warrior. \"Not the Senan.\" He studied the array of faces before him, gauging the effect of his words, and then nodded. \"We must cut ourselves loose.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Into the Lether Empire,\" said Strahl, \"as Tool said. Negotiate settlement treaties, make peace with the Akrynnai.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nThey fell silent again, and, inevitably, eyes turned once more to the scene before them. Their rendered Warleader, the endless signs of vicious blasphemy. This dull, discredited morning. This foul, accursed land. The crows had landed and were now hopping about, beaks darting down.\n\n\"They will hobble her and kill the spawn,\" said Strahl, who then spat to clear the foulness of the words. \"Yesterday, Bakal, we would have joined in. We would have each taken her. One of our own knives might well have tasted the soft throats of the children. And now, look at us. Ashes in our mouths, dust in our hearts. What has happened? What has he done to us?\"\n\n\"He showed us the burden of an honourable man, Strahl. And yes, it stings.\"\n\n\"He used you cruelly, Bakal.\"\n\nThe warrior stared down at his swollen hand, and then shook his head. \"I failed him. I did not understand.\"\n\n\"If you failed him,\" growled Strahl, \"then we all have.\"\n\nIn Bakal's mind, there was no disputing that.\"To think, \"he muttered,\"we called him coward. '\n\nBefore them and behind them, the crows danced.\n\nSome roads were easier to leave than others. Many walked to seek the future, but found only the past. Others sought the past, to make it new once more, and discovered that the past was nothing like the one they'd imagined. One could walk in search of friends, and find naught but strangers. One could yearn for company but find little but cruel solitude." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A few roads offered the gift of pilgrimage, a place to find somewhere ahead and somewhere in the heart, both to be found at the road's end.\n\nIt was true, as well, that some roads never ended at all, and that pilgrimage could prove a flight from salvation, and all the burdens one carried one must now carry back to the place whence they came.\n\nDrop by drop, the blood built worn stone and dirt. Drop by drop, the way of the Road to Gallan was opened. Weak, ever on the edge of fever, Yan Tovis, Queen of the Shake, commander of thousands of the dispirited and the lost, led the wretched fools ever onward. To the sides, shadows thickened to darkness, and still she walked.\n\nHunger assailed her people. Thirst haunted them. Livestock lowed in abject confusion, stumbled and then died. She had forgotten that this ancient path was one she had chosen to ease the journey, to slip unseen through the breadth of the Letherii Kingdom. She had forgotten that they must leave it-and now it was too late.\n\nThe road was more than a road. It was a river and its current was tightening, holding fast all that it carried, and the pace quickened, ever quickened. She could fight-they all could fight-and achieve nothing but drowning.\n\nDrop by drop, she fed the river, and the road rushed them forward.\n\nWe are going home. Did I want this? Did I want to know all that we had abandoned? Did I want the truth, an end to the mysteries of our beginnings?\n\nWas this a pilgrimage? A migration? Will we find salvation?\n\nShe had never even believed in such things. Sudden benediction, blessed release-these were momentary intoxications, as addictive as any drug, until one so hungered for the escape that the living, mindful world paled in comparison, bleached of all life, all wonder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was not a prophet. But they wanted a prophet. She was not holy. But they begged her blessing. Her path did not promise a road to glory. Yet they followed unquestioningly.\n\nHer blood was not a river, but how it flowed!\n\nNo sense left for time. No passage of light to mark dawn, noon and dusk. Darkness all around them, before and behind, darkness breeding in swirls of stale air, the taste of ashes, the stench of charred wood and fire-cracked stone. How long? She had no idea.\n\nBut people behind her were falling. Dying.\n\nWhere is home? It lies ahead. Where is home? Lost far behind us.\n\nWhere is home? It is within, gutted and hollow, waiting to be filled once more.\n\nWhere is Gallan?\n\nAt this road's end.\n\nWhat is Gallan's promise? It is home. I-I need to work through this. Round and round-madness to let it run, madness. Will the light never return? Is the joke this: that salvation is all around us, even as we remain forever blind to it?\n\nBecause we believe... there must be a road. A journey, an ordeal, a place to find.\n\nWe believe in the road. And in believing we build it, stone by stone, drop by drop. We bleed for our belief, and as the blood flows, the darkness closes in-\n\n\"The Road to Gallan is not a road. Some roads... are not roads at all. Gallan's promise is not from hereto there. It is from now to then. The darkness... the darkness comes from within. '\n\nA truth, and most truths were revelations." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She opened her eyes.\n\nBehind her, parched throats opened in a moaning chorus. Thousands, the sound rising to challenge the rush of black water on stony shores, to waft out and run between the charred tree-stumps climbing the hillsides to the left.\n\nYan Tovis stood at the shore, not seeing the river sweeping past the toes of her boots. Her gaze had lifted, vision cutting through the mottled atmosphere, to look upon the silent, unlit ruins of avast city.\n\nThe city.\n\nKharkanas.\n\nThe Shake have come home.\n\nAre we... are we home?\n\nThe air belonged in a tomb, a forgotten crypt.\n\nAnd she could see, and she knew. Kharkanas is dead.\n\nThe city is dead.\n\nBlind Gallan-you lied to us.\n\nYan Tovis howled. She fell to her knees, into the numbing water of River Eryn. \"You lied! You lied!\" Tears ran from her eyes, streamed down her cheeks. Salty beads spun and glittered as they plunged into the lifeless river.\n\nDrop by drop.\n\nTo feed the river.\n\nYedan Derryg led his horse forward, hoofs crunching on the stones, and relaxed the reins so that the beast could drink. He cradled his wounded arm and said nothing as he looked to the right and studied the kneeling, bent-over form of his sister.\n\nThe muscles of his jaw bunched beneath his beard, and he straightened to squint at the distant ruins.\n\nPully stumped up beside him. Her young face looked bruised with shock. \"We... walked... to this?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Blind Gallan gave us a road,\" said Yedan Derryg. \"But what do the blind hold to more than anything else? Only that which was sweet in their eyes-the last visions they beheld. We followed the road into his memories.\" After a moment, he shrugged, chewed fora time, and then said, \"What in the Errant's name did you expect, witch? '\n\nHis horse had drunk enough. Gathering up the reins, he backed the mount from the shore's edge and then wheeled it round.\"Sergeant! Spread the soldiers out-the journey has ended. See to the raising of a camp. \"He faced the two witches.\"You two, bind Twilight's wounds and feed her. I will be back shortly-\"\n\n\"Where are you going?\"\n\nYedan Derryg stared at Pully fora time, and then he set heels to his horse and rode past the witch, downstream along the shoreline.\n\nA thousand paces further on, a stone bridge spanned the river, and beyond it wound a solid, broad road leading to the city. Beneath that bridge, he saw, there was some kind of logjam, so solid as to form a latticed barrier sufficient to push the river out to the sides, creating elongated swampland skirting this side of the raised road.\n\nAshe drew closer he saw that most of the logjam seemed to consist of twisted metal bars and cables.\n\nHe was forced to slow his mount, picking his way across the silted channel, but at last managed to drive the beast up the bank and onto the road.\n\nHoofs kicked loose lumps of muck as he rode across the bridge. Downstream of the barrier the river ran still, slightly diminished and cutting a narrower, faster channel. On the flats to either side there was more rusted, unidentifiable wreckage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once on the road, he fixed his gaze on the towering gate ahead, but something in its strange, alien architecture made his head spin, so he studied the horizon to the right-where massive towers rose from sprawling, low buildings. He was not certain, but he thought he could detect thin, ragged streamers of smoke from the tops of those towers. After a time, he decided that what he was seeing was the effect of the wind and updraughts from those chimneys pulling loose ashes from deep pits at the base of the smokestacks.\n\nOn the road before him, here and there, he saw faint heaps of corroded metal, and the wink of jewellery-corpses had once crowded this approach, but the bones had long since crumbled to dust.\n\nThe mottled light cast sickly sheens on the outer walls of the city-and those stones, he could now see, were blackened with soot, a thick crust that glittered like obsidian.\n\nYedan Derryg halted before the gate. The way was open-no sign of barriers remained beyond torn hinges reduced to corroded lumps. He could see abroad street beyond the arch, and dust on the cobbles black as crushed coal.\n\n\"Walk on, horse.\"\n\nAnd Prince Yedan Derryg rode into Kharkanas." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The dead have found me in my dreams Fishing beside lakes and in strange houses That could be homes for lost families In all the pleasures of completeness And I wander through their natural company In the soft comforts of contentment. The dead greet me with knowing ease And regard nothing the forsaken awakening That abandons me in this new solitude Of eyes flickering open and curtains drawing. When the dead find me in my dreams I see them living in the hidden places Unanchored in time and ageless as wishes. The woman lying at my side hears my sigh Following the morning chime and asks After meas I lie in the wake of sorrow's concert, But I will not speak of life's loneliness Or the empty shorelines where fishermen belong And the houses never lived in never again That stand in necessary configurations To build us familiar places for the dead. One day I will journey into her dreams But I say nothing of this behind my smile And she will see me hunting the dark waters For the flit of trout and we will travel Strange landscapes in the forever instant Until she leaves me for the living day But as the dead well know the art of fishing Finds its reward in brilliant joyous hope And eternal loving patience, and it is my Thought now that such gods that exist Are the makers of dreams and this is their gift This blessed river of sleep and dreams Wherein wonder we may greet our dead And sages and priests are wise when they say Death is but sleep and we are forever alive In the dreams of the living, for I have seen My dead on nightly journeys and I tell you this: They are well.\n\nSONG OF DREAMING FISHER" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They came late to the empty land and looked with bitterness upon the six wolves watching them from the horizon's rim. With them was a herd of goats and a dozen black sheep. They took no account of the wolves\" possession of this place, for in their minds ownership was the human crown that none other had the right to wear. The beasts were content to share in survival's struggle, in hunt and quarry, and the braying goats and bawling sheep had soft throats and carelessness was a common enough flaw among herds; and they had not yet learned the manner of these two-legged intruders. Herds were fed upon by many creatures. Often the wolves shared their meals with crows and coyotes, and had occasion to argue with lumbering bears over a delectable prize.\n\nWhen I came upon the herders and their longhouse on a flat above the valley, I found six wolf skulls spiked above the main door. In my travels as a minstrel I knew enough that I had no need to ask-this was a tale woven into our kind, after all. No words, either, for the bearskins on the walls, the antelope hides and elk racks. Not a brow lifted for the mound of bhederin bones in the refuse pit, or the vultures killed by the poison-baited meat left for the coyotes.\n\nThat night I sang and spun tales for my keep. Songs of heroes and great deeds and they were pleased enough and the beer was passing and the shank stew palatable.\n\nPoets are sembling creatures, capable of shrugging into the skin of man, woman, child and beast. There are some among them secretly marked, sworn to the cults of the wilderness. And that night I shared out my poison and in the morning I left a lifeless house where not a dog remained to cry, and I sat upon a hill with my pipe, summoning once more the wild beasts. I defend their ownership when they cannot, and make no defence against the charge of murder; but temper your horror, friends: there is no universal law that places a greater value upon human life over that of a wild beast. Why would you ever imagine otherwise?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CONFESSIONS OFT WO HUNDRED TWENTY-THREE COUNTS OF JUSTICE W ELTHAN THEM INSTREL (AKA SINGER MAD)\n\nHe came to us in the guise of a duke from an outlying border fastness-a place remote enough that none of us even thought to suspect him. And in his manner, his hard countenance and few words, he matched well our lazy preconceptions of such a man. None of us could argue that there was something about him, a kind of self-assurance rarely seen at court. In his eyes, like wolves straining at chains, there was a hint of the feral-the priestesses positively dripped.\n\n\"But, they would find, his was a most potent seed. And it was not Tiste Andii.\"\n\nSilchas Ruin poked at the fire with a stick, reawakening flames. Sparks fled up into the dark. Rud watched the warrior's cadaverous face, the mottled play of orange light that seemed to paint brief moments of life in it.\n\nAfter a time, Silchas Ruin settled back and resumed. \"Power was drawn to him like slivers of iron to a lodestone... it all seemed so... natural. His distant origins invited the notion of neutrality, and one might argue, in hindsight, that Draconus was indeed neutral. He would use any and every Tiste Andii to further his ambitions, and how were we to imagine that, at the very core of his desire, there was love?\"\n\nRud's gaze slid away from Silchas Ruin, up and over the Tiste Andii's right shoulder, to the terrible slashes of jade in the night sky. He tried to think of something to say, a comment of any sort: something wry, perhaps, or knowing, or cynical. But what did he know of the love such as Silchas Ruin was describing? What, indeed, did he know of anything in this or any other world?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Consort to Mother Dark-he laid claim to that title, eventually, as if it was a role he had lost and had vowed to reacquire.\" The white-skinned warrior snorted, eyes fixed on the flickering flames. \"Who were we to challenge that assertion? Mother's children had by then ceased to speak with her. No matter. What son would not challenge his mother's lover-new lover, old lover, whatever-\" and he looked up, offering Rud a faint grin. \"Perhaps you've some understanding of that, at least. After all, Udinaas was not Menandore's first and only love.\"\n\nRud looked away again. \"I am not certain love was involved.\"\n\n\"Perhaps not. Do you wish more tea, Rud Elalle?\"\n\n\"No, thank you. It is a potent brew.\"\n\n\"Necessary, for the journey to come.\"\n\nRud frowned. \"I do not understand.\"\n\n\"This night, we shall travel. There are things you must see. It is not enough that I simply lead you this way and that-I do not expect a loyal hound at my heel, I expect a comrade standing at my side. To witness is to approach comprehension, and you will need that, when you decide.\"\n\n\"Decide what?\"\n\n\"The side you will take in the war awaiting us, among other things.\"\n\n\"Other things. Such as?\"\n\n\"Where to make your stand, and when. Your mother chose a mortal for your father fora good reason, Rud. Unexpected strengths come from such mating: the offspring often exhibit the best traits from both.\"\n\nRud started as a stone cracked in the fire. \"You say you will lead me to places, Silchas Ruin, for you have no wish that I be naught but a loyal, mindless hound. Yet it maybe that I shall not, in the end, choose to stand beside you at all. What then? What if I find myself opposite you in this war?\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist in storytelling and proceed with the tale.\nTags: epic fantasy, complex plot, multiple characters, dark themes, intricate world-building\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Dust of Dreams\nChapter: 28" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yelk, tell me how you would engage what you see here.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't, Warleader. '\n\nGall glanced over, his eyes brightening. \"Go on. Would you flap your tail in flight? Surrender? Cower in bulging breeches and sue for peace? Spill out endless concessions until the shackles close round the ankles of every living Khundryl?\"\n\n\"I'd present our own wings and face them for most of a day, Warleader. '\n\n\"And then?\"\n\n\"With dusk, we would retire from the field. Wait until the sun was fully down, and then peel out to either side and ride round the enemy army. We'd strike just before dawn, from behind, with flaming arrows and madness. We'd burn their baggage camp, scatter their archers, and then chew up the backsides of the legions. We'd attack in waves, with half a bell between them. By noon we would begone. '\n\n\"Leaving them to crawl bloodied back to their city-\"\n\n\"We would hit them again and again on that retreat-\"\n\n\"And use up all your arrows?\"\n\n\"Yes. As if we had millions of them, Warleader, an unending supply. And once we've chased them through the city gate, they would be ready to beg for peace. '\n\n\"The Khundryl are Coltaine's children indeed! Hah! Well done, Yelk! Now, let us meet this Bolkando King, and gauge well the chagrin in his eyes! '\n\nSix slaves brought out the weapons and armour. The gold filigree on the black iron scales of the breastplate gleamed like runnels of sun-fire. The helm's matching bowl displayed writhing serpents with jaws stretched, while the elongated lobster tail was polished bright silver. The hinged cheek-guards, when swung forward, would click and lock against the iron nasal septum. The Bolkando Royal Crest adorned the vambraces, while the greaves were scaled black. The broad, straight-bladed, blunt-tipped sword rested in a lacquered scabbard of exquisite workmanship, belying the plain functionality of the weapon it embraced." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every item was positioned with care upon a thick magenta carpet rolled out on the road, the slaves kneeling and waiting on three of the four sides.\n\nQueen Abrastal walked upon the fourth side and stared down at the assemblage. After a moment she said, \"This is ridiculous. Give me the helm, sword-belt and those gauntlets-if I have to wear the rest I won't even be able to move, much less fight. Besides, \"she added, with a glare to her cadre of pallid advisors,\"it hardly seems likely they're planning betrayal-the presumed warleader and two pups... against my bodyguard often. They'd have to be suicidal and they've not shown such failings thus far, have they?\"\n\nHethry, her third daughter, stepped forward and said, \"It is your life that matters, Mother-\"\n\n\"Oh, eat my shit. If you could pull off the perfect disguise of a Khundryl to get a knife in my back, there'd be four of \"em riding up to our parley, not three. Go play with your brother, and tell me nothing about what you getup to with him. I'd like to keep my food down fora change. ' She held out her arms and slaves worked the gauntlets on. Another slave cinched the weapon belt round her solid, meaty hips, whilst a fourth one waited cradling the helm in gloved hands.\n\nAs Hethry retreated, after a few venomous darts at her mother, the Queen turned to the Gilk Warchief. \"You coming along to see if they make you a better offer, Spax?\"\n\nThe Barghast grinned, revealed filed teeth. \"The Khundryl probably hold more of your treasury than you do, Firehair. But no, the Gilk are true to their word.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Abastral grunted. \"I imagine the one you call Tool might piss in laughter at hearing that.\"\n\nThe Gilk's broad, flat face lost all traces of humour.\"If you were not a queen, woman, I'd have you hobbled for that.\"\n\nShe stepped up to the warrior and slapped him on one shell-armoured shoulder. \"Let's see those pointies again, Spax, while you walk beside me and tell me all about this hobbling thing. If it's as ugly as I suspect, I might adopt it for some of my daughters. Well, most of them, actually.\"\n\nSnagging the helm from the slave, she set out down the road, her bodyguard scrabbling to catch up and then flank her and Spax.\n\n\"Your daughters need a whipping,\" the Gilk Warchief said. \"Those I have met, anyway.\"\n\n\"Even Spultatha? You've been dimpling her thighs the last three nights straight-some kind of record for her, by the way. Must be she likes your barbarian ways. '\n\n\"Especially her, Firehair. Wilful, demanding-any Barghast but a Gilk would have died of exhaustion by now.\" He barked a laugh. \"I like you, and so I would never want to see you hobbled.\"\n\n\"But the wound that is named Tool is still raw, is it?\"\n\nHe nodded. \"Disappointment is a cancer, Queen.\"\n\n\"Tell me about it,\" she responded, thinking of her husband, and a few other things besides.\n\n\"A woman hobbled has her feet chopped and can refuse no manor woman or, indeed, camp dog.\"\n\n\"I see. Use that word in the same sentence as my name again, Spax, and I'll chop your cock off and feed it to my favourite corpse-rat. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He grinned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"See these teeth?\"\n\n\"That's better. '\n\nThe three Khundryl were waiting on the road, still in their saddles, but as the Bolkando contingent approached, the feather-cloaked warrior in the centre swung down and left his horse behind him as he stepped forward three paces. A moment later his two companions did the same.\n\n\"Look at that,\" Abrastal observed under her breath. \"Show me a Bolkando horse that just stands there once its reins are dropped.\"\n\n\"Horse-warriors,\" said Spax. \"They are closer to their horses than they are to their wives, husbands and children. They are infuriating to fight against, Queen. Why, I recall the Rhivi-\"\n\n\"Not now, Spax. And stay back, among my soldiers. Watch. Listen. Say nothing.\"\n\nThe Gilk shrugged. \"As you like, Firehair.\"\n\nDespite herself, Abrastal was forced to admit that her first impression of Warleader Gall of the Burned Tears left her uneasy. He had the sharp, avid eyes of a hunting bird. He was well into his sixth decade, she judged, but he had the physique of a blacksmith. The black tattoos of tears tracked down his gaunt cheeks, vanishing into an iron-shot beard. The vast crow-feather cape was too heavy to ride out behind him as he strode towards her, instead flaring to the sides until it seemed he was perpetually emerging from a cavern mouth. The scales of his black-stained hauberk were tear-shaped across his broad chest, elongating into layered feathers on his shoulders.\n\nHis two bodyguards looked barely out of their teens, but they had the same predatory glint in their dark eyes. Abrastal had a sudden vision of taking the young men to her bed, and something delicious squirmed below her rounded belly. The young ones were best, not yet sunk into self-serving habits and whatnot, pliable to her domination, her measured techniques of training that some might call corruption. Well, her lovers never complained, did they?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Queen blinked away the distraction and focused once more upon the Warleader." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had learned something of the cult binding these Khundryl. Struck to awe and then worship upon witnessing an enemy on the field of battle-an extraordinary notion, she had trouble believing it. So... foreign. In any case, whoever that commander was-who, in death, had found worshippers among his enemies-he must have possessed unusual virtues. One thing was undeniable, these savages had been fatally underestimated.\n\n\"Warleader Gall,\" she said as the warrior halted two paces in front of her, \"I am Abrastal, commander of the Evertine Legion and Queen of the Bolkando.\"\n\nThere was amusement in his eyes as they flicked to scan the heavily armoured legion bodyguards arrayed behind her. \"And these are the soldiers you command, Highness? These... tent-pegs. When the Khundryl whirlwind finds them, will they hold fast?\"\n\n\"You are welcome to find out, Warleader.\"\n\nHe grunted, and then said: \"They will hold, I'm sure, even as the tent you calla kingdom is torn to shreds behind them. \"He shrugged.\"We'll take care not to stumble upon them when we leave. No matter, it pleases me that the first title you gave yourself was that of commander. That you are also the Queen had the flavour of an afterthought. By this, am Ito assume that this parley is to be between commanders?\"\n\n\"Not entirely,\" Abrastal replied.\n\n\"So what you have to say this afternoon binds the kingdom itself, including your husband, the King?\"\n\n\"It does.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"Good.\"\n\n\"I will hear from you your list of grievances, Warleader.\"\n\nHis bushy brows lifted. \"Why? Are we to badger each other with matters of interpretation? Your merchants practised extortion on the Khundryl and clearly had the backing of the military. We took their contempt for us and rammed it up their backsides, and now we are but a day from the walls of your capital. And here you are, seeking to bar the way. Do we fight, or do you seek peace between us?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Abrastal studied the man." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The city behind me has walls and fortifications, Warleader. Your horse-warriors cannot hope to take it. What then is left to you? Why, to ravage the countryside until there is nothing left.\"\n\n\"Easier to feed my warriors than for you to feed a city packed with tens of thousands of refugees.\"\n\n\"You would seek to starve us out?\"\n\nGall shrugged. \"Highness, Bolkando has lost this war. If we were so inclined, we could simply takeover. Throw you and all of your bloodline into the nearest well and seal it up.\"\n\nAbrastal smiled. \"Oh, dear. Now you show your hut-dwelling roots, Warleader Gall. Before I tell you of the overwhelming logistics of ruling a kingdom whose citizens consider conspiracy a religion, I need to avail you of some other details. Yes, your fleet warriors have given us a great deal of trouble, but we are far from defeated. My Evertine Legion-yes, it belongs tome, not to the King, not to the kingdom-has never been defeated. Indeed, it has never retreated a single step in battle. By all means, fling your braves against our iron wall; we will heap the dead two storeys high around us. But I do not think you will have the chance, alas. Should we come to battle here, Warleader, you will be annihilated. The Khundryl Burned Tears shall have ceased to exist, reduced to a few thousand slaves with quaint tattoos.\"\n\nAfter a moment, Gall hacked up phlegm, turned and spat. Then he wiped his mouth and said, \"Highness, even as we stand here, your two flanking pincers are being filed down to stumps. Even should we lock jaws with your army, we'll hardly remain so locked until such time as any other relieving force you manage to cough up arrives. \"He made a dismissive gesture with one scarred hand.\"This posturing is pointless. How many days away are the Perish? They will take your Evertine Legion and melt it down for all the fancy gold on that armour. \"As she made to speak he held up his hand to forestall her.\"I have yet to mention the worst you will face-the Bonehunters. Among my people, arguments and opinions are unending as to who are the greatest soldiers the world has ever known-ah, I see in your face that you think we strut about as one of those two, but we do not. No, we speak of the Wickans of Coltaine, versus the marines of the Malazan Empire. \"His teeth appeared in a hard smile.\"Lucky for you that there are no longer any Wickans among the Bonehunters, but alas, there are plenty of marines. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Along moment of silence followed his words. Eventually, Abrastal sighed. \"What are your demands?\"\n\n\"We already have enough loot, Highness, so now we're prepared to sell it back to you-for food, water, livestock and feed. But, for the cost of my warriors killed or maimed in this war, we will pay no more than a third of the true value of those supplies. Once these arrangements are completed to our satisfaction, and once we are reunited with the Perish Grey Helms, we shall leave your kingdom. Forever. '\n\n\"That is it?\"\n\nGall made a face. \"We don't want your kingdom. We never did. '\n\nShe knew she should feel offended by that, but the time for such indulgences would have to wait. \"Warleader, understand. The pernicious acts of the merchant houses which led to this war were in themselves abuses of the King's official policy-'\n\n\"We made certain those thieves were the first to die, Highness.\"\n\n\"The ones you killed were but the tip of the poisoned knife.\" She half-turned and nodded to one of her guards. This officer led four other soldiers out from the squad, these ones carrying between them a leather satchel large enough to hold a Khundryl tipi. They set it down and untied the bound corners, and then pulled flat the edges.\n\nA half-dozen bodies were revealed, although not much was left of them.\n\n\"These are the principal agents,\" said Abrastal, \"believing themselves safely ensconced in the capital. As you can see, only their skins remain-our Punishers are skilled in such matters. Consider them evidence of our acknowledgement of the injustices set upon you. They are yours if you want them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gall's raptor eyes fixed on her.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I am tempted, \"he said slowly,\"to renege on my avowed lack of interest in taking over your kingdom, if only out of compassion for your people, Highness. '\n\n\"We hold to justice,\" Abrastal snapped, \"in our own way. I am frankly surprised at your sensitivity, Warleader. The stories I have heard about the habits of savages when it comes to inventing cruel tortures-\"\n\n\"Do not apply to us,\" Gall cut in, his voice hard as iron. After a moment he seemed to suddenly relax. \"Unless we happen to get very angry. In any case, you misunderstood me, Highness. That your kingdom is home to citizens of any stripe who know no self-constraint-no, even worse, that they would treat with foreigners unmindful of the fact that they stand as representatives of their own people-and their kingdom-speaks tome of yourself-hatred.\"\n\n\"Self-hatred. I see. And if you were the King of Bolkando, Warleader, what would you do?\"\n\n\"I would make lying the greatest crime of all.\"\n\n\"Interesting notion. Unfortunately, usually the biggest liars of all are the people at the top-it's how they stay there, after all. '\n\n\"Ah, then I am not to believe a word you say?\"\n\n\"You can believe me, for I can think of no lies that would win me anything.\"\n\n\"Because my sword hovers over your throat.\"\n\n\"Precisely. But the lies I was speaking of are the ones the elite use to maintain the necessary distinctions, if you see my point.\"\n\n\"I do,\" and now he regarded her with keen interest. \"Highness, this has proved most interesting. But I must ask you one other thing-why are you here and not your husband the King?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The role of my Evertine Legion is to be arbiter of control within the kingdom-and its own populace-as much as to confront external threats.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"Thus, your presence here serves dual purpose.\"\n\n\"And the message presented to our rivals in the palace is-and do not be offended by this-the more important of the two.\" And then she smiled and added, \"Unless, of course, you were seeking actual conquest.\"\n\n\"Your husband holds great faith in you, Highness.\"\n\nHe has no choice. \"He does, and with reason.\"\n\n\"Do you accept our demands?\"\n\n\"I do, Warleader, with some modifications.\"\n\nHis eyes narrowed. \"Name them.\"\n\n\"The water we provide you will be doubled, and it will be freely given. We shall also double the forage you require for your beasts, for we know far more about the Wastelands than you do, and we have no wish to make you into liars when you say you will never return to Bolkando.\" She paused, cocked her head. \"Beyond the Wastelands you will find the dozen or so kingdoms of Kolanse. Warleader, I imagine you will not heed my advice, but I will give it anyway. You will find nothing of worth there. You will, in fact, find something terrible beyond imagining.\"\n\n\"Will you tell me more, Highness?\"\n\n\"If you like.\"\n\n\"Then may I request that you do not do so until such time as either the Mortal Sword Krughava or the Adjunct Tavore is present.\"\n\n\"Those you have named, they are both women, yes?\"\n\n\"They are.\"\n\n\"Will you feel... out of place, then?\"\n\n\"I will, but not for the reasons you might think, Highness.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I shall then await this potent gathering with anticipation, Warleader.\"\n\nAnd for the first time, Gall bowed to her. \"Queen Abrastal, it has been a pleasure.\"\n\n\"I am sure you feel so, and I do not begrudge you that. Are we now at peace?\"\n\n\"We are.\"\n\nShe glanced down at the skins on the leather tarp. \"And these?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Gall, \"we'll take them. My warriors will need to see them, to ease their rage. And for some, to soothe their grief over fallen kin. '\n\nAshe bowed again and turned away, Abrastal called out, \"Warleader.\"\n\nHe faced her again, a question in his eyes.\n\nThe Queen hesitated, and then said, \"When you spoke of your people's opinions... of these marines of the Malazan Empire, was there truth to your words? '\n\nHe straightened. \"Highness, although the great Coltaine of the Crow Clan had many Wickans with him, he also possessed marines. Together, they escorted thirty thousand refugees across a third of a continent, and each step of the journey was war.\"\n\n\"Have I misunderstood then, Warleader? Did not Coltaine fail? Did he not die? And everyone with him?\"\n\nThe warrior's eyes were suddenly old.\"He did. They all died-the Wickans, the marines. '\n\n\"Then I do not-\"\n\n\"They died, Highness, even as they delivered those thirty thousand refugees to safety. They died, but they won.\"\n\nWhen she had nothing more to say, Gall nodded and resumed his march back to his horse. The two young bodyguards moved to edge past her to help with the defleshed and de-boned merchants. Abrastal caught the eye of the boy and winked. If he had been a Bolkando, his eyes would have widened in return. Instead, he grinned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That dark thing came alive in her once again.\n\nSpax was suddenly at her side, watching as Gall swung himself onto his horse and then sat motionless, presumably waiting for his two charges and the legionaries. \"I well remember Malazan marines,\" he muttered.\n\n\"And?\"\n\n\"Gall spoke true. A more stubborn lot this world has never seen.\"\n\nAbrastal thought of Kolanse. \"They will need it.\"\n\n\"Firehair, will you escort them to the border?\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"All of them. The Khundryl, the Perish, the Bonehunters.\"\n\n\"I wasn't even aware the Bonehunters were entering our territory. '\n\n\"Perhaps they won't now that the need is gone. '\n\n\"The Evertine Legion shall accompany these Khundryl and the Perish. It seems, however, that some form of meeting of at least two of the three commanders is planned-and Gall seems to think it will be soon. I would like to speak with them. Accordingly, you and your Gilk will now attach tome-and if we have to march past the border, we shall.\"\n\nSpax showed his filed teeth. \"You can make a request to the Warleader, Queen.\"\n\n\"I think I've already been invited-'\n\n\"Not that.\" He jerked with his chin. \"The pup.\"\n\nShe scowled.\n\nThe Gilk Warchief grunted a laugh. \"You told tome watch carefully, Firehair.\"\n\nAbrastal swung about and began marching back to her legion. \"Rava is going to pay for all of this.\"\n\n\"He already has, I gather.\"\n\n\"Not enough. I'll keep shaking him till he's old and grey and shedding teeth and whiskers.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Gall is disgusted by your people.\"\n\n\"So am I, Spax.\"\n\nHe laughed again.\n\n\"Stop sounding so smug,\" she said. \"Hundreds, maybe thousands of Bolkando soldiers have died today. I had actually considered using your Gilk for one of the pincers-you would not be so pleased with yourself if I had.\"\n\n\"We would have just kept on marching, Firehair.\"\n\n\"Studded with arrows.\"\n\n\"Oh, we'd leave a trail of our own, yes, but we would have arrived when we were supposed to, ready to deliver vengeance. '\n\nShe considered that, and concluded he was not simply full of himself. We should have heeded what befell the Lether Empire. Dear Bolkando, the world beyond is very large indeed. And the sooner we send it on its way again the sooner we can get back to our orgy of sniping and backstabbing.\n\n\"You've a nostalgic look in your eye, Firehair. '\n\n\"Stop seeing so much, Spax.\"\n\nHis third laugh made her want to punch her fist through the man's ugly face.\n\nImpatient, Gall left his two Tear Runners to deal with the gift of skins and rode back to the camp alone. A formidable woman, this Queen. Thick, longhair the hue of flames. Clever eyes, brown so deep as to be almost black. Stolid enough to give Krughava a tangle in the spit-circle with some lucky man the prize. And I'd like to see that match-why, they're both enough to make me uncertain whether I was in bed with a woman or a man. The thought enlivened him and he shifted in the saddle. Bult's balls, never mind that, you old fool." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They would not be quit of Abrastal and her Evertine Legion anytime soon, he suspected." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All the way to the border and perhaps even beyond. But he did not anticipate betrayal-the Khundryl had done enough to keep the fools honest-honest in that frightened, over-eager way that Gall so appreciated. Sometimes war did what was needed. Always easier-and lucrative-dealing with a reeling foe, after all.\n\nHe was well enough pleased with how the parley had played out, although some unease remained, like a yurt rat chewing on his toes. Kolanse. What do you know, Adjunct? What is it you are not telling us?\n\nYou're moaning like an old man shivering under furs, Gall. The Khundryl, the Perish Grey Helms and the Bonehunters. No army can hope to stand against the three of us combined. Bolkando is small. Queen Abrastal rules a tiny, insignificant realm. And the only empire she knows is the one the marines shattered.\n\nNo, we have nothing to fear. Still, it will be good to learn what the Queen knows.\n\nA cadre of wing and sub-wing officers awaited him at the edge of the encampment. He scowled at them as he rode up. \"Seems they want to keep their kingdom after all. Send out word-hostilities are at an end. Recall all the raids.\"\n\n\"What of the wings attacking the flanking armies?\" one of the warriors asked.\n\n\"Too late to do anything about that, but send Runners in case they're still fighting. Order them to withdraw to the main camp-and no looting on the way! '\n\n\"Warleader,\" said another warrior, \"your wife has arrived and awaits you in your tent.\"\n\nGall grunted, kicking his horse onward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He found her sprawled on his cot, naked and heavy as only a pregnant woman could be. Eyeing her as he drew off his cape, he said, \"Wife.\"\n\nShe glanced up with lidded eyes. \"Husband. How goes the killing?\"\n\n\"Over with, for now.\"\n\n\"Oh. How sad for you.\"\n\n\"I should have drowned you in a river long ago.\"\n\n\"You'd rather have my ghost haunting you than this all too solid flesh? '\n\n\"Would you have? Haunted me?\"\n\n\"Not for long. I'd get bored. '\n\nGall began unstrapping his armour. \"You still won't tell whose it is? '\n\n\"Does it matter?\"\n\n\"So it could still be mine.\"\n\nShe blinked, and a sharper focus came to her regard. \"Gall Inshikalan, you are fifty-six years old. You've been crushing your balls on a horse's back for four and a half decades-no Khundryl man your age can seed a woman.\"\n\nHe sighed. \"That's the problem. Everyone knows that. '\n\n\"Are you humiliated, husband? I did not think that was possible.\"\n\nHumiliation. Well, though he'd never wanted it, he'd done his share of humiliating this woman, who had been his wife for most of his life. He had been fifteen. She had been ten. In the old days they would not lie together even when married, until she'd had her first bleed. He remembered the women's celebration when that time finally arrived for his wife-they bundled the pale girl away fora night of secret truths, and what had been a frightened child at the beginning of that night came back to him the following dawn with a look of such knowing in her eyes that he was left... uncertain, feeling foolish for no reason, and from that day onward, that he was five years older than her had ceased to be relevant; in fact, it seemed as if she was the elder between them. Wiser, sure of herself, and stronger in every way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had worshipped that truth in all the years they had been together. In fact, he realized with a sudden flush, he still did.\n\nGall stood, looking down at his wife, trying to think of the words he lacked to tell her this. And other things besides.\n\nIn her eyes, as she studied him in turn... something-\n\nA shout from outside the tent.\n\nShe looked away. \"The Warleader is summoned.\"\n\nJust like that, the moment was gone, closed uptight. He turned away, stepped back outside.\n\nThe scout-the woman-he had sent with Vedith stood before him. Spattered in dried blood, dust, slick gore, stinking like a carcass. Gall frowned. \"So soon?\"\n\n\"We crushed them, Warleader. But Vedith is dead.\"\n\n\"Did you take command?\"\n\n\"I did.\"\n\nHe tried to recall her name, glancing away as she went on.\n\n\"Warleader, he was leading the first charge-we were arrayed perfectly. His horse stepped into a snake hole, went down. Vedith was thrown. He landed poorly, breaking his neck. We saw how his body flopped as he rolled and we knew.\"\n\nGall was nodding. Such things happened, yes. Unexpected, impossible to plan around. That hoof, those shadows on the uneven ground, the eyes of the horse, that hole, all converging into a single fatal moment. To think too much of such things could drive one mad, could tip one into an all-consuming rage. At the games of chance, the cruel, bitter games.\n\n\"Warleader,\" the scout continued after a moment, \"Vedith's command of the ambush was absolute. Every raid set about its task though we all knew he had fallen-we did this for him, to honour him as we must. The enemy was broken. Fourteen hundred dead Bolkando, the rest weaponless and in flight across the countryside. We have nineteen dead and fifty-one wounded. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His gaze returned to her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you, Rafala. The wing is now yours.\"\n\n\"It shall be named Vedith.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"See to your wounded.\"\n\nGall stepped back inside the tent. He stood, not sure what to do next, whereto go. Not sure why he was here at all.\n\n\"I heard,\" said his wife in a low tone. \"Vedith must have been a good warrior, a good commander.\"\n\n\"He was young,\" said Gall, as though that made a difference-as though saying it made a difference-but it didn't.\n\n\"Malak's cousin Tharat has a son named Vedith. '\n\n\"Not anymore.\"\n\n\"He used to play with our Kyth Anar.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Gall said suddenly, eyes bright as he looked upon her. \"That is right. How could I have forgotten?\"\n\n\"Because that was fifteen years ago, husband. Because Kyth did not live past his seventh birthday. Because we agreed to bury our memories of him, our wondrous first son.\"\n\n\"I said no such thing and neither did you!\"\n\n\"No. We didn't need to. An agreement? More like a blood vow. \"She sighed.\"Warriors die. Children die-'\n\n\"Stop it!\"\n\nShe sat up, groaning with the effort. Seeing the tears he could not wipe away she reached out one hand. \"Come here, husband.\"\n\nBut he could not move. His legs were rooted tree-trunks beneath him.\n\nShe said, \"Something new comes squalling into the world every moment of everyday. Opening eyes that can barely see. And as they come, other things leave.\"\n\n\"I gave him that command. I did it myself.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Such is a Warleader's burden, husband." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'\n\nHe fought back a sob. \"I feel so alone.\"\n\nShe was at his side, taking one of his hands. \"That is the truth we all face,\" she said. \"I have had seven children since then, and yes, most of them are yours. Do you ever wonder why I cannot give up? What it is that drives women to suffer this time and again? Listen well to this secret, Gall, it is because to carry a child is to be not alone. And to lose a child is to be so wretchedly alone that no man can know the same... except perhaps the heart of a ruler, a leader of warriors, a Warleader.\"\n\nHe found he could meet her eyes once again. \"You remind me,\" he said, voice rough.\n\nShe understood. \"And you me, Gall. We forget too easily and too often these days.\"\n\nYes. He felt her callused hand in his, and something of that loneliness crumbled away. Then he guided their hands down onto her rounded belly. \"What awaits this one?\" he wondered aloud.\n\n\"That we cannot say, husband.\"\n\n\"Tonight,\" he said, \"we shall call all our children together. We shall eat as a family-what do you think?\"\n\nShe laughed. \"I can almost see their faces, all around us-the looks so dumbfounded, so confused. What will they make of such a thing?\"\n\nGall shrugged, a sudden looseness to his limbs, the tightness of his chest vanishing in a single breath. \"We call them not for them but for us, for you and me, Hanavat.\"\n\n\"Tonight,\" she said, nodding. \"Vedith plays with our son once more. I can hear them shouting and laughing, and the sky is before them and it does not end.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With genuine feeling-the first time in years-Gall took his wife into his arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "People will not know the guilt they cannot deny, cannot escape. Blind the gods and fix their scales with binding chains and pull them down like the truths we hate. We puzzle over the bones of strangers and wonder at the world when they danced free of us blessedly long ago and we are different now, but even to speak of the men and women we were then, tempts the whirlwind ghosts of our victims and this will not do as we treasure the calm and the smooth of pretend-what cruel weapons of nature and time struck down all these strangers of long ago, when we were witness in a hapless if smug way? We dodged the spear-thrusts of mischance where they stumbled too oafish too clumsy and altogether inferior-and their bones you will find in mountain caves and river clay, in white spider crevasses above white beaches, in forest shelters of rock and all the places in between, so many that one slayer, we say, cannot be responsible; but many the weapons of nature-and the skittish thing in our eyes as they slide away, perhaps mutters, to a sharp ear, the one constant shadow behind all those deaths-why, that would be us, silent in guilt, undeserving recipients of the solitary gift that leaves us nothing but the bones of strangers to tumble and roll beneath our arguments. They are wordless in repose but still unwelcome, for they speak as only bones can, and still we will not listen. Show me the bones of strangers, and I become disconsolate.\n\nUNWELCOME LAMENT G EDESP, FIRST EMPIRE\n\nHe saw a different past. One that rolled out after choices not made. He saw the familiar trapped inside strangeness. Huddling round fires as winds howled and new things moved in the darkness beyond. The failure of opportunities haunted him and his kind. A dogged rival slipped serpent-like into the mossy cathedrals of needled forests, sliding along shadow streams, and life became a time of picking through long-dead kills, frowning at broken tools of stone different from anything ever seen before. This-all of this-he realized, was the slow failure that, in his own past, had been evaded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By the Ritual of Tellann." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sealing of living souls inside lifeless bone and flesh, the trapping of sparks inside withered eyes.\n\nHere, in this other past, in that other place, there had been no ritual. And the ice that was in his own realm the plaything of the Jaghut here lifted barriers unbidden. Everywhere the world shrank. Of course, such challenges had been faced before. People suffered, many died, but they struggled through and they survived. This time, however, it was different.\n\nThis time, there were strangers.\n\nHe did not know why he was being shown this. Some absurdly detailed false history to torment him? Too elaborate, too strained in its conceptualization. He had real wounds that could be torn open. Yes, the vision mocked him, but on a scale broader than that of his own personal failures. He was being shown the inherent weakness of his own kind-he was feeling the feelings of those last survivors in that other, bitter world, the muddy knowledge of things coming to an end. The end of families, the end of friends, the end of children. Nothing to follow.\n\nThe end, in fact, of the one thing never before questioned. Continuation. We tell ourselves that each of us must pass, but that our kind will live on. This is the deeply buried taproot feeding our very will to live. Cut that root, and living fades. Bleeding dry and colourless, it fades.\n\nHe was invited to weep one last time. To weep not for himself, but for his species.\n\nWhen fell the last salty tear of the Imass? Did the soil that received it taste its difference from all those that came before? Was it bitterer? Was it sweeter? Did it sting the ground like acid?\n\nHe could see that tear, its deathly drop dragged into infinity, a journey too slow to measure. But he knew that what he was seeing was a conceit. The last to die had been dry-eyed-Onos Toolan had witnessed the moment herein this false past-the wretched brave lying bound and bleeding and awaiting the flint-toothed ivory blade in a stranger's hand. They too were hungry, desperate, those strangers. And they would kill the Imass, the last of his kind, and they would eat him. Leave his cracked and cut bones scattered on the floor of this cave, with all the others, and then, in sudden superstitious terror, the strangers would flee this place, leaving nothing behind of themselves, lest wronged ghosts find them on the paths of haunting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In that other world, the end of Tool's kind came at the cut of a knife.\n\nSomeone was howling, flesh stretched to bursting by a surge of rage.\n\nThe children of the Imass, who were not children at all, but inheritors nevertheless, had flooded the world with the taste of Imass blood on their tongues. Just one more quarry hunted into oblivion, with nothing more than a vague unease lodged deep inside, the mark of sin, the horror of a first crime.\n\nThe son devours the father, heart of a thousand myths, a thousand half-forgotten tales.\n\nEmpathy was excoriated from him. The howl he heard was rising from his own throat. The rage battered like fists inside his body, a demonic thing eager to get out.\n\nThey will pay-\n\nBut no. Onos Toolan staggered onward, hide-bound feet crunching on frozen moss and lichen. He would walkout of this damning, vicious fate. Back to his own world's paradise beyond death, where rituals delivered curse and salvation both. He would not turn. He was blind as a beast driven to the cliff's edge, but it did not matter; what awaited him was a death better than this death-\n\nHe saw a rider ahead, a figure hunched and cowled as it waited astride a gaunt, grey horse from which no breath plumed. He saw a recurved Rhivi bow gripped in one bony hand, and Onos Toolan realized that he knew this rider.\n\nThis inheritor.\n\nTool halted twenty paces away. \"You cannot be here.\"\n\nThe head tilted slightly and the glitter of a single eye broke the blackness beneath the cowl. \"Nor you, old friend, yet here we are.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "'Move aside, Toc the Younger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Let me pass. What waits beyond is what I have earned. What I will return to-it is mine. I will seethe herds again, the great ay and the ranag, the okral and agkor. I will see my kin and run in the shadow of the tusked tenag. I will throw a laughing child upon my knee. I will show the children their future, and tell them how all that we are shall continue, unending, for here I will find an eternity of wishes, forever fulfilled.\n\n\"Toc, my friend, do not take this from me. Do not take this, too, when you and your kind have taken everything else.\"\n\n\"I cannot let you pass, Tool.\"\n\nTool's scarred, battered hands closed into fists.\"For the love between us, Toc the Younger, do not do this. '\n\nAn arrow appeared in Toc's other hand, biting the bowstring and, faster than Tool could register, the barbed missile flashed out and stabbed the ground at his feet.\n\n\"I am dead,\" said Tool. \"You cannot hurt me.\"\n\n\"We're both dead, \"Toc replied, his voice cold as a stranger's. \"I will take your legs out from under you and the wounds will be real-I will leave you bleeding, crippled, in terrible pain. You will not pass.\"\n\nTool took a step forward. \"Why?\"\n\n\"The rage burns bright within you, doesn't it? '\n\n\"Abyss take it-I am done with fighting! I am done with all of it!\"\n\n\"On my tongue, Onos Toolan, is the taste of Imass blood.\"\n\n\"You want me to fight you? I will-do you imagine your puny arrows can take down an Imass? I have snapped the neck of a bull ranag. I have been gored. Mauled by an okral. When my kind hunt, we bring down our quarry with our own hands, and that triumph is purchased in broken bones and pain.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A second arrow thudded into the ground.\n\n\"Toc-why are you doing this?\"\n\n\"You must not pass.\"\n\n\"I-I gifted you with an Imass name. Did you not realize the measure of that honour? Did you not know that no other of your kind has ever been given such a thing? I called you friend. When you died, I wept.\"\n\n\"I see you now, in flesh, all that once rode the bone.\"\n\n\"You have seen this before, Toc the Younger.\"\n\n\"I do not-\"\n\n\"You did not recognize me. Outside the walls of Black Coral. I found you, but even your face was not your own. We were changed, the both of us. Could I go back...\" He faltered, and then continued, \"Could I go back, I would not have let you pass me by. I would have made you realize.\"\n\n\"It does not matter.\"\n\nSomething broke inside Onos Toolan. He looked away. \"No, perhaps it doesn't. '\n\n\"On the Awl'dan plain, you saw me fall. '\n\nTool staggered back as if struck a blow. \"I did not know-\"\n\n\"Nor me, Tool. And so truths come round, full circle, with all the elegance of a curse. I did not know you outside Black Coral. You did not know me on the plain. Fates have away of... of fitting together.\" Toc paused, and then hissed a bitter laugh. \"And do you recall when we met at the foot of Morn? Look upon us now. I am the withered corpse, and you-\" He seemed to tremble, as if struck an invisible blow, and then recovered. \"On the plain, Onos Toolan. What did I give my life for? Do you recall?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bitterness in Tool's mouth was unbearable. He wanted to shriek, he wanted to tear out his own eyes.\" The lives of children. '\n\n\"Can you do the same?\"\n\nDeeper than any arrows, Toc struck with his terrible words. \"You know I cannot,\" Tool said in a rasp.\n\n\"You will not, you mean.\"\n\n\"They are not my children!\"\n\n\"You have found the rage of the Imass-the rage they escaped, Tool, with the Ritual. You have seen the truth of other pasts. And now you would flee-flee it all. Do you really believe, Onos Toolan, that you will find peace? Peace in self-deception? This world behind me, the one you so seek, you will infect with the lies you tell yourself. Every child's laugh will sound hollow, and the look in every beast's eye will tell you they see you truly.\"\n\nThe third arrow struck his left shoulder, spun him round but did not knock him down. Righting himself, Tool reached to grip the shaft. He snapped it and drew out the fletched end. Behind him, the flint point and a hand's-width of shaft fell to the ground.\"What-what do you want of me? '\n\n\"You must not pass.\"\n\n\"What do you want?\"\n\n\"I want nothing, Tool. I want nothing.\" And he nocked another arrow.\n\n\"Then kill me.\"\n\n\"We're dead, \"Toc said.\"That I cannot do. But I can stop you. Turn round, Onos Toolan. Go back. '\n\n\"To what?\"\n\nToc the Younger hesitated, as if uncertain for the first time in this brutal meeting. \"We are guilty,\" he said slowly, \"of so many pasts. Will we ever be made to answer for any of them? I wait, you see, for the fates to fit together. I wait for the poisonous beauty.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You want me to forgive you-your kind, Toc the Younger?\"\n\n\"Once, in the city of Mott, I wandered into a market and found myself in front of row upon row of squall apes, the swamp dwellers. I looked into their eyes, Tool, and I saw their suffering, their longing, their terrible crime of living. And for all that, I knew that they were simply not intelligent enough. To refuse forgiveness. You Imass, you are. So. Do not forgive us. Never forgive us!\"\n\n\"Am Ito be the weapon of yourself-hatred?\"\n\n\"I wish I knew.\"\n\nIn those four words, Tool heard his friend, a man trapped, struggling to recall himself.\n\nToc resumed. \"After the Ritual, well, you chose the wrong enemy for your endless war of vengeance. It would have been more just, don't you think, to proclaim a war against us humans. Perhaps, one day, Silverfox will come to realize that, and choose for her undead armies anew enemy. \"He then shrugged.\"If I believed injustice, that is... if I imagined that she was capable of seeing clearly enough. That you and you alone, T'lan Imass, are in the position to take on the necessary act of retribution-for those squall apes, for all the so-called lesser creatures that have fallen and ever fall to our slick desires.\"\n\nHe speaks the words of the dead. His heart is cold. His single eye sees and does not shy away. He is... tormented. \"Is this what you expected,\" Tool asked, \"when you died? What of Hood's Gate? '\n\nTeeth gleamed. \"Locked.\"\n\n\"How can that be?\"\n\nThe next arrow split his right knee-cap. Bellowing in agony, Tool collapsed. He writhed, fire tearing up his leg. Pain... in so many layers, folding round and round-the wound, the murder of a friendship, the death of love, history skirling up in a plume of ashes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Horse hoofs slowly thumped closer.\n\nBlinking tears from his eyes, Tool stared up at the ravaged, half-rotted face of his old friend.\n\n\"Onos Toolan, I am the lock.\"\n\nThe pain was overwhelming. He could not speak. Sweat stung his eyes, more bitter than any tears. My friend. The one thing left in me-it is slain. You have murdered it.\n\n\"Go back,\" said Toc in atone of immeasurable weariness.\n\n\"I-I cannot walk-\"\n\n\"That will ease, once you turnaround. Once you retrace your route, the farther you getaway... from me.\"\n\nWith blood-smeared hands, Tool prised loose the arrow jutting from his knee. He almost passed out in the wave of agony that followed, and lay gasping.\n\n\"Find your children, Onos Toolan. Not of the blood. Of the spirit.\"\n\nThere are none, you bastard. As you said, you and your kind killed them all. Weeping, he struggled to stand, twisting as he turned to face the way he had come. Rock-studded, rolling hills, a grey lowering sky. You've taken it all-\n\n\"And we're far from finished, ' said Toc behind him.\n\nI now castaway love. I embrace hate.\n\nToc said nothing to that.\n\nDragging his maimed leg, Tool set out.\n\nToc the Younger, who had once been Anaster First Born of the Dead Seed, who had once been a Malazan soldier, one-eyed and a son to a vanished father, sat on his undead horse and watched the broken warrior limp to the distant range of hills." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When, at long last, Tool edged over a ridge and then disappeared behind it, Toc dropped his gaze. His lone eye roved over the matted stains of blood on the dead grasses, the glistening arrows, one broken, the other not, and those jutting from the half-frozen earth. Arrows fashioned by Tool's own hands, so long ago on a distant plain.\n\nHe suddenly pitched forward, curling up like a gut-stabbed child. A moment later a wretched sob broke loose. His body trembled, bones creaking in dried sockets, as he wept, tearless, leaking nothing but the sounds pushing past his withered throat.\n\nA voice broke through from a few paces away, \"Compelling you to such things, Herald, leaves me no pleasure.\"\n\nCollecting himself with a groan, Toc the Younger straightened in the saddle and fixed his eye upon the ancient bonecaster standing now in the place where Tool had been. He bared dull, dry teeth. \"Your hand was colder than Hood's own, witch. Do you imagine Hood is pleased at you stealing his Herald? At your using him as you will? This will not go unanswered-'\n\n\"I have no reason to fear Hood-\"\n\n\"But you have reason to fear me, Olar Ethil!\"\n\n\"And how will you find me, Dead Rider? I stand here, yet not here. No, in the living world I am huddled beneath furs, sleeping under bright stars-\"\n\n\"You have no need of sleep.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"Guarded well by a young warrior-one you knew well, yes? One you chase at night, there behind his eyes-and yes, when I saw the truth of that, why, he proved my path to you. And you spoke tome, begging for his life, which I accepted into my care. It has all led... to this.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And here,\" Toc muttered, \"I'd given up believing in evil." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How many others do you plan to abuse? '\n\n\"As many as I need, Herald.\"\n\n\"I will find you. When my other tasks are finally done, I swear, I will find you.\"\n\n\"To achieve what? Onos Toolan is severed from you. And, more importantly, from your kind.\" She paused, and then added with a half-snarl, \"I don't know what you meant by that rubbish you managed to force out, about Tool finding his children. I need him for other things. '\n\n\"I was fighting free of you, bonecaster. He saw-he heard-\"\n\n\"And failed to understand. Onos Toolan hates you now-think on that, think on the deepness of his love, and know that for an Imass hatred runs deeper still. Ask the Jaghut! It is done, and can never be mended. Ride away from this, Herald. I now release you.\"\n\n\"I look forward,\" said Toc, gathering the reins, \"to the next time we meet, Olar Ethil.\"\n\nTorrent's eyes snapped open. Stars in blurred, jade-tinged smears spun overhead. He drew a deep but ragged breath, shivered beneath his furs.\n\nOlar Ethil's crackling voice cut through the darkness.\"Did he catch you? '\n\nHe was in no hurry to reply to that. Not this time. He could still smell the dry, musty aura of death, could still hear the drumbeat of hoofs.\n\nThe witch continued, \"Less than half the night is done. Sleep. I will keep him from you now.\"\n\nHe sat up. \"Why would you do that, Olar Ethil? Besides,\" he added, \"my dreams belong tome, not you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rasping laughter drifted across to him. \"Do you see his lone eye? How it glitters in darkness like a star? Do you hear the howl of wolves echoing out from the empty pit of the one he lost? What do the beasts want with him? Perhaps he will tell you, when at last he rides you down.\"\n\nTorrent bit down one reply, chose another: \"I escape. I always do.\"\n\nShe grunted. \"Good. He is filled with lies. He would use you, as the dead are wont to do to mortals.\"\n\nIn the night Torrent bared his teeth. \"Like you?\"\n\n\"Like me, yes. There is no reason to deny it. But listen well, I must leave your side fora time. Continue southward on your journey. I have awakened ancient springs-your horse will find them. I will return to you.\"\n\n\"What is it you want, Olar Ethil? I am nothing. My people are gone. I wander without purpose, caring not if I live or die. And I will not serve you-nothing you can say can compel me.\"\n\n\"Do you believe me a Tyrant? I am not. I am a bonecaster-do you know what that is?\"\n\n\"No. A witch.\"\n\n\"Yes, that will do, fora start. Tell me, do you know what a Soletaken is? A D'ivers? '\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"What do you know of Elder Gods?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\nHe heard something like a snarl, and then she said, \"How can your kind live, so steeped in ignorance? What is history to you, warrior of the Awl'dan? A host of lies to win you glory. Why do you so fear the truth of things? The darker moments of your past-you, your tribe, all of humanity? There were thousands of my people who did not join the Ritual of Tellann-what happened to them? Why, you did. No matter where they hid, you found them. Oh, on rare occasions there was breeding, a fell admixture of blood, but most of the time such meetings ended in slaughter. You saw in our faces the strange and the familiar-which of the two frightened you the most? When you cut us down, when you carved the meat from our bones? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You speak nonsense,\" Torrent said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You tell me you are Imass, as if I should know what that means. I do not. Nor do I care. Peoples die. They vanish from the world. It is as it was and ever will be.\"\n\n\"You area fool. From my ancient blood ran every stream of Soletaken and D'ivers. And my blood, ah, it was but half Imass, perhaps even less. I am old beyond your imagining, warrior. Older than this world. I lived in darkness, I walked in purest light, I cast curses upon shadow. My hands were chipped stone, my eyes spawned the first fires to huddle round, my legs spread to the first mortal child. I am known by so many names even I have forgotten most of them. '\n\nShe rose, her squat frame dangling rotted furs, her hair lifting like an aura of madness to surround her withered face, and advanced to stand over him.\n\nA sudden chill gripped Torrent. He could not move. He struggled to breathe.\n\nShe spoke. \"Parts of me sleep, tormented by sickness. Others rail in the fury of summer storms. I am the drinker of birth waters. And blood. And the rain of weeping and the oil of ordeal. I did not lie, mortal, when I told you that the spirits you worship are my children. I am the bringer of a land's bounty. I am the cruel thief of want, the sower of suffering.\n\n\"So many names... Eran'ishal, Mother to the Eres'al-my first and most sentimental of choices.\" She seemed to flinch. \"Rath Evain to the Forkrul Assail. Stone Bitch to the Jaghut. I have had a face in darkness, a son in shadow, a bastard in light. I have been named the Mother Beneath the Mountain, Ayala Alalle who tends the Gardens of the Moon, forever awaiting her lover. I am Burn the Sleeping Goddess, in whose dreams life flowers unending, even as those dreams twist into nightmares. I am scattered to the very edge of the Abyss, possessor of more faces than any other Elder.\" She snapped out a withered, bony hand, the nails long and splintered, and slowly curled her fingers. \"And he thinks to hunt me down!\" Her head tilted back to the sky. \"Chain down your servants, Hood!\" She fixed him once more with her eyes. \"Tell me, mortal! Did he catch you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Torrent stared up at her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An old hag crackling with venom and rage. Her dead breath reeked of serpents among the rocks. The onyx knuckles of her eyes glistened with the mockery of life. \"Perhaps,\" he said, \"you were once all those things, Olar Ethil. But not anymore. It's all torn away from you, isn't it? Scattered and lost, when you gave up life-when you chose to become this thing of bones-\"\n\nThat hand lunged down, closed about his neck. He was lifted from the ground as if he weighed less than an orthen, flung away. Slamming hard down on one shoulder, breath whooshing from his lungs, half-blinded and unable to move.\n\nShe appeared above him, rotted teeth glittering like stumps of smoky quartz. \"I am promised! The Stone Bitch shall awaken once more, in plague winds and devouring locusts, in wildfires and drowning dust and sand! And you will fall upon each other, rending flesh with teeth and nails! You will choose evil in fullest knowledge of what you do-I am coming, mortal, the earth awakened to judgement! And you shall kneel, pleading, begging-your kind, human, shall make pathos your epitaph, for I will give you nothing, yield not a single instant of mercy!\" She was gasping now, a pointless bellows of unwarmed breath. She trembled in terrible rage. \"Did he speak to you?\"\n\nTorrent sat up. \"No,\" he said through gritted teeth. He reached up to the swollen bruises on his throat.\n\n\"Good.\" And Olar Ethil turned away. \"Sleep, then. You will awaken alone. But do not think you are rid of me, do not think that.\" A pause, and then, \"He is filled with lies. Beware him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Torrent hunched forward, staring at the dew-speckled ground between his crooked legs. He closed his eyes. I will do as you ask. When the time comes, I will do as you ask.\n\nShe awoke to the howling of wolves. Setoc slowly sat up, ran a hand through the tangles of her matted hair, and then drew her bedroll closer about her body. False dawn was ebbing, almost drowned out by the glare of the jade slashes. As the echoes of those howls faded, Setoc cocked her head-had something else stirred her awake? She could not be certain. The stillness of night embraced them-she glanced across to the motionless form of Cafal. She'd run him into exhaustion. Each night since they'd begun this journey he'd fallen into deep sleep as soon as their paltry evening meal was done.\n\nAs her eyes adjusted, she could make out his face. It had grown gaunt, aged by deprivation. She knew he'd not yet reached his thirtieth year of life, but he seemed decades older. He lay like a dead man, yet she sensed from him troubled dreams. He was desperate to return to his tribe.\n\n\"Something terrible is about to happen.\" These words had ground out from him again and again, a litany of dread, a chant riding out his tortured breaths as he ran.\n\nShe caught ascent, a sudden mustiness in the cool, dry air. Visions of strange fecundity fluttered across her eyes, as if the present was peeling away, revealing this landscape in ancient times.\n\nAn oasis, a natural garden rich with colour and life. Iridescent birds sang among palm fronds. Monkeys scampered, mouths stained with succulent fruit. A tiny world, but a complete one, seemingly changeless, untouched by her kind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When she saw the grey cloud drifting closer, inexplicable bleak despair struck her and she gasped aloud. She saw the dust settling like rain, a dull patina coating the leaves, the globes of fruit, the once-clear pool of water. And everything began to die.\n\nIn moments there was nothing but blackened rot, dripping down the boles of the palms. The monkeys, covered in oozing sores, their hair falling away, curled up and died. The birds sought to flee but ended upon the grey ground, flapping and twitching, then falling still.\n\nThe oasis dried up. The winds blew away what was left and sands closed about the spring until it too vanished.\n\nSetoc wept.\n\nWhat had done this? Some natural force? Did some mountain erupt to fill the sky with poison ash? Or was it a god's bitter breath? Had some wretched city burned, spewing acidic alchemies into the air? Was this desecration an accident, or was it deliberate? She had no answer to such questions; she had only their cruel yield of grief.\n\nUntil a suspicion lifted from beneath her sorrow, grisly and ghastly. It... it was a weapon. But who wages war upon all living things? Upon the very earth itself? What could possibly be won? Was it just... stupidity? Setoc shook herself. She did not like such thoughts.\n\nBut this anger I feel, does it belong to the wolves? To the beasts on their forgotten thrones? No, not just them. It is the rage of every unintended victim. It is the fury of the innocents. The god whose face is not human, but life itself.\n\nShe is coming...\n\nSetoc caught a host of vague shapes in the darkness now, circling, edging closer. Curious in the manner of all wolves, yet cautious. Old memories left scars upon their souls, and they knew what the presence of these two-legged intruders meant for them, for their kind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They could smell her tears. Their child was in pain, and so the wolves spun their spiral ever tighter. Bringing their heat, the solid truth of their existence-and they would bare fangs to any and every threat. They would, if needed, die in her stead.\n\nAnd she knew she deserved none of this.\n\nHow did you find me? After this long? I see you, grey-nosed mother-was I the last one to suckle from your teats? Did I drink in all your strength until you were left with aching bones, failing muscles? I seethe clouds in your eyes, but they cannot hide your love-and it is that love that breaks my heart.\n\nStill, she held out her hand.\n\nMoments later she felt that broad head rise beneath it.\n\nThe warm, familiar smells of old assailed her, stinging her eyes. \"You must not stay,\" she whispered. \"Where I go... you will be hunted down. Killed. Listen tome. Find the last of the wild places-hide therefor evermore. Be free, my sweet ones...\"\n\nShe heard Cafal awaken, heard his muffled grunt of shock. Seven wolves crowded their small camp, shy as uninvited children.\n\nHer mother moved up closer, fur sliding the length of Setoc's arm.\"You must go, \"she whispered to the beast.\"Please. '\n\n\"Setoc,\" said Cafal. \"They bring magic.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Can't you feel the power-so harsh, so untamed-but I think, yes, I can use it. A warren, close enough the barrier feels thin as a leaf. Listen, if we run within it, I think-'\n\n\"I know,\" she said in a croak, leaning her weight against the she-wolf, so solid, so real, so sure. \"I know, Cafal, the gift they bring.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perhaps,\" he said ingrowing excitement as he tugged aside his blankets, \"we can get therein time. We can save-\"\n\n\"Cafal, none of this is for you. Don't you understand anything? It's not for you!\"\n\nHe met her glare unblinking-the dawn was finally paling the sky-and then nodded. \"Where will they lead you, then? Do you know?\"\n\nShe turned away from his despair. \"Oh, Cafal, you really area fool. Of course we're returning to your tribe's camp. No other path is possible, not anymore.\"\n\n\"I-I don't understand. '\n\n\"I know. Never mind. It's time to leave. '\n\nDestriant Kalyth scanned the south horizon, the blasted, unrelieved emptiness revealed in the toneless light of the rising sun. \"Where then,\" she muttered, \"are my hands of fire?\" She turned to her two exhausted companions. \"You understand, don't you? I cannot do this alone. To lead your kind, I need my own kind. I need to look into eyes little different from my own. I need to see their aches come the dawn, the sleep still in their faces-spirits fend, I need to see them cough the night loose and then piss a steaming river! '\n\nThe K'Chain Che'Malle regarded her with their reptilian eyes, unblinking, unhuman.\n\nKalyth's beseeching frustration trickled away, and she fixed her attention on Sag'Churok, wondering what he had seen-those fourteen undead Jaghut, the battle that, it was now clear, completely eradicated their pursuers. This time, anyway. Was there something different in the K'ell Hunter? Something that might be... unease?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You wanted a Destriant,\" she snapped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you thought that meant a doe-eyed rodara, it must finally be clear just how wrong you were. What I am given, I intend to use-do you understand?\" Still, for all the bravado, she wished she had the power to bind those Jaghut to her will. She wished they were with them right now. Still not human, but, well, closer. Yes, getting closer. She snorted and turned back to study the south.\n\n\"No point in waiting round here, is there? We continue on.\"\n\n\"Destriant,\" Sag'Churok whispered in her mind,\" we are running out of time. Our enemy draws ever closer-no, not hunting the three of us. They hunt the Rooted, our final refuge in this world. '\n\n\"We're all the last of our kind, \"she said,\"and you must have realized by now, in this world and in every other, there is no such thing as refuge. ' The world finds you. The world hunts you down.\n\nTime, once more, to ride Gunth Mach as if she were nothing more than a beast, Sag'Churok lumbering at their side, massive iron blades catching glares from the sun in blinding spasms. To watch small creatures start from the knotted grasses and bound away in panic. Plunging through clouds of midges driven apart by the prows of reptilian heads and broad heaving chests.\n\nTo feel the wind's touch as if it was a stranger's caress, startling in its unwelcome familiarity, reminding her again and again that she still lived, that she was part of the world's meat, forever fighting the decay dogging its trail. None of it seemed real, as if she was simply waiting for reality to catch up to her. Each day delivered the same message, and each day she met it with the same bemused confusion and diffident wariness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These K'Chain Che'Malle felt none of that, she believed. They did not think as she did. Everything was a taste, a smell-thoughts and feelings, the sun's very light, all flowing in a swarm of currents. Existence was an ocean. One could skate upon the surface, clinging to the shallows, or one could plunge into the depths, until the skull creaked with the pressure. She knew they saw her and her kind as timid, frightened by the mystery of unplumbed depths. Creatures floundering in fears, terrified of drowning knee-deep in truths.\n\nBut your Matron wants you to slide into the shallows, to find my world of vulnerabilities-to find out what we do to defeat them. You seek new strategies for living, you seek our secret of success. But you don't understand, do you? Our secret is annihilation. We annihilate everyone else until none are left, and then we annihilate each other. Until we too are gone.\n\nSuch a wondrous secret. Well, she would give it to them, if she could. Her grand lessons of survival, and only she would hear the clamouring howl of the ghosts storming her soul.\n\nRiding Gunth Mach's back, Kalyth's hands itched. Destinies were drawing close. I will find my hands of fire, and we will use you, Sag'Churok. You and Gunth Mach and all your kind. We will show you the horrors of the modern world you so want to be apart of.\n\nShe thought of their dread enemy, the faceless killers of the K'Chain Che'Malle. She wondered at this genocidal war, and suspected it was, in its essence, no different from the war humans had been engaged in for all time. It is the same, but it is also different. It is... naïve." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist in storytelling, proceed with the tale.\nTags: epic fantasy, complex plot, multiple characters, dark themes, intricate world-building\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Dust of Dreams\nChapter: 31" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And I saw something else." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A city, Rutt. A city of glass-we will find it tomorrow. The Quitters won't go there-they are afraid of it. The city, it's a city they know from their legends-but they'd stopped believing those legends. And now it's invisible to them-we can escape them, Rutt.\"\n\n\"Badalle-\" his voice was muffled against the skin and bone of her neck. \"Don't give upon me. If you give up, I won't-I can't-'\n\nShe had given up long ago, but she wouldn't tell him that.\"I'm here, Rutt.\"\n\n\"No. No, I mean\"-he pulled back, stared fixedly into her eyes-\"don't go mad. Please. '\n\n\"Rutt, I can't fly anymore. My wings burned off. It's all right.\"\n\n\"Please. Promise me, Badalle. Promise!\"\n\n\"I promise, but only if you promise not to give up.\"\n\nHis nod was shaky. His control, she could see, was thin and cracked as burnt skin. I won't go mad, Rutt. Don't you see? I have the power to do nothing. I have all the powers of a god.\n\nThis ribby snake will not die. We don't have to do anything at all, just keep going. I have flown to where the sunsets, and I tell you, Rutt, we are marching into fire. Beautiful, perfect fire.\"You'll see,\" she said to him.\n\nBeside them stood Saddic, watching, remembering. His enemy was dust.\n\nWhat is, was. Illusions of change gathered windblown into hollows in hillsides, among stones and the exposed roots of long-dead trees. History swept along as it had always done, and all that is new finds shapes of old. Where stood towering masses of ice now waited scars in the earth. Valleys carried the currents of ghost rivers and the wind wandered paths of heat and cold to deliver the turn of every season." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Such knowledge was agony, like a molten blade thrust to the heart. Birth was but a repetition of what had gone before. Sudden light was a revisitation of the moment of death. The madness of struggle was without beginning and without end.\n\nAwakening to such things loosed a rasping sob from the wretched, rotted figure that clambered out from the roots of a toppled cottonwood tree sprawled across an old oxbow. Lifting itself upright, it looked round, the grey hollows beneath the brow-ridges gathering the grainy details into shapes of meaning. Abroad, shallow valley, distant ridges of sage and firebrush. Grey-winged birds darting down the slopes.\n\nThe air smelled of smoke and tasted of slaughter. Perhaps a herd had been driven over a bluff. Perhaps heaps of carcasses spawned maggots and flies and this was the source of the dreadful, incessant buzzing sound. Or was this something sweeter? Had the world won the argument? Was she now a ghost returned to mock the rightful failure of her kind? Would she find somewhere nearby the last putrid remnants of her people? She dearly hoped so.\n\nShe was named Bitterspring in the language of the Brold clan, Lera Epar, a name she had well earned for the terrible crimes she had committed. She had been the one flower among all the field's flowers whose scent had been deadly. Men had castaway their own women to clutch her as their own. Each time, she had permitted herself to be plucked-seeing in his eyes what she had wanted to see, that he valued her above all others-even and especially the mate he had abandoned-and so their love would be unassailable. Before it went wrong, before it proved the weakest binding of all. And then another man would appear, with that same hungry fire in his eyes, and she would think, This time, it is different. This time, I am certain, our love is a thing of great power." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone had agreed that she was the cleverest person in all the clans of the Brold Gathering. She was not a thing of the shallows, no, her mind plunged unlit depths. She was the delver into life's perils, who spoke of the curse that was the alighting of reason's spark. She found divination not in the fire-cracked shoulder-blades of caribou, but in the watery reflections of faces in pools, springs and gourd bowls-faces she knew well as kin. As kin, yes, and more. Such details as made one distinct from all others, she knew these to be illusions, serving for quick recognition but little else. Beneath those details, she understood, they were all the same. Their needs. Their wants, their fears.\n\nShe had been regarded as a formidable seer, a possessor of spirit-gifted power. But the truth was, and this she knew with absolute certainty, there was no magic in her percipience. Reason's spark did not arise spontaneously amidst the dark waters of base emotion. No, and nor was each spark isolated from the others. Bitterspring understood all too well that the sparks were born of hidden fires-the soul's own array of hearth-fires, each one devoted to simple, immutable truths. One for every need. One for every want. One for every fear.\n\nOnce this revelation found her, reading the futures of her kin was an easy task. Reason delivered the illusion of complexity, but behind it all, we areas simple as bhederin, simple as ay, as ranag. We rut and bare our teeth and expose our throats. Behind our eyes our thoughts can burn bright with love or blacken with jealous rot. We seek company to find our place in it, and unless that place is at the top, all we find dissatisfies us, poisons our hearts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In company, we are capable of anything." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Murder, betrayal. In company, we invent rituals to quench every spark, to ride the murky tide of emotion, to be once again as unseeing and uncaring as the beasts.\n\nI was hated. I was worshipped. And, in the end, I am sure, I was murdered.\n\nLera Epar, why are you awake once more? Why have you returned?\n\nI was the dust in the hollows, I was the memories lost.\n\nI did terrible things, once. Now I stand here, ready to do them all again.\n\nShe was Bitterspring, of the Brold Imass, and her world of ice and white-furred creatures was gone. She set out, a chert and jawbone mace dangling from one hand, the yellowed skin of the white-furred bear trailing down from her shoulders.\n\nShe had been too beautiful, once. But history was never kind.\n\nHe rose from the mud ringing the waterhole, shedding black roots, fish scales and misshapen cakes of clay and coarse sand. Mouth open, jaws stretched wide, he howled without sound. He had been running straight for them. Three K'ell Hunters, whose heads turned to regard him. They had been standing over the corpses of his wife, his two children. The bodies would join the gutted carcasses of other beasts brought down on their hunt. An antelope, a mule deer. The mates of the felled beasts had not challenged the slayers. No, they had fled. But this one, this male Imass roaring out his battle-cry and rushing them with spear readied, he was clearly mad. He would give his life for nothing.\n\nThe K'ell Hunters did not understand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had met his charge with the flat of their blades." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had broken the spear and had then beaten him unconscious. They didn't want his meat, tainted as it was with madness.\n\nThus ended his first life. In rebirth, he was a man emptied of love. And he had been among the first to step into the embrace of the Ritual of Tellann. To expunge the memories of past lives. Such was the gift, so precious, so perfect.\n\nHe had lifted himself from the mud, summoned once more-but this time was different. This time, he remembered everything.\n\nKalt Urmanal of the Orshayn T'lan Imass stood shin-deep in mud, head tilted back, howling without sound.\n\nRystalle Ev crouched on a mound of damp clay twenty paces from Kalt. Understanding him, understanding all that assailed him. She too had awakened, possessor of all that she had thought long lost, and so she looked upon Kalt, whom she loved and had always loved, even in the times when he walked as would a dead man, the ashes of his loss grey and thick upon his face; and in the times before, when she harboured jealous hatred for his wife, when she prayed to all the spirits for the woman's death.\n\nIt was possible that his scream would never cease. It was possible that, as they all rose and gathered in their disbelief at their resurrection-as they sought out the one whoso cruelly summoned the Orshayn-she would have to leave him here.\n\nThough his howl was without voice, it deafened her mind. If he did not cease, his madness would infect all the others.\n\nThe last time the Orshayn had walked the earth had been in a place faraway from this one. With but three broken clans remaining-a mere six hundred and twelve warriors left-and three damaged bonecasters, they had fled the Spires and fallen to dust. That dust had been lifted high on the winds, carried half a world away-there had been no thought of a return to bone and withered flesh-to finally settle in a scattered swath across scores of leagues." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This land, Rystalle Ev knew, was no stranger to the Imass." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nor-and Kalt's torment made this plain-was it unknown to the K'Chain Che'Malle. What were they doing here?\n\nKalt Urmanal fell to his knees, his cry dying away, leaving a ringing echo in her skull. She straightened, leaning heavily on the solid comfort of her spear's shaft of petrified wood. This return was unconscionable-a judgement she knew she would not have made without her memories-to that time of raw, wondrous mortality replete with its terrible crimes of love and desire. She could feel her own rage, rising like the molten blood of the earth.\n\nBeyond the waterhole she spied three figures approaching. T'lan Imass of the Orshayn. Bonecasters. Perhaps now they would glean some answers.\n\nBrolos Haran had always been abroad man, and even the bones of his frame, so visible beneath the taut, desiccated skin, looked abnormally robust. The clear, almost crystalline blue eyes that gave him his name were, of course, long gone; and in their place were the knotted remnants, gnarled and blackened and lifeless. His red hair drifted like bloodstained cobwebs out over the dun-hued emlava fur riding his shoulders. His lips had peeled back to reveal flat, thick teeth the colour of raw copper.\n\nTo his left was Ilm Absinos, her narrow, tall frame sheathed in the grey scales of the enkar'al, her long black hair knotted with snake-skins. The serpent staff in her bony hands seemed to writhe. She walked with a hitched gait, remnant of an injury to her hip.\n\nUlag Togtil was as wide as Brolos Haran yet taller than Ilm Absinos. He had ever been an outsider among the Orshayn clans. Born as a half-breed among the first tribes of the Trell, he had wandered into the camp of Kebralle Korish, the object of intense curiosity, especially among the women. It was the way of the Imass that strangers could come among them, and, if life was embraced and no violence was stirred awake, such strangers could make for themselves a home among the people, and so cease to be strangers. So it had been with Ulag." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the wars with the Order of the Red Sash, he had proved the most formidable among all the Orshayn bonecasters. Seeing him now, Rystalle Ev felt comforted, reassured-as if he alone could make things as they once were.\n\nHe could not. He was as trapped within the Ritual as was everyone else.\n\nUlag was the first to speak. \"Rystalle Ev, Kalt Urmanal. I am privileged to find two of my own clan at last.\" A huge hand gestured slightly. \"Since dawn I have laboured mightily beneath the assault of these two cloud-dancers-their incessant joy has proved a terrible burden.\"\n\nCould she have smiled, Rystalle would have. The image of cloud-dancers was such an absurd fit to these two dour creatures, she might well have laughed. But she had forgotten how. \"Ulag, do you know the truth of this?\"\n\n\"A most elusive hare. How it leaps and darts, skips free of every slingstone. How it sails over the snares and twitches an ear to every footfall. I have run in enough circles, failing to take the creature into my hands, to feel its pattering heart, its terrified trembling.\"\n\nIlm Absinos spoke. \"Inistral Ovan awaits us. We shall gather more on our return journey. It has not been so long since we last walked. Few, if any, will have lost themselves.\"\n\nBrolos Haran seemed to be staring into the south. Now he said, \"The Ritual is broken. Yet we are not released. In this, I smell the foul breath of Olar Ethil.\"\n\n\"So you have said before,\" snapped Ilm Absinos. \"And still, for all your chewing the same words, there remains no proof.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We do not know,\" sighed Ulag, \"who has summoned us." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is curious, but we are closed to her, or him. As if a wall of power stands between us, one that can only be breached from the other side. The summoner must choose. Until such time, we must simply wait.\"\n\nKalt Urmanal spoke for the first time. \"None of you understand anything. The waters are... crowded.\"\n\nTo this, silence was the only reply.\n\nKalt snarled, as if impatient with them all. He was still kneeling and it seemed he had little interest in moving. Instead, he pointed. \"There. Another approaches.\"\n\nRystalle and the others turned.\n\nThe sudden disquiet was almost palpable.\n\nShe wore the yellow and white fur of the brold, the bear of the snows and ice. Her hair was black as pitch, her face wide and flat, the skin stained deep amber. The pits of her eyes were angled, tilted at the outer corners. The talons of some small creature had been threaded through her cheeks.\n\nT'lan Imass, yes. But... not of our clans.\n\nThree barbed harpoons were strapped to her back. The mace she carried in one hand was fashioned of some animal's thighbone, inset with jagged blades of green rhyolite and white chert.\n\nShe halted fifteen paces away.\n\nIlm Absinos gestured with her staff. \"You area bonecaster, but I do not know you. How can this be? Our minds were joined at the Ritual. Our blood wove a thousand-upon-a-thousand threads. The Ritual claims you as kin, as T'lan Imass. What is your clan? '\n\n\"I am Nom Kala-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Brolos Haran cut in, \"We do not know those words.\"\n\nThat very admission was a shock to the Orshayn. It was, in fact, impossible. Our language is as dead as we are.\n\nNom Kala cocked her head, and then said, \"You speak the Old Tongue, the secret language of the bonecasters. I am of the Brold T'lan Imass-'\n\n\"There is no clan chief who claimed the name of the brold!\"\n\nShe seemed to study Brolos fora moment, and then said, \"There was no clan chief bearing the name of the brold. There was, indeed, no clan chief at all. Our people were ruled by the bonecasters. The Brold clans surrendered the Dark War. We Gathered. There was a Ritual-\"\n\n\"What!\" Ilm Absinos lurched forward, almost stumbling until her staff brought her up short. \"Another Ritual of Tellann?\"\n\n\"We failed. We were camped beneath a wall of ice, a wall that reached to the very heavens. We were assailed-\"\n\n\"By the Jaghut?\" Brolos asked.\n\n\"No-\"\n\n\"The K'Chain Che'Malle?\"\n\nOnce more she cocked her head and was silent.\n\nThe wind moaned.\n\nA grey fox wandered into their midst, stepping cautiously, nose testing the air. After a moment, it trotted down to the water's edge. Pink tongue unfurled and the sounds of lapping water tickled the air.\n\nWatching the fox, Kalt Urmanal put his hands to his face, covering his eyes. Seeing this, Rystalle turned away.\n\nNom Kala said, \"No. The dominion of both was long past.\" She hesitated, and then added, \"It was held among many of us that the enemy assailing our people were humans-our inheritors, our rivals in the ways of living. We bonecasters-the three of us who remained-knew that to be no more than a half-truth. No, we were assailed by ourselves. By the lies we told each other, by the false comforts of our legends, our stories, our very beliefs.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why, then,\" asked Ulag, \"did you attempt the Ritual of Tellann?\"\n\n\"With but three bonecasters left, how could you have hoped to succeed?\" Ilm Absinos demanded, her voice brittle with outrage.\n\nNom Kala fixed her attention upon Ulag. \"Trell-blood, you are welcome to my eyes. To answer your question: it is said that no memory survives the Ritual. We deemed this just. It is said, as well, that the Ritual delivers the curse of immortality. We saw this, too, as just.\"\n\n\"Then against whom did you wage war?\"\n\n\"No one. We were done with fighting, Trell-blood.\"\n\n\"Then why not simply choose death?\"\n\n\"We severed all allegiance to the spirits-we had been lying to them for too long.\"\n\nThe fox lifted its head, eyes suddenly wide, ears pricked. It then trotted in its light-footed way along the rim of the pool. Slipped beneath some firebrush, and vanished inside a den.\n\nHow much time passed before another word was spoken? Rystalle could not be certain, but the fox reappeared, a marmot in its jaws, and bounded away, passing so close to Rystalle that she could have brushed its back with her hand. A flock of tiny birds descended to prance along the muddy verge. Somewhere in the shallows ruddered a carp.\n\nIlm Absinos said, in a whisper, \"The spirits died when we died.\"\n\n\"A thing that dies to us is not necessarily dead,\" Nom Kala replied. \"We do not have that power.\"\n\n\"What does your name mean?\" Ulag asked.\n\n\"Knife Drip.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How did the ritual fail?\"\n\n\"The wall of ice fell onus. We were all killed instantly. The Ritual was therefore uncompleted.\" She paused, and then added, \"Given the oblivion that followed, failure seemed a safe assumption-were we capable of making assumptions. But now, it appears, we were in error.\"\n\n\"How long ago?\" Ulag asked her. \"Do you know?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"The Jaghut were gone a hundred generations. The K'Chain Che'Malle had journeyed to the eastern lands two hundred generations previously. We traded with the Jheck, and then with the Krynan Awl and the colonists of the Empire of Dessimbelackis. We followed the ice in its last retreat.\"\n\n\"How many of you will return, Knife Drip?\"\n\n\"The other two bonecasters have awakened and even now approach us. Lid Ger-Sourstone. And Lera Epar-Bitterspring. Of our people, we cannot yet say. Maybe all. Perhaps none.\"\n\n\"Who summoned us?\"\n\nOne more time she cocked her head. \"Trell-blood, this is our land. We have heard clear his cry. You cannot? We are summoned, T'lan Imass, by the First Sword. A legend among the Brold that, it seems, was not a lie. '\n\nUlag was rocked back as if struck a blow. \"Onos T'oolan? But... why? '\n\n\"He summons us beneath the banner of vengeance,\" she replied, \"and in the name of death. My new friends, the T'lan Imass are going to war. '\n\nThe birds launched into the air like a tent torn loose of its tethers, leaving upon the soft clays nothing but a scattering of tiny tracks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bitterspring walked towards the other T'lan Imass. The emptiness of the land was a suffocating pressure. When everything goes, it is fitting that we are cursed to return, lifeless as the world we have made. Still... am I beyond betrayal? Have I ceased to be a slave to hope? Will I once again tread the old, worn trails?\n\nLife is done, but the lessons remain. Life is done, but the trap still holds me tight. This is the meaning of legacy. This is the meaning of justice.\n\nWhat was, is.\n\nThe wind was insistent, tugging at worn strips of cloth, the shredded ends of leather straps, loose strands of hair. It moaned as if in search of a voice. But the lifeless thing that was Toc the Younger held its silence, its immutability in the midst of the life surrounding it.\n\nSetoc settled down on aching legs and waited. The two girls and the strange boy had huddled together nearby and were fast asleep.\n\nTheir saviour had carried them leagues from the territory of the Senan Barghast, north and east across the undulating prairie. The horse under them had made none of the normal sounds a horse should make. None of the grunting breaths, the snorts. It had not once sawed at the bit or dipped its head seeking a mouthful of grass. Its tattered hide remained dry, not once twitching to the frustrated deerflies, even as its ropy muscles worked steadily and its hoofs drummed the hard ground. Now it stood motionless beneath its motionless rider.\n\nShe rubbed at her face. They needed water. They needed food. She didn't know where they were. Close to the Wastelands? Perhaps. She thought she could make out a range of hills or mountains far to the east, a dusty grimace of rock shimmering through the waves of heat. Lolling in the saddle behind Toc, she had been slipping into and out of strange dreams, fragmented visions of a squalid farmstead, the rank sweat of herds and small boys shouting. One boy with a face she thought she knew, but it was twisted with fear, and then hard with sudden resolve. A face that had transformed in an instant to one that awaited death. In one so young, nothing was more horrifying. Dreaming of children, but not these children here, not even Barghast children. At times, she found herself wheeling high above this lone warrior who rode with a girl in front, a girl behind, a girl and a boy in the crooks of his arms. She could smell scorched feathers, and all at once the land far below was a sea of diamonds, cut in two by a thin, wavering line." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was fevered, or so she concluded now as she sat, mouth dry, eyes stinging with grit. Was this meant to be a rest? Something in her was resisting sleep. They needed water. They needed to eat.\n\nA mound a short distance away caught her eye. Groaning, she stood, dragged herself closer.\n\nA cairn, almost lost in the knee-high grasses. A wedge-shaped stone set atop a thinner slab, and beneath that a mound of angled rocks. The wedge was carved on its sides. Etching the eyes of a wolf. Mouth open with the slab forming the lower jaw, the scratchings of fangs and teeth. Worn down by centuries of wind and rain. She reached out a trembling hand, set her palm against the rough, warm stone.\n\n\"We are being hunted.\"\n\nThe rasping pronouncement drew her round. She saw Toc stringing his bow, heard the wind hum against the taut gut. Anew voice in the air. She joined him, gazed westward. A dozen or more riders. \"Akrynnai,\" she said. \"They will see our Barghast clothing. They will seek to kill us. Then again,\" she added, \"if you ride to them, they may change their minds.\"\n\n\"And why would that be?\" he asked, even as he kicked his horse forward.\n\nShe saw the Akrynnai horse-warriors fan out, saw lances being readied.\n\nToc rode straight for them, an arrow nocked to the bowstring.\n\nAs they drew closer, Setoc saw the Akrynnai falter, even as their lances lifted defensively. Moments later the warriors scattered, horses bucking beneath them. Within a few more heartbeats, all were in flight. Toc slowly wheeled his mount and rode back to where she stood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It seems you were right.\"\n\n\"Their horses knew before they did.\"\n\nHe halted his mount, returned the arrow to its quiver and deftly unstrung the bow.\n\n\"Actually, you'll need those, \"Setoc said.\"We need food. We need water, too. '\n\nIt seemed he'd stopped listening, and his head was turned to the east.\n\n\"What is it?\" she asked. \"More hunters?\"\n\n\"She wasn't satisfied, \"he muttered.\"Of course not. What can one do better than an army can? Not much. But he won't like it. He never did. In fact, he may turn them all away. Well now, Bonecaster, what would you do about that? If he releases them?\"\n\n\"I don't know what you're talking about. She? Him? What army?\"\n\nHis head turned to look past her. She swung round. The boy was on his feet, walking over to the wolf cairn. He sang, \"Blalalalalalala...\"\n\n\"I wish he'd stop doing that, ' she said.\n\n\"You are not alone in that, Setoc of the Wolves.\"\n\nShe started, turned back to eye the undead warrior. \"I see you now, Toc Anaster, and it seems you have but one eye-dead as it is. But that first night, I saw-\"\n\n\"What? What did you see?\"\n\nThe eye of a wolf. She waved towards the cairn. \"You brought us here.\"\n\n\"No. I took you away. Tell me, Setoc, are the beasts innocent?\"\n\n\"Innocent? Of what?\"\n\n\"Did they deserve their fate?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No.\"\n\n\"Did it matter? Whether they deserved it or not?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Setoc, what do the Wolves want?\"\n\nShe knew by his intonation that he meant the god and the goddess-she knew they existed, even if she didn't know their names, or if they even had ones.\"They want us all to go away. To leave them alone. Them and their children. '\n\n\"Will we?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nShe struggled for an answer.\n\n\"Because, Setoc, to live is to wage war. And it just happens that no other thing is as good at waging war as we are.\"\n\n\"I don't believe you! Wolves don't wage war against anything!\"\n\n\"A pack marks out its territory and that pack will drive off any other pack that seeks to encroach upon it. The pack defends its claim-to the land, and to the animals it preys upon in that land.\"\n\n\"But that's not war! '\n\nHe shrugged. \"Mostly, it's just the threat of war, until threat alone proves insufficient. Every creature strives for dominance, among its own kind and within its territory. Even a pack of dogs will find its king, its queen, and they will rule by virtue of their strength and the threat their strength implies, until they are usurped by the next inline. What can we make of this? That politics belong to all social creatures? So it would seem. Setoc, could the Wolves kill us humans, everyone of us, would they? '\n\n\"If they understood it was them or us, yes! Why shouldn't they? '\n\n\"I was but asking questions,\" Toc replied. \"I once knew a woman who could flatten a city with the arch of a single perfect eyebrow.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did she?\" Setoc asked, pleased to be the one asking questions.\n\n\"Occasionally. But, not every city, not every time.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nThe undead warrior smiled, the expression chilling her. \"She liked a decent bath every now and then.\"\n\nAfter Toc had set off in search of food, Setoc set about building a hearth with whatever stones she could find. The boy was sitting in front of the cairn, still singing his song. The twins had awakened but neither seemed to have anything to say. Their eyes were glazed and Setoc knew it for shock.\n\n\"Toc'll be back soon, \"she told them.\"Listen, can you make him stop that babbling? Please? It's making my skin crawl. I mean, has he lost his mind, the little one? Or are they all like that? Barghast children aren't, at least not that I remember. They stay quiet, just like you two are doing right now. '\n\nNeither girl replied. They simply watched her.\n\nThe boy suddenly shouted.\n\nAt the cry the ground erupted twenty paces beyond the cairn. Stones spat through a cloud of dust.\n\nAnd something clambered forth.\n\nThe twins shrieked. But the boy was laughing. Setoc stared. A huge wolf, long-limbed, with along, flat head and heavy jaws bristling with fangs, stepped out from the dust, and then paused to shake its matted, tangled coat. The gesture cutaway the last threads of fear in Setoc.\n\nFrom the boy, anew song. \"Ay ay ay ayayayayayayay!\"\n\nAt its hunched shoulders, the creature was taller than Setoc. And it had died long, long ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her eyes snapped to the boy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He summoned it. With that nonsense song, he summoned it.\n\nCan-can I do the same? What is the boy tome? What is being made here?\n\nOne of the twins spoke: \"He needs Toc. At his side. At our brother's side. He needs Tool's only friend. They have to be together.\"\n\nAnd the other girl, her gaze levelled on Setoc, said, \"And they need you. But we have nothing. Nothing.\"\n\n\"I don't understand you, \"Setoc said, irritated by the stab of irrational guilt she'd felt at the girl's words.\n\n\"What will happen,\" the girl asked, \"when you raise one of your perfect eyebrows?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"\"Wherever you walk, someone's stepped before you.\" Our father used to say that. '\n\nThe enormous wolf stood close to the boy. Dust still streamed down its flanks. She had a sudden vision of this beast tearing out the throat of a horse. I saw these ones, but as ghosts. Ghosts of living things, not all rotted skin and bones. They kept their distance. They were never sure of me. Yet... I wept for them.\n\nI can't level cities.\n\nCan I?\n\nThe apparitions rose suddenly, forming a circle around Toc. He slowly straightened from gutting the antelope he'd killed with an arrow to the heart.\"If only Hood's realm was smaller,\" he said, \"I might know you all. But it isn't and I don't. What do you want?\"\n\nOne of the undead Jaghut answered: \"Nothing.\"\n\nThe thirteen others laughed.\n\n\"Nothing from you,\" the speaker amended. She had been female, once-when such distinctions meant something." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then why have you surrounded me?\" Toc asked. \"It can't be that you're hungry-\"\n\nMore laughter, and weapons rattled back into sheaths and belt-loops. The woman approached. \"A fine shot with that arrow, Herald. All the more remarkable for the lone eye you have left.\"\n\nToc glared at the others. \"Will you stop laughing, for Hood's sake! '\n\nThe guffaws redoubled.\n\n\"The wrong invocation, Herald,\" said the woman. \"I am named Varandas. We do not serve Hood. We did Iskar Jarak a favour, and now we are free to do as we please.\"\n\n\"And what pleases you?\"\n\nLaughter from all sides.\n\nToc crouched back down, resumed gutting the antelope. Flies spun and buzzed. In the corner of his vision he could see one of the animal's eyes, still liquid, still full, staring out at nothing. Iskar Jarak, when will you summon me? Soon, I think. It all draws in-but none of that belongs to the Wolves. Their interests lie elsewhere. What will happen? Will I simply tear in half? He paused, looked up to seethe Jaghut still encircling him.\"What are you doing here? '\n\n\"Wandering,\" Varandas replied.\n\nAnother added in a deep voice, \"Looking for something to kill.\"\n\nToc glanced again at the antelope's sightless eye.\"You picked the wrong continent. The T'lan Imass have awakened.\"\n\nAll at once, the amusement surrounding him seemed to vanish, and a sudden chill gripped the air.\n\nToc set down his knife and dragged loose the antelope's guts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We never faced them,\" said Varandas." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We were dead long before their ritual of eternal un-life.\"\n\nA different Jaghut spoke. \"K'Chain Nah'ruk, and now T'lan Imass. Doesn't anyone ever go away?\"\n\nAfter a moment, all began laughing again.\n\nThrough the merriment Varandas stepped close to Toc and said, \"Why have you killed this thing? You cannot eat it. And since that is true, I conclude that you must therefore hunt for others. Where are they?\"\n\n\"Not far,\" he replied, \"and none are any threat to you.\"\n\n\"Too bad.\"\n\n\"Nah'ruk-were they Iskar Jarak's favour?\"\n\n\"They were.\"\n\n\"What were they after?\"\n\n\"Not'what\". Who. But ask nothing more of that-we have discussed the matter and can make no sense of it. The world has lost its simplicity.\"\n\n\"The world was never simple, Jaghut, and if you believe it was, you're deluding yourself. '\n\n\"What would you know of the ancient times?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"I only know recent times, but why should the ancient ones be any different? Our memories lie. We call it nostalgia and smile. But every lie has a purpose. And that includes falsifying our sense of the past-\"\n\n\"And what purpose would that serve, Herald?\"\n\nHe wiped clean his knife in the grasses. \"You shouldn't need to ask. '\n\n\"But I do ask.\"\n\n\"We lie about our past to make peace with the present. If we accepted the truth of our history, we would find no peace-our consciences would not permit it. Nor would our rage.\"\n\nVarandas was clearly amused. \"Are you consumed with anger, Herald? Do you see too clearly with that lonely eye? Strong emotions are ever a barrier to perception, and this must be true of you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Meaning?\"\n\n\"You failed to detect my mocking tone when I spoke of the world's loss of simplicity. '\n\n\"I must have lost its distinction in the midst of the irony suffusing everything else you said. How stupid of me. Now, I am done with this beast.\" He sheathed his knife and lifted the carcass to settle it across his shoulders. \"I could wish you all luck in finding something to kill,\" he said, \"but you don't need it. '\n\n\"Do you think the T'lan Imass will be eager to challenge us, Herald? '\n\nHe levered the antelope onto the rump of his horse. The eyes, he saw, now swarmed with flies. Toc set a boot in the stirrup and, lifting wide with his leg to clear the carcass, lowered himself into the saddle. He gathered the reins. \"I knew a T'lan Imass once, \"he said.\"I taught him how to make jokes. '\n\n\"He needed teaching?\"\n\n\"More like reminding, I think. Being un-alive for as long as he was will do that to the best of us, I suspect. In any case, I'm sure the T'lan Imass will find you very comforting, in all that dark armour and whatnot, even as they chop you to pieces. Unfortunately, and at the risk of deflating your bloated egos, they're not here for you. '\n\n\"Neither were the Nah'ruk. But, \"and Varandas cocked her helmed head,\"what do you mean they will find us'comforting\"? '\n\nToc studied her, and then scanned the others. Lifeless faces, so eager to laugh. Damned Jaghut. He shrugged, and then said, \"Nostalgia.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "After the Herald and the lifeless antelope had ridden away on the lifeless horse, Varandas turned to her companions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What think you, Haut?\"\n\nThe thick-limbed warrior with the heavy voice shifted, armour clanking and shedding red dust, and then said, \"I think, Captain, we need to make ourselves scarce.\"\n\nSuvalas snorted. \"The Imass were pitiful-I doubt even un-living ones could cause us much trouble. Captain, let us find some of them and destroy them. I'd forgotten how much fun killing is. '\n\nVarandas turned to one of her lieutenants. \"Burrugast?\"\n\n\"A thought has occurred tome, Captain.\"\n\nShe smiled. \"Go on.\"\n\n\"If the T'lan Imass who waged war against the Jaghut were as pitiful as Suvalas suggests, why are there no Jaghut left? '\n\nNo one arrived at an answer. Moments passed.\n\n\"We need to make ourselves scarce,\" Haut repeated. And then he laughed.\n\nThe others joined in. Even Suvalas.\n\nCaptain Varandas nodded. So many things were a delight, weren't they? All these awkward emotions, such as humility, confusion and unease. To feel them again, to laugh at their inherent absurdity, mocking every survival instinct-as if she and her companions still lived. As if they still had something to lose. As if the past was worth recreating herein the present.\"As if, \"she added mostly to herself,\"old grudges were worth holding onto. \"She grunted, and then said,\"We shall march east. '\n\n\"Why east?\" Gedoran demanded.\n\n\"Because I feel like it, lieutenant. Into the birth of the sun, the shadows on our trail, anew day ever ahead.\" She tilted back her head. \"Hah hah hah hah hah!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Toc the Younger saw the gaunt ay from some distance away. Standing with the boy clinging to one foreleg. If Toc had possessed a living heart, it would have beaten faster. If he could draw breath, it would have quickened. If his eye were swimming in a pool of tears, as living eyes did, he would weep.\n\nOf course, it was not Baaljagg. The giant wolf was not-he realized as he rode closer-even alive. It had been summoned. Not from Hood's Realm, for the souls of such beasts did not reside there. The Beast Hold, gift of the Wolves. An ay, to walk the mortal world once again, to guard the boy. And their chosen daughter.\n\nSetoc, was this by your hand?\n\nOne-eyed he might be, but he was not blind to the patterns taking shape. Nor, in the dry dust of his mind, was he insensitive to the twisted nuances within those patterns, as if the distant forces of fate took ghastly pleasure in mocking all that he treasured-the memories he held onto as would a drowning man hold onto the last breath in his lungs.\n\nI see you in his face, Tool. As if I could travel back to the times before the Ritual of Tellann, as if I could whisper in like a ghost to that small camp where you were born, and see you at but a few years of age, bundled against the cold, your breath pluming and your cheeks bright red-I had not thought such a journey possible.\n\nBut it is. I need only look upon your son, and I see you.\n\nWe are broken, you and me. I had to turn you away. I had to deny you what you wanted most. But, what I could not do for you, I will do for your son." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He knew he was a fool to make such vows. He was the Herald of Death. And soon Hood would summon him. He would be torn from the boy's side. Unless the Wolves want me to stay. But no one can know what they want. They do not think anything like us. I have no control... over anything.\n\nHe reached the camp. Setoc had built a small fire. The twins had not moved from where they'd been earlier, but their eyes were fixed on Toc now, as if he could holdall their hopes in his arms. But I cannot. My life is gone, and what remains does not belong tome.\n\nI dream I can hold to my vows. I dream I can be Toc the Younger, who knew how to smile, and love. Who knew what it was to desire a woman forever beyond his reach-gods, such delicious anguish! When the self would curl up, when longing overwhelmed with the sweetest flood.\n\nRemember! You once wrote poems! You once crawled into your every thought, your every feeling, to see and touch and dismantle and, in the midst of putting it all back together, feel wonder. Awed, humbled by complexity, assailed by compassion. Uncomprehending in the face of cruelty, of indifference.\n\nRemember how you thought: How can people think this way? How can they be so thoughtless, so vicious, so worshipful of death, so dismissive of suffering and misery?\n\nHe stared at the wolf. Baaljagg, not Baaljagg. A mocking reflection, a crafted simulacrum. A Hairlock. He met Setoc's slightly wide eyes and saw that she had had nothing to do with this summoning. The boy. Of course. Tool made me arrows. His son finds me a companion as dead as I am.\"It is named Baaljagg-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Balalalalalalalalala!\"\n\nSceptre Irkullas sat, shoulders hunched, barricaded from the world by his grief. His officers beseeched him, battering at the high walls. The enemy was within reach, the enemy was on the move-an entire people, suddenly on the march. Their outriders had discovered the Akrynnai forces. The giant many-headed beasts were jockeying for position, hackles raised, and soon would snap the jaws, soon the fangs would sink deep, and fate would fill the mouth bitter as iron.\n\nA conviction had burrowed deep into his soul. He was about to tear out the throat of the wrong enemy. But there were no thorns to prick his conscience, nothing to stir to life the trembling dance of reason. Before too long, loved ones would weep. Children would voice cries unanswered. And ripples would spread outward, agitated, in a tumult, and nothing would be the same as it once was.\n\nThere were times when history curled into a fist, breaking all it held. He waited for the crushing embrace with all the hunger of a lover. His officers did not understand. When he rose, gesturing for his armour, he saw the relief in their eyes, as if a belligerent stream had once more found its destined path. But he knew they thought nothing of the crimson sea they now rushed towards. Their relief was found in the comfort of the familiar, these studied patterns preceding dread mayhem. They would face the time of blood when it arrived.\n\nUsed to be he envied the young. At this moment, as the sun's bright morning light scythed the dust swirling above the restless horses, he looked upon those he could see-weapons flashing like winks from a thousand skulls-and he felt nothing but pity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Great warleaders were, one and all, insane." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They might stand as he was standing, herein the midst of the awakening machine, and see nothing but blades to cut a true path to his or her desire, as if desire alone was a virtue, a thing so pure and so righteous it could not be questioned, could not be challenged. This great warleader could throw a thousand warriors to their deaths and the oily surface of his or her conscience would reveal not the faintest swirl.\n\nHe had been a great warleader, once, his mouth full of iron shards, flames licking his fingertips. His chest swollen with unquestioned virtues.\n\n\"If we pursue, Sceptre, we can meet them by dusk. Do you think they will want to close then? Or will they wait for next dawn? If we are swift...\"\n\n\"I will clench my jaws one more time,\" Irkullas said. \"I will keep them fast and think nothing of the bite, the warm flow. You'd be surprised at what a man can swallow. '\n\nThey looked on, uncomprehending.\n\nThe Akrynnai army shook loose the camp of the night just past. It lifted itself up, broke into eager streams flowing into the wake of the wounded foe, and spread in a flood quickened to purpose.\n\nThe morning lost its gleam. Strange clouds gathered, and across the sky, flights of birds fled into the north. Sceptre Irkullas rode straight-backed on his horse, riding the sweaty palm, as the fist began to close.\n\n\"Gatherer of skulls, where is the fool taking us?\"\n\nStrahl, Bakal observed, was in the habit of repeating himself, as if his questions were a siege weapon, flinging stones at what he hoped was a weak point in the solid wall of his ignorance. Sooner or later, through the dust and patter of crumbling mortar, he would catch his first glimpse of the answers he sought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bakal had no time for such things. If he had questions, he burned them to the ground where they stood, smiling through the drifting ashes. The wall awaiting them all would come toppling down before too long. To our regret.\n\n\"We've left a bloody trail, \"Strahl then added, and Bakal knew the warrior's eyes were fixed upon Hetan's back, as she limped, tottered and stumbled a short distance ahead of them in the column. Early in the day, when the warriors were still fresh, their breaths acrid with the anticipation of battle-perhaps only a day away-one would drag her from the line and take heron the side of the path, with others shouting their encouragement. A dozen times since dawn, this had occurred. Now, everyone walked as slowly as she, and no one had the energy to use her. Of food there was plenty; their lack was water. This wretched land was an old hag, her tits dry and withered. Bakal could almost see her toothless grin through the waves of heat rising above the yellow grasses on all sides, the nubbed horizon with its rotten stumps of bedrock protruding here and there.\n\nThe bloody trail Strahl spoke of marked the brutal consolidation of power by Warchief Maral Eb and his two brothers, Sagal and Kashat. And the widow, Sekara the Vile. What a cosy family they made! He turned his head and spat, since he found the mere thought of them fouled the taste on his tongue.\n\nThere had been two more attempts on his life. If not for Strahl and the half-dozen other Senan who'd elected themselves his guardians, he would now be as dead as his wife and her would-be lover. A widow walked a few steps behind him. Estaral would have died by her husband's hand if not for Bakal. Yet the truth was, his saving her life had been an accidental by-product of his bloodlust, even though he had told her otherwise. That night of storms had been like a fever coursing through the Barghast people. Such a night had been denied them all when Onos Toolan assumed command after Humbrall Taur's drowning-he had drawn his stone sword before all the gathered clan chiefs and said,\"The first murder this night will be answered by me. Take hold of your wants, your imagined needs, and crush the life from them. ' His will was not tested. As it turned out, too much was held back, and this time everyone had lunged into madness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They won't rest until you're dead, you know.\"\n\n\"Then they'd best be quick, \"Bakal replied.\"For tomorrow we do battle with the Akrynnai. '\n\nStrahl grunted. \"It's said they have D'ras with them. And legions of Saphii Spears.\"\n\n\"Maral Eb will choose the place. That alone can decide the battle. Unlike our enemy, we are denied retreat. Either we win, or we fall.\"\n\n\"They think to take slaves.\"\n\n\"The Barghast kneel to no one. The grandmothers will slide knives across the throats of our children, and then sever the taproot of their own hearts.\"\n\n\"Our gods shall sing and so summon us all through the veil.\"\n\nBakal bared his teeth. \"Our gods would be wise to wear all the armour they own.\"\n\nThree paces behind the two warriors, Estaral stared at Bakal, the man who had killed her husband, the man who had saved her life. At times she felt as if she was walking the narrowest bridge over a depthless crevasse, abridge reeled out behind Bakal. At other moments the world suddenly opened before her, vast as a flooding ocean, and she flailed in panic, even as, in a rush of breathless astonishment, she comprehended the truth of her freedom. Finding herself alone made raw the twin births of fear and excitement, and both sizzled to the touch. Estaral alternated between cursing and blessing the warrior striding before her. He washer shield, yes, behind which she could hide. He also haunted her with the memory of that terrible night when she'd looked into her husband's eyes and saw only contempt-and then the dark desire to murder her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Had she really been that useless to him? That disgusting? He could not have always seen her so, else he would never have married her-she remembered seeing smiles on his face, years ago now, it was true, but she could have sworn there had been no guile in his eyes. She measured out the seasons since those bright, rushing days, seeking signs of her failure, struggling to find the fatal threshold she had so unwittingly crossed. But the memories swirled round like a vortex, drawing her in, and everything blurred, spun past, and the only thing she could focus on washer recollection of his two faces: the smiling one, the one ugly with malice, flitting back and forth.\n\nShe was too old to be desired ever again, and even if she had not been so, it was clear now that she could not keep a man's love alive. Weak, foolish, blind, and now widow to a husband who'd sought to kill her.\n\nBakal had not hesitated. He'd killed her man as she might wring the neck of a yurt rat. And then he had turned to his wife-she had stood defiant until his first step towards her, and then she had collapsed to her knees, begging for her life. But that night had been the night of Hetan's hobbling. The beast of mercy had been gutted and its bloody skin staked to the ground. She'd begged even as he opened her throat.\n\nBlood flows down. I saw it doing just that. Down their bodies, down and down. I thought he would turn tome then and do the same-I witnessed his shame, his rage. And he knew, if I had been a better wife, my husband would never have fixed his eyes upon his wife. And so, the failure and the crime was mine as well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I would not have begged.\n\nInstead, he had cleaned his knife and sheathed it. And when he looked upon her, she saw his fury fall away, and his eyes glistened. \"I wish you had not seen this, Estaral.\"\n\n\"You wish he'd already killed me? '\n\n\"No-I came hereto stop them doing that.\"\n\nThat had confused her. \"But I am nothing to you, Bakal.\"\n\n\"But you are,\" he said. \"Without you, I would have no choice but to see this night-to see what I have done here-as black vengeance. As the rage of a jealous man-but you see, I really didn't care. She was welcome to whoever she wanted. But she had no right-nor your husband there-they had no right to kill you. '\n\n\"You are the slayer of Onos Toolan.\" She still did not know why she had said that then. Had she meant that the night of blood was his and his alone?\n\nHe had flinched, and his face had drained. She'd thought then that he regretted sparing her life; indeed, that he might even change his mind. Instead, he turned away and an instant later he was gone.\n\nDid she know that her words would wound him? Why should they? Was he not proud of his glorious deed?\n\nOf course, Bakal had since failed to become the leader of the Barghast. Perhaps he had already seen the power slipping from his grasp, that night. So she followed him now. Had tethered herself to him, all with the intention of taking back her words, and yet not one step she took in pursuit found her any closer. Days now, nights of hovering like a ghost beyond the edge of his hearth-fire. She had witnessed the attempt on him by the first assassin, a Barahn warrior desperate for status-Strahl had cut him down five strides from Bakal. The next time it had been an arrow sent through the darkness, missing Bakal's head by less than a hand's-width. Strahl and three other warriors had rushed off after the archer but they had lost the would-be killer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Upon returning, Strahl had muttered about Estaral's spectral presence-calling her the Reaper's eyes, wondering if she stayed close in order to witness Bakal's death. It seemed Strahl believed she hated Bakal for killing her husband. But the notion of hate had never even occurred to her, not for him, anyway.\n\nShe wanted to speak with Bakal. She wanted to explain and if she could understand her own motivations from that night, why, she would do just that. Salve the wound, perhaps heal it completely. They shared something, the two of them, didn't they? He must have understood, even if Strahl didn't.\n\nBut now they spoke of a battle with the Akrynnai, a final clash to decide who would rule this land. Maral Eb would lead the Barghast, warriors in their tens of thousands. It had been one thing for the Akrynnai to strike clan camps-now at last all of the White Face Barghast were assembled and no tribe in the world could defeat such an army. Even so, Bakal might die in the battle-he would be commanding the Senan after all, and it was inconceivable to imagine Maral Eb being so arrogant as not to position the most powerful clan in the line's centre. No, the Senan would form the jagged wedge and it would cut savage and deep.\n\nShe should approach him soon, perhaps this very night. If only to take back my words. He struck them down to save my life, after all. He said so. Even though I was the cause of so much-\n\nShe had missed something, and now Bakal had sent Strahl away and was dropping back to her side. Suddenly her mouth was dry.\n\n\"Estaral, I must ask of you a favour.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something in his tone whispered darkness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No more death. Please. If she had other lovers-\n\n\"Hetan,\" he said under his breath. \"You are among the women who guard her at night.\"\n\nShe blinked. \"Not for much longer, Bakal,\" she said. \"She is past the time of fleeing. There is nothing in her eyes. She is hobbled. Last night there were but two of us.\"\n\n\"And tonight there will be one.\"\n\n\"Perhaps not even that. Warriors will use her, likely through the night.\"\n\n\"Gods\" shit, I didn't think of that!\"\n\n\"If you want her-\"\n\n\"I do not. Listen, with the sun's fall, as warriors gather for their meals, can you be the one to feed her? '\n\n\"The food just falls from her mouth,\" Estaral said. \"We let the children do that-it entertains them, forcing it down as if she was a babe.\"\n\n\"Not tonight. Take it on yourself.\"\n\n\"Why?\" I want to speak with you. Take things back. I want to lie with you, Bakal, and take back so much more.\n\nHe fixed his eyes upon her own, searching for something-she quickly glanced away, in case he discovered her thoughts. \"I don't understand, \"he said.\"Why are you women so eager to hobble another woman? '\n\n\"I had no hand in that.\"\n\n\"That is not what I asked.\"\n\nShe had never before considered such a thing. It was what was done. It had always been so. \"Women have claws.\"\n\n\"I know-I've seen it often enough. I've seen it in battle. But hobbling-that's different. Isn't it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She refused to meet his eyes. \"You don't understand. I didn't mean the claws of a warrior. I meant the claws we keep hidden, the ones we use only against other women.\"\n\n\"But why?\"\n\n\"You speak now in the way Onos Toolan did-all his questions about the things we've always done. Was it not this that saw him killed, Bakal? He kept questioning things that he had no right to question. '\n\nShe saw as he lifted his right hand. He seemed to be studying it.\n\nHis knife hand.\n\n\"His blood,\" he whispered, \"has poisoned me.\"\n\n\"When we turn on our own,\" she said, struggling to put her thoughts into words, \"it is as water in a skin finds a hole. There is so much... weight-\"\n\n\"Pressure.\"\n\n\"Yes, that is the word. We turn on our own, to ease the pressure. All eyes are on her, not us. All desire-\" she stopped then, stifling a gasp.\n\nBut he'd caught it-he'd caught it all. \"Are men the reason then? Is that what you're saying? '\n\nShe felt a flush of anger, like knuckles rapping up her spine. \"Answer me this, Bakal\"-and she met his wide eyes unflinchingly-\"how many times was your touch truly tender? Upon your wife? Tell me, how often did you laugh with your friends when you saw a woman emerge from her home with blood crusting her lip, a welt beneath an eye? \"Oh, the wild wolf rutted last night!\" And then you grin and you laugh-do you think we do not hear? Do you think we do not see? Hobble her! Take her, all of you! And, for as long as she lifts to you, you leave us alone!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Heads had turned at her venomous tone-even if they could not quite make out her words, as she had delivered them low, like the hiss of a dog-snake as it wraps tight the crushed body in its embrace. She saw a few mocking smiles, saw the muted swirls of unheard jests. \"Bound tight in murder, those two, and already they spit at each other!\" \"No wonder their mates leapt into each other's arms! '\n\nBakal managed to hold her glare a moment longer, as if he could hold back her furious, bitter words, and then he looked ahead once more. A rough sigh escaped him. \"I remember his nonsense-or so I thought it at the time. His tales of the Imass-he said the greatest proof of strength a male warrior could display was found in not once touching his mate with anything but tenderness.\"\n\n\"And you sneered.\"\n\n\"I saw women sneer at that, too.\"\n\n\"And if we hadn't, Bakal? If you'd seen us with something else in our eyes?\"\n\nHe grimaced and then nodded. \"A night or two of the wild wolf-\"\n\n\"To beat out such treasonous ideas, yes. You did not understand-none of you did. If you hadn't killed him, he would have changed us all. '\n\n\"And women such as Sekara the Vile?\"\n\nShe curled her lip. \"What of them?\"\n\nHe grunted. \"Of course. Greed and power are her only lovers-in that, she is no different from us men.\"\n\n\"What do you want with Hetan?\"\n\n\"Nothing. Never mind.\"\n\n\"You no longer trust me. Perhaps you never did. It was only the pool of blood we're both standing in. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You follow me. You stand just beyond the firelight every night.\"\n\nI am alone. Can't you see that?\"Why did you murder him? I will tell you. It's because you saw him as a threat, and he was surely that, wasn't he? '\n\n\"I-I did not-\" He halted, shook his head. \"I want to steal her away. I want it to end.\"\n\n\"It's too late. Hetan is dead inside. Long dead. You took away her husband. You took away her children. And then you-we-took away her body. A flower cut from its root quickly dies. '\n\n\"Estaral.\"\n\nHe was holding onto a secret, she realized.\n\nBakal glanced at her. \"Cafal.\"\n\nShe felt her throat tighten-was it panic? Or the promise of vengeance? Retribution? Even if it meant her own death? Oh, I see now. We're still falling.\n\n\"He is close,\" Bakal went on under his breath. \"He wants her back. He wants me to steal her away. Estaral, I need your help-\"\n\nShe searched his face. \"You would do this for him? Do you hate him that much, Bakal?\"\n\nShe might as well have struck him in the face.\n\n\"He-he is a shaman, a healer-\"\n\n\"No Barghast shaman has ever healed one of the hobbled.\"\n\n\"None has tried!\"\n\n\"Perhaps it is as you say, Bakal. I see that you do not want to wound Cafal. You would do this to give to him what he seeks.\"\n\nHe nodded once, as if unable to speak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I will take her from the children,\" Estaral said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I will lead her to the west end of the camp. But, Bakal, there will be pickets-we are at the eve of battle-\"\n\n\"I know. Leave the warriors tome.\"\n\nShe didn't know why she was doing this. Nor did she understand the man walking at her side. But what difference did knowing make? Just as easy to live in ignorance, scraped clean of expectation, emptied of beliefs and faith, even hopes. Hetan is hobbled. No different in the end from every other woman suffering the same fate. She's been cut down inside, and the stem lies bruised and lifeless. She was once a great warrior. She was once proud, her wit sharp as a thorn, ever quick to laugh but never with cruelty. She was indeed a host of virtues, but they had availed her nothing. No strength of will survives hobbling. Not a single virtue. This is the secret of humiliation: the deadliest weapon the Barghast have.\n\nShe could see Hetan up ahead, her matted hair, her stumbles brought up by the crooked staff the hobbled were permitted when on the march. The daughter of Humbrall Taur was barely recognizable. Did her father's spirit stand witness, therein the Reaper's shadow? Or had he turned away?\n\nNo, he rides his last son's soul. That must be what has so maddened Cafal.\n\nWell, to honour Hetan's father, she would do this. When the Barghast came to rest at this day's end. She was tired. She was thirsty. She hoped it would be soon.\n\n______\n\nKashat pointed. \"See there, brother. The ridge forms half a circle.\"\n\n\"Not much of a slope,\" Sagal muttered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look around,\" Kashat said, snorting. \"It's about the best we can manage. This land is pocked, but those pocks are old and worn down. Anyway, that ridge marks the biggest of those pocks-you can see that for yourself. And the slope is rocky-they would lose horses charging up that. '\n\n\"So they flank us instead.\"\n\n\"We make strongpoints at both ends, with crescents of archers positioned behind them to take any riders attempting an encirclement.\"\n\n\"With the rear barricaded by the wagons.\"\n\n\"Held by mixed archers and pike-wielders, yes, exactly. Listen, Sagal, by this time tomorrow we'll be picking loot from heaps of corpses. The Akrynnai army will be shattered, their villages undefended-we can march into the heart of their territory and claim it for ourselves. '\n\n\"An end to the Warleader, the rise of the first Barghast King.\"\n\nKashat nodded. \"And we shall be princes, and the King shall grant us provinces to rule. Our very own herds. Horses, bhederin, rodara. We shall have Akrynnai slaves, as many of their young women as we want, and we shall live in keeps-do you remember, Sagal? When we were young, our first war, marching down to Capustan-we saw the great stone keeps all in ruin along the river. We shall build ourselves those, one each.\"\n\nSagal grinned at his brother. \"Let us return to the host, and see if our great King is in any better mood than when we left him.\"\n\nThey turned back, slinging their spears over their shoulders and jogging to rejoin the vanguard of the column. The sun glared through the dust above the glittering forest of barbed iron, transforming the cloud into a penumbra of gold. Vultures rode the deepening sky to either side. Barely two turns of the beaker before dusk arrived-the night ahead promised to be busy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The half-dozen Akryn scouts rode between the narrow, twisting gullies and out onto the flats where the dust still drifted above the rubbish left behind by the Barghast. They cut across that churned-up trail and cantered southward. The sun had just left the sky, dropping behind a bank of clouds dark as a shadowed cliff-face on the western horizon, and dusk bled into the air.\n\nWhen the drum of horse hoofs finally faded, Cafal edged out from the deeper of the two gullies. The bastards had held him back too long-the great cauldrons would be steaming in the Barghast camp, the foul reek of six parts animal blood to two parts water and sour wine, and all the uncured meat still rank with the taste of slaughter. Squads would be shaking out, amidst curses that they would have to eat salted strips of smoked bhederin, sharing a skin of warm water on their patrols between the pickets. The Barghast encampment would be seething with activity.\n\nOne of Bakal's warriors had found him a short time earlier, delivering the details of the plan. It would probably fail, but Cafal did not care. If he died attempting to steal her back, then this torment would end. For one of them, at least. It was a selfish desire, but selfish desires were all he had left.\n\nI am the last of Father's children, the last not dead or broken. Father, you so struggled to become the great leader of the White Faces. And now I wonder, if you had turned away from the attempt, if you had quenched your ambition, where would you and your children be right now? Spirits reborn, would we even be here, on this cursed continent?\n\nI know fora fact that Onos Toolan wanted a peaceful life, his head down beneath the winds that had once ravaged his soul. He was flesh, he was life-after so long-and what have we done? Did we embrace him? Did the White Face Barghast welcome him as a guest? Were we the honourable hosts we proclaim to be? Ah, such lies we tell ourselves. Our every comfort proves false in the end." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist the writer by carrying on with the story.\nTags: epic fantasy, complex plot, multiple characters, dark themes, intricate world-building\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Dust of Dreams\nChapter: 31" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The half-dozen Akryn scouts rode between the narrow, twisting gullies and out onto the flats where the dust still drifted above the rubbish left behind by the Barghast. They cut across that churned-up trail and cantered southward. The sun had just left the sky, dropping behind a bank of clouds dark as a shadowed cliff-face on the western horizon, and dusk bled into the air.\n\nWhen the drum of horse hoofs finally faded, Cafal edged out from the deeper of the two gullies. The bastards had held him back too long-the great cauldrons would be steaming in the Barghast camp, the foul reek of six parts animal blood to two parts water and sour wine, and all the uncured meat still rank with the taste of slaughter. Squads would be shaking out, amidst curses that they would have to eat salted strips of smoked bhederin, sharing a skin of warm water on their patrols between the pickets. The Barghast encampment would be seething with activity.\n\nOne of Bakal's warriors had found him a short time earlier, delivering the details of the plan. It would probably fail, but Cafal did not care. If he died attempting to steal her back, then this torment would end. For one of them, at least. It was a selfish desire, but selfish desires were all he had left.\n\nI am the last of Father's children, the last not dead or broken. Father, you so struggled to become the great leader of the White Faces. And now I wonder, if you had turned away from the attempt, if you had quenched your ambition, where would you and your children be right now? Spirits reborn, would we even be here, on this cursed continent?\n\nI know fora fact that Onos Toolan wanted a peaceful life, his head down beneath the winds that had once ravaged his soul. He was flesh, he was life-after so long-and what have we done? Did we embrace him? Did the White Face Barghast welcome him as a guest? Were we the honourable hosts we proclaim to be? Ah, such lies we tell ourselves. Our every comfort proves false in the end." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He moved cautiously along the battered trail. Already the glow from the cookfires stained the way ahead. He could not seethe picket stations or the patrols-coming in from the west had disadvantaged him, but soon the darkness would paint them as silhouettes against the camp's hearths. In any case, he did not have to draw too close. Bakal would deliver her, or so he claimed.\n\nThe face of Setoc rose in his mind, and behind it flashed the horrible scene of her body spinning away from his blow, the looseness of her neck-had he heard a snap? He didn't know. But the way she fell. Her flopping limbs-yes, there was a crack, a sickening sound of bones breaking, a sound driving like a spike into his skull. He had heard it and he'd refused to hear it, but such refusal failed and so its dread echo reverberated through him. He had killed her. How could he face that?\n\nHe could not.\n\nHetan. Think of Hetan. You can save this one. The same hand that killed Setoc can save Hetan. Can you make that be enough, Cafal? Can you?\n\nHis contempt for himself was matched only by his contempt for the Barghast gods-he knew they were the cause behind all of this-another gift by my own hand. They had despised Onos Toolan. Unable to reach into his foreign blood, his foreign ideas, they had poisoned the hearts of every Barghast warrior against the Warleader. And now they held their mortal children in their hands, and every strange face was an enemy's face, every unfamiliar notion was a deadly threat to the Barghast and their way of life.\n\nBut the only people safe from change are the ones lying inside sealed tombs. You drowned your fear in ambition and see where you've brought us? This is the eve of our annihilation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I have seen the Akrynnai army, and I will voice no warning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I will not rush into the camp and exhort Maral Eb to seek peace. I will do nothing to save any of them, not even Bakal. He knows what comes, if not the details, and he does not flinch.\n\nRemember him, Cafal. He will die true to the pure virtues so quickly abused by those who possess none of them. He will be used as his kind have been used for thousands of years, among thousands of civilizations. He is one among the bloody fodder for empty tyrants and their pathetic wants. Without him, the great scything blade of history sings through nothing but air.\n\nWould that such virtue could face down the tyrants. That the weapon turn in their sweaty hands. Would that the only blood spilled belonged to them and them alone.\n\nGoon, Maral Eb. Walkout onto the plain and cross swords with Irkullas. Kill each other and then the rest of us can just walkaway. Swords? Why such formality? Why not just bare hands and teeth? Tear each other to pieces! Like two wolves fighting to rule the pack-whichever one limps away triumphant will be eyed by the next one inline. And on it goes, and really, do any of the rest of us give a fuck? At least wolves don't make other wolves fight their battles for them. No, our tyrants are smarter than wolves, aren't they?\n\nHe halted and crouched down. He was in the place he was supposed to be.\n\nThe jade talons raked up from the southern horizon, and from the plain to the west a fox loosed an eerie, piercing cry. Night had arrived.\n\nEstaral grasped the girl by her braid and flung her back. They had been trying to force goat shit into Hetan's mouth-her face was smeared from the cheeks down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Spitting in rage, the girl scrambled to her feet, her cohorts closing round her. Eyes blazed. \"My father will see you hobbled for that!\"\n\n\"I doubt it,\" Estaral replied. \"What man wants to take a woman stinking of shit? You'll be lucky to keep your hide, Faranda. Now, all of you, getaway from here-I know you all, and I've not yet decided whether to tell your fathers about this.\"\n\nThey bolted.\n\nEstaral knelt before Hetan, pulling up handfuls of grass to wipe her mouth and chin. \"Even the bad rules are breaking,\" she said. \"We keep falling and falling, Hetan. Be glad you cannot see what has become of your people.\"\n\nBut those words rang false. Be glad? Be glad they chopped off the fronts of your feet? Be glad they raped you so many times you couldn't feel a damned bhederin pounding into you by now? No. And if the Akrynnai chop off our feet and rape us come tomorrow, who will weep for the White Faces?\n\nNot Cafal. \"Not you, either, Hetan.\" She flung the soiled grasses away and helped Hetan to stand. \"Here, your staff, lean on it.\" She grasped a handful of filthy shirt and began guiding the woman through the camp.\n\n\"Don't keep her too long! ' She glanced back to see a warrior behind them-he had been coming to take her and now stood with a grin that hovered on the edge of something dark and cruel.\n\n\"They fed her shit-I'm taking her to get properly cleaned up. '\n\nA flicker of disgust. \"The children? Who were they? A solid beating-\"\n\n\"They ran before I got close enough. Ask around.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Estaral tugged Hetan into motion once again.\n\nThe warrior did not pursue, but she heard him cursing as he wandered off. She didn't think she'd run into many more like him-everyone was crowding around their clan cookfires, hungry and parched and short-tempered as they jostled and fought for position. There'd be a few flick-blade duels this night, she expected. There always were, night before battle. Stupid, of course. Pointless. But, as Onos Toolan might say, the real meaning of'tradition'was... what had he called it?\"Stupidity on purpose\", that's what he said. I think. I never much listened.\n\nI should have. We all should have.\n\nThey neared the western edge of the camp, where the wagons were already being positioned to form a defensive barricade. Just beyond, drovers were busy slaughtering stock, and the bleating cries of hundreds of animals filled the night. The first bonfires for offal had been lit using rotted cloth, bound rushes, dung and liberal splashes of lamp oil. The flames lit up terrified eyes from within crowded pens. Chaos and horror had come to the beasts and the air was thick with death.\n\nShe almost halted. She'd never before seen things in such away; she'd never before felt the echo of misery and suffering assailing her from all directions-every scene painted into life by the fires was like a vision of madness. We do this. We do this all the time. To all these creatures who look to us for protection. We do this and think nothing of it.\n\nWe say we are great thinkers, but I think now, that most of what we do each and everyday-and night-is in fact thoughtless. We will ourselves empty to numb us to our cruelty. We stiffen our faces and say we have needs. But to be empty is to have no purchase, nothing to grasp onto, and so in the emptiness we slide and we slide." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We fall.\n\nOh, when will it end?\n\nShe pulled Hetan to a position behind a wagon, the plains stretching westward before them. Thirty paces ahead, limned by the deepening remnants of the sunset, three warriors were busy digging a picket. \"Sit down-no, don't lift. Just sit. '\n\n\"Listen, Strahl-you have done enough. Leave this night tome.\"\n\n\"Bakal-\"\n\n\"Please, old friend. This is all by my hand-I stood alone before Onos Toolan. There must be the hope... the hope for balance. In my soul. Leave me this, I beg you.\"\n\nStrahl looked away and it was clear to Bakal that his words had been too honest, too raw. The warrior shifted nervously, his discomfort plain to see.\n\n\"Go, Strahl. Go lie in your wife's arms this night. Look past everything else-none of it matters. Find the faces of the ones you love. Your children, your wife. '\n\nThe man managed a nod, not meeting Bakal's eyes, and then set off.\n\nBakal watched him leave, and then checked his weapons one last time, before setting off through the camp.\n\nBelligerence was building, sizzling beneath the harsh voices. It lit fires inside the strutting warriors as they bellowed out their oaths among the hearth circles. It bared teeth in the midst of every harsh laugh. War was the face to be stared into, or fled from, but the camp on a night such as this one was a cage, a prison to them all. The darkness hid the ones with skittish eyes and twitching hands; the bold postures and wild glares masked icy terror. Fear and excitement had closed jaws upon each other's throat and neither dared let go." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was the ancient dance, this ritualized spitting into the eyes of fate, stoking the dark addiction. He had seen elders, warriors too old, too decrepit to do anything but sit or stand crooked over staffs, and he had seen their blazing eyes, had heard their cracking exhortations-but most of all, he had seen in their eyes the pain of their loss, as if they'd been forced to surrender their most precious love. It was no quaint conceit that warriors prayed to the spirits for the privilege of dying in battle. Thoughts of useless years stretching beyond the warrior's life could freeze the heart of the bravest of the brave.\n\nThe Barghast were not soldiers, not like the Malazans or the Crimson Guard. A profession could be left behind, anew future found. But for the warrior, war was everything, the very reason to live. It was the maker of heroes and cowards, the one force that tested a soul in ways that could not be bargained round, that could not be corrupted by a handful of silver. War forged bonds closer knit than those of bloodkin. It painted the crypt's wall behind every set of eyes-those of foe and friend both. It was, indeed, the purest, truest cult of all. What need for wonder, then, that so many youths so longed for such a life?\n\nBakal understood all this, for he was indeed a warrior. He understood, and yet his heart was bitter with disgust. No longer did he dream of inviting his sons and daughters into such a world. Embracing this addiction devoured too much, inside and out.\n\nHe-and so many others-had looked into the face of Onos Toolan and had seen his compassion, had seen it so clearly that the only response was to recoil. The Imass had been an eternal warrior. He had fought with the warrior's blessing of immortality, given the gift of battles unending, and then he had willingly surrendered it. How could such a man, even one reborn, find so much of his humanity still alive within him?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I could not have. Even after but three decades of war... if I was this moment reborn, I could not find in myself... what? A battered tin cup half-filled with compassion, not enough to splash a dozen people closest tome.\n\nYet... yet he was a flood, an unending flood-how can that be?\n\nWho did I kill? Shy from that question if you must, Bakal. But one truth you cannot deny: his compassion took hold of your arm, your knife, and showed you the strength of its will.\n\nHis steps slowed. He looked round, blearily. I am lost. Where am I? I don't understand. Where am I? And what are all these broken things in my hands? Still crashing down-the roar is deafening!\"Save her, \"he muttered.\"Yes. Save her-the only one worth saving. May she live a thousand years, proof to all who see her, proof of who and what the Barghast were. The White Faces. ' We hobble ourselves and call it glory. We lift to meet drooling old men eager to fill us to bursting with their bitter poisons. Old men? No, warleaders and warchiefs. And our precious tradition of senseless self-destruction. Watch it fuck us dry.\n\nHe was railing, but it was in silence. Who would want to hear such things? See what happened to the last one who held out a compassionate hand? He imagined himself walking between heaving rows of his fellow warriors. He walked, trailing the gutted ropes of his messy arguments, and from both sides spit and curses rained down.\n\nTruths bore the frightened mind. Are we bored? Yes! Where is the blood? Where are the flashing knives? Give us the unthinking dance! Charge our jaded hearts, you weeping slave! Piss on your difficult thoughts, your grim recognitions. Lift up your backside, fool, while I seek to pound feeling back into me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Standstill while I hobble you-let's see you walk now!\n\nBakal staggered out from the camp's edge. Halting ten paces beyond the wagons, he tugged loose the straps binding the lance to his back. Rolled the shaft into his right hand. His shoulder ached-the tears of tendon and muscle were not yet mended. The pain would wake him up.\n\nAhead was the banked berm of the picket's trench. Three helmed heads were visible as lumps projecting above the reddish heap of earth.\n\nBakal broke into a trot, silent on the grasses as he closed the distance.\n\nHe launched the lance from twelve paces behind the three warriors. Saw the iron point drive between the shoulders of the one on his left, punching the man's body against the trench wall. As the other two jerked, heads snapping in that direction, he reached the trench-blades in hands-and leapt down between them. His cutlass bit through bronze skull-cap, split half the woman's skull, and jammed there. The knife in his left hand slashed the back of the last warrior's neck-but the man had twisted, enough to save his spinal cord, and spinning, he slammed a dagger deep into Bakal's chest, just under his left arm.\n\nIntimately close with his enemy in the cramped trench, he saw the warrior open his mouth to cry out the alarm. Bakal's back-slash with his knife ripped out the man's throat, even as the dagger sank a second time, the blade snapping as it snagged between two ribs.\n\nBlood rushed up to fill Bakal's throat and he fell against the dying warrior, coughing into the wool of the man's cloak.\n\nHe was feeling so very tired now, but there were things still to be done. Find her. Save her. He crawled from the trench. He was having trouble breathing. A memory that had been lost for decades returned to him suddenly: the last time he'd been near death-the Drowning Fever had struck him down, his lungs filling up with phlegm. The thick poultices encasing his chest, the eye-stinging smell of ground mustard seeds-his mother's face, a blurred thing, hovering, dread hardening to resignation behind her eyes. Crypt walls. We all have them, there inside-you don't go there often, do you? It's where you keep your dead. Dead relatives, dead dreams, dead promises. Dead selves, so many of those, so many. When you loot, you only take the best things. The things you can use, the things you can sell. And when you seal it all up again, the darkness remains." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It remains. Ah, Mother, it remains.\n\nMy crypt. My crypt walls.\n\nHe thought to regain his feet. Instead, he was lying on the ground, the trench pit almost within reach. Mother? Are you there? Father? Desorban, my son, oh precious son-I put that sword into your hand. I pretended to be proud, even as fear curled black talons round my heart. Later, when I looked down at your so-still face, when all the others were singing the glory of your brave moments-only moments, yes, all you had-I pretended that the music eased the hurt in my soul. I pretended, because to pretend was to comfort them in turn, for the time when they stood in my place, looking down on the face of their own beloved.\n\nSon? Are you there?\n\nCrypt walls. Scenes and faces.\n\nIn the dark, you can't even seethe paint.\n\nEstaral struggled in the gloom to see that distant picket. Had something happened there? She wasn't sure. From the camp behind the row of wagons at her back, she could hear a child shouting, something vicious and eager in the voice. A tremor of unease ran through her and she shot Hetan a glance. Sitting, staring at nothing.\n\nThis was taking too long. Warriors would be looking for their hobbled prize. Words would break loose-Estaral had been seen, dragging Hetan through the camp. Westward, yes. Out past the light of the fires.\n\nShe reached down and pulled Hetan to her feet. Took up the staff and pushed it into the woman's hands.\"Come! '\n\nEstaral dragged her towards the picket. No movement from there. Something lying on this side, something that hadn't been there earlier. Mouth dry, heart in her throat, she led Hetan closer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The stench of faeces and urine and blood reached her. That shape-a body, lying still in death.\n\n\"Bakal?\" she whispered.\n\nNothing. From the trench itself, a heavy silence. She crouched at the body, pulled it onto its back. She stared down at Bakal's face: the frothy streaks of blood smearing his chin, the expression as of one lost, and finally, his staring, sightless eyes.\n\nAnother shout from the camp, closer this time. That's Faranda-and that one, that's Sekara. Spirits shit on them both!\n\nTerror rushed through her. She crouched, like a hare with no cover insight.\n\nHetan made to sink to her knees. \"No!\" she hissed. \"Stay up, damn you!\" She grasped the woman's shirt again, tugged her stumbling round one end of the trench, out onto the plain.\n\nJade licked the grasses-a hundred paces ahead the ground rose, showing pieces of a ridge. The column had skirted round that, she recalled. \"Hetan! Listen tome! Walk to that ridge-do you see it? Walk there. Just walk, do you understand? A man waits for you there-he's impatient. He's angry. Hurry to him or you'll regret it. Hurry! ' She shoved her forward.\n\nHetan staggered, righted herself. For one terrible moment she simply stood where she was, and then the hobbled lurched into motion.\n\nEstaral watched her fora dozen heartbeats-to be certain-and then she spun and ran back towards the camp. She could slip in unseen. Yes, she'd cleaned up Hetan's face, and then had simply left her, close to the wagons-the bitch was dead behind the eyes, anyone could see that. She fled out onto the plain? Ridiculous, but if you want to go look, out where the Akrynnai are waiting, go right ahead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She found shadows between two wagons, squeezed in. Figures were moving in and out of firelight. The shouts had stopped. If she avoided the hearths, she could thread her way back to where Strahl and the others were camped. She would have to tell him of Bakal's death. Who would lead the Senan tomorrow? It would have to be Strahl. He would need to know, so he could ready his mind to command, to the weight of his clan's destiny.\n\nShe edged forward.\n\nThirty paces on, they found her. Six women led by Sekara, with Faranda hovering in the background. Estaral saw them rushing to close and she drew her knife. She knew what they would do to her; she knew they weren't interested in asking questions, weren't interested in explanations. No, they will do tome what they did to Hetan. Bakal was gone, her protector was gone. There were, she realized, so many ways to be alone.\n\nThey saw her weapon. Avid desire lit their eyes-yes, they wanted blood. \"I killed her!\" Estaral shrieked. \"Bakal was using her-I killed them both!\"\n\nShe lunged into their midst.\n\nBlades flickered. Estaral staggered, spun even as she sank to her knees. Gleeful faces on all sides. Such bright hunger-oh, how alive they feel! She was bleeding out, four, maybe five wounds, heat leaking out from her body.\n\nSo stupid. All of it... so stupid. And with that thought she laughed out her last breath.\n\nThe massive bank of clouds on the western horizon now filled half the night sky, impenetrable and solid as a wall, building block by block to shutout the stars and the slashes of jade. Wind rustled the grasses, pulled from the east as if the storm was drawing breath. Yet no flashes lit the clouds, and not once had Cafal heard thunder. Despite this, his trepidation grew with every glance at the towering blackness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where was Bakal? Where was Hetan?\n\nThe bound grip of the hook-blade was slick in his hand. He had begun to shiver as the temperature plummeted.\n\nHe could save her. He was certain of it. He would demand the power from the Barghast gods. If they refused him, he vowed he would destroy them. No games, no bargains. I know it was your lust for blood that led to this. And I will make you pay.\n\nCafal dreaded the moment he first saw his sister, this mocking, twisted semblance of the woman he had known all his life. Would she even recognize him? Of course she would. She would lunge into his arms-an end to the torment, the rebirth of hope. Dread, yes, and then he would make it good again, all of it. They would flee west-all the way to Lether-\n\nA faint sound behind him. Cafal whirled round.\n\nThe mace clipped him on his left temple. He reeled to the right, attempted to pivot and slash his weapon into the path of his attacker. A punch in the chest lifted him from his feet. He was twisted in the air, hook-blade flying from his hand, and it seemed the fist on his chest followed him down, driving deeper when he landed on his back. Bones grated, splintered.\n\nHe saw, uncomprehending, the shaft of the spear, upright as a standard, its head buried in his chest.\n\nShadowy shapes above him. The gauntleted hands gripping the spear now twisted and pushed down hard.\n\nThe point thrust through into the earth beneath him.\n\nHe struggled to make sense of things, but everything slipped through his nerveless fingers. Three, now four shapes looming over him, but not a word was spoken." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They watch me die. I've done the same. Why do we do that? Why are we so fascinated by this failure?\n\nBecause, I think, we see how easy it is.\n\nThe Akrynnai warrior holding the man down with his spear now relaxed. \"He's done, ' he said, tugging his weapon loose.\n\n\"If he was scouting our camp,\" the mace-wielder said, \"why was he facing the wrong way?\"\n\n\"Barghast,\" muttered a third man, and the others nodded. There was no sense to these damned savages.\n\n\"Tomorrow,\" said the warrior now cleaning his spear, \"we kill the rest of them.\"\n\nShe stumbled onward, eyes on the black wall facing her, which seemed to lurch close only to recoil again, as if the world pulsed. The wind pushed her along now, solid as a hand at her back, and the thud of the staff's heel thumped on and on.\n\nWhen four Akrynnai warriors cut across her field of vision, she slowed and then halted, waiting for them to take her. But they didn't. Instead, they made warding gestures and quickly vanished into the gloom. After a time, she set out once more, tottering, her breath coming in thick gasps now. The blisters on her hands broke and made the staff slick.\n\nShe walked until the world lost its strength, and then she sat down on the damp grasses beside a lichen-skinned boulder. The wind whipped at her shredded shirt. She stared unseeing, the staff sliding out from her hands. After a time she sank down onto her side, drawing her legs up.\n\nAnd waited for the blackness to swallow the world.\n\nIt was as if night in all its natural order had been stolen away. Strahl watched as the White Faces fed their fires with anything that would burn, crying out to their gods. See us! Find us! We are your children! Goats were dragged to makeshift altars and their throats slashed open. Blood splashed and hoofed legs kicked and then fell to feeble trembling. Dogs fled the sudden, inexplicable slash of cutlass blades. Terror and madness whipped like the smoke and sparks and ashes from the bonfires. By dawn, he knew, not a single animal would be left alive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If dawn ever comes.\n\nHe had heard about Estaral's death. He had heard about what she had claimed to have done. None of that made sense. Bakal would not have used Hetan-clearly, Estaral had believed she would be with Bakal, that she would be his wife, and when she saw him with Hetan her insanity had painted the scene with the drenched colours of lust. She had murdered them both in a jealous rage.\n\nStrahl cursed himself. He should have driven the widow away days ago. He should have made it plain that Bakal had no interest in her. Spirits below, if he'd seen even a hint of the mad light in her eyes, he would have killed her outright.\n\nNow command of the Senan in the battle this dawn fell to him. He had been handed his most hidden ambition-when he had in fact already willingly surrendered it to stand in Bakal's shadow. But desire, once it reached the mouth, never tasted as sweet as it did in anticipation. In fact, he was already choking on it.\n\nBakal had discussed the engagement with him. Had told him what he intended. Strahl had that much at least. And when the Senan gathered at dawn, he would summon the chiefs of the clan, and he would give him Bakal's words as if they were his own. Would they listen?\n\nHe would know soon enough.\n\nThe sun opened its eye in the east and seemed to flinch in the face of the massive wall of dark clouds devouring half the sky. On the vast plain at the very edge of what had once been the lands of the Awl, two armies stirred. Bestial standards of the Barghast clans lifted like uneasy masts above the wind-flattened grasses, as ash from the enormous bonfires spun and swirled in the air thick as snow. Approaching from the southwest was avast crescent, warriors mounted and on foot. Pennons snapped above legions of Saphii soldiers marching in phalanx, shields tilted to cut the wind, long spears blazing with the dawn's fires. Companies of D'ras skirmishers and archers filled the gaps and ranged ahead of the main force in loose formations. Mounted archers advanced on the tips of the bhederin's horns, backed by the heavier lancers. The horses were skittish beneath the Akrynnai warriors, and every now and then one reared or bolted and fellow riders would close to help calm the animal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Along the summit of the ridge, Warleader Maral Eb had positioned the Senan in the centre, framed by the lesser clans." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His own Barahn he had divided between his brothers, anchoring the outer flanks.\n\nAs the day awakened, the crescent approached the Barghast position, swinging south as scouts rode back to report on the field of battle.\n\nAll at once the wind fell off, and in its place frigid cold gripped the air. It was the heart of summer, yet breaths plumed and steam rose from the backs of thousands of horses. Warriors shivered, half with chill and half with sudden dread.\n\nWas this a battle between gods? Were the Akrynnai spirits about to manifest like fangs in snapping jaws? Were the undead ancestor gods of the White Faces only moments from clambering up from the hard, frozen earth, chanting an ancient dirge of blood? Were mortal men and women destined to cower beneath the terrible clash of ascendants? Above them all, the sky was split in two, the brittle light of morning to the east, the unyielding darkness of night in the west. None-not Barghast, not Akrynnai, not Saphii nor D'ras-had ever before seen such a sky. It filled them with terror.\n\nFrost sheathed the grasses and glistened on iron and bronze as icy cold air flowed out from beneath the storm front. Among the two armies, no fierce songs or chants rang out in challenge. An unnatural silence gripped the forces, even at the moment when the two masses of humanity came within sight of each other.\n\nNot a single bird rode the febrile sky.\n\nYet the Akrynnai army marched closer to its hated enemy; and the enemy stood motionless awaiting them.\n\nA thousand paces west of the Barghast position lay the body of a woman, curled in the frozen grasses with her back against a lichen-skinned boulder. A place to lie down, the last nest of her last night. Frost glittered like diamond scales upon her pale skin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had died alone, forty paces from the corpse of her brother. But this death belonged to the flesh. The woman that had been Hetan, wife to Onos Toolan, mother of Absi, Stavi and Storii, had died sometime earlier. The body will totter past the dead husk of its soul, sometimes for days, sometimes for years.\n\nShe lay on frozen ground, complete in her scene of solitary surrender. Did the sky above blink in witness? Not even once? When a sky blinks, how long does it take between the sweep of darkness and the rebirth of light?\n\nThe ghosts, their wings burnt down to black stumps, waited to tell her the answers to those questions.\n\nSaddic, are you still alive? I have dreamed a thing. This thing was a vision, the death of a lizard-wolf lying curled on its side, the danger of bones beneath the sun. Listen to my dream, Saddic, and remember.\n\nGreed is the knife in the sheath of ambition. You seethe wicked gleam when you've drawn too close. Too close to getaway, and as I told you: greed invites death, and now death takes her twice. This thing was a vision. She died not forty paces from her brother, and above her two armies war in the heavens, and beasts that are brothers are about to lock jaws upon each other's throat. Strange names, strange faces. Painted white like the Quitters. A man with sad eyes whose name is Sceptre Irkullas.\n\nSuch a sky, such a sky!\n\nGreed and ambition, Saddic. Greed and treachery. Greed and justice. These are the reasons of fate, and every reason is a lie.\n\nShe was dead before dawn. I held her broken soul in my hands. I hold it still. As Rutt holds Held." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I knew a boy.\n\nAbsi, where are you?\n\nSaddic listened, and then he said, \"Badalle, I am cold. Tell me again about the fires. The wonderful fires.\"\n\nBut these fires were burned down to cinders and ash. The cold was the cold of another world.\n\nSaddic, listen. I have seen a door. Opening." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What feeds you is rent With the claws of your need. But needs dwell half in light And half in darkness. And virtue folds in the seam. If the demand of need is life Then suffering and death hold purpose. But if we speak of want and petty desire The seam folds into darkness And no virtue holds the ground. Needs and wants make fora grey world. But nature yields no privilege. And what is righteous will soon Feed itself with the claws Of your need, as life demands.\n\nQUALITIES OF LIFE S AEGEN\n\nWeak and exhausted, Yan Tovis had followed her brother through the gates and into the dead city of Kharkanas. The secret legends possessed by her bloodline had virtually carved into her soul the details before her. When she'd walked the bridge, the echo of the stones underfoot embraced her, as familiar and steeped in sorrow as a dead grandmother's cloak. Passing beneath the storeyed arch, she felt as if she had returned home-but this home was a forgotten place, as if she had inherited someone else's nostalgia. Her discomfort turned to distress as she emerged from the cool darkness and saw before her a silent, lifeless vista of tall, smoke-stained buildings, smeared towers and disfigured statues. Tiered gardens had grown past weeds and were now thick with twisted trees, the roots of which had burst the retaining walls, snaking down walls and buckling pavestones. Birds nested on ledges above walls painted white in guano. Heaps of wind-blown leaves mouldered in corners, and plants had pushed up between flagstones.\n\nShe could feel the ancient magic, like something fluttering at the edge of her vision. The city had survived the eons far better than it rightly should have. And the sorcery still resisted the relentless siege of time. She looked upon a scene that might have been abandoned little more than a generation ago, when in truth it was ancient beyond imagining." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mothers will hold children close Until the world itself crumbles\n\nSo wrote some poet from this very city, and Yan Tovis understood it well enough. The child and the home shall never change, if that child's mother has any say over the matter. But explanations make truths mundane. The poet seeks to awaken in the listener all that is known yet unspoken. Words to conjure an absence of words. But children will grow up, and time will drive spears through the thickest walls. And sometimes the walls are breached from within.\n\nIt had always been her habit-and she knew it well enough-to sow uncertainty. In her mind, indecision was away of life. Her brother, of course, was the very opposite. They stood facing one another in extremity, across a gulf that could not be bridged. When Yedan Derryg stepped beyond challenge, his will was a brutal thing, a terrible force that destroyed lives. When she did not have him facing her-his hands dripping blood and his eyes hard as stone-she came to believe that indecisiveness was the natural order of the world, a state of mind that waited until acted upon, doomed to react and never initiate, a mind that simply held itself in place, passive, resigned to whatever the fates delivered.\n\nThey were meant to stand together, meant to fix pressure each upon the other like the counterweights at either end of the bridge, and in that tense balance they might find the wisdom to rule, they might make solid and sure the stones beneath the feet of their people.\n\nHe had murdered her witches and warlocks, and it had not been a matter of stepping round her to get to them, for she had proved no obstacle to him. No, she had been frozen in place. Awaiting the knife of fate. Yedan's knife." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I forgot. And so I failed. I need him back. I need my Witchslayer.\n\nBehind her trooped the vanguard of her people. Pully and Skwish, plump and rosy as maidens, their faces growing slack as the residual magic bled through their meagre defences. The two officers commanding the Watch's company, Brevity and Pithy, had already begun sending squads onto the side streets, to scout out places to accommodate the refugees. Their calm, drawling instructions were like a farrier's file over the uneven edge of fear and panic.\n\nShe could not see Yedan, nor his horse, but ahead, close to the centre of the city, rose a massive edifice, part temple, part palace and keep, from which five towers rose to spear the heavy gloom of the sky. The Citadel. It occupied an island encircled by a gorge that could be crossed by but one bridge, and that bridge was reached by this main avenue.\n\nYan Tovis glanced back, found Pithy. \"Settle the people as best you can-but don't spread them out too much. Oh, and tell the witches they won't be able to think straight until they've worked a protective circle around themselves. '\n\nAt the woman's nod, Yan faced the heart of the city again, and then set out.\n\nHe rode to the Citadel. Of course he did. He was Yedan Derryg. And he wants to see for himself where all the blood was spilled.\n\nSome enormous concussion had cracked the marble pillars flanking the Great Hall. Fissures gaped, many of the columns bowed or tilted precariously, and a fine scattering of white dust coated the mosaic floor. In places that dust had congealed into muddy stains." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Indifferent to the rubbish, Yedan crossed the vast chamber. He could feel a warmth coursing through him, as if he was about to wade into a battle. Currents of power still drifted in this place, thick with discordant emotions. Horror, grief, black rage and terrible agony. Madness had descended upon this citadel, and blood had drenched the world.\n\nHe found aside corridor just beyond the Great Hall, its entranceway ornate with arcane carvings: women marching in solemn procession. Tall, midnight-skinned women. Once within the passage, the images on the walls to either side transformed into carnal scenes, growing evermore elaborate as he proceeded to the far end. After a series of cloisters, the function of which was in noway ambiguous, Yedan entered a domed chamber. The Terondai-was that the word? Who could say how time had twisted it? The sacred eye in the darkness, the witness to all things.\n\nThere was a time, the secret legends told, when light did not visit this world, and the darkness was absolute. But only the true children of the Mother could survive in such a realm, and no blood remains forever pure. More, there were other beings dwelling in Night. Some saw truly, others did not.\n\nLight was what seeped in with the wounding of the Mother-a wounding she chose to permit, a wounding and then the birthing that came of it. \"All children,\" she said, \"must be able to see. We gift the living with light and darkness and shadow. The truth of our natures cannot be found in the absence of that which we are not. Walk from darkness, walk into shadow, walk beyond into light. These are the truths of being. \"Without ground, there can be no sky.\" So spoke the Azathanai in the dust of their quarries.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Secret legends, likely little more than nonsense." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Words to give meaning to what already existed, to what existed with or without the guiding hand of sentient beings. To this rock, to that river, to the molten fires from below and the frozen rain from above. He wasn't much impressed with things like that.\n\nThe Terondai was smeared in ashes and cluttered with dried leaves. Shapeless ridges of white dust were all that remained of bodies left lying where they fell. There was no sign of weapons or jewellery, leading Yedan to surmise that looters had been through the chamber-and everywhere else in the Citadel, he suspected. Odd that his bloodline's secret legends made no mention of those flitting thieves. Yet, weren't we here at the grisly end? Not wielding weapons. Not making heroic stands. Just... what? Watching? Prompting the question: who in the name of the Shore were we? Their damned servants? Their slaves?\n\nSecret legends, tell us your secret truths.\n\nAnd what of this ancient claim to some kind of royal bloodline? Rulers of what? The woodshed? The garden island in the river? Yes, he would trot out the righteous assertions that he and his sister were fit to command, if that was what was needed to bend others to his will. They had titles, didn't they? Twilight. The Watch. And Yan Tovis had done much the same, taking upon herself the role of Queen of the Shake. The burden of privilege-see how we bow beneath its weight.\n\nJaws bunched, he scanned the chamber once more, now with greater care.\n\n\"You damned fool.\"\n\nHe twisted round, eyed his sister.\n\n\"You're in the temple, idiot-get off the damned horse. '\n\n\"There are raised gardens,\" he said. \"Find some farmers among your lot and get them to start clearing. I'll send others down to the river-we've got plenty of nets.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You want us to occupy the city?\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nShe seemed at a loss for words.\n\nYedan drew his horse round until he faced her. \"Twilight, you took us onto the Road of Gallan. The Blind Man's Road. Now we are in the Realm of Darkness. But the realm is dead. It is preserved in death by sorcery. If this was once our home, we can make it so again. Was that not our destiny? '\n\n\"Destiny? Errant's balls, why does speaking that word sound like the unsheathing of a sword? Yedan, perhaps we knew this city once. Perhaps our family line reaches back and every story we learned was true. The glory of Kharkanas. But not one of those stories tells us we ruled here. In this city. We were not this realm's master.\"\n\nHe studied her fora time. \"We move on, then.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"To where?\"\n\n\"The forest beyond the river. Through it and out to the other side. Yedan, we have come this far. Let us make the journey to the place where it started. Our true home. The First Shore.\"\n\n\"We don't even know what that means. '\n\n\"So we find out.\"\n\n\"The river is still worth a look,\" he said. \"We're short of food. '\n\n\"Of course. Now, in honour of those who fell here, brother, get off that damned horse!\"\n\nMoments after the two had left the chamber, the stillness that had existed for millennia was broken. A stirring of dead leaves, spinning as if lifted by small whirlwinds. Dust hazed the air, and the strange muted gloom-where light itself seemed an unwelcome stranger-suddenly wavered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And something like along, drawn breath slowly filled the chamber. It echoed wretched as a sob.\n\n______\n\nBrevity followed Pithy to the mouth of the alley. They carried lanterns, shadows rocking on walls as they made their way down half the narrow thoroughfare's length.\n\nShe halted beside her friend and together they stared down at the bodies.\n\n\"Dead?\" Brevity asked.\n\n\"No, sweetie. In the realm of dreams, the both of them.\"\n\n\"When did this happen?\"\n\n\"Couldn't a been too long ago, \"Pithy replied.\"I seen the two wander inhere to do that ritual or whatever. Little later I chanced to peek in and saw their torches had gone out. So I come fora look. '\n\nBrevity settled into a crouch and set the lantern to one side. She grasped the witch nearest her and pulled the woman over, peering down at the face. \"Pully, I think. They look like twins as it is.\"\n\n\"Gettin\" more so, too, \"Pithy noted,\"or so I noticed. '\n\n\"Eyelids fluttering like mad.\"\n\n\"Realm of dreams, didn't I say so? '\n\nBrevity pushed back an eyelid. \"Rolled right up. Maybe the ritual turned on'em. '\n\n\"Could be. What should we do?\"\n\n\"I'm tempted to bury them. '\n\n\"But they ain't dead. '\n\n\"I know. But opportunities like this don't come everyday. '\n\n\"What's broken cannot be mended. You broke us, but that is not all-see what you have done. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gallan had been horrified." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could not abide this new world. He wanted a return to darkness and, when he'd done gouging out his own eyes, he found it. Sandalath, her son's tiny handheld tight within her solid grip, stood looking down on the madman, seeing but not registering all the blood on his face and smeared across the floor-the impossibility of it here at the very threshold to the Terondai. He wept, choking on something again and again-yet whatever was in his mouth he would not spit out-and his lips were glistening crimson, his teeth red as cedar chips.\n\n\"Mother,\" said her son, \"what's happened? '\n\nThe world changes. Gallan, you fool. What you've done does not change it back.\"An accident, \"she replied.\"We must find someone to help-'\n\n\"But why is he eating his eyes?\"\n\n\"Go now, find a priestess-quickly, Orfantal!\"\n\nGallan choked, trying to swallow his eyeballs only to hack them back into his mouth. The holes in his head wept bloody tears.\n\nEver the poetic statement, Gallan. The grandiose symbol, artfully positioned at the temple door. You will lie here until someone important comes, and then you'll swallow those damned things down. Even the masterpiece is servant to timing.\n\nWill Mother Dark be struck in the heart by this, Gallan? Or simply disgusted? \"It's done, old man, \"she said.\"No going back. '\n\nHe clearly misunderstood her, as he began laughing.\n\nShe saw one of the eyes in his mouth roll into view, and for one insane moment it seemed to lookup at her.\n\n\"What's broken cannot be mended. You broke us, but that is not all-see what you have done. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sandalath hissed as that echo intruded a second time into her memories. It didn't belong in the scene she had resurrected. It belonged somewhere else, with someone else. With someone else, not to. Of course that was the horrid thing about it. She heard those words spoken and they indeed came from her, arriving in her own voice, and that voice was from a woman who truly understood what it was to be broken.\n\nAnd that is the bitter truth. I have not mended. After all this time...\n\n\"You asleep?\" Withal asked from where he lay behind her.\n\nShe contemplated the merits of a response, decided against them and remained silent.\n\n\"Talking in your sleep again,\" he muttered, shifting beneath the furs. \"But what I want to know is, what broke?\"\n\nShe sat up as if stung by a scorpion. \"What?\"\n\n\"Awake after all-\"\n\n\"What did you just say?\"\n\n\"Whatever it was, it's put my heart in my throat and you poised to tear it out. I suppose you could beat me senseless-'\n\nSnarling, she flung the furs back and rose to her feet. The three Venath demons were, inexplicably, digging a huge hole a short distance down from the road. Mape was in the bottom, heaving enormous boulders into Rind's arms where the demon crouched at the edge. Rind then swung round to transfer the rock to Pule, who pitched it away. What in Hood's name are they doing? Never mind. She rubbed at her face.\n\nTalking in my sleep? Not those words. Please, not those words.\n\nShe walked someway up the Road, eager to be off. But Withal needed some sleep. Humans were absurdly frail. Their every achievement proved similarly fragile. If there weren't so damned many of them, and if they didn't display the occasional ant-nest frenzy of creativity, why, they'd have died out long ago. More to the point, if the rest of us hadn't sneered in our idle witnessing of their pathetic efforts-if we'd wised up, in fact, one or all of us would have wiped them out long ago. Tiste Andii, Jaghut, K'Chain Che'Malle, Forkrul Assail. Gods, Tiste Edur, even. Scabandari, you slaughtered the wrong enemy. Even you, Anomander-you play with them as if they're pets. But these pets will turn on you. Sooner or later." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She knew she was avoiding the scaly beast gnawing at the roots of her mind. Urging her thoughts to wander away, away from the place where kindred blood still glistened. But it was no use. Words had been spoken. Violence had given answer, and the rise and fall of chests faded into eternal stillness. And that beast, well, it had the sharpest teeth.\n\nSandalath sighed. Kharkanas. The city awaited her. Not so faraway now, her ancient home, her own private crypt, its confines crammed solid with the worthless keepsakes of a young woman's life.\n\nWatch me chase my dreams In the transit of dust\n\nSnorting, she swung round, retracing her path to where her husband slept. The demons-Venath, who'd once been allies of the Jaghut. Who gave of their blood to the Trell-and what a fell mix that turned out to be-the demons had all vanished into the hole they'd dug. Why had the damned things attached themselves to Withal? He said he'd found them on the island where he'd been imprisoned by the Crippled God. Which suggested that the Crippled God had summoned and bound the demons. But later, the Nachts had abetted Withal's escape and seemed instead to be in league with Mael. And now... they're digging a hole.\n\n\"Never mind,\" said Withal, rolling over and sitting up. \"You're worse than a mosquito in a room. If you're in such a hurry, let's just go until we get there. I can rest then. '\n\n\"You're exhausted. '\n\nHe eyed her. \"It ain't the walking that's exhausting me, beloved.\"\n\n\"You'd better explain that. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I will. But not right now.\"\n\nShe saw the defiance in his eyes. I could make him talk. But that look in his eyes... it's cute.\"Gather up your gear then, husband. And while you do, I will explain something to you. We are following the road that leads to the city where I was born. Now, that's stressful enough. But it's something I can handle. Not happily, mind you, but even so. No, there is something else. '\n\nHe'd tied up his bedroll and had it tucked under an arm.\"Go on. '\n\n\"Imagine a pool of black water. Depthless, hidden within a cave where no air stirs and nothing drips. The pool's surface has not known a single ripple in tens of thousands of years. You've come to kneel beside it-all your life-but what you see never changes.\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\n\"I still see nothing to change that, Withal. But... somewhere far below the surface, in depths unimaginable... something moves.\"\n\n\"Sounds like we should be running the other way.\"\n\n\"You're probably right, but I can't.\"\n\n\"This old life of yours, Sand-you've said you were not a fighter-you knew nothing of weapons or warfare. So, what were you in this city home of yours? '\n\n\"There were factions-a power struggle.\" She looked away, up the Road. \"It went on for generations-yes, that maybe hard to believe. Generations among the Tiste Andii. You'd think that after the centuries they'd be entrenched, and maybe they were, fora time. Even along time. But then everything changed-in my life, I knew nothing but turmoil. Alliances, betrayals, war pacts, treacheries. You cannot imagine how such things twisted our civilization, our culture.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sand.\"\n\n\"I was a hostage, Withal. Valued but expendable.\"\n\n\"But that's a not a life! That's an interruption in a life!\"\n\n\"Everything was breaking down.\" We were supposed to be sacrosanct. Precious. \"It doesn't matter now, \"she added.\"It's not a career I can pickup again, is it?\"\n\nHe was staring at her. \"Would you? If you could?\"\n\n\"A ridiculous question.\" \"What's broken cannot be mended. You broke us, but that is not all-see what you have done. '\n\n\"Sand.\"\n\n\"Of course not. Now, saddle up.\"\n\n\"But why is he eating his eyes?\"\n\n\"Once, long ago, my son, there was nothing but darkness. And that nothing, Orfantal, was everything.\"\n\n\"But why-\"\n\n\"He is old. He's seen too much. '\n\n\"He could have just closed them.\"\n\n\"Yes, he could have at that.\"\n\n\"Mother?\"\n\n\"Yes, Orfantal?\"\n\n\"Don't eat your eyes. '\n\n\"Don't worry. I am like most people. I can keep my eyes and still see nothing. '\n\nNow, woman, you said no such thing. And be thankful for that. The other rule applies. Mouth working, nothing said. And that is the ease we find for ourselves. After all, if we said everything we could say to each other, we'd have all killed each other long ago.\n\nGallan, you were a poet. You should have swallowed your tongue.\n\nHe had hurt someone, once. And he had known he had done so, and knowing led him into feeling bad. But no one enjoys feeling bad. Better to replace the guilt and shame with something turned outward. Something that burned all within reach, something that would harness all his energies and direct them away from himself. Something called anger. By the time he was done-by the time his rage had run its course-he found himself surrounded in ashes, and the life he had known was forever gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Introspection was an act of supreme courage, one that few could manage. But when all one had left to stir was a heap of crumbled bones, there was nothing else one could do. Fleeing the scene only prolonged the ordeal. Memories clung to the horrors in his wake, and the only true escape was a plunge into madness-and madness was not a thing he could simply choose for himself. More's the pity. No, the sharper the inner landscape, the fiercer the sanity.\n\nHe believed that his family name was Veed. He had been a Gral, a warrior and a husband. He had done terrible things. There was blood on his hands, and the salty, bitter taste of lies on his tongue. The stench of scorched cloth still filled his head.\n\nI have slain. In this admission, he had a place to begin.\n\nThen, all these truths assembled themselves into the frame of his future. Leading to his next thought.\n\nI will slay again.\n\nNot one among those he now hunted could hope to stand before him. Their petty kingdom was no more formidable than a termite mound, but to the insects themselves it was majesty and it was permanence and it was these things that made them giants in their own realm. Veed was the boot, the bronze-sheathed toe that sent walls crashing down, delivering utter ruin. It is what I am made to do.\n\nHis path was unerring. Into the sunken pit and through the entrance, finding himself in a chamber crowded with reptilian corpses that swarmed with orthen and maggots. He crossed the room and halted before the inner portal.\n\nThey were somewhere far above-they had seen him, he was sure of it. Watched him from the eyes or mouth of the dragon. They did not know who he was, and so they had no reason to fear him. Even so, he knew that they would be cautious. If he simply lunged into their midst, blades flashing, some might escape. Some might fightback. A lucky swing... no, he would need his charm, his ability to put them all at ease. It is possible that this cannot be rushed. I see that now. But I have shown patience before, haven't I? I have shown a true talent for deceit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Empty huts are not my only legacy, after all.\n\nHe sheathed his weapons.\n\nSpat into the palms of his hands, and slicked back his hair. Then set off on the long ascent.\n\nHe could howl into their faces, and they would hear nothing. He could close invisible hands about their throats and they would not even shrug. A slayer has come! The one below-I have sailed the storm of his desires-he seeks to murder you all! His wretched family remained oblivious. Yes, they had seen the stranger. They had seen his deliberate path to the great stone edifice they had claimed as their own. And they had then resumed their mundane activities, as if suffering beneath a geas of careless indifference.\n\nTaxilian, Rautos and Breath followed Sulkit as the K'Chain drone laboured over countless mechanisms. The creature seemed immune to exhaustion, as if the purpose driving it surpassed the needs of the flesh. Not even Taxilian could determine if the drone's efforts yielded any measurable effect. Nothing sprang to sudden life. No hidden gears churned into rumbling action. Darkness still commanded every corridor; feral creatures still scurried in chambers and made nests in the rubbish.\n\nLast and Asane were busy constructing a nest of their own, when they weren't hunting orthen or collecting water from the dripping pipes. Sheb maintained vigil over the empty wastes from a perch that he called the Crown, while Nappet wandered without purpose, muttering under his breath and cursing his ill luck at finding himself in such pathetic company.\n\nBlind fools, everyone of them!\n\nThe ghost, who once gloried in his omniscience, fled the singular mind of the Gral named Veed and set out to find the ones accompanying Sulkit. The witch Breath was an adept, sensitive to sorcery. If any of them could be reached, awakened to the extremity of his need, it would be her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He found them in the circular chamber behind Eyes, but the vast domicile of the now-dead Matron was a realm transformed. The ceiling and walls dripped with bitter slime. Viscid pools sheathed the floor beneath the raised dais and the air roiled with pungent vapours. The vast, sprawling bed that had once commanded the dais now looked diseased, twisted as the roots of a toppled tree. Tendrils hung loose, ends dripping, and the atmosphere shrouding the malformed nightmare on the dais was so thick that all within it was blurred, uncertain, as if in that place reality itself was smudged.\n\nSulkit stood immobile as a statue in front of the dais, its scales streaming fluids-as if it was melting before their eyes-and strange guttural sounds issuing from its throat.\n\n\"-awakening behind every wall,\" Taxilian was saying. \"I'm sure of it. '\n\n\"But nothing like this!\" Rautos said, gesturing at Sulkit. \"Gods below, this air-I can barely breathe!\"\n\n\"You're both fools, \"Breath snapped.\"This is a ritual. This is the oldest sorcery of all-the magic of sweat and scent and tears-against this, we're helpless as children! Kill it, I say! Drive a knife into its back-slash open its throat! Before it's too late-'\n\n\"No!\" retorted Taxilian. \"We must let this happen-I feel it-in what the drone does we will find our salvation.\"\n\n\"Delusions!\"\n\nRautos had positioned himself between the two, but his expression was taut with fear and confusion. \"There is a pattern,\" he said, addressing neither of them. \"Everything the drone has done-everywhere else-it has led to this moment. The pattern-I can almost see it. I want-I want...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "But he didn't know what he wanted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ghost spun wild in the currents of the man's ineffable needs.\n\n\"There will be answers,\" said Taxilian.\n\nYes! the ghost cried. And it comes with knives in its hands! It comes to kill you all!\n\nBeneath the level of the Womb, Nappet stood beside a strange pipe running the length of the corridor. He had been following alongside it for sometime before becoming aware that the waist-high sheath of bronze had begun emanating heat. Dripping sweat, he hesitated. Retrace his route? He might melt before he reached the stairs he had comedown. In the gloom ahead, he could make out nothing to indicate side passages. The hot, brittle air burned in his lungs. He was near panic.\n\nSomething swirled within the pipe, rushing down its length. A whimper escaped him-he could die here! \"Move, you fool. But which way? Hurry. Think!\" Finally, he forced himself forward in a stagger-somewhere ahead, there would be salvation. There had to be. He was sure of it.\n\nThe air crackled, sparks arcing from the surface of the pipe. He shrieked, broke into a run. Flashes blinded him as lightning ignited in the corridor. Argent roots snapped out, lanced through him. Agony lit his nerves-his screams punched from his chest, tearing his throat-and he flailed with his hands. Arcs leapt between his fingers. Something was roaring-just ahead-bristling with fire.\n\nThe wrong way! I went-\n\nSudden darkness. Silence.\n\nNappet halted, gasping. He drew a breath and held it.\n\nDesultory trickling sounds from within the pipe, draining away even as he listened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He sighed unsteadily.\n\nThe air reeked of something strange and bitter, stinging his eyes. What had just happened? He had been convinced that he was going to die, cooked like a lightning-struck dog. He had felt those energies coursing through him, as if acid filled his veins. Sweat cooling on his skin, he shivered.\n\nHe heard footsteps and turned. Someone was coming up behind him. No lantern illuminated the corridor. He heard the scrape of iron. \"Sheb? That you? Last? You damned oaf, light a lantern!\"\n\nThe figure made no reply.\n\nNappet licked his lips. \"Who is that? Say something!\"\n\nThe ghost watched in horror as Veed strode up to Nappet. A single-bladed axe swung in a savage arc that bit into Nappet's neck. Spittle flew from the man's mouth as he rocked with the blow. Bone grated and crunched as Veed tugged his weapon free. Blood gouted from the wound and Nappet reached up to press his palm against his neck, his eyes still wide, still filled with disbelief.\n\nThe second blow came from the opposite side. His head fell impossibly on its side, rested a moment on his left shoulder, and then rolled off the man's back. The headless body toppled.\n\n\"No point in wasting time,\" muttered Veed, crouching to clean the blade. Then he rose and faced the ghost. \"Stop screaming. Who do you think summoned me in the first place?\"\n\nThe ghost recoiled. I-I did not-\n\n\"Now lead me to the others, Lifestealer.\"\n\nThe ghost howled, fled from the abomination. He had to warn the others!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Grinning, Veed followed.\n\nStepping down, he crushed the last cinders of the paltry hearth, feeling the nuggets roll under his heel, and then turned to face the lifeless hag. He glared at her scaled back, as if silent accusation could cut her down where she stood. But what Torrent willed, he knew, was weaker than rain. \"Those are the spires of my people's legends-the fangs of the Wastelands. You stole the stars, witch. You deceived me-'\n\nOlar Ethil snorted, but did not turn round. She was staring south-at least, he thought of it as south, but such certainties, which he had once believed to be unassailable, had now proved as vulnerable to the deathless woman's magic as the very stones she lit aflame every night. As vulnerable as the bundles of dead grass from which she conjured slabs of dripping meat, and the bedrock that bled water with the rap of one bony knuckle.\n\nTorrent scratched at his sparse beard. He'd used up the last of the oils young Awl warriors applied to burn off the bristle until such time that a true beard was possible-he must look a fool, but nothing could be done for it. Not that anyone cared anyway. There were no giggling maidens with veiled eyes, no coy dances from his path as he strutted the length of the village. All those old ways were gone now. So were the futures they had promised him.\n\nHe pictured a Letherii soldier standing atop a heap of bones-a mountain of white that was all that remained of Torrent's people. Beneath the rim of his helm, the soldier's face was nothing but bone, leaving a smile that never wavered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Torrent realized that he had found a lover, and her name was hate. The Letherii details were almost irrelevant-it could be any soldier, any stranger. Any symbol of greed and oppression. The grasping hand, the gleam of avid hunger in the eyes, the spirit that took all it could by virtue of the strength and might it possessed.\n\nTorrent dreamed of destruction. Vast, sweeping, leaving behind nothing but bones.\n\nHe glanced again at Olar Ethil. Why do you want me, witch? What will you give me? This is an age of promises, isn't it? It must be, else I exist without reason.\n\n\"When you find your voice,\" she said without turning, \"speak tome, warrior.\"\n\n\"Why? What will you answer?\"\n\nHer laugh was a hollowed-out cackle. \"When I do, mountains shall crumble. The seas shall boil. The air shall thicken with poison. My answer, warrior, shall deafen the heavens.\" She spun amidst flapping rags. \"Do you feel it? The gate-it cracks open and the road will welcome what comes through. And such a road!\" She laughed again.\n\n\"My hate is silent,\" Torrent said. \"It has nothing to say.\"\n\n\"But I have been feeding it nonetheless.\"\n\nHis eyes widened. \"This fever comes from you, witch?\"\n\n\"No, it ever lurked in your soul, like a viper in the night. I but awakened it to righteousness.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because it amuses me. Saddle your horse, warrior. We ride to the spires of your legends.\"\n\n\"Legends that have outlived the people telling them.\"\n\nShe cocked her head in his direction. \"Not yet. Not yet.\" And she laughed again." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the author's co-writer, advance the plot.\nTags: epic fantasy, complex plot, multiple characters, dark themes, intricate world-building\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Dust of Dreams\nChapter: 36" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd caught her thoughts. She looked away, studied the wreckage-cluttered river sliding under the bridge. Dark waters...\"The First Families sparred. Power was a wayward tide. We were the coins they exchanged. So long as we were never spent, so long as we\"-remained unsullied-\"remained as we were, the battles saw little blood. We became the currency of power. \"But gold does not feel. Gold does not dream. Gold does not long fora man's hand closing about it. You can win us, you can lose us, but you can't eat us. You can hide us away. You can polish us bright and hang us from a chain round your neck. You can bury us, you can even carve a likeness of your face into us, but in the next season of fire all sign of you vanishes.\n\nYou can't eat us, and you can't fuck us. No, you can't do that.\n\n\"Sand?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Were hostages ever killed?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"Not until the end. When everything... fell apart. All it needs,\" she said, memories clouding her mind, \"is the breaking of one rule, one law. A breaking that no one then calls to account. Once that happens, once the shock passes, every law shatters. Every rule of conduct, of proper behaviour, it all vanishes. Then the hounds inside each and everyone of us are unleashed. At that moment, Withal\"-she met his eyes, defiant against the anguish she saw in them-\"we all show our true selves. We are not beasts-we are something far worse. There, deep inside us. You see it-the emptiness in the eyes, as horror upon horror is committed, and no one feels-no one feels a thing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was trembling in his arms now and he held her tight-to keep her from sinking to her knees. Sandalath pressed her face into the curve of his shoulder and neck. Her words muffled, she said, \"She should have stayed turned away. I will tell her-go away-we weren't worth it then, we're not worth it now. I will tell you-her-\"\n\n\"Sand-\"\n\n\"No, I will beg her. Turn away. I'm begging you, my love, turn away. '\n\n\"Sand. The Shake-\"\n\nThe bridge beneath them seemed to be swaying. She held him as hard as she could.\n\n\"The Shake, my love. They've found us. '\n\nHer eyes closed. I know. I know.\n\n\"Well?\"\n\nBrevity adjusted her sword belt. \"Well what?\"\n\n\"Should we go and talk to'em, love? '\n\n\"No, let's just stand here. Maybe they'll go away.\"\n\nSnorting, Pithy set out. \"Dark dark dark,\" she muttered, \"it's all dark. I'm sick of dark. I'm gonna torch the forest, or maybe a few buildings. Fire, that's the solution. And lanterns. Giant lanterns. Torches. Oil lamps. White paint.\"\n\n\"You going to goon like that all the way to'em? ' Brevity asked, keeping pace a step behind her.\n\n\"That woman looks like she walked outa one of them wall paintings in the temple.\"\n\n\"Maybe she did.\"\n\n\"Then what? Got lost? Our lookout watched'em coming up the road. Nah, the point is, her people built this city. She's got more claim to it than the Shake. And that's a problem. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Y'saying she won't like the new neighbours? Too bad. She's only got that one man. Besides, she looks sick. '\n\nTheir conversation ended as they drew closer to the two strangers.\n\nThe man's eyes were on them, even as he continued to support the woman in his arms.\"Hello, ' he said.\n\nTrader tongue. Pithy nodded. \"And the same. Meckros?\"\n\n\"Good guess,\" he replied. \"I am named Withal. You're Letherii, not Shake. '\n\n\"Good guess,\" Pithy responded. \"We're the Queen's Honour Guard. I'm Captain Pithy, and this is Captain Brevity. Is your mate sick? '\n\n\"She is Tiste Andii,\" he said. \"She was born in this city.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Pithy, and she shot her friend a look that asked: Now what?\n\nBrevity cleared her throat. \"Well then, if it's a homecoming, we'd best bring her in.\"\n\nAt that the woman finally looked up.\n\nPithy's breath caught, and beside her Brevity started.\n\n\"Thank you,\" said the Tiste Andii. Tears had streaked her face.\n\n\"Need another shoulder to lean on?\" Pithy asked.\n\n\"No.\" And she disengaged herself from Withal's arms. Straightening, she faced the gate.\"I'm ready.\"\n\nPithy and Brevity let her and Withal take the lead, at apace of their choosing. As soon as they'd moved a half-dozen strides ahead, Brevity turned and plucked Pithy's sleeve.\n\n\"See her face?\" she whispered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pithy nodded.\n\n\"She ain't just like them in the wall paintings, Pithy. She is one of \"em! I'd swear it! '\n\n\"Side room, first one on the left just inside the altar room-the only one without stone beds. She's in there. Her and maybe ten others. They got manacles on their wrists. '\n\n\"That's right! One of them! '\n\nNo wonder she ain't happy about coming home. Pithy said,\"Once we're in, you go get the witches and bring'em over. Unless Tovis or Yedan have comeback, in which case get them. '\n\n\"That'd be a better choice, \"Brevity replied.\"Them witches are still drunk-'\n\n\"They ain't drunk for real. '\n\n\"You know what I mean. Eel-eyed. Horny. The kinda drunk that makes a woman ashamed of being a woman.\"\n\n\"They ain't drunk. I told you. So get \"em, all right?\"\n\n\"All right, but we should a buried'em when we had the chance. '\n\nThe deeper shadow of the gate's arch slipped over them like a shawl. Sandalath slowly released her breath. Mother Dark's pervasive presence filled the city, and she felt her weariness drain away as the goddess's power touched her, but the benediction felt... indifferent. The grief was still there, appallingly fresh-a reopened wound, or something else? She could not be sure. So... sorrow does not end. And if you cannot let it go, Mother, what hope do I have?\n\nSomething brushed her mind. An acknowledgement, a momentary recognition. Sympathy? She sighed. \"Withal, will you walk with me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course-as I am doing right now, Sandalath.\"\n\n\"No. The temple, the Terondai.\" She met his eyes. \"Kurald Galain. To the very foot of Mother Dark.\"\n\n\"What is it you seek?\" he asked, searching her face.\n\nShe turned back to the two Letherii women standing a few paces behind. \"You spoke of a Queen,\" she said.\n\n\"Twilight,\" said Pithy. \"Yan Tovis.\"\n\n\"And her brother,\" added Brevity. \"Yedan Derryg, the Watch.\"\n\n\"I must go to the temple,\" Sandalath said.\n\n\"We heard.\"\n\n\"But I would speak with her.\"\n\n\"They left us awhile back,\" Pithy said. \"Went into the forest. When the witches finally come round they said the two of'em, Tovis and her brother, probably rode to the First Shore. That was after they was in the temple-the Queen and the Prince, I mean. The witches won't go anywhere near it, the temple, I mean.\"\n\nSandalath cocked her head. \"Why do I make you so nervous, Captain?\"\n\n\"You ain't changed much, ' blurted Brevity.\n\n\"I-what? Oh. In the Skeral-the Chamber of Hostages.\"\n\nPithy nodded. \"Only, the witches said this city's been dead along, longtime. '\n\n\"No,\" said Brevity, \"a longtime.\"\n\n\"I said that,\" Pithy retorted, scowling at her companion.\n\n\"You didn't say it right, is all. Long. Long. '\n\nSandalath faced her husband again. \"This world is born anew,\" she said. \"Mother Dark has returned and now faces us. The Shake have returned as well. Who remains missing? The Tiste Andii. My people. I want to know why.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And do you think she'll answer you? ' Withal asked, but it was a question without much behind it, and that made Sandalath curious.\n\n\"Husband. Has she spoken to you?\"\n\nHe grimaced. Then reluctantly nodded.\n\nBut not tome. Mother Dark, am I so flawed in your eyes now?\n\nThere was no silent reply to that. The presence remained unperturbed, as if deaf to Sandalath, deaf and wilfully blind. Not fair. Not fair!\n\n\"Sand?\"\n\nShe hissed under her breath. \"The Terondai, now.\"\n\nBeyond the scores of buildings now occupied by the Shake and refugee islanders, Kharkanas remained a place of ghosts. The witches decided they liked that. They had found an estate situated on a terrace overlooking an overgrown park. The outer wall's main gate had been burned down, leaving ancient soot smears on the marble frame and deep heat cracks latticing the lintel stone. The garden flanking the formal approach was now a snarl of stunted trees on both sides, their roots tilting the flagstones of the path.\n\nAtop four broad steps double doors marked the entrance to the residence. These had been shattered from the inside. Bronze statues reared on either side of the staircase, each standing on an ornate marble pedestal. If they had been fashioned in the likeness of living creatures, decided Pully, then the world was a stranger place than she had ever imagined. Towering, the statues were of warriors, human from the shoulders down, whilst their necks and heads belonged to a hound. Both sentinels bore weapons. A double-bladed axe for the one on the left, a two-handed sword for the one on the right. Verdigris marred the details of the beastly visages, but there was enough to see that the two were not identical. The sword-wielder was terribly scarred, a slash that had cleaved through one eye, deep enough to bite bone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Humming under her breath, Pully set one knee on this particular statue's horizontal penis, and pulled herself up fora closer look at that face.\"Now them's big teeth, an\" precious so. '\n\nSkwish had already gone inside, likely painting a thick red line down the middle, staking her half of the estate. Pully had forgotten how competitive the cow had been in her youth, but now it was all coming back. Wrinkles gone, bitch returns! An what was I sayin? Right, bitter's a habit, Skwish. Bitter's a habit. No matter. Skwish could have her half of the estate and half of every room. But then half of everything was half of nothing. They could live here, yes, but they couldn't own the place.\n\nShe clambered down from the statue, brushed the dust from her hands, and then ascended the steps and strode inside. Eight paces opposite her was a wall bearing a carved crest of some sort, arcane heraldry announcing the family that had claimed this place, or so she supposed. Even so, one sniff told her there was sorcery in that sigil, latent, possibly award but too old to manage much. She could hear Skwish rummaging about in a room down the corridor on the right. Tripped nothing. Dead ward, or as good as. Did you even notice, sister?\n\nOne thing was impossible not to notice. Ever since they'd crawled out of that deathly sleep, they'd felt the presence of the goddess. Mother Dark had looked upon them both, had gathered up their souls like a pair of knuckled dice. A rattle or two, curious fingertips exploring every nuance, every pit and crack. Then the cast. Dismissive, all interest lost. Damned insulting, yes. Infuriating. Who did the hag think she was, anyway? Pully snorted, eyes still on the marble crest. Something about it made her uneasy. \"Never mind,\" she muttered, and then raised her voice: \"Skwish!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wha?\"\n\n\"We ain't welcome here. '\n\nSkwish reappeared, stood in the corridor's gloom.\"The Queen will take the palace. Her and Witchslayer. We don't want t'be anywhere close to \"em. There's power here, Pully. We can use it, we can feed on it-'\n\n\"Risky. It ain't as quiet as I'd like.\"\n\n\"It's memories is all. '\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\nSkwish rolled her eyes, approached. She halted directly in front of the crest. \"Old symbols,\" she said. She pointed. \"See that? That's the Terondai, and there, that's the sigil of Mother Dark herself.\"\n\n\"Empty throne! This ain't a Royal House, is it? '\n\n\"Not quite, but as good as. See that mark? The one in the centre. That's the Consort-you never was interested in studying the Oldings. So, this house, it belonged to a man lover to some princess or maybe even the queen herself. See, that's his name, the one there.\"\n\n\"What was it?\"\n\n\"Daraconus, something like that.\"\n\nThey heard someone in the courtyard and turned in time to see Captain Brevity climbing the steps.\n\n\"What?\" demanded Pully, her harsh voice startling the Letherii.\n\n\"Was looking for you,\" Brevity said, slightly out of breath.\n\n\"What for?\" Skwish asked.\n\n\"Visitors.\"\n\n\"From where?\"\n\n\"Best come with me, you two. There's a woman. Tiste Andii. '\n\n\"Bluerose?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What? No. She was born here.\"\n\nPully and Skwish exchanged glances. And then Pully scowled. Bad news. Competition. Rival. \"But she's not alone? '\n\n\"Got a man with her. A Meckros.\"\n\n\"Where'd they come from, then? They ain't always been here-we'd a sensed that. The city was empty-'\n\n\"Up the road, Pully,\" said Brevity, \"same as us.\"\n\n\"We got here first,\" Skwish growled.\n\nBrevity blinked. \"It's a big city, witch. Now, you coming? '\n\n\"Where is she?\" Pully asked.\n\n\"The temple.\"\n\nBad news. The worst. \"Fine then,\" she snapped.\n\nYedan Derryg had walked a thousand or more paces along the ethereal First Shore, but now at last he was returning. And in one hand, Yan Tovis saw, he held a sword. The weapon flashed green in the incandescent fall of liquid light. The blade was long as a man's leg yet thinner than the width of a hand. A wire basket hilt shielded the grip. Ashe came up to where she stood, something lit his eyes.\n\n\"A Hust sword, sister.\"\n\n\"And it's healed. '\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"But how can a broken sword grow back?\"\n\n\"Quenched in dragon's blood, \"he replied.\"Hust weapons are immortal, immune to all decay. They can shear other blades in two. \"He held up the sword.\"This is a five-blade sword-tested against five, cut through them all. Twilight, there is no higher calibre of sword than the one you see here. It was the possession of a Hustas, a Master of the House itself-only children of the Forge could own such weapons. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And the woman threw it away.\"\n\n\"It is a mystery,\" Yedan Derryg said.\n\n\"She was Gallan's escort-'\n\n\"Not that. The matter of how a five-blade Hust sword broke in the first place.\"\n\n\"Ah. I see your point.\"\n\nHe looked round. \"Time dissolves here, this close to the Sea of Light. We have been away from our people too long-\"\n\n\"Not my fault,\" she said.\n\n\"True. Mine. No matter. It is time to go back.\"\n\nYan Tovis sighed. \"What am Ito do?\" she asked. \"Find the palace, sink down onto whatever throne I find?\"\n\nThe muscles of his jaws knotted beneath his beard and he glanced away. \"We have things to organize,\" he eventually said. \"Staff for the palace, officers for the guard. Work teams. Is the river rich with fish? If not, we are in trouble-our stores are depleted. Will crops grow here? Darkness seems to somehow feed the trees and such, but even then, we face a hungry season before anything matures.\"\n\nThe list alone exhausted her.\n\n\"Leave all that tome,\" Yedan said.\n\n\"Indolence for the Queen-I will go mad with boredom.\"\n\n\"You must visit the temple again, sister. It is no longer empty. It must be sanctified once more.\"\n\n\"I am no priestess.\"\n\n\"Royal blood will suffice.\"\n\nShe shot him a look. \"Indeed. How much?\"\n\nYedan shrugged. \"Depends.\"\n\n\"On what?\"\n\n\"On how thirsty she is.\"\n\n\"If she drains me dry...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The threat of boredom will prove unfounded.\"\n\nThe bastard was finding himself again. Wit dry as a dead oasis, withered palm leaves rustling like the laughter of locusts. Damned Hust sword and the illusion of coming home. Brother. Prince. Witchslayer. He'd been waiting for this all his life. When she had not. I'd believed nothing. Even in my desperation, I walked cold as a ghost doomed to repeat a lifetime's path to failure. And my blood-gods below-my blood. This realm demands too much of me.\n\nYedan faced her again. \"Sister, we have little time.\"\n\nShe started. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"The Shake-the very impulse that drove you to set us on the Road of Gallan-it was all meant to bring us here. Kharkanas, the First Shore. We must find out why. We must discover what the goddess wants of us.\"\n\nHorror rippled through Yan Tovis. No. Her eyes lifted past Yedan to the First Shore, to that tumultuous wall of light-and the innumerable vague figures behind the veil. No, please. Not again.\n\n\"Mount up, sister. It is time to return.\"\n\nGiven enough time, some ghastly concatenation of ages, lifetimes compressed, crushed down layer upon layer. Details smoothed into the indefinite. Deeds hollowed out like bubbles in pumice. Dreams flattened into gradients of coloured sands that crumbled to the touch. Looking back was unpleasant, and the vaster that field of sediment, the grislier the vista. Sechul Lath had once chosen a bowed, twisted frame to carry the legacies of his interminable existence. Beauty and handsome repose-after all that he had done-was, as far as he was concerned, too hypocritical to bear. No, inform he would seek justice, the physicality of punishment. And this was what had so galled Errastas." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sechul was tempted to find for himself that bent body once again. The world took those flat sediments and twisted them into tortured shapes. He understood that. He favoured such pressures and the scarred visages they made in stone and flesh.\n\nThe sky was blood red and cloudless, the rocky barren soil suffused with streaks of orange and yellow minerals tracking the landscape. Wind-sculpted mesas girdled the horizon, encircling the plain. This warren possessed no name-none that he knew, at any rate. No matter, it had been scoured clean long ago.\n\nKilmandaros strode at his side in a half-hitching gait, lest she leave him and Errastas far behind. She had assumed her favoured form, bestial and hulking, towering over her two companions. He could hear her sliding breath as it rolled in and out of four lungs, the rhythm so discordant with his own that he felt strangely breathless. Mother or not, she was never a comforting presence. She wore violence like a fur cloak riding her shoulders, a billowing emanation that brushed him again and again.\n\nShe was a singular force of balance, Sechul knew-had always known. Creation washer personal anathema, and the destruction in her hands was its answer. She saw no value in order, at least the kind that was imposed by a sentient will. Such efforts were an affront.\n\nKilmandaros was worshipped still, in countless cultures, but there was nothing benign in that sensibility. She bore a thousand names, a thousand faces, and each and everyone was a source of mortal dread. Destroyer, annihilator, devourer. Her fists spoke in the cruel forces of nature, in sundered mountains and drowning floods, in the ground cracking open and in rivers of molten lava. Her skies were ever dark, seething and swollen. Her rain was the rain of ash and cinders. Her shadow destroyed lives." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Forkrulian joints of her limbs and their impossible articulations were often seen as physical proof of nature gone awry. Broken bones that nonetheless descended with vast, implacable power. A body that could twist like madness. Among the believers, she personified the loosing of rage, the surrendering of reason and the rejection of control. Her cult was written in spilled blood, disfigurement and the virtue of violence.\n\nDear mother, what lessons do you have for your son?\n\nErrastas walked ahead, a man convinced he knew where he was going. The worlds awaited his guiding hand, that nudge that all too often invited Kilmandaros into her swath of mindless destruction. Yet between them was Sechul Lath, Lord of Chance and Mischance, Caster of Knuckles. He could smile the mockery of mercy, or he could spit and turn away. He could shape every moment of his mother's violence. Who lives, who dies? The decision was his.\n\nHis was the purest worship of them all. So it had always been and so it would always remain. No matter what god or goddess a mortal fool prayed to, Sechul Lath was the arbiter of all they sought. \"Save me.\" \"Save us.\" \"Make us rich.\" \"Make us fruitful.\" The gods never even heard such supplications from their followers. The need, the desire, snared each prayer, spun them swirling into Sechul's domain.\n\nHe could open himself, even now, to the cries of mortals beyond counting, each and everyone begging for an instant of his time, his regard. His blessing.\n\nBut he'd stopped listening long ago. He'd spawned the Twins and left them to inherit the pathetic game. How could one not grow weary of that litany of prayers? Each and every desire, so heartfelt, invariably reduced to a knot of sordidness. To gain for oneself, someone else must lose. Joy was purchased in reams of sorrow. Triumphs stood tall on heaps of bones. Save my child? Another must die. Balance! All must balance! Can existence be any crueller than that? Can justice be any emptier? To bless you with chance, I must curse another with mischance. To this law even the gods must bow. Creation, destruction, life, death-no, I am done with it! Done with it all!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Leave it to my Oponnai. The Twins must ever face one another, lest existence unravel. They are welcome to it.\n\nNo, he'd had his fill of mortal blood.\n\nBut immortal blood, ah, that was another matter. With it, he could... he could... what? I can break the fulcrum. I can send the scales crashing down. It's all pointless anyway-the Che'Malle saw to that. We rise and we fall, but each and every time the cycle renews, our rise is never as high as the last time, and the fall in turn takes us farther down. Mortals are blind to this spiral. All will end. Energies will lose their grip, and all will fade away.\n\nI have seen it. I know what's coming.\n\nErrastas sought a resurrection but what he sought was impossible. Each generation of gods was weaker-oh, they strode forth blazing with power, but that was the glow of youth and it quickly dissipated. And the mortal worshippers, they too, in their tiny, foreshortened lives, slid into cynical indifference, and those among them who held any faith at all soon backed into corners, teeth bared in their zeal, their blind fanaticism-where blindness was a virtue and time could be dragged to a halt, and then pulled backward. Madness. Stupidity.\n\nNone of us can go back. Errastas, what you seek will only precipitate your final fall, and good riddance. Still, lead on, old friend. To the place where I will do what must be done. Where I will end... everything.\n\nAhead, Errastas halted, turning to await them. His lone eye studied them, flicking back and forth. \"We are close,\" he said. \"We hover directly above the portal we seek.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She is chained below?\" Kilmandaros asked.\n\n\"She is.\"\n\nSechul Lath rubbed the back of his neck, looked away. The distant range of stone fangs showed their unnatural regularity. Among them could be seen stumps where entire mountains had been uprooted, plucked from the solid earth. They built them here. They were done with this world. They'd devoured every living thing by then. Such bold... confidence. He glanced back at Errastas.\"There will be wards. '\n\n\"Demelain wards, yes,\" Errastas said.\n\nAt that, Kilmandaros growled.\n\nSpeak then, Errastas, of dragons. She is ready. She is ever ready.\n\n\"We must be prepared,\" Errastas continued. \"Kilmandaros, you must exercise restraint. It will do us no good to have you break her wards and then simply kill her.\"\n\n\"If we knew why they imprisoned her in the first place,\" Sechul said, \"we might have what we will need to bargain with her.\"\n\nErrastas's shrug was careless.\"That should be obvious, Knuckles. She was uncontrollable. She was the poison in their midst. '\n\nShe was the balance, the counter-weight to them all. Chaos within, is this wise? \"Perhaps there's another way. '\n\nErrastas scowled. \"Let's hear it, then, ' he said, crossing his arms.\n\n\"K'rul must have participated. He must have played a role in this chaining-after all, he had the most to lose. She was the poison as you say, but if she was so to her kin that was incidental. Her true poison was when she was loose in K'rul's blood-in his warrens. He needed her chained. Negated. \"He paused, cocked his head.\"Don't you think it curious that the Crippled God has now taken her place? That he is the one now poisoning K'rul? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The diseases are not related,\" Errastas said. \"You spoke of another way. I'm still waiting to hear it, Knuckles. '\n\n\"I don't have one. But this could prove a fatal error on our part, Errastas. '\n\nHe gestured dismissively. \"If she will not cooperate, then Kilmandaros can do what she does best. Kill the bitch, here and now. You still think me a fool? I have thought this through, Sechul. The three of us are enough, here and now, to do whatever is necessary. We shall offer her freedom-do you truly imagine she will reject that?\"\n\n\"What makes you so certain she will honour whatever bargain she agrees to?\"\n\nErrastas smiled. \"I have no worries in that regard. You will have to trust me, Knuckles. Now, I have been patient long enough. Shall we proceed? Yes, I believe we shall.\"\n\nHe stepped back and Kilmandaros lumbered forward.\n\n\"Here?\" she asked.\n\n\"That will do, yes.\"\n\nHer fists hammered down onto the ground. Hollow thunder rumbled beneath the plain, the reverberation trembling through Sechul's bones. The fists began their incessant descent, pounding with immortal strength, as dust slowly lifted to obscure the horizons. The stone beneath the hardened ash was not sedimentary; it was the indurated foam of pumice. Ageless, trapped in the memory of a single moment of destruction. It knew nothing of eternities.\n\nSechul Lath lowered himself into a squat. This could take sometime. Sister, can you hear us? We come a-knocking...\n\n\"What?\" Torrent demanded. \"What did you just say?\"\n\nThe haggard witch's shrug grated bones.\"I tired of the illusion. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked round once more." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wagon's track was gone. Vanished. Even the trail behind them had disappeared.\"But I was following-I saw-'\n\n\"Stop being so stupid,\" Olar Ethil snapped. \"I stole into your mind, made you see things that weren't there. You were going the wrong way-who cares about a damned Trygalle carriage? They're probably all dead by now.\" She gestured ahead. \"I turned you from that trail, that's all. Because what we seek is right there. '\n\n\"If I could kill you, I'd do it, ' said Torrent.\n\n\"Stupid as only the young can be,\" she replied with a snort. \"The only thing young people are capable of learning is regret. That's why so many of them end up dead, to the eternal regret of their parents. Now, if you've finished the histrionics, can we continue on?\"\n\n\"I am not a child.\"\n\n\"That's what children always say, sooner or later. ' With that, she set out, trudging past Torrent, whose horse shied away as soon as the bonecaster drew too close.\n\nHe steadied the animal, glaring at Olar Ethil's scaled back.\n\n\"-what we seek is right there.\" His gaze lifted. Another one of those damned dragon towers, rising forlorn on the plain. The bonecaster was marching towards it as if she could topple it with a single kick. No one is more relentless than a dead woman. With all the living ones I've known, I shouldn't be surprised by that. The desolate tower was still a league or more away. He wasn't looking forward to visiting it, not least because of Olar Ethil's inexplicable interest in this one in particular; but also because of its scale. A city of stone, built upward instead of outward-what was the point of that?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Well. Self defence. But we've already seen how that didn't work. And what if some lower section caught fire? There'd be no escape for everyone trapped above. No, these were the constructs of idiots, and he wanted nothing to do with them. What's wrong with a hut? A hooped tent of hides-you can pick it up and carry it anywhere you want to go. Leaving nothing behind. Rest lightly on the soil-so the elders always said.\n\nBut why did they say that? Because it made running away easier. Until we ran out of places to run. If we'd built cities, just like the Letherii, why, they would have had to respect us and our claim to the lands we lived on. We would have had rights. But with those huts, with all that resting lightly, they never had to take us seriously, and that made killing us all that much easier.\n\nKicking his horse into motion, he squinted at that ragged tower. Maybe cities weren't just to live in. Maybe they were all about claiming the right to live somewhere. The right to take from the surrounding land all they needed to stay alive. Like a giant tick, head burrowed deep, sucking all the blood it can. Before it cuts loose and sets off fora fresh sweep of skin. And another claim of its right to drink deep of the land.\n\nThe best way he'd found to kill a tick was with his thumbnail, slicing the insect in half on a flat rock. He remembered a dog trying to eat one once. It had had to spit it out. Ticks tasted foul-too foul even for dogs, which he'd not thought possible. Cities probably tasted even worse.\n\nListen tome. I'm losing my mind. Damned witch-are you still here? Inside my skull? Making my thoughts go round and round with all these useless ideas?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He rode up beside her. \"Leave me alone.\"\n\n\"You were never that interesting in the first place,\" she replied.\n\n\"Funny, I'd decided that about you long ago, \"said Torrent,\"but you're still here.\"\n\nShe halted and turned round. \"That will do, then. We're about to have company, warrior. '\n\nHe twisted in his saddle and studied the cloudless sky. \"The ones Silchas Ruin spoke of? I see nothing-\"\n\n\"They come.\"\n\n\"To fight?\"\n\n\"No. They were fools once, but one must assume that dying has taught them a lesson.\" She paused, and then added, \"Or not.\"\n\nMotion in the wiry grasses caught his eye. A lizard-no-\"Witch, what is that?\"\n\nTwo skeletal creatures-birds?-edged into view, heads ducking, long tails flicking. They stood on their hind legs, barely taller than the grasses. Leather and gut bindings held the bones in place.\n\nWhen the first one spoke, the voice formed words in his head. \"Great One, we are abject. We grovel in servitude-\"\n\nThe other cut in, \"Does she believe all that? Keep trying!\"\n\n\"Be quiet, Telorast! How can I concentrate on lying with you barging in all the time! Now shhh! Oh, never mind, it's too late-look at them, they can both hear us. You, especially. '\n\nThe creature named Telorast had crept closer to Olar Ethil, almost on all fours. \"Servitude! As my sister said. Not areal lie. Just a... a... a temporary truth! Allegiance of convenience, so long as it's convenient. What could be more honest? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Olar Ethil grunted and then said, \"I have no need of allies among the Eleint.\"\n\n\"Not true!\" cried Telorast.\n\n\"Calm down,\" hissed the other one. \"This is called bargaining. She says we're useless. We say we don't really need her help. She says-well, something. Let's wait to hear what she says, and then we say something back. Eventually, we strike a deal. You see? It's simple.\"\n\n\"I can't think! \"complained Telorast.\"I'm too terrified! Curdle, takeover-before my bones fall apart!\"\n\nThe one named Curdle snapped its head back and forth, as if seeking somewhere to hide.\n\n\"You don't fool me, \"said Olar Ethil.\"You two almost won the Throne of Shadow. You killed a dozen of your kin to get there. Who stopped you? Was it Anomander Rake? Edgewalker? Kilmandaros? '\n\nAt each name the two skeletons cringed.\n\n\"What is it you seek now?\" the bonecaster asked.\n\n\"Power,\" said Telorast.\n\n\"Wealth,\" said Curdle.\n\n\"Survival,\" said Telorast.\n\nCurdle nodded, head bobbing. \"Terrible times. Things will die.\"\n\n\"Lots of things,\" added Telorast. \"But it will be safe in your shadow, Great One.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Curdle. \"Safe!\"\n\n\"In turn, we will guard your back.\"\n\n\"Yes! That's it exactly! '\n\n\"Until,\" said Olar Ethil, \"you find it expedient to betray me. You see my dilemma. You guard my back from other threats, but who will guard my back from you two?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Curdle can't be trusted, \"said Telorast.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'll protect you from her, I swear it!\"\n\n\"As will I from my sister!\" Curdle spun to face Telorast and snapped her tiny jaws. Clack clack clack!\n\nTelorast hissed in reply.\n\nOlar Ethil turned to Torrent. \"Eleint,\" she said.\n\nEleint? Dragons? These two? \"I always imagined they'd be bigger. '\n\n\"Soletaken,\" said Olar Ethil, and then she regarded the two creatures once more. \"Or, I think, D'ivers, yes? Born as Tiste Andii, one woman, but two dragons. '\n\n\"Nonsense!\"\n\n\"Insane!\"\n\n\"Ridiculous!\"\n\n\"Impossible!\"\n\n\"Impossible,\" conceded Olar Ethil, \"for most-even among the Andii. Yet, you found away, didn't you? How? The blood of the Eleint resists the fever of D'ivers. A ritual would have been necessary. But what kind? Not Kurald Galain, nor Kurald Emurlahn. No, you have made me curious. I will have the answer-this is the bargain I offer. Tell me your secret, and you shall have my protection. Betray me, and I will destroy you both.\"\n\nCurdle turned to her companion. \"If we tell her, we are undone!\"\n\n\"We're already undone, you idiot. We were never meant to be Soletaken. It just happened that way! '\n\n\"But we were true Eleint-\"\n\n\"Be quiet!\"\n\nOlar Ethil suddenly stepped forward. \"True Eleint? But that makes no sense! Two who become one? Soletaken? A Tiste Andii Soletaken? No, you twist every truth-I cannot believe a thing you say!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Look what you did, Curdle!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now we-aagh!\"\n\nTelorast's cry came when Olar Ethil's bony hand snapped out, snaring the skeleton. It writhed and strained in her grip. She held it close, as if about to bite its head off.\n\n\"Tell her!\" Telorast shrieked. \"Curdle! Tell her everything!\"\n\n\"I will I will! I promise! Elder One! Listen! I will speak the truth!\"\n\n\"Go on,\" said Olar Ethil. Telorast now hung limp in her hand, as if lifeless, but Torrent could seethe tip of its tail twitching every few moments.\n\nCurdle leapt to a clear patch of dusty earth. With one talon it inscribed a circle round where it stood. \"We were chained, Elder, terribly, cruelly chained. Ina fragment of Emurlahn. Eternal imprisonment stretched before us-you could not imagine the torment, the torture of that. So close! To our precious prize! But then, the three stood before us, between us and the throne. The bitch with her fists. The bastard with his dread sword. Edgewalker gave us a choice. Kilmandaros and the chains, or Anomander and Dragnipur. Dragnipur! We knew what Draconus had done, you see! We knew what that sword's bite would do. Swallow our souls! No, \"the skeleton visibly shivered,\"we chose Kilmandaros. '\n\n\"Two Eleint,\" said Olar Ethil.\n\n\"Yes! Sisters-\"\n\n\"Or lovers,\" said Telorast, still lying as if dead.\n\n\"Or that, yes. We don't remember. Too long ago, too many centuries in chains-the madness! Such madness! But then a stranger found us. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who?\" barked Olar Ethil.\n\n\"Dessimbelackis,\" said Curdle. \"He held Chaos in his hands. He told us its secret-what he had made of it. He was desperate. His people-humans-were making a mess of things. They stood as if separate from all the animals of the world. They imagined they were the rulers of nature. And cruel their tyranny, so cruel. Slaughtering the animals, making the lands barren deserts, the skies empty but for vultures.\"\n\n\"Soletaken,\" said Olar Ethil. \"D'ivers. He created a ritual out of chaos-to bind humans to the beasts, to force upon them their animal natures. He sought to teach them a lesson. About themselves. '\n\n\"Yes, Elder. Yes to all of that. He brought the ritual to his people-oh, it was an old ritual, much older than Dessimbelackis, much older than this world. He forced it upon his subjects.\"\n\n\"This tale I know well,\" said Olar Ethil. \"I was there, when we gave answer to that. The swords of the T'lan Imass dripped for days. But, there were no dragons, not there, not then. '\n\n\"You'd begun the slaughter, \"said Curdle.\"He'd fled even before then, taking his D'ivers form-'\n\n\"The Deragoth.\"\n\n\"Yes. He knew you were hunting him. He needed allies. But we were chained, and he could not break those chains. So he offered to take our souls-and he brought us a corpse. A woman. Tiste Andii.\"\n\n\"Where did he come by it?\" Olar Ethil asked. \"Who was she?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He never told us. But when he bound our souls to her, we stood-unchained. We thought we were free. We vowed to serve him.\"\n\n\"But you did not, did you?\"\n\nCurdle hesitated.\n\n\"You betrayed him.\"\n\n\"No! It wasn't like that! Each time we sought to semble into our true selves, the chains returned! Each time, we found ourselves back within Emurlahn! We were useless to him, don't you see?\"\n\n\"Yet,\" said Olar Ethil, \"now, you can find your true selves-\"\n\n\"Not for long. Never for long,\" said Curdle. \"If we hold to our Eleint selves, the chains find us. They steal us back. These bones you see here-we can do this much. We can take a body, one or two, and exist within them. But that is all. If we could reach the throne, we could break our bindings! We could escape our prison!\"\n\n\"You will never win that throne,\" said Olar Ethil. \"And, as you are, well, that is useless tome.\"\n\n\"Great Elder! You could break those chains!\"\n\n\"I could,\" she replied. \"But I have no reason to. After all, why risk the enmity of Edgewalker? Or Kilmandaros? No, they chained you two fora reason. Had you not sought the throne, you would have lived free.\"\n\n\"Eternal punishment-who deserves that?\" Curdle demanded.\n\nOlar Ethil laughed. \"I have walked with the T'lan Imass. Do not speak tome of eternal punishment. '\n\nTorrent was startled by that. He faced her, his mouth twisting. \"You did that to them, bonecaster. And now you call it a punishment? Those Imass. What had they done to you, to punish them for all eternity?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She turned her back on him.\n\nHe stared. \"Spirits of the earth! It was punishment! Olar Ethil-that Ritual-you were cursing them! Look at you-\"\n\nShe spun round. \"Yes! Look at me! Do I not choose to wear that curse? My own body, my own flesh! What more can I do-\"\n\n\"But wear your remorse?\" He studied her in horror. \"You miserable, pathetic thing. What was it? Some offhand insult? A jilted love? Did your man sleep with some other woman? Why did you curse them for all eternity, Olar Ethil? Why?\"\n\n\"You don't understand-'\n\nTelorast chose this moment to thrash loose from her grip, landing lightly on the ground then darting a half-dozen paces away, where Curdle scrambled to join her. Olar Ethil stared at the two creatures fora moment-or so it seemed.\n\n\"Why don't you let it go? \"Torrent asked.\"Bonecaster. Let them all go. '\n\n\"No! I have no choice in this-none! You mortals are such fools-you just don't see it, you don't see anything!\"\n\n\"What am I supposed to see?\" Torrent shouted back.\n\n\"I am trying to save your pathetic lives! All of you!\"\n\nHe was silent fora long moment. Her gnarled hands had closed into fists. Then he said, \"If to save us, Olar Ethil, means holding prisoner the souls of the T'lan Imass, then, as apathetic mortal, I tell you: it's too much. Free them. Leave us to die.\"\n\nShe snorted-but he could sense his words had shaken her-\"You would speak for all humanity, Torrent, last of the Awl? You, who dream only of an end?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Make it meaningful and I will not complain.\"\n\n\"So wish we all,\" she said in a rasp.\n\n\"Besides,\" Torrent said, \"it's not their fight. Not their responsibility. Not yours, either. You seek redemption, bonecaster? Find another way. One that doesn't devour souls. One that doesn't close chains about an entire people. '\n\n\"You know so little,\" she said, her tone filled with contempt. \"The T'lan Imass-my T'lan Imass-do you even know what they are?\"\n\n\"Not really. But I've put enough together. All your conversations with strangers, and when you speak to the darkness at night-thinking me asleep. You command an army, and they are not faraway from us. They are trapped in this Ritual of yours, Olar Ethil. You treat them as slaves. '\n\n\"I need them.\"\n\n\"They don't need you, though, do they? '\n\n\"I summoned them! Without me they would be dust and nothing more!\"\n\n\"Maybe that's how they want it, ' he replied.\n\n\"Not yet. Not yet!\"\n\nTorrent gathered his reins. \"You two,\" he called to the skeletons, \"here's my offer. No one, no matter how venal, deserves an eternity of punishment. I will seek away to free your souls. In return, you guard my back. '\n\nCurdle hopped forward. \"Against whom?\"\n\nHe glared across at Olar Ethil. \"Her, fora start.\"\n\n\"We can do that!\" Telorast cried. \"We're stronger than she thinks! '\n\nCurdle pranced up alongside Torrent's horse.\"Where are we going, Master? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Call me Torrent, and I am not your Master." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I make no claim to own you. We are, it seems, riding to that tower.\"\n\n\"Rooted!\" crowed Telorast, \"but which one is it? Curdle? Which one is it?\"\n\n\"How should I know? Never been here.\"\n\n\"Liar!\"\n\n\"So are you!\"\n\nThe bickering continued as Torrent urged his mount forward. A short time later he glanced back to see Olar Ethil trudging after him. Unbreakable, and yet... broken. You sour old woman. Let it go.\n\nKebralle Korish led a clan of four men and three women, all that remained of the B'ehn Aralack Orshayn T'lan Imass. Once, not long ago, the Copper Ashes Clan had numbered three thousand one hundred and sixteen. There were memories of living, and then there were the memories of death, such as remained to those of the Ritual. In her memories of death, the final battle with the Order of the Red Spires hung blazing in her mind, a frozen scream, the abrupt howl of annihilation. She had stood upon the edge of the Abyss, longing to join her fallen kin but held back by the duty of her title. She was Clan Chief, and so long as will remained to her, she would be the last of the Copper Ashes to fall.\n\nThat time had not yet come, and the wake of the Red Spires was stretched out behind her, lifeless, desolate, the echoes of her scream like a bony hand at her back.\n\nThe First Sword had, perversely, elected to retain his corporeal form, walking with the weight of stone across this ravaged land, his long-bladed weapon dragging a careless furrow. The warriors of the Orshayn and the Brold had in turn surrendered the bliss of dust and now strode in a ragged, colourless mass behind him. She walked among them, her seven warriors arrayed around her. They were battered, permanently scarred by the sorcery of the Three. The tattered remnants of skin and tendon that remained were blackened, scorched. The sections of exposed bone were burnt white, webbed with cracks. The flint weapons they held had lost their sepia hue, the reddish brown replaced by mottled mauves and blue-greys. Furs, leather and hides were gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Among all in her clan, Kebralle Korish alone had succeeded in drawing close enough to the Three to swing her blade. She remembered, with vivid clarity, the shock upon the face of the Bearded One, when her curved weapon's edge had bit deep, scoring the flesh deep and wide across his chest. Blood, the gleam of notched ribs, rings of mail scattering against the stones of the parapet. He had staggered in retreat but she was in no mood to relent-\n\nHis companions had driven her back, a concatenation of magics hammering her from the ledge. Engulfed in raging sorcery, she had tumbled to the foot of the wall. It should have ended there, but Kebralle was Clan Chief. She had just witnessed the slaughter of almost her entire clan. No, she would not yield to oblivion. When she had risen, shrugging off the terrible chaotic flames, she had looked up to see two of the Three-they were in turn peering down at her. In their faces, disbelief, the stirrings of fear-\n\nInistral Ovan had sounded the withdrawal then. She could have defied him, but she had obeyed. For the seven who remained standing. For the last of her kin.\n\nYet even now, her memory of the bite of her blade's edge was the sweetest nectar in the hollowed husk of her soul. Kebralle Korish stood on the wall of the Fastness. She delivered a wound upon one of the Three, the only T'lan Imass to have done so. Had he stood alone, she would have killed him. The Bearded One would have fallen, the first breach in the defences of the Three. Kebralle Korish, who had made the curved blade she held, naming it Brol-Cold Eye-and seethe stain of his blood? Running black as night. In the moment the war turned, she was recalled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Copper Ashes had fallen for nothing. No gaining of ground, no victory. They had been flung away, and one day she would make Inistral Ovan pay for that.\n\nEnough reason to persist, this secret vow. The First Sword could have his war, his search for answers, his demand for an accounting with Olar Ethil. Kebralle Korish had her own reasons for continuing on. Olar Ethil-who had summoned them all-was welcome to her secret motives. Kebralle did not care. Besides, Olar Ethil had given her another chance, and for that alone Kebralle would do as she asked. Until such time that the opportunity for vengeance presented itself.\n\nInistral Ovan bore the shame of defeat, and he did so without dissembling. But it was not good enough. Not even close. I will punish him. I will find for him an eternity of suffering. Upon the lost lives of my kin, this I do vow.\n\nIt wasn't smell-he was not capable of picking up ascent-but something that nevertheless reached into his mind, pungent, redolent of memories Kalt Urmanal weathered as would an ice spirea blizzard's wind. He was annealed in madness, polished bright with insanity. All conflict within him had been smoothed away, until he was nothing more than the purity of purpose.\n\nThe K'Chain Che'Malle were upon this land. The slayers of his wife, his children. Their vile oils had soaked this dusty soil; their scales had whispered through the dry air. They were close.\n\nHatred died with the Ritual of Tellann. So it was held, so it was believed by every T'lan Imass. Even the war against the Jaghut had been a cold, unfeeling prosecution. Kalt Urmanal's soul trembled with the realization that hatred was alive within him. Blistering hatred. He felt as if all his bones were massed, knotted into a single fist, hard as stone, a fist that but awaited its victim." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would find them.\n\nNothing else mattered. The First Sword had not bound his kin-a dread error, for Kalt knew that wars raged within each and everyone of them. He could feel as much, swirls of conflicting desires, awakened hungers and needs. An army must kneel before a single master. Without that obeisance, each warrior stood alone, tethers loose, and at the first instant of conflict each would seek his or her own path. The First Sword, in his refusal to command, had lost his army.\n\nHe was a fool. He had forgotten what it meant to rule. Whatever he sought, whatever he found, he would discover that he was alone.\n\nFirst Sword. What did the title mean? Skill with his weapon-none would deny that Onos T'oolan possessed that, else he would never have earned the title. But surely there was more to it. The strength to impose his will. The qualities of true leadership. The arrogance of command and the expectation that such commands would be followed unquestioningly. Onos T'oolan possessed none of these traits. He had failed the first time, had he not? And now, he would fail again.\n\nKalt Urmanal would trail in the wake of the First Sword, but he would not follow him.\n\nThe Jaghut played games with us. They painted themselves in the guises of gods. It amused them. Our indignation stung to life became a rage of unrelenting determination. But it was misplaced. In our awakening to their games, they had no choice but to withdraw. The secret laid bare ended the game. The wars were not necessary. Our pursuit acquired the mien of true madness, and in assuming it we lost ourselves... for all time.\n\nThe Jaghut were the wrong enemy. The Ritual should have been enacted in the name of a war against the K'Chain Che'Malle. They were the ones who hunted us. For food. For sport. They were the ones who saw us as nothing more than meat. They would descend upon our camps sleek with the oils of cruel, senseless slaughter, and loved ones died." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Indignation? The word is too weak for what I feel. For all of us who were victims of the K'Chain Che'Malle.\n\nFirst Sword, you lead us nowhere-we are all done with the Jaghut. We no longer care. Our cause is dead, its useless bones revealed to each and everyone of us. We have kicked through them and now the path stretches clear-but these paths we do not share with our kin.\n\nSo, why do we follow you here and now? Why do we step in time with you? You tell us nothing. You do not even acknowledge our existence. You are worse than the Jaghut.\n\nHe knew of Olar Ethil, the bonecaster who had cursed them into eternal suffering. For her, he felt nothing. She was as stupid as the rest. As blind, as mistaken as all the other bonecasters who folded their power into the Ritual. Will you fight her, First Sword? If so, then you will do it alone. We are nothing to you, and so you are nothing to us.\n\nDo not let the eyes deceive. We are no army.\n\nWe are no army.\n\nNom Kala found the bonecaster Ulag Togtil at her side. He was, without question, the biggest warrior among the Imass she had ever seen. Trell blood. She wondered what he had looked like in the flesh. Frightening, no doubt, broad-mouthed and tusked, his eyes small as an ice boar's. She had few memories of Trell-they were all but gone in her time, among the first to be driven from the face of the earth by the humans. Indeed, she was not even certain her memories were true ones, rather than something bled into her by the Orshayn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sour blood, that. A deluge of vicious sentiments, confused desires, depthless despair and pointless rage. She felt under assault-these Orshayn were truly tortured, spiritually destroyed. But neither she nor her kin had acquired any skill in fending off this incessant flood. They had never before experienced the like.\n\nFrom the First Sword himself, however, there was nothing. Not a single wisp of thought escaped him, not a hint of emotion. Was he simply lifeless, therein his soul? Or was his self-command so absolute that even her most determined assaults upon his thoughts simply slid off, weak as rain on stone? The mystery that was Onos T'oolan dogged her.\n\n\"A measure of mercy,\" Ulag said, intruding upon her thoughts.\n\n\"What is, Bonecaster?\"\n\n\"You bleed as well, Nom Kala. We are all wayward. Bone trembles, darkness spins in what remains of our eyes. We believe we are the creators of our thoughts, our feelings, but I think otherwise.\"\n\n\"Do you?\"\n\nHe nodded. \"We roil in his wake. All this violence, this fury. It devours us, each one, and is shaped by what it eats. And so we believe each of us stands alone in our intent. Most troubling, Nom Kala. How soon before we turn upon one another?\"\n\n\"Then there is no measure of mercy,\" she replied.\n\n\"That depends.\"\n\n\"On what?\"\n\n\"On how subtle is Onos T'oolan. '\n\n\"Please, explain.\"\n\n\"Nom Kala, he has said he will not compel us to obedience. He will not be as a T'lan Imass. This is significant. Is he aware of the havoc wrought in his wake? I believe he is. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then, what purpose?\"\n\n\"We will see.\"\n\n\"Only if you are correct, and if the First Sword is then able to draw us to him-before it is too late. What you describe holds great risk, and the longer he waits, the less likely he will be able to gather us.\"\n\n\"That is true,\" he rumbled in reply.\n\n\"You believe in him, don't you? '\n\n\"Faith is a strange thing-among the T'lan Imass, it is little more than a pale ghost of memory. Perhaps, Nom Kala, the First Sword seeks to awaken it in us once more. To make us more than T'lan Imass. Thus, he does not compel us. Instead, he shows us the freedom of mortality, which we'd all thought long lost. How do the living command their kin? How can a mortal army truly function, given the chaos within each soldier, these disparate desires? '\n\n\"What value in showing us such things?\" Nom Kala asked. \"We are not mortal. We are T'lan Imass. '\n\nHe shrugged. \"I have no answer to that, yet. But, I think, he will show us.\"\n\n\"He had better not wait too long, Bonecaster.\"\n\n\"Nom Kala,\" Ulag was regarding her, \"I believe you were beautiful once.\"\n\n\"Yes. Once.\"\n\n\"Would that I had seen you then.\"\n\nBut she shook her head. \"Imagine the pain now, had you done so.\"\n\n\"Ah, there is that. I am sorry.\"\n\n\"As am I, Bonecaster.\"\n\n\"Are we there yet? My feet hurt.\"\n\nDraconus halted, turned to observe the half-blood Toblakai. \"Yes, perhaps we can rest fora time. Are you hungry?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ublala nodded. \"And sleepy. And this armour chafes my shoulders. And the axe is heavy. And I miss my friends.\"\n\n\"There is a harness ring for your axe,\" Draconus said. \"You don't have to carry it at the ready. As you can see, no one can come upon us without our seeing them from some distance away. '\n\n\"But if I see a rabbit or a chicken, I can run it down and then we can eat.\"\n\n\"That won't be necessary-you have already seen that I am able to conjure food, and water. '\n\nUblala scowled. \"I want to do my part.\"\n\n\"I see. I am sure you will, before too long.\"\n\n\"You see something?\" Ublala straightened, looked round. \"Rabbit? Cow? Those two women over there?\"\n\nDraconus started, and then searched until he found the two figures, walking now towards them but still three hundred or so paces away. Coming up from the south, both on foot. \"We shall await them,\" he said after a moment. \"But, Ublala, there is no need to fight.\"\n\n\"No, sex is better. When it comes to women, I mean. I never touched that mule. That's sick and I don't care what they said. Can we eat now?\"\n\n\"Build us afire,\" Draconus said. \"Use the wood we gathered yesterday.\"\n\n\"All right. Where is it?\"\n\nDraconus gestured and a modest stack of broken branches appeared almost at Ublala's feet.\n\n\"Oh, there it is! Never mind, Draconus, I found the wood.\"\n\nThe woman in the lead was young, her garb distinctly barbaric. Her eyes shone from a band of black paint that possibly denoted grief, while the rest of her face was painted white in the pattern of a skull. She was well-muscled, her long braided hair the colour of rust. Three steps behind her staggered an old woman, barefoot, her hide tunic smeared with filth. Rings glittered on blackened fingers, a jarring detail in the midst of her dishevelled state." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The two stopped ten paces from Draconus and Ublala." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The younger one spoke.\n\nUblala looked up from the fire he'd just sparked to life.\"Trader tongue-I understand you. Draconus, they're hungry and thirsty.\"\n\n\"I know, Ublala. You will find food in that satchel. And a jug of ale.\"\n\n\"Really? What satchel-oh, never mind. Tell the pretty one I want to have sex with her, but say it more nicely-\"\n\n\"Ublala, you and I speak the same trader tongue, more often than not. As we are doing now.\" He stepped forward. \"Welcome, then, we will share with you.\"\n\nThe younger woman, whose right hand had closed on a dagger at her belt as soon as Ublala made his desire plain, now shifted her attention back to Draconus. \"I am Ralata, a Skincut of the Ahkrata White Face Barghast.\"\n\n\"You area long way from home, Ralata.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nDraconus looked past her to the old woman. \"And your companion?\"\n\n\"I found her, wandering alone. She is Sekara, a highborn among the White Faces. Her mind is mostly gone.\"\n\n\"She has gangrenous fingers,\" Draconus observed. \"They must be removed, lest the infection spread.\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Ralata, \"but she refuses my attentions. It's the rings, I think. Her last claim to wealth. \"The Skincut hesitated, and then said,\"My people are gone. Dead. The White Face Barghast are no more. My clan. Sekara's. Everyone. I do not know what happened-\"\n\n\"Dead!\" shrieked Sekara, holding up her rotted hands. \"Frozen! Frozen dead!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ublala, who'd jumped at the old woman's cries, now edged closer to Draconus. \"That one smells bad,\" he said. \"And those fingers don't work-someone's going to have to feed her. Not me. She says awful things.\"\n\nRalata resumed: \"She tells me this a hundred times a day. I do not doubt her-I cannot-I see slaughter in her eyes. And in my heart, I know that we are alone.\"\n\n\"The infection has found her brain,\" said Draconus. \"Best if you killed her, Ralata.\"\n\n\"Leaving me the last of the White Faces? I do not have the courage to do that.\"\n\n\"You give me leave to do so?\" Draconus asked.\n\nRalata flinched.\n\n\"Ralata,\" said Draconus, \"you two are not the last of your people. Others still live.\"\n\nHer eyes narrowed. \"How do you know that?\"\n\n\"I saw them. At a distance, dressed little different from you. The same weapons. They numbered some five or six thousand, perhaps more.\"\n\n\"Where, when?\"\n\nDraconus glanced over at Ublala. \"Before I found my Toblakai friend here. Six, seven days ago, I believe-my sense of time is not what it used to be. The very change of light still startles me. Day, night, there is so much that I had forgotten.\" He passed a handover his face and then sighed. \"Ralata, do you give me leave? It will bean act of mercy, and I will be quick. She will not suffer.\"\n\nThe old woman was still staring at her blackened hands, as if willing them to move, but the swollen digits were curled into lifeless hooks. Her face twisted in frustration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Will you help me raise her cairn?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\nRalata finally nodded.\n\nDraconus walked up to Sekara. He gently lowered the woman's hands, and then set his own to either side of her face. Her manic eyes darted and then suddenly fixed on his. At the last instant, he saw in them something like recognition. Terror, her mouth opening-\n\nA swift snap to one side broke the neck. The woman slumped, still gaping, eyes holding on his even as he slowly lowered her to the ground. A few breaths later and the life left that accusing, horror-filled stare. Straightening, he stepped back, faced the others. \"It is done.\"\n\n\"I'll go find some stones, \"said Ublala.\"I'm good at graves and stuff. And then, Ralata, I will show you the horse and you'll be so happy. '\n\nThe woman frowned. \"Horse? What horse?\"\n\n\"What Stooply the Whore calls it, the thing between my legs. My bucking horse. The one-eyed river eel. The Smart Woman's Dream, what Shurq Elalle calls it. Women give it all sorts of names, but they all smile when they say them. You can give it any name you want and you'll be smiling, too. You'll see. '\n\nRalata stared after the Toblakai as he set off in search of stones, and then she turned to Draconus. \"He's but a child-'\n\n\"Only in his thoughts,\" Draconus said. \"I have seen him stripped down.\"\n\n\"If he tries-if either of you tries to rape me, I'll kill you. '\n\n\"He won't. Nor will I. You are welcome to journey with us-we are travelling east-the same direction as the Barghast I saw. Perhaps indeed we will catch up to them, or at least cross their trail once more. '" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Keep the narrative going for the author.\nTags: epic fantasy, complex plot, multiple characters, dark themes, intricate world-building\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Dust of Dreams\nChapter: 36" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Will you help me raise her cairn?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\nRalata finally nodded.\n\nDraconus walked up to Sekara. He gently lowered the woman's hands, and then set his own to either side of her face. Her manic eyes darted and then suddenly fixed on his. At the last instant, he saw in them something like recognition. Terror, her mouth opening-\n\nA swift snap to one side broke the neck. The woman slumped, still gaping, eyes holding on his even as he slowly lowered her to the ground. A few breaths later and the life left that accusing, horror-filled stare. Straightening, he stepped back, faced the others. \"It is done.\"\n\n\"I'll go find some stones, \"said Ublala.\"I'm good at graves and stuff. And then, Ralata, I will show you the horse and you'll be so happy. '\n\nThe woman frowned. \"Horse? What horse?\"\n\n\"What Stooply the Whore calls it, the thing between my legs. My bucking horse. The one-eyed river eel. The Smart Woman's Dream, what Shurq Elalle calls it. Women give it all sorts of names, but they all smile when they say them. You can give it any name you want and you'll be smiling, too. You'll see. '\n\nRalata stared after the Toblakai as he set off in search of stones, and then she turned to Draconus. \"He's but a child-'\n\n\"Only in his thoughts,\" Draconus said. \"I have seen him stripped down.\"\n\n\"If he tries-if either of you tries to rape me, I'll kill you. '\n\n\"He won't. Nor will I. You are welcome to journey with us-we are travelling east-the same direction as the Barghast I saw. Perhaps indeed we will catch up to them, or at least cross their trail once more. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What is that meat on the fire?\" she asked, drawing closer.\n\n\"Bhederin.\"\n\n\"There are none in the Wastelands.\"\n\nDraconus shrugged.\n\nStill she hesitated, and then she said, \"I am hunting a demon. Winged. It murdered my friends.\"\n\n\"How are you able to track this winged demon, Ralata?\"\n\n\"It kills everything in its path. That's a trail I can follow. '\n\n\"I have seen no such signs.\"\n\n\"Nor I of late,\" she admitted. \"Not for the past two days, since I found Sekara, in fact. But the path seems to be eastward, so I will go in that direction. If I find these other Barghast, all the better. If not, my hunt continues.\"\n\n\"Understood,\" he replied. \"Now, will you join me in some ale?\"\n\nShe spoke behind him as he crouched to pour the amber liquid into two pewter tankards. \"I mean to bury her with those rings, Draconus.\"\n\n\"We are not thieves,\" he replied.\n\n\"Good.\"\n\nShe accepted the tankard he lifted to her.\n\nUblala returned with an armload of boulders.\n\n\"Ublala,\" said Draconus, \"save showing your horse for later.\"\n\nThe huge man's face fell, and then he brightened again.\"All right. It's more exciting in the dark anyway.\"\n\nStrahl had never desired to be Warleader of the Senan. It had been easier feeding himself ambitions he had believed forever beyond reach, a simple and mostly harmless bolstering of his own ego, giving him a place alongside the other warriors opposed to Onos T'oolan, just one among a powerful, influential cadre of ranking Barghast. He had enjoyed that power and all the privileges it delivered. He had especially revelled in his hoard of hatred, a currency of endless value, and to spend it cost him nothing, no matter how profligate he was. Such a warrior was swollen, well protected behind a shield of contempt. And when shields locked, the wall was impregnable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But now he was alone. His hoard had vanished-he'd not even seen the scores of hands reaching in behind his back. A warleader's only wealth was the value of his or her word. Lies sucked the colour from gold. Truth was the hardest and purest and rarest metal of all.\n\nThere had been an instant, a single, blinding instant, when he'd stood before his tribe, raising high that truth, forged by hands grown cold. He had claimed it for his own, and in turn his kin had met his eyes, and they had answered in kind. But even then, in his mouth there had been the taste of ashes. Was he nothing more than the voice of the dead? Of fallen warriors who each in turn had been greater than Strahl could ever hope to be? He could voice their desire-and he had done precisely that-but he could not think their thoughts, and so they could not help him, not here, not now. He was left with the paltry confusions of his own mind, and it was not enough.\n\nIt had not taken long for his warriors to discover that. After all, where could he lead them? The people of the settled lands behind them sought their blood. The way ahead was ravaged, lifeless. And, as bold as the gesture had been, the Senan had fled a battle, leaving their allies to die. No one wanted the guilt of that. They gave it all to Strahl. Had he not commanded them? Had he not ordered their withdrawal?\n\nHe could not argue the point. He could not defend himself against the truths they spoke. This belongs tome. This is my crime. The others died to give it tome, because they stood where I now stand. Their courage was purer. They led. I can only follow. If it had been any other way, I could have been their match." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He squatted, facing away from the few remaining fires of the camp stretched out in a disorganized sprawl behind him. Stars spread a remote vista across the jade-soaked sky. The Talons themselves seemed much closer, as if moments from cleaving the heavens and slashing down to the earth itself. No clearer omen could be imagined. Death comes. An age ends, and with it so end the White Face Barghast, and then their gods, who were freed only to be abandoned, given life only to die. Well, you bastards, now you know how it feels.\n\nThey were almost out of food. The shouldermen and witches had exhausted themselves drawing water from this parched land. Soon the effort would begin killing them, one by one. The retreat had already claimed the eldest and weakest among the Senan. We march east. Why? No enemy awaits us out there. The war we sought is not the one we found, and now glory has eluded us.\n\nWherever that one true battle is, the White Faces should be there. Cutting destiny off at the knees. So sought Humbrall Taur. So sought Onos Toolan. But the great alliance is no more. Only the Senan remain. And we falter and soon will fade. Flesh to wood, wood to dust. Bone to stone, stone to dust. The Barghast shall become a desert-only then will we finally find a land on which to settle. These Wastelands, perhaps. When the wind stirs us awake with each dawn.\n\nBefore long, he knew, he would be cut down. Sometimes, after all, guilt must be excised with a knife. He would not resist. Of course, as the last surviving Senan staggered and fell, the final curse on their lips would be his name. Strahl, who stole from us our glory. Not much of a glory, to be sure. Maral Eb had been a fool and Strahl could shrug off most of the venom when it came to that fiasco. Still, we could have died with weapons in our hands. That would have been something. Like spitting to clear the taste. Maybe the next watery mouthful of misery won't be as bad. Like that. Just that one gesture." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Eastward then." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Each step slowing.\n\nSuicide was such an ugly word. But one could choose it for oneself. When it came to an entire people... well, that was different. Or was it? I will lead us, until someone else does. I will ask for nothing. We march to our deaths. But then, it is all we ever do. This last thought pleased him. In the ghoulish darkness, he smiled. Against futility, guilt did not stand a chance.\n\nLife is a desert, but, dear friends, between my legs you will find the sweetest oasis. Being dead, I can say this with not a hint of irony. If you were me, you'd understand.\n\n\"You have a curious expression on that painted face, Captain. What are you thinking?\"\n\nShurq Elalle pulled her gaze from the desolate sweep of sullen grey waves and glanced over at Felash, fourteenth daughter of King Tarkulf and Queen Abrastal of Bolkando. \"My First Mate was complaining, Princess, a short time ago.\"\n\n\"This has been a pleasant enough journey thus far, if somewhat tedious. What cause has he to complain?\"\n\n\"He is a noseless, one-eyed, one-handed, one-legged half-deaf man with terrible breath, but I agree with you, Princess. No matter how bad things can appear to be, they can always get worse. Such is life.\"\n\n\"You speak with something like longing, Captain.\"\n\nShurq Elalle shrugged. \"You maybe young, but you are not easily deceived, Princess. I trust you comprehend my unique circumstances.\"\n\nFelash pursed her plump lips, fluttering her fingers dismissively. \"It took sometime, to be honest. Indeed, it was my handmaiden who first broached the possibility. You do well in disguising your situation, Captain, a most admirable achievement.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you, Highness.\"\n\n\"Still, I wonder what so consumed your thoughts. Skorgen Kaban, I have learned, has no end of gripes, not least the plague of superstitions ever haunting him.\"\n\n\"He has not been at his best,\" Shurq admitted. \"Ever since you purchased this extension, in fact. A thousand rumours have drifted from Kolanse, not one of them pleasing. The crew are miserable, and to the First Mate, that misery feeds his every fear.\"\n\n\"It is well understood, I trust,\" said Felash, \"that most of the Perish fleet has preceded us. Have we seen any indication that disaster befell them?\"\n\n\"That depends,\" Shurq replied. \"The absence of evidence of any sort is ominous enough, especially for sailors-\"\n\n\"Then they can never be satisfied, can they?\"\n\n\"Absolutely true, which is why I adore them so.\"\n\n\"Captain?\"\n\nShe smiled at the princess. \"Neither can I. You wondered what I was thinking, and that is my answer.\"\n\n\"I see.\"\n\nNo, little girl, you do not. But never mind. Give it time.\n\nFelash continued: \"How frustrated you must be!\"\n\n\"If it is frustration, it is a most delicious kind.\"\n\n\"I find you fascinating, Captain.\"\n\nThe plump princess was wearing a fur-lined cloak, the hood drawn up against the sharp offshore wind. Her round, heavily made-up face looked dusted and flawless. She clearly worked very hard at appearing older than she in truth was, but the effect reminded Shurq of those porcelain dolls the Shake used to find washed upon the beaches, the ones they traded away as if the things were cursed. Inhuman in perfection, but in truth hinting at deeper flaws. \"And you in turn interest me, Highness. Is it the simple privilege of royalty that permits you to commandeer a foreign ship, captain and crew, and set out on a whim into the unknown?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Privilege, Captain? Dear me, no. Burden, in fact. Knowledge is essential. The gathering of intelligence is what ensures the kingdom's continued survival. We are not a great military power, such as the Letherii who can hold their insensitive bullying as if it was a virtue of forthright uncomplexity. Attitudes of false provincialism serve a well-honed suspicion of others. \"Deal me straight and true and I am your friend. Deal me wrong and I will destroy you.\" So goes the diplomat's theme of discourse. Of course, one quickly learns that all those poses of righteous honesty are but a screen for self-serving avarice.\"\n\n\"I take it,\" Shurq said, \"the children of the Bolkando King and Queen are well schooled in such theories of diplomacy.\"\n\n\"Almost from birth, Captain.\"\n\nShurq smiled at the exaggeration. \"It seems your sense of Lether is somewhat antiquated, if I dare venture an opinion on the matter.\"\n\nBut Felash shook her head. \"King Tehol is perhaps more subtle than his predecessors. The disarming charm hides a most devious mind.\"\n\n\"Devious? Oh yes, Highness. Absolutely.\"\n\n\"Naturally,\" Felash went on, \"one would be a fool to trust him. Or believe anything he says. I would wager his Queen is precisely the same.\"\n\n\"Indeed? Consider this, if you will, Princess: you see two rulers of avast empire who just so happen to despise virtually every trait that empire possesses. The inequity, the cruel expression of privilege and the oppression of the dispossessed. The sheer idiocy of a value system that raises useless metals and meaningless writs above that of humanity and plain decency. Consider two rulers who are trapped in that world-yes, they would dismantle all of it, if they could. But how? Imagine the resistance. All those elites so comfortable with their elevated positions of power. Do you truly believe such people would willingly relinquish that?\" Shurq leaned on the rail and regarded Felash, whose eyes were wide." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, Highness?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Imagine, in fact, if they delivered upon you and your people a diplomatic onslaught of emancipation. The end of the nobility and all the inherited rank and privilege-you and your entire family, Princess, out on your asses. The end of money and its false strictures. Gold? Pretty rings and baubles, oh yes, but beyond that? Might as well hoard polished stones from a shoreline. Wealth as proof of superiority? Nonsense. Proof only of the power to deliver violence. I see by your shocked expression, Highness, that you begin to comprehend, and so I will leave it there.\"\n\n\"But that is madness!\"\n\nShurq shrugged. \"Burdens, you said, Princess.\"\n\n\"Are you saying Tehol and his wife revile their own claim to power?\"\n\n\"Probably.\"\n\n\"Meaning, in turn, they hold people like me in similar contempt?\"\n\n\"Personally? I doubt it. Rather, they likely question your right to dictate the lives of your kingdom's people. Clearly, your family asserts such aright, and you possess the military might to enforce such a claim. I will not speak for Tehol or Janath with any certitude, Highness, but I suspect they deal with you and every other dignitary from every other kingdom and whatnot, with an identical forbearance. The system is what it is-'\n\n\"Someone needs to rule!\"\n\n\"And, alas, most of the rules rulers impose are the ones that make certain it's them doing the ruling from now on, and they'll co-opt and exploit an entire nation of people to keep it that way. Generation upon generation and forevermore. Anyway, Highness, should you ever return to Letheras by all means debate it with Tehol or Janath. They delight in such things. As for me, I can only answer as a ship's captain-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Exactly! No ship can function without a hierarchy!\"\n\n\"So very true. I was but conveying to you an interpretation of Tehol and Janath's position contrary to the one you have been taught to believe. Such complicated philosophies are well beyond me. Besides, do I really care anymore? I work within this system because that is an agreeable option, a means, in fact, of avoiding boredom. I am also able to help make my crew wealthier than they might otherwise be, and this pleases me. For myself, of course, I cannot even tell you if I believe in anything-anything at all. Why should I? What would such beliefs grant me? Peace of mind? My mind is at peace. A secure future? Since when is the future ever secure? Worthy goals? Who decides what's worthy? What's\"worth\" all about anyway? Highness, believe me, I am not the one for this discussion. '\n\n\"Errant look away, Captain, you have shocked me to the core. I feel positively faint, assailed from so many directions my mind spins.\"\n\n\"Shall I summon your handmaiden, Highness?\"\n\n\"Dear me, no. Her seasickness refuses to abate, the poor thing.\"\n\n\"There are medicines-\"\n\n\"Not one of which do a thing for her. Why do you think I am up herewith you, Captain? I cannot abide her moaning. Even more deplorable, before long when we are both in the cabin it is I who must attend to her, rather than the other way round. The impropriety of that is intolerable.\"\n\nShurq Elalle nodded. \"Impropriety, yes, I see. You should have brought the matter tome long ago, Highness. I am happy to assign a member of my crew to look after your handmaiden. Perhaps indeed we can have her transferred to another berth-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No no, none of that, Captain. Though I do thank you for the generous offer. My frustration is ever shortlived. Besides, what better means of reminding myself that privileges of rank are but false constructs? When humanity and simple decency demand the relinquishing of such things?\"\n\n\"Well said, Highness.\"\n\nFelash fluttered her fingers. \"And on that thought, best I return below, to see how the wretched child fares.\" She smiled up at Shurq with her doll's smile.\"Thank you fora most invigorating discussion, Captain. '\n\n\"I too enjoyed it, Princess.\"\n\nFelash strode away, admirably sure-footed on the pitching deck. Shurq settled her forearms down on the rail and scanned the distant coastline to port. Jungle had given way to brown hills a few days past. The only trees she'd seen since had been uprooted boles crowding the thin line of beach. Enormous trees. Who tore up thousand-year-old trees so indiscriminately as to leave them to waste? Kolanse, what have you been up to?\n\nWe'll find out soon enough.\n\nFelash entered the cabin. \"Well?\"\n\nHer handmaid looked up from where she sat crosslegged before the small brazier of coals. \"It is as we feared, Highness. Avast emptiness awaits us. Desolation beyond measure. Upon landing, we shall have to travel north-far north, all the way to Estobanse Province.\"\n\n\"Prepare my bowl,\" Felash said, shrugging off her cloak and letting it fall. She sank down onto a heap of pillows. \"They can go nowhere else, can they?\"\n\nThe bigger woman rose and stepped over to the low table where sat an ornate, silver-inlaid, glass hookah. She measured out a cup of spiced wine and slowly filled the bulb, then drew out the silver tray, tapping out the old ashes into a small pewter plate. \"If you mean the Perish, Highness, that is a fair assumption.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Felash reached under her silk blouse and loosened the bindings of her undershirt. \"My eldest sister did this too much,\" she said, \"and now her tits rest down on her belly like a trader's bladders riding a mule's rump. Curse these things. Why couldn't I be more like Hethry? '\n\n\"There are herbs-\"\n\n\"Then they'd not fix their eyes there, would they? No, these damned things are my first gifts of diplomacy. Just seeing those dilated pupils is a victory. '\n\nThe handmaid brought over the hookah. She'd already drawn it alight and aromatic smoke spread out through the cabin. She had been doing this for her mistress for four years now. Each time, it preceded an extended period of intense discussion between her and the princess. Plans were created, tested, every detail hammered into place with the steady tap-tap-tap of rounding a copper bowl.\n\n\"Hethry views you with great envy, Highness.\"\n\n\"She's an idiot so that's no surprise. Have we heard from Mother's cedas? '\n\n\"Still nothing. The Wastelands seethe with terrible powers, Highness, and it is clear that the Queen intends to remain there-like us, she seeks answers.\"\n\n\"Then we are both fools. All of this is so far beyond Bolkando's borders that we would be hard pressed to extend any legitimate reasons to pursue the course we're on. What did Kolanse contribute to our kingdom?\"\n\n\"Black honey, hardwoods, fine linens, parchment and paper-\"\n\n\"In the past five years?\" Felash's eyes glittered in a veil of smoke.\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\n\"Precisely. My question was in fact rhetorical. Contact has ceased. We acquired nothing essential from them in any case. As for the Wastelands and the motley armies crawling about on them, well, they too have left our environs. We dog them at our peril, I believe.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Queen marches beside some of those armies, Highness. We must assume she has discovered something, providing a compelling reason for remaining in their company.\"\n\n\"They march to Kolanse.\"\n\n\"Indeed.\"\n\n\"And we don't know why. '\n\nThe handmaid said nothing.\n\nFelash sent a stream of smoke ceilingward. \"Tell me again of the undead in the Wastelands.\"\n\n\"Which ones, Highness?\"\n\n\"The ones who move as dust on the winds.\"\n\nThe handmaid frowned. \"At first I thought that they alone were responsible for the impenetrable cloud defying my efforts. They number in the thousands, after all, and the one who leads them emanates such blinding power that I dare not look too long upon it. But now... Highness, there are others. Not dead to be sure. Even so. One of darkness and cold. One of golden fire high in the sky. Another at his side, a winged knot of grief harder and crueller than the sharpest cut diamond. Still others, hiding in the howl of wolves-\"\n\n\"Wolves?\" Felash cut in. \"Do you mean the Perish?\"\n\n\"No and yes, Highness. I can be no clearer than that.\"\n\n\"Wonderful. Goon.\"\n\n\"Yet another, fiercer and wilder than all the others. It hides inside stone. It swims in a sea thick with the pungent flavours of serpents. It waits for the moment, and grows in its power, and facing it... Highness, whatever it faces is more dreadful than I can bear.\"\n\n\"This clash-will it occur on the Wastelands?\"\n\n\"I believe so, yes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you think my mother knows?\"\n\nThe handmaid hesitated, and then said, \"Highness, I cannot imagine her cedas to be anything but utterly blind and thus ignorant of that threat. It is only because I am able to see from this distance, from the outside, as it were, that I have gleaned as much as I have.\"\n\n\"Then she is in trouble.\"\n\n\"Yes. I think so, Highness.\"\n\n\"You must find away,\" said Felash, \"to reach through to her.\"\n\n\"Highness. There is one way, but it risks much.\"\n\n\"Who will bear that risk?\"\n\n\"Everyone aboard this ship.\"\n\nFelash pulled on her mouthpiece, blew rings that floated, wavered and slowly flattened out, drifting to form a chain in the air. Her eyes widened upon seeing it.\n\nThe handmaid simply nodded. \"He is close, yes. My mind has spoken his name.\"\n\n\"And this omen here before us?\"\n\n\"Highness, one bargains with an Elder God at great peril. We must pay in blood.\"\n\n\"Whose blood?\"\n\nThe handmaid shook her head.\n\nFelash tapped the amber tube against her teeth, thinking. \"Why is the sea so thirsty?\"\n\nAgain, there was no possible answer to that question. \"Highness?\"\n\n\"Has the damned thing a name? Do you know it?\"\n\n\"Many names, of course. When the colonists from the First Empire set forth, they made sacrifice to the salty seas in the name of Jhistal. The Tiste Edur in their great war canoes opened veins to feed the foam, and this red froth they called Bloodmane-in the Edur language that word was Mael. The Jheck who live upon the ice call the dark waters beneath that ice the Lady of Patience, Barutalan. The Shake speak of Neral, the Swallower.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And on.\"\n\n\"And on, Highness.\"\n\nFelash sighed. \"Summon him, and we shall see what cost this bargain.\"\n\n\"As you command, Highness.\"\n\nOn the foredeck, Shurq Elalle straightened as the lookout cried out. She faced out to sea. That's a squall. Looks to be a bad one. Wherein the Errant's bung-hole did that come from? \"Pretty!\"\n\nSkorgen Kaban clumped into view from amidships. \"Seen it, Cap'n! '\n\n\"Swing her out, Pretty. If it's gonna bite, best we lock jaws with it. \"The thought of the storm throwing Undying Gratitude onto that treefall shore wasn't a pleasant one, not in the least.\n\nThe black wire-wool cloud seemed to becoming straight for them.\n\n\"Piss in the boot, this dance won't be fun. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is ancient patience belly down on the muds lining the liana shore. Everyone must cross rivers in high flood. Bright blossoms float past on the way down to the snake mangroves harbouring the warm sea. But nothing slides smooth into the swirling waters hunting their bold beauty. We mill uneasy on the verge awaiting necessity's paroxysms-the sudden rush to cross into the future. Rivers in high flood dream of red passages and the lizards will feed as they have always done. We bank on numbers, the chaotic tumult, the frenzied path on the backs of loved ones, fathers and mothers, the quill-lickers inscribing lists of lives: this solid stand, that slippage of desire. Ancient patience swells the tongue, all the names written in tooth-row jaws-we surge, we clamber eyes rolling and the distant shore calls to us, that ribbed future holds us a place in waiting. But the river scrolls down high in its hungry season and the lizards wallow fat in the late afternoon sun. See me now in the fleck of their lazy regard-and now I wait with them, for the coming rains\n\nTHE SEASON OF HIGH FLOOD G AMAS E NICTEDON\n\nChildren will wander. they will walk as if the future did not exist. Among adults, the years behind one force focus upon what waits ahead, but with children this is not so. The past was a blur of befuddled sensations, the future was white as the face of the sun. Knowing this yielded no comfort. Badalle was still a child, should one imagine her of a certain age, but she walked like a crone, tottering, hobbling. Even her voice belonged to an old woman. And the dull, fused thing behind her eyes could not be shaken awake.\n\nShe had a vague recollection, a memory or an invention, of looking upon an ancient woman, a grandmother perhaps, or a great aunt. Lying shrunken on abed, swaddled in wool blankets. Still breathing, still blinking, still listening. And yet those eyes, in their steady watching, their grainy observation, showed nothing. The stare of a dying person. Eyes spanning a gulf, slowly losing grip on the living side of the chasm, soon to release and slide to the side of death. Did those eyes feed thoughts? Or had things reduced to mere impressions, blobs of colour, blurred motions-as if in the closing of death one simply returned to the way things had been fora newborn? She could think of a babe's eyes, in the moments and days after arriving in the world. Seeing but not seeing, a face of false smiles, the innocence of not-knowing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had knelt beside a nameless boy, thereon the very edge of the Crystal City, and had stared into his eyes, knowing he saw her, but knowing nothing else. He was beyond expression (oh, the horror of that, to see a human face beyond expression, to wonder who was trapped inside, and why they'd given up getting out). He'd studied her in turn-she could see that much-and held her gaze, as if he'd wanted company in his last moments of life. She would not have turned away, not for anything. The gift was small for her, but all she had, and for him, perhaps it was everything.\n\nWas it as simple as that? In dying, did he offer, therein his eyes, a blank slate? Upon which she could scribble anything she liked, anything and everything that eased her own torment?\n\nShe'd find those answers when her death drew close. And she knew she too would remain silent, watchful, revealing nothing. And her eyes would look both beyond and within, and in looking within she would find her private truths. Truths that belonged to her and no one else. Who cared to be generous in those final moments? She'd be past easing anyone else's pain.\n\nAnd this was Badalle's deepest fear. To be so selfish with the act of dying.\n\nShe'd not even seen when the life left the boy's eyes. Somehow, that moment was itself a most private revelation. Recognition was slow, uncertainty growing leaden as she slowly comprehended that the eyes she stared into gave back not a single glimmer of light. Gone. He is gone. Sunlight cut paths through the prisms of crystal walls, giving his still face a rainbow mask.\n\nHe had probably been no more than ten years old. He'd come so far, only to fail at the very threshold of salvation. What do we living know about true irony? His face was leather skin pulled taut over bones. The huge eyes belonged to someone else. He'd lost his eyelashes, his eyebrows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Had he been remembering those times before this march? That other world? She doubted it. She was older and she remembered very little. Patchy images, wrought dreams crowded with impossible things. Thick green leaves-a garden? Amphorae with glistening flanks, something wonderful in her mouth. A tongue free of sores, lips devoid of splits, a flashing smile-were any of these things real? Or did they belong to her fantastic dreams that haunted her now day and night?\n\nI grow wings. I fly across the world, across many worlds. I fly into paradise and leave desolation in my wake, because I feed on all that I see. I devour it whole. I am discoverer and destroyer both. Somewhere awaits the great tomb, the final home of my soul. I will find it yet. Tomb, palace, when you're dead what's the difference? There I will reside forever, embraced by my insatiable hunger.\n\nShe'd dreamed of children. Looking down from a great height. Watching them march in their tens of thousands. They had cattle, mules and oxen. Many rode horses. They glittered blindingly in the hard sunlight, as if they bore the treasures of the world on their backs. Children, but not her children.\n\nAnd then the day ended and darkness bled to the earth, and she dreamed that it was at last time to descend, spiralling, moaning through the air. She would strike swiftly, and if possible unseen by any. There were magics below, in that vast multi-limbed camp. She had to avoid brushing those. If need be, she would kill to silence, but this was not her true task.\n\nShe dreamed her eyes-and she had more of those than she should, no matter-fixed upon the two burning spots she sought. Bright golden hearth-flames-she had been tracking them fora longtime now, in service to the commands she had been given." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was descending upon the children.\n\nTo steal fire.\n\nStrange dreams, yes, but it seemed they existed fora reason. The deeds done within them had purpose, and this was more than anything real could manage.\n\nThe Quitters had been driven away. By song, by poems, bywords. Brayderal, the betrayer among them, had vanished into the city. Rutt oversaw the ribby survivors, and everyone slept in cool rooms in buildings facing onto abroad fountain in the centre of which stood a crystal statue weeping the sweetest water. It was never quite enough-not for them all-and the basin of the surrounding pool was fissured with cracks that drank with endless thirst. But they were all managing to drink just enough to stay alive.\n\nBehind a glittering building they'd found an orchard, the trees of a type none had seen before. Fruits massed on the branches, each one long and sheathed in a thick skin the colour of dirt. The pulp within was soft and impossibly succulent. It filled the stomach with no pangs. They'd quickly eaten them all, but the next day Saddic had found another orchard, bigger than the first one, and then yet another. Starvation had been eluded. For now.\n\nOf course, they continued to eat those children who for whatever reason still died-no one could think of wasting anything. Never again.\n\nBadalle walked the empty streets closer to the city's heart. A palace occupied the centre, the only structure in the city that had been systematically destroyed, smashed down as if with giant mallets and hammers. From the mounds of shattered crystals Badalle had selected a shard as long as her forearm. Having wrapped rags around one end she now held a makeshift weapon.\n\nBrayderal was still alive. Brayderal still wanted to see them all dead. Badalle meant to find her first, find her and kill her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As she walked, she whispered her special poem. Brayderal's poem. Her poem of killing.\n\n\"Where is my child of justice? I have a knife that will speak true To the very heart Where is my child of justice? Spat out so righteously On a world meant to kneel In slavery Where is my child of justice? I want to read your proof Of what you say you deserve I will see your knife Where is my child of justice? Let us lock blades You claim whatever you please I claim no right but you\"\n\nShe had sailed down in her dreams. She had stolen fire. No blood had been shed, no magics were awakened. The children slept on, seeing nothing, peaceful in ignorance. When they awoke, they would face the rising sun, and begin the day's march.\n\nBy this detail alone she knew that these children were indeed strangers.\n\nShe'd looked upon the boy until life left him. Then, with Rutt and Saddic and two dozen others, she had eaten him. Chewing on the stringy, bloody meat, she thought back to that look in his eyes. Knowing, calm, revealing nothing.\n\nAn empty gaze cannot accuse. But the emptiness was itself an accusation. Wasn't it?\n\nWhen Saddic looked upon the city they'd found in the heart of the Glass Desert, he believed he was seeing the structure of his very own mind, a pattern writ on a colossal scale, but in its crystalline form it was nevertheless the same as that which was encased in his own skull. Seeking proof of this notion, he'd left the others behind, even Badalle, and set out to explore, not from street to street, but downward.\n\nHe soon discovered that most of the city was below ground. The crystals had settled deep roots, and whatever light was trapped within prismatic walls up above sent down deeper, softer hues that flowed like water. The air was cool, tasteless, neither dry nor damp. He felt as if he walked a world between breaths, moving through that momentary pause that hovered, motionless on all sides, and not even the muted slap of his bare feet could break this sense of eternal hesitation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vast caverns waited at the very base, a dozen or more levels down from the surface. Crystal walls and domed ceilings, and as Saddic edged into the first of these, he understood the secret purpose of this city. It wasn't enough to build a place in which to live, a place with the comforting crowds of one's own kind. It wasn't even enough to fashion things of beauty out of mundane necessity-the pretty fountains, the perfect orchards with their perfect rows of ancient trees, the rooms of startling light as the sun's glow was trapped and given new flavours, the tall statues of tusked demons with their stern yet resolved expressions and the magical way the sun made vertical pupils in those glittering eyes-as if the statues watched still, alive inside the precise angles of translucent stone. None of these were sufficient reason for building this city. The revelation of the true secret was down here, locked away and destined to survive until oblivion itself came to devour the sun.\n\nAbove on the surface, the buildings, the domes and spires and tilted towers; the rooms and the plazas and spiral staircases: they each marked the perfect placement of a single, enormous machine. A machine of light and colours. But not just light, not just colours.\n\nSaddic walked into the cavern, breathless with wonder.\n\nEach day, each moment he could manage, Saddic listened to the words of Badalle. He listened and he watched and all that he heard and all that he saw passed through his surface, shifted and bounced, curled and bent until reaching the caverns of his memory, where they re-formed, precise and exact, destined to live on, secure in perfection-for as long as Saddic himself remained alive.\n\nBut this city had defeated mortality and, he realized, it had defeated time as well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Far above, the sun's light fed the city's memories-all the life it had once held within its chambers and halls, on its streets and in the squares with their fountains. The chaotic angles of the walls around him flowed with scenes, murky and ghostly-not of Rutt and the children now dwelling above, but of the inhabitants of long, long ago, persisting here for all eternity.\n\nThey were tall, with skin the colour of lichen. Their lower jaws bore tusks that rose up to frame the thin-lipped mouths. Men and women both wore long, loose clothing, dyed in deep but vibrant colours. They wore braided belts of grey leather, weaponless, and nowhere could Saddic see armour. This was a city of peace, and everywhere there was water. Flowing down building walls, swirling in pools surrounding fountains. Blossom-filled gardens bled their riotous colours into rooms and down colonnaded hallways.\n\nSaddic walked through cavern after cavern, seeing all that had once been, but nowhere could he find those moments that must have preceded the city's death-or, rather, the fall of the tusked people and their rich culture. Invaders? Desert savages? He could find nothing but the succession of seemingly endless days of perfection and tranquillity.\n\nThe scenes seemed to seep into his mind, as if impressing themselves upon his own crystalline brain, and he began to comprehend details of things he had noway of knowing. He came to discover the city's name. He saw the likeness in the statues and realized that they all belonged to the same individual, and that variations arose solely from the eyes of the sculptors and their skill as artists. And, as he drew closer to what he knew was the centre of the city, to its most cherished heart, he now saw other creatures. In what seemed peaceful co-existence, huge two-legged reptiles began appearing in scenes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These were the ones Badalle had spoken about. The ones who had found the city, but Saddic now knew more than she did. They'd found it, yes, but it had not been empty. In finding it, they found the ones who dwelt in it, who called it their home.\n\nThey were called Jaghut. Returned to this way of living, in the cities they had abandoned long before. They were drawn to a humble man, a half-blood. They were drawn to his great machine of memories, this place he made by his own hand. What he did not possess within him, he built around him. To trap all that he was.\n\nThe city is called Icarias.\n\nHe left a cavern, walked down a twisting passage murky with dark hues, and came upon the buried heart of the city.\n\nSaddic cried out.\n\nBefore him, in a chamber more massive than any of the others... Darkness. Destruction. The roots were dead, unfed by light from above. Fissures split the crystals.\n\nBroken. His heart is broken.\n\nBrayderal sat, knees drawn up and arms wrapped tightly round them, in the corner of a small room on the fourth level of a tower. She had escaped her captors, leaving her alone with her grief and torment. She had drawn her kin to their deaths. She should have killed Badalle long ago, the first moment she sensed the power of the girl.\n\nBadalle had shattered the Inquisitors. She had taken their own words and thrown them back, and precious blood had spilled onto the shard-studded ground. At least two of them had died, the other two retreating with grievous wounds. If they still breathed, somewhere out there, it would not be for much longer. They had no food, no water and no shelter, and each day the sunlit the sky on fire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Badalle needed to die. Brayderal had raided an orchard not yet found by the others. She could feel her strength returning, her belly full for the first time in months. But guilt and loneliness had stolen all her will. Worse yet, this city itself assailed her. Whatever force still lingered here was inimical to the Forkrul Assail. A despiser of justice-she could almost taste its contempt for her.\n\nWere the others hunting her? She believed they were. And if they found her they would kill her. They would rend her flesh from her bones and eat until their stomachs were swollen. Perhaps that was fitting. Perhaps, indeed, it served a kind of justice, the kind that recognized the price of failure.\n\nStill, could she kill Badalle... Rutt alone was not enough to oppose her. Saddic was nothing more than Badalle's pet. Standing over Badalle's cold corpse, Brayderal could command the others to obedience. Yield, kneel... die. Wasn't it what they wanted? The purest peace of all.\n\nShe stiffened, breath catching, as she heard sounds from somewhere outside. Rising into a crouch, Brayderal edged out of the corner and approached the window overlooking the ruins of the palace. She peered out.\n\nBadalle. Wielding a crystal sword-but not just any fragment, no, this was from the palace. It blazed in the girl's hand, blinding enough to make Brayderal snatch her head back in pain. The palace was destroyed, yet somehow it lived on.\n\nShe hated this city.\n\nAnd now it is Badalle who hunts me. She will drive that shard into my chest, and it will drink deep.\n\nShe needed to hide." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Badalle turned at a scuffing sound from one of the towers, catching a glimpse of a face pulling back from a small window halfway up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Was it time, then? So soon?\n\nShe could unleash the power of her voice. She could, she knew, compel Brayderal to come to her. She had been able to overwhelm four adult Quitters. One of their children, weak and alone, would be unable to defend herself.\n\nBut she wanted this death to be a silent one. After all, the battle between these two forces of righteousness had already been decided. The peace that was death had been rejected. But of course we have been fighting that war since the very beginning. Fighting, and now we have won. It's over.\n\nWould they live here forever then? Could the orchards sustain them? What would they do? Was simple survival enough reason to goon living? What of dreams? Desires? What kind of society would they shape?\n\nNo, this is not enough. We cannot stay here. It's not enough.\n\nKilling Brayderal will achieve nothing. No. I have a better answer.\n\nShe raised her voice. \"Child of justice! This city is not for you! You are banished! Return to your kind, if you can. GO!\"\n\nShe heard a weak cry from the tower. The Quitters had driven them from their homes, from their families. It was fitting, then, that she now drive from her home a Quitter. My home, my family. Not hers, it was never hers. This family, it is mine. And wherever they are, they are my home.\n\nThey were done with Brayderal.\n\nBadalle set off to return to Rutt and Held and Saddic. There were things to discuss. Anew purpose to find. Something beyond just surviving. Something we deserve. For we have earned the freedom to choose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She glanced down at her makeshift sword." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed unaccountably bright, as if gathering all the light it could drink. Golden flames seemed to glitter in its heart. It was beautiful, yes, but there was something else there. Something of power... a terrible power.\n\nShe remembered, from somewhere, tales about weapons, and those weapons were given names. Thus. She would name hers Fire.\n\nFuck! Fiddler spun away from the three worried faces, the sets of frightened eyes, the twitches of incipient panic. He scanned the ground. \"Stay where you are,\" he told the heavies. \"No, wait. Shortnose, go and get Bottle. Flashwit, you and Mayfly enforce a cordon round here, especially their tent. No one gets in, understood?\"\n\nSolemn nods from the soldiers, and then Shortnose set off at a lumbering run.\n\nOn all sides, the camp was breaking, tents dropping down, stakes rocked loose from the hard stony soil. Soldiers shouted, complained and bickered. The smell of spicy food from the kitchen tents wafted in the cool morning air. Closer by, two other squads were looking over, uneasy, bereft of answers. They'd slept sound, they said. Heard nothing.\n\nFiddler's gaze drew back to the tent. Slashed to ribbons. Inside-what was left of inside-the cots bore rumpled bedding. But no blood. Fuck. Fuck and fire. His breath slowly hissed as he resumed studying the ground, seeking tracks, signs of a scuffle, anything. Nothing caught his eyes. Too scared to concentrate. Wherein Hood's name is Bottle?\n\nFlashwit had come to him half a bell earlier. He'd barely crawled out from his tent to find her standing in front of him, a look of dread on her broad face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're gone, Sergeant. '\n\n\"What? Who's gone? '\n\n\"Their tent's all cutup, but nobodies-'\n\n\"Flashwit, what are you talking about? Whose tent? Who's gone? '\n\n\"Our sergeant and corporal. Gone.\"\n\n\"Gesler? Stormy?\"\n\n\"Their tent's all cutup. '\n\nNot cutup, he discovered, after following Flashwit back to the Fifth Squad's camp. Slashed. The thick canvas was rent from all sides, with what must have been frenzied zeal. And of Gesler and Stormy there was no sign. Their weapons and armour were gone as well. And the heavies were intents to either side-barely room to walk between them, and in the dark with all the guy ropes and stakes... no, this doesn't make sense.\n\nHe turned to see Shortnose and Bottle jogging up to where stood Mayfly-who held out thick arms as if to bar their passage.\n\n\"Let'em through, Mayfly-but no one else. Not yet, anyway. Bottle, get over here. '\n\n\"What's this I hear about Gesler and Stormy deserting? '\n\nFiddler almost cuffed the man. Instead, he hissed, \"Ain't nobody's deserted-but now that rumour's on its way, isn't it? Idiot.\"\n\n\"Sorry, Sergeant-it's too damned early in the morning for me to bethinking straight. '\n\n\"Better wake up fast,\" Fiddler snapped. He pointed at the tent. \"Look for signs, all round it. Someone had to walk into get that close. And if you find a single drop of blood let me know-but quietly, understood?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Licking his lips as he eyed the ravaged tent, Bottle nodded, and then edged past his sergeant.\n\nFiddler unstrapped and drew off his helm. He wiped sweat from his brow. Glared across at the nearby squads. \"Wake up your sergeants and all of you make sure we got a full cordon!\" The soldiers jumped. Fiddler knew that news of his sickness had gone through the ranks-he'd been down for days, stinking with fever. Standing close to Anomander Rake had been miserable enough, he recalled, but nothing compared to this. He didn't need the Deck of Dragons to know what he knew. Besides, nowhere in the Deck would he find a card called the Consort of Darkness. At least, not that he knew of, though sometimes powers were of such magnitude, such insistence, that they could bleed the paint off a minor card and usurp it. Maybe that had happened with his Deck-but he wasn't about to shuffle through fora look. In any case, his being down had scared people-damned unfair, but there it was, nothing Fiddler could do about it. And now that he was back on his feet, well, he could see far too much undisguised relief in too many eyes.\n\nThe older he got, he realized, the more sensitive his talent-if it could be called talent. He preferred curse.\n\nNow Rake went and got himself killed. Unbelievable. Insane. Dragnipur is in pieces. Oh sure, Rake and Hood made sure most of the monsters chained within it were wiped out-nice deal, that. Chained souls and Hood's own menagerie of scary malcontents, all fed into Chaos.\"The dead will sleep, and sleep forevermore. ' Amen.\n\nHe clawed at his beard. Barely three days on foot again-he still felt wobbly-and now this. They've been snatched. Right out from the middle of a whole damned army. Gesler. Stormy. Why them? Oh don't be obtuse, Fid. They were annealed in the Forge of Thyrllan. Ascendants both." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So think about that. Gesler-he can throw a punch heavy enough to stagger a god. Stormy can swing a sword through three bodies if he's mad enough. But... not a drop of blood-\n\n\"Found a drop of blood, Sergeant.\"\n\nBottle was suddenly at his side, head lowered, voice barely a whisper.\n\n\"Just one?\"\n\n\"Well, maybe two drops together. A dollop? It's thick and it stinks. '\n\nFiddler scowled at the man. \"Stinks?\"\n\n\"Not human blood.\"\n\n\"Oh, great. Demonic?\"\n\n\"More like... rhizan.\"\n\nRhizan? \"This ain't the time for jokes, Bottle-'\n\n\"I'm not. Listen. There's not a trace, not a single footprint beyond the kind soldiers make-and we both know it wasn't no soldiers jumped the tent and the two men inside it. Unless they had talons long as swords, and it was talons that did in that tent. But the hands they belonged to were huge. It gets stranger, Sergeant-'\n\n\"Hold on. Let me think a moment.\" Rhizan? Flit around at night, eating insects, small bats... winged. They got fucking wings! \"It came down out of the sky. Of course, it's bloody obvious now. That's why there's no tracks. It just dropped straight down onto the tent-'\n\n\"Then someone should've heard it-at the very least, Ges and Stormy would've been screaming.\"\n\n\"Aye, that part still doesn't scry. '\n\n\"Let me examine the tent, Sergeant-pick it apart, I mean.\"\n\n\"Go ahead.\" Fiddler walked over to Shortnose. \"Another trip for you. Find Captain Faradan Sort, and maybe Fist Keneb. And Quick Ben-aye, get Quick Ben first and send him here. And listen, Shortnose, don't say nothing about desertions-we already got enough of those. Gesler and Stormy didn't desert-they were kidnapped.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shortnose shook his head. \"We ain't seen or heard nothing, Sergeant-and I'm alight sleeper. Stupid light, in fact.\"\n\n\"I'm guessing some kind of sorcery silenced the whole thing. And the demon was winged. It just picked them both up and flew off into the night. Now, goon, Shortnose. '\n\n\"All right. Quick Ben, Sort and then Keneb.\"\n\n\"Right.\" Turning back, he saw Bottle on his hands and knees, lifting up shreds of canvas. The soldier looked up, nodded him over.\n\nFiddler joined him, crouching at his side. \"What is it?\"\n\n\"Everything stinks, Sergeant. Feel this cloth-it's oily. '\n\n\"That's what keeps \"em waterproof-\"\n\n\"Not this stuff. This stuff smells like a lizard's armpit. '\n\nFiddler stared at Bottle, wondering when the fool last jammed his nose into a lizard's armpit, then decided that some questions just should never be asked.\"Enkar'al? Could be, but it would have had to have been a big one, old, probably female. And somehow it got its hands round both their mouths, or round their necks.\"\n\n\"Then Ges and Stormy are dead,\" whispered Bottle.\n\n\"Quiet, I'm still working through this. I can't recall ever seeing an enkar'al big enough to fly carrying two full-grown men. So, Locqui Wyval? Draconic lapdogs? Not a chance. A bull enkar'al masses more than a wyval. But then, wyval fly in packs-in clouds, I think it's called-so if a dozen came down, striking fast... maybe. But all those wing-beats... no, somebody'd hear the ruckus for certain. So, not wyval and probably not an enkar'al. What's that leave us with?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bottle stared at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dragon.\"\n\n\"Do dragons smell like rhizan armpits?\"\n\n\"How the Hood would I know?\" Bottle demanded.\n\n\"Calm down, sorry I asked.\"\n\n\"But it doesn't work anyway, \"said Bottle after a moment.\"The slashed tent-the rents aren't big enough fora dragon's talons, or teeth. And if a dragon did swoop down, wouldn't it just pickup the whole thing? Tent, people, cots, the whole works?\"\n\n\"Good point. So, we're back to a giant rhizan? '\n\n\"I was just saying what it smelled like, Sergeant. I didn't mean areal rhizan, or even one of those slightly bigger ones we got round here. '\n\n\"If it wasn't for the wings, \"muttered Fiddler,\"I might think K'Chain Che'Malle. '\n\n\"They died out a hundred thousand years ago, Sergeant. Maybe even longer. Even the ones Hedge went up against at Black Coral-they were undead, so probably stinking of crypts, not oil.\"\n\nQuick Ben arrived, pushing through the crowd that had gathered. \"Shortnose said something about-shit, they have a cat fight or something?\"\n\n\"Snatched,\" said Fiddler. \"Something with wings. Big enough to shut them both up-not a sound, Quick. Smells like magic-\"\n\n\"Like lizards, you mean,\" cut in Bottle. \"Look at this, High Mage.\"\n\nQuick Ben held out a hand and Bottle gave him the strip of canvas. \"Lizards, Bottle?\"\n\n\"Feel the oil?\"\n\n\"This is K'Chain Che'Malle.\"\n\n\"They ain't got wings, ' objected Fiddler." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Quick Ben was squinting skyward. Under his breath he said, \"Some do.\"\n\n\"But no one heard a damned thing, Quick.\"\n\n\"The oil is like the breath of a dragon, Fid. Just not as virulent. It came down, sprayed the tent, took off again. The stuff soaked through, filled the air in the tent, and inside you could have knocked their heads together and neither one would've woken up. So it came back down, sliced through the tent to keep all the guys and stakes in place, and took them both. '\n\n\"You can't know all this-' Bottle began but stopped at a look from Fiddler.\n\nQuick Ben. You snake-eyed shifty know-it-all bastard from the bung-hole of Seven Cities. I never liked you. Never trusted you, even when I had to. The things you know about, why I-\n\nBottle blurted, \"Quick! The strings you tied! They weren't snapped? Then they're still alive, right? You tied strings to them-to Gesler and Stormy-you did, didn't you? '\n\n\"Got lazy,\" Quick Ben said with a slow blink. \"Had too many. It was hard concentrating, so I cut down on them, Bottle. Didn't even think about Ges and Stormy. '\n\n\"You're lying. '\n\n\"Head back to the squad, Bottle,\" said Fiddler. \"Help Tarr get us ready to march.\"\n\n\"Sergeant-\"\n\n\"Get out of here, soldier.\"\n\nBottle hesitated, and then, jabbing a warning finger at Quick Ben, he stalked off.\n\n\"Strings still humming, Quick?\"\n\n\"Listen, Fid. I cut'em, just like I told Bottle-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't even try." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'\n\n\"Yeah, well, you ain't Whiskeyjack, are you? I don't have to answer to you. I'm High Mage now and that means-'\n\n\"It means do I have to talk to the Adjunct directly? Or are you gonna keep spinning round on that flagpole? How long can you keep up the puckered butt, Quick?\"\n\n\"All right. They're alive. I know that much. '\n\n\"Close by?\"\n\n\"No. A Shi'gal Assassin can fly two hundred leagues in a single night. '\n\nA what? Never mind. \"Why those two?\"\n\n\"No idea-\"\n\n\"I hear the Adjunct's a damned dragon herself these days-'\n\n\"Fine. I figure someone needed them.\"\n\n\"A shigral assassin K'Chain Che'Malle needed Gesler and Stormy?\"\n\n\"Shi'gal. But they don't go rogue, not this way, anyway. Meaning it was sent. To find them.\"\n\n\"Sent by who?\"\n\nQuick Ben licked his lips, looked away and then shrugged. \"A Matron, obviously.\"\n\n\"A Matron? A K'Chain Che'Malle Matron? Areal live breathing K'Chain Che'Malle Matron?\"\n\n\"Keep it down, will you? People are looking. We can-\"\n\nFiddler's helm caught the High Mage flush on the side of his head. Watching the wizard fall in a heap was, for Fiddler, the most satisfying experience he'd known in years.\n\nHe stepped back, glared round. \"High Mage Quick Ben needs to commune with his gods. Now, all of you, finish breaking your camps-we march in half a bell! Go!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fiddler stood, waiting for the captain and Fist Keneb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His threats about the Adjunct had comeback to sink fangs deep into his backside. They'd need to talk to her. With Quick Ben up and awake and cornered with nowhere to hide. She could takeover wresting answers from the smug bastard. For himself... he glanced down at the unconscious wizard... he'd had enough.\n\nNever liked him. Need him, count on him, pray for him, love him, aye. But like him? Not a chance. Goatsticker, dollmaker, souleater. Probably Soletaken or D'ivers, too, if I'm any judge of things.\n\nWhiskeyjack, did you hear the sound it made hitting his head? This old helm of mine? Did it stir the dead all around you? Did you all sit up, rush to the Gate? You looking in onus right now, Sarge? Hey, all you Bridgeburners. How'd I do?\n\nFist Keneb had ridden out alone just before dawn, passing through bleary-eyed pickets and cantering eastward until the sun broke the distant horizon. He reined in on a slight rise and sat slumped in the saddle, steam rising from his horse, low mists scudding over the broken ground as the air slowly warmed.\n\nThe Wastelands stretched before him. To his right and now slightly behind him, the vague smudge of the Saphii Mountains rumpled the southern skyline. He was exhausted, but insomnia plagued Keneb. He had been more or less running the Bonehunters since leaving Lether. Fist Blistig had done his best to evade the responsibilities of command-he was in the habit of wandering among his soldiers in the evenings, eager to telltales of the Chain of Dogs and the Fall at Aren, as if no one had heard them a dozen times before. He'd drink with them and laugh overloud and play at being a comrade of no special rank. As a consequence, he was viewed with amused contempt by his soldiers. They had enough friends. They didn't need their Fist spreading his hams on a crate at the fire, passing a jug. Such nights should be rare events, on the eve of battle, perhaps, but even then no one should ever be permitted to forget an officer's position." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Blistig wanted to be one of the lads. But he was a Fist by rank, and that meant standing apart from his soldiers. Staying watchful, aye, but ever ready to command and expecting that command to be followed. He was supposed to lead, damn him. At the morning briefing sessions Blistig sat scowling, hungover, thick-tongued and bored. He ventured no ideas and looked upon every suggestion with something between disbelief and outright derision.\n\nWe need better than that. I need better than that.\n\nThe Adjunct had the right to expect that her Fists could manage the army on this march. She had other issues to chew on, whatever they were-and Keneb was nowhere near close enough to even imagine what they might be; in fact, no one was, not even Lostara Yil.\n\nThere were two sub-Fists, each commanding regulars-foot, skirmishers, scouts and archers-and Keneb found he was growing far too dependent on them with the logistical demands. They had enough of their own concerns to deal with, after all. But both were veteran officers, seasoned campaigners, and Keneb drew heavily on their experience-though he often felt as he once had when he'd been a young captain under the stubbled wing of a sergeant. Neither Hobble nor Kellant likely had much good to say about him behind his back.\n\nAye, that's the truth of it. I just managed as a captain. I'm far past my level of competence here, and it's showing.\n\nThe Wastelands looked forbidding. Perhaps even more lifeless than the worst stretches of Seven Cities-between Aren and Raraku, or that northwest push to the walls of Y'Ghatan. He'd managed to acquire an honest list of warlocks and witches among the ranks, those possessing magics that could conjure forth edible plants, small mammals, insects and such from even the most miserable of lands. And water, as well. To stretch out the supplies they carried, he had them hard at work supplementing daily rations allotted each squad." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the complaints had already begun. \"These Wastelands, Fist, are well named. Damn near sucked lifeless underfoot. Finding stuff is starting to hurt.\"\n\nDo what you can. It's all I can ask.\n\nA more useless response from an officer was beyond his imagining, and what soured the most were his own recollections of receiving such inane replies from his commanders all those years ago. At last he understood the helplessness they often suffered, when attempting to deal with something that couldn't be dealt with; with things and forces beyond any hope of control. Just say what you can, and look confident and reassuring when saying it. Nobody buys it, and both sides know that fact, so what's really being acknowledged is the motions we both go through.\n\nIndeed, he was beginning to truly understand the burdens of command, a phrase he used to scoff at and mock derisively. Burden, sir? Try carrying this kit pack on your shoulders all day, up and downhills and worse. What do you know about burdens? Shut that whining, sir, before I slide my knife across your scrawny throat.\n\nWhat did Blistig know about the Whirlwind? He'd been cosy behind the walls of Aren, commanding a bored garrison. But I was in the middle of it. Half-dead of wounds before Kalam Mekhar showed up. Sister, where are you now? Was turning your back on him worth it? Keneb shook his head. His thoughts were wandering, exhaustion pulling loose the tethers. What haunts me now? Yes, now I remember. The army.\n\nWithout hate, what army could function? Unquestionably, other things were needed: respect, duty, the slippery notions of honour and courage, and above all of those, the comradeship between soldiers and all the responsibilities that created. But hate had a role, didn't it? Useless officers, unreasonable orders, the pervasive conviction that the ones in overall command were all incompetent idiots. But then, all of that means we're all in this together-we're all trapped in this insane bloated family where every rule of behaviour strains near to snapping." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And we're a family bred to answer everything with violence. Is it any wonder we're all so badly messed up?\n\nHe heard the pounding of horse hoofs and twisted round in his saddle to see a soldier from his staff quickly approaching.\n\nNow what?\n\nBut then, he didn't really want to know. Anymore desertions, real or otherwise, and he'd start to hear the spine cracking, and he dreaded that sound more than anything else, because it would mean that he had truly failed. The Adjunct set this one task upon him, and he'd proved unequal to it, and as a consequence the entire Bonehunters army was falling apart.\n\nBlistig needed to be pushed aside. He could think of a number of officers sharp enough to take on the role of Fist. Faradan Sort, Raband, Ruthan Gudd. Kindly. Kindly, now there's an idea. Has seniority. Instils a healthy dose of terror in his soldiers. Brilliantly unreasonable. Aye, Kindly. Now, all I need to do is convince the Adjunct-\n\nThe rider reined in. \"Fist, the Adjunct requests your presence in the sub-camp of the Fifth Squad, Ninth Company, Eighth Legion. There has been an incident.\"\n\n\"What kind of incident?\"\n\n\"I don't know, sir. Captain Yil didn't say.\"\n\nKeneb glanced back at the rising sun, and then the stretch below it. Wastelands. Even the name leaves a sick feeling in my gut. \"Let's go then, Bulge. On the way, you can amuse me with another story about Master Sergeant Pores. '\n\nThe scarred man's round, pocked face split into a smile.\"Aye, sir. Got plenty. '" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Extend the plot as the writer's co-author.\nTags: epic fantasy, complex plot, multiple characters, dark themes, intricate world-building\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Dust of Dreams\nChapter: 37" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sinter glanced at him. \"Would she have convinced you, Badan?\"\n\n\"Maybe.\"\n\n\"And then the two of you would have ganged upon me, until I relented.\"\n\n\"Could be like that, aye. Point is, it didn't happen. And now she's somewhere and we're stuck here. '\n\n\"I'm not deserting, Badan. '\n\n\"Ain't you thought about it, though? Going after Kisswhere? '\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"She's all grownup now. I should have seen that long ago, don't you think? I don't have to take care of her anymore. Wish I'd realized that the day she joined up.\"\n\nHe grimaced. \"You ain't the only one, Sinter. '\n\nAh, Badan, what am Ito do with you? You keep breaking my heart. But pity and love don't live together, do they?\n\nWas it pity? She just didn't know. Instead, she took his hand as they walked.\n\nThe soft wind on his face woke him. Groggy, thick-tongued and parched, Gesler blinked open his eyes. Blue sky, empty of birds, empty of everything. He groaned, struggling to workout the last thing he remembered. Camp, aye, some damned argument with Stormy. The bastard had been dreaming again, some demonic fist coming down out of the dark sky. He'd had the eyes of a hunted hare.\n\nDid they drink? Smoke something? Or just fallback to sleep, him on one side of the tent, Stormy on the other-one side neat and ordered, the other a stinking mess. Had he been complaining about that? He couldn't remember a damned thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No matter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The camp wasn't moving for some reason-and it was strangely quiet, too, and what was he doing outside? He slowly sat up.\"Gods below, they left us behind. ' A stretch of broken ground, odd low mounds in the distance-had they been there last night? And where were the hearths, the makeshift berms? He heard a scuffing sound behind him and twisted round-the motion rocking the brain in his skull fierce enough to make him gasp.\n\nA woman he'd never seen before was crouched at a small fire. Just to her right was Stormy, still asleep. Weapons and their gear were stacked just beyond him.\n\nGesler squinted at the stranger. Dressed like some damned savage, all colourless gum-gnawed deerhide and bhederin leather. She wasn't a young thing either. Maybe forty, but it was never easy to tell with plainsfolk, for that she surely was, like an old-fashioned Seti. Her features were regular enough; she'd probably been good-looking once, but the years had been hard since then. When his assessing gaze finally lifted to her dark brown eyes he found her studying him with something like sorrow.\n\n\"Better start talking,\" Gesler said. He saw a waterskin and pointed at it.\n\nShe nodded.\n\nGesler reached over, tugged loose the stopper and drank down three quick mouthfuls. An odd flavour came off his lips and his head spun momentarily. \"Hood's knocker, what did I do last night? \"He glared at the woman.\"You understanding me? '\n\n\"Trader tongue,\" she said.\n\nIt was a moment before he comprehended her words. Her accent was one he'd never heard before.\"Good, there's that at least. Where am I? Who are you? Where's my damned army? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She gestured. Gone. And then said, \"You are for me, with me. By me?\" She shook her head, clearly frustrated with her limited knowledge of the language. \"Kalyth my name.\" Her eyes shifted away. \"Destriant Kalyth.\"\n\n\"Destriant? That's not a title people just throw around. If it doesn't belong to you, you and your whole damned line are cursed. Forevermore. You don't use titles like that-Destriant, to what god? '\n\n\"God no. No god. K'Chain Che'Malle. Acyl Nest, Matron Gunth'an Acyl. Kalyth me, Elan-'\n\nHe raised a hand. \"Hold it, hold it, I'm not understanding much of that. K'Chain Che'Malle, aye. You're a Destriant to the K'Chain Che'Malle. But that can't be. You got it wrong-'\n\n\"Wrong no. I wish, yes.\" She shifted slightly and pointed at Stormy. \"He Shield Anvil.\" Then she pointed at Gesler. \"You Mortal Sword.\"\n\n\"We ain't... \"and Gesler trailed off, gaze straying over to Stormy.\"Someone called him Shield Anvil, once. I think. Can't recall who it was, though. Actually, maybe it was Mortal Sword, come to that.\" He glared at her. \"Whoever it was, though, it wasn't no K'Chain Che'Malle. '\n\nShe shrugged. \"There is war. You lead. Him and you. Gunth'an Acyl send me to find you. I find you. You are fire. Gu'Rull see you, fill my head with you. Burning. Beacons, you and him. Blinding. Gu'Rull collect you. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Collect? Gesler abruptly stood, earning yet another gasp as his head reeled. \"You snatched us!\"\n\n\"Me not-not me. Gu'Rull. '\n\n\"Who is Gu'Rull? Where is the bastard? I got to cut his throat and maybe yours too. Then we can try to find the army-'\n\n\"Gone. Your army, many leagues away. Gu'Rull fly all night. With you. All night. You must lead K'Chain Che'Malle army. Eight Furies, coming now. Close. There is war. '\n\nGesler walked over and kicked Stormy.\n\nThe big man grunted, and then clutched the sides of his head. \"Go piss yourself, Ges,\" he mumbled. \"It ain't morning yet. '\n\n\"Really?\" Stormy had spoken in Falari and so Gesler did the same.\n\n\"Bugle wakes me every time, you know that. Miserable sh-\"\n\n\"Open your eyes, soldier! On your damned feet!\"\n\nStormy lashed outwith one barefoot, forcing Gesler back a step. He'd felt those kicks before. But Stormy then sat, eyes open and widening as he looked around.\"What did you do tome, Ges? Where's... where's everything? '\n\n\"We got ourselves kidnapped last night, Stormy.\"\n\nStormy's bright blue eyes fixed on Kalyth.\"Her? She's stronger than she looks-\"\n\n\"Fener's sake, Stormy, she had help. Someone named Gu'Rull, and whoever he is, he's got wings. And he's strong enough to have carried us away, all night.\"\n\nStormy's eyes flashed.\"What did I tell you, Gesler! My dreams! I saw-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What you said you saw made no sense. Still doesn't! The point is, this woman here calls herself the Destriant to the K'Chain Che'Malle, and if that's not dumb enough, she's calling me the Mortal Sword and you the Shield Anvil. '\n\nStormy flinched, hands up covering his face. He spoke behind his palms. \"Where's my sword? Where's my boots? Where the fuck is breakfast?\"\n\n\"Didn't you hear me? '\n\n\"I heard you, Gesler. Dreams. It was those damned scaled rats. Every time I saw one on the trail I got the shivers.\"\n\n\"Rats ain't K'Chain Che'Malle. You know, if you had even half a brain maybe you could've figured out your dreams, and maybe we wouldn't be in this mess! '\n\nStormy dropped his hands, swung his shaggy head to regard Kalyth. \"Look at her,\" he muttered.\n\n\"What about her?\"\n\n\"Reminds me of my mother.\"\n\nGesler's hands twitched, closed into fists.\"Don't even think it, Stormy.\"\n\n\"Can't help it. She does-'\n\n\"No, she doesn't. Your mother had red hair-'\n\n\"Not the point. Around her eyes, see it? You should know, Ges, you went and bedded her enough times-\"\n\n\"That was an accident-\"\n\n\"A what?\"\n\n\"I mean, how did I know she went around seducing your friends?\"\n\n\"She didn't. Just you. '\n\n\"But you said-\"\n\n\"So I lied! I was just trying to make you feel better! No, fuck that, I was trying to make you feel that you're nobody important-your head's swelled up bad enough as it is. Anyway, it don't matter anymore, does it? Forget it. I forgave you, remember-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You were drunk and we'd just trashed an alley trying to kill each other-'\n\n\"Then I forgave you. Forget it, I said.\"\n\n\"I wish I could! Now you go and say this one looks like-\"\n\n\"But she does!\"\n\n\"I know she does! Now just shut the fuck up! We ain't-we ain't-\"\n\n\"Yes, we are. You know it, Ges. You don't like it, but you know it. We been cut loose. We got us a destiny. Right here. Right now. She's Destriant and you're Shield Anvil and I'm Mortal Sword-\"\n\n\"Wrong way round,\" Gesler snarled. \"I'm the Mortal Sword-'\n\n\"Good. Glad we got that settled. Now get her to cook us something-\"\n\n\"Oh, is that what Destriants do, then? Cook for us?\"\n\n\"I'm hungry and I got no food! '\n\n\"Then ask her. Politely.\"\n\nStormy scowled at Kalyth.\n\n\"Trader tongue,\" Gesler said.\n\nInstead, Stormy pointed at his mouth and then patted his stomach.\n\nKalyth said, \"You eat.\"\n\n\"Hungry, aye.\"\n\n\"Food,\" she said, nodding, and then pointed to a small leather satchel to one side.\n\nGesler laughed.\n\nKalyth then rose. \"They come.\"\n\n\"Who come?\" Gesler asked.\n\n\"K'Chain Che'Malle. Army. Soon... war.\"\n\nAt that moment Gesler felt the trembling ground underfoot. Stormy did the same and as one they both turned to face north." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fener's holy crotch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I am the face you would not own Though you carve your place Hidden in the crowd\n\nMine are the features you never saw As you stack your thin days In the tick of tonight's straw\n\nMy legion is the unexpected A forest turned to masts Grass blades to swords\n\nAnd this is the face you would not own A brother with bad news Hiding in the crowd\n\nHARBINGER FISHER\n\nShe'd had an uncle, a prince high on the rungs but, alas, the wrong ladder. He had attempted a coup, only to find that all his agents were someone else's agents. Was it this conceit that had led to his death? Which choice made it all inevitable? Queen Abrastal had thought many times on the man's fate. The curious thing was, he'd actually made his escape, out from the city, all the way to the eastern border, in fact. But on the morning of his last ride, a farmer had woken with crippling rheumatism in his legs. This man was fifty-seven years old and, for thirty-odd years, each month through the summers and autumns he had taken the harvest of his own family's plot up to the village a league and a half away. And he had done this by pulling a two-wheeled cart.\n\nHe must have awoken that morning in the turgid miasma of his own mortality. Wearing down, wearing out. And studying the mists wreathing the low hills and glades edging the fields, he must have held a silence in his hands, and in his heart. We pass on. All that was effortless becomes an ordeal, yet the mind remains lucid, trapped inside a failing body. Though the morning promised a fine day, night's cold darkness remained lodged within him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had three sons but all were in the levy and off fighting somewhere. Rumours of some uprising; the old man knew little about it and cared even less. Except for the fact that his sons were not with him. In motions stiff with pain he had hitched up the mule to a rickety flatbed wagon. He could as easily have chosen the cart, but the one mule he owned that wasn't too old or lame was a strangely long-bodied specimen, too long for the cart's yoke and spar.\n\nThe efforts of preparation, concluding with loading the flatbed, had taken most of the morning, even with his half-blind wife's help. And when he set out on the road, quirting the beast along, the mists had burned off and the sun was high and strong. The stony track leading to the section road was more suited to a cart than a wagon, and so the going was slow, and upon reaching the section track and drawing close to the highroad, he had the sun in his eyes.\n\nOn this day, in a heap of stones in the corner of afield just next to the highroad, a civil war was erupting in a wild beehive. And only a few moments before the farmer arrived, the hive swarmed.\n\nThe old man, half-dozing, had been listening to the rapid approach of a rider, but there was room on the road-it had been built for moving armies to and from the border, after all-and so he was not particularly concerned as those drumming hoofs drew ever closer. Yes, the rider was coming fast. Likely some garrison messenger carrying bad news and all such news was bad, as far as the farmer was concerned. He'd had a moment of worry over his sons, and then the swarm lifted from the side of the road and spun in a frenzied cloud to engulf his mule." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The creature panicked, bolting forward with a bleat. Such was its strength, born of terror, that the old man was flung backward over the low seat back, losing his grip on the traces. The wagon jumped under him and then slewed to one side, spilling him from it. He struck the road in a cloud of dust and crazed bees.\n\nThe rider, on his third horse since fleeing the city, arrived at this precise moment. Skill and instinct led him round the mule and wagon, but the sudden appearance of the farmer, directly in the horse's path, occurred so swiftly, so unexpectedly, that neither he nor his mount had the time to react. Forelegs clipped the farmer, breaking a collarbone and striking the man's head with stunning impact. The horse stumbled, slammed down onto its chest, and its rider was thrown forward.\n\nHer uncle had removed his helm sometime that day-the heat was fierce, after all-and while it was debatable whether that made any difference, Abrastal suspected-or, perhaps, chose to believe-that if he'd been wearing it, he might well have survived the fall. As it was, his neck was snapped clean.\n\nShe had studied those events with almost fanatic obsession. Her agents had travelled out to that remote region of the kingdom. Interviews with sons and relatives and indeed, the old farmer himself-who had miraculously survived, though now prone to the falling sickness-all seeking to map out, with precision, the sequence of events.\n\nIn truth, she'd cared neither way for the fate of her uncle. The man had been a fool. No, what fascinated and indeed haunted her was that such a convergence of chance events could so perfectly conspire to take a man's life. From this one example, Abrastal quickly comprehended that such patterns existed everywhere, and could be assembled for virtually every accidental death." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "People spoke of ill luck. Mischance. They spoke of unruly spirits and vengeful gods. And some spoke of the most terrible truth of all-that the world and all life in it was nothing but a blind concatenation of random occurrences. Cause and effect did nothing but map out the absurdity of things, before which even the gods were helpless.\n\nSome truths could haunt, colder, crueller than any ghost. Some truths were shaped by a mouth open in horror.\n\nWhen she stumbled from her tent, guards and aides swarming round her, there had been no time for musings, no time for thoughts on past obsessions. There had been nothing but the moment itself, red as blood in the eyes, loud as a howl trapped inside a skull.\n\nHer daughter had found her. Felash, lost somewhere inside a savage storm at sea, had bargained with a god, and as the echoes of cries from drowning sailors sounded faint and hollow beneath the shrieking winds, the god had opened a path. Ancient, appalling, brutal as a rape. In the tears swimming before Abrastal's eyes, her fourteenth daughter's face found shape, as if rising from unfathomable depths; and Abrastal had tasted the salt sea on her tongue, had felt the numbing cold of its immortal hunger.\n\nMother. Remember the tale of your uncle. The wagon crawls, the mule's head nods. Thunder in the distance. Remember the tale as you told it tome, as you live it each and everyday. Mother, the highroad is the Wastelands. And I can hear the swarm-I can hear it!\n\nElder Gods were reluctant, belligerent oracles. In the grip of such a power, no mortal could speak in freedom. Clarity was defied, precision denied. Only twisted words and images could come forth. Only misdirection played true." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Felash was clever, the cleverest of all her beloved daughters. And so Abrastal understood. She comprehended the warning.\n\nThe moment vanished, but the pain of that assault remained. Weeping blood-clouded tears, she struggled and pushed her way through panicked staff and bodyguards, stumbled outside, naked above the hips, her fiery hair snarled and matted with sweat. On her skin the salt already rimed and she stank as would a body pulled up from the sea bottom.\n\nArms held out to keep everyone away, she stood, gasping, head hanging down, struggling to recover her breath. And, finally, she managed to speak.\n\n\"Spax. Get me Spax. Now.\"\n\nGilk warriors gathered in their kin groups, checking weapons and gear. Warchief Spax stood watching, scratching his beard, the sour ale from the cask the night before swirling ominously in his belly. Or maybe it was the goat shank, or that fist-sized brick of bitter chocolate-something he'd never seen nor tasted before arriving in Bolkando, but if the good gods shat it was surely chocolate.\n\nHe saw Firehair's runner long before the man arrived. One of those scrawny court mice, all red-faced from the exertion, his quivering lip visible from ten paces away. His own scouts had informed him that they were perhaps a day away from the Bonehunters-they'd made good time, damn near impoverishing Saphinand's traders in the process, and for all his bravado Spax was forced to admit that both the Khundryl Burned Tears and the Perish were as tough as a cactus-eater's tongue. Almost as tough as his own Barghast. Common opinion had it that armies with trains were slow beasts even on the most level ground, but clearly neither Gall of the Burned Tears nor Krughava of the Perish paid any heed to common opinion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Glancing at his own warriors one more time before the runner arrived, he saw that they were showing fatigue. Not enough to worry him, of course. One more day, after all, and then Abrastal could have her parley with the Malazans and they could all turn round and head home at afar more reasonable pace.\n\n\"Warchief!\"\n\n\"What's got her excited now? \"Spax asked, ever pleased to bait these fops, but this time the young man did not react to the overfamiliarity with the usual expression of shock. In fact, he continued as if he'd not heard Spax.\n\n\"The Queen demands your presence. At once.\"\n\nNormally, even this command would have elicited a sarcastic comment or two, but Spax finally registered the runner's fear.\"Lead on then, ' he replied in a growl.\n\nDressed now in armour, Queen Abrastal was in no mood for banter, and she'd already said enough to the Gilk Warchief to keep him silent as he rode at her side towards the Perish camp. The morning's light was clawing details down the furrowed scape of the mountains to the west. Dust hungover the raw tracks leading to and from the Saphinand border, and already lines of wagons and carriages were streaming out from the three camps, beds empty barring chests of coin, merchant guards and prostitutes. They would be back out here and waiting, she knew, for the return of the Evertine Legion.\n\nThey might have along wait.\n\nShe had told Spax of the sending, had registered with little surprise his scowl. The Barghast knew enough to have no doubt about such things. He had even commented that his own warlocks and witches had been complaining of weakness and blindness-as if the Barghast gods had been driven away, or did not possess the strength to manifest in the Wastelands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As the horses were being readied, he'd spoken of the belief in convergence, and she had been impressed to discover that behind his white skull paint and turtle-shelled armour, this barbarian knew of the world beyond his own tribe and his own people. The notion of power drawing power, however, did not seem to draw close to her sense of what was coming.\n\n\"You say that such forces are fated to meet, Spax. But... this is not the same.\"\n\n\"How do you mean, Highness?\"\n\n\"Is chance the weapon of fate? One might say so, I imagine, but what is drawing close before us, Spax, is something crueller. Random, unpredictable. Stupid, in fact. It is the curse of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.\"\n\nHe'd chewed on that fora moment, and then he said,\"Will you seek to turn them away? Firehair, this Krughava is rooted like a mountain. Her path is the river of its melting crown. You will fail, I think. '\n\n\"I know, Spax. And this forces upon me a dire decision, doesn't it? '\n\nBut he would not see it that way, and he didn't-she was certain of it, though he'd said nothing, and now the horses were brought forward and they mounted up and kicked the beasts into a quick canter, and then, once beyond the Evertine pickets, into a gallop. Such apace did not invite conversation beyond a few terse words at best. Neither bothered.\n\nPerish pickets marked them and the banner rising from the socket on Abrastal's saddle. They quickly and efficiently cleared a path straight to the camp's centre. As they rode into the main avenue between officer tents, Abrastal and Spax found themselves the subject of growing interest, as soldiers formed lines to either side to watch them pass. Certain moments, fraught and crowded, could spread a chilling fever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A short time later they reined in at the headquarters of the Grey Helms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Mortal Sword Krughava and Shield Anvil Tanakalian stood awaiting them, kitted in full armour as was their habit.\n\nAbrastal was the first to slip down from her winded horse. The Gilk followed a moment later.\n\nKrughava bowed with atilt of her head. \"Queen, you are welcome among the Perish-\"\n\n\"Forget the formal shit,\" Abrastal cut in. \"Your command tent, if you please.\"\n\nA flicker of something in the woman's hard eyes, and then she gestured to the tent behind her.\n\nSpax said, \"Might want to summon Gall.\"\n\n\"Already done,\" Tanakalian replied with a half-smile that did not belong to this moment. \"It should not belong.\"\n\nAbrastal frowned at the Shield Anvil, and then swept past him and the Mortal Sword, trailed a step behind by Spax. A few moments later the four were in the tent's main chamber. Krughava ushered her aides away and then sent the guards to the tent's outer perimeter.\n\nDrawing off her gauntlets, the Mortal Sword faced Abrastal. \"Highness, the agenda is yours. Will you await Warleader Gall before beginning?\"\n\n\"No. He's a smart man. He'll work it out. Mortal Sword, we find ourselves in a storm that can only be seen from the outside. We ourselves as yet sense nothing, for we are close to its heart.\" She glanced to the Shield Anvil, and then back to Krughava. \"Your priests and priestesses are in difficulty, do you deny it?\"\n\n\"I do not,\" Krughava replied.\n\n\"Good. Your allies are but a day away-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Half a day if necessary,\" Krughava said.\n\n\"As you say.\" Abrastal hesitated.\n\nAt that moment Warleader Gall arrived, sweeping through the curtains of the doorway. He was breathing hard, broad face beaded with sweat.\n\n\"You intend to leave us this day,\" Tanakalian said, glaring at the Queen.\n\nAbrastal frowned. \"I have said no such thing, Shield Anvil.\"\n\n\"Forgive my brother,\" said Krughava. \"He is precipitate. Highness, what would you warn us against?\"\n\n\"I shall use the term Spax has given me-one you will understand at once, or so I am led to believe. The word is convergence.\"\n\nSomething came alight in Krughava's eyes, and Abrastal could almost seethe woman straightening, swelling as if to meet this moment.\"So be it-'\n\n\"A moment!\" Tanakalian said, his eyes widening. \"Highness, this is not the place-rather, you must be wrong. That time is yet to arrive-it is faraway, in fact. I cannot see how-\"\n\n\"That will be enough,\" Krughava interrupted, her face darkening. \"Unless, sir, you can speak plainly of knowledge you alone possess. We await you.\"\n\n\"You don't understand-'\n\n\"Correct.\"\n\nThe man looked half-panicked. Abrastal's unease regarding Tanakalian-which she had first discovered outside the tent-now deepened. What hid within this young soldier-priest? He seemed somehow knocked awry.\n\nThe Shield Anvil drew a breath, and then said, \"My vision is no clearer than anyone else's, not herein this place. But all that I sense of the coming convergence tells me that it does not await us in the Wastelands. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Krughava seemed to be bristling with anger-the first time Abrastal had seen such a thing in the Mortal Sword. \"Brother Tanakalian, you are not the arbiter of destiny, no matter the vast breadth of your ambition. On this day, and in the matter before us, you would do best to witness. We are without a Destriant-we cannot help but be blind to our future.\" She faced Abrastal. \"The Grey Helms shall strike for the Bonehunters. We shall find them this day. It maybe that they will need our help. It maybe that we will need theirs. After all, to stand in the heart of a storm is, as you say, to be blind to all dangers yet safe from none.\"\n\nGall spoke for the first time. \"The Khundryl shall ride as the tip of the spear, Mortal Sword. We shall send Swifts out ahead, and so be the first to sight our allies. If they be in dire need, word shall wing back.\"\n\n\"That is well and I thank you, Warleader,\" said Krughava. \"Highness, thank you for your warning-\"\n\n\"We are coming with you.\"\n\nSpax turned, his face expressing shock.\n\nBut the Mortal Sword nodded. \"The glory that is within you, Highness, refutes all disguise. Yet, I humbly suggest that you change your mind, that you heed the objections your Gilk commander is so eager to voice. This is not your destiny, after all. It belongs to the Bonehunters and to the Khundryl and to the Perish Grey Helms.\"\n\n\"The Gilk,\" Abrastal replied, \"are under my command. I believe you have misapprehended Warchief Spax. He is surprised, yes, but so long as he and his Barghast bed themselves in my coin, they are mine to lead.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It is so,\" said Spax." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mortal Sword, you have indeed misapprehended me. The Gilk are without fear. We are the fist of the White Face Barghast-\"\n\n\"And if that fist drives into a wasps\" nest? ' Tanakalian asked.\n\nAbrastal started.\n\nSpax bared his teeth. \"We are not children who die at the sting, Shield Anvil. If we should stir awake such a nest, look to your own.\"\n\n\"This is wrong-\"\n\n\"Enough!\" snapped Krughava. \"Shield Anvil, prepare to embrace all who may come to fall this day. That is your task, your responsibility. If you so cherish the gleam of politics then you should have stayed in the kingdom shores of Perish. We who are here refused those games. We left our homes, our place of birth. We left our families and our loved ones. We left the intrigue and the deceit and the court dances of death. Will you now presume to broach that bitter wine? Go, sir, harness your strength.\"\n\nFace pale, Tanakalian bowed to Abrastal, Spax and Gall, and then left.\n\n\"Highness,\" Krughava said, \"you risk too much.\"\n\n\"I know,\" she replied.\n\n\"And yet?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"And yet.\"\n\nDamned women! It's all women!\n\nShe reined in her mount atop a low hill, eyes scanning the south. Was there dust on the horizon? Possibly. Kisswhere arched to ease the ache in her lower back. Her thighs were on fire, as if dipped in acid. She was low on water, and the horse beneath her was half-dead.\n\nFucking Adjunct. Lostara Yil. That bitch of a sister-it's not fair! She had been undecided, but no longer. Oh, she'd find the fools, the pompous Perish and the rutting Khundryl who'd weep at a broken pot. She'd deliver all the useless pleas for help to Krughava-another Hood-damned woman-and then she'd be done with it. I'm not going back. I've deserted, right? I'm riding right through them. Saphinand. I can get lost there, it's ringed in with mountains. I don't care how squalid it is, it'll do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What else did they expect from her? Some heroic return at the head of two armies? Riding to the rescue, snatching them all back from the very gates of Hood? That kind of rubbish belonged to Sinter, or even Masan Gilani, who was riding to find anally that might not even exist-yes, leave the legend to that northern slut, she had all the necessary traits, after all.\n\nKisswhere was carved from softer stuff. Not bronze. More like wax. And the world was heating up. They'd saluted heron her way. They'd decided to put all their trust and faith in her. And I will find them. That is a dust-cloud. I can see it now. I can reach them, say whatever I need to say. The Adjunct says, O Mortal Sword, that betrayal does not suit the Perish. Nor the Khundryl. Come to her, she asks.\n\nThe Adjunct says the sword's for wearing and wielding, not sitting on. It's a weapon, it's not courage, no matter how straight up it holds you. The Adjunct says there is a betrayer among you, and by that betrayer's words, you doom the Bonehunters. The Adjunct says the blood is on your hands, you frigid cow.\n\nFind whatever means, Sinter had said. Use whatever you need to use. Shame them, shit on them, spit on them. Or turn sly and buildup the fires until their boots burn. Blind them by reflecting the blazing sun of their own egos. Beg, plead, drop to your knees and suck them dry. Use your wiles, Kisswhere, it's what you do best.\n\nGods, she hated them all. That knowing look in their eyes, that acceptance of everything that wasn't good within her. Yes, they knew she'd not comeback. And they didn't care. She was expendable, whipped like an arrow and once it struck, why, it was spent, a shattered thing lying on the ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So, a broken arrow she would be. Fine. Why not? They expected nothing more, did they?\n\nKisswhere kicked her horse into motion. It answered reluctantly. \"Not much further,\" she said as she worked it into a loose canter. \"See those riders? Khundryl. Almost there.\" I don't need to convince them of anything-they're on their way already. I just need to add a few spurs to their boots. Who knows, maybe it's what Krughava goes for anyway. She has that look about her, I think.\n\nHere, sweetie, I bring spikes and whips-\n\nThe riders of the Vedith Swift drawing towards the lone soldier were commanded by Rafala, who held sharp eyes on the stranger. A Malazan to be sure, she could see. On a tired horse. She tasted the excitement, proof that something was happening, yet another clench of history's jaws, and no struggle could pull one free. Gall had sent them out ahead, riding hard. Find the Bonehunters. Ride into their column and speak to the Adjunct. Tell her to wait, or indeed to angle her march southward.\n\nThe terrible gods were gathering-she could see it in the high clouds building to the southwest, tumbling down off the mountains. The armies must come together and so stand as one, facing down those gods. Such a moment awaited them! Adjunct Tavore, commander of the Bonehunters; Gall, Warleader of the Khundryl Burned Tears; Krughava, Mortal Sword of the Wolves; and Abrastal, Queen of Bolkando and commander of the Evertine Legion. Oh, and the Gilk, too. Those Barghast know how to roll in the furs, don't they just. I won't cringe with them on one flank, that's for certain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What sought them in the Wastelands? Some pathetic tribe, no doubt-not much else could survive out here. No secret kingdom or empire, that was obvious. The land was dead, after all. Well, they would crush whoever the fools were, and then march on, seeking whatever fate the Adjunct knew awaited them all in distant Kolanse. Rafala only hoped she'd get the chance to bloody her blade.\n\nThe Malazan soldier was slowing her exhausted mount, as if content to let the Khundryl horses do most of the work. Well enough. The Dal Honese did not look very comfortable on that saddle. For decades the Malazans had been clever in building their armies. They used horse-tribes to create their cavalry, mountain-dwellers for their scouts and skirmishers, and farmers for their infantry. City folk for sappers and coastal folk for marines and sailors. But things had since grown confused. The Dal Honese did not belong on horses.\n\nNo matter. I remember the Wickans. I'd barely a month of bleeding then, but I saw them. They humbled us all.\n\nAnd now it is the Khundryls' turn to do the same.\n\nShe gestured to slow the riders behind her and continued ahead to rein in before the Malazan. \"I am Rafala-\"\n\n\"Happy for you,\" the woman cut in. \"Just take me to Gall and Krughava-and switch me to a fresher horse, this one's done. '\n\n\"How many days away?\" Rafala asked as one of her corporals took charge of switching mounts.\n\nThe Malazan dropped down from her horse with some difficulty. \"Who? Oh, not far, I should think. I got lost the first night-thought I could seethe mountains on my right. Turned out those were clouds. I've been riding south and west for two days now. Is that fool ready yet? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rafala scowled. \"He gives you his finest battle-horse, soldier.\"\n\n\"Well, I ain't paying. \"Wincing, the woman climbed into the saddle.\"Gods, couldn't you do with some decent padding? I'm sitting on bones here. '\n\n\"Not my fault,\" drawled Rafala, \"if you let your muscles get too soft. Let's ride then, soldier. \"And see if you can keep up with me. To her Swift she said,\"Continue on. I will provide her escort and then return to you. '\n\nAnd then they were off. The Swift resumed riding northward; Rafala and the Malazan struck southward, and, trailing at ever greater distance behind them, the lone corporal followed on the spent horse.\n\nWell, thought Kisswhere as she and Rafala approached the vanguard, this will make it easy. A forest of banners marked the presence of a clash-an old Malaz Island joke-of commanders. She could say what needed saying once and then be done with it.\n\nIt was obvious to her that disaster awaited them all. Too many women holding skillets here. She'd always preferred men to women. As friends, as lovers, as officers. Men liked to keep things simple. None of that absurd oversensitivity, reacting to every damned expression or glance or gesture. None of that stewing over some careless passing comment. And, most importantly, none of that vicious backstabbing and poison cups so smilingly given. No, she'd long since learned all the nasty lessons of her own gender; she'd seen enough eyes crawling up and down her body and judging the clothes she wore, the cut of her hair, the man at her side. She'd seen women carving up others when those ones weren't looking, eyes like blades-snip slice snip." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And wasn't it true-beyond all challenge-that women who preferred the company of men were the most hated women of all?\n\nToo many commanders with tits in this mob. Look at Gall, he's under siege behind those tattooed tears. And that Barghast, no wonder he's hiding his face behind all that paint.\n\n\"You can go back now, Rafala,\" Kisswhere said. \"I won't get lost. '\n\n\"I need your horse, Malazan.\"\n\n\"So I am to walk from now on?\"\n\nThe young Khundryl looked surprised. \"Walk where?\"\n\nKisswhere scowled.\n\nThey rode through the scattered line of outriders and drew up before the vanguard-the mounted commanders made no concession to their arrival, continuing on at a steady trot, forcing Rafala and Kisswhere to swing round and fall instep beside them. That attitude annoyed Kisswhere-when was the last time they'd even seen each other?\n\nRafala spoke: \"Warleader Gall, I bring you a Malazan messenger.\" And then she said to Kisswhere, \"I will go and find you another horse.\"\n\n\"Good. Don't take too long. '\n\nWith a flat look, Rafala pulled her mount round and headed into the trailing columns.\n\nA red-haired woman Kisswhere had never seen before was the first to address her, in the trader tongue. \"Malazan, where are your kin?\"\n\n\"My kin?\"\n\n\"Your fellow soldiers.\"\n\n\"Not far, I think. You should reach them today, especially at this pace.\"\n\n\"Marine,\" said Krughava, \"what word do you bring us?\"\n\nKisswhere glanced about, noting the various staff officers clumped round the commanders. \"Can we get a little more private here, Mortal Sword? You and Warleader Gall, I mean-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Queen Abrastal of Bolkando and Warchief Spax of the Gilk White Faces have allied their forces with our own, sir. This said, I will send our staffs a short distance away.\" She faced the Queen. \"Acceptable, Highness?\"\n\nAbrastal's face registered distaste.\"Oh yes, they're worse than flies. Go! All of you!\"\n\nTwenty or more riders pulled away from the vanguard, leaving only Krughava, Tanakalian, Gall, the Queen and Spax.\n\n\"Better?\" Krughava asked.\n\nKisswhere drew a deep breath. She was too tired to have to work at this. \"Among the seers serving the Adjunct... Mortal Sword, I can say this no other way. The threat of betrayal was judged to be very real. I was sent to confirm the alliance.\"\n\nThe Mortal Sword went deathly pale. Kisswhere saw the foreign Queen cast a sharp look at the young Shield Anvil, Tanakalian.\n\nWhat? Fuck, they know more of this than I do. Seems the threat is real after all. Sister, you have eyes that see what others do not. No wonder I'm always running away from you.\n\nWarleader Gall was the first to respond. \"What is your name, soldier?\"\n\n\"Kisswhere. Tenth Squad, Third Company, Eighth Legion.\"\n\n\"Kisswhere-spirits know, how you Malazans can make a name an invitation never ceases to delight me-I will answer the Adjunct's fear as the Khundryl must. We shall advance ahead and ride with you with all haste, and so rejoin the Bonehunters as soon as possible. '\n\n\"Sir,\" said Krughava, \"there will be no betrayal from the Perish. Seethe pace of our march. We are apprised of imminent danger, and so hasten to reach the Adjunct's army. It is our added fortune that the Bolkando Queen leads her Evertine Legion and the Gilk and has vowed to give us whatever aid we may require. Tell me, are the Bonehunters beset? What enemy has appeared out of the Wastelands to so assail them? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "You get around to asking this now?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As of two days past, Mortal Sword, our only enemy was clouds of biting flies,\" Kisswhere replied.\n\n\"Yet you were dispatched to find us,\" Krughava observed.\n\n\"I was.\"\n\n\"Therefore,\" the Mortal Sword continued, \"some apprehension of danger-beyond that of possible betrayal-must exist to justify such urgency.\"\n\nKisswhere shrugged. \"There is little more I can tell you, Mortal Sword.\"\n\n\"You ride all this way seeking nothing but reassurance?\"\n\nAt Gall's question, Kisswhere glanced away fora moment.\"Yes, it must seem odd to you. All of you. I have no answer. The alliance was perceived to be in jeopardy-that is all I know of the matter. '\n\nNo one seemed satisfied. Too bad. What can I say? My sister's got a bad feeling. Fid keeps throwing up and the only high priest on Tavore's staff has been drunk ever since Letheras. And those flies got a vicious bite.\n\nRafala returned leading a saddled horse, a bay mare with a witless look to her. She led the beast up alongside Kisswhere. \"Climb over, if you can.\"\n\nScowling, Kisswhere kicked her boots free of the stirrups and drew her right leg over. Rafala pulled the mare a step ahead and the Malazan set her right foot into the stirrup, rose, reaching for the Seven Cities saddle horn, and then pulled herself astride the broad-backed beast.\n\nThe transfer was smooth and Rafala's lips tightened, as if the notion of a compliment threatened nausea. She dropped back to come up behind Kisswhere, taking the reins of her warrior's battle-horse. Moments later she was leading that mount away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kisswhere looked over to see Gall grinning. \"I know just the place,\" he said.\n\nThe Barghast barked a laugh.\n\n\"Ride with the Khundryl then,\" Krughava said to her. \"Lead them to the Bonehunters.\"\n\nGods below-how to get out of this? \"I fear I would only slow them, Mortal Sword. While this mount is fresh I, alas, am not.\"\n\n\"Ever slept between two horses?\" Gall asked.\n\n\"Excuse me?\"\n\n\"A slung hammock, Kisswhere, with tent poles to keep the beasts apart. This is how we carry wounded whilst on the move.\"\n\nAll these women, looking at her. Knowing, seeing what the men did not. Showing all your sharp little teeth, are you? So delighted to see me trapped. To Gall she said, \"If it comes to that need, Warleader, I will tell you.\"\n\n\"Very good,\" the warrior replied. \"Then, let us ride to my Burned Tears. Highness, Mortal Sword, when next we meet it shall be in the Adjunct's command tent. Until then, travel well and may the gods be blinded by your dust. '\n\nKisswhere set off with the Warleader and they cut eastward and slightly arrears to where the main mass of the horse-warriors rode in loose formations. Once clear of the vanguard, Gall said, \"My apologies, soldier. I see that you have discarded your uniform, and the last place you want to go is back to where you came from. But the Mortal Sword is astern woman. Not one Perish Grey Helm has ever deserted, and should one ever try, I doubt they'd manage to livelong. She would have acted on the Adjunct's behalf, no matter the consequences. In every army imaginable, the Bonehunters included I'm sure, desertion is a death sentence. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not stupid after all. \"I was commanded to give nothing away whilst riding alone, Warleader, and so I wore nothing that could be construed to be a uniform.\"\n\n\"Ah, I see. Then I must apologize a second time, Kisswhere.\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"My sister walks in that column, Warleader. How could I not seek to return as quickly as possible?\"\n\n\"Of course. I understand now.\"\n\nHe fell into something like an amiable silence as they approached the Burned Tears. She wondered if he'd been fooled. True, simple wasn't necessarily the same as stupid, after all. She'd given reasonable answers, with only a hint of affront. Aye, a little dignity before the insult, as my mother used to say, makes a fine weapon.\n\n\"She will be delighted to see you again, I am sure.\"\n\nKisswhere shot the man a searching look, but said nothing.\n\nColumnar clouds heaped the western horizon ahead, and Masan Gilani could feel a cool breeze freshening against her face. She had taken to spelling her horse every three or so leagues, but the animal was wearying nonetheless. It was this detail that killed most deserters, she knew. The pursuing troop would be leading spare mounts, whilst the fool on the fly generally had nothing but the lone beast he or she was riding.\n\nOf course, no one was chasing her, which, oddly enough, did nothing to assuage her guilt. She belonged with her squad, sharing mouthfuls of the same dust, cursing at the same whining flies. And, if things were as bad as people had intimated, she wanted to be there, right beside her friends, to face whatever arrived. Instead, here she was, hunting for... for what? For the tenth time this day she reached to brush her hand against the small leather pouch tied to her belt, confirming it was still there. Lose it, she knew, and this whole mission was a failure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It probably already is, anyway. I can't find what I can't see, pouch or no pouch.\n\nShe could seethe rain ahead and not much else, grey-blue sheets angling down on the sliding wind, the curtains sweeping across the land. More misery to add to this overflowing kitty. This is pointless. I'm looking for ghosts. Real ghosts? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe just the ghosts living in the Adjunct's head, those old hoary hags of lost allegiances and forgotten promises. Tavore, you expect too much. You always did.\n\nRain spat into her face, swarmed the ground until it seemed the dust danced like crazed ants. In moments all visibility beyond a few dozen paces vanished. She was now more blinded to what she was looking for than at any other time.\n\nThe world mocked.\n\nPointless. I'm going back-\n\nFive figures stood before her, grey as the rain, dull as the muddy dust, sudden as a dream. Cursing, she reined in, fought with her panicking horse. Gravel skittered. The beast snorted, hoofs stamping in the sluicing streams and puddles.\n\n\"We are who you seek.\"\n\nShe could not tell which one the voice came from. She grasped the pouch containing the seething dirt, gift of the Atri-Ceda Aranict, and gasped at its sudden heat.\n\nThey were corpses one and all. T'lan Imass. Battered, broken, limbs missing, weapons dangling from seemingly senseless hands of bone wrapped in blackened skin. Longhair, dirty blond and rust red, was plastered down round their desiccated faces, where rainwater ran like eternal tears.\n\nBreathing hard, Masan Gilani studied them fora time, and then she said, \"Just five of you? No others?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We are who remain.\"\n\nShe thought the one speaking was the one standing closest to her, but could not be certain. The rain was a roar around them all, the wind moaning as if trapped in an enormous cave. \"There should be... more,\" she insisted. \"There was a vision-\"\n\n\"We are the ones you seek.\"\n\n\"Are you summoned then?\"\n\n\"We are.\" And the lead T'lan Imass pointed to the pouch at her hip.\"Thenik is incomplete. '\n\n\"Which one of you is Thenik?\"\n\nThe creature on the outside right stepped forward. Every bone looked to be shattered, with splinters and chips missing. A crazed web of cracks broke up its face beneath a helm made from the skull of some unknown beast.\n\nFumbling with the ties, Masan finally managed to pull free the pouch. She tossed it over. Thenik made no move to catch it. The pouch landed at its feet, sank into a puddle.\n\n\"Thenik thanks you,\" said the speaker. \"I am Urugal the Woven. With me is Thenik the Shattered, Beroke Soft Voice, Kahlb the Silent Hunter and Halad the Giant. We are the Unbound, who once numbered seven. Now we are five. Soon we shall be seven again-there are fallen kin in this land. Some refuse the enemy. Some will not follow the one who leads nowhere.\"\n\nFrowning, Masan Gilani shook her head. \"You've lost me. No matter. I was sent to find you. Now we must return to the Bonehunters-my army-it's where-\"\n\n\"Yes, she is the hunter of bones indeed,\" Urugal said. \"Her hunt is soon complete. Ride on your beast. We shall follow.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wiped water from her eyes. \"Thought there'd be more of you, \"she muttered, gathering her reins and dragging her horse round.\"Can you keep up? ' she asked over one shoulder.\n\n\"You are the banner before us, mortal.\"\n\nMasan Gilani's frown deepened. She'd heard something like that before... somewhere.\n\nFour leagues to the northwest, Onos T'oolan suddenly halted, the first time in days. Something not faraway had brushed his senses, but now it was gone. T'lan Imass. Strangers. He hesitated, as the more distant and altogether different wave of compulsion returned, insistent, desperate. He knew its flavour, had known its flavour for weeks now. This was what Toc the Younger had sought, what he had demanded of the First Sword.\n\nBut he was no longer the friend Toc once knew, just as Toc was no longer the friend Tool himself remembered. The past was both dead and alive, but between them it was simply dead.\n\nThe summons was Malazan. It was the claim of alliance as had been forged long ago, between the Emperor and the Logros T'lan Imass. Somewhere to the east, a Malazan force waited. Danger approached, and the T'lan Imass must stand with allies of old. Such was duty. Such was the ink of honour, written so deep as to stain the immortal soul.\n\nHe defied the command. Duty was dead. Honour was a lie-see what the Senan had done to his wife, his children. Mortality was the realm of deceit; the sordid room of horror hid in the house of the living, its walls crusted and streaked, dark stains on the warped floor. Dust crowded the corners, dust made of skin flakes and snarls of hair, nail clippings and clots of phlegm. Every house had its secret room, where memories howled in the thick silence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had once been of the Logros." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was no longer. He had one duty now and it was truly lifeless. Nothing would turn him aside, not the wishes of Toc the Younger, not the mad aspirations of Olar Ethil-oh yes, he knew she was close, far too clever to come within his reach, knowing well that he would kill her, destroy her utterly. Demands and expectations descended like that distant rain to the southwest, but it all washed from him and left no trace.\n\nThere had been a time when Onos Toolan had chosen to stand close to mortal humans; when he had turned his back upon his own kind, and in so doing he had rediscovered the wonders of gentler emotions, the sensual pleasures of camaraderie and friendship. The gifts of humour and love. And then, at last, he had achieved the rebirth of his life-a true life.\n\nThat man had taken that life, for reasons even he could barely understand-a flush of empathy, the fullest cost of humanity paid out in the blade pushing into his chest. Strength fell away, in some other direction than the one taken by his sagging body. He had looked out on the world until all meaning drained of colour.\n\nThey had done unspeakable things to his corpse. Desecration was the wound delivered upon the dead, and the living did so with careless conceit-no, they would never lie motionless on the ground. They would never rise from cold meat and bones to witness all that was done to the body that been the only home they had ever known. It did not even occur to them that the soul could suffer from phantom agony, the body like a severed hand.\n\nAnd his adopted kin had simply looked on, stone-eyed. Telling themselves that Tool's soul was gone from that mangled thing being dismembered on the bloody grasses; that the laughter and mockery could not reach unseen ears." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Could they even have guessed that love alone was of such power that Tool's soul had also witnessed the hobbling of his wife and the rapes that followed? That, unable to find his children, he had at last set out for the underworld-to find his beloved Hetan, his family, to escape with finality the cruel spikes of the mortal realm?\n\nAnd you turned me away. Toc. My friend. You turned me back... to this.\n\nHe was not that man, not anymore. He was not the First Sword either. He was not a warrior of the Logros. He was none of these things.\n\nHe was a weapon.\n\nOnos T'oolan resumed his march. The summons meant nothing. Nothing to him, at any rate. Besides, in a very short time it would cease. Forevermore.\n\nThere was no road leading them through the Wastelands; no road to take them to their destiny, whatever destiny that happened to be. Accordingly, the companies marched in loose units of six squads, and each company was separated from the others yet close enough to those of their own legion to link if need demanded. Groups of six squads were arranged as befitted their function: marines at the core, the mixed units of heavies next, and outside of them the medium regular infantry, with skirmishers forming the outermost curtain.\n\nThe massive column that was the supply train forged its own route, hundreds of ox-drawn wagons and bawling herds of goats, sheep, cattle and rodara that would soon begin to starve in this lifeless land. Herd dogs loped round their charges and beyond them the riders entrusted with driving the beasts kept a watchful eye for any strays that might elude the dogs-although none did.\n\nFlanking wings of lancers and mounted archers protected the sides of the column; units of scouts rode well ahead of the vanguard while others ranged on the south flank and arrears, but not to the north, where marched the legions and brigades under command of Brys Beddict. His columns were arranged in tighter formation, replete with its own supply train-almost as big as the Malazan one. Bluerose cavalry rode in wide flank, sending scouts deep into the wastes in a constant cycle of riders and horses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mounted, Commander Brys Beddict rode to the inside of his column, close to its head. Off to his right at a distance of about two hundred paces were the Malazans. Riding beside him on his left was Aranict, and they were in turn trailed by a half-dozen messengers. The heat was savage, and the water-wagons were fast being drained of their stores. The Letherii herds of myrid and rodara could manage this land better than sheep and cattle, but before long even they would begin to suffer. The meals at the beginning of this trek across the Wastelands would be heavy on meat, Brys knew, but then things would change.\n\nWhat lay beyond this forbidding stretch of dead ground? From what he could glean-and rumours served in place of any direct knowledge-there was a desert of some sort, yet one known to possess caravan tracks, and beyond that the plains of the Elan people, a possible offshoot of the Awl. The Elan Plains bordered on the east the kingdoms and city-states of Kolanse and the Pelasiar Confederacy.\n\nThe notion of taking an army across first the Wastelands and then a desert struck Brys as sheer madness. Yet, somehow, the very impossibility of it perversely appealed to him, and had they been at war with those distant kingdoms, it would have signified a bold invasion sure to achieve legendary status. Of course, as far as he knew, there was no war and no cause for war. There was nothing but ominous silence from Kolanse. Perhaps indeed this was an invasion, but if so, it was not a just one. No known atrocities demanding retribution, nor a declaration of hostilities from an advancing empire to be answered. We know nothing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What happens to the soul of a soldier who knows he or she is in the wrong? That they are the aggressors, the bringers of savagery and violence? The notion worried Brys, for the answers that arrived were grim ones. Something breaks inside. Something howls. Something dreams of suicide. And, as commander, he would be to blame. As much as his brother, Tehol. For they were the leaders, the ones in charge, the ones using the lives of thousands of people as mere playing pieces on some stained board.\n\nIt is one thing to lead soldiers into war. And it is one thing to send them into a war. But it is, it seems tome, wholly another to lead and send them into a war that is itself a crime. Are we to be so indifferent to the suffering we will inflict on our own people and upon innocent victims in unknown lands?\n\nIn his heart dwelt the names of countless lost gods. Many had broken the souls of their worshippers. Many others had been broken by the mortal madness of senseless wars, of slaughter and pointless annihilation. Of the two, the former suffered a torment of breathtaking proportions. There was, in the very end-there must be-judgement. Not upon the fallen, not upon the victims, but upon those who had orchestrated their fates.\n\nOf course, he did not know if such a thing was true. Yes, he could sense the suffering among those gods whose names he held within him, but perhaps it was his own knowledge that engendered such anguish, and that anguish belonged to his own soul, cursed to writhe in an empathic trap. Perhaps he was doing nothing more than forcing his own sense of righteous punishment upon those long-dead gods. And if so, by what right could he do such a thing?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Troubling notions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet onward his legions marched. Seeking answers to questions the Adjunct alone knew. This went beyond trust, beyond even faith. This was a sharing of insanity, and in its maelstrom they were all snared, no matter what fate awaited them.\n\nI should be better than this. Shouldn't I? I lead, but can I truly protect? When I do not know what awaits us?\n\n\"Commander.\"\n\nStartled from his dark thoughts, he straightened in his saddle and looked over to his Atri-Ceda. \"My apologies, were you speaking?\"\n\nAranict wiped sweat from an oddly paleface, hesitated.\n\n\"I believe you are struck with heat. Dismount, and I will send for-\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\n\"Atri-Ceda-\"\n\nHe saw the wash of terror and panic rise into her face. \"We are in the wrong place! Commander! Brys! We have to get out of here! We have to-we are in the wrong place!\"\n\nAt that moment, thunder hammered through the earth, a drum roll that went on, and on-\n\nDust storm or an army? Keneb squinted in the bright glare. \"Corporal.\"\n\n\"Sir.\"\n\n\"Ride to the vanguard. I think we've sighted the Khundryl and Perish. '\n\n\"Yes, sir!\"\n\nAs the rider cantered off, Keneb glanced to his left. Brys's columns had edged slightly ahead-the Malazans had been anything but spry this day. Moods were dark, foul, discipline was crumbling. Knots of acid in his stomach had awakened him this morning, painful enough to start tears in his eyes. The worst of it had passed, but he knew he had to find a capable healer soon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A sudden wind gusted into his face, smelling of something bitter.\n\nHe saw Blistig riding out from his legion, angling towards him. Now what?\n\nHead pounding, Banaschar trudged alongside a heavily laden wagon. He was parched inside, as parched as this wretched land. He held his gaze on the train of oxen labouring in their yokes, the flicking tails, the swarming flies, the fine coat of dust rising up their haunches and flanks. Hoofs thumped on the hard ground.\n\nHearing some muttering from the troop marching a few paces to his right, he lifted his eyes. The sky had suddenly acquired a sickly hue. Wind buffeted him, tasting of grit, stinging his eyes.\n\nDamned dust storm. She'll have to calla halt. She'll have to-\n\nNo, that colour was wrong. Mouth dry as stone, he felt a tightening in his throat, a pain in his chest.\n\nGods no. That wind is the breath of a warren. It's-oh, Worm of Autumn, no.\n\nHe staggered as convulsions took him. Half-blinded in pain, he fell onto his knees.\n\nSergeant Sunrise dropped his kit bag and hurried over to the fallen priest's side.\"Rumjugs! Get Bavedict! He's looking bad here-\"\n\n\"He's a drunk, ' snapped Sweetlard.\n\n\"No-looks worse than that. Rumjugs-\"\n\n\"I'm going-'\n\nThunder shook the ground beneath them. Cries rose from countless beasts. Something seemed to ripple through the ranks of soldiery, an unease, an instant of uncertainty stung awake. Voices shouted questions but no answers came back, and the confusion rose yet higher." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sweetlard stumbled against Sunrise, almost knocking him over as he crouched beside the priest. He could hear the old man mumbling, saw his head rock as if buffeted by unseen blows. Something spattered the back of Sunrise's left hand and he looked down to see drops of blood.\"Errant's push! Who stabbed him? I didn't see-'\n\n\"Someone knifed him?\" Sweetlard demanded.\n\n\"I don't-I ain't-here, help me get him round-\"\n\nThe thunder redoubled. Oxen lowed. Wheels rocked side to side with alarming creaks. Sunrise looked skyward, saw nothing but a solid golden veil of dust. \"We got us a damned storm-where's Bavedict? Sweet-go find \"em, will ya?\"\n\n\"Thought you wanted my help?\"\n\n\"Wait-get Hedge-get the commander-this guy's sweating blood allover his skin! Right out through the pores! Hurry! '\n\n\"Something's happening, ' Sweetlard said, now standing directly over him.\n\nHer tone chilled Sunrise to the core.\n\nCaptain Ruthan Gudd drew a ragged breath, savagely pushing the nausea away, and the terror that flooded through him in its wake had him reaching for his sword. Roots of the Azath, what was that? But he could see nothing-the dust had slung an ochre canopy across the sky, and on all sides soldiers were suddenly milling, as if they had lost their way-but nothing lay ahead, just empty stretches of land. Teeth bared, Ruthan Gudd kicked his skittish horse forward, rising in his stirrups. His sword was in his hand, steam whirling from its white, strangely translucent blade." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He caught sight of it from the corner of his eye." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hood's fist! ' The skeins of sorcery that had disguised the weapon-in layers thick and tangled with centuries of magic-had been torn away. Deathly cold burned his hand. She answers. She answers... what?\n\nHe pulled free of the column.\n\nA seething line had appeared along a ridge of hills to the southeast.\n\nThe thunder rolled on, drawing ever closer. Iron glittered as if tipped with diamond shards, like teeth gnawing through the summits of those hills. The swarming motion pained his eyes.\n\nHe saw riders peeling out from the vanguard. Parley flags whipping from upended spears. Closer to hand, foot-soldiers staring at him and his damned weapon, others stumbling from the bitter cold streaming in his wake. His own armour-clad thighs and the back of his horse were rimed in frost.\n\nShe answers-as she has never answered before. Gods below, spawn of the Azath-I smell-oh, gods no-\n\n\"Form up! Marines form up! First line on the ridge-skirmishers! Get out of there, withdraw!\" Fiddler wasn't waiting, not for anything. He couldn't seethe captain but it didn't matter. He felt as if he'd swallowed a hundred caltrops. The air stank. Pushing pasta confused Koryk and then a white-faced Smiles, he caught sight of the squad directly ahead.\n\n\"Balm! Deadsmell-awaken your warrens! Same for Widdershins-where's Cord, get Ebron-'\n\n\"Sergeant!\"\n\nHe twisted back, saw Faradan Sort forcing her horse through the milling soldiers.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" she demanded. \"It's some foreign army out there-we've sent emissaries. You're panicking the soldiers-'" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Take on the role of the writer's aide and proceed with the narrative.\nTags: epic fantasy, complex plot, multiple characters, dark themes, intricate world-building\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Dust of Dreams\nChapter: 38" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He caught sight of it from the corner of his eye." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hood's fist! ' The skeins of sorcery that had disguised the weapon-in layers thick and tangled with centuries of magic-had been torn away. Deathly cold burned his hand. She answers. She answers... what?\n\nHe pulled free of the column.\n\nA seething line had appeared along a ridge of hills to the southeast.\n\nThe thunder rolled on, drawing ever closer. Iron glittered as if tipped with diamond shards, like teeth gnawing through the summits of those hills. The swarming motion pained his eyes.\n\nHe saw riders peeling out from the vanguard. Parley flags whipping from upended spears. Closer to hand, foot-soldiers staring at him and his damned weapon, others stumbling from the bitter cold streaming in his wake. His own armour-clad thighs and the back of his horse were rimed in frost.\n\nShe answers-as she has never answered before. Gods below, spawn of the Azath-I smell-oh, gods no-\n\n\"Form up! Marines form up! First line on the ridge-skirmishers! Get out of there, withdraw!\" Fiddler wasn't waiting, not for anything. He couldn't seethe captain but it didn't matter. He felt as if he'd swallowed a hundred caltrops. The air stank. Pushing pasta confused Koryk and then a white-faced Smiles, he caught sight of the squad directly ahead.\n\n\"Balm! Deadsmell-awaken your warrens! Same for Widdershins-where's Cord, get Ebron-'\n\n\"Sergeant!\"\n\nHe twisted back, saw Faradan Sort forcing her horse through the milling soldiers.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" she demanded. \"It's some foreign army out there-we've sent emissaries. You're panicking the soldiers-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fiddler caught Tarr's level gaze.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "See they're formed up-toss the word out fast as it can go, you understand, Corporal?\"\n\n\"Aye sir-\"\n\n\"Sergeant!\"\n\nFiddler pushed his way to the captain, reached up and dragged her down from the saddle. Cursing, she flailed, unbalanced. As her full weight caught him, Fiddler staggered and then went down, Sort on top of him. In her ear he said, \"Get the fuck off that horse and stay off it. Those emissaries are already dead, even if they don't know it. We need to dig in, Captain, and we need to do it now. '\n\nShe lifted herself up, face dark with anger, and then glared into his eyes. Whatever she saw in them was hard and sharp as a slap. Sort rolled to one side and rose. \"Someone get this horse out of here. Where's our signaller? Flags up: prepare for battle. Ridge defence. Foot to dig in, munitions spread second trench-get on it, damn you! '\n\nMost of the damned soldiers were doing nothing but get in the way. Snarling and cursing, Bottle forced through the press until he reached the closest supply wagon. He scrambled onto it, pulling himself by the rope netting until he was atop the heaped bales. Then he stood.\n\nA half-dozen of the Adjunct's emissaries were cantering towards that distant army.\n\nThe sky above the strangers swarmed with... birds? No. Rhinazan... and some bigger things. Bigger... enkar'al? Wyval? He felt sick enough to void his bowels. He knew that smell. It had soaked into his brain ever since he'd crawled through a shredded tent. That army isn't human. Adjunct, your emissaries-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something blinding arced out from the foremost line of one of the distant phalanxes. It cut a ragged path above the ground until it struck the mounted emissaries. Bodies burst into flames. Burning horses reeled and collapsed in clouds of ash.\n\nBottle stared. Hood's holy shit.\n\nSinter ran as fast as she could, cutting between ranks of soldiers. They were finally digging in, while the supply train-the wagons herded like enormous beasts between mounted archers and lancers-had swung northward, forcing, she saw, the Letherii forces to divide almost in half to permit the retreating column through their ranks.\n\nThat wasn't good. She could seethe chaos rippling out as the huge wagons plunged into the narrow avenue. Pikes pitched and wavered to either side, the press making figures stumble and fall.\n\nNot her problem. She looked ahead once again, saw the vanguard, saw the Adjunct, Captain Yil, Fists Blistig and Keneb and a score or so honour guard and mounted staff. Tavore was issuing commands and riders were winging out to various units. There wasn't much time. The distant hills had been swallowed by marching phalanxes, a dozen insight and more coming-and each formation looked massive. Five thousand? Six? The thunder was the measure of their strides, steady, unceasing. The sky behind them was the colour of bile, winged creatures swarming above the rising dust.\n\nThose soldiers. They aren't people. They aren't human-gods below, they are huge.\n\nShe reached the vanguard. \"Adjunct!\"\n\nTavore's helmed head snapped round.\n\n\"Adjunct, we must retreat! This is wrong! This isn't-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sergeant,\" Tavore's voice cut through like a blade's edge. \"There is no time. Furthermore, our obvious avenue of retreat happens to be blocked by the Letherii legions-\"\n\n\"Send a rider to Brys-\"\n\n\"We have done so, Sergeant-\"\n\n\"They aren't human! '\n\nFlat eyes regarded her. \"No, they are not. K'Chain-'\n\n\"They don't want us! We're just in their fucking way!\"\n\nExpressionless, the Adjunct said, \"It is clear they intend to engage us, Sergeant.\"\n\nWildly, Sinter turned to Keneb. \"Fist, please! You need to explain-\"\n\n\"Sinter,\" said Tavore, \"K'Chain Nah'ruk.\"\n\nKeneb's face had taken on the colour of the sickly sky.\"Return to your squad, Sergeant. '\n\nQuick Ben stood wrapped in his leather cloak, thirty paces on from the Malazan vanguard. He was alone. Three hundred paces behind him the Letherii companies were wheeling to form a bristling defensive line along the ridge on which the column had been marching. They had joined their supply train and herds to the Bonehunters' and it seemed an entire city and all its livestock was wheeling northward in desperate flight. Brys intended to defend that retreat. The High Mage understood the logic of that. It marked, perhaps, the last rational moment of this day.\n\nIll luck. Stupid, pathetic, miserable mischance. It was absurd. It was sickening beyond all belief. Which gods had clutched together to spin this madness? He had told the Adjunct all he knew. As soon as the warren's mouth had spread wide, as soon as the earth trembled to the first heavy footfall of the first marching phalanx. We saw their sky keeps. We knew they weren't gone. We knew they were gathering." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But that was so faraway, and so long ago now.\n\nThe reek of their oils was heavy on the wind that still poured out from the warren. Beyond the ochre veil he could see a deepness, a darkness that did not belong.\n\nThey have come here, to the Wastelands.\n\nThey have been this way before.\n\nAmbitions and desires spun like ash from a pyre. All at once, it was clear that nothing was important, nothing beyond this moment and what was about to begin. Could anyone have predicted this? Could anyone have pierced the solid unknown of the future, carving through to this scene?\n\nThere were times, he knew, when even the gods staggered back, reeled with bloodied faces. No, the gods didn't manage this. They could not guess the Adjunct's heart, that wellspring so full with all she would reveal to none. We were ever the shaved knuckle, but in whose hand would we be found? None knew. None could even dream...\n\nHe stood alone, warrens awake and seething within him. He would do what he could, for as long as he was able. And then he would fall, and there would be no one left but a score of squad mages and the Atri-Ceda.\n\nOn this day, we shall witness the death of friends. On this day, we may well join them.\n\nThe High Mage Adaephon Ben Delat drew from a pouch a handful of acorns and flung them to the ground. He squinted once more at the deepness beyond the veil, and then down to the Nah'ruk legions. Monstrous in their implacability-steal one away and it's damned near mindless. Gather them in their thousands, and their will becomes one... and that will is... gods below... it is so very cold..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Nah'ruk were half again as tall as a man and perhaps twice the weight. Little of their upper bodies could be seen, even as they drew to within two hundred paces, for they were clad in sheaths of enamel or boiled-leather armour extending out to their upper arms and reaching down to protect their forward-thrusting thighs. The stubs of their tails bore similar armour, but in finer scales. Wide helms enclosed their heads, short snouts emerging between ornate cheek-guards. Those in the front lines held arcane clubs of some sort, blunt-ended and wrapped in bundles of what looked like wire. For each dozen or so, one warrior walked burdened beneath a massive ceramic pack that sat high on its shoulders.\n\nBehind this first line of warriors the other ranks carried short-handled halberds or falchions, held vertically. Each phalanx presented a breadth of at least a hundred warriors, all marching in perfect time, upper bodies leaning forward above their muscled, reptilian legs. There were no standards, no banners, and no obvious vanguard of commanders. As far as Ruthan Gudd could determine, there was nothing to distinguish one from another, barring those wearing the strange kit bags.\n\nFrost glistened from his entire body now, and ice had spread thick as armour to encase the horse beneath him. It was already dead, he knew, but the ice knew to answer his commands. He rode a dozen paces ahead of the front line of Malazans, knowing that countless eyes were upon him, knowing they were struggling to understand what they were seeing-not just this alien army so clearly intent on their annihilation, but Ruthan Gudd himself, out here astride a horse sheathed in ice, the ice murky with hints of the form it had engulfed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He held the Stormrider sword as if it was an extension of his forearm-ice had crept up to his shoulder, gleaming yet flowing as would water.\n\nEyeing the Nah'ruk, he muttered under his breath.\" Yes, you see me. You mark me. Send your fury my way. First and last, strike me... '\n\nBehind him, from haphazard trenches, an ominous hush. The Bonehunters crouched as if pinned to the ground, caught unawares, so rocked by the unexpected impossibility of this that not a single defiant shout sounded, not a single weapon hammered the rim of a shield. Though he did not turn round, he knew that all motion had ceased. No more orders to be given. None were, truth be told, necessary.\n\nBy his rough count, over forty thousand Nah'ruk were advancing upon them. He almost caught an echo of the cacophony only moments away, as if the future's walls were about to be shattered, flinging horror back into the past-to this moment, to ring deafeningly in his skull.\n\n\"Too bad,\" he muttered. \"It was such a pretty day.\"\n\n\"Hood's breath, who is that? '\n\nAdjunct Tavore's eyes narrowed.\"Captain Ruthan Gudd. '\n\n\"That's what I thought, \"Lostara Yil replied.\"What's happened to him?\"\n\nIn answer the Adjunct could only shake her head.\n\nLostara shifted on her horse, freehand drifting to the knife at her belt, and then twitching away. Sword, you idiot. Not the knife. The stupid sword. A face drifted into her mind. Henar Vygulf. He would be with Brys right now, ready to set off with orders. The Letherii were setback, forming two distinct outside flanks, like the outer bends of a bow. They would witness the collision of the front lines, and then, she hoped, they'd quickly seethe suicidal insanity of standing against these damned lizards, and Brys would deliberately rout his army. Get the Hood out of here-leave all the gear behind-just flee. Don't die like us, don't stand just because we're standing. Just get out, Brys-Henar-I pray you. I beg you." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She heard horse hoofs and glanced over to see Fist Keneb riding down the length of the humped berm, passing the ranks of his dug-in soldiers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What's he doing?\n\nHe was riding for Captain Ruthan Gudd.\n\nTavore spoke. \"Sound horn, signaller-order Fist Keneb to personally withdraw.\"\n\nA blast of wails lifted into the air.\n\n\"He's ignoring it, \"Lostara said.\"The fool! '\n\nQuick Ben caught sight of Ruthan Gudd and he grunted. I'll be damned. A Maelbit Nerruse-whore-spawn Stormrider. Who knew?\n\nBut what was he doing out front like that? After a moment, the High Mage swore under his breath. You want \"em to take you first. You want to draw them to you. You're giving the Bonehunters a dozen heartbeats to realize what they have to deal with. Captain Ruthan Gudd, or whoever you are... gods, what can I possibly say? Go well, Captain.\n\nGo well.\n\nSwearing, Keneb savagely drove his spurs into the flanks of his mount. That was Ruthan Gudd, and if the fool wasn't what he pretended to be, then the Malazans needed him more than ever. The man could be a damned god but single-handedly charging those things will still see him chopped to pieces. Ruthan! We need you-whoever and whatever you are-we need you alive!\n\nCould he reach him in time?\n\nCaptain Skanarow kicked atone of her soldiers, pushing the idiot back into the shallow trench. \"Keep digging!\" she snarled, and then returned her attention to that gleaming figure riding out towards the lizards. You stupid lying bastard! A Stormrider? Impossible-they live in the damned seas.\n\nRuthan, please, what are you doing?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "______\n\nSeeing the first line of the nearest phalanx level their bizarre clubs, Ruthan Gudd gritted his teeth. This Stormrider crap had better work. But gods below, it does hurt to wear. He wheeled his mount to face the Nah'ruk, and then raised high his sword.\n\nSunlight flashed through the ice.\n\nA rider was coming up from behind and to his left. Poor bastard. That's what you get for taking orders. Without a backward glance, he drove his spurs into the flanks of his mount. Sparks flashed from the ice. The beast lunged forward.\n\nYou sorry Malazans. Watch me, and then ask yourself: How deep can you dig?\n\nFiddler cocked his crossbow, carefully inserted a sharper-headed quarrel. Now that it was happening, he felt fine. Nothing more to be done, was there? Everything was alight, cut clear, the colours of the world suddenly saturated, beautiful beyond belief. He could taste it. He could taste it all. \"Everybody loaded?\"\n\nGrunts and nods from his squad, all of them crouched down in the trench.\n\n\"Keep your heads right down,\" Fiddler told them again. \"We'll hear the charge, count on it. Nobody pokes up fora look until my say so, understood? '\n\nHe saw, a few squads down, Balgrid edging up fora look. The healer shouted, \"Gudd's charging them! '\n\nAlong the entire line of marines, helmed heads sprung up like mushrooms.\n\nFuck!\n\nCrump was on his hands and knees, a clutch of sharpers set like black-turtle eggs in a shallow pit pushed into the stony floor of the trench." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ebron stared in horror." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Have you lost your mind? Spread'em down the line, you idiot! '\n\nCrump looked up, eyes widening. \"Can't do that, mage. They're mine! All I got left!\"\n\n\"Someone could step on them!\"\n\nBut Crump was shaking his head. \"I'm protecting them, mage! '\n\nEbron swung round. \"Cord! Sergeant! It's Crump! He's-\"\n\nThe wire-bound clubs in the front line seemed to ignite like torches. Lightning arced from the blunt heads, two serpentine tendrils snaking into the air. From each weapon, one of the bolts twisted and spun to sink into one of the strange ceramic packs-a dozen such arcs for each pack. The second crackling tongue of white fire seemed to throb for an instant, and then as one they lashed out, a score or more converging on the charging, ice-clad rider and horse.\n\nThe detonation engulfed Ruthan Gudd and his mount, tore gouts of earth and stone from the ground in abroad, ragged crater.\n\nAn instant before the explosion, other front lines had awakened their own weapons, and even as the flash erupted, hundreds of bolts snapped out to strike the front trench.\n\nOn his way back to the squad, Bottle was thrown down into the trench, the impact punching the breath from his lungs. Gaping, his head tilted to one side, he saw a row of bodies lifted into the air along the entire length of the berm-all those who had climbed up to watch Ruthan's charge. Marines, most of them headless or missing everything above their rib cages, twisted amidst dirt and rocks and pieces of armour and weapons.\n\nStill unable to breathe, he saw a second wave of the sorcery lance directly over his trench. The ground shook as ranks behind him were struck. The blue of the sky vanished behind thick clouds. Bodies sailed in and out of those churning clouds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bottle writhed, deaf, his lungs howling. He felt the muted impacts of sharpers, too close, too random-\n\nA hand reached down out of the sudden gloom and closed on his chest harness. He was dragged out from the slumped side of the collapsed trench.\n\nBottle coughed out a mouthful of earth, hacked agonizing breaths, his throat afire. Tarr's spattered face was above him, shouting-but Bottle could hear nothing. No matter, he pushed Tarr back, nodding. I'm all right. No, honest. I'm fine-where's my crossbow?\n\nKeneb had come too close. The detonation caught him and his horse and literally ripped them both to pieces. Chunks of flesh sprayed outward. Ebron, leaning hard over the berm, saw part of the Fist's upper torso-a shoulder, a stub of the arm and a few splayed ribs-cartwheel skyward, lifted on a column of dirt.\n\nEven as the mage stared, disbelieving, a sorcerous bolt caught him dead centre on his sternum. It tore through him, disintegrating his upper chest, shoulders and head.\n\nLimp howled as one of Ebron's arms flopped down across his thighs.\n\nBut no one heard him.\n\nThey had seen Quick Ben, but had elected to ignore him. He flinched as the first waves of lightning ploughed into the defences along the ridge. Thunder rattled the ground and the entire facing side of the Bonehunter army vanished inside churning clouds of dirt, stone, and dismembered bodies.\n\nHe saw the nodes recharging on the shoulders of the drones. How long? \"No idea,\" he whispered. \"Little acorns, listen. Go for the drones-the ones with the packs. Forget the rest... for now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he set out, walking down towards the nearest phalanx.\n\nThe Nah'ruk front was less than a hundred paces away.\n\nThey had seen him and now they took note. Lightning blistered all along the front line.\n\nHorse clambering drunkenly from the crater, Ruthan Gudd shook his head, readying his blazing weapon. Dirt streamed down his back beneath his smeared, steaming armour. He spat grit.\n\nThat wasn't so bad now.\n\nDirectly in front of him, twenty paces away, looming huge, the front line. Their eyes glittered like diamonds within the shadows beneath the rims of their ornate helms. The fangs lining their snouts glistened like shards of iron.\n\nHe had an inkling that they had not expected to see him again. He rode over to say hello.\n\n\"Crossbows at the ready!\" Fiddler yelled. \"Go for the nodes!\"\n\n\"The what?\"\n\n\"The lumpy ones! That's where the magic's coming from!\"\n\nKoryk scrambled to crouch beside Fiddler. The man was sheathed in bloody mud. \"Who pops up fora look, Fid?\"\n\n\"I will,\" said Corabb, surging upward and clawing up the berm. \"Gods below! That captain's still alive! He's in their ranks-\"\n\nAs Corabb made to clamber out of the trench-clearly intending to join Gudd and charge the whole damned phalanx, Tarr reached out and dragged the fool back down.\n\n\"Stay where you are, soldier! Get that crossbow-no, that one there! Load the fucker!\"\n\n\"Range, Corabb?\" Fiddler asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Forty and slowed, Sergeant-that captain's carving right through \"em!\"\n\n\"Won't matter much. I don't care if he's got Oponn's poker up his ass, he's only one man. '\n\n\"We should help him!\"\n\n\"We can't, Corabb, \"Fiddler said.\"Besides, that's the last thing he'd want-why d'you think he went out thereon his own? Leave him, soldier. We got our own trouble come knocking. Koryk, you take the next look, count often. Nine, eight, seven-\"\n\n\"I ain't getting my head blasted off! '\n\nFiddler swung his crossbow round to point at Koryk's chest.\"Four, three, two, one-up you go! '\n\nSnarling, Koryk scrambled upward. Then was back down almost instantly. \"Shit. Twenty-five and picking up speed!\"\n\nFiddler raised his voice. \"Everyone ready! The nodes! Hold it-hold it-NOW!\"\n\n______\n\nHedge led his Bridgeburners just to the rear of the last trenches. \"I don't care what Quick thinks, he's always had backup, he never went it alone. Ever. So that's us, soldiers-keep up there, Sweetlard! Look at Rumjugs, she ain't even breathing hard-\"\n\n\"She's forgotten how! ' Sweetlard gasped.\n\n\"Remember what I said,\" Hedge reminded them, \"Bridgeburners have faced worse than a bunch of stubby lizards. This ain't nothing, right? '\n\n\"We gonna win, Commander?\"\n\nHedge glanced over at Sunrise. And grinned. \"Count on it, Sergeant. Now, everyone, check your munitions, and remember to aim for the lumpy ones. We're about to pull into the open-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A concussion shook the very air, but it came from the Nah'ruk lines. A billowing black cloud rose like a stain of spilled ink.\n\n\"Gods, what was that?\"\n\nHedge's grin broadened.\"That, soldiers, was Quick Ben. '\n\nLightning arced out from hundreds of clubs, from multiple phalanxes to either side of the one he had attacked. The bolts snapped towards him, then slanted off as Quick Ben flung them aside. And I ain't Tayschrenn and this ain't Pale. Got no one behind me, so keep throwing them my way, y'damned geckos. Use it all up!\n\nThe first dozen or so ranks of the phalanx he'd struck were down, a few writhing or feebly struggling to rise with crushed limbs and snapped bones. Most were motionless, their bodies boiled from the inside out. Ashe walked towards those who remained, he saw them regrouping, forming a line to face him once more.\n\nThe huge falchions and halberds lifted in readiness.\n\nQuick Ben extended his senses, until he could feel the very air around the creatures, could follow currents of that air as they slipped through gills into reptilian lungs. He reached out to encompass as many of them as possible.\n\nAnd then he set the air on fire.\n\nLightning shunted from the High Mage, careened off into the sky and out to the sides.\n\nSergeant Sunrise shrieked as one bolt twisted and spun straight for Hedge. He flung himself forward, three paces that seemed to tear every muscle in his back and legs. He was a Bridgeburner. He was the man he had always wanted to be; he'd never stood taller, never walked straighter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And all because of Hedge.\n\nSee me? Sunrise-\n\nHe was smiling as he flung himself into the lightning's path.\n\nHedge's sergeant erupted, blinding white, and then where he had been was nothing but swirling ashes. His soldiers were screaming behind him. Spinning, Hedge shouted,\"Everyone down to the ground! We'll wait it out-we wait it out!\"\n\nFuck you, Quick-this ain't Pale, you know! And you ain't Tayschrenn!\n\nRuthan Gudd slashed down to either side, but the damned things were pressing in-they'd halted his forward progress. Heavy iron blades cracked and skittered against his horse, his thighs. The armour was showing cracks, but after each blow those fissures healed. His sword cut through helms and skulls, necks and limbs, but the Nah'ruk did not relent, closing tighter and tighter about him.\n\nHe heard concussions somewhere to his left, caught the stench of howling warrens being forced to do unspeakable things-Quick Ben, how much longer can you hide? Well, Ruthan knew he'd not be around to witness any revelations. They were taking him down with their sheer weight. His horse staggered, head thrashing and flinching with every savage downward strike of falchions.\n\nThe rest of the phalanx had moved past the knot trapping him, were ascending the ridge, only moments from reaching the first trench. He caught flashes of other phalanxes marching past.\n\nFour blades struck him simultaneously, lifting him from the saddle with a splintering explosion of ice shards. Cursing, he twisted, lashing out even as he plunged into the maelstrom of reptilian limbs andiron weapons. And then taloned feet, slashing, stamping down. A blow to the face stunned him. White, and then blessed darkness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Twelve paces. The surviving marines rose as one from the foremost trench. Crossbows thudded. Sharpers cracked and burners ignited. Directly before Fiddler, he saw his bolt glance off anode and then explode immediately behind the lizard's head. The helm went spinning, whipping fragments of brain and bone in a wild cavorting tail of gore. The node blackened, and then exploded.\n\nThe concussion threw Fiddler back, down into the trench. Pieces of hide and meat rained down.\n\nHalf-winded, he struggled to reload his lobber. One last cusser-gotta get rid of it, before it goes up like those sharpers down the line-gods, we've been chewed up-\n\nShadows swept over the trench.\n\nHe looked up.\n\nThe Nah'ruk had arrived.\n\nCorabb had managed to reload. Lifting his head, he saw a giant lizard rising above the berm, maw tilting down as if grinning at him.\n\nHis quarrel vanished into its soft throat, punched out through the back of its skull. The creature wobbled. Flinging away the crossbow, Corabb drew his sword and scrambled to his feet. He swung at the nearest shin. The impact nearly broke his wrist and the weapon's edge bit deep into bone and jammed there.\n\nStill the creature stood, twitches rippling through its massive body.\n\nCorabb struggled to pull loose his sword.\n\nTo either side, Nah'ruk clambered over the berm, leapt down into the trench.\n\nThe backswing lifted Sergeant Primly into the air, and he rode the iron blade, his blood spilling down as if from a bucket. Shrieking, Neller flung himself onto the lizard's left arm, pulled himself higher and then forced the sharper down between the enamel chest-plate and the greasy hide. Jaws snapped, closed on his face. Phlegm like acid splashed his eyes and skin. Howling, Neller tightened his grip on the sharper and then drove the fist of his other hand against the armour, directly opposite the munition." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mulvan Dreader, driving a spear into the lizard's belly, caught the blast as the creature's chest exploded. Ceramic shrapnel shredded Mulvan's neck, punching red gore into the air behind him. Neller was flung back, his right arm gone, his face a slashed, melting horror.\n\nPrimly's corpse landed five paces away, a flopping thing painted crimson.\n\nThe lizard toppled.\n\nTwo more appeared behind it, falchions lifting.\n\nStumbling, Drawfirst set her shield and readied her sword. As Skulldeath leapt past her, landing in between the two Nah'ruk.\n\nA bolt sizzled close to her horse's head. Its muzzle and mane burst into flame. Skin peeled and cracked from mouth to shoulders. The animal collapsed. Lostara Yil managed to roll clear. The heat had flashed against her face and she could smell the stench of scorched hair. Staggering to her feet, she looked over to see a dozen staff riders down, roasted in their armour. The Adjunct was lifting herself from the carnage, her otataral sword in one hand.\n\n\"Get me Keneb-\"\n\n\"Keneb's dead, Adjunct, ' Lostara replied, staggering over. The world spun and then steadied.\n\nTavore straightened. \"Where-\"\n\nLostara reached the woman, pulled her down to the ground. \"You shouldn't even be alive, Tavore. Stay here-you're in shock. Stay here-I'll find help-'\n\n\"Quick Ben-the High Mage-\"\n\n\"Aye.\" Lostara stood over the Adjunct, who was sitting as would a child. The captain looked over to where she'd last seen Quick Ben." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd annihilated an entire phalanx, and where it had been the fires of superheated flesh, hide and bone still raged in an inferno. She saw him marching towards another phalanx, above him the sky convulsing, blackening like a bruise.\n\nSorcery erupted from the High Mage, struck the phalanx. Burning corpses lifted into the air.\n\n\"I see him. Adjunct-I can't-'\n\nFrom the darkness in the sky a sudden glow, blinding, and then an enormous spear of lightning descended. She saw the High Mage lookup, saw him raise his arms-and then the bolt struck. The explosion could have levelled a tenement block. Even the Nah'ruk in the phalanx thirty or more paces away were flattened like sheaves of wheat. Flanking units buckled on the facing sides.\n\nThe shock wave staggered Lostara, stole her breath, deafened her. Hands to her face, she slumped down, struck the ground hard.\n\nPearl?\n\nSkanarow threw herself down into the second trench where the heavies were waiting. \"The marines are overrun! Sound the fall-back-and make room for the survivors-let'em through! Get ready to hold this trench! '\n\nShe saw a messenger, unhorsed, crouching behind the headless corpse of a heavy. \"You-find Captain Kindly. I just saw the vanguard go down-and I don't know where Blistig is, so as far as I'm concerned Kindly's now in command. Tell him, we need to begin a retreat-we can't hold. Understood?\"\n\nThe young man nodded.\n\n\"Go.\"\n\nBrys flinched as the Nah'ruk lines struck the Malazan defences. He saw the heavy falchions descending. Barely slowing, the lizards swarmed over the first trench and began closing on the next one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aranict-\"\n\n\"I think she lives, Commander.\"\n\nBrys swung round in his saddle, caught the eyes of his outriders. \"We need to retrieve the Adjunct. Volunteers only.\"\n\nOne rider pushed through the others. Henar Vygulf.\n\nBrys nodded. \"Get your spare horses, Lieutenant.\"\n\nThe huge Bluerose saluted.\n\n\"When you have them,\" Brys said before the man turned away, \"ride for the supply train.\"\n\nThe soldier frowned.\n\nBrys gritted his teeth. \"I will not stand here watching this slaughter. We will close with the enemy.\"\n\nThey saw the impossibly thick bolt of lightning tear down from the dark stain ahead. As the shockwaves drummed through the ground, Warleader Gall raised an arm to signal a halt. He faced Kisswhere, his face ashen. \"I am sending you to the Mortal Sword Krughava-tell her the Malazans are assailed, and that the Khundryl ride to their succour.\"\n\nShe stared at the man. \"Warleader-\"\n\n\"Ride, soldier-you are not Khundryl-you do not understand what it is to fight from a horse. Tell Krughava the gods were cruel this day, for she will not reach the Malazans in time.\"\n\n\"Who is their enemy?\" Kisswhere demanded. \"Your shamans-\"\n\n\"Are blind. We know less than you. Ride, Kisswhere.\"\n\nShe swung her horse round.\n\nGall rose in his stirrups and faced his warriors. He drew his tulwar and held it high. And said nothing.\n\nIn answer, six thousand weapons were freed and lifted skyward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gall pulled his horse round. \"Ride ahead, Rafala, until you sight the enemy.\"\n\nThe woman kicked her mount into a gallop.\n\nAfter a moment, Gall led his army after her, at a quick canter, and the sound of thunder grew louder, and the yellow sky deepened to brown in which flashes bloomed like wounds.\n\nHe wondered what his wife was doing.\n\nWorse than chopping down trees. Fiddler gave up trying to hack through legs and began hamstringing the bastards, ducking the slashes of notched weapons, dodging the downward swings. The surviving Malazans had been driven from the first trench, were now struggling to hold a fighting withdrawal across the ten paces to the heavies' trench.\n\nCrossbow quarrels and arrows spat out from the troops arrayed behind the heavies, winging at heights mercifully above the heads of the soldiers in their desperate retreat. Most missiles shattered against enamel, but a few were punching through, finding gaps in the Nah'ruk's armour. Beasts were toppling here and there.\n\nBut not enough. The phalanx was a machine, devouring everything in its path.\n\nFiddler had lost his cusser and lobber in the first trench. The shortsword felt puny as a thorn in his hand. A glancing blow had sent his helm flying and blood streamed down the right side of his head.\n\nHe saw Koryk pushing his sword through a Nah'ruk's neck; saw another lizard step in behind the man, halberd lifting high. Bolts punched into both armpits. The creature fell forward, burying Koryk. Smiles rushed over, diving and rolling to evade a lashing falchion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cuttle stumbled up against Fiddler. \"Retreat's sounded! '\n\n\"I heard-\"\n\n\"Quick Ben's been Rannalled, Fid-that giant strike-'\n\n\"I know. Forget him-help me get the squad back-the heavies will hold, enough so we can regroup. Goon, I ain't seen Corabb or Bottle-'\n\nNah'ruk and human corpses half-buried Bottle, but he was in no hurry to move. He saw more of the lizards marching past on all sides.\n\nWe never even slowed them.\n\nQuick, whatever happened to subtlety?\n\nHe could see a sliver of sky, could seethe wyval wheeling roundup there, eager to descend and feed. Grandma, you always said don't reach too far. Close your dead eyes now, and remember, I loved you so.\n\nHe left his body, winged skyward.\n\nCorabb yanked hard and dragged his sword from the Nah'ruk's left eye socket, then he reached down to take up again Shoaly's ankle-but the man had stopped screaming and as he looked he saw in the heavy's face a slackness, a dullness to the staring eyes.\n\nAline of Nah'ruk was closing, only a few paces away. Swearing, Corabb released his grip and turned to run.\n\nThe trench of the heavy infantry was just ahead. He saw helmed faces, weapons readied. Arrows and quarrels hissed over them and the thud and snap of their impacts was torrential behind him. Corabb hurried over.\n\nCuttle fell in beside him. \"Seen Tarr?\"\n\n\"Seen him go down.\"\n\n\"Bottle?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Corabb shook his head. \"Smiles? Koryk?\"\n\n\"Fid's got \"em.\"\n\n\"Fiddler! He's-'\n\nThe first trench directly behind the two marines erupted. Nah'ruk ranks simply vanished in blue clouds.\n\n\"What-\"\n\n\"Some bastard stepped on a cusser!\" Cuttle said. \"Serves'em right! C'mon!\"\n\nDeathly palefaces beneath helm rims-but the heavies were standing, ready. Two parted and let the marines through.\n\nOne shouted over at Cuttle. \"Those clubs-\"\n\n\"Got'em, soldier! \"Cuttle yelled back.\"Now it's just iron.\"\n\nAt once a shout rose from the length of the trench. \"HAIL THE MARINES!\"\n\nAnd the faces around Corabb suddenly darkened, teeth baring. The instant transformation took his breath away. Iron, aye, you know all about iron.\n\nThe Nah'ruk were five steps behind them.\n\nThe heavies rose to meet them.\n\nHedge watched as the lizards clambered from the enormous crater where Quick Ben had been, watched as they re-formed their ranks and resumed their advance. Twisting from where he was lying, he then looked back to study the Letherii legions drawing up at a steady half-trot, pikes set and slowly angling in overlapping layers.\n\nHedge grunted. Good weapons for this.\n\n\"Bridgeburners! Listen up! Never mind the High Mage. He's ashes on the wind. We're going to soften up the lizards for the Letherii. Ready your munitions. One salvo when I say so and then we retreat and if the Letherii are sharp, they'll make room for us! If they don't, then swing to the right-to the right, got it? And run like Hood himself is on your heels!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Commander!\" someone cried out.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Who's Hood? '\n\nGods below. \"He's just the guy you don't wanton your heels, right?\"\n\n\"Oh. Right.\"\n\nHedge lifted his head. Shit, these ones got clubs and nodes. \"Check your munitions! Switch to Blue. You hear me? Blues! And aim for that front line! Nodes, lads and lasses, those white lumps!\"\n\n\"Commander!\"\n\n\"Hood's the-'\n\n\"I hear horses! Coming from the southeast-I think-is that horses?\"\n\nHedge rose slightly higher. He saw two lizard phalanxes smartly wheeling. Oh gods...\n\nRolling into a charge, Gall leaned forward on his horse. Just like the Malazans to find the ugliest foes the whole damned world had to offer. And the scariest. But those squares had no pikes to fend off a cavalry charge-and they would pay for that.\n\nWhen he'd led his army up to where Rafala had reined in, he'd seen-in the first dozen heartbeats-all he'd needed to see.\n\nThe enemy was devouring the Malazan army, driving them back, cutting down hundreds of soldiers if they were no more than children. This was slaughter, and barely a third of the phalanxes had actually closed with the Bonehunters.\n\nHe saw the Letherii moving upon both flanks, forming bristling pike walls in a saw-tooth presentation, but they'd yet to meet the enemy. Out to the far flanks mounted troops mustered, yet held far back-unaccountably so, as far as Gall was concerned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Directly ahead of the Khundryl charge, two phalanxes were closing up to present a solid defensive line, denying the Burned Tears the opportunity to drive between the squares, winging arrows on both sides. Gall needed make no gestures or call out commands-his lead warriors knew to draw up upon loosing their arrows; they knew their lanes, through which the heavier lancers would pass to drive deep into the wounded front ranks of the enemy-drive in, and then withdraw. There would be no chance of shattering these phalanxes-the demons were too big, too heavily armoured. They would not break before a charge.\n\nThis is the last day of the Khundryl Burned Tears. My children, do you ride with me? I know you do. My children, be brave this day. See your father, and know that he is proud of you all.\n\nThe foremost line of demons began preparing strange clubs.\n\n______\n\nHedge saw the lightning erupt from the Nah'ruk line, saw the jagged bolts tear into the mass of Khundryl warriors. The charge seemed to disintegrate inside a horrific cloud of red mist.\n\nSickened, he twisted onto his back, stared up at the sky. Didn't look like sky at all.\"Bridgeburners, get ready! Munitions in hand! One, two, three-UP! '\n\nBrys had thought the bodies lying on the ground ahead were corpses. They suddenly rose, forty or fifty in all, and flung objects at the front line of Nah'ruk. The small dark grenados splashed as they struck the enemy warriors. An instant later, the Nah'ruk who had been struck began writhing as the liquidate through their armour, and then their hides.\n\nOne of the nodes exploded, flinging bodies back. Then another and another. All at once the front ranks of the phalanx were a chaotic mess." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Brys turned to his signaller. \"Sound the charge! Sound the charge!\"\n\nHorns blared.\n\nThe legions broke into a dog-trot, pikes levelled.\n\nThe sappers were running, swinging to the left and out from the gap between the two forces. They might just make it clear in time.\n\nAt six paces, the Letherii ranks surged forward, voices lifting in a savage roar.\n\nThe teeth of the saw bit deep, one, three rows, four. The Nah'ruk phalanx buckled. And then the two forces ground to a halt. Pikes were held in place, infighters armed with axes and stabbing swords pushing between the front line to begin their vicious close work. Falchions flashed high, and then descended.\n\nBrys gestured. Another messenger came up alongside him.\n\n\"The onager and arbalest units are to draw upon the hill to the east. Begin enfilade. Cavalry to provide initial screen until they commence firing.\"\n\nThe man saluted and rode off.\n\nBrys looked southeastward. Miraculously, some remnant of the mounted horse-warriors had survived the sorcerous salvos-he could see riders emerging from the dust and smoke, hammering wildly into the front ranks of the Nah'ruk. They struck with inhuman ferocity and Brys was not surprised-to have come through that would have stripped the sanity of any warrior.\n\nHe breathed a soft prayer for them in the name of a dozen long-lost gods.\n\nA messenger reined in on his right. \"Commander! The west legions have engaged the enemy.\"\n\n\"And?\"\n\nThe man wiped the sweat from his face. \"Knocked'em back a step or two, but now... '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Seeing that he could not goon, seeing that he was near tears, Brys simply nodded. He turned to study what he could see of the Malazan position.\n\nNothing but armoured lizards, weapons lifting and descending, blood rising in a mist.\n\nBut, as he stared, he noticed something.\n\nThe Nah'ruk were no longer advancing.\n\nYou stopped them? Blood of the gods, what manner of soldiers are you?\n\nThe heavy infantry stood. The heavy infantry held the trench. Even as they died, they backed not a single step. The Nah'ruk clawed for purchase on the blood-soaked mud of the berm. Iron chewed into them. Halberds slammed down, rebounded from shields. Reptilian bodies reeled back, blocking the advance of rear ranks. Arrows and quarrels poured into the foe from positions behind the trench.\n\nAnd from above, Locqui Wyval descended by the score, in a frenzy, to tear and rend the helmed heads of the lizard warriors. Others quickly closed to do battle with their kin, and the sky rained blood.\n\nBottle's soul leapt from body to body, grasped tight the souls of Locqui Wyval, and flung them down upon the Nah'ruk. As each one was pulled down to the slaughter, he tore himself free to enslave yet another. He had reached out, taking as many as he could-dozens of the creatures-the stench of blood and all that they saw had driven them mad. He needed only crush the tatters of their restraint, loose them upon the nearest beasts that were not wyval.\n\nWhen kin attacked, he did not resist-the more dead and dying wyval, the better.\n\nBut he felt himself being torn apart. He felt his mind shredding away. He could not do much more of this. Yet Bottle did not relent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tarr stumbled into a knot of marines." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Glared round. \"Limp-where's your-'\n\n\"Dead,\" Limp said. \"Just me an\" Crump-'\n\n\"Ruffle?\"\n\nThe round-faced woman shook her head. \"Got separated. Saw Skim die, that's all-'\n\n\"So what are you doing sitting here? On your feet, marine-those heavies are dying where they stand. And we're going to join them. You, Reliko! Pull Vastly on his feet there-you're all coming with me!\"\n\nSilent, without a single word of protest, the marines clambered to their feet. They were bleeding. They were exhausted.\n\nThey gathered up their weapons, and, Tarr in the lead, set out for the trench.\n\nNearby, Urb plucked away the shattered fragments of his shield. Hellian crouched beside him, breathing hard, her face streaked with blood and puke, with more of both drenching her chest. She'd said she didn't know whose blood it was. Glancing at her, he saw her hard eyes, her hard expression. Other soldiers were drawn up behind them.\n\nUrb turned. \"We do what Tarr says, soldiers. Back into it. Now.\"\n\nHellian almost pushed past him on the way to the trench.\n\nHenar Vygulf reined in beneath the hill-he could see fallen horses and sprawled, scorched bodies where the Adjunct's command post had been. He slipped down from his horse, drew his two swords and jogged up the slope.\n\nReaching the summit, he saw four Nah'ruk arriving on the opposite ridge.\n\nLostara Yil and the Adjunct were lying almost side by side. Likely dead, but he needed to make sure. If he could." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He charged forward.\n\nThe clash of iron woke her. Blinking, Lostara stared into the sky, trying to recall what had happened. Her head ached and she could feel dried blood crusting her nostrils, crackling in her ears. She turned her head, saw the Adjunct lying beside her.\n\nChest slowly rising and falling.\n\nAh, good.\n\nSomeone grunted as if in pain.\n\nShe sat up. In time to see Henar Vygulf stagger back, blood spraying from a chest wound. Three Nah'ruk closed.\n\nHenar fell onto his back almost at Lostara's feet.\n\nShe rose, drawing her blades.\n\nHe saw her, and the anguish in his eyes took her breath away.\n\n\"I'm sorry-'\n\n\"You're going to live, \"she told him, stepping past.\"Prop yourself up, man-that's an order!\"\n\nHe managed to lift himself on one elbow. \"Captain-\"\n\nShe glanced at the Nah'ruk. Almost upon her, slowed by wounds. Behind them, a dozen more appeared.\"Just remember, Henar, I don't do this for just anybody!\"\n\n\"Do what?\"\n\nShe stepped forward, blades lifting. \"Dance.\"\n\nThe old forms returned, as if they had but been awaiting her, awaiting this one moment when at last she awoke-possibly one last time-no matter. For you, Henar. For you.\n\nThe Shadow Dance belonged to this.\n\nHere.\n\nNow.\n\nHenar watched her, and his eyes slowly widened.\n\n______\n\nA league to the southeast, Kisswhere dragged herself from her fallen horse. A badger burrow, the den mouth of a fox, something. Her horse thrashed, front legs shattered, its screams shrill in the air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kisswhere's left leg was bent in four places." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The stub of bone thrust through her leggings. She drew a knife and twisted round to study the horse, eyes fixing on a pulsing artery in its neck.\n\nDidn't matter. They were all dead. Even if she could have reached the Mortal Sword and that mad red-haired Queen, it wouldn't have mattered.\n\nShe glanced up. The sky was flesh, and that flesh was rotting before her eyes.\n\nSinter. Badan.\n\nBonehunters-Adjunct, are you happy? You killed them all.\n\nYou killed us all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On this dawn they lined the banks of the ancient river, a whole city turned out, near a hundred thousand, as the sun lifted east of the mouth that opened to the deep bay. What had brought them there? Whatever brings the multitudes to a moment, a place, an instant when a hundred thousand bodies become one body?\n\nAs the red waters spilled into the bay's salty tears, they stood, saying little, and the great ship pyre took hold of the fires and the wind took hold of the soaked sails, and the sky took hold of the black column of smoke.\n\nEhrlitan's great king was dead, the last of the Dessimb line, and the future was blowing sands, the storm's whisper was but a roar of strife made mercifully distant, a thing of promise drawing ever closer.\n\nThey came to weep. They came seeking salvation, for in the end, even grief masks a selfish indulgence. We weep in our lives for the things lost to us, the worlds done. A great man was dead, but we cannot follow him-we dare not, for to each of us death finds anew path.\n\nAn age was dead. The new age belonged to generations still to come. In the stalls of the market rounds the potters stacked bowls bearing the face of the dead king, with scenes of his past glories circling round and round, forever outside of time, and this was the true wish of the multitudes.\n\nStop. Stop now. Pray this day never ends. Pray the ashes drift forever. Pray tomorrow never becomes. It is a natural desire, an honest wish.\n\nThe tale dies, but this death will take sometime. It is said the king lingered, therein the half breath. And people gathered each day at the palace gates, to weep, to dream of other ends, of fates denied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tale dies, but this death will take sometime.\n\nAnd the river's red tongue flows without end. And the spirit of the king said: I see you. I see you all. Can you not hear him? Hear him still?\n\nDEATH OF THE GOLDEN AGE T HENYS B ULE\n\nNom Kala stood with the others, a silent mass of warriors who had forgotten what it was to live, as the wind pulled at rotted furs, strips of hide and dry tangles of hair. Dull, pitted weapons hung like afterthoughts from twisted hands. Air pitched into the bowls of eye sockets and moaned back out. They could be statues, gnawed by age, withering where they stood facing the endless winds, the senseless rains, the pointless waves of heat and cold.\n\nThere was nothing useful in this, and she knew she was not alone in her disquiet. Onos T'oolan, the First Sword, crouched down on one knee ten paces ahead of them, hands wrapped round the grip of his flint sword, the weapon's point buried in the stony ground. His head was lowered, as if he made obeisance before a master, but this master was invisible, little more than a smear of obligations swept aside, but the stain of what had been held him in place-a stain only Onos T'oolan could see. He had not moved in sometime.\n\nPatience was no trial, but she could sense the chaos in her kin, the pitch and cant of terrible desires, the rocking rebuffs of vengeance waiting. It was only a matter of time before the first of them broke away, defying this servitude, this claim of righteous command. He would not reach for them. He had yet to do so, why imagine he would change-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The First Sword rose, faced them. \"I am Onos T'oolan. I am the First Sword of Tellann. I reject your need. '\n\nThe wind moaned on, like the flow of sorrow.\n\n\"You shall, however, bow to mine.\"\n\nShe felt buffeted by those words. This is what it means, then, to yield before a First Sword. We cannot deny him, cannot defy him. She could feel his will, closing like a fist about her. We had our chance-before this. We could have drifted away. He gave us that. But not one T'lan Imass had done any such thing. Instead, we fell inside ourselves, ever deeper, that endless eating and spitting out and eating all we spat out-this is the seductive sustenance of hatred and spite, of rage and vengeance.\n\nHe could have led us off a cliff and we would not have noticed.\n\nThe three Orshayn bonecasters stepped forward. Ulag Togtil spoke. \"First Sword, we await your command.\"\n\nOnos T'oolan slowly faced south, where the sky above the horizon seemed to boil like pitch. And then he swung north, where a distant cloud caught the sun's dying light. \"We go no farther,\" the First Sword said. \"We shall be dust.\"\n\nAnd what of our dark dreams, First Sword?\n\nSuch was his power that he heard her thought and so turned to her. \"Nom Kala, hold fast to your dreams. There will bean answer. T'lan Imass, we are upon a time of killing. '\n\nThe statues shifted. Some straightened. Some hunched down as if beneath terrible burdens. The statues-my kin. My sisters, my brothers. There are none to look upon us now, none to see us, none to wonder at who we once were, at who shaped us with such... loving hands. As she watched, they began, one by one, falling into dust." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "None to witness. Dust of dreams, dust of all that we never achieved. Dust of what we might have been and what we cannot help but be.\n\nStatues are never mute. Their silence is a roar of words. Will you hear? Will you listen?\n\nShe was the last, alone with Onos T'oolan himself.\n\n\"You possess no rage, Nom Kala.\"\n\n\"No, First Sword, I do not.\"\n\n\"What might you find to serve in its place?\"\n\n\"I do not know. The humans defeated us. They were better than we were, it is as simple as that. I feel only grief, First Sword.\"\n\n\"And is there no anger in grief, Nom Kala?\"\n\nYes. It maybe that there is. But if I must search for it-\n\n\"There is time,\" said Onos T'oolan.\n\nShe bowed to him, and released herself.\n\nOnos T'oolan watched as Nom Kala fell in a gusting cloud. In his mind a figure was approaching, hands held out as if beseeching. He knew that harrowed face, that lone glittering eye. What could he say to this stranger he had once known? He too was a stranger, after all. Yes, they had once known each other. But now look at us, both so intimate with dust.\n\nNom Kala's anguish returned to him. Her thoughts had bled with dread power-she was young. She was, he realized, what the Imass might have become, had the Ritual not taken them, had it not stolen their future. A future of pathos. Sordid surrender. The loss of dignity, a slow, slow death.\n\nNo, Toc the Younger. I give you nothing but silence. And its torrid roar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Will you hear?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Will you listen?\n\nAny of you?\n\nShe had dwelt like a parasite deep in its entrails. She had seen, all around her, the broken remnants of some long abandoned promise, the broken clutter, the spilled fluids. But there had been heat, and a pulsing presence as if the very stone was alive-she should have understood the significance of such things, but her mind had been wallowing in its own darkness, a lifeless place of pointless regrets.\n\nStanding not six paces from the two gold-skinned foreigners, she had turned and, like them, looked with wonder, disbelieving.\n\nAmpelas Rooted.\n\nAmpelas Uprooted. The entire city, its massive, mountainous bulk, filled the northern sky. Its underside was a forest of twisted metal roots, from which drained rainbow rain as if even in pain it could bleed nothing but gifts. Yet, Kalyth could see its agony. It was canted to one side. It was surrounded by smoke and dust. Fissures rose from its base, like the broken knuckles of a god only moments from once again hammering the earth.\n\nShe could feel... something, a bristling core of will knotted in breathless pain. The Matron's? Could it be anyone else? Her blood flowed through the rock. Her lungs howled, winds shrieking between caverns. Her sweat glistened and ran like tears. She bled in a thousand places, bones splintering to vast, ever growing pressures.\n\nThe Matron, yes, but... there was no mind left inside that nightmare of oozing flesh.\n\nUprooted, this long-dead thing. Uprooted, a thousand upon a thousand generations of belief, faith, the solid iron of once immutable laws." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She defies every truth. She wills life into a corpse, and now it staggers across the sky.\n\n\"A sky keep,\" said the one named Gesler. \"Moon's Spawn-'\n\n\"But this one is bigger,\" said Stormy, clawing at his beard. \"If Tayschrenn could see this-\"\n\n\"If Rake had been commanding one of these-\"\n\nStormy grunted. \"Aye. He'd have flattened the High Mage like a cockroach under a thumb. And then he'd have done the same to the whole Hood-damned Malazan Empire.\"\n\n\"But look,\" said Gesler. \"It's in rough shape-not as ugly as Rake's rock, but it looks like it could comedown at anytime.\"\n\nKalyth could now seethe Furies marching beneath the Dragon Tower-the sky keep, yes, that is well named. Ve'Gath Soldiers in their thousands. K'ell Hunters well in advance of the legions and ranging out to the sides in looser formations. Behind the ranks of the Furies, drones struggled to pull enormous wagons groaning beneath towering loads.\n\n\"Look at the big ones,\" Gesler said. \"The heavies-gods below, one of those could rip a Kenyll'rah demon in half. '\n\nKalyth spoke. \"Mortal Sword, they are Ve'Gath, the soldiers of the K'Chain Che'Malle. No Matron has ever birthed so many. A hundred was deemed sufficient. Gunth'an Acyl has birthed more than fifteen thousand.\"\n\nThe man's amber eyes fixed on her.\"If Matrons could do that, why didn't they? They could be ruling this world right now.\"\n\n\"There was terrible... pain.\" She hesitated, and then said. \"Sanity was lost.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Soldiers like those,\" Stormy muttered, \"what ruler needs to be sane?\"\n\nKalyth grimaced. These two men were irreverent. They seemed to be fearless. They are the ones. But nothing insisted I must like them, or even understand them. No, they frighten meas much as the K'Chain Che'Malle do. \"She is dying.\"\n\nGesler rubbed at his face. \"No heir?\"\n\n\"Yes. One waits.\" She pointed. \"There, the two now drawing close. Gunth Mach, the One Daughter. Sag'Churok, her K'ell guardian.\" Then her breath caught as she saw the one trailing them, its motions smooth as oil. \"The one beyond, that is Bre'nigan, the Matron's own J'an Sentinel-something is wrong-he should not be here, he should beat her side. '\n\n\"What about those Assassins?\" Stormy asked, squinting skyward. \"Why ain't they showed-the one that snatched us-'\n\n\"I do not know, Shield Anvil.\" Something is wrong.\n\nThe two foreigners-they called themselves Malazans-backed away as Gunth Mach and Sag'Churok drew closer.\"Ges, what if they don't like the look of us?\"\n\n\"What do you think?\" Gesler snapped. \"We're dead, that's what.\"\n\n\"There is no danger,\" Kalyth assured them. Of course, I am sure Redmask believed the same.\n\nSag'Churok spoke in her mind.\"Destriant. The Matron is chained. '\n\nWhat?\n\n\"The two Shi'gal who remained in the Nest forged an alliance. They have eaten her forebrain and now command what remains of her. Through her body, they have uprooted Ampelas. But her flesh weakens-soon Ampelas will fail. We must find the enemy. We must find our war. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kalyth looked to Gunth Mach." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is she safe?\"\n\n\"She is.\"\n\n\"But... why?\"\n\n\"The Shi'gal see no future. The battle is the end. No future. The One Daughter is irrelevant. '\n\n\"And Gu'Rull? '\n\n\"Outlawed. Missing. Possibly dead-he sought to return, sought to defy, but was driven away. Bearing wounds.\"\n\nGesler cut in: \"You're speaking with this thing, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Yes. I am sorry. There are powers awake in me... flavours. The One Daughter... it is a gift.\"\n\nStormy said, \"If we're to lead this army of elephant-rapers-'\n\n\"Stormy-hold on!\" Gesler advanced on his companion, falling into their foreign language as he continued with a barrage of protestations.\n\nKalyth did not need to understand the words, as Stormy visibly set his heels, face flushing as if in deadly warning. This was a stubborn man, she could see, far more so than the Mortal Sword. Gesler railed at his friend, but nothing he said altered Stormy's stance. He said he had dreams. He has accepted this.\"She will share the flavours, \"Kalyth said to them.\"It is necessary-'\n\nStormy faced her. \"Those Ve'Gath, how fast are they? How smart? Can they answer to commands? Discipline? What sort of signalling do they heed? And who in Hood's name is the enemy?\"\n\nTo these questions, Kalyth shook her head. \"I have no answers. No knowledge. I can say nothing.\"\n\n\"Who can?\"\n\n\"Damn you, Stormy!\"\n\nThe big red-bearded man wheeled on his companion. \"Aye! You're the Mortal Sword-these are the questions you need to be asking, not me! Who's going to command here? You are, you stupid lump of dhenrabi shit! So stop lapdogging me and get on with it!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gesler's hands closed into fists and he took a half-step closer to Stormy.\"That's it,\" he growled. \"I'm going to crush your fathead, Stormy, and then I'm going to walkaway-\"\n\nStormy bared his teeth, squaring himself to await Gesler's charge.\n\nSag'Churok thumped between the two men, sword blades straightening out to the sides, the motion forcing the men apart, lest those notched edges find them. Snarling, Gesler spun round and marched off a dozen or so paces.\n\nGrinning, Stormy straightened. \"Give me those flavours, lizard. We got to talk.\"\n\n\"Not that one,\" Kalyth said. \"Gunth Mach is the one without swords. There-not the J'an, this one. Go to her. '\n\n\"Fine, and then what?\"\n\n\"Then... nothing. You will see.\"\n\nHe walked up to stand directly in front of Gunth Mach. Brave or stupid-I think I know which way Gesler would say. But she saw that Gesler, arms crossed, had turned to watch.\n\n\"Well? Gods, she stinks-\" He suddenly recoiled. \"Sorry, lizard,\" he mumbled, \"I didn't mean it. \"He wiped at his face, then held out his hand, scowling.\"I'm covered in something.\"\n\n\"Flavour,\" Kalyth said.\n\nGesler snorted. \"The lizard in your head now, Stormy? I don't believe it-if she'd done that she'd be running for the nearest cliff. '\n\n\"I ain't the one staying deliberately stupid, Ges. '\n\nGesler glared over at the approaching legions. \"Fine, tell me what they can do.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Support the writer by proceeding with the storyline.\nTags: epic fantasy, complex plot, multiple characters, dark themes, intricate world-building\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Dust of Dreams\nChapter: 39" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Happy for you,\" he said in a growl. \"But they needed you-both of you. The Bonehunters were in the Nah'ruk's path-what do you think happened to them?\"\n\nGrub's eyes widened.\n\nSinn walked up to the Ve'Gath and set a hand on its flank.\"I want one for myself, ' she said.\n\n\"Didn't you hear me, Sinn? Your brother-'\n\n\"Is probably dead. We were in the warrens-the new warrens. We were on the path, we could taste the blood-so fresh, so strong.\" She looked up at Gesler with bleak eyes. \"The Azath has sealed the wound.\"\n\n\"The Azath?\"\n\nShe shrugged, facing the tree of rock, its lone knot gripping Kalse Uprooted. She bared her teeth in something that might have been a smile.\n\n\"Who is in there, Sinn?\"\n\n\"He's gone. '\n\n\"Dead stone can't seal agate-not for long-even an Azath needs a life force, a living soul-'\n\nShe shot him a quick look. \"That's true. '\n\n\"So what seals it-if he's gone-'\n\n\"An eye.\"\n\n\"A what?\"\n\nKalyth spoke in the trader tongue. \"Mortal Sword, the One Daughter is now the Matron of Mach Nest. Bre'nigan stands as her J'an Sentinel. Sag'Churok is the bearer of the seed. She will speak to you now. '\n\nHe turned to face the K'Chain Che'Malle.\n\n\"Mortal Sword. The Shield Anvil returns. Shall we await him?\"\n\nDon't bother, Matron, it's not like he's smart or anything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can, even from this distance, breach the defences he has raised.\"\n\nDo that. He deserves the headache.\n\n\"Mortal Sword. Shield Anvil. Destriant. You three stand, you three are the mortal truths of my mother's faith. New beliefs are born. What is an eternity spent in sleep? What is this morning of our first awakening? We honour the blood of our kin spilled this day. We honour too the fallen Nah'ruk and pray that one day they will know the gift of forgiveness.\"\n\nYou must have seen it for yourself, Matron, Gesler said, that those Nah'ruk are bred down, past any hope of independent thought. Those sky keeps were old. They can repair, but they cannot make anything new. They are the walking dead, Matron. You can see it in their eyes.\n\nKalyth said, \"I believed I saw the same in your eyes, Mortal Sword.\"\n\nHe grunted and then sighed. Too tired for this. I have grieving to do. \"You might have been right, Destriant. But we shed things like that like snakeskin. You wear what you need to get through, that's all. '\n\n\"Then perhaps we can hope for the Nah'ruk. '\n\n\"Hope all you like. Sinn-can they burn another gate through?\"\n\n\"Not fora longtime,\" she replied, reaching down to collect up Roach. She cradled the foul thing in her arms, scratching it behind the ears.\n\nThe ugly rat's pink tongue slid in and out as it panted. Its eyes were demonic with witless malice.\n\nGesler shivered.\n\nThe Matron spoke: \"We are without a Nest. But the need must wait. Wounds must heal, flesh must be harvested. Mortal Sword, we now pledge ourselves to you. We now serve. Among your friends, there will be survivors. We shall find them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gesler shook his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We led your army, Matron. We had our battle, but it's over now. You don't owe us anything. And whatever your mother believed, she never asked us, did she? Me and Stormy, we're not priests. We're soldiers and nothing more. Those titles you gave us-well, we're shedding that skin too. '\n\nStormy's voice rumbled through his mind,\"Same for me, Matron. We can find our friends on our own-you need a city to build, or maybe some other Rooted you can find. Besides, we got Grub and Sinn, and Bent here-gods, he's almost wagging that stub of a tail and I ain't never seen that before. Must be all the gore on his face. '\n\nKalyth laughed, even as tears streamed down her lined cheeks. \"You two-you cannot shed your titles. They are branded upon your souls-will you just leave me here?\"\n\n\"You're welcome to come with us, ' said Gesler.\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"East, I think.\"\n\nThe woman flinched.\n\n\"You're from there, aren't you? Kalyth?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she whispered. \"Elan. But the Elan are no more. I am the last. Mortal Sword, you must not choose that direction. You will die-all of you.\" She pointed at Grub and Sinn. \"Even them.\"\n\nThe Matron said, \"Then we seethe path before us. We shall guard you all. Ve'Gath. K'ell. J'an. Gu'Rull who still lives, still serves. We shall be your guardians. It is the new way our mother foresaw. The path of our rebirth.\n\n\"Humans, welcome us. The K'Chain Che'Malle have returned to the world.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sulkit heard her words and something stirred within her. She had been a J'an Sentinel in the time of her master's need, but her master was gone, and now she was a Matron in her own right.\n\nThe time had not yet come when she would make herself known. Old seeds grew within her: the firstborn would be weak, but that could not be helped. In time, vigour would return.\n\nHer master was gone. The throne was empty, barring alone eye, embedded in the headrest. She was alone within Kalse.\n\nLife was bleeding into the Rooted's stone. Strange, alien life. Its flesh and bone was rock. Its mind and soul was the singular imposition of belief. But then, what else are any of us? She would think on this matter.\n\nHe was gone. She was alone. But all was well.\n\n\"I have lost him. Again. We were so close, but now... gone.\"\n\nWith these words the trek staggered to a halt, as if in Mappo's private loss all other desires had withered, blown away.\n\nThe twins had closed on the undead wolf. Faint had a fear that death had somehow addicted them to its hoary promise. They spoke of Toc. They closed small fingers tight in the ratty fur of Baaljagg. The boy slept in Gruntle's arms-now who could have predicted that bond? No matter, there was something in that huge man that made her think he should have been a father a hundred times by now-to the world's regret, since he was not anything of the sort.\n\nNo, Gruntle had broken loves behind him. Hardly unique, of course, but in that man the loss belonged to everyone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ah, I think I just yearn for his shadow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Me and half the lasses here. Oh well. Silly Faint.\n\nSetoc, who had been conversing with Cartographer, now walked over.\n\n\"The storm to the south's not getting any closer-we have that, at least. '\n\nFaint rubbed the back of her neck and winced at the pressure. \"Could have done with the rain.\"\n\n\"If there was rain.\"\n\nShe glanced at the girl. \"Saw you meet Gruntle's eyes awhile back. A look passed between you when we were talking about that storm. So, outwith it. '\n\n\"It was a battle, not a storm. Sorcery, and worse. But now it's over. '\n\n\"Who was fighting, Setoc?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"It's faraway. We don't have to go there.\"\n\n\"Seems like we're not going anywhere right now. '\n\n\"We will. For now, let's leave him be, ' she said, eyes on Mappo, who stood a short distance away, motionless as a statue-as he had been for sometime.\n\nAmby had been walking alongside the horse-drawn travois carrying his brother-Jula was still close to death. Precious Thimble's healing was a paltry thing. The Wastelands could not feed her magic, she said. There was still the chance that Jula would die. Amby knelt, shading his brother's face with one hand. He suddenly looked very young.\n\nSetoc walked back to the horse.\n\nSighing, Faint looked around.\n\nAnd saw a rider approaching. \"Company,\" she said, loud enough to catch everyone's attention. All but Mappo reacted, turning or rising and following her gaze." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From Setoc: \"I know him!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That's Torrent! '\n\nMore lost souls to this pathetic party. Welcome.\n\nA single flickering fire marked the camp, and occasionally a figure passed in front of it. The wind carried no sound from those gathered there. Among the travellers, sorrow and joy, grief and the soft warmth of newborn love. So few mortals, and yet all of life was there, ringing the fire.\n\nFaint jade light limned the broken ground, as if darkness itself could be painted into a mockery of life. The rider who sat upon a motionless, unbreathing horse, was silent, feeling like a creature too vast to approach any shore-he could look on with one dead eye or the other dead eye. He could remember what it was like to be a living thing among other living things.\n\nThe heat, the promise, the uncertainties and all the hopes to sweeten the bitterest seas.\n\nBut that shore was forever beyond him now.\n\nThey could feel the warmth of that fire. He could not. And never again.\n\nThe figure that rose from the dust beside him said nothing fora time, and when she spoke it was in the spirit language-her voice beyond the ears of the living. \"We all do as we must, Herald.\"\n\n\"What you have done, Olar Ethil...\"\n\n\"It is too easy to forget.\"\n\n\"Forget what?\"\n\n\"The truth of the T'lan Imass. Did you know, a fool once wept for them? '\n\n\"I was there. I saw the man's barrow-the gifts... '\n\n\"The most horrid of creatures-human and otherwise-are so easily, so carelessly recast. Mad murderers become heroes. The insane wear the crown of geniuses. Fools flower in endless fields, Herald, where history once walked.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What is your point, bonecaster?\"\n\n\"The T'lan Imass. Slayers of Children from the very beginning. Too easy to forget. Even the Imass themselves, the First Sword himself, needed reminding. You all needed reminding. '\n\n\"To what end?\"\n\n\"Why do you not go to them, Toc the Younger?\"\n\n\"I cannot.\"\n\n\"No,\" she nodded, \"you cannot. The pain is too great. The loss you feel.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he whispered.\n\n\"Nor should they yield love to you, should they? Any of them. The children...\"\n\n\"They should not, no.\"\n\n\"Because, Toc the Younger, you are the brother of Onos T'oolan. His true brother now. And for all the mercy that once dwelt in your mortal heart, only ghosts remain. They must not love you. They must not believe in you. For you are not the man you once were. '\n\n\"Did you think I needed reminding, too, Olar Ethil?\"\n\n\"I think... yes.\"\n\nShe was right. He felt inside for the pain he'd thought-he'd believed-he had lived with for so long. As if lived was even the right word. When he found it, he saw at last its terrible truth. A ghost. A memory. I but wore its guise.\n\nThe dead have found me.\n\nI have found the dead.\n\nAnd we are the same.\n\n\"Where will you go now, Toc the Younger?\"\n\nHe gathered the reins of his horse and looked back at the distant fire. It was a spark. It would not last the night. \"Away.\"\n\nSnow drifted down, the sky was at peace." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The figure on the throne had been frozen, lifeless, fora long, longtime.\n\nA fine shedding of dust from the corpse marked that something had changed. Ice then crackled. Steam rose from flesh slowly thickening with life. The hands, gripping the arms of the throne, suddenly twitched, fingers uncurling.\n\nLight flickered in its pitted eyes.\n\nAnd, looking out from mortal flesh once more, Hood, who had once been the Lord of Death, found arrayed before him fourteen Jaghut warriors. They stood in the midst of frozen corpses, weapons out but lowered or resting across shoulders.\n\nOne spoke. \"What was that war again?\"\n\nThe others laughed.\n\nThe first one continued, \"Who was that enemy?\"\n\nThe laughter this time was louder, longer.\n\n\"Who was our commander?\"\n\nHeads rocked back and the thirteen roared with mirth.\n\nThe first speaker shouted, \"Does he live? Do we?\"\n\nHood slowly rose from the throne, melted ice streaming down his blackened hide. He stood, and eventually the laughter fell away. He took one step forward, and then another.\n\nThe fourteen warriors did not move.\n\nHood lowered to one knee, head bowing. \"I seek... penance.\"\n\nA warrior far to the right said, \"Gathras, he seeks penance. Do you hear that?\"\n\nThe first speaker replied. \"I do, Sanad.\"\n\n\"Shall we give it, Gathras?\" another asked.\n\n\"Varandas, I believe we shall.\"\n\n\"Gathras.\"\n\n\"Yes, Haut?\"\n\n\"What was that war again?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Jaghut howled.\n\nThe Errant was lying on wet stone, on his back, unconscious, the socket of one eye a pool of blood.\n\nKilmandaros, breathing hard, stepped close to look down upon him. \"Will he live?\"\n\nSechul Lath was silent fora moment, and then he sighed. \"Live is such a strange word. We know nothing else, after all. Not truly. Not... intimately.\"\n\n\"But will he?\"\n\nSechul turned away. \"I suppose so.\" He halted suddenly, cocked his head and then snorted. \"Just what he always wanted.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"He's got an eye on a Gate. '\n\nHer laughter rumbled in the cavern, and when it faded she turned to Sechul and said, \"I am ready to free the bitch. Beloved son, is it time to end the world?\"\n\nFace hidden from her view, Sechul Lath closed his eyes. Then said, \"Why not?\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Co-write with the author and continue the story.\nTags: urban fantasy, detective, werewolves, magic, action\nAuthor: Jim Butcher\nTitle: Fool Moon\nChapter: 36" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The weird thing was that the film just vanished after two days. No one knew what happened to it, but the film technician in the room with the exclusive WGN Channel Nine videotape disappeared, too, leaving only a few scattered and low-quality copies. A couple of days later, some experts spoke up claiming that the tape had to be fake, and decrying it as a simple hoax perpetrated by a tabloid.\n\nSome people just can't deal with the thought of the supernatural being real. Federal government is like that, a lot. But I'm thinking that if anyone in the government did believe, they would just as soon not have had proof of the existence of werewolves and the instability of a local FBI agent showing at five, six, and ten.\n\nThe film's disappearance didn't stop Susan from getting a promotion at the Arcane, a big raise, and a guest slot on the Larry King show, plus a few other places. She looked good doing it, too, and made people think. She's getting her column syndicated. Maybe, in a few hundred years, people might actually be willing to consider what was real in the world with an open mind.\n\nBut I doubted it.\n\nI didn't call Susan fora while, after she had seen me so far gone into being a monster that I might as well have been one. She didn't pressure me, but kept her presence known. She'd send me flowers, sometimes, or have a pizza delivered to my office when I was working late. Hell of a girl.\n\nTera was badly injured, but recovered thanks to her own reversion to human form, and Murphy's quick first aid. She asked me to meet her at Wolf Lake Parka few weeks later, and when I showed up, she was there, wearing just along black cloak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I wished to tell you that what you did was necessary. And I wished to tell you good-bye,\" she said. And slipped the cloak off. She was naked, with a few new, wrinkled scars. \"Good-bye.\"\n\n\"Where will you go?\" I asked.\n\nShe tilted those odd amber eyes at me. \"I have family,\" she said. \"I have not seen them in along time. I will return to them now.\"\n\n\"Maybe you'll call, sometime?\"\n\nHer eyes sparkled, and she smiled at me, a little sadly. \"No, Harry Dresden. That is not the way of my kind. Come to the great mountains in the Northwest one winter. Perhaps I will be there.\" And then she shimmered into the shape of a great timber wolf, and vanished into the sunset.\n\nAll those people shape-shifting into wolves, and I had never once considered the possibility of a wolf shape-shifting into a person. I picked up Tera's cloak, musing, and took it home with me, as a reminder to keep my mind even more open to the realms of possibility.\n\nThe Alphas decided that I'm about the greatest thing since sliced bread. Which isn't exactly the most thrilling thing in the world for me. They asked me to a campout with them, which I reluctantly attended, where all dozen-odd young people swore friendship and loyalty tome, and where I spent a lot of time blinking and trying to say nothing. They're just itching for me to lead them in some meaningful crusade against evil. Hell, I have trouble just paying the bills.\n\nWhen I took sometime to think about all that had happened, I couldn't help but think that the last several months had been a little too crazy for coincidence. First, a power-drunk warlock had appeared out of nowhere, and I had to duke it outwith him in his own stronghold before he murdered me outright. And then, Denton and his people showed up with enchanted wolf belts and raised hell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I never had found out who exactly was behind the warlock who showed up the previous spring. Black wizards don't just grow up like toadstools, you know. Someone has to teach them complicated things like summoning demons, ritual magic, and clichéd villain dialogue. Who had been his teacher?\n\nAnd Denton and company had shown up six months later. Someone had provided them with those belts. Someone had warned Denton that I was dangerous, that I or someone like me from the Council would go after him. And by telling him that, they had pointed him at me like a gun, determined to kill me.\n\nI'm not much of a believer in coincidence. Could it have been one of my enemies on the White Council? One of the beings of the Nevernever who had come to hate me? I was on the list of a number of nasty things, for one reason or another.\n\n\"You know what?\" I told Mister one night in front of the fire. \"Maybe I've finally gone around the bend, but I think someone might be trying to kill me.\"\n\nMister looked up at me, his feline features filled with a supreme lack of concern, and rolled over so that I could rub his tummy. I did, pensive and comfortable before the fire, and thought about who it might be. And then thought that I might begetting a little stir-crazy. I hadn't gone anywhere but to work and back home fora couple of weeks. Too much work and no play makes Harry a paranoid boy.\n\nI reached for the phone and started spinning the dial to Susan's number. Mister batted at my hand approvingly.\n\n\"Or maybe I'm just too stupid to get out of trouble's way, eh?\"\n\nMister rumbled a deep, affirmative purr in his chest. I settled back to ask Susan over, and enjoyed the warmth of the fire." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Take the role of the writer's aide, proceed with the narrative.\nTags: techno-thriller, AI, revolution, cyber warfare, dystopian\nAuthor: Daniel Suarez\nTitle: Freedom\nChapter: 45" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And suddenly Sebeck heard a chime. He looked to see a gold-colored Thread wind away from him, leading north, toward the distant horizon. \"Price!\"\n\n\"I'm right here, man.\"\n\n\"We need to find our gear. Now.\"\n\n\"Can't it wait?\"\n\n\"No. We've got to leave right away.\"\n\n\"To where?\"\n\nSebeck was already pushing through the crowd. \"To the Cloud Gate.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chapter 39: // End Game\n\nReuters. com Global Blackout Linked to Bankrupt Financial Groups-The FBI has conducted dozens of raids and made hundreds of arrests at prestigious brokerage houses and investment banks in connection with last night's sweeping power outages.\n\nReuters. com\n\nGlobal Blackout Linked to Bankrupt Financial Groups-The FBI has conducted dozens of raids and made hundreds of arrests at prestigious brokerage houses and investment banks in connection with last night's sweeping power outages.\n\nPete Sebeck's final Thread led him north to Houston, and then east toward a once bustling container port at Morgan's Point, Texas. The glowing, golden line ran toward a massive shipping container facility that lay alongside a stretch of shipping channel named Barbour's Cut.\n\nIn recent days the dollar had slowly begun to rise from its historic low-no doubt in large part from Sobol's vengeance against the plutocrats. But as Sebeck brought their newly assigned Lincoln Town Car through the vast industrial wasteland and utterly subjugated landscape of Morgan's Point, he wondered if this place would ever thrive again. The days often-thousand-mile supply chains might have gone for good.\n\nHe turned to see Laney Price sitting in the front seat next to him, wolfing down chicken nuggets and sipping a jumbo soda. Sebeck just laughed and shook his head.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"You have no sense of irony, Laney. Do you know that?\"\n\n\"I told you, I was hungry.\"\n\n\"Well, I guess you've earned the right to eat crap.\"\n\nA female voice came from the backseat. \"Leave him alone, Sergeant. Each of us celebrates in our own way.\"\n\n\"She's right, Pete.\"\n\nPhilips turned to Jon Ross. Their look lingered longer than necessary." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Price scowled. \"What the hell kind of name is \"Ivan Borovich,\" anyway? I just got used to calling you Jon.\"\n\n\"Call me whatever you like, Laney. I won't be listening anyway.\"\n\nPhilips leaned against Ross. \"I like the name Ivan.\"\n\nPrice chuckled and spoke in a Russian accent. \"Yeah, I'm sure the NSA will like Ivan, too.\"\n\nPhilips waved him off. \"Defending the U. S. government against a hostile takeover should be worth a green card.\"\n\n\"I don't know. I hear the requirements are getting tougher.\" Sebeck slowed the car. \"Here we go....\"\n\n\"We're there?\"\n\n\"No, but I think were running out of land pretty quickly on this peninsula.\"\n\nThey were now heading down along a wide concrete road apparently made to deal with a high volume of container truck traffic. The traffic seemed much reduced. They had the place mostly to themselves-although a veritable skyline of multicolored shipping containers rose to their left across several lanes of highway.\n\nPhilips studied them. \"What is the Daemon's fascination with shipping containers?\"\n\nRoss looked as well. \"They helped spread the consumer culture virus to every corner of the world. It's no wonder the Daemon found them useful.\"\n\nSebeck slowed the car again as they came alongside a truck yard, and he turned across the highway to a frontage road.\n\nPrice nodded. \"A container yard. You're going to open a container that contains something. Something Sobol sent to himself. Or-\"\n\n\"Price, would you please? I can't hear myself think.\"\n\n\"Then think louder, man.\"\n\nSebeck pulled into a driveway that surprised everyone. Ashe followed the golden Thread down the narrow lane, they all gazed through the windshield." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ross looked puzzled. \"A cemetery? In the middle of all this?\"\n\nBefore them stood a rusted metal sign that read MORGAN'S POINT CEMETERY. The parcel was perhaps a couple of acres in size, and stood at the end of along drive that placed it in the middle of a massive container yard. It was surrounded on three-and very nearly four-sides by towering container stacks. However, the driveway and the cemetery beyond looked green. Trees and shrubs covered the grounds, and a barbed-wire fence separated it from the surrounding shipyard.\n\nSebeck sighed. \"Well, this is where it's leading me.\" He came to a stop in a small, empty parking lot. Everyone got out and glanced around.\n\n\"This place is positively surrounded.\" Philips gazed up at all the containers looming above them.\n\nPrice pointed at the names on the sides of the center container in each wall. In big blue sans serif letters was the word'HORAE\" painted along the corrugated steel. \"Sergeant. Just like Riley told us.\" He turned to Philips. \"Doctor, you've read some Greek mythology, yes?\"\n\n\"Yes, quite a bit. In native Greek.\"\n\n\"Prove to us you are deadly boring: what are the Horae in Greek mythology?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"They were the three goddesses who controlled orderly life. Daughters of Themis. The word means \"the correct moment.\" And the earliest mention is in the Iliad, where they appear as keepers of the cloud gates.\"\n\nPrice just threw up his hands. \"Well that's pretty damned impressive.\"\n\n\"Is it a code?\"\n\nRoss stood alongside her. \"Oran arrangement, perhaps. Like tumblers in a lock.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You mean these containers need to be arranged precisely like this to unlock something?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"You tell me, Doctor. You're the code breaker.\"\n\nSebeck was already walking forward. \"It's no code. It's symbolism. And as you know by now, Sobol's worlds are chock-full of symbols.\"\n\nPrice followed. Ross waited for Philips, and soon they were all walking down a cracked sidewalk toward an ornate, wrought-iron gate. It, too, was somewhat rusted, but the iconography of the gate was unmistakable-three female guardians holding long spears loomed in bas-relief on either side, wreathed in ironwork clouds. The gate was closed.\n\nAs Sebeck approached the gate, D-Space avatars of three towering female forms in robes and enclosed, plumed helms materialized from the shadows, holding tall golden spears.\n\nPhilips looked puzzled as all three men in the group backed away from the shadows. \"What is it?\"\n\nRoss held her hand and tapped his HUD glasses. \"Female avatars. The Horae, I gather.\"\n\nOne of them spoke in a booming female voice. \"Only the quest-taker may pass through the gates.\"\n\nPrice held up his hands. \"No problemo.\"\n\nRoss nodded. \"I guess we'll wait for you here, Sergeant.\"\n\nSebeck glanced to Price as he stood with his hand on the gate.\n\n\"You know, Laney, I don't think I would have made it here without you.\"\n\nPrice shrugged. \"Well, let's wait to see if it's good or bad before you go thanking me.\"\n\nSebeck shook his head and entered the gate. It closed and locked behind him with an audible click." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ashe continued to follow the golden Thread along the cemetery path, he noticed the graves were widely spaced. It was more like a shady garden-albeit one with colorful shipping containers as a backdrop.\n\nBefore long Sebeck's path brought him to another D-Space apparition: a young, healthy-looking Matthew Sobol, sitting on a stone bench beneath a tree. There was an identical bench across from him.\n\nAs Sebeck approached, this younger, healthier Sobol nodded to him in greeting. \"Detective. I'm very happy that you're here.\"\n\nSebeck couldn't get over how vibrant and healthy Sobol looked, with his tousled hair, khakis, crisp button-down shirt, and suit jacket. He looked the very image of a successful man with his whole life ahead of him.\n\n\"Please, join me.\" The avatar gestured to the open seat.\n\nSebeck swept off some leaves and dirt and sat.\n\n\"You might be wondering why I look different from the way I will... or did... earlier.\" He sat back in his seat. \"It's because I started here at the end. Where you are now. I have no idea where here is or now is at the moment. But I did know that if I started from the end of the story and moved to the beginning, then the Daemon couldn't begin unless it was complete. So really, your beginning is my end, and my end is your beginning.\"\n\nSobol gazed directly at Sebeck's eyes. \" When I realized what our world had become, how humanity had become cogs in its own machine, I resolved to do something terrible... perhaps one of the worse things ever done. To exploit the automation of our world in order to plant the seed of anew system is reckless and irresponsible. But I didn't see any other way we would change. Or could change." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But now that humans have accomplished this quest, and you have arrived to tell me of their success, the question I need to ask you is this: was I right or wrong, Sergeant? Should I destroy the Daemon? Should I undo everything I've done? Yes, or no?\"\n\nSebeck felt the shock work through him. He was speechless.\n\n\"You of all people would know, Sergeant. Should the Daemon be ended? Yes, or no? I will wait for your answer.\"\n\nSebeck took a deep breath and looked back toward the gate. He could see no one. Just himself and this long-dead genius-madman. He sat recalling the entirety of his journey, from the point he received the Sobol murder case up to this very day. It had been years. He thought of his lost wife, Laura, and their son, Chris. Of his colleagues and friends who were dead or to whom he was now dead. He recalled all the people he had met who were building new lives on the Daemon's darknet, and all the people who had perished in its birth-and in its defense. A procession of faces came to him. What was society, after all, but a group of people making up rules. At least on the darknet, it was a large group of people making up the rules instead of a small one.\n\nSobol had waited patiently, but when Sebeck met his gaze again, the avatar repeated the question. \"Should I destroy the Daemon, Sergeant?\"\n\nSebeck took a deep breath. Then shook his head. \"No.\"\n\n\"Let me confirm your answer. Should I destroy the Daemon? Yes or no?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nThere was a flicker in the image, and Sobol looked grimly relieved. He gazed directly at Sebeck again. \"You don't know how much I dream for this to be the ending. There are so many ways for it to end. If you're really there, Sergeant, good luck to you. Good luck to you all. And don't be afraid of change. It's the only thing that can save us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sobol stood, nodded farewell, and walked toward the nearby gardens. Ina few moments he vanished into thin air.\n\nSebeck satin the garden for an unknowable time by himself, contemplating what had just occurred. Until finally he received an alert in his HUD display. It was from a network handle he was too afraid to recognize. He read it over and over: Chris_Sebeck\n\nAfter bracing himself, he opened the message and read it slowly...\n\nDad, I sent you this message triggered to open when you're ready for it. I know the truth, and can't wait to see you. Your son, Chris.\n\nDad, I sent you this message triggered to open when you're ready for it. I know the truth, and can't wait to see you. Your son, Chris.\n\nSebeck felt the tears come forth from him-coming from someplace he thought hadn't existed in his heart. He had a family. He was a father.\n\nHe was going home...." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chapter 40: // Exit Strategy\n\nIt had taken over a century for Sky Ranch to evolve from the ancestral home of a wealthy family into the heavily fortified executive retreat and End-Times bunker complex it ultimately became. However, The Major knew these things didn't happen overnight. They accrued in layers over decades-and so they had secrets.\n\nIt was knowing those secrets that set The Major apart from his colleagues. He planned for the worst, and was seldom disappointed. His brand of'black sky thinking\" had kept him alive on more than one occasion when all around him had perished. Even now as he looked through a 1960s-era periscope at the cleaned-out storage rooms beyond his secret hiding place, he realized that, once again, paranoia had prevailed.\n\nIt had been ten days since Sobol's Daemon had bankrupted the merchant princes of the world. Ten days since thousands of darknet operatives had scoured the five-star luxury survivalist lodge that was Sky Ranch. They'd cleaned out the warehouses and store-rooms, dismantled the weapon systems, and raided the vaults. They'd gone through the floor plans and databases to find everything there was to find.\n\nBut they didn't see The Major's Cold War hiding spot on the blueprints. Rumor had it that the room was a tryst location fora philandering banker-built to Cold War bomb shelter standards to mask its true purpose in the books and to muffle loud music. The entrance was concealed to keep out the uninvited.\n\nTrue story or not, the place looked a lot like the swinging pad of a midcentury banker-long sofas, bar, pool table, and card tables. It was also musty, covered in dust, and unaccountably cold. But it had kept him alive. Living on canned goods gleaned from the storage room outside before he closed himself in, The Major once more checked the periscope. All was quiet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd grown a slight beard over the past few days and wore a hooded sweatshirt and jeans pilfered from the nearby laundry. He opened the heavy door and listened. He heard nothing.\n\nHe turned up the hood and poked his head out, looking both ways. There was daylight coming through an open fire-exit door at the corner of the room, wagging in the wind. Trash skittered around the floor with each breeze.\n\nDisarray. A good sign.\n\nHe shouldered his scoped Masada rifle, then grabbed his day-pack of canned provisions and water in liquor bottles, and took one more precautionary glance before exiting the bomb shelter. He got to the open fire door and peeked through the gap between the hinge and the door.\n\nIt was a cloudy day, but he cursed under his breath as he saw what obviously were darknet sentries still moving about on the walkways near the main house. One of them wore the telltale armor of a Daemon champion. They were all carrying darknet weaponry. There was noway he could exit unseen. And night would be no better, since he knew they'd have night vision. In fact, he'd beat a disadvantage.\n\nThe Major remained calm. He reached into his pack and produced a pair of quality HUD glasses along with spooled wire that led to an electronic enclosure.\n\nIn the closing days of Operation Exorcist, the Weyburn Labs team had made significant progress cracking into the encrypted Daemon darknet. Partial credit was due, of course, to Dr. Natalie Philips for her work at Building Twenty-Nine-where she proved the concept of darknet identity theft. But in order to use this network, they needed to own it. They had been well on their way to doing that-and The Major might soon be again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His researchers had advanced past the need to keep a darknet operative medically alive in order to spoof them-they'd done better." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They digitized the biometric data and created a unit that injected it into the standard darknet HUD glass sensors, replete with pulse sensor. All that was needed to steal a darknet operative's identity with this system was their biometric data-fingerprints, iris scan, voice.\n\nAnd The Major had given just that to the lab team.\n\nAshe powered up the unit and slipped the glasses on, he became Loki Stormbringer. He suddenly saw the HUD display first-person, instead of on a projection screen, and he saw darknet objects moving in a plane of augmented reality. They were allover the place. This was going to be a very interesting new world.\n\nHe walked with purpose out the storeroom door, ignoring the guards, and then kept walking briskly toward the distant guest bungalows. He gauged the houses were two miles away across slightly unkempt gardens and uncut lawns.\n\nHe kept his back turned to the guards and just kept walking. As the minutes ticked away and he estimated he was hundreds of yards from the main house, he felt the tension draining from him. He looked up at the sky with his new glasses.\n\nHe saw the call-outs of surveillance drones up there, thousands of feet in the sky. But he was one of them now. A member of the darknet. He also had four hundred thousand euros in his bag. It would be much needed since his accounts had all been emptied by Sobol's Daemon. If only he hadn't been greedy. But he still had some safe-deposit boxes in Zurich and Dubai.\n\nAnd he could now steal all the darknet identities he needed. He suddenly frowned at Loki's reputation score. It looked surprisingly like a half-star out of five. And what was this? It now looked like Loki was only a tenth-level Sorcerer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What the hell?\n\nNo matter. This was only a temporary identity. The sky was the limit now. He was almost to the bungalows, and he could either head out on foot for the power station or try to obtain a vehicle legitimately from the darknet.\n\nHe risked a glance behind him, but there was no one insight any longer. He was more than a mile from the main house.\n\nHe kept walking and chuckled to himself. Once he was clear of this place, he knew some hackers who could make very good use of this darknet identity theft technology. Very good use.\n\n\"Excuse me, Major.\"\n\nThe Major stopped cold. The voice came from right behind him.\n\nThe Major clicked the safety on his Masada rifle and spun around even as he crouched. Then, in utter astonishment, he slowly came to his feet again.\n\n\"It is \"Ze Major,\" is it not?\"\n\nOnly a few feet away, impossibly, stood a spectral image of a Nazi officer in a full black trench coat, monocle, and filter cigarette. He looked real, except for the fact he was a ghost. The Major was so stunned he kept the gun aimed at the ghost's head.\n\nIt knew who he was.\n\n\"I zought I recognized you.\" The apparition tapped his cheek just under the eye. \"From your eyes. I can tell zees zings.\" He took a deep dragon his cigarette. \"My name is Heinrich Boerner.\" He started taking off his leather gloves as he spoke.\n\nMeanwhile, around him, The Major heard arising whine, like electric motors. He turned to see a line of razorbacks coming over the grass toward him. Why hadn't he heard them?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fuck!\" He turned to run and saw another row of razorbacks moving toward him from the bungalows-like lions approaching in deep grass. There were at least a dozen closing in from all directions. He opened fire with the Masada. The bullets whined off the in front cowlings harmlessly, and the machines all unfolded their swords as they advanced across the grass on electrical power.\n\nSoon The Major's gun was empty. And there right next to him was Boerner, smoking calmly.\n\nBoerner began to remove his heavy leather coat. \"Your guns are qvite useless, Major. Zis is an unstoppable event. Struggle vill only prolong ze inefitable.\"\n\nNow the razorbacks were all around The Major-trapping him in a circle of swords.\n\nThe razorback nearest Boerner raised one sword, and Boerner hung his leather jacket upon it. He rolled up his shirtsleeves and grinned at The Major.\n\n\"I do so enjoy my vork....\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "In partnership with the author, move the story forward.\nTags: science, cosmology, time, entropy, theoretical physics\nAuthor: Sean Carroll\nTitle: From Eternity to Here\nChapter: 4" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "PART ONE\n\nTIME, EXPERIENCE, AND THE UNIVERSE" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "THE PAST IS PRESENT MEMORY\n\n-St. Augustine, Confessions\n\nThe next time you find yourself in a bar, or on an airplane, or standing inline at the Department of Motor Vehicles, you can pass the time by asking the strangers around you how they would define the word time. That's what I started doing, anyway, as part of my research for this book. You'll probably hear interesting answers: \"Time is what moves us along through life,\" \"Time is what separates the past from the future,\" \"Time is part of the universe,\" and more along those lines. My favorite was'Time is how we know when things happen.\"\n\nAll of these concepts capture some part of the truth. We might struggle to put the meaning of'time\" into words, but like St. Augustine we nevertheless manage to deal with time pretty effectively in our everyday lives. Most people know how to read a clock, how to estimate the time it will take to drive to work or make a cup of coffee, and how to manage to meet their friends for dinner at roughly the appointed hour. Even if we can't easily articulate what exactly it is we mean by'time,\" its basic workings make sense at an intuitive level.\n\nLike a Supreme Court justice confronted with obscenity, we know time when we see it, and for most purposes that's good enough. But certain aspects of time remain deeply mysterious. Do we really know what the word means?\n\nWHAT WE MEAN BY TIME\n\nThe world does not present us with abstract concepts wrapped up with pretty bows, which we then must work to understand and reconcile with other concepts. Rather, the world presents us with phenomena, things that we observe and make note of, from which we must then work to derive concepts that help us understand how those phenomena relate to the rest of our experience. For subtle concepts such as entropy, this is pretty clear. You don't walk down the street and bump into some entropy; you have to observe a variety of phenomena in nature and discern a pattern that is best thought of in terms of anew concept you label'entropy.\" Armed with this helpful new concept, you observe even more phenomena, and you are inspired to refine and improve upon your original notion of what entropy really is." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For an idea as primitive and indispensable as'time,\" the fact that we invent the concept rather than having it handed to us by the universe is less obvious-time is something we literally don't know how to live without. Nevertheless, part of the task of science (and philosophy) is to take our intuitive notion of a basic concept such as'time\" and turn it into something rigorous. What we find along the way is that we haven't been using this word in a single unambiguous fashion; it has a few different meanings, each of which merits its own careful elucidation.\n\nTime comes in three different aspects, all of which are going to be important to us.\n\nAt first glance, these all sound somewhat similar. Time labels moments, it measures duration, and it moves from past to future-sure, nothing controversial about any of that. But as we dig more deeply, we'll see how these ideas don't need to be related to one another-they represent logically independent concepts that happen to be tightly intertwined in our actual world. Why that is so? The answer matters more than scientists have tended to think.\n\n1. Time labels moments in the universe\n\nJohn Archibald Wheeler, an influential American physicist who coined the term black hole, was once asked how he would define'time.\" After thinking fora while, he came up with this: \"Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once.\"\n\nThere is a lot of truth there, and more than a little wisdom. When we ordinarily think about the world, not as scientists or philosophers but as people getting through life, we tend to identify'the world\" as a collection of things, located in various places. Physicists combine all of the places together and label the whole collection'space,\" and they have different ways of thinking about the kinds of things that exist in space-atoms, elementary particles, quantum fields, depending on the context. But the underlying idea is the same. You're sitting in a room, there are various pieces of furniture, some books, perhaps food or other people, certainly some air molecules-the collection of all those things, everywhere from nearby to the far reaches of intergalactic space, is'the world.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And the world changes. We find objects in some particular arrangement, and we also find them in some other arrangement. (It's very hard to craft a sensible sentence along those lines without referring to the concept of time.) But we don't seethe different configurations'simultaneously,\" or'at once.\" We see one configuration-here you are on the sofa, and the cat is in your lap-and then we see another configuration-the cat has jumped off your lap, annoyed at the lack of attention while you are engrossed in your book. So the world appears to us again and again, in various configurations, but these configurations are somehow distinct. Happily, we can label the various configurations to keep straight which is which-Miss Kitty is walking away'now\"; she was on your lap'then.\" That label is time.\n\nSo the world exists, and what is more, the world happens, again and again. In that sense, the world is like the different frames of a film reel-a film whose camera view includes the entire universe. (There are also, as far as we can tell, an infinite number of frames, infinitesimally separated.) But of course, a film is much more than a pile of individual frames. Those frames better be in the right order, which is crucial for making sense of the movie. Time is the same way. We can say much more than'that happened,\" and'that also happened,\" and'that happened, too.\" We can say that this happened before that happened, and the other thing is going to happen after. Time isn't just a label on each instance of the world; it provides a sequence that puts the different instances in order.\n\nAreal film, of course, doesn't include the entire universe within its field of view. Because of that, movie editing typically involves'cuts\"-abrupt jumps from one scene or camera angle to another. Imagine a movie in which every single transition between two frames was a cut to a completely different scene. When shown through a projector, it would be incomprehensible-on the screen it would look like random static. Presumably there is some French avant-garde film that has already used this technique." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The real universe is not an avant-garde film. We experience a degree of continuity through time-if the cat is on your lap now, there might be some danger that she will stalk off, but there is little worry that she will simply dematerialize into nothingness one moment later. This continuity is not absolute, at the microscopic level; particles can appear and disappear, or at least transform under the right conditions into different kinds of particles. But there is not a wholesale rearrangement of reality from moment to moment.\n\nThis phenomenon of persistence allows us to think about'the world\" in a different way. Instead of a collection of things distributed through space that keep changing into different configurations, we can think of the entire history of the world, or any particular thing in it, in one fell swoop. Rather than thinking of Miss Kitty as a particular arrangement of cells and fluids, we can think of her entire life stretching through time, from birth to death. The history of an object (a cat, a planet, an electron) through time defines its world line-the trajectory the object takes through space as time passes. 3 The world line of an object is just the complete set of positions the object has in the world, labeled by the particular time it was in each position.\n\nFigure 1: The world, ordered into different moments of time. Objects (including people and cats) persist from moment to moment, defining world lines that stretch through time.\n\nFinding ourselves\n\nThinking of the entire history of the universe all at once, rather than thinking of the universe as a set of things that are constantly moving around, is the first step toward thinking of time as'kind of like space,\" which we will examine further in the chapters to come. We use both time and space to help us pinpoint things that happen in the universe. When you want to meet someone for coffee, or see a certain showing of a movie, or show up for work along with everyone else, you need to specify a time: \"Let's meet at the coffee shop at 6:00 P. M. this Thursday.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "If you want to meet someone, of course, it's not sufficient just to specify a time; you also need to specify a place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "(Which coffee shop are we talking about here?) Physicists say that space is'three-dimensional.\" What that means is that we require three numbers to uniquely pick out a particular location. If the location is near the Earth, a physicist might give the latitude, longitude, and height above ground. If the location is somewhere faraway, astronomically speaking, we might give its direction in the sky (two numbers, analogous to latitude and longitude), plus the distance from Earth. It doesn't matter how we choose to specify those three numbers; the crucial point is that you will always need exactly three. Those three numbers are the coordinates of that location in space. We can think of a little label attached to each point, telling us precisely what the coordinates of that point are.\n\nFigure 2: Coordinates attached to each point in space.\n\nIn everyday life, we can often shortcut the need to specify all three coordinates of space. If you say'the coffee shop at Eighth and Main Street,\" you're implicitly giving two coordinates-\"Eighth\" and'Main Street\"-and you're assuming that we all agree the coffee shop is likely to beat ground level, rather than in the air or underground. That's a convenience granted to us by the fact that much of the space we use to locate things in our daily lives is effectively two-dimensional, confined near the surface of the Earth. But in principle, all three coordinates are needed to specify a point in space.\n\nEach point in space occurs once at each moment of time. If we specify a certain location in space atone definite moment in time, physicists call that an event. (This is not meant to imply that it's an especially exciting event; any random point in empty space at any particular moment of time would qualify, so long as it's uniquely specified.) What we call the'universe\" is just the set of all events-every point in space, at every moment of time. So we need four numbers-three coordinates of space, and one of time-to uniquely pick out an event. That's why we say that the universe is four-dimensional. This is such a useful concept that we will often treat the whole collection, every point in space at every moment of time, as a single entity called spacetime." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is a big conceptual leap, so it's worth pausing to take it in. It's natural to think of the world as a three-dimensional conglomeration that keeps changing (\"happening over and over again, slightly differently each time\"). We're now suggesting that we can think of the whole shebang, the entire history of the world, as a single four-dimensional thing, where the additional dimension is time. In this sense, time serves to slice up the four-dimensional universe into copies of space at each moment in time-the whole universe at 10:00 A. M. on January 20,2010; the whole universe at 10:01 A. M. on January 20,2010; and soon. There are an infinite number of such slices, together making up the universe.\n\n2. Time measures the duration elapsed between events\n\nThe second aspect of time is that it measures the duration elapsed between events. That sounds pretty similar to the'labels moments in the universe\" aspect already discussed, but there is a difference. Time not only labels and orders different moments; it also measures the distance between them.\n\nWhen taking up the mantle of philosopher or scientist and trying to make sense of a subtle concept, it's helpful to look at things operationally-how do we actually use this idea in our experience? When we use time, we refer to the measurements that we get by reading clocks. If you watch a TV show that is supposed to last one hour, the reading on your clock at the end of the show will be one hour later than what it read when the show began. That's what it means to say that one hour elapsed during the broadcast of that show: Your clock read an hour later when it ended than when it began.\n\nBut what makes a good clock? The primary criterion is that it should be consistent-it wouldn't do any good to have a clock that ticked really fast sometimes and really slowly at others. Fast or slow compared to what? The answer is: other clocks. As a matter of empirical fact (rather than logical necessity), there are some objects in the universe that are consistently periodic-they do the same thing over and over again, and when we put them next to one another we find them repeating in predictable patterns." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Think of planets in the Solar System. The Earth orbits around the Sun, returning to the same position relative to the distant stars once every year. By itself, that's not so meaningful-it's just the definition of a'year.\" But Mars, as it turns out, returns to the same position once every 1.88 years. That kind of statement is extremely meaningful-without recourse to the concept of a'year,\" we can say that Earth moves around the Sun 1.88 times every time Mars orbits just once. 4 Likewise, Venus moves around the Sun 1.63 times every time Earth orbits just once.\n\nThe key to measuring time is synchronized repetition-a wide variety of processes occur over and over again, and the number of times that one process repeats itself while another process returns to its original state is reliably predictable. The Earth spins on its axis, and it's going to do so 365.25 times every time the Earth moves around the Sun. The tiny crystal in a quartz watch vibrates 2,831, 155,200 times every time the Earth spins on its axis. (That's 32,768 vibrations per second, 3,600 seconds in an hour, 24 hours in a day. 5) The reason why quartz watches are reliable is that quartz crystal has extremely regular vibrations; even as the temperature or pressure changes, the crystal will vibrate the same number of times for everyone rotation of the Earth.\n\nSo when we say that something is a good clock, we mean that it repeats itself in a predictable way relative to other good clocks. It is a fact about the universe that such clocks exist, and thank goodness. In particular, at the microscopic level where all that matters are the rules of quantum mechanics and the properties (masses, electric charges) of individual elementary particles, we find atoms and molecules that vibrate with absolutely predictable frequencies, forming a widespread array of excellent clocks marching in cheerful synchrony. A universe without good clocks-in which no processes repeated themselves a predictable number of times relative to other repeating processes-would be a scary universe indeed. 6" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Still, good clocks are not easy to come by." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Traditional methods of timekeeping often referred to celestial objects-the positions of the Sun or stars in the sky-because things down hereon Earth tend to be messy and unpredictable. In 1581, a young Galileo Galilei reportedly made a breakthrough discovery while he sat bored during a church service in Pisa. The chandelier overhead would swing gently back and forth, but it seemed to move more quickly when it was swinging widely (after a gust of wind, for example) and more slowly when wasn't moving as far. Intrigued, Galileo decided to measure how much time it took for each swing, using the only approximately periodic event to which he had ready access: the beating of his own pulse. He found something interesting: The number of heartbeats between swings of the chandelier was roughly the same, regardless of whether the swings were wide or narrow. The size of the oscillations-how far the pendulum swung back and forth-didn't affect the frequency of those oscillations. That's not unique to chandeliers in Pisan churches; it's a robust property of the kind of pendulum physicists calla'simple harmonic oscillator.\" And that's why pendulums form the centerpiece of grandfather clocks and other timekeeping devices: Their oscillations are extremely reliable. The craft of clock making involves the search forever-more-reliable forms of oscillations, from vibrations in quartz to atomic resonances.\n\nOur interest here is not really in the intricacies of clock construction, but in the meaning of time. We live in a world that contains all sorts of periodic processes, which repeat a predictable number of times in comparison to certain other periodic processes. And that's how we measure duration: by the number of repetitions of such a process. When we say that our TV program lasts one hour, we mean that the quartz crystal in our watch will oscillate 117,964, 800 times between the start and end of the show (32,768 oscillations per second, 3,600 seconds in an hour)." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Notice that, by being careful about defining time, we seem to have eradicated the concept entirely. That's just what any decent definition should do-you don't want to define something in terms of itself. The passage of time can be completely recast in terms of certain things happening together, in synchrony. \"The program lasts one hour\" is equivalent to'there will be 117,964, 800 oscillations of the quartz crystal in my watch between the beginning and end of the program\" (give or take a few commercials). If you really wanted to, you could reinvent the entire superstructure of physics in away that completely eliminated the concept of'time,\" by replacing it with elaborate specifications of how certain things happen in coincidence with certain other things. 7 But why would we want to? Thinking in terms of time is convenient, and more than that, it reflects a simple underlying order in the way the universe works.\n\nFigure 3: Good clocks exhibit synchronized repetition. Every time one day passes, the Earth rotates once about its axis, a pendulum with a period of 1 second oscillates 86,400 times, and a quartz watch crystal vibrates 2,831, 155,200 times.\n\nSlowing, stopping, bending time\n\nArmed with this finely honed understanding of what we mean by the passage of time, at least one big question can be answered: What would happen if time were to slowdown throughout the universe? The answer is: That's not a sensible question to ask. Slowdown relative to what? If time is what clocks measure, and every clock were to'slowdown\" by the same amount, it would have absolutely no effect at all. Telling time is about synchronized repetition, and as long as the rate of one oscillation is the same relative to some other oscillation, all is well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As human beings we feel the passage of time. That's because there are periodic processes occurring within our own metabolism-breaths, heartbeats, electrical pulses, digestion, rhythms of the central nervous system. We area complicated, interconnected collection of clocks. Our internal rhythms are not as reliable as a pendulum or a quartz crystal; they can be affected by external conditions or our emotional states, leading to the impression that time is passing more quickly or more slowly. But the truly reliable clocks ticking away inside our bodies-vibrating molecules, individual chemical reactions-aren't moving any faster or slower than usual. 8\n\nWhat could happen, on the other hand, is that certain physical processes that we thought were'good clocks\" would somehow go out of synchronization-one clock slows down, or speeds up, compared to all the rest. A sensible response in that case would be to blame that particular clock, rather than casting aspersions on time itself. But if we stretch a bit, we can imagine a particular collection of clocks (including molecular vibrations and other periodic processes) that all change in concert with one another, but apart from the rest of the world. Then we would have to ask whether it was appropriate to say that the rate at which time passes had really changed within that collection.\n\nConsider an extreme example. Nicholson Baker's novel The Fermata tells the story of a man, Arno Strine, with the ability to'stop time.\" (Mostly he uses this miraculous power to go around undressing women.) It wouldn't mean anything if time stopped everywhere; the point is that Arno keeps moving through time, while everything around him stops. We all know this is unrealistic, but it's instructive to reflect upon the way in which it flouts the laws of physics. What this approach to stopping time entails is that every kind of motion and rhythm in Arno's body continues as usual, while every kind of motion and rhythm in the outside world freezes absolutely still. Of course we have to imagine that time continues for all of the air and fluids within Arno, otherwise he would instantly die. But if the air in the rest of the room has truly stopped experiencing time, each molecule must remain suspended precisely in its location; consequently, Arno would be unable to move, trapped in a prison of rigidly stationary air molecules. Okay, let's be generous and assume that time would proceed normally for any air molecules that came sufficiently close to Arno's skin. (The book alludes to something of the sort.) But everything outside, by assumption, is not changing in anyway. In particular, no sound or light would be able to travel to him from the outside world; Arno would be completely deaf and blind. It turns out not to be a promising environment fora Peeping Tom. 9" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What if, despite all the physical and narrative obstacles, something like this really could happen? Even if we can't stop time around us, presumably we can imagine speeding up the motion of some local clocks. If we truly measure time by synchronized repetition, and we arranged an ensemble of clocks that were all running fast compared to the outside world while they remained in synchrony with one another, wouldn't that be something like'time running faster\" within that arrangement?\n\nIt depends. We've wandered far afield from what might actually happen in the real world, so let's establish some rules. We're fortunate enough to live in a universe that features very reliable clocks. Without such clocks, we can't use time to measure the duration between events. In the world of The Fermata, we could say that time slowed down for the universe outside Arno Strine-or, equivalently and perhaps more usefully, that time for him sped up, while the rest of the world went on as usual. But just as well, we could say that'time\" was completely unaffected, and what changed were the laws of particle physics (masses, charges on different particles) within Arno's sphere of influence. Concepts like'time\" are not handed to us unambiguously by the outside world but are invented by human beings trying to make sense of the universe. If the universe were very different, we might have to make sense of it in a different way.\n\nMeanwhile, there is a very real way for one collection of clocks to measure time differently than another: have them move along different paths through spacetime. That's completely compatible with our claim that'good clocks\" should measure time in the same way, because we can't readily compare clocks unless they're next to one another in space. The total amount of time elapsed on two different trajectories can be different without leading to any inconsistencies. But it does lead to something important-the theory of relativity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Twisty paths through spacetime\n\nThrough the miracle of synchronized repetition, time doesn't simply put different moments in the history of the universe into order; it also tells us'how far apart\" they are (in time). We can say more than'1776 happened before 2010\"; we can say'1776 happened 234 years before 2010.\"\n\nI should emphasize a crucial distinction between'dividing the universe into different moments\" and'measuring the elapsed time between events,\" a distinction that will become enormously important when we get to relativity. Let's imagine you are an ambitious temporal 10 engineer, and you're not satisfied to just have your wristwatch keep accurate time; you want to be able to know what time it is at every other event in spacetime as well. You might be tempted to wonder: Couldn't we (hypothetically) construct a time coordinate all throughout the universe, just by building an infinite number of clocks, synchronizing them to the same time, and scattering them throughout space? Then, wherever we went in spacetime, there would be a clock sitting at each point telling us what time it was, once and for all.\n\nThe real world, as we will see, doesn't let us construct an absolute universal time coordinate. Fora longtime people thought it did, under no less an authority than that of Sir Isaac Newton. In Newton's view of the universe, there was one particular right way to slice up the universe into slices of'space at a particular moment of time.\" And we could indeed, at least in a thought-experiment kind of way, send clocks all throughout the universe to setup a time coordinate that would uniquely specify when a certain event was taking place.\n\nBut in 1905, along comes Einstein with his special theory of relativity. 11 The central conceptual breakthrough of special relativity is that our two aspects of time, \"time labels different moments\" and'time is what clocks measure,\" are not equivalent, or even interchangeable. In particular, the scheme of setting up a time coordinate by sending clocks throughout the universe would notwork: two clocks, leaving the same event and arriving at the same event but taking different paths to get there, will generally experience different durations along the journey, slipping out of synchronization. That's not because we haven't been careful enough to pick'good clocks,\" as defined above. It's because the duration elapsed along two trajectories connecting two events in spacetime need not be the same." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This idea isn't surprising, once we start thinking that'time is kind of like space.\" Consider an analogous statement, but for space instead of time: The distance traveled along two paths connecting two points in space need not be the same. Doesn't sound so surprising at all, does it? Of course we can connect two points in space bypaths with different lengths; one could be straight and one could be curved, and we would always find that the distance along the curved path was greater. But the difference in coordinates between the same two points is always the same, regardless of how we get from one point to another. That's because, to drive home the obvious, the distance you travel is not the same as your change in coordinates. Consider a running back in football who zips back and forth while evading tacklers, and ends up advancing from the 30-yard line to the 80-yard line. (It should really be'the opponent's 20-yard line,\" but the point is clearer this way.) The change in coordinates is 50 yards, no matter how long or short was the total distance he ran.\n\nFigure 4: Yard lines serve as coordinates on a football field. A running back who advances the ball from the 30-yard line to the 80-yard line has changed coordinates by 50 yards, even though the distance traveled may have been much greater.\n\nThe centerpiece of special relativity is the realization that time is like that. Our second definition, time is duration as measured by clocks, is analogous to the total length of a path through space; the clock itself is analogous to an odometer or some other instrument that measures the total distance traveled. This definition is simply not the same as the concept of a coordinate labeling different slices of spacetime (analogous to the yard lines on a football field). And this is not some kind of technical problem that we can'fix\" by building better clocks or making better choices about how we travel through spacetime; it's a feature of how the universe works, and we need to learn to live with it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As fascinating and profound as it is that time works in many ways similar to space, it will come as no surprise that there are crucial differences as well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two of them are central elements of the theory of relativity. First, while there are three dimensions of space, there is only one of time; that brute fact has important consequences for physics, as you might guess. And second, while a straight line between two points in space describes the shortest distance, a straight trajectory between two events in spacetime describes the longest elapsed duration.\n\nBut the most obvious, blatant, unmistakable difference between time and space is that time has a direction, and space doesn't. Time points from the past toward the future, while (out therein space, faraway from local disturbances like the Earth) all directions of space are created equal. We can invert directions in space without doing damage to how physics works, but all sorts of real processes can happen in one direction of time but not the other. It's to this crucial difference that we now turn.\n\n3. Time is a medium through which we move\n\nThe sociology experiment suggested at the beginning of this chapter, in which you ask strangers how they would define'time,\" also serves as a useful tool for distinguishing physicists from non-physicists. Nine times out often, a physicist will say something related to one of the first two notions above-time is a coordinate, or time is a measure of duration. Equally often, anon-physicist will say something related to the third aspect we mentioned-time is something that flows from past to future. Time whooshes along, from'back then\" to'now\" and on toward'later.\"\n\nOr, conversely, someone might say that we move through time, as if time were a substance through which we could pass. In the Afterword to his classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig relates a particular twist on this metaphor. The ancient Greeks, according to Pirsig, \"saw the future as something that came upon them from behind their backs, with the past receding away before their eyes.\" 12 When you think about it, that seems a bit more honest than the conventional view that we march toward the future and away from the past. We know something about the past, from experience, while the future is more conjectural." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Common to these perspectives is the idea that time is a thing, and it's a thing that can change-flow around us, or pass by as we move through it. But conceptualizing time as some sort of substance with its own dynamics, perhaps even the ability to change at different rates depending on circumstances, raises one crucially important question.\n\nWhat in the world is that supposed to mean?\n\nConsider something that actually does flow, such as a river. We can think about the river from a passive or an active perspective: Either we are standing still as the water rushes by, or perhaps we are on a boat moving along with the river as the banks on either side move relative to us.\n\nThe river flows, no doubt about that. And what that means is that the location of some particular drop of river water changes with time-here it is at some moment, there it is just a bit later. And we can talk sensibly about the rate at which the river flows, which is just the velocity of the water-in other words, the distance that the water travels in a given amount of time. We could measure it in miles per hour, or meters per second, or whatever units of'distance traveled per interval of time\" you prefer. The velocity may very well change from place to place or moment to moment-sometimes the river flows faster; sometimes it flows more slowly. When we are talking about the real flow of actual rivers, all this language makes perfect sense.\n\nBut when we examine carefully the notion that time itself somehow'flows,\" we hit a snag. The flow of the river was a change with time-but what is it supposed to mean to say that time changes with time? A literal flow is a change of location overtime-but time doesn't have a'location.\" So what is it supposed to be changing with respect to?\n\nThink of it this way: If time does flow, how would we describe its speed? It would have to be something like'x hours per hour\"-an interval of time per unit time. And I can tell you what xis going to be-it's 1, all the time. The speed of time is 1 hour per hour, no matter what else might be going on in the universe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The lesson to draw from all this is that it's not quite right to think of time as something that flows." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's a seductive metaphor, but not one that holds up under closer scrutiny. To extract ourselves from that way of thinking, it's helpful to stop picturing ourselves as positioned within the universe, with time flowing around us. Instead, let's think of the universe-all of the four-dimensional spacetime around us-as somehow a distinct entity, as if we were observing it from an external perspective. Only then can we appreciate time for what it truly is, rather than privileging our position right herein the middle of it.\n\nThe view from nowhen\n\nWe can't literally stand outside the universe. The universe is not some object that sits embedded in a larger space (as far as we know); it's the collection of everything that exists, space and time included. So we're not wondering what the universe would really look like from the point of view of someone outside it; no such being could possibly exist. Rather, we're trying to grasp the entirety of space and time as a single entity. Philosopher Huw Price calls this'the view from nowhen,\" a perspective separate from any particular moment in time. 13 We are all overly familiar with time, having dealt with it everyday of our lives. But we can't help but situate ourselves within time, and it's useful to contemplate all of space and time in a single picture.\n\nAnd what do we see, when looking down from nowhen? We don't see anything changing with time, because we are outside of time ourselves. Instead, we see all of history at once-past, present, and future. It's like thinking of space and time as a book, which we could in principle open to any passage, or even cut apart and spread out all the pages before us, rather than as a movie, where we are forced to watch events in sequence at specific times. We could also call this the Tralfamadorian perspective, after the aliens in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. According to protagonist Billy Pilgrim," }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How do we reconstruct our conventional understanding of flowing time from this lofty timeless Tralfamadorian perch? What we see are correlated events, arranged in a sequence. There is a clock reading 6:45, and a person standing in their kitchen with a glass of water in one hand and an ice cube in the other. In another scene, the clock reads 6:46 and the person is again holding the glass of water, now with the ice cube inside. In yet another one, the clock reads 6:50 and the person is holding a slightly colder glass of water, now with the ice cube somewhat melted.\n\nIn the philosophical literature, this is sometimes called the'block time\" or'block universe\" perspective, thinking of all space and time as a single existing block of spacetime. For our present purposes, the important point is that we can think about time in this way. Rather than carrying a picture in the back of our minds in which time is a substance that flows around us or through which we move, we can think of an ordered sequence of correlated events, together constituting the entire universe. Time is then something we reconstruct from the correlations in these events. \"This ice cube melted over the course often minutes\" is equivalent to'the clock reads ten minutes later when the ice cube has melted than it does when the ice cube is put into the glass.\" We're not committing ourselves to some dramatic conceptual stance to the effect that it's wrong to think of ourselves as embedded within time; it just turns out to be more useful, when we get around to asking why time and the universe are the way they are, to be able to step outside and view the whole ball of wax from the perspective of nowhen.\n\nOpinions differ, of course. The struggle to understand time is a puzzle of longstanding, and what is'real\" and what is'useful\" have been very much up for debate. One of the most influential thinkers on the nature of time was St. Augustine, the fifth-century North African theologian and Father of the Church. Augustine is perhaps best known for developing the doctrine of original sin, but he was interdisciplinary enough to occasionally turn his hand to metaphysical issues. In Book XI of his Confessions, he discusses the nature of time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Augustine doesn't like this block-universe business. He is what is known as a'presentist,\" someone who thinks that only the present moment is real-the past and future are things that we herein the present simply try to reconstruct, given the data and knowledge available to us. The viewpoint we've been describing, on the other hand, is (sensibly enough) known as'eternalism,\" which holds that past, present, and future are all equally real. 16\n\nConcerning the debate between eternalism and presentism, atypical physicist would say: \"Who cares?\" Perhaps surprisingly, physicists are not overly concerned with adjudicating which particular concepts are'real\" or not. They care very much about how the real world works, but to them it's a matter of constructing comprehensive theoretical models and comparing them with empirical data. It's not the individual concepts characteristic of each model (\"past,\" \"future,\" \"time\") that matter; it's the structure as a whole. Indeed, it often turns out to be the case that one specific model can be described in two completely different ways, using an entirely different set of concepts. 17\n\nSo, as scientists, our goal is to construct a model of reality that successfully accounts for all of these different notions of time-time is measured by clocks, time is a coordinate on spacetime, and our subjective feeling that time flows. The first two are actually very well understood in terms of Einstein's theory of relativity, as we will cover in Part Two of the book. But the third remains a bit mysterious. The reason why I am belaboring the notion of standing outside time to behold the entire universe as a single entity is because we need to distinguish the notion of time in and of itself from the perception of time as experienced from our parochial view within the present moment. The challenge before us is to reconcile these two perspectives." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "THE HEAVY HAND OF ENTROPY\n\n-Martin Amis, Time's Arrow 18\n\nForget about spaceships, rocket guns, clashes with extraterrestrial civilizations. If you want to tell a story that powerfully evokes the feeling of being in an alien environment, you have to reverse the direction of time.\n\nYou could, of course, simply take an ordinary story and tell it backward, from the conclusion to the beginning. This is a literary device known as'reverse chronology\" and appears at least as early as Virgil's Aeneid. But to really jar readers out of their temporal complacency, you want to have some of your characters experience time backward. The reason it's jarring, of course, is that all of us nonfictional characters experience time in the same way; that's due to the consistent increase of entropy throughout the universe, which defines the arrow of time.\n\nTHROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS\n\nF. Scott Fitzgerald's short story'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button\"-more recently made into a film starring Brad Pitt-features a protagonist who is born as an old man and gradually grows younger as time passes. The nurses of the hospital at which Benjamin is born are, understandably, somewhat at a loss.\n\nNo mention is made in the story of what poor Mrs. Button must have been feeling around this time. (In the movie version, at least the newborn Benjamin is baby-sized, albeit old and wrinkled.)\n\nBecause it is so bizarre, having time run backward for some characters in a story is often played for comic effect. In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, Alice is astonished upon first meeting the White Queen, who lives in both directions of time. The Queen is shouting and shaking her finger in pain:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Carroll (no relation 21) is playing with a deep feature of the nature of time-the fact that causes precede effects." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The scene makes us smile, while serving as a reminder of how central the arrow of time is to the way we experience the world.\n\nTime can be reversed in the service of tragedy, as well as comedy. Martin Amis's novel Time's Arrow is a classic of the reversing-time genre, even accounting for the fact that it's a pretty small genre. 22 Its narrator is a disembodied consciousness who lives inside another person, Odilo Unverdorben. The host lives life in the ordinary sense, forward in time, but the homunculus narrator experiences everything backward-his first memory is Unverdorben's death. He has no control over Unverdorben's actions, nor access to his memories, but passively travels through life in reverse order. At first Unverdorben appears to us as a doctor, which strikes the narrator as quite a morbid occupation-patients shuffle into the emergency room, where staff suck medicines out of their bodies and ripoff their bandages, sending them out into the night bleeding and screaming. But near the end of the book, we learn that Unverdorben was an assistant at Auschwitz, where he created life where none had been before-turning chemicals and electricity and corpses into living persons. Only now, thinks the narrator, does the world finally make sense.\n\nTHE ARROW OF TIME\n\nThere is a good reason why reversing the relative direction of time is an effective tool of the imagination: In the actual, non-imaginary world, it never happens. Time has a direction, and it has the same direction for everybody. None of us has meta character like the White Queen, who remembers what we think of as'the future\" rather than (or in addition to) \"the past.\"\n\nWhat does it mean to say that time has a direction, an arrow pointing from the past to the future? Think about watching a movie played in reverse. Generally, it's pretty clear if we are seeing something running the'wrong way\" in time. A classic example is a diver and a pool. If the diver dives, and then there is a big splash, followed by waves bouncing around in the water, all is normal. But if we see a pool that starts with waves, which collect into a big splash, in the process lifting a diver up onto the board and becoming perfectly calm, we know something is up: The movie is being played backward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Certain events in the real world always happen in the same order. It's dive, splash, waves; never waves, splash, spit out a diver. Take milk and mix it into a cup of black coffee; never take coffee with milk and separate the two liquids. Sequences of this sort are called irreversible processes. We are free to imagine that kind of sequence playing out in reverse, but if we actually see it happen, we suspect cinematic trickery rather than a faithful reproduction of reality.\n\nIrreversible processes are at the heart of the arrow of time. Events happen in some sequences, and not in others. Furthermore, this ordering is perfectly consistent, as far as we know, throughout the observable universe. Someday we might find a planet in a distant solar system that contains intelligent life, but nobody suspects that we will find a planet on which the aliens regularly separate (the indigenous equivalents of) milk and coffee with a few casual swirls of a spoon. Why isn't that surprising? It's a big universe out there; things might very well happen in all sorts of sequences. But they don't. For certain kinds of processes-roughly speaking, complicated actions with lots of individual moving parts-there seems to bean allowed order that is somehow built into the very fabric of the world.\n\nTom Stoppard's play Arcadia uses the arrow of time as a central organizing metaphor. Here's how Thomasina, a young prodigy who was well ahead of her time, explains the concept to her tutor:\n\nThe arrow of time, then, is a brute fact about our universe. Arguably the brute fact about our universe; the fact that things happen in one order and not in the reverse order is deeply ingrained in how we live in the world. Why is it like that? Why do we live in a universe where Xis often followed by Y, but Y is never followed by X?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The answer lies in the concept of'entropy\" that I mentioned above. Like energy or temperature, entropy tells us something about the particular state of a physical system; specifically, it measures how disorderly the system is. A collection of papers stacked neatly on top of one another has a low entropy; the same collection, scattered haphazardly on a desktop, has a high entropy. The entropy of a cup of coffee along with a separate teaspoon of milk is low, because there is a particular orderly segregation of the molecules into'milk\" and'coffee,\" while the entropy of the two mixed together is comparatively large. All of the irreversible processes that reflect time's arrow-we can turn eggs into omelets but not omelets into eggs, perfume disperses through a room but never collects back into the bottle, ice cubes in water melt but glasses of warm water don't spontaneously form ice cubes-share a common feature: Entropy increases throughout, as the system progresses from order to disorder. Whenever we disturb the universe, we tend to increase its entropy.\n\nA big part of our task in this book will be to explain how the single idea of entropy ties together such a disparate set of phenomena, and then to dig more deeply into what exactly this stuff called'entropy\" really is, and why it tends to increase. The final task-still a profound open question in contemporary physics-is to ask why the entropy was so low in the past, so that it could be increasing ever since.\n\nFUTURE AND PAST VS. UP AND DOWN\n\nBut first, we need to contemplate a prior question: Should we really be surprised that certain things happen in one direction of time, but not in the other? Whoever said that everything should be reversible, anyway?\n\nThink of time as a label on events as they happen. That's one of the ways in which time is like space-they both help us locate things in the universe. But from that point of view, there is also a crucial difference between time and space-directions in space are created equal, while directions in time (namely, \"the past\" and'the future\") are very different. Hereon Earth, directions in space are easily distinguished-a compass tells us whether we are moving north, south, east, or west, and nobody is in any danger of confusing up with down. But that's not a reflection of deep underlying laws of nature-it's just because we live on a giant planet, with respect to which we can define different directions. If you were floating in a spacesuit faraway from any planets, all directions in space would truly be indistinguishable-there would be no preferred notion of'up\" or'down.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The technical way to say this is that there is asymmetry in the laws of nature-every direction in space is as good as every other. It's easy enough to'reverse the direction of space\"-take a photograph and print it backward, or for that matter just look in a mirror. For the most part, the view in a mirror appears pretty unremarkable. The obvious counterexample is writing, for which it's easy to tell that we are looking at a reversed image; that's because writing, like the Earth, does pick out a preferred direction (you're reading this book from left to right). But the images of most scenes not full of human creations look equally'natural\" to us whether we see them directly or we see them through a mirror.\n\nContrast that with time. The equivalent of'looking at an image through a mirror\" (reversing the direction of space) is simply'playing a movie backward\" (reversing the direction of time). And in that case, it's easy to tell when time has been inverted-the irreversible processes that define the arrow of time are suddenly occurring in the wrong order. What is the origin of this profound difference between space and time?\n\nWhile it's true that the presence of the Earth beneath our feet picks out an'arrow of space\" by distinguishing up from down, it's pretty clear that this is a local, parochial phenomenon, rather than a reflection of the underlying laws of nature. We can easily imagine ourselves out in space where there is no preferred direction. But the underlying laws of nature do not pick out a preferred direction of time, anymore than they pick out a preferred direction in space. If we confine our attention to very simple systems with just a few moving parts, whose motion reflects the basic laws of physics rather than our messy local conditions, there is no arrow of time-we can't tell when a movie is being run backward. Think about Galileo's chandelier, rocking peacefully back and forth. If someone showed you a movie of the chandelier, you wouldn't be able to tell whether it was being shown forward or backward-its motion is sufficiently simple that it works equally well in either direction of time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Figure 5: The Earth defines a preferred direction in space, while the Big Bang defines a preferred direction in time.\n\nThe arrow of time, therefore, is not a feature of the underlying laws of physics, at least as far as we know. Rather, like the up/down orientation space picked out by the Earth, the preferred direction of time is also a consequence of features of our environment. In the case of time, it's not that we live in the spatial vicinity of an influential object; it's that we live in the temporal vicinity of an influential event: the birth of the universe. The beginning of our observable universe, the hot dense state known as the Big Bang, had a very low entropy. The influence of that event orients us in time, just as the presence of the Earth orients us in space.\n\nNATURE'S MOST RELIABLE LAW\n\nThe principle underlying irreversible processes is summed up in the Second Law of Thermodynamics:\n\n(The First Law states that energy is conserved. 24) The Second Law is arguably the most dependable law in all of physics. If you were asked to predict what currently accepted principles of physics would still be considered inviolate a thousand years from now, the Second Law would be a good bet. Sir Arthur Eddington, a leading astrophysicist of the early twentieth century, put it emphatically:\n\nC. P. Snow-British intellectual, physicist, and novelist-is perhaps best known for his insistence that the'Two Cultures\" of the sciences and the humanities had grown apart and should both be apart of our common civilization. When he came to suggest the most basic item of scientific knowledge that every educated person should understand, he chose the Second Law:\n\nI'm sure Baron Snow was quite the hit at Cambridge cocktail parties. (To be fair, he did later admit that even physicists didn't really understand the Second Law.)" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Our modern definition of entropy was proposed by Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann in 1877. But the concept of entropy, and its use in the Second Law of Thermodynamics, dates back to German physicist Rudolf Clausius in 1865. And the Second Law itself goes back even earlier-to French military engineer Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot in 1824. How in the world did Clausius use entropy in the Second Law without knowing its definition, and how did Carnot manage to formulate the Second Law without even using the concept of entropy at all?\n\nThe nineteenth century was the heroic age of thermodynamics-the study of heat and its properties. The pioneers of thermodynamics studied the interplay between temperature, pressure, volume, and energy. Their interest was by no means abstract-this was the dawn of the industrial age, and much of their work was motivated by the desire to build better steam engines.\n\nToday physicists understand that heat is a form of energy and that the temperature of an object is simply a measure of the average kinetic energy (energy of motion) of the atoms in the object. But in 1800, scientists didn't believe in atoms, and they didn't understand energy very well. Carnot, whose pride was wounded by the fact that the English were ahead of the French in steam engine technology, set himself the task of understanding how efficient such an engine could possibly be-how much useful work could you do by burning a certain amount of fuel? He showed that there is a fundamental limit to such extraction. By taking an intellectual leap from real machines to idealized'heat engines,\" Carnot demonstrated there was a best possible engine, which got the most workout of a given amount of fuel operating at a given temperature. The trick, unsurprisingly, was to minimize the production of waste heat. We might think of heat as useful in warming our houses during the winter, but it doesn't help in doing what physicists think of as'work\"-getting something like a piston or a flywheel to move from place to place. What Carnot realized was that even the most efficient engine possible is not perfect; some energy is lost along the way. In other words, the operation of a steam engine is an irreversible process." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So Carnot appreciated that engines did something that could not be undone. It was Clausius, in 1850, who understood that this reflected a law of nature. He formulated his law as'heat does not spontaneously flow from cold bodies to warm ones.\" Fill a balloon with hot water and immerse it in cold water. Everyone knows that the temperatures will tend to average out: The water in the balloon will cool down as the surrounding liquid warms up. The opposite never happens. Physical systems evolve toward a state of equilibrium-a quiescent configuration that is as uniform as possible, with equal temperatures in all components. From this insight, Clausius was able tore-derive Carnot's results concerning steam engines.\n\nSo what does Clausius' law (heat never flows spontaneously from colder bodies to hotter ones) have to do with the Second Law (entropy never spontaneously decreases)? The answer is, they are the same law. In 1865 Clausius managed to reformulate his original maxim in terms of anew quantity, which he called the'entropy.\" Take an object that is gradually cooling down-emitting heat into its surroundings. As this process happens, consider at every moment the amount of heat being lost, and divide it by the temperature of the object. The entropy is then the accumulated amount of this quantity (the heat lost divided by the temperature) over the course of the entire process. Clausius showed that the tendency of heat to flow from hot objects to cold ones was precisely equivalent to the claim that the entropy of a closed system would only ever go up, never go down. An equilibrium configuration is simply one in which the entropy has reached its maximum value, and has nowhere else to go; all the objects in contact are at the same temperature.\n\nIf that seems a bit abstract, there is a simple way of summing up this view of entropy: It measures the uselessness of a certain amount of energy. 27 There is energy in a gallon of gasoline, and it's useful-we can put it to work. The process of burning that gasoline to run an engine doesn't change the total amount of energy; as long as we keep careful track of what happens, energy is always conserved. 28 But along the way, that energy becomes increasingly useless. It turns into heat and noise, as well as the motion of the vehicle powered by that engine, but even that motion eventually slows down due to friction. And as energy transforms from useful to useless, its entropy increases all the while." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Second Law doesn't imply that the entropy of a system can never decrease. We could invent a machine that separated out the milk from a cup of coffee, for example. The trick, though, is that we can only decrease the entropy of one thing by creating more entropy elsewhere. We human beings, and the machines that we might use to rearrange the milk and coffee, and the food and fuel each consume-all of these also have entropy, which will inevitably increase along the way. Physicists draw a distinction between open systems-objects that interact significantly with the outside world, exchanging entropy and energy-and closed systems-objects that are essentially isolated from external influences. In an open system, like the coffee and milk we put into our machine, entropy can certainly decrease. But in a closed system-say, the total system of coffee plus milk plus machine plus human operators plus fuel and soon-the entropy will always increase, or at best stay constant.\n\nTHE RISE OF ATOMS\n\nThe great insights into thermodynamics of Carnot, Clausius, and their colleagues all took place within a'phenomenological\" framework. They knew the big picture but not the underlying mechanisms. In particular, they didn't know about atoms, so they didn't think of temperature and energy and entropy as properties of some microscopic substrate; they thought of each of them as real things, in and of themselves. It was common in those days to think of energy in particular as a form of fluid, which could flow from one body to another. The energy-fluid even had a name: \"caloric.\" And this level of understanding was perfectly adequate to formulating the laws of thermodynamics.\n\nBut over the course of the nineteenth century, physicists gradually became convinced that the many substances we find in the world can all be understood as different arrangements of a fixed number of elementary constituents, known as'atoms.\" (The physicists actually lagged behind the chemists in their acceptance of atomic theory.) It's an old idea, dating back to Democritus and other ancient Greeks, but it began to catch on in the nineteenth century fora simple reason: The existence of atoms could explain many observed properties of chemical reactions, which otherwise were simply asserted. Scientists like it when a single simple idea can explain a wide variety of observed phenomena." }, { "from": "human", "value": "These days it is elementary particles such as quarks and leptons that play the role of Democritus's atoms, but the idea is the same." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What a modern scientist calls an'atom\" is the smallest possible unit of matter that still counts as a distinct chemical element, such as carbon or nitrogen. But we now understand that such atoms are not indivisible; they consist of electrons orbiting the atomic nucleus, and the nucleus is made of protons and neutrons, which in turn are made of different combinations of quarks. The search for rules obeyed by these elementary building blocks of matter is often called'fundamental\" physics, although'elementary\" physics would be more accurate (and arguably less self-aggrandizing). Henceforth, I'll use atoms in the established nineteenth-century sense of chemical elements, not the ancient Greek sense of elementary particles.\n\nThe fundamental laws of physics have a fascinating feature: Despite the fact that they govern the behavior of all the matter in the universe, you don't need to know them to get through your everyday life. Indeed, you would be hard-pressed to discover them, merely on the basis of your immediate experiences. That's because very large collections of particles obey distinct, autonomous rules of behavior, which don't really depend on the smaller structures underneath. The underlying rules are referred to as'microscopic\" or simply'fundamental,\" while the separate rules that apply only to large systems are referred to as'macroscopic\" or'emergent.\" The behavior of temperature and heat and so forth can certainly be understood in terms of atoms: That's the subject known as'statistical mechanics.\" But it can equally well be understood without knowing anything whatsoever about atoms: That's the phenomenological approach we've been discussing, known as'thermodynamics.\" It is a common occurrence in physics that in complex, macroscopic systems, regular patterns emerge dynamically from underlying microscopic rules. Despite the way it is sometimes portrayed, there is no competition between fundamental physics and the study of emergent phenomena; both are fascinating and crucially important to our understanding of nature." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of the first physicists to advocate atomic theory was a Scotsman, James Clerk Maxwell, who was also responsible for the final formulation of the modern theory of electricity and magnetism. Maxwell, along with Boltzmann in Austria (and following in the footsteps of numerous others), used the idea of atoms to explain the behavior of gases, according to what was known as'kinetic theory.\" Maxwell and Boltzmann were able to figure out that the atoms in a gas in a container, fixed at some temperature, should have a certain distribution of velocities-this many would be moving fast, that many would be moving slowly, and soon. These atoms would naturally keep banging against the walls of the container, exerting a tiny force each time they did so. And the accumulated impact of those tiny forces has a name: It is simply the pressure of the gas. In this way, kinetic theory explained features of gases in terms of simpler rules.\n\nENTROPY AND DISORDER\n\nBut the great triumph of kinetic theory was its use by Boltzmann in formulating a microscopic understanding of entropy. Boltzmann realized that when we look at some macroscopic system, we certainly don't keep track of the exact properties of every single atom. If we have a glass of water in front of us, and someone sneaks in and (say) switches some of the water molecules around without changing the overall temperature and density and soon, we would never notice. There are many different arrangements of particular atoms that are indistinguishable from our macroscopic perspective. And then he noticed that low-entropy objects are more delicate with respect to such rearrangements. If you have an egg, and start exchanging bits of the yolk with bits of the egg white, pretty soon you will notice. The situations that we characterize as'low-entropy\" seem to be easily disturbed by rearranging the atoms within them, while'high-entropy\" ones are more robust." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Figure 6: Ludwig Boltzmann's grave in the Zentralfriedhof, Vienna." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The inscribed equation, S= k log W, is his formula for entropy in terms of the number of ways you can rearrange microscopic components of a system without changing its macroscopic appearance. (See Chapter Eight for details.)\n\nSo Boltzmann took the concept of entropy, which had been defined by Clausius and others as a measure of the uselessness of energy, and redefined it in terms of atoms:\n\nIt would be difficult to overemphasize the importance of this insight. Before Boltzmann, entropy was a phenomenological thermodynamic concept, which followed its own rules (such as the Second Law). After Boltzmann, the behavior of entropy could be derived from deeper underlying principles. In particular, it suddenly makes perfect sense why entropy tends to increase:\n\nAt least, that formulation sounds like it makes perfect sense. In fact, it sneaks in a crucial assumption: that we start with a system that has a low entropy. If we start with a system that has a high entropy, we'll be in equilibrium-nothing will happen at all. That word start sneaks in an asymmetry in time, by privileging earlier times over later ones. And this line of reasoning takes us all the way back to the low entropy of the Big Bang. For whatever reason, of the many ways we could arrange the constituents of the universe, at early times they were in a very special, low-entropy configuration.\n\nThis caveat aside, there is no question that Boltzmann's formulation of the concept of entropy represented a great leap forward in our understanding of the arrow of time. This increase in understanding, however, came at a cost. Before Boltzmann, the Second Law was absolute-an ironclad law of nature. But the definition of entropy in terms of atoms comes with a stark implication: entropy doesn't necessarily increase, even in a closed system; it is simply likely to increase. (Overwhelmingly likely, as we shall see, but still.) Given a box of gas evenly distributed in a high-entropy state, if we wait long enough, the random motion of the atoms will eventually lead them all to be on one side of the box, just fora moment-a'statistical fluctuation.\" When you run the numbers, it turns out that the time you would have to wait before expecting to see such a fluctuation is much larger than the age of the universe. It's not something we have to worry about, as a practical matter. But it's there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some people didn't like that. They wanted the Second Law of Thermodynamics, of all things, to be utterly inviolate, not just something that holds true most of the time. Boltzmann's suggestion met with a great deal of controversy, but these days it is universally accepted.\n\nENTROPY AND LIFE\n\nThis is all fascinating stuff, at least to physicists. But the ramifications of these ideas go far beyond steam engines and cups of coffee. The arrow of time manifests itself in many different ways-our bodies change as we get older, we remember the past but not the future, effects always follow causes. It turns out that all of these phenomena can be traced back to the Second Law. Entropy, quite literally, makes life possible.\n\nThe major source of energy for life on Earth is light from the Sun. As Clausius taught us, heat naturally flows from a hot object (the Sun) to a cooler object (the Earth). But if that were the end of the story, before too long the two objects would come into equilibrium with each other-they would attain the same temperature. In fact, that is just what would happen if the Sun filled our entire sky, rather than describing a disk about one degree across. The result would bean unhappy world indeed. It would be completely inhospitable to the existence of life-not simply because the temperature was high, but because it would be static. Nothing would ever change in such an equilibrium world.\n\nIn the real universe, the reason why our planet doesn't heat up until it reaches the temperature of the Sun is because the Earth loses heat by radiating it out into space. And the only reason it can do that, Clausius would proudly note, is because space is much colder than Earth. 30 It is because the Sun is a hot spot in a mostly cold sky that the Earth doesn't just heat up, but rather can absorb the Sun's energy, process it, and radiate it into space. Along the way, of course, entropy increases; a fixed amount of energy in the form of solar radiation has a much lower entropy than the same amount of energy in the form of the Earth's radiation into space." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This process, in turn, explains why the biosphere of the Earth is not a static place. 31 We receive energy from the Sun, but it doesn't just heat us up until we reach equilibrium; it's very low-entropy radiation, so we can make use of it and then release it as high-entropy radiation. All of which is possible only because the universe as a whole, and the Solar System in particular, have a relatively low entropy at the present time (and an even lower entropy in the past). If the universe were anywhere near thermal equilibrium, nothing would ever happen.\n\nNothing good lasts forever. Our universe is a lively place because there is plenty of room for entropy to increase before we hit equilibrium and everything grinds to a halt. It's not a foregone conclusion-entropy might be able to simply grow forever. Alternatively, entropy may reach a maximum value and stop. This scenario is known as the'heat death\" of the universe and was contemplated as long ago as the 1850s, amidst all the exciting theoretical developments in thermodynamics. William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, was a British physicist and engineer who played an important role inlaying the first transatlantic telegraph cable. But in his more reflective moments, he mused on the future of the universe:\n\nHere, Lord Kelvin has put his finger quite presciently on the major issue in these kinds of discussions, which we will revisit at length in this book: Is the capacity of the universe to increase in entropy finite or infinite? If it is finite, then the universe will eventually wind down to a heat death, once all useful energy has been converted to high-entropy useless forms of energy. But if the entropy can increase without bound, we are at least allowed to contemplate the possibility that the universe continues to grow and evolve forever, in one way or another." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ina famous short story entitled simply'Entropy,\" Thomas Pynchon had his characters apply the lessons of thermodynamics to their social milieu.\n\nTo this day, scientists haven't yet determined to anyone's satisfaction whether the universe will continue to evolve forever, or whether it will eventually settle into a placid state of equilibrium.\n\nWHY CAN'T WE REMEMBER THE FUTURE?\n\nSo the arrow of time isn't just about simple mechanical processes; it's a necessary property of the existence of life itself. But it's also responsible fora deep feature of what it means to be a conscious person: the fact that we remember the past but not the future. According to the fundamental laws of physics, the past and future are treated on an equal footing, but when it comes to how we perceive the world, they couldn't be more different. We carry in our heads representations of the past in the form of memories. Concerning the future, we can make predictions, but those predictions have nowhere near the reliability of our memories of the past.\n\nUltimately, the reason why we can form a reliable memory of the past is because the entropy was lower then. Ina complicated system like the universe, there are many ways for the underlying constituents to arrange themselves into the form of'you, with a certain memory of the past, plus the rest of the universe.\" If that's all you know-that you exist right now, with a memory of going to the beach that summer between sixth and seventh grade-you simply don't have enough information to reliably conclude that you really did go to the beach that summer. It turns out to be overwhelmingly more likely that your memory is just a random fluctuation, like the air in a room spontaneously congregating over on one side. To make sense of your memories, you need to assume as well that the universe was ordered in a certain way-that the entropy was lower in the past." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Imagine that you are walking down the street, and on the sidewalk you notice a broken egg that appears as though it hasn't been sitting outside for very long." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Our presumption of a low-entropy past allows us to say with an extremely high degree of certainty that not long ago there must have been an unbroken egg, which someone dropped. Since, as far as the future is concerned, we have no reason to suspect that entropy will decrease, there's not much we can say about the future of the egg-too many possibilities are open. Maybe it will stay there and grow moldy, maybe someone will clean it up, maybe a dog will come by and eat it. (It's unlikely that it will spontaneously reassemble itself into an unbroken egg, but strictly speaking that's among the possibilities.) That egg on the sidewalk is like a memory in your brain-it's a record of a prior event, but only if we assume a low-entropy boundary condition in the past.\n\nWe also distinguish past from future through the relationship between cause and effect. Namely, the causes come first (earlier in time), and then come the effects. That's why the White Queen seems so preposterous to us-how could she be yelping in pain before pricking her finger? Again, entropy is to blame. Think of the diver splashing into the pool-the splash always comes after the dive. According to the microscopic laws of physics, however, it is possible to arrange all of the molecules in the water (and the air around the pool, through which the sound of the splash travels) to precisely'unsplash\" and eject the diver from the pool. To do this would require an unimaginably delicate choice of the position and velocity of every single one of those atoms-if you pick a random splashy configuration, there is almost no chance that the microscopic forces at work will correctly conspire to spit out the diver.\n\nIn other words, part of the distinction we draw between'effects\" and'causes\" is that'effects\" generally involve an increase in entropy. If two billiard balls collide and go their separate ways, the entropy remains constant, and neither ball deserves to be singled out as the cause of the interaction. But if you hit the cue ball into a stationary collection of racked balls on the break (provoking a noticeable increase in entropy), you and I would say'the cue ball caused the break\"-even though the laws of physics treat all of the balls perfectly equally." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Carry on with the narrative as the plot partner.\nTags: science, cosmology, time, entropy, theoretical physics\nAuthor: Sean Carroll\nTitle: From Eternity to Here\nChapter: 9" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Areal-world version of this experiment was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They didn't have a spaceship with a powerful rocket, so they used the next best thing: the motion of the Earth around the Sun. The Earth's orbital velocity is about 30 kilometers per second, so in the winter it has a net velocity of about 60 kilometers per second different from its velocity in the summer, when it's moving in the other direction. That's not much compared to the speed of light, which is about 300,000 kilometers per second, but Michelson designed an ingenious device known as an'interferometer\" that was extremely sensitive to small changes in velocities along different directions. And the answer was: The speed of light seems to be the same, no matter how fast we are moving.\n\nAdvances in science are rarely straightforward, and the correct way to interpret the Michelson-Morley results was not obvious. Perhaps the aether is dragged along with the Earth, so that our relative velocity remains small. After some furious back-and-forth theorizing, physicists hit upon what we now regard to be the right answer: The speed of light is simply a universal invariant. Everyone measures light to be moving at the same speed, independent of the motion of the experimenter. 62 Indeed, the entire content of special relativity boils down to these two principles:\n\nWhen we use the phrase the speed of light, we are implicitly assuming that it's the speed of light through empty space that we're talking about. It's perfectly easy to make light move at some other speed, just by introducing a transparent medium-light moves more slowly through glass or water than it does through empty space, but that doesn't tell us anything profound about the laws of physics. Indeed, \"light\" is not all that important in this game. What's important is that there exists some unique preferred velocity through spacetime. It just so happens that light moves at that speed when it's traveling through empty space-but the existence of a speed limit is what matters, not that light is able to go that fast." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We should appreciate how astonishing all this is. Say you're in your spaceship, and a friend in a faraway spaceship is beaming a flashlight at you. You measure the velocity of the light from the flashlight, and the answer is 300,000 kilometers per second. Now you fire your rockets and accelerate toward your friend, until your relative velocity is 200,000 kilometers per second. You again measure the speed of the light coming from the flashlight, and the answer is: 300,000 kilometers per second. That seems crazy; anyone in their right mind should have expected it to be 500,000 kilometers per second. What's going on?\n\nThe answer, according to special relativity, is that it's not the speed of light that depends on your reference frame-it's your notion of a'kilometer\" and a'second.\" If a meterstick passes by us at high velocity, it undergoes'length contraction\"-it appears shorter than the meterstick that is sitting at rest in our reference frame. Likewise, if a clock moves by us at high velocity, it undergoes'time dilation\"-it appears to be ticking more slowly than the clock that is sitting at rest. Together, these phenomena precisely compensate for any relative motion, so that everyone measures exactly the same speed of light. 63\n\nThe invariance of the speed of light carries with it an important corollary: Nothing can move faster than light. The proof is simple enough; imagine being in a rocket that tries to race against the light being emitted by a flashlight. At first the rocket is stationary (say, in our reference frame), and the light is passing it at 300,000 kilometers per second. But then the rocket accelerates with all its might, attaining a tremendous velocity. When the crew in the rocket checks the light from the (now distant) flashlight, they see that it is passing them by at-300,000 kilometers per second. No matter what they do, how hard they accelerate or for how long, the light is always moving faster, and always moving faster by the same amount. 64 (From their point of view, that is. From the perspective of an external observer, they appear to be moving closer and closer to the speed of light, but they never reach it.)" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "However, while length contraction and time dilation are perfectly legitimate ways to think about special relativity, they can also get pretty confusing. When we think about the'length\" of some physical object, we need to measure the distance between one end of it and the other, but implicitly we need to do so at the same time. (You can't make yourself taller by putting a mark on the wall by your feet, climbing a ladder, putting another mark by your head, and proclaiming the distance between the marks to be your height.) But the entire spirit of special relativity tells us to avoid making statements about separated events happening at the same time. So let's tackle the problem from a different angle: by taking'spacetime\" seriously.\n\nSPACETIME\n\nBack to the spaceship with us. This time, however, instead of being limited to performing experiments inside the sealed ship, we have access to a small fleet of robot probes with their own rockets and navigation computers, which we can program to goon journeys and comeback as we please. And each one of them is equipped with a very accurate atomic clock. We begin by carefully synchronizing these clocks with the one on our main shipboard computer, and verifying that they all agree and keep very precise time.\n\nThen we send out some of our probes to zip away from us fora while and eventually comeback. When they return, we notice something right away: The clocks on the probe ships no longer agree with the shipboard computer. Because this is a thought experiment, we can rest assured that the difference is not due to cosmic rays or faulty programming or tampering by mischievous aliens-the probes really did experience a different amount of time than we did.\n\nHappily, there is an explanation for this unusual phenomenon. The time that clocks experience isn't some absolute feature of the universe, out thereto be measured once and for all, like the yard lines on a football field. Instead, the time measured by a clock depends on the particular trajectory that the clock takes, much like the total distance covered by a runner depends on their path. If, instead of sending out robot probes equipped with clocks from a spaceship, we had sent out robots on wheels equipped with odometers from abase located on the ground, nobody would be surprised that different robots returned with different odometer readings. The lesson is that clocks are kind of like odometers, keeping track of some measure of distance traveled (through time or through space) along a particular path." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If clocks are kind of like odometers, then time is kind of like space. Remember that even before special relativity, if we believed in absolute space and time à la Isaac Newton, there was nothing stopping us from combining them into one entity called'spacetime.\" It was still necessary to give four numbers (three to locate a position in space, and onetime) to specify an event in the universe. But in a Newtonian world, space and time had completely separate identities. Given two distinct events, such as'leaving the house Monday morning\" and'arriving at work later that same morning,\" we could separately (and uniquely, without fear of ambiguity) talk about the distance between them and the time elapsed between them. Special relativity says that this is not right. There are not two different things, \"distance in space\" measured by odometers and'duration in time\" measured by clocks. There is only one thing, the interval in spacetime between two events, which corresponds to an ordinary distance when it is mostly through space and to a duration measured by clocks when it is mostly through time.\n\nWhat decides'mostly\"? The speed of light. Velocity is measured in kilometers per second, or in some other units of distance per time; hence, having some special speed as part of the laws of nature provides away to translate between space and time. When you travel more slowly than the speed of light, you are moving mostly through time; if you were to travel faster than light (which you aren't about to do), you would be moving mostly through space.\n\nLet's try to flesh out some of the details. Examining the clocks on our probe ships closely, we realize that all of the traveling clocks are different in a similar way: They read shorter times than the one that was stationary. That is striking, as we were comforting ourselves with the idea that time is kind of like space, and the clocks were reflecting a distance traveled through spacetime. But in the case of good old ordinary space, moving around willy-nilly always makes a journey longer; a straight line is the shortest distance between two points in space. If our clocks are telling us the truth (and they are), it would appear that unaccelerated motion-a straight line through spacetime, if you like-is the path of longest time between two events." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Figure 12: Time elapsed on trajectories that go out and comeback is less than that elapsed according to clocks that stay behind.\n\nWell, what did you expect? Time is kind of like space, but it's obviously not completely indistinguishable from space in every way. (No one is in any danger of getting confused by some driving directions and making a left turn into yesterday.) Putting aside for the moment issues of entropy and the arrow of time, we have just uncovered the fundamental feature that distinguishes time from space: Extraneous motion decreases the time elapsed between two events in spacetime, whereas it increases the distance traveled between two points in space.\n\nIf we want to move between two points in space, we can make the distance we actually travel as long as we wish, by taking some crazy winding path (or just by walking in circles an arbitrary number of times before continuing on our way). But consider traveling between two events in spacetime-particular points in space, at particular moments in time. If we move on a'straight line\"-an unaccelerated trajectory, moving at constant velocity all the while-we will experience the longest duration possible. So if we do the opposite, zipping allover the place as fast as we can, but taking care to reach our destination at the appointed time, we will experience a shorter duration. If we zipped around at precisely the speed of light, we would never experience any duration at all, no matter how we traveled. We can't do exactly that, but we can come as close as we wish. 65\n\nThat's the precise sense in which'time is kind of like space\"-spacetime is a generalization of the concept of space, with time playing the role of one of the dimensions of spacetime, albeit one with a slightly different flavor than the spatial dimensions. None of this is familiar to us from our everyday experience, because we tend to move much more slowly than the speed of light. Moving much more slowly than light is like being a running back who only marched precisely up the football field, never swerving left or right. To a player like that, \"distance traveled\" would be identical to'number of yards gained,\" and there would be no ambiguity. That's what time is like in our everyday experience; because we and all of our friends move much more slowly than the speed of light, we naturally assume that time is a universal feature of the universe, rather than a measure of the spacetime interval along our particular trajectories." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "STAYING INSIDE YOUR LIGHT CONE\n\nOne way of coming to terms with the workings of spacetime according to special relativity is to make a map: draw a picture of space and time, indicating where we are allowed to go. Let's warm up by drawing a picture of Newtonian spacetime. Because Newtonian space and time are absolute, we can uniquely define'moments of constant time\" on our map. We can take the four dimensions of space and time and slice them into a set of three-dimensional copies of space at constant time, as shown in Figure 13. (We're actually only able to show two-dimensional slices on the figure; use your imagination to interpret each slice as representing three-dimensional space.) Crucially, everyone agrees on the difference between space and time; we're not making any arbitrary choices.\n\nFigure 13: Newtonian space and time. The universe is sliced into moments of constant time, which unambiguously separate time into past and future. World lines of real objects can never double back across a moment of time more than once.\n\nEvery Newtonian object (a person, an atom, a rocket ship) defines a world line-the path the object takes through spacetime. (Even if you sit perfectly still, you still move through spacetime; you're aging, aren't you? 66) And those world lines obey a very strict rule: Once they pass through one moment of time, they can never double backward in time to pass through the same moment again. You can move as fast as you like-you can be here one instant, and a billion light-years away 1 second later-but you have to keep moving forward in time, your world line intersecting each moment precisely once.\n\nRelativity is different. The Newtonian rule'you must move forward in time\" is replaced by anew rule: You must move more slowly than the speed of light. (Unless you area photon or another massless particle, in which case you always move exactly at the speed of light if you are in empty space.) And the structure we were able to impose on Newtonian spacetime, in the form of a unique slicing into moments of constant time, is replaced by another kind of structure: light cones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Figure 14: Spacetime in the vicinity of a certain event x." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "According to relativity, every event comes with alight cone, defined by considering all possible paths light could take to or from that point. Events outside the light cone cannot unambiguously be labeled'past\" or'future.\"\n\nLight cones are conceptually pretty simple. Take an event, a single point in spacetime, and imagine all of the different paths that light could take to or from that event; these define the light cone associated with that event. Hypothetical light rays emerging from the event define a future light cone, while those converging on the event define a past light cone, and when we mean both we just say'the light cone.\" The rule that you can't move faster than the speed of light is equivalent to saying that your world line must remain inside the light cone of every event through which it passes. World lines that do this, describing slower-than-light objects, are called'timelike\"; if somehow you could move faster than light, your world line would be'spacelike,\" since it was covering more ground in space than in time. If you move exactly at the speed of light, your world line is imaginatively labeled'lightlike.\"\n\nStarting from a single event in Newtonian spacetime, we were able to define a surface of constant time that spread uniquely throughout the universe, splitting the set of all events into the past and the future (plus'simultaneous\" events precisely on the surface). In relativity we can't do that. Instead, the light cone associated with an event divides spacetime into the past of that event (events inside the past light cone), the future of that event (inside the future light cone), the light cone itself, and a bunch of points outside the light cone that are neither in the past nor in the future.\n\nFigure 15: Light cones replace the moments of constant time from Newtonian spacetime. World lines of massive particles must come to an event from inside the past light cone, and leave inside the future light cone-a timelike path. Spacelike paths move faster than light and are therefore not allowed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It's that last bit that really gets people." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In our reflexively Newtonian way of thinking about the world, we insist that some faraway event happened either in the past, or in the future, or at the same time as some event on our own world line. In relativity, for spacelike separated events (outside one another's light cones), the answer is'none of the above.\" We could choose to draw some surfaces that sliced through spacetime and label them'surfaces of constant time,\" if we really wanted to. That would betaking advantage of the definition of time as a coordinate on spacetime, as discussed in Chapter One. But the result reflects our personal choice, not areal feature of the universe. In relativity, the concept of'simultaneous faraway events\" does not make sense. 67\n\nThere is a very strong temptation, when drawing maps of spacetime such as shown in Figure 15, to draw a vertical axis labeled'time,\" and a horizontal axis (or two) labeled'space.\" The absence of those axes on our version of the spacetime diagram is completely intentional. The whole point of spacetime according to relativity is that it is not fundamentally divided up into'time\" and'space.\" The light cones, demarcating the accessible past and future of each event, are not added on top of the straightforward Newtonian decomposition of spacetime into time and space; they replace that structure entirely. Time can be measured along each individual world line, but it's not a built-in feature of the entire spacetime.\n\nIt would be irresponsible to move on without highlighting one other difference between time and space: There is only one dimension of time, whereas there are three dimensions of space. 68 We don't have a good understanding of why this should be so. That is, our understanding of fundamental physics isn't sufficiently developed to state with confidence whether there is some reason why there couldn't be more than one dimension of time, or for that matter zero dimensions of time. What we do know is that life would be very different with more than onetime dimension. With only one such dimension, physical objects (which move along timelike paths) can't help but move along that particular direction. If there were more than one, nothing would force us to move forward in time; we could move in circles, for example. Whether or not one can build a consistent theory of physics under such conditions is an open question, but at the least, things would be different." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "EINSTEIN'S MOST FAMOUS EQUATION\n\nEinstein's major 1905 paper in which he laid out the principles of special relativity, \"On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,\" took up thirty pages in Annalen der Physik, the leading German scientific journal of the time. Soon thereafter, he published a two-page paper entitled'Does the Inertia of a Body Depend upon Its Energy Content?\" 69 The purpose of this paper was to point out a straightforward but interesting consequence of his longer work: The energy of an object at rest is proportional to its mass. (Mass and inertia are here being used interchangeably.) That's the idea behind what is surely the most famous equation in history,\n\nLet's think about this equation carefully, as it is often misunderstood. The factor c 2 is of course the speed of light squared. Physicists learn to think, Aha, relativity must be involved, whenever they seethe speed of light in an equation. The factor m is the mass of the object under consideration. In some places you might read about the'relativistic mass,\" which increases when an object is in motion. That's not really the most useful way of thinking about things; it's better to consider mas the once-and-for-all mass that an object has when it is at rest. Finally, E is not exactly'the energy\"; in this equation, it specifically plays the role of the energy of an object at rest. If an object is moving, its energy will certainly be higher.\n\nSo Einstein's famous equation tells us that the energy of an object when it is at rest is equal to its mass times the speed of light squared. Note the importance of the innocuous phrase an object. Not everything in the world is an object! For example, we've already spoken of dark energy, which is responsible for the acceleration of the universe. Dark energy doesn't seem to be a collection of particles or other objects; it pervades spacetime smoothly. So as far as dark energy is concerned, E= mc 2 simply doesn't apply. Likewise, some objects (such as a photon) can never beat rest, since they are always moving at the speed of light. In those cases, again, the equation isn't applicable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone knows the practical implication of this equation: Even a small amount of mass is equivalent to a huge amount of energy. (The speed of light, in everyday units, is a really big number.) There are many forms of energy, and what special relativity is telling us is that mass is one form that energy can take. But the various forms can be converted back and forth into one another, which happens all the time. The domain of validity of E= mc 2 isn't limited to esoteric realms of nuclear physics or cosmology; it's applicable to every kind of object at rest, on Mars or in your living room. If we take apiece of paper and burn it, letting the photons produced escape along with their energy, the resulting ashes will have a slightly lower mass (no matter how careful we are to capture all of them) than the combination of the original paper plus the oxygen it used to burn. E= mc 2 isn't just about atomic bombs; it's a profound feature of the dynamics of energy all around us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "TIME IS FLEXIBLE\n\n-Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching\n\nThe original impetus behind special relativity was not a puzzling experimental result (although the Michelson-Morley experiment certainly was that); it was an apparent conflict between two preexisting theoretical frameworks. 70 On the one hand you had Newtonian mechanics, the gleaming edifice of physics on which all subsequent theories had been based. On the other hand you had James Clerk Maxwell's unification of electricity and magnetism, which came about in the middle of the nineteenth century and had explained an impressive variety of experimental phenomena. The problem was that these two marvelously successful theories didn't fit together. Newtonian mechanics implied that the relative velocity of two objects moving past each other was simply the sum of their two velocities; Maxwellian electromagnetism implied that the speed of light was an exception to this rule. Special relativity managed to bring the two theories together into a single whole, by providing a framework for mechanics in which the speed of light did play a special role, but which reduced to Newton's model when particles were moving slowly.\n\nLike many dramatic changes of worldview, the triumph of special relativity came at a cost. In this case, the greatest single success of Newtonian physics-his theory of gravity, which accounted for the motions of the planets with exquisite precision-was left out of the happy reconciliation. Along with electromagnetism, gravity is the most obvious force in the universe, and Einstein was determined to fit it into the language of relativity. You might expect that this would involve modifying a few equations here and thereto make Newton's equations consistent with invariance under boosts, but attempts along those lines fell frustratingly short.\n\nEventually Einstein hit on a brilliant insight, essentially by employing the spaceship thought experiment we've been considering. (He thought of it first.) In describing our travels in this hypothetical sealed spaceship, I was careful to note that we are faraway from any gravitational fields, so we wouldn't have to worry about falling into a star or having our robot probes deflected by the pull of a nearby planet. But what if we were near a prominent gravitational field? Imagine our ship was, for example, in orbit around the Earth. How would that affect the experiments we were doing inside the ship?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Einstein's answer was: They wouldn't affect them at all, as long as we confined our attention to relatively small regions of space and brief intervals of time. We can do whatever kinds of experiments we like-measuring the rates of chemical reactions, dropping balls and watching how they fall, observing weights on springs-and we would get exactly the same answer zipping around in low-Earth orbit as we would in the far reaches of interstellar space. Of course if we wait long enough we can tell we are in orbit; if we let a fork and a spoon freely float in front of our noses, with the fork just slightly closer to the Earth, the fork will then feel just a slightly larger gravitational pull, and therefore move just ever so slightly away from the spoon. But effects like that take time to accumulate; if we confine our attention to sufficiently small regions of space and time, there isn't any experiment we can imagine doing that could reveal the presence of the gravitational pull keeping us in orbit around the Earth.\n\nContrast the difficulty of detecting a gravitational field with, for example, the ease of detecting an electric field, which is apiece of cake. Just take your same fork and spoon, but now give the fork some positive charge, and the spoon some negative charge. In the presence of an electric field, the opposing charges would be pushed in opposite directions, so it's pretty easy to check whether there are any electric fields in the vicinity.\n\nThe difference with gravity is that there is no such thing as a'negative gravitational charge.\" Gravity is universal-everything responds to it in the same way. Consequently, it can't be detected in a small region of spacetime, only in the difference between its effects on objects at different events in spacetime. Einstein elevated this observation to the status of a law of nature, the Principle of Equivalence: No local experiment can detect the existence of a gravitational field." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Figure 16: The gravitational field on a planet is locally indistinguishable from the acceleration of a rocket.\n\nI know what you're thinking: \"I have no trouble detecting gravity at all. Here I am sitting in my chair, and it's gravity that's keeping me from floating up into the room.\" But how do you know it's gravity? Only by looking outside and checking that you're on the surface of the Earth. If you were in a spaceship that was accelerating, you would also be pushed down into your chair. Just as you can't tell the difference between freely falling in interstellar space and freely falling in low-Earth orbit, you also can't tell the difference between constant acceleration in a spaceship and sitting comfortably in a gravitational field. That's the'equivalence\" in the Principle of Equivalence: The apparent effects of the force of gravity are equivalent to those of living in an accelerating reference frame. It's not the force of gravity that you feel when you are sitting in a chair; it's the force of the chair pushing upon your posterior. According to general relativity, free fall is the natural, unforced state of motion, and it's only the push from the surface of the Earth that deflects us from our appointed path.\n\nCURVING STRAIGHT LINES\n\nYou or I, having come up with the bright idea of the Principle of Equivalence while musing over the nature of gravity, would have nodded sagely and moved on with our lives. But Einstein was smarter than that, and he appreciated what this insight really meant. If gravity isn't detectable by doing local experiments, then it's not really a'force\" at all, in the same way that electricity or magnetism are forces. Because gravity is universal, it makes more sense to think of it as a feature of spacetime itself, rather than some force field stretching through spacetime." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In particular, realized Einstein, gravity can bethought of as a manifestation of the curvature of spacetime. We've talked quite a bit about spacetime as a generalization of space, and how the time elapsed along a trajectory is a measure of the distance traveled through spacetime. But space isn't necessarily rigid, flat, and rectilinear; it can be warped, stretched, and deformed. Einstein says that spacetime is the same way.\n\nIt's easiest to visualize two-dimensional space, modeled, for example, by apiece of paper. A flat piece of paper is not curved, and the reason we know that is that it obeys the principles of good old-fashioned Euclidean geometry. Two initially parallel lines, for example, never intersect, nor do they grow apart.\n\nIn contrast, consider the two-dimensional surface of a sphere. First we have to generalize the notion of a'straight line,\" which on a sphere isn't an obvious concept. In Euclidean geometry, as we were taught in high school, a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. So let's declare an analogous definition: A'straight line\" on a curved geometry is the shortest curve connecting two points, which on a sphere would be a portion of a great circle. If we take two paths on a sphere that are initially parallel, and extend them along great circles, they will eventually intersect. That proves that the principles of Euclidean geometry are no longer at work, which is one way of seeing that the geometry of a sphere is curved.\n\nFigure 17: Flat geometry, with parallel lines extending forever; curved geometry, where initially parallel lines eventually intersect.\n\nEinstein proposed that four-dimensional spacetime can be curved, just like the surface of a two-dimensional sphere. The curvature need not be uniform like a sphere, the same from point to point; it can vary in magnitude and in shape from place to place. And here is the kicker: When we see a planet being'deflected by the force of gravity,\" Einstein says it is really just traveling in a straight line. At least, as straight as a line can be in the curved spacetime through which the planet is moving. Following the insight that an unaccelerated trajectory yields the greatest possible time a clock could measure between two events, a straight line through spacetime is one that does its best to maximize the time on a clock, just like a straight line through space does its best to minimize the distance read by an odometer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Let's bring this down to Earth, in a manner of speaking. Consider a satellite in orbit, carrying a clock. And consider another clock, this one on a tower that reaches to the same altitude as the orbiting satellite. The clocks are synchronized at a moment when the satellite passes by the tower; what will they read when the satellite completes one orbit? (We can ignore the rotation of the Earth for the purposes of this utterly impractical thought experiment.) According to the viewpoint of general relativity, the orbiting clock is not accelerating; it's in free fall, doing its best to move in a straight line through spacetime. The tower clock, meanwhile, is accelerating-it's being prevented from freely falling by the force of the tower keeping it up. Therefore, the orbiting clock will experience more elapsed time per orbit than the tower clock-compared to the accelerated clock on the tower, the freely falling one in orbit appears to run more quickly.\n\nFigure 18: Time as measured on a tower will be shorter than that measured in orbit, as the former clock is on an accelerated (non-free-falling) trajectory.\n\nThere are no towers that reach to the heights of low-Earth orbit. But there are clocks down here at the surface that regularly exchange signals with clocks on satellites. That, for example, is the basic mechanism behind the Global Positioning System (GPS) that helps modern cars give driving directions in real time. Your personal GPS receiver gets signals from a number of satellites orbiting the Earth, and determines its position by comparing the time between the different signals. That calculation would quickly go astray if the gravitational time dilation due to general relativity were not taken into account; the GPS satellites experience about 38 more microseconds per day in orbit than they would on the ground. Rather than teaching your receiver equations from general relativity, the solution actually adopted is to tune the satellite clocks so that they run a little bit more slowly than they should if they were to keep correct time down hereon the surface." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "EINSTEIN'S MOST IMPORTANT EQUATION\n\nThe saying goes that every equation cuts your book sales in half. I'm hoping that this page is buried sufficiently deeply in the book that nobody notices before purchasing it, because I cannot resist the temptation to display another equation: the Einstein field equation for general relativity.\n\nThis is the equation that a physicist would think of if you said'Einstein's equation\"; that E= mc 2 business is a minor thing, a special case of a broader principle. This one, in contrast, is a deep law of physics: It reveals how stuff in the universe causes spacetime to curve, and therefore causes gravity. Both sides of the equation are not simply numbers, but tensors-geometric objects that capture multiple things going on at once. (If you thought of them as 4x4 arrays of numbers, you would be pretty close to right.) The left-hand side of the equation characterizes the curvature of spacetime. The right-hand side characterizes all the various forms of stuff that make spacetime curve-energy, momentum, pressure, and soon. In one fell swoop, Einstein's equation reveals how any particular collection of particles and fields in the universe creates a certain kind of curvature in spacetime.\n\nAccording to Isaac Newton, the source of gravity was mass; heavier objects gave rise to stronger gravitational fields. In Einstein's universe, things are more complicated. Mass gets replaced by energy, but there are also other properties that go into curving spacetime. Vacuum energy, for example, has not only energy, but also tension-a kind of negative pressure. A stretched string or rubber band has tension, pulling back rather than pushing out. It's the combined effect of the energy plus the tension that causes the universe to accelerate in the presence of vacuum energy. 71\n\nThe interplay between energy and the curvature of spacetime has a dramatic consequence: In general relativity, energy is not conserved. Not every expert in the field would agree with that statement, not because there is any controversy over what the theory predicts, but because people disagree on how to define'energy\" and'conserved.\" Ina Newtonian absolute spacetime, there is a well-defined notion of the energy of individual objects, which we can add up to get the total energy of the universe, and that energy never changes (it's the same at every moment in time). But in general relativity, where spacetime is dynamical, energy can be injected into matter or absorbed from it by the motions of spacetime. For example, vacuum energy remains absolutely constant in density as the universe expands. So the energy per cubic centimeter is constant, while the number of cubic centimeters is increasing-the total energy goes up. Ina universe dominated by radiation, in contrast, the total energy goes down, as each photon loses energy due to the cosmological redshift." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You might think we could escape the conclusion that energy is not conserved by including'the energy of the gravitational field,\" but that turns out to be much harder than you might expect-there simply is no well-defined local definition of the energy in the gravitational field. (That shouldn't be completely surprising, since the gravitational field can't even be detected locally.) It's easier just to bite the bullet and admit that energy is not conserved in general relativity, except in certain special circumstances. 72 But it's not as if chaos has been loosed on the world; given the curvature of spacetime, we can predict precisely how any particular source of energy will evolve.\n\nHOLES IN SPACETIME\n\nBlack holes are probably the single most interesting dramatic prediction of general relativity. They are often portrayed as something relatively mundane: \"Objects where the gravitational field is so strong that light itself cannot escape.\" The reality is more interesting.\n\nEven in Newtonian gravity, there's nothing to stop us from contemplating an object so massive and dense that the escape velocity is greater than the speed of light, rendering the body'black.\" Indeed, the idea was occasionally contemplated, including by British geologist John Michell in 1783 and by Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1796.73 At the time, it wasn't clear whether the idea quite made sense, as nobody knew whether light was even affected by gravity, and the speed of light didn't have the fundamental importance it attains in relativity. More important, though, there is a very big distinction hidden in the seemingly minor difference between'an escape velocity greater than light\" and'light cannot escape.\" Escape velocity is the speed at which we would have to start an object moving upward in order for it to escape the gravitational field of a body without any further acceleration. If I throw a baseball up in the air in the hopes that it escapes into outer space, I have to throw it faster than escape velocity. But there is absolutely no reason why I couldn't put the same baseball on a rocket and gradually accelerate it into space without ever reaching escape velocity. In other words, it's not necessary to reach escape velocity in order to actually escape; given enough fuel, you can go as slowly as you like." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But areal black hole, as predicted by general relativity, is a lot more dramatic than that. It is a true region of no return-once you enter, there is no possibility of leaving, no matter what technological marvels you have at your disposal. That's because general relativity, unlike Newtonian gravity or special relativity, allows spacetime to curve. At every event in spacetime we find light cones that divide space into the past, future, and places we can't reach. But unlike in special relativity, the light cones are not fixed in a rigid alignment; they can tilt and stretch as spacetime curves under the influence of matter and energy. In the vicinity of a massive object, light cones tilt toward the object, in accordance with the tendency of things to be pulled in by the gravitational field. A black hole is a region of spacetime where the light cones have tilted so much that you would have to move faster than the speed of light to escape. Despite the similarity of language, that's an enormously stronger statement than'the escape velocity is larger than the speed of light.\" The boundary defining the black hole, separating places where you still have a chance to escape from places where you are doomed to plunge ever inward, is the event horizon.\n\nFigure 19: Light cones tilt in the vicinity of a black hole. The event horizon, demarcating the edge of the black hole, is the place where they tip over so far that nothing can escape without moving faster than light.\n\nThere maybe any number of ways that black holes could form in the real world, but the standard scenario is the collapse of a sufficiently massive star. In the late 1960s, Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking proved a remarkable feature of general relativity: If the gravitational field becomes sufficiently strong, a singularity must be formed. 74 You might think that's only sensible, since gravity becomes stronger and stronger and pulls matter into a single point. But in Newtonian gravity, for example, it's not true. You can get a singularity if you try hard enough, but the generic result of squeezing matter together is that it will reach some point of maximum density. But in general relativity, the density and spacetime curvature increase without limit, until they form a singularity of infinite curvature. Such a singularity lies inside every black hole." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It would be wrong to think of the singularity as residing at the'center\" of the black hole. If we look carefully at the representation of spacetime near a black hole shown in Figure 19, we see that the future light cones inside the event horizon keep tipping toward the singularity. But that light cone defines what the observer at that event would call'the future.\" Like the Big Bang singularity in the past, the black hole singularity in the future is a moment of time, not a place in space. Once you are inside the event horizon, you have absolutely no choice but to continue onto the grim destiny of the singularity, because it lies ahead of you in time, not in some direction in space. You can no more avoid hitting the singularity than you can avoid hitting tomorrow.\n\nWhen you actually do fall through the event horizon, you might not even notice. There is no barrier there, no sheet of energy that you pass through to indicate that you've entered a black hole. There is simply a diminution of your possible future life choices; the option of'returning to the outside universe\" is no longer available, and'crashing into the singularity\" is your only remaining prospect. In fact, if you knew how massive the black hole was, you could calculate precisely how long it will take (according to a clock carried along with you) before you reach the singularity and cease to exist; fora black hole with the mass of the Sun, it would be about one-millionth of a second. You might try to delay this nasty fate, for example, by firing rockets to keep yourself away from the singularity, but it would only be counterproductive. According to relativity, unaccelerated motion maximizes the time between two events. By struggling, you only hasten your doom. 75\n\nThere is a definite moment on your infalling path when you cross the event horizon. If we imagine that you had been sending a constant stream of radio updates to your friends outside, they will never be able to receive anything sent after that time. They do not, however, see you wink out of existence; instead, they receive your signals at longer and longer intervals, increasingly redshifted to longer and longer wavelengths. Your final moment before crossing the horizon is (in principle) frozen in time from the point of view of an external observer, although it becomes increasingly dimmer and redder as time passes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Figure 20: As an object approaches an event horizon, to a distant observer it appears to slowdown and become increasingly redshifted. The moment on the object's world line when it crosses the horizon is the last moment it can be seen from the outside.\n\nWHITE HOLES: BLACK HOLES RUN BACKWARD\n\nIf you think a bit about this black-hole story, you'll notice something intriguing: time asymmetry. We have been casually tossing around terminology that assumes a directionality to time; we say'once you pass the event horizon you can never leave,\" but not'once you leave the event horizon you can never return.\" That's not because we have been carelessly slipping into temporally asymmetric language; it's because the notion of a black hole is intrinsically time-asymmetric. The singularity is unambiguously in your future, not in your past.\n\nThe time asymmetry here isn't part of the underlying physical theory. General relativity is perfectly time-symmetric; for every specific spacetime that solves Einstein's equation, there is another solution that is identical except that the direction of time is reversed. A black hole is a particular solution to Einstein's equation, but there are equivalent solutions that run the other way: white holes.\n\nThe description of a white hole is precisely the same as that of a black hole, if we simply reverse the tenses of all words that refer to time. There is a singularity in the past, from which light cones emerge. The event horizon lies to the future of the singularity, and the external world lies to the future of that. The horizon represents a place past which, once you exit, you can never return to the white-hole region.\n\nFigure 21: The spacetime of a white hole is a time-reversed version of a black hole.\n\nSo why do we hear about black holes in the universe all the time, and hardly ever hear about white holes? For one thing, notice that we can't\"make\" a white hole. Since we are in the external world, the singularity and event horizon associated with a white hole are necessarily in our past. So it's not a matter of wondering what we would do to create a white hole; if we're going to find one, it will already have been out therein the universe from the beginning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But in fact, thinking slightly more carefully, we should be suspicious of that word make. Why, in a world governed by reversible laws of physics, do we think of ourselves as'making\" things that persist into the future, but not things that extend into the past? It's the same reason why we believe in freewill: A low-entropy boundary condition in the past dramatically fixes what possibly could have happened, while the absence of any corresponding future boundary condition leaves what can yet happen relatively open.\n\nSo when we ask, \"Why does it seem relatively straightforward to make a black hole, while white holes are something that we would have to find already existing in the universe?\" the answer should immediately suggest itself: because a black hole tends to have more entropy than the things from which you would make it. Actually calculating what the entropy is turns out to be a tricky business involving Hawking radiation, as we'll see in Chapter Twelve. But the key point is that black holes have a lot of entropy. Black holes turnout to provide the strongest connection we have between gravitation and entropy-the two crucial ingredients in an ultimate explanation of the arrow of time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "LOOPING THROUGH TIME\n\n-Richard Wagner, Parsifal\n\nEveryone knows what a time machine looks like: something like a steampunk sled with a red velvet chair, flashing lights, and a giant spinning wheel on the back. For those of a younger generation, a souped-up stainless-steel sports car is an acceptable substitute; our British readers might think of a 1950s-style London police box. 76 Details of operation vary from model to model, but when one actually travels in time, the machine ostentatiously dematerializes, presumably to be re-formed many millennia in the pastor future.\n\nThat's not how it would really work. And not because time travel is impossible and the whole thing is just silly; whether or not time travel is possible is more of an open question than you might suspect. I've emphasized that time is kind of like space. It follows that, if you did stumble across a working time machine in the laboratory of some mad inventor, it would simply look like a'space machine\"-an ordinary vehicle of some sort, designed to move you from one place to another. If you want to visualize a time machine, think of launching a rocket ship, not disappearing in a puff of smoke.\n\nSo what is actually entailed in traveling through time? There are two cases of possible interest: traveling to the future and traveling to the past. To the future is easy: Just keep sitting in your chair. Every hour, you will move one hour into the future. \"But,\" you say, \"that's boring. I want to move far into the future, really quickly, a lot faster than one hour per hour. I want to visit the twenty-fourth century before lunchtime.\" But we know it's impossible to move faster than one hour per hour, relative to a clock that travels along with you. You might be able to trick yourself, by going to sleep or entering suspended animation, but time will still be passing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the other hand, you could distort the total amount of time experienced along your world line as compared to the world lines of other people. Ina Newtonian universe even that wouldn't be possible, as time is universal and every world line connecting the same two events experiences the same elapsed time. But in special relativity we can affect the elapsed time by moving through space. Unaccelerated motion gives us the longest time between events; so if you want to get to the future quickly (from your perspective), you just have to move on a highly non-straight path through spacetime. You could zip out on a rocket near the speed of light and then return; or, given sufficient fuel, you could just fly around in circles at ultra-high speed, never straying very far from your starting point in space. When you stopped and exited your spaceship, besides being dizzy you would have'traveled into the future\"; more accurately, you would have experienced less time along your world line than was experienced by anyone who stayed behind. Traveling to the future is easy, and getting there more quickly is just a technology problem, not something that conflicts with the fundamental laws of physics.\n\nBut you might want to comeback, and that's where the challenge lies. The problems with traveling through time arise when we contemplate traveling to the past.\n\nCHEATING SPACETIME\n\nLessons learned from watching Superman movies notwithstanding, traveling backward in time is not a matter of reversing the rotation of the Earth. Spacetime itself has to cooperate. Unless, of course, you cheat, by moving faster than the speed of light.\n\nIna Newtonian universe, traveling backward in time is simply out of the question. World lines extend through a spacetime that is uniquely divided into three-dimensional moments of equal time, and the one unbreakable rule is that they must never double back and return to the past. In special relativity, things aren't much better. Defining'moments of equal time\" across the universe is highly arbitrary, but at every event we are faced with the restrictions enforced by light cones. If we are made of ordinary stuff, confined to move from each event forward into the interior of its light cone, there is no hope of traveling backward in time; in a spacetime diagram, we are doomed to march relentlessly upward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Things would be a little bit more interesting if we were made of non-ordinary stuff." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In particular, if we were made of tachyons-particles that always move faster than light. Sadly, we are not made of tachyons, and there are good reasons to believe that tachyons don't even exist. Unlike ordinary particles, tachyons are forced to always travel outside the light cone. In special relativity, whenever we move outside the light cone, from somebody's point of view we're also moving backward in time. More important, the light cones are the only structure defined on spacetime in relativity; there is no separate notion of'space atone moment of time.\" So if a particle can start at some event where you are momentarily located and move outside your light cone (faster than light), it can necessarily move into the past from your point of view. There's nothing to stop it.\n\nTachyons, therefore, can apparently do something scary and unpredictable: \"start\" from an event on the world line of some ordinary (slower-than-light) object, defined by some position in space and some moment in time, and travel on a path that takes them to a previous point on the same world line. If you had a flashlight that emitted tachyons, you could (in principle) construct an elaborate series of mirrors by which you could send signals in Morse code to yourself in the past. You could warn your earlier self not to eat the shrimp in that restaurant that onetime, or to goon that date with the weirdo from the office, or to sink your life savings into Pets. com stock.\n\nFigure 22: If tachyons could exist, they could be emitted by ordinary objects and zip around to be absorbed in the past. At every event along its trajectory, the tachyon moves outside the light cone.\n\nClearly, the possibility of travel backward in time raises the possibility of paradoxes, which is unsettling. There is a cheap way out: Notice that tachyons don't seem to exist, and declare that they are simply incompatible with the laws of physics. 77 That is both fruitful and accurate, at least as far as special relativity is concerned. When curved spacetime gets into the game, things become more interesting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CIRCLES IN TIME\n\nFor those of us who are not made of tachyons, our trajectories through spacetime are limited by the speed of light. From whatever event defines our current location, we necessarily move'forward in time,\" toward some other event inside our light cone-in technical jargon, we move on a timelike path through spacetime. This is a local requirement, referring only to features of our neighborhood of the universe. But in general relativity, spacetime is curved. That means light cones in our neighborhood maybe tilted with respect to those faraway. It's that kind of tilting that leads to black holes.\n\nBut imagine that, instead of light cones tilting inward toward a singularity and creating a black hole, we had a spacetime in which light cones tilted around a circle, as shown in Figure 23. Clearly this would require some sort of extremely powerful gravitational field, but we're letting our imaginations roam. If spacetime were curved in that way, a remarkable thing would happen: We could travel on a timelike path, always moving forward into our future light cone, and yet eventually meet ourselves at some moment in our past. That is, our world line could describe a closed loop in space, so that it intersected itself, bringing us atone moment in our lives face-to-face with ourselves at some other moment.\n\nFigure 23: In curved spacetime, we can imagine light cones tilting around in a circle, creating closed timelike curves.\n\nSuch a world line-always moving forward in time from a local perspective, but managing to intersect itself in the past-is a closed timelike curve, or CTC. That's what we really mean when we talk about a'time machine\" in general relativity. To actually move along the closed timelike curve would involve ordinary travel through spacetime, on a spaceship or something even more mundane-perhaps even sitting'motionless\" in your chair. It's the curvature of spacetime itself that brings you into contact with your own past. This is a central feature of general relativity that will become important later on when we return to the origin of the universe and the problem of entropy: Spacetime is not stuck there once and for all, but can change (and even come into or pop out of existence) in response to the effects of matter and energy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It's not difficult to find spacetimes in general relativity that include closed timelike curves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All the way back in 1949, mathematician and logician Kurt Gödel found a solution to Einstein's equation that described a'spinning\" universe, which contains closed timelike curves passing through every event. Gödel was friends with Einstein in his later years at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and the idea for his solution arose in part from conversations between the two men. 78 In 1963, New Zealand mathematician Roy Kerr found the exact solution fora rotating black hole; interestingly, the singularity takes the form of a rapidly spinning ring, the vicinity of which is covered by closed timelike curves. 79 And in 1974, Frank Tipler showed that an infinitely long, rotating cylinder of matter would create closed timelike curves around it, if the cylinder were sufficiently dense and rotating sufficiently rapidly. 80\n\nBut you don't have to work nearly so hard to construct a spacetime with closed timelike curves. Consider good old garden-variety flat spacetime, familiar from special relativity. But now imagine that the timelike direction (as defined by some particular unaccelerated observer) is a circle, rather than stretching on forever. In such a universe, something that moved forward in time would find itself coming back to the same moment in the universe's history over and over. In the Harold Ramis movie Groundhog Day, Bill Murray's character keeps waking up every morning to experience the exact same situations he had experienced the day before. The circular-time universe we're imagining here is something like that, with two important exceptions: First, it would be truly identical everyday, including the actions of the protagonist himself. And second, there would not be any escape. In particular, winning the love of Andie MacDowell would not save you.\n\nThe circular-time universe isn't just an amusing playground for filmmakers; it's an exact solution to Einstein's equation. We know that, by choosing some unaccelerated reference frame, we can'slice\" four-dimensional flat spacetime into three-dimensional moments of equal time. Take two such slices: say, midnight February 2, and midnight February 3-two moments of time that extend throughout the universe (in this special case of flat spacetime, in this particular reference frame). Now take just the one-day's-worth of spacetime that is between those slices, and throw everything else away. Finally, identify the beginning time with the final time. That is, make a rule that says whenever a world line hits a particular point in space on February 3, it instantly reemerges at the same point in space back on February 2. At heart, it's nothing more than rolling up apiece of paper and taping together opposite sides to make a cylinder. At every event, even at midnight when we've identified different slices, everything looks perfectly smooth and spacetime is flat-time is a circle, and no point on a circle is any different than any other point. This spacetime is rife with closed timelike curves, as illustrated in Figure 24. It might not be a realistic universe, but it demonstrates that the rules of general relativity alone do not prohibit the existence of closed timelike curves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Figure 24: A circular-time universe, constructed by identifying two different moments in flat spacetime. Two closed timelike curves are shown: one that loops through only once before closing, from (a) to (a\"), and another that loops twice, from (b) to (b\") to (b\") to (b'\").\n\nTHE GATE INTO YESTERDAY\n\nThere are two major reasons why most people who have given the matter a moment's thought would file the possibility of time travel under'Science Fiction,\" not'Serious Research.\" First, it's hard to see how to actually create a closed timelike curve, although we'll see that some people have ideas. But second, and more fundamentally, it's hard to see how the notion could make sense. Once we grant the possibility of traveling into our own past, it's just too easy to invent nonsensical or paradoxical situations.\n\nTo fix our ideas, consider the following simple example of a time machine: the gate into yesterday. (\"Gate into tomorrow\" would be equally accurate-just go the other way.) We imagine there is a magical gate, standing outside in afield. It's a perfectly ordinary gate in every way, with one major exception: When you walk through from what we'll call'the front,\" you emerge in the same field on the other side, but one day earlier-at least, from the point of view of the'background time\" measured by outside observers who don't ever step through the gate. (Imagine fixed clocks standing in the field, never passing through the gate, synchronized in the rest frame of the field itself.) Correspondingly, when you walk through the backside of the gate, you emerge through the front one day later than when you left.\n\nFigure 25: The gate into yesterday, showing one possible world line. A traveler walks through the front of the gate from the right (a) and appears out the back one day in the past (a\"). The person spends half a day walking around the side of the gate to enter from the front again (b) and reappears one day earlier (b\"). Then the person waits a day and enters the backside of the gate (c), emerging from the front one day in the future (c')." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It sounds magical and wondrous, but all we've done is describe a particular sort of unusual spacetime; we've identified a set of points in space at unequal times. Nobody is disappearing in any puffs of smoke; from the point of view of any particular observer, their own world line marches uninterruptedly into the future, one second per second. When you look through the gate from the front, you don't see inky blackness, or swirling psychedelic colors; you seethe field on the other side, just as you would if you looked through any other door. The only difference is, you see what it looked like yesterday. If you peer around the side of the gate, you seethe field today, while peering through the gate gives you a view of one day before. Likewise, if you move around the other side and peer through the gate from the back, you see just the other side of the field, but you see what it will look like tomorrow. There is nothing to stop you from walking through the gate and immediately back again, any number of times you like, or for that matter from standing with one foot on either side of the threshold. You wouldn't feel any strange tingling sensations if you did so; everything would seem completely normal, except that an accurate fixed clock on one side of you would read one day later than a fixed clock on the other side.\n\nThe gate-into-yesterday spacetime clearly contains closed timelike curves. All you have to do is walk through the front side of the gate to go back in time by one day, then walk around the side of the gate back to the front, and wait there patiently. After one day has passed, you will find yourself at the same place and time in spacetime as you were one day earlier (by your personal reckoning)-and of course, you should see your previous self there. If you like, you can exchange pleasantries with your former self, chatting about what the last day was like. That's a closed timelike curve." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is where the paradoxes come in. For whatever reason, physicists love to make their thought experiments as violent and deadly as possible; think of Schrödinger and his poor cat. 81 When it comes to time travel, the standard scenario is to imagine going back into the past and killing your grandfather before he met your grandmother, ultimately preventing your own birth. The paradox itself is then obvious: If your grandparents never met, how did you come into existence in order to go back and kill one of them? 82\n\nWe don't need to be so dramatic. Here's a simpler and friendlier version of the paradox. You walk up to the gate into yesterday, and as you approach you see aversion of yourself waiting for you there, looking about one day older than you presently are. Since you know about the closed timelike curves, you are not too surprised; obviously you lingered around after passing through the gate, looking forward to the opportunity to shake hands with a previous version of yourself. So the two versions of you exchange pleasantries, and then you leave your other self behind as you walk through the front of the gate into yesterday. But after passing through, out of sheer perverseness, you decide not to go along with the program. Rather than hanging around to meetup with your younger self, you wander off, catching a taxi to the airport and hopping on a flight to the Bahamas. You never do meetup with the version of yourself that went through the gate in the first place. But that version of yourself did meet with a future version of itself-indeed, you still carry the memory of the meeting. What is going on?\n\nONE SIMPLE RULE\n\nThere is a simple rule that resolves all possible time travel paradoxes. 83 Here it is:\n\nIt doesn't get much simpler than that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the moment, scientists don't really know enough about the laws of physics to say whether they permit the existence of macroscopic closed timelike curves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If they don't, there's obviously no need to worry about paradoxes. The more interesting question is, do closed timelike curves necessarily lead to paradoxes? If they do, then they can't exist, simple as that.\n\nBut maybe they don't. We all agree that logical contradictions cannot occur. More specifically, in the classical (as opposed to quantum mechanical 84) setup we are now considering, there is only one correct answer to the question'What happened at the vicinity of this particular event in spacetime?\" In every part of spacetime, something happens-you walk through agate, you are all by yourself, you meet someone else, you somehow never showed up, whatever it maybe. And that something is whatever it is, and was whatever it was, and will be whatever it will be, now and forever. If, at a certain event, your grandfather and grandmother were getting it on, that's what happened at that event. There is nothing you can do to change it, because it happened. You can no more change events in your past in a spacetime with closed timelike curves than you can change events that already happened in an ordinary, no-closed-timelike-curves spacetime. 85\n\nIt should be clear that consistent stories are possible, even in spacetimes with closed timelike curves. Figure 25 depicts the world line of one intrepid adventurer who jumps back in time twice, then gets bored and jumps forward once, before walking away. There's nothing paradoxical about that. And we can certainly imagine anon-paradoxical version of the scenario from the end of the previous section. You approach the gate, where you see an older version of yourself waiting for you there; you exchange pleasantries, and then you leave your other self behind as you walk through the front of the gate into yesterday. But instead of obstinately wandering off, you wait around a day to meetup with the younger version of yourself, with whom you exchange pleasantries before going on your way. Everyone's version of every event would be completely consistent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We can have much more dramatic stories that are nevertheless consistent. Imagine that we have been appointed Guardian of the Gate, and our job is to keep vigilant watch over who passes through. One day, as we are standing off to the side, we see a stranger emerge from the rear side of the gate. That's no surprise; it just means that the stranger will enter (\"has entered\"?-our language doesn't have the tenses to deal with time travel) the front side of the gate tomorrow. But as you keep vigilant watch, you see that the stranger who emerged simply loiters around for one day, and when precisely twenty-four hours have passed, walks calmly through the front of the gate. Nobody ever approached from elsewhere-the entering and exiting strangers formed a closed loop, and that twenty-four hours constituted the stranger's entire lifespan. That may strike you as weird or unlikely, but there is nothing paradoxical or logically inconsistent about it. 86\n\nThe real question is, what happens if we try to cause trouble? That is, what if we choose not to go along with the plan? In the story where you meet a slightly older version of yourself just before you cross through the front of the gate and jump backward in time, the crucial point is that you seem to have a choice once you pass through. You can obediently fulfill your apparent destiny, or you can cause trouble by wandering off. If that's the choice you make, what is to stop you? That is where the paradoxes seem to get serious.\n\nWe know what the answer is: That can't happen. If you met up with an older version of yourself, we know with absolute metaphysical certainty that once you age into that older self, you will be thereto meet with your younger self. Imagine that we remove messy human beings from the problem by just considering simple inanimate objects, like series of billiard balls passing through the gate. There maybe more than one consistent set of things that could happen at the various events in spacetime-but one and only one set of things will actually occur. 87 Consistent stories happen; inconsistent ones do not." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "ENTROPY AND TIME MACHINES\n\nThe issue that troubles us, when we get right down to it, isn't anything about the laws of physics; it's about freewill. We have a strong feeling that we can't be predestined to do something we choose not to do; that becomes a difficult feeling to sustain, if we've already seen ourselves doing it.\n\nThere are times when our freewill must be subjugated to the laws of physics. If we get thrown out of a window on the top floor of a skyscraper, we expect to hurtle to the ground, no matter how much we would rather flyaway and land safely elsewhere. That kind of predestination we're willing to accept. But the much more detailed kind implied by closed timelike curves, where it seems that the working out of a consistent history through spacetime simply forbids us from making free choices that would otherwise be possible, is bothersome. Sure, we could be committed determinists and imagine that all of the atoms in our bodies and in the external world, following the unbending dictates of Newton's laws of motion, will conspire to force us to behave in precisely the required way in order to avoid paradoxes, but it seems somewhat at variance with the way we think about ourselves. 88\n\nThe nub of the problem is that you can't have a consistent arrow of time in the presence of closed timelike curves. In general relativity, the statement'We remember the past and not the future\" becomes'We remember what happened within our past light cone, but not within our future light cone.\" But on a closed timelike curve, there are spacetime events that are both in our past light cone and in our future light cone, since those overlap. So do we remember such events or not? We might be able to guarantee that events along a closed timelike curve are consistent with the microscopic laws of physics, but in general they cannot be compatible with an uninterrupted increase of entropy along the curve." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To emphasize this point, think about the hypothetical stranger who emerges from the gate, only to enter it from the other side one day later, so that their entire life story is a one-day loop repeated ad infinitum." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Take a moment to contemplate the exquisite level of precision required to pull this off, if we were to think about the loop as'starting\" atone point. The stranger would have to ensure that, one day later, every single atom in his body was in precisely the right place to join up smoothly with his past self. He would have to make sure, for example, that his clothes didn't accumulate a single extra speck of dust that wasn't there one day earlier in his life, that the contents of his digestive tract was precisely the same, and that his hair and toenails were precisely the same length. This seems incompatible with our experience of how entropy increases-to put it mildly-even if it's not strictly a violation of the Second Law (since the stranger is not a closed system). If we merely shook hands with our former selves, rather than joining up with them, the required precision doesn't seem quite so dramatic; but in either case the insistence that we be in the right place at the right time puts a very stringent constraint on our possible future actions.\n\nOur concept of freewill is intimately related to the idea that the past maybe set in stone, but the future is up for grabs. Even if we believe that the laws of physics in principle determine the future evolution of some particular state of the universe with perfect fidelity, we don't know what that state is, and in the real world the increase of entropy is consistent with any number of possible futures. The kind of predestination seemingly implied by consistent evolution in the presence of closed timelike curves is precisely the same we would get into if there really were a low-entropy future boundary condition in the universe, just on a more local scale.\n\nIn other words: If closed timelike curves were to exist, consistent evolution in their presence would seem just as strange and unnatural to us as a movie played backward, or any other example of evolution that decreases entropy. It's not impossible; it's just highly unlikely. So either closed timelike curves can't exist, or big macroscopic things can't travel on truly closed paths through spacetime-or everything we think we know about thermodynamics is wrong." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "PREDICTIONS AND WHIMSY\n\nLife on a closed timelike curve seems depressingly predestined: If a system moves on a closed loop along such a curve, it is required to comeback to precisely the state in which it started. But from the point of view of an observer standing outside, closed timelike curves also raise what is seemingly the opposite problem: What happens along such a curve cannot be uniquely predicted from the prior state of the universe. That is, we have the very strong constraint that evolution along a closed timelike curve must be consistent, but there can be a large number of consistent evolutions that are possible, and the laws of physics seem powerless to predict which one will actually come to pass. 89\n\nWe've talked about the contrast between a presentist view of the universe, holding that only the current moment is real, and an eternalist or block-universe view, in which the entire history of the universe is equally real. There is an interesting philosophical debate over which is the more fruitful version of reality; to a physicist, however, they are pretty much indistinguishable. In the usual way of thinking, the laws of physics function as a computer: You give as input the present state, and the laws return as output what the state will be one instant later (or earlier, if we wish). By repeating this process multiple times, we can buildup the entire predicted history of the universe from start to finish. In that sense, complete knowledge of the present implies complete knowledge of all of history.\n\nClosed timelike curves make that program impossible, as a simple thought experiment reveals. Hearken back to the stranger who appeared out of the gate into yesterday, then jumped back in the other side a day later to form a closed loop. There would be noway to predict the existence of such a stranger from the state of the universe at an earlier time. Let's say that we start in a universe that, at some particular moment, has no closed timelike curves. The laws of physics purportedly allow us to predict what happens in the future of that moment. But if someone creates closed timelike curves, that ability vanishes. Once the closed timelike curves are established, mysterious strangers and other random objects can consistently appear and travel around them-or not. There is noway to predict what will happen, just from knowing the complete state of the universe at a previous time." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Carry on with the narrative as the plot partner.\nTags: science, cosmology, time, entropy, theoretical physics\nAuthor: Sean Carroll\nTitle: From Eternity to Here\nChapter: 11" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "PREDICTIONS AND WHIMSY\n\nLife on a closed timelike curve seems depressingly predestined: If a system moves on a closed loop along such a curve, it is required to comeback to precisely the state in which it started. But from the point of view of an observer standing outside, closed timelike curves also raise what is seemingly the opposite problem: What happens along such a curve cannot be uniquely predicted from the prior state of the universe. That is, we have the very strong constraint that evolution along a closed timelike curve must be consistent, but there can be a large number of consistent evolutions that are possible, and the laws of physics seem powerless to predict which one will actually come to pass. 89\n\nWe've talked about the contrast between a presentist view of the universe, holding that only the current moment is real, and an eternalist or block-universe view, in which the entire history of the universe is equally real. There is an interesting philosophical debate over which is the more fruitful version of reality; to a physicist, however, they are pretty much indistinguishable. In the usual way of thinking, the laws of physics function as a computer: You give as input the present state, and the laws return as output what the state will be one instant later (or earlier, if we wish). By repeating this process multiple times, we can buildup the entire predicted history of the universe from start to finish. In that sense, complete knowledge of the present implies complete knowledge of all of history.\n\nClosed timelike curves make that program impossible, as a simple thought experiment reveals. Hearken back to the stranger who appeared out of the gate into yesterday, then jumped back in the other side a day later to form a closed loop. There would be noway to predict the existence of such a stranger from the state of the universe at an earlier time. Let's say that we start in a universe that, at some particular moment, has no closed timelike curves. The laws of physics purportedly allow us to predict what happens in the future of that moment. But if someone creates closed timelike curves, that ability vanishes. Once the closed timelike curves are established, mysterious strangers and other random objects can consistently appear and travel around them-or not. There is noway to predict what will happen, just from knowing the complete state of the universe at a previous time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We can insist all we like, in other words, that what happens in the presence of closed timelike curves be consistent-there are no paradoxes. But that's not enough to make it predictable, with the future determined by the laws of physics and the state of the universe atone moment in time. Indeed, closed timelike curves can make it impossible to define'the universe atone moment in time.\" In our previous discussions of spacetime, it was crucially important that we were allowed to'slice\" our four-dimensional universe into three-dimensional'moments of time,\" the complete set of which was labeled with different values of the time coordinate. But in the presence of closed timelike curves, we generally won't be able to slice spacetime that way. 90 Locally-in the near vicinity of any particular event-the division of spacetime into'past\" and'future\" as defined by light cones is perfectly normal. Globally, we can't divide the universe consistently into moments of time.\n\nIn the presence of closed timelike curves, therefore, we have to abandon the concept of'determinism\"-the idea that the state of the universe at anyone time determines the state at all other times. Do we value determinism so highly that this conflict means we should reject the possibility of closed timelike curves entirely? Not necessarily. We could imagine a different way in which the laws of physics could be formulated-not as a computer that calculates the next moment from the present moment, but as some set of conditions that are imposed on the history of the universe as a whole. It's not clear what such conditions might be, but we have noway of excluding the idea on the basis of pure thought.\n\nAll this vacillation might come off as unseemly, but it reflects an important lesson. Some of our understanding of time is based on logic and the known laws of physics, but some of it is based purely on convenience and reasonable-sounding assumptions. We think that the ability to uniquely determine the future from knowledge of our present state is important, but the real world might end up having other ideas. If closed timelike curves could exist, we would have a definitive answer to the debate between eternalism and presentism: The eternalist block universe would win hands down, for the straightforward reason that the universe can't be nicely divided into a series of'presents\" if there are closed timelike curves lurking around." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ultimate answer to the puzzles raised by closed timelike curves is probably that they simply don't (and can't) exist. But if that's true, it's because the laws of physics won't let you warp spacetime enough to create them, not because they let you kill your ancestors. So it's to the laws of physics we should turn.\n\nFLATLAND\n\nClosed timelike curves offer an interesting thought-experiment laboratory in which to explore the nature of time. But if we're going to take them seriously, we need to ask whether or not they could exist in the real world, at least according to the rules of general relativity.\n\nI've already mentioned a handful of solutions to Einstein's equation that feature closed timelike curves-the circular-time universe, the Gödel universe, the inner region near the singularity of a rotating black hole, and an infinite spinning cylinder. But these all fall short of our idea of what it would mean to'build\" a time machine-to create closed timelike curves where there weren't any already. In the case of the circular-time universe, the Gödel universe, and the rotating cylinder, the closed timelike curves are built into the universe from the start. 91 The real question is, can we make closed timelike curves in a local region of spacetime?\n\nGlancing all the way back at Figure 23, it's easy to see why all of these solutions feature some kind of rotation-it's not enough to tilt light cones; we want them to tilt around in a circle. So if we were to sit down and guess how to make a closed timelike curve in spacetime, we might think to start something rotating-if not an infinite cylinder or a black hole, then perhaps a pretty long cylinder, or just a very massive star. We might be able to get even more juice by starting with two giant masses, and shooting them by each other at an enormous relative speed. And then, if we got lucky, the gravitational pull of those masses would distort the light cones around them enough to create a closed timelike curve." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That all sounds a bit loosey-goosey, and indeed we're faced with an immediate problem: General relativity is complicated. Not just conceptually, but technically; the equations governing the curvature of spacetime are enormously difficult to solve in any real-world situation. What we know about the exact predictions of the theory comes mostly from highly idealized cases with a great deal of symmetry, such as a static star or a completely smooth universe. Determining the spacetime curvature caused by two black holes passing by each other near the speed of light is beyond our current capabilities (although the state of the art is advancing rapidly).\n\nIn this spirit of dramatic simplification, we can ask, what would happen if two massive objects passed by each other at high relative velocity, but in a universe with only three dimensions of spacetime? That is, instead of the three dimensions of space and one dimension of time in our real four-dimensional spacetime, let's pretend that there are only two dimensions of space, to make three spacetime dimensions in total.\n\nThrowing away a dimension of space in the interest of simplicity is a venerable move. Edwin A. Abbott, in his book Flatland, conceived of beings who lived in a two-dimensional space as away of introducing the idea that there could be more than three dimensions, while at the same time taking the opportunity to satirize Victorian culture. 92 We will borrow Abbott's terminology, and refer to a universe with two spatial dimensions and onetime dimension as'Flatland,\" even if it's not really flat-we care about cases where spacetime is curved, and light cones can tip, and timelike curves can be closed.\n\nSTUDYING TIME MACHINES IN FLATLAND (AND IN CAMBRIDGE)\n\nConsider the situation portrayed in Figure 26, where two massive objects in Flatland are zooming past each other at high velocity. The marvelous feature of a three-dimensional universe is that Einstein's equation simplifies enormously, and what would have been an impossibly complicated problem in the real four-dimensional world can now be solved exactly. In 1991, astrophysicist Richard Gott rolled up his sleeves and calculated the spacetime curvature for this situation. Remarkably, he found that heavy objects moving by each other in Flatland do lead to closed timelike curves, if they are moving fast enough. For any particular value of the mass of the two bodies, Gott calculated a speed at which they would have to be moving in order to tilt the surrounding light cones sufficiently to open up the possibility of time travel. 93" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Figure 26: A Gott time machine in Flatland." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If two objects pass by each other with sufficiently high relative velocity, the dashed loop will be a closed timelike curve. Note that the plane illustrated here is truly two-dimensional, not a projection of three-dimensional space.\n\nThis is an intriguing result, but it doesn't quite count as'building\" a time machine. In Gott's spacetime, the objects start out far apart, pass by each other, and then zip back out to infinity again. Ultimately, the closed timelike curves were destined to occur; there is no point in the evolution where their formation could have been avoided. So the question still lingers-can we build a Gott time machine? For example, we could imagine starting with two massive objects in Flatland that were at rest with respect to each other, and hooking up rocket engines to each of them. (Keep telling yourself: \"thought experiment.\") Could we accelerate them fast enough to create closed timelike curves? That would really count as'building a time machine,\" albeit in somewhat unrealistic circumstances.\n\nThe answer is fascinating, and I was lucky enough to be in on the ground floor when it was worked out. 94 When Gott's paper appeared in 1991, I was a graduate student at Harvard, working mostly with my advisor, George Field. But like many Harvard students, I frequently took the Red Line subway down to MIT to take courses that weren't offered at my home institution. (Plenty of MIT students came the other way for similar reasons.) Among these were excellent courses on theoretical particle physics from Edward (\"Eddie\") Farhi, and on early-universe cosmology from Alan Guth. Eddie was a younger guy with a Bronx accent and a fairly no-nonsense attitude toward physics, at least for someone who wrote papers like'Is it Possible to Create a Universe in the Laboratory by Quantum Tunneling?\" 95 Alan was an exceptionally clear-minded physicist who was world-famous as the inventor of the inflationary universe scenario. They were both also friendly and engaged human beings, guys with whom you'd be happy to socialize with, even without interesting physics to talk about." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So I was thrilled and honored when the two of them pulled me into a collaboration to tackle the question of whether it was possible to build a Gott time machine. Another team of theorists-Stanley Deser, Roman Jackiw, and Nobel laureate Gerard \"t Hooft-were also working on the problem, and they had uncovered a curious feature of the two moving bodies in Gott's universe: Even though each object by itself moved slower than the speed of light, when taken together the total system had a momentum equivalent to that of a tachyon. It was as if two perfectly normal particles combined to create a single particle moving faster than light. In special relativity, where there is no gravity and spacetime is perfectly flat, that would be impossible; the combined momentum of any number of slower-than-light particles would add up to give a nice slower-than-light total momentum. It is only because of the peculiarities of curved spacetime that the velocities of the two objects could add together in that funny way. But to us, it wasn't quite the final word; who is to say that the peculiarities of curved spacetime didn't allow you to make tachyons?\n\nWe tackled the rocket-ship version of the problem: Could you start with slowly moving objects and accelerate them fast enough to make a time machine? When put that way, it's hard to see what could possibly go wrong-with a big enough rocket, what's to stop you from accelerating the heavy objects to whatever speed you like?\n\nThe answer is, there's not enough energy in the universe. We started by assuming an'open universe\"-the plane in Flatland through which our particles were moving extended out to infinity. But it is a peculiar feature of gravity in Flatland that there is an absolute upper limit on the total amount of energy that you can fit in an open universe. Try to fit more, and the spacetime curvature becomes too much, so that the universe closes in on itself. 96 In four-dimensional spacetime, you can fit as much energy in the universe as you like; each bit of energy curves spacetime nearby, but the effect dilutes away as you go far from the source. In three-dimensional spacetime, by contrast, the effect of gravity doesn't dilute away; it just builds up. In an open three-dimensional universe, therefore, there is a maximum amount of energy you can possibly have-and it is not enough to make a Gott time machine if you don't have one to start with." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That's an interesting way for Nature to manage to avoid creating a time machine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We wrote two papers, one by the three of us that gave reasonable-sounding arguments for our result, and another with Ken Olum that proved it in greater generality. But along the way we noticed something interesting. There's an upper limit to how much energy you can have in an open Flatland universe, but what about a closed universe? If you try to stick too much energy into an open universe, the problem is that it closes in on itself. But turn that bug into a feature by considering closed universes, where space looks something like a sphere instead of like a plane. 97 Then there is precisely one value of the total amount of allowed energy-there is no wriggle room; the total curvature of space has to add up to be exactly that of a sphere-and that value is twice as large as the most you can fit in an open universe.\n\nWhen we compared the total amount of energy in a closed Flatland universe to the amount you would need to create a Gott time machine, we found there was enough. This was after we had already submitted our first paper and it had been accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters, the leading journal in the field. But journals allow you to insert small notes'added in proof\" to your papers before they are published, so we tacked on a couple of sentences mentioning that we thought you could make a time machine in a closed Flatland universe, even if it were impossible in an open universe.\n\nFigure 27: Particles moving in a closed Flatland universe, with the topology of a sphere. Think of ants crawling over the surface of a beach ball.\n\nWe goofed. (The single best thing about working with famous senior collaborators as a young scientist is that, when you goof, you can think to yourself, \"Well if even those guys didn't catch this one, how dumb could it have been?\") It did seem a little funny to us that Nature had been so incredibly clever in avoiding Gott time machines in open universes but didn't seem to have any problem with them in closed universes. But there was certainly enough energy to accelerate the objects to sufficient velocity, so again-what could possibly go wrong?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Very soon thereafter, Gerard \"t Hooft figured out what could go wrong. A closed universe, unlike an open universe, has a finite total volume-really a'finite total area,\" since we have only two spatial dimensions, but you get the idea. What't Hooft showed was that, if you set some particles moving in a closed Flatland universe in an attempt to make a Gott time machine, that volume starts to rapidly decrease. Basically, the universe starts to head toward a Big Crunch. Once that possibility occurs to you, it's easy to see how spacetime avoids making a time machine-it crunches to zero volume before the closed timelike curves are created. The equations don't lie, and Eddie and Alan and I acknowledged our mistake, submitting an erratum to Physical Review Letters. The progress of science marched on, seemingly little worse for the wear.\n\nBetween our result about open universes and \"t Hooft's result about closed universes, it was clear that you couldn't make a Gott time machine in Flatland by starting from a situation where such a time machine wasn't already there. It may seem that much of the reasoning used to derive these results is applicable only to the unrealistic case of three-dimensional spacetime, and you would be right. But it was very clear that general relativity was trying to tell us something: It doesn't like closed timelike curves. You can try to make them, but something always seems to go wrong. We would certainly like to ask how far you could push that conclusion into the real world of four-dimensional spacetime.\n\nWORMHOLES\n\nIn the spring of 1985, Carl Sagan was writing a novel-Contact, in which astrophysicist Ellie Arroway (later to be played by Jodie Foster in the movie version) makes first contact with an alien civilization. 98 Sagan was looking fora way to move Ellie quickly over interstellar distances, but he didn't want to take the science fiction writer's lazy way out and invoke warp drive to move her faster than light. So he did what any self-respecting author would do: He threw his heroine into a black hole, hoping that she would pop out unharmed twenty-six light-years away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not likely." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Poor Ellie would have been'spaghettified\"-stretched to pieces by the tidal forces near the singularity of the black hole, and not spit out anywhere at all. Sagan wasn't ignorant of black-hole physics; he was thinking about rotating black holes, where the light cones don't actually force you to smack into the singularity, at least according to the exact solution that had been found by Roy Kerr back in the sixties. But he recognized that he wasn't the world's expert, either, and he wanted to be careful about the science in his novel. Happily, he was friends with the person who was the world's expert: Kip Thorne, a theoretical physicist at Caltech who is one of the foremost authorities on general relativity.\n\nThorne was happy to read Sagan's manuscript, and noticed the problem: Modern research indicates that black holes in the real world aren't quite as well behaved as the pristine Kerr solution. An actual black hole that might have been created by physical processes in our universe, whether spinning or not, would chew up an intrepid astronaut and never spit her out. But there might bean alternative idea: a wormhole.\n\nUnlike black holes, which almost certainly exist in the real world and for which we have a great deal of genuine observational evidence, wormholes are entirely conjectural playthings of theorists. The idea is more or less what it sounds like: Take advantage of the dynamical nature of spacetime in general relativity to imagine a'bridge\" connecting two different regions of space.\n\nFigure 28: A wormhole connecting two distant parts of space. Although it can't be accurately represented in a picture, the physical distance through the wormhole could be much shorter than the ordinary distance between the wormhole mouths.\n\nAtypical representation of a wormhole is depicted in Figure 28. The plane represents three-dimensional space, and there is a sort of tunnel that provides a shortcut between two distant regions; the places where the wormhole connects with the external space are the'mouths\" of the wormhole, and the tube connecting them is called the'throat.\" It doesn't look like a shortcut-in fact, from the picture, you might think it would take longer to pass through the wormhole than to simply travel from one mouth to the other through the rest of space. But that's just a limitation on our ability to draw interesting curved spaces by embedding them in our boring local region of three-dimensional space. We are certainly welcome to contemplate a geometry that is basically of the form shown in the previous figure, but in which the distance through the wormhole is anything we like-including much shorter than the distance through ordinary space." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In fact, there is a much more intuitive way of representing a wormhole. Just imagine ordinary three-dimensional space, and'cutout\" two spherical regions of equal size. Then identify the surface of one sphere with the other. That is, proclaim that anything that enters one sphere immediately emerges out of the opposite side of the other. What we end up with is portrayed in Figure 29; each sphere is one of the mouths of a wormhole. This is a wormhole of precisely zero length; if you enter one sphere, you instantly emerge out of the other. (The word instantly in that sentence should set off alarm bells-instantly to whom?)\n\nFigure 29: A wormhole in three-dimensional space, constructed by identifying two spheres whose interiors have been removed. Anything that enters one sphere instantly appears on the opposite side of the other.\n\nThe wormhole is reminiscent of our previous gate-into-yesterday example. If you look through one end of the wormhole, you don't see swirling colors or flashing lights; you see whatever is around the other end of the wormhole, just as if you were looking through some sort of periscope (or at a video monitor, where the camera is at the other end). The only difference is that you could just as easily put your hand through, or (if the wormhole were big enough), jump right through yourself.\n\nThis sort of wormhole is clearly a shortcut through spacetime, connecting two distant regions in no time at all. It performs exactly the trick that Sagan needed for his novel, and on Thorne's advice he rewrote the relevant section. (In the movie version, sadly, there were swirling colors and flashing lights.) But Sagan's question set off a chain of ideas that led to innovative scientific research, not just a more accurate story.\n\nTIME MACHINE CONSTRUCTION MADE EASY" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A wormhole is a shortcut through space; it allows you to get from one place to another much faster than you would if you took a direct route through the bulk of spacetime. You are never moving faster than light from your local point of view, but you get to your destination sooner than light would be able to if the wormhole weren't there. We know that faster-than-light travel can be used to go backward in time; travel through a wormhole isn't literally that, but certainly bears a family resemblance. Eventually Thorne, working with Michael Morris, Ulvi Yurtsever, and others, figured out how to manipulate a wormhole to create closed timelike curves. 99\n\nThe secret is the following: When we toss around a statement like, \"the wormhole connects two distant regions of space,\" we need to take seriously the fact that it really connects two sets of events in spacetime. Let's imagine that spacetime is perfectly flat, apart from the wormhole, and that we have defined a'background time\" in some rest frame. When we identify two spheres to make a wormhole, we do so'at the same time\" with respect to this particular background time coordinate. In some other frame, they wouldn't beat the same time.\n\nNow let's make a powerful assumption: We can pickup and move each mouth of the wormhole independently of the other. There is a certain amount of hand-waving justification that goes into this assumption, but for the purposes of our thought experiment it's perfectly okay. Next, we let one mouth sit quietly on an unaccelerated trajectory, while we move the other one out and back at very high speed.\n\nTo see what happens, imagine that we attach a clock to each wormhole mouth. The clock on the stationary mouth keeps time along with the background time coordinate. But the clock on the out-and-back wormhole mouth experiences less time along its path, just like any other moving object in relativity. So when the two mouths are brought back next to each other, the clock that moved now seems to be behind the clock that stayed still." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now consider exactly the same situation, but think of it from the point of view that you would get by looking through the wormhole." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Remember, you don't see anything spooky when you look through a wormhole mouth; you just see whatever view is available to the other mouth. If we compare the two clocks as seen through the wormhole mouth, they don't move with respect to each other. That's because the length of the wormhole throat doesn't change (in our simplified example it's exactly zero), even when the mouth moves. Viewed through the wormhole, there are just two clocks that are sitting nearby each other, completely stationary. So they remain in synchrony, keeping perfect time as far as they are each concerned.\n\nHow can the two clocks continue to agree with each other, when we previously said that the clock that moved and came back would have experienced less elapsed time? Easy-the clocks appear to differ when we look at them as an external observer, but they appear to match when we look at them through the wormhole. This puzzling phenomenon has a simple explanation: Once the two wormhole mouths move on different paths through spacetime, the identification between them is no longer at the same time from the background point of view. The sphere representing one mouth is still identified with the sphere representing the other mouth, but now they are identified at different times. Bypassing through one, you move into the past, as far as the background time is concerned; bypassing through in the opposite direction, you move into the future.\n\nFigure 30: A wormhole time machine. Double-sided arrows represent identifications between the spherical wormhole mouths. The two mouths start nearby, identified at equal background times. One remains stationary, while the other moves away and returns near the speed of light, so that they become identified at very different background times.\n\nThis kind of wormhole, therefore, is exactly like the gate into yesterday. By manipulating the ends of a wormhole with a short throat, we have connected two different regions of spacetime with very different times. Once we've done that, it's easy enough to travel through the wormhole in such away as to describe a closed timelike curve, and all of the previous worries about paradoxes apply. This procedure, if it could be carried out in the real world, would unambiguously count as'building a time machine\" by the standards of our earlier discussion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "PROTECTION AGAINST TIME MACHINES\n\nThe wormhole time machines make it sound somewhat plausible that closed timelike curves could exist in the real world. The problem seemingly becomes one of technological ability, rather than restrictions placed by the laws of physics; all we need is to find a wormhole, keep it open, move one of the mouths in the right way... Well, perhaps it's not completely plausible after all. As one might suspect, there turnout to be a number of good reasons to believe that wormholes don't provide a very practical route to building time machines.\n\nFirst, wormholes don't grow on trees. In 1967, theoretical physicist Robert Geroch investigated the question of wormhole construction, and he showed that you actually could create a wormhole by twisting spacetime in the appropriate way-but only if, as an intermediate step in the process, you created a closed timelike curve. In other words, the first step to building a time machine by manipulating a wormhole is to build a time machine so that you can make a wormhole. 100 But even if you were lucky enough to stumble across a wormhole, you'd be faced with the problem of keeping it open. Indeed, this difficulty is recognized as the single biggest obstacle to the plausibility of the wormhole time machine idea.\n\nThe problem is that keeping a wormhole open requires negative energies. Gravity is attractive: The gravitational field caused by an ordinary positive-energy object works to pull things together. But look back at Figure 29 and see what the wormhole does to a collection of particles that pass through it-it'defocuses\" them, taking particles that were initially coming together and now pushing them apart. That's the opposite of gravity's conventional behavior, and a sign that negative energies must be involved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Do negative energies exist in Nature? Probably not, at least not in the ways necessary to sustain a macroscopic wormhole-but we can't say for sure. Some people have proposed ideas for using quantum mechanics to create pockets of negative energy, but they're not on a very firm footing. A big hurdle is that the question necessarily involves both gravity and quantum mechanics, and the intersection of those two theories is not very well understood.\n\nAs if that weren't enough to worry about, even if we found a wormhole and knew away to keep it open, chances are that it would be unstable-the slightest disturbance would send it collapsing into a black hole. This is another question for which it's hard to find a clear-cut answer, but the basic idea is that any tiny ripple in energy can zoom around a closed timelike curve an arbitrarily large number of times. Our best current thinking is that this kind of repeat journey is inevitable, at least for some small fluctuations. So the wormhole doesn't just feel the mass of a single speck of dust passing through-it feels that effect over and over again, creating an enormous gravitational field, enough to ultimately destroy our would-be time machine.\n\nNature, it seems, tries very hard to stop us from building a time machine. The accumulated circumstantial evidence prompted Stephen Hawking to propose what he calls the'Chronology Protection Conjecture\": The laws of physics (whatever they maybe) prohibit the creation of closed timelike curves. 101 We have a lot of evidence that something along those lines is true, even if we fall short of a definitive proof.\n\nTime machines fascinate us, in part because they seem to open the door to paradoxes and challenge our notions of freewill. But it's likely that they don't exist, so the problems they present aren't the most pressing (unless you're a Hollywood screenwriter). The arrow of time, on the other hand, is indisputably a feature of the real world, and the problems it presents demand an explanation. The two phenomena are related; there can be a consistent arrow of time throughout the observable universe only because there are no closed timelike curves, and many of the disconcerting properties of closed timelike curves arise from their incompatibility with the arrow of time. The absence of time machines is necessary fora consistent arrow of time, but it's by no means sufficient to explain it. Having laid sufficient groundwork, it's time to confront the mystery of time's direction head-on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "PART THREE\n\nENTROPY AND TIME'S ARROW" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "RUNNING TIME BACKWARD\n\n-Italo Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler\n\nPierre-Simon Laplace was asocial climber at a time when social climbing was a risky endeavor. 102 When the French Revolution broke out, Laplace had established himself as one of the greatest mathematical minds in Europe, as he would frequently remind his colleagues at the Académie des Sciences. In 1793 the Reign of Terror suppressed the Académie; Laplace proclaimed his Republican sympathies, but he also moved out of Paris just to be safe. (Not without reason; his colleague Antoine Lavoisier, the father of modern chemistry, was sent to the guillotine in 1794.) He converted to Bonapartism when Napoleon took power, and dedicated his Théorie Analytique des Probabilités to the emperor. Napoleon gave Laplace a position as minister of the interior, but he didn't last very long-something about being too abstract-minded. After the restoration of the Bourbons, Laplace became a Royalist, and omitted the dedication to Napoleon from future editions of his book. He was named a marquis in 1817.\n\nSocial ambitions notwithstanding, Laplace could be impolitic when it came to his science. A famous anecdote concerns his meeting with Napoleon, after he had asked the emperor to accept a copy of his Méchanique Céleste-a five-volume treatise on the motions of the planets. It seems unlikely that Napoleon read the whole thing (or any of it), but someone at court did let him know that the name of God was entirely absent. Napoleon took the opportunity to mischievously ask, \"M. Laplace, they tell me you have written this large book on the system of the universe, and have never even mentioned its Creator.\" To which Laplace answered stubbornly, \"I had no need of that hypothesis.\" 103" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Figure 31: Pierre-Simon Laplace, mathematician, physicist, swerving politician, and unswerving determinist.\n\nOne of the central tenets of Laplace's philosophy was determinism. It was Laplace who truly appreciated the implications of Newtonian mechanics for the relationship between the present and the future: Namely, if you understood everything about the present, the future would be absolutely determined. Ashe put it in the introduction to his essay on probability:\n\nThese days we would probably say that a sufficiently powerful computer could, given all there was to know about the present universe, predict the future (and retrodict the past) with perfect accuracy. Laplace didn't know about computers, so he imagined avast intellect. His later biographers found this a bit dry, so they attached a label to this hypothetical intellect: Laplace's Demon.\n\nLaplace never called it a demon, of course; presumably he had no need to hypothesize demons anymore than gods. But the idea captures some of the menace lurking within the pristine mathematics of Newtonian physics. The future is not something that has yet to be determined; our fate is encoded in the details of the current universe. Every moment of the past and future is fixed by the present. It's just that we don't have the resources to perform the calculation. 105\n\nThere is a deep-seated impulse within all of us to resist the implications of Laplace's Demon. We don't want to believe that the future is determined, even if someone out there did have access to the complete state of the universe. Tom Stoppard's Arcadia once again expresses this anxiety in vivid terms.\n\nWe won't be exploring whether sexual attraction helps us wriggle free of the iron grip of determinism. Our concern is with why the past seems so demonstrably different from the future. But that wouldn't be nearly the puzzle it appears to be if it weren't for the fact that the underlying laws of physics seem perfectly reversible; as far as Laplace's Demon is concerned, there's no difference between reconstructing the past and predicting the future." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Reversing time turns out to be a surprisingly subtle concept for something that would appear at first glance to be relatively straightforward." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "(Just run the movie backward, right?) Blithely reversing the direction of time is not asymmetry of the laws of nature-we have to dress up what we really mean by'reversing time\" in order to correctly pinpoint the underlying symmetry. So we'll approach the topic somewhat circuitously, through simplified toy models. Ultimately I'll argue that the important concept isn't\"time reversal\" at all, but the similar-sounding notion of'reversibility\"-our ability to reconstruct the past from the present, as Laplace's Demon is purportedly able to do, even if it's more complicated than simply reversing time. And the key concept that ensures reversibility is conservation of information-if the information needed to specify the state of the world is preserved as time passes, we will always be able to run the clock backward and recover any previous state. That's where the real puzzle concerning the arrow of time will arise.\n\nCHECKERBOARD WORLD\n\nLet's play a game. It's called'checkerboard world,\" and the rules are extremely simple. You are shown an array of squares-the checkerboard-with some filled in white, and some filled in gray. In computer-speak, each square is a'bit\"-we could label the white squares with the number'0,\" and the gray squares with'1.\" The checkerboard stretches infinitely far in every direction, but we get to see only some finite part of it at a time.\n\nThe point of the game is to guess the pattern. Given the array of squares before you, your job is to discern patterns or rules in the arrangements of whites and grays. Your guesses are then judged by revealing more checkerboard than was originally shown, and comparing the predictions implied by your guess to the actual checkerboard. That last step is known in the parlance of the game as'testing the hypothesis.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of course, there is another name to this game: It's called'science.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All we've done is describe what real scientists do to understand nature, albeit in a highly idealized context. In the case of physics, a good theory has three ingredients: a specification of the stuff that makes up the universe, the arena through which the stuff is distributed, and a set of rules that the stuff obeys. For example, the stuff might be elementary particles or quantum fields, the arena might be four-dimensional spacetime, and the rules might be the laws of physics. Checkerboard world is a model for exactly that: The stuff is a set of bits (0's and 1's, white and gray squares), the arena through which they are distributed is the checkerboard itself, and the rules-the laws of nature in this toy world-are the patterns we discern in the behavior of the squares. When we play this game, we're putting ourselves in the position of imaginary physicists who live in one of these imaginary checkerboard worlds, and who spend their time looking for patterns in the appearance of the squares as they attempt to formulate laws of nature. 107\n\nFigure 32: An example of checkerboard world, featuring a simple pattern within each vertical column.\n\nIn Figure 32 we have a particularly simple example of the game, labeled'checkerboard A.\" Clearly there is some pattern going on here, which should be pretty evident. One way of putting it would be, \"every square in any particular column is in the same state.\" We should be careful to check that there aren't any other patterns lurking around-if someone else finds more patterns than we do, we lose the game, and they go collect the checkerboard Nobel Prize. From the looks of checkerboard A, there doesn't seem to be any obvious pattern as we go across a row that would allow us to make further simplifications, so it looks like we're done." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As simple as it is, there are some features of checkerboard A that are extremely relevant for the real world. For one thing, notice that the pattern distinguishes between'time,\" running vertically up the columns, and'space,\" running horizontally across the rows. The difference is that anything can happen within a row-as far as we can tell, knowing the state of one particular square tells us nothing about the state of nearby squares. In the real world, analogously, we believe that we can start with any configuration of matter in space that we like. But once that configuration is chosen, the'laws of physics\" tell us exactly what must happen through time. If there is a cat sitting on our lap, we can be fairly sure that the same cat will be nearby a moment later; but knowing there's a cat doesn't tell us very much about what else is in the room.\n\nStarting completely from scratch in inventing the universe, it's not at all obvious that there must be a distinction of this form between time and space. We could imagine a world in which things changed just as sharply and unpredictably from moment to moment in time as they do from place to place in space. But the real universe in which we live does seem to feature such a distinction. The idea of'time,\" through which things in the universe evolve, isn't a logically necessary part of the world; it's an idea that happens to be extremely useful when thinking about the reality in which we actually find ourselves.\n\nWe characterized the rule exhibited by checkerboard A as'every square in a column is in the same state.\" That's a global description, referring to the entire column all at once. But we could rephrase the rule in another way, more local in character, which works by starting from some particular row (a'moment in time\") and working up or down. We can express the rule as'given the state of any particular square, the square immediately above it must be in the same state.\" In other words, we can express the patterns we see in terms of evolution through time-starting with whatever state we find at some particular moment, we can march forward (or backward), one row at a time. That's a standard way of thinking about the laws of physics, as illustrated schematically in Figure 33. You tell me what is going on in the world (say, the position and velocity of every single particle in the universe) atone moment of time, and the laws of physics area black box that tells us what the world will evolve into just one moment later. 108 By repeating the process, we can buildup the entire future. What about the past?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Figure 33: The laws of physics can bethought of as a machine that tells us, given what the world is like right now, what it will evolve into a moment later.\n\nFLIPPING TIME UPSIDE DOWN\n\nA checkerboard is a bit sterile and limiting, as imaginary worlds go. It would be hard to imagine these little squares throwing a party, or writing epic poetry. Nevertheless, if there were physicists living in the checkerboards, they would find interesting things to talk about once they were finished formulating the laws of time evolution.\n\nFor example, the physics of checkerboard A seems to have a certain degree of symmetry. One such symmetry is time-translation invariance-the simple idea that the laws of physics don't change from moment to moment. We can shift our point of view forward or backward in time (up or down the columns) and the rule'the square immediately above this one must be in the same state\" remains true. 109 Symmetries are always like that: If you do a certain thing, it doesn't matter; the rules still work in the same way. As we've discussed, the real world is also invariant under time shifts; the laws of physics don't seem to be changing as time passes.\n\nAnother kind of symmetry is lurking in checkerboard A: time-reversal invariance. The idea behind time reversal is relatively straightforward-just make time run backward. If the result'looks the same\"-that is, looks like it's obeying the same laws of physics as the original setup-then we say that the rules are time-reversal invariant. To apply this to a checkerboard, just pick some particular row of the board, and reflect the squares vertically around that row. As long as the rules of the checkerboard are also invariant under time shifts, it doesn't matter which row we choose, since all rows are created equal. If the rules that described the original pattern also describe the new pattern, the checkerboard is said to be time-reversal invariant. Example A, featuring straight vertical columns of the same color squares, is clearly invariant under time reversal-not only does the reflected pattern satisfy the same rules; it is precisely the same as the original pattern." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Let's look at a more interesting example to get a better feeling for this idea. In Figure 34 we show another checkerboard world, labeled'B.\" Now there are two different kinds of patterns of gray squares running from bottom to top-diagonal series of squares running in either direction. (They kind of look like light cones, don't they?) Once again, we can express this pattern in terms of evolution from moment to moment in time, with one extra thing to keep in mind: Along any single row, it's not enough to keep track of whether a particular square is white or gray. We also need to keep track of what kinds of diagonal lines of gray squares, if any, are passing through that point. We could choose to label each square in one of four different states: \"white,\" \"diagonal line of grays going up and to the right,\" \"diagonal line of grays going up and to the left,\" or'diagonal lines of grays going in both directions.\" If, on any particular row, we simply listed a bunch of 0's and 1's, that wouldn't be enough to figure out what the next row up should look like. 110 It's as if we had discovered that there were two different kinds of'particles\" in this universe, one always moving left and one always moving right, but that they didn't interact or interfere with each other in anyway.\n\nFigure 34: Checkerboard B, on the left, has slightly more elaborate dynamics than checkerboard A, with diagonal lines of gray squares in both directions. Checkerboard B', on the right, is what happens when we reverse the direction of time by reflecting B about the middle row.\n\nWhat happens to checkerboard B under time reversal? When we reverse the direction of time in this example, the result looks similar inform, but the actual configuration of white and black squares has certainly changed (in contrast to checkerboard A, where flipping time just gave us precisely the set of whites and grays we started with). The second panel in Figure 34, labeled B', shows the results of reflecting about some row in checkerboard B. In particular, the diagonal lines that were extending from lower left to upper right now extend from upper left to lower right, and vice versa." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Is the checkerboard world portrayed in example B invariant under time reversal? Yes, it is. It doesn't matter that the individual distribution of white and gray squares is altered when we reflect time around some particular row; what matters is that the'laws of physics,\" the rules obeyed by the patterns of squares, are unaltered. In the original example B, before reversing time, the rules were that there were two kinds of diagonal lines of gray squares, going in either direction; the same is true in example B\". The fact that the two kinds of lines switched identities doesn't change the fact that the same two kinds of lines could be found before and after. So imaginary physicists living in the world of checkerboard B would certainly proclaim that the laws of nature were time-reversal invariant.\n\nTHROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS\n\nWell, then, what about checkerboard C, shown in Figure 35? Once again, the rules seem to be pretty simple: We see nothing but diagonal lines going from lower left to upper right. If we want to think about this rule in terms of one-step-at-a-time evolution, it could be expressed as'given the state of any particular square, the square one step above and one step to the right must be in the same state.\" It is certainly invariant under shifts in time, since that rule doesn't care about what row you start from.\n\nFigure 35: Checkerboard world C only has diagonal lines of gray squares running from lower left to upper right. If we reverse the direction of time to obtain C', we only have lines running from bottom right to top left. Strictly speaking, checkerboard C is not time-reversal invariant, but it is invariant under simultaneous reflection in space and reversal in time.\n\nIf we reverse the direction of time in checkerboard C, we get something like the checkerboard C'shown in the figure. Clearly this is a different situation than before. The rules obeyed in C\" are not those obeyed in C-diagonal lines stretching from lower left to upper right have been replaced by diagonal lines stretching the other way. Physicists who lived in one of these checkerboards would say that time reversal was not asymmetry of their observed laws of nature. We can tell the difference between'forward in time\" and'backward in time\"-forward is the direction in which the diagonal lines move to the right. It is completely up to us which direction we choose to label'the future,\" but once we make that choice it's unambiguous." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "However, that's surely not the end of the story. While checkerboard C might not be, strictly speaking, invariant under time reversal as we have defined it, there does seem to be something'reversible\" about it. Let's see if we can't put our fingers on it.\n\nIn addition to time reversal, we could also consider'space reversal,\" which would be obtained by flipping the checkerboard horizontally around some given column. In the real world, that's the kind of thing we get by looking at something in a mirror; we can think of space reversal as just taking the mirror image of something. In physics, it usually goes by the name of'parity,\" which (when we have three dimensions of space rather than just the one of the checkerboard) can be obtained by simultaneously inverting every spatial direction. Let's call it parity, so that we can sound like physicists when the occasion demands it.\n\nOur original checkerboard A clearly had parity as asymmetry-the rules of behavior we uncovered would still be respected if we flipped right with left. For checkerboard C, meanwhile, we face a situation similar to the one we encountered when considering time reversal-the rules are not parity symmetric, since a world with only up-and-to-the-right diagonals turns into one with only up-and-to-the-left diagonals once we switch right and left, just as it did when we reversed time.\n\nNevertheless, it looks like you could take checkerboard C and do both a reversal in time and a parity inversion in space, and you would end up with the same set of rules you started with. Reversing time takes one kind of diagonal to the other, and reflecting space takes them back again. That's exactly right, and it illustrates an important feature of time reversal in fundamental physics: It is often the case that a certain theory of physics would not be invariant under'naïve time reversal,\" which reverses the direction of time but does nothing else, and yet the theory is invariant under an appropriately generalized symmetry transformation that reverses the direction of time and also does some other things. The way this works in the real world is a tiny bit subtle and becomes enormously more confusing the way it is often discussed in physics books. So let's leave the blocky world of checkerboards and take a look at the actual universe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "THE STATE-OF-THE-SYSTEM ADDRESS\n\nThe theories that physicists often use to describe the real world share the underlying framework of a'state\" that'evolves with time.\" That's true for classical mechanics as put together by Newton, or for general relativity, or for quantum mechanics, all the way up to quantum field theory and the Standard Model of particle physics. On one of our checkerboards, a state is a horizontal row of squares, each of which is either white or gray (with perhaps some additional information). Indifferent approaches to real-world physics, what counts as a'state\" will be different. But in each case we can ask an analogous set of questions about time reversal and other possible symmetries.\n\nA'state\" of a physical system is'all of the information about the system, at some fixed moment in time, that you need to specify its future evolution, 111 given the laws of physics.\" In particular, we have in mind isolated systems-those that aren't subject to unpredictable external forces. (If there are predictable external forces, we can simply count those as part of the'laws of physics\" relevant to that system.) So we might bethinking of the whole universe, which is isolated by hypothesis, or some spaceship faraway from any planets or stars.\n\nFirst consider classical mechanics-the world of Sir Isaac Newton. 112 What information do we need to predict the future evolution of a system in Newtonian mechanics? I've already alluded to the answer: the position and velocity of every component of the system. But let's creep upon it gradually.\n\nWhen someone brings up'Newtonian mechanics,\" you know sooner or later you'll be playing with billiard balls. 113 But let's imagine a game that is not precisely like conventional eight ball; it's a unique, hypothetical setup, which we might call'physicist's billiards.\" In our eagerness to strip away complications and get to the essence of a thing, physicists imagine games of billiards in which there is no noise or friction, so that perfectly round spheres roll along the table and bounce off one another without losing any energy. Real billiard balls don't quite behave this way-there is some dissipation and sound as they knock into one another and roll along the felt. That's the arrow of time at work, as noise and friction create entropy-so we're putting those complications aside for the moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Start by considering a single billiard ball moving alone on a table. (Generalization to many billiard balls is not very hard.) We imagine that it never loses energy, and bounces cleanly off of the bumper anytime it hits. For purposes of this problem, \"bounces cleanly off the bumper\" is part of the'laws of physics\" of our closed system, the billiard ball. So what counts as the state of that single ball?\n\nYou might guess that the state of the ball at anyone moment of time is simply its position on the table. That is, after all, what would show up if we took a picture of the table-you would see where the ball was. But we defined the state to consist of all the information you would need to predict the future evolution of the system, and just specifying the position clearly isn't enough. If I tell you that the ball is precisely in the middle of the table (and nothing else), and ask you to predict where it will be one second later, you would beat a loss, since you wouldn't know whether the ball is moving.\n\nOf course, to predict the motion of the ball from information defined at a single moment in time, you need to know both the position and the velocity of the ball. When we say'the state of the ball,\" we mean the position and the velocity, and-crucially-nothing else. We don't need to know (for example) the acceleration of the ball, the time of day, what the ball had for breakfast that morning, or any other pieces of information.\n\nWe often characterize the motion of particles in classical mechanics in terms of momentum rather than velocity. The concept of'momentum\" goes all the way back to the great Persian thinker Ibn Sina (often Latinized as Avicenna) around the year 1000. He proposed a theory of motion in which'inclination\"-weight times velocity-remained constant in the absence of outside influences. The momentum tells us how much oomph an object has, and the direction in which it is moving 114; in Newtonian mechanics it is equal to mass times velocity, and in relativity the formula is slightly modified so that the momentum goes to infinity as the velocity approaches the speed of light. For any object with a fixed mass, when you know the momentum you know the velocity, and vice versa. We can therefore specify the state of a single particle by giving its position and its momentum." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Figure 36: Alone billiard ball, moving on a table, without friction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Three different moments in time are shown. The arrows denote the momentum of the ball; it remains constant until the ball rebounds off a wall.\n\nOnce you know the position and momentum of the billiard ball, you can predict the entire trajectory as it rattles around the table. When the ball is moving freely without hitting any walls, the momentum stays the same, while the position changes with a constant velocity along a straight line. When the ball does hit a wall, the momentum is suddenly reflected with respect to the line defined by the wall, after which the ball continues on at constant velocity. That is to say, it bounces. I'm making simple things sound complicated, but there's a method behind the madness.\n\nAll of Newtonian mechanics is like that. If you have many billiard balls on the same table, the complete state of the system is simply a list of the positions and momenta of each ball. If it's the Solar System you are interested in, the state is the position and momentum of each planet, as well as of the Sun. Or, if we want to be even more comprehensive and realistic, we can admit that the state is really the position and momentum of every single particle constituting these objects. If it's your boyfriend or girlfriend you are interested in, all you need to do is precisely specify the position and momentum of every atom in his or her body. The rules of classical mechanics give unambiguous predictions for how the system will involve, using only the information of its current state. Once you specify that list, Laplace's Demon takes over, and the rest of history is determined. You are not as smart as Laplace's Demon, nor do you have access to the same amount of information, so boyfriends and girlfriends are going to remain mysterious. Besides, they are open systems, so you would have to know about the rest of the world as well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It will often be convenient to think about'every possible state the system could conceivably be in.\" That is known as the space of states of the system. Note that space is being used in two somewhat different senses. We have'space,\" the physical arena through which actual objects move in the universe, and a more abstract notion of'a space\" as any kind of mathematical collection of objects (almost the same as'set,\" but with the possibility of added structure). The space of states is a space, which will take different forms depending on the laws of physics under consideration.\n\nIn Newtonian mechanics, the space of states is called'phase space,\" for reasons that are pretty mysterious. It's just the collection of all possible positions and momenta of every object in the system. For our checkerboards, the space of states consists of all possible sequences of white and gray squares along one row, possibly with some extra information when diagonal lines ran into one another. Once we get to quantum mechanics, the space of states will consist of all possible wave functions describing the quantum system; the technical term is Hilbert space. Any good theory of physics has a space of states, and then some rule describing how a particular state evolves in time.\n\nFigure 37: Two balls on a billiard table, and the corresponding space of states. Each ball requires two numbers to specify its position on the table, and two numbers to specify its momentum. The complete state of both particles is a point in an eight-dimensional space, on the right. We can't draw eight dimensions, but you should imagine they are there. Every extra ball on the table adds four more dimensions to the space of states.\n\nThe space of states can have a huge number of dimensions, even when ordinary space is just three-dimensional. In this abstract context, a'dimension\" is just'a number you need to specify a point in the space.\" The space of states has one dimension for each component of position, and one dimension for each component of momentum, for every particle in the system. Fora billiard ball confined to move on a flat two-dimensional table, we need to give two numbers to specify the position (because the table itself is two-dimensional), and also two numbers to specify the momentum, which has a magnitude and a direction. So the space of states of a single billiard ball confined to a two-dimensional table is four-dimensional: Two numbers fix the position, two fix the momentum. If we had nine balls on the table, we would have to specify two numbers for the position of each ball and two numbers for the momentum of each ball, so the total phase space would be thirty-six-dimensional. There are always an equal number of dimensions for position and momentum, since there can be momentum along every direction of real space. Fora baseball flying through the air, which can bethought of as a single particle moving freely in three-dimensional space, the space of states would be six-dimensional; for 1,000 particles, it would be 6,000-dimensional." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In realistic cases, the space of states is very big indeed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An actual billiard ball consists of approximately 10 25 atoms, and the space of states is a list of the position and momentum of each one of them. Instead of thinking of the evolution through time of all those atoms moving through three-dimensional space with their individual momenta, we can equally well think of the evolution of the entire system as the motion of a single point (the state) through a giant-dimensional space of states. This is a tremendous repackaging of a great amount of information; it doesn't make the description any simpler (we've just traded in a large number of particles fora large number of dimensions), but it provides a different way of looking at things.\n\nNEWTON IN REVERSE\n\nNewtonian mechanics is invariant under time reversal. If you made a movie of our single billiard ball bouncing around on a table, nobody to whom you showed the movie would be able to discern whether it was being played forward or backward in time. In either case, you would just seethe ball moving in a straight line at constant velocity until it reflected off of a wall.\n\nBut that's not quite the whole story. Back in checkerboard world, we defined time-reversal invariance as the idea that we could reverse the time ordering of the sequence of states of the system, and the result would still obey the laws of physics. On the checkerboard, a state was a row of white and gray squares; for our billiard ball, it's a point in the space of states-that is, the position and momentum of the ball.\n\nTake a look at the first part of the trajectory of the ball shown in Figure 36. The ball is moving uniformly up and to the right, and the momentum is fixed at a constant value, pointing up and to the right. So the time-reverse of that would be a series of positions of the ball moving from upper right to lower left, and a series of fixed momenta pointing up and to the right. But that's crazy. If the ball is moving along a time-reversed trajectory, from upper right to lower left, the momentum should surely be pointing in that direction, along the velocity of the ball. Clearly the simple recipe of taking the original set of states, ordered in time, and playing exactly the same states backward in time, does not give us a trajectory that obeys the laws of physics. (Or, apparently, of commonsense-how can the momentum point oppositely to the velocity? It's equal to the velocity times the mass. 115)" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The solution to this ginned-up dilemma is simple enough. In classical mechanics, we define the operation of time reversal to not simply play the original set of states backward, but also to reverse the momenta. And then, indeed, classical mechanics is perfectly invariant under time reversal. If you give me some evolution of a system through time, consisting of the position and momentum of each component at every moment, then I can reverse the momentum part of the state at every point, play it backward in time, and get anew trajectory that is also a perfectly good solution to the Newtonian equations of motion.\n\nThis is more or less commonsense. If you think of a planet orbiting the Sun, and decide that you would like to contemplate that process in reverse, you imagine the planet reversing its course and orbiting the other way. And if you watched that fora while, you would conclude that the result still looked like perfectly reasonable behavior. But that's because your brain automatically reversed the momenta, without even thinking about it-the planet was obviously moving in the opposite direction. We don't make a big deal about it, because we don't see momentum in the same way that we see position, but it is just as much part of the state as the position is.\n\nIt is, therefore, not true that Newtonian mechanics is invariant under the most naïve definition of time reversal: Take an allowed sequence of states through time, reverse their ordering, and ask whether the new sequence is allowed by the laws of physics. And nobody is bothered by that, even a little bit. Instead, they simply define a more sophisticated version of time-reversal: Take an allowed sequence of states through time, transform each individual state in some simple and specific way, then reverse their ordering. By'transform\" we just mean to change each state according to a predefined rule; in the case of Newtonian mechanics, the relevant transformation is'reverse the momentum.\" If we are able to find a sufficiently simple way to transform each individual state so that the time-reversed sequence of states is allowed by the laws of physics, we declare with a great sense of achievement that those laws are invariant under time reversal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's all very reminiscent (or should be, if my master plan has been successful) of the diagonal lines from checkerboard C. There we found that if you simply reversed the time ordering of states, as shown on checkerboard C\", the result did not conform to the original pattern, so checkerboard C is not naïvely time-reversal invariant. But if we first flipped the checkerboard from right to left, and only then reversed the direction of time, the result would obey the original rules. So there does exist a well-defined procedure for transforming the individual states (rows of squares) so that checkerboard C really is time-reversal invariant, in this more sophisticated sense.\n\nThis notion of time reversal, which involves transforming states around as well as literally reversing time, might seem a little suspicious, but it is what physicists do all the time. For example, in the theory of electricity and magnetism, time-reversal leaves the electric field unchanged, but reverses the direction of the magnetic field. That's just apart of the necessary transformation; the magnetic field and the momentum both get reversed before we run time backward. 116\n\nThe lesson of all this is that the statement'this theory is invariant under time reversal\" does not, in common parlance, mean'you can reverse the direction of time and the theory is just as good.\" It means something like'you can transform the state at every time in some simple way, and then reverse the direction of time, and the theory is just as good.\" Admittedly, it sounds a bit fishy when we start including phrases like in some simple way into the definitions of fundamental physical concepts. Who is to say what counts as sufficiently simple?\n\nAt the end of the day, it doesn't matter. If there exists some transformation that you can do to the state of some system at every moment of time, so that the time-reversed evolution obeys the original laws of physics, you are welcome to define that as'invariance under time reversal.\" Or you are welcome to call it some other symmetry, related to time reversal but not precisely the same. The names don't matter; what matters is understanding all of the various symmetries that are respected or violated by the laws. In the Standard Model of particle physics, in fact, we are faced precisely with a situation where it's possible to transform the states in such away that they can be run backward in time and obey the original equations of motion, but physicists choose not to call that'time-reversal invariance.\" Let's see how that works." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "RUNNING PARTICLES BACKWARD\n\nElementary particles don't really obey the rules of classical mechanics; they operate according to quantum mechanics. But the basic principle is still the same: We can transform the states in a particular way, so that reversing the direction of time after that transformation gives us a perfectly good solution to the original theory. You will often hear that particle physics is not invariant under time reversal, and occasionally it will be hinted darkly that this has something to do with the arrow of time. That's misleading; the behavior of elementary particles under time reversal has nothing whatsoever to do with the arrow of time. Which doesn't stop it from being an interesting subject in its own right.\n\nLet's imagine that we wanted to do an experiment to investigate whether elementary particle physics is time-reversal invariant. You might consider some particular process involving particles, and run it backward in time. For example, two particles could interact with each other and create other particles (as in a particle accelerator), or one particle could decay into several others. If it took a different amount of time for such a process to happen going forward and backward, that would be evidence fora violation of time-reversal invariance.\n\nAtomic nuclei are made of neutrons and protons, which are in turn made of quarks. Neutrons can be stable if they are happily surrounded by protons and other neutrons within a nucleus, but left all alone they will decay in a number of minutes. (The neutron is a bit of a drama queen.) The problem is that a neutron will decay into a combination of a proton, an electron, and a neutrino (a very light, neutral particle). 117 You could imagine running that backward, by shooting a proton, an electron, and a neutrino atone another in precisely the right way as to make a neutron. But even if this interaction were likely to reveal anything interesting about time reversal, the practical difficulties would be extremely difficult to overcome; it's too much to ask that we arrange those particles exactly right to reproduce the time reversal of a neutron decay." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But sometimes we get lucky, and there are specific contexts in particle physics where a single particle'decays\" into a single other particle, which can then'decay\" right back into the original." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That's not really a decay at all, since only one particle is involved-instead, such processes are known as oscillations. Clearly, oscillations can happen only under very special circumstances. A proton can't oscillate into a neutron, for example; their electrical charges are different. Two particles can oscillate into each other only if they have the same electric charge, the same number of quarks, and the same mass, since an oscillation shouldn't create or destroy energy. Note that a quark is different from an antiquark, so neutrons cannot oscillate into antineutrons. Basically, they have to be almost the same particle, but not quite.\n\nFigure 38: A neutral kaon and a neutral antikaon. Since they both have zero electric charge, and the net number of quarks is also zero, the kaon and antikaon can oscillate into each other, even though they are different particles.\n\nNature hands us the perfect candidate for such oscillations in the form of the neutral kaon. A kaon is a type of meson, which means it consists of one quark and one antiquark. If we want the two types of quarks to be different, and for the total charge to add up to zero, the easiest such particle to make will consist of one down quark and one strange antiquark, or vice versa. 118 By convention, we refer to the down/anti-strange combination as'the neutral kaon,\" and the strange/anti-down combination as'the neutral antikaon.\" They have precisely the same mass, about half the mass of a proton or neutron. It's natural to look for oscillations between kaons and antikaons, and indeed it's become something of an industry within experimental particle physics. (There are also electrically charged kaons, combinations of up quarks with strange quarks, but those aren't useful for our purposes; even if we drop the neutral for simplicity, we will always be referring to neutral kaons.)" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So you'd like to make a collection of kaons and antikaons, and keep track as they oscillate back and forth into each other. If time-reversal invariance is violated, we would expect one process to take just a bit longer sthan the other; as a result, on average your collection would have a bit more kaons than antikaons, or vice versa. Unfortunately, the particles themselves don't come with little labels telling us which kind they are. They do, however, eventually decay into other particles entirely-the kaon decays into a negatively charged pion, an antielectron, and a neutrino, while the antikaon decays into a positively charged pion, an electron, and an antineutrino. If you measure how often one kind of decay happens compared to the other kind, you can figure out whether the original particle spends more time as a kaon than an antikaon.\n\nEven though the theoretical predictions had been established fora while, this experiment wasn't actually carried out until 1998, by the CPLEAR experiment at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. 119 They found that their beam of particles, after oscillating back and forth between kaons and antikaons, decayed slightly more frequently (about 2/3 of 1 percent) like a kaon than like an antikaon; the oscillating beam was spending slightly more time as kaons than as antikaons. In other words, the process of going from a kaon to an antikaon took slightly longer than the time-reversed process of going from an antikaon to a kaon. Time reversal is not asymmetry of elementary particle physics in the real world.\n\nAt least, not'naïve\" time reversal, as I defined it above. Is it possible to include some additional transformations that preserve some kind of time-reversal invariance in the world of elementary particles? Indeed it is, and that's worth discussing." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Helping the author, keep the tale going.\nTags: science, cosmology, time, entropy, theoretical physics\nAuthor: Sean Carroll\nTitle: From Eternity to Here\nChapter: 13" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So you'd like to make a collection of kaons and antikaons, and keep track as they oscillate back and forth into each other. If time-reversal invariance is violated, we would expect one process to take just a bit longer sthan the other; as a result, on average your collection would have a bit more kaons than antikaons, or vice versa. Unfortunately, the particles themselves don't come with little labels telling us which kind they are. They do, however, eventually decay into other particles entirely-the kaon decays into a negatively charged pion, an antielectron, and a neutrino, while the antikaon decays into a positively charged pion, an electron, and an antineutrino. If you measure how often one kind of decay happens compared to the other kind, you can figure out whether the original particle spends more time as a kaon than an antikaon.\n\nEven though the theoretical predictions had been established fora while, this experiment wasn't actually carried out until 1998, by the CPLEAR experiment at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. 119 They found that their beam of particles, after oscillating back and forth between kaons and antikaons, decayed slightly more frequently (about 2/3 of 1 percent) like a kaon than like an antikaon; the oscillating beam was spending slightly more time as kaons than as antikaons. In other words, the process of going from a kaon to an antikaon took slightly longer than the time-reversed process of going from an antikaon to a kaon. Time reversal is not asymmetry of elementary particle physics in the real world.\n\nAt least, not'naïve\" time reversal, as I defined it above. Is it possible to include some additional transformations that preserve some kind of time-reversal invariance in the world of elementary particles? Indeed it is, and that's worth discussing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "THREE REFLECTIONS OF NATURE\n\nWhen you dig deeply into the guts of how particle physics works, it turns out that there are three different kinds of possible symmetries that involve'inverting\" a physical property, each of which is denoted by a capital letter. We have time reversal T, which exchanges past and future. We also have parity P, which exchanges right and left. We discussed parity in the context of our checkerboard worlds, but it's just as relevant to three-dimensional space in the real world. Finally, we have'charge conjugation\" C, which is a fancy name for the process of exchanging particles with their antiparticles. The transformations C, P, and Tall have the property that when you repeat them twice in a row you simply return to the state you started with.\n\nIn principle, we could imagine a set of laws of physics that were invariant under each of these three transformations separately. Indeed, the real world superficially looks that way, as long as you don't probe it too carefully (for example, by studying decays of neutral kaons). If we made an anti-hydrogen atom by combining an anti-proton with an antielectron, it would have almost exactly the same properties as an ordinary hydrogen atom-except that, if it were to touch an ordinary hydrogen atom, they would mutually annihilate into radiation. So C seems at first blush like a good symmetry, and likewise for P and T.\n\nIt therefore came as quite a surprise in the 1950s when one of these transformations-parity-was shown not to be asymmetry of nature, largely through the efforts of three Chinese-born American physicists: Tsung-Dao Lee, Chen Ning Yang, and Chien-Shiung Wu. The idea of parity violation had been floating around fora while, suggested by various people but never really taken seriously. In physics, credit accrues not just to someone who makes an offhand suggestion, but to someone who takes that suggestion seriously enough to put in the work and turn it into a respectable theory or a decisive experiment. In the case of parity violation, it was Lee and Yang who sat down and performed a careful analysis of the problem. They discovered that there was ample experimental evidence that electromagnetism and the strong nuclear force both were invariant under P, but that the question was open as far as the weak nuclear force was concerned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lee and Yang also suggested a number of ways that one could search for parity violation in the weak interactions. They finally convinced Wu, who was an exper imentalist specializing in the weak interactions and Lee's colleague at Columbia, that this was a project worth tackling. She recruited physicists at the National Bureau of Standards to join her in performing an experiment on cobalt-60 atoms in magnetic fields at very low temperatures.\n\nAs they designed the experiment, Wu became convinced of the project's fundamental importance. Ina later recollection, she explained vividly what it is like to be caught up in the excitement of a crucial moment in science:\n\nYour spouse and a return to your childhood home will have to wait-Science is calling! Lee and Yang were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1957; Wu should have been included among the winners, but she wasn't.\n\nOnce it was established that the weak interactions violated parity, people soon noticed that the experiments seemed to be invariant if you combined a parity transformation with charge conjugation C, exchanging particles with antiparticles. Moreover, this seemed to be a prediction of the theoretical models that were popular at the time. Therefore, people who were surprised that Pis violated in nature took some solace in the idea that combining C and P appeared to yield a good symmetry.\n\nIt doesn't. In 1964, James Cronin and Val Fitch led a collaboration that studied our friend the neutral kaon. They found that the kaon decayed in away that violated parity, and that the antikaon decayed in away that violated parity slightly differently. In other words, the combined transformation of reversing parity and trading particles for antiparticles is not asymmetry of nature. 121 Cronin and Fitch were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1980.\n\nAt the end of the day, all of the would-be symmetries C, P, and Tare violated in Nature, as well as any combination of two of them together. The obvious next step is to inquire about the combination of all three: CPT. In other words, if we take some process observed in nature, switch all the particles with their antiparticles, flip right with left, and run it backward in time, do we get a process that obeys the laws of physics? At this point, with everything else being violated, we might conclude that a stance of suspicion toward symmetries of this form is a healthy attitude, and guess that even CPT is violated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wrong again! (It's good to be the one both asking and answering the questions.) As far as any experiment yet performed can tell, CPT is a perfectly good symmetry of Nature. And it's more than that; under certain fairly reasonable assumptions about the laws of physics, you can prove that CPT must be a good symmetry-this result is known imaginatively as the'CPT Theorem.\" Of course, even reasonable assumptions might be wrong, and neither experimentalists nor theorists have shied away from exploring the possibility of CPT violation. But as far as we can tell, this particular symmetry is holding up.\n\nI argued previously that it was often necessary to fix up the operation of time reversal to obtain a transformation that was respected by nature. In the case of the Standard Model of particle physics, the requisite fixing-up involves adding charge conjugation and parity inversion to our time reversal. Most physicists find it more convenient to distinguish between the hypothetical world in which C, P, and T were all individually invariant, and the real world, in which only the combination CPT is invariant, and therefore proclaim that the real world is not invariant under time reversal. But it's important to appreciate that there is away to fix up time reversal so that it does appear to be asymmetry of Nature.\n\nCONSERVATION OF INFORMATION\n\nWe've seen that'time reversal\" involves not just reversing the evolution of a system, playing each state in the opposite order in time, but also doing some sort of transformation on the states at each time-maybe just reversing the momentum or flipping a row on our checkerboards, or maybe something more sophisticated like exchanging particles with antiparticles.\n\nIn that case, is every sensible set of laws of physics invariant under some form of'sophisticated time reversal\"? Is it always possible to find some transformation on the states so that the time-reversed evolution obeys the laws of physics?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "No." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Our ability to successfully define'time reversal\" so that some laws of physics are invariant under it depends on one other crucial assumption: conservation of information. This is simply the idea that two different states in the past always evolve into two distinct states in the future-they never evolve into the same state. If that's true, we say that'information is conserved,\" because knowledge of the future state is sufficient to figure out what the appropriate state in the past must have been. If that feature is respected by some laws of physics, the laws are reversible, and there will exist some (possibly complicated) transformations we can do to the states so that time-reversal invariance is respected. 122\n\nTo see this idea inaction, let's return to checkerboard world. Checkerboard D, portrayed in Figure 39, looks fairly simple. There are some diagonal lines, and one vertical column of gray squares. But something interesting happens here that didn't happen in any of our previous examples: The different lines of gray squares are'interacting\" with one another. In particular, it would appear that diagonal lines can approach the vertical column from either the right or the left, but when they get there they simply come to an end.\n\nFigure 39: A checkerboard with irreversible dynamics. Information about the past is not preserved into the future.\n\nThat is a fairly simple rule and makes fora perfectly respectable set of'laws of physics.\" But there is a radical difference between checkerboard D and our previous ones: This one is not reversible. The space of states is, as usual, just a list of white and gray squares along anyone row, with the additional information that the square is part of aright-moving diagonal, a left-moving diagonal, or a vertical column. And given that information, we have no problem at all in evolving the state forward in time-we know exactly what the next row up will look like, and the row after that, and soon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But if we are told the state along one row, we cannot evolve it backward in time. The diagonal lines would keep going, but from the time-reversed point of view, the vertical column could spit out diagonal lines at completely random intervals (corresponding, from the point of view portrayed in the figure, to a diagonal hitting the vertical column of grays and being absorbed). When we say that a physical process is irreversible, we mean that we cannot construct the past from knowledge of the current state, and this checkerboard is a perfect example of that.\n\nIna situation like this, information is lost. Knowing the state atone time, we can't be completely sure what the earlier states were. We have a space of states-a specification of a row of white and gray squares, with labels on the gray squares indicating whether they move up and to the right, up and to the left, or vertically. That space of states doesn't change with time; every row is a member of the same space of states, and any possible state is allowed on any particular row. But the unusual feature of checkerboard Dis that two different rows can evolve into the same row in the future. Once we get to that future state, the information of which past configurations got us there is irrevocably lost; the evolution is irreversible.\n\nIn the real world, apparent loss of information happens all the time. Consider two different states of a glass of water. In one state, the water is uniform and at the\n\nFigure 40: Apparent loss of information in a glass of water. A future state of a glass of cool water could have come either from the same state of cool water, or from warm water with an ice cube.\n\nsame cool temperature; in the other, we have warm water but also an ice cube. These two states can evolve into the future into what appears to be the same state: a glass of cool water." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We've encountered this phenomenon before: It's the arrow of time. Entropy increases as the ice melts into the warm water; that's a process that can happen but will never un-happen. The puzzle is that the motion of the individual molecules making up the water is perfectly invariant under time reversal, while the macroscopic description in terms of ice and liquid is not. To understand how reversible underlying laws give rise to macroscopic irreversibility, we must return to Boltzmann and his ideas about entropy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "ENTROPY AND DISORDER\n\n-Vladimir Nabokov, Look at the Harlequins!\n\nWhy is it that discussions of entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics so often end up being about food? Here are some popular (and tasty) examples of the increase of entropy in irreversible processes:\n\nTo be fair, not all of these are equally appetizing; the ice-cube example is kind of bland, unless you replace the water with gin. Furthermore, I should come clean about the scrambled-eggs story. The truth is that the act of cooking the eggs in your skillet isn't a straightforward demonstration of the Second Law; the cooking is a chemical reaction that is caused by the introduction of heat, which wouldn't happen if the eggs weren't an open system. Entropy comes into play when we break the eggs and whisk the yolks together with the whites; the point of cooking the resulting mixture is to avoid salmonella poisoning, not to illustrate thermodynamics.\n\nThe relationship between entropy and food arises largely from the ubiquity of mixing. In the kitchen, we are often interested in combining together two things that had been kept separate-either two different forms of the same substance (ice and liquid water) or two altogether different ingredients (milk and coffee, egg whites and yolks). The original nineteenth-century thermodynamicists were extremely interested in the dynamics of heat, and the melting ice cube would have been of foremost concern to them; they would have been less fascinated by processes where all the ingredients were at the same temperature, such as spilling wine onto a carpet. But clearly there is some underlying similarity in what is going on; an initial state in which substances are kept separate evolves into a final state in which they are mixed together. It's easy to mix things and hard to unmix them-the arrow of time looms over everything we do in the kitchen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Why is mixing easy and unmixing hard? When we mix two liquids, we see them swirl together and gradually blend into a uniform texture. By itself, that process doesn't offer much clue into what is really going on. So instead let's visualize what happens when we mix together two different kinds of colored sand. The important thing about sand is that it's clearly made of discrete units, the individual grains. When we mix together, for example, blue sand and red sand, the mixture as a whole begins to look purple. But it's not that the individual grains turn purple; they maintain their identities, while the blue grains and the red grains become jumbled together. It's only when we look from afar (\"macroscopically\") that it makes sense to think of the mixture as being purple; when we peer closely at the sand (\"microscopically\") we see individual blue and red grains.\n\nThe great insight of the pioneers of kinetic theory-Daniel Bernoulli in Switzerland, Rudolf Clausius in Germany, James Clerk Maxwell and William Thomson in Great Britain, Ludwig Boltzmann in Austria, and Josiah Willard Gibbs in the United States-was to understand all liquids and gases in the same way we think of sand: as collections of very tiny pieces with persistent identities. Instead of grains, of course, we think of liquids and gases as composed of atoms and molecules. But the principle is the same. When milk and coffee mix, the individual milk molecules don't combine with the individual coffee molecules to make some new kind of molecule; the two sets of molecules simply intermingle. Even heat is a property of atoms and molecules, rather than constituting some kind of fluid in its own right-the heat contained in an object is a measure of the energy of the rapidly moving molecules within it. When an ice cube melts into a glass of water, the molecules remain the same, but they gradually bump into one another and distribute their energy evenly throughout the molecules in the glass." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Without (yet) being precise about the mathematical definition of'entropy,\" the example of blending two kinds of colored sand illustrates why it is easier to mix things than to unmix them. Imagine a bowl of sand, with all of the blue grains on one side of the bowl and the red grains on the other. It's pretty clear that this arrangement is somewhat delicate-if we disturb the bowl by shaking it or stirring with a spoon, the two colors will begin to mix together. If, on the other hand, we start with the two colors completely mixed, such an arrangement is robust-if we disturb the mixture, it will stay mixed. The reason is simple: To separate out two kinds of sand that are mixed together requires a much more precise operation than simply shaking or stirring. We would have to reach in carefully with tweezers and a magnifying glass to move all of the red grains to one side of the bowl and all of the blue grains to the other. It takes much more care to create the delicate unmixed state of sand than to create the robust mixed state.\n\nThat's a point of view that can be made fearsomely quantitative and scientific, which is exactly what Boltzmann and others managed to do in the 1870s. We're going to dig into the guts of what they did, and explore what it explains and what it doesn't, and how it can be reconciled with underlying laws of physics that are perfectly reversible. But it should already be clear that a crucial role is played by the large numbers of atoms that we find in macroscopic objects in the real world. If we had only one grain of red sand and one grain of blue sand, there would be no distinction between'mixed\" and'unmixed.\" In the last chapter we discussed how the underlying laws of physics work equally well forward or backward in time (suitably defined). That's a microscopic description, in which we keep careful track of each and every constituent of a system. But very often in the real world, where large numbers of atoms are involved, we don't keep track of nearly that much information. Instead, we make simplifications-thinking about the average color or temperature or pressure, rather than the specific position and momentum of each atom. When we think macroscopically, we forget (or ignore) detailed information about every particle-and that's where entropy and irreversibility begin to come into play." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "SMOOTHING OUT\n\nThe basic idea we want to understand is'how do macroscopic features of a system made of many atoms evolve as a consequence of the motion of the individual atoms?\" (I'll use'atoms\" and'molecules\" and'particles\" more or less interchangeably, since all we care is that they are tiny things that obey reversible laws of physics, and that you need a lot of them to make something macroscopic.) In that spirit, consider a sealed box divided in two by a wall with a hole in it. Gas molecules can bounce around on one side of the box and will usually bounce right off the central wall, but every once in awhile they will sneak through to the other side. We might imagine, for example, that the molecules bounce off the central wall 995 times out of 1,000, but one-half of 1 percent of the time (each second, let's say) they find the hole and move to the other side.\n\nFigure 41: A box of gas molecules, featuring a central partition with a hole. Every second, each molecule has a tiny chance to go through the hole to the other side.\n\nThis example is pleasingly specific; we can examine a particular instance in detail and see what happens. 123 Every second, each molecule on the left side of the box has a 99.5 percent chance of staying on that side, and a 0.5 percent chance of moving to the other side; likewise for the right side of the box. This rule is perfectly time-reversal invariant; if you made a movie of the motion of just one particle obeying this rule, you couldn't tell whether it was being run forward or backward in time. At the level of individual particles, we can't distinguish the past from the future.\n\nIn Figure 42 we have portrayed one possible evolution of such a box; time moves upward, as always. The box has 2,000'air molecules\" in it, and starts at time t= 1 with 1,600 molecules on the left-hand side and only 400 on the right. (You're not supposed to ask why it starts that way-although later, when we replace'the box\" with'the universe,\" we will start asking such questions.) It's not very surprising what happens as we sit there and let the molecules bounce around inside the box. Every second, there is a small chance that any particular molecule will switch sides; but, because we started with a much larger number of molecules on the one side, there is a general tendency for the numbers to even out. (Exactly like temperature, in Clausius's formulation of the Second Law.) When there are more molecules on the left, the total number of molecules that shift from left to right will usually be larger than the number that shift from right to left. So after 50 seconds we see that the numbers are beginning to equal out, and after 200 seconds the distribution is essentially equal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Figure 42: Evolution of 2,000 molecules in a divided box of gas. We start with 1,600 molecules on the left, 400 on the right. After 50 seconds, there are about 1,400 on the left and 600 on the right; by the time 200 seconds have passed, the molecules are distributed equally between the two sides.\n\nThis box clearly displays an arrow of time. Even if we hadn't labeled the different distributions in the figure with the specific times to which they corresponded, most people wouldn't have any trouble guessing that the bottom box came first and the top box came last. We're not surprised when the air molecules even themselves out, but we'd be very surprised if they spontaneously congregated all (or even mostly) on one side of the box. The past is the direction of time in which things were more segregated, while the future is the direction in which they have smoothed themselves out. It's exactly the same thing that happens when a teaspoon of milk spreads out into a cup of coffee.\n\nOf course, all of this is only statistical, not absolute. That is, it's certainly possible that we could have started with an even distribution of molecules to the right and left, and just by chance a large number of them could jump to one side, leaving us with a very uneven distribution. As we'll see, that's unlikely, and it becomes more unlikely as we get more and more particles involved; but it's something to keep in mind. For now, let's ignore these very rare events and concentrate on the most likely evolution of the system.\n\nENTROPY À LA BOLTZMANN\n\nWe would like to do better than simply saying, \"Yeah, it's pretty obvious that the molecules will most likely move around until they are evenly distributed.\" We want to be able to explain precisely why we have that expectation, and turn'evenly distributed\" and'most likely\" into rigorously quantitative statements. This is the subject matter of statistical mechanics. In the immortal words of Peter Venkman: \"Back off, man, I'm a scientist.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Boltzmann's first major insight was the simple appreciation that there are more ways for the molecules to be (more or less) evenly distributed through the box than there are ways for them to be all huddled on the same side. Imagine that we had numbered the individual molecules, 1 through 2,000. We want to know how many ways we can arrange things so that there area certain number of molecules on the left and a certain number on the right. For example, how many ways are thereto arrange things so that all 2,000 molecules are on the left, and zero on the right? There is only one way. We're just keeping track of whether each molecule is on the left or on the right, not any details about its specific position or momentum, so we simply put every molecule on the left side of the box.\n\nBut now let's ask how many ways there are for thereto be 1,999 molecules on the left and exactly 1 on the right. The answer is: 2,000 different ways-one for each of the specific molecules that could be the lucky one on the right side. If we ask how many ways there are to have 2 molecules on the right side, we find 1,999, 000 possible arrangements. And when we get bold and consider 3 molecules on the right, with the other 1,997 on the left, we find 1,331, 334,000 ways to make it happen. 124\n\nIt should be clear that these numbers are growing rapidly: 2,000 is a lot bigger than 1, and 1,999, 000 is a lot bigger than 2,000, and 1,331, 334,000 is bigger still. Eventually, as we imagine moving more and more molecules to the right and emptying out the left, they would begin to go down again; after all, if we ask how many ways we can arrange things so that all 2,000 are on the right and zero are on the left, we're back to only one unique way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The situation corresponding to the largest number of different possible arrangements is, unsurprisingly, when things are exactly balanced: 1,000 molecules on the left and 1,000 molecules on the right. In that case, there are-well, a really big number of ways to make that happen. We won't write out the whole thing, but it's approximately 2× 10 600 different ways; a 2 followed by 600 zeroes. And that's with only 2,000 total particles. Imagine the number of possible arrangements of atoms we could find in areal roomful of air or even a glass of water. (Objects you can hold in your hand typically have about 6× 10 23 molecules in them-Avogadro's Number.) The age of the universe is only about 4× 10 17 seconds, so you are welcome to contemplate how quickly you would have to move molecules back and forth before you explored every possible allowed combination.\n\nThis is all very suggestive. There are relatively few ways for all of the molecules to be hanging out on the same side of the box, while there are very many ways for them to be distributed more or less equally-and we expect that a highly uneven distribution will evolve easily into a fairly even one, but not vice versa. But these statements are not quite the same. Boltzmann's next step was to suggest that, if we didn't know any better, we should expect systems to evolve from'special\" configurations into'generic\" ones-that is, from situations corresponding to a relatively small number of arrangements of the underlying particles, toward arrangements corresponding to a larger number of such arrangements.\n\nBoltzmann's goal in thinking this way was to provide a basis in atomic theory for the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the statement that the entropy will always increase (or stay constant) in a closed system. The Second Law had already been formulated by Clausius and others, but Boltzmann wanted to derive it from some simple set of underlying principles. You can see how this statistical thinking leads us in the right direction-\"systems tend to evolve from uncommon arrangements into common ones\" bears a family resemblance to'systems tend to evolve from low-entropy configurations into high-entropy ones.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So we're tempted to define'entropy\" as'the number of ways we can rearrange the microscopic components of a system that will leave it macroscopically unchanged.\" In our divided-box example, that would correspond to the number of ways we could rearrange individual molecules that would leave the total number on each side unchanged.\n\nThat's almost right, but not quite. The pioneers of thermodynamics actually knew more about entropy than simply'it tends to go up.\" For example, they knew that if you took two different systems and put them into contact next to each other, the total entropy would simply be the sum of the individual entropies of the two systems. Entropy is additive, just like the number of particles (but not, for example, like the temperature). But the number of rearrangements is certainly not additive; if you combine two boxes of gas, the number of ways you can rearrange the molecules between the two boxes is enormously larger than the number of ways you can rearrange them within each box.\n\nBoltzmann was able to crack the puzzle of how to define entropy in terms of microscopic rearrangements. We use the letter W-from the German Wahrscheinlichkeit, meaning'probability\" or'likelihood\"-to represent the number of ways we can rearrange the microscopic constituents of a system without changing its macroscopic appearance. Boltzmann's final step was to take the logarithm of Wand proclaim that the result is proportional to the entropy.\n\nThe word logarithm sounds very highbrow, but it's just away to express how many digits it takes to express a number. If the number is a power of 10, its logarithm is just that power. 125 So the logarithm of 10 is 1, the logarithm of 100 is 2, the logarithm of 1,000, 000 is 6, and soon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the Appendix, I discuss some of the mathematical niceties in more detail. But those niceties aren't crucial to the bigger picture; if you just glide quickly past any appearance of the word logarithm, you won't be missing much. You only really need to know two things:\n\nThat last bit is a huge help, of course, when it comes to the gigantic numbers we are dealing within this game. The number of ways to distribute 2,000 particles equally between two halves of a box is 2× 10 600, which is an unimaginably enormous quantity. But the logarithm of that number is just 600.3, which is relatively manageable.\n\nBoltzmann's formula for the entropy, which is traditionally denoted by S (you wouldn't have wanted to call it E, which usually stands for energy), states that it is equal to some constant k, cleverly called'Boltzmann's constant,\" times the logarithm of W, the number of microscopic arrangements of a system that are macroscopically indistinguishable. 126 That is:\n\nThis is, without a doubt, one of the most important equations in all of science-a triumph of nineteenth-century physics, on a par with Newton's codification of dynamics in the seventeenth century or the revolutions of relativity and quantum mechanics in the twentieth. If you visit Boltzmann's grave in Vienna, you will find this equation engraved on his tombstone (see Chapter Two). 127\n\nTaking the logarithm does the trick, and Boltzmann's formula leads to just the properties we think something called'entropy\" should have-in particular, when you combine two systems, the total entropy is just the sum of the two entropies you started with. This deceptively simple equation provides a quantitative connection between the microscopic world of atoms and the macroscopic world we observe. 128" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "BOX OF GAS REDUX\n\nAs an example, we can calculate the entropy of the box of gas with a small hole in a divider that we illustrated in Figure 42. Our macroscopic observable is simply the total number of molecules on the left side or the right side. (We don't know which particular molecules they are, nor do we know their precise coordinates and momenta.) The quantity Win this example is just the number of ways we could distribute the 2,000 total particles without changing the numbers on the left and right. If there are 2,000 particles on the left, W equals 1, and log W equals 0. Some of the other possibilities are listed in Table 1.\n\nTable 1: The number of arrangements W, and the logarithm of that number, corresponding to a divided box of 2,000 particles with some on the left side and some on the right side.\n\nIn Figure 43 we see how the entropy, as defined by Boltzmann, changes in our box of gas. I've scaled things so that the maximum possible entropy of the box is equal to 1. It starts out relatively low, corresponding to the first configuration in Figure 42, where 1,600 molecules were on the left and only 400 on the right. As molecules gradually slip through the hole in the central divider, the entropy tends to increase. This is one particular example of the evolution; because our'law of physics\" (each particle has a 0.5 percent chance of switching sides every second) involved probabilities, the details of any particular example will be slightly different. But it is overwhelmingly likely that the entropy will increase, as the system tends to wander into macroscopic configurations that correspond to larger numbers of microscopic arrangements. The Second Law of Thermodynamics inaction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So this is the origin of the arrow of time, according to Boltzmann and his friends. We start with a set of microscopic laws of physics that are time-reversal invariant: They don't distinguish between past and future. But we deal with systems featuring large numbers of particles, where we don't keep track of every detail necessary to fully specify the state of the system; instead, we keep track of some observable macroscopic features. The entropy characterizes (by which we mean, \"is proportional to the logarithm of\") the number of microscopic states that are macroscopically indistinguishable. Under the reasonable assumption that the system will tend to evolve toward the macroscopic configurations that correspond to a large number of possible states, it's natural that entropy will increase with time. In particular, it would be very surprising if it spontaneously decreased. The arrow of time arises because the system (or the universe) naturally evolves from rare configurations into more common configurations as time goes by.\n\nFigure 43: The evolution of the entropy of a divided box of gas. The gas starts with most molecules on the left, and the distribution evens out in time, as we saw in Figure 42. The entropy correspondingly rises, as there are more ways for the molecules to be distributed evenly than to be mostly on one side or the other. For convenience we have plotted the entropy in terms of the maximum entropy, so the maximum value attainable on this plot is 1.\n\nAll of this seems superficially plausible and will turnout to be basically true. But along the way we made some'reasonable\" leaps of logic, which deserve more careful examination. For the rest of this chapter we will bring to light the various assumptions that go into Boltzmann's way of thinking about entropy, and try to decide just how plausible they are.\n\nUSEFUL AND USELESS ENERGY" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One interesting feature of this box-of-gas example is that the arrow of time is only temporary. After the gas has had a chance to even itself out (at around time 150 in Figure 43), nothing much happens anymore. Individual molecules will continue to bounce between the right and left sides of the box, but these will tend to average out, and the system will spend almost all of its time with approximately equal numbers of molecules on each side. Those are the kinds of configurations that correspond to the largest number of rearrangements of the individual molecules, and correspondingly have the highest entropy the system can possibly have.\n\nA system that has the maximum entropy it can have is in equilibrium. Once there, the system basically has nowhere else to go; it's in the kind of configuration that is most natural for it to be in. Such a system has no arrow of time, as the entropy is not increasing (or decreasing). To a macroscopic observer, a system in equilibrium appears static, not changing at all.\n\nRichard Feynman, in The Character of Physical Law, tells a story that illustrates the concept of equilibrium. 129 Imagine you are sitting on a beach when you are suddenly hit with a tremendous downpour of rain. You've brought along a towel, but that also gets wet as you dash to cover. Once you've reached some cover, you start to dry yourself with your towel. It works fora little while because the towel is a bit drier than you are, but soon you find that the towel has gotten so wet that rubbing yourself with it is keeping you wet just as fast as it's making you dry. You and the towel have reached'wetness equilibrium,\" and it can't make you any drier. Your situation maximizes the number of ways the water molecules can arrange themselves on you and the towel. 130\n\nOnce you've reached equilibrium, the towel is no longer useful for its intended purpose (drying you off). Note that the total amount of water doesn't change as you dry yourself off; it is simply transferred from you to the towel. Similarly, the total energy doesn't change in a box of gas that is isolated from the rest of the world; energy is conserved, at least in circumstances where we can neglect the expansion of space. But energy can be arranged in more or less useful ways. When energy is arranged in a low-entropy configuration, it can be harnessed to perform useful work, like propelling a vehicle. But the same amount of energy, when it's in an equilibrium configuration, is completely useless, just like a towel that is in wetness equilibrium with you. Entropy measures the uselessness of a configuration of energy. 131" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Consider our divided box once again. But instead of the divider being a fixed wall with a hole in it, passively allowing molecules to move back and forth, imagine that the divider is movable, and hooked up to a shaft that reaches outside the box. What we've constructed is simply a piston, which can be used to do work under the right circumstances.\n\nIn Figure 44 we've depicted two different situations for our piston. The top row shows a piston in the presence of a low-entropy configuration of some gas-all the molecules on one side of the divider-while the bottom row shows a high-entropy configuration-equal amounts of gas on both sides. The total number of molecules, and the total amount of energy, is assumed to be the same in both cases; the only difference is the entropy. But it's clear that what happens in the two cases is very different. In the top row, the gas is all on the left side of the piston, and the force of the molecules bumping into it exerts pressure that pushes the piston to the right until the gas fills the container. The moving piston shaft can be used to do useful work-run a flywheel or some such thing, at least fora little while. That extracts energy from the gas; at the end of the process, the gas will have a lower temperature. (The pistons in your car engine operate inexactly this way, expanding and cooling the hot vapor created by igniting vaporized gasoline, performing the useful work of moving your car.)\n\nFigure 44: Gas in a divided box, used to drive a cylinder. On the top, gas in a low-entropy state pushes the cylinder to the right, doing useful work. On the bottom, gas in a high-entropy state doesn't push the cylinder in either direction.\n\nOn the bottom row in the figure, meanwhile, we imagine starting with the same amount of energy in the gas but in an initial state with a much higher entropy-an equal number of particles on each side of the divider. High entropy implies equilibrium, which implies that the energy is useless, and indeed we see that our piston isn't going anywhere. The pressure from gas on one side of the divider is exactly canceled by pressure coming from the other side. The gas in this box has the same total energy as the gas in the upper left box, but in this case we can't harness that energy to make the piston move to do something useful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This helps us understand the relationship between Boltzmann's viewpoint on entropy and that of Rudolf Clausius, who first formulated the Second Law. Remember that Clausius and his predecessors didn't think of entropy in terms of atoms at all; they thought of it as an autonomous substance with its own dynamics. Clausius's original version of the Second Law didn't even mention entropy; it was the simple statement that'heat never flows spontaneously from a colder object to a hotter one.\" If we put two objects with different temperatures into contact with each other, they will both evolve toward a common middle temperature; if we put two objects with the same temperature into contact with each other, they will simply stay that way. (They're in thermal equilibrium.)\n\nFrom the point of atoms, this all makes sense. Consider the classic example of two objects at different temperatures in contact with each other: an ice cube in a glass of warm water, discussed at the end of the previous chapter. Both the ice cube and the liquid are made of precisely the same kind of molecules, namely H 2 O. The only difference is that the ice is at a much lower temperature. Temperature, as we have discussed, measures the average energy of motion in the molecules of a substance. So while the molecules of the liquid water are moving relatively quickly, the molecules in the ice are moving slowly.\n\nBut that kind of condition-one set of molecules moving quickly, another moving slowly-isn't all that different, conceptually, from two sets of molecules confined to different sides of a box. In either case, there is abroad-brush limitation on how we can rearrange things. If we had just a glass of nothing but water at a constant temperature, we could exchange the molecules in one part of the glass with molecules in some other part, and there would be no macroscopic way to tell the difference. But when we have an ice cube, we can't simply exchange the molecules in the cube for some water molecules elsewhere in the glass-the ice cube would move, and we would certainly notice that even from our everyday macroscopic perspective. The division of the water molecules into'liquid\" and'ice\" puts a serious constraint on the number of rearrangements we can do, so that configuration has a low entropy. As the temperature between the water molecules that started out as ice equilibrates with that of the rest of the glass, the entropy goes up. Clausius's rule that temperatures tend to even themselves out, rather than spontaneously flowing from cold to hot, is precisely equivalent to the statement that the entropy as defined by Boltzmann never decreases in a closed system." }, { "from": "human", "value": "None of this means that it's impossible to cool things down, of course." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But in everyday life, where most things around us are at similar temperatures, it takes a bit more ingenuity than heating them up. A refrigerator is a more complicated machine than a stove. (Refrigerators work on the same basic principle as the piston in Figure 44, expanding a gas to extract energy and cool it off.) When Grant Achatz, chef of Chicago's Alinea restaurant, wanted a device that would rapidly freeze food in the same way a frying pan rapidly heats food up, he had to team with culinary technologist Philip Preston to create their own. The result is the'anti-griddle,\" a microwave-oven-sized machine with a metallic top that attains a temperature of-34 degrees Celsius. Hot purees and sauces, poured on the anti-griddle, rapidly freeze on the bottom while remaining soft on the top. We have understood the basics of thermodynamics fora longtime now, but we're still inventing new ways to put them to good use.\n\nDON'T SWEAT THE DETAILS\n\nYou're out one Friday night playing pool with your friends. We're talking about real-world pool now, not'physicist pool\" where we can ignore friction and noise. 132 One of your pals has just made an impressive break, and the balls have scattered thoroughly across the table. As they come to a stop and you're contemplating your next shot, a stranger walks by and exclaims, \"Wow! That's incredible!\"\n\nSomewhat confused, you ask what is so incredible about it. \"Look at these balls at those exact positions on the table! What are the chances that you'd be able to put all the balls in precisely those spots? You'd never be able to repeat that in a million years!\"\n\nThe mysterious stranger is a bit crazy-probably driven slightly mad by reading too many philosophical tracts on the foundations of statistical mechanics. But she does have a point. With several balls on the table, any particular configuration of them is extremely unlikely. Think of it this way: If you hit the cue ball into a bunch of randomly placed balls, which rattled around before coming to rest in a perfect arrangement as if they had just been racked, you'd be astonished. But that particular arrangement (all balls perfectly arrayed in the starting position) is no more or less unusual than any other precise arrangement of the balls. 133 What right do we have to single out certain configurations of the billiard balls as'astonishing\" or'unlikely,\" while others seem'unremarkable\" or'random\"?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This example pinpoints a question at the heart of Boltzmann's definition of entropy and the associated understanding of the Second Law of Thermodynamics: Who decides when two specific microscopic states of a system look the same from our macroscopic point of view?\n\nBoltzmann's formula for entropy hinges on the idea of the quantity W, which we defined as'the number of ways we can rearrange the microscopic constituents of a system without changing its macroscopic appearance.\" In the last chapter we defined the'state\" of a physical system to be a complete specification of all the information required to uniquely evolve it in time; in classical mechanics, it would be the position and momentum of every single constituent particle. Now that we are considering statistical mechanics, it's useful to use the term microstate to refer to the precise state of a system, in contrast with the macrostate, which specifies only those features that are macroscopically observable. Then the shorthand definition of Wis'the number of microstates corresponding to a particular macrostate.\"\n\nFor the box of gas separated in two by a divider, the microstate at anyone time is the position and momentum of every single molecule in the box. But all we were keeping track of was how many molecules were on the left, and how many were on the right. Implicitly, every division of the molecules into a certain number on the left and a certain number on the right defined a'macrostate\" for the box. And our calculation of W simply counted the number of microstates per macrostate. 134\n\nThe choice to just keep track of how many molecules were in each half of the box seemed so innocent at the time. But we could imagine keeping track of much more. Indeed, when we deal with the atmosphere in an actual room, we keep track of a lot more than simply how many molecules are on each side of the room. We might, for example, keep track of the temperature, and density, and pressure of the atmosphere at every point, or at least at some finite number of places. If there were more than one kind of gas in the atmosphere, we might separately keep track of the density and soon for each different kind of gas. That's still enormously less information than the position and momentum of every molecule in the room, but the choice of which information to'keep\" as a macroscopically measurable quantity and which information to'forget\" as an irrelevant part of the microstate doesn't seem to be particularly well defined." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The process of dividing up the space of microstates of some particular physical system (gas in a box, a glass of water, the universe) into sets that we label'macroscopically indistinguishable\" is known as coarse-graining." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's a little bit of black magic that plays a crucial role in the way we think about entropy. In Figure 45 we've portrayed how coarse-graining works; it simply divides up the space of all states of a system into regions (macrostates) that are indistinguishable by macroscopic observations. Every point within one of those regions corresponds to a different microstate, and the entropy associated with a given microstate is proportional to the logarithm of the area (or really volume, as it's a very high-dimensional space) of the macrostate to which it belongs. This kind of figure makes it especially clear why entropy tends to go up: Starting from a state with low entropy, corresponding to a very tiny part of the space of states, it's only to be expected that an ordinary system will tend to evolve to states that are located in one of the large-volume, high-entropy regions.\n\nFigure 45 is not to scale; in areal example, the low-entropy macrostates would be much smaller compared to the high-entropy macrostates. As we saw with the divided-box example, the number of microstates corresponding to high-entropy macrostates is enormously larger than the number associated with low-entropy macrostates. Starting with low entropy, it's certainly no surprise that a system should wander into the roomier high-entropy parts of the space of states; but starting with high entropy, atypical system can wander fora very longtime without ever bumping into a low-entropy condition. That's what equilibrium is like; it's not that the microstate is truly static, but that it never leaves the high-entropy macrostate it's in.\n\nFigure 45: The process of coarse-graining consists of dividing up the space of all possible microstates into regions considered to be macroscopically indistinguishable, which are called macrostates. Each macrostate has an associated entropy, proportional to the logarithm of the volume it takes up in the space of states. The size of the low-entropy regions is exaggerated for clarity; in reality, they are fantastically smaller than the high-entropy regions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This whole business should strike you as just a little bit funny. Two microstates belong to the same macrostate when they are macroscopically indistinguishable. But that's just a fancy way of saying, \"when we can't tell the difference between them on the basis of macroscopic observations.\" It's the appearance of'we\" in that statement that should make you nervous. Why should our powers of observation be involved in anyway at all? We like to think of entropy as a feature of the world, not as a feature of our ability to perceive the world. Two glasses of water are in the same macrostate if they have the same temperature throughout the glass, even if the exact distribution of positions and momenta of the water molecules are different, because we can't directly measure all of that information. But what if we ran across a race of superobservant aliens who could peer into a glass of liquid and observe the position and momentum of every molecule? Would such a race think that there was no such thing as entropy?\n\nThere are several different answers to these questions, none of which is found satisfactory by everyone working in the field of statistical mechanics. (If any of them were, you would need only that one answer.) Let's look at two of them.\n\nThe first answer is, it really doesn't matter. That is, it might matter a lotto you how you bundle up microstates into macrostates for the purposes of the particular physical situation in front of you, but it ultimately doesn't matter if all we want to do is argue for the validity of something like the Second Law. From Figure 45, it's clear why the Second Law should hold: There is a lot more room corresponding to high-entropy states than to low-entropy ones, so if we start in the latter it is natural to wander into the former. But that will hold true no matter how we actually do the coarse-graining. The Second Law is robust; it depends on the definition of entropy as the logarithm of a volume within the space of states, but not on the precise way in which we choose that volume. Nevertheless, in practice we do make certain choices and not others, so this transparent attempt to avoid the issue is not completely satisfying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The second answer is that the choice of how to coarse-grain is not completely arbitrary and socially constructed, even if some amount of human choice does come into the matter. The fact is, we coarse-grain in ways that seem physically natural, not just chosen at whim. For example, when we keep track of the temperature and pressure in a glass of water, what we're really doing is throwing away all information that we could measure only by looking through a microscope. We're looking at average properties within relatively small regions of space because that's what our senses are actually able to do. Once we choose to do that, we are left with a fairly well-defined set of macroscopically observable quantities.\n\nAveraging within small regions of space isn't a procedure that we hit upon randomly, nor is it a peculiarity of our human senses as opposed to the senses of a hypothetical alien; it's a very natural thing, given how the laws of physics work. 135 When I look at cups of coffee and distinguish between cases where a teaspoon of milk has just been added and ones where the milk has become thoroughly mixed, I'm not pulling a random coarse-graining of the states of the coffee out of my hat; that's how the coffee looks tome, immediately and phenomenologically. So even though in principle our choice of how to coarse-grain microstates into macrostates seems absolutely arbitrary, in practice Nature hands us a very sensible way to do it.\n\nRUNNING ENTROPY BACKWARD\n\nA remarkable consequence of Boltzmann's statistical definition of entropy is that the Second Law is not absolute-it just describes behavior that is overwhelmingly likely. If we start with a medium-entropy macrostate, almost all microstates within it will evolve toward higher entropy in the future, but a small number will actually evolve toward lower entropy.\n\nIt's easy to construct an explicit example. Consider a box of gas, in which the gas molecules all happened to be bunched together in the middle of the box in a low-entropy configuration. If we just let it evolve, the molecules will move around, colliding with one another and with the walls of the box, and ending up (with overwhelming probability) in a much higher-entropy configuration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now consider a particular microstate of the above box of gas at some moment after it has become high-entropy. From there, construct anew state by keeping all of the molecules at exactly the same positions, but precisely reversing all of the velocities. The resulting state still has a high entropy-it's contained within the same macrostate as we started with. (If someone suddenly reversed the direction of motion of every single molecule of air around you, you'd never notice; on average there are equal numbers moving in every direction.) Starting in this state, the motion of the molecules will exactly retrace the path that they took from the previous low-entropy state. To an external observer, it will look as if the entropy is spontaneously decreasing. The fraction of high-entropy states that have this peculiar property is astronomically small, but they certainly exist.\n\nFigure 46: On the top row, ordinary evolution of molecules in a box from a low-entropy initial state to a high-entropy final state. At the bottom, we carefully reverse the momentum of every particle in the final state from the top, to obtain a time-reversed evolution in which entropy decreases.\n\nWe could even imagine an entire universe that was like that, if we believe that the fundamental laws are reversible. Take our universe today: It is described by some particular microstate, which we don't know, although we know something about the macrostate to which it belongs. Now simply reverse the momentum of every single particle in the universe and, moreover, do whatever extra transformations (changing particles to antiparticles, for example) are needed to maintain the integrity of time reversal. Then let it go. What we would see would bean evolution toward the'future\" in which the universe collapsed, stars and planets unformed, and entropy generally decreased all around; it would just be the history of our actual universe played backward in time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "However-the thought experiment of an entire universe with a reversed arrow of time is much less interesting than that of some subsystem of the universe with a reversed arrow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The reason is simple: Nobody would ever notice.\n\nIn Chapter One we asked what it would be like if time passed more quickly or more slowly. The crucial question there was: Compared to what? The idea that'time suddenly moves more quickly for everyone in the world\" isn't operationally meaningful; we measure time by synchronized repetition, and as long as clocks of all sorts (including biological clocks and the clocks defined by subatomic processes) remain properly synchronized, there's noway you could tell that the'rate of time\" was in anyway different. It's only if some particular clock speeds up or slows down compared to other clocks that the concept makes any sense.\n\nExactly the same problem is attached to the idea of'time running backward.\" When we visualize time going backward, we might imagine some part of the universe running in reverse, like an ice cube spontaneously forming out of a cool glass of water. But if the whole thing ran in reverse, it would be precisely the same as it appears now. It would be no different than running the universe forward in time, but choosing some perverse time coordinate that ran in the opposite direction.\n\nThe arrow of time isn't a consequence of the fact that'entropy increases to the future\"; it's a consequence of the fact that'entropy is very different in one direction of time than the other.\" If there were some other part of the universe, which didn't interact with us in anyway, where entropy decreased toward what we now call the future, the people living in that reversed-time world wouldn't notice anything out of the ordinary. They would experience an ordinary arrow of time and claim that entropy was lower in their past (the time of which they have memories) and grew to the future. The difference is that what they mean by'the future\" is what we call'the past,\" and vice versa. The direction of the time coordinate on the universe is completely arbitrary, set by convention; it has no external meaning. The convention we happen to prefer is that'time\" increases in the direction that entropy increases. The important thing is that entropy increases in the same temporal direction for everyone within the observable universe, so that they can agree on the direction of the arrow of time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of course, everything changes if two people (or other subsets of the physical universe) who can actually communicate and interact with each other disagree on the direction of the arrow of time. Is it possible for my arrow of time to point in a different direction than yours?\n\nTHE DECONSTRUCTION OF BENJAMIN BUTTON\n\nWe opened Chapter Two with a few examples of incompatible arrows of time in literature-stories featuring some person or thing that seemed to experience time backward. The homunculus narrator of Time's Arrow remembered the future but not the past; the White Queen experienced pain just before she pricked her finger; and the protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald's\"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button\" grew physically younger as time passed, although his memories and experiences accumulated in the normal way. We now have the tools to explain why none of those things happen in the real world.\n\nAs long as the fundamental laws of physics are perfectly reversible, given the precise state of the entire universe (or any closed system) at anyone moment in time, we can use those laws to determine what the state will beat any future time, or what it was at any past time. We usually take that time to be the'initial\" time, but in principle we could choose any moment-and in the present context, when we're worried about arrows of time pointing indifferent directions, there is no time that is initial for everything. So what we want to ask is: Why is it difficult/impossible to choose a state of the universe with the property that, as we evolve it forward in time, some parts of it have increasing entropy and some parts have decreasing entropy?\n\nAt first it would seem simple enough. Take two boxes of gas molecules. Prepare one of them in some low-entropy state, as in the top left of Figure 46; once the molecules are let go, their entropy will go up as expected. Prepare the other box by taking a high-entropy state that has just evolved from a low-entropy state, and reversing all of the velocities, as at the bottom left. That second box is delicately constructed so that the entropy will decrease with time. So, starting from that initial condition in both boxes, we will seethe entropy evolve in opposite directions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But we want more than that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's not very interesting to have two completely separate systems with oppositely directed arrows of time. We would like to have systems that interact-one system can somehow communicate with the other.\n\nAnd that ruins everything. 136 Imagine we started with these two boxes, one of which had an entropy that was ready to go up and the other ready to go down. But then we introduced a tiny interaction that connected the boxes-say, a few photons moving between the boxes, bouncing off a molecule in one before returning to the other. Certainly the interaction of Benjamin Button's body with the rest of the world is much stronger than that. (Likewise the White Queen, or Martin Amis's narrator in Time's Arrow.)\n\nThat extra little interaction will slightly alter the velocities of the molecules with which it interacts. (Momentum is conserved, so it has no choice.) That's no problem for the box that starts with low entropy, as there is no delicate tuning required to make the entropy go up. But it completely ruins our attempt to setup conditions in the other box so that entropy goes down. Just a tiny change in velocity will quickly propagate through the gas, as one affected molecule hits another molecule, and then they hit two more, and soon. It was necessary for all of the velocities to be very precisely aligned to make the gas miraculously conspire to decrease its entropy, and any interaction we might want to introduce will destroy the required conspiracy. The entropy in the first box will very sensibly go up, while the entropy in the other will just stay high; that subsystem will basically stay in equilibrium. You can't have incompatible arrows of time among interacting subsystems of the universe. 137\n\nENTROPY AS DISORDER\n\nWe often say that entropy measures disorder. That's a shorthand translation of a very specific concept into somewhat sloppy language-perfectly adequate as a quick gloss, but there are ways in which it can occasionally go wrong. Now that we know the real definition of entropy given by Boltzmann, we can understand how close this informal idea comes to the truth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The question is, what do you mean by'order\"? That's not a concept that can easily be made rigorous, as we have done with entropy. In our minds, we associate'order\" with a condition of purposeful arrangement, as opposed to a state of randomness. That certainly bears a family resemblance to the way we've been talking about entropy. An egg that has not yet been broken seems more orderly than one that we have split apart and whisked into a smooth consistency.\n\nEntropy seems naturally to be associated with disorder because, more often than not, there are more ways to be disordered than to be ordered. A classic example of the growth of entropy is the distribution of papers on your desk. You can put them into neat piles-orderly, low entropy-and overtime they will tend to get scattered across the desktop-disorderly, high entropy. Your desk is not a closed system, but the basic idea is on the right track.\n\nBut if we push too hard on the association, it doesn't quite holdup. Consider the air molecules in the room you're sitting in right now-presumably spread evenly throughout the room in a high-entropy configuration. Now imagine those molecules were instead collected into a small region in the center of the room, just a few centimeters across, taking on the shape of a miniature replica of the Statue of Liberty. That would be, unsurprisingly, much lower entropy-and we would all agree that it also seemed to be more orderly. But now imagine that all the gas in the room was collected into an extremely tiny region, only 1 millimeter across, in the shape of an amorphous blob. Because the region of space covered by the gas is even smaller now, the entropy of that configuration is lower than in the Statue of Liberty example. (There are more ways to rearrange the molecules within a medium-sized statuette than there are within a very tiny blob.) But it's hard to argue that an amorphous blob is more'orderly\" than a replica of a famous monument, even if the blob is really small. So in this case the correlation between orderliness and low entropy seems to breakdown, and we need to be more careful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That example seems a bit contrived, but we actually don't have to work that hard to seethe relationship between entropy and disorder breakdown. In keeping with our preference for kitchen-based examples, consider oil and vinegar. If you shake oil and vinegar together to put on a salad, you may have noticed that they tend to spontaneously unmix themselves if you set the mixture down and leave it to its own devices. This is not some sort of spooky violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Vinegar is made mostly of water, and water molecules tend to stick to oil molecules-and, due to the chemical properties of oil and water, they stick in very particular configurations. So when oil and water (or vinegar) are thoroughly mixed, the water molecules cling to the oil molecules in specific arrangements, corresponding to a relatively low-entropy state. Whereas, when the two substances are largely segregated, the individual molecules can move freely among the other molecules of similar type. At room temperature, it turns out that oil and water have a higher entropy in the unmixed state than in the mixed state. 138 Order appears spontaneously at the macroscopic level, but it's ultimately a matter of disorder at the microscopic level.\n\nThings are also subtle for really big systems. Instead of the gas in a room, consider an astronomical-sized cloud of gas and dust-say, an interstellar nebula. That seems pretty disorderly and high-entropy. But if the nebula is big enough, it will contract under its own gravity and eventually form stars, perhaps with planets orbiting around them. Because such a process obeys the Second Law, we can be sure that the entropy goes up along the way (as long as we keep careful track of all the radiation emitted during the collapse and so forth). But a star with several orbiting planets seems, at least informally, to be more orderly than a dispersed interstellar cloud of gas. The entropy went up, but so did the amount of order, apparently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The culprit in this case is gravity. We're going to have a lotto say about how gravity wreaks havoc with our everyday notions of entropy, but for now suffice it to say that the interaction of gravity with other forces seems to be able to create order while still making the entropy go up-temporarily, anyway. That is a deep clue to something important about how the universe works; sadly, we aren't yet sure what that clue is telling us.\n\nFor the time being, let's recognize that the association of entropy with disorder is imperfect. It's not bad-it's okay to explain entropy informally by invoking messy desktops. But what entropy really is telling us is how many microstates are macroscopically indistinguishable. Sometimes that has a simple relationship with orderliness, sometimes not.\n\nTHE PRINCIPLE OF INDIFFERENCE\n\nThere area couple of other nagging worries about Boltzmann's approach to the Second Law that we should cleanup, or at least bring out into the open. We have this large set of microstates, which we divide up into macrostates, and declare that the entropy is the logarithm of the number of microstates per macrostate. Then we are asked to swallow another considerable bite: The proposition that each microstate within a macrostate is'equally likely.\"\n\nFollowing Boltzmann's lead, we want to argue that the reason why entropy tends to increase is simply that there are more ways to be high-entropy than to below-entropy, just by counting microstates. But that wouldn't matter the least bit if atypical system spent a lot more time in the relatively few low-entropy microstates than it did in the many high-entropy ones. Imagine if the microscopic laws of physics had the property that almost all high-entropy microstates tended to naturally evolve toward a small number of low-entropy states. In that case, the fact that there were more high-entropy states wouldn't make any difference; we would still expect to find the system in a low-entropy state if we waited long enough." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's not hard to imagine weird laws of physics that behave inexactly this way. Consider the billiard balls once again, moving around according to perfectly normal billiard-ball behavior, with one crucial exception: Every time a ball bumps into a particular one of the walls of the table, it sticks there, coming immediately to rest. (We're not imagining that someone has put glue on the rail or any such thing that could ultimately be traced to reversible behavior at the microscopic level, but contemplating an entirely new law of fundamental physics.) Note that the space of states for these billiard balls is exactly what it would be under the usual rules: Once we specify the position and momentum of every ball, we can precisely predict the future evolution. It's just that the future evolution, with overwhelming probability, ends up with all of the balls stuck on one wall of the table. That's a very low-entropy configuration; there aren't many microstates like that. In such a world, entropy would spontaneously decrease even for the closed system of the pool table.\n\nIt should be clear what's going on in this concocted example: The new law of physics is not reversible. It's much like checkerboard D from the last chapter, where diagonal lines of gray squares would run into a particular vertical column and simply come to an end. Knowing the positions and momenta of all the balls on this funky table is sufficient to predict the future, but it is not good enough to reconstruct the past. If a ball is stuck to the wall, we have no idea how long it has been there.\n\nThe real laws of physics seem to be reversible at a fundamental level. This is, if we think about it a bit, enough to guarantee that high-entropy states don't evolve preferentially into low-entropy states. Remember that reversibility is based on conservation of information: The information required to specify the state atone time is preserved as it evolves through time. That means that two different states now will always evolve into two different states some given amount of time in the future; if they evolved into the same state, we wouldn't be able to reconstruct the past of that state. So it's just impossible that high-entropy states all evolve preferentially into low-entropy states, because there aren't enough low-entropy states to allow it to happen. This is a technical result called Liouville's Theorem, after French mathematician Joseph Liouville." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That's almost what we want, but not quite. And what we want (as so often in life) is not something we can really get. Let's say that we have some system, and we know what macrostate it is in, and we would like to say something about what will happen next. It might be a glass of water with an ice cube floating in it. Liouville's Theorem says that most microstates in that macrostate will have to increase in entropy or stay the same, just as the Second Law would imply-the ice cube is likely to melt. But the system is in some particular microstate, even if we don't know which one. How can we be sure that the microstate isn't one of the very tiny number that is going to dramatically decrease in entropy any minute now? How can we guarantee that the ice cube isn't actually going to grow a bit, while the water around it heats up?\n\nThe answer is: We can't. There is bound to be some particular microstate, very rare in the ice-cube-and-water macrostate we are considering, that actually evolves toward an even lower-entropy microstate. Statistical mechanics, the version of thermodynamics based on atoms, is essentially probabilistic-we don't know for sure what is going to happen; we can only argue that certain outcomes are overwhelmingly likely. At least, that's what we'd like to be able to argue. What we can honestly argue is that most medium-entropy states evolve into higher-entropy states rather than lower-entropy ones. But you'll notice a subtle difference between'most microstates within this macrostate evolve to higher entropy\" and'a microstate within this macrostate is likely to evolve to higher entropy.\" The first statement is just about counting the relative number of microstates with different properties (\"ice cube melts\" vs. \"ice cube grows\"), but the second statement is a claim about the probability of something happening in the real world. Those are not quite the same thing. There are more Chinese people in the world than there are Lithuanians; but that doesn't mean that you are more likely to run into a Chinese person than a Lithuanian, if you just happen to be walking down the streets of Vilnius." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Work to move the story forward.\nTags: science, cosmology, time, entropy, theoretical physics\nAuthor: Sean Carroll\nTitle: From Eternity to Here\nChapter: 15" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When a physical process creates entropy in a system with a fixed total amount of energy, it uses up free energy; once all the free energy is gone, we've reached equilibrium.\n\nThat's one way of thinking about what living organisms do: They maintain order in their local environment (including their own bodies) by taking advantage of free energy, degrading it into useless energy. If we put a goldfish in an otherwise empty container of water, it can maintain its structure (far from equilibrium with its surroundings) fora lot longer than an ice cube can; but eventually it will die from starvation. But if we feed the goldfish, it can last fora much longer time even than that. From a physics point of view, food is simply a supply of free energy, which a living organism can take advantage of to power its metabolism.\n\nFrom this perspective, Maxwell's Demon (along with his box of gas) serves as an illuminating paradigm for how lifeworks. Consider a slightly more elaborate version of the Demon story. Let's take the divided box of gas and embed it in an'environment,\" which we model by an arbitrarily large collection of stuff at a constant temperature-what physicists calla'heat bath.\" (The point is that the environment is so large that its own temperature won't be affected by interactions with the smaller system in which we are interested, in this case the box of gas.) Even though the molecules of gas stay inside the walls of the box, thermal energy can pass in and out; therefore, even if the Demon were to segregate the gas effectively into one cool half and one hot half, the temperature would immediately begin to even out through interactions with the surrounding environment.\n\nWe imagine that the Demon would really like to keep its particular box far from equilibrium-it wants to do its best to keep the left side of the box at a high temperature and the right side at a low temperature. (Note that we have turned the Demon into a protagonist, rather than a villain.) So it has to do its traditional sorting of molecules according to their velocities, but now it has to keep doing that in perpetuity, or otherwise each side will equilibrate with its environment. By our previous discussion, the Demon can't do its sorting without affecting the outside world; the process of erasing records will inevitably generate entropy. What the Demon requires, therefore, is a continual supply of free energy. It takes in the free energy (\"food\"), then takes advantage of that free energy to erase its records, generating entropy in the process and degrading the energy into uselessness; the useless energy is then discarded as heat (or whatever). With its newly erased notepad, the Demon is ready to keep its box of gas happily displaced from equilibrium, at least until it fills the notepad once more, and the cycle repeats itself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Figure 51: Maxwell's Demon as a paradigm for life. The Demon maintains order-a separation of temperatures-in the box, against the influence of the environment, by processing information through the transformation of free energy into high-entropy heat.\n\nThis charming vignette obviously fails to encapsulate everything we mean by the idea of'life,\" but it succeeds in capturing an essential part of the bigger picture. Life strives to maintain order in the face of the demands of the Second Law, whether it's the actual body of the organism, or its mental state, or the works of Ozymandias. And it does so in a specific way: by degrading free energy in the outside world in the cause of keeping itself far from thermal equilibrium. And that's an operation, as we have seen, that is tightly connected to the idea of information processing. The Demon carries out its duty by converting free energy into information about the molecules in its box, which it then uses to keep the temperature in the box from evening out. At some very basic level, the purpose of life boils down to survival-the organism wants to preserve the smooth operation of its own complex structure. 163 Free energy and information are the keys to making it happen.\n\nFrom the point of view of natural selection, there are many reasons why a complex, persistent structure might be adaptively favored: An eye, for example, is a complex structure that clearly contributes to the fitness of an organism. But increasingly complex structures require that we turn increasing amounts of free energy into heat, just to keep them intact and functioning. This picture of the interplay of energy and information therefore makes a prediction: The more complex an organism becomes, the more inefficient it will beat using energy for'work\" purposes-simple mechanical operations like running and jumping, as opposed to the'upkeep\" purposes of keeping the machinery in good working condition. And indeed, that's true; in real biological organisms, the more complex ones are correspondingly less efficient in their use of energy. 164" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "COMPLEXITY AND TIME\n\nThere are any number of fascinating topics at the interface of entropy, information, life, and the arrow of time that we don't have a chance to discuss here: aging, evolution, mortality, thinking, consciousness, social structures, and countless more. Confronting all of them would make this a very different book, and our primary goals are elsewhere. But before returning to the relatively solid ground of conventional statistical mechanics, we can close this chapter with one more speculative thought, the kind that may hopefully be illuminated by new research in the near future.\n\nAs the universe evolves, entropy increases. That is a very simple relationship: At early times, near the Big Bang, the entropy was very low, and it has grown ever since and will continue to grow into the future. But apart from entropy, we can also characterize (at least roughly) the state of the universe at anyone moment in time in terms of its complexity, or by the converse of complexity, its simplicity. And the evolution of complexity with time isn't nearly that straightforward.\n\nThere area number of different ways we could imagine quantifying the complexity of a physical situation, but there is one measure that has become widely used, known as the Kolmogorov complexity or algorithmic complexity. 165 This idea formalizes our intuition that a simple situation is easy to describe, while a complex situation is hard to describe. The difficulty we have in describing a situation can be quantified by specifying the shortest possible computer program (in some given programming language) that would generate a description of that situation. The Kolmogorov complexity is just the length of that shortest possible computer program.\n\nConsider two strings of numbers, each a million characters long. One string consists of nothing but 8's in every digit, while the other is some particular sequence of digits with no discernible pattern within them:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first of these is simple-it has a low Kolmogorov complexity. That's because it can be generated by a program that just says, \"Print the number 8 a million times.\" The second string, however, is complex. Any program that prints it out has to beat least one million characters long, because the only way to describe this string is to literally specify every single digit. This definition becomes helpful when we consider numbers like pi or the square root of two-they look superficially complex, but there is actually a short program in either case that can calculate them to any desired accuracy, so their Kolmogorov complexity is quite low.\n\nThe complexity of the early universe is low, because it's very easy to describe. It was a hot, dense state of particles, very smooth overlarge scales, expanding at a certain rate, with some (fairly simple to specify) set of tiny perturbations in density from place to place. From a coarse-grained perspective, that's the entire description of the early universe; there's nothing else to say. Far in the future, the complexity of the universe will also be very low: It will just be empty space, with an increasingly dilute gruel of individual particles. But in between-like right now-things look extremely complicated. Even after coarse-graining, there is no simple way of expressing the hierarchical structures described by gas, dust, stars, galaxies, and clusters, much less all of the interesting things going on much smaller scales, such as our ecosystem hereon Earth.\n\nSo while the entropy of the universe increases straightforwardly from low to high as time goes by, the complexity is more interesting: It goes from low, to relatively high, and then back down to low again. And the question is: Why? Or perhaps: What are the ramifications of this form of evolution? There area whole host of questions we can think to ask. Under what general circumstances does complexity tend to rise and then fall again? Does such behavior inevitably accompany the evolution of entropy from low to high, or are other features of the underlying dynamics necessary? Is the emergence of complexity (or'life\") a generic feature of evolution in the presence of entropy gradients? What is the significance of the fact that our early universe was simple as well as low-entropy? How long can life survive as the universe relaxes into a simple, high-entropy future? 166" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Science is about answering hard questions, but it's also about pinpointing the right questions to ask. When it comes to understanding life, we're not even sure what the right questions are. We have a bunch of intriguing concepts that we're pretty sure will play some sort of role in an ultimate understanding-entropy, free energy, complexity, information. But we're not yet able to put them together into a unified picture. That's okay; science is a journey in which getting there is, without question, much of the fun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "RECURRENT NIGHTMARES\n\n-Slavoj Žižek\n\nIn Book Four of The Gay Science, written in 1882, Friedrich Nietzsche proposes a thought experiment. He asks us to imagine a scenario in which everything that happens in the universe, including our lives down to the slightest detail, will eventually repeat itself, in a cycle that plays out for all eternity.\n\nNietzsche's interest in an eternally repeating universe was primarily an ethical one. He wanted to ask: How would you feel about knowing that your life would be repeated an infinite number of times? Would you feel dismayed-gnashing your teeth is mentioned-at the horrible prospect, or would you rejoice? Nietzsche felt that a successful life was one that you would be proud to have repeated in an endless cycle. 168\n\nThe idea of a cyclic universe, or'eternal return,\" was by no means original with Nietzsche. It appears now and again in ancient religions-in Greek myths, Hinduism, Buddhism, and some indigenous American cultures. The Wheel of Life spins, and history repeats itself.\n\nBut soon after Nietzsche imagined his demon, the idea of eternal recurrence popped up in physics. In 1890 Henri Poincaré proved an intriguing mathematical theorem, showing that certain physical systems would necessarily return to any particular configuration infinitely often, if you just waited long enough. This result was seized upon by a young mathematician named Ernst Zermelo, who claimed that it was incompatible with Boltzmann's purported derivation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics from underlying reversible rules of atomic motion.\n\nIn the 1870s, Boltzmann had grappled with Loschmidt's\"reversibility paradox.\" By comparison, the 1880s were a relatively peaceful time for the development of statistical mechanics-Maxwell had died in 1879, and Boltzmann concentrated on technical applications of the formalism he had developed, as well as on climbing the academic ladder. But in the 1890s controversy flared again, this time in the form of Zermelo's\"recurrence paradox.\" To this day, the ramifications of these arguments have not been completely absorbed by physicists; many of the issues that Boltzmann and his contemporaries argued about are still being hashed outright now. In the context of modern cosmology, the problems suggested by the recurrence paradox are still very much with us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "POINCARÉ'S CHAOS\n\nOscar II, king of Sweden and Norway, was born on January 21,1829. In 1887, the Swedish mathematician Gösta Mittag-Leffler proposed that the king should mark his upcoming sixtieth birthday in a somewhat unconventional way: by sponsoring a mathematical competition. Four different questions were proposed, and a prize would be given to whoever submitted the most original and creative solution to any of them.\n\nOne of these questions was the'three-body problem\"-how three massive objects would move under the influence of their mutual gravitational pull. (For two bodies it's easy, and Newton had solved it: Planets move in ellipses.) This problem was tackled by Henri Poincaré, who in his early thirties was already recognized as one of the world's leading mathematicians. He did not solve it, but submitted an essay that seemed to demonstrate a crucial feature: that the orbits of the planets would be stable. Even without knowing the exact solutions, we could be confident that the planets would at least behave predictably. Poincaré's method was so ingenious that he was awarded the prize, and his paper was prepared for publication in Mittag-Leffler's new journal, Acta Mathematica. 169\n\nFigure 52: Henri Poincaré, pioneer of topology, relativity, and chaos theory, and later president of the Bureau of Longitude.\n\nBut there was a slight problem: Poincaré had made a mistake. Edvard Phragmén, one of the journal editors, had some questions about the paper, and in the course of answering them Poincaré realized that he had left out an important casein constructing his proof. Such tiny mistakes occur frequently in complicated mathematical writing, and Poincaré set about correcting his presentation. But as he tugged at the loose thread, the entire argument became completely unraveled. What Poincaré ended up proving was the opposite of his original claim-three-body orbits were not stable at all. Not only are orbits not periodic; they don't even approach any sort of regular behavior. Now that we have computers to run simulations, this kind of behavior is less surprising, but at the time it came as an utter shock. In his attempt to prove the stability of planetary orbits, Poincaré ended up doing something quite different-he invented chaos theory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the story doesn't quite end there. Mittag-Leffler, convinced that Poincaré would be able to fix things up in his prize essay, had gone ahead and printed it. By the time he heard from Poincaré that no such fixing-up would be forthcoming, the journal had already been mailed to leading mathematicians throughout Europe. Mittag-Leffler swung into action, telegraphing Berlin and Paris in an attempt to have all copies of the journal destroyed. He basically succeeded, but not without creating a minor scandal in elite mathematical circles across the continent.\n\nIn the course of revising his argument, Poincaré established a deceptively simple and powerful result, now known as the Poincaré recurrence theorem. Imagine you have some system in which all of the pieces are confined to some finite region of space, like planets orbiting the Sun. The recurrence theorem says that if we start with the system in a particular configuration and simply let it evolve according to Newton's laws, we are guaranteed that the system will return to its original configuration-again and again, infinitely often into the future.\n\nThat seems pretty straightforward, and perhaps unsurprising. If we have assumed from the start that all the components of our system (planets orbiting the Sun, or molecules bouncing around inside a box) are confined to a finite region, but we allow time to stretch on forever, it makes sense that the system is going to keep returning to the same state over and over. Where else can it go?\n\nThings area bit more subtle than that. The most basic subtlety is that there can bean infinite number of possible states, even if the objects themselves don't actually runaway to infinity. 170 A circular orbit is confined to a finite region, but there are an infinite number of points along it; likewise, there are an infinite number of points inside a finite-sized box of gas. In that case, a system will typically not return to precisely the original state. What Poincaré realized is that this is a case where'almost\" is good enough. If you decide ahead of time how close two states need to be so that you can't tell the difference between them, Poincaré proved that the system would return at least that close to the original state an infinite number of times." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Consider the three inner planets of the Solar System: Mercury, Venus, and Earth. Venus orbits the Sun once every 0.61520 years (about 225 days), while Mercury orbits once every 0.24085 years (about 88 days). As shown in Figure 53, imagine that we started in an arrangement where all three planets were arranged in a straight line. After 88 days have passed, Mercury will have returned to its starting point, but Venus and Earth will beat some other points in their orbits. But if we wait long enough, they will all lineup again, or very close to it. After 40 years, for example, these three planets will be in almost the same arrangement as when they started.\n\nPoincaré showed that all confined mechanical systems are like that, even ones with large numbers of moving parts. But notice that the amount of time we have to wait before the system returns close to its starting point keeps getting larger as we add more components. If we waited for all nine of the planets to lineup, 171 we would have to wait much longer than 40 years; that's partly because the outer planets orbit more slowly, but in large part it simply takes longer for more objects to conspire in the right way tore-create any particular starting configuration.\n\nThis is worth emphasizing: As we consider more and more particles, the time it takes fora system to return close to its starting point-known, reasonably enough, as the recurrence time-quickly becomes unimaginably huge. 172 Consider the divided box of gas we played within Chapter Eight, where individual particles had a small chance of hopping from one side of the box to the other every second. Clearly if there are only two or three particles, it won't take long for the system to return to where it started. But once we consider a box with 60 total particles, we find that the recurrence time has become as large as the current age of the observable universe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Figure 53: The inner Solar System in a configuration with Mercury, Venus, and Earth all aligned (bottom), and 88 days later (top). Mercury has returned to its original position, but Venus and Earth are somewhere else along their orbits.\n\nReal objects usually have a lot more than 60 particles in them. Fora typical macroscopic-sized object, the recurrence time would beat least\n\nThat's along time. For the total number of particles in the observable universe, the recurrence time would be even much longer-but who cares? The recurrence time for any interestingly large object is much longer than anytime relevant to our experience. The observable universe is about 10 18 seconds old. An experimental physicist who put in a grant proposal suggesting that they would pour a teaspoon of milk into a cup of coffee and then wait one recurrence time for the milk to unmix itself would have a very hard time getting funding.\n\nBut if we waited long enough, it would happen. Nietzsche's Demon isn't wrong; it's just thinking long-term.\n\nZERMELO VERSUS BOLTZMANN\n\nPoincaré's original paper in which he proved the recurrence theorem was mainly concerned with the crisp, predictable world of Newtonian mechanics. But he was familiar with statistical mechanics, and within a short while realized that the idea of eternal recurrence might, at first blush, be incompatible with attempts to derive the Second Law of Thermodynamics. After all, the Second Law says that entropy only ever goes one way: It increases. But the recurrence theorem seems to imply that if a low-entropy state evolves to a higher-entropy state, all we have to do is wait long enough and the system will return to its low-entropy beginnings. That means it must decrease somewhere along the way.\n\nIn 1893, Poincaré wrote a short paper that examined this apparent contradiction more closely. He pointed out that the recurrence theorem implied that the entropy of the universe would eventually start decreasing:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "By'the English kinetic theories,\" Poincaré was presumably thinking of the work of Maxwell and Thomson and others-no mention of Boltzmann (or for that matter Gibbs)." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whether it was for that reason or just because he didn't come across the paper, Boltzmann made no direct reply to Poincaré.\n\nBut the idea would not be so easily ignored. In 1896, Zermelo made a similar argument to Poincaré's (referencing Poincaré's long 1890 paper that stated the recurrence theorem, but not his shorter 1893 paper), which is now known as'Zermelo's recurrence objection.\" 174 Despite Boltzmann's prominence, atomic theory and statistical mechanics were not nearly as widely accepted in the late-nineteenth-century German-speaking world as they were in the English-speaking world. Like many German scientists, Zermelo thought that the Second Law was an absolute rule of nature; the entropy of a closed system would always increase or stay constant, not merely most of the time. But the recurrence theorem clearly implied that if entropy initially went up, it would someday comedown as the system returned to its starting configuration. The lesson drawn by Zermelo was that the edifice of statistical mechanics was simply wrong; the behavior of heat and entropy could not be reduced to the motions of molecules obeying Newton's laws.\n\nZermelo would later goon to great fame within mathematics as one of the founders of set theory, but at the time he was a student studying under Max Planck, and Boltzmann didn't take the young interloper's objections very seriously. He did bother to respond, although not with great patience.\n\nOh, snap. Zermelo wrote another paper in response to Boltzmann, who replied again in turn. 176 But the two were talking past each other, and never seemed to reach a satisfactory conclusion.\n\nBoltzmann, by this point, was completely comfortable with the idea that the Second Law was only statistical in nature, rather than absolute. The main thrust of his response to Zermelo was to distinguish between theory and practice. In theory, the whole universe could start in a low entropy state, evolve toward thermal equilibrium, and eventually evolve back to low entropy again; that's an implication of Poincaré's theorem, and Boltzmann didn't deny it. But the actual time you would have to wait is enormous, much longer than what we currently think of as'the age of the universe,\" and certainly much longer than any timescales that were contemplated by scientists in the nineteenth century. Boltzmann argued that we should accept the implications of the recurrence theorem as an interesting mathematical curiosity, but not one that was in anyway relevant to the real world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "TROUBLES OF AN ETERNAL UNIVERSE\n\nIn Chapter Eight we discussed Loschmidt's reversibility objection to Boltzmann's H-Theorem: It is impossible to use reversible laws of physics to derive an irreversible result. In other words, there are just as many high-entropy states whose entropy will decrease as there are low-entropy states whose entropy will increase, because the former trajectories are simply the time-reverses of the latter. (And neither is anywhere near as numerous as high-entropy states that remain high-entropy.) The proper response to this objection, at least within our observable universe, is to accept the need fora Past Hypothesis-an additional postulate, over and above the dynamical laws of nature, to the effect that the early universe had an extremely low entropy.\n\nIn fact, by the time of his clash with Zermelo, Boltzmann himself had cottoned onto this realization. He called his version of the Past Hypothesis'assumption A,\" and had this to say about it:\n\nThis short excerpt makes Boltzmann sound more definitive than he really is; in the context of this paper, he offers several different ways to explain why we see entropy increasing around us, and this is just one of them. But notice how careful he is-not only admitting upfront that the assumption is unprovable, but even limiting consideration to'a very large part of[the universe] which surrounds us,\" not the whole thing.\n\nUnfortunately, this strategy isn't quite sufficient. Zermelo's recurrence objection is closely related to the reversibility objection, but there is an important difference. The reversibility objection merely notes that there are an equal number of entropy-decreasing evolutions as entropy-increasing ones; the recurrence objection points out that the entropy-decreasing processes will eventually happen sometime in the future. It's not just that a system could decrease in entropy-if we wait long enough, it is eventually guaranteed to do so. That's a stronger statement and requires a better comeback." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We can't rely on the Past Hypothesis to save us from the problems raised by recurrence. Let's say we grant that, at some point in the relatively recent past-perhaps billions of years ago, but much more recently than one recurrence time-the universe found itself in a state of extremely low entropy. Afterward, as Boltzmann taught us, the entropy would increase, and the time it would take to do so is much shorter than one recurrence time. But if the universe truly lasts forever, that shouldn't matter. Eventually the entropy is going to go down again, even if we're not around to witness it. The question then becomes: Why do we find ourselves living in the particular part of the history of the universe in the relatively recent aftermath of the low-entropy state? Why don't we live in some more'natural\" time in the history of the universe?\n\nSomething about that last question, especially the appearance of the word natural, opens a can of worms. The basic problem is that, according to Newtonian physics, the universe doesn't have a'beginning\" or an'end.\" From our twenty-first-century post-Einsteinian perspective, the idea that the universe began at the Big Bang is a familiar one. But Boltzmann and Zermelo and contemporaries didn't know about general relativity or the expansion of the universe. As far as they were concerned, space and time were absolute, and the universe persisted forever. The option of sweeping these embarrassing questions under the rug of the Big Bang wasn't available to them.\n\nThat's a problem. If the universe truly lasts forever, having neither a beginning nor an end, what is the Past Hypothesis supposed to mean? There was some moment, earlier than the present, when the entropy was small. But what about before that? Was it always small-for an infinitely longtime-until some transition occurred that allowed the entropy to grow? Or was the entropy also higher before that moment, and if so, why is there a special low-entropy moment in the middle of the history of the universe? We seem to be stuck: If the universe lasts forever, and the assumptions underlying the recurrence theorem are valid, entropy can't increase forever; it must go up and then eventually comeback down, in an endless cycle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There are at least three ways out of this dilemma, and Boltzmann alluded to all three of them. 178 (He was convinced he was right but kept changing his mind about the reason why.)\n\nFirst, the universe might really have a beginning, and that beginning would involve a low-entropy boundary condition. This is implicitly what Boltzmann must have been imagining in the context of'assumption A\" discussed above, although he doesn't quite spell it out. But at the time, it would have been truly dramatic to claim that time had a beginning, as it requires a departure from the basic rules of physics as Newton had established them. These days we have such a departure, in the form of general relativity and the Big Bang, but those ideas weren't on the table in the 1890s. As far as I know, no one at the time took the problem of the universe's low entropy at early times seriously enough to suggest explicitly that time must have had a beginning, and that something like the Big Bang must have occurred.\n\nSecond, the assumptions behind the Poincaré recurrence theorem might simply not hold in the real world. In particular, Poincaré had to assume that the space of states was somehow bounded, and particles couldn't wander off to infinity. That sounds like a technical assumption, but deep truths can be hidden under the guise of technical assumptions. Boltzmann also floats this as a possible loophole:\n\nBut he doesn't really take this option seriously. As well he shouldn't, as it avoids the strict implication of the recurrence theorem but not the underlying spirit. If the average density of particles through space is some nonzero number, you will still see all sorts of unlikely fluctuations, including into low-entropy states; it's just that the fluctuations will typically consist of different sets of particles each time, so that'recurrence\" is not strictly occurring. That scenario has all of the problems of a truly recurring system." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The third way out of the recurrence objection is not away out at all-it's a complete capitulation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Admit that the universe is eternal, and that recurrences happen, so that the universe witnesses moments when entropy is increasing and moments when it is decreasing. And then just say: That's the universe in which we live.\n\nLet's put these three possibilities in the context of modern thinking. Many contemporary cosmologists subscribe, often implicitly, to something like the first option-conflating the puzzle of our low-entropy initial conditions with the puzzle of the Big Bang. It's a viable possibility but seems somewhat unsatisfying, as it requires that we specify the state of the universe at early times over and above the laws of physics. The second option, that there are an infinite number of things in the universe and the recurrence theorem simply doesn't apply, helps us wriggle out of the technical requirements of the theorem but doesn't give us much guidance concerning why our universe looks the particular way that it does. We could consider a slight variation on this approach, in which there were only a finite number of particles in the universe, but they had an infinite amount of space in which to evolve. Then recurrences would truly be absent; the entropy would grow without limit in the far past and far future. This is somewhat reminiscent of the multiverse scenario I will be advocating later in the book. But as far as I know, neither Boltzmann nor any of his contemporaries advocated such a picture.\n\nThe third option-that recurrences really do happen, and that's the universe we live in-can't be right, as we will see. But we can learn some important lessons from the way in which it fails to work.\n\nFLUCTUATING AROUND EQUILIBRIUM\n\nRecall the divided box of gas we considered in Chapter Eight. There is a partition between two halves of the box that occasionally lets gas molecules pass through and switch sides. We modeled the evolution of the unknown microstate of each particle by imagining that every molecule has a small, fixed chance of moving from one side of the box to the other. We can use Boltzmann's entropy formula to show how the entropy evolves with time; it has a strong tendency to increase, at least if we start the system by hand in a low-entropy state, with most of the molecules on one side. The natural tendency is for things to even out and approach an equilibrium state with approximately equal numbers of molecules on each side. Then the entropy reaches its maximum value, labeled as'1\" on the vertical axis of the graph." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What if we don't start the system in a low-entropy state?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What happens if it starts in equilibrium? If the Second Law were absolutely true, and entropy could never decrease, once the system reached equilibrium it would have to strictly stay there. But in Boltzmann's probabilistic world, that's not precisely right. With high probability, a system that is in equilibrium will stay in equilibrium or very close to it. But there will inevitably be random fluctuations away from the state, if we wait long enough. And if we wait very long, we could see some rather large fluctuations.\n\nIn Figure 54, we seethe evolution of the entropy in a divided box of gas with 2,000 particles, but now at a later time, after it has reached equilibrium. Note that this is an extreme close-upon the change in entropy; whereas the plots in Chapter Eight showed the entropy evolving from about 0.75 up to 1, this plot shows the entropy ranging from between 0.997 and 1.\n\nWhat we see are small fluctuations from the equilibrium value where the entropy is maximal and the molecules are equally divided. This makes perfect sense, the way we've setup the situation; most of the time, there will be equal numbers of particles on the right side of the box and the left side, but occasionally there will be a slight excess on one side or the other, corresponding to a slightly lower entropy. It's exactly the same idea as flipping a coin-on average, a sequence of many coin flips will average to half heads and half tails, but if we wait long enough, we will see sequences of the same result many times in a row.\n\nThe fluctuations seen here are very small, but on the other hand we didn't wait very long. If we stretched out the plot to much longer times-and here we're talking much longer times-the entropy would eventually dip down to its original value, representing a state with 80 percent of the particles on one side and only 20 percent on the other. Keep in mind that this graph shows what happens with 2,000 particles; in the real world, with many more particles in any macroscopic object, fluctuations in entropy are correspondingly smaller and more rare. But they will be there; that's an inevitable consequence of the probabilistic nature of entropy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Figure 54: The evolution of the entropy of a divided box of gas, starting from equilibrium." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The state spends most of its time near maximum entropy, but there are occasional fluctuations to lower-entropy states. Note from the vertical axis that we have zoomed up close; typical fluctuations are very small. The point x marks a return to equilibrium from a relatively large fluctuation.\n\nSo here is Boltzmann's final, dramatic suggestion: Maybe the universe is like that. Maybe time does last forever, and the underlying laws of physics are Newtonian and reversible, and maybe the assumptions underlying the recurrence theorem are valid. 180 And maybe, therefore, the plot of entropy versus time shown in Figure 54 is how the entropy of the real universe actually evolves.\n\nTHE ANTHROPIC APPEAL\n\nBut-you say-that can't be right. On that graph, entropy goes up half the time and goes down half the time. That's not at all like the real world, where entropy only ever goes up, as far as we can see.\n\nAh, replies Boltzmann, you have to take a wider view. What we've shown in the plot are tiny fluctuations in entropy over a relatively short period of time. When we're talking about the universe, we are obviously imagining a huge fluctuation in entropy that is very rare and takes an extremely longtime to play itself out. The overall graph of the entropy of the universe looks something like Figure 54, but the entropy of our local, observable part of universe corresponds to only a very tiny piece of that graph-near the point marked x, where a fluctuation has occurred and is in the process of bouncing back to equilibrium. If the entire history of the known universe were to fit there, we would indeed seethe Second Law at work over our lifetimes, while over ultra-long times the entropy is simply fluctuating near its maximum value.\n\nBut-you say again, not quite ready to give up-why should we live at that particular part of the curve, in the aftermath of a giant entropy fluctuation? We've already admitted that such fluctuations are exceedingly rare. Shouldn't we find ourselves at a more typical period in the history of the universe, where things basically look like they are in equilibrium?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Boltzmann, naturally, has foreseen your objection. And at this point he makes a startlingly modern move-he invokes the anthropic principle. The anthropic principle is basically the idea that any sensible account of the universe around us must take into consideration the fact that we exist. It comes in various forms, from the uselessly weak-\"the fact that life exists tell us that the laws of physics must be compatible with the existence of life\"-to the ridiculously strong-\"the laws of physics had to take the form they do because the existence of life is somehow a necessary feature.\" Arguments over the status of the anthropic principle-Is it useful? Is it science?-grow quite heated and are rarely very enlightening.\n\nFortunately, we (and Boltzmann) need only a judicious medium-strength version of the anthropic principle. Namely, imagine that the real universe is much bigger (in space, or in time, or both) than the part we directly observe. And imagine further that different parts of this bigger universe exist in very different conditions. Perhaps the density of matter is different, or even something as dramatic as different local laws of physics. We can label each distinct region a'universe,\" and the whole collection is the'multiverse.\" The different universes within the multiverse mayor may not be physically connected; for our present purposes it doesn't matter. Finally, imagine that some of these different regions are hospitable to the existence of life, and some are not. (That part is inevitably a bit fuzzy, given how little we know about'life\" in a wider context.) Then-and this part is pretty much unimpeachable-we will always find ourselves existing in one of the parts of the universe where life is allowed to exist, and not in the other parts. That sounds completely empty, but it's not. It represents a selection effect that distorts our view of the universe as a whole-we don't seethe entire thing; we see only one of the parts, and that part might not be representative." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Boltzmann appeals to exactly this logic. He asks us to imagine a universe consisting of some collection of particles moving through an absolute Newtonian spacetime that exists for all eternity. What would happen?\n\nThis is a remarkable paragraph, which would be right at home in a modern cosmology discussion, with just a few alterations in vocabulary. Boltzmann imagines that the universe (or the multiverse, if you prefer) is basically an infinitely big box of gas. Most of the time the gas is distributed uniformly through space, at constant temperature-thermal equilibrium. The thing is, we can't live in thermal equilibrium-it's\"dead,\" as he bluntly puts it. From time to time there will be random fluctuations, and eventually one of these will create something like the universe we see around us. (He refers to'our galaxy,\" which at the time was synonymous with'the observable universe.\") It's in those environments, the random fluctuations away from equilibrium, where we can possibly live, so it's not much surprise that we find ourselves there.\n\nEven in the course of a fluctuation, of course, the entropy is only increasing half the time-in the other half it's decreasing, moving from equilibrium down to the minimum value it will temporarily reach. But this sense of'increasing\" or'decreasing\" describes the evolution of entropy with respect to some arbitrarily chosen time coordinate, which-as we discussed in the last chapter-is completely unobservable. As Boltzmann correctly points out, what matters is that the current universe is in the middle of a transition from a low-entropy state to one of thermal equilibrium. In the midst of such a transition, any living beings who popup will always label the direction of lower entropy'the past,\" and the direction of higher entropy'the future.\"\n\nFigure 55: Boltzmann's'multiverse.\" Space is mostly a collection of particles in equilibrium, but there are occasional local fluctuations to low-entropy states. (Not at all to scale.) We live in the aftermath of one exceptionally large fluctuation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is a provocative picture of the universe. On large scales, matter is almost always in a dilute collection of gas at some temperature. But every so often, over the course of billions of years, a series of random accidents conspire to create pockets of anomalously low entropy, which then relax back to equilibrium. You, and I, and all the bustling activity we see around us, are epiphenomena riding the wave of entropy as it bounces back from a random excursion into a wildly improbable state. 182\n\nSo what does atypical downward fluctuation in entropy look like? The answer, of course, is that it looks exactly like the time-reverse of atypical evolution from a low-entropy state back to a high-entropy one. The whole universe wouldn't suddenly zoom from a thin gas of particles into a dense Big-Bang-like state in a matter of minutes; it would, most of the time, experience a series of unlikely accidents spread over billions of years, all of which would decrease the entropy just a little bit. Stars and galaxies would un-form, omelets would turn into eggs, objects in equilibrium would spontaneously develop substantial temperature gradients. All of these would be completely independent events, each individually unlikely, and the combination of all of them is fantastically unlikely. But if you truly have eternity to wait, even the most unlikely things will eventually happen.\n\nSWERVING THROUGH ANTIQUITY\n\nBoltzmann wasn't actually the first to think along these lines, if we allow ourselves a little poetic license. Just as Boltzmann was concerned with understanding the world in terms of atoms, so were his predecessors in ancient Greece and Rome. Democritus (c. 400 B. C. E.) was the most famous atomist, but his teacher Leucippus was probably the first to propose the idea. They were materialists, who hoped to explain the world in terms of objects obeying rules, rather than being driven by an underlying'purpose.\" In particular, they were interested in rising to the challenge raised by Parmenides, who argued that change was an illusion. The theory of unchanging atoms moving through avoid was meant to account for the possibility of motion without imagining that something arises from nothing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One challenge that the atomists of antiquity faced was to explain the messy complexity of the world around them. The basic tendency of atoms, they believed, was to fall downward in straight lines; that doesn't make fora very interesting universe. It was left to the Greek thinker Epicurus (c. 300 B. C. E.) to propose a solution to this puzzle, in the form of an idea called'the swerve\" (clinamen). 183 Essentially Epicurus suggested that, in addition to the basic tendency of atoms to move along straight lines, there is a random component to their motion that occasionally kicks them from side to side. It's vaguely reminiscent of modern quantum mechanics, although we shouldn't get carried away. (Epicurus didn't know anything about blackbody radiation, atomic spectra, the photoelectric effect, or any of the other experimental results motivating quantum mechanics.) Part of Epicurus's reason for introducing the swerve was to leave room for freewill-basically, to escape the implications of Laplace's Demon, long before that mischievous beast had ever reared his ugly head. But another motivation was to explain how individual atoms could come together to form macroscopic objects, rather than just falling straight down to Earth.\n\nThe Roman poet-philosopher Lucretius (c. 50 B. C. E.) was an avid atomist and follower of Epicurus; he was a primary inspiration for Virgil's poetry. His poem'On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura)\" is a remarkable work, concerned with elucidating Epicurean philosophy and applying it to everything from cosmology to everyday life. He was especially interested in dispelling superstitious beliefs; imagine Carl Sagan writing in Latin hexameter. A famous section of'On the Nature of Things\" counsels against the fear of death, which he sees as simply a transitional event in the endless play of atoms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lucretius applied atomism, and in particular the idea of the swerve, to the question of the origin of the universe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Here is what he imagines happening:\n\nThe opening lines here should be read in a semi-sarcastic tone of voice. Lucretius is mocking the idea that the atoms somehow planned the cosmos; rather, they just jumbled around chaotically. But through those random motions, if we wait long enough we will witness the creation of our universe.\n\nThe resemblance to Boltzmann's scenario is striking. We should always be careful, of course, not to credit ancient philosophers with a modern scientific understanding; they came from a very different perspective, and worked under a different set of presuppositions than we do today. But the parallelism between the creation scenarios suggested by Lucretius and Boltzmann is more than just a coincidence. In both cases, the task was to explain the emergence of the apparent complexity we see around us without appealing to an overall design, but simply by considering the essentially random motions of atoms. It is no surprise that a similar conclusion is reached: the idea that our observable universe is a random fluctuation in an eternal cosmos. It's perfectly fair to call this the'Boltzmann-Lucretius scenario\" for the origin of the universe.\n\nCan the real world possibly be like that? Can we live in an eternal universe that spends most of its time in equilibrium, with occasional departures that look like what we see around us? Here we need to rely on the mathematical formalism developed by Boltzmann and his colleagues, to which Lucretius didn't have recourse.\n\nUN-BREAKING AN EGG\n\nThe problem with the Boltzmann-Lucretius scenario is not that you can't make a universe that way-in the context of Newtonian spacetime, with everlasting atoms bumping against one another and occasionally giving rise to random downward fluctuations of entropy, it's absolutely going to happen that you create a region of the size and shape of our universe if you wait long enough." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The problem is that the numbers don't work. Sure, you can fluctuate into something that looks like our universe-but you can fluctuate into a lot of other things as well. And the other things win, by a wide margin.\n\nRather than weighing down our brains with the idea of a huge collection of particles fluctuating into something like the universe we see around us (or even just our galaxy), let's keep things simple by considering one of our favorite examples of entropy inaction: a single egg. An unbroken egg is quite orderly and has a very low entropy; if we break the egg the entropy increases, and if we whisk the ingredients together the entropy increases even more. The maximum-entropy state will be a soup of individual molecules; details of the configuration will depend on the temperature, the presence of a gravitational field, and soon, but none of that will matter for our present purposes. The point is that it won't look anything like an unbroken egg.\n\nImagine we take such an egg and seal it in an absolutely impenetrable box, one that will last literally forever, undisturbed by the rest of the universe. For convenience, we put the egg-in-a-box out in space, faraway from any gravity or external forces, and imagine that it floats undisturbed for all eternity. What happens inside that box?\n\nEven if we initially put an unbroken egg inside the box, eventually it would break, just through the random motions of its molecules. It will spend sometime as a motionless, broken egg, differentiated into yolk and white and shell. But if we wait long enough, further random motions will gradually cause the yolk and white and even the shell to disintegrate and mix, until we reach a truly high-entropy state of undifferentiated egg molecules. That's equilibrium, and it will last an extraordinarily longtime." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But if we continue to wait, the same kind of random motions that caused the egg to break in the first place will stir those molecules into lower-entropy configurations. All of the molecules may end upon one side of the box, for example. And after a very longtime indeed, random motions will re-create something that looks like a broken egg (shell, yolk, and white), or even an unbroken egg! That seems preposterous, but it's the straightforward implication of Poincaré's recurrence theorem, or of taking seriously the ramifications of random fluctuations over extraordinarily long timescales.\n\nMost of the time, the process of forming an egg through random fluctuations of the constituent molecules will look just like the time-reverse of the process by which an unbroken egg decays into high-entropy goop. That is, we will first fluctuate into the form of a broken egg, and then the broken pieces will by chance arrange themselves into the form of an unbroken egg. That's just a consequence of time-reversal symmetry; the most common evolutions from high entropy to low entropy look exactly like the most common evolutions from low entropy to high entropy, just played in reverse.\n\nHere is the rub. Let's imagine that we have such an egg sealed in an impenetrable box, and we peek inside after it's been left to its own devices for an absurdly longtime-much greater than the recurrence time. It's overwhelmingly likely that what we will see is something very much like equilibrium: a homogeneous mixture of egg molecules. But suppose we get extremely lucky, and we find what looks like a broken egg-a medium-entropy state, with some shards of eggshell and a yolk running into the egg whites. A configuration, in other words, that looks exactly what we would expect if there had recently been a pristine egg, which for some reason had been broken." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Figure 56: An egg trapped for all eternity in an impenetrable box. Most of the time the box will contain egg molecules in high-entropy equilibrium. Occasionally it will fluctuate into the medium-entropy configuration of a broken egg, as in the top row. Much more rarely, it will fluctuate all the way to the low-entropy form of an unbroken egg, and then back again, as in the bottom row.\n\nCould we actually conclude, from this broken egg, that there had recently been an unbroken egg in the box? Not at all. Remember our discussion at the end of Chapter Eight. Given a medium-entropy configuration, and no other knowledge or assumptions such as a Past Hypothesis (which would clearly be inappropriate in the context of this ancient sealed box), it is overwhelmingly likely to have evolved from a higher-entropy past, just as it is overwhelmingly likely to evolve toward a higher-entropy future. Said conversely, given a broken egg, it is no more likely to have evolved from an unbroken egg than it is likely to evolve to an unbroken egg. Which is to say, not bloody likely.\n\nBOLTZMANN BRAINS\n\nThe egg-in-a-box example illustrates the fundamental problem with the Boltzmann-Lucretius scenario: We can't possibly appeal to a Past Hypothesis that asserts the existence of a low-entropy past state, because the universe (or the egg) simply cycles through every possible configuration it can have, with a predictable frequency. There is no such thing as an'initial condition\" in a universe that lasts forever.\n\nThe idea that the universe spends most of its time in thermal equilibrium, but we can appeal to the anthropic principle to explain why our local environment isn't in equilibrium, makes a strong prediction-and that prediction is dramatically falsified by the data. The prediction is simply that we should be as close to equilibrium as possible, given the requirement that we (under some suitable definition of'we\") be allowed to exist. Fluctuations happen, but large fluctuations (such as creating an unbroken egg) are much more rare than smaller fluctuations (such as creating a broken egg). We can see this explicitly back in Figure 54, where the curve exhibits many small fluctuations and only a few larger ones. And the universe we see around us would have to be a large fluctuation indeed. 185" }, { "from": "human", "value": "We can be more specific about what the universe would look like if it were an eternal system fluctuating around equilibrium." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Boltzmann invoked the anthropic principle (although he didn't call it that) to explain why we wouldn't find ourselves in one of the very common equilibrium phases: In equilibrium, life cannot exist. Clearly, what we want to do is find the most common conditions within such a universe that are hospitable to life. Or, if we want to be a bit more careful, perhaps we should look for conditions that are not only hospitable to life, but hospitable to the particular kind of intelligent and self-aware life that we like to think we are.\n\nMaybe this is away out? Maybe, we might reason, in order for an advanced scientific civilization such as ours to arise, we require a'support system\" in the form of an entire universe filled with stars and galaxies, originating in some sort of super-low-entropy early condition. Maybe that could explain why we find such a profligate universe around us.\n\nNo. Here is how the game should be played: You tell me the particular thing you insist must exist in the universe, for anthropic reasons. A solar system, a planet, a particular ecosystem, a type of complex life, the room you are sitting in now, whatever you like. And then we ask, \"Given that requirement, what is the most likely state of the rest of the universe in the Boltzmann-Lucretius scenario, in addition to the particular thing we are asking for?\"\n\nAnd the answer is always the same: The most likely state of the rest of the universe is to be in equilibrium. If we ask, \"What is the most likely way for an infinite box of gas in equilibrium to fluctuate into a state containing a pumpkin pie?,\" the answer is'By fluctuating into a state that consists of a pumpkin pie floating by itself in an otherwise homogeneous box of gas.\" Adding anything else to the picture, either in space or in time-an oven, a baker, a previously existing pumpkin patch-only makes the scenario less likely, because the entropy would have to dip lower to make that happen. By far the easiest way to get a pumpkin pie in this context is for it to gradually fluctuate all by itself out of the surrounding chaos. 186" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sir Arthur Eddington, in a lecture from 1931, considered a perfectly reasonable anthropic criterion:\n\nEddington presumes that what you really need to make a good universe is a mathematical physicist. Sadly, if the universe is an eternally fluctuating collection of molecules, the most frequently occurring mathematical physicists will be all by themselves, surrounded by randomness.\n\nWe can take this logic to its ultimate conclusion. If what we want is a single planet, we certainly don't need a hundred billion galaxies with a hundred billion stars each. And if what we want is a single person, we certainly don't need an entire planet. But if in fact what we want is a single intelligence, able to think about the world, we don't even need an entire person-we just need his or her brain.\n\nSo the reductio ad absurdum of this scenario is that the overwhelming majority of intelligences in this multiverse will be lonely, disembodied brains, who fluctuate gradually out of the surrounding chaos and then gradually dissolve back into it. Such sad creatures have been dubbed'Boltzmann brains\" by Andreas Albrecht and Lorenzo Sorbo. 188 You and I are not Boltzmann brains-we are what one might call'ordinary observers,\" who did not fluctuate all by ourselves from the surrounding equilibrium, but evolved gradually from an earlier state of very low entropy. So the hypothesis that our universe is a random fluctuation around an equilibrium state in an eternal spacetime seems to be falsified.\n\nYou may have been willing to go along with this line of reasoning when only an egg was involved, but draw up short when we start comparing the number of disembodied brains to the number of ordinary observers. But the logic is exactly the same, if (and it's a big'if\") we are considering an eternal universe full of randomly fluctuating particles. In such a universe, we know what kinds of fluctuations there are, and how often they happened; the more the entropy changes, the less likely that fluctuation will be. No matter how many ordinary observers exist in our universe today, they would be dwarfed by the total number of Boltzmann brains to come. Any given observer is a collection of particles in some particular state, and that state will occur infinitely often, and the number of times it will be surrounded by high-entropy chaos is enormously higher than the number of times it will arise as part of an'ordinary\" universe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just to be careful, though-are you really sure you are not a Boltzmann brain?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You might respond that you feel the rest of your body, you see other objects around you, and for that matter you have memories of a lower-entropy past: All things that would appear inconsistent with the idea that you area disembodied brain recently fluctuated out of the surrounding molecules. The problem is, these purported statements about the outside world are actually just statements about your brain. Your feelings, visions, and memories are all contained within the state of your brain. We could certainly imagine that a brain with exactly these sensations fluctuated out of the surrounding chaos. And, as we have argued, it's much more likely for that brain to fluctuate by itself than to be part of a giant universe. In the Boltzmann-Lucretius scenario, we don't have recourse to the Past Hypothesis, so it is overwhelmingly likely that all of our memories are false.\n\nNevertheless, we are perfectly justified in dismissing this possibility, as long as we think carefully about what precisely we are claiming. It's not right to say, \"I know I am not a Boltzmann brain, so clearly the universe is not a random fluctuation.\" The right thing to say is, \"If I were a Boltzmann brain, there would be a strong prediction: Everything else about the universe should be in equilibrium. But it's not. Therefore the universe is not a random fluctuation.\" If we insist on being strongly skeptical, we might wonder whether not only our present mental states, but also all of the additional sensory data we are apparently accumulating, represent a random fluctuation rather than an accurate reconstruction of our surroundings. Strictly speaking, that certainly is possible, but it's cognitively unstable in the same sense that we discussed in the last chapter. There is no sensible way to live and think and behave if that is the case, so there is no warrant for believing it. Better to accept the universe around us as it appears (for the most part) to be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This point was put with characteristic clarity by Richard Feynman, in his famous Lectures on Physics:\n\nWHO ARE WE IN THE MULTIVERSE?\n\nThere is one final loophole that must be closed before we completely shut the door on the Boltzmann-Lucretius scenario. Let's accept the implications of conventional statistical mechanics, that small fluctuations in entropy happen much more frequently than large fluctuations, and that the overwhelming majority of intelligent observers in a universe fluctuating eternally around equilibrium will find themselves alone in an otherwise high-entropy environment, not evolving naturally from a prior configuration of enormously lower entropy.\n\nOne might ask: So what? Why should I be bothered that most observers (under any possible definition of'observers\") find themselves alone as freak fluctuations in a high-entropy background? All I care about is who I am, not what most observers are like. As long as there is one instance of the universe I see around me somewhere in the eternal lifetime of the larger world (which there will be), isn't that all I need to proclaim that this picture is consistent with the data?\n\nIn other words, the Boltzmann-brain argument makes an implicit assumption: that we are somehow'typical observers\" in the universe, and that therefore we should make predictions by asking what most observers would see. 190 That sounds innocuous, even humble. But upon closer inspection, it leads to conclusions that seem stronger than we can really justify.\n\nImagine we have two theories of the universe that are identical in every way, except that one predicts that an Earth-like planet orbiting the star Tau Ceti is home to a race of 10 trillion intelligent lizard beings, while the other theory predicts there are no intelligent beings of any kind in the Tau Ceti system. Most of us would say that we don't currently have enough information to decide between these two theories. But if we are truly typical observers in the universe, the first theory strongly predicts that we are more likely to be lizards on the planet orbiting Tau Ceti, not humans hereon Earth, just because there are so many more lizards than humans. But that prediction is not right, so we have apparently ruled out the existence of that many observers without collecting any data at all about what's actually going on in the Tau Ceti system." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Assuming we are typical might seem like a self-effacing move on our part, but it actually amounts to an extremely strong claim about what happens throughout the rest of the universe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not only'we are typical observers,\" but'typical observers are like us.\" Put that way, it seems like a stronger assumption than we have any right to make. (In the literature this is known as the'Presumptuous Philosopher Problem.\") So perhaps we shouldn't be comparing the numbers of different kinds of observers in the universe at all; we should only ask whether a given theory predicts that observers like us appear somewhere, and if they do we should think of the theory as being consistent with the data. If that were the right way to think about it, we wouldn't have any reason to reject the Boltzmann-Lucretius scenario. Even though most observers would be alone in the universe, some would find themselves in regions like ours, so the theory would be judged to be in agreement with our experience. 191\n\nThe difficulty with this minimalist approach is that it offers us too little handle on what is likely to happen in the universe, instead of too much. Statistical mechanics relies on the Principle of Indifference-the assumption that all microstates consistent with our current macrostate are equally likely, at least when it comes to predicting the future. That's essentially an assumption of typicality: Our microstate is likely to be atypical member of our macrostate. If we're not allowed to assume that, all sorts of statistical reasoning suddenly become inaccessible. We can't say that an ice cube is likely to melt in a glass of warm water, because in an eternal universe there will occasionally betimes when the opposite happens. We seem to have taken our concerns about typicality too far.\n\nInstead, we should aim fora judicious middle ground. It's too much to ask that we are typical among all observers in the universe, because that's making a strong claim about parts of the universe we've never observed. But we can at least say that we are typical among observers exactly like us-that is, observers with the basic physiology and the same set of memories that we have, the same coarse-grained experience of the universe. 192 That assumption doesn't allow us to draw any unwarranted conclusions about the possible existence of other kinds of intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe. But it is more than enough to rule out the Boltzmann-Lucretius scenario. If the universe fluctuates around thermal equilibrium for all eternity, not only will most observers appear all by themselves from the surrounding chaos, but the same is true for the subset of observers with precisely the features that you or I have-complete with our purported memories of the past. Those memories will generally be false, and fluctuating into them is very unlikely, but it's still much more unlikely than fluctuating the entire universe. Even this minimal necessary condition for carrying out statistical reasoning-we should take ourselves to be chosen randomly from the set of observers exactly like us-is more than enough to put the Boltzmann-Lucretius scenario to rest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The universe we observe is not a fluctuation-at least, to be more careful, a statistical fluctuation in an eternal universe that spends most of its time in equilibrium. So that's what the universe is not; what it is, we still have to workout.\n\nENDINGS\n\nOn the evening of September 5,1906, Ludwig Boltzmann took apiece of cord, tied it to a curtain rod in the hotel room where he was vacationing in Italy with his family, and hanged himself. His body was discovered by his daughter Emma when she returned to their room that evening. He was sixty-two years old.\n\nThe reasons for Boltzmann's suicide remain unclear. Some have suggested that he was despondent over the failure of his ideas concerning atomic theory to gain wider acceptance. But, while many German-speaking scientists of the time remained skeptical about atoms, kinetic theory had become standard throughout much of the world, and Boltzmann's status as a major scientist was unquestioned in Austria and Germany. Boltzmann had been suffering from health problems and was prone to fits of depression; it was not the first time he had attempted suicide.\n\nBut his depression was intermittent; only months before his death, he had written an engaging and high-spirited account of his previous year's trip to America to lecture at the University of California at Berkeley, and circulated it among his friends. He referred to California as'Eldorado,\" but found American water undrinkable, and would drink only beer and wine. This was problematic, as the Temperance movement was strong in America at the time, and Berkeley in particular was completely dry; a recurring theme in Boltzmann's account is his attempts to smuggle wine into various forbidden places. 193 We will probably never know what mixture of failing health, depression, and scientific controversy contributed to his ultimate act." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the question of the existence of atoms and their utility in understanding the properties of macroscopic objects, any lingering doubts that Boltzmann was right were rapidly dissipating when he died. One of Albert Einstein's papers in his'miraculous year\" of 1905 was an explanation of Brownian motion (the seemingly random motion of small particles suspended in air) in terms of collisions with individual atoms; most remaining skepticism on the part of physicists was soon swept away.\n\nQuestions about the nature of entropy and the Second Law remain with us, of course. When it comes to explaining the low entropy of our early universe, we won't ever be able to say, \"Boltzmann was right,\" because he suggested a number of different possibilities without ever settling on one in particular. But the terms of the debate were set by him, and we're still arguing over the questions that puzzled him more than a century ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "QUANTUM TIME\n\n-Democritus 194\n\nMany people who have sat through introductory physics courses in high school or college might disagree with the claim'Newtonian mechanics makes intuitive sense to us.\" They may remember the subject as a bewildering merry-go-round of pulleys and vectors and inclined planes, and think that'intuitive sense\" is the last thing that Newtonian mechanics should be accused of making.\n\nBut while the process of actually calculating something within the framework of Newtonian mechanics-doing a homework problem, or getting astronauts to the moon-can be ferociously complicated, the underlying concepts are pretty straightforward. The world is made of tangible things that we can observe and recognize: billiard balls, planets, pulleys. These things exert forces, or bump into one another, and their motions change in response to those influences. If Laplace's Demon knew all of the positions and momenta of every particle in the universe, it could predict the future and the past with perfect fidelity; we know that this is outside of our capabilities, but we can imagine knowing the positions and momenta of a few billiard balls on a frictionless table, and at least in principle we can imagine doing the math. After that it's just a matter of extrapolation and courage to encompass the entire universe.\n\nNewtonian mechanics is usually referred to as'classical\" mechanics by physicists, who want to emphasize that it's not just a set of particular rules laid down by Newton. Classical mechanics is away of thinking about the deep structure of the world. Different types of things-baseballs, gas molecules, electromagnetic waves-will follow different specific rules, but those rules will share the same pattern. The essence of that pattern is that everything has some kind of'position,\" and some kind of'momentum,\" and that information can be used to predict what will happen next." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This structure is repeated in a variety of contexts: Newton's own theory of gravitation, Maxwell's nineteenth-century theory of electricity and magnetism, and Einstein's general relativity all fit into the classical framework. Classical mechanics isn't a particular theory; it's a paradigm, away of conceptualizing what a physical theory is, and one that has demonstrated an astonishing range of empirical success. After Newton published his 1687 masterwork, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, it became almost impossible to imagine doing physics any other way. The world is made of things, characterized by positions and momenta, pushed about by certain sets of forces; the job of physics was to classify the kinds of things and figure out what the forces were, and we'd be done.\n\nBut now we know better: Classical mechanics isn't correct. In the early decades of the twentieth century, physicists trying to understand the behavior of matter on microscopic scales were gradually forced to the conclusion that the rules would have to be overturned and replaced with something else. That something else is quantum mechanics, arguably the greatest triumph of human intelligence and imagination in all of history. Quantum mechanics offers an image of the world that is radically different from that of classical mechanics, one that scientists never would have seriously contemplated if the experimental data had left them with any other choice. Today, quantum mechanics enjoys the status that classical mechanics held at the dawn of the twentieth century: It has passed a variety of empirical tests, and most researchers are convinced that the ultimate laws of physics are quantum mechanical in nature.\n\nBut despite its triumphs, quantum mechanics remains somewhat mysterious. Physicists are completely confident in how they use quantum mechanics-they can build theories, make predictions, and test against experiments, and there is never any ambiguity along the way. Nevertheless, we're not completely sure we know what quantum mechanics really is. There is a respectable field of intellectual endeavor, occupying the time of a substantial number of talented scientists and philosophers, that goes under the name'interpretations of quantum mechanics.\" A century ago, there was no such field as'interpretations of classical mechanics\"-classical mechanics is perfectly straightforward to interpret. We're still not sure what is the best way to think and talk about quantum mechanics." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This interpretational anxiety stems from the single basic difference between quantum mechanics and classical mechanics, which is both simple and world shattering in its implications:\n\nAttempts at explaining this principle often water it down beyond recognition. \"It's like that friend of yours who has such a nice smile, except when you try to take his picture it always disappears.\" Quantum mechanics is a lot more profound than that. In the classical world, it might be difficult to obtain a precise measurement of some quantity; we need to be very careful not to disturb the system we're looking at. But there is nothing in classical physics that prevents us from being careful. In quantum mechanics, on the other hand, there is an unavoidable obstacle to making complete and nondisruptive observations of a physical system. It simply can't be done, in general. What exactly happens when you try to observe something, and what actually counts as a'measurement\"-those are the locus of the mystery. This is what is helpfully known as the'measurement problem,\" much as having an automobile roll off a cliff and smash into pieces on the rocks hundreds of feet below might be known as'car trouble.\" Successful physical theories aren't supposed to have ambiguities like this; the very first thing we ask about them is that they be clearly defined. Quantum mechanics, despite all its undeniable successes, isn't there yet.\n\nNone of which should betaken to mean that all hell has broken loose, or that the mysteries of quantum mechanics offer an excuse to believe whatever you want. In particular, quantum mechanics doesn't mean you can change reality just by thinking about it, or that modern physics has rediscovered ancient Buddhist wisdom. 195 There are still rules, and we know how the rules operate in the regimes of interest to our everyday lives. But we'd like to understand how the rules operate in every conceivable situation." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Helping the author, keep the tale going.\nTags: science, cosmology, time, entropy, theoretical physics\nAuthor: Sean Carroll\nTitle: From Eternity to Here\nChapter: 19" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "BLACK HOLES ARE FOR REAL\n\nWe have excellent reasons to believe that black holes exist in the real world. Of course we can't see them directly-they're still pretty dark, even if Hawking showed that they're not completely black. But we can see what happens to things around them, and the environment near a black hole is sufficiently unique that we can often be confident that we've located one. Some black holes are formed from the collapse of very massive stars, and frequently these have companion stars orbiting them. Gas from the companion can fall toward the black hole, forming an accretion disk that heats to tremendous temperatures and emits X-ray radiation in copious amounts. Satellite observatories have found a number of X-ray sources that demonstrate all of the qualities you would expect in such an object: In particular, a large amount of high-intensity radiation coming from a very small region of space. Astrophysicists know of no good explanations for these observations other than black holes.\n\nThere is also good evidence for supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies-black holes more than a million times the mass of the Sun. (Still a very tiny fraction of the total mass of a galaxy, which is typically a hundred billion times the mass of the Sun.) In the early stages of galaxy formation, these giant black holes sweep up matter around them in a violent maelstrom, visible to us as quasars. Once the galaxy has settled down a bit, things become calmer, and the quasars'turnoff.\" In our own Milky Way, we nevertheless are pretty sure that there lurks a black hole weighing in at about 4 million solar masses. Even without the blazing radiation of a quasar, observations of stars in the galactic center reveal that they are orbiting in tight ellipses around an invisible object. We can deduce that these stars must be caught in the gravitational field of something that is so dense and massive that it can't be anything but a black hole, if general relativity has anything to say about the matter. 208" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "BLACK HOLES HAVE NO HAIR\n\nBut as much fun as it is to search for real black holes in the universe, it is even more fun to sit and think about them. 209 Black holes are the ultimate thought-experiment laboratory for anyone interested in gravity. And what makes black holes special is their purity.\n\nWhile observations convince us that black holes exist, they don't give us a lot of detailed information about their properties; we aren't able to getup close to a black hole and poke at it. So when we make confident assertions about this or that feature of black holes, we're always implicitly speaking within some theoretical framework. Unfortunately, scientists don't yet fully understand quantum gravity, the presumed ultimate reconciliation of general relativity with the tenets of quantum mechanics. So we don't have a single correct theory in which to answer our questions once and for all.\n\nInstead, we often investigate questions within one of three different theoretical frameworks:\n\nClassical general relativity is the best understood of these, while quantum gravity is the least well understood; but quantum gravity is the closest to the real world. Quantum mechanics in curved spacetime occupies a judicious middle ground and is the approach Hawking took to investigating black-hole radiation. But it behooves us to understand how black holes work in the relatively safe context of general relativity before moving onto more advanced but speculative ideas.\n\nIn classical general relativity, a black hole is just about the purest kind of gravitational field you can have. In the flexible world of thought experiments, we could imagine creating a black hole in any number of ways: from a ball of gas like an ordinary star, or out of a huge planet made of pure gold, or from an enormous sphere of ice cream. But once these things collapse to the point where their gravitational field is so strong that nothing can escape-once they are officially black holes-any indication of what kind of stuff they were made from completely disappears. A black hole made out of a ball of gas the mass of the Sun is indistinguishable from a black hole made from a ball of ice cream the mass of the Sun. The black hole isn't, according to general relativity, just a densely packed version of whatever we started with. It's pure gravitational field-the original'stuff\" has disappeared into the singularity, and we're left with a region of strongly curved spacetime." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When we think of the gravitational field of the Earth, we might start by modeling our planet as a perfect sphere of a certain mass and size. But that's clearly just an approximation. If we want to do a little bit better, we'll take into account the fact that the Earth also spins, so it's a little wider near the equator than near the poles. And if we want to be super-careful about it, the exact gravitational field of the Earth changes from point to point in complicated ways; changes in altitude of the surface, as well as changes in density between land and sea or between different kinds of rock, lead to small but measurable variations in the Earth's gravity. All of the local features of the gravitational field of the Earth actually contain quite a bit of information.\n\nBlack holes are not like that. Once they form, any bumps and wiggles in the stuff they formed from are erased. There might be a short period right when the formation happens, when the black hole hasn't quite settled down, but it quickly becomes smooth and featureless. Once it has settled, there are three things that we can measure about a black hole: its total mass, how fast it is spinning, and how much electric charge it has. (Real astrophysical black holes usually have close to zero net electric charge, but they are often spinning very rapidly.) And that's it. Two collections of stuff with the same mass, charge, and spin, once they get turned into black holes, will become completely indistinguishable, as far as classical general relativity is concerned. This interesting prediction of general relativity is summed up in acute motto coined by John Wheeler, the same guy who gave black holes their name: \"Black holes have no hair.\"\n\nThis no-hair business should set off some alarm bells. Apparently, if everything we've just said is true, the process of forming a black hole has a dramatic consequence: Information is lost. We can take two very different kinds of initial conditions (one solar mass of hot gas, or one solar mass of ice cream), and they can evolve into precisely the same final condition (a one-solar-mass black hole). But up until now we've been saying that the microscopic laws of physics-of which Einstein's equation of general relativity is presumably one-have the property that they conserve information. Put another way: Making a black hole seems to bean irreversible process, even though Einstein's equation would appear to be perfectly reversible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You are right to worry!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is a time puzzle. In classical general relativity, there is away out: We can say that the information isn't truly lost; it's just lost to you, as it's hidden behind the event horizon of a black hole. You can decide for yourself whether that seems satisfying or sounds like a cop-out. Either way, we can't just stop there, as Hawking will eventually tell us that black holes evaporate once quantum mechanics is taken into account. Then we have a serious problem, one that has launched a thousand theoretical physics papers. 210\n\nLAWS OF BLACK-HOLE MECHANICS\n\nYou might think that, because nothing can escape from a black hole, it's impossible for its total mass to ever decrease. But that's not quite right, as shown by a very imaginative idea due to Roger Penrose. Penrose knew that black holes could have spin and charge as well as mass, so he asked a reasonable question: Can we use that spin and charge to do useful work? Can we, in other words, extract energy from a black hole by decreasing its spin and charge? (When we think of black holes as single objects at rest, we can use'mass\" and'energy\" interchangeably, with E= mc 2 lurking in the back of our minds.)\n\nThe answer is yes, at least at the thought-experiment level we're working at here. Penrose figured out away we could throw things close to a spinning black hole and have them emerge with more energy than they had when they went in, slowing the black hole's rotation in the process of lowering its mass. Essentially, we can convert the spin of the black hole into useful energy. A stupendously advanced civilization, with access to a giant, spinning black hole, would have a tremendous source of energy available for whatever public-works projects they might want to pursue. But not an unlimited source-there is a finite amount of energy we can extract by this process, since the black hole will eventually stop spinning altogether. (In the best-case scenario, we can extract about 29 percent of the total energy of the original rapidly spinning black hole.)" }, { "from": "human", "value": "So: Penrose showed that black holes are systems from which we can extract useful work, at least up to a certain point." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once the black hole has no spin, we've used up all the extractable energy, and the hole just sits there. Those words should sound vaguely familiar from our previous discussions of thermodynamics.\n\nStephen Hawking followed upon Penrose's work to show that, while it's possible to decrease the mass/energy of a spinning black hole, there is a quantity that always either increases or remains constant: the area of the event horizon, which is basically the size of the black hole. The area of the horizon depends on a particular combination of the mass, spin, and charge, and Hawking found that this particular combination never decreases, no matter what we do. If we have two black holes, for example, they can smash into each other and coalesce into a single black hole, oscillating wildly and giving off gravitational radiation. 211 But the area of the new event horizon is always larger than the combined area of the original two horizons-and, as an immediate consequence of Hawking's result, one big black hole can therefore never split into two smaller ones, since the area would go down. 212 Fora given amount of mass, we get the maximum-area horizon from a single, uncharged, nonrotating black hole.\n\nSo: While we can extract useful work from a black hole up to a point, there is some quantity (the area of the event horizon) that keeps going up during the process and reaches its maximum value when all the useful work has been extracted. Interesting. This really does sound eerily like thermodynamics.\n\nEnough with the suggestive implications; let's make this analogy explicit. 213 Hawking showed that the area of the event horizon of a black hole never decreases; it either increases or stays constant. That's much like the behavior of entropy, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The First Law of Thermodynamics is usually summarized as'energy is conserved,\" but it actually tells us how different forms of energy combine to make the total energy. There is clearly an analogous rule for black holes: The total mass is given by a formula that includes contributions from the spin and charge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There is also a Third Law of Thermodynamics: There is a minimum possible temperature, absolute zero, at which the entropy is also a minimum." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What, in the case of black holes, is supposed to play the role of'temperature\" in this analogy? The answer is the surface gravity of a black hole-how strong the gravitational pull of the hole is near the event horizon, as measured by an observer very faraway. You might think the surface gravity should be infinite-isn't that the whole point of a black hole? But it turns out that the surface gravity is really a measure of how dramatically spacetime is curved near the event horizon, and it actually gets weaker as the black hole gets more and more massive. 214 And there is a minimum value for the surface gravity of a black hole-zero!-which is achieved when all of the black-hole energy comes from charge or spin, none from'mass all by itself.\"\n\nFinally, there is a Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics: If two systems are in thermal equilibrium with a third system, they are in thermal equilibrium with each other. The analogous statement for black holes is simply'the surface gravity has the same value everywhere on the event horizon of a stationary black hole.\" And that's true.\n\nSo there is a perfect analogy between the laws of thermodynamics, as they were developed over the course of the 1800s, and the'laws of black-hole mechanics,\" as they were developed in the 1970s. The different elements of the analogy are summarized in the table.\n\nBut now we're faced with an important question, the kind that leads to big breakthroughs in science: How seriously should we take this analogy? Is it just an amusing coincidence, or does it reflect some deep underlying truth?\n\nThis is a legitimate question, not just a cheap setup fora predictable answer. Coincidences happen sometimes. When scientists stumble across an intriguing connection between two apparently unrelated things, like thermodynamics and black holes, that maybe a clue to an important discovery, or it may just bean accident. Different people might have different gut feelings about whether or not such a deep connection is out thereto be found. Ultimately, we should be able to attack the problem scientifically and come to a conclusion, but the answer is not obvious ahead of time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "BEKENSTEIN'S ENTROPY CONJECTURE\n\nIt was Jacob Bekenstein, then a graduate student working with John Wheeler, who took the analogy between thermodynamics and black-hole mechanics most seriously. Wheeler, when he wasn't busy coining pithy phrases, was enthusiastically pushing forward the field of quantum gravity (and general relativity overall) at a time when the rest of the physics community was more interested in particle physics-the heroic days of the 1960s and 1970s, when the Standard Model was being constructed. Wheeler's influence has been felt not only through his ideas-he and Bryce DeWitt were the first to generalize the Schrödinger equation of quantum mechanics to a theory of gravity-but also through his students. In addition to Bekenstein, Wheeler was the Ph. D. supervisor for an impressive fraction of the scientists who are now leading researchers in gravitational physics, including Kip Thorne, Charles Misner, Robert Wald, and William Unruh-not to mention Hugh Everett, as well as Wheeler's first student, one Richard Feynman.\n\nSo Princeton in the early 1970s was a fruitful environment to bethinking about black holes, and Bekenstein was in the thick of it. In his Ph. D. thesis, he made a simple but dramatic suggestion: The relationship between black-hole mechanics and thermodynamics isn't simply an analogy; it's an identity. In particular, Bekenstein used ideas from information theory to argue that the area of a black-hole event horizon isn't just like the entropy; it is the entropy of the black hole. 215\n\nOn the face of it, this suggestion seems a little hard to swallow. Boltzmann told us what entropy is: It characterizes the number of microscopic states of a system that are macroscopically indistinguishable. \"Black holes have no hair\" seems to imply that there are very few states fora large black hole; indeed, for any specified mass, charge, and spin, the black hole is supposed to be unique. But here is Bekenstein, saying that the entropy of an astrophysical-sized black hole is staggeringly large." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Figure 59: Jacob Bekenstein, who first suggested that black holes have entropy.\n\nThe area of an event horizon has to be measured in some kind of units-acres, hectares, square centimeters, what have you. Bekenstein claimed that the entropy of a black hole was approximately equal to the area of its event horizon as measured in units of the Planck area. The Planck length, 10-33 centimeters, is the very tiny distance at which quantum gravity is supposed to become important; the Planck area is just the Planck length squared. Fora black hole with amass comparable to the Sun, the area of the event horizon is about 10 77 Planck areas. That's a big number; an entropy of 10 77 would be larger than the regular entropy in all of the stars, gas, and dust in the entire Milky Way galaxy.\n\nAt a superficial level, there is a pretty straightforward route to reconciling the apparent tension between the no-hair idea and Bekenstein's entropy idea: Classical general relativity is just not correct, and we need quantum gravity to understand the enormous number of states implied by the amount of black hole entropy. Or, to put it more charitably, classical general relativity is kind of like thermodynamics, and quantum gravity will be needed to uncover the microscopic'statistical mechanics\" understanding of entropy in cases when gravity is important. Bekenstein's proposal seemed to imply that there are really jillions of different ways that spacetime can arrange itself at the microscopic quantum level to make a macroscopic classical black hole. All we have to do is figure out what those ways are. Easier said than done, as it turns out; more than thirty-five years later, we still don't have a firm grasp on the nature of those microstates implied by the black-hole entropy formula. We think that a black hole is like a box of gas, but we don't know what the'atoms\" are-although there are some tantalizing clues." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But that's not a deal-breaker. Remember that the actual Second Law was formulated by Carnot and Clausius before Boltzmann ever came along. Maybe we are in a similar stage of progress right now where quantum gravity is concerned. Perhaps the properties of mass, charge, and spin in classical general relativity are simply macroscopic observables that don't specify the full microstate, just as temperature and pressure are in ordinary thermodynamics.\n\nIn Bekenstein's view, black holes are not some weird things that stand apart from the rest of physics; they are thermodynamic systems just like a box of gas would be. He proposed a'Generalized Second Law,\" which is basically the ordinary Second Law with black-hole entropy included. We can take a box of gas with a certain entropy, throw it into a black hole, and calculate what happens to the total entropy before and after. The answer is: It goes up, if we accept Bekenstein's claim that the black-hole entropy is proportional to the area of the event horizon. Clearly such a scenario has some deep implications for the relationship between entropy and spacetime, which are worth exploring more carefully.\n\nHAWKING RADIATION\n\nAlong with Wheeler's group at Princeton, the best work in general relativity in the early 1970s was being done in Great Britain. Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, in particular, were inventing and applying new mathematical techniques to the study of curved spacetime. Out of these investigations came the celebrated singularity theorems-when gravity becomes sufficiently strong, as in black holes or near the Big Bang, general relativity necessarily predicts the existence of singularities-as well as Hawking's result that the area of black-hole event horizons would never decrease.\n\nSo Hawking paid close attention to Bekenstein's work, but he wasn't very happy with it. For one thing, if you're going to take the analogy between area and entropy seriously, you should take the other parts of the thermodynamics/black-hole-mechanics analogy just as seriously. In particular, the surface gravity of a black hole (which is large for small black holes with negligible spin and charge, smaller for large black holes or ones with substantial spin or charge) should be proportional to its temperature. But that would seem to be, on the face of it, absurd. When you heat things up to high temperature, they glow, like molten metal or a burning flame. But black holes don't glow; they're black. So there, we can imagine Hawking thinking across the Atlantic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Inveterate traveler that he is, Hawking visited the Soviet Union in 1973 to talk about black holes. Under the leadership of Yakov Zel'dovich, Moscow featured a group of experts in relativity and cosmology that rivaled those in Princeton or Cambridge. Zel'dovich and his colleague Alexander Starobinsky told Hawking about some work they had done to understand the Penrose process-extracting energy from a rotating black hole-in the light of quantum mechanics. According to the Moscow group, quantum mechanics implied that a spinning black hole would spontaneously emit radiation and lose energy; there was no need fora super-advanced civilization to throw things at it.\n\nHawking was intrigued but didn't buy the specific arguments that Zel'dovich and Starobinsky had offered. 216 So he set out to understand the implications of quantum mechanics in the context of black holes by himself. It's not a simple problem. \"Quantum mechanics\" is a very general idea: The space of states consists of wave functions rather than positions and momenta, and you can't observe the wave function exactly without dramatically altering it. Within that framework, we can think of different types of quantum systems, from individual particles to collections of superstrings. The founders of quantum mechanics focused, sensibly enough, on relatively simple systems, consisting of a small number of atoms moving slowly with respect to one another. That's still what most physics students learn when they first study quantum mechanics.\n\nWhen particles become very energetic and start moving at speeds close to the speed of light, we can no longer ignore the lessons of relativity. For one thing, the energy of two particles that collide with each other can become so large that they create multiple new particles, through the miracle of E= mc 2. Through decades of effort on the part of theoretical physicists, the proper formalism to reconcile quantum mechanics with special relativity was assembled, in the form of'quantum field theory.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The basic idea of quantum field theory is simple: The world is made of fields, and when we observe the wave functions of those fields, we see particles. Unlike a particle, which exists at some certain point, afield exists everywhere in space; the electric field, the magnetic field, and the gravitational field are all familiar examples. At every single point in space, every field that exists has some particular value (although that value might be zero). According to quantum field theory, everything is afield-there is an electron field, various kinds of quark fields, and soon. But when we look at afield, we see particles. When we look at the electric and magnetic fields, for example, we see photons, the particles of electromagnetism. A weakly vibrating electromagnetic field shows up as a small number of photons; a wildly vibrating electromagnetic field shows up as a large number of photons. 217\n\nFigure 60: Fields have a value at every point in space. When we observe a quantum field, we don't seethe field itself, but a collection of particles. A gently oscillating field, at the top, corresponds to a small number of particles; a wildly oscillating field, at the bottom, corresponds to a large number of particles.\n\nQuantum field theory reconciles quantum mechanics with special relativity. This is very different from'quantum gravity,\" which would reconcile quantum mechanics with general relativity, the theory of gravity and spacetime curvature. In quantum field theory, we imagine that spacetime itself is perfectly classical, whether it's curved or not; the fields are subject to the rules of quantum mechanics, while spacetime simply acts as a fixed background. In full-fledged quantum gravity, by contrast, we imagine that even spacetime has a wave function and is completely quantum mechanical. Hawking's work was in the context of quantum field theory in a fixed curved spacetime." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Field theory was not something Hawking was an expert in; despite being lumped with general relativity under the umbrella of'impressive-sounding theories of modern physics that seem inscrutable to outsiders,\" the two areas are quite different, and an expert in one might not know much about the other. So he set out to learn. Sir Martin Rees, who is one of the world's leading theoretical astrophysicists and currently Astronomer Royal of Britain, was at the time a young scientist at Cambridge; like Hawking, he had received his Ph. D. a few years before under the supervision of Dennis Sciama. By this time, Hawking was severely crippled by his disease; he would ask fora book on quantum field theory, and Rees would prop it up in front of him. While Hawking stared silently at the book for hours on end, Rees wondered whether the toll of his condition was simply becoming too much for him. 218\n\nFar from it. In fact, Hawking was applying the formalism of quantum field theory to the question of radiation from black holes. He was hoping to derive a formula that would reproduce Zel'dovich and Starobinsky's result for rotating black holes, but instead he kept finding something unbelievable: Quantum field theory seemed to imply that even nonrotating black holes should radiate. Indeed, they should radiate inexactly the same way as a system in thermal equilibrium at some fixed temperature, with the temperature being proportional to the surface gravity, just as it had been in the analogy between black holes and thermodynamics.\n\nHawking, much to his own surprise, had proven Bekenstein right. Black holes really do behave precisely as ordinary thermodynamic objects. That means, among other things, that the entropy of a black hole actually is proportional to the area of its event horizon; that connection is not just an amusing coincidence. In fact, Hawking's calculation (unlike Bekenstein's argument) allowed him to pinpoint the precise constant of proportionality: ¼. That is, if LP is the Planck length, so LP is the Planck area, the entropy of a black hole is 1/4 of the area of its horizon as measured in units of the Planck area:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "You are allowed to imagine that the subscript BH stands for'Black Hole\" or'Bekenstein-Hawking,\" as you prefer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This formula is the single most important clue we have about the reconciliation of gravitation with quantum mechanics. 219 And if we want to understand why entropy was small near the Big Bang, we have to understand something about entropy and gravity, so this is a logical starting point.\n\nEVAPORATION\n\nTo really understand how Hawking derived the startling result that black holes radiate requires a subtle mathematical analysis of the behavior of quantum fields in curved space. Nevertheless, there is a favorite hand-waving explanation that conveys enough of the essential truth that everyone in the world, including Hawking himself, relies upon it. So why not us?\n\nThe primary idea is that quantum field theory implies the existence of'virtual particles\" as well as good old-fashioned real particles. We encountered this idea briefly in Chapter Three, when we were talking about vacuum energy. Fora quantum field, we might think that the state of lowest energy would be when the field was absolutely constant-just sitting there, not changing from place to place or time to time. If it were a classical field, that would be right, but just as we can't pin down a particle to one particular position in quantum mechanics, we can't pin down afield to one particular configuration in quantum field theory. There will always be some intrinsic uncertainty and fuzziness in the value of the quantum field. We can think of this inherent jitter in the quantum field as particles popping in and out of existence, one particle and one antiparticle at a time, so rapidly that we can't observe them. These virtual particles can never be detected directly; if we see a particle, we know it's areal one, not a virtual one. But virtual particles can interact with real (non-virtual) ones, subtly altering their properties, and those effects have been observed and studied in great detail. They really are there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What Hawking figured out is that the gravitational field of a black hole can turn virtual particles into real ones. Ordinarily, virtual particles appear in pairs: one particle and one antiparticle. 220 They appear, persist for the briefest moment, and then annihilate, and no one is the wiser. But a black hole changes things, due to the presence of the event horizon. When a virtual particle/antiparticle pair pops into existence very close to the horizon, one of the partners can fall in, and obviously has no choice but to continue onto the singularity. The other partner, meanwhile, is now able to escape to infinity. The event horizon has served to rip apart the virtual pair, gobbling up one of the particles. The one that escapes is part of the Hawking radiation.\n\nAt this point a crucial property of virtual particles comes into play: Their energy can be anything at all. The total energy of a virtual particle/antiparticle pair is exactly zero, since they must be able to pop into and out of the vacuum. For real particles, the energy is equal to the mass times the speed of light squared when the particle is at rest, and grows larger if the particle is moving; consequently, it can never be negative. So if the real particle that escapes the black hole has positive energy, and the total energy of the original virtual pair was zero, that means the partner that fell into the black hole must have a negative energy. When it falls in, the total mass of the black hole goes down.\n\nEventually, unless extra energy is added from other sources, a black hole will evaporate away entirely. Black holes are not, as it turns out, places were time ends once and for all; they are objects that exist for some period of time before they eventually disappear. Ina way, Hawking radiation has made black holes a lot more ordinary than they seemed to be in classical general relativity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Figure 61: Hawking radiation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In quantum field theory, virtual particles and antiparticles are constantly popping in and out of the vacuum. But in the vicinity of a black hole, one of the particles can fall into the event horizon, while the other escapes to the outside world as Hawking radiation.\n\nAn interesting feature of Hawking radiation is that smaller black holes are hotter. The temperature is proportional to the surface gravity, which is greater for less massive black holes. The kinds of astrophysical black holes we've been talking about, with masses equal to or much greater than that of the Sun, have extremely low Hawking temperatures; in the current universe, they are not evaporating at all, as they are taking in a lot more energy from objects around them than they are losing energy from Hawking radiation. That would be true even if the only external source of energy were the cosmic microwave background, at a temperature of about 3 Kelvin. In order fora black hole to be hotter than the microwave background is today, it would have to be less than about 10 14 kilograms-about the mass of Mt. Everest, and much smaller than any known black hole. 221 Of course, the microwave background continues to cool down as the universe expands; so if we wait long enough, the black holes will be hotter than the surrounding universe, and begin to lose mass. As they do so, they heat up, and lose mass even faster; it's a runaway process and, once the black hole has been whittled down to a very small size, the end comes quickly in a dramatic explosion.\n\nUnfortunately, the numbers make it very hard for Stephen Hawking to win the Nobel Prize for predicting black hole radiation. For the kinds of black holes we know about, the radiation is far too feeble to be detected by an observatory. We might get very lucky and someday detect an extremely tiny black hole emitting high-energy radiation, but the odds are against it 222-and you win Nobel Prizes for things that are actually seen, not just for good ideas. But good ideas come with their own rewards." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "INFORMATION LOSS?\n\nThe fact that black holes evaporate away raises a deep question: What happens to the information that went into making the hole in the first place? We mentioned this puzzling ramification of the no-hair principle for black holes in classical general relativity: No matter what might have gone into the black hole, once it forms the only features it has are its mass, charge, and spin. Previous chapters made a big deal about the fact that the laws of physics preserve the information needed to specify a state as the universe evolves from moment to moment. At first blush, a black hole would seem to destroy that information.\n\nImagine that, in frustration at the inability of modern physics to provide a compelling explanation for the arrow of time, you throw your copy of this book onto an open fire. Later, you worry that you might have been a bit hasty, and you want to get the book back. Too bad, it's already burnt into ashes. But the laws of physics tell us that all the information contained in the book is still available in principle, no matter how hard it might be to reconstruct in practice. The burning book evolved into a very particular arrangement of ashes and light and heat; if we could exactly capture the complete microstate of the universe after the fire, we could theoretically run the clock backward and figure out whether the book that had burned was this one or, for example, A Brief History of Time. (Laplace's Demon would know which book it was.) That's very theoretical, because the entropy increased by a large amount along the way, but in principle it could happen.\n\nIf instead of throwing the book into afire, we had thrown it into a black hole, the story would be different. According to classical general relativity, there is noway to reconstruct the information; the book fell into a black hole, and we can measure the resulting mass, charge, and spin, but nothing more. We might console ourselves that the information is still in there somewhere, but we can't get to it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once Hawking radiation is taken into account, this story changes. Now the black hole doesn't last forever; if we're sufficiently patient, it will completely evaporate away. If information is not lost, we should be in the same situation we were in with the fire, wherein principle it's possible to reconstruct the contents of the book from properties of the outgoing radiation.\n\nFigure 62: Information (for example, a book) falls into a black hole, and should be conveyed outward in the Hawking radiation. But how can it be in two places at the same time?\n\nThe problem with that expectation arises when we think about how Hawking radiation originates from virtual particles near the event horizon of a black hole. Looking at Figure 62 we can imagine a book falling through the horizon, all the way to the singularity (or whatever should replace the singularity in a better theory of quantum gravity), taking the information contained on its pages along with it. Meanwhile, the radiation that purportedly carries away the same information has already left the black hole. How can the information be in two places at once? 223 As far as Hawking's calculation is concerned, the outgoing radiation is the same for every kind of black hole, no matter what went into making it. At face value, it would appear that the information is simply destroyed; it would be as if, in our earlier checkerboard examples, there was a sort of blob that randomly spit out gray and white squares without any consideration for the prior state.\n\nThis puzzle is known as the'black hole information-loss paradox.\" Because direct experimental information about quantum gravity is hard to come by, thinking about ways to resolve this paradox has been a popular pastime among theoretical physicists over the past few decades. It has been areal controversy within the physics community, with different people coming down on different sides of the debate. Very roughly speaking, physicists who come from a background in general relativity (including Stephen Hawking) have tended to believe that information really is lost, and that black hole evaporation represents a breakdown of the conventional rules of quantum mechanics; meanwhile, those from a background in particle physics and quantum field theory have tended to believe that a better understanding would show that the information was somehow preserved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In 1997, Hawking and fellow general-relativist Kip Thorne made abet with John Preskill, a particle theorist from Caltech." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It read as follows:\n\nIn 2004, in a move that made newspaper headlines, Hawking conceded his part of the bet; he admitted that black hole evaporation actually does preserve information. Interestingly, Thorne has not (as of this writing) conceded his own part of the bet; furthermore, Preskill accepted his winnings (Total Baseball: The Ultimate Baseball Encyclopedia, 8th edition) only reluctantly, as he believes the matter is still not settled. 224\n\nWhat convinced Hawking, after thirty years of arguing that information was lost in black holes, that it was actually preserved? The answer involves some deep ideas about spacetime and entropy, so we have to lay some background.\n\nHOW MANY STATES CAN FIT INA BOX?\n\nWe are delving into such detail about black holes in a book that is supposed to be about the arrow of time fora very good reason: The arrow of time is driven by an increase in entropy, which ultimately originates in the low entropy near the Big Bang, which is a period in the universe's history when gravity is fundamentally important. We therefore need to know how entropy works in the presence of gravity, but we're held back by our incomplete understanding of quantum gravity. The one clue we have is Hawking's formula for the entropy of a black hole, so we would like to follow that clue to see where it leads. And indeed, efforts to understand black-hole entropy and the information-loss paradox have had dramatic consequences for our understanding of spacetime and the space of states in quantum gravity.\n\nConsider the following puzzle: How much entropy can fit in a box? To Boltzmann and his contemporaries, this would have seemed like a silly question-we could fit as much entropy as we liked. If we had a box full of gas molecules, there would be a maximum-entropy state (an equilibrium configuration) for any particular number of molecules: The gas would be evenly distributed through the box at constant temperature. But we could certainly squeeze more entropy into the box if we wanted to; all we would have to do is add more and more molecules. If we were worried that the molecules took up a certain amount of space, so there was some maximum number we could squeeze into the box, we might be clever and consider a box full of photons (light particles) instead of gas molecules. Photons can be piled on top of one another without limit, so we should be able to have as many photons in the box as we wish. From that point of view, the answer seems to be that we can fit an infinite (or at least arbitrarily large) amount of entropy in any given box. There is no upper limit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That story, however, is missing a crucial ingredient: gravity. As we put more and more stuff into the box, the mass inside keeps growing. 225 Eventually, the stuff we are putting into the box suffers the same fate as a massive star that has exhausted its nuclear fuel: It collapses under its own gravitational pull and forms a black hole. Every time that happens, the entropy increases-the black hole has more entropy than the stuff of which it was made. (Otherwise the Second Law would prevent black holes from forming.)\n\nUnlike boxes full of atoms, we can't make black holes with the same size but different masses. The size of a black hole is characterized by the'Schwarzschild radius,\" which is precisely proportional to its mass. 226 If you know the mass, you know the size; contrariwise, if you have a box of fixed size, there is a maximum mass black hole you can possibly fit into it. But if the entropy of the black hole is proportional to the area of its event horizon, that means there is a maximum amount of entropy you can possibly fit into a region of some fixed size, which is achieved by a black hole of that size.\n\nThat's a remarkable fact. It represents a dramatic difference in the behavior of entropy once gravity becomes important. Ina hypothetical world in which there was no such thing as gravity, we could squeeze as much entropy as we wanted into any given region, but gravity stops us from doing that.\n\nThe importance of this insight comes when we hearken back to Boltzmann's understanding of entropy as (the logarithm of) the number of microstates that are macroscopically indistinguishable. If there is some finite maximum amount of entropy we can fit into a region of fixed size, that means there are only a finite number of possible states within that region. That's a deep feature of quantum gravity, radically different from the behavior of theories without gravity. Let's see where this line of reasoning takes us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "THE HOLOGRAPHIC PRINCIPLE\n\nTo appreciate how radical the lesson of black-hole entropy is, we have to first appreciate the cherished principle it apparently overthrows: locality. That's the idea that different places in the universe act more or less independently of one another. An object at some particular location can be influenced by its immediate surroundings, but not by things that are faraway. Distant things can influence one another indirectly, by sending some signal from place to place, such as a disturbance in the gravitational field or an electromagnetic wave (light). But what happens here doesn't directly influence what happens in some other region of the universe.\n\nThink back to the checkerboards. What happened atone moment in time was influenced by what happened at the previous moment in time. But what happened atone point in'space\"-the collection of squares across a single row-was completely unrelated to what happened at any other point in space at the same time. Along any particular row, we were free to imagine any distribution of white and gray squares we chose. There were no rules along the lines of'when there is a gray square here, the square twenty slots to the right has to be white.\" And when squares did'interact\" with one another as time passed, it was always with the squares right next to them. Similarly, in the real world, things bump into one another and influence other things when they are close by, not when they are far apart. That's locality.\n\nLocality has an important consequence for entropy. Consider, as usual, a box of gas, and calculate the entropy of the gas in the box. Now let's mentally divide the box in two, and calculate the entropy in each half. (We don't need to imagine a physical barrier, just consider the left side of the box and the right side separately.) What is the relationship between the total entropy of the box and the separate entropy of the two halves?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Figure 63: A box of gas, mentally divided into two halves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The total entropy in the box is the sum of the entropies of each half.\n\nThe answer is: You get the entropy in the whole box by simply adding the entropy of one half to the entropy of the other half. This would seem to be a direct consequence of Boltzmann's definition of the entropy-indeed, it's the entire reason why that definition has a logarithm in it. We have a certain number of allowed microstates in one half of the box, and a certain number in the other half. The total number of microstates is calculated as follows: For every possible microstate of the left side, we are allowed to choose any of the possible microstates on the right side. So we get the total number of microstates by multiplying the number of microstates on the left by the number of microstates on the right. But the entropy is the logarithm of that number, and the logarithm of'X times Y\" is'the logarithm of X\" plus'the logarithm of Y.\"\n\nSo the entropy of the total box is simply the sum of the entropies of the two sub-boxes. Indeed, that would work no matter how we divided up the original box, or how many sub-boxes we divided it into; the total entropy is always the sum of the sub-entropies. This means that the maximum entropy we can have in a box is always going to be proportional to the volume of the box-the more space we have, the more entropy we can have, and it scales directly with the addition of more volume.\n\nBut notice the sneaky assumption in that argument: We were able to count the number of states in one half of the box, and then multiply by the number in the other half. In other words, what happened in one half of the box was assumed to be totally independent of what happened in the other half. And that is exactly the assumption of locality." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When gravity becomes important, all of this breaks down. Gravity puts an upper limit on the amount of entropy we can squeeze into a box, given by the largest black hole that can fit in the box. But the entropy of a black hole isn't proportional to the volume enclosed-it's proportional to the area of the event horizon. Area and volume are very different! If we have a sphere 1 meter across, and we increase it in size until it's 2 meters across, the volume inside goes up by a factor of 8 (2 3), but the area of the boundary only goes up by a factor of 4 (2 2).\n\nThe upshot is simple: Quantum gravity doesn't obey the principle of locality. In quantum gravity, what goes on over here is not completely independent from what goes on over there. The number of things that can possibly goon (the number of possible microstates in a region) isn't proportional to the volume of the region; it's proportional to the area of a surface we can draw that encloses the region. The real world, described by quantum gravity, allows for much less information to be squeezed into a region than we would naïvely have imagined if we weren't taking gravity into account.\n\nThis insight has been dubbed the holographic principle. It was first proposed by Dutch Nobel laureate Gerard \"t Hooft and American string theorist Leonard Susskind, and later formalized by German-American physicist Raphael Bousso (formerly a student of Stephen Hawking). 227 Superficially, the holographic principle might sound a bit dry. Okay, the number of possible states in a region is proportional to the size of the region squared, not the size of the region cubed. That's not the kind of line that's going to charm strangers at cocktail parties.\n\nHere is why holography is important: It means that spacetime is not fundamental. When we typically think about what goes on in the universe, we implicitly assume something like locality; we describe what happens at this location, and at that location, and give separate specifications for every possible location in space. Holography says that we can't really do that, in principle-there are subtle correlations between things that happen at different locations, which cut down on our freedom to specify a configuration of stuff through space." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An ordinary hologram displays what appears to be a three-dimensional image by scattering light off of a special two-dimensional surface. The holographic principle says that the universe is like that, on a fundamental level: Everything you think is happening in three-dimensional space is secretly encoded in a two-dimensional surface's worth of information. The three-dimensional space in which we live and breathe could (again, in principle) be reconstructed from a much more compact description. We mayor may not have easy access to what that description actually is-usually we don't, but in the next section we'll discuss an explicit example where we do.\n\nPerhaps none of this should be surprising. As we discussed in the previous chapter, there is a type of non-locality already inherent in quantum mechanics, before gravity ever gets involved; the state of the universe describes all particles at once, rather than referring to each particle separately. So when gravity is in the game, it's natural to suppose that the state of the universe would include all of spacetime at once. But still, the type of non-locality implied by the holographic principle is different than that of quantum mechanics alone. In quantum mechanics, we could imagine particular wave functions in which the state of a cat was entangled with the state of a dog, but we could just as easily imagine states in which they were not entangled, or where the entanglement took on some different form. Holography seems to be telling us that there are somethings that just can't happen, that the information needed to encode the world is dramatically compressible. The implications of this idea are still being explored, and there are undoubtedly more surprises to come.\n\nHAWKING GIVES IN\n\nThe holographic principle is a very general idea; it should be a feature of whatever theory of quantum gravity eventually turns out to be right. But it would be nice to have one very specific example that we could play with to see how the consequences of holography work themselves out. For example, we think that the entropy of a black hole in our ordinary three-dimensional space is proportional to the two-dimensional area of its event horizon; so it should be possible, in principle, to specify all of the possible microstates corresponding to that black hole in terms of different things that could happen on that two-dimensional surface. That's a goal of many theorists working in quantum gravity, but unfortunately we don't yet know how to make it work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In 1997, Argentine-American theoretical physicist Juan Maldacena revolutionized our understanding of quantum gravity by finding an explicit example of holography inaction. 228 He considered a hypothetical universe nothing like our own-for one thing, it has a negative vacuum energy (whereas ours seems to have a positive vacuum energy). Because empty space with a positive vacuum energy is called'de Sitter space,\" it is convenient to label empty space with a negative vacuum energy'anti-de Sitter space.\" For another thing, Maldacena considered five dimensions instead of our usual four. And finally, he considered a very particular theory of gravitation and matter-\"supergravity,\" which is the supersymmetric version of general relativity. Supersymmetry is a hypothetical symmetry between bosons (force particles) and fermions (matter particles), which plays a crucial role in many theories of modern particle physics; happily, the details aren't crucial for our present purposes.\n\nMaldacena discovered that this theory-supergravity in five-dimensional anti-de Sitter space-is completely equivalent to an entirely different theory-a four-dimensional quantum field theory without gravity at all. Holography inaction: Everything that can possibly happen in this particular five-dimensional theory with gravity has a precise analogue in a theory without gravity, in one dimensionless. We say that the two theories are'dual\" to each other, which is a fancy way of saying that they look very different but really have the same content. It's like having two different but equivalent languages, and Maldacena has uncovered the Rosetta stone that allows us to translate between them. There is a one-to-one correspondence between states in a particular theory of gravity in five dimensions and a particular nongravitational theory in four dimensions. Given a state in one, we can translate it into a state in the other, and the equations of motion for each theory will evolve the respective states into new states that correspond to each other according to the same translation dictionary (at least in principle; in practice we can workout simple examples, but more complicated situations become intractable). Obviously the correspondence needs to be nonlocal; you can't match up individual points in a four-dimensional space to points in a five-dimensional space. But you can imagine matching up states in one theory, defined at sometime, to states in the other theory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If that doesn't convince you that spacetime is not fundamental, I can't imagine what would. We have an explicit example of two different versions of precisely the same theory, but they describe spacetimes with different numbers of dimensions! Neither theory is'the right one\"; they are completely equivalent to each other.\n\nMaldacena's discovery helped persuade Stephen Hawking to concede his bet with Preskill and Thorne (although Hawking, as is his wont, worked things out his own way before becoming convinced). Remember that the issue in question was whether the process of black hole evaporation, unlike evolution according to ordinary quantum mechanics, destroys information, or whether the information that goes into a black hole somehow is carried out by the Hawking radiation.\n\nFigure 64: The Maldacena correspondence. A theory of gravity in a five-dimensional anti-de Sitter space is equivalent to a theory without gravity in four-dimensional flat spacetime.\n\nIf Maldacena is right, we can consider that question in the context of five-dimensional anti-de Sitter space. That's not the real world, but the ways in which it differs from the real world don't seem extremely relevant for the information-loss puzzle-in particular, we can imagine that the negative cosmological constant is very small, and essentially unimportant. So we make a black hole in anti-de Sitter space and then let it evaporate. Is information lost? Well, we can translate the question into an analogous situation in the four-dimensional theory. But that theory doesn't have gravity, and therefore obeys the rules of ordinary quantum mechanics. There is noway for information to be lost in the four-dimensional nongravitational theory, which is supposed to be completely equivalent to the five-dimensional theory with gravity. So, if we haven't missed some crucial subtlety, the information must somehow be preserved in the process of black hole evaporation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That is the basic reason why Hawking conceded his bet, and now accepts that black holes don't destroy information. But you can see that the argument, while seemingly solid, is nevertheless somewhat indirect. In particular, it doesn't provide us with any concrete physical understanding of how the information actually gets into the Hawking radiation. Apparently it happens, but the explicit mechanism remains unclear. That's why Thorne hasn't yet conceded his part of the bet, and why Preskill accepted his encyclopedia only with some reluctance. Whether or not we accept that information is preserved, there's clearly more work to be done to understand exactly what happens when black holes evaporate.\n\nA STRING THEORY SURPRISE\n\nThere is one part of the story of black-hole entropy that doesn't bear directly on the arrow of time but is so provocative that I can't help but discuss it, very briefly. It's about the nature of black-hole microstates in string theory.\n\nThe great triumph of Boltzmann's theory of entropy was that he was able to explain an observable macroscopic quantity-the entropy-in terms of microscopic components. In the examples he was most concerned with, the components were the atoms constituting a gas in a box, or the molecules of two liquids mixing together. But we would like to think that his insight is completely general; the formula S= k log W, proclaiming that the entropy Sis proportional to the logarithm of the number of ways W that we can rearrange the microstates, should be true for any system. It's just a matter of figuring out what the microstates are, and how many ways we can rearrange them. In other words: What are the'atoms\" of this system?\n\nHawking's formula for the entropy of a black hole seems to be telling us that there area very large number of microstates corresponding to any particular macroscopic black hole. What are those microstates? They are not apparent in classical general relativity. Ultimately, they must be states of quantum gravity. There's good news and bad news here. The bad news is that we don't understand quantum gravity very well in the real world, so we are unable to simply list all of the different microstates corresponding to a macroscopic black hole. The good news is that we can use Hawking's formula as a clue, to test our ideas of how quantum gravity might work. Even though physicists are convinced that there must be someway to reconcile gravity with quantum mechanics, it's very hard to get direct experimental input to the problem, just because gravity is an extremely weak force. So any clue we discover is very precious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The leading candidate fora consistent quantum theory of gravity is string theory. It's a simple idea: Instead of the elementary constituents of matter being pointlike particles, imagine that they are one-dimensional pieces of'string.\" (You're not supposed to ask what the strings are made of; they're not made of anything more fundamental.) You might not think you could get much mileage out of a suggestion like that-okay, we have strings instead of particles, so what?\n\nThe fascinating thing about string theory is that it's a very constraining idea. There are lots of different theories we could imagine making from the idea of elementary particles, but it turns out that there are very few consistent quantum mechanical theories of strings-our current best guess is that there is only one. And that one theory necessarily comes along with certain ingredients-extra dimensions of space, and supersymmetry, and higher-dimensional branes (sort of like strings, but two or more dimensions across). And, most important, it comes with gravity. String theory was originally investigated as a theory of nuclear forces, but that didn't turnout very well, for an unusual reason-the theory kept predicting the existence of a force like gravity! So theorists decided to take that particular lemon and make lemonade, and study string theory as a theory of quantum gravity. 229\n\nIf string theory is the correct theory of quantum gravity-we don't know yet whether it is, but there are promising signs-it should be able to provide a microscopic understanding of where the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy comes from. Remarkably, it does, at least for some certain very special kinds of black holes.\n\nThe breakthrough was made in 1996 by Andrew Strominger and Cumrun Vafa, building on some earlier work of Leonard Susskind and Ashoke Sen. 230 Like Maldacena, they considered five-dimensional spacetime, but they didn't have a negative vacuum energy and they weren't primarily concerned with holography. Instead, they took advantage of an interesting feature of string theory: the ability to'tune\" the strength of gravity. In our everyday world, the strength of the gravitational force is set by Newton's gravitational constant, denoted G. But in string theory the strength of gravity becomes variable-it can change from place to place and time to time. Or, in the flexible and cost-effective world of thought experiments, you can choose to look at a certain configuration of stuff with gravity'turned off\" (G set to zero), and then look at the same configuration with gravity'turned on\" (G set to a value large enough that gravity is important)." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So Strominger and Vafa looked at a configuration of strings and branes in five dimensions, carefully chosen so that the setup could be analyzed with or without gravity. When gravity was turned on, their configuration looked like a black hole, and they knew what the entropy was supposed to be from Hawking's formula. But when gravity was turned off, they basically had the string-theory equivalent of a box of gas. In that case, they could calculate the entropy in relatively conventional ways (albeit with some high-powered math appropriate to the stringy stuff they were considering).\n\nAnd the answer is: The entropies agree. At least in this particular example, a black hole can be smoothly turned into a relatively ordinary collection of stuff, where we know exactly what the space of microstates looks like, and the entropy from Boltzmann's formula matches that from Hawking's formula, down to the precise numerical factor.\n\nWe don't have a fully general understanding of the space of states in quantum gravity, so there are still many mysteries as far as entropy is concerned. But in the particular case examined by Strominger and Vafa (and various similar situations examined subsequently), the space of microstates predicted by string theory seems to exactly match the expectation from Hawking's calculation using quantum field theory in curved spacetime. 231 It gives us hope that further investigations along the same lines will help us understand other puzzling features of quantum gravity-including what happened at the Big Bang." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "THE LIFE OF THE UNIVERSE\n\n-Hector Berlioz\n\nWhat should the universe look like?\n\nThis might not be a sensible question. The universe is a unique entity; it's different in kind from the things we typically think about, all of which exist in the universe. Objects within the universe belong to larger collections of objects, all of which share common properties. By observing these properties we can get a feel for what to expect from that kind of thing. We expect that cats usually have four legs, ice cream is usually sweet, and supermassive black holes lurk at the centers of spiral galaxies. None of these expectations is absolute; we're talking about tendencies, not laws of nature. But our experience teaches us to expect that certain kinds of things usually have certain properties, and in those unusual circumstances where our expectations are not met, we might naturally be moved to look for some sort of explanation. When we see a three-legged cat, we wonder what happened to its other leg.\n\nThe universe is different. It's all by itself, not a member of a larger class. (Other universes might exist, at least for certain definitions of'universe\"; but we certainly haven't observed any.) So we can't use the same kind of inductive, empirical reasoning-looking at many examples of something, and identifying common features-to justify any expectations for what the universe should be like. 232\n\nNevertheless, scientists declare that certain properties of the universe are'natural\" all the time. In particular, I'm going to suggest that the low entropy of the early universe is surprising, and argue that there is likely to bean underlying explanation. When we notice that an unbroken egg is in a low-entropy configuration compared to an omelet, we have recourse to a straightforward explanation: The egg is not a closed system. It came out of a chicken, which in turn is part of an ecosystem hereon Earth, which in turn is embedded in a universe that has a low-entropy past. But the universe, at least at first glance, does seem to be a closed system-it was not hatched out of a Universal Chicken or anything along those lines. A truly closed physical system with a very low entropy is surprising and suggests that something bigger is going on. 233" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The right attitude toward any apparently surprising feature of the observed universe, such as the low early entropy or the small vacuum energy, is to treat it as a potential clue to a deeper understanding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Observations like this aren't anywhere near as definitive as a straightforward experimental disagreement with a favored theory; they are merely suggestive. In the backs of our minds, we're thinking that if the configuration of the universe were chosen randomly from all possible configurations, it would be in a very high-entropy state. It's not, so therefore the state of the universe isn't just chosen randomly. Then how is it chosen? Is there some process, some dynamical chain of events, that leads inevitably to the seemingly non-random configuration of our universe?\n\nOUR HOT, SMOOTH EARLY DAYS\n\nIf we think of the universe as a physical system in a randomly chosen configuration, the question'What should the universe look like?\" is answered by'It should be in a high-entropy state.\" We therefore need to understand what a high-entropy state of the universe would look like.\n\nEven this formulation of the question is not quite right. We don't actually care about the particular state of the universe right this moment; after all, yesterday it was different, and tomorrow it will be different again. What we really care about is the history of the universe, its evolution through time. But understanding what would constitute a natural history presupposes that we understand something about the space of states, including what high-entropy states look like.\n\nCosmologists have traditionally done a very sloppy job of addressing this issue. There area couple of reasons for this. One is that the expansion of the universe from a hot, dense early state is such an undeniable brute fact that, once you've become accustomed to the idea, it seems hard to imagine any alternative. You begin to see your task as a theoretical cosmologist as one of explaining why our universe began in the particular hot, dense early state that it did, rather than some different hot, dense early state. This is temporal chauvinism at its most dangerous-unthinkingly trading in the question'Why does the universe evolve in the way it does?\" for'Why were the initial conditions of the universe setup the way they were?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The other thing standing in the way of more productive work on the entropy of the universe is the inescapable role of gravity. By'gravity\" we mean everything having to do with general relativity and curved spacetime-everyday stuff like apples falling and planets orbiting stars, but also black holes and the expansion of the universe. In the last chapter, we focused on the one example where we think we know the entropy of an object with a strong gravitational field: a black hole. That example does not seem immediately helpful when thinking about the whole universe, which is not a black hole; it bears a superficial resemblance to a white hole (since there is a singularity in the past), but even that is of little help, since we are inside it rather than outside. Gravity is certainly important to the universe, and that's especially true at early times when space was expanding very rapidly. But appreciating that it's important doesn't help us address the problem, so most people simply put it aside.\n\nThere is one other strategy, which appears innocent at first but really hides a potentially crucial mistake. That's to simply separate out gravity from everything else, and calculate the entropy of the matter and radiation within spacetime while forgetting that of spacetime itself. Of course, it's hard to be a cosmologist and ignore the fact that space is expanding; however, we can take the expansion of space as a given, and simply consider the state of the'stuff\" (particles of ordinary matter, dark matter, radiation) within such a background. The expanding universe acts to dilute away the matter and cool off the radiation, just as if the particles were all contained in a piston that was gradually being pulled out to create more room for them to breathe. It's possible to calculate the entropy of the stuff in that particular background, exactly as it's possible to calculate the entropy of a collection of molecules inside an expanding piston." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At anyone time in the early universe, we have a gas of particles at a nearly constant temperature and nearly constant density from place to place. In other words, a configuration that looks pretty much like thermal equilibrium. It's not exactly thermal equilibrium, because in equilibrium nothing changes, and in the expanding universe things are cooling off and diluting away. But compared to the rate at which particles are bumping into one another, the expansion of space is relatively slow, so the cooling off is quite gradual. If we just consider matter and radiation in the early universe, and neglect any effects of gravity other than the overall expansion, what we find is a sequence of configurations that are very close to thermal equilibrium at a gradually declining density and temperature. 234\n\nBut that's a woefully incomplete story, of course. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says, \"The entropy of a closed system either increases or remains constant\"; it doesn't say, \"The entropy of a closed system, ignoring gravity, either increases or remains constant.\" There's nothing in the laws of physics that allows us to neglect gravity in situations where it's important-and in cosmology it's of paramount importance.\n\nBy ignoring the effects of gravity on the entropy, and just considering the matter and radiation, we are led to nonsensical conclusions. The matter and radiation in the early universe was close to thermal equilibrium, which means (neglecting gravity) that it was in its maximum entropy state. But today, in the late universe, we're clearly not in thermal equilibrium (if we were, we'd be surrounded by nothing but gas at constant temperature), so we are clearly not in a configuration of maximum entropy. But the entropy didn't go down-that would violate the Second Law. So what is going on?\n\nWhat's going on is that it's not okay to ignore gravity. Unfortunately, including gravity is not so easy, as there is still a lot we don't understand about how entropy works when gravity is included. But as we'll see, we know enough to make a great deal of progress." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "WHAT WE MEAN BY OUR UNIVERSE\n\nFor the most part, up until now I have stuck to well-established ground: either reviewing things that all good working physicists agree are correct, or explaining things that are certainly true that all good working physicists should agree are correct. In the few genuinely controversial exceptions (such as the interpretation of quantum mechanics), I tried to label them clearly as unsettled. But at this point in the book, we start becoming more speculative and heterodox-I have my own favorite point of view, but there is no settled wisdom on these questions. I'll try to continue distinguishing between certainly true things and more provisional ideas, but it's important to be as careful as possible in making the case.\n\nFirst, we have to be precise about what we mean by'our universe.\" We don't see all of the universe; light travels at a finite speed, and there is a barrier past which we can't see-in principle given by the Big Bang, in practice given by the moment when the universe became transparent about 380,000 years after the Big Bang. Within the part that we do see, the universe is homogenous on large scales; it looks pretty much the same everywhere. There is a corresponding strong temptation to take what we see and extrapolate it shamelessly to the parts we can't see, and imagine that the entire universe is homogenous throughout its extent-either through a volume of finite size, if the universe is'closed,\" or an infinitely big volume, if the universe is'open.\"\n\nBut there's really no good reason to believe that the universe we don't see matches so precisely with the universe we do see. It might be a simple starting assumption, but it's nothing more than that. We should be open to the possibility that the universe eventually looks completely different somewhere beyond the part we can see (even if it keeps looking uniform for quite awhile before we get to the different parts)." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So let's forget about the rest of the universe, and concentrate on the part we can see-what we've been calling'the observable universe.\" It stretches about 40 billion light-years around us. 235 But since the universe is expanding, the stuff within what we now call the observable universe was packed into a smaller region in the past. What we do is erect a kind of imaginary fence around the stuff within our currently observable universe, and keep track of what's inside the fence, allowing the fence itself to expand along with the universe (and be smaller in the past). This is known as our comoving patch of space, and it's what we have in mind when we say'our observable universe.\"\n\nFigure 65: What we call'the observable universe\" is a patch of space that is'comoving\"-it expands along with the universe. We trace back along our light cones to the Big Bang to define the part of the universe we can observe, and allow that region to grow as the universe expands.\n\nOur comoving patch of space is certainly not, strictly speaking, a closed system. If an observer were located at the imaginary fence, they would notice various particles passing in and out of our patch. But on average, the same number and kind of particles would come in and go out, and in the aggregate they would be basically indistinguishable. (The smoothness of the cosmic microwave background convinces us that the uniformity of our universe extends out to the boundary of our patch, even if we're not sure how far it continues beyond.) So for all practical purposes, it's okay to think of our comoving patch as a closed system. It's not really closed, but it evolves just as if it were-there aren't any important influences from the outside that are affecting what goes on inside.\n\nCONSERVATION OF INFORMATION IN AN EXPANDING SPACE TIME" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If our comoving patch defines an approximately closed system, the next step is to think about its space of states. General relativity tells us that space itself, the stage on which particles and matter move and interact, evolves overtime. Because of this, the definition of the space of states becomes more subtle than it would have been if spacetime were absolute. Most physicists would agree that information is conserved as the universe evolves, but the way that works is quite unclear in a cosmological context. The essential problem is that more and more things can fit into the universe as it expands, so-naїvely, anyway-it looks as if the space of states is getting bigger. That would be in flagrant contradiction to the usual rules of reversible, information-conserving physics, where the space of states is fixed once and for all.\n\nTo grapple with this issue, it makes sense to start with the best understanding we currently have of the fundamental nature of matter, which comes from quantum field theory. Fields vibrate in various ways, and we perceive the vibrations as particles. So when we ask, \"What is the space of states in a particular quantum field theory?\" we need to know all the different ways that the fields can vibrate.\n\nAny possible vibration of a quantum field can bethought of as a combination of vibrations with different specific wavelengths-just as any particular sound can be decomposed into a combination of various notes with specific frequencies. At first you might think that any possible wavelength is allowed, but actually there are restrictions. The Planck length-the tiny distance of 10-33 centimeters at which quantum gravity becomes important-provides a lower limit on what wavelengths are allowed. At smaller distances than that, spacetime itself loses its conventional meaning, and the energy of the wave (which is larger when the wavelength is shorter) becomes so large that it would just collapse to a black hole." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Partnering with the author, carry on with the tale.\nTags: science, cosmology, time, entropy, theoretical physics\nAuthor: Sean Carroll\nTitle: From Eternity to Here\nChapter: 20" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If our comoving patch defines an approximately closed system, the next step is to think about its space of states. General relativity tells us that space itself, the stage on which particles and matter move and interact, evolves overtime. Because of this, the definition of the space of states becomes more subtle than it would have been if spacetime were absolute. Most physicists would agree that information is conserved as the universe evolves, but the way that works is quite unclear in a cosmological context. The essential problem is that more and more things can fit into the universe as it expands, so-naїvely, anyway-it looks as if the space of states is getting bigger. That would be in flagrant contradiction to the usual rules of reversible, information-conserving physics, where the space of states is fixed once and for all.\n\nTo grapple with this issue, it makes sense to start with the best understanding we currently have of the fundamental nature of matter, which comes from quantum field theory. Fields vibrate in various ways, and we perceive the vibrations as particles. So when we ask, \"What is the space of states in a particular quantum field theory?\" we need to know all the different ways that the fields can vibrate.\n\nAny possible vibration of a quantum field can bethought of as a combination of vibrations with different specific wavelengths-just as any particular sound can be decomposed into a combination of various notes with specific frequencies. At first you might think that any possible wavelength is allowed, but actually there are restrictions. The Planck length-the tiny distance of 10-33 centimeters at which quantum gravity becomes important-provides a lower limit on what wavelengths are allowed. At smaller distances than that, spacetime itself loses its conventional meaning, and the energy of the wave (which is larger when the wavelength is shorter) becomes so large that it would just collapse to a black hole." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Likewise, there is an upper limit on what wavelengths are allowed, given by the size of our comoving patch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's not that vibrations with longer wavelengths can't exist; it's that they just don't matter. Wavelengths larger than the size of our patch are effectively constant throughout the observable universe.\n\nSo it's tempting to take'the space of states of the observable universe\" as consisting of'vibrations in all the various quantum fields, with wavelengths larger than the Planck length and smaller than the size of our comoving patch.\" The problem is, that's a space of states that changes as the universe expands. Our patch grows with time, while the Planck length remains fixed. At extremely early times, the universe was very young and expanding very rapidly, and our patch was relatively small. (Exactly how small depends on details of the evolution of the early universe that we don't know.) There weren't that many vibrations you could squeeze into the universe at that time. Today, the Hubble length is enormously larger-about 10 60 times larger than the Planck length-and there area huge number of allowed vibrations. Under this way of thinking, it's not so surprising that the entropy of the early universe was small, because the maximum allowed entropy of the universe at that time was small-the maximum allowed entropy increases as the universe expands and the space of states grows.\n\nFigure 66: As the universe expands, it can accommodate more kinds of waves. More things can happen, so the space of states would appear to be growing.\n\nBut if a space of states changes with time, the evolution clearly can't be information conserving and reversible. If there are more possible states today than there were yesterday, and two distinct initial states always evolve into two distinct final states, there must be some states today that didn't come from anywhere. That means the evolution can't be reversed, in general. All of the conventional reversible laws of physics we are used to dealing with feature spaces of states that are fixed once and for all, not changing with time. The configuration within that space will evolve, but the space of states itself never changes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We seem to have something of a dilemma. The rules of thumb of quantum field theory in curved spacetime would seem to imply that the space of states grows as the universe expands, but the ideas on which all this is based-quantum mechanics and general relativity-conform proudly to the principle of information conservation. Clearly, something has to give.\n\nThe situation is reminiscent of the puzzle of information loss in black holes. There, we (or Stephen Hawking, more accurately) used quantum field theory in curved spacetime to derive a result-the evaporation of black holes into Hawking radiation-that seemed to destroy information, or at least scramble it. Now in the case of cosmology, the rules of quantum field theory in an expanding universe seem to imply fundamentally irreversible evolution.\n\nI am going to imagine that this puzzle will someday be resolved in favor of information conservation, just as Hawking (although not everyone) now believes is true for black holes. The early universe and the late universe are simply two different configurations of the same physical system, evolving according to reversible fundamental laws within precisely the same space of possible states. The right thing to do, when characterizing the entropy of a system as'large\" or'small,\" is to compare it to the largest possible entropy-not the largest entropy compatible with some properties the system happens to have at the time. If we were to look at a box of gas and find that all of the gas was packed tightly into one corner, we wouldn't say, \"That's a high-entropy configuration, as long as we restrict our attention to configurations that are packed tightly into that corner.\" We would say, \"That's a very low-entropy configuration, and there's probably some explanation for it.\"\n\nAll of this confusion arises because we don't have a complete theory of quantum gravity, and have to make reasonable guesses on the basis of the theories we think we do understand. When those guesses lead to crazy results, something has to give. We gave a sensible argument that the number of states described by vibrating quantum fields changes with time as the universe expands. If the total space of states remains fixed, it must be the case that many of the possible states of the early universe have an irreducibly quantum-gravitational character, and simply can't be described in terms of quantum fields on a smooth background. Presumably, a better theory of quantum gravity would help us understand what those states might be, but even without that understanding, the basic principle of information conservation assures us that they must be there, so it seems logical to accept that and try to explain why the early universe had such an apparently low-entropy configuration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not everyone agrees." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "236 A certain perfectly respectable school of thought goes something like this: \"Sure, information might be conserved at a fundamental level, and there might be some fixed space of states for the whole universe. But who cares? We don't know what that space of states is, and we live in a universe that started out small and relatively smooth. Our best strategy is to use the rules suggested by quantum field theory, allowing only a very small set of configurations at very early times, and a much larger set at later times.\" That maybe right. Until we have the final answers, the best we can do is follow our intuitions and try to come up with testable predictions that we can compare against data. When it comes to the origin of the universe, we're not there yet, so it pays to keep an open mind.\n\nLUMPINESS\n\nBecause we don't have quantum gravity all figured out, it's hard to make definitive statements about the entropy of the universe. But we do have some basic tools at our disposal-the idea that entropy has been increasing since the Big Bang, the principle of information conservation, the predictions of classical general relativity, the Bekenstein-Hawking formula for black-hole entropy-that we can use to draw some reliable conclusions.\n\nOne obvious question is: What does a high-entropy state look like when gravity is important? If gravity is not important, high-entropy states are states of thermal equilibrium-stuff tends to be distributed uniformly at a constant temperature. (Details may vary in particular systems, such as oil and vinegar.) There is a general impression that high-entropy states are smooth, while lower-entropy states can be lumpy. Clearly that's just a shorthand way of thinking about a subtle phenomenon, but it's a useful guide in many circumstances. 237 Notice that the early universe is, indeed, smooth, in accordance with the let's-ignore-gravity philosophy we just examined." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But in the later universe, when stars and galaxies and clusters form, it becomes simply impossible to ignore the effects of gravity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then we see something interesting: The casual association of'high-entropy\" with'smooth\" begins to fail, rather spectacularly.\n\nFor many years now, Sir Roger Penrose has been going around trying to convince people that this feature of gravity-things get lumpier as entropy increases in the late universe-is crucially important and should play a prominent role in discussions of cosmology. Penrose became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s through his work with Hawking to understand black holes and singularities in general relativity, and he is an accomplished mathematician as well as physicist. He is also a bit of a gadfly, and takes great joy in exploring positions that run decidedly contrary to the conventional wisdom in various fields, from quantum mechanics to the study of consciousness.\n\nFigure 67: Roger Penrose, who has done more than anyone to emphasize the puzzle of the low-entropy early universe.\n\nOne of the fields in which Penrose likes to poke holes in cherished beliefs is theoretical cosmology. When I was a graduate student in the late 1980s, theoretical particle physicists and cosmologists mostly took it for granted that some version of inflationary cosmology (discussed in the next chapter) must be true; astronomers tended to be more cautious. Today, this belief is even more common, as evidence from the cosmic microwave background has shown that the small variations in density from place to place in the early universe match very well with what inflation would predict. But Penrose has been consistently skeptical, primarily on the basis of inflation's failure to explain the low entropy of the early universe. I remember reading one of his papers as a student, and appreciating that Penrose was saying something important but feeling that he had missed the point. It took two decades of thinking about entropy before I became convinced that he has mostly been right all along." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We don't have a full picture of the space of microstates in quantum gravity, and correspondingly lack a rigorous understanding of entropy. But there is a simple strategy for dealing with this obstacle: We consider what actually happens in the universe. Most of us believe that the evolution of the observable universe has always been compatible with the Second Law, and entropy has been increasing since the Big Bang, even if we're hazy on the details. If entropy tends to go up, and if there is some process that happens all the time in the universe, but its time-reverse never happens, it probably represents an increase in entropy.\n\nAn example of this is'gravitational instability\" in the late universe. We've been tossing around the notion of'when gravity is important\" and'when gravity is not important,\" but what is the criterion to decide whether gravity is important? Generally, given some collection of particles, their mutual gravitational forces will always act to pull the particles together-the gravitational force between particles is universally attractive. (In contrast, for example, with electricity and magnetism, which can be either attractive or repulsive depending on what kinds of electric charges you are dealing with. 238) But there are other forces, generally collected together under the rubric of'pressure,\" that prevent everything from collapsing to a black hole. The Earth or the Sun or an egg doesn't collapse under its own gravitational pull, because each is supported by the pressure of the material inside it. As a rule of thumb, \"gravity is important\" means'the gravitational pull of a collection of particles overwhelms the pressure that tries to keep them from collapsing.\"\n\nIn the very early universe, the temperature is high and the pressure is enormous. 239 The local gravity between nearby particles is too weak to bring them together, and the initial smoothness of the matter and radiation is preserved. But as the universe expands and cools, the pressure drops, and gravity begins to takeover. This is the era of'structure formation,\" where the initially smooth distribution of matter gradually begins to condense into stars, galaxies, and larger groups of galaxies. The initial distribution was not perfectly featureless; there were small deviations in density from place to place. In the denser regions, gravity pulled particles even closer together, while the less dense regions lost particles to their denser neighbors and became even emptier. Through gravity's persistent efforts, what was a highly uniform distribution of matter becomes increasingly lumpy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Penrose's point is this: As structure forms in the universe, entropy increases. He puts it this way:\n\nAll of that is completely correct, and represents an important insight. Under certain conditions, such as those that pertain in the universe on large scales today, even though we don't have a cut-and-dried formula for the entropy of a system including gravity, we can say with confidence that the entropy increases as structure forms and the universe becomes lumpier.\n\nThere is another way of reaching a similar conclusion, through the magic of thought experiments. Take the current macrostate of the universe-some collection of galaxies, dark matter, and so forth, distributed in a certain way through space. But now let's make a single change: Imagine that the universe is contracting rather than expanding. What should happen?\n\nIt should be clear that what won't happen is a simple time-reversal of the actual history of the universe from its smooth initial state to its lumpy present-at least, not for the overwhelming majority of microstates within our present macrostate. (If we precisely time-reversed the specific microstate of our present universe, then of course that is exactly what would happen.) If the distribution of matter in our present universe were to start contracting together, individual stars and galaxies would not begin to disperse and smooth out. Instead, the gravitational force between heavy objects would draw them together, and the amount of lumpy structure would actually increase, even as the universe contracted. Black holes would form, and coalesce together to create bigger black holes. There would ultimately be a sort of Big Crunch, but (as Penrose emphasizes) it wouldn't look anything like the smooth Big Bang from which our universe came. Places where the density was high and black holes formed would crash into a future singularity relatively quickly, while places that were emptier would survive for longer.\n\nFigure 68: When gravity is unimportant, increasing entropy tends to smooth things out; when gravity does become important, matter tends to clump together as entropy increases." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This story fits in well with the idea that the space of states within our comoving patch remains fixed, but when the universe is small most of the states cannot be described as vibrating quantum fields in an otherwise smooth space." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Such a picture would be completely inadequate to describe the chaotic black-hole-filled mess that we would generically expect from a collapsing universe. But such a messy configuration is just as much an allowed state of the universe as the relatively smooth backgrounds we traditionally deal within cosmology. Indeed, such a configuration has a higher entropy than a smooth universe (which we know because a collapsing universe would generically evolve into something messy), which means that there are many more microstates of that form than of the form where everything is relatively smooth. Why our actual universe is so atypical is, of course, at the heart of our mystery.\n\nTHE EVOLUTION OF ENTROPY\n\nWe've now assembled enough background knowledge to follow Penrose and take a stab at quantifying how the entropy of our universe changes from early times to today. We know the basic story of how our comoving patch evolves-at early times it was small, and full of hot, dense gas that was very close to perfectly smooth, and at later times it is larger and cooler and more dilute, and contains a distribution of stars and galaxies that is quite lumpy on small scales, although it's still basically smooth over very large distances. So what is its entropy?\n\nAt early times, when things were smooth, we can calculate the entropy by simply ignoring the influence of gravity. This might seem to go against the philosophy I've thus far been advocating, but we're not saying that gravity is irrelevant in principle-we're simply taking advantage of the fact that, in practice, our early universe was in a configuration where the gravitational forces between particles didn't play a significant role in the dynamics. Basically, it was just a box of hot gas. And a box of hot gas is something whose entropy we know how to calculate.\n\nThe entropy of our comoving patch of space when it was young and smooth is:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The\"≈\" sign means'approximately equal to,\" as we want to emphasize that this is a rough estimate, not a rigorous calculation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This number comes from simply treating the contents of the universe as a conventional gas in thermal equilibrium, and plugging in the formulas worked out by thermodynamicists in the nineteenth century, with one additional feature: Most of the particles in the early universe are photons and neutrinos, moving at or close to the speed of light, so relativity is important. Up to some numerical factors that don't change the answer very much, the entropy of a hot gas of relativistic particles is simply equal to the total number of such particles. There are about 10 88 particles within our comoving patch of universe, so that's what the entropy was at early times. (It increases a bit along the way, but not by much, so treating the entropy as approximately constant at early times is a good approximation.)\n\nToday, gravity has become important. It is not very accurate to think of the matter in the universe as a gas in thermal equilibrium with negligible gravity; ordinary matter and dark matter have condensed into galaxies and other structures, and the entropy has increased considerably. Unfortunately, we don't have a reliable formula that tracks the change in entropy during the formation of a galaxy.\n\nWhat we do have is a formula for the circumstance in which gravity is at its most important: in a black hole. As far as we know, very little of the total mass of the universe is contained in the form of black holes. 241 Ina galaxy like the Milky Way, there area number of stellar-sized black holes (with maybe 10 times the mass of the Sun each), but the majority of the total black hole mass is in the form of a single supermassive black hole at the galactic center. While supermassive black holes are certainly big-often over a million times the mass of the Sun-that's nothing compared to an entire galaxy, where the total mass might be 100 billion times the mass of the Sun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But while only a tiny fraction of the mass of the universe appears to be in black holes, they contain a huge amount of entropy. A single supermassive black hole, a million times the mass of the Sun, has an entropy according to the Bekenstein-Hawking formula of 10 90. That's a hundred times larger than all of the nongravitational entropy in all the matter and radiation in the observable universe. 242\n\nEven though we don't have a good understanding of the space of states of gravitating matter, it's safe to say that the total entropy of the universe today is mostly in the form of these supermassive black holes. Since there are about 100 billion (10 11) galaxies in the universe, it's reasonable to approximate the total entropy by assuming 100 billion such black holes. (They might be missing from some galaxies, but other galaxies will have larger black holes, so this is not a bad approximation.) With an entropy of 10 90 per million-solar-mass black hole, that gives us a total entropy within our comoving patch today of\n\nMathematician Edward Kasner coined the term googol to stand for 10 100, a number he used to convey the idea of an unimaginably big quantity. The entropy of the universe today is about ten googols. (The folks from Google used this number as an inspiration for the name of their search engine; now it's impossible to refer to a googol without being misunderstood.)\n\nWhen we write the current entropy of our comoving patch as 10 101, it doesn't seem all that much larger than its value in the early universe, 10 88. But that's just the miracle of compact notation. In fact, 10 101 is ten trillion (10 13) times bigger than 10 88. The entropy of the universe has increased by an enormous amount since the days when everything was smooth and featureless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still, it's not as big as it could be. What is the maximum value the entropy of the observable universe could have? Again, we don't know enough to say for sure what the right answer is. But we can say that the maximum entropy must beat least a certain number, simply by imagining that all of the matter in the universe were rearranged into one giant black hole. That's an allowed configuration for the physical system corresponding to our comoving patch of universe, so it's certainly possible that the entropy could be that large. Using what we know about the total mass contained in the universe, and plugging once again into the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy formula for black holes, we find that the maximum entropy of the observable universe is at least\n\nThat's a fantastically big number. A hundred quintillion googols! The maximum entropy the observable universe could have is at least that large.\n\nThese numbers drive home the puzzle of entropy that modern cosmology presents to us. If Boltzmann is right, and entropy characterizes the number of possible microstates of a system that are macroscopically indistinguishable, it's clear that the early universe was in an extremely special state. Remember that the entropy is the logarithm of the number of equivalent states, so a state with entropy Sis one of 10 S indistinguishable states. So the early universe was in one of\n\ndifferent states. But it could have been in any of the\n\npossible states that are accessible to the universe. Again, the miracle of typography makes these numbers look superficially similar, but in fact the latter number is enormously, inconceivably larger than the former. If the state of the early universe were simply'chosen randomly\" from among all possible states, the chance that it would have looked like it actually did are ridiculously tiny.\n\nThe conclusion is perfectly clear: The state of the early universe was not chosen randomly among all possible states. Everyone in the world who has thought about the problem agrees with that. What they don't agree on is why the early universe was so special-what is the mechanism that put it in that state? And, since we shouldn't be temporal chauvinists about it, why doesn't the same mechanism put the late universe in a similar state? That's what we're hereto figure out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "MAXIMIZING ENTROPY\n\nWe've established that the early universe was in a very unusual state, which we think is something that demands explanation. What about the question we started this chapter with: What should the universe look like? What is the maximum-entropy state into which we can arrange our comoving patch?\n\nRoger Penrose thinks the answer is a black hole.\n\nYou can see why this is a tempting answer. As we've seen, in the presence of gravity, entropy increases when things cluster together, rather than smoothing out. A black hole is certainly as densely packed as things can possibly get. As we discussed in the last chapter, a black hole represents the most entropy we can squeeze into a region of spacetime with any fixed size; that was the inspiration behind the holographic principle. And the resulting entropy is undoubtedly a big number, as we've seen in the case of a supermassive black hole.\n\nBut in the final analysis, that's not the best way to think about it. 244 A black hole doesn't maximize the total entropy a system can have-it only maximizes the entropy that can be packed into a region of fixed size. Just as the Second Law doesn't say'entropy tends to increase, not including gravity,\" it also doesn't say'entropy per volume tends to increase.\" It just says'entropy tends to increase,\" and if that requires a big region of space, then so be it. One of the wonders of general relativity-and a crucial distinction with the absolute spacetime of Newtonian mechanics-is that sizes are never fixed. Even without a complete understanding of entropy, we can get a handle on the answer by following in Penrose's footsteps, and simply examining the natural evolution of systems toward higher-entropy states.\n\nConsider a simple example: a collection of matter gathered in one region of an otherwise empty universe, without even any vacuum energy. In other words, a spacetime that is empty almost everywhere, except for some particular place where some matter particles are congregated. Because most of space has no energy in it at all, the universe won't be expanding or contracting, so nothing really happens outside the region where the matter is located. The particles will contract together under their own gravitational force." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Let's imagine that they collapse all the way to a black hole. Along the way, there's no question that the entropy increases. However, the black hole doesn't just sit therefor all of eternity-it gives off Hawking radiation, gradually shrinking as it loses energy, and eventually evaporating away completely.\n\nFigure 69: A black hole has a lot of entropy, but it evaporates into radiation that has even more entropy.\n\nThe natural behavior of black holes in an otherwise empty universe is to radiate away into a dilute gas of particles. Because such behavior is natural, we expect it to represent an increase in entropy-and it does. We can explicitly compare the entropy of the black hole to the entropy of the radiation into which it evaporates-and the entropy of the radiation is higher. By about 33 percent, to be specific. 245\n\nNow, the density of entropy has clearly gone down-when we had a black hole, all that entropy was packed into a small volume, whereas the Hawking radiation is emitted gradually and gets spread out over a huge region of space. But again, the density of entropy isn't what we care about; it's just the total amount.\n\nEMPTY SPACE\n\nThe lesson of this thought experiment is that the rule of thumb'when we take gravity into consideration, higher-entropy states are lumpy rather than smooth\" is not an absolute law; it's merely valid under certain circumstances. The black hole is lumpier (higher contrast) than the initial collection of particles, but the eventual dispersing radiation isn't lumpy at all. In fact, as the radiation scurries off to the ends of the universe, we approach a configuration that grows ever smoother, as the density everywhere approaches zero.\n\nSo the answer to the question'What does a high-entropy state look like, when we take gravity into account?\" isn't'a lumpy, chaotic maelstrom of black holes,\" nor is it even'one single giant black hole.\" The highest-entropy states look like empty space, with at most a few particles here and there, gradually diluting away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That's a counterintuitive claim, worth examining from different angles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "246 The case of a collection of matter that all falls together to form a black hole is a relatively straightforward one, where we can actually plugin numbers and verify that the entropy increases when the black hole evaporates away. But that's afar cry from proving that the result (an increasingly dilute gas of particles moving through empty space) is really the highest-entropy configuration possible. We should try to contemplate other possible answers. The guiding principles are that we want a configuration that other kinds of configurations naturally evolve into, and that itself persists forever.\n\nWhat if, for example, we had an array of many black holes? We might imagine that black holes filled the universe, so that the radiation from one black hole eventually fell into another one, which kept them from evaporating away. However, general relativity tells us that such a configuration can't last. By sprinkling objects throughout the universe, we've created a situation where space has to either expand or contract. If it expands, the distance between the black holes will continually grow, and eventually they will simply evaporate away. As before, the long-term future of such a universe simply looks like empty space.\n\nIf space is contracting, we have a different story. When the entire universe is shrinking, the future is likely to end in a Big Crunch singularity. That's a unique case; on the one hand, the singularity doesn't really last forever (since time ends there, at least as far as we know), but it doesn't evolve into something else, either. We can't rule out the possibility that the future evolution of some hypothetical universe ends in a Big Crunch, but our lack of understanding of singularities in quantum gravity makes it difficult to say very much useful about that case. (And our real world doesn't seem to be behaving that way.)\n\nOne clue is provided by considering a collapsing collection of matter (black holes or otherwise) that looks exactly like a contracting universe, but one where the matter only fills a finite region of space, rather than extending throughout it. If the rest of the universe is empty, this local region is exactly like the situation we considered before, where a group of particles collapsed to make a black hole. So what looks from the inside like a universe collapsing to a Big Crunch looks from the outside like the formation of a giant black hole. In that case, we know what the far future will bring: It might take awhile, but that black hole will radiate away into nothing. The ultimate state is, once again, empty space." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Figure 70: An array of black holes cannot remain static." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It will either expand and allow the black holes to evaporate away, approaching empty space (top right), or collapse to make a Big Crunch or a single larger black hole (bottom right).\n\nWe can be a little more systematic about this. Cosmologists are used to thinking of universes that are doing the same thing all throughout space, because the observable part of our own universe seems to be like that. But let's not take that for granted; let's ask what could be going on throughout the universe, in perfect generality.\n\nThe notion that the space is'expanding\" or'contracting\" doesn't have to bean absolute property of the entire universe. If the matter in some particular region of space is moving apart and diluting away, it will look locally like an expanding universe, and likewise for contraction when matter moves together. So if we imagine sprinkling particles throughout an infinitely big space, most of the time we will find that some regions are expanding and diluting, while other regions are contracting and growing more dense.\n\nBut if that's true, a remarkable thing happens: Despite the apparent symmetry between'expanding\" and'contracting,\" pretty soon the expanding regions begin to win. And the reason is simple: The expanding regions are growing in volume, while the contracting ones are shrinking. Furthermore, the contracting regions don't stay contracted forever. In the extreme case where matter collapses all the way to a black hole, eventually the black holes just radiate away. So starting from initial conditions that contain both expanding and contracting regions, if we wait long enough we'll end up with empty space-entropy increasing all the while. 247\n\nFigure 71: Initial conditions (at bottom) in a universe with both expanding and contracting regions. The expanding regions grow in size and become increasingly dilute. The contracting regions grow denser at first, but at some point will begin to evaporate into the surrounding emptiness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In each of these examples, the crucial underlying feature is the dynamical nature of spacetime in general relativity. Ina fixed, absolute spacetime (such as Boltzmann would have presumed), it makes sense to imagine a universe filled with gas at a uniform temperature and density-thermal equilibrium everywhere. That's a high-entropy state, and a natural guess for what the universe'should\" look like. It's no surprise that Boltzmann suggested that our observable universe could be a statistical fluctuation within such a configuration.\n\nBut general relativity changes everything. A gas of uniform density in a static spacetime is not a solution to Einstein's equation-the universe would have to be either expanding or contracting. Before Einstein came along it made sense to start your thought experiments by fixing the average density of matter, or the total volume of the region under consideration. But in general relativity, these aren't things you're allowed to simply keep fixed; they will tend to change with time. One way of thinking about it is to realize that general relativity always gives you away to increase the entropy of any particular configuration: Make the universe bigger, and let the stuff expand to fill the new volume. The ultimate end of such a process is, of course, empty space. That's what counts as a'high-entropy\" state once we take gravity into account.\n\nNone of these arguments is airtight, of course. They are suggestive of a result that seems to hang together and make sense, once you think it through, but that's far short of a definitive demonstration of anything. The claim that the entropy of some system within the universe can increase by scattering its elements across avast expanse of space seems pretty safe. But the conclusion that empty space is therefore the highest-entropy state is more tentative. Gravity is tricky, and there's a lot we don't understand about it, so it's not a good idea to become too emotionally invested in any particular speculative scenario." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "THE REAL WORLD\n\nLet's apply these ideas to the real world. If high-entropy states are those that look like empty space, presumably our actual observable universe should be evolving toward such a state. (It is.)\n\nWe have casually been assuming that when things collapse under the force of gravity, they end up as a black hole before ultimately evaporating away. It's far from obvious that this holds true in the real world, where we see lots of objects held together by gravity, but that are very far from being black holes-planets, stars, and even galaxies.\n\nBut the reality is, all of these things will eventually'evaporate\" if we wait long enough. We can see this most clearly in the case of a galaxy, which can bethought of as a collection of stars orbiting under their mutual gravitational pull. As individual stars pass by other stars, they interact much like molecules in a box of gas, except that the interaction is solely through gravity (apart from those very rare instances when the stars smack right into one another). These interactions can exchange energy from one star to the other. 248 Over the course of many such encounters, stars will occasionally pickup so much energy that they reach escape velocity and flyaway from the galaxy altogether. The rest of the galaxy has now lost some of its energy, and as a consequence it shrinks, so that its stars are clustered more tightly together. Eventually, the remaining stars are going to be packed so closely that they all fall into a black hole at the center. From that point, we return to our previous story.\n\nSimilar logic works for any other object in the universe, even if the details might differ. The basic point is that, given some rock or star or planet or what have you, that particular physical system wants to be in the highest-entropy arrangement of the constituents from which it is made. That's a little poetic, as inanimate objects don't really have desires, but it reflects the reality that an unfettered evolution of the system would naturally bring it into a higher-entropy configuration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You might think that the evolution is, in fact, fettered: A planet, for example, might have a higher entropy if its entire mass collapsed into a black hole, but the pressure inside keeps it stable. Here's where the miracle of quantum mechanics comes in. Remember that a planet isn't really a collection of classical particles; it's described by a wave function, just like everything else. That wave function characterizes the probability that we will find the constituents of the planet in any of their possible configurations. One of those possible configurations, inevitably, will be a black hole. In other words, from the point of view of someone observing the planet (or anything else), there is a tiny chance they will find that it has spontaneously collapsed into a black hole. That's the process known as'quantum tunneling.\"\n\nDo not be alarmed. Yes, it's true, just about everything in the universe-the Earth, the Sun, you, your cat-has a chance of quantum-tunneling into the form of a black hole at any moment. But the chance is very small. It would be many, many times the age of the universe before there were a decent chance of it happening. But in a universe that lasts for all eternity, that means the chances are quite good that it will eventually happen-it's inevitable, in fact. No collection of particles can simply sit undisturbed in the universe forever. The lesson is that matter will find away to transform into a higher-entropy configuration, if one exists; it might be via tunneling into the form of a black hole, or through much more mundane channels. No matter what kind of lump of matter you have in the universe, it can increase in entropy by evaporating into a thin gruel of particles moving away into empty space.\n\nVACUUM ENERGY\n\nAs we discussed back in Chapter Three, there's more than matter and radiation in the universe-there's also dark energy, responsible for making the universe accelerate. We don't know for sure what the dark energy is, but the leading candidate is'vacuum energy,\" also known as the cosmological constant. Vacuum energy is simply a constant amount of energy inherent in every cubic centimeter of space, one that remains fixed throughout space and time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The existence of dark energy both simplifies and complicates our ideas about high-entropy states in the presence of gravity. I've been suggesting that the natural behavior of matter is to disperse away into empty space, which is therefore the best candidate fora maximum-entropy state. Ina universe like ours, with a vacuum energy that is small but greater than zero, this conclusion becomes even more robust. A positive vacuum energy imparts a perpetual impulse to the expansion of the universe, which helps the general tendency of matter and radiation to dilute away. If, within the next few years, human beings perfect an immortality machine and/or drug, cosmologists who live forever will have to content themselves with observing an increasingly empty universe. Stars will die out, black holes will evaporate, and everything will be pushed away by the accelerating effects of vacuum energy.\n\nIn particular, if the dark energy is really a cosmological constant (rather than something that will ultimately fade away), we can be sure that the universe will never re-collapse into a Big Crunch of any sort. After all, the universe is not only expanding but also accelerating, and that acceleration will continue forever. This scenario-which, let's not forget, is the most popular prognosis for the real world according to contemporary cosmologists-vividly highlights the bizarre nature of our low-entropy beginnings. We're contemplating a universe that has existed fora finite time in the past but will persist forever into the future. The first few tens of billions of years of its existence area hot, busy, complex and interesting mess, which will be followed by an infinite stretch of cold, empty quietness. (Apart from the occasional statistical fluctuation; see next section.) Although it's not much more than a gut feeling, it just seems like a waste to face the prospect of an endless duration of dark loneliness after a relatively exciting few years in our universe's past." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The existence of a positive cosmological constant allows us to actually prove a somewhat rigorous result, rather than just spinning through a collection of thought experiments. The cosmic no-hair theorem states that, under the familiar set of'reasonable assumptions,\" a universe with a positive vacuum energy plus some matter fields will, if it lasts long enough for the vacuum energy to takeover, eventually evolve into empty universe with nothing but vacuum energy. The cosmological constant always wins, in other words. 249\n\nThe resulting universe-empty space with a positive vacuum energy-is known as de Sitter space, after Dutch physicist Willem de Sitter, one of the first after Einstein to study cosmology within the framework of general relativity. As we mentioned back in Chapter Three, empty space with zero vacuum energy is known as Minkowski space, while empty space with a negative vacuum energy is anti-de Sitter space. Even though spacetime is empty in de Sitter space, it's still curved, because of the positive vacuum energy. The vacuum energy, as we know, imparts a perpetual impulse to the expansion of space. If we consider two particles initially at rest in de Sitter space, they will gradually be pulled apart by the expansion. Likewise, if we trace their motion into the past, they would have been coming toward each other, but evermore slowly as the space between them was pushed apart. Anti-de Sitter space is the reverse; particles are pulled toward each other.\n\nFigure 72: Three different versions of'empty space,\" with different values of the vacuum energy: Minkowski space when the vacuum energy vanishes, de Sitter when it is positive, and anti-de Sitter when it is negative. In Minkowski space, two particles initially at rest will stay motionless with respect to each other; in de Sitter space they are pushed apart, while in anti-de Sitter space they are pulled together. The larger the magnitude of the vacuum energy, the stronger the pushing or pulling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everything we've been arguing points to the idea that de Sitter space is the ultimate endpoint of cosmological evolution when the vacuum energy is positive, and hence the highest-entropy state we can think of in the presence of gravity. That's not a definitive statement-the state of the art isn't sufficiently advanced to allow for definitive statements along these lines-but it's suggestive.\n\nYou might wonder how empty space can have a large entropy-entropy is supposed to count the number of ways we can rearrange microstates, and what is thereto rearrange if all we have is empty space? But this is just the same puzzle that faced us with black holes. The answer must be that there area large number of microstates describing the quantum states of space itself, even when it's empty. Indeed, if we believe in the holographic principle, we can assign a definite value to the entropy contained within any observable patch of de Sitter space. The answer is a huge number, and the entropy is larger when the vacuum energy is smaller. 250 Our own universe is evolving toward de Sitter space, and the entropy of each observable patch will be about 10 120. (The fact that this is the same as the entropy we would get by collapsing all the matter in the observable universe into a black hole is a coincidence-it's the same coincidence as the fact that the matter density and vacuum energy are approximately equal at the present time, even though the matter dominated in the past and the vacuum energy will dominate in the future.)\n\nWhile de Sitter space provides a sensible candidate fora high-entropy state, the idea of vacuum energy complicates our attempts to understand entropy in the context of quantum gravity. The basic problem is that the effective vacuum energy-what you would actually measure as the energy of the vacuum at any particular event in spacetime-can certainly change, at least temporarily. Cosmologists talk about the'true vacuum,\" in which the vacuum energy takes on its lowest possible value, but also various possible'false vacua,\" in which the effective vacuum energy is higher. Indeed, it's possible that we might be in a false vacuum right now. The idea that'high entropy\" means'empty space\" becomes a lot more complicated when empty space can take on different forms, corresponding to different values of the vacuum energy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That's a good thing-we don't want empty space to be the highest-entropy state possible, because we don't live there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the next couple of chapters we're going to see whether we can't take advantage of different possible values of vacuum energy to somehow make sense of the universe. But first we need to assure ourselves that, without some strategy along those lines, it really would be extremely surprising that we don't live in a universe that is otherwise empty. And that calls for another visit with some of the giants on whose shoulders we are standing, Boltzmann and Lucretius.\n\nWHY DON'T WE LIVE IN EMPTY SPACE?\n\nWe began this chapter by asking what the universe should look like. It's not obvious that this is even a sensible question to ask, but if it is, a logical answer would be'it should look like it's in a high-entropy state,\" because there area lot more high-entropy states than low-entropy ones. Then we argued that truly high-entropy states basically look like empty space; in a world with a positive cosmological constant, that means de Sitter space, a universe with vacuum energy and nothing else.\n\nSo the major question facing modern cosmology is: \"Why don't we live in de Sitter space?\" Why do we live in a universe that is alive with stars and galaxies? Why do we live in the aftermath of our Big Bang, an enormous conflagration of matter and energy with an extraordinarily low entropy? Why is there so much stuff in the universe, and why was it packed so smoothly at early times?\n\nOne possible answer would be to appeal to the anthropic principle. We can't live in empty space because, well, it's empty. There's nothing thereto do the living. That sounds like a perfectly reasonable assumption, although it doesn't exactly answer the question. Even if we couldn't live precisely in empty de Sitter space, that doesn't explain why our early universe is nowhere near to being empty. Our actual universe seems to bean enormously more dramatic departure from emptiness than would be required by any anthropic criterion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You might find these thoughts reminiscent of our discussion of the Boltzmann-Lucretius scenario from Chapter Ten. There, we imagined a static universe with an infinite number of atoms, so that there was an average density of atoms throughout space. Statistical fluctuations in the arrangements of those atoms, it was supposed, could lead to temporary low-entropy configurations that might resemble our universe. But there was a problem: That scenario makes a strong prediction, namely, that we (under any possible definition of we) should be the smallest possible fluctuation away from thermal equilibrium consistent with our existence. In the most extreme version, we should be disembodied Boltzmann brains, surrounded by a gas with uniform temperature and density. But we're not, and further experiments continue to reveal more evidence that the rest of the universe is not anywhere near equilibrium, so this scenario seems to be ruled out experimentally.\n\nThe straightforward scenario Boltzmann had in mind would doubtless be dramatically altered by general relativity. The most important new ingredient is that it's impossible to have a static universe filled with gas molecules. According to Einstein, space filled with matter isn't going to just sit there; it's going to either expand or contract. And if the matter is sprinkled uniformly throughout the universe, and is made of normal particles (which don't have negative energy or pressure), there will inevitably be a singularity in the direction of time where things are getting more dense-a past Big Bang if the universe is expanding, or a future Big Crunch if the universe is contracting. (Or both, if the universe expands fora while and then starts tore-contract.) So this carefree Newtonian picture where molecules persist forever in a happy static equilibrium is not going to be relevant once general relativity comes into the game.\n\nInstead, we should contemplate life in de Sitter space, which replaces a gas of thermal particles as the highest-entropy state. If all you knew about was classical physics, de Sitter space would be truly empty. (Vacuum energy is a feature of spacetime itself; there are no particles associated with it.) But classical physics isn't the whole story; the real world is quantum mechanical. And quantum field theory says that particles can be created'out of nothing\" in an appropriate curved spacetime background. Hawking radiation is the most obvious example." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It turns out, following very similar reasoning to that used by Hawking to investigate black holes, that purportedly empty de Sitter space is actually alive with particles popping into existence. Not a lot of them, we should emphasize-we're talking about an extremely subtle effect. (There area lot of virtual particles in empty space, but not many real, detectable ones.) Let's imagine that you were sitting in de Sitter space with an exquisitely sensitive experimental apparatus, capable of detecting any particles that happened to be passing your way. What you would discover is that you were actually surrounded by a gas of particles at a constant temperature, just as if you were in a box in thermal equilibrium. And the temperature wouldn't go away as the universe continued to expand-it is a feature of de Sitter space that persists for all eternity. 251\n\nAdmittedly, you wouldn't detect very many particles; the temperature is quite low. If someone asked you what the'temperature of the universe\" is right now, you might say 2.7 Kelvin, the temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation. That's pretty cold; 0 Kelvin is the lowest possible temperature, room temperature is about 300 Kelvin, and the lowest temperature ever achieved in a laboratory on Earth is about 10-10 Kelvin. If we allow the universe to expand until all of the matter and cosmic background radiation has diluted away, leaving only those particles that are produced out of de Sitter space by quantum effects, the temperature will be about 10-29 Kelvin. Cold by anyone's standards.\n\nStill, a temperature is a temperature, and any temperature above zero allows for fluctuations. When we take quantum effects in de Sitter space into account, the universe acts like a box of gas at a fixed temperature, and that situation will last forever. Even if we have a past that features a dramatic Big Bang, the future is an eternity of ultra-cold temperature that never drops to zero. Hence, we should expect an endless future of thermal fluctuations-including Boltzmann brains and any other sort of thermodynamically unlikely configuration we might have worried about in an eternal box of gas." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And that would seem to imply that all of the troublesome aspects of the Boltzmann-Lucretius scenario are troublesome aspects of the real world." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If we wait long enough, our universe will empty out until it looks like de Sitter space with a tiny temperature, and stay that way forever. There will be random fluctuations in the thermal radiation that lead to all sorts of unlikely events-including the spontaneous generation of galaxies, planets, and Boltzmann brains. The chance that anyone such thing happens at any particular time is small, but we have an eternity to wait, so every allowed thing will happen. In that universe-our universe, as far as we can tell-the overwhelming majority of mathematical physicists (or any other kind of conscious observer) will pop out of the surrounding chaos and find themselves drifting alone through space. 252\n\nThe acceleration of the universe was discovered in 1998. Theorists chewed over this surprising result fora while before the problem with Boltzmann brains became clear. It was first broached in a 2002 paper by Lisa Dyson, Matthew Kleban, and Leonard Susskind, with the ominous title'Disturbing Implications of a Cosmological Constant,\" and amplified in a follow-up paper by Andreas Albrecht and Lorenzo Sorbo in 2004.253 The resolution to the puzzle is still far from clear. The simplest way out is to imagine that the dark energy is not a cosmological constant that lasts forever, but an ephemeral source of energy that will fade away long before we hit the Poincaré recurrence time. But it's not clear exactly how this would work, and compelling models of decaying dark energy turnout to be difficult to construct.\n\nSo the Boltzmann-brain problem-\"Why do we find ourselves in a universe evolving gradually from a state of incredibly low entropy, rather than being isolated creatures that recently fluctuated from the surrounding chaos?\"-does not yet have a clear solution. And it's worth emphasizing that this puzzle makes the arrow-of-time problem enormously more pressing. Before this issue was appreciated, we had something of a fine-tuning problem: Why did the early universe have such a low entropy? But we were at least allowed to shrug our shoulders and say, \"Well, maybe it just did, and there is no deeper explanation.\" But now that's no longer good enough. In de Sitter space, we can reliably predict the number of times in the history of the universe (including the infinite future) that observers will appear surrounded by cold and forbidding emptiness, and compare them to the observers who will find themselves in comfortable surroundings full of stars and galaxies, and the cold and forbidding emptiness is overwhelmingly likely. This is more than just an uncomfortable fine-tuning; it's a direct disagreement between theory and observation, and a sign that we have to do better." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "INFLATION AND THE MULTIVERSE\n\n-Stephen Toulmin 254\n\nOn a cool Palo Alto morning in December 1979, Alan Guth pedaled his bike as fast as he could to his office in the theoretical physics group at SLAC, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Upon reaching his desk, he opened his notebook to anew page and wrote:\n\nHe carefully drew a rectangular box around the words. Then he drew another one. 255\n\nAs a scientist, you live for the day when you hit upon a result-a theoretical insight, or an experimental discovery-so marvelous that it deserves a box around it. The rare double-box-worthy results tend to change one's life, as well as the course of science; as Guth notes, he doesn't have any other double-boxed results anywhere in his notebooks. The one from his days at SLAC is now on display at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, open to the page with the words above.\n\nGuth had hit on the scenario now known as inflation-the idea that the early universe was suffused with a temporary form of dark energy at an ultra-high density, which caused space to accelerate at an incredible rate (the'supercooling\" mentioned above). That simple suggestion can explain more or less everything there is to explain about the conditions we observe in our early universe, from the geometry of space to the pattern of density perturbations observed in the cosmic microwave background. Although we do not yet have definitive proof that inflation occurred, it has been arguably the most influential idea in cosmology over the last several decades.\n\nFigure 73: Alan Guth, whose inflationary universe scenario may help explain why our observed universe is close to smooth and flat.\n\nWhich doesn't mean inflation is right, of course. If the early universe was temporarily dominated by dark energy at an ultra-high scale, then we can understand why the universe would evolve into just the state it was apparently in at early times. But there is a danger of begging the important question-why was it ever dominated by dark energy in that way? Inflation doesn't provide any sort of answer by itself to the riddle of why entropy was low in the early universe, other than to assume that it started even lower (which is arguably a bit of a cheat)." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nevertheless, inflation is an extraordinarily compelling idea, which really does seem to match well with the observed features of our early universe. And it leads to some surprising consequences that Guth himself never foresaw when he first suggested the scenario-including, as we'll see, away to make the idea of a'multiverse\" become realistic. It seems likely, in the judgment of most working cosmologists, that some version of inflation is correct-the question is, why did inflation ever happen?\n\nTHE CURVATURE OF SPACE\n\nImagine you take a pencil and balance it vertically on its tip. Obviously its natural tendency will be to fall over. But you could imagine that if you had an extremely stable surface, and you were areal expert at balancing, you could arrange things so that the pencil remained vertical fora very longtime. Like, more than 14 billion years.\n\nThe universe is somewhat like that, where the pencil represents the curvature of space. This can be a more confusing concept than it really should be, because cosmologists sometimes speak about the'curvature of spacetime,\" and other times about the'curvature of space,\" and those things are different; you're supposed to figure out from context which one is meant. Just as spacetime can have curvature, space all by itself can as well-and the question of whether space is curved is completely independent of whether spacetime is curved. 256\n\nOne potential problem in discussing the curvature of space by itself is that general relativity gives us the freedom to slice spacetime into three-dimensional copies of space evolving through time in a multitude of ways; the definition of'space\" is not unique. Fortunately, in our observed universe there is a natural way to do the slicing: We define'time\" such that the density of matter is approximately constant through space on large scales, but diminishing as the universe expands. The distribution of matter, in other words, defines a natural rest frame for the universe. This doesn't violate the precepts of relativity in anyway, because it's a feature of a particular configuration of matter, not of the underlying laws of physics." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In general, space could curve in arbitrary ways from place to place, and the discipline of differential geometry was developed to handle the mathematics of curvature. But in cosmology we're lucky in that space is uniform overlarge distances, and looks the same in every direction. In that case, all you have to do is specify a single number-the'curvature of space\"-to tell me everything there is to know about the geometry of three-dimensional space.\n\nThe curvature of space can be a positive number, or a negative number, or zero. If the curvature is zero, we naturally say that space is'flat,\" and it has all the characteristics of geometry as we usually understand it. These characteristics were first set out by Euclid, and include properties like'initially parallel lines stay parallel forever,\" and'the angles inside a triangle add up to precisely 180 degrees.\" If the curvature is positive, space is like the surface of a sphere-except that it's three-dimensional. Initially parallel lines do eventually intersect, and angles inside a triangle add up to greater than 180 degrees. If the curvature is negative, space is like the surface of a saddle, or of a potato chip. Initially parallel lines grow apart, and angles inside a triangle-well, you can probably guess. 257\n\nAccording to the rules of general relativity, if the universe starts flat, it stays flat. If it starts curved, the curvature gradually diminishes away as the universe expands. However, as we know, the density of matter and radiation also dilutes away. (For right now, forget you've ever heard about dark energy, which changes everything.) When you plugin the equations, the density of matter or radiation decreases faster than the amount of curvature. Relative to matter and radiation, curvature becomes more relevant to the evolution of the universe as space expands.\n\nTherefore: If there is any noticeable amount of curvature whatsoever in the early universe, the universe today should be very obviously curved. A flat universe is like a pencil balanced exactly on its tip; if there were any deviation to the left or right, the pencil would tend to fall pretty quickly onto its side. Similarly, any tiny deviation from perfect flatness at early times should have become progressively more noticeable as time went on. But as a matter of observational fact, the universe looks very flat. As far as anyone can tell, there is no measurable curvature in the universe today at all. 258" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Figure 74: Ways that space can have a uniform curvature. From top to bottom: positive curvature, as on a sphere; negative curvature, as on a saddle; zero curvature, as on a flat plane.\n\nThis state of affairs is known as the flatness problem. Because the universe is so flat today, it had to be incredibly flat in the past. But why?\n\nThe flatness problem bears a family resemblance to the entropy problem we discussed in the last chapter. In both cases, it's not that there is some blatant disagreement between theory and observation-all we have to do is posit that the early universe had some particular form, and everything follows nicely from there. The problem is that the'particular form\" seems to be incredibly unnatural and finely tuned, for no obvious reason. We could say that both the entropy and the spatial curvature of the early universe just were small, and there's no explanation beyond that. But these apparently unnatural features of the universe might be a clue to something important, so it behooves us to take them seriously.\n\nMAGNETIC MONOPOLES\n\nAlan Guth wasn't trying to solve the flatness problem when he hit upon the idea of inflation. He was interested in a very different puzzle, known as the monopole problem.\n\nGuth, for that matter, wasn't especially interested in cosmology. In 1979, he was in his ninth year of being a postdoctoral researcher-the phase of a scientist's career in between graduate school and becoming a faculty member, when they concentrate on research without having to worry about teaching duties or other academic responsibilities. (And without the benefit of any job security whatsoever; most postdocs never succeed in getting a faculty job, and eventually leave the field.) Nine years is past the time when a talented postdoc would normally have moved onto become an assistant professor somewhere, but Guth's publication record at this point in his career didn't really reflect the ability that others saw in him. He had labored fora while on a theory of quarks that had fallen out of favor, and was now trying to understand an obscure prediction of the newly popular'Grand Unified Theories\": the prediction of magnetic monopoles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Grand Unified Theories, or GUTs for short, attempt to provide a unified account of all the forces of nature other than gravity. They became very popular in the 1970s, both for their inherent simplicity, and because they made an intriguing prediction: that the proton, the stalwart elementary particle that (along with the electron and the neutron) forms the basis for all the matter around us, would ultimately decay into lighter particles. Giant laboratories were built to search for proton decay, but it hasn't yet been discovered. That doesn't mean that GUTs aren't right; they are still quite popular, but the failure to detect proton decay has left physicists at a loss over how these theories should be tested.\n\nGUTs also predicted the existence of anew kind of particle, the magnetic monopole. Ordinary charged particles are electric monopoles-that is, they have either a positive charge or a negative charge, and that's all there is to it. No one has ever discovered an isolated'magnetic charge\" in Nature. Magnets as we know them are always dipoles-they come with a north pole and a south pole. Cut a magnet in half between the poles, and two new poles pop into existence where you made the cut. As far as experimenters can tell, looking for an isolated magnetic pole-a monopole-is a lot like looking fora piece of string with only one end.\n\nBut according to GUTs, monopoles should be able to exist. In fact, in the late 1970s people realized that you could sit down and calculate the number of monopoles that should be created in the aftermath of the Big Bang. And the answer is: way too many. The total amount of mass in monopoles, according to these calculations, should be much higher than the total mass in ordinary protons, neutrons, and electrons. Magnetic monopoles should be passing through your body all the time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is an easy way out of this, of course: GUTs might not be right. And that still might be the correct solution. But Guth, while thinking about the problem, hit on a more interesting one: inflation.\n\nINFLATION\n\nDark energy-a source of energy density that is approximately (or exactly) constant throughout space and time, not diluting away as the universe expands-makes the universe accelerate, by imparting a perpetual impulse to the expansion. We believe that most of the energy in the universe, between 70 percent and 75 percent of the total, is currently in the form of dark energy. But in the past, when matter and radiation were denser, dark energy presumably had about the same density it has today, so it would have been relatively unimportant.\n\nNow imagine that, at some other time in the very early universe, there was dark energy with an extraordinarily larger energy density-call it'dark super-energy.\" 259 It dominated the universe and caused space to accelerate at a terrific rate. Then-for reasons to be specified later-this dark super-energy suddenly decayed into matter and radiation, which formed the hot plasma making up the early universe we usually think about. The decay was almost complete, but not quite, leaving behind the relatively minuscule amount of dark energy that has just recently become important to the dynamics of the universe.\n\nThat's the scenario of inflation. Basically, inflation takes a tiny region of space and blows it up to an enormous size. You might wonder what the big deal is-who cares about a temporary phase of dark super-energy, if it just decays into matter and radiation? The reason why inflation is so popular is because it's like confession-it wipes away prior sins.\n\nFigure 75: Inflation takes a tiny patch of space and expands it rapidly to a tremendous size. This figure is not at all to scale; inflation occurs in a tiny fraction of a second, and expands space by more than a factor of 10 26." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Consider the monopole problem. Monopoles are (if GUTs are correct) produced in copious amounts in the extremely early universe. So imagine that inflation happens pretty early, but later than the production of monopoles. In that case, as long as inflation lasts long enough, space expands by such a tremendous amount that all the monopoles are diluted away practically to nothing. As long as the decay of the dark super-energy into matter and radiation doesn't make anymore monopoles (which it won't, if it's not too energetic), voilà-no more monopole problem.\n\nLikewise with spatial curvature. The problem there was that curvature dilutes away more gradually than matter or radiation, so if there were any curvature at all early on it should be extremely noticeable today. But dark energy dilutes away even more gradually than curvature-indeed, it hardly dilutes away at all. So again, if inflation goes on long enough, curvature can get diluted to practically nothing, before matter and radiation are re-created in the decay of the dark super-energy. No more flatness problem.\n\nYou can see why Guth was excited about the idea of inflation. He had been thinking about the monopole problem, but from the other side-not trying to solve it, but using it as an argument against GUTs. In his original work on the problem, with Cornell physicist Henry Tye, they had ignored the possible role of dark energy and established that the monopole problem was very hard to solve. But once Guth sat down to study the effects that an early period of dark energy could have, a solution to the monopole problem dropped right into his lap-that's worth at least a single box, right there.\n\nThe double-box-worthiness came when Guth understood that his idea would also solve the flatness problem, which he hadn't even been thinking about. Completely coincidentally, Guth had gone to a lecture sometime earlier by Princeton physicist Robert Dicke, one of the first people to study the cosmic microwave background. Dicke's lecture, held at a Cornell event called'Einstein Day,\" pointed out several loose ends in the conventional cosmological model. One of them was the flatness problem, which stuck with Guth, even though his research at the time wasn't especially oriented toward cosmology." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So when he realized that inflation solved not only the monopole problem but also the flatness problem, Guth knew he was onto something big. And indeed he was; almost overnight, he went from being a struggling postdoc to being a hot property on the faculty job market. He chose to return to MIT, where he had been a graduate student, and he's still teaching there today.\n\nTHE HORIZON PROBLEM\n\nIn working out the consequences of inflation, Guth realized that the scenario offered a solution to yet another cosmological fine-tuning puzzle: the horizon problem. Indeed, the horizon problem is arguably the most insistent and perplexing issue in standard Big Bang cosmology.\n\nThe problem arises from the simple fact that the early universe looks more or less the same at widely separated points. In the last chapter, we noted that a'typical\" state of the early universe, even if we insisted that it be highly dense and rapidly expanding, would tend to be wildly fluctuating and inhomogeneous-it should resemble the time-reverse of a collapsing universe. So the fact that the universe was so smooth is a feature that seems to warrant an explanation. Indeed, it's fair to say that the horizon problem is really a reflection of the entropy problem as we've presented it, although it's usually justified in a different way.\n\nWe think of horizons in the context of black holes-the horizon is the place past which, once we get there, we can never return to the outside world. Or, more precisely, we would have to be able to travel faster than light to escape. But in the standard Big Bang model, there's a completely separate notion of'horizon,\" stemming from the fact that the Big Bang happened a finite time ago. This is a'cosmological horizon,\" as opposed to the'event horizon\" around a black hole. If we draw alight cone from our present location in spacetime into the past, it will intersect the beginning of the universe. And if we now consider the world line of a particle that emerges from the Big Bang outside our light cone, no signal from that world line can ever reach our current event (without going faster than light). We therefore say that such a particle is outside our cosmological horizon, as shown in Figure 76." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That's all well and good, but things start to get interesting when we realize that, unlike an event horizon of a static black hole, our cosmological horizon grows with time as we age along our world line." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As we get older, our past light cones encompass more and more of spacetime, and other particle world lines that used to be outside now enter our horizon. (The world lines haven't moved-our horizon has expanded to include them.)\n\nTherefore, events that are far in the past have cosmological horizons that are correspondingly smaller; they are closer (in time) to the Big Bang, so fewer events lie in their past. Consider different points that we observe when we look at the cosmic microwave background on opposite sides of the sky, as shown in Figure 77. The microwave background shows us an image of the moment when the universe became transparent, when the temperature cooled off sufficiently that electrons and protons got together to form atoms-about 380,000 years after the Big Bang. Depending on the local conditions at these points-the density, expansion rate, and soon-they could appear very different to us here today. But they don't. From our perspective, all the points on the microwave background sky have very similar temperatures; they differ from place to place by only about one part in a hundred thousand. So the physical conditions at all these different points must have been pretty similar.\n\nFigure 76: The cosmological horizon is defined by the place where our past light cone meets the Big Bang. As we move forward in time, our horizon grows. A world line that was outside our horizon at moment A comes inside the horizon by the time we get to B.\n\nFigure 77: The horizon problem. We look at widely separated points on the cosmic microwave background and see that they are at nearly the same temperature. But those points are far outside each other's horizons; no signal could have ever passed between them. How do they know to beat the same temperature?\n\nThe horizon problem is this: How did those widely separated points know to have almost the same conditions? Even though they are all within our cosmological horizon, their own cosmological horizons are much smaller, since they are much closer to the Big Bang. These days it's a standard exercise for graduate students studying cosmology to calculate the size of the cosmological horizons for such points, under the assumptions of the standard Big Bang model; the answer is that points separated by more than about one degree on the sky have horizons that don't overlap at all. In other words, there is no event in spacetime that is in the past of all these different points, and there is noway that any signal could be communicated to each of them. 260 Nevertheless, they all share nearly identical physical conditions. How did they know?" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist with the plot and keep the story going.\nTags: science, cosmology, time, entropy, theoretical physics\nAuthor: Sean Carroll\nTitle: From Eternity to Here\nChapter: 22" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even if we do allow ourselves to contemplate the possibility of the extraordinary amount of fine-tuning necessary to let entropy increase consistently for all time, we are left with absolutely no good reason why our universe should actually be that way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We have so far provided no justification for why our universe should be finely tuned at all, and now we are suggesting an infinite amount of fine-tuning. This doesn't really sound like progress.\n\nA MIDDLE HYPOTHESIS\n\nSo we are led to consider the alternative, portrayed at bottom right in Figure 84: a bouncing universe where entropy decreases during the contracting phase, reaches a minimum value at the bounce, and begins to increase thereafter. Now, perhaps, we are getting somewhere. An explicit model of such a bouncing cosmology was proposed by Anthony Aguirre and Steven Gratton in 2003. They based their construction on inflation and showed that by clever cutting and pasting we could take an inflationary universe that was expanding forward in time and glue it at the beginning to an inflationary universe expanding backward in time, to obtain a smooth bounce. 290\n\nThis alternative comes with a dramatic advantage: The behavior of the universe is symmetric in time. Both the size of the universe, and its entropy, would have a minimum value at the bounce, and increase in either direction. Conceptually, that's a big improvement over any of the other models we've contemplated; the underlying time-reversal symmetry of the laws of physics is reflected in the large-scale behavior of the universe. In particular, we avoid the pitfall of temporal chauvinism-the temptation to treat the'initial\" state of the universe differently from the'final\" state. It was our wish to sidestep that fallacy that led us to contemplate the Gold universe, which was also symmetric about one moment in time. But now that we allow ourselves to think about a possible universe before the Big Bang, the solution seems more acceptable: The universe is symmetric, not because entropy is low at either end of time, but because it's high at either end." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nevertheless, this is a funny universe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The evolution of entropy is responsible for all the various manifestations of the arrow of time, including our ability to remember the past and our feeling that we move through time. In the bouncing-entropy scenario, the arrow of time reverses direction at the bounce. From the perspective of our observable universe, portrayed on the right-hand side of the plots in Figure 84, the past is the low-entropy direction of time, toward the bounce. But observers on the other side of the bounce, which we have (given our own perspective) labeled'contraction\" in the plots, would also define the'past\" as the direction of time in which entropy was lower-that is, the direction of the bounce. The arrow of time always points in the direction in which entropy is increasing, from the point of view of a local observer. On either side of the bounce, the arrow points toward a'future\" in which the universe is expanding and emptying out. To observers on either side, observers on the other side experience time'running backward.\" But this mismatch of arrows is completely unobservable-people on one side of the bounce can't communicate with people on the other, anymore than we can communicate with anyone else in our past. Everyone sees the Second Law of Thermodynamics operating normally in his or her observable part of the universe.\n\nUnfortunately, a bouncing-entropy cosmos is not quite enough to allow us to declare in good conscience that we have solved the problem we set out at the beginning of this chapter. Sure, allowing fora cosmological bounce that is also a minimum point for the entropy of the universe avoids the philosophical pitfall of placing initial conditions and final conditions on a different footing. But it does so at the cost of anew puzzle: Why is the entropy so low in the middle of the history of the universe?\n\nIn other words, the bouncing-entropy model doesn't, by itself, actually explain anything at all about the arrow of time. Rather, it takes the need fora Past Hypothesis and replaces it with the need fora'Middle Hypothesis.\" There is just as much fine-tuning as ever; we are still stuck trying to explain why the configuration of our comoving patch of space found itself in such a low-entropy state near the cosmological bounce. So it would appear that we still have some work to do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "BABY UNIVERSES\n\nTo make an honest attempt at providing a robust dynamical explanation of the low entropy of our early universe, let's take it backward. Put aside fora moment what we know about our actual universe, and return to the question we asked in Chapter Thirteen: What should the universe look like? In that discussion, I argued that a natural universe-one that didn't rely on finely tuned low-entropy boundary conditions at any point, past, present, or future-would basically look like empty space. When we have a small positive vacuum energy, empty space takes the form of de Sitter space.\n\nThe question that any modern theory of cosmology must therefore answer is: Why don't we live in de Sitter space? It has a high entropy, it lasts forever, and the curvature of spacetime induces a small but nonzero temperature. De Sitter space is empty apart from the thin background of thermal radiation, so for the most part it is completely inhospitable to life; there is no arrow of time, since it's in thermal equilibrium. There will be thermal fluctuations, just as we would expect in a sealed box of gas in a Newtonian spacetime. Such fluctuations can give rise to Boltzmann brains, or entire galaxies, or whatever other macrostate you have in mind, if you wait long enough. But we do not appear to be such a fluctuation-if we were, the world around us would be as high entropy as it could possibly get, which it clearly is not.\n\nThere is away out: De Sitter space might not simply stretch on for all eternity, uninterrupted. Something might happen to it. If that were the case, everything we have said about Boltzmann brains would be out the window. That argument made sense only because we knew exactly what kind of system we were dealing with-a gas at a fixed temperature-and we knew that it would last forever, so that even very improbable events would eventually occur, and we could reliable calculate the relative frequencies of different unreliable events. If we introduce complications into that picture, all bets are off. (Most bets, anyway.)" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's not hard to imagine ways that de Sitter space could fail to last forever. Remember that the'old inflation\" model was basically a period of de Sitter space in the early universe, with a very high energy density provided by an inflaton field stuck in a false vacuum state. As long as there is another vacuum state of lower energy, that de Sitter space will eventually decay via the appearance of bubbles of true vacuum. If bubbles appear rapidly, the false vacuum will completely disappear; if they appear slowly, we'll end up with a fractal mixture of true-vacuum bubbles in a persistent false-vacuum background.\n\nIn the case of inflation, a crucial point was that the energy density during the de Sitter phase was very high. Here we are interested in the opposite end of the spectrum-where the vacuum energy is extremely low, as it is in our current universe.\n\nThat makes a huge difference. High-energy states naturally like to decay into states of lower energy, but not vice versa. The reason is not because of energy conservation, but because of entropy. 291 The entropy associated with de Sitter space is low when the energy density is high, and high when the energy density is low. The decay of high-energy de Sitter space into a state with lower vacuum energy is just the natural evolution of a low-entropy state into a high-entropy one. But we want to know how we might escape from a situation like the one into which our current universe is evolving: empty de Sitter space with a very small vacuum energy, and a very high entropy. Where do we go from there?\n\nIf the correct theory of everything were quantum field theory in a classical de Sitter space background, we'd be pretty much stuck. Space would keep expanding, quantum fields would keep fluctuating, and we'd be more or less in the situation described by Boltzmann and Lucretius. But there is (at least) one possible escape route, courtesy of quantum gravity: the creation of baby universes. If de Sitter space gives birth to a continuous stream of baby universes, each of which starts with a low entropy and expands into a high-entropy de Sitter phase of its own, we could have a natural mechanism for creating more and more entropy in the universe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As we've reiterated at multiple points, there's a lot we don't understand about quantum gravity. But there's a lot that we do understand about classical gravity, and about quantum mechanics; so we have certain reasonable expectations for what should happen in quantum gravity, even if the details remain to be ironed out. In particular, we expect that spacetime itself should be susceptible to quantum fluctuations. Not only should quantum fields in the de Sitter background be fluctuating, but the de Sitter space itself should be fluctuating.\n\nOne way in which spacetime might fluctuate was studied in the 1990s by Edward Farhi, Alan Guth, and Jemal Guven. 292 They suggested that spacetime could not only bend and stretch, as in ordinary classical general relativity, but also split into multiple pieces. In particular, a tiny bit of space could branch off from a larger universe and go its own way. The separate bit of space is, naturally, known as a baby universe. (In contrast to the'pocket universes\" mentioned in the last chapter, which remained connected to the background spacetime.)\n\nWe can be more specific than that. The thermal fluctuations in de Sitter space are really fluctuations of the underlying quantum fields; the particles are just what we see when we observe the fields. Let's imagine that one of those fields has the right properties to bean inflaton-there are places in the potential where the field could sit relatively motionless in a false vacuum valley or anew-inflation plateau. But instead of starting it there, we consider what happens when the field starts at the bottom, where the vacuum energy is very small. Quantum fluctuations will occasionally push the field up the potential, from the true vacuum to the false vacuum-not everywhere at once, but in some small region of space.\n\nWhat happens when a bubble of false vacuum fluctuates into existence in de Sitter space? To be honest once again, we're not sure. 293 One thing seems likely: Most of the time, the field will simply dissipate away back into its thermal surroundings. Inside, where we've fluctuated into the false vacuum, space wants to expand; but the wall separating the inside from the outside of the bubble wants to shrink, and usually it shrinks away quickly before anything dramatic happens." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Figure 85: Creation of a baby universe via quantum fluctuation of a false-vacuum bubble.\n\nEvery once in awhile, however, we could get lucky. The process of getting lucky is portrayed in Figure 85. What we see is a simultaneous fluctuation of the inflaton field, creating a bubble of false vacuum, and of space itself, creating a region that pinches off from the rest of the universe. The tiny throat that connects the two is a wormhole, as we discussed way back in Chapter Six. But this wormhole is unstable and will quickly collapse to nothing, leaving us with two disconnected spacetimes: the original parent universe and the tiny baby.\n\nNow we have a baby universe, dominated by false vacuum energy, all setup to undergo inflation and expand to a huge size. If the properties of the false vacuum are just right, the energy will eventually be converted into ordinary matter and radiation, and we'll have a universe that evolves according to the standard inflation-plus-Big-Bang story. The baby universe can grow to an arbitrarily large size; there is no limitation imposed, for example, by energy conservation. It is a curious feature of general relativity that the total energy of a closed, compact universe is exactly zero, once we account for the energy of the gravitational field as well as everything else. So inflation can take a microscopically tiny ball of space and blow it up to the size of our observable universe, or much larger. As Guth puts it: \"Inflation is the ultimate free lunch.\"\n\nOf course the entropy of the baby universe starts out very small. That might seem like cheating-didn't we go to great lengths to argue that there are many degrees of freedom in our observable universe, and all of them still existed when the universe was young, and if we picked a configuration of them randomly it would be preposterously unlikely to obtain a low-entropy state? All that is true, but the process of making a baby universe is not one where we choose the configuration of our universe randomly. It's chosen in a very specific way: the configuration that is most likely to emerge as a quantum fluctuation in an empty background spacetime that is able to pinch off and become a disconnected universe. Considered as a whole, the entropy of the multiverse doesn't go down during this process; the initial state is high-entropy de Sitter space, which evolves into high-entropy de Sitter space plus a little extra universe. It's not a fluctuation of an equilibrium configuration into a lower-entropy state, but a leakage of a high-entropy state into one with an even higher entropy overall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You might think that the birth of anew universe is a dramatic and painful event, just like the birth of anew person. But it's actually not so. Inside the bubble, of course, things are pretty dramatic-there's anew universe where there was none before. But from the point of view of an outside observer in the parent universe, the entire process is almost unnoticeable. What it looks like is a fluctuation of thermal particles that come together to form a tiny region of very high density-in fact, a black hole. But it's a microscopic black hole, with a tiny entropy, which then evaporates via Hawking radiation as quickly as it formed. The birth of a baby universe is much less traumatic than the birth of a baby human.\n\nIndeed, if this story is true, a baby universe could be born right in the room where you're reading this book, and you would never notice. It's not very likely; in all the spacetime of the universe we can currently observe, chances are it never happened. If it did, the action would all be on a microscopic scale. The new universe could grow to a tremendous size, but it would be completely disconnected from the original spacetime. Like some other children, there is absolutely no communication between the baby universe and its parent-once they split, they remain separate forever.\n\nA RESTLESS MULTIVERSE\n\nSo it's possible that, even when de Sitter space is in a high-entropy true-vacuum state, it's not completely stable. Rather, it can give birth to new baby universes, which grow up into large universes in their own right (and could very well give rise to new babies themselves). The original de Sitter space continues on its way, essentially unperturbed.\n\nThe prospect of baby universes makes all the difference in the world to the question of the arrow of time. Remember the basic dilemma: The most natural universe to live in is de Sitter space, empty space with a positive vacuum energy, which acts like an eternal box of gas at a fixed temperature. The gas spends most of its time in thermal equilibrium, with rare fluctuations into states of lower entropy. With that kind of setup, we could fairly reliably quantify what kinds of fluctuations there will be, and how often they will happen. Given any particular thing you would want the fluctuation to contain-a person, or a galaxy, or even a hundred billion galaxies-this scenario strongly predicts that most such fluctuations will look like they are in equilibrium, apart from the presence of the fluctuation itself. Furthermore, most such fluctuations will arise from higher-entropy states, and evolve back into higher-entropy states. So most observers will find themselves alone in the universe, having arisen as random arrangements of molecules out of the surrounding high-entropy gas of particles; likewise most galaxies, and soon. You could potentially fluctuate into something that looks just like the history of our Big Bang cosmology; but the number of observers within such a fluctuation is much smaller than the number of observers who are otherwise alone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Baby universes change this picture in a crucial way. Now it's no longer true that the only thing that can happen is a thermal fluctuation away from equilibrium and then back again. A baby universe is a kind of fluctuation, but it's one that never comes back-it grows and cools off, but it doesn't rejoin the original spacetime.\n\nWhat we've done is given the universe away that it can increase its entropy without limit. Ina de Sitter universe, space grows without bound, but the part of space that is visible to anyone observer remains finite, and has a finite entropy-the area of the cosmological horizon. Within that space, the fields fluctuate at a fixed temperature that never changes. It's an equilibrium configuration, with every process occurring equally as often as its time-reverse. Once baby universes are added to the game, the system is no longer in equilibrium, for the simple reason that there is no such thing as equilibrium. In the presence of a positive vacuum energy (according to this story), the entropy of the universe never reaches a maximum value and stays there, because there is no maximum value for the entropy of the universe-it can always increase, by creating new universes. That's how the paradox of the Boltzmann-Lucretius scenario can be avoided.\n\nConsider a simple analogy: a ball rolling on a hill. Not a quantum field moving in a potential, an actual down-to-Earth ball. But a very special hill: one that doesn't ever reach a particular bottom, but rolls smoothly away to infinity. And one on which there is absolutely no friction, so the ball can roll forever with the same amount of total energy.\n\nNow let's ask ourselves: What should the ball be doing? That is, if we imagine finding such a ball, which has miraculously been operating as an isolated system for all of eternity, undisturbed by the rest of the universe, what kind of state would we expect the ball to be in?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Figure 86: A ball rolling on a hill that doesn't have a bottom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is only one kind of trajectory such a ball could have: coming in from infinitely faraway in the infinite past, rolling up to a turning point, reversing direction, and rolling back out to infinity in the infinite future.\n\nThat mayor may not be a sensible question, but it's not that hard to answer, because there aren't that many things the ball possibly could be doing. Every allowed trajectory for the ball looks basically the same: It rolls in from infinity, turns around, and rolls back out again. Depending on the total energy that the ball has, the turning point will reach different possible heights up the hill, but the qualitative behavior will be the same. So there will be precisely one moment in the lifetime of the ball when it isn't moving: the point where it turns around. At every other moment, it's either moving to the left, or moving to the right. Therefore, when we observe the ball at some random time, it seems very likely that it will be moving in one direction or the other.\n\nNow imagine further that there is an entire tiny civilization living inside the ball, complete with tiny scientists and philosophers. One of their favorite topics of discussion is what they call the'arrow of motion.\" These thinkers have noticed that their ball evolves in perfect accord with Newton's laws of motion. Those laws don't distinguish between left and right: They are completely reversible. If a ball were to be placed at the bottom of a valley, it would simply sit there forever, motionless. If it were not quite at the bottom, it would start rolling toward the bottom, and then oscillate back and forth in that vicinity. Yet, their ball seems to be rolling consistently in the same direction for very long periods of time! What can be going on?\n\nIn case the terms of this somewhat-off-kilter analogy are not immediately clear, the ball represents our universe, and the position from left to right represents entropy. The reason why it's not surprising to find the ball moving in a consistent direction is that it tends to always be moving in the same direction, with the exception of the one special turnaround point. Despite appearances, the portion of the trajectory where the ball is coming in from right to left is not any different from the portion where it is moving away from left to right; the motion of the ball is time-reversal symmetric around that turning point." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps the entropy of our universe is like that. The real problem with de Sitter space (without baby universes) is that it's almost always in equilibrium-any particular observer sees a thermal bath that lasts forever, with predictable fluctuations. More generally, if there exists any such thing as'equilibrium\" in the context of cosmology, it's hard to understand why we don't find the universe in that state. By suggesting that there is no such thing as equilibrium, we can avoid this dilemma. It becomes natural to observe entropy increasing, simply because entropy can always increase.\n\nThis is the scenario suggested by Jennifer Chen and me in 2004.294 We started by assuming that the universe is eternal-the Big Bang is not the beginning of time-and that de Sitter space was a natural high-entropy state for the universe to be in. That means we can'start\" with almost any state you like-pick some favorite distribution of matter and energy throughout space, and let it evolve. We put start in quotation marks because we don't want to prejudice initial conditions over conditions at any other time; respecting the reversibility of the laws of physics, we evolve the state both forward and backward in time. As I've argued here, the natural evolution forward in time is for space to expand and empty out, eventually approaching a de Sitter state. But from there, if we wait long enough, we will seethe occasional production of baby universes via quantum fluctuations. These baby universes will expand and inflate, and their false vacuum energy will eventually convert into ordinary matter and radiation, which eventually dilutes away until we achieve de Sitter space once again. From there, both the original universe and the new universe can give birth to new babies. This process continues forever. In the parts of spacetime that look like de Sitter, the universe is in equilibrium, and there is no arrow of time. But in baby universes, for the time in between the initial birth and the final cooling off, there is a pronounced arrow of time, as the entropy starts near zero and expands to its equilibrium value." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Most interestingly, the same story can be told backward in time, starting from the initial state, as depicted in Figure 87. If it is not de Sitter already, the universe will empty out backward in time as well as forward. From there it will give birth to baby universes, which expand and cool off. In these baby universes, the arrow of time is oriented in the opposite direction to those in the universes we have put in'the future.\" The overall direction of the time coordinate is utterly arbitrary, of course. Observers in the universes at the top of the diagram will think of the bottom of the diagram as'the past,\" while observers in the universes at the bottom of the diagram will think of the top as'the past.\" Their arrows of time are incompatible, but that doesn't lead to any Benjamin Button unpleasantness; these baby universes are completely separate from one another in time, and their arrows point away from each other, so no communication between them is possible.\n\nIn this scenario, the multiverse on ultra-large scales is symmetric about the middle moment; statistically, at least, the far future and the far past are indistinguishable. In that sense this picture resembles the bouncing cosmologies we discussed earlier; entropy increases forever in both directions of time, around a middle point of lowest entropy. There is a crucial difference, however: The moment of'lowest\" entropy is not actually a moment of'low\" entropy. That middle moment was not finely tuned to some special very-low-entropy initial condition, as in typical bouncing models. It was as high as we could get, fora single connected universe in the presence of a positive vacuum energy. That's the trick: allowing entropy to continue to rise in both directions of time, even though it started out large to begin with. There isn't any state we could possibly have chosen that would have prevented this kind of evolution from happening. An arrow of time is inevitable. 295" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Figure 87: Baby universes created in a background de Sitter space, both to the past and to the future." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Each baby universe starts in a dense, low-entropy state, and exhibits a local arrow of time as it expands and cools. The multiverse manifests overall time-reversal symmetry, as baby universes born in the past have an arrow of time pointing in the opposite direction to those in the future.\n\nHaving said all that, we may still want to ask why our patch of observable universe has such a low-entropy boundary condition atone end of time-why were our particular degrees of freedom ever found in such an unnatural state? But in this picture, that's not quite the right question to ask. We don't start by knowing which degrees of freedom we are, and then asking why they are (or were) in a certain configuration. Rather, we need to look at the multiverse as a whole, and ask what is most often experienced by observers like us. (If our scenario is going to be useful, the specific definition of'like us\" shouldn't matter.)\n\nThis version of the multiverse will feature both isolated Boltzmann brains lurking in the empty de Sitter regions, and ordinary observers found in the aftermath of the low-entropy beginnings of the baby universes. Indeed, there should bean infinite number of both types. So which infinity wins? The kinds of fluctuations that create freak observers in an equilibrium background are certainly rare, but the kinds of fluctuations that create baby universes are also very rare. Ultimately, it's not enough to draw fun pictures of universes branching off in both directions of time; we need to understand things at a quantitative level well enough to make reliable predictions. The state of the art, I have to admit, isn't up to that task just yet. But it's certainly plausible that a lot more observers arise as the baby universes grow and cool toward equilibrium than come about through random fluctuations in empty space.\n\nBRINGING IT HOME" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Does it work?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Does a multiverse scenario with baby universes offer a satisfactory explanation for the arrow of time?\n\nWe've covered a lot of possible approaches to the problem of the arrow of time: a space of states that changes with time, intrinsically irreversible dynamical laws, a special boundary condition, asymmetric re-collapsing universe, a bouncing universe with and without overall time-symmetry, an unbounded multiverse, and of course the Boltzmann-Lucretius scenario of fluctuations around an eternal equilibrium state. There-collapsing Gold universe seems pretty unlikely on empirical grounds, since the expansion of the universe is accelerating; and the Boltzmann-Lucretius universe also seems ruled out by observation, since the Big Bang had a much lower entropy than it had any right to in that picture. But the other possibilities are still basically on the table; we may find them more or less satisfying, but we can't be confident enough to dismiss them out of hand. Not to mention the very real possibility that the right answer is something we simply haven't thought of yet.\n\nIt's hard to tell whether baby universes and the multiverse will ultimately play a role in understanding the arrow of time. For one thing, as I've taken pains (perhaps too many) to emphasize, there were many steps along the way where we were fearlessly speculative, to say the least. Our understanding of quantum gravity is not good enough to say for sure whether baby universes really do fluctuate into existence from de Sitter space; there seem to be arguments both for and against. We also don't completely understand the role of the vacuum energy. We've been speaking as if the cosmological constant we observe in our universe today is really the minimum possible vacuum energy, but there is little hard evidence for that assumption. In the context of the string theory landscape, for example, it's easy enough to get states with the right value of the vacuum energy, but it's also easy to get all kinds of states, including ones with negative vacuum energy or precisely zero vacuum energy. A more comprehensive theory of quantum gravity and the multiverse would predict how all of these possible states fit together, including transitions between different numbers of macroscopic dimensions as well as different values of the vacuum energy. Not to mention that we haven't really taken quantum mechanics completely seriously-we've nodded in the direction of quantum fluctuations but have drawn pictures of what are essentially classical space times. The right answer, whatever it may turnout to be, will more likely be phrased in terms of wave functions, Schrödinger's equation, and Hilbert spaces." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The important point is not the prospects of any particular model, but the crucial clue that the arrow of time provides us as we try to understand the universe on the largest possible scales. If the universe we see is really all there is, with the Big Bang as a low-entropy beginning, we seem to be stuck with an uncomfortable fine-tuning problem. Embedding our observable patch in a wider multiverse alleviates this problem by changing the context: The goal is not to explain why the whole universe has a low-entropy boundary condition at the beginning of time, but why there exist relatively small regions of spacetime, arising within a much larger ensemble, where the entropy dramatically increases. That question, in turn, can be answered if the multiverse doesn't have any state of maximum entropy: The entropy increases because it can always increase, no matter what state we are in. The trick is to set things up so that the mechanism by which entropy increases overall is the production of universes that resemble our own.\n\nThe nice thing about a multiverse based on de Sitter space and baby universes is that it avoids all of the standard pitfalls that beset many approaches to the arrow of time: It treats the past and future on an equal footing, doesn't invoke irreversibility at the level of fundamental dynamics, and never assumes an ad hoc low-entropy state for the universe at any moment in time. It serves as a demonstration that such an explanation is at least conceivable, even if we aren't yet able to judge whether this particular one is sensible, much less part of the ultimately correct answer. There's every reason to be optimistic that we will eventually settle on an understanding of how the arrow of time arises naturally and dynamically from the laws of physics themselves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "EPILOGUE\n\n-Friedrich Nietzsche\n\nUnlike many authors, I had no struggle settling on the title for this book. 296 Once I had come up with From Eternity to Here, it seemed irresistible. The connotations were perfect: On the one hand, a classic movie (based on a classic novel), with that iconic scene of untamed waves from the Pacific crashing around lovers Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster caught in a passionate embrace. On the other hand, the cosmological grandeur implicit in the word eternity.\n\nBut the title is even more appropriate than those superficial considerations might suggest. This book has not only been about'eternity\"; it's also been about'here.\" The puzzle of the arrow of time doesn't begin with giant telescopes or powerful particle accelerators; it's in our kitchens, every time we break an egg. Or stir milk into coffee, or put an ice cube into warm water, or spill wine onto the carpet, or let aromas drift through a room, or shuffle anew deck of cards, or turn a delicious meal into biological energy, or experience an event that leaves a lasting memory, or give birth to anew generation. All of these commonplace occurrences exhibit the fundamental irreversibility that is the hallmark of the arrow of time.\n\nThe chain of reasoning that started with an attempt to understand that arrow led us inexorably to cosmology-to eternity. Boltzmann provided us with an elegant and compelling microscopic understanding of entropy in terms of statistical mechanics. But that understanding does not explain the Second Law of Thermodynamics unless we also invoke a boundary condition-why was the entropy ever low to start with? The entropy of an unbroken egg is much lower than it could be, but such eggs are nevertheless common, because the overall entropy of the universe is much lower than it could be. And that's because it used to be even lower, all the way back to the beginning of what we can observe. What happens here, in our kitchen, is intimately connected with what happens in eternity, at the beginning of the universe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Figures such as Galileo, Newton, and Einstein are celebrated for proposing laws of physics that hadn't previously been appreciated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But their accomplishments also share a common theme: They illuminate the universality of Nature. What happens here happens everywhere-as Richard Feynman put it, \"The entire universe is in a glass of wine, if we look at it closely enough.\" 297 Galileo showed that the heavens were messy and ever changing, just like conditions hereon Earth; Newton understood that the same laws of gravity that accounted for falling apples could explain the motions of the planets; and Einstein realized that space and time were different aspects of a single unified spacetime, and that the curvature of spacetime underlies the dynamics of the Solar System and the birth of the universe.\n\nLikewise, the rules governing entropy and time are common to our everyday lives and to the farthest stretches of the multiverse. We don't yet know all the answers, but we're on the threshold of making progress on some big questions.\n\nWHAT'S THE ANSWER?\n\nOver the course of this book, we've lovingly investigated what we know about how time works, both in the smooth deterministic context of relativity and spacetime, and in the messy probabilistic world of statistical mechanics. We finally arrived at cosmology, and explored how our best theories of the universe fall embarrassingly short when confronted with the universe's most obvious feature: the difference in entropy between early times and late times. Then, after fourteen chapters of building up the problems, we devoted a scant single chapter to the possible solutions, and fell short of a full-throated endorsement of any of them.\n\nThat may seem frustrating, but the balance was entirely intentional. Understanding a deeply puzzling feature of the natural world is a process that can go through many stages-we maybe utterly clueless, we may understand how to state the problem but not have any good ideas about the answer, we may have several reasonable answers at our disposal but not know which (if any) are right, or we may have it all figured out. The arrow of time falls in between the second and third of these options-we can state the problem very clearly but have only a few vague ideas of what the answer might be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In such a situation, it's appropriate to dwell on understanding the problem, and not become too wedded to any of the prospective solutions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A century from now, most everything we covered in the first three parts of this book should remain standing. Relativity is on firm ground, as is quantum mechanics, and the framework of statistical mechanics. We are even confident in our understanding of the basic evolution of the universe, at least from a minute or so after the Big Bang up to today. But our current ideas about quantum gravity, the multiverse, and what happened at the Big Bang are still very speculative. They may grow into a robust understanding, but many of them maybe completely abandoned. At this point it's more important to understand the map of the territory than to squabble over what is the best route to take through it.\n\nOur universe isn't a fluctuation around an equilibrium background, or it would look very different. And it doesn't seem likely that the fundamental laws of physics are irreversible at a microscopic level-or, if they are, it's very hard to see how that could actually account for the evolution of entropy and complexity we observe in our universe. A boundary condition stuck at the beginning of time is impossible to rule out, but also seems to be avoiding the question more than answering it. It may ultimately be the best we can do, but I strongly suspect that the low entropy of our early universe is a clue to something deeper, not just a brute fact we can do no more than accept.\n\nWe're left with the possibility that our observable universe is part of a much larger structure, the multiverse. By situating what we see inside a larger ensemble, we open the possibility of explaining our apparently finely tuned beginning without imposing any fine-tuning on the multiverse as a whole. That move isn't sufficient, of course; we need to show why there should be a consistent entropy gradient, and why that gradient should be manifested in a universe that looks like our own, rather than in some other way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We discussed a specific model of which I am personally fond: a universe that is mostly high-entropy de Sitter space, but which gives birth to disconnected baby universes, allowing the entropy to increase without bound and creating patches of spacetime like the one around us along the way. The details of this model are highly speculative, and rely on assumptions that stretch beyond what the state of the art allows us to reliably compute, to put it mildly. More important, I think, is the general paradigm, according to which entropy is seen to be increasing because entropy can always increase; there is no equilibrium state for the universe. That setup naturally leads to an entropy gradient, and is naturally time-symmetric about some moment of minimal (although not necessarily'small\") entropy. It would be interesting to see if there are other ways of possibly carrying out this general program.\n\nThere is one other approach lurking in the background, which we occasionally acknowledged but never granted our undivided attention: the idea that'time\" itself is simply an approximation that is occasionally useful, including in our local universe, but doesn't have any fundamental meaning. This is a perfectly legitimate possibility. Lessons from the holographic principle, as well as a general feeling that the underlying ingredients of a quantum mechanical theory may appear very different from what shows up in the classical regime, make it quite reasonable to imagine that time might bean emergent phenomenon rather than a necessary part of our ultimate description of the world.\n\nOne reason why the time-is-just-an-approximation alternative wasn't emphasized in this book is that there doesn't seem to be too much to say about it, at least within our present state of knowledge. Even by our somewhat forgiving standards, the way in which time might emerge from a more fundamental description is not well understood. But there is a more compelling reason, as well: Even if time is only an approximation, it's an approximation that seems extremely good in the part of the universe we can observe, and that's where the arrow-of-time problem is to be found. Sure, we can imagine that the viability of classical spacetime as a useful concept breaks down completely near the Big Bang. But, all by itself, that doesn't tell us anything at all about why conditions at that end of time (what we call'the past\") should be so different from conditions at the other end of time (\"the future\") within our observable patch. Unless you can say, \"Time is only an approximate concept, and therefore entropy should behave as follows in the regime where it's valid to speak about time,\" this alternative seems more like an evasive maneuver than a viable strategy. But that is largely a statement about our ignorance; it is certainly possible that the ultimate answer might lie in this direction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "THE EMPIRICAL CIRCLE\n\nThe pioneers of thermodynamics-Carnot, Clausius, and others-were motivated by practical desires; among other things, they wanted to build better steam engines. We've traveled directly from their insights to grand speculations about universes beyond our own. The crucial question is: How do we get back? Even if our universe does have an arrow of time because it belongs to a multiverse with an unbounded entropy, how would we ever know?\n\nScientists are fiercely proud of the empirical nature of what they do. Scientific theories do not become accepted because they are logical or beautiful, or fulfill some philosophical goal cherished by the scientist. Those might be good reasons why a theory is proposed-but being accepted is a much higher standard. Scientific theories must, at the end of the day, fit the data. No matter how intrinsically compelling a theory might be, if it fails to fit the data, it's a curiosity, not an achievement.\n\nBut this criterion of'fitting the data\" is more slippery than it first appears. For one thing, lots of very different theories might fit the data; for another, a very promising theory might not completely fit the data as it currently stands, even though there is a kernel of truth to it. At a more subtle level, one theory might seem to fit the data perfectly well, but lead to a conceptual dead end, or to an intrinsic inconsistency, while another theory doesn't fit the data well at all, but holds promise for developing into something more acceptable. After all, no matter how much data we collect, we have only ever performed a tiny fraction of all possible experiments. How are we to choose?\n\nThe reality of how science is done can't be whittled down to a few simple mottos. The issue of distinguishing'science\" from'not science\" is sufficiently tricky that it goes by its own name: the demarcation problem. Philosophers of science have great fun arguing into the night about the proper way to resolve the demarcation problem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Despite the fact that the goal of a scientific theory is to fit the data, the worst possible scientific theory would be one that fit all possible data. That's because the real goal isn't just to'fit\" what we see in the universe; it's to explain what we see. And you can explain what we see only if you understand why things are the particular way they are, rather than some other way. In other words, your theory has to say that somethings do not ever happen-otherwise you haven't said very much at all.\n\nThis idea was put forth most forcefully by Sir Karl Popper, who claimed that the important feature of a scientific theory wasn't whether it was'verifiable,\" but whether it was'falsifiable.\" 298 That's not to say that there are data that contradict the theory-only that the theory clearly makes predictions that could, in principle, be contradicted by some experiment we could imagine doing. The theory has to stick its neck out; otherwise, it's not scientific. Popper had in mind Karl Marx's theory of history, and Sigmund Freud's theory of psychoanalysis. These influential intellectual constructs, in his mind, fell far short of the scientific status their proponents liked to claim. Popper felt that you could take anything that happened in the world, or any behavior shown by a human being, and come up with an'explanation\" of those data on the basis of Marx or Freud-but you wouldn't ever be able to point to any observed event and say, \"Aha, there's noway to make that consistent with these theories.\" He contrasted these with Einstein's theory of relativity, which sounded equally esoteric and inscrutable to the person on the street, but made very definite predictions that (had the experiments turned out differently) could have falsified the theory.\n\nTHE MULTIVERSE IS NOT A THEORY" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where does that leave the multiverse? Here we are, claiming to be engaged in the practice of science, attempting to'explain\" the observed arrow of time in our universe by invoking an infinite plethora of unobservable other universes. How is the claim that other universes exist falsifiable? It should come as no surprise that this kind of speculative theorizing about unobservable things leaves a bad taste in the mouths of many scientists. If you can't make a specific prediction that I could imagine doing an experiment to falsify, they say, what you're doing isn't science. It's philosophy at best, and not very good philosophy at that.\n\nBut the truth, as is often the case, is a bit more complicated. All this talk of multiverses might very well end up being a dead end. A century from now, our successors might be shaking their heads at all the intellectual effort that was wasted on trying to figure out what came before the Big Bang, as much as we wonder at all that work put into alchemy or the caloric theory of heat. But it won't be because modern cosmologists had abandoned the true path of science; it will (if that's how things turnout) simply be because the theory wasn't correct.\n\nTwo points deserve to be emphasized concerning the role of unobservable things in science. First, it's wrong to think of the goal of science as simply to fit the data. The goal of science goes much deeper than that: It's to understand the behavior of the natural world. 299 In the early seventeenth century, Johannes Kepler proposed his three laws of planetary motion, which correctly accounted for the voluminous astronomical data that had been collected by his mentor, Tycho Brahe. But we didn't really understand the dynamics of planets within the Solar System until Isaac Newton showed that they could all be explained in terms of a simple inverse-square law for gravity. Similarly, we don't need to look beyond the Big Bang to understand the evolution of our observable universe; all we have to do is specify what conditions were like at early times, and leave it at that. But that's a strategy that denies us any understanding of why things were the way they were." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Similar logic would have argued against the need for the theory of inflation; all inflation did was take things that we already knew were true about the universe (flatness, uniformity, absence of monopoles) and attempt to explain them in terms of simple underlying rules." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We didn't need to do that; we could have accepted things as they are. But as a result of our desire to do better, to actually understand the early universe rather than simply accept it, we discovered that inflation provides more than we had even asked for: a theory of the origin and nature of the primordial perturbations that grow into galaxies and large-scale structure. That's the benefit to searching for understanding, rather than being content with fitting the data: True understanding leads you places you didn't know you wanted to go. If we someday understand why the early universe had a low entropy, it is a good bet that the underlying mechanism will teach us more than that single fact.\n\nThe second point is even more important, although it sounds somewhat trivial: science is a messy, complicated business. It will never stop being true that the basis of science is empirical knowledge; we are guided by data, not by pure reason. But along the way to being guided by data, we use all sorts of nonempirical clues and preferences in constructing models and comparing them to one another. There's nothing wrong with that. Just because the end product must be judged on the basis of how well it explains the data, doesn't mean that every step along the way must have the benefit of an intimate and detailed contact with experiment.\n\nMore specifically: The multiverse is not a'theory.\" If it were, it would be perfectly fair to criticize it on the basis of our difficulty incoming up with possible experimental tests. The correct way to think about the multiverse is as a prediction. The theory-such as it is, in its current underdeveloped state-is the marriage of the principles behind quantum field theory to our basic understanding of how curved spacetime works. Starting from those inputs, we don't simply theorize that the universe could have undergone an early period of superfast acceleration; we predict that inflation should occur, if a quantum inflaton field with the right properties finds itself in the right state. Likewise, we don't simply say, \"Wouldn't it be cool if there were an infinite number of different universes?\" Rather, we predict on the basis of reasonable extrapolations of gravity and quantum field theory that a multiverse really should exist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The prediction that we live in a multiverse is, as far as we can tell, untestable. (Although, who knows? Scientists have come up with remarkably clever ideas before.) But that misses the point. The multiverse is part of a larger, more comprehensive structure. The question should be not'How can we test whether there is a multiverse?\" but'How can we test the theories that predict the multiverse should exist?\" Right now we don't know how to use those theories to make a falsifiable prediction. But there's no reason to think that we can't, in principle, do so. It will require a lot more work on the part of theoretical physicists to develop these ideas to the point where we can say what, if any, the testable predictions might be. One might be impatient that those predictions aren't laid out before them straightforwardly right from the start-but that's a personal preference, not a principled philosophical stance. Sometimes it takes time fora promising scientific idea to be nurtured and developed to the point where we can judge it fairly.\n\nTHE SEARCH FOR MEANING INA PREPOSTEROUS UNIVERSE\n\nThroughout history, human beings have (quite naturally) tended to consider the universe inhuman-being-centric terms. That might mean something as literal as putting ourselves at the geographical center of the universe-an assumption that took some effort to completely overcome. Ever since the heliocentric model of the Solar System gained widespread acceptance, scientists have held up the Copernican Principle-\"we do not occupy a favored place in the universe\"-as a caution against treating ourselves as something special.\n\nBut at a deeper level, our anthropocentrism manifests itself as a conviction that human beings somehow matter to the universe. This feeling is at the core of much of the resistance in some quarters to accepting Darwin's theory of natural selection as the right explanation for the evolution of life on Earth. The urge to think that we matter can take the form of a straightforward belief that we (or some subset of us) are God's chosen people, or something as vague as an insistence that all this marvelous world around us must be more than just an accident." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Different people have different definitions of the word God, or different notions of what the nominal purpose of human life might be. God can become such an abstract and transcendental concept that the methods of science have nothing to say about the matter. If God is identified with Nature, or the laws of physics, or our feeling of awe when contemplating the universe, the question of whether or not such a concept provides a useful way of thinking about the world is beyond the scope of empirical inquiry.\n\nThere is a very different tradition, however, that seeks evidence for God in the workings of the physical universe. This is the approach of natural theology, which stretches long before Aristotle, through William Paley's watchmaker analogy, up to the present day. 300 It used to be that the best evidence in favor of the argument from design came from living organisms, but Darwin provided an elegant mechanism to explain what had previously seemed inexplicable. In response, some adherents to this philosophy have shifted their focus to a different seemingly inexplicable thing: from the origin of life to the origin of the cosmos.\n\nThe Big Bang model, with its singular beginning, seems to offer encouragement to those who would look for the finger of God in the creation of the universe. (Georges Lemaître, the Belgian priest who developed the Big Bang model, refused to enlist it for any theological purposes: \"As far as I can see, such a theory remains entirely outside of any metaphysical or religious question.\" 301) In Newtonian spacetime, there wasn't even any such thing as the creation of the universe, at least not as an event happening at a particular time; time and space persisted forever. The introduction of a particular beginning to spacetime, especially one that apparently defies easy understanding, creates a temptation to put the responsibility for explaining what went on into the hands of God. Sure, the reasoning goes, you can find dynamical laws that govern the evolution of the universe from moment to moment, but explaining the creation of the universe itself requires an appeal to something outside the universe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hopefully, one of the implicit lessons of this book has been that it's not a good idea to bet against the ability of science to explain anything whatsoever about the operation of the natural world, including its beginning. The Big Bang represented a point past which our understanding didn't stretch, back when it was first studied in the 1920s-and it continues to do so today. We don't know exactly what happened 14 billion years ago, but there's no reason whatsoever to doubt that we will eventually figure it out. Scientists are tackling the problem from a variety of angles. The rate at which scientific understanding advances is notoriously hard to predict, but it's not hard to predict that it will be advancing.\n\nWhere does that leave us? Giordano Bruno argued fora homogeneous universe with an infinite number of stars and planets. Avicenna and Galileo, with the conservation of momentum, undermined the need fora Prime Mover to explain the persistence of motion. Darwin explained the development of species as an undirected process of descent with random modifications, chosen by natural selection. Modern cosmology speculates that our observable universe could be only one of an infinite number of universes within a grand ensemble multiverse. The more we understand about the world, the smaller and more peripheral to its operation we seem to be. 302\n\nThat's okay. We find ourselves, not as a central player in the life of the cosmos, but as a tiny epiphenomenon, flourishing fora brief moment as we ride a wave of increasing entropy from the Big Bang to the quiet emptiness of the future universe. Purpose and meaning are not to be found in the laws of nature, or in the plans of any external agent who made things that way; it is our job to create them. One of those purposes-among many-stems from our urge to explain the world around us the best we can. If our lives are brief and undirected, at least we can take pride in our mutual courage as we struggle to understand things much greater than ourselves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEXT STEPS\n\nIt's surprisingly hard to think clearly about time. We're all familiar with it, but the problem might be that we're too familiar. We're soused to the arrow of time that it's hard to conceptualize time without the arrow. We are led, unprotesting, to temporal chauvinism, prejudicing explanations of our current state in terms of the past over those in terms of the future. Even highly trained professional cosmologists are not immune.\n\nDespite all the ink that has been spilled and all the noise generated by discussions about the nature of time, I would argue that it's been discussed too little, rather than too much. But people seem to be catching on. The intertwined subjects of time, entropy, information, and complexity bring together an astonishing variety of intellectual disciplines: physics, mathematics, biology, psychology, computer science, the arts. It's about time that we took time seriously, and faced its challenges head-on.\n\nWithin physics, that's starting to happen. For much of the twentieth century, the field of cosmology was a bit of a backwater; there were many ideas, and little data to distinguish between them. An era of precision cosmology, driven by large-scale surveys enabled by new technologies, has changed all that; unanticipated wonders have been revealed, from the acceleration of the universe to the snapshot of early times provided by the cosmic microwave background. 303 Now it is the turn for ideas to catch up to the reality. We have interesting suggestions from inflation, from quantum cosmology, and from string theory, to how the universe might have begun and what might have come before. Our task is to develop these promising ideas into honest theories, which can be compared with experiment and reconciled with the rest of physics.\n\nPredicting the future isn't easy. (Curse the absence of a low-entropy future boundary condition!) But the pieces are assembled for science to take dramatic steps toward answering the ancient questions we have about the past and the future. It's time we understood our place within eternity." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Helping with the plot, keep the story going.\nTags: urban fantasy, detective, ghosts, magic, action\nAuthor: Jim Butcher\nTitle: Grave Peril\nChapter: 37" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Come along, sister,\" Kyle said. \"Tainted or not, we shall tear open his heart and see what a wizard's blood tastes like.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fury surged through me, before fear or anxiety, a fury so scarlet and bright that I could scarcely believe it was mine. Maybe it wasn't. After all, you are what you eat-even if you're a wizard.\n\n\"Let go, Kyle,\" I grated. \"You've got one chance to live through this. Walkaway, right now.\"\n\nKyle laughed, letting his fangs extend. \"No more bluffs, wizard,\" he purred. \"No more illusions. Take him, sister.\"\n\nKelly came at me in a rush, but I had been waiting for that. I lifted my right hand and snarled, \"Ventas servitas!\" A furious column of wind slammed into her like a bag of sand, catching her in midair and driving her across the room, into the wall.\n\nKyle screamed in fury, drawing his hand back off of my throat and then driving it at me, I dodged the first blow by jerking my head to one side, and heard his hand crunch into the stone. The dodge cost me my balance, and as I teetered, he lashed out again, aiming for my neck. All I could do was watch it come.\n\nAnd then Susan came between us. I didn't see her move toward us, but I saw her catch the blow in both of her hands. She spun, twisting her hips and body and shoulders, letting out a furious scream. She threw Kyle across the room, in the air the whole way, and with no noticeable trajectory. He slammed into his sister, driving them both into the wall once more. I heard Kelly scream, incoherent and bestial. The black, slime-covered bat-thing beneath the pleasant flesh mask tore its way out, shredding damply flapping skin with its talons as it started raking at Kyle. He struggled against her, shouting something that became lost in his creature-form's scream as he too tore his way free. The two of them started clawing atone another in a frenzy, fangs and tongues and talons flashing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I snarled, and rolled my wrist, flipping my hand toward them in a gesture wholly unfamiliar tome." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Words spilled from my lips in thundering syllables, \"Satharak, na-kadum!\" That scarlet, furious power I had stolen from Kravos flashed over me, following the gesture of my right hand, lashing out in ablaze of scarlet light that spun around the maddened vampires. The scarlet blaze whirled about them, winding too swiftly to be seen, a ribbon of flame that cocooned them both, burned brighter and hotter, the spell enfolding them in fire.\n\nThey screamed as they died, sounds like metal sheets tearing, and somehow also like terrified children. Heat thrummed back against us, almost singeing the exposed hairs on my legs, my chest. Greasy black smoke started to spread over the floor, and it stank.\n\nI watched as they burned, though I could see nothing beneath the blazing flame-cocoon. Part of me wanted to dance in malicious glee, to throw my arms up in the air and crow my defiance and scorn to my enemies while they died, and to roll through their ashes when they'd cooled.\n\nMore of me grew sickened. I stared at the spell I had wrought and couldn't believe it had come from me-whether or not I'd taken the power, maybe even some primal knowledge of this spell, from Kravos's devoured spirit, the magic had come from me. I had killed them, as swiftly and as efficiently and with as little forethought as one gives to crushing an ant.\n\nThey were vampires, some part of me said. They had it coming. They were monsters.\n\nI glanced aside, at Susan, who stood panting, her white shirt stained dark brown with blood. She stared at the fire, her eyes dark and wide, the whites filled in with black. I watched her shudder and close her eyes. When she opened them again, they were normal once more, blurred with tears." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Within the confines of my spell, the screams stopped. Now there were only cracklings. Poppings. The sound of overheated marrow boiling, bursting out of bone.\n\nI turned away, toward the door, and said, \"Let's go.\"\n\nSusan and Justine followed me.\n\nI led them through the basement. It was large and unfinished and damp. The room outside the washroom had a large drain in the center of the floor. There were corpses, there. Children from the masquerade. Others, dressed in rags and castoff clothes. The missing street people.\n\nI stopped long enough to send my senses questing out over them, but there was no stirring of breath, no faint pulse of heartbeat. The corpses showed no lividity at all. The floor lay damp beneath our feet, and a hose still ran out a trickle of water, to one side.\n\nDinner had already been served.\n\n\"I hate them,\" I said. My voice rang out too loud, in that room. \"I hate them, Susan.\"\n\nShe said nothing, in answer.\n\n\"I'm not going to let them keep this up. I've tried to stay out of their way before. I can't, now. Not after what I've seen.\"\n\n\"You can't fight them,\" Justine whispered. \"They're too strong. There are too many of them.\"\n\nI held up a hand, and Justine fell silent. I tilted my head to one side, and heard a faint thrumming, at the very edges of my magical perception. I stalked across the room, around the bodies, to an alcove in the wall.\n\nCheap shelving had been installed in the alcove, and on the shelves sat my shield bracelet, my blasting rod, and Bob's skull, still in its fishnet sack. Even as I approached, the skull's eyes flared to life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Harry,\" Bob said. \"Stars and skies, you're all right!\" He hesitated fora second, and then said, \"And looking grim. Even dressed in boxers with yellow duckies on them.\"\n\nI glanced down, and did my best to picture a vampire wearing boxers with yellow duckies. Ora wizard wearing yellow duckies, for that matter. \"Bob,\" I said.\n\nBob whistled. \"Wow. Your aura is different. You look a lot like-\"\n\n\"Shut up, Bob,\" I said, my voice very quiet.\n\nHe did.\n\nI put on my bracelet, and took up my rod. I scanned around and found my staff wedged into a corner, and took it out as well. \"Bob,\" I asked. \"What is all my stuff doing here?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Bob said. \"That. Well. Bianca got the idea, somewhere, that your stuff might explode if anyone messed around with it.\"\n\nI heard the wryness in my voice, though I didn't feel it. \"She did, did she.\"\n\n\"I can't imagine how.\"\n\n\"I'm doubling your pay.\" I took Bob's skull and handed it back to Justine. \"Carry this. Don't drop it.\"\n\nBob whistled. \"Hey, cutie. That's areal nice red cloak you got there. Will you let me seethe lining?\"\n\nI swatted the skull on the way past, drawing an outraged, \"Ow!\" from Bob.\n\n\"Stop goofing around. We're still inside Bianca's, and we still have to get out.\" I frowned, and glanced at Justine, then swiftly, left and right. \"Where's Susan?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Justine blinked. \"She was right here behind-\" She turned, staring.\n\nWater dripped.\n\nSilence reigned.\n\nJustine started trembling like a leaf. \"Here,\" she whispered. \"They're here. We can't see them.\"\n\n\"What's this'we'stuff, kimosabe,\" Bob muttered. The skull spun about in its fishnet sack. \"I don't see any veils, Harry.\"\n\nI swept my eyes left and right, gripping my blasting rod. \"Did you see her leave? Or anyone take her?\"\n\nBob coughed. \"Well. Truth be told, I was looking at Justine's luscious little-\"\n\n\"I get the point, Bob.\"\n\n\"Sorry.\"\n\nI shook my head, irritated. \"They snuck in, under a veil maybe. Grabbed Susan and went. Why the hell didn't they stick around? Just put a knife in my back? Why didn't they take Justine, too?\"\n\n\"Good questions,\" Bob said.\n\n\"I'll tell you why. Because they weren't here. They couldn't have just carried Susan off that easy. Not now.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" Bob asked.\n\n\"Trust me. She'd be a handful. They couldn't do it without making a fuss, which we'd notice.\"\n\n\"Assuming you're right,\" Bob said, \"why would she just walkaway?\"\n\nJustine glanced back at me, and licked her lips. \"Bianca could make her. I've seen her do it. She made Susan walk into the laundry room on her own.\"\n\nI grunted. \"Looks like Bianca's been hitting the books, Bob.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Vampire wizard,\" Bob said. \"Black magic. Could be very tough.\"\n\n\"So can I. Justine, stay behind me. Keep your eyes open.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" she said, her voice quiet. I strode past her, toward the stairs. Some of the energy I'd felt before had faded away. My pain and weakness grew closer tome, more noticeable. I did everything I could to shove it to the back of my mind. A swift little thrill of panic gabbled in my throat and tried to make me start screaming. I shoved that away, too. I just walked to the bottom of the stairs, and looked up them.\n\nThe doors at the top were elegant wood, and standing open. A soft breeze and the smell of night air flowed down the stairs. Late night, faint with the traces of dusty dawn. I glanced back at Justine, and she all but flinched away from me.\n\n\"Stay down here,\" I told her. \"Bob, somethings are going to start flying. Give her whatever help you can.\"\n\n\"All right, Harry,\" Bob said. \"You know that door's been opened for you. They're going to be waiting for you to walk up there.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said. \"I'm not getting any stronger. Might as well do it now.\"\n\n\"You could wait until dawn. Then they'd-\"\n\nI cut him off, short. \"Then they'd force their way down hereto escape the sunlight. And it would still be a fight.\" I glanced at Justine and said, \"I'll get you out, if I can.\"\n\nShe chanced a swift glance at my face, and back down. \"Thank you, Mister Dresden. For trying.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sure, kid.\" I flexed my left hand, feeling the cool silver of the shield bracelet there. I gripped my staff tight. Then rolled the blasting rod through my fingers, feeling the runes carved into the wood, formulae of power, fire, force.\n\nI put one foot on the stairs. My barefoot made little sound, but the board creaked beneath my weight. I squared my shoulders, and went up the next stair, and the next. Resolute, I guess. Terrified, certainly. Seething with power, with a simmering anger ready to boil over again.\n\nI tried to clear my mind, to hang onto the anger and to dismiss the fear. I had limited success, but I made it up the stairs.\n\nAt the top, Bianca stood atone end of the great hall through the open doors. She wore the white gown I'd seen her in before, the soft fabric draping and stretching in alluring curves, creating shadows upon her with an artist's conviction. Susan knelt beside her, shaking, her head bowed. Bianca kept one hand on her hair.\n\nSpread out around and behind Bianca were a dozen vampires; skinny limbs, flabby black bodies and drooling fangs, the flaps of skin between arm and flank and thigh stretched out, here and there, like half-functional wings. Some of the vampires had climbed up the walls and perched there, like gangly black spiders. All of them, even Susan, had huge, dark eyes. All of them stood looking at me.\n\nIn front of Bianca knelt a half-dozen men in plain suits that bulged in odd places. They held guns in their hands. Great big guns. Some kind of assault weapons, I thought. Their eyes looked a little vague, like they'd only been allowed to see some of what was in the room. Just as well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I looked back at them and leaned on my staff. And I laughed. It came out a wheezing cackle, that echoed around the great hall, and caused the vampires to stir restlessly.\n\nBianca let her lips curve into a slow smile. \"And what do you find so amusing, my pet?\"\n\nI smiled back. There was nothing friendly in it. \"All of this. Fora guy with two sticks and a pair of yellow ducky boxer shorts, you must think I'm areal dangerous man.\"\n\n\"As a matter of fact, I do,\" Bianca said. \"Were I you, I would consider it flattery.\"\n\n\"Would you?\" I asked.\n\nBianca let her smile widen. \"Oh. Oh, yes. Gentlemen,\" she said, to the men with guns. \"Fire.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I lifted my left hand before me, pouring energy into the shield bracelet, and shouted, \"Riflettum!\"\n\nThe guns roared with fire and thunder. Sparks showered off of a barrier less than six inches away from my hand. The bracelet grew warm as the security men poured a hail of gunfire at me. It stopped, just short, and bullets shot aside, chewing through the expensive woodwork and bouncing wildly around the room. One of the vampires let out a yowl and dropped from the wall to splat on the ground like a fat bug. One of the security men's guns suddenly jumped and twisted, and he cried out in pain, reeling back, blood streaming from his hands and the ruins of his face.\n\nTechnology doesn't tend to work too well around magic. Including the feeding mechanisms of automatic weapons.\n\nTwo of the guns jammed before dumping their full clips, and the others fell silent, spent. I still stood, one hand extended. Bullets lay allover the floor in front of me, misshapen slugs of lead. The security men stared, and stumbled away from me, behind Bianca and the vampires, and out the door. I don't blame them. If all I had was a gun, and it had just been that useless, I would run, too.\n\nI took a step forward, scattering bullets with my bare feet. \"Get out of my way,\" I said. \"Let us out. No one else has to get hurt.\"\n\n\"Kyle,\" Bianca said, stroking Susan's hair. \"Kelly. She was quite mad in any case. Not all of them make the transition well.\" Her gaze traveled down to Susan.\n\nThe smile I wore sharpened. \"Last chance, Bianca. Let us out peacefully, and you walkaway alive.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And if I say no?\" she asked, very mild.\n\nI snarled, my temper snapping. I lifted the blasting rod, whirled it around my head as I drew in my will, and snarled, \"Fuego!\" Power exploded from the rod, circular coruscations following a solid scarlet column of energy that lanced forward, toward the vampire's head.\n\nBianca kept smiling. She lifted her left hand, mumbled some gibberish, and I saw cold darkness gather before her, a concave disk that met my energy lance and absorbed it, scattered it, sent smaller bolts of fire darting here and there, splashing on the floor in small, blazing puddles.\n\nI just stared at her fora moment. I knew that she'd known some tricks, maybe a veil or two, a glamour or two, maybe how to whip up a fascination. But that kind of straightforward deflection wasn't something just anyone could do. Some of the people on the White Council couldn't have stopped that shot without help.\n\nBianca smiled at me, and lowered her hand. The vampires laughed, hissing, inhuman laughter. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and a cold shudder glided gleefully up and down my spine.\n\n\"Well, Mister Dresden,\" she purred. \"It would appear that Mavra was an able instructor, and my lessons well learned. We seem to beat something of a standoff. But there's one more piece I'd like to put on the board.\" She clapped her hands, and gestured to one side.\n\nOne of the vampires opened a door. Standing behind it, both hands on a stylish cane, stood a medium-sized man, dark of hair and coloring, brawny through the chest and shoulders. He wore a tailored suit of dark grey in an immaculate cut. He made me think of native South Americans, with a sturdy jaw and broad, strong features." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nice suit,\" I told him.\n\nHe looked me up and down. \"Nice... ducks.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" I said, \"I'll bite. Who's that?\"\n\n\"My name,\" the man said, \"is Ortega. Don Paolo Ortega, of the Red Court.\"\n\n\"Hiya, Don,\" I said. \"I'd like to lodge a complaint.\"\n\nHe smiled, a show of broad, white teeth. \"I'm sure you would, Mister Dresden. But I have been monitoring the situation here. And the Baroness,\" he nodded to Bianca, \"has broken none of the Accords. Nor has she violated the laws of hospitality, nor her own given word.\"\n\n\"Oh come on,\" I said. \"She's broken the spirit of all of them!\"\n\nOrtega tsked. \"Alas, that in the Accords it was agreed that there is no spirit of the law, between our kinds, Mister Dresden. Only its letter. And Baroness Bianca has strictly adhered to its letter. You have instigated multiple combats in her home, murdered her sworn bondsman, inflicted damage to her property and her reputation. And now you stand here prepared to continue your grievance with her, in a most unlawful and cavalier fashion. I believe that what you do is sometimes referred to as \"cowboy justice.\"\"\n\n\"If there's a point inhere, somewhere,\" I said, \"get to it.\"\n\nOrtega's eyes glittered. \"I am present as a witness to the Red King, and the Vampire Courts at large. That is all. I am merely a witness.\"\n\nBianca turned her eyes back tome. \"A witness who will carry word of your treacherous attack and intrusion back to the Courts,\" she said. \"It will mean war between our kindred and the White Council.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "War.\n\nBetween the vampires and the White Council.\n\nSon of a bitch. It was unthinkable. Such a conflict hadn't happened in millennia. Not in living memory-and some wizards live a damned longtime.\n\nI had to swallow, and hide the fact that I had just gulped. \"Well. Since he isn't running off to tattle right this second, I can only assume that you're about to offer me a deal.\"\n\n\"I never thought you were slow on the uptake, Mister Dresden,\" Bianca said. \"Will you hear my offer?\"\n\nI ached more with every moment that went by. My body was failing. I had ridden the rush of magic through the last several moments, but I had spent a lot of that power. It would comeback, but I was running the batteries down-and the more I did it, the more I couldn't ignore my weakness, my dizziness.\n\nLegally speaking, the vampires had me over a barrel. I needed a plan. I needed a plan in the worst way. I needed time.\n\n\"Sure,\" I said. \"I'll hear you out.\"\n\nBianca curled her fingers through Susan's hair. \"First. You shall be forgiven your... excesses of bad taste of the last few days. But for the two deaths, none of it is unworkable-and those two would have died shortly, in any case. I will forgive you, Mister Dresden.\"\n\n\"That's so kind.\"\n\n\"It gets better. You may take your equipment, your skull, and the White bastard's whore with you when you leave. Unharmed and free of future malice. All accounts will be called even.\"\n\nI let the dry show in my tone. \"How could I possibly say no.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She smiled. \"You killed someone very dear tome, Mister Dresden-not directly, true, but your actions mandated her death. For that, too, I will forgive you.\"\n\nI narrowed my eyes.\n\nBianca ran her hands over Susan's hair. \"This one will stay with me. You stole away someone dear tome, Mister Dresden. And I am going to takeaway someone dear to you. After that, all will be equal.\" She gave Ortega a very small smile and then glanced at me and asked, \"Well? What say you? If you prefer to remain with her, I'm sure a place could be made for you here. After suitable assurances of your loyalty, of course.\"\n\nI remained silent fora moment, stunned.\n\n\"Well, wizard?\" she snapped, harsher. \"How do you answer? Accept my bargain. My compromise. Or it is war. And you will become its first casualty.\"\n\nI looked at Susan. She stared blankly, her mouth partially open, caught in a trance of some kind. I could probably snap her out of it, provided a bunch of vampires didn't tear me limb from limb while I tried. I looked up at Bianca. At Ortega. At the hissing vampire cronies. They were drooling on the polished floor.\n\nI hurt allover, and I felt so very damned tired.\n\n\"I love her,\" I said. I didn't say it very loud.\n\n\"What?\" Bianca stared at me. \"What did you say?\"\n\n\"I said, I love her.\"\n\n\"She is already half mine.\"\n\n\"So? I still love her.\"\n\n\"She isn't even fully human any longer, Dresden. It won't belong before she is as a sister tome.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maybe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe not,\" I said. \"Get your hands off my girlfriend.\"\n\nBianca's eyes widened. \"You are mad,\" she said. \"You would flirt with chaos, destruction-with war. For the sake of this one wounded soul?\"\n\nI smote my staff on the floor, reaching deep for power. Deeper than I've ever reached before. Outside, in the gathering morning, the air crackled with thunder.\n\nBianca, even Ortega, looked abruptly uncertain, looking up and around, before focusing on me again.\n\n\"For the sake of one soul. For one loved one. For one life.\" I called power into my blasting rod, and its tip glowed incandescent white. \"The way I see it, there's nothing else worth fighting a war for.\"\n\nBianca's face distorted with fury. She lost it. She split apart her skin like some gruesome caterpillar, the black beast clawing its way out of her flesh mask, jaws gaping, black eyes burning with feral fury. \"Kill him!\" she shouted. \"Kill him, kill him, kill him!\"\n\nThe vampires came for me, across the floor, along the walls, scuttling like roaches or spiders-too fast for easy belief. Bianca gathered shadow into her hands and hurled it at me.\n\nI fell back apace, caught Bianca's strike with my staff, and parried it into one of her flunkies. The darkness enfolded the vampire, and it screamed from within. When the fog around it vanished, nothing remained but dust. I responded with another gout of fire from the rod, sweeping it like a scythe through the oncoming vampires, setting them aflame. They writhed and screamed.\n\nSpittle sliced toward me from above and to one side, and I barely ducked away in time. The vampire clinging to the ceiling followed its venom down, but it met the end of my staff in its belly, the other end solidly planted against the floor. The vampire rebounded with a burping sound and landed hard on the floor. I lifted the staff and smote down on the thing's head, to the sound of more thunder outside. Power lashed down through the staff, and crushed the vampire's skull like an egg. Dust rained down from the ceiling, and the vampire's claws scratched a frantic staccato on the floor as it died." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I had done well for the moment-the vamps nearest me were falling back, teeth bared. But more were coming, from behind them. Bianca hurled another strike at me, and though I interposed both staff and shield, the deathly cold of it numbed my fingers.\n\nI was running out of strength, panting, my weariness and weakness struggling to claim me. I fought off the dizziness, enough to send another flash of fire at an oncoming vampire, but it skittered aside, and all I did was plow a blazing furrow in the floorboards.\n\nThey fell back fora moment, separated from me by an expanse of flame, and I struggled to catch my breath.\n\nThey were coming. The vampires would becoming for me. My brain kept chattering at me, frantic, panicked. They're coming. Justine, Susan, and I might as well be dead. Dead like all the others. Dead like all their victims.\n\nI leaned against the wall by the stairs, panting, fighting to hold onto some sense of clarity. Dead. Victims. The victims below. The dead.\n\nI dropped the blasting rod. I fell to my knees.\n\nWith my staff, I scratched a circle around me, in the dust. It was enough. The circle closed with a thrum of power. Magic ran rampant in that house, the sea of supernatural energy stirred to froth.\n\nI had no guide for this kind of spell. I had no focus, nothing to target, but that wasn't the kind of magic I was working with. I shoved my senses down, into the earth, like reaching fingers. I blanked out the burning hall, my enemies, Bianca's howling. I shut away the fire, the smoke, the pain, the nausea. I focused, and reached beneath me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And I found them. I found the dead, the victims, the ones who had been taken. Not just the few piled below, like so much trash to be discarded. I found others. Dozens of others. Scores. Hundreds. Bones hidden away, never marked, never remembered. Restless shades, trapped in the earth, too weak to act, to take vengeance, to seek peace. Maybe on another night, or in another place, I couldn't have done it. But the way had been prepared for me, by Bianca and her people. They'd thought to weaken the border between life and death, to use the dead as a weapon against me.\n\nBut that blade can cut both ways.\n\nI found those spirits, reached out and touched them, one by one.\n\n\"Memorium,\" I whispered. \"Memoratum. Memortius.\"\n\nEnergy rushed out of me. I shoved it out as fast as it would go, and I gave it to them. To the lost ones. The seduced, the betrayed, the homeless, the helpless. All the people the vampires had preyed on, through the years, all the dead I could reach. I reached out into the turmoil Bianca and her allies had created, and I gave those wandering shades power.\n\nThe house began to shake.\n\nFrom below, in the basement, there came a rumbling sound. It began as a moan. It rose to a wail. And then it became a screaming mob, a roar of sound that shattered the senses, that made my heart and my belly shiver with the sheer force of it.\n\nThe dead came. They erupted through the floor, and took forms of smoke and flame and cinder. I saw them as I swayed, weakened, finished by the effort of the spell. I saw their faces. I saw newsboys from the roaring twenties, and greaser street punks from the fifties. I saw delivery people and homeless transients and lost children rise up, deadly in their fury. The ghosts reached outwith flaming hands to burn and sear; they shoved their smoky bodies into noses and throats. They howled their names and the names of their murderers, the names of their loved ones, and their vengeance shook that grand old house like a thunderstorm, like an earthquake." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ceiling began to fall in. I saw vampires being dragged into the flames, down into the basement as burning sections of floor gave way. Some tried to flee, but the spirits of the dead knew no more pity than they had rest. They hammered at the vampires, raked at them, ghostly hands and bodies made nearly tangible by the power I'd channeled into them.\n\nVampires died. Ghosts swarmed and screamed everywhere, terrible and beautiful, heartbreaking and ridiculous as humanity itself. The sound banished any thought of speech, hammered upon my skin like physical blows.\n\nI was more terrified than I had ever been in my life. I struggled to my feet and beckoned down the stairs. Justine stumbled up them, Bob's eyelights blazing bright orange, a beacon in the smoke. I grabbed her wrist and tried to make my way around the trembling house, the gaping hole in the floor that led down to an inferno.\n\nI saw a spirit leap for Bianca with blazing hands reached out, and she smote it from the air with a blast of frozen black air. She seized Susan by the wrist and started dragging her toward the front door.\n\nMore spirits hurtled toward her, the eldest of the murderers of this house, fire and smoke and splinter-even one that had forged a body for itself out of the spent bullets laying upon the floor.\n\nShe fought them off. Talon and magic, she thrust her way through them, and toward the front door. Susan began to wake up, to look around her, her expression terrified.\n\n\"Susan!\" I shouted. \"Susan!\"\n\nShe began to struggle against Bianca, who hissed, turning toward Susan. She fought to drag my girlfriend closer to the front door, but one of the ghosts clawed at the vampire's leg, setting it aflame." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bianca screamed, berserk, out of control. She lifted one hand high, her claws glittering, dark, and swept it down at Susan's throat.\n\nI sent my spell hurtling out along with Susan's name, the last strength of my body and mind.\n\nI saw her rise. Rachel's ghost. She appeared, simple and translucent and pretty, and put herself between Bianca's claws and Susan's throat. Blood gouted from the ghost, scarlet and horrible. Susan tumbled limply to one side. Bianca started screaming, high enough to shatter glass, as the bloody ghost simply pressed against her, wrapping her arms around the monstrous black form.\n\nMy spell followed on the heels of Rachel's ghost, and took Bianca full in the face, a near-solid column of wind, which seized her, hurtled her up, and then smashed her down into the floor. The overstrained boards gave way beneath her with a creak and a roar, and flame washed up toward me in a wave of reeking black smoke. I felt my balance spin and I struggled to make it to the exit, but fell to the ground.\n\nSpirits flooded after Bianca, fire and smoke, following the vampire sorceress down the hole. The house itself screamed, a sound of tortured wood and twisted beam, and began to fall.\n\nI couldn't get my balance. I felt small, strong hands under one of my arms. And then I felt Susan beneath the other, powerful and terrified. She lifted me to my feet. Justine stayed by my other side, and together, we stumbled out of the old house.\n\nWe had gone no more than a dozen paces when it collapsed with a roar. We turned, and I saw the house drawing in upon itself, sucked down into the earth, into an inferno of flame. The fire department, later, called it some kind of inverted backblast, but I know what I saw. I saw the ghosts the dead had left behind settle the score." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I love you,\" I said, or tried to say, to Susan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I love you.\"\n\nShe pressed her mouth to mine. I think she was crying. \"Hush,\" she said. \"Harry. Hush. I love you, too.\"\n\nIt was done.\n\nThere was no more reason to hold on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I regard it as one last sadistic gibe of whatever power had decided to make my life a living hell that the burn ward was full, and I was given a room to share with Charity Carpenter. She had recovered inspirit, if not in body, and she started in on me the moment I awoke. The woman's tongue was sharper than any sword. Even Amoracchius. I smiled through most of it. Michael would have been proud.\n\nThe baby, I learned, had taken an abrupt turn for the better in the hours before dawn the morning Bianca's house had burned. I thought that maybe Kravos had taken a bite of the little guy, and I had gotten it back for him. Michael thought God had simply decreed the morning to be a day of good things. Whatever. The results were what counted.\n\n\"We've decided,\" Michael said, stretching a strong arm around Charity, \"to name him Harry.\"\n\nCharity glowered at me, but remained silent.\n\n\"Harry?\" I asked. \"Harry Carpenter? Michael, what did that poor kid ever do to you?\"\n\nBut it made me feelgood. And they kept the name.\n\nCharity got out of the hospital three days before me. Michael or Father Forthill remained with me for the rest of my stay. No one ever said anything, but Michael had the sword with him, and Forthill kept a crucifix handy. Justin case I had some nasty visitors.\n\nOne night when I couldn't sleep, I mentioned to Michael that I was worried about the repercussions of my workings, the harmful magic I had dished out. I worried that it was going to comeback to haunt me.\n\n\"I'm not a philosopher, Harry,\" he said. \"But here's something for you to think about, at least. What goes around comes around. And sometimes you get what's coming around.\" He paused fora moment, frowning faintly, pursing his lips. \"And sometimes you are what's coming around. You see what I mean?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I did. I was able to get back to sleep.\n\nMichael explained that he and Thomas had escaped the fight at the bridge only a few moments after it had begun. But time had stretched oddly, between the Nevernever and Chicago, and they hadn't emerged until two o'clock the following afternoon.\n\n\"Thomas brought us out into this flesh pit,\" Michael said.\n\n\"I'm not a wizard,\" Thomas pointed out. \"I can only get in and out of the Nevernever at points close to my heart.\"\n\n\"A house of sin!\" Michael said, his expression stern.\n\n\"A gentlemen's club,\" Thomas protested. \"And one of the nicest ones in town.\"\n\nI kept my mouth shut. Who says I never grow any wiser?\n\nMurphy came out of the sleeping spell a couple days later. I had to go in a wheelchair, but I went to Kravos's funeral with her. She pushed me through a drizzling rain to the grave site. There was a city official there, who signed off on some papers and left. Then it was just us and the gravediggers, shovels whispering on earth.\n\nMurphy watched the proceedings incomplete silence, her eyes sunken, the blue faded out until they seemed almost grey. I didn't push, and she didn't talk until the hole was half filled in.\n\n\"I couldn't stop him,\" she said, then. \"I tried.\"\n\n\"But we beat him. That's why we're here and he's there.\"\n\n\"You beat him,\" Murphy said. \"A lot of good I did you.\"\n\n\"He sucker punched you. Even if you'd been a wizard, he'd have gotten to you-like he damn near did me.\" I shivered, remembered agony making the muscles of my belly tight. \"Karrin, you can't blame yourself for that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know,\" she said, but she didn't sound like she meant it. She was quiet fora longtime, and I finally figured out that she wasn't talking because I'd hear the tears in her voice, the ones the rain hid from me. She didn't bow her head though, and she didn't look away from the grave.\n\nI reached out and found her hand with mine. I squeezed. She squeezed back, silent and tight. We stayed there, in the rain, until the last bit of earth had been thrown over Kravos's coffin.\n\nOn the way out, Murphy stopped my wheelchair, frowning at a white headstone next to awaiting plot. \"He died doing the right thing,\" she read. She looked down at me.\n\nI shrugged, and felt my mouth curl upon one side. \"Not yet. Not today.\"\n\nMichael and Forthill took care of Lydia for me. Her real name was Barbara something. They got her packed up and moved out of town. Apparently, the Church has some kind of equivalent of the Witness Protection Program, forgetting people out of the reach of supernatural baddies. Forthill told me how the girl had fled the church because she'd been terrified that she would fall asleep, and gone out to find some uppers. The vampires had grabbed her while she was out, which was when I'd found them in that old building. She sent me a note that read, simply, \"I'm sorry. Thank you for everything.\"\n\nWhen I got out of the hospital, Thomas sent me a thank-you letter, for saving Justine. He sent it on a little note card attached to a bow, which was all Justine was wearing. I'll let you guess where the bow was. I took the note, but not the girl. There was too much of an ick factor in sharing girls with a sex vampire. Justine was pretty enough, and sweet enough, when she wasn't walking the razor's edge of an organic emotional instability-but I couldn't really hold that against her. Plenty of people have to take some kind of medication to keep stable. Lithium, supermodel sex vampires-whatever works, I guess." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I had woman problems of my own.\n\nSusan sent me flowers and called me everyday, in the hospital. But she didn't ever talk tome for long. And she didn't come to visit. When I got out, I went to her apartment. She didn't live there anymore. I tried to call her at work, and never managed to catch her. Finally, I had to resort to magic. I used some hair of hers left on a brush at my apartment, and tracked her down on a beach along Lake Michigan, on one of the last warm days of the year.\n\nI found her laying in the sun wearing a white bikini that left maximum surface area bared to it. I sat down next to her, and her manner changed, subtly, a quiet tension that I didn't miss, though I couldn't see her eyes behind the sunglasses she wore.\n\n\"The sun helps,\" she said. \"Sometimes it almost goes away fora while.\"\n\n\"I've been trying to find you,\" I said. \"I wanted to talk to you.\"\n\n\"I know,\" she said. \"Harry. Things have changed for me. In the daylight, it's not too bad. But at night.\" She shivered. \"I have to lock myself inside. I don't trust myself around people, Harry.\"\n\n\"I know,\" I said. \"You know what's happening?\"\n\n\"I talked to Thomas,\" she said. \"And Justine. They were nice enough, I guess. They explained things tome.\"\n\nI grimaced. \"Look,\" I said. \"I'm going to help you. I'll find someway to get you out of this. We can find a cure.\" I reached out and took her hand. \"Oh, Hell's bells, Susan. I'm no good at this.\" I just fumbled the ring onto it, clumsy as you please. \"I don't want you faraway. Marry me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She sat up, and stared at her hand, at the dinky ring I'd been able to afford. Then she leaned close tome and gave me a slow, heated kiss, her mouth melting-warm. Our tongues touched. Mine went numb. I got a little dizzy, as the slow throb of pleasure that I'd felt before coursed through me, a drug I'd craved without realizing it.\n\nShe drew away from me slowly, her face expressionless behind the sunglasses. She said, \"I can't. You already made me ache for you, Harry. I couldn't control myself, with you. I couldn't sort out the hungers.\" She pressed the ring into my hand and stood up, gathering her towel and a purse with her. \"Don't come tome again. I'll call you.\"\n\nAnd she left.\n\n---\n\nI'd bragged to Kravos, at the end, that I'd been trained to demolish nightmares when I was younger. And to a certain extent it was true. If something came into my head fora fight, I could put up a good one. But now I had nightmares that were all my own. Apart of me. And they were always the same: darkness, trapped, with the vampires all around me, laughing their hissing laughter.\n\nI'd wake up, screaming and crying. Mister, curled against my legs, would raise his head and rumble at me. But he wouldn't pad away. He'd just settle down again, purring like a snowmobile's engine. I found it a comfort. And I slept with alight always close.\n\n\"Harry,\" Bob said one night. \"You haven't been working. You've barely left your apartment. The rent was due last week. And this vampire research is going nowhere fast.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Shut up, Bob,\" I told him. \"This unguent isn't right. If we can find away to convert it to a liquid, maybe we can work it into a supplement of some kind-\"\n\n\"Harry,\" Bob said.\n\nI looked up at the skull.\n\n\"Harry. The Council sent a notice to you today.\"\n\nI stood up, slowly.\n\n\"The vampires. The Council's at war. I guess Paris and Berlin went into chaos almost a week ago. The Council is calling a meeting. Here.\"\n\n\"The White Council is coming to Chicago,\" I mused.\n\n\"Yeah. They're going to want to know what the hell happened.\"\n\nI shrugged. \"I sent them my report. I only did what was right,\" I said. \"Or as close to it as I could manage. I couldn't let them have her, Bob. I couldn't.\"\n\nThe skull sighed. \"I don't know if that will holdup with them, Harry.\"\n\n\"It has to,\" I said.\n\nThere was a knock at my door. I climbed up from the lab. Murphy and Michael had shown up at my door with a care package: soup and charcoal and kerosene for me, as the weather got colder. Groceries. Fruit. Michael had, rather pointedly, included a razor.\n\n\"How are you doing, Dresden?\" Murphy asked me, her blue eyes serious.\n\nI stared at her fora moment. Then at Michael.\n\n\"I could be worse,\" I said. \"Come in.\"\n\nFriends. They make it easier.\n\nSo, the vampires are out to get me, and every other wizard on the block. The little wizardlings of the city, the have-nots of magic, are making it a point not to go outside after dark. I don't order pizza for delivery anymore. Not after the first guy almost got me with a bomb." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Council is going to be furious at me, but what else is new.\n\nSusan doesn't call. Doesn't visit. But I got a card from her, on my birthday, Halloween. She only wrote three words.\n\nI'll let you guess what three." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the author's assistant, please continue the story.\nTags: epic fantasy, character study, power struggles, resilience, destiny\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: House of Chains\nChapter: 7" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Verge of the Nascent, the 943rd Day of the Search 1159 Burn's Sleep\n\nGrey, bloated and pocked, the bodies lined the silt-laden shoreline for as far as the eye could see. Heaped like driftwood by the rising water, bobbing and rolling on the edges, the putrefying flesh seethed with black-shelled, ten-legged crabs. The coin-sized creatures had scarcely begun to make inroads on the bounteous feast the warren's sundering had laid before them.\n\nThe sea mirrored the low sky's hue. Dull, patched pewter above and below, broken only by the deeper grey of silts and, thirty strokes of the oar distant, the smeared ochre tones of the barely visible upper levels of a city's inundated buildings. The storms had passed, the waters were calm amidst the wreckage of a drowned world.\n\nShort, squat had been the inhabitants. Flat-featured, the pale hair left long and loose. Their world had been a cold one, given the thick-padded clothing they had worn. But with the sundering that had changed, cataclysmically. The air was sultry, damp and now foul with the reek of decay.\n\nThe sea had been born of a river on another realm. A massive, wide and probably continent-spanning artery of freshwater, heavy with a plain's silts, the murky depths home to huge catfish and wagon-wheel-sized spiders, its shallows crowded with the crabs and carnivorous, rootless plants. The river had poured its torrential volume onto this vast, level landscape. Days, then weeks, then months.\n\nStorms, conjured by the volatile clash of tropical air-streams with the resident temperate climate, had driven the flood on beneath shrieking winds, and before the inexorably rising waters came deadly plagues to take those who had not drowned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Somehow, the rent had closed sometime in the night just past. The river from another realm had been returned to its original path.\n\nThe shoreline ahead probably did not deserve the word, but nothing else came to Trull Sengar's mind as he was dragged along its verge. The beach was nothing more than silt, heaped against a huge wall that seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon. The wall had withstood the flood, though water now streamed down it on the opposite side.\n\nBodies on his left, a sheer drop of seven, maybe eight man-heights to his right, the top of the wall itself slightly less than thirty paces across; that it held back an entire sea whispered of sorcery. The broad, flat stones underfoot were smeared with mud, but already drying in the heat, dun-coloured insects dancing on its surface, leaping from the path of Trull Sengar and his captors.\n\nTrull still experienced difficulty comprehending that notion. Captors. A word he struggled with. They were his brothers, after all. Kin. Faces he had known all his life, faces he had seen smile, and laugh, and faces– at times– filled with a grief that had mirrored his own. He had stood at their sides through all that had happened, the glorious triumphs, the soul-wrenching losses.\n\nCaptors.\n\nThere were no smiles, now. No laughter. The expressions of those who held him were fixed and cold.\n\nWhat we have come to.\n\nThe march ended. Hands pushed Trull Sengar down, heedless of his bruises, the cuts and the gouges that still leaked blood. Massive iron rings had been set, for some unknown purpose, by this world's now-dead inhabitants, along the top of the wall, anchored in the heart of the huge stone blocks. The rings were evenly spaced down the wall's length, at intervals of fifteen or so paces, for as far as Trull could see." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now, those rings had found anew function.\n\nChains were wrapped around Trull Sengar, shackles hammered into place on his wrists and ankles. A studded girdle was cinched painfully tight about his midriff, the chains drawn through iron loops and pulled taut to pin him down beside the iron ring. A hinged metal press was affixed to his jaw, his mouth forced open and the plate pushed in and locked in place over his tongue.\n\nThe Shorning followed. A dagger inscribed a circle on his forehead, followed by a jagged slash to break that circle, the point pushed deep enough to gouge the bone. Ash was rubbed into the wounds. His long single braid was removed with rough hacks that made a bloody mess of his nape. A thick, cloying unguent was then smeared through his remaining hair, massaged down to the pate. Within a few hours, the rest of his hair would fall away, leaving him permanently bald.\n\nThe Shorning was an absolute thing, an irreversible act of severance. He was now outcast. To his brothers, he had ceased to exist. He would not be mourned. His deeds would vanish from memory along with his name. His mother and father would have birthed one less child. This was, for his people, the most dire punishment– worse than execution by far.\n\nYet, Trull Sengar had committed no crime.\n\nAnd this is what we have come to.\n\nThey stood above him, perhaps only now comprehending what they had done.\n\nA familiar voice broke the silence. \"We will speak of him now, and once we have left this place, he will cease to be our brother.\"\n\n\"We will speak of him now,\" the others intoned, then one added, \"He betrayed you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first voice was cool, revealing nothing of the gloat that Trull Sengar knew would be there. \"You say he betrayed me.\"\n\n\"He did, brother.\"\n\n\"What proof do you have?\"\n\n\"By his own tongue.\"\n\n\"Is it just you who claims to have heard such betrayal spoken?\"\n\n\"No, I too heard it, brother.\"\n\n\"And I.\"\n\n\"And what did our brother say to you all?\"\n\n\"He said that you had severed your blood from ours.\"\n\n\"That you now served a hidden master.\"\n\n\"That your ambition would lead us all to our deaths-\"\n\n\"Our entire people.\"\n\n\"He spoke against me, then.\"\n\n\"He did.\"\n\n\"By his own tongue, he accused me of betraying our people.\"\n\n\"He did.\"\n\n\"And have I? Let us consider this charge. The southlands are aflame. The enemy's armies have fled. The enemy now kneels before us, and begs to be our slaves. From nothing, was forged an empire. And still our strength grows. Yet. To grow stronger, what must you, my brothers, do? '\n\n\"We must search.\"\n\n\"Aye. And when you find what must besought?\"\n\n\"We must deliver. To you, brother.\"\n\n\"Do you seethe need for this?\"\n\n\"We do.\"\n\n\"Do you understand the sacrifice I make, for you, for our people, for our future?\"\n\n\"We do.\"\n\n\"Yet, even as you searched, this man, our once-brother, spoke against me.\"\n\n\"He did.\"\n\n\"Worse, he spoke to defend the new enemies we had found.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He did. He called them the Pure Kin, and said we should not kill them.\"\n\n\"And, had they been in truth Pure Kin, then...\"\n\n\"They would not have died so easily.\"\n\n\"Thus.\"\n\n\"He betrayed you, brother.\"\n\n\"He betrayed us all.\"\n\nThere was silence. Ah, now you would share out this crime of yours. And they hesitate.\n\n\"He betrayed us all, did he not, brothers?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" The word arrived rough, beneath the breath, mumbled– a chorus of dubious uncertainty.\n\nNo-one spoke fora long moment, then, savage with barely bridled anger: \"Thus, brothers. And should we not heed this danger? This threat of betrayal, this poison, this plague that seeks to tear our family apart? Will it spread? Will we come here yet again? We must be vigilant, brothers. Within ourselves. With each other. Now, we have spoken of him. And now, he is gone.\"\n\n\"He is gone.\"\n\n\"He never existed.\"\n\n\"He never existed.\"\n\n\"Let us leave this place, then.\"\n\n\"Yes, let us leave.\"\n\nTrull Sengar listened until he could no more hear their boots on the stones, nor feel the tremble of their dwindling steps. He was alone, unable to move, seeing only the mud-smeared stone at the base of the iron ring.\n\nThe sea rustled the corpses along the shoreline. Crabs scuttled. Water continued to seep through the mortar, insinuate the Cyclopean wall with the voice of muttering ghosts, and flow down on the other side.\n\nAmong his people, it was along-known truth, perhaps the only truth, that Nature fought but one eternal war. One foe. That, further, to understand this was to understand the world. Every world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nature has but one enemy.\n\nAnd that is imbalance.\n\nThe wall held the sea.\n\nAnd there are two meanings to this. My brothers, can you not seethe truth of that? Two meanings. The wall holds the sea.\n\nFor now.\n\nThis was a flood that would not be denied. The deluge had but just begun– something his brothers could not understand, would, perhaps, never understand.\n\nDrowning was common among his people. Drowning was not feared. And so, Trull Sengar would drown. Soon.\n\nAnd before long, he suspected, his entire people would join him.\n\nHis brother had shattered the balance.\n\nAnd Nature shall not abide." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The slower the river, the redder it runs.\n\nNathii saying" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Children from a dark house choose shadowed paths.\n\nNathii folk saying\n\nThe dog had savaged a woman, an old man and a child before the warriors drove it into an abandoned kiln at the edge of the village. The beast had never before displayed an uncertain loyalty. It had guarded the Uryd lands with fierce zeal, one with its kin in its harsh, but just, duties. There were no wounds on its body that might have festered and so allowed the spirit of madness into its veins. Nor was the dog possessed by the foaming sickness. Its position in the village pack had not been challenged. Indeed, there was nothing, nothing at all, to give cause to the sudden turn.\n\nThe warriors pinned the animal to the rounded back wall of the clay kiln with spears, stabbing at the snapping, shrieking beast until it was dead. When they withdrew their spears they saw the shafts chewed and slick with spit and blood; they saw iron dented and scored.\n\nMadness, they knew, could remain hidden, buried far beneath the surface, a subtle flavour turning blood into something bitter. The shamans examined the three victims; two had already died of their wounds, but the child still clung to life.\n\nIn solemn procession he was carried by his father to the Faces in the Rock, laid down in the glade before the Seven Gods of the Teblor, and left there.\n\nHe died a short while later. Alone in his pain before the hard visages carved into the cliff-face.\n\nThis was not an unexpected fate. The child, after all, had been too young to pray.\n\nAll of this, of course, happened centuries past.\n\nLong before the Seven Gods opened their eyes.\n\nUrugal the Woven's Year 1159 Burn's Sleep" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were glorious tales. Farms inflames, children dragged behind horses for leagues. The trophies of that day, so long ago, cluttered the low walls of his grandfather's longhouse. Scarred skull-pates, frail-looking mandibles. Odd fragments of clothing made of some unknown material, now smoke-blackened and tattered. Small ears nailed to every wooden post that reached up to the thatched roof.\n\nEvidence that Silver Lake was real, that it existed in truth, beyond the forest-clad mountains, down through hidden passes, a week– perhaps two– distant from the lands of the Uryd clan. The way itself was fraught, passing through territories held by the Sunyd and Rathyd clans, a journey that was itself a tale of legendary proportions. Moving silent and unseen through enemy camps, shifting the hearthstones to deliver deepest insult, eluding the hunters and trackers day and night until the borderlands were reached, then crossed– the vista ahead unknown, its riches not even yet dreamed of.\n\nKarsa Orlong lived and breathed his grandfather's tales. They stood like a legion, defiant and fierce, before the pallid, empty legacy of Synyg– Pahlk's son and Karsa's father. Synyg, who had done nothing in his life, who tended his horses in his valley and had not once ventured into hostile lands. Synyg, who was both his father's and his son's greatest shame.\n\nTrue, Synyg had more than once defended his herd of horses from raiders from other clans, and defended well, with honourable ferocity and admirable skill. But this was only to be expected from those of Uryd blood. Urugal the Woven was the clan's Face in the Rock, and Urugal was counted among the fiercest of the seven gods. The other clans had reason to fear the Uryd." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nor had Synyg proved less than masterful in training his only son in the Fighting Dances. Karsa's skill with the bloodwood blade far surpassed his years. He was counted among the finest warriors of the clan. While the Uryd disdained use of the bow, they excelled with spear and atlatl, with the toothed-disc and the black-rope, and Synyg had taught his son an impressive efficiency with these weapons as well.\n\nNone the less, such training was to be expected from any father in the Uryd clan. Karsa could find no reason for pride in such things. The Fighting Dances were but preparation, after all. Glory was found in all that followed, in the contests, the raids, in the vicious perpetuation of feuds.\n\nKarsa would not do as his father had done. He would not do... nothing. No, he would walk his grandfather's path. More closely than anyone might imagine. Too much of the clan's reputation lived only in the past. The Uryd had grown complacent in their position of pre-eminence among the Teblor. Pahlk had muttered that truth more than once, the nights when his bones ached from old wounds and the shame that was his son burned deepest.\n\nA return to the old ways. And I, Karsa Orlong, shall had. Delum Thord is with me. As is Bairoth Gild. All in our first year of scarring. We have counted coup. We have slain enemies. Stolen horses. Shifted the hearthstones of the Kellyd and the Buryd.\n\nAnd now, with the new moon and in the year of your naming, Urugal, we shall weave our way to Silver Lake. To slay the children who dwell there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He remained on his knees in the glade, head bowed beneath the Faces in the Rock, knowing that Urugal's visage, high on the cliff-face, mirrored his own savage desire; and that those of the other gods, all with their own clans barring'Siballe, who was the Unfound, glared down upon Karsa with envy and hate. None of their children knelt before them, after all, to voice such bold vows.\n\nComplacency plagued all the clans of the Teblor, Karsa suspected. The world beyond the mountains dared not encroach, had not attempted to do so in decades. No visitors ventured into Teblor lands. Nor had the Teblor themselves gazed out beyond the borderlands with dark hunger, as they had often done generations past. The last man to have led a raid into foreign territory had been his grandfather. To the shores of Silver Lake, where farms squatted like rotted mushrooms and children scurried like mice. Back then, there had been two farms, a half-dozen outbuildings. Now, Karsa believed, there would be more. Three, even four farms. Even Pahlk's day of slaughter would pale to that delivered by Karsa, Delum and Bairoth.\n\nSo I vow, beloved Urugal. And I shall deliver unto you a feast of trophies such as never before blackened the soil of this glade. Enough, perhaps, to free you from the stone itself, so that once more you will stride in our midst, a deliverer of death upon all our enemies.\n\nI, Karsa Orlong, grandson of Pahlk Orlong, so swear. And, should you doubt, Urugal, know that we leave this very night. The journey begins with the descent of this very sun. And, as each day's sun births the sun of the next day, so shall it look down upon three warriors of the Uryd clan, leading their destriers through the passes, down into the unknown lands. And Silver Lake shall, after more than four centuries, once again tremble to the coming of the Teblor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa slowly lifted his head, eyes travelling up the battered cliff-face, to find the harsh, bestial face of Urugal, there, among its kin. The pitted gaze seemed fixed upon him and Karsa thought he saw avid pleasure in those dark pools. Indeed, he was certain of it, and would describe it as truth to Delum and Bairoth, and to Dayliss, so that she might voice her blessing, for he so wished her blessing, her cold words... I, Dayliss, yet to find a family's name, bless you, Karsa Orlong, on your dire raid. May you slay a legion of children. May their cries feed your dreams. May their blood give you thirst for more. May flames haunt the path of your life. May you return tome, a thousand deaths upon your soul, and take meas your wife.\n\nShe might indeed so bless him. A first yet undeniable expression of her interest in him. Not Bairoth– she but toyed with Bairoth as any young unwedded woman might, for amusement. Her Knife of Night remained sheathed, of course, for Bairoth lacked cold ambition– a flaw he might deny, yet the truth was plain that he did not lead, only follow, and Dayliss would not settle for that.\n\nNo, she would be his, Karsa's, upon his return, the culmination of his triumph that was the raid on Silver Lake. For him, and him alone, Dayliss would unsheathe her Knife of Night.\n\nMay you slay a legion of children. May flames haunt the path of your life.\n\nKarsa straightened. No wind rustled the leaves of the birch trees encircling the glade. The air was heavy, a lowland air that had climbed its way into the mountains in the wake of the marching sun, and now, with light fading, it was trapped in the glade before the Faces in the Rock. Like a breath of the gods, soon to seep into the rotting soil." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no doubt in Karsa's mind that Urugal was present, as close behind the stone skin of his face as he had ever been. Drawn by the power of Karsa's vow, by the promise of a return to glory. So too hovered the other gods. Beroke Soft Voice, Kahlb the Silent Hunter, Thenik the Shattered, Halad Rack Bearer, Imroth the Cruel and 'Siballe the Unfound, all awakened once more and eager for blood.\n\nAnd I have but just begun on this path. Newly arrived to my eightieth year of life, finally a warrior in truth. I have heard the oldest words, the whispers, of the One, who will unite the Teblor, who will bind the clans one and all and lead them into the lowlands and so begin the War of the People. These whispers, they are the voice of promise, and that voice is mine.\n\nHidden birds announced the coming of dusk. It was time to leave. Delum and Bairoth awaited him in the village. And Dayliss, silent yet holding to the words she would speak to him.\n\nBairoth will be furious.\n\nThe pocket of warm air in the glade lingered long after Karsa Orlong's departure. The soft, boggy soil was slow to yield the imprint of his knees, his moccasined feet, and the sun's deepening glare continued to paint the harsh features of the gods even as shadows filled the glade itself.\n\nSeven figures rose from the ground, skin wrinkled and stained dark brown over withered muscles and heavy bones, hair red as ochre and dripping stagnant, black water. Some were missing limbs, others stood on splintered, shattered or mangled legs. One lacked a lower jaw while another's left cheekbone and brow were crushed flat, obliterating the eye-socket. Each of the seven, broken in someway. Imperfect. Flawed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Somewhere behind the wall of rock was a sealed cavern that had been their tomb fora span of centuries, a shortlived imprisonment as it turned out. None had expected their resurrection. Too shattered to remain with their kin, they had been left behind, as was the custom of their kind. Failure's sentence was abandonment, an eternity of immobility. When failure was honourable, their sentient remnants would be placed open to the sky, to vistas, to the outside world, so that they might find peace in watching the passing of eons. But, for these seven, failure had not been honourable. Thus, the darkness of a tomb had been their sentence. They had felt no bitterness at that.\n\nThat dark gift came later, from outside their unlit prison, and with it, opportunity.\n\nAll that was required was the breaking of avow, and the swearing of fealty to another. The reward: rebirth, and freedom.\n\nTheir kin had marked this place of internment, with carved faces each a likeness, mocking the vista with blank, blind eyes. They had spoken their names to close the ritual of binding, names that lingered in this place with a power sufficient to twist the minds of the shamans of the people who had found refuge in these mountains, and on the plateau with the ancient name of Laederon.\n\nThe seven were silent and motionless in the glade as the dusk deepened. Six were waiting for one to speak, yet that one was in no hurry. Freedom was raw exultation and, even limited as it was to this glade, the emotion persisted still. It would not belong, now, until that freedom would break free of its last chains– the truncated range of vision from the eye-sockets carved into the rock. Service to the new master promised travel, an entire world to rediscover and countless deaths to deliver." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Urual, whose name meant Mossy Bone and who was known to the Teblor as Urugal, finally spoke. \"He will suffice.\"\n\nSin'b\"alle– Lichen For Moss– who was \"Siballe the Unfound, did not hide the scepticism in her voice.\"You place too much faith in these fallen Teblor. Teblor. They know naught, even their true name. '\n\n\"Be glad that they do not,\" said Ber'ok, his voice a rough rasp through a crushed throat. Neck twisted and head leaning to one side, he was forced to turn his entire body to stare at the rock-face.\"In any case, you have your own children, Sin'b\"alle, who are the bearers of the truth. For the others, lost history is best left lost, for our purposes. Their ignorance is our greatest weapon. '\n\n\"Dead Ash Tree speaks the truth,\" Urual said. \"We could not have so twisted their faith were they cognizant of their legacy.\"\n\nSin'b\"alle shrugged disdainfully. \"The one named Pahlk also... sufficed. In your opinion, Urual. A worthy prospect to lead my children, it seemed. Yet he failed.\"\n\n\"Our fault, not his,\" Haran'alle growled.\"We were impatient, too confident of our efficacy. Sundering the Vow stole much of our power-'\n\n\"Yet what has our new master given of his, Antler From Summer?\" Thek 1st demanded. \"Naught but a trickle.\"\n\n\"And what do you expect?\" Urual enquired in a quiet tone. \"He recovers from his ordeals as we do from ours.\"\n\nEmroth spoke, her voice like silk. \"So you believe, Mossy Bone, that this grandson of Pahlk will carve for us our path to freedom.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I do.\"\n\n\"And if we are disappointed yet again?\"\n\n\"Then we begin anew. Bairoth's child in Dayliss's womb.\"\n\nEmroth hissed. \"Another century of waiting! Damn these long-lived Teblor!\"\n\n\"A century is as nothing-\"\n\n\"As nothing, yet as everything, Mossy Bone! And you know precisely what I mean.\"\n\nUrual studied the woman, who was aptly named Fanged Skeleton, recalling her Soletaken proclivities, and its hunger that had so clearly led to their failure so long ago. \"The year of my name has returned,\" he said. \"Among us all, who has led a clan of the Teblor as far along our path as I have? You, Fanged Skeleton? Lichen For Moss? Spear Leg?\"\n\nNo-one spoke.\n\nThen finally Dead Ash Tree made a sound that might have been a soft laugh. \"We areas Red Moss, silent. The way will be opened. So our new master has promised. He finds his power. Urual's chosen warrior already possesses a score of souls in his slayer's train. Teblor souls at that. Recall, also, that Pahlk journeyed alone. Yet Karsa shall have two formidable warriors flanking him. Should he die, there is always Bairoth, or Delum.\"\n\n\"Bairoth is too clever,\" Emroth snarled. \"He takes after Pahlk's son, his uncle. Worse, his ambition is only for himself. He feigns to follow Karsa, yet has his hand on Karsa's back.\"\n\n\"And mine on his,\" Urual murmured. \"Night is almost upon us. We must return to our tomb.\" The ancient warrior turned. \"Fanged Skeleton, remain close to the child in Dayliss's womb. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She feeds from my breast even now,\" Emroth asserted.\n\n\"A girl-child?\"\n\n\"In flesh only. What I make within is neither a girl, nor a child.\"\n\n\"Good.\"\n\nThe seven figures returned to the earth as the first stars of night blinked awake in the sky overhead. Blinked awake, and looked down upon a glade where no gods dwelt. Where no gods had ever dwelt.\n\nThe village was situated on the stony bank of Laderii River, a mountain-fed, torrential flow of bitter-cold water that cut a valley through the conifer forest on its way down to some distant sea. The houses were built with boulder foundations and rough-hewn cedar walls, the roofs thick-matted, humped and overgrown with moss. Along the bank rose latticed frames thick with strips of drying fish. Beyond a fringe of woods, clearings had been cut to provide pasture for horses.\n\nMist-dimmed firelight flickered through the trees as Karsa reached his father's house, passing the dozen horses standing silent and motionless in the glade. Their only threat came from raiders, for these beasts were bred killers and the mountain wolves had long since learned to avoid the huge animals. Occasionally a rust-collared bear would venture down from its mountain haunt, but this usually coincided with salmon runs and the creatures showed little interest in challenging the horses, the village's dogs, or its fearless warriors.\n\nSynyg was in the training kraal, grooming Havok, his prized destrier. Karsa could feel the animal's heat as he approached, though it was little more than a black mass in the darkness.\"Red Eye still wanders loose, \"Karsa growled.\"You will do nothing for your son? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His father continued grooming Havok. \"Red Eye is too young for such a journey, as I have said before-\"\n\n\"Yet he is mine, and so I shall ride him.\"\n\n\"No. He lacks independence, and has not yet ridden with the mounts of Bairoth and Delum. You will lodge a thorn in his nerves.\"\n\n\"So I am to walk?\"\n\n\"I give you Havok, my son. He has been softly run this night and still wears the bridle. Go collect your gear, before he cools too much.\"\n\nKarsa said nothing. He was in truth astonished. He swung about and made his way to the house. His father had slung his pack from a ridgepole near the doorway to keep it dry. His bloodwood sword hung in its harness beside it, newly oiled, the Uryd warcrest freshly painted on the broad blade. Karsa drew the weapon down and strapped the harness in place, the sword's leather-wrapped two-handed grip jutting over his left shoulder. The pack would ride Havok's shoulders, affixed to the stirrup-rig, though Karsa's knees would take most of the weight.\n\nTeblor horse-trappings did not include a rider's seat; a warrior rode against flesh, stirrups high, the bulk of his weight directly behind the mount's shoulders. Lowlander trophies included saddles, which revealed, when positioned on the smaller lowlander horses, a clear shifting of weight to the back. But a true destrier needed its hindquarters free of extra weight, to ensure the swiftness of its kicks. More, a warrior must needs protect his mount's neck and head, with sword and, if necessary, vambraced forearms.\n\nKarsa returned to where his father and Havok waited." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bairoth and Delum await you at the ford,\" Synyg said.\n\n\"Dayliss?\"\n\nKarsa could see nothing of his father's expression as he replied tonelessly,\"Dayliss voiced her blessing to Bairoth after you'd set out for the Faces in the Rock.\"\n\n\"She blessed Bairoth?\"\n\n\"She did.\"\n\n\"It seems I misjudged her,\" Karsa said, struggling against an unfamiliar stricture that tightened his voice.\n\n\"Easy to do, for she is a woman.\"\n\n\"And you, Father? Will you give me your blessing?\"\n\nSynyg handed Karsa the lone rein and turned away. \"Pahlk has already done so. Be satisfied with that.\"\n\n\"Pahlk is not my father!\"\n\nSynyg paused in the darkness, seemed to consider, then said, \"No, he is not.\"\n\n\"Then will you bless me?\"\n\n\"What would you have me bless, son? The Seven Gods who area lie? The glory that is empty? Will I be pleased in your slaying of children? In the trophies you will tie to your belt? My father, Pahlk, would polish bright his own youth, for he is of that age. What were his words of blessing, Karsa? That you surpass his achievements? I imagine not. Consider his words carefully, and I expect you will find that they served him more than you.\"\n\n\"\"Pahlk, Finder of the Path that you shall follow, blesses your journey.\" Such were his words.\"\n\nSynyg was silent fora moment, and when he spoke his son could hear the grim smile though he could not see it. \"As I said.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mother would have blessed me,\" Karsa snapped.\n\n\"As a mother must. But her heart would have been heavy. Go, then, son. Your companions await you.\"\n\nWith a snarl, Karsa swung himself onto the destrier's broad back. Havok swung his head about at the unfamiliar seating, then snorted.\n\nSynyg spoke from the gloom. \"He dislikes carrying anger. Calm yourself, son.\"\n\n\"A warhorse afraid of anger is next to useless. Havok shall have to learn who rides him now.\" At that, Karsa drew a leg back and with a flick of the single rein swung the destrier smartly round. A gesture with his rein hand sent the horse forward onto the trail.\n\nFour blood-posts, each marking one of Karsa's sacrificed siblings, lined the path leading to the village. Unlike others, Synyg had left the carved posts unadorned; he had only gone so far as to cut the glyphs naming his three sons and one daughter given to the Faces in the Rock, followed by a splash of kin blood which had not lasted much beyond the first rain. Instead of braids winding up the man-high posts to a feathered and gut-knotted headdress at the peak, only vines entwined the weathered wood, and the blunted top was smeared with bird droppings.\n\nKarsa knew the memory of his siblings deserved more, and he resolved to carry their names close to his lips at the moment of attack, that he might slay with their cries sharp in the air. His voice would be their voice, when that time arrived. They had suffered their father's neglect for far too long.\n\nThe trail widened, flanked by old stumps and low-spreading juniper. Ahead, the lurid glare of hearths amidst dark, squat, conical houses glimmered through the woodsmoke haze. Near one of those firepits waited two mounted figures. A third shape, on foot, stood wrapped in furs to one side. Dayliss. She blessed Bairoth Gild, and now comes to see him off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa rode up to them, holding Havok back to a lazy lope. He was the leader, and he would make the truth of that plain. Bairoth and Delum awaited him, after all, and which of the three had gone to the Faces in the Rock? Dayliss had blessed a follower. Had Karsa held himself too aloof? Yet such was the burden of those who commanded. She must have understood that. It made no sense.\n\nHe halted his horse before them, was silent.\n\nBairoth was a heavier man, though not as tall as Karsa or, indeed, Delum. He possessed a bear-like quality that he had long since recognized and had come to self-consciously affect. He rolled his shoulders now, as if loosening them for the journey, and grinned. \"A bold beginning, brother,\" he rumbled, \"the theft of your father's horse. '\n\n\"I did not steal him, Bairoth. Synyg gave me both Havok and his blessing.\"\n\n\"A night of miracles, it seems. And did Urugal stride out from the rock to kiss your brow as well, Karsa Orlong?\"\n\nDayliss snorted at that.\n\nIf he had indeed stridden onto mortal ground, he would have found but one of us three standing before him. To Bairoth's jibe Karsa said nothing. He slowly swung his gaze to Dayliss.\"You have blessed Bairoth? '\n\nHer shrug was dismissive.\n\n\"I grieve,\" Karsa said, \"your loss of courage.\"\n\nHer eyes snapped to his with sudden fury.\n\nSmiling, Karsa turned back to Bairoth and Delum. \"\"The stars wheel. Let us ride.\"\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Bairoth ignored the words and instead of voicing the ritual reply he growled, \"Ill chosen, to unleash your wounded pride on her. Dayliss is to be my wife upon our return. To strike at her is to strike at me.\"\n\nKarsa went motionless. \"But Bairoth,\" he said, low and smooth, \"I strike where I will. A failing of courage can spread like a disease– has her blessing settled upon you as a curse? I am warleader. I invite you to challenge me, now, before we quit our home.\"\n\nBairoth hunched his shoulders, slowly leaned forward. \"It is no failing of courage,\" he grated, \"that stays my hand, Karsa Orlong-\"\n\n\"I am pleased to hear it. \"The stars wheel. Let us ride.\"\"\n\nScowling at the interruption, Bairoth made to say something more, then stopped. He smiled, relaxing once again. He glanced over at Dayliss and nodded, as if silently reaffirming a secret, then intoned, \"\"The stars wheel. Lead us, Warleader, into glory.\"\"\n\nDelum, who had watched all in silence, his face empty of expression, now spoke in turn. \"\"Lead us, Warleader, into glory.\"\"\n\nKarsa in front, the three warriors rode the length of the village. The tribe's elders had spoken against the journey, so no-one came out to watch them depart. Yet Karsa knew that none could escape hearing them pass, and he knew that, one day, they would come to regret that they had been witness to nothing more than the heavy, muffled thump of hoofs. None the less, he wished dearly fora witness other than Dayliss. Not even Pahlk had appeared." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet I feel as if we are indeed being watched. By the Seven perhaps. Urugal, risen to the height of the stars, riding the current of the wheel, gazing down upon us now. Hear me, Urugal! I, Karsa Orlong, shall slay for you a thousand children! A thousand souls to lay at your feet!\n\nNearby, a dog moaned in restless sleep, but did not awaken.\n\nOn the north valley side overlooking the village, at the very edge of the treeline, stood twenty-three silent witnesses to the departure of Karsa Orlong, Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord. Ghostly in the darkness between the broadleafed trees, they waited, motionless, until long after the three warriors had passed out of sight down the eastern track.\n\nUryd born. Uryd sacrificed, they were blood-kin to Karsa, Bairoth and Delum. In their fourth month of life they had each been given to the Faces in the Rock, laid down by their mothers in the glade at sunset. Offered to the Seven's embrace, vanishing before the sun's rise. Given, one and all, to anew mother.\n\n\"Siballe's children, then and now. 'Siballe, the Unfound, the lone goddess among the Seven without a tribe of her own. And so, she had created one, a secret tribe drawn from the six others, had taught them of their individual blood ties– in order to link them with their unsacrificed kin. Taught them, as well, of their own special purpose, the destiny that would belong to them and them alone.\n\nShe called them her Found, and this was the name by which they knew themselves, the name of their own hidden tribe. Dwelling unseen in the midst of their kin, their very existence unimagined by anyone in any of the six tribes. There were some, they knew, who might suspect, but suspicion was all they possessed. Men such as Synyg, Karsa's father, who treated the memorial blood-posts with indifference, if not contempt. Such men usually posed no real threat, although on occasion more extreme measures proved necessary when true risk was perceived. Such as with Karsa's mother." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The twenty-three Found who stood witness to the beginning of the warriors' journey, hidden among the trees of the valley side, were by blood the brothers and sisters of Karsa, Bairoth and Delum, yet they were strangers as well, though at that moment that detail seemed to matter little.\n\n\"One shall make it.\" This from Bairoth's eldest brother.\n\nDelum's twin sister shrugged in reply and said,\"We shall be here, then, upon that one's return.\"\n\n\"So we shall.\"\n\nAnother trait was shared by all of the Found. \"Siballe had marked her children with a savage scar, a stripping away of flesh and muscle on the left side– from temple down to jawline– of each face, and with that destruction the capacity for expression had been severely diminished. Features on the left were fixed in a downturned grimace, as if in permanent dismay. In some strange manner, the physical scarring had also stripped inflection from their voices– or perhaps'Siballe's own toneless voice had proved an overwhelming influence.\n\nThus bereft of intonation, words of hope had away of ringing false to their own ears, sufficient to silence those who had spoken.\n\nOne would make it.\n\nPerhaps.\n\nSynyg continued stirring the stew at the cookfire when the door opened behind him. A soft wheeze, a dragged foot, the clatter of a walking stick against the doorframe. Then a harsh accusatory question.\n\n\"Did you bless your son?\"\n\n\"I gave him Havok, Father.\"\n\nSomehow Pahlk filled a single word with contempt, disgust and suspicion all at once: \"Why?\"\n\nSynyg still did not turn as he listened to his father make a tortured journey to the chair closest to the hearth. \"Havok deserved a final battle, one I knew I would not give him. So.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So, as I thought.\" Pahlk settled into the chair with a pained grunt. \"For your horse, but not for your son.\"\n\n\"Are you hungry?\" Synyg asked.\n\n\"I will not deny you the gesture.\"\n\nSynyg allowed himself a small, bitter smile, then reached over to collect a second bowl and set it down beside his own.\n\n\"He would batter down a mountain,\" Pahlk growled, \"to see you stir from your straw.\"\n\n\"What he does is not for me, Father, it is for you.\"\n\n\"He perceives only the fiercest glory possible will achieve what is necessary– the inundation of the shame that is you, Synyg. You are the straggly bush between two towering trees, child of one and sire to the other. This is why he reached out tome, reached out– do you fret and chafe therein the shadows between Karsa and me? Too bad, the choice was always yours.\"\n\nSynyg filled both bowls and straightened to hand one to his father. \"The scar around an old wound feels nothing,\" he said.\n\n\"To feel nothing is not a virtue.\"\n\nSmiling, Synyg satin the other chair. \"Tell me a tale, Father, as you once did. Those days following your triumph. Tell me again of the children you killed. Of the women you cut down. Tell me of the burning homesteads, the screams of the cattle and sheep trapped in the flames. I would see those fires once more, rekindled in your eyes. Stir the ashes, Father.\"\n\n\"When you speak these days, son, all I hear is that damned woman.\"\n\n\"Eat, Father, lest you insult me and my home.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I shall.\"\n\n\"You were ever a mindful guest.\"\n\n\"True.\"\n\nNo more words were exchanged until both men had finished their meals. Then Synyg set down his bowl. He rose and collected Pahlk's bowl as well, then, turning, he threw it into the fire.\n\nHis father's eyes widened.\n\nSynyg stared down at him. \"Neither of us shall live to see Karsa's return. The bridge between you and me is now swept away. Come to my door again, Father, and I shall kill you. ' He reached down with both hands and pulled Pahlk upright, dragged the sputtering old man to the door and without ceremony threw him outside. The walking stick followed.\n\nThey travelled the old trail that paralleled the spine of the mountains. Old rockslides obscured the path here and there, dragging firs and cedars down towards the valley below, and in these places bushes and broadleafed trees had found a foothold, making passage difficult. Two days and three nights ahead lay Rathyd lands, and of all the other Teblor tribes it was the Rathyd with whom the Uryd feuded the most. Raids and vicious murders entangled the two tribes together in a skein of hatred that stretched back centuries.\n\nPassing unseen through Rathyd territories was not what Karsa had in mind. He intended to carve a bloody path through real and imagined insults with a vengeful blade, gathering a score or more Teblor souls to his name in the process. The two warriors riding behind him, he well knew, believed that the journey ahead would be one of stealth and subterfuge. They were, after all, but three.\n\nBut Urugal is with us, in this, his season. And we shall announce ourselves in his name, and in blood. We shall shock awake the hornets in their nest, and the Rathyd shall come to know, and fear, the name of Karsa Orlong. As will the Sunyd, in their turn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The warhorses moved cautiously across the loose scree of a recent slide. There had been a lot of snow the past winter, more than Karsa could recall in his lifetime. Long before the Faces in the Rock awoke to proclaim to the elders, within dreams and trances, that they had defeated the old Teblor spirits and now demanded obeisance; long before the taking of enemy souls had become foremost among Teblor aspirations, the spirits that had ruled the land and its people were the bones of rock, the flesh of earth, the hair and fur of forest and glen, and their breath was the wind of each season. Winter arrived and departed with violent storms high in the mountains, the savage exertions of the spirits in their eternal, mutual war. Summer and winter were as one: motionless and dry, but the former revealed exhaustion while the latter evinced an icy, fragile peace. Accordingly, the Teblor viewed summers with sympathy for the battle-weary spirits, while they detested winters for the weakness of the ascendant combatants, for there was no value in the illusion of peace.\n\nLess than a score days remained in this, the season of spring. The high storms were diminishing, both infrequency and fury. Though the Faces in the Rock had long ago destroyed the old spirits and were, it seemed, indifferent to the passage of seasons, Karsa secretly envisioned himself and his two companion warriors as harbingers of one last storm. Their bloodwood swords would echo ancient rages among the unsuspecting Rathyd and Sunyd.\n\nThey cleared the recent slide. The path ahead wound down into a shallow valley with a highland meadow open to the bright afternoon sunlight.\n\nBairoth spoke behind Karsa. \"We should camp on the other side of this valley, Warleader. The horses need rest.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perhaps your horse needs rest, Bairoth,\" Karsa replied. \"You've too many feast nights on your bones. This journey shall make a warrior of you once again, I trust. Your back has known too much straw of late. ' With Dayliss riding you.\n\nBairoth laughed, but made no other reply.\n\nDelum called, \"My horse needs rest as well, Warleader. The glade ahead should make a good camp. There are rabbit runs here and I would set my snare.\"\n\nKarsa shrugged. \"Two weighted chains about me, then. The warcries of your stomachs leave me deafened. So be it. We shall camp.\"\n\nThere would be no fire, so they ate the rabbits Delum had caught raw. Once, such fare would have been risky, for rabbits often carried diseases that could only be killed by cooking, most of them fatal to the Teblor. But since the coming of the Faces in the Rock, illnesses had vanished among the tribes. Madness, it was true, still plagued them, but this had nothing to do with what was eaten or drunk. At times, the elders had explained, the burdens laid upon a man by the Seven proved too powerful. A mind must be strong, and strength was found in faith. For the weak man, for the man who knew doubt, rules and rites could become a cage, and imprisonment led to madness.\n\nThey sat around a small pit Delum had dug for the rabbit bones, saying little through the course of the meal. Overhead, the sky slowly lost its colour, and the stars had begun their wheel. In the gathering gloom Karsa listened to Bairoth sucking at a rabbit skull. He was ever last to finish, for he left nothing and would even gnaw, on the next day, the thin layer of fat from the underside of the skin. Finally, Bairoth tossed the empty skull into the pit and sat back, licking his fingers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have given,\" Delum said, \"some thought as to the journey ahead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Through Rathyd and Sunyd lands. We should not take trails that set us against skyline or even bare rock. Therefore, we must take lower paths. Yet these are ones that will lead us closest to camps. We must, I think, shift our travelling tonight.\"\n\n\"Better, then,\" Bairoth nodded, \"to count coup. To turn the hearthstones and steal feathers. Perhaps a few lone sleeping warriors can give us their souls.\"\n\nKarsa spoke. \"Hiding by day, we see little smoke to tell us where the camps are. At night, the wind swirls, so it will not help us find the hearths. The Rathyd and Sunyd are not fools. They will not build fires beneath overhangs or against rock-faces– we shall find no welcoming wash of light on stone. Also, our horses see better during the day, and are more sure-footed. We shall ride by day,\" he finished.\n\nNeither Bairoth nor Delum said anything fora moment.\n\nThen Bairoth cleared his throat. \"We shall find ourselves in a war, Karsa.\"\n\n\"We shall be as an arrow of the Lanyd in its flight through a forest, changing direction with each twig, branch and bole. We shall gather souls, Bairoth, in a roaring storm. War? Yes. Do you fear war, Bairoth Gild?\"\n\nDelum said, \"We are three, Warleader.\"\n\n\"Aye, we are Karsa Orlong, Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord. I have faced twenty-four warriors and have slain them all. I dance without equal– would you deny it? Even the elders have spoken in awe. And you, Delum, I see eighteen tongues looped on the thong at your hip. You can read a ghost's trail, and hear a pebble rollover from twenty paces. And Bairoth, in the days when all he carried was muscle– you, Bairoth, did you not break a Buryd's spine with your bare hands? Did you not drag a warhorse down? That ferocity but sleeps within you and this journey shall awaken it once more. Any other three... aye, glide the dark winding ways and turn hearthstones and pluck feathers and crush a few windpipes among sleeping foes. A worthy enough glory for any other three warriors. For us? No. Your warleader has spoken.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bairoth grinned over at Delum." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let us gaze upward and witness the wheel, Delum Thord, for scant few such sights remain to us.\"\n\nKarsa slowly rose. \"You follow your warleader, Bairoth Gild. You do not question him. Your faltering courage threatens to poison us all. Believe in victory, warrior, or turn back now.\"\n\nBairoth shrugged and leaned back, stretching out his hide-wrapped legs. \"You area great warleader, Karsa Orlong, but sadly blind to humour. I have faith that you shall indeed find the glory you seek, and that Delum and I shall shine as lesser moons, yet shine none the less. For us, it is enough. You may cease questioning that, Warleader. We are here, with you-\"\n\n\"Challenging my wisdom!\"\n\n\"Wisdom is not a subject we have as yet discussed,\" Bairoth replied. \"We are warriors as you said, Karsa. And we are young. Wisdom belongs to old men.\"\n\n\"Yes, the elders,\" Karsa snapped. \"Who would not bless our journey!\"\n\nBairoth laughed. \"That is our truth and we must carry it with us, unchanged and bitter in our hearts. But upon our return, Warleader, we shall find that that truth has changed in our absence. The blessing will have been given after all. Wait and see.\"\n\nKarsa's eyes widened.\"The elders will lie? '\n\n\"Of course they will lie. And they will expect us to accept their new truths, and we shall– no, we must, Karsa Orlong. The glory of our success must serve to bind the people together– to hold it close is not only selfish, it is potentially deadly. Think on this, Warleader. We will be returning to the village with our own claims. Aye, no doubt a few trophies with us to add proof to our tale, but if we do not share out that glory then the elders will see to it that our claims shall know the poison of disbelief.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Disbelief?\"\n\n\"Aye. They will believe but only if they can partake of our glory. They will believe us, but only if we in turn believe them– their reshaping of the past, the blessing that was not given, now given, all the villagers lining our ride out. They were all there, or so they will tell you, and, eventually, they will themselves come to believe it, and will have the scenes carved into their minds. Does this still confuse you, Karsa? If so, then we'd best not speak of wisdom. '\n\n\"The Teblor do not play games of deceit,\" Karsa growled.\n\nBairoth studied him fora moment, then he nodded. \"True, they do not.\"\n\nDelum pushed soil and stones into the pit. \"It is time to sleep,\" he said, rising to check one last time on the hobbled horses.\n\nKarsa eyed Bairoth. His mind is as a Lanyd arrow in the forest, but will that aid him when our bloodwood blades are out and battlecries sound on all sides? This is what comes when muscle turns to fat and straw clings to your back. Duelling with words will win you nothing, Bairoth Gild, except perhaps that your tongue will not dry out as quickly on a Rathyd warrior's belt.\n\n\"At least eight,\" Delum murmured. \"With perhaps one youth. There are indeed two hearths. They have hunted the grey bear that dwells in caves, and carry atrophy with them.\"\n\n\"Meaning they are full of themselves.\" Bairoth nodded. \"That's good. '\n\nKarsa frowned at Bairoth. \"Why?\"\n\nThe cast of the enemy's mind, Warleader. They will be feeling invincible, and this will make them careless. Do they have horses, Delum?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No. Grey bears know the sound of hoofs too well. If they brought dogs on the hunt, none survived for the return journey.\"\n\n\"Better still.\"\n\nThey had dismounted, and now crouched near the edge of the treeline. Delum had slipped ahead to scout the Rathyd encampment. His passage through the tall grasses, knee-high stumps and brush of the slope beyond the trees had not stirred a single blade or leaf.\n\nThe sun was high overhead, the air dry, hot and motionless.\n\n\"Eight,\" Bairoth said. He grinned at Karsa. \"And a youth. He should betaken first.\"\n\nTo make the survivors know shame. He expects us to lose. \"Leave him tome,\" Karsa said. \"My charge will be fierce, and will take me to the other side of the camp. The warriors still standing will turn to face me one and all. That is when you two will charge.\"\n\nDelum blinked. \"You would have us strike from behind?\"\n\n\"To even the numbers, yes. Then we shall each settle to our duels.\"\n\n\"Will you dodge and duck in your pass?\" Bairoth asked, his eyes glittering.\n\n\"No, I will strike.\"\n\n\"They will bind you, then, Warleader, and you shall fail in reaching the far side.\"\n\n\"I will not be bound, Bairoth Gild.\"\n\n\"There are nine of them.\"\n\n\"Then watch me dance.\"\n\nDelum asked, \"Why do we not use our horses, Warleader?\"\n\n\"I am tired of talking. Follow, but at a slower pace.\"\n\nBairoth and Delum shared an unreadable look, then Bairoth shrugged. \"We will be your witnesses, then.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Karsa unslung his bloodwood sword, closing both hands around the leather-wrapped grip." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The blade's wood was deep red, almost black, the glassy polish making the painted warcrest seem to float a finger's width above the surface. The weapon's edge was almost translucent, where the blood-oil rubbed into the grain had hardened, coming to replace the wood. There were no nicks or notches along the edge, only a slight rippling of the line where damage had repaired itself, for blood-oil clung to its memory and would little tolerate denting or scarring. Karsa held the weapon out before him, then slipped forward through the high grasses, quickening into the dance as he went.\n\nReaching the boar trail leading into the forest that Delum had pointed out, he hunched lower and slipped onto its hard-packed, flattened track without breaking stride. The broad, tapered sword-point seemed to lead him forward as if cutting its own silent, unerring path through the shadows and shafts of light. He picked up greater speed.\n\nIn the centre of the Rathyd camp, three of the eight adult warriors were crouched around a slab of bear meat that they had just unwrapped from a fold of deer hide. Two others sat nearby with their weapons across their thighs, rubbing the thick blood-oil into the blades. The remaining three stood speaking to one another less than three paces from the mouth of the boar trail. The youth was at the far end.\n\nKarsa's sprint was at its peak when he reached the glade. At distances of seventy paces or less, a Teblor could run alongside a galloping warhorse. His arrival was explosive. One moment, eight warriors and one youth at rest in a clearing, the next, the tops of the heads of two of the standing warriors were cutoff in a single horizontal blow. Scalp and bone flew, blood and brain sprayed and spat across the face of the third Rathyd. This man reeled back, and pivoted to his left to seethe return swing of Karsa's sword, as it swept under his chin, then was gone from sight. Eyes, still held wide, watched the scene tilt wildly before darkness burgeoned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still moving, Karsa leapt high to avoid the warrior's head as it thudded and rolled across the ground.\n\nThe Rathyd who had been oiling their swords had already straightened and readied their weapons. They split away from each other and darted forward to take Karsa from either side.\n\nHe laughed, twisting around to plunge among the three warriors whose bloodied hands held but butchering knives. Snapping his sword into a close-quarter guard, he ducked low. Three small blades each found their mark, slicing through leathers, skin and into muscle. Momentum propelled Karsa through the press, and he took those knives with him, spinning to rip his sword through a pair of arms, then up into an armpit, tearing the shoulder away, the scapula coming with it– a curved plate of purple bone latticed in veins attached by a skein of ligaments to a twitching arm that swung in its flight to reach skyward.\n\nA body dived with a snarl to wrap burly arms around Karsa's legs. Still laughing, the Uryd warleader punched down with his sword, the pommel crunching through the top of the warrior's skull. The arms spasmed and fell away.\n\nA sword hissed towards his neck from the right. Still in close-quarter guard, Karsa spun to take the blade with his own, the impact ringing both weapons with a pealing, sonorous sound.\n\nHe heard the closing step of the Rathyd behind him, felt the air cleave to the blade swinging in towards his left shoulder, and he pitched instantly down and to his right. Wheeling his own sword around, arms extending as he fell. The edge swept above and past the warrior's savage down-stroke, cut through a pair of thick wrists, then tore through abdomen, from belly-button and across, between ribcage and point of hip, then bursting clear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still spinning as he toppled, he renewed the swing that had been staggered by bone and flesh, twisting his shoulders to follow the blade as it passed beneath him, then around to the other side. The slash cleared the ground at a level that took the last Rathyd's left leg at the ankle. Then the ground hammered into Karsa's right shoulder. Rolling away, his sword trailing crossways across his own body, deflecting but not quite defeating a downward blow– fire tearing into his right hip– then he was beyond the warrior's reach– and the man was shrieking and stumbling an awkward retreat.\n\nKarsa's roll brought him upright once more, into a crouch that spurted blood down his right leg, that sent stinging stabs into his left side, his back beneath his right shoulder blade, and his left thigh where the knives were still buried.\n\nHe found himself facing the youth.\n\nNo more than forty, not yet at his full height, lean of limb as the Unready often were. Eyes filled with horror.\n\nKarsa winked, then wheeled around to close on the one-footed warrior.\n\nHis shrieks had grown frenzied, and Karsa saw that Bairoth and Delum had reached him and had joined in the game, their blades taking the other foot and both hands. The Rathyd was on the ground between them, limbs jerking and spurting blood across the trampled grass.\n\nKarsa glanced back to seethe youth fleeing towards the woods. The warleader smiled.\n\nBairoth and Delum began chasing the floundering Rathyd warrior about, chopping pieces from his flailing limbs.\n\nThey were angry, Karsa knew. He had left them nothing.\n\nIgnoring his two companions and their brutal torture, he plucked the butchering knife from his thigh. Blood welled but did not spurt, telling him that no major artery or vein had been touched. The knife in his left side had skittered along ribs and lay embedded flat beneath skin and a few layers of muscle. He drew the weapon out and tossed it aside. The last knife, sunk deep into his back, was harder to reach and it took a few attempts before he managed to find a sure clasp of its smeared handle and then pull it out. A longer blade would have reached his heart. As it was, it would probably be the most irritating of the three minor wounds. The sword-cut into his hip and through part of a buttock was slightly more serious. It would have to be carefully sewn, and would make both riding and walking painful fora while." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Loss of blood or a fatal blow had silenced the dismembered Rathyd, and Karsa heard Bairoth's heavy steps approach." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another scream announced Delum's examination of the other fallen.\n\n\"Warleader.\" Anger made the voice taut.\n\nKarsa slowly turned. \"Bairoth Gild.\"\n\nThe heavy warrior's face was dark.\"You let the youth escape. We must hunt him, now, and it will not be easy for these are his lands, not ours. '\n\n\"He is meant to escape,\" Karsa replied.\n\nBairoth scowled.\n\n\"You're the clever one, \"Karsa pointed out,\"why should this baffle you so? '\n\n\"He reaches his village.\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"And tells of the attack. Three Uryd warriors. There is rage and frenzied preparations.\" Bairoth allowed himself a small nod as he continued. \"A hunt sets out, seeking three Uryd warriors. Who are on foot. The youth is certain on this. Had the Uryd had horses, they would have used them, of course. Three against eight, to do otherwise is madness. So the hunt confines itself, in what it seeks, in its frame of thought, in all things. Three Uryd warriors, on foot.\"\n\nDelum had joined them, and now eyed Karsa without expression.\n\nKarsa said, \"Delum Thord would speak.\"\n\n\"I would, Warleader. The youth, you have placed an image in his mind. It will harden there, its colours will not fade, but sharpen. The echo of screams will become louder in his skull. Familiar faces, frozen eternal in expressions of pain. This youth, Karsa Orlong, will become an adult. And he will not be content to follow, he will lead. He must lead; and none shall challenge his fierceness, the gleaming wood of his will, the oil of his desire. Karsa Orlong, you have made an enemy for the Uryd, an enemy to pale all we have known in the past.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One day,\" Karsa said, \"that Rathyd warleader shall kneel before me. This, I vow, here, on the blood of his kin, I so vow.\"\n\nThe air was suddenly chill. Silence hung in the glade except for the muted buzz of flies.\n\nDelum's eyes were wide, his expression one of fear.\n\nBairoth turned away. \"That vow shall destroy you, Karsa Orlong. No Rathyd kneels before an Uryd. Unless you prop his lifeless corpse against a tree stump. You now seek the impossible, and that is a path to madness.\"\n\n\"One vow among many I have made,\" Karsa said. \"And each shall be kept. Witness, if you dare.\"\n\nBairoth paused from studying the grey bear's fur and defleshed skull– the Rathyd trophies– and glanced back at Karsa.\"Do we have a choice? '\n\n\"If you still breathe, then the answer is no, Bairoth Gild.\"\n\n\"Remind me to tell you one day, Karsa Orlong.\"\n\n\"Tell me of what?\"\n\n\"What life is like, for those of us in your shadow.\"\n\nDelum stepped close to Karsa. \"You have wounds that need mending, Warleader.\"\n\n\"Aye, but for now, only the sword-cut. We must return to our horses and ride.\"\n\n\"Like a Lanyd arrow.\"\n\n\"Aye, just so, Delum Thord.\"\n\nBairoth called out, \"Karsa Orlong, I shall collect for you your trophies.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Bairoth Gild. We shall take that fur and skull, as well. You and Delum may keep those.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Delum turned to face Bairoth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Take them, brother. The grey bear better suits you than me.\"\n\nBairoth nodded his thanks, then waved towards the dismembered warrior. \"His ears and tongue are yours, Delum Thord.\"\n\n\"It is so, then.\"\n\nAmong the Teblor, the Rathyd bred the fewest horses; despite this, there were plenty of wide runs from glade to glade down which Karsa and his companions could ride. In one of the clearings they had come upon an adult and two youths tending to six destriers. They had ridden them down, blades flashing, pausing only to collect trophies and gather up the horses, each taking two on a lead. An hour before darkness fell, they came to a forking of the trail, rode down the lower of the two for thirty paces, then released the leads and drove the Rathyd horses on. The three Uryd warriors then slipped a single, short rope around the necks of their own mounts, just above the collarbones, and with gentle, alternating tugs walked them backwards until they reached the fork, whereupon they proceeded onto the higher trail. Fifty paces ahead, Delum dismounted and backtracked to obscure their trail.\n\nWith the wheel taking shape overhead, they cutaway from the rocky path and found a small clearing in which they made camp. Bairoth cut slices from the bear meat and they ate. Delum then rose to attend to the horses, using wet moss to wipe them down. The beasts were tired and left unhobbled to allow them to walk the clearing and stretch their necks.\n\nExamining his wounds, Karsa noted that they had already begun to knit. So it was among the Teblor. Satisfied, he found his flask of blood-oil and set to repairing his weapon. Delum rejoined them and he and Bairoth followed suit." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Help to continue the narrative for the writer.\nTags: epic fantasy, character study, power struggles, resilience, destiny\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: House of Chains\nChapter: 9" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Delum turned to face Bairoth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Take them, brother. The grey bear better suits you than me.\"\n\nBairoth nodded his thanks, then waved towards the dismembered warrior. \"His ears and tongue are yours, Delum Thord.\"\n\n\"It is so, then.\"\n\nAmong the Teblor, the Rathyd bred the fewest horses; despite this, there were plenty of wide runs from glade to glade down which Karsa and his companions could ride. In one of the clearings they had come upon an adult and two youths tending to six destriers. They had ridden them down, blades flashing, pausing only to collect trophies and gather up the horses, each taking two on a lead. An hour before darkness fell, they came to a forking of the trail, rode down the lower of the two for thirty paces, then released the leads and drove the Rathyd horses on. The three Uryd warriors then slipped a single, short rope around the necks of their own mounts, just above the collarbones, and with gentle, alternating tugs walked them backwards until they reached the fork, whereupon they proceeded onto the higher trail. Fifty paces ahead, Delum dismounted and backtracked to obscure their trail.\n\nWith the wheel taking shape overhead, they cutaway from the rocky path and found a small clearing in which they made camp. Bairoth cut slices from the bear meat and they ate. Delum then rose to attend to the horses, using wet moss to wipe them down. The beasts were tired and left unhobbled to allow them to walk the clearing and stretch their necks.\n\nExamining his wounds, Karsa noted that they had already begun to knit. So it was among the Teblor. Satisfied, he found his flask of blood-oil and set to repairing his weapon. Delum rejoined them and he and Bairoth followed suit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tomorrow,\" Karsa said, \"we leave this trail.\"\n\n\"Down to the wider, easier ones in the valley?\" Bairoth asked.\n\n\"If we are quick,\" Delum said, \"we can pass through Rathyd land in a single day.\"\n\n\"No, we lead our horses higher, onto the goat and sheep trails,\" Karsa replied. \"And we reverse our path for the length of the morning. Then we ride down into the valley once more. Bairoth Gild, with the hunt out, who will remain in the village?\"\n\nThe heavy man drew out his new bear cloak and wrapped it about himself before answering. \"Youths. Women. The old and the crippled.\"\n\n\"Dogs?\"\n\n\"No, the hunt will have taken those. So, Warleader, we attack the village.\"\n\n\"Yes. Then we find the hunt's trail. '\n\nDelum drew a deep breath and was slow in its release. \"Karsa Orlong, the village of our victims thus far is not the only village. In the first valley alone there are at least three more. Word will go out. Every warrior will ready his sword. Every dog will be unleashed and sent out into the forest. The warriors may not find us, but the dogs will.\"\n\n\"And then,\" Bairoth growled, \"there are three more valleys to cross.\"\n\n\"Small ones,\" Karsa pointed out. \"And we cross them at the south ends, a day or more hard riding from the north mouths and the heart of the Rathyd lands.\"\n\nDelum said, \"There will be such a foment of anger pursuing us, Warleader, that they will follow us into the valleys of the Sunyd.\"\n\nKarsa flipped the blade on his thighs to begin work on the other side. \"So I hope, Delum Thord. Answer me this, when last have the Sunyd seen an Uryd?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your grandfather,\" Bairoth said.\n\nKarsa nodded. \"And we well know the Rathyd warcry, do we not?\"\n\n\"You would start a war between the Rathyd and Sunyd?\"\n\n\"Aye, Bairoth.\"\n\nThe warrior slowly shook his head. \"We are not yet done with the Rathyd, Karsa Orlong. You plan too far in advance, Warleader.\"\n\n\"Witness what comes, Bairoth Gild.\"\n\nBairoth picked up the bear skull. The lower jaw still hung from it by a single strip of gristle. He snapped it off and tossed it to one side. Then he drew out a spare bundle of leather straps. He began tightly wrapping the cheekbones, leaving long lengths dangling beneath.\n\nKarsa watched these efforts curiously. The skull was too heavy even for Bairoth to wear as a helm. Moreover, he would need to break the bone away on the underside, where it was thickest around the hole that the spinal cord made.\n\nDelum rose. \"I shall sleep now,\" he announced, moving off.\n\n\"Karsa Orlong,\" Bairoth said, \"do you have spare straps?\"\n\n\"You are welcome to them,\" Karsa replied, also rising. \"Be sure to sleep this night, Bairoth Gild.\"\n\n\"I will.\"\n\nFor the first hour of light they heard dogs in the forested valley floor below. These faded as they backtracked along a high cliffside path. When the sun was directly overhead, Delum found a downward wending trail and they began the descent.\n\nMidway through the afternoon, they came upon stump-crowded clearings and could smell the smoke of the village. Delum dismounted and slipped ahead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He returned a short while later." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As you surmised, Warleader. I saw eleven elders, thrice as many women, and thirteen youths– all very young, I imagine the older ones are with the hunt. No horses. No dogs.\" He climbed back onto his horse.\n\nThe three Uryd warriors readied their swords. They then each drew out their flasks of blood-oil and sprinkled a few drops around the nostrils of their destriers. Heads snapped back, muscles tensed.\n\n\"I have the right flank,\" Bairoth said.\n\n\"And I the centre,\" Karsa announced.\n\n\"And so I the left,\" Delum said, then frowned. \"They will scatter from you, Warleader.\"\n\n\"I am feeling generous today, Delum Thord. This village shall be to the glory of you and Bairoth. Be sure that no-one escapes on the other side.\"\n\n\"None shall.\"\n\n\"And if any woman seeks to fire a house to turn the hunt, slay her.\"\n\n\"They would not be so foolish,\" Bairoth said. \"If they do not resist they shall have our seed, but they shall live.\"\n\nThe three removed the reins from their horses and looped them around their waists. They edged further onto their mounts' shoulders and drew their knees up.\n\nKarsa slipped his wrist through the sword's thong and whirled the weapon once through the air to tighten it. The others did the same. Beneath him, Havok trembled.\n\n\"Lead us, Warleader,\" Delum said.\n\nA slight pressure launched Havok forward, three strides into a canter, slow and almost loping as they crossed the stump-filled glade. A slight shifting to the left led them towards the main path. Reaching it, Karsa lifted his sword into the destrier's range of vision. The beast surged into a gallop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Seven lengthening strides brought them to the village. Karsa's companions had already split away to either side to come up behind the houses, leaving him the main artery. He saw figures there, directly ahead, heads turning. A scream rang through the air. Children scattered.\n\nSword lashed out, chopped down easily through young bone. Karsa glanced to his right and Havok shifted direction, hoofs kicking out to gather in and trample an elder. They plunged onward, pursuing, butchering. On the far sides of the houses, beyond the refuse trenches, more screams sounded.\n\nKarsa reached the far end. He saw a single youth racing for the trees and drove after him. The lad carried a practice sword. Hearing the heavy thump of Havok's charge closing fast– and with the safety of the forest still too far in front of him– he wheeled.\n\nKarsa's swing cut through practice sword then neck. Ahead thrust from Havok sent the youth's decapitated body sprawling.\n\nI lost a cousin in such a manner. Ridden down by a Rathyd. Ears and tongue taken. Body strung by one foot from a branch. The head propped beneath, smeared in excrement. The deed is answered. Answered.\n\nHavok slowed, then wheeled.\n\nKarsa looked back upon the village. Bairoth and Delum had done their slaughter and were now herding the women into the clearing surrounding the village hearth.\n\nAt a trot, Havok carried him back into the village.\n\n\"The chief's own belong tome, ' Karsa announced.\n\nBairoth and Delum nodded, and he could see their heightened spirits, from the ease with which they surrendered the privilege. Bairoth faced the women and gestured with his sword. A middle-aged, handsome woman stepped forward, followed by a younger version– a lass perhaps the same age as Dayliss. Both studied Karsa as carefully as he did them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord, take your first among the others. I will guard.\"\n\nThe two warriors grinned, dismounted and plunged among the women to select one each. They vanished into separate houses, leading their prizes by the hand.\n\nKarsa watched with raised brows.\n\nThe chief's wife snorted.\"Your warriors were not blind to the eagerness of those two, ' she said.\n\n\"Their warriors, be they father or mate, will not be pleased with such eagerness,\" Karsa commented. Uryd women would not-\n\n\"They will never know, Warleader,\" the chief's wife replied,\"unless you tell them, and what is the likelihood of that? They will spare you no time for taunts before killing you. Ah, but I see now, \"she added, stepping closer to stare up at his face.\"You thought to believe that Uryd women are different, and now you realize the lie of that. All men are fools, but now you are perhaps a little less so, as truth steals into your heart. What is your name, Warleader? '\n\n\"You talk too much,\" Karsa growled, then he drew himself straight. \"I am Karsa Orlong, grandson of Pahlk-\"\n\n\"Pahlk?\"\n\n\"Aye.\" Karsa grinned. \"I see you recall him.\"\n\n\"I was a child, but yes, he is well known among us.\"\n\n\"He lives still, and sleeps calm despite the curses you have laid upon his name.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"Curses? There are none. Pahlk bowed his head to beg passage through our lands-\"\n\n\"You lie!\"\n\nShe studied him, then shrugged. \"As you say.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of the women cried out from one of the houses, a cry more pleasure than pain.\n\nThe chief's wife turned her head.\"How many of us will take your seed, Warleader? '\n\nKarsa settled back. \"All of you. Eleven each.\"\n\n\"And how many days will that take? You want us to cook for you as well?\"\n\n\"Days? You think as an old woman. We are young. And, if need be, we have blood-oil.\"\n\nThe woman's eyes widened. The others behind her began murmuring and whispering. The chiefs wife spun and silenced them with a look, then she faced Karsa once more.\"You have never used blood-oil in this fashion before, have you? It is true, you will know fire in your loins. You will know stiffness for days to come. But, Warleader, you do not know what it will do to each of us women. I do, for I too was young and foolish once. Even my husband's strength could not keep my teeth from his throat, and he carries the scars still. There is more. What for you will last less than a week, haunts us for months.\"\n\n\"And so,\" Karsa replied, \"if we do not kill your husbands, you will upon their return. I am pleased.\"\n\n\"You three will not survive the night.\"\n\n\"It will be interesting, do you not think,\" Karsa smiled, \"who among Bairoth, Delum and me will find need for it first.\" He addressed all the women. \"I suggest to each of you to be eager, so you are not the first to fail us.\"\n\nBairoth appeared, nodded at Karsa.\n\nThe chief's wife sighed and waved her daughter forward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" Karsa said.\n\nThe woman stopped, suddenly confused. \"But... will you not want a child from this? Your first will carry the most seed-\"\n\n\"Aye, it will. Are you past bearing age?\"\n\nAfter along moment, she shook her head. \"Karsa Orlong,\" she whispered, \"you invite my husband to set upon you a curse– he will burn blood on the stone lips of Imroth herself.\"\n\n\"Yes, that is likely.\" Karsa dismounted and approached her. \"Now, lead me to your house.\"\n\nShe drew back. \"The house of my husband? Warleader– no, please, let us choose another one-\"\n\n\"Your husband's house, \"Karsa growled.\"I am done talking and so are you. '\n\nAn hour before dusk, and Karsa led the last of his prizes towards the house– the chief's daughter. He and Bairoth and Delum had not needed the blood-oil, a testament, Bairoth claimed, to Uryd prowess, though Karsa suspected the true honour belonged to the zeal and desperate creativity of the women of the Rathyd, and even then, the last few for each of the warriors had been peremptory.\n\nAshe drew the young woman into the gloomy house with its dying hearth, Karsa swung shut the door and dropped the latch. She turned to face him, a curious tilt to her chin.\n\n\"Mother said you were surprisingly gentle.\"\n\nHe eyed her. She is as Dayliss, yet not. There is no dark streak within this one. That is... a difference. \"Remove your clothes.\"\n\nShe quickly climbed out of the one-piece hide tunic. \"Had I been first, Karsa Orlong, I would have made home for your seed. Such is this day in my wheel of time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You would have been proud?\"\n\nShe paused to give him a startled look, then shook her head. \"You have slain all the children, all the elders. It will be centuries before our village recovers, and indeed it may not, for the anger of the warriors may turn them on each other, and onus women– should you escape.\"\n\n\"Escape? Lie down, there, where your mother did. Karsa Orlong is not interested in escape.\" He moved forward to stand over her. \"Your warriors will not be returning. The life of this village is ended, and within many of you there shall be the seed of the Uryd. Go there, all of you, to live among my people. And you and your mother, go to the village where I was born. Await me. Raise your children, my children, as Uryd.\"\n\n\"You make bold claims, Karsa Orlong.\"\n\nHe began removing his leathers.\n\n\"More than claims, I see,\" she observed. \"No need, then, for blood-oil.\"\n\n\"We will save the blood-oil, you and I, for my return.\"\n\nHer eyes widened and she leaned back as he moved down over her. Ina small voice, she asked, \"Do you not wish to know my name?\"\n\n\"No,\" he growled. \"I will call you Dayliss.\"\n\nAnd he saw nothing of the shame that filled her young, beautiful face. Nor did he sense the darkness his words clawed into her soul.\n\nWithin her, as within her mother, Karsa Orlong's seed found a home.\n\nA late storm had descended from the mountains, devouring the stars. Treetops thrashed to a wind that made no effort to reach lower, creating a roar of sound overhead and a strange calm among the boles. Lightning flickered, but the thunder's voice was long incoming." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They rode through an hour of darkness, then found an old campsite near the trail the hunt had left." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Rathyd warriors had been careless in their fury, leaving far too many signs of their passage. Delum judged that there were twelve adults and four youths on horseback in this particular party, perhaps a third of the village's entire strength. The dogs had already been set loose to range in packs on their own, and none accompanied the group the Uryd now pursued.\n\nKarsa was well pleased. The hornets were out of the nest, yet flying blind.\n\nThey ate once more of the ageing bear meat, then Bairoth once again unwrapped the bear skull and resumed winding straps, this time around the snout, pulling them taut between the teeth. The ends left dangling were long, an arm and a half in length. Karsa now understood what Bairoth was fashioning. Often, two or three wolf skulls were employed for this particular weapon– only a man of Bairoth's strength and weight could manage the same with the skull of a grey bear.\"Bairoth Gild, what you create shall make a bright thread in the legend we are weaving. '\n\nThe man grunted. \"I care nothing for legends, Warleader. But soon, we shall be facing Rathyd on destriers.\"\n\nKarsa smiled in the darkness, said nothing.\n\nA soft wind flowed down from upslope.\n\nDelum lifted his head suddenly and rose in silence. \"I smell wet fur,\" he said.\n\nThere had been no rain as yet.\n\nKarsa removed his sword harness and laid the weapon down. \"Bairoth,\" he whispered, \"remain here. Delum, take with you your brace of knives– leave your sword.\" He rose and gestured. \"Lead.\"\n\n\"Warleader,\" Delum murmured. \"It is a pack, driven down from the high ground by the storm. They have no scent of us, yet their ears are sharp.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you not think,\" Karsa asked, \"that they would have set to howling if they had heard us?\"\n\nBairoth snorted. \"Delum, beneath this roar they have heard nothing.\"\n\nBut Delum shook his head. \"There are high sounds and there are low sounds, Bairoth Gild, and they each travel their own stream.\" He swung to Karsa. \"To your question, Warleader, this answer: possibly not, if they are unsure whether we are Uryd or Rathyd.\"\n\nKarsa grinned. \"Even better. Take me to them, Delum Thord. I have thought long on this matter of Rathyd dogs, the loosed packs. Take me to them, and keep your throwing knives close to hand.\"\n\nHavok and the other two destriers had quietly flanked the warriors during the conversation, and now all faced upslope, ears pricked forward.\n\nAfter a moment's hesitation, Delum shrugged and, crouching, set off into the woods. Karsa followed.\n\nThe slope grew steeper after a score of paces. There was no path, and fallen tree trunks made traverse difficult and slow, though thick swaths of damp moss made the passage of the two Teblor warriors virtually noiseless. They reached a flatter shelf perhaps fifteen paces wide and ten deep, a high crack-riven cliff opposite. A few trees leaned against the rock, grey with death. Delum scanned the cliffside, then made to move towards a narrow, dirt-filled crevasse near the left end of the cliff that served as a game trail, but Karsa restrained him with a hand.\n\nHe leaned close. \"How far ahead?\"\n\n\"Fifty heartbeats. We've still time to make this climb-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We position ourselves here. Take that ledge to the right and have your knives ready.\"\n\nWith baffled expression, Delum did as he was told. The ledge was halfway up the cliffside. Within moments he was in place.\n\nKarsa moved towards the game trail. A dead pine had fallen from above, taking the same path in its descent, coming to rest half apace to the trail's left. Karsa reached it and gave the trunk a nudge. The wood was still sound. He quickly climbed it, then, feet resting on branches, he twisted round until he faced the flat expanse of shelf, the game trail now almost within arm's reach to his left, the bole and cliff at his back.\n\nThen he waited. He could not see Delum from his position unless he leaned forward, which might well pull the tree away from the cliffside, taking him with it in aloud, probably damaging fall. He would have to trust, therefore, that Delum would grasp what he intended, and act accordingly when the time came.\n\nA skitter of stones down the trail.\n\nThe dogs had begun the descent.\n\nKarsa drew a slow, deep breath and held it.\n\nThe pack's leader would not be the first. Most likely the second, a safe beat or two behind the scout.\n\nThe first dog scrambled past Karsa's position in a scatter of stones, twigs and dirt, its momentum taking it a half-dozen paces out onto the flat shelf, where it paused, nose lifting to test the air. Hackles rising, it moved cautiously towards the shelf's edge.\n\nAnother dog came down the trail, a larger beast, this one kicking up more detritus than the first. As its scarred head and shoulders came into view, Karsa knew that he had found the pack's leader." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The animal reached the flat.\n\nJust as the scout began swinging his head around.\n\nKarsa leapt.\n\nHis hands shot out to take the leader on the neck, driving the beast down, spinning it onto its back, his left hand closing on the throat, his right gripping both flailing, kicking front legs just above the paws.\n\nThe dog flew into a frenzy beneath him, but Karsa held firm.\n\nMore dogs tumbled in a rush down the trail, then fanned out in sudden alarm and confusion.\n\nThe leader's snarls had turned to yelps.\n\nSavage teeth had ripped into Karsa's wrist, until he managed to push his chokehold higher under the dog's jaw. The animal writhed, but it had already lost and they both knew it.\n\nAs did the rest of the pack.\n\nKarsa finally glanced up to study the dogs surrounding him. At his lifting of head they all backed away– all but one. A young, burly male, who ducked low as it crept forward.\n\nTwo of Delum's knives thudded into the animal, one in the throat and the other behind its right shoulder. The dog pitched to the ground with a strangled grunt, then lay still. The others of the pack retreated still further.\n\nThe leader had gone motionless beneath Karsa. Baring his teeth, the warrior slowly lowered himself until his cheek lay alongside the dog's jawline. Then he whispered into the animal's ear. \"You heard the deathcry, friend? That was your challenger. This should please you, yes? Now, you and your pack belong tome.\" Ashe spoke, his tone soft and reassuring, he slowly loosened his grip on the dog's throat. A moment later, he leaned back, shifted his weight to one side, withdrawing his arm entirely, then releasing the dog's forelimbs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The beast scrambled to its feet.\n\nKarsa straightened, stepped close to the dog, smiling to see its tail droop.\n\nDelum climbed down from the ledge. \"Warleader,\" he said as he approached, \"I am witness to this.\" He retrieved his knives.\n\n\"Delum Thord, you are both witness and participant, for I saw your knives and they were well timed.\"\n\n\"The leader's rival saw his moment. '\n\n\"And you understood that.\"\n\n\"We now have a pack that will fight for us.\"\n\n\"Aye, Delum Thord.\"\n\n\"I will go ahead of you back to Bairoth, then. The horses will need calming.\"\n\n\"We shall give you a few moments.\"\n\nAt the shelf's edge, Delum paused and glanced back at Karsa.\"I no longer fear the Rathyd, Karsa Orlong. Nor the Sunyd. I now believe that Urugal indeed walks with you on this journey. '\n\n\"Then know this, Delum Thord. I am not content to be champion among the Uryd. One day, all the Teblor shall kneel tome. This, our journey to the outlands, is but a scouting of the enemy we shall one day face. Our people have slept for far too long.\"\n\n\"Karsa Orlong, I do not doubt you.\"\n\nKarsa's answering grin was cold.\"Yet you once did. '\n\nTo that, Delum simply shrugged, then he swung about and set off down the slope.\n\nKarsa examined his chewed wrist, then looked down at the dog and laughed. \"You've the taste of my blood in your mouth, beast. Urugal now races to clasp your heart, and so, you and I, we are joined. Come, walk at my side. I name you Gnaw. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were eleven adult dogs in the pack and three not quite full-grown. They fell instep behind Karsa and Gnaw, leaving their lone fallen kin unchallenged ruler of the shelf beneath the cliff. Until the flies came.\n\nTowards midday, the three Uryd warriors and their pack descended into the middle of the three small valleys on their southeasterly course across Rathyd lands. The hunt they tracked had clearly been driven to desperation, to have travelled so far in their search. It was also evident that the warriors ahead had avoided contact with other villages in the area. Their lengthening failure had become a shame that haunted them.\n\nKarsa was mildly disappointed in that, but he consoled himself that the tale of their deeds would travel none the less, sufficient to make their return journey across Rathyd territory a deadlier and more interesting task.\n\nDelum judged that the hunt was barely a third of a day ahead. They had slowed their pace, sending outriders to either side in search of a trail that did not yet exist. Karsa would not permit himself a gloat concerning that, however; there were, after all, two other parties from the Rathyd village, these ones probably on foot and moving cautiously, leaving few signs of their stealthy passage. At anytime, they might cross the Uryd trail.\n\nThe pack of dogs remained close on the upwind side, loping effortlessly alongside the trotting horses. Bairoth had simply shaken his head at hearing Delum's recount of Karsa's exploits, though of Karsa's ambitions, Delum curiously said nothing.\n\nThey reached the valley floor, a place of tumbled stone amidst birch, black spruce, aspen and alder. The remnants of a river seeped through the moss and rotting stumps, forming black pools that hinted nothing of their depth. Many of these sinkholes were hidden among boulders and treefalls. Their pace slowed as they cautiously worked their way deeper into the forest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A short while later they came to the first of the mud-packed, wooden walkways the Rathyd of this valley had built long ago and still maintained, if only indifferently. Lush grasses filling the joins attested to this particular one's disuse, but its direction suited the Uryd warriors, and so they dismounted and led their horses up onto the raised track.\n\nIt creaked and swayed beneath the combined weight of horses, Teblor and dogs.\n\n\"We'd best spread out and stay on foot, ' Bairoth said.\n\nKarsa crouched and studied the roughly dressed logs. \"The wood is still sound,\" he observed.\n\n\"But the stilts are seated in mud, Warleader.\"\n\n\"Not mud, Bairoth Gild. Peat.\"\n\n\"Karsa Orlong is right,\" Delum said, swinging himself back onto his destrier. \"The way may pitch but the cross-struts underneath will keep it from twisting. We ride down the centre, in single file.\"\n\n\"There is little point,\" Karsa said to Bairoth, \"in taking this path if we then creep along it like snails.\"\n\n\"The risk, Warleader, is that we become far more visible.\"\n\n\"Best we move along it quickly, then.\"\n\nBairoth grimaced. \"As you say, Karsa Orlong.\"\n\nDelum in the lead, they rode at a slow canter down the centre of the walkway. The pack followed. To either side, the only trees that reached to the eye level of the mounted warriors were dead birch, their leafless, black branches wrapped in the web of caterpillar nests. The living trees– aspen and alder and elm– reached no higher than chest height with their fluttering canopy of dusty-green leaves. Taller black spruce was visible in the distance. Most of these looked to be dead or dying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The old river is returning,\" Delum commented. \"This forest slowly drowns.\"\n\nKarsa grunted, then said, \"This valley runs into others that all lead northward, all the way to the Buryd Fissure. Pahlk was among the Teblor elders who gathered there sixty years ago. The river of ice filling the Fissure had died, suddenly, and had begun to melt.\"\n\nBehind Karsa, Bairoth spoke. \"We never learned what the elders of all the tribes discovered up there, nor if they had found whatever it was they were seeking.\"\n\n\"I did not know they were seeking anything in particular,\" Delum muttered. \"The death of the ice river was heard in a hundred valleys, including our own. Did they not travel to the Fissure simply to discover what had happened?\"\n\nKarsa shrugged. \"Pahlk told me of countless beasts that had been frozen within the ice for numberless centuries, becoming visible amidst the shattered blocks. Fur and flesh thawing, the ground and sky alive with crows and mountain vultures. There was ivory, but most of it was too badly crushed to be of any worth. The river had a black heart, or so its death revealed, but whatever lay within that heart was either gone or destroyed. Even so, there were signs of an ancient battle in that place. The bones of children. Weapons of stone, all broken.\"\n\n\"This is more than I have ever-\" Bairoth began, then stopped.\n\nThe walkway, which had been reverberating to their passage, had suddenly acquired a deeper, syncopating thunder. The walkway ahead made a bend, forty paces distant, to the left, disappearing behind trees.\n\nThe pack of dogs began snapping their jaws in voiceless warning. Karsa twisted round, and saw, two hundred paces behind them on the walkway, a dozen Rathyd warriors on foot. Weapons were lifted in silent promise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet the sound of hoofs– Karsa swung forward again, to see six riders pitch around the bend. Warcries rang in the air.\n\n\"Clear a space!\" Bairoth bellowed, driving his horse past Karsa, and then Delum. The bear skull sprang into the air, snapping as it reached the length of the straps, and Bairoth began whirling the massive, bound skull over his and his horse's head, using both hands, his knees high on his destrier's shoulders. The whirling skull made a deep, droning sound. His horse loped forward.\n\nThe Rathyd riders were at full charge. They rode two abreast, the edge of the walkway less than half an arm's length away on either side.\n\nThey had closed to within twenty paces of Bairoth when he released the bear skull.\n\nWhen two or three wolf skulls were used in this fashion, it was to bind or break legs. But Bairoth's target was higher. The skull struck the destrier on the left with a force that shattered the horse's chest. Blood sprayed from the animal's nose and mouth. Crashing down, it fouled the beast beside it– no more than the crack of a single hoof against its shoulder, but sufficient to make it veer wildly, and plunge down off the walkway. Legs snapped. The Rathyd warrior flew over his horse's head.\n\nThe rider of the first horse landed with bone-breaking impact on the walkway, at the very hoofs of Bairoth's destrier. Those hoofs punched down on the man's head in quick succession, leaving a shattered mess.\n\nThe charge floundered. Another horse went down, stumbling with a scream over the wildly kicking beast that now blocked the walkway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Loosing the Uryd warcry, Bairoth drove his mount forward. A surging leap carried them over the first downed destrier. The Rathyd warrior from the other fallen horse was just clambering clear and had time to lookup to see Bairoth's sword blade reach the bridge of his nose.\n\nDelum was suddenly behind his comrade. Two knives darted through the air, passing Bairoth on his right. There was a sharp report as a Rathyd's heavy sword-blade slashed across to block one of the knives, then a wet gasp as the second knife found the man's throat.\n\nTwo of the enemy remained, one each for Delum and Bairoth, and so the duels could begin.\n\nKarsa, after watching the effect of Bairoth's initial attack, had wheeled his mount round. Sword in his hands, blade flashing into Havok's vision, and they were charging back down the walkway towards the pursuing band.\n\nThe dog pack split to either side to avoid the thundering hoofs, then raced after rider and horse.\n\nAhead, eight adults and four youths.\n\nA barked order sent the youths to either side of the walkway, then down. The adults wanted room, and, seeing their obvious confidence as they formed an inverted V spanning the walkway, weapons ready, Karsa laughed.\n\nThey wanted him to ride down into the centre of that inverted V– a tactic that, while it maintained Havok's fierce speed, also exposed horse and rider to flanking attacks. Speed counted for much in the engagement to come. The Rathyd's expectations fit neatly into the attacker's intent-had that attacker been someone other than Karsa Orlong.\"Urugal! \"he bellowed, lifting himself high on Havok's shoulders. \"Witness!\" He held his sword, point forward, over his destrier's head, and fixed his gaze on the Rathyd warrior on the V's extreme left." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Havok sensed the shift inattention and angled his charge just moments before contact, hoofs pounding along the very edge of the walkway.\n\nThe Rathyd directly before them managed a single backward step, swinging a two-handed overhead chop at Havok's snout as he went.\n\nKarsa took that blade on his own, even as he twisted and threw his right leg forward, his left back. Havok turned beneath him, surged in towards the centre of the walkway.\n\nThe V had collapsed, and every Rathyd warrior was on Karsa's left.\n\nHavok carried him diagonally across the walkway. Keening his delight, Karsa slashed and chopped repeatedly, his blade finding flesh and bone as often as weapon. Havok pitched around before reaching the opposite edge, and lashed out his hind legs. At least one connected, flinging a shattered body from the bridge.\n\nThe pack then arrived. Snarling bodies hurling onto the Rathyd warriors– most of whom had turned when engaging Karsa, and so presented exposed backs to the frenzied dogs. Shrieks filled the air.\n\nKarsa spun Havok round. They plunged back into the savage press. Two Rathyd had managed to fight clear of the dogs, blood spraying from their blades as they backed up the walkway.\n\nBellowing a challenge, Karsa drove towards them.\n\nAnd was shocked to see them both leap from the walkway.\n\n\"Bloodless cowards! I witness! Your youths witness! These damned dogs witness!\"\n\nHe saw them reappear, weapons gone, scrambling and stumbling across the bog.\n\nDelum and Bairoth arrived, dismounting to add their swords to the maniacal frenzy of the surviving dogs as they tore unceasing at fallen Rathyd." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa drew Havok to one side, eyes still on the fleeing warriors, who had been joined now by the four youths. \"I witness! Urugal witnesses!\"\n\nGnaw, black and grey hide barely visible beneath splashes of gore, panted up to stand beside Havok, his muscles twitching but no wounds showing. Karsa glanced back and saw that four more dogs remained, whilst a fifth had lost a foreleg and limped a red circle off to one side.\n\n\"Delum, bind that one's leg– we will sear it anon. '\n\n\"What use a three-legged hunting dog, Warleader?\" Bairoth asked, breathing heavy.\n\n\"Even a three-legged dog has ears and a nose, Bairoth Gild. One day, she will lie grey-nosed and fat before my hearth, this I swear. Now, is either of you wounded?\"\n\n\"Scratches.\" Bairoth shrugged, turning away.\n\n\"I have lost a finger,\" Delum said as he drew out a leather strap and approached the wounded dog, \"but not an important one.\"\n\nKarsa looked once more at the retreating Rathyd. They had almost reached a stand of black spruce. The warleader sent them a final sneer, then laid a hand on Havok's brow.\"My father spoke true, Havok. I have never ridden such a horse as you. '\n\nAn ear had cocked at his words. Karsa leaned forward and set his lips to the beast's brow.\"We become, you and I, \"he whispered,\"legend. Legend, Havok. \"Straightening, he studied the sprawl of corpses on the walkway, and smiled.\"It is time for trophies, my brothers. Bairoth, did your bear skull survive? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I believe so, Warleader.\"\n\n\"Your deed was our victory, Bairoth Gild.\"\n\nThe heavy man turned, studied Karsa through slitted eyes. \"You ever surprise me, Karsa Orlong.\"\n\n\"As your strength does me, Bairoth Gild.\"\n\nThe man hesitated, then nodded. \"I am content to follow you, Warleader.\"\n\nYou ever were, Bairoth Gild, and that is the difference between us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There are hints, if one scans the ground with a clear and sharp eye, that this ancient Jaghut war, which for the Kron T'lan Imass was either their seventeenth or eighteenth, went terribly awry. The Adept who accompanied our expedition evinced no doubt whatsoever that a Jaghut remained alive within the Laederon glacier. Terribly wounded, yet possessing formidable sorcery still. Well beyond the ice river's reach (a reach which has been diminishing overtime), there are shattered remains of T'lan Imass, the bones strangely malformed, and on them the flavour of fierce and deadly Omtose Phellack lingering to this day.\n\nOf the ensorcelled stone weapons of the Kron, only those that were broken in the conflict remained, leading one to assume that either looters have been this way, or the T'lan Imass survivors (assuming there were any) took them with them...\n\nThe Nathii Expedition of 1012 Kenemass Trybanos, Chronicler\n\n\"I believe,\" Delum said as they led their horses down from the walkway, \"that the last group of the hunt has turned back.\"\n\n\"The plague of cowardice ever spreads,\" Karsa growled.\n\n\"They surmised at the very first,\" Bairoth rumbled, \"that we were crossing their lands. That our first attack was not simply a raid. So, they will await our return, and will likely call upon the warriors of other villages.\"\n\n\"That does not concern me, Bairoth Gild.\"\n\n\"I know that, Karsa Orlong, for what part of this journey have you not already anticipated? Even so, two more Rathyd valleys lie before us. I would know. There will be villages– do we ride around them or do we collect still more trophies?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We shall be burdened with too many trophies when we reach the lands of the lowlanders at Silver Lake,\" Delum commented.\n\nKarsa laughed, then considered. \"Bairoth Gild, we shall slip through these valleys like snakes in the night, until the very last village. I would still draw hunters after us, into the lands of the Sunyd.\"\n\nDelum had found a trail leading up the valley side.\n\nKarsa checked on the dog limping in their wake. Gnaw walked alongside it, and it occurred to Karsa that the three-legged beast might well be its mate. He was pleased with his decision to not slay the wounded creature.\n\nThere was a chill in the air that confirmed their gradual climb to higher elevations. The Sunyd territory was higher still, leading to the eastern edge of the escarpment. Pahlk had told Karsa that but a single pass cut through the escarpment, marked by a torrential waterfall that fed into Silver Lake. The climb down was treacherous. Pahlk had named it Bone Pass.\n\nThe trail began to wind sinuously among winter-cracked boulders and treefalls. They could now seethe summit, six hundred steep paces upward.\n\nThe warriors dismounted. Karsa strode back and lifted the three-legged dog into his arms. He set it down across Havok's broad back and strapped it in place. The animal voiced no protest. Gnaw moved up to flank the destrier.\n\nThey resumed their journey.\n\nThe sun was bathing the slope in brilliant gold light by the time they had closed to within a hundred paces of the summit, reaching abroad ledge that seemed– through a sparse forest of straggly, wind-twisted oaks– to run the length of the valley side. Scanning the terrace's sweep to his right, Delum voiced a grunt, then said,\"I see a cave. There, \"he pointed,\"behind those fallen trees, where the shelf bulges. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bairoth nodded and said, \"It looks big enough to hold our horses. Karsa Orlong, if we are to begin riding at night...\"\n\n\"Agreed,\" Karsa said.\n\nDelum led the way along the terrace. Gnaw scrambled past him, slowing upon nearing the cave mouth, then crouching down and edging forward.\n\nThe Uryd warriors paused, waiting to see if the dog's hackles rose, thus signalling the presence of a grey bear or some other denizen. After along moment, with Gnaw motionless and lying almost flat before the cave entrance, the beast finally rose and glanced back at the party, then trotted into the cave.\n\nThe fallen trees had provided a natural screen, hiding the cave from the valley below. There had been an overhang, but it had collapsed, perhaps beneath the weight of the trees, leaving a rough pile of rubble partially blocking the entrance.\n\nBairoth began clearing a path to lead the horses through. Delum and Karsa took Gnaw's route into the cave.\n\nBeyond the mound of tumbled stones and sand, the floor levelled out beneath a scatter of dried leaves. The setting sun's light painted the back wall in patches of yellow, revealing an almost solid mass of carved glyphs. A small cairn of piled stones satin the domed chamber's centre.\n\nGnaw was nowhere to be seen, but the dog's tracks crossed the floor and vanished into an area of gloom near the back.\n\nDelum stepped forward, his eyes on a single, oversized glyph directly opposite the entrance. \"That Bloodsign is neither Rathyd nor Sunyd,\" he said.\n\n\"But the words beneath it are Teblor,\" Karsa asserted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The style is very...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Delum frowned, \"ornate.\"\n\nKarsa began reading aloud, \"\"I led the families that survived. Down from the highlands. Through the broken veins that bled beneath the sun...\" Broken veins?\"\n\n\"Ice,\" Delum said.\n\n\"Bleeding beneath the sun, aye. \"We were so few. Our blood was cloudy and would grow cloudier still. I saw the need to shatter what remained. For the T'lan Imass were still close and much agitated and inclined to continue their indiscriminate slaughter.\" \"Karsa scowled.\"T'lan Imass? I do not know those two words.\"\n\n\"Nor I,\" Delum replied. \"A rival tribe, perhaps. Read on, Karsa Orlong. Your eye is quicker than mine.\"\n\n\"\"And so I sundered husband from wife. Child from parent. Brother from sister. I fashioned new families and then sent them away. Each to a different place. I proclaimed the Laws of Isolation, as given us by Icarium whom we had once sheltered and whose heart grew vast with grief upon seeing what had become of us. The Laws of Isolation would be our salvation, clearing the blood and strengthening our children. To all who follow and to all who shall read these words, this is my justification-\"\"\n\n\"These words trouble me, Karsa Orlong.\"\n\nKarsa glanced back at Delum. \"Why? They signify nothing of us. They are an elder's ravings. Too many words– to have carved all these letters would have taken years, and only a madman would do such a thing. A madman, who was buried here, alone, driven out by his people-'\n\nDelum's gaze sharpened on Karsa.\"Driven out? Yes, I believe you are correct, Warleader. Read more– let us hear his justification, and so judge for ourselves. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shrugging, Karsa returned his attention to the stonewall. \"\"To survive, we must forget. So Icarium told us. Those things that we had come to, those things that softened us. We must abandon them. We must dismantle our...\" I know not that word, \"and shatter each and every stone, leaving no evidence of what we had been. We must bum our...\" another word I do not know, \"and leave naught but ash. We must forget our history and seek only our most ancient of legends. Legends that told of a time when we lived simply. In the forests. Hunting, culling fish from the rivers, raising horses. When our laws were those of the raider, the slayer, when all was measured by the sweep of a sword. Legends that spoke of feuds, of murders and rapes. We must return to those terrible times. To isolate our streams of blood, to weave new, smaller nets of kinship. New threads must be born of rape, for only with violence would they remain rare occurrences, and random. To cleanse our blood, we must forget all that we were, yet find what we had once been-\"\"\n\n\"Down here,\" Delum said, squatting. \"Lower down. I recognize words. Read here, Karsa Orlong.\"\n\n\"It's dark, Delum Thord, but I shall try. Ah, yes. These are... names. \"I have given these new tribes names, the names given by my father for his sons.\" And then a list. \"Baryd, Sanyd, Phalyd, Urad, Gelad, Manyd, Rathyd and Lanyd. These, then, shall be the new tribes...\" It grows too dark to read on, Delum Thord, nor, \"he added, fighting a sudden chill,\"do I desire to. These thoughts are spider-bitten. Fever-twisted into lies. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Phalyd and Lanyd are-\"\n\nKarsa straightened. \"No more, Delum Thord.\"\n\n\"The name of Icarium has lived on in our-\"\n\n\"Enough!\" Karsa growled. \"There is nothing of meaning herein these words!\"\n\n\"As you say, Karsa Orlong.\"\n\nGnaw emerged from the gloom, where a darker fissure was now evident to the two Teblor warriors.\n\nDelum nodded towards it. \"The carver's body lies within. '\n\n\"Where he no doubt crawled to die,\" Karsa sneered. \"Let us return to Bairoth. The horses can be sheltered here. We shall sleep outside.\"\n\nBoth warriors turned and strode back to the cave mouth. Behind them, Gnaw stood beside the cairn a moment longer. The sun had left the wall, filling the cave with shadows. In the darkness, the dog's eyes flickered.\n\nTwo nights later, they sat on their horses and looked down into the valley of the Sunyd. The plan to draw Rathyd pursuers after them had failed, for the last two villages they had come across had been long abandoned. The surrounding trails had been overgrown and rains had taken the charcoal from the firepits, leaving only red-rimmed black stains in the earth.\n\nAnd now, across the entire breadth and length of the Sunyd valley, they could see no fires.\n\n\"They have fled,\" Bairoth muttered.\n\n\"But not from us,\" Delum replied, \"if the Sunyd villages prove to be the same as those Rathyd ones. This is a flight long past.\"\n\nBairoth grunted. \"Where, then, have they gone?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shrugging, Karsa said, \"There are Sunyd valleys north of this one. A dozen or more. And some to the south as well. Perhaps there has been a schism. It matters little to us, except that we shall gather no more trophies until we reach Silver Lake.\"\n\nBairoth rolled his shoulders. \"Warleader, when we reach Silver Lake, will our raid be beneath the wheel or the sun? With the valley before us empty, we could camp at night. These trails are unfamiliar, forcing us to go slowly in the dark.\"\n\n\"You speak the truth, Bairoth Gild. Our raid will be in daylight. Let us make our way down to the valley floor, then, and find us a place to camp.\"\n\nThe wheel of stars had travelled a fourth of its journey by the time the Uryd warriors reached level ground and found a suitable campsite. Delum had, with the aid of the dogs, killed a half-dozen rock hares during the descent, which he now skinned and spit while Bairoth built a small fire.\n\nKarsa saw to the horses, then joined his two companions at the hearth. They sat, waiting in silence for the meat to cook, the sweet smell and sizzle strangely unfamiliar after so many meals of raw food. Karsa felt a lassitude settle into his muscles, and only now realized how weary he had become.\n\nThe hares were ready. The three warriors ate in silence.\n\n\"Delum has spoken,\" Bairoth said when they were done, \"of the words written in the cave.\"\n\nKarsa shot Delum a glare. \"Delum Thord spoke when he should not have. Within the cave, a madman's ravings, nothing more. '\n\n\"I have considered them,\" Bairoth persisted, \"and I believe there is truth hidden within those ravings, Karsa Orlong.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pointless belief, Bairoth Gild.\"\n\n\"I think not, Warleader. The names of the tribes– I agree with Delum when he says there are, among them, the names of our tribes. \"Urad\" is far too close to Uryd to be accidental, especially when three of the other names are unchanged. Granted, one of those tribes has since vanished, but even our own legends whisper of a time when there were more tribes than there are now. And those two words that you did not know, Karsa Orlong. \"Great villages\" and'yellow bark\"-\"\n\n\"Those were not the words!\"\n\n\"True enough, but that is the closest Delum could come to. Karsa Orlong, the hand that inscribed those words was from a place and time of sophistication, a place and a time where the Teblor language was, if anything, more complex than it is now.\"\n\nKarsa spat into the fire. \"Bairoth Gild, if these be truths as you and Delum say, I still must ask: what value do they hold for us now? Are we a fallen people? That is not a revelation. Our legends all speak of an age of glory, long past, when a hundred heroes strode among the Teblor, heroes that would make even my own grandfather, Pahlk, seem but a child among men-\"\n\nDelum's face in the firelight was deeply frowning as he cut in,\"And this is what troubles me, Karsa Orlong. Those legends and their tales of glory– they describe an age little different from our own. Aye, more heroes, greater deeds, but essentially the same, in the manner of how we lived. Indeed, it often seems that the very point of those tales is one of instruction, a code of behaviour, the proper way of being a Teblor. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bairoth nodded. \"And there, in those carved words in the cave, we are offered the explanation.\"\n\n\"A description of how we would be,\" Delum added. \"No, of how we are.\"\n\n\"None of it matters,\" Karsa growled.\n\n\"We were a defeated people,\" Delum continued, as if he hadn't heard.\"Reduced to a broken handful. \"He looked up, met Karsa's eyes across the fire. \"How many of our brothers and sisters who are given to the Faces in the Rock– how many of them were born flawed in someway? Too many fingers and toes, mouths with no palates, faces with no eyes. We've seen the same among our dogs and horses, Warleader. Defects come of inbreeding. That is a truth. The elder in the cave, he knew what threatened our people, so he fashioned a means of separating us, of slowly clearing our cloudy blood– and he was cast out as a betrayer of the Teblor. We were witness, in that cave, to an ancient crime-'\n\n\"We are fallen,\" Bairoth said, then laughed.\n\nDelum's gaze snapped to him.\"And what is it that you find so funny, Bairoth Gild? '\n\n\"If I must needs explain, Delum Thord, then there is no point.\"\n\nBairoth's laughter had chilled Karsa.\"You have both failed to grasp the true meaning of all this-'\n\nBairoth grunted, \"The meaning you said did not exist, Karsa Orlong?\"\n\n\"The fallen know but one challenge,\" Karsa resumed. \"And that is to rise once more. The Teblor were once few, once defeated. So be it. We are no longer few. Nor have we known defeat since that time. Who from the lowlands dares venture into our territories? The time has come, I now say, to face that challenge. The Teblor must rise once more.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bairoth sneered, \"And who will lead us?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Who will unite the tribes? I wonder.\"\n\n\"Hold,\" Delum rumbled, eyes glittering. \"Bairoth Gild, from you I now hear unseemly envy. With what we three have done, with what our warleader has already achieved– tell me, Bairoth Gild, do the shadows of the ancient heroes still devour us whole? I say they do not. Karsa Orlong now walks among those heroes, and we walk with him.\"\n\nBairoth slowly leaned back, stretching his legs out beside the hearth. \"As you say, Delum Thord.\" The flickering light revealed abroad smile that seemed directed into the flames. \"\"Who from the lowlands dares venture into our territories?\" Karsa Orlong, we travel an empty valley. Empty of Teblor, aye. But what has driven them away? It maybe that defeat stalks the formidable Teblor once more.\"\n\nThere was along moment when none of the three spoke, then Delum added another stick to the fire. \"It maybe,\" he said in a low voice, \"that there are no heroes among the Sunyd.\"\n\nBairoth laughed. \"True. Among all the Teblor, there are but three heroes. Will that be enough, do you think?\"\n\n\"Three is better than two,\" Karsa snapped, \"but if need be, two will suffice.\"\n\n\"I pray to the Seven, Karsa Orlong, that your mind ever remain free of doubt.\"\n\nKarsa realized that his hands had closed on the grip of his sword. \"Ah, that's your thought, then. The son of the father. Am I being accused of Synyg's weakness?\"\n\nBairoth studied Karsa, then slowly shook his head. \"Your father is not weak, Karsa Orlong. If there are doubts to speak of here and now, they concern Pahlk and his heroic raid to Silver Lake.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa was on his feet, the bloodwood sword in his hands.\n\nBairoth made no move. \"You do not see what I see,\" he said quietly. \"There is the potential within you, Karsa Orlong, to be your father's son. I lied earlier when I said I prayed that you would remain free of doubt. I pray for the very opposite, Warleader. I pray that doubt comes to you, that it tempers you with its wisdom. Those heroes in our legends, Karsa Orlong, they were terrible, they were monsters, for they were strangers to uncertainty. '\n\n\"Stand before me, Bairoth Gild, for I will not kill you whilst your sword remains at your side.\"\n\n\"I will not, Karsa Orlong. The straw is on my back, and you are not my enemy.\"\n\nDelum moved forward with his hands full of earth, which he dropped onto the fire between the two other men. \"It is late,\" he muttered, \"and it maybe as Bairoth suggests, that we are not as alone in this valley as we believe ourselves to be. At the very least, there maybe watchers on the other side. Warleader, there have been only words this night. Let us leave the spilling of blood for our true enemies.\"\n\nKarsa remained standing, glaring down at Bairoth Gild. \"Words,\" he growled. \"Yes, and for the words he has spoken, Bairoth Gild must apologize.\"\n\n\"I, Bairoth Gild, beg forgiveness for my words. Now, Karsa Orlong, will you put away your sword?\"\n\n\"You are warned,\" Karsa said, \"I will not be so easily appeased next time.\"\n\n\"I am warned.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Grasses and saplings had reclaimed the Sunyd village. The trails leading to and from it had almost vanished beneath brambles, but here and there, among the stone foundations of the circular houses, the signs of fire and violence could be seen.\n\nDelum dismounted and began poking about the ruins. It was only a few moments before he found the first bones.\n\nBairoth grunted. \"A raiding party. One that left no survivors.\"\n\nDelum straightened with a splintered arrow shaft in his hands. \"Lowlanders. The Sunyd keep few dogs, else they would not have been so unprepared.\"\n\n\"We now take upon ourselves,\" Karsa said, \"not a raid, but a war. We journey to Silver Lake not as Uryd, but as Teblor. And we shall deliver vengeance.\" He dismounted and removed from the saddle pack four hard leather sheaths, which he began strapping onto Havok's legs to protect the horse from the brambles. The other two warriors followed suit.\n\n\"Lead us, Warleader,\" Delum said when he was done, swinging himself onto his destrier's back.\n\nKarsa collected the three-legged dog and laid it down once more behind Havok's withers. He regained his seat and looked to Bairoth.\n\nThe burly warrior also remounted. His eyes were hooded as he met Karsa's gaze.\"Lead us, Warleader. '\n\n\"We shall ride as fast as the land allows,\" Karsa said, drawing the three-legged dog onto his thighs. \"Once beyond this valley, we head northward, then east once more. By tomorrow night we shall be close to Bone Pass, the southward wend that will take us to Silver Lake.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And if we come across lowlanders on the way?\"\n\n\"Then, Bairoth Gild, we shall begin gathering trophies. But none must be allowed to escape, for our attack on the farm must come as a complete surprise, lest the children flee.\"\n\nThey skirted the village until they came to a trail that led them into the forest. Beneath the trees there was less undergrowth, allowing them to ride at a slow canter. Before long, the trail began climbing the valley side. By dusk, they reached the summit. Horses steaming beneath them, the three warriors reined in.\n\nThey had come to the edge of the escarpment. To the north and east and still bathed in golden sunlight, the horizon was a jagged line of mountains, their peaks capped in snow with rivers of white stretching down their flanks. Directly before them, after a sheer drop of three hundred or more paces, lay avast, forested basin.\n\n\"I see no fires,\" Delum said, scanning the shadow-draped valley.\n\n\"We must now skirt this edge, northward,\" Karsa said. \"There are no trails breaking the cliffside here.\"\n\n\"The horses need rest,\" Delum said. \"But we are highly visible here, Warleader.\"\n\n\"We shall walk them on, then,\" Karsa said, dismounting. When he set the three-legged dog onto the ground, Gnaw moved up alongside her. Karsa collected Havok's single rein. A game trail followed the ridgeline along the top for another thirty paces before dropping slightly, sufficient to remove the silhouette they made against the sky.\n\nThey continued on until the wheel of stars had completed a fifth of its passage, whereupon they found a high-walled cul de sac just off the trail in which to make camp. Delum began preparing the meal while Bairoth rubbed down the horses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Taking Gnaw and his mate with him, Karsa scouted the path ahead. Thus far, the only tracks they had seen were those from mountain goats and wild sheep. The ridge had begun a slow, broken descent, and he knew that, somewhere ahead, there would be a river carrying the run-off from the north range of mountains, and a waterfall cutting a notch into the escarpment's cliffside.\n\nBoth dogs shied suddenly in the gloom, bumping into Karsa's legs as they backed away from another dead-end to the left. Laying a hand down to calm Gnaw, he found the beast trembling. Karsa drew his sword. He sniffed the air, but could smell nothing awry, nor was there any sound from the dark-shrouded dead-end and Karsa was close enough to hear breathing had there been anyone hiding in it.\n\nHe edged forward.\n\nA massive flat slab dominated the stone floor, leaving only a forearm's space on the three sides where rose the rock walls. The surface of the slab was unadorned, but a faint grey light seemed to emanate from the stone itself. Karsa moved closer, then slowly crouched down before the lone, motionless hand jutting from the slab's nearmost edge. It was gaunt, yet whole, the skin a milky blue-green, the nails chipped and ragged, the fingers patched in white dust.\n\nEvery space within reach of that hand was etched in grooves, cut deep into the stone floor– as deep as the fingers could reach– in a chaotic, cross-hatched pattern.\n\nThe hand, Karsa could see, was neither Teblor nor low-lander, but in size somewhere in between, the bones prominent, the fingers narrow and overlong and seeming to bear far too many joints." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something of Karsa's presence– his breath perhaps as he leaned close in his study– was sensed, for the hand spasmed suddenly, jerking down to lie flat, fingers spread, on the rock. And Karsa now saw the unmistakable signs that animals had attacked that hand in the past– mountain wolves and creatures yet fiercer. It had been chewed, clawed and gnawed at, though, it seemed, never broken. Motionless once more, it lay pressed against the ground.\n\nHearing footsteps behind him, Karsa rose and turned. Delum and Bairoth, weapons out, made their way up the trail. Karsa strode to meet them.\n\nBairoth rumbled, \"Your two dogs came skulking back to us.\"\n\n\"What have you found, Warleader?\" Delum asked in a whisper.\n\n\"A demon,\" he replied. \"Pinned for eternity beneath that stone. It lives, still.\"\n\n\"The Forkassal.\"\n\n\"Even so. There is much truth in our legends, it seems.\"\n\nBairoth moved past and approached the slab. He crouched down before the hand and studied it long in the gloom, then he straightened and strode back. \"The Forkassal. The demon of the mountains, the One Who Sought Peace.\"\n\n\"In the time of the Spirit Wars, when our old gods were young,\" Delum said. \"What, Karsa Orlong, do you recall of that tale? It was so brief, nothing more than torn pieces. The elders themselves admitted that most of it had been lost long ago, before the Seven awoke.\"\n\n\"Pieces,\" Karsa agreed. \"The Spirit Wars were two, perhaps three invasions, and had little to do with the Teblor. Foreign gods and demons. Their battles shook the mountains, and then but one force remained-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In those tales,\" Delum interjected, \"are the only mention of Icarium. Karsa Orlong, it maybe that the T'lan Imass– spoken of in that elder's cave– belonged to the Spirit Wars, and that they were the victors, who then left never to return. It maybe that it was the Spirit Wars that shattered our people.\"\n\nBairoth's gaze remained on the slab. Now he spoke.\"The demon must be freed. '\n\nBoth Karsa and Delum turned to him, struck silent by the pronouncement.\n\n\"Say nothing,\" Bairoth continued, \"until I have finished. The Forkassal was said to have come to the place of the Spirit Wars, seeking to make peace between the contestants. That is one of the torn pieces of the tale. For the demon's effort it was destroyed. That is another piece. Icarium too sought to end the war, but he arrived too late, and the victors knew they could not defeat him so they did not even try. A third piece. Delum Thord, the words in the cave also spoke of Icarium, yes? '\n\n\"They did, Bairoth Gild. Icarium gave the Teblor the Laws that ensured our survival.\"\n\n\"Yet, were they able, the T'lan Imass would have laid a stone on him as well. ' After these words, Bairoth fell silent.\n\nKarsa swung about and walked to the slab. Its luminescence was fitful in places, hinting of the sorcery's antiquity, a slow dissolution of the power invested in it. Teblor elders worked magic, but only rarely. Since the awakening of the Faces in the Rock, sorcery arrived as a visitation, locked within the confines of sleep or trance. The old legends spoke of vicious displays of overt magic, of dread weapons tempered with curses, but Karsa suspected these were but elaborate inventions to weave bold colours into the tales. He scowled.\"I have no understanding of this magic, ' he said." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Advance the storyline as the writer's tale partner.\nTags: epic fantasy, character study, power struggles, resilience, destiny\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: House of Chains\nChapter: 10" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In those tales,\" Delum interjected, \"are the only mention of Icarium. Karsa Orlong, it maybe that the T'lan Imass– spoken of in that elder's cave– belonged to the Spirit Wars, and that they were the victors, who then left never to return. It maybe that it was the Spirit Wars that shattered our people.\"\n\nBairoth's gaze remained on the slab. Now he spoke.\"The demon must be freed. '\n\nBoth Karsa and Delum turned to him, struck silent by the pronouncement.\n\n\"Say nothing,\" Bairoth continued, \"until I have finished. The Forkassal was said to have come to the place of the Spirit Wars, seeking to make peace between the contestants. That is one of the torn pieces of the tale. For the demon's effort it was destroyed. That is another piece. Icarium too sought to end the war, but he arrived too late, and the victors knew they could not defeat him so they did not even try. A third piece. Delum Thord, the words in the cave also spoke of Icarium, yes? '\n\n\"They did, Bairoth Gild. Icarium gave the Teblor the Laws that ensured our survival.\"\n\n\"Yet, were they able, the T'lan Imass would have laid a stone on him as well. ' After these words, Bairoth fell silent.\n\nKarsa swung about and walked to the slab. Its luminescence was fitful in places, hinting of the sorcery's antiquity, a slow dissolution of the power invested in it. Teblor elders worked magic, but only rarely. Since the awakening of the Faces in the Rock, sorcery arrived as a visitation, locked within the confines of sleep or trance. The old legends spoke of vicious displays of overt magic, of dread weapons tempered with curses, but Karsa suspected these were but elaborate inventions to weave bold colours into the tales. He scowled.\"I have no understanding of this magic, ' he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bairoth and Delum joined him.\n\nThe hand still lay flat, motionless.\n\n\"I wonder if the demon can hear our words,\" Delum said.\n\nBairoth grunted. \"Even if it could, why would it understand them? The lowlanders speak a different tongue. Demons must also have their own.\"\n\n\"Yet he came to make peace-\"\n\n\"He cannot hear us,\" Karsa asserted. \"He can do no more than sense the presence of someone... of something.\"\n\nShrugging, Bairoth crouched down beside the slab. He reached out, hesitated, then settled his palm against the stone. \"It is neither hot nor cold. Its magic is not for us.\"\n\n\"It is not meant toward, then, only hold,\" Delum suggested.\n\n\"The three of us should be able to lift it.\"\n\nKarsa studied Bairoth. \"What do you wish to awaken here, Bairoth Gild?\"\n\nThe huge warrior looked up, eyes narrowing. Then his brows rose and he smiled. \"A bringer of peace?\"\n\n\"There is no value in peace.\"\n\n\"There must be peace among the Teblor, or they shall never be united.\"\n\nKarsa cocked his head, considering Bairoth's words.\n\n\"This demon may have gone mad,\" Delum muttered. \"How long, trapped beneath this rock?\"\n\n\"There are three of us,\" Bairoth said.\n\n\"Yet this demon is from a time when we had been defeated, and if it was these T'lan Imass who imprisoned this demon, they did so because they could not kill him. Bairoth Gild, we three would be as nothing to this creature. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We will have earned its gratitude.\"\n\n\"The fever of madness knows no friends.\"\n\nBoth warriors looked to Karsa. \"We cannot know the mind of a demon,\" he said. \"But we can see one thing, and that is how it still seeks to protect itself. This lone hand has fended off all sorts of beasts. In that, I see a holding onto purpose.\"\n\n\"The patience of an immortal.\" Bairoth nodded. \"I seethe same as you, Karsa Orlong.\"\n\nKarsa faced Delum. \"Delum Thord, do you still possess doubts?\"\n\n\"I do, Warleader, yet I will give your effort my strength, for I seethe decision in your eyes. So be it.\"\n\nWithout another word the three Uryd positioned themselves along one side of the stone slab. They squatted, hands reaching down to grip the edge.\n\n\"With the fourth breath,\" Karsa instructed.\n\nThe stone lifted with a grinding, grating sound, a sifting of dust. A concerted heave sent it over, to crack against the rock wall.\n\nThe figure had been pinned on its side. The immense weight of the slab must have dislocated bones and crushed muscle, but it had not been enough to defeat the demon, for it had, over millennia, gouged out a rough, uneven pit for half the length of its narrow, strangely elongated body. The hand trapped beneath that body had clawed out a space for itself first, then had slowly worked grooves for hip and shoulder. Both feet, which were bare, had managed something similar. Spiderwebs and the dust of ground stone covered the figure like a dull grey shroud, and the stale air that rose from the space visibly swirled in its languid escape, heavy with a peculiar, insect-like stench." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The three warriors stood looking down on the demon.\n\nIt had yet to move, but they could see its strangeness even so. Elongated limbs, extra-jointed, the skin stretched taut and pallid as moonlight, Amass of blue-black hair spread out from the face-down head, like fine roots, forming a latticework across the stone floor. The demon was naked, and female.\n\nThe limbs spasmed.\n\nBairoth edged closer and spoke in a low, soothing tone. \"You are freed, Demon. We are Teblor, of the Uryd tribe. If you will, we would help you. Tell us what you require.\"\n\nThe limbs had ceased their spasming, and now but trembled. Slowly, the demon lifted her head. The hand that had known an eternity of darkness slipped free from under her body, probed out over the flat stone floor. The fingertips cut across strands of hair and those strands fell to dust. The hand settled in away that matched its opposite. Muscles tautened along the arms, neck and shoulders, and the demon rose, in jagged, shaking increments. She shed hair in black sheets of dust until her pate was revealed, smooth and white.\n\nBairoth moved to take her weight but Karsa snapped a handout to restrain him. \"No, Bairoth Gild, she has known enough pressure that was not her own. I do not think she would be touched, not fora longtime, perhaps never again.\"\n\nBairoth's hooded gaze fixed on Karsa fora long moment, then he sighed and said,\"Karsa Orlong, I hear wisdom in your words. Again and again, you surprise me– no, I did not mean to insult. I am dragged towards admiration– leave me my edged words. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Karsa shrugged, eyes returning once more to the demon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We can only wait, now. Does a demon know thirst? Hunger? Hers is a throat that has not known water for generations, a stomach that has forgotten its purpose, lungs that have not drawn a full breath since the slab first settled. Fortunate it is night, too, for the sun might be as fire to her eyes-\" He stopped then, for the demon, on hands and knees, had raised her head and they could see her face for the first time.\n\nSkin like polished marble, devoid of flaws, abroad brow over enormous midnight eyes that seemed dry and flat, like onyx beneath a layer of dust. High, flaring cheekbones, a wide mouth withered and crusted with fine crystals.\n\n\"There is no water within her,\" Delum said. \"None.\" He backed away, then set off for their camp.\n\nThe woman slowly sat back onto her haunches, then struggled to stand.\n\nIt was difficult to just watch, but both warriors held back, tensed to catch her should she fall.\n\nIt seemed she noticed that, and one side of her mouth curled upward a fraction.\n\nThat one twitch transformed her face, and, in response, Karsa felt a hammerblow in his chest. She mocks her own sorry condition. This, her first emotion upon being freed. Embarrassment, yet finding the humour within it. Hear me, Urugal the Woven, I will make the ones who imprisoned her regret their deed, should they or their descendants still live. These T'lan Imass– they have made of mean enemy. I, Karsa Orlong, so vow.\n\nDelum returned with a waterskin, his steps slowing upon seeing her standing upright.\n\nShe was gaunt, her body a collection of planes and angles. Her breasts were high and far apart, her sternum prominent between them. She seemed to possess far too many ribs. In height, she was as a Teblor child." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She saw the waterskin in Delum's hands, but made no gesture towards it. Instead, she turned to settle her gaze on the place where she had lain.\n\nKarsa could seethe rise and fall of her breath, but she was otherwise motionless.\n\nBairoth spoke. \"Are you the Forkassal?\"\n\nShe looked over at him and half-smiled once more.\n\n\"We are Teblor,\" Bairoth continued, at which her smile broadened slightly in what was to Karsa clear recognition, though strangely flavoured with amusement.\n\n\"She understands you,\" Karsa observed.\n\nDelum approached with the waterskin. She glanced at him and shook her head. He stopped.\n\nKarsa now saw that some of the dustiness was gone from her eyes, and that her lips were now slightly fuller. \"She recovers,\" he said.\n\n\"Freedom was all she needed,\" Bairoth said.\n\n\"In the manner that sun-hardened lichen softens in the night,\" Karsa said. \"Her thirst is quenched by the air itself-\"\n\nShe faced him suddenly, her body stiffening.\n\n\"If I have given cause for offence-\"\n\nBefore Karsa drew another breath she was upon him. Five concussive blows to his body and he found himself lying on his back, the hard stone floor stinging as if he was lying on a nest of fire-ants. There was no air in his lungs. Agony thundered through him. He could not move.\n\nHe heard Delum's warcry– cutoff with a strangled grunt– then the sound of another body striking the ground.\n\nBairoth cried out from one side, \"Forkassal! Hold! Leave him-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa blinked up through tear-filled eyes as her face hovered above his. It moved closer, the eyes gleaming now like black pools, the lips full and almost purple in the starlight.\n\nIna rasping voice she whispered to him in the language of the Teblor, \"They will not leave you, will they? These once enemies of mine. It seems shattering their bones was not enough.\" Something in her eyes softened slightly. \"Your kind deserve better.\" The face slowly withdrew. \"I believe I must needs wait. Wait and see what comes of you, before I decide whether I shall deliver unto you, Warrior, my eternal peace.\"\n\nBairoth's voice from a dozen paces away:\"Forkassal! '\n\nShe straightened and turned with extraordinary fluidity. \"You have fallen far, to so twist the name of my kind, not to mention your own. I am Forkrul Assail, young warrior– not a demon. I am named Calm, a Bringer of Peace, and I warn you, the desire to deliver it is very strong in meat the moment, so remove your hand from that weapon.\"\n\n\"But we have freed you!\" Bairoth cried. \"Yet you have struck Karsa and Delum down!\"\n\nShe laughed. \"And Icarium and those damned T'lan Imass will not be pleased that you undid their work. Then again, it is likely Icarium has no memory of having done so, and the T'lan Imass are faraway. Well, I shall not give them a second chance. But I do know gratitude, Warrior, and so I give you this. The one named Karsa has been chosen. If I was to tell you even the little that I sense of his ultimate purpose, you would seek to kill him. But I tell you there would be no value in that, for the ones using him will simply select another. No. Watch this friend of yours. Guard him. There will come a time when he stands poised to change the world. And when that time comes, I shall be there. For I bring peace. When that moment arrives, cease guarding him. Step back, as you have done now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa dragged a sobbing breath into his racked lungs. At a wave of nausea he twisted onto his side and vomited onto the gritty stone floor. Between his gasping and coughing, he heard the Forkrul Assail– the woman named Calm– stride away.\n\nA moment later Bairoth knelt beside Karsa. \"Delum is badly hurt, Warleader,\" he said. \"There is liquid leaking from a crack in his head. Karsa Orlong, I regret freeing this... this creature. Delum had doubts. Yet he-\"\n\nKarsa coughed and spat, then, fighting waves of pain from his battered chest, he climbed to his feet. \"You could not know, Bairoth Gild,\" he muttered, wiping the tears from his eyes.\n\n\"Warleader, I did not draw my weapon. I did not seek to protect you as did Delum Thord-\"\n\n\"Which leaves one of us healthy,\" Karsa growled, staggering over to where Delum lay across the trail. He had been thrown some distance, by what looked to be a single blow. Slanting crossways across his forehead were four deep impressions, the skin split, yellowy liquid oozing from the punched-through bone underneath. Her fingertips. Delum's eyes were wide, yet cloudy with confusion. Whole sections of his face had gone slack, as if no underlying thought could hold them to an expression.\n\nBairoth joined him. \"See, the fluid is clear. It is thought-blood. Delum Thord will not come all the way back with such an injury.\"\n\n\"No,\" Karsa murmured, \"he will not. None who lose thought-blood ever do.\"\n\n\"It is my fault.\"\n\n\"No, Delum made a mistake, Bairoth Gild. Am I killed? The Forkassal chose not to slay me. Delum should have done as you did– nothing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bairoth winced." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She spoke to you, Karsa Orlong. I heard her whispering. What did she say?\"\n\n\"Little I could understand, except that the peace she brings is death.\"\n\n\"Our legends have twisted with time.\"\n\n\"They have, Bairoth Gild. Come, we must wrap Delum's wounds. The thought-blood will gather in the bandages and dry, and so clot the holes. Perhaps it will not leak so much then and he will come some of the way back to us. '\n\nThe two warriors set off for their camp. When they arrived they found the dogs huddled together, racked with shivering. Through the centre of the clearing ran the tracks of Calm's feet. Heading south.\n\nA crisp, chill wind howled along the edge of the escarpment. Karsa Orlong sat with his back against the rock wall, watching Delum Thord move about on his hands and knees among the dogs. Reaching out and gathering the beasts close, to stroke and nuzzle. Soft, crooning sounds issued from Delum Thord, the smile never leaving the half of his face that still worked.\n\nThe dogs were hunters. They suffered the manhandling with miserable expressions that occasionally became fierce, low growls punctuated with warning snaps of their jaws– to which Delum Thord seemed indifferent.\n\nGnaw, lying at Karsa's feet, tracked with sleepy eyes Delum's random crawling about through the pack.\n\nIt had taken most of a day for Delum Thord to return to them, a journey that had left much of the warrior behind. Another day had passed whilst Karsa and Bairoth waited to see if more would come, enough to send light into his eyes, enough to gift Delum Thord with the ability to once more look upon his companions. But there had been no change. He did not see them at all. Only the dogs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bairoth had left earlier to hunt, but Karsa sensed, as the day stretched on, that Bairoth Gild had chosen to avoid the camp for other reasons. Freeing the demon had taken Delum from them, and it had been Bairoth's words that had yielded a most bitter reward. Karsa had little understanding of such feelings, this need to self-inflict some sort of punishment. The error had belonged to Delum, drawing his blade against the demon. Karsa's sore ribs attested to the Forkrul Assail's martial prowess– she had attacked with impressive speed, faster than anything Karsa had seen before, much less faced. The three Teblor were as children before her. Delum should have seen that, instantly, should have stayed his hand as Bairoth had done.\n\nInstead, the warrior had been foolish, and now he crawled among the dogs. The Faces in the Rock held no pity for foolish warriors, so why should Karsa Orlong? Bairoth Gild was indulging himself, making regret and pity and castigation into sweet nectars, leaving him to wander like a tortured drunk.\n\nKarsa was fast running out of patience. The journey must be resumed. If anything could return Delum Thord to himself, then it would be battle, the blood's fierce rage searing the soul awake.\n\nFootsteps from uptrail. Gnaw's head turned, but the distraction was only momentary.\n\nBairoth Gild strode into view, the carcass of a wild goat draped over one shoulder. He paused to study Delum Thord, then let the goat drop in a crunch and clatter of hoofs. He drew his butchering knife and knelt down beside it.\n\n\"We have lost another day,\" Karsa said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Game is scarce,\" Bairoth replied, slicing open the goat's belly.\n\nThe dogs moved into an expectant half-circle, Delum following to take his place among them. Bairoth cut through connecting tissues and began flinging blood-soaked organs to the beasts. None made a move.\n\nKarsa tapped Gnaw on the flank and the beast rose and moved forward, trailed by its three-legged mate. Gnaw sniffed at the offerings, each in turn, and settled on the goat's liver, while its mate chose the heart. They each trotted away with their prizes. The remaining dogs then closed in on what remained, snapping and bickering. Delum pounced forward to wrest a lung from the jaws of one of the dogs, baring his own teeth in challenge. He scrambled off to one side, hunching down over his prize.\n\nKarsa watched as Gnaw rose and trotted towards Delum Thord, watched as Delum, whimpering, dropped the lung then crouched flat, head down, while Gnaw licked the pooling blood around the organ fora few moments, then padded back to its own meal.\n\nGrunting, Karsa said, \"Gnaw's pack has grown by one. \"There was no reply and he glanced over to see Bairoth staring at Delum in horror.\"See his smile, Bairoth Gild? Delum Thord has found happiness, and this tells us that he will comeback no further, for why would he? '\n\nBairoth stared down at his bloodied hands, at the butchering knife gleaming red in the dying light. \"Know you no grief, Warleader?\" he asked in a whisper.\n\n\"No. He is not dead.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Better he were!\" Bairoth snapped.\n\n\"Then kill him.\"\n\nRaw hatred flared in Bairoth's eyes.\"Karsa Orlong, what did she say to you? '\n\nKarsa frowned at the unexpected question, then shrugged. \"She damned me for my ignorance. Words that could not wound me, for I was indifferent to all that she uttered.\"\n\nBairoth's eyes narrowed.\"You make of what has happened a jest? Warleader, you no longer lead me. I shall not guard your flank in this cursed war of yours. We have lost too much-'\n\n\"There is weakness in you, Bairoth Gild. I have known that all along. For years, I have known that. You are no different from what Delum has become, and it is this truth that now haunts you so. Did you truly believe we would all return from this journey without scars? Did you think us immune to our enemies?\"\n\n\"So you think-\"\n\nKarsa's laugh was harsh.\"You area fool, Bairoth Gild. How did we come this far? Through Rathyd and Sunyd lands? Through the battles we have fought? Our victory was no gift of the Seven. Success was carved by our skill with swords, and by my leadership. Yet all you saw in me was bravado, as would come from a youth fresh to the ways of the warrior. You deluded yourself, and it gave you comfort. You are not my superior, Bairoth Gild, not in anything. '\n\nBairoth Gild stared, his eyes wide, his crimson hands trembling.\n\n\"And now,\" Karsa growled, \"if you would survive. Survive this journey. Survive me, then I suggest you teach yourself anew the value of following. Your life is in your leader's hands. Follow me to victory, Bairoth Gild, or fall to the wayside. Either way, I will tell the tale with true words. Thus, how would you have it? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Emotions flitted like wildfire across Bairoth's broad, suddenly paleface. He drew a half-dozen tortured breaths.\n\n\"I lead this pack,\" Karsa said quietly, \"and none other. Do you challenge me?\"\n\nBairoth slowly settled back on his haunches, shifting the grip on the butchering knife, his gaze settling, level now on Karsa's own.\"We have been lovers along time, Dayliss and I. You knew nothing, even as we laughed at your clumsy efforts to court her. Everyday you would strut between us, filled with bold words, always challenging me, always seeking to belittle me in her eyes. But we laughed inside, Dayliss and I, and spent the nights in each other's arms. Karsa Orlong, it maybe that you are the only one who will return to our village– indeed, I believe that you will make certain of it, so my life is as good as ended already, but I do not fear that. And when you return to the village, Warleader, you will make Dayliss your wife. But one truth shall remain with you until the end of your days, and that is: with Dayliss, it was not I who followed, but you. And there is nothing you can do to change that.\"\n\nKarsa slowly bared his teeth. \"Dayliss? My wife? I think not. No, instead I shall denounce her to the tribe. To have lain with a man not her husband. She shall be shorn, and then I shall claim her– as my slave-\"\n\nBairoth launched himself at Karsa, knife flashing through the gloom. His back to the stonewall, Karsa could only manage a sideways roll that gave him no time to find his feet before Bairoth was upon him, one arm wrapping about his neck, arching him back, the hard knife-blade scoring up his chest, point driving for his throat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then the dogs were upon them both, thundering, bone-jarring impacts, snarls, the clash of canines, teeth punching through leather.\n\nBairoth screamed, pulled away, arm releasing Karsa.\n\nRolling onto his back, Karsa saw the other warrior stumbling, dogs hanging by their jaws from both arms, Gnaw with his teeth sunk into Bairoth's hip, other beasts flinging themselves forward, seeking yet more holds. Stumbling, then crashing to the ground.\n\n\"Away!\" Karsa bellowed.\n\nThe dogs flinched, tore themselves free and backed off, still snarling. Off to one side, Karsa saw as he scrambled upright, crouched Delum, his face twisted into a wild smile, his eyes glittering, hands hanging low to the ground and spasmodically snatching at nothing. Then, his gaze travelling past Delum, Karsa stiffened. He hissed and the dogs fell perfectly silent.\n\nBairoth rolled onto his hands and knees, head lifting.\n\nKarsa gestured, then pointed.\n\nThere was the flicker of torchlight on the trail ahead. Still a hundred or more paces distant, slowly nearing. With the way sound was trapped within the dead-end, it was unlikely the fighting had been heard.\n\nIgnoring Bairoth, Karsa drew his sword and set off towards it. If Sunyd, then the ones who approached were displaying a carelessness that he intended to make fatal. More likely, they were lowlanders. He could see now, as he edged from shadow to shadow on the trail, that there were at least a half-dozen torches– a sizeable party, then. He could now hear voices, the foul tongue of the lowlanders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bairoth moved up alongside him. He had drawn his own sword. Blood dripped from puncture wounds on his arms, streamed down his hip. Karsa scowled at him, waved him back.\n\nGrimacing, Bairoth withdrew.\n\nThe lowlanders had come to the cul de sac where the demon had been imprisoned. The play of torchlight danced on the high stonewalls. The voices rose louder, edged with alarm.\n\nKarsa slipped forward in silence until he was just beyond the pool of light. He saw nine lowlanders, gathered to examine the now-empty pit in the centre of the clearing. Two were well armoured and helmed, cradling heavy crossbows, longswords belted at their hips, positioned at the entrance to the cul de sac and watching the trail. Off to one side were four males dressed in earth-toned robes, their hair braided, pulled forward and knotted over their breastbones; none of these carried weapons.\n\nThe remaining three had the look of scouts, wearing tight-fitting leathers, armed with short bows and hunting knives. Clan tattoos spanned their brows. It was one of these who seemed to be in charge, for he spoke in hard tones, as if giving commands. The other two scouts were crouched down beside the pit, eyes studying the stone floor.\n\nBoth guards stood within the torchlight, leaving them effectively blind to the darkness beyond. Neither appeared particularly vigilant.\n\nKarsa adjusted his grip on the bloodsword, his gaze fixed on the guard nearest him.\n\nThen he charged.\n\nHead flew from shoulders, blood fountaining. Karsa's headlong rush carried him to where the other guard had been standing, to find the lowlander no longer there. Cursing, the Teblor pivoted, closed on the three scouts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Who had already scattered, black-iron blades hissing from their sheaths.\n\nKarsa laughed. There was little room beyond his reach in the high-walled cul de sac, and the only chance of escape would have to be through him.\n\nOne of the scouts shouted something then darted forward.\n\nKarsa's wooden sword chopped down, splitting tendon, then bone. The lowlander shrieked. Stepping past the crumpling figure, Karsa dragged his weapon free.\n\nThe remaining two scouts had moved away from each other and now attacked from the sides. Ignoring one– and feeling the broad-bladed hunting knife rip through his leather armour to score along his ribs– Karsa batted aside the other's attack and, still laughing, crushed the lowlander's skull with his sword. Aback slash connected with the other scout, sent him flying to strike the stonewall.\n\nThe four robed figures awaited Karsa, evincing little fear, joined in a low chant.\n\nThe air sparkled strangely before them, then coruscating fire suddenly unfolded, swept forward to engulf Karsa.\n\nIt raged against him, a thousand clawed hands, tearing, raking, battering his body, his face and his eyes.\n\nKarsa, shoulders hunching, walked through it.\n\nThe fire burst apart, flames fleeing into the night air. Shrugging the effects off with a soft growl, Karsa approached the four lowlanders.\n\nTheir expressions, calm and serene and confident a moment ago, now revealed disbelief that swiftly shifted to horror as Karsa's sword ripped into them.\n\nThey died as easily as had the others, and moments later the Teblor stood amidst twitching bodies, blood gleaming dark on his sword's blade. Torches lay on the stone floor here and there, fitfully throwing smoky light to dance against the cul de sac's walls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bairoth Gild strode into view. \"The second guard escaped up the trail, Warleader,\" he said. \"The dogs now hunt.\"\n\nKarsa grunted.\n\n\"Karsa Orlong, you have slain the first group of children. The trophies are yours.\"\n\nReaching down, Karsa closed the fingers of one hand in the robes of one of the bodies at his feet. He straightened, lifting the corpse into the air, and studied its puny limbs, its small head with its peculiar braids. A face lined, as would be a Teblor's after centuries upon centuries of life, yet the visage he stared down upon was scaled to that of a Teblor newborn.\n\n\"They squealed like babes,\" Bairoth Gild said. \"The tales are true, then. These lowlanders are like children indeed.\"\n\n\"Yet not,\" Karsa said, studying the aged face now slack in death.\n\n\"They died easily.\"\n\n\"Aye, they did.\" Karsa flung the body away. \"Bairoth Gild, these are our enemies. Do you follow your warleader?\"\n\n\"For this war, I shall,\" Bairoth replied. \"Karsa Orlong, we shall speak no more of our... village. What lies between us must await our eventual return.\"\n\n\"Agreed.\"\n\nTwo of the pack's dogs did not return, and there was nothing of strutting victory in the gaits of Gnaw and the others as they padded back into the camp at dawn. Surprisingly, the lone guard had somehow escaped. Delum Thord, his arms wrapped about Gnaw's mate– as they had been throughout the night– whimpered upon the pack's return." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bairoth shifted the supplies from his and Karsa's destriers to Delum's warhorse, for it was clear that Delum had lost all knowledge of riding. He would run with the dogs.\n\nAs they readied to depart, Bairoth said, \"It maybe that the guard came from Silver Lake. That he will bring to them warning words of our approach.\"\n\n\"We shall find him,\" Karsa growled from where he crouched, threading the last of his trophies onto the leather cord. \"He could only have eluded the dogs by climbing, so there will be no swiftness to his flight. We shall seek sign of him. If he has continued on through the night, he will be tired. If not, he will be close.\" Straightening, Karsa held the string of severed ears and tongues out before him, studied the small, mangled objects fora moment longer, then looped his collection of trophies round his neck.\n\nHe swung himself onto Havok's back, collected the lone rein.\n\nGnaw's pack moved ahead to scout the trail, Delum among them, the three-legged dog cradled in his arms.\n\nThey set off.\n\nShortly before midday, they came upon signs of the last lowlander, thirty paces beyond the corpses of the two missing dogs– a crossbow quarrel buried in each one. A scattering of iron armour, straps and fittings. The guard had shed weight.\n\n\"This child is a clever one,\" Bairoth Gild observed. \"He will hear us before we see him, and will prepare an ambush.\" The warrior's hooded gaze flicked to Delum.\"More dogs will be slain. '\n\nKarsa shook his head at Bairoth's words.\"He will not ambush us, for that will see him killed, and he knows it. Should we catch up with him, he will seek to hide. Evasion is his only hope, up the cliffside, and then we will have passed him, and so he will not succeed in reaching Silver Lake before us. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We do not hunt him down?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bairoth asked in surprise.\n\n\"No. We ride for Bone Pass.\"\n\n\"Then he shall trail us. Warleader, an enemy loose at our backs-\"\n\n\"A child. Those quarrels might well kill a dog, but they areas twigs to us Teblor. Our armour alone will take much of those small barbs-\"\n\n\"He has a sharp eye, Karsa Orlong, to slay two dogs in the dark. He will aim for where our armour does not cover us.\"\n\nKarsa shrugged. \"Then we must outpace him beyond the pass.\"\n\nThey continued on. The trail widened as it climbed, the entire escarpment pushing upward in its northward reach. Riding at a fast trot, they covered league after league until, by late afternoon, they found themselves entering clouds of mist, a deep roaring sound directly ahead.\n\nThe path dropped away suddenly.\n\nReining in amidst the milling dogs, Karsa dismounted.\n\nThe edge was sheer. Beyond it and on his left, a river had cut a notch a thousand paces or more deep into the cliff-side, down to what must have been a ledge of some sort, over which it then plunged another thousand paces to a mist-shrouded valley floor. A dozen or more thread-thin waterfalls drifted out from both sides of the notch, issuing from fissures in the bedrock. The scene, Karsa realized after a moment, was all wrong. They had reached the highest part of the escarpment's ridge. A river, cutting a natural route through to the lowlands, did not belong in this place. Stranger still, the flanking waterfalls poured out from riven cracks, not one level with another, as if the mountains on both sides were filled with water." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Karsa Orlong,\" Bairoth had to shout to be heard over the roar rising from far below, \"someone– an ancient god, perhaps– has broken a mountain in half." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That notch, it was not carved by water. No, it has the look of having been cut by a giant axe. And the wound... bleeds.\"\n\nNot replying to Bairoth's words, Karsa turned about. Directly on his right, a winding, rocky path descended on their side of the cliff, a steep path of shale and scree, gleaming wet.\n\n\"This is our way down?\" Bairoth stepped past Karsa, then swung an incredulous look upon the warleader. \"We cannot! It will vanish beneath our feet! Beneath the hoofs of the horses! We shall descend indeed, like stones down a cliffside!\"\n\nKarsa crouched and pried a rock loose from the ground. He tossed it down the trail. Where it first struck, the shale shifted, trembled, then slid in a growing wave that quickly followed the bouncing rock, vanishing into the mists.\n\nRevealing rough, broad steps.\n\nMade entirely of bones.\n\n\"It is as Pahlk said,\" Karsa murmured, before turning to Bairoth. \"Come, our path awaits.\"\n\nBairoth's eyes were hooded.\"It does indeed, Karsa Orlong. Beneath our feet there shall be a truth. '\n\nKarsa scowled. \"This is our trail down from the mountains. Nothing more, Bairoth Gild.\"\n\nThe warrior shrugged. \"As you say, Warleader.\"\n\nKarsa in the lead, they began the descent.\n\nThe bones were lowlander in scale, yet heavier and thicker, hardened into stone. Here and there, antlers and tusks were visible, as well as artfully carved bone helms from larger beasts. An army had been slain, their bones then laid out, intricately fashioned into these grim steps. The mists had quickly laid down a layer of water, but each step was solid, broad and slightly angled back, the pitch reducing the risk of slipping. The Teblor's pace was slowed only by the cautious descent of the destriers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed that the rockslide Karsa had triggered had cleared the way as far down as the massive shelf of stone where the river gathered before plunging over to the valley below. With the roaring tumble of water growing ever closer on their left and jagged, raw rock on their right, the warriors descended more than a thousand paces, and with each step the gloom deepened around them.\n\nPale, ghostly light broken by shreds of darker, opaque mists commanded the ledge that spread out on this side of the waterfall. The bones formed a level floor of sorts, abutting the rock wall to the right and appearing to continue on beneath the river that now roared, massive and monstrous, less than twenty paces away on their left.\n\nThe horses needed to rest. Karsa watched Bairoth make his way towards the river, then glanced over at Delum, who huddled now among Gnaw's pack, wet and shivering. The faint glow emanating from the bones seemed to carry a breath unnaturally cold. On all sides, the scene was colourless, strangely dead. Even the river's immense power felt lifeless.\n\nBairoth approached. \"Warleader, these bones beneath us, they continue under the river to the other side. They are deep, almost my height where I could see. Tens of thousands have died to make this. Tens of tens. This entire shelf-\"\n\n\"Bairoth Gild, we have rested long enough. There are stones coming down from above– either the guard descends, or there will be another slide to bury what we have revealed. There must be many such slides, for the lowlanders used this on the way up, and that could not have been more than a few days ago. Yet we arrived to find it buried once more.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sudden unease flickered through Bairoth's expression, and he glanced over to where small stones of shale pattered down from the trail above. There were more now than there had been a moment ago.\n\nThey gathered the horses once more and approached the shelf's edge. The descent before them was too steep to hold a slide, the steps switchbacking for as far down as the Teblor could see. The horses balked before it.\n\n\"Karsa Orlong, we shall be very vulnerable on that path.\"\n\n\"We have been so all along, Bairoth Gild. That low-lander behind us has already missed his greatest opportunity. That is why I believe we have outdistanced him, and that the stones we see falling from above portend another slide and nothing more.\" With that Karsa coaxed Havok forward onto the first step.\n\nThirty paces down they heard a faint roar from above, a sound deeper in timbre than the river. A hail of stones swept over them, but at some distance out from the cliff wall. Muddy rain followed fora short time thereafter.\n\nThey continued on, until weariness settled into their limbs. The mists might have lightened fora time, but perhaps it was nothing more than their eyes growing accustomed to the gloom. The wheels of sun and stars passed unseen and unseeing over them. The only means of measuring time was through hunger and exhaustion. There would be no stopping until the descent was complete. Karsa had lost count of the switchbacks; what he had imagined to be a thousand paces was proving to be far more. Beside them, the river continued its fall, nothing but mists now, a hissing deluge bitter cold, spreading out to blind them to the valley below and the skies above. Their world had narrowed to the endless bones under their moccasins and the sheer wall of the cliff." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They reached another shelf and the bones were gone, buried beneath squelching, sodden mud and snarled bundles of vivid green grasses. Fallen tree branches cloaked in mosses littered the area. Mists hid all else.\n\nThe horses tossed their heads as they were led, finally, onto level ground. Delum and the dogs settled down into a clump of wet fur and skin. Bairoth stumbled close to Karsa. \"Warleader, I am distraught.\"\n\nKarsa frowned. His legs were trembling beneath him, and he could not keep the shivering from his muscles. \"Why, Bairoth Gild? We are done. We have descended Bone Pass.\"\n\n\"Aye.\" Bairoth coughed, then said, \"And before long we will come to this place again– to climb.\"\n\nKarsa slowly nodded. \"I have thought on this, Bairoth Gild. The lowlands sweep around our plateau. There are other passes, directly south of our own Uryd lands– there must be, else lowlanders would never have appeared among us. Our return journey will take us along the edge, westward, and we shall find those hidden passes.\"\n\n\"Through lowlander territories the entire way! We are but two, Karsa Orlong! A raid upon the farm at Silver Lake is one thing, but to wage war against an entire tribe is madness! We will be hunted and pursued the entire way– it cannot be done!\"\n\n\"Hunted and pursued?\" Karsa laughed. \"What is new in that? Come, Bairoth Gild, we must find somewhere dry, away from this river. I see treetops, there, to the left. We shall make ourselves afire, we shall rediscover what it is like to be warm, our bellies full.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ledge's slope led gently down a scree mostly buried beneath mosses, lichens and rich, dark soil, beyond which waited a forest of ancient redwoods and cedars. The sky overhead revealed a patch of blue, and shafts of sunlight were visible here and there. Once within the wood, the mists thinned to a musty dampness, smelling of rotting treefalls. The warriors continued on another fifty paces, until they found a sunlit stretch where a diseased cedar had collapsed sometime past. Butterflies danced in the golden air and the soft crunch of pine-borers was a steady cadence on all sides. The huge, upright root-mat of the cedar had left a bare patch of bedrock where the tree had once stood. The rock was dry and in full sunlight.\n\nKarsa began unstrapping supplies while Bairoth set off to collect deadwood from the fallen cedar. Delum found a mossy patch warmed by the sun and curled up to sleep. Karsa considered removing the man's sodden clothes, then, seeing the rest of the pack gather around Delum, he simply shrugged and resumed unburdening the horses.\n\nA short while later, their clothes hanging from roots close to the fire, the two warriors sat naked on the bedrock, the chill slowly yielding from muscle and bone.\n\n\"At the far end of this valley,\" Karsa said, \"the river widens, forming a flat before reaching the lake. The side we are now on becomes the south side of the river. There will be a spar of rock near the mouth, blocking our view to the right. Immediately beyond it, on the lake's southwest shore, stands the lowlander farm. We are very nearly there, Bairoth Gild. '\n\nThe warrior on the other side of the hearth rolled his shoulders. \"Tell me we shall attack in daylight, Warleader. I have found a deep hatred for darkness. Bone Pass has shrivelled my heart.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Daylight it shall be, Bairoth Gild,\" Karsa replied, choosing to ignore Bairoth's last confession, for its words had trembled something within him, leaving a sour taste in his mouth.\"The children will be working in the fields, unable to reach the stronghold of the farmhouse in time. They will see us charging down upon them, and know terror and despair. '\n\n\"This pleases me, Warleader.\"\n\nThe redwood and cedar forest cloaked the entire valley, showing no evidence of clearing or logging. There was little game to be found beneath the thick canopy, and days passed in a diffuse gloom relieved only by the occasional treefall. The Teblor's supply of food quickly dwindled, the horses growing leaner on a diet of blueleaf, cullan moss and bitter vine, the dogs taking to eating rotten wood, berries and beetles.\n\nMidway through the fourth day, the valley narrowed, forcing them ever closer to the river. Travelling through the deep forest, away from the lone trail running alongside the river, the Teblor had ensured that they would remain undiscovered, but now, finally, they were nearing Silver Lake.\n\nThey arrived at the river mouth at dusk, the wheel of stars awakening in the sky above them. The trail flanking the river's boulder-strewn bank had seen recent passage, leading northwestward, but no sign of anyone's returning. The air was crisp above the river's rushing water. Abroad fan of sand and gravel formed a driftwood-cluttered island where the river opened out into the lake. Mists hungover the water, making the lake's far north and east shores hazy. The mountains reached down on those distant shores, kneeling in the breeze-rippled waves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa and Bairoth dismounted and began preparing their camp, though on this night there would be no cookfire.\n\n\"Those tracks,\" Bairoth said after a time, \"they belong to the lowlanders you killed. I wonder what they'd intended on doing in the place where the demon was imprisoned. '\n\nKarsa's shrug was dismissive.\"Perhaps they'd planned on freeing her.\"\n\n\"I think not, Karsa Orlong. The sorcery they used to assail you was god-aspected. I believe they came to worship, or perhaps the demon's soul could be drawn out from the flesh, in the manner of the Faces in the Rock. Perhaps, for the lowlanders, it was the site of an oracle, or even the home of their god. '\n\nKarsa studied his companion fora long moment, then said, \"Bairoth Gild, there is poison in your words. That demon was not a god. It was a prisoner of the stone. The Faces in the Rock are true gods. There is no comparison to be made.\"\n\nBairoth's heavy brows rose.\"Karsa Orlong, I make no comparison. The lowlanders are foolish creatures, whilst the Teblor are not. The lowlanders are children and are susceptible to self-deception. Why would they not worship that demon? Tell me, did you sense a living presence in that sorcery when it struck you? '\n\nKarsa considered. \"There was... something. Scratching and hissing and spitting. I flung it away and it then fled. So, it was not the demon's own power. '\n\n\"No, it wasn't, for she was gone. Perhaps they worshipped the stone that had pinned her down– there was magic in that as well. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But not living, Bairoth Gild." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I do not understand the track of your thoughts, and I grow tired of these pointless words.\"\n\n\"I believe,\" Bairoth persisted, \"that the bones of Bone Pass belong to the people who imprisoned the demon. And this is what troubles me, Karsa Orlong, for those bones are much like the lowlanders\"– thicker, yes, but still childlike. Indeed, it maybe that the lowlanders are kin to that ancient people. '\n\n\"What of it?\" Karsa rose. \"I will hear no more of this. Our only task now is to rest, then rise with the dawn and prepare our weapons. Tomorrow, we slay children.\" He strode to where the horses stood beneath the trees. Delum sat nearby amidst the dogs, Gnaw's three-legged mate cradled in his arms. One hand stroked the beast's head in mindless repetition. Karsa stared at Delum fora moment longer, then turned away to prepare his bedding.\n\nThe river's passage was the only sound as the wheel of stars slowly crossed the sky. At some point in the night the breeze shifted, carrying with it the smell of woodsmoke and livestock and, once, the faint bark of a dog. Lying awake on his bed of moss, Karsa prayed to Urugal that the wind would not turn with the sun's rise. There were always dogs on lowlander farms, kept for the same reason as Teblor kept dogs. Sharp ears and sensitive noses, quick to announce strangers. But these would be lowlander breeds– smaller than those of the Teblor. Gnaw and his pack would make short work of them. And there would be no warning... so long as the wind did not shift.\n\nHe heard Bairoth rise and make his way over to where the pack slept." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa glanced over to see Bairoth crouched down beside Delum. Dogs had lifted their heads questioningly and were now watching as Bairoth stroked Delum's upturned face.\n\nIt was a moment before Karsa realized what he was witnessing. Bairoth was painting Delum's face in the battle-mask, black, grey and white, the shades of the Uryd. The battle-mask was reserved for warriors who knowingly rode to their deaths; it was an announcement that the sword would never again be sheathed. But it was a ritual that belonged, traditionally, to ageing warriors who had elected to set forth on a final raid, and thus avoid dying with straw on their backs. Karsa rose.\n\nIf Bairoth heard his approach, he gave no sign. There were tears running down the huge warrior's broad, blunt face, whilst Delum, lying perfectly still, stared up at him with wide, unblinking eyes.\n\n\"He does not comprehend,\" Karsa growled, \"but I do. Bairoth Gild, you dishonour every Uryd warrior who has worn the battle-mask.\"\n\n\"Do I, Karsa Orlong? Those warriors grown old, setting out fora final fight-there is nothing of glory in their deed, nothing of glory in their battle-mask. You are blind if you think otherwise. The paint hides nothing– the desperation remains undisguised in their eyes. They come to the ends of their lives, and have found that those lives were without meaning. It is that knowledge that drives them from the village, drives them out to seek a quick death.\" Bairoth finished with the black paint and now moved onto the white, spreading it with three fingers across Delum's wide brow.\"Look into our friend's eyes, Karsa Orlong. Look closely.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I see nothing,\" Karsa muttered, shaken by Bairoth's words.\n\n\"Delum sees the same, Warleader. He stares at... nothing. Unlike you, however, he does not turn away from it. Instead, he sees with complete comprehension. Sees, and is terrified.\"\n\n\"You speak nonsense, Bairoth Gild.\"\n\n\"I do not. You and I, we are Teblor. We are warriors. We can offer Delum no comfort, and so he holds onto that dog, the beast with misery in its eyes. For comfort is what he seeks, now. It is, indeed, all he seeks. Why do I gift him the battle-mask? He will die this day, Karsa Orlong, and perhaps that will be comfort enough for Delum Thord. I pray to Urugal that it be so.\"\n\nKarsa glanced skyward. \"The wheel is nearly done. We must ready ourselves.\"\n\n\"I am almost finished, Warleader.\"\n\nThe horses stirred as Karsa rubbed blood-oil into his sword's wooden blade. The dogs were on their feet now, pacing restlessly. Bairoth completed his painting of Delum's face and headed off to attend to his own weapons. The three-legged dog struggled in Delum's arms, but he simply held the beast all the tighter, until a soft growl from Gnaw made the whimpering warrior release it.\n\nKarsa strapped the boiled leather armour onto Havok's chest, neck and legs. When he was done, he turned to see Bairoth already astride his own horse. Delum's destrier had also been armoured, but it stood without a rein. The animals were trembling.\n\n\"Warleader, your grandfather's descriptions have been unerring thus far. Tell me of the farmstead's layout.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A log house the size of two Uryd houses, with an upper floor beneath a steep roof. Heavy shutters with arrow-slits, a thick, quickly barred door at the front and at the back. There are three outbuildings; the one nearest the house and sharing one wall holds the livestock. Another is a forge, whilst the last one is of sod and likely was the first home before the log house was built. There is a landing on the lakeshore as well, and mooring poles. There will be a corral for the small lowlander horses.\"\n\nBairoth was frowning. \"Warleader, how many lowlander generations have passed since Pahlk's raid? '\n\nKarsa swung himself onto Havok's back. He shrugged in answer to Bairoth's question. \"Enough. Are you ready, Bairoth Gild?\"\n\n\"Lead me, Warleader.\"\n\nKarsa guided Havok onto the trail beside the river. The mouth was on his left. To the right rose a high, raw mass of rock, treed on top, leaning out towards the lakeshore. A wide strand of round-stoned beach wound between the pinnacle and the lake.\n\nThe wind had not changed. The air smelled of smoke and manure. The farm's dogs were silent.\n\nKarsa drew his sword, angled the glistening blade near Havok's nostrils. The destrier's head lifted. Trot to canter, onto the pebbled beach, lake on the left, rock wall sliding past to the right. Behind him, he heard Bairoth's horse, hoofs crashing down into the stones, and, further back, the dogs, Delum and his horse, the latter lagging to stay alongside its once-master.\n\nOnce clear of the pinnacle, they would shift hard right, and in moments be upon the unsuspecting children of the farm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Canter to gallop.\n\nRock wall vanishing, flat, planted fields.\n\nGallop into charge.\n\nThe farm– smoke-blackened ruins barely visible through tall corn plants– and, just beyond it, sprawled all along the lake's shore and back, all the way to the foot of a mountain, a town.\n\nTall, stone buildings, stone piers and wood-planked docks and boats crowding the lake's edge. A wall of stones enclosing most of the structures inland, perhaps the height of a full-grown lowlander. A main road, agate flanked by squat, flat-topped towers. Woodsmoke drifting in a layer above the slate rooftops.\n\nFigures on those towers.\n\nMore lowlanders– more than could be counted– all scurrying about now, as a bell started clanging. Running towards the gate from the cornfields, farming implements tossed aside.\n\nBairoth was bellowing something behind Karsa. Not a warcry. A voice pitched with alarm. Karsa ignored it, already closing in on the first of the farmers. He would take a few in passing, but not slacken his pace. Leave these children to the pack. He wanted the ones in the town, cowering behind the now-closing gate, behind the puny walls.\n\nSword flashed, taking off the back of a farmer's head. Havok ran down another, trampling the shrieking woman under his hoofs.\n\nThe gate boomed as it shut.\n\nKarsa angled Havok to the left of it, eyes on the wall as he leaned forward. A crossbow quarrel flitted past, striking the furrowed ground ten paces to his right. Another whistled over his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No lowlander horse could clear this wall, but Havok stood at twenty-six hands– almost twice the height and mass of the lowlander breeds– and, muscles bunching, legs gathering, the huge destrier leapt, sailing over the wall effortlessly.\n\nTo crash, front hoofs first, onto the sloped roof of a shack. Slate tiles exploded, wood beams snapped. The small structure collapsed beneath them, chickens scattering, as Havok stumbled, legs clawing for purchase, then surged forward onto the muddy cart ruts of the street beyond.\n\nAnother building, this one stone-walled, reared up before them. Havok slewed to the right. A figure suddenly appeared at the building's entrance, around face, eyes wide. Karsa's crossover chop split the lowlander's skull where he stood just beyond the threshold, spinning him in place before his legs folded beneath him.\n\nHoofs pounding, Havok swept Karsa down the street towards the gate. He could hear slaughter in the fields and the road beyond– most of the workers had been trapped outside the town, it seemed. A dozen guards had succeeded in dropping a bar and had begun fanning out to take defensive positions when the warleader burst upon them.\n\nIron helm crunched, was torn from the dying child's head as if biting at the blade as it was dragged free. A backhanded slash separated another child's arm and shoulder from his body. Trampling a third guard, Havok pivoted, flinging his hindquarters around to strike a fourth child, sending him flying to crash up against the gate, sword spinning away.\n\nA longsword– its blade as puny as along knife's to Karsa's eyes– struck his leather-armoured thigh, cutting through two, perhaps three of the hardened layers, before bouncing away. Karsa drove his sword's pommel into the lowlander's face, felt bone crack. A kick sent the child reeling. Figures were scattering in panic from his path. Laughing, Karsa drove Havok forward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He cut down another guard, whilst the others raced down the street.\n\nSomething punched the Teblor's back, then a brief, stinging blossom of pain. Reaching over, Karsa dragged the quarrel free and flung it away. He dropped down from the horse, eyes on the barred gate. Metal latches had been locked over the bar, holding the thick plank in place.\n\nTaking three strides back, Karsa lowered one shoulder, then charged it.\n\nThe iron pins holding the hinges between blocks of mortared stone burst free with the impact, sending the entire gate toppling outward. The tower on Karsa's right groaned and sagged suddenly. Voices cried out inside it. The stonewall began to fold.\n\nCursing, the Teblor scrambled back towards the street as the entire tower collapsed in an explosion of dust.\n\nThrough the swirling white cloud, Bairoth rode, threads of blood and gore whipping from his bloodsword, his mount leaping to clear the rubble. The dogs followed, and with them Delum and his horse. Blood smeared Delum Thord's mouth, and Karsa realized, with a faint ripple of shock, that the warrior had torn out a farmer's throat with his own teeth, as would a dog.\n\nHoofs spraying mud, Bairoth reined in.\n\nKarsa swung himself back onto Havok, twisted the destrier round to face down the street.\n\nA square of pikemen approached at a trot, their long-poled weapons wavering, iron blades glinting in the morning light. They were still thirty paces distant.\n\nA quarrel glanced off the rump of Bairoth's horse, coming from a nearby upper floor window." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From somewhere outside the wall came the sound of galloping horses.\n\nBairoth grunted. \"Our withdrawal shall be contested, Warleader.\"\n\n\"Withdrawal?\" Karsa laughed. He jutted his chin towards the advancing pikemen. \"There can be no more than thirty, and children with long spears are still children, Bairoth Gild. Come, let us scatter them!\"\n\nWith a curse, Bairoth unlimbered his bear skull bolas. \"Precede me, then, Karsa Orlong, to hide my preparation.\"\n\nBaring his teeth in fierce pleasure, Karsa urged Havok forward. The dogs fanned out to either side, Delum positioning himself on the warleader's far right.\n\nAhead, the pikes slowly lowered, hovering at chest height as the square halted to plant their weapons.\n\nUpper floor windows on the street opened then, and faces appeared, looking down to witness what would come.\n\n\"Urugal!\" Karsa bellowed as he drove Havok into a charge. \"Witness!\" Behind him he heard Bairoth riding just as hard, and within that clash of sounds rose the whirring flow of the grey bear skull, round and round, and round again.\n\nTen paces from the readied pikes, and Bairoth roared. Karsa ducked low, pitching Havok to the left even as he slowed the beast's savage charge.\n\nSomething massive and hissing whipped past him, and Karsa twisted to seethe huge bolas strike the square of soldiers.\n\nDeadly chaos. Three of the five rows on the ground. Piercing screams.\n\nThen the dogs were among them, followed by Delum's horse.\n\nWheeling his destrier once again, Karsa closed on the shattered square, arriving in time to be alongside Bairoth as the two Teblor rode into the press. Batting aside the occasional, floundering pike, they slaughtered the children the dogs had not already taken down, in the passage of twenty heartbeats." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Warleader!\"\n\nDragging his bloodsword from the last victim, Karsa turned at Bairoth's bellow.\n\nAnother square of soldiers, this time flanked by cross-bowmen. Fifty, perhaps sixty in all, at the street's far end.\n\nScowling, Karsa glanced back towards the gate. Twenty mounted children, heavily armoured in plate and chain, were slowly emerging through the dust; more on foot, some armed with short bows, others with double-bladed axes, swords or javelins.\n\n\"Lead me, Warleader!\"\n\nKarsa glared at Bairoth. \"And so I shall, Bairoth Gild!\" He swung Havok about. \"This side passage, down to the shoreline– we shall ride around our pursuers. Tell me, Bairoth Gild, have we slain enough children for you?\"\n\n\"Aye, Karsa Orlong.\"\n\n\"Then follow!\"\n\nThe side passage was a street almost as wide as the main one, and it led straight down to the lake. Dwellings, trader stores and warehouses lined it. Shadowy figures were visible in windows, in doorways and at alley mouths as the Teblor raiders thundered past. The street ended twenty paces before the shoreline. The intervening space, through which a wide, wood-planked loadway ran down to the docks and piers, was filled with heaps of detritus, dominant among them a huge pile of bleached bones, from which poles rose, skulls affixed to their tops.\n\nTeblor skulls.\n\nAmidst this stretch of rubbish, squalid huts and tents filled every clear patch, and scores of children had emerged from them, bristling with weapons, their rough clothing bedecked with Teblor charms and scalps, their hard eyes watching the warriors approach as they began readying long-handled axes, two-handed swords, thick-shafted halberds, whilst yet others strung robust, recurved bows and nocked over-long, barbed arrows– which they began to draw, taking swift aim." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bairoth's roar was half horror, half rage as he sent his destrier charging towards these silent, deadly children.\n\nArrows flashed.\n\nBairoth's horse screamed, stumbled, then crashed to the ground. Bairoth tumbled, his sword spinning away through the air as he struck, then broke through, a sapling-walled hut.\n\nMore arrows flew.\n\nKarsa shifted Havok sharply, watched an arrow hiss past his thigh, then he was among the first of the lowlanders. Bloodsword clashed against an axe's bronze-sheathed shaft, the impact tearing the weapon from the man's hands. Karsa's left hand shot out to intercept another axe as it swung towards Havok's head. He plucked it from the man, sent it flying, then lunged forward the same hand to take the lowlander by the neck, lifting him clear as they continued on. A single, bone-crunching squeeze left the head lolling, the body twitching and spilling piss. Karsa flung the corpse away.\n\nHavok's onward plunge was brought to a sudden halt. The destrier shrieked, slewed to one side, blood gushing from its mouth and nostrils, dragging with it a heavy pike, its iron head buried deep in the horse's chest.\n\nThe beast stumbled, then, with a drunken weave, it began toppling.\n\nKarsa, screaming his fury, launched himself from the dying destrier's back. A sword point rose to meet him, but Karsa batted it aside. He landed atop at least three tumbling bodies, hearing bones snap beneath him as he rolled his way clear.\n\nThen he was on his feet, bloodsword slashing across the face of a lowlander, ripping black-bearded jaw from skull. An edged weapon scored deep across his back. Spinning, Karsa swung his blade under the attacker's outstretched arms, chopped deep between ribs, jamming at the breastbone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He tugged fiercely, tearing his sword free, the dying low-lander's body cartwheeling past him.\n\nHeavy weapons, many of them bearing knotted Teblor fetishes, surrounded him, each striving to drink Uryd blood. They fouled each other as often as not, yet Karsa was hard-pressed blocking the others as he fought his way clear. He killed two of his attackers in the process.\n\nNow he heard another fight, nearby, from where Bairoth had crashed into the hut, and, here and there, the snap and snarl of the dogs.\n\nHis attackers had been silent until a moment ago. Now, all were screaming in their gibbering tongue, their faces filled with alarm, as Karsa wheeled once more and, seeing more than a dozen before him, attacked. They scattered, revealing a half-crescent line of lowlanders with bows and crossbows.\n\nStrings thrummed.\n\nSearing pain along Karsa's neck, twin punches to his chest, another against his right thigh. Ignoring them all, the warleader charged the half-crescent.\n\nMore shouts, sudden pursuit from the ones who had scattered, but it was too late for that. Karsa's sword was a blur as he cut into the archers. Figures turning to run. Dying, spinning away in floods of blood. Skulls shattering. Karsa carved his way down the line, and left a trail of eight figures, some writhing and others still, behind him, by the time the first set of attackers reached him. He pivoted to meet them, laughing at the alarm in their tiny, wizened, dirt-smeared faces, then he lunged into their midst once more.\n\nThey broke. Flinging weapons away, stumbling and scrambling in their panic. Karsa killed one after another, until there were no more within reach of his bloodsword. He straightened, then." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Carry on with the narrative as the plot partner.\nTags: epic fantasy, character study, power struggles, resilience, destiny\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: House of Chains\nChapter: 10" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He tugged fiercely, tearing his sword free, the dying low-lander's body cartwheeling past him.\n\nHeavy weapons, many of them bearing knotted Teblor fetishes, surrounded him, each striving to drink Uryd blood. They fouled each other as often as not, yet Karsa was hard-pressed blocking the others as he fought his way clear. He killed two of his attackers in the process.\n\nNow he heard another fight, nearby, from where Bairoth had crashed into the hut, and, here and there, the snap and snarl of the dogs.\n\nHis attackers had been silent until a moment ago. Now, all were screaming in their gibbering tongue, their faces filled with alarm, as Karsa wheeled once more and, seeing more than a dozen before him, attacked. They scattered, revealing a half-crescent line of lowlanders with bows and crossbows.\n\nStrings thrummed.\n\nSearing pain along Karsa's neck, twin punches to his chest, another against his right thigh. Ignoring them all, the warleader charged the half-crescent.\n\nMore shouts, sudden pursuit from the ones who had scattered, but it was too late for that. Karsa's sword was a blur as he cut into the archers. Figures turning to run. Dying, spinning away in floods of blood. Skulls shattering. Karsa carved his way down the line, and left a trail of eight figures, some writhing and others still, behind him, by the time the first set of attackers reached him. He pivoted to meet them, laughing at the alarm in their tiny, wizened, dirt-smeared faces, then he lunged into their midst once more.\n\nThey broke. Flinging weapons away, stumbling and scrambling in their panic. Karsa killed one after another, until there were no more within reach of his bloodsword. He straightened, then." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where Bairoth had been fighting, seven lowlander bodies lay in a rough circle, but of the Teblor warrior there was no sign. The screams of a dog continued from further up the street, and Karsa ran towards the sound.\n\nHe passed the quarrel-studded corpses of the rest of the pack, though he did not see Gnaw among them. They had killed a number of lowlanders before they had finally fallen. Looking up, he saw, thirty paces down the street, Delum Thord, near him his fallen horse, and, another fifteen paces beyond, a knot of villagers.\n\nDelum was shrieking. He had taken a dozen or more quarrels and arrows, and a javelin had been thrust right through his torso, just above the left hip. He had left a winding trail of blood behind him, yet still he crawled forward– to where the villagers surrounded the three-legged dog, beating it to death with walking sticks, hoes and shovels.\n\nWailing, Delum dragged himself on, the javelin scraping alongside him, blood streaming down the shaft.\n\nEven as Karsa began to run forward, a figure raced out from an alley mouth, coming up slightly behind Delum, along-handled shovel in its hands. Lifting high.\n\nKarsa screamed a warning.\n\nDelum did not so much as turn, his eyes fixed on the now-dead three-legged dog, as the shovel struck the back of his head.\n\nThere was aloud crunch. The shovel pulled away, revealing a flat patch of shattered bone and twisted hair.\n\nDelum toppled forward, and did not move.\n\nHis slayer spun at Karsa's charge. An old man, his toothless mouth opening wide in sudden terror." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa's downward chop cut the man in half down to the hips.\n\nTearing his bloodsword free, the warleader plunged on, towards the dozen or so villagers still gathered around the pulped corpse of the three-legged dog. They saw him and scattered.\n\nTen paces beyond lay Gnaw, leaving his own blood-trail as, back legs dragging, he continued towards the body of his mate. He raised his head upon seeing Karsa. Pleading eyes fixed on the warleader's.\n\nBellowing, Karsa ran down two of the villagers and left their twitching corpses sprawled in the muddy street. He saw another, armed with a rust-pitted mattock, dart between two houses. The Teblor hesitated, then with a curse he swung about and moments later was crouched beside Gnaw.\n\nA shattered hip.\n\nKarsa glanced up the street to seethe pike-wielding soldiers closing at a jog. Three mounted men rode in their wake, shouting out commands. A quick look towards the lakeside revealed more horsemen gathering, heads turned in his direction.\n\nThe warleader lifted Gnaw from the ground, tucking the beast under his left arm.\n\nThen he set off in pursuit of the mattock-wielding villager.\n\nRotting vegetables crowded the narrow aisle between the two houses which, at the far end, opened out into a pair of corralled runs. Ashe emerged into the track between the two fence lines, he saw the man, still running, twenty paces ahead. Beyond the corrals was a shallow ditch, carrying sewage down to the lake. The child had crossed it and was plunging into a tangle of young alders– there were more buildings beyond it, either barns or warehouses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa raced after him, leaping across the ditch, the hunting dog still under his arm. The jostling was giving it great pain, the Teblor knew. He contemplated slitting its throat.\n\nThe child entered a barn, still carrying his mattock.\n\nFollowing, Karsa ducked low as he plunged through the side doorway. Sudden gloom. There were no beasts in the stalls; the straw, still piled high, looked old and damp. A large fishing boat commanded the wide centre aisle, flipped over and resting on wooden horses. Double sliding doors to the left, one of them slightly pushed back, the ropes from the handle gently swinging back and forth.\n\nKarsa found the last, darkest stall, where he set Gnaw down on the straw. \"I shall return to you, my friend,\" he whispered. \"Failing that, find away to heal, then journey home. Home, among the Uryd.\" The Teblor cut a thong of leather from his armour strappings. He tore from his belt-bag a handful of bronze sigils bearing the tribal signs, then strung the thong through them. None hung loose, and so would make no sound. He tied the makeshift collar round Gnaw's thick, muscled neck. Then he laid one hand lightly upon the dog's shattered hip and closed his eyes. \"I gift this beast the soul of the Teblor, the heart of the Uryd. Urugal, hear me. Heal this great fighter. Then send him home. For now, bold Urugal, hide him.\"\n\nHe withdrew his hand and opened his eyes. The beast looked up at him calmly. \"Make fierce your long life, Gnaw. We will meet again, this I vow upon the blood of all the children I have slain this day.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shifting grip on his bloodsword, Karsa turned away and departed the stall without another backward glance.\n\nHe padded towards the sliding door, looked out.\n\nA warehouse stood opposite, high-ceilinged with a loading loft beneath its slate-tiled roof. From within the building came the sounds of bolts and bars dropping into place. Smiling, Karsa darted across to where the loading chains dangled from pulleys, his eyes on the doorless loft platform high overhead.\n\nAshe prepared to sling his sword back over a shoulder, he saw, with a start, that he was festooned with arrows and quarrels, and realized, for the first time, that much of the blood sheathing his body was his own. Scowling, he pulled the darts out. There was more blood, particularly from his right thigh and the two wounds in his chest. Along arrow in his back had buried its barbed head deep into muscle. He attempted to drag the arrow free, but the pain that resulted came close to making him faint. He settled for snapping the shaft just behind the iron head, and this effort alone left him chilled and sweating.\n\nDistant shouts alerted him to a slowly closing cordon of soldiers and townsfolk, all hunting him. Karsa closed his hands around the chains, then began climbing. Every time he lifted his left arm, his back flashed with agony. But it had been the flat of a mattock's blade that had felled Gnaw, a two-handed blow from behind– the attack of a coward. And nothing else mattered.\n\nHe swung himself onto the platform's dusty floorboards, padded silently away from the opening as he drew his sword once more.\n\nHe could hear breathing, harsh and ragged, below. Low whimpering between gasps, a voice praying to whatever gods the child worshipped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa made his way towards the gaping hole in the centre of the platform, careful to keep his moccasins from dragging, lest sawdust drift down from between the floorboards. He came to the edge and looked down.\n\nThe fool was directly beneath him, crouched down, trembling, the mattock held ready as he faced the barred doors. He had soiled himself in his terror.\n\nKarsa carefully reversed grip on his sword, held it outpoint downward, then dropped from the ledge.\n\nThe sword's tip entered atop the man's pate, the blade driving down through bone and brain. As Karsa's full weight impacted the warehouse floor, there was a massive, splintering sound, and Teblor and victim both plunged through, down into a cellar. Shattered floorboards crashed down around them. The cellar was deep, almost Karsa's height, stinking of salted fish yet empty.\n\nStunned by the fall, Karsa feebly groped for his sword, but he could not find it. He managed to raise his head slightly, and saw that something was sticking out of his chest, a red shard of splintered wood. He was, he bemusedly realized, impaled. His hand continued searching for his sword, though he could not otherwise move, but found only wood and fish-scales, the latter greasy with salt and sticking to his fingertips.\n\nHe heard the sound of boots from above. Blinking, Karsa stared up as a ring of helmed faces slowly swam into view. Then another child's face appeared, unhelmed, his brow marked in a tribal tattoo, the expression beneath it strangely sympathetic. There was a lot of conversation, hot with anger, then the tattooed child gestured and everyone fell silent. In the Sunyd dialect of the Teblor, the man said,\"Should you die down there, warrior, at least you'll keep fora time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa sought to rise once more, but the shaft of wood held him fast. He bared his teeth in a grimace.\n\n\"What is your name, Teblor?\" the child asked.\n\n\"I am Karsa Orlong, grandson of Pahlk-\"\n\n\"Pahlk? The Uryd who visited centuries ago?\"\n\n\"To slay scores of children-\"\n\nThe man's nod was serious as he interjected,\"Children, yes, it makes sense for your kind to callus that. But Pahlk killed no-one, not at first. He came down from the pass, half starved and fevered. The first farmers who'd settled here took him in, nourished him back to health. It was only then that he murdered them all and fled. Well, not all. A girl escaped, made her way back along the lake's south shore to Orbs, and told the detachment there– well, told them everything they needed to know about the Teblor. Since that time, of course, the Sunyd slaves have told us even more. You are Uryd. We've not reached your tribe– you've had no bounty hunters as yet, but you will. Within a century, I'd hazard, there will be no more Teblor in the fastnesses of Laederon Plateau. The only Teblor will be the ones branded and in chains. Plying the nets on the fishing boats, as the Sunyd now do. Tell me, Karsa, do you recognize me?\"\n\n\"You are the one who escaped us above the pass. Who came too late to warn his fellow children. Who, I know now, is full of lies. Your tiny voice insults the Teblor tongue. It hurts my ears.\"\n\nThe man smiled. \"Too bad. You should reconsider, in any case, warrior. For I am all that stands between your living or dying. Assuming you don't die of your wounds first. Of course, you Teblor are uncommonly tough, as my companions have just been reminded, to their dismay. I see no blood frothing your lips, which is a good sign, and rather astonishing, since you've four lungs, while we have two.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another figure had appeared and now spoke to the tattooed man in stentorian tones, to which he simply shrugged. \"Karsa Orlong of the Uryd,\" he called down, \"soldiers are about to descend, to tie ropes to your limbs so you can be lifted out. It seems you're lying on what's left of the town's factor, which has somewhat abated the anger up here, since he was not a well-liked man. I would suggest, if you wish to live, that you not resist the, uh, warleader's nervous volunteers.\"\n\nKarsa watched as four soldiers were slowly lowered down on ropes. He made no effort to resist as they roughly bound his wrists, ankles and upper arms, for the truth was, he was incapable of doing so.\n\nThe soldiers were quickly dragged backup, then the ropes were drawn taut, and Karsa was steadily lifted. He watched the shaft of splintered wood slowly withdrawing from his chest. It had entered high, just above his right shoulder blade, through muscles, reappearing just to the right of his clavicle on that side. Ashe was pulled free, pain overwhelmed him.\n\nA hand was then slapping him awake. Karsa opened his eyes. He was lying on the warehouse floor, faces crowding him on all sides. Everyone seemed to bespeaking to him at once in their thin, weedy tongue, and though he could not understand the words raw hatred rode the tone, and Karsa knew he was being cursed, in the name of scores of low-lander gods, spirits and mouldering ancestors. The thought pleased him, and he smiled.\n\nThe soldiers flinched back as one.\n\nThe tattooed lowlander, whose hand had awakened him, was crouched down at Karsa's side.\"Hood's breath,\" he muttered. \"Are all Uryd like you? Or are you the one the priests spoke of? The one who stalked their dreams like Hood's own Knight? Ah well, it doesn't matter, I suppose, for it seems their fears were unfounded. Look at you. Half dead, with a whole town eager to see you and your companion flayed alive– there's not a family to be found not in mourning, thanks to you. Grasp the world by the throat? Not likely; you'll need Oponn's luck to live out the hour. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The broken arrow shaft had been driven deeper into Karsa's back with the fall, gouging into the bone of his shoulder blade. Blood was spreading out on the floorboards beneath him.\n\nThere was a commotion as anew lowlander arrived, this one tall for his kind, thin with a severe, weather-lined face. He was dressed in shimmering clothes, deep blue and trimmed with gold thread sewn into intricate patterns. The guard spoke to him at length, though the man himself said nothing, nor did his expression change. When the guard was finished, the newcomer nodded, then gestured with one hand and turned away.\n\nThe guard looked down at Karsa once more. \"That was Master Silgar, the man I work for, most of the time. He believes you will survive your wounds, Karsa Orlong, and so has prepared for you a... a lesson, of sorts.\" The man straightened and said something to the soldiers. There followed a brief argument, which concluded with an indifferent shrug from one of the soldiers.\n\nKarsa's limbs were lifted once more, two lowlanders to each, the men straining to hold him as they carried him to the warehouse doors.\n\nThe blood dripping down from his wounds was slowing, pain retreating behind a dull lassitude in the Teblor's mind. He stared up at blue sky as the soldiers carried him to the centre of the street, the sounds of a crowd on all sides. They set him down propped up against a cartwheel, and Karsa saw before him Bairoth Gild.\n\nHe had been tied to a much larger spoked wheel, which itself rested against support poles. The huge warrior was amass of wounds. A spear had been driven into his mouth, exiting just below his left ear, leaving the lower jaw shattered, bone gleaming red amidst torn flesh. The stubs of deep-driven quarrels crowded his torso." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But his eyes were sharp as they met Karsa's own.\n\nVillagers filled the street, held back by a cordon of soldiers. Angry shouts and curses filled the air, punctuated every now and then by wails of grief.\n\nThe guard positioned himself between Karsa and Bairoth, his expression mockingly thoughtful. Then he turned to Karsa. \"Your comrade here will tell us nothing of the Uryd. We would know the number of warriors, the number and location of villages. We would know more of the Phalyd as well, who are said to be your match in ferocity. But he says nothing.\"\n\nKarsa bared his teeth. \"I, Karsa Orlong, invite you to send a thousand of your warriors to wage war among the Uryd. None shall return, but the trophies will remain with us. Send two thousand. It matters not.\"\n\nThe guard smiled. \"You will answer our questions, then, Karsa Orlong?\"\n\n\"I will, for such words will avail you naught-\"\n\n\"Excellent.\" The guard gestured with one hand. A low-lander stepped up to Bairoth Gild, drawing his sword.\n\nBairoth sneered at Karsa. He snarled, the sound a mangled roar that Karsa nevertheless understood, \"Lead me, Warleader!\"\n\nThe sword slashed. Through Bairoth Gild's neck. Blood sprayed, the huge warrior's head flopping back, then rolling from a shoulder to land with a heavy thump on the ground.\n\nA savage, gleeful roar erupted from the villagers.\n\nThe guard approached Karsa. \"Delighted to hear that you will co-operate. Doing so buys you your life. Master Silgar will add you to his herd of slaves once you've told us all you know. I don't think you will be joining the Sunyd out on the lake, however. No hauling of nets for you, Karsa Orlong, I'm afraid. \"He turned as a heavily armoured soldier appeared.\"Ah, here is the Malazan captain. Ill luck, Karsa Orlong, that you should have timed your attack to coincide with the arrival of a Malazan company on its way to Bettrys. Now then, assuming the captain has no objections, shall we begin the questioning? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The twin trenches of the slave-pits lay beneath the floor of a large warehouse near the lake, accessed through a trapdoor and a mould-smeared staircase." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One side held, for the moment, only a half-dozen lowlanders chained to the tree trunk running the length of the trench, but more shackles awaited the return of the Sunyd net-haulers. The other trench was home to the sick and dying. Emaciated low-lander shapes huddled in their own filth, some moaning, others silent and motionless.\n\nAfter he had done describing the Uryd and their lands, Karsa was dragged to the warehouse and chained in the second trench. Its sides were sloped, packed with damp clay. The centre log ran along the narrow, flat bottom, half-submerged in blood-streaked sewage. Karsa was taken to the far end, out of the reach of any of the other slaves, and shackles were fixed to both wrists and both ankles– whereas, he saw, among everyone else a single shackle sufficed.\n\nThey left him alone then.\n\nFlies swarmed him, alighting on his chilled skin. He lay on his side against one of the sloping sides. The wound within which the arrow-head remained was threatening to close, and this he could not allow. He shut his eyes and began to concentrate until he could feel each muscle, cut and torn and seeping, holding fast around the iron point. Then he began working them, the slightest of contractions to test the position of the arrow-head– fighting the pulses of pain that radiated outwith each flex. After a few moments, he ceased, let his body relax, taking deep breaths until he was recovered from his efforts. The flanged iron blade lay almost flat against his shoulder blade. Its tip had scoured a groove along the bone. There were barbs as well, bent and twisted.\n\nTo leave such an object within his flesh would make his left arm useless. He needed to drive it out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He began to concentrate once more. Ravaged muscles and tissue, a path inward of chopped and sliced flesh.\n\nA layer of sweat sheathed him as he continued to focus his mind, preparing, his breaths slowing, steadying.\n\nHe contracted his muscles. A ragged scream forced its way out. Another welter of blood, amidst relentless pain. The muscles spasmed in a rippling wave. Something struck the clay slope and slid down into the sewage.\n\nGasping, trembling, Karsa lay motionless fora long while. The blood streaming down from his back slowed, then ceased.\n\n\"Lead me, Warleader\". '\n\nBairoth Gild had made those words a curse, in a manner and from a place of thought that Karsa did not understand. And then, Bairoth Gild had died senselessly. Nothing the lowlanders could do threatened the Uryd, for the Uryd were not as the Sunyd. Bairoth had surrendered his chance for vengeance, a gesture so baffling to Karsa that he was left stunned.\n\nA brutal, knowing glare in Bairoth's eyes, fixed solely on Karsa, even as the sword flashed towards his neck. He would tell the lowlanders nothing, yet it was a defiance without meaning– but no, there was meaning... for Bairoth chose to abandon me.\n\nA sudden shiver took him. Urugal, have my brothers betrayed me? Delum Thord's flight, Bairoth Gild's death– am Ito know abandonment again and again? What of the Uryd awaiting my return? Will they not follow when I proclaim war against the lowlanders?\n\nPerhaps not at first. No, he realized, there would be arguments, and opinions, and, seated around the camp hearths, the elders would poke smouldering sticks into the fire and shake their heads." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Until word came that the lowlander armies were coming.\n\nAnd then they will have no choice. Would we flee into the laps of the Phalyd? No. There will be no choice but to fight, and I, Karsa Orlong, will be looked upon then, to lead the Uryd.\n\nThe thought calmed him.\n\nHe slowly rolled over, blinking in the gloom, flies scattering all around his face.\n\nIt took a few moments of groping in the sludge to find the arrow-head and its stubby, splintered fragment of shaft. He then crouched down beside the centre log to examine the fittings holding the chains.\n\nThere were two sets of chains, one for his arms and one for his legs, each fixed to along iron rod that had been driven through the trunk, the opposite end flattened out. The links were large and solid, forged with Teblor strength in mind. But the wood on the underside had begun to rot.\n\nUsing the arrow-head, he began gouging and digging into the sewage-softened wood around the flange.\n\nBairoth had betrayed him, betrayed the Uryd. There had been nothing of courage in his last act of defiance. Indeed, the very opposite. They had discovered enemies to the Teblor. Hunters, who collected Teblor trophies. These were truths that the warriors of all the tribes needed to hear, and delivering those truths was now Karsa's sole task.\n\nHe was not Sunyd, as the lowlanders were about to discover.\n\nThe rot had been drawn up the hole. Karsa dugout the soaked, pulpy mass as far as the arrow-head could reach. He then moved onto the second fitting. The iron bar holding his leg chains would be tested first." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was noway to tell if it was day or night outside. Heavy boots occasionally crossed the plank floor above him, too random to indicate a set passage of time. Karsa worked unceasingly, listening to the coughs and moans of the lowlanders chained further down the trunk. He could not imagine what those sad children had done, to warrant such punishment from their kin. Banishment was the harshest sentence the Teblor inflicted on those among the tribe whose actions had, with deliberate intent, endangered the survival of the village, actions that ranged from carelessness to kin-murder. Banishment led, usually, to death, but that came of starvation of the spirit within the one punished. Torture was not a Teblor way, nor was prolonged imprisonment.\n\nOf course, he reconsidered, it maybe that these lowlanders were sick because their spirits were dying. Among the legends, there were fragments whispering that the Teblor had once owned slaves– the word, the concept, was known to him. Possession of another's life, to do with as one wished. A slave's spirit could do naught but starve.\n\nKarsa had no intention of starving. Urugal's shadow protected his spirit.\n\nHe tucked the arrow-head into his belt. Setting his back against the slope, he planted his feet against the log, one to either side of the fitting, then slowly extended his legs. The chain tautened. On the underside of the trunk, the flange was pulled into the wood with a steady splintering, grinding sound.\n\nThe shackles dug into his hide-wrapped ankles.\n\nHe began to push harder. There was a solid crunch, then the flange would go no further. Karsa slowly relaxed. A kick sent the bar thumping free on the other end. He rested fora few moments, then resumed the process once more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After a dozen tries he had managed to pull the bar up the span of three fingers from where it had been at the beginning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The flange's edges were bent now, battered by their assault on the wood. His leggings had been cut through and blood gleamed on the shackles.\n\nHe leaned his head back on the damp clay of the slope, his legs trembling.\n\nMore boots thumped overhead, then the trapdoor was lifted. The glow of lantern light descended the steps, and within it Karsa saw the nameless guard.\n\n\"Uryd,\" he called out. \"Do you still breathe?\"\n\n\"Come closer,\" Karsa challenged in a low voice, \"and I will show you the extent of my recovery.\"\n\nThe lowlander laughed. \"Master Silgar saw true, it seems. It will take some effort to break your spirit, I suspect.\" The guard remained standing halfway down the steps. \"Your Sunyd kin will be returning in a day or two.\"\n\n\"I have no kin who accept the life of slavery.\"\n\n\"That's odd, since you clearly have, else you would have contrived to kill yourself by now. '\n\n\"You think I am a slave because I am in chains? Come closer, then, child.\"\n\n\"\"Child,\" yes. Your strange affectation persists, even while we children have you at our mercy. Well, never mind. The chains are but the beginning, Karsa Orlong. You will indeed be broken, and had you been captured by the bounty hunters high on the plateau, by the time they'd delivered you to this town you'd have had nothing left of Teblor pride, much less defiance. The Sunyd will worship you, Karsa Orlong, for killing an entire camp of bounty hunters.\"\n\n\"What is your name?\" Karsa asked.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nThe Uryd warrior smiled in the gloom. \"For all your words, you still fear me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hardly.\"\n\nBut Karsa heard the strain in the guard's tone and his smile broadened.\"Then tell me your name. '\n\n\"Damisk. My name is Damisk. I was once a tracker in the Greydog army during the Malazan conquest.\"\n\n\"Conquest. You lost, then. Which of our spirits has broken, Damisk Greydog? When I attacked your party on the ridge, you fled. Left the ones who had hired you to their fates. You fled, as would a coward, a broken man. And this is why you are here, now. For I am chained and you are beyond my reach. You come, not to tell me things, but because you cannot help yourself. You seek the pleasure of gloating, yet you devour yourself inside, and so feel no true satisfaction. Yet we both know, you will come again. And again.\"\n\n\"I shall advise,\" Damisk said, his voice ragged, \"my master to give you to the surviving bounty hunters, to do with you as they will. And I will watch-\"\n\n\"Of course you will, Damisk Greydog.\"\n\nThe man backed up the stairs, the lantern's light swinging wildly.\n\nKarsa laughed.\n\nA moment later the trapdoor slammed down once more, and there was darkness.\n\nThe Teblor warrior fell silent, then planted his feet on the log yet again.\n\nA weak voice from the far end of the trench stopped him. \"Giant.\"\n\nThe tongue was Sunyd, the voice a child's.\"I have no words for you, lowlander, ' Karsa growled.\n\n\"I do not ask for words. I can feel you working on this Hood-damned tree. Will you succeed at whatever it is you are doing?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am doing nothing.\"\n\n\"All right, then. Must be my imagination. We're dying here, the rest of us. Ina most terrible, undignified manner. '\n\n\"You must have done great wrong-\"\n\nThe answering laugh was a rasping cough. \"Oh indeed, giant. Indeed. We're the ones who would not accept Malazan rule, so we held onto our weapons and hid in the hills and forests. Raiding, ambushing, making nuisances of ourselves. It was great fun. Until the bastards caught us. '\n\n\"Careless.\"\n\n\"Three of you and a handful of your damned dogs, raiding an entire town? And you call me careless? Well, I suppose we both were, since we're here. '\n\nKarsa grimaced at the truth of that. \"What is it you want, lowlander?\"\n\n\"Your strength, giant. There are four of us over here who are still alive, though I alone am still conscious... and very nearly sane. Sane enough, that is, to comprehend the fullest ignobility of my fate.\"\n\n\"You talk too much.\"\n\n\"For not much longer, I assure you. Can you lift this log, giant? Or spin it over a few times?\"\n\nKarsa was silent fora long moment. \"What would that achieve?\"\n\n\"It would shorten the chains.\"\n\n\"I have no wish to shorten the chains.\"\n\n\"Temporarily.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Spin the damned thing, giant. So our chains wraparound it again and again. So, with one last turn, you drag us poor fools at this end under. So we drown.\"\n\n\"You would have me kill you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I applaud your swift comprehension, giant. More souls to crowd your shadow, Teblor– that's how your kind see it, yes? Kill me, and I will walk with honour in your shadow. '\n\n\"I am not interested in mercy, lowlander.\"\n\n\"How about trophies?\"\n\n\"I cannot reach you to take trophies.\"\n\n\"How well can you see in this gloom? I've heard that Teblor-'\n\n\"I can see. Well enough to know that your right hand is closed in a fist. What lies within it?\"\n\n\"A tooth. Just fallen out. The third one since I've been chained down here. '\n\n\"Throw it tome.\"\n\n\"I will try. I am afraid I'm somewhat... worse for wear. Are you ready? '\n\n\"Throw. '\n\nThe man's arm wavered as he lifted it.\n\nThe tooth flew high and wide, but Karsa's arm shot out, chain snapping behind it, and he snatched the tooth from the air. He brought it down fora closer look, then grunted.\"It's rotted.\"\n\n\"Probably why it fell out. Well? Consider this, too. You will succeed in getting water right through the shaft, which should soften things up even more. Not that you've been up to anything down there. '\n\nKarsa slowly nodded. \"I like you, lowlander.\"\n\n\"Good. Now drown me.\"\n\n\"I will.\"\n\nKarsa slipped down to stand knee-deep in the foul muck, the fresh wounds around his ankles stinging at the contact.\n\n\"I saw them bring you down, giant,\" the man said. \"None of the Sunyd areas big as you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Sunyd are the smallest among the Teblor.\"\n\n\"Must be some lowlander blood from way back, I'd imagine. '\n\n\"They have fallen far indeed.\" Karsa lowered both arms, chains dragging, until his hands rested beneath the log.\n\n\"My thanks to you, Teblor.\"\n\nKarsa lifted, twisted the log, then set it down once more, gasping. \"This will not be quick, lowlander, and for that I am sorry.\"\n\n\"I understand. Take your time. Biltar slid right under in any case, and Alrute looks about to the next time. You're doing well. '\n\nHe lifted the log once more, rolled it another half-twist. Splashes and gurgling sounds came from the other end.\n\nThen a gasp. \"Almost there, Teblor. I'm the last. One more– I'll roll myself under it, so it pins me down.\"\n\n\"Then you are crushed, not drowned.\"\n\n\"In this muck? No worries there, Teblor. I'll feel the weight, true, but it won't cause me much pain.\"\n\n\"You lie.\"\n\n\"So what? It's not the means, it's the end that matters.\"\n\n\"All things matter,\" Karsa said, preparing once more. \"I shall twist it all the way round this time, lowlander. It will be easier now that my own chains are shorter. Are you ready?\"\n\n\"A moment, please,\" the man sputtered.\n\nKarsa lifted the log, grunting with the immense weight pulling down on his arms.\n\n\"I've had a change of heart-'\n\n\"I haven't. ' Karsa spun the log. Then dropped it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wild thrashing from the other end, chains sawing the air, then frantic coughing.\n\nSurprised, Karsa looked up. A brown-smeared figure flailed about, sputtering, kicking.\n\nKarsa slowly sat back, waiting for the man to recover. Fora while, there was naught but heavy gasping from the other end of the log. \"You managed to rollback over, then under and out. I am impressed, lowlander. It seems you are not a coward after all. I did not believe there were such as you among the children.\"\n\n\"Sheer courage,\" the man rasped. \"That's me. '\n\n\"Whose tooth was it?\"\n\n\"Alrute's. Now, no more spinning, if you please. '\n\n\"I am sorry, lowlander, but I must now spin it the opposite way, until the log is as it was before I started.\"\n\n\"I curse your grim logic, Teblor.\"\n\n\"What is your name?\"\n\n\"Torvald Nom, though to my Malazan enemies, I'm known as Knuckles. '\n\n\"And how came you to learn the Sunyd tongue?\"\n\n\"It's the old trader language, actually. Before there were bounty hunters, there were Nathii traders. A mutually profitable trade between them and the Sunyd. The truth is, your language is close kin to Nathii. '\n\n\"The soldiers spoke gibberish.\"\n\n\"Naturally; they're soldiers. \"He paused.\"All right, that sort of humour's lost on you. So be it. Likely, those soldiers were Malazan.\"\n\n\"I have decided that the Malazans are my enemy.\"\n\n\"Something we share, then, Teblor.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We share naught but this tree trunk, lowlander.\"\n\n\"If you prefer. Though I feel obliged to correct you on one thing. Hateworthy as the Malazans are, the Nathii these days are no better. You've no allies among the lowlanders, Teblor, be sure of that. '\n\n\"Are you a Nathii?\"\n\n\"No. I'm Daru. From a city far to the south. The House of Nom is vast and certain families among it are almost wealthy. We've a Nom in the Council, in fact, in Darujhistan. Never met him. Alas, my own family's holdings are more, uh, modest. Hence my extended travels and nefarious professions-'\n\n\"You talk too much, Torvald Nom. I am ready to turn this log once more.\"\n\n\"Damn, I was hoping you'd forgotten about that. '\n\nThe iron bar's end was more than halfway through the trunk, the flange a blunt, shapeless piece of metal. Karsa could not keep the aching and trembling from his legs, even as the rest periods between efforts grew ever longer. The larger wounds in his chest and back, created by the splinter of wood, had reopened, leaking steadily to mix with the sweat soaking his clothes. The skin and flesh of his ankles were shredded.\n\nTorvald had succumbed to his own exhaustion, shortly after the log had been returned to its original position, groaning in his sleep whilst Karsa laboured on.\n\nFor the moment, as the Uryd warrior rested against the clay slope, the only sounds were his own ragged gasps, underscored by softer, shallow breaths from the far end of the trunk.\n\nThen the sound of boots crossed overhead, first in one direction, then back again, and gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa pushed himself upright once more, his head spinning.\n\n\"Rest longer, Teblor.\"\n\n\"There is no time for that, Torvald Nom-\"\n\n\"Oh, but there is. That slavemaster who now owns you will be waiting here fora while, so that he and his train can travel in the company of the Malazan soldiers. For as far as Malybridge, at least. There's been plenty of bandit activity from Fool's Forest and Yellow Mark, for which I acknowledge some proprietary pride, since it was me who united that motley collection of highwaymen and throat-slitters in the first place. They'd have already come to rescue me, too, if not for the Malazans. '\n\n\"I will kill that slavemaster,\" Karsa said.\n\n\"Careful with that one, giant. Silgar's not a pleasant man, and he's used to dealing with warriors like you-\"\n\n\"I am Uryd, not Sunyd.\"\n\n\"So you keep saying, and I've no doubt you're meaner– you're certainly bigger. All I was saying is, be wary of Silgar. '\n\nKarsa positioned himself over the log.\n\n\"You have time to spare, Teblor. There's no point in freeing yourself if you're then unable to walk. This isn't the first time I've been in chains, and I speak from experience: bide your time, an opportunity will arise, if you don't wither and die first. '\n\n\"Or drown.\"\n\n\"Point taken, and yes, I understood your meaning when you spoke of courage. I admit to a moment of despair.\"\n\n\"Do you know how long you have been chained here?\"\n\n\"Well, there was snow on the ground and the lake's ice had just broken. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa slowly glanced over at the barely visible, scrawny figure at the far end. Torvald Nom, even a lowlander should not be made to suffer such a fate. '\n\nThe man's laugh was a rattle.\"And you callus children. You Teblor cut people down as if you were executioners, but among my kind, execution is an act of mercy. For your average condemned bastard, prolonged torture is far more likely. The Nathii have made the infliction of suffering an art– must be the cold winters or something. In any case, if not for Silgar claiming you– and the Malazan soldiers in town– the locals would be peeling the skin from your flesh right now, a sliver at a time. Then they'd lock you inside a box to let you heal. They know that your kind are immune to infections, which means they can make you suffer fora long, longtime. There's a lot of frustrated townsfolk out there right now, I'd imagine.\"\n\nKarsa began pulling on the bar once more.\n\nHe was interrupted by voices overhead, then heavy thumping, as of a dozen or more barefooted arrivals, the sound joined now by chains slithering across the warehouse floor.\n\nKarsa settled back against the opposite trench slope.\n\nThe trapdoor opened. A child in the lead, lantern in hand, and then Sunyd– naked but for rough-woven short skirts– making a slow descent, their left ankles shackled with a chain linking them all together. The lowlander with the lantern walked down the walkway between the two trenches. The Sunyd, eleven in all, six men and five women, followed.\n\nTheir heads were lowered; none would meet Karsa's steady, cold regard.\n\nAt a gesture from the child, who had halted four long paces from Karsa's position, the Sunyd turned and slid down the slope of their trench. Three more lowlanders had appeared, and followed them down to apply the fixed shackles to the Teblor's other ankles. There was no resistance from the Sunyd." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Moments later, the lowlanders were back on the walk-way, then heading up the steps. The trapdoor squealed on its hinges, closing with a reverberating thump that sent dust drifting down through the gloom.\n\n\"It is true, then. An Uryd.\" The voice was a whisper.\n\nKarsa sneered. \"Was that the voice of a Teblor? No, it could not have been. Teblor do not become slaves. Teblor would rather die than kneel before a lowlander.\"\n\n\"An Uryd... in chains. Like the rest of us-\"\n\n\"Like the Sunyd? Who let these foul children come close and fix shackles to their legs? No. I am a prisoner, but no bindings shall hold me for long. The Sunyd must be reminded what it is to be a Teblor.\"\n\nAnew voice spoke from among the Sunyd, a woman's.\"We saw the dead, lined upon the ground before the hunters'camp. We saw wagons, filled with dead Malazans. Townsfolk were wailing. Yet, it is said there were but three of you-\"\n\n\"Two, not three. Our companion, Delum Thord, was wounded in the head, his mind had fallen away. He ran with the dogs. Had his mind been whole, his bloodsword in his hands-\"\n\nThere was sudden murmuring from the Sunyd, the word bloodsword spoken intones of awe.\n\nKarsa scowled. \"What is this madness? Have the Sunyd lost all the old ways of the Teblor?\"\n\nThe woman sighed. \"Lost? Yes, long ago. Our own children slipping away in the night to wander south into the lowlands, eager for the cursed lowlander coins– the bits of metal around which life itself seems to revolve. Sorely used, were our children– some even returned to our valleys, as scouts for the hunters. The secret groves of bloodwood were burned down, our horses slain. To be betrayed by our own children, Uryd, this is what broke the Sunyd.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your children should have been hunted down,\" Karsa said. \"The hearts of your warriors were too soft. Blood-kin is cut when betrayal is done. Those children ceased being Sunyd. I will kill them for you.\"\n\n\"You would have trouble finding them, Uryd. They are scattered, many fallen, many now sold into servitude to repay their debts. And some have travelled great distances, to the great cities of Nathilog and Genabaris. Our tribe is no more.\"\n\nThe first Sunyd who had spoken added, \"Besides, Uryd, you are in chains. Now the property of Master Silgar, from whom no slave has ever escaped. You will be killing no-one, ever again. And like us, you will be made to kneel. Your words are empty.\"\n\nKarsa straddled the log once more. He grasped hold of the chains this time, wrapping them about his wrists as many times as he could.\n\nThen he threw himself back. Muscles bunching, legs pushing down on the log, back straightening. Grinding, splintering, a sudden loud crack.\n\nKarsa was thrown backward onto the clay slope, chains snapping around him. Blinking the sweat from his eyes, he stared down at the log.\n\nThe trunk had split, down its entire length.\n\nThere was a low hiss from the other end, the rustle of freed chains. \"Hood take me, Karsa Orlong,\" Torvald whispered, \"you don't take insults well, do you? '\n\nThough no longer attached to the log, Karsa's wrists and ankles were still chained to the iron bars. The warrior unravelled the chains from his battered, bleeding forearms, then collected one of the bars. Laying the ankle chain against the log, he drove the bar's unflanged end into a single link, then began twisting it with both hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What has happened?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "a Sunyd asked. \"What was that sound?\"\n\n\"The Uryd's spine has snapped, ' the first speaker replied in a drawl.\n\nTorvald's laugh was a cold chuckle.\"The Lord's push for you, Ganal, I'm afraid. '\n\n\"What do you mean, Nom?\"\n\nThe link popped, sending apiece whipping across the trench to thud against the earthen wall.\n\nKarsa dragged the chain from his ankle shackles. Then he set to splitting the one holding his wrists.\n\nAnother popping sound. He freed his arms.\n\n\"What is happening?\"\n\nA third crack, as he snapped the chain from the iron bar he had been using– which was the undamaged one, its flange intact, sharp-edged and jagged. Karsa clambered from the trench.\n\n\"Where is this Ganal?\" he growled.\n\nAll but one of the Sunyd lying in the opposite trench shrank back at his words.\n\n\"I am Ganal,\" said the lone warrior who had not moved. \"Not a broken spine after all. Well then, warrior, kill me for my sceptical words.\"\n\n\"I shall.\" Karsa strode down the walkway, lifting the iron bar.\n\n\"If you do that,\" Torvald said hastily, \"the others will likely raise a cry.\"\n\nKarsa hesitated.\n\nGanal smiled up at him. \"If you spare me, there will be no alarm sounded, Uryd. It is night, still a bell or more before dawn. You will make good your escape-\"\n\n\"And by your silence, you will all be punished,\" Karsa said.\n\n\"No. We were all sleeping.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The woman spoke. \"Bring the Uryd, in all your numbers. When you have slain everyone in this town, then you can settle judgement upon us Sunyd, as will be your right.\"\n\nKarsa hesitated, then he nodded. \"Ganal, I give you more of your miserable life. But I shall come once more, and I shall remember you.\"\n\n\"I have no doubt, Uryd,\" Ganal replied. \"Not anymore.\"\n\n\"Karsa,\" Torvald said. \"I maybe a lowlander and all-\"\n\n\"I shall free you, child,\" the Uryd replied, turning from the Sunyd trench. \"You have shown courage.\" He slid down to the man's side.\"You are too thin to walk, \"he observed.\"Unable to run. Do you still wish for me to release you? '\n\n\"Thin? I haven't lost more than half a stone, Karsa Orlong. I can run. '\n\n\"You sounded poorly earlier on-\"\n\n\"Sympathy.\"\n\n\"You sought sympathy from an Uryd?\"\n\nThe man's bony shoulders lifted in a sheepish shrug.\"It was worth a try. '\n\nKarsa pried the chain apart.\n\nTorvald pulled his arms free. \"Bern's blessing on you, lad. '\n\n\"Keep your lowlander gods to yourself.\"\n\n\"Of course. Apologies. Anything you say.\"\n\nTorvald scrambled up the slope. On the walkway, he paused. \"What of the trapdoor, Karsa Orlong?\"\n\n\"What of it?\" the warrior growled, climbing up and moving past the lowlander.\n\nTorvald bowed as Karsa went past, a scrawny arm sweeping out in a graceful gesture. \"Lead me, by all means.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa halted on the first step and glanced back at the child. \"I am warleader,\" he rumbled. \"You would have me lead you, lowlander?\"\n\nGanal said from the other trench, \"Careful how you answer, Daru. There are no empty words among the Teblor.\"\n\n\"Well, uh, it was naught but an invitation. To precede me up the steps-\"\n\nKarsa resumed his climb.\n\nDirectly beneath the trapdoor, he examined its edges. He recalled that there was an iron latch that was lowered when locked, making it flush with the surrounding boards. Karsa jammed the chain-fixing end of the iron bar into the join beneath the latch. He drove it in as far as he could, then began levering, settling his full weight in gradual increments.\n\nA splintering snap, the trapdoor jumping up slightly. Karsa set his shoulders against it and lifted.\n\nThe hinges creaked.\n\nThe warrior froze, waited, then resumed, slower this time.\n\nAs his head cleared the hatchway, he could see faint lantern-glow from the far end of the warehouse, and saw, seated around a small round table, three lowlanders. They were not soldiers– Karsa had seen them earlier in the company of the slavemaster, Silgar. There was the muted clatter of bones on the tabletop.\n\nThat they had not heard the trapdoor's hinges was, to Karsa's mind, remarkable. Then his ears caught anew sound– a chorus of creaks and groans, and, outside, the howl of a wind. A storm had come in from the lake, and rain had begun spraying against the north wall of the warehouse.\n\n\"Urugal,\" Karsa said under his breath, \"I thank you. And now, witness...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One hand holding the trapdoor over him, the warrior slowly slid onto the floor. He moved far enough to permit Torvald's equally silent arrival, then he slowly lowered the hatch until it settled. A gesture told Torvald to remain where he was, understanding indicated by the man's fervent nod. Karsa carefully shifted the bar from his left hand to his right, then made his way forward.\n\nOnly one of the three guards might have seen him, from the corner of his eye, but his attention was intent on the bones skidding over the tabletop before him. The other two had their backs to the room.\n\nKarsa remained low on the floor until he was less than three paces away, then he silently rose into a crouch.\n\nHe launched himself forward, the bar whipping horizontally, connecting with first one unhelmed head, then onto the second. The third guard stared open-mouthed. Karsa's swing finished with his left hand grasping the red-smeared end of the bar, which he then drove crossways into the lowlander's throat. The man was thrown back over his chair, striking the warehouse doors and falling in a heap.\n\nKarsa set the bar down on the tabletop, then crouched down beside one of the victims and began removing his sword-belt.\n\nTorvald approached. \"Hood's own nightmare, \"he muttered,\"that's what you are, Uryd.\"\n\n\"Take yourself a weapon,\" Karsa directed, moving onto the next corpse.\n\n\"I will. Now, which way shall we run, Karsa? They'll be expecting northwest, back the way you came. They'll ride hard for the foot of the pass. I have friends-\"\n\n\"I have no intention of running,\" the warleader growled, looping both sword-belts over a shoulder, the scabbarded longswords looking minuscule where they rested against his back. He collected the flanged bar once more. He turned to find Torvald staring at him. \"Run to your friends, lowlander. I will, this night, deliver sufficient diversion to make good your escape. Tonight, Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord shall be avenged.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't expect me to avenge your death, Karsa. It's madness– you've already done the impossible. I'd advise you to thank the Lady's pull and getaway while you can. In case you've forgotten, this town's full of soldiers. '\n\n\"Be on your way, child.\"\n\nTorvald hesitated, then he threw up his hands. \"So be it. For my life, Karsa Orlong, I thank you. The family of Nom will speak your name in its prayers.\"\n\n\"I will wait fifty heartbeats.\"\n\nWithout another word Torvald headed to the warehouse's sliding doors. The main bar had not been lowered into its slots; a smaller latch loosely held the door to the frame. He flipped it back, pushed the door to one side, sufficient only to pop his head out fora quick look. Then he shoved it open slightly more, and slipped outside.\n\nKarsa listened to his footfalls, the splash of bare feet in mud, hurrying away to the left. He decided he would not wait fifty heartbeats. Even with the storm holding fast the darkness, dawn was not faraway.\n\nThe Teblor slid the door back further and stepped outside. A track narrower than the main street, the wooden buildings opposite indistinct behind a slanting curtain of hard rain. To the right and twenty paces distant, light showed from a single murky window on the upper floor of a house standing next to aside street.\n\nHe wanted his bloodsword, but had no idea where it might be. Failing that, any Teblor weapon would suffice. And he knew where he might find some.\n\nKarsa slid the door shut behind him. He swung right and, skirting the edge of the street, made his way towards the lakefront." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wind whipped rain against his face, loosening the crusted blood and dirt. The shredded leathers of his shirt flapped heavily as he jogged towards the clearing, where waited the camp of the bounty hunters.\n\nThere had been survivors. A careless oversight on Karsa's part; one he would now correct. And, in the huts of those cold-eyed children, there would be Teblor trophies. Weapons. Armour.\n\nThe huts and shacks of the fallen had already been stripped, the doors hanging open, rubbish strewn about. Karsa's gaze settled on a nearby reed-walled shack clearly still occupied. He padded towards it.\n\nIgnoring the small door, the warrior threw his shoulder against a wall. The reed panel fell inward, Karsa plunging through. There was a grunt from a cot to his left, a vague shape bolting into a sitting position. Iron bar swung down. Blood and bits of bone sprayed the walls. The figure sank back down.\n\nThe small, lone room of the shack was cluttered with Sunyd objects, most of them useless: charms, belts and trinkets. He did find, however, a pair of Sunyd hunting knives, sheathed in beaded buckskin over wood. A low altar caught Karsa's attention. Some lowlander god, signified by a small clay statue– a boar, standing on its hind legs.\n\nThe Teblor knocked it to the earthen floor, then shattered it with a single stomp of his heel.\n\nReturning outside, he approached the next inhabited shack.\n\nThe wind howled off the lake, white-maned waves crashing up the pebbled beach. The sky overhead was still black with clouds, the rain unceasing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were seven shacks in all, and in the sixth one– after killing the two men entwined together in the cot beneath the skin of a grey bear– he found an old Sunyd bloodsword, and an almost complete set of armour that, although of a style Karsa had never seen before, was clearly Teblor in origin, given its size and the sigils burned into the wooden plates. It was only when he began strapping it on that he realized that the grey, weathered wood was blood-wood– bleached by centuries of neglect.\n\nIn the seventh hut he found a small jar of blood-oil, and took the time to remove the armour and rub the pungent salve into its starved wood. He used the last of it to ease the sword's own thirst.\n\nHe then kissed the gleaming blade, tasting the bitter oil.\n\nThe effect was instantaneous. His heart began pounding, fire ripping through his muscles, lust and rage filling his mind.\n\nHe found himself back outside, staring at the town before him through a red haze. The air was foul with the stench of lowlanders. He moved forward, though he could no longer feel his legs, his gaze fixing on the bronze-banded door of a large, timbered house.\n\nThen it was flying inward, and Karsa was entering the low-ceilinged hallway beyond the threshold. Someone was shouting upstairs.\n\nHe found himself on the landing, face to face with abroad-shouldered, bald child. Behind him cowered a woman with grey-streaked hair, and behind her– now fleeing– a half-dozen servants.\n\nThe bald child had just taken down from the wall a longsword still in its jewel-studded scabbard. His eyes glittered with terror, his expression of disbelief remaining frozen on his features even as his head leapt from his shoulders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then Karsa found himself in the last room upstairs, ducking to keep his head beneath the ceiling as he stepped over the last of the servants, the house silent behind him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Before him, hiding behind a poster bed, a young female lowlander.\n\nThe Teblor dropped his sword. A moment later he held her before him, her feet kicking at his knees. He cupped the back of her head in his right hand, pushed her face against his armour's oil-smeared breastplate.\n\nShe struggled, then her head snapped back, eyes suddenly wild.\n\nKarsa laughed, throwing her down on the bed.\n\nAnimal sounds came from her mouth, her long-fingered hands snatching up at him as he moved over her.\n\nThe female clawed at him, her back arching in desperate need.\n\nShe was unconscious before he was done, and when he drew away there was blood between them. She would live, he knew. Blood-oil was impatient with broken flesh.\n\nHe was outside in the rain once more, sword in his hands. The clouds were lightening to the east.\n\nKarsa moved onto the next house.\n\nAwareness drifted away then, fora time, and when it returned he found himself in an attic with a window at the far end through which streamed bright sunlight. He was on his hands and knees, sheathed in blood, and to one side lay a child's body, fat and in slashed robes, eyes staring sightlessly.\n\nWaves of shivering racked him, his breath harsh gasps that echoed dully in the close, dusty attic. He heard shouts from somewhere outside and crawled over to the round, thick-glassed window at the far end.\n\nBelow was the main street, and he realized that he was near the west gate. Glass-distorted figures on restless horses were gathering– Malazan soldiers. Ashe watched, and to his astonishment, they suddenly set forth for the gate. The thundering of horse hoofs quickly diminished as the party rode westward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The warrior slowly sat back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no sound from directly beneath him, and he knew that no-one remained alive in the house. He knew, also, that he had passed through at least a dozen such houses, sometimes through the front door, but more often through recessed side and rear doors. And that those places were now as silent as the one in which he now found himself.\n\nThe escape has been discovered. But what of the bounty hunters? What of the townsfolk who have yet to emerge onto the street, though the day is already half done? How many did I truly kill?\n\nSoft footfalls below, five, six sets, spreading out through the room under him. Karsa, his senses still heightened beyond normal by the blood-oil, sniffed the air, but their scent had yet to reach him. Yet he knew– these were hunters, not soldiers. He drew a deep breath and held it fora moment, then nodded to himself. Yes, the slavemaster's warriors. Deeming themselves cleverer than the Malazans, still wanting me for their master.\n\nKarsa made no move– any shift of weight would be heard, he well knew. Twisting his head slowly, he glanced back at the attic's hatch. It was closed– he'd no recollection of doing so, so probably it was the trapdoor's own weight that had dropped it back into place. But how long ago? His gaze flicked to the child's corpse. The blood dripping from his gaping wounds was thick and slow. Sometime had passed, then.\n\nHe heard someone speak, and it was a moment before he realized that he could understand the language. \"A bell, sir, maybe more.\"\n\n\"So where,\" another asked, \"is Merchant Balantis? Here's his wife, their two children... four servants– did he own more? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was more movement.\n\n\"Check the lofts-\"\n\n\"Where the servants slept? I doubt fat old Balantis could have climbed that ladder.\"\n\n\"Here!\" another voice cried from further in. \"The attic stairs are down!\"\n\n\"All right, so the merchant's terror gave him wings. Go up and confirm the grim details, Astabb, and be quick. We need to check the next house. '\n\n\"Hood's breath, Borrug, I nearly lost my breakfast in the last place. It's all quiet up there, can't we just leave it at that? Who knows, the bastard might be chopping up the next family right now. '\n\nThere was silence, then: \"All right, let's go. This time, I think Silgar's plain wrong. That Uryd's path of slaughter is straight for the west gate, and I'd lay a year's column he's heading for T'lan Pass right now. '\n\n\"Then the Malazans will run him down.\"\n\n\"Aye, they will. Come on.\"\n\nKarsa listened as the hunters converged on the front door then headed back outside. The Teblor remained motionless for another dozen heartbeats. Silgar's men would find no further scenes of slaughter westward along the street. This fact alone would bring them back. He padded across to the trapdoor, lifted it clear, and made his way down the blood-spattered wooden steps. There were corpses strewn along the length of the hallway, the air foul with the reek of death.\n\nHe quickly moved to the backdoor. The yard outside was churned mud and puddles, a heap of pavestones off to one side awaiting the arrival of labourers. Beyond it was a newly built low stonewall, an arched gate in its centre. The sky overhead was broken with clouds carried on a swift wind. Shadows and patches of sunlight crawled steadily over the scene. There was no-one insight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa crossed the yard at a sprint. He crouched down at the arched gate. Opposite him ran a rutted, narrow track, parallel to the main street, and beyond it a row of irregular heaps of cut brush amidst tall yellow grasses. The back walls of houses reared behind the heaps.\n\nHe was on the western side of the town, and here there were hunters. It followed, then, that he would be safer on the eastern side. At the same time, the Malazan soldiers appeared to be quartered there... though he'd watched at least thirty of them ride out through the west gate. Leaving how many?\n\nKarsa had proclaimed the Malazans his enemy.\n\nThe warrior slipped out onto the track and headed east. Hunched low, he ran hard, his eyes scanning the way ahead, seeking cover, expecting at any moment the shout that would announce his discovery.\n\nHe moved into the shadows of a large house that leaned slightly over the alley. In another five strides he would come to the wide street that led down to the lakeshore. Crossing it undetected was likely to prove a challenge. Silgar's hunters remained in the town, as did an unknown number of Malazans. Enough to cause him trouble? There was no telling.\n\nFive cautious strides, and he was at the edge of the street. There was a small crowd at the far end, lakeside. Wrapped bodies were being carried out of a house, whilst two men struggled with a young, naked, blood-splashed woman. She was hissing and trying to claw at their eyes. It was a moment before Karsa recollected her. The blood-oil still burned within her, and the crowd had drawn back in obvious alarm, their attention one and all fixed on her writhing form." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A glance to the right. No-one.\n\nKarsa bolted across the street. He was but a single stride from the alley opposite when he heard a hoarse shout, then a chorus of cries. Skidding through sluicing mud, the warrior raised his sword and snapped his gaze towards the distant crowd.\n\nTo see only their backs, as they fled like panicked deer, leaving the wrapped corpses strewn in their wake. The young woman, suddenly released, fell to the mud shrieking, one hand snapping out to clamp on the ankle of one of her captors. She was dragged through the mud fora body length before she managed to foul the man's stride and send him sprawling. She clambered atop him with a snarl.\n\nKarsa padded into the alley.\n\nA bell started a wild clanging.\n\nHe continued on, eastward, parallel to the main street. The far end, thirty or more paces distant, seemed to face onto along, stone-walled, single level building, the windows visible bearing heavy shutters. Ashe raced towards it, he saw three Malazan soldiers dart across his field of vision– all were helmed, visors lowered, and none turned their heads.\n\nKarsa slowed his pace as he neared the alley's end. He could see more of the building ahead now. It looked somehow different from all the others in the town, its style more severe, pragmatic– a style the Teblor could admire.\n\nHe halted at the alley mouth. A glance to his right revealed that the building before him fronted onto the main street, beyond which was a clearing to match that of the west gate, the edge of the town wall visible just beyond. To his left, and closer to hand, the building came to an end, with a wooden corral flanked by stables and outbuildings. Karsa returned his attention to his right and leaned out slightly further." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Aid the author, keep the plot going.\nTags: epic fantasy, character study, power struggles, resilience, destiny\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: House of Chains\nChapter: 11" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What have you found?\"\n\n\"Alchemical munitions. Weapons of war. You throw them, preferably as far as you can. The clay breaks and the chemicals within explode. What you don't want to happen is have one break in your hand, or at your feet. Because then you're dead. The Malazans have been using these in the Genabackan campaign.\"\n\n\"Water, please.\"\n\n\"Right. There's a ladle here... somewhere... found it. '\n\nA moment later Torvald hovered over Karsa, and the Teblor drank, slowly, all the water the ladle contained.\n\n\"Better?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"More?\"\n\n\"Not yet. Free me.\"\n\n\"I need to get back into the water first, Karsa. I need to push some planks under this raft.\"\n\n\"Very well.\"\n\nThere seemed to be no day and no night in this strange place; the sky shifted hue occasionally, as if jostled by high, remote winds, the streaks of pewter twisting and stretching, but there was no change otherwise. The air surrounding the raft remained motionless, damp and cool and strangely thick.\n\nThe flanges anchoring Karsa's chains were on the underside, holding him in place in a fashion identical to that in the slave trench at Silver Lake. The shackles themselves had been welded shut. Torvald's only recourse was to attempt to widen the holes in the planks where the chains went through, using an iron buckle to dig at the wood.\n\nMonths of imprisonment had left him weakened, forcing frequent rests, and the buckle made a bloody mess of his hands, but once begun the Daru would not relent. Karsa measured the passing of time by the rhythmic crunching and scraping sounds, noting how each pause to rest stretched longer, until Torvald's breathing told him the Daru had fallen into an exhausted sleep. Then, the Teblor's only company was the sullen lap of water as it slipped back and forth across the platform." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For all the wood positioned beneath it, the raft was still sinking, and Karsa knew that Torvald would not be able to free him in time.\n\nHe had never before feared death. But now, he knew that Urugal and the other Faces in the Rock would abandon his soul, would leave it to the hungry vengeance of those thousands of ghastly corpses. He knew his dream had revealed to him a fate that was real, and inevitable. And inexplicable. Who had set such horrid creatures upon him? Undead Teblor, undead lowlander, warrior and child, an army of corpses, all chained to him. Why?\n\nLead us, Warleader.\n\nWhere?\n\nAnd now, he would drown. Here, in this unknown place, far from his village. His claims to glory, his vows, all now mocking him, whispering a chorus of muted creaks, soft groans...\n\nTorvald. '\n\n\"Uh... what? What is it?\"\n\n\"I hear new sounds-\"\n\nThe Daru sat up, blinking crusted silt from his eyes. He looked around. \"Beru fend!\"\n\n\"What do you see?\"\n\nThe Daru's gaze was fixed on something beyond Karsa's head. \"Well, it seems there's currents hereafter all, though which of us has done the moving? Ships, Karsa. A score or more of them, all dead in the water, like us. Floating wrecks. No movement on them... that I can see as yet. Looks like there was a battle. With plenty of sorcery being flung back and forth... '\n\nSome indiscernible shift drew the ghostly flotilla into Karsa's view, an image on its side to his right. There were two distinct styles of craft. Twenty or so were low and sleek, the wood stained mostly black, though where impacts and collisions and other damage had occurred the cedar's natural red showed like gaping wounds. Many of these ships sat low in the water, a few with their decks awash. They were single-masted, square-sailed, the torn and shredded sails also black, shimmering in the pellucid light. The remaining six ships were larger, high-decked and three-masted. They had been fashioned from a wood that was true black– not stained– as was evinced from the gashes and splintered planks marring the broad, bellied hulls. Not one of these latter ships sat level in the water; all leaned one way or the other, two of them at very steep angles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We should board a few,\" Torvald said. \"There will be tools, maybe even weapons. I could swim over– there, that raider. It's not yet awash, and I see lots of wreckage. '\n\nKarsa sensed the Daru's hesitation.\"What is wrong? Swim. '\n\n\"Uh, I am a little concerned, friend. I seem to have not much strength left, and these chains on me...\"\n\nThe Teblor said nothing fora moment, then he grunted. \"So be it. No more can be asked of you, Torvald Nom.\"\n\nThe Daru slowly turned to regard Karsa. \"Compassion, Karsa Orlong? Is it helplessness that has brought you to this?\"\n\n\"Too many empty words from you, lowlander,\" the Teblor sighed. \"There are no gifts that come from being-\"\n\nA soft splash sounded, then sputtering and thrashing– the sputtering turning into laughter. Torvald, now alongside the raft, moved into Karsa's line of sight.\"Now we know why those ships are canted so! \"And the Teblor saw that Torvald was standing, the water lapping around his upper chest.\"I can drag us over, now. This also tells us we're the ones who've been drifting. And there's something else.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nThe Daru had begun pulling the raft along, using Karsa's chains.\"These ships all grounded during the battle– I think a lot of the hand to hand fighting was actually between ships, chest-deep in water. '\n\n\"How do you know this?\"\n\n\"Because there's bodies all around me, Karsa Orlong. Against my shins, rolling about on the sands– it's an unpleasant feeling, let me tell you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pull one up. Let us see these combatants.\"\n\n\"All in good time, Teblor. We're almost there. Also, these bodies, they're, uh, rather soft. We might find something more recognizable if there's any on the ship itself. Here\"– there was a bump–\"we're alongside. A moment, while I climb aboard.\"\n\nKarsa listened to the Daru's grunts and gasps, the slipping scrabble of his bare feet, the rustle of chains, finally followed by a muted thud.\n\nThen silence.\n\nTorvald Nom? '\n\nNothing.\n\nThe raft's end beyond Karsa's head bumped alongside the raider's hull, then began drifting along it. Cool water flowed across the surface, and Karsa recoiled at the contact, but could do nothing as it seeped beneath him.\"Torvald Nom! '\n\nHis voice strangely echoed.\n\nNo reply.\n\nLaughter rumbled from Karsa, a sound oddly disconnected from the Teblor's own will. In water that, had he been able to stand, would likely rise no higher than his hips, he would drown. Assuming there would be time for that. Perhaps Torvald Nom had been slain– it would be a bizarre battle if there had been no survivors– and even now, beyond his sight, the Teblor was being looked down upon, his fate hanging in the balance.\n\nThe raft edged near the ship's prow.\n\nA scuffling sound, then, \"Where? Oh.\"\n\n\"Torvald Nom?\"\n\nFootsteps, half-stumbling, moved alongside from the ship's deck.\"Sorry, friend. I think I must have passed out. Were you laughing a moment ago? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was. What have you found?\"\n\n\"Not much. Yet. Bloodstains– dried. Trails through it. This ship has been thoroughly stripped. Hood below– you're sinking! '\n\n\"And I do not think you will be able to do anything about it, lowlander. Leave me to my fate. Take the water, and my weapons-\"\n\nBut Torvald had reappeared, rope in his hand, sliding down over the gunnel near the high prow and back into the water. Breathing hard, he fumbled with the rope fora moment before managing to slip it underneath the chains. He then drew it along and repeated the effort on the other side of the raft. A third time, down near Karsa's left foot, then a fourth loop opposite.\n\nThe Teblor could feel the wet, heavy rope being dragged through the chains. \"What are you doing?\"\n\nTorvald made no reply. Still trailing the rope, he climbed back onto the ship. There was another long stretch of silence, then Karsa heard movement once more, and the rope slowly tautened.\n\nTorvald's head and shoulders moved into view. The low-lander was deathly pale.\"Best I could do, friend. There maybe some more settling, but hopefully not much. I will check again on you in a little while. Don't worry, I won't let you drown. I'm going to do some exploring right now– the bastards couldn't have taken everything. '\n\nHe vanished from Karsa's line of sight.\n\nThe Teblor waited, racked with shivering as the sea slowly embraced him. The level had reached his ears, muting all sounds other than the turgid swirl of water. He watched the four lengths of rope slowly growing tighter above him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was difficult to recall a time when his limbs had been free to move without restraint, when his raw, suppurating wrists had not known the implacable iron grip of shackles, when he had not felt– deep in his withered body– avast weakness, a frailty, his blood flowing as thin as water. He closed his eyes and felt his mind falling away.\n\nAway...\n\nUrugal, I stand before you once more. Before these faces in the rock, before my gods. Urugal-\n\n\"I see no Teblor standing before me. I see no warrior wading through his enemies, harvesting souls. I do not seethe dead piled high on the ground, as numerous as a herd of bhederin driven over a cliff. Where are my gifts? Who is this who claims to serve me?\"\n\nUrugal. You area bloodthirsty god-\n\n\"A truth a Teblor warrior revels in!\"\n\nAs I once did. But now, Urugal, I am no longer so sure-\n\n\"Who stands before us? Not a Teblor warrior! Not a servant of mine!\"\n\nUrugal. What are these \"bhederin\" you spoke of? What are these herds? Where among the lands of the Teblor-\n\n\"Karsa!\"\n\nHe flinched. Opened his eyes.\n\nTorvald Nom, a burlap sack over one shoulder, was climbing back down. His feet made contact with the raft, pushing it a fraction deeper. Water stung the outside corners of Karsa's eyes.\n\nThe sack made numerous clunking sounds as the Daru set it down and reached inside. \"Tools, Karsa! A shipwright's tools! ' He drew forth a chisel and an iron-capped mallet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Teblor felt his heart begin pounding hard in his chest.\n\nTorvald set the chisel against a chain link, then began hammering.\n\nA dozen swings, the concussions pealing loudly in the still, murky air, then the chain snapped. Its own weight swiftly dragged it through the iron ring of Karsa's right wrist shackle. Then, with a soft rustle, it was gone beneath the sea's surface. Agony lanced through his arm as he attempted to move it. The Teblor grunted, even as consciousness slipped away.\n\nHe awoke to the sounds of hammering, down beside his right foot, and thundering waves of pain, through which he heard, dimly, Torvald's voice.\n\n\"... heavy, Karsa. You'll need to do the impossible. You'll need to climb. That means rolling over, getting onto your hands and knees. Standing. Walking– oh, Hood, you're right, I'll need to think of something else. No food anywhere on this damned ship.\" There was aloud crack, then the hiss of a chain falling away. \"That's it, you're free. Don't worry, I've retied the ropes to the platform itself– you won't sink. Free. How's it feel? Never mind– I'll ask that a few days from now. Even so, you're free, Karsa. I promised, didn't I? Let it not be said that Torvald Nom doesn't hold to his– well, uh, let it not be said that Torvald Nom isn't afraid of new beginnings. '\n\n\"Too many words,\" Karsa muttered.\n\n\"Aye, far too many. Try moving, at least.\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\n\"Bend your right arm.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am trying.\"\n\n\"Shall I do it for you?\"\n\n\"Slowly. Should I lose consciousness, do not cease. And do the same for the remaining limbs.\"\n\nHe felt the lowlander's hands grip his right arm, at the wrist and above the elbow, then, once again, mercifully, blackness swallowed him.\n\nWhen he came to once more, bundles of sodden cloth had been propped beneath his head, and he was lying on his side, limbs curled. There was dull pain in every muscle, every joint, yet it seemed strangely remote. He slowly lifted his head.\n\nHe was still on the platform. The ropes that held it to the ship's prow had prevented it from sinking further. Torvald Nom was nowhere insight.\n\n\"I call upon the blood of the Teblor,\" Karsa whispered. \"All that is within me must be used now to heal, to gift me strength. I am freed. I did not surrender. The warrior remains. He remains...\" He tried to move his arms. Throbs of pain, sharp, but bearable. He shifted his legs, gasped at the agony flaring in his hips. A moment of lightheadedness, threatening oblivion once again... that then passed.\n\nHe tried to push himself to his hands and knees. Every minuscule shift was torture, but he refused to surrender to it. Sweat streamed down his limbs. Waves of trembling washed through him. Eyes squeezed shut, he struggled on.\n\nHe had no idea how much time had passed, but then he was sitting, the realization arriving with a shock. He was sitting, his full weight on his haunches, and the pain was fading. He lifted his arms, surprised and a little frightened by their looseness, horrified by their thinness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ashe rested, he looked about." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The shattered ships remained, detritus clumped in makeshift rafts between them. Tattered sails hung in shrouds from the few remaining masts. The prow looming beside him held panels crowded with carvings: figures, locked in battle. The figures were long-limbed, standing on versions of ships closely resembling the raiders on all sides. Yet the enemy in these reliefs were not, it seemed, the ones the ship's owners had faced here, for the craft they rode in were, if anything, smaller and lower than the raiders. The warriors looked much like Teblor, thick-limbed, heavily muscled, though in stature shorter than their foes.\n\nMovement in the water, a gleaming black hump, spike-finned, rising into view then vanishing again. All at once, more appeared, and the surface of the water between the ships was suddenly aswirl. There was life in this sea after all, and it had come to feed.\n\nThe platform lurched beneath Karsa, throwing him off balance. His left arm shot out to take his weight as he began toppling. A jarring impact, excruciating pain– but the arm held.\n\nHe saw a bloated corpse roll up into view alongside the raft, then a black shape, abroad, toothless mouth, gaping wide, sweeping up and around the corpse, swallowing it whole. A small grey eye behind a spiny whisker flashed into sight as the huge fish swept past. The eye swivelled to track him, then the creature was gone.\n\nKarsa had not seen enough of the corpse to judge whether it was a match to him in size, or to the Daru, Torvald Nom. But the fish could have taken Karsa as easily as it had the corpse.\n\nHe needed to stand. Then, to climb." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And– as he watched another massive black shape break the surface alongside another ship, a shape almost as long as the ship itself– he would have to do it quickly.\n\nHe heard footsteps from above, then Torvald Nom was at the gunnel beside the prow. \"We've got to– oh, Beru bless you, Karsa! Can you stand up? You've no choice– these catfish are bigger than sharks and likely just as nasty. There's one– just rolled up behind you– it's circling, it knows you're there! Stand up, use the ropes! '\n\nNodding, Karsa reached up for the nearest stretch 01 rope.\n\nAn explosion of water behind him. The platform shuddered, wood splintering– Torvald screamed a warning– and Karsa knew without looking back over his shoulder that one of the creatures had just risen up, had just thrown itself bodily onto the raft, splitting it in two.\n\nThe rope was in his hand. He gripped hard as the sloshing surface beneath him seemed to vanish. A flood of water around his legs, rising to his hips. Karsa closed his other hand on the same rope.\n\n\"Urugal! Witness!\"\n\nHe drew his legs from the foaming water, then, handover hand, climbed upward. The rope swung free of the platform's fragments, threw him against the ship's hull. He grunted at the impact, yet would not let go.\n\n\"Karsa! Your legs!\"\n\nThe Teblor looked down, saw nothing but a massive mouth, opened impossibly wide, rising up beneath him.\n\nHands closed on his wrists. Screaming at the pain in his shoulders and hips, Karsa pulled himself upward in a single desperate surge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The mouth snapped shut in a spray of milky water.\n\nKnees cracking against the gunnel, Karsa scrambled wildly fora moment, then managed to shift his weight over the rail, drawing his legs behind him, to sprawl with a heavy thump on the deck.\n\nTorvald's shrieks continued unabated, forcing the Teblor to rollover– to seethe Daru fighting to hold onto what appeared to be some kind of harpoon. Torvald's shouts, barely comprehensible, seemed to be referring to a line. Karsa glanced about, until he saw that the harpoon's butt-end held a thin rope, which trailed down to a coiled pile almost within the Teblor's reach. Groaning, he scrabbled towards it. He found the end, began dragging it towards the prow.\n\nHe pulled himself up beside it, looped the line over and around, once, twice– then there was aloud curse from Torvald, and the coil began playing out. Karsa threw the line around one more time, then managed something like a half-hitch.\n\nHe did not expect the thin rope to hold. He ducked down beneath it as the last of the coil was snatched from his hands, thrumming taut.\n\nThe galley creaked, the prow visibly bending, then the ship lurched into motion, shuddering as it was dragged along the sandy bottom.\n\nTorvald scrambled up beside Karsa. \"Gods below, I didn't think– let's hope it holds!\" he gasped. \"If it does, we won't go hungry fora long while, no, not along while! \"He slapped Karsa on the back, then pulled himself up to the prow. His wild grin vanished.\"Oh. '\n\nKarsa rose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The harpoon's end was visible directly ahead, cutting a V through the choppy waves– heading directly for one of the larger, three-masted ships." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The grinding sound suddenly ceased beneath the raider, and the craft surged forward.\n\n\"To the stern, Karsa! To the stern!\"\n\nTorvald made a brief effort to drag Karsa, then gave up with a curse, running full tilt for the galley's stern.\n\nWeaving, fighting waves of blackness, the Teblor staggered after the Daru. \"Could you not have speared a smaller one?\"\n\nThe impact sent them both sprawling. A terrible splitting sound reverberated down the galley's spine, and all at once there was water everywhere, foaming up from the hatches, sweeping in from the sides. Planks from the hull on both sides parted like groping fingers.\n\nKarsa found himself thrashing about in waist-deep water. Something like a deck remained beneath him, and he managed to struggle upright. And, bobbing wildly directly in front of him, was his original bloodsword. He snatched at it, felt his hand close about the familiar grip. Exultation soared through him, and he loosed an Uryd warcry.\n\nTorvald sloshed into view beside him. \"If that didn't freeze that fish's tiny heart, nothing will. Come on, we need to get onto that other damned ship. There's more of those bastards closing in all around us. '\n\nThey struggled forward.\n\nThe ship they had broadsided had been leaning in the other direction. The galley had plunged into its hull, creating a massive hole before itself shattering, the prow with its harpoon line snapping off and vanishing within the ship's lower decks. It was clear that the huge ship was solidly grounded, nor had the collision dislodged it.\n\nAs they neared the gaping hole, they could hear wild thrashing from somewhere within, deep in the hold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hood take me!\" Torvald muttered in disbelief. \"That thing went through the hull first. Well, at least we're not fighting a creature gifted with genius. It's trapped down there, is my guess. We should go hunting-\"\n\n\"Leave that tome,\" Karsa growled.\n\n\"You? You can barely stand-\"\n\n\"Even so, I will kill it.\"\n\n\"Well, can't I watch? '\n\n\"If you insist.\"\n\nThere were three decks within the ship's hull, in so far as they could see, the bottom one comprising the hold itself, the other two scaled to suit tall lowlanders. The hold had been half-filled with cargo, which was now tumbling out in the backwash– bundles, bales and casks.\n\nKarsa plunged into waist-deep water, making for the thrashing sounds deeper within. He found the huge fish writhing on the second level, in sloshing, foaming water that barely covered the Teblor's ankles. Spears of splintered wood jutted from the fish's enormous head, blood streaming out to stain the foam pink. It had rolled onto its side, revealing a smooth, silvery underbelly.\n\nClambering across to the creature, Karsa drove his sword into its abdomen. The huge tail twisted round, struck him with the strength of a destrier's kick. He was suddenly in the air, then the curved wall of the hull struck his back.\n\nStunned by the impact, the Teblor slumped in the swirling water. He blinked the drops from his eyes, then, unmoving in the gloom, watched the fish's death-throes.\n\nTorvald climbed into view. \"You're still damned fast, Karsa– left me behind. But I see you've done the deed. There's food among these supplies... '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Karsa heard no more, as unconsciousness took him once again.\n\nHe awoke to the stench of putrefying flesh that hung heavy in the still air. In the half-light, he could just make out the body of the dead fish opposite him, its belly slit open, a pallid corpse partially tumbled out. There was the distant sound of movement somewhere above him.\n\nWell beyond the fish and to the right, steep steps were visible, leading upward.\n\nFighting to keep from gagging, Karsa collected his sword and began crawling towards the stairs.\n\nHe eventually emerged onto the midship's deck. Its sorcery-scarred surface was sharply canted, sufficient to make traverse difficult. Supplies had been collected and were piled against the downside railing, where ropes trailed over the side. Pausing near the hatch to regain his breath, Karsa looked around for Torvald Nom, but the Daru was nowhere insight.\n\nMagic had ripped deep gouges across the deck. There were nobodies visible anywhere, no indications of the nature of the ship's owners. The black wood– which seemed to emanate darkness– was of a species the Teblor did not recognize, and it was devoid of any ornamentation, evoking pragmatic simplicity. He found himself strangely comforted.\n\nTorvald Nom clambered into view from the downside rail. He had managed to remove the chains attached to his shackles, leaving only the black iron bands on wrists and ankles. He was breathing hard.\n\nKarsa pushed himself upright, leaning on the sword's point for support.\n\n\"Ah, my giant friend, with us once more!\"\n\n\"You must find my weakness frustrating,\" Karsa grumbled.\n\n\"To be expected, all things considered,\" Torvald said, moving among the supplies now. \"I've found food. Come and eat, Karsa, while I tell you of my discoveries. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Teblor slowly made his way down the sloping deck.\n\nTorvald drew out a brick-shaped loaf of dark bread. \"I've found a dory, and oars to go along with a sail, so we won't remain victims to this endless calm. We've water fora week and a half, if we're sparing, and we won't go hungry no matter how fast your appetite comes back... '\n\nKarsa took the bread from the Daru's hand and began tearing off small chunks. His teeth felt slightly loose, and he was not confident of attempting anything beyond gentle chewing. The bread was rich and moist, filled with morsels of sweet fruit and tasting of honey. His first swallow left him struggling to keep it down. Torvald handed him a skin filled with water, then resumed his monologue.\n\n\"The dory's got benches enough for twenty or so– spacious for lowlanders but we'll need to knock one loose to give your legs some room. If you lean over the gunnel you can see it for yourself. I've been busy loading what we'll need. We could explore some of the other ships if you like, though we've more than enough-'\n\n\"No need,\" Karsa said. \"Let us leave this place as quickly as possible.\"\n\nTorvald's eyes narrowed on the Teblor fora moment, then the Daru nodded.\"Agreed. Karsa, you say you did not call upon that storm. Very well. I shall have to believe you– that you've no recollection of having done so, in any case. But I was wondering, this cult of yours, these Seven Faces in the Rock or however they're called. Do they claim a warren for themselves? A realm other than the one you and I live in, where they exist? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa swallowed another mouthful of bread. \"I had heard nothing of these warrens you speak of, Torvald Nom. The Seven dwell in the rock, and in the dreamworld of the Teblor.\"\n\n\"Dreamworld...\" Torvald waved a hand. \"Does any of this look like that dreamworld, Karsa?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"What if it had been... flooded?\"\n\nKarsa scowled. \"You remind me of Bairoth Gild. Your words make no sense. The Teblor dreamworld is a place of no hills, where mosses and lichens cling to half-buried boulders, where snow makes low dunes sculpted by cold winds. Where strange brown-haired beasts run in packs in the distance...\"\n\n\"Have you visited it yourself, then?\"\n\nKarsa shrugged. \"These are descriptions given by the shamans.\" He hesitated, then said, \"The place I visited...\" He trailed off, then shook his head. \"Different. A place of... of coloured mists.\"\n\n\"Coloured mists. And were your gods there?\"\n\n\"You are not Teblor. I have no need to tell you more. I have spoken too much already.\"\n\n\"Very well. I was just trying to determine where we were.\"\n\n\"We are on a sea, and there is no land.\"\n\n\"Well, yes. But which sea? Where's the sun? Why is there no night? No wind? Which direction shall we choose? '\n\n\"It does not matter which direction. Any direction.\" Karsa rose from where he had been sitting on a bale. \"I have eaten enough for now. Come, let us finish loading, and then leave.\"\n\n\"As you say, Karsa.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He felt stronger with each passing day, lengthening his turns at the oars each time he took over from Torvald Nom. The sea was shallow, and more than once the dory ground up onto shoals, though fortunately these were of sand and so did little to damage the hull. They had seen nothing of the huge catfish, nor any other life in the water or in the sky, though the occasional piece of driftwood drifted past, devoid of bark or leaf.\n\nAs Karsa's strength returned, their supply of food quickly dwindled, and though neither spoke of it, despair had become an invisible passenger, a third presence that silenced the Teblor and the Daru, that shackled them as had their captors of old, and the ghostly chains grew heavier.\n\nIn the beginning they had marked out days based on the balance of sleep and wakefulness, but the pattern soon collapsed as Karsa took to rowing through Torvald's periods of sleep in addition to relieving the weary Daru at other times. It became quickly evident that the Teblor required less rest, whilst Torvald seemed to need evermore.\n\nThey were down to the last cask of water, which held only a third of its capacity. Karsa was at the oars, pulling the undersized sticks in broad, effortless sweeps through the murky swells. Torvald lay huddled beneath the sail, restless in his sleep.\n\nThe ache was almost gone from Karsa's shoulders, though pain lingered in his hips and legs. He had fallen into a pattern of repetition empty of thought, unaware of the passage of time, his only concern that of maintaining a straight course– as best as he could determine, given the lack of reference points. He had naught but the dory's own wake to direct him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Torvald's eyes opened, bloodshot and red-rimmed. He had long ago lost his loquaciousness. Karsa suspected the man was sick– they'd not had a conversation in sometime. The Daru slowly sat up.\n\nThen stiffened. \"We've company, ' he said, his voice cracking.\n\nKarsa shipped the oars and twisted round in his seat. A large, three-masted, black ship was bearing down on them, twin banks of oars flashing dark over the milky water. Beyond it, on the horizon's very edge, ran a dark, straight line. The Teblor collected his sword then slowly stood.\n\n\"That's the strangest coast I've ever seen,\" Torvald muttered. \"Would that we'd reached it without the company. '\n\n\"It is a wall,\" Karsa said. \"A straight wall, before which lies some kind of beach.\" He returned his gaze to the closing ship. \"It is like those that had been beset by the raiders.\"\n\n\"So it is, only somewhat bigger. Flagship, is my guess, though I see no flag.\"\n\nThey could see figures now, crowding the high forecastle. Tall, though not as tall as Karsa, and much leaner.\n\n\"Not human,\" Torvald muttered. \"Karsa, I do not think they will be friendly. Just a feeling, mind you. Still...\"\n\n\"I have seen one of them before,\" the Teblor replied. \"Half spilled out from the belly of the catfish.\"\n\n\"That beach is rolling with the waves, Karsa. It's flotsam. Must be two, three thousand paces of it. The wreckage of an entire world. As I suspected, this sea doesn't belong here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yet there are ships.\"\n\n\"Aye, meaning they don't belong here, either. '\n\nKarsa shrugged his indifference to that observation. \"Have you a weapon, Torvald Nom?\"\n\n\"A harpoon... and a mallet. You will not try to talk first?\"\n\nKarsa said nothing. The twin banks of oars had lifted from the water and now hovered motionless over the waves as the huge ship slid towards them. The oars dipped suddenly, straight down, the water churning as the ship slowed, then came to a stop.\n\nThe dory thumped as it made contact with the hull on the port side, just beyond the prow.\n\nA rope ladder snaked down, but Karsa, his sword slung over a shoulder, was already climbing up the hull, there being no shortage of handholds. He reached the forecastle rail and swung himself up and over it. His feet found the deck and he straightened.\n\nA ring of grey-skinned warriors faced him. Taller than lowlanders, but still ahead shorter than the Teblor. Curved sabres were scabbarded to their hips, and much of their clothing was made of some kind of hide, short-haired, dark and glistening. Their long brown hair was intricately braided, hanging down to frame angular, multihued eyes. Behind them, down amidships, there was a pile of severed heads, a few lowlander but most similar in features to the grey-skinned warriors, though with skins of black.\n\nIce rippled up Karsa's spine as he saw countless eyes among those severed heads shift towards him.\n\nOne of the grey-skinned warriors snapped something, his expression as contemptuous as his tone.\n\nBehind Karsa, Torvald reached the railing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The speaker seemed to be waiting for some sort of response. As the silence stretched, the faces on either side twisted into sneers. The spokesman barked out a command, pointed to the deck.\n\n\"Uh, he wants us to kneel, Karsa,\" Torvald said. \"I think maybe we should-\"\n\n\"I would not kneel when chained,\" Karsa growled. \"Why would I do so now?\"\n\n\"Because I count sixteen of them– and who knows how many more are below. And they're getting angrier-'\n\n\"Sixteen or sixty,\" Karsa cut in. \"They know nothing of fighting Teblor.\"\n\n\"How can you-\"\n\nKarsa saw two warriors shift gauntleted hands towards sword-grips. The bloodsword flashed out, cut a sweeping horizontal slash across the entire half-circle of grey-skinned warriors. Blood sprayed. Bodies reeled, sprawled backward, tumbling over the low railing and down to the mid-deck.\n\nThe forecastle was clear apart from Karsa and, apace behind him, Torvald Nom.\n\nThe seven warriors who had been on the mid-deck drew back as one, then, unsheathing their weapons, they edged forward.\n\n\"They were within my reach,\" Karsa answered the Daru's question.\"That is how I know they know nothing of fighting a Teblor. Now, witness while I take this ship. ' With a bellow he leapt down into the midst of the enemy.\n\nThe grey-skinned warriors were not lacking in skill, yet it availed them naught. Karsa had known the loss of freedom; he would not accept such again. The demand to kneel before these scrawny, sickly creatures had triggered in him seething fury." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Six of the seven warriors were down; the last one, shouting, had turned about and was running towards the doorway at the other end of the mid-deck. He paused long enough to drag a massive harpoon from a nearby rack, spinning and flinging it at Karsa.\n\nThe Teblor caught it in his left hand.\n\nHe closed on the fleeing man, cutting him down at the doorway's threshold. Ducking and reversing the weapons in his hands– the harpoon now in his right and the bloodsword in his left– he plunged into the gloom of the passage beyond the doorway.\n\nTwo steps down, into a wide galley with a wooden table in its centre. A second doorway at the opposite end, a narrow passage beyond, lined by berths, then an ornate door that squealed as Karsa shoved it aside.\n\nFour attackers, a fury of blows exchanged, Karsa blocking with the harpoon and counter-attacking with the bloodsword. In moments, four broken bodies dying on the cabin's gleaming wooden floor. A fifth figure, seated in a chair on the other side of the room, hands raised, sorcery swirling into the air.\n\nWith a snarl, Karsa surged forward. The magic flashed, sputtered, then the harpoon's point punched into the figure's chest, tore through and drove into the chair's wood backing. A look of disbelief frozen on the grey face, eyes locking with Karsa's own one last time, before all life left them.\n\n\"Urugal! Witness a Teblor's rage! '\n\nSilence following his ringing words, then the slow pat of blood dripping from the sorcerer's chair onto the rug. Something cold rippled through Karsa, the breath of someone unknown, nameless, but filled with rage. Growling, he shrugged it off, then looked around. High-ceilinged for lowlanders, the ship's cabin was all of the same black wood. Oil lanterns glimmered from sconces on the walls. On the table were maps and charts, the drawings on them illegible as far as the Teblor was concerned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A sound from the doorway.\n\nKarsa turned.\n\nTorvald Nom stepped within, scanning the sprawled corpses, then fixing his gaze on the seated figure with the spear still impaling it. \"You needn't worry about the oarsmen, ' he said.\n\n\"Are they slaves? Then we shall free them.\"\n\n\"Slaves?\" Torvald shrugged. \"I don't think so. They wear no chains, Karsa. Mind you, they have no heads, either. As I said, I don't think we have to concern ourselves with them.\" He strode forward to examine the maps on the table. \"Something tells me these hapless bastards you just killed were as lost as us-\"\n\n\"They were the victors in the battle of the ships.\"\n\n\"Little good it did them.\"\n\nKarsa shook the blood from his sword, drew a deep breath. \"I kneel to no-one.\"\n\n\"I could've knelt twice and that might have satisfied them. Now, we're as ignorant as we were before seeing this ship. Nor can the two of us manage a craft of this size.\"\n\n\"They would have done to us as was done to the oarsmen,\" Karsa asserted.\n\n\"Possibly.\" He swung his attention on one of the corpses at his feet, slowly crouched. \"Barbaric-looking, these ones– uh, by Daru standards, that is. Sealskin– true seafarers, then– and strung claws and teeth and shells. The one in the captain's chair was a mage? '\n\n\"Yes. I do not understand such warriors. Why not use swords or spears? Their magic is pitiful, yet they seem so sure of it. And look at his expression-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Surprised, yes,\" Torvald murmured. He glanced back at Karsa. \"They're confident because sorcery usually works. Most attackers don't survive getting hit by magic. It rips them apart.\"\n\nKarsa made his way back to the doorway. After a moment Torvald followed.\n\nThey returned to the mizzen deck. Karsa began stripping the corpses lying about, severing ears and tongues before tossing the naked bodies overboard.\n\nThe Daru watched fora time, then he moved to the decapitated heads. \"They've been following everything you do, \"he said to Karsa,\"with their eyes. It's too much to bear.\" He removed the hide wrapping of a nearby bundle and folded it around the nearest severed head, then tied it tight. \"Darkness would better suit them, all things considered...\"\n\nKarsa frowned. \"Why do you say that, Torvald Nom? Which would you prefer, the ability to see things around you, or darkness?\"\n\n\"These are Tiste Andii, apart from a few– and those few look far too much like me.\"\n\n\"Who are these Tiste Andii?\"\n\n\"Just a people. There are some fighting in Caladan Brood's liberation army on Genabackis. An ancient people, it's said. In any case, they worship Darkness.\"\n\nKarsa, suddenly weary, sat down on the steps leading to the forecastle. \"Darkness,\" he muttered. \"A place where one is left blind– a strange thing to worship.\"\n\n\"Perhaps the most realistic worship of all,\" the Daru replied, wrapping another severed head. \"How many of us bow before a god in the desperate hope that we can somehow shape our fate? Praying to that familiar face pushes away our terror of the unknown– the unknown being the future. Who knows, maybe these Tiste Andii are the only ones among us all who seethe truth, the truth being oblivion.\" Keeping his eyes averted, he carefully gathered another black-skinned, long-haired head. \"It's a good thing these poor souls have no throats left to utter sounds, else we find ourselves in a ghastly debate. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You doubt your own words, then.\"\n\n\"Always, Karsa. On a more mundane level, words are like gods– a means of keeping the terror at bay. I will likely have nightmares about this until my aged heart finally gives out. An endless succession of heads, with all-too-cognizant eyes, to wrap up in sealskin. And with each one I tie up, pop! Another appears.\"\n\n\"Your words are naught but foolishness.\"\n\n\"Oh, and how many souls have you delivered unto darkness, Karsa Orlong?\"\n\nThe Teblor's eyes narrowed.\"I do not think it was darkness that they found, \"he replied quietly. After a moment, he looked away, struck silent by a sudden realization. A year ago he would have killed someone for saying what Torvald had just said, had he understood its intent to wound– which in itself was unlikely. A year ago, words had been blunt, awkward things, confined within a simple, if slightly mysterious world. But that flaw had been Karsa's alone– not a characteristic of the Teblor in general– for Bairoth Gild had flung many-edged words at Karsa, a constant source of amusement for the clever warrior though probably dulled by Karsa's own unawareness of their intent.\n\nTorvald Nom's endless words– but no, more than just that– all that Karsa had experienced since leaving his village– had served as instruction on the complexity of the world. Subtlety had been a venomed serpent slithering unseen through his life. Its fangs had sunk deep many times, yet not once had he become aware of their origin; not once had he even understood the source of the pain. The poison itself had coursed deep within him, and the only answer he gave– when he gave one at all– was of violence, often misdirected, a lashing out on all sides." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Darkness, and living blind. Karsa returned his gaze to the Daru kneeling and wrapping severed heads, thereon the mizzen deck. And who has dragged the cloth from my eyes? Who has awakened Karsa Orlong, son of Synyg? Urugal? No, not Urugal. He knew that for certain, for the otherworldly rage he had felt in the cabin, that icy breath that had swept through him– that had belonged to his god. A fierce displeasure– to which Karsa had found himself oddly... indifferent.\n\nThe Seven Faces in the Rock never spoke of freedom. The Teblor were their servants. Their slaves.\n\n\"You look unwell, Karsa,\" Torvald said, approaching. \"I am sorry for my last words-\"\n\n\"There is no need, Torvald Nom,\" Karsa said, rising. \"We should return to our-\"\n\nHe stopped as the first splashes of rain struck him, then the deck on all sides. Milky, slimy rain.\n\n\"Uh!\" Torvald grunted. \"If this is a god's spit, he's decidedly unwell.\"\n\nThe water smelled foul, rotten. It quickly coated the ship decks, the rigging and tattered sails overhead, in a thick, pale grease.\n\nSwearing, the Daru began gathering foodstuffs and watercasks to load into their dory below. Karsa completed one last circuit of the decks, examining the weapons and armour he had pulled from the grey-skinned bodies. He found the rack of harpoons and gathered the six that remained.\n\nThe downpour thickened, creating murky, impenetrable walls on all sides of the ship. Slipping in the deepening muck, Karsa and Torvald quickly resupplied the dory, then pushed out from the ship's hull, the Teblor at the oars. Within moments the ship was lost from sight, and around them the rain slackened. Five sweeps of the oars and they were out from beneath it entirely, once again on gently heaving seas under a pallid sky. The strange coastline was visible ahead, slowly drawing closer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the forecastle of the massive ship, moments after the dory with its two passengers slipped behind the screen of muddy rain, seven almost insubstantial figures rose from the slime. Shattered bones, gaping wounds bleeding nothing, the figures weaved uncertainly in the gloom, as if barely able to maintain their grip on the scene they had entered.\n\nOne of them hissed with anger. \"Each time we seek to draw the knot right-\"\n\n\"He cuts it,\" another finished in awry, bitter tone.\n\nA third one stepped down to the mizzen deck, kicked desultorily at a discarded sword. \"The failure belonged to the Tiste Edur,\" this one pronounced in a rasping voice. \"If punishment must be enacted, it should be in answer to their arrogance.\"\n\n\"Not for us to demand,\" the first speaker snapped. \"We are not the masters in this scheme-\"\n\n\"Nor are the Tiste Edur!\"\n\n\"Even so, and we are each given particular tasks. Karsa Orlong survives still, and he must be our only concern-\"\n\n\"He begins to know doubts.\"\n\n\"None the less, his journey continues. It falls to us, now, with what little power we are able to extend, to direct his path onward.\"\n\n\"We've had scant success thus far! '\n\n'Untrue. The Shattered Warren stirs awake once more. The broken heart of the First Empire begins to bleed– less than a trickle at the moment, but soon it will become a flood. We need only set our chosen warrior upon the proper current\n\n\"And is that within our power, limited as it still remains?\"\n\n\"Let us find out. Begin the preparations. Ber'ok, scatter that handful of otataral dust in the cabin– the Tiste Edur sorcerer's warren remains open and, in this place, it will quickly become a wound... a growing wound. The time has not yet come for such unveilings.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The speaker then lifted its mangled head and seemed to sniff the air. \"We must work quickly,\" it announced after a moment. \"I believe we are being hunted.\"\n\nThe remaining six turned to face the speaker, who nodded in answer to their silent question. \"Yes. There are kin upon our trail.\"\n\nThe wreckage of an entire land had drawn up alongside the massive stonewall. Uprooted trees, rough-hewn logs, planks, shingles and pieces of wagons and carts were visible amidst the detritus. The verges were thick with matted grasses and rotted leaves, forming abroad plain that twisted, rose and fell on the waves. The wall was barely visible in places, so high was the flotsam, and the level of the water beneath it.\n\nTorvald Nom was positioned at the bow whilst Karsa rowed. \"I don't know how we'll get to that wall,\" the Daru said. \"You'd better back the oars now, friend, lest we ground ourselves on that mess– there's catfish about.\"\n\nKarsa slowed the dory. They drifted, the hull nudging the carpet of flotsam. After a few moments it became apparent that there was a current, pulling their craft along the edge.\n\n\"Well,\" Torvald muttered, \"that's a first for this sea. Do you think this is some sort of tide? '\n\n\"No,\" Karsa replied, his gaze tracking the strange shoreline in the direction of the current. \"It is a breach in the wall.\"\n\n\"Oh. Can you see where?\"\n\n\"Yes, I think so.\"\n\nThe current was tugging them along faster, now.\n\nKarsa continued, \"There is an indentation in the shoreline, and many trees and logs jammed where the wall should be– can you not hear the roar?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aye, now I can.\" Tension rode the Daru's words. He straightened at the bow.\"I see it. Karsa, we'd better-\"\n\n\"Yes, it is best we avoid this.\" The Teblor repositioned himself at the oars. He drew the dory away from the verge. The hull tugged sluggishly beneath them, began twisting. Karsa leaned his weight into each sweep, struggling to regain control. The water swirled around them.\n\n\"Karsa!\" Torvald shouted. \"There's people– near the breach! I see a wrecked boat! '\n\nThe breach was on the Teblor's left as he pulled the dory across the current. He looked to where Torvald was pointing, and, after a moment, he bared his teeth.\"The slavemaster and his men. '\n\n\"They're waving us over. '\n\nKarsa ceased sweeping with his left oar. \"We cannot defeat this current,\" he announced, swinging the craft around. \"The further out we proceed, the stronger it becomes.\"\n\n\"I think that's what happened to Silgar's boat– they managed to ground it just this side of the mouth, stoving it in, in the process. We should try to avoid a similar fate, Karsa, if we can, that is.\"\n\n\"Then keep an eye out for submerged logs,\" the Teblor said as he angled the dory closer to shore. \"Also, are the lowlanders armed?\"\n\n\"Not that I can see,\" Torvald replied after a moment. \"They look to be in, uh, in pretty bad condition. They're perched on a small island of logs. Silgar, and Damisk, and one other... Borrug, I think. Gods, Karsa, they're starved.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Take a harpoon,\" the Teblor growled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That hunger could well drive them to desperation.\"\n\n\"A touch shoreward, Karsa, we're almost there. '\n\nThere was a soft crunch from the hull, then a grinding, stuttering motion as the current sought to drag them along the verge. Torvald clambered out, ropes in one hand and harpoon in the other. Beyond him, Karsa saw as he turned about, huddled the three Nathii lowlanders, making no move to help and, if anything, drawing back as far as they could manage on the tangled island. The breach's roar was a still-distant thundering, though closer at hand were ominous cracks, tearing and shifting noises– the logjam was coming loose.\n\nTorvald made fast the dory with a skein of lines tied to various branches and roots. Karsa stepped ashore, drawing his bloodsword, his eyes levelling on Silgar.\n\nThe slavemaster attempted to retreat further.\n\nNear the three emaciated lowlanders lay the remains of a fourth, his bones picked clean.\n\n\"Teblor!\" Silgar implored. \"You must listen tome!\"\n\nKarsa slowly advanced.\n\n\"I can save us!\"\n\nTorvald tugged at Karsa's arm.\"Wait, friend, let's hear the bastard.\"\n\n\"He will say anything,\" Karsa growled.\n\n\"Even so-\"\n\nDamisk Greydog spoke. \"Karsa Orlong, listen! This island is being torn apart– we all need your boat. Silgar's a mage– he can open a portal. But not if he's drowning. Understand? He can take us from this realm!\"\n\n\"Karsa,\" Torvald said, weaving as the logs shifted under him, his grip on the Teblor's arm tightening." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa looked down at the Daru beside him. \"You trust Silgar?\"\n\n\"Of course not. But we've no choice– we'd be unlikely to survive plunging through that breach in the dory. We don't even know this wall's height– the drop on the other side could be endless. Karsa, we're armed and they're not– besides, they're too weak to cause us trouble, you can see that, can't you?\"\n\nSilgar screamed as a large section of the logjam sank away immediately behind him.\n\nScowling, Karsa sheathed his sword. \"Begin untying the boat, Torvald.\" He waved at the lowlanders. \"Come, then. But know this, Slavemaster, any sign of treachery from you and your friends will be picking your bones next.\"\n\nDamisk, Silgar and Borrug scrambled forward.\n\nThe entire section of flotsam was pulling away, breaking up along its edges as the current swept it onward. Clearly, the breach was expanding, widening to the pressure of an entire sea.\n\nSilgar climbed in and crouched down beside the dory's prow.\"I shall open a portal, \"he announced, his voice a rasp.\"I can only do so but once-'\n\n\"Then why didn't you leave along time ago? ' Torvald demanded, as he slipped the last line loose and clambered back aboard.\n\n\"There was no path before– out on the sea. But now, here– someone has opened agate. Close. The fabric is... weakened. I've not the skill to do such a thing myself. But I can follow. '\n\nThe dory scraped free of the crumbling island, swung wildly into the sweeping current. Karsa pushed and pulled with the oars to angle their bow into the torrential flow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Follow?\" Torvald repeated. \"Where?\"\n\nTo that Silgar simply shook his head.\n\nKarsa abandoned the oars and made his way to the stern, taking the tiller in both hands.\n\nThey rode the tumbling, churning sea of wreckage towards the breach. Where the wall had given way there was an ochre cloud of mist as vast and high as a thunderhead. Beyond it, there seemed to be nothing at all.\n\nSilgar was making gestures with both hands, snapping them out as would a blind man seeking a door latch. Then he jabbed a finger to the right. \"There!\" he shrieked, swinging a wild look on Karsa. \"There! Angle us there!\"\n\nThe place Silgar pointed towards looked no different from anywhere else. Immediately beyond it, the water simply vanished– a wavering line that was the breach itself. Shrugging, Karsa pushed on the tiller. Where they went over mattered little to him. If Silgar failed they would plunge over, falling whatever distance, to crash amidst a foaming maelstrom that would kill them all.\n\nHe watched as everyone but Silgar hunkered down, mute with terror.\n\nThe Teblor smiled. \"Urugal!\" he bellowed, half rising as the dory raced for the edge.\n\nDarkness swallowed them.\n\nAnd then they were falling.\n\nAloud, explosive crack. The tiller's handle split under Karsa's hands, then the stern hammered into him from behind, throwing the Teblor forward. He struck water a moment later, the impact making him gasp– taking in a mouthful of salty sea– before plunging into the chill blackness.\n\nHe struggled upward until his head broke the surface, but there was no lessening of the darkness, as if they'd fallen down a well, or had appeared within a cave. Nearby, someone was coughing helplessly, whilst a little farther off another survivor was thrashing about." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wreckage brushed up against Karsa." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The dory had shattered, though the Teblor was fairly certain that the fall had not been overly long– they had arrived at a height of perhaps two adult warriors combined. Unless the boat had struck something, it should have survived.\n\n\"Karsa!\"\n\nStill coughing, Torvald Nom arrived alongside the Teblor. The Daru had found the shaft of one of the oars, over which he had draped his arms. \"What in Hood's name do you think happened? '\n\n\"We passed through that sorcerous gate,\" Karsa explained. \"That should be obvious, for we are now somewhere else.\"\n\n\"Not as simple as that,\" Torvald replied. \"The blade of this oar– here, look at the end.\"\n\nFinding himself comfortably buoyant in this salty water, it took only a moment for Karsa to swim to the end of the shaft. It had been cut through, as if by a single blow from an iron sword such as the lowlanders used. He grunted.\n\nThe distant thrashing sounds had drawn closer. From much farther away, Damisk's voice called out.\n\n\"Here!\" Torvald shouted back.\n\nA shape loomed up beside them. It was Silgar, clinging to one of the water casks.\n\n\"Where are we?\" Karsa asked the slavemaster.\n\n\"How should I know?\" the Nathii snapped. \"I did not fashion the gate, I simply made use of it– and it had mostly closed, which is why the floor of the boat did not come with us. It was sheared clean off. None the less, I believe we are in a sea, beneath an overcast sky. Were there no ambient light, we'd not be able to see each other right now. Alas, I can hear no coast, though it's so calm there might be no waves to brush the shoreline.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Meaning we could be within a dozen strokes and not know it.\"\n\n\"Yes. Fortunately for us, it is a rather warm sea. We must simply await dawn-\"\n\n\"Assuming there is one,\" Torvald said.\n\n\"There is,\" Silgar asserted. \"Feel the layers in this water. It's colder down where our feet are. So a sun has looked down upon this sea, I am certain of it. '\n\nDamisk swam into view, struggling with Borrug, who seemed to be unconscious. Ashe reached out to take hold of the water cask Silgar pushed him back, then kicked himself further away.\n\n\"Slavemaster!\" Damisk gasped.\n\n\"This cask barely holds my weight as it is,\" Silgar hissed. \"It's near filled with freshwater– which we're likely to need. What is the matter with Borrug?\"\n\nTorvald moved along to give Damisk a place at the oar shaft. The tattooed guard attempted to drape Borrug's arms over it as well and Torvald drew closer once more to help.\n\n\"I don't know what's wrong with him,\" Damisk said. \"He may have struck his head, though I can find no wound. He was babbling at first, floundering about, then he simply fell unconscious and nearly slipped under. I was lucky to reach him.\"\n\nBorrug's head kept lolling beneath the surface.\n\nKarsa reached out and collected the man's wrists.\"I will take him, \"he snarled, turning about and dragging the man's arms around his neck.\n\n\"A light!\" Torvald suddenly shouted. \"I saw alight– there!\"\n\nThe others swung round.\n\n\"I see nothing,\" Silgar growled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I did,\" Torvald insisted. \"It was dim. Gone now. But I saw it-\"\n\n\"Likely an overwrought imagination,\" Silgar said. \"Had I the strength, I'd open my warren-'\n\n\"I know what I saw,\" the Daru said.\n\n\"Lead us, then, Torvald Nom,\" Karsa said.\n\n\"It could be in the wrong direction!\" Silgar hissed. \"We are safer to wait-\"\n\n\"Then wait,\" Karsa replied.\n\n\"I have the freshwater, not you-\"\n\n\"A good point. I shall have to kill you, then, since you have decided to stay here. We might need that water, after all. You won't, because you will be dead. '\n\n\"Teblor logic,\" Torvald chuckled, \"is truly wonderful.\"\n\n\"Very well, I will follow,\" Silgar said.\n\nThe Daru set off at a slow but steady pace, kicking beneath the surface as he pulled the oar shaft along. Damisk kept one hand on the length of wood, managing a strange motion with his legs that resembled that of a frog.\n\nGripping Borrug's wrists in one hand, Karsa moved into their wake. The unconscious lowlander's head rested on his right shoulder, his knees bumping against the Teblor's thighs.\n\nOff to one side, feet thrashing, Silgar propelled the water cask along. Karsa could see that the cask was far less filled than the slavemaster had claimed– it could have easily borne them all.\n\nThe Teblor himself felt no need. He was not particularly tired, and it seemed that he possessed a natural buoyancy superior to that of the lowlanders. With each indrawn breath, his shoulders, upper arms and the upper half of his chest rose above the water. And apart from Borrug's knees constantly fouling Karsa's kicking, the lowlander's presence was negligible..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was, he realized, something odd about those knees. He paused, reached down.\n\nBoth legs were severed clean just beneath the kneecaps, the water warm in their immediate wakes.\n\nTorvald had glanced back. \"What's wrong? ' he asked.\n\n\"Do you think there are catfish in these waters?\"\n\n\"I doubt it,\" the Daru replied. \"That was freshwater, after all.\"\n\n\"Good,\" Karsa grunted, resuming his swim.\n\nThere was no recurrence of the light Torvald had seen. They continued on in the unrelieved darkness, through perfectly calm water.\n\n\"This is foolish,\" Silgar pronounced after a time. \"We exhaust ourselves for no purpose-\"\n\nTorvald called, \"Karsa, why did you ask about the catfish?\"\n\nSomething huge and rough-skinned rose up to land on Karsa's back, its massive weight driving him under. Borrug's wrists were torn from his grip, the arms whipping back and vanishing. Pushed more than a warrior's height beneath the surface, Karsa twisted round. One of his kicking feet collided with a solid, unyielding body. He used the contact to propel himself away and back towards the surface.\n\nEven as he reached it– bloodsword in his hands– he saw, less than a body length distant, an enormous grey fish, its jagged-toothed mouth closing about the little that remained visible of Borrug. Lacerated head, shoulders and flopping arms. The fish's wide head thrashed wildly back and forth, its strange saucer-like eyes flashing as if lit from within.\n\nThere was screaming behind Karsa and he turned. Both Damisk and Silgar were kicking wildly in an effort to escape. Torvald was on his back, the oar held tight in his hands, his legs kicking beneath the surface– he alone was making no noise, though his face was twisted with fear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Karsa faced the fish once more." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed to behaving trouble swallowing Borrug– one of the man's arms was lodged crossways. The fish itself was positioned close to vertical in the water, ripping its head back and forth.\n\nGrowling, Karsa swam towards it.\n\nBorrug's arm came free even as the Teblor arrived, the corpse disappearing within the maw. Taking a deep breath and kicking hard, Karsa half rose out of the water, his bloodsword a curving spray as it chopped down into the fish's snout.\n\nWarm blood spattered Karsa's forearms.\n\nThe fish seemed to fling its entire body backward.\n\nKarsa lunged closer, closing his legs around the creature's body just beneath the flanking flippers. The fish twisted away at the contact, but could not drag itself free of Karsa's tightening grip.\n\nThe Teblor reversed his sword and plunged it deep into the beast's belly, ripped it downward.\n\nThe water was suddenly hot with blood and bile. The fish's body became a dead weight, dragging Karsa downward. He sheathed his sword; then, as he and the fish sank beneath the surface, he reached down into the gaping wound. One hand closed on the thigh of Borrug– a shredded mass of flesh– and the fingers dug into close around bone.\n\nKarsa pulled the lowlander through a cloud of milky, eye-stinging fluid, then, drawing the body with him, returned to the surface.\n\nTorvald was shouting now. Turning, Karsa saw the Daru, standing in waist-deep water, both arms waving. Near him, Silgar and Damisk were wading their way onto some kind of shore.\n\nDragging Borrug with him, Karsa made his way forward. A half-dozen strokes and his feet thumped and scraped on a sandy bottom. He stood, still holding one of Borrug's legs. Moments later, he was on the beach." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The others sat or knelt on the pale strip of sand, regaining their breaths.\n\nDropping the body onto the beach, Karsa remained standing, his head tilted back as he sniffed the warm, sultry air. There was heavy, lush foliage beyond the strand's shell-cluttered high-tide line. The buzz and whine of insects, a faint rustle as something small moved across dry seaweed.\n\nTorvald crawled close. \"Karsa, the man's dead. He was dead when the shark took him-'\n\n\"So that was a shark. The sailors on the Malazan ship spoke of sharks.\"\n\n\"Karsa, when a shark swallows someone you don't go after the poor bastard. He's finished-\"\n\n\"He was in my care,\" Karsa rumbled. \"The shark had no right to him, whether he was dead or alive.\"\n\nSilgar was on his feet a few paces away. At Karsa's words he laughed, the sound high-pitched, then said,\"From a shark's belly to seagulls and crabs! Borrug's pathetic spirit no doubt thanks you, Teblor! '\n\n\"I have delivered the lowlander,\" Karsa replied, \"and now return him to your care, Slavemaster. If you wish to leave him for seagulls and crabs, that is for you to decide.\" He faced the dark sea once more, but could see no sign of the dead shark.\n\n\"No-one would believe me,\" Torvald muttered.\n\n\"Believe what, Torvald Nom?\"\n\n\"Oh, I was imagining myself as an old man, years from now, sitting in Quip's Bar in Darujhistan, telling this tale. I saw it with my own eyes, and even I am having trouble believing it. You were halfway out of the water when you swung that sword down– helps having four lungs, I suppose. Even so... ' he shook his head." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the writer's helper, keep the story going.\nTags: epic fantasy, character study, power struggles, resilience, destiny\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: House of Chains\nChapter: 15" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From his massive shoulders hung the rotted skin of an enkar'al, pebbled and colourless. It was a relatively recent acquisition, less than a thousand years old. Another example of a creature that had hated him on first sight. Though perhaps the black rippled blade swinging at its head had tainted its response.\n\nIt would be sometime, Onrack judged, before the beast crawled out from its skin. He lowered his weapon and stepped past it. The Nascent's extraordinary, continent-spanning wall was a curiosity in itself. After a moment, the warrior decided to walk its length. Or at least, until his passage was blocked by a breach.\n\nHe began walking, hide-wrapped feet scuffing as he dragged them forward, the point of the sword inscribing a desultory furrow in the dried clay as it trailed from his left hand. Clumps of mud clung to his ragged hide shirt and the leather straps of his weapon harness. Silty, soupy water had seeped into the various gashes and punctures on his body and now leaked in trickling runnels with every heavy step he took. He had possessed a helm once, an impressive trophy from his youth, but it had been shattered at the final battle against the Jaghut family in the Jhag Odhan. A single crossways blow that had also shorn away a fifth of his skull, parietal and temporal, on the right side. Jaghut women had deceptive strength and admirable ferocity, especially when cornered.\n\nThe sky above him had a sickly cast, but one he had already grown used to. This fragment of the long-fractured Tiste Edur warren was by far the largest he had come across, larger even than the one that surrounded Tremorlor, the Azath Odhanhouse. And this one had known a period of stability, sufficient for civilizations to arise, for savants of sorcery to begin unravelling the powers of Kurald Emurlahn, although those inhabitants had not been Tiste Edur." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Idly, Onrack wondered if the renegade T'lan Imass he and his kin pursued had somehow triggered the wound that had resulted in the flooding of this world. It seemed likely, given its obvious efficacy in obscuring their trail. Either that, or the Tiste Edur had returned, to reclaim what had once been theirs.\n\nIndeed, he could smell the grey-skinned Edur– they had passed this way, and recently, arriving from another warren. Of course, the word \"smell\" had acquired new meaning for the T'lan Imass in the wake of the Ritual. Mundane senses had for the most part withered along with flesh. Through the shadowed orbits of his eyes, for example, the world was a complex collage of dull colours, heat and cold and often measured by an unerring sensitivity to motion. Spoken words swirled in mercurial clouds of breath– if the speaker lived, that is. If not, then it was the sound itself that was detectable, shivering its way through the air. Onrack sensed sound as much by sight as by hearing.\n\nAnd so it was that he became aware of a warm-blooded shape lying a short distance ahead. The wall here was slowly failing. Water spouted in streams from fissures between the bulging stones. Before long, it would give way entirely.\n\nThe shape did not move. It had been chained in place.\n\nAnother fifty paces and Onrack reached it.\n\nThe stench of Kurald Emurlahn was overpowering, faintly visible like a pool enclosing the supine figure, its surface rippling as if beneath a steady but thin rain. A deep ragged scar marred the prisoner's broad brow beneath a hairless pate, the wound glowing with sorcery. There had been a metal tongue to hold down the man's tongue, but that had dislodged, as had the straps wound round the figure's head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Slate-grey eyes stared up, unblinking, at the T'lan Imass.\n\nOnrack studied the Tiste Edur fora moment longer, then he stepped over the man and continued on.\n\nA ragged, withered voice rose in his wake. \"Wait.\"\n\nThe undead warrior paused and glanced back.\n\n\"I– I would bargain. For my freedom.\"\n\n\"I am not interested in bargains,\" Onrack replied in the Edur language.\n\n\"Is there nothing you desire, warrior?\"\n\n\"Nothing you can give me.\"\n\n\"Do you challenge me, then?\"\n\nTendons creaking, Onrack tilted his head. \"This section of the wall is about to collapse. I have no wish to be here when it does.\"\n\n\"And you imagine that I do?\"\n\n\"Considering your sentiments on the matter is a pointless effort on my part, Edur. I have no interest in imagining myself in your place. Why would I? You are about to drown.\"\n\n\"Break my chains, and we can continue this discussion in a safer place.\"\n\n\"The quality of this discussion has not earned such an exercise,\" Onrack replied.\n\n\"I would improve it, given the time.\"\n\n\"This seems unlikely.\" Onrack turned away.\n\n\"Wait! I can tell you of your enemies!\"\n\nSlowly, the T'lan Imass swung round once more.\"My enemies? I do not recall saying that I had any, Edur. '\n\n\"Oh, but you do. I should know. I was once one of them, and indeed that is why you find me here, for I am your enemy no longer.\"\n\n\"You are now a renegade among your own kind, then,\" Onrack observed. \"I have no faith in traitors.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"To my own kind, T'lan Imass, I am not the traitor. That epithet belongs to the one who chained me here. In any case, the question of faith cannot be answered through negotiation. '\n\n\"Should you have made that admission, Edur?\"\n\nThe man grimaced. \"Why not? I would not deceive you.\"\n\nNow, Onrack was truly curious. \"Why would you not deceive me?\"\n\n\"For the very cause that has seen me Shorn,\" the Edur replied. \"I am plagued by the need to be truthful.\"\n\n\"That is a dreadful curse,\" the T'lan Imass said.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nOnrack lifted his sword. \"In this case, I admit to possessing a curse of my own. Curiosity.\"\n\n\"I weep for you.\"\n\n\"I see no tears.\"\n\n\"In my heart, T'lan Imass. '\n\nA single blow shattered the chains. With his free right hand, Onrack reached down and clutched one of the Edur's ankles. He dragged the man after him along the top of the wall.\n\n\"I would rail at the indignity of this,\" the Tiste Edur said as he was pulled onward, step by scuffing step, \"had I the strength to do so.\"\n\nOnrack made no reply. Dragging the man with one hand, his sword with the other, he trudged forward, his progress eventually taking them past the area of weakness on the wall.\n\n\"You can release me now,\" the Tiste Edur gasped.\n\n\"Can you walk?\"\n\n\"No, but-\"\n\n\"Then we shall continue like this.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where are you going, then, that you cannot afford to wait for me to regain my strength?\"\n\n\"Along this wall,\" the T'lan Imass replied.\n\nThere was silence between them fora time, apart from the creaks from Onrack's bones, the rasp of his hide-wrapped feet, and the hiss and thump of the Tiste Edur's body and limbs across the mud-layered stones. The detritus-filled sea remained unbroken on their left, a festering marshland on their right. They passed between and around another dozen catfish, these ones not quite as large yet fully as limbed as the previous group. Beyond them, the wall stretched on unbroken to the horizon.\n\nIna voice filled with pain, the Tiste Edur finally spoke again. \"Much more... T'lan Imass... and you'll be dragging a corpse.\"\n\nOnrack considered that fora moment, then he halted his steps and released the man's ankle. He slowly swung about.\n\nGroaning, the Tiste Edur rolled himself onto his side. \"I assume,\" he gasped, \"you have no food, or freshwater.\"\n\nOnrack lifted his gaze, back to the distant humps of the catfish. \"I suppose I could acquire some. Of the former, that is.\"\n\n\"Can you open a portal, T'lan Imass? Can you get us out of this realm? '\n\n\"No.\"\n\nThe Tiste Edur lowered his head to the clay and closed his eyes. \"Then I am as good as dead in any case. None the less, I appreciate your breaking my chains. You need not remain here, though I would know the name of the warrior who showed me what mercy he could.\"\n\n\"Onrack. Clanless, of the Logros.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am Trull Sengar. Also clanless.\"\n\nOnrack stared down at the Tiste Edur fora while. Then the T'lan Imass stepped over the man and set off, retracing their path. He arrived among the catfish. A single chop downward severed the head of the nearest one.\n\nThe slaying triggered a frenzy among the others. Skin split, sleek four-limbed bodies tore their way free. Broad, needle-fanged heads swung towards the undead warrior in their midst, tiny eyes glistening. Loud hisses from all sides. The beasts moved on squat, muscular legs, three-toed feet thickly padded and clawed. Their tails were short, extending in a vertical fin backup their spines.\n\nThey attacked as would wolves closing on wounded prey.\n\nObsidian blade flashed. Thin blood sprayed. Heads and limbs flopped about.\n\nOne of the creatures launched itself into the air, huge mouth closing over Onrack's skull. As its full weight descended, the T'lan Imass felt his neck vertebrae creak and grind. He fell backward, letting the animal drag him down.\n\nThen he dissolved into dust.\n\nAnd rose five paces away to resume his killing, wading among the hissing survivors. A few moments later they were all dead.\n\nOnrack collected one of the corpses by its hind foot and, dragging it, made his way back to Trull Sengar.\n\nThe Tiste Edur was propped upon one elbow, his flat eyes fixed on the T'lan Imass.\"For a moment, \"he said,\"I thought I was having the strangest dream. I saw you, therein the distance, wearing a huge, writhing hat. That then ate you whole. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Onrack pulled the body up alongside Trull Sengar. \"You were not dreaming. Here. Eat.\"\n\n\"Might we not cook it?\"\n\nThe T'lan Imass strode to the seaside edge of the wall. Among the flotsam were the remnants of countless trees, from which jutted denuded branches. He climbed down onto the knotted detritus, felt it shift and roll unsteadily beneath him. It required but a few moments to snap off an armful of fairly dry wood, which he threw backup onto the wall. Then he followed.\n\nHe felt the Tiste Edur's eyes on him as he prepared a hearth.\n\n\"Our encounters with your kind,\" Trull said after a moment, \"were few and far between. And then, only after your... ritual. Prior to that, your people fled from us at first sight. Apart from those who travelled the oceans with the Thelomen Toblakai, that is. Those ones fought us. For centuries, before we drove them from the seas.\"\n\n\"The Tiste Edur were in my world,\" Onrack said as he drew out his spark stones, \"just after the coming of the Tiste Andii. Once numerous, leaving signs of passage in the snow, on the beaches, in deep forests.\"\n\n\"There are far fewer of us now,\" Trull Sengar said. \"We came here– to this place– from Mother Dark, whose children had banished us. We did not think they would pursue, but they did. And upon the shattering of this warren, we fled yet again– to your world, Onrack. Where we thrived...\"\n\n\"Until your enemies found you once more.\"\n\n\"Yes. The first of those were... fanatical in their hatred. There were great wars– unwitnessed by anyone, fought as they were within darkness, in hidden places of shadow. In the end, we slew the last of those first Andii, but were broken ourselves in the effort. And so we retreated into remote places, into fastnesses. Then, more Andii came, only these seemed less... interested. And we in turn had grown inward, no longer consumed with the hunger of expansion-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Had you sought to assuage that hunger,\" Onrack said as the first wisps of smoke rose from the shredded bark and twigs, \"we would have found in you anew cause, Edur.\"\n\nTrull was silent, his gaze veiled. \"We had forgotten it all,\" he finally said, settling back to rest his head once more on the clay. \"All that I have just told you. Until a short while ago, my people– the last bastion, it seems, of the Tiste Edur– knew almost nothing of our past. Our long, tortured history. And what we knew was in fact false. If only,\" he added, \"we had remained ignorant.\"\n\nOnrack slowly turned to gaze at the Edur. \"Your people no longer look inward.\"\n\n\"I said I would tell you of your enemies, T'lan Imass. '\n\n\"You did.\"\n\n\"There are your kind, Onrack, among the Tiste Edur. In league with our new purpose.\"\n\n\"And what is this purpose, Trull Sengar?\"\n\nThe man looked away, closed his eyes. \"Terrible, Onrack. A terrible purpose.\"\n\nThe T'lan Imass warrior swung to the corpse of the creature he had slain, drew forth an obsidian knife.\"I am familiar with terrible purposes, ' he said as he began cutting meat.\n\n\"I shall tell you my tale now, as I said I would. So you understand what you now face.\"\n\n\"No, Trull Sengar. Tell me nothing more.\"\n\n\"But why?\"\n\nBecause your truth would burden me. Force me to find my kin once more. Your truth would chain me to this world– to my world, once more. And I am not ready for that. \"I am weary of your voice, Edur,\" he replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The beast's sizzling flesh smelled like seal meat.\n\nA short time later, while Trull Sengar ate, Onrack moved to the edge of the wall facing onto the marsh. The floodwaters had found old basins in the landscape, from which gases now leaked upward to drift in pale smears over the thick, percolating surface. Thicker fog obscured the horizon, but the T'lan Imass thought he could sense arising of elevation, a range of low, humped hills.\n\n\"It's getting lighter, \"Trull Sengar said from where he lay beside the hearth.\"The sky is glowing in places. There... and there. '\n\nOnrack lifted his head. The sky had been an unrelieved sea of pewter, darkening every now and then to loose a deluge of rain, though that had grown more infrequent of late. But now rents had appeared, ragged-edged. A swollen orb of yellow light commanded one entire horizon, the wall ahead seeming to drive towards its very heart; whilst directly overhead hung a smaller circle of blurred fire, this one rimmed in blue.\n\n\"The suns return,\" the Tiste Edur murmured. \"Here, in the Nascent, the ancient twin hearts of Kurald Emurlahn live on. There was noway of telling, for we did not rediscover this warren until after the Breach. The floodwaters must have brought chaos to the climate. And destroyed the civilization that existed here.\"\n\nOnrack looked down. \"Were they Tiste Edur?\"\n\nThe man shook his head. \"No, more like your descendants, Onrack. Although the corpses we saw here along the wall were badly decayed.\" Trull grimaced. \"They areas vermin, these humans of yours.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not mine,\" Onrack replied.\n\n\"You feel no pride, then, at their insipid success?\"\n\nThe T'lan Imass cocked his head.\"They are prone to mistakes, Trull Sengar. The Logros have killed them in their thousands when the need to reassert order made doing so necessary. With ever greater frequency they annihilate themselves, for success breeds contempt for those very qualities that purchased it. '\n\n\"It seems you've given this some thought. '\n\nOnrack shrugged in a clatter of bones. \"More than my kin, perhaps, the edge of my irritation with humankind remains jagged.\"\n\nThe Tiste Edur was attempting to stand, his motions slow and deliberate. \"The Nascent required... cleansing,\" he said, his tone bitter, \"or so it was judged.\"\n\n\"Your methods,\" Onrack said, \"are more extreme than what the Logros would choose.\"\n\nManaging to totter upright, Trull Sengar faced the T'lan Imass with awry grin.\"Sometimes, friend, what is begun proves too powerful to contain. '\n\n\"Such is the curse of success.\"\n\nTrull seemed to wince at the words, and he turned away. \"I must needs find fresh, clean water.\"\n\n\"How long had you been chained?\"\n\nThe man shrugged. \"Long, I suppose. The sorcery within the Shorning was designed to prolong suffering. Your sword severed its power, and now the mundane requirements of the flesh return.\"\n\nThe suns were burning through the clouds, their combined heat filling the air with humidity. The overcast was shredding apart, vanishing before their very eyes. Onrack studied the blazing orbs once more. \"There has been no night,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not in the summer, no. The winters, it's said, are another matter. At the same time, with the deluge I suspect it is fruitless to predict what will come. Personally, I have no wish to find out. '\n\n\"We must leave this wall,\" the T'lan Imass said after a moment.\n\n\"Aye, before it collapses entirely. I think I can see hills in the distance.\"\n\n\"If you have the strength, clasp your arms about me,\" Onrack said, \"and I will climb down. We can skirt the basins. If any local animals survived, they will be on higher ground. Do you wish to collect and cook more from this beast?\"\n\n\"No. It is less than palatable.\"\n\n\"That is not surprising, Trull Sengar. It is a carnivore, and has fed long on rotting flesh.\"\n\nThe ground was sodden underfoot when they finally reached the base of the wall. Swarms of insects rose around them, closing on the Tiste Edur with frenzied hunger. Onrack allowed his companion to set the pace as they made their way between the water-filled basins. The air was humid enough to sheathe their bodies, soaking through the clothing they wore. Although there was no wind at ground level, the clouds overhead had stretched into streamers, racing to overtake them then scudding onto mass against the range of hills, where the sky grew ever darker.\n\n\"We are heading right towards a squall,\" Trull muttered, waving his arms about to disperse the midges.\n\n\"When it breaks, this land will flood,\" Onrack noted. \"Are you capable of increasing your pace?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Then I shall have to carry you.\"\n\n\"Carry, or drag?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Which do you prefer?\"\n\n\"Carrying seems somewhat less humiliating.\"\n\nOnrack returned his sword to its loop in the shoulder harness. Though the warrior was judged tall among his own kind, the Tiste Edur was taller, by almost the length of a forearm. The T'lan Imass had the man sit down on the ground, knees drawn up, then Onrack squatted and slipped one arm beneath Trull's knees, the other below his shoulder blades. Tendons creaking, the warrior straightened.\n\n\"There's fresh gouges all around your skull, or what's left of it at any rate,\" the Tiste Edur noted.\n\nOnrack said nothing. He set forth at a steady jog.\n\nBefore long a wind arrived, tumbling down from the hills, growing to such force that the T'lan Imass had to lean forward, his feet thumping along the gravel ridges between the pools.\n\nThe midges were quickly swept away.\n\nThere was, Onrack realized, a strange regularity to the hills ahead. There were seven in all, arrayed in what seemed a straight line, each of equal height though uniquely misshapen. The storm clouds were piling well behind them, corkscrewing in bulging columns skyward above an enormous range of mountains.\n\nThe wind howled against Onrack's desiccated face, snapped at the strands of his gold-streaked hair, thrummed with a low-pitched drone through the leather strips of his harness. Trull Sengar was hunched against him, head ducked away from the shrieking blast.\n\nLightning bridged the heaving columns, the thunder long in reaching them.\n\nThe hills were not hills at all. They were edifices, massive and hulking, constructed from a smooth black stone, seemingly each a single piece. Twenty or more man-lengths high. Dog-like beasts, broad-skulled and small-eared, thickly muscled, heads lowered towards the two travellers and the distant wall behind them, the vast pits of their eyes faintly gleaming a deep, translucent amber." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Onrack's steps slowed.\n\nBut did not halt.\n\nThe basins had been left behind, the ground underfoot slick with wind-borne rain but otherwise solid. The T'lan Imass angled his approach towards the nearest monument. As they came closer, they moved into the statue's lee.\n\nThe sudden falling off of the wind was accompanied by a cavernous silence, the wind to either side oddly mute and distant. Onrack set Trull Sengar down.\n\nThe Tiste Edur's bewildered gaze found the edifice rearing before them. He was silent, slow to stand as Onrack moved past him.\n\n\"Beyond,\" Trull quietly murmured, \"there should be agate.\"\n\nPausing, Onrack slowly swung round to study his companion. \"This is your warren,\" he said after a moment. \"What do you sense of these... monuments?\"\n\n\"Nothing, but I know what they are meant to represent... as do you. It seems the inhabitants of this realm made them into their gods.\"\n\nTo that, Onrack made no reply. He faced the massive statue once more, head tilting as his gaze travelled upward, ever upward. To those gleaming, amber eyes.\n\n\"There will be agate,\" Trull Sengar persisted behind him. \"A means of leaving this world. Why do you hesitate, T'lan Imass? '\n\n\"I hesitate in the face of what you cannot see,\" Onrack replied. \"There are seven, yes. But two of them are... alive.\" He hesitated, then added, \"And this is one of them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An army that waits is soon an army at war with itself.\n\nKellanved\n\nThe world was encircled in red. the hue of old blood, of iron rusting on a battlefield. It rose in a wall like a river turned on its side, crashing confused and uncertain against the rough cliffs that rose broken-toothed around the rim of Raraku. The Holy Desert's most ancient guardians, those bleached limestone crags, now withering beneath the ceaseless storm of the Whirlwind, the raging goddess who could countenance no rival to her dominion. Who would devour the cliffs themselves in her fury.\n\nWhilst the illusion of calm lay within her heart.\n\nThe old man who had come to be known as Ghost Hands slowly clambered his way up the slope. His ageing skin was deep bronze, his tattooed, blunt and wide face as creased as a wind-clawed boulder. Small yellow flowers cloaked the ridge above him, a rare blossoming of the low-growing desert plant the local tribes called hen'bara. When dried, the flowers made a heady tea, mender of grief, balm against pain in a mortal soul. The old man scrabbled and scraped his way up the slope with something like desperation.\n\nNo life's path is bloodless. Spill that of those blocking your path. Spill your own. Struggle on, wade the growing torrent with all the frenzy that is the brutal unveiling of self-preservation. The macabre dance in the tugging currents held no artistry, and to pretend otherwise was to sink into delusion.\n\nDelusions. Heboric Light Touch, once priest of Fener, possessed no more delusions. He had drowned them one by one with his own hands long ago. His hands– his Ghost Hands– had proved particularly capable of such tasks. Whisperers of unseen powers, guided by a mysterious, implacable will. He knew that he had no control over them, and so held no delusions. How could he?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Behind him, in the vast flat where tens of thousands of warriors and their followers were encamped amidst a city's ruins, such clear-eyed vision was absent. The army was the strong hands, now at rest but soon to raise weapons, guided by a will that was anything but implacable, a will that was drowning in delusions. Heboric was not only different from all those below– he was their very opposite, a sordid reflection in a mangled mirror.\n\nHen'bara's gift was dreamless sleep at night. The solace of oblivion.\n\nHe reached the ridge, breathing hard from the exertion, and settled down among the flowers fora moment to rest. Ghostly hands were as deft as real ones, though he could not see them– not even as the faint, mottled glow that others saw. Indeed, his vision was failing him in all things. It was an old man's curse, he believed, to witness the horizons on all sides drawing ever closer. Even so, while the carpet of yellow surrounding him was little more than a blur to his eyes, the spicy fragrance filled his nostrils and left a palpable taste on his tongue.\n\nThe desert sun's heat was bludgeoning, oppressive. It had a power of its own, transforming the Holy Desert into a prison, pervasive and relentless. Heboric had grown to despise that heat, to curse Seven Cities, to cultivate an abiding hatred for its people. And he was trapped among them, now. The Whirlwind's barrier was indiscriminate, impassable both to those on the outside and those within– at the discretion of the Chosen One.\n\nMovement to one side, the blur of a slight, dark-haired figure. Who then settled down beside him.\n\nHeboric smiled. \"I thought I was alone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We are both alone, Ghost Hands.\"\n\n\"Of that, Felisin, neither of us needs reminding.\" Felisin Younger, but that is a name I cannot speak out loud. The mother who adopted you, lass, has her own secrets. \"What is that you have in your hands?\"\n\n\"Scrolls,\" the girl replied. \"From Mother. She has, it seems, rediscovered her hunger for writing poetry.\"\n\nThe tattooed ex-priest grunted, \"I thought it was a love, not a hunger.\"\n\n\"You are not a poet,\" she said. \"In any case, to speak plainly is a true talent; to bury beneath obfuscation is a poet's calling these days. '\n\n\"You area brutal critic, lass,\" Heboric observed.\n\n\"Call to Shadow, she has called it. Or, rather, she continues a poem her own mother began.\"\n\n\"Ah, well, Shadow is a murky realm. Clearly she has chosen a style to match the subject, perhaps to match that of her own mother.\"\n\n\"Too convenient, Ghost Hands. Now, consider the name by which Korbolo Dom's army is now called. Dogslayers. That, old man, is poetic. A name fraught with diffidence behind its proud bluster. A name to match Korbolo Dom himself, who stands square-footed in his terror. '\n\nHeboric reached out and plucked the first flower head. He held it to his nose a moment before dropping it into the leather bag at his belt. \"\"Square-footed in his terror.\" An arresting image, lass. But I see no fear in the Napan. The Malazan army mustering in Aren is nothing but three paltry legions of recruits. Commanded by a woman devoid of any relevant experience. Korbolo Dom has no reason to be afraid.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The young girl's laugh was a trill that seemed to cut an icy path through the air.\"No reason, Ghost Hands? Many reasons, in fact. Shall I list them? Leoman. Toblakai. Bidithal. L'oric. Mathok. And, the one he finds most terrifying of all: Sha'ik. My mother. The camp is a snake-pit, seething with dissent. You have missed the last spitting frenzy. Mother has banished Mallick Rel and Pullyk Alar. Cast them out. Korbolo Dom loses two more allies in the power struggle-'\n\n\"There is no power struggle,\" Heboric growled, tugging at a handful of flowers. \"They are fools to believe that one is possible. Sha'ik has thrown those two out because treachery flows in their veins. She is indifferent to Korbolo Dom's feelings about it.\"\n\n\"He believes otherwise, and that conviction is more important than what might or might not be true. And how does Mother respond to the aftermath of her pronouncements?\" Felisin swiped the plants before her with the scrolls. \"With poetry.\"\n\n\"The gift of knowledge,\" Heboric muttered. \"The Whirlwind Goddess whispers in the Chosen One's ear. There are secrets within the Warren of Shadow, secrets containing truths that are relevant to the Whirlwind itself. '\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\nHeboric shrugged. His bag was nearly full. \"Alas, I possess my own prescient knowledge.\" And little good it does me. \"The sundering of an ancient warren scattered fragments throughout the realms. The Whirlwind Goddess possesses power, but it was not her own, not at first. Just one more fragment, wandering lost and in pain. What was the goddess, I wonder, when she first stumbled onto the Whirlwind? Some desert tribe's minor deity, I suspect. A spirit of the summer wind, protector of some whirlpool spring, possibly. One among many, without question. Of course, once she made that fragment her own, it did not take long for her to destroy her old rivals, to assert complete, ruthless domination over the Holy Desert. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A quaint theory, Ghost Hands,\" Felisin drawled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But it speaks nothing of the Seven Holy Cities, the Seven Holy Books, the prophecy of Dryjhna the Apocalyptic.\"\n\nHeboric snorted. \"Cults feed upon one another, lass. Whole myths are co-opted to fuel the faith. Seven Cities was born of nomadic tribes, yet the legacy preceding them was that of an ancient civilization, which in turn rested uneasy on the foundations of a still older empire– the First Empire of the T'lan Imass. That which survives in memory or falters and fades away is but chance and circumstance. '\n\n\"Poets may know hunger,\" she commented drily, \"but historians devour. And devouring murders language, makes of it a dead thing.\"\n\n\"Not the historian's crime, lass, but the critic's.\"\n\n\"Why quibble? Scholars, then.\"\n\n\"Are you complaining that my explanation destroys the mysteries of the pantheon? Felisin, there are more worthy things to wonder at in this world. Leave the gods and goddesses to their own sickly obsessions.\"\n\nHer laugh struck through him again. \"Oh, you are amusing company, old man! A priest cast out by his god. An historian once gaoled for his theories. A thief with nothing left worth stealing. I am not the one in need of wonder.\"\n\nHe heard her climb to her feet. \"In any case,\" she continued, \"I was sent to find you.\"\n\n\"Oh? Sha'ik seeks more advice that she will no doubt ignore? '\n\n\"Not this time. Leoman.\"\n\nHeboric scowled. And where Leoman is, so too will be Toblakai. The slayer's only quality his holding to his vow to never again speak tome. Still, I will feel his eyes upon me. His killer's eyes. If there's anyone in the camp who should be banished... He slowly clambered upright.\"Where will I find him? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In the pit temple,\" she replied.\n\nOf course. And what, dear lass, were you doing in Leoman's company?\n\n\"I would take you by hand,\" Felisin added, \"but I find their touch far too poetic.\"\n\nShe walked at his side, back down the slope, between the two vast kraals which were empty at the moment– the goats and sheep driven to the pastures east of the ruins for the day. They passed through a wide breach in the dead city's wall, intersecting one of the main avenues that led to the jumble of sprawling, massive buildings of which only foundations and half-walls remained, that had come to be called the Circle of Temples.\n\nAdobe huts, yurts and hide tents fashioned a modern city on the ruins. Neighbourhood markets bustled beneath wide, street-length awnings, filling the hot air with countless voices and the redolent aromas of cooking. Local tribes, those that followed their own war chief, Mathok– who held a position comparable to general in Sha'ik's command– mingled with Dogslayers, with motley bands of renegades from cities, with cut-throat bandits and freed criminals from countless Malazan garrison gaols. The army's camp followers were equally disparate, a bizarre self-contained tribe that seemed to wander a nomadic round within the makeshift city, driven to move at the behest of hidden vagaries no doubt political in nature. At the moment, some unseen defeat had them more furtive than usual– old whores leading scores of mostly naked, thin children, weapon smiths and tack menders and cooks and latrine diggers, widows and wives and a few husbands and fewer still fathers and mothers... threads linked most of them to the warriors in Sha'ik's army, but they were tenuous at best, easily severed, often tangled into a web of adultery and bastardy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The city was a microcosm of Seven Cities, in Heboric's opinion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Proof of all the ills the Malazan Empire had set out to cure as conquerors then occupiers. There seemed few virtues to the freedoms to which the ex-priest had been witness, herein this place. Yet he suspected he was alone in his traitorous thoughts. The empire sentenced me a criminal, yet I remain Malazan none the less. A child of the empire, a reawakened devotee to the old emperor's \"peace by the sword\". So, dear Tavore, lead your army to this heart of rebellion, and cut it dead. I'll not weep for the loss.\n\nThe Circle of Temples was virtually abandoned compared to the teeming streets the two had just passed through. The home of old gods, forgotten deities once worshipped by a forgotten people who left little behind apart from crumbling ruins and pathways ankle-deep in dusty potsherds. Yet something of the sacred still lingered for some, it seemed, for it was here where the most decrepit of the lost found meagre refuge.\n\nA scattering of minor healers moved among these destitute few– the old widows who'd found no refuge as a third or even fourth wife to a warrior or merchant, fighters who'd lost limbs, lepers and other diseased victims who could not afford the healing powers of High Denul. There had once numbered among these people abandoned children, but Sha'ik had seen to an end to that. Beginning with Felisin, she had adopted them all– her private retinue, the Whirlwind cult's own acolytes. By Heboric's last cursory measure, a week past, they had numbered over three thousand, in ages ranging from newly weaned to Felisin's age– close to Sha'ik's own, true age. To all of them, she was Mother." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had not been a popular gesture. The pimps had lost their lambs.\n\nIn the centre of the Circle of Temples was abroad, octagonal pit, sunk deep into the layered limestone, its floor never touched by the sun, cleared out now of its resident snakes, scorpions and spiders and reoccupied by Leoman of the Flails. Leoman, who had once been Elder Sha'ik's most trusted bodyguard. But the reborn Sha'ik had delved deep into the man's soul, and found it empty, bereft of faith, by some flaw of nature inclined to disavow all forms of certainty. The new Chosen One had decided she could not trust this man– not at her side, at any rate. He had been seconded to Mathok, though it seemed that the position involved few responsibilities. While Toblakai remained as Sha'ik's personal guardian, the giant with the shattered tattoo on his face had not relinquished his friendship with Leoman and was often in the man's sour company.\n\nThere was history between the two warriors, of which Heboric was certain he sensed but a fraction. They had once shared a chain as prisoners of the Malazans, it was rumoured. Heboric wished the Malazans had shown less mercy in Toblakai's case.\n\n\"I will leave you now,\" Felisin said at the pit's brick-lined edge.\"When next I desire to clash views with you, I will seek you out. '\n\nGrimacing, Heboric nodded and began making his way down the ladder. The air around him grew cooler in layers as he descended into the gloom. The smell of durhang was sweet and heavy– one of Leoman's affectations, leading the ex-priest to wonder if young Felisin was following her mother's path more closely than he had suspected." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The limestone floor was layered in rugs now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ornate furniture– the portable kind wealthy travelling merchants used– made the spacious chamber seem crowded. Wood-framed screens stood against the walls here and there, the stretched fabric of their panels displaying woven scenes from tribal mythology. Where the walls were exposed, black and red ochre paintings from some ancient artist transformed the smooth, rippled stone into multi-layered vistas– savannas where transparent beasts roamed. For some reason these images remained clear and sharp to Heboric's eyes, whispering memories of movement ever on the edges of his vision.\n\nOld spirits wandered this pit, trapped for eternity by its high, sheer walls. Heboric hated this place, with all its spectral laminations of failure, of worlds long extinct.\n\nToblakai sat on a backless divan, rubbing oil into the blade of his wooden sword, not bothering to lookup as Heboric reached the base of the ladder. Leoman lay sprawled among cushions near the wall opposite.\n\n\"Ghost Hands,\" the desert warrior called in greeting. \"You have hen'bara? Come, there is a brazier here, and water-'\n\n\"I reserve that tea for just before I go to bed,\" Heboric replied, striding over. \"You would speak with me, Leoman?\"\n\n\"Always, friend. Did not the Chosen One callus her sacred triangle? We three, herein this forgotten pit? Or perhaps I have jumbled my words, and should reverse my usage of'sacred\" and'forgotten\"? Come, sit. I have herbal tea, the kind that makes one wakeful.\"\n\nHeboric sat down on a cushion. \"And what need have we to be wakeful?\"\n\nLeoman's smile was loose, telling Heboric that durhang had swept away his usual reticence.\"Dear Ghost Hands, \"the warrior murmured,\"it is the need of the hunted. It is the gazelle with its nose to the ground that the lion sups with, after all. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ex-priest's brows rose.\"And who is stalking us now, Leoman? '\n\nLeaning back, Leoman replied, \"Why, the Malazans, of course. Who other?\"\n\n\"Why, most certainly then we must talk,\" Heboric said in mock earnestness. \"I had no idea, after all, that the Malazans were planning on doing us harm. Are you certain of your information?\"\n\nToblakai spoke to Leoman. \"As I have told you before, this old man should be killed.\"\n\nLeoman laughed. \"Ah, my friend, now that you are the only one of us three who still has the Chosen One's ear... as it were... I would suggest you relinquish that subject. She has forbidden it and that is that. Nor am I inclined to agree with you in any case. It is an old refrain that needs burying. '\n\n\"Toblakai hates me because I see too clearly what haunts his soul,\" Heboric said. \"And, given his vow to not speak tome, his options for dialogue are sadly limited.\"\n\n\"I applaud your empathy, Ghost Hands.\"\n\nHeboric snorted. \"If there is to be subject to this meeting, Leoman, let's hear it. Else I'll make my way back to the light.\"\n\n\"That would prove along journey,\" the warrior chuckled. \"Very well. Bidithal is back to his old ways.\"\n\n\"Bidithal, the High Mage? What'old ways\"?\"\n\n\"His ways with children, Heboric. Girls. His unpleasant... hungers. Sha'ik is not all-knowing, alas. Oh, she knows Bidithal's old predilections– she experienced them firsthand when she was Sha'ik Elder, after all. But there are close to a hundred thousand people in this city, now. A few children vanishing every week... easily passing virtually unnoticed. Mathok's people, however, are by nature watchful.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Heboric scowled. \"And what would you have me do about it?\"\n\n\"Are you disinterested?\"\n\n\"Of course not. But I am one man, without, as you say, a voice. While Bidithal is one of the three sworn to Sha'ik, one of her most powerful High Mages. '\n\nLeoman began making tea. \"We share a certain loyalty, friend,\" he murmured, \"the three of us here. With a certain child.\" He looked up then, leaning close as he set the pot of water on the brazier's grate, his veiled blue eyes fixing on Heboric.\"Who has caught Bidithal's eye. But that attention is more than simply sexual. Felisin is Sha'ik's chosen heir– we can all see that, yes? Bidithal believes she must be shaped in a manner identical to her mother– when her mother was Sha'ik Elder, that is. The child must follow the mother's path, Bidithal believes. As the mother was broken inside, so too must the child be broken inside.\"\n\nCold horror filled Heboric at Leoman's words. He snapped a glare at Toblakai.\"Sha'ik must be told of this!\"\n\n\"She has,\" Leoman said. \"But she needs Bidithal, if only to balance the schemes of Febryl and L'oric. The three despise each other, naturally. She has been told, Ghost Hands, and so she tasks us three in turn to be... watchful. '\n\n\"How in Hood's name am I supposed to be watchful? \"Heboric snapped.\"I am damned near blind! Toblakai! Tell Sha'ik to take that wrinkled bastard and flay him alive, never mind Febryl and L'oric! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The huge savage bared his teeth at Leoman." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hear a lizard hissing from under its rock, Leoman of the Flails. Such bravado is quickly ended with the heel of a boot.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" Leoman sighed to Heboric, \"alas, Bidithal is not the problem. Indeed, he may prove Sha'ik's saviour. Febryl schemes betrayal, friend. Who are his co-conspirators? Unknown. Not L'oric, that's for certain– L'oric is by far the most cunning of the three, and so not a fool by any measure. Yet Febryl needs allies among the powerful. Is Korbolo Dom in league with the bastard? We don't know. Kamist Reloe? His two lieutenant mages, Henaras and Fayelle? Even if they all were, Febryl would still need Bidithal– either to stand aside and do nothing, or to join.\"\n\n\"Yet,\" Toblakai growled, \"Bidithal is loyal.\"\n\n\"In his own way,\" Leoman agreed. \"And he knows that Febryl is planning treachery, and now but awaits the invitation. Whereupon he will tell Sha'ik. '\n\n\"And all the conspirators will then die,\" Toblakai said.\n\nHeboric shook his head. \"And what if those conspirators comprise her entire command?\"\n\nLeoman shrugged, then began pouring tea. \"Sha'ik has the Whirlwind, friend. To lead the armies? She has Mathok. And me. And L'oric will remain, that is certain. Seven take us, Korbolo Dom is a liability in any case.\"\n\nHeboric was silent fora long moment. He made no move when with a gesture Leoman invited him to partake of the tea. \"And so the lie is revealed,\" he finally murmured. \"Toblakai has told Sha'ik nothing. Not him, nor Mathok, nor you, Leoman. This is your way of getting back into power. Crush a conspiracy and thereby eliminate all your rivals. And now, you invite me into the lie. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not a great lie,\" Leoman replied. \"Sha'ik has been informed that Bidithal hunts children once more... '\n\n\"But not Felisin in particular.\"\n\n\"The Chosen One must not let her personal loyalties place the entire rebellion at risk. She would act too quickly-\"\n\n\"And you think I give a damn about this rebellion, Leoman?\"\n\nThe warrior smiled as he leaned back on the cushions. \"You care about nothing, Heboric. Not even yourself. But no, that is not true, is it? There is Felisin. There is the child.\"\n\nHeboric climbed to his feet. \"I am done here.\"\n\n\"Go well, friend. Know that your company is always welcome here.\"\n\nThe ex-priest made his way towards the ladder. Reaching it, he paused. \"And here I'd been led to believe that the snakes were gone from this pit. '\n\nLeoman laughed. \"The cool air but makes them... dormant. Be careful on that ladder, Ghost Hands.\"\n\nAfter the old man had left, Toblakai sheathed his sword and rose. \"He will head straight to Sha'ik, ' he pronounced.\n\n\"Will he?\" Leoman asked, then shrugged. \"No, I think not. Not to Sha'ik... '\n\nOf all the temples of the native cults in Seven Cities, only the ones raised in the name of a particular god displayed an architectural style that could be seen to echo the ancient ruins in the Circle of Temples. And so, in Heboric's mind, there was nothing accidental to Bidithal's choice of abode. Had the foundations of the temple the High Mage now occupied still held aloft walls and ceiling, it would be seen to be a low, strangely elongated dome, buttressed by half-arches like the ribs of avast sea-creature, or perhaps the skeletal framework of a longship. The tent-cloth covering the withered and crumbled remnants was affixed to the few surviving upright wings. These wings and the floor plan gave sufficient evidence of what the temple had originally looked like; and in the Seven Holy Cities and among its more populated lesser kin, a certain extant temple could be found that closely resembled this ruin in style." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And in these truths, Heboric suspected a mystery. Bidithal had not always been a High Mage. Not in title in any case. In the Dhobri language, he had been known as Rashan'ais. The archpriest of the cult of Rashan, which had existed in Seven Cities long before the Throne of Shadow had been reoccupied. In the twisted minds of humanity, it seemed, there was nothing objectionable about worshipping an empty throne. No stranger than kneeling before the Boar of Summer, before a god of war.\n\nThe cult of Rashan had not taken well the ascension of Ammanas– Shadowthrone– and the Rope into positions of penultimate power within the Warren of Shadow. Though Heboric's knowledge of the details was sketchy at best, it seemed that the cult had torn itself apart. Blood had been spilled within temple walls, and in the aftermath of desecrating murder, only those who acknowledged the mastery of the new gods remained among the devotees. To the wayside, bitter and licking deep wounds, the banished slunk away.\n\nMen like Bidithal.\n\nDefeated but, Heboric suspected, not yet finished. For it is the Meanas temples of Seven Cities that most closely mimic this ruin in architectural style... as if a direct descendant of this land's earliest cults...\n\nWithin the Whirlwind, the cast-out Rashan'ais had found refuge. Further proof of his belief that the Whirlwind was but a fragment of a shattered warren, and that shattered warren was Shadow. And if that is indeed the case, what hidden purpose holds Bidithal to Sha'ik? Is he truly loyal to Dryjhna the Apocalyptic, to this holy conflagration in the name of liberty? Answers to such questions were long incoming, if at all. The unknown player, the unseen current beneath this rebellion– indeed, beneath the Malazan Empire itself– was the new ruler of Shadow and his deadly companion. Ammanas Shadowthrone, who was Kellanved– emperor of Malaz and conqueror of Seven Cities. Cotillion, who was Dancer– master of the Talon and the empire's deadliest assassin, deadlier even than Surly. Gods below, something breathes there... I now wonder, whose war is this?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Distracted by such troubling thoughts as he made his way to Bidithal's abode, it was a moment before Heboric realized that his name had been called. Eyes straining to focus as he searched for the originator of that call, he was suddenly startled by a hand settling on his shoulder.\n\n\"My apologies, Ghost Hands, if I frightened you.\"\n\n\"Ah, L'oric, \"Heboric replied, finally recognizing the tall, white-robed figure standing beside him.\"These are not your usual haunts, are they? '\n\nA slightly pained smile. \"I regret that my presence is seen as a haunting– unless of course your use of the word was unmindful.\"\n\n\"Careless, you mean. It was. I have been in the company of Leoman, inadvertently breathing fumes of durhang. What I meant was, I rarely see you in these parts, that is all.\"\n\n\"Thus explaining your perturbed expression,\" L'oric murmured.\n\nMeeting you, the durhang or Leoman? The tall mage– one of Sha'ik's three– was not by nature approachable, nor given to drama. Heboric had no idea which warren the man employed in his sorceries. Perhaps Sha'ik alone knew.\n\nAfter a moment, the High Mage resumed, \"Your route suggests a visit to a certain resident herein the Circle. Further, I sense a storm of emotions stirring around you, which could lead one to surmise the impending encounter will prove tumultuous.\"\n\n\"You mean we might argue, Bidithal and I,\" Heboric growled. \"Well yes, that's damned likely. '\n\n\"I myself have but recently departed his company,\" L'oric said.\"Perhaps a warning? He is much agitated over something, and so short of temper. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perhaps it was something you said,\" Heboric ventured.\n\n\"Entirely possible,\" the mage conceded. \"And if so, then I apologize.\"\n\n\"Fener's tusks, L'oric, what are you doing in this damned army of vipers?\"\n\nAgain the pained smile, then a shrug. \"Mathok's tribes have among them women and men who dance with flare-necked vipers– such as are sometimes found where grasses grow deep. It is a complicated and obviously dangerous dance, yet one possessed of a certain charm. There are attractions to such exercise. '\n\n\"You enjoy taking risks, even with your life.\"\n\n\"I might in turn ask why are you here, Heboric? Do you seek to return to your profession as historian, thus ensuring that the tale of Sha'ik and the Whirlwind will be told? Or are you indeed ensnared with loyalties to the noble cause of liberty? Surely, you cannot say you are both, can you? '\n\n\"I was a middling historian at best, L'oric, \"Heboric muttered, reluctant to elaborate on his reasons for remaining– none of which had any real relevance, since Sha'ik was not likely to let him leave in any case.\n\n\"You are impatient with me. I will leave you to your task, then.\" L'oric made a slight bow as he stepped back.\n\nWatching the man walkaway, Heboric stood motionless fora moment longer, then he resumed his journey. Bidithal was agitated, was he? An argument with L'oric, or something behind the veil? The High Mage's dwelling was before him now, the tent walls and peaked ceiling sun-faded and smoke-stained, a dusty smear of mottled magenta squatting above the thick foundation stones. Huddled just outside the flap entrance was a sunburned, filthy figure, mumbling in some foreign language, face hidden beneath long greasy strands of brown hair. The figure had no hands and no feet, the stumps showing old scar tissue yet still suppurating a milky yellow discharge. The man was using one of his wrist stumps to draw broad patterns in the thick dust, surrounding himself in linked chains, round and round, each pass obscuring what had been made before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This one belongs to Toblakai. His masterwork– Sulgar? Silgar. The Nathii. The man was one of the many crippled, diseased and destitute inhabitants of the Circle of Temples. Heboric wondered what had drawn him to Bidithal's tent.\n\nHe arrived at the entrance. In tribal fashion, the flap was tied back, the customary expansive gesture of invitation, the message one of ingenuousness. Ashe ducked to step through, Silgar stirred, head snapping up.\n\n\"Brother of mine! I've seen you before, yes! Maimed– we are kin! \"The language was a tangled mix of Nathii, Malazan and Ehrlii. The man's smile revealed a row of rotting teeth. \"Flesh and spirit, yes? We are, you and I, the only honest mortals here!\"\n\n\"If you say so,\" Heboric muttered, striding into Bidithal's home. Silgar's cackle followed him in.\n\nNo effort had been made to clean the sprawling chamber within. Bricks and rubble lay scattered across a floor of sand, broken mortar and potsherds. A half-dozen pieces of furniture were positioned here and therein the cavernous space. There was a large, low bed, wood-slatted and layered in thin mattresses. Four folding merchant chairs of the local three-legged kind faced onto the bed in a ragged row, as if Bidithal was in the habit of addressing an audience of acolytes or students. A dozen small oil lamps crowded the surface of a small table nearby.\n\nThe High Mage had his back to Heboric and most of the long chamber. A torch, fixed to a spear that had been thrust upright, its base mounded with stones and rubble, stood slightly behind Bidithal's left shoulder, casting the man's own shadow onto the tent wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A chill rippled through Heboric, for it seemed the High Mage was conversing in a language of gestures with his own shadow. Cast out in name only, perhaps. Still eager to play with Meanas. In the Whirlwind's name, or his own?\"High Mage, ' the ex-priest called.\n\nThe ancient, withered man slowly turned. \"Come tome,\" he rattled, \"I would experiment.\"\n\n\"Not the most encouraging invitation, Bidithal.\" But Heboric approached none the less.\n\nBidithal waved impatiently. \"Closer! I would see if your ghostly hands cast shadows.\"\n\nHeboric halted, stepped back with a shake of his head. \"No doubt you would, but I wouldn't. '\n\n\"Come!\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nThe dark wrinkled face twisted into a scowl, black eyes glittering. \"You are too eager to protect your secrets.\"\n\n\"And you aren't? '\n\n\"I serve the Whirlwind. Nothing else is important-\"\n\n\"Barring your appetites.\"\n\nThe High Mage cocked his head, then made a small, almost effeminate wave with one hand. \"Mortal necessities. Even when I was Rashan'ais, we saw no imperative to turn away from the pleasures of the flesh. Indeed, the interweaving of the shadows possesses great power. '\n\n\"And so you raped Sha'ik when she was but a child. And scourged from her all future chance at such pleasures as you now espouse. I see little logic in that, Bidithal– only sickness. '\n\n\"My purposes are beyond your ability to comprehend, Ghost Hands,\" the High Mage said with a smirk. \"You cannot wound me with such clumsy efforts.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'd been given to understand you were agitated, discomfited. '\n\n\"Ah, L'oric. Another stupid man. He mistook excitement for agitation, but I will say no more of that. Not to you. '\n\n\"Allow me to be equally succinct, Bidithal.\" Heboric stepped closer. \"If you even so much as look in Felisin's direction, these hands of mine will twist your head from your neck. '\n\n\"Felisin? Sha'ik's dearest? Do you truly believe she is a virgin? Before Sha'ik returned, the child was a waif, an orphan in the camp. None cared a whit about her-'\n\n\"None of which matters,\" Heboric said.\n\nThe High Mage turned away. \"Whatever you say, Ghost Hands. Hood knows, there are plenty of others-\"\n\n\"All now under Sha'ik's protection. Do you imagine she will permit such abuses from you?\"\n\n\"You shall have to ask her that yourself,\" Bidithal replied. \"Now leave me. You are guest no longer.\"\n\nHeboric hesitated, barely resisting an urge to kill the man now, this instant. Would it even be pre-emptive? Has he not as much as admitted to his crimes? But this was not a place of Malazan justice, was it? The only law that existed here was Sha'ik's. Nor will I be alone in this. Even Toblakai has vowed protection over Felisin. But what of the other children? Why does Sha'ik tolerate this, unless it is as Leoman has said. She needs Bidithal. Needs him to betray Febryl's plotting.\n\nYet what do I care for all of that? This... creature does not deserve to live." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Contemplating murder?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bidithal murmured, his back turned once more, his own shadow dancing on its own on the tent wall. \"You would not be the first, nor, I suspect, the last. I should warn you, however, this temple is newly resanctified. Take another step towards me, Ghost Hands, and you will seethe power of that.\"\n\n\"And you believe Sha'ik will permit you to kneel before Shadowthrone? '\n\nThe man whirled, his face black with rage. \"Shadowthrone? That... foreigner? The roots of Meanas are found in an elder warren! Once ruled by-\" he snapped his mouth shut, then smiled, revealing dark teeth. \"Not for you. Oh no, not for you, ex-priest. There are purposes within the Whirlwind– your existence is tolerated but little more than that. Challenge me, Ghost Hands, and you will know holy wrath.\"\n\nHeboric's answering grin was hard.\"I've known it before, Bidithal. Yet I remain. Purposes? Perhaps mine is to block your path. I'd advise you to think on that. '\n\nStepping outside once more, he paused briefly, blinking in the harsh sunlight. Silgar was nowhere to be seen, yet he had completed an elaborate pattern in the dust around Heboric's moccasins. Chains, surrounding a figure with stumps instead of hands... yet footed. The ex-priest scowled, kicking through the image as he set forth.\n\nSilgar was no artist. Heboric's own eyes were bad. Perhaps he'd seen only what his fears urged– it had been Silgar himself within the circle of chains the first time, after all. In any case, it was not important enough to make him turn back fora second look. Besides, his own steps had no doubt left it ruined." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "None of which explained the chill that clung to him as he walked beneath the searing sun.\n\nThe vipers were writhing in their pit, and he was in their midst.\n\nThe old scars of ligature damage made his ankles and wrists resemble segmented tree trunks, each pinched width encircling his limbs to remind him of those times, of every shackle that had snapped shut, every chain that had held him down. In his dreams, the pain reared like a thing alive once more, weaving mesmerizing through a tumult of confused, distraught scenes.\n\nThe old Malazan with no hands and the shimmering, near solid tattoo had, despite his blindness, seen clearly enough, seen those trailing ghosts, the wind-moaning train of deaths that stalked him day and night now, loud enough in Toblakai's mind to drown out the voice of Urugal, close enough to obscure his god's stone visage behind veil after veil of mortal faces– each and everyone twisted with the agony and fear that carved out the moment of dying. Yet the old man had not understood, not entirely. The children among those victims– children in terms of recently birthed, as the lowlanders used the word– had not all fallen to the bloodwood sword of Karsa Orlong. They were, one and all, the progeny that would never be, the bloodlines severed in the trophy-cluttered cavern of the Teblor's history.\n\nToblakai. A name of past glories, of a race of warriors who had stood alongside mortal Imass, alongside cold-miened Jaghut and demonic Forkrul Assail. A name by which Karsa Orlong was now known, as if he alone was the inheritor of elder dominators in a young, harsh world. Years ago, such a thought would have filled his chest with fierce, bloodthirsty pride. Now it racked him like a desert cough, weakened him deep in his bones. He saw what no-one else saw, that his new name was a title of polished, blinding irony." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Teblor were long fallen from Thelomen Toblakai. Mirrored reflections in flesh only. Kneeling like fools before seven blunt-featured faces carved into a cliffside. Valley dwellers, where every horizon was almost within reach. Victims of brutal ignorance– for which no-one else could be blamed– entwined with deceit, for which Karsa Orlong would seek a final accounting.\n\nHe and his people had been wronged, and the warrior who now strode between the dusty white boles of along-dead orchard would, one day, give answer to that.\n\nBut the enemy had so many faces...\n\nEven alone, as he was now, he longed for solitude. But it was denied him. The rattle of chains was unceasing, the echoing cries of the slain endless. Even the mysterious but palpable power of Raraku offered no surcease– Raraku itself, not the Whirlwind, for Toblakai knew that the Whirlwind was like a child to the Holy Desert's ancient presence, and it touched him naught. Raraku had known many such storms, yet it weathered them as it did all things, with untethered skin of sand and the solid truth of stone. Raraku was its own secret, the hidden bedrock that held the warrior in this place. From Raraku, Karsa believed, he would find his own truth.\n\nHe had knelt before Sha'ik Reborn, all those months ago. The young woman with the Malazan accent who'd stumbled into view half carrying her tattooed, handless pet. Knelt, not in servitude, not from resurrected faith, but in relief. Relief, that the waiting had ended, that he would be able to drag Leoman away from that place of failure and death. They had seen Sha'ik Elder murdered while under their protection. A defeat that had gnawed at Karsa. Yet he could not deceive himself into believing that the new Chosen One was anything but a hapless victim that the insane Whirlwind Goddess had simply plucked from the wilderness, a mortal tool that would be used with merciless brutality. That she had proved a willing participant in her own impending destruction was equally pathetic in Karsa's eyes. Clearly, the scarred young woman had her own reasons, and seemed eager for the power." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lead us, Warleader.\n\nThe words laughed bitterly through his thoughts as he wandered through the grove– the city almost a league to the east, the place where he now found himself a remnant outskirt of some other town. Warleaders needed such forces gathered around them, arrayed in desperate defence of self-delusion, of headlong singlemindedness. The Chosen One was more like Toblakai than she imagined, or, rather, a younger Toblakai, a Teblor commanding slayers– an army of two with which to deliver mayhem.\n\nSha'ik Elder had been something else entirely. She had lived long through her haunting, her visions of Apocalypse that had tugged and jerked her bones ever onward as if they were string-tied sticks. And she had seen truths in Karsa's soul, had warned him of the horrors to come– not in specific terms, for like all seers she had been cursed with ambiguity– but sufficient to awaken within Karsa a certain... watchfulness.\n\nAnd, it seemed, he did little else these days but watch. As the madness that was the soul of the Whirlwind Goddess seeped out like poison in the blood to infect every leader among the rebellion. Rebellion... oh, there was truth enough in that. But the enemy was not the Malazan Empire. It is sanity itself that they are rebelling against. Order. Honourable conduct. \"Rules of the common\", as Leoman called them, even as his consciousness sank beneath the opaque fumes of durhang. Yes, I would well understand his flight, were Ito believe what he would present to us all– the drifting layers of smoke in his pit, the sleepy look in his eyes, the slurred words... ah, but Leoman, I have never witnessed you actually partake of the drug. Only its apparent aftermath, the evidence scattered all about, and the descent into sleep that seems perfectly timed whenever you wish to close a conversation, end a certain discourse..." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Scribe for the author and continue the tale.\nTags: epic fantasy, character study, power struggles, resilience, destiny\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: House of Chains\nChapter: 18" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She shook her head. \"I have not that skill.\"\n\n\"Then why do you believe that the captain will join you in your cause?\"\n\n\"Because one of his sergeants is my brother– well, my half-brother. I don't know if he still lives, though... '\n\nHe settled a hand on her shoulder, ignoring the answering flinch. \"All right, lass. We will work together on this. You've your first ally. '\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nHe smiled unseen behind the cloth. \"Fayelle is with Korbolo Dom, yes? Well, I have a meeting pending with Korbolo. And with Kamist Reloe. So, we'll work together in convincing Captain Kindly. Agreed? '\n\n\"Agreed.\"\n\nThe relief in her voice sent a twinge through the assassin. She'd been alone for far too long in her deadly quest. In need of help... but with no-one around to whom she could turn. Just one more orphan in this Hood-cursed rebellion. He recalled his first sight of those thirteen hundred children he had unwittingly saved all those months back, his last time crossing this land. And there, in those faces, was the true horror of war. Those children had been alive when the carrion birds came down for their eyes... A shudder ran through him.\n\n\"What is wrong? You seemed faraway.\"\n\nHe met her eyes. \"No, lass, far closer than you think.\"\n\n\"Well, I have already done most of my work this night. Irriz and his warriors won't be worth much come the morning. '\n\n\"Oh? And what did you have planned for me?\"\n\n\"I wasn't sure. I was hoping that, with you upfront, you'd get killed quick. Captain Kindly's mage wouldn't go near you– he'd leave it to the soldiers with their crossbows. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And what of this hole you were to blast into the cliff-face?\"\n\n\"Illusion. I've been preparing for days. I think I can do it. '\n\nBrave and desperate. \"Well, lass, your efforts seem to have far outstripped mine in ambition. I'd intended a little mayhem and not much more. You mentioned that Irriz and his men wouldn't be worth much. What did you mean by that?\"\n\n\"I poisoned their water.\"\n\nKalam blanched behind his mask. \"Poison? What kind?\"\n\nTralb. '\n\nThe assassin said nothing fora long moment. Then, \"How much?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"All that the healer had. Four vials. He once said he used it to stop tremors, such as afflicted old people.\"\n\nAye. A drop. \"When?\"\n\n\"Not long ago.\"\n\n\"So, unlikely anyone's drunk it yet. '\n\n\"Except maybe a guard or two.\"\n\n\"Wait here, lass.\" Kalam set out, silent in the darkness, until he came within sight of the three warriors manning the picket. Earlier, they had been seated. That was no longer the case. But there was movement, low to the ground– he slipped closer.\n\nThe three figures were spasming, writhing, their limbs jerking. Foam caked their mouths and blood had started from their bulging eyes. They had fouled themselves. A waterskin lay nearby in a patch of wet sand that was quickly disappearing beneath a carpet of capemoths.\n\nThe assassin drew his pig-sticker. He would have to be careful, since to come into contact with blood, spit or any other fluid was to invite a similar fate. The warriors were doomed to suffer like this for what to them would bean eternity– they would still be spasming by dawn, and would continue to do so until either their hearts gave out or they died from dehydration. Horribly, with Tralb it was often the latter rather than the former." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He reached the nearest one." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Saw recognition in the man's leaking eyes. Kalam raised his knife. Relief answered the gesture. The assassin drove the narrow-bladed weapon down into the guard's left eye, angled upward. The body stiffened, then settled with a frothy sigh.\n\nHe quickly repeated the grisly task with the other two.\n\nThen meticulously cleaned his knife in the sand.\n\nCapemoths, wings rasping, were descending on the scene. Hunting rhizan quickly joined them. The air filled with the sound of crunching exoskeletons.\n\nKalam faced the camp. He would have to stove the casks. Enemies of the empire these warriors might be, but they deserved a more merciful death than this.\n\nA faint skittering sound spun him around.\n\nA rope had uncoiled down the cliff-face from the stone balcony. Figures began descending, silent and fast.\n\nThey had watchers.\n\nThe assassin waited.\n\nThree in all, none armed with more than daggers. As they came forward one halted while still a dozen paces distant.\n\nThe lead man drew up before the assassin. \"And who in Hood's name are you? ' he hissed, gold flashing from his teeth.\n\n\"A Malazan soldier,\" was Kalam's whispered reply.\"Is that your mage hanging back over there? I need his help. '\n\n\"He says he can't-'\n\n\"I know. My otataral long-knife. But he need not get close– all he has to do is empty this camp's water casks. '\n\n\"What for? There's a spring not fifty paces downtrail– they'll just get more.\"\n\n\"You've another ally here, \"Kalam said.\"She fouled the water with Tralb– what do you think afflicted these poor bastards? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The second man grunted. \"We was wondering. Not pleasant, what happened to them. Still, it's no less than they deserved. I say leave the water be. '\n\n\"Why not take the issue to Captain Kindly? He's the one making the decisions for you, right? '\n\nThe man scowled.\n\nHis companion spoke. \"That's not why we're down here. We're hereto retrieve you. And if there's another one, we'll take her, too. '\n\n\"To do what?\" Kalam demanded. He was about to say Starve? Die of thirst? but then he realized that neither soldier before him looked particularly gaunt, nor parched. \"You want to stay holed up in therefor ever?\"\n\n\"It suits us fine,\" the second soldier snapped. \"We could leave at anytime. There's back routes. But the question is, then what? Where do we go? The whole land is out for Malazan blood. '\n\n\"What is the last news you've heard? ' Kalam asked.\n\n\"We ain't heard any at all. Not since we quitted Ehrlitan. As far as we can see, Seven Cities ain't part of the Malazan Empire anymore, and there won't be nobody coming to get us. If there was, they'd have come long since.\"\n\nThe assassin regarded the two soldiers fora moment, then he sighed. \"All right, we need to talk. But not here. Let me get the lass– we'll go with you. On condition that your mage dome the favour I asked. '\n\n\"Not an even enough bargain,\" the second soldier said. \"Grab for us Irriz. We want a little sit-down with that flyblown corporal.\"\n\n\"Corporal? Didn't you know, he's a captain now. You want him. Fine. Your mage destroys the water in those casks. I'll send the lass your way– be kind to her. All of you head backup. I maybe awhile. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We can live with that deal.\"\n\nKalam nodded and made his way back to where he'd left Sinn.\n\nShe had not left her position, although instead of hiding she was dancing beneath one of the towers, spinning in the sand, arms floating, hands fluttering like capemoth wings.\n\nThe assassin hissed in warning as he drew near. She halted, saw him, and scurried over. \"You took too long! I thought you were dead!\"\n\nAnd so you danced? \"No, but those three guards are. I've made contact with the soldiers from the fortress. They've invited us inside– conditions seem amenable up there. I've agreed. '\n\n\"But what about the attack tomorrow?\"\n\n\"It will fail. Listen, Sinn, they can leave at anytime, unseen– we can be on our way into Raraku as soon as we can convince Kindly. Now, follow me– and quietly.\"\n\nThey returned to where the three Malazan imperials waited.\n\nKalam scowled at the squad mage, but he grinned in return. \"It's done. Easy when you're not around.\"\n\n\"Very well. This is Sinn– she's a mage as well. Goon, all of you. '\n\n\"Lady's luck to you, ' one of the soldiers said to Kalam.\n\nWithout replying, the assassin turned about and slipped back into the camp. He returned to his own tent, entered and crouched down beside his kit bag. Rummaging inside it, he drew out the pouch of diamonds and selected one at random.\n\nA moment's careful study, holding it close in the gloom. Murky shadows swam within the cut stone. Beware of shadows bearing gifts. He reached outside and dragged in one of the flat stones used to hold down the tent walls, and set the diamond onto its dusty surface." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bone whistle Cotillion had given him was looped on a thong around his neck. He pulled it clear and set it to his lips. \"Blow hard and you'll awaken all of them. Blow soft and directly atone in particular, and you'll awaken that one alone.\" Kalam hoped the god knew what he was talking about. Better if these weren't Shadowthrone's toys... He leaned forward until the whistle was a mere hand's width from the diamond.\n\nThen softly blew through it.\n\nThere was no sound. Frowning, Kalam pulled the whistle from his lips and examined it. He was interrupted by a soft tinkling sound.\n\nThe diamond had crumbled to glittering dust.\n\nFrom which a swirling shadow rose.\n\nAs I'd feared. Azalan. From a territory in the Shadow Realm bordering that of the Aptorians. Rarely seen, and nevermore than one at a time. Silent, seemingly incapable of language– how Shadowthrone commanded them was a mystery.\n\nSwirling, filling the tent, dropping to all six limbs, the spiny ridge of its massive, hunched back scraping against the fabric to either side of the ridge-pole. Blue, all-too-human eyes blinked out at Kalam from beneath a black-skinned, flaring, swept-back brow. Wide mouth, lower lip strangely protruding as if in eternal pout, twin slits fora nose. A mane of thin bluish-black hair hung in strands, tips brushing the tent floor. There was no indication of its gender. A complicated harness crisscrossed its huge torso, studded with a variety of weapons, not one of which seemed of practical use.\n\nThe azalan possessed no feet as such– each appendage ended in a wide, flat, short-fingered hand. The homeland of these demons was a forest, and these creatures commonly lived in the tangled canopy high overhead, venturing down to the gloomy forest floor only when summoned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Summoned..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "only to then be imprisoned in diamonds. If it was me, I'd be pretty annoyed by now.\n\nThe demon suddenly smiled.\n\nKalam glanced away, considering how to frame his request. Get Captain Irriz. Alive, but kept quiet. Join meat the rope. There would need to be some explaining to do, and with a beast possessing no language-\n\nThe azalan turned suddenly, nostrils twitching. The broad, squat head dipped down on its long, thickly muscled neck. Down to the tent's back wall at the base.\n\nWhere urine from the latrine pit had soaked through.\n\nA soft cluck, then the demon wheeled about and lifted a hind limb. Two penises dropped into view from a fold of flesh.\n\nTwin streams reached down to the sodden carpet.\n\nKalam reeled back at the stench, back, out through the flap and outside into the chill night air, where he remained, on hands and knees, gagging.\n\nA moment later the demon emerged. Lifted its head to test the air, then surged into the shadows– and was gone.\n\nIn the direction of the captain's tent.\n\nKalam managed a lungful of cleansing air, slowly brought his shuddering under control. \"All right, pup,\" he softly gasped, \"guess you read my mind.\" After a moment he rose into a crouch, reached back with breath held into the tent to retrieve his pack, then staggered towards the cliff-face.\n\nA glance back showed steam or smoke rising out from his tent's entrance, a whispering crackle slowly growing louder from within it.\n\nGods, who needs a vial of Tralb?\n\nHe padded swiftly to where the rope still dangled beneath the balcony." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A sputtering burst of flames erupted from where his tent had been.\n\nHardly an event to go unnoticed. Hissing a curse, Kalam sprinted for the rope.\n\nShouts rose from the camp. Then screams, then shrieks, each one ending in a strange mangled squeal.\n\nThe assassin skidded to a halt at the cliff-face, closed both hands on the rope, and began climbing. He was halfway up to the balcony when the limestone wall shook suddenly, puffing out dust. Pebbles rained down. And a hulking shape was now beside him, clinging to the raw, runnelled rock. Tucked under one arm was Irriz, unconscious and in his bedclothes. The azalan seemed to flow up the wall, hands gripping the rippled ribbons of shadow as if they were iron rungs. In moments the demon reached the balcony and swung itself over the lip and out of sight.\n\nAnd the stone ledge groaned.\n\nCracks snaked down.\n\nKalam stared upward to seethe entire balcony sagging, pulling away from the wall.\n\nHis moccasins slipped wildly as he tried to scrabble his way to one side. Then he saw long, unhuman hands close on the lip of the stone ledge. The sagging ceased.\n\nH-how in Hood's name-\n\nThe assassin resumed climbing. Moments later he reached the balcony and pulled himself over the edge.\n\nThe azalan was fully stretched over it. Two hands gripped the ledge. Three others held shadows on the cliffside above the small doorway. Shadows were unravelling from the demon like layers of skin, vaguely human shapes stretching out to hold the balcony to the wall– and being torn apart by the immense strain. As Kalam scrambled onto its surface, a grinding, crunching sound came from where the balcony joined the wall, and it dropped a hand's width along the seam." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The assassin launched himself towards the recessed doorway, where he saw a face in the gloom, twisted with terror– the squad mage.\n\n\"Back off!\" Kalam hissed. \"It's a friend! '\n\nThe mage reached out and clasped Kalam's forearm.\n\nThe balcony dropped away beneath the assassin even as he was dragged into the corridor.\n\nBoth men tumbled back, over Irriz's prone body.\n\nEverything shook as a tremendous thump sounded from below. The echoes were slow to fade.\n\nThe azalan swung in from under the lintel stone. Grinning.\n\nA short distance down the corridor crouched a squad of soldiers. Sinn had an arm wrapped round one of them– her half-brother, Kalam assumed as he slowly regained his feet.\n\nOne of the soldiers the assassin had met earlier moved forward, edging past the assassin and– with more difficulty– the azalan, back out to the edge. After a moment he called back. \"All quiet down there, Sergeant. The camp's a mess, though. Can't see anyone about...\"\n\nThe other soldier from before frowned. \"No-one, Bell?\"\n\n\"No. Like they all ran away.\"\n\nKalam offered nothing, though he had his suspicions. There was something about all those shadows in the demon's possession...\n\nThe squad mage had disentangled himself from Irriz and now said to the assassin, \"That's a damned frightening friend you have there. And it ain't imperial. Shadow Realm?\"\n\n\"A temporary ally,\" Kalam replied with a shrug.\n\n\"How temporary?\"\n\nThe assassin faced the sergeant. \"Irriz has been delivered– what do you plan on doing with him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Haven't decided yet. The lass here says you're named Ulfas. Would that be right? A Genabackan Barghast name? Wasn't there a war chief by that name? Killed at Blackdog. '\n\n\"I wasn't about to tell Irriz my real name, Sergeant. I'm a Bridgeburner. Kalam Mekhar, rank of corporal.\"\n\nThere was silence.\n\nThen the mage sighed. \"Wasn't you outlawed? '\n\n\"A feint, one of the Empress's schemes. Dujek needed a freehand fora time. '\n\n\"All right,\" the sergeant said. \"It don't matter if you're telling the truth or not. We've heard of you. I'm Sergeant Cord. The company mage here is Ebron. That's Bell, and Corporal Shard. '\n\nThe corporal was Sinn's half-brother, and the young man's face was blank, no doubt numbed by the shock of Sinn's sudden appearance.\n\n\"Where's Captain Kindly? '\n\nCord winced. \"The rest of the company– what's left, is down below. We lost the captain and the lieutenant a few days ago. '\n\n\"Lost? How?\"\n\n\"They, uh, they fell down a well shaft. Drowned. Or so Ebron found out, once he climbed down and examined the situation more closely. It's fast-running, an underground river. They were swept away, the poor bastards. '\n\n\"And how do two people fall down a well shaft, Sergeant?\"\n\nThe man bared his gold teeth. \"Exploring, I imagine. Now, Corporal, it seems I outrank you. In fact, I'm the only sergeant left. Now, if you aren't outlawed, then you're still a soldier of the empire. And as a soldier of the empire... '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You have me there,\" Kalam muttered.\n\n\"For now, you'll be attached to my old squad. You've got seniority over Corporal Shard, so you'll be in charge. '\n\n\"Very well, and what's the squad's complement?\"\n\n\"Shard, Bell and Limp. You've met Bell. Limp's down below. He broke his leg in a rock-slide, but he's mending fast. There's fifty-one soldiers in all. Second Company, Ashok Regiment.\"\n\n\"It seems your besiegers are gone,\" Kalam observed. \"The world hasn't been entirely still while you've been shut up inhere, Sergeant. I think I should tell you what I know. There are alternatives to waiting here– no matter how cosy it might be– until we all die of old age... or drowning accidents.\"\n\n\"Aye, Corporal. You'll make your report. And if I want to ask for advice on what to do next, you'll be first inline. Now, enough with the opinions. Time to go below– and I suggest you find a leash for that damned demon. And tell it to stop smiling.\"\n\n\"You'll have to tell it yourself, Sergeant, ' Kalam drawled.\n\nEbron snapped, \"The Malazan Empire don't need allies from the Shadow Realm– get rid of it! '\n\nThe assassin glanced over at the mage. \"As I said earlier, changes have come, Mage. Sergeant Cord, you're entirely welcome to try throwing a collar round this azalan's neck. But I should tell you first– even though you're not asking for my advice– that even though those weird gourds, pans and knobby sticks strapped onto the beast's belts don't look like weapons, this azalan has just taken the lives of over five hundred rebel warriors. And how long did that take? Maybe fifty heartbeats. Does it do what I ask? Now that's a question worth pondering, don't you think? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cord studied Kalam fora long moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you threatening me?\"\n\n\"Having worked alone for sometime, Sergeant,\" the assassin replied in a low voice, \"my skin's grown thin. I'll take your squad. I'll even follow your orders, unless they happen to be idiotic. If you have a problem with all this, take it up with my own sergeant next time you see him. That'd be Whiskeyjack. Apart from the Empress herself, he's the only man I answer to. You want to make use of me? Fine. My services are available to you... fora time. '\n\n\"He's on some secret mission, \"Ebron muttered.\"For the Empress, is my guess. He's probably back in the Claw– that's where he started, after all, isn't it?\"\n\nCord looked thoughtful, then he shrugged and turned away. \"This is making my headache. Let's get below. '\n\nKalam watched the sergeant push between the clump of soldiers crowding the corridor. Something tells me I'm not going to enjoy this much.\n\nSinn danced a step.\n\nA blurred sword of dark iron rose along the horizon, a massive, bruised blade that flickered as it swelled ever larger. The wind had fallen off, and it seemed that the island in the path of the sword's tip grew no closer. Cutter moved up to the lone mast and began storm-rigging the luffing sail.\"I'm going to man the sweeps fora while,\" he said. \"Will you take the tiller?\"\n\nWith a shrug Apsalar moved to the stern.\n\nThe storm still lay behind the island of Drift Avalii, over which hung a seemingly permanent, immovable bank of heavy clouds. Apart from a steeply rising shoreline, there seemed to be no high ground; the forest of cedars, firs and redwoods looked impenetrable, their boles ever cloaked in gloom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cutter stared at the island fora moment longer, then gauged the pace of the approaching storm. He settled onto the bench behind the mast and collected the sweeps. \"We might make it,\" he said, as he dropped the oar blades into the murky water and pulled.\n\n\"The island will shatter it,\" Apsalar replied.\n\nHe narrowed his eyes on her. It was the first time in days that she had ventured a statement without considerable prodding on his part. \"Well, I may have crossed a damned ocean, but I still understand nothing of the sea. Why should an island without a single mountain break that storm?\"\n\n\"A normal island wouldn't, ' she answered.\n\n\"Ah, I see.\" He fell silent. Her knowledge came from Cotillion's memories, appearing to add yet another layer to Apsalar's miseries. The god was with them once more, a haunting presence between them. Cutter had told her of the spectral visitation, of Cotillion's words. Her distress– and barely constrained fury– seemed to originate from the god's recruitment of Cutter himself.\n\nHis choosing of his new name had displeased her from the very first, and that he had now become, in effect, a minion of the patron god of assassins appeared to wound her deeply. He had been naive, it now seemed in retrospect, to have believed that such a development would bring them closer.\n\nApsalar was not happy with her own path– a realization that had rocked the Daru. She drew no pleasure or satisfaction from her own cold, brutal efficiency as a killer. Cutter had once imagined that competency was a reward in itself, that skill bred its own justification, creating its own hunger and from that hunger a certain pleasure. A person was drawn to his or her own proficiency– back in Darujhistan, after all, his thieving habits had not been the product of necessity. He'd suffered no starvation on the city's streets, no depredation by its crueller realities. He had stolen purely for pleasure, and because he had been good at it. A future as a master thief had seemed a worthy goal, notoriety indistinguishable from respect." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But now, Apsalar was trying to tell him that competence was not justification. That necessity demanded its own path and there was no virtue to be found at its heart.\n\nHe'd found himself at subtle war with her, the weapons those of silence and veiled expressions.\n\nHe grunted at the sweeps. The seas were growing choppy. \"Well, I hope you're right, \"he said.\"We could do with the shelter... though from what the Rope said, there will be trouble among the denizens of Drift Avalii. '\n\n\"Tiste Andii,\" Apsalar said. \"Anomander Rake's own. He settled them there, to guard the Throne. '\n\n\"Do you recall Dancer– or Cotillion– speaking with them?\"\n\nHer dark eyes flicked to his fora moment, then she looked away. \"It was a short conversation. These Tiste Andii have known isolation for far too long. Their master left them there, and has never returned.\"\n\n\"Never?\"\n\n\"There are... complications. The shore ahead offers no welcome– see for yourself.\"\n\nHe drew the oars back in and twisted round on the seat.\n\nThe shoreline was a dull grey sandstone, wave-worn into undulating layers and shelves. \"Well, we can draw up easily enough, but I see what you mean. No place to pull the runner up, and tethering it risks battering by the waves. Any suggestions?\"\n\nThe storm– or the island– was drawing breath, tugging the sail. They were quickly closing on the rocky coast.\n\nThe sky's rumbles were nearer now, and Cutter could seethe wavering treetops evincing the arrival of a high and fierce wind, stretching the clouds above the island into long, twisting tendrils." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have no suggestions,\" Apsalar finally replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There is another concern– currents.\"\n\nAnd he could see now. The island did indeed drift, unmoored to the sea bottom. Spinning vortices roiled around the sandstone. Water was pulled under, flung back out, seething all along the shoreline. \"Beru fend us,\" Cutter muttered, \"this won't be easy. ' He scrambled to the bow.\n\nApsalar swung the runner onto a course parallel to the shore. \"Look fora shelf low to the water,\" she called. \"We might be able to drag the boat onto it.\"\n\nCutter said nothing to that. It would take four or more strongmen to manage such a task... but at least we'd get onto shore in one piece. The currents tugged at the hull, throwing the craft side to side. A glance back showed Apsalar struggling to steady the tiller.\n\nThe dull grey sandstone revealed, in its countless shelves and modulations, a history of constantly shifting sea levels. Cutter had no idea how an island could float. If sorcery was responsible, then its power was vast, and yet, it seemed, far from perfect.\n\n\"There!\" he shouted suddenly, pointing ahead where the coast's undulations dropped to a flat stretch barely a hand's width above the roiling water.\n\n\"Get ready,\" Apsalar instructed, half rising from her seat.\n\nClambering up alongside the prow, a coil of rope in his left hand, Cutter prepared to leap onto the shelf. As they drew closer, he could see that the stone ledge was thin, deeply undercut.\n\nThey swiftly closed. Cutter jumped.\n\nHe landed square-footed, knees flexing into a crouch.\n\nThere was a sharp crack, then the stone was falling away beneath his moccasined feet. Cold water swept around his ankles. Unbalanced, the Daru pitched backward with a yelp. Behind him, the boat rushed inward on the wave that tumbled into the sinking shelf's wake. Cutter plunged into deep water, even as the encrusted hull rolled over him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The currents yanked him downward into icy darkness. His left heel thumped against the island's rock, the impact softened by a thick skin of seaweed.\n\nDown, a terrifyingly fast plummet into the deep.\n\nThen the rock wall was gone, and he was pulled by the currents under the island.\n\nA roar filled his head, the sound of rushing water. His last lungful of air was dwindling to nothing in his chest. Something hard hammered into his side– apiece of the runner's hull, wreckage being dragged by the currents– their boat had overturned. Either Apsalar was somewhere in the swirling water with him, or she had managed to leap onto solid sandstone. He hoped it was the latter, that they would not both drown– for drowning was all that was left to him.\n\nSorry, Cotillion. I hope you did not expect too much of me-\n\nHe struck stone once more, was rolled along it, then the current tugged him upward and suddenly spat him loose.\n\nHe flailed with his limbs, clawing the motionless water, his pulse pounding in his head. Disorientated, panic ripping through him like wildfire, he reached out one last time.\n\nHis right hand plunged into cold air.\n\nA moment later his head broke the surface.\n\nIcy, bitter air poured into his lungs, as sweet as honey. There was no light, and the sounds of his gasping returned no echoes, seeming to vanish in some unknown immensity.\n\nCutter called out to Apsalar, but there was no reply.\n\nHe was swiftly growing numb. Choosing a random direction, he set out.\n\nAnd quickly struck a stonewall, thick with wet, slimy growth. He reached up, found only sheerness. He swam along it, his limbs weakening, a deadly lassitude stealing into him. He struggled on, feeling his will seep away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then his outstretched hand slapped down onto the flat surface of a ledge. Cutter threw both arms onto the stone. His legs, numbed by the cold, pulled at him. Moaning, he sought to drag himself out of the water, but his strength was failing. Fingers gouging tracks through the slime, he slowly sank backward.\n\nA pair of hands closed, one on each shoulder, to gather the sodden fabric in a grip hard as iron. He felt himself lifted clear from the water, then dropped onto the ledge.\n\nWeeping, Cutter lay unmoving. Shivers racked him.\n\nEventually, a faint crackling sound reached through, seeming to come from all sides. The air grew warmer, a dull glow slowly rising.\n\nThe Daru rolled onto his side. He had expected to see Apsalar. Instead, standing above him was an old man, extraordinarily tall, his white hair long and dishevelled, white-bearded though his skin was black as ebony, with eyes a deep, glittering amber– the sole source, Cutter realized with a shock– of the light.\n\nAll around them, the seaweed was drying, shrivelling, as waves of heat radiated from the stranger.\n\nThe ledge was only a few paces wide, a single lip of slick stone flanked by vertical walls stretching out to the sides.\n\nSensation was returning to Cutter's legs, his clothes steaming now in the heat. He struggled into a sitting position.\"Thank you, sir, ' he said in Malazan.\n\n\"Your craft has littered the pool,\" the man replied. \"I suppose you will want some of the wreckage recovered.\"\n\nCutter twisted to stare out on the water, but could see nothing. \"I had a companion-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You arrived alone. It is probable that your companion drowned. Only one current delivers victims here. The rest lead only to death. On the isle itself, there is but one landing, and you did not find it. Few corpses of late, of course, given our distance from occupied lands. And the end of trade.\"\n\nHis words were halting, as if rarely used, and he stood awkwardly.\n\nShe drowned? More likely she made it onto shore. Not for Apsalar the ignoble end that almost took me. Then again... She was not yet immortal, as subject to the world's cruel indifference as anyone. He pushed the thought away for the moment.\n\n\"Are you recovered?\"\n\nCutter glanced up. \"How did you find me?\"\n\nA shrug. \"It is my task. Now, if you can walk, it is time to leave.\"\n\nThe Daru pushed himself to his feet. His clothing was almost dry. \"You possess unusual gifts,\" he observed. \"I am named... Cutter.\"\n\n\"You may call me Darist. We must not delay. The very presence of life in this place risks his awakening.\"\n\nThe ancient Tiste Andii turned to face the stonewall. At a gesture, a doorway appeared, beyond which were stone stairs leading upward. \"That which survived the wrecking of your craft awaits you above, Cutter. Come.\"\n\nThe Daru set off after the man. \"Awakening? Who might awaken?\"\n\nDarist did not reply.\n\nThe steps were worn and slick, the ascent steep and seemingly interminable. The cold water had stolen Cutter's strength, and his pace grew ever slower. Again and again Darist paused to await him, saying nothing, his expression closed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They eventually emerged onto a level hallway down which ran, along the walls, pillars of rough-skinned cedars. The air was musty and damp beneath the sharp scent of the wood. There was no-one else insight. \"Darist,\" Cutter asked as they walked down the aisle, \"are we still beneath ground level?\"\n\n\"We are, but we shall proceed no higher for the time being. The island is assailed.\"\n\n\"What? By whom? What of the Throne?\"\n\nDarist halted and swung round, the glow in his eyes somehow deepening. \"A question carelessly unasked. What has brought you, human, to Drift Avalii?\"\n\nCutter hesitated. There was no love lost between the present rulers of Shadow and the Tiste Andii. Nor had Cotillion even remotely suggested actual contact be made with the Children of Darkness. They had been placed here, after all, to ensure that the true Throne of Shadow remain unoccupied. \"I was sent by a mage– a scholar, whose studies had led him to believe the island– and all it contained– was in danger. He seeks to discover the nature of that threat.\"\n\nDarist was silent fora moment, his lined face devoid of expression. Then he said, \"What is this scholar's name? '\n\n\"Uh, Baruk. Do you know him? He lives in Darujhistan-\"\n\n\"What lies in the world beyond the island is of no concern tome,\" the Tiste Andii replied.\n\nAnd that, old man, is why you're in this mess. Cotillion was right.\"The Tiste Edur have returned, haven't they? To reclaim the Throne of Shadow. But it was Anomander Rake who left you here, entrusted with-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He lives still, does he?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If Mother Dark's favoured son is displeased with how we have managed this task, then he must come and tell us so himself. It was not some human mage who sent you here, was it? Do you kneel before the Wielder of Dragnipur? Does he renew his claims to the blood of the Tiste Andii, then? Has he renounced his Draconian blood? '\n\n\"I wouldn't know-'\n\n\"Does he now appear as an old man-older by far than me? Ah, I see by your face the truth of it. He has not. Well, you may go back to him and tell him-\"\n\n\"Wait! I do not serve Rake! Aye, I saw him in person, and not very long ago, and he looked young enough at the time. But I did not kneel to him– Hood knows, he was too busy at the time in any case! Too busy fighting a demon to converse with me! We but crossed paths. I don't know what you're talking about, Darist. Sorry. And I am most certainly not in any position to find him and tell him whatever it is you want me to say to him.\"\n\nThe Tiste Andii studied Cutter fora moment longer, then he swung about and resumed the journey.\n\nThe Daru followed, his thoughts wild with confusion. It was one thing to accept the charge of a god, but the further he travelled on this dread path, the more insignificant he himself felt. Arguments between Anomander Rake and these Tiste Andii of Drift Avalii... well, that was no proper business of his. The plan had been to sneak onto this island and remain unseen. To determine if indeed the Edur had found this place, though what Cotillion would do with such knowledge was anyone's guess." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But that's something I should think about, I suppose. Damn it, Cutter-Crokus would've had questions! Mowri knows, he would've hesitated a lot longer before accepting Cotillion's bargain. If he accepted at all! This new persona was imposing a certain sense of stricture– he'd thought it would bring him more freedom. But now it was beginning to appear that the truly free one had been Crokus.\n\nNot that freedom ensured happiness. Indeed, to be free was to live in absence. Of responsibilities, of loyalties, of the pressures that expectation imposed. Ah, misery has tainted my views. Misery, and the threat of true grieving, which draws nearer– but no, she must be alive. Somewhere up above. On an island assailed...\n\n\"Darist, please, wait a moment.\"\n\nThe tall figure stopped. \"I see no reason to answer your questions.\"\n\n\"I am concerned... for my companion. If she's alive, she's somewhere above us, on the surface. You said you were under attack. I fear for her-\"\n\n\"We sense the presence of strangers, Cutter. Above us, there are Tiste Edur. But no-one else. She is drowned, this companion of yours. There is no point in holding out hope.\"\n\nThe Daru sat down suddenly. He felt sick, his heart stuttering with anguish. And despair.\n\n\"Death is not an unkind fate,\" Darist said above him. \"If she was a friend, you will miss her company, and that is the true source of your grief– your sorrow is for yourself. My words may displease you, but I speak from experience. I have felt the deaths of many of my kin, and I mourn the spaces in my life where they once stood. But such losses serve only to ease my own impending demise.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cutter stared up at the Tiste Andii. \"Darist, forgive me. You maybe old, but you are also a damned fool. And I begin to understand why Rake left you here then forgot about you. Now, kindly shut up.\" He pushed himself upright, feeling hollowed out inside, but determined not to surrender to the despair that threatened to overwhelm him. Because surrendering is what this Tiste Andii has done.\n\n\"Your anger leaves me undamaged,\" Darist said. He turned and gestured to the double doors directly ahead. \"Through here you will find a place to rest. Your salvage awaits there, as well.\"\n\n\"Will you tell me nothing of the battle above?\"\n\n\"What is thereto tell you, Cutter? We have lost.\"\n\n\"Lost! Who is left among you?\"\n\n\"Here in the Hold, where stands the Throne, there is only me. Now, best rest. We shall have company soon enough.\"\n\nThe howls of rage reverberated through Onrack's bones, though he knew his companion could hear nothing. These were cries of the spirits– two spirits, trapped within two of the towering, bestial statues rearing upon the plain before them.\n\nThe cloud cover overhead had broken apart, was fast vanishing in thinning threads. Three moons rode the heavens, and there were two suns. The light flowed with shifting hues as the moons swung on their invisible tethers. A strange, unsettling world, Onrack reflected.\n\nThe storm was spent. They had waited in the lee of a small hill while it thrashed around the gargantuan statues, the wind howling past from its wild race through the rubble-littered streets of the ruined city lying beyond. And now the air steamed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do you see, T'lan Imass? ' Trull asked from where he sat hunched, his back to the edifices.\n\nShrugging, the T'lan Imass turned away from his lengthy study of the statues.\"There are mysteries here... of which I suspect you know more than I. '\n\nThe Tiste Edur glanced up with awry expression. \"That seems unlikely. What do you know of the Hounds of Shadow?\"\n\n\"Very little. The Logros crossed paths with them only once, long ago, in the time of the First Empire. Seven in number. Serving an unknown master, yet bent on destruction.\"\n\nTrull smiled oddly, then asked, \"The human First Empire, or yours?\"\n\n\"I know little of the human empire of that name. We were drawn into its heart but once, Trull Sengar, in answer to the chaos of the Soletaken and D'ivers. The Hounds made no appearance during that slaughter. \"Onrack looked back at the massive stone Hound before them.\"It is believed, \"he said slowly,\"by the bonecasters, that to create an icon of a spirit or a god is to capture its essence within that icon. Even the laying of stones prescribes confinement. Just as a hut can measure out the limits of power fora mortal, so too are spirits and gods sealed into a chosen place of earth or stone or wood... or an object. In this way power is chained, and so becomes manageable. Tell me, do the Tiste Edur concur with that notion? '\n\nTrull Sengar climbed to his feet. \"Do you think we raised these giant statues, Onrack? Do your bonecasters also believe that power begins as a thing devoid of shape, and thus beyond control? And that to carve out an icon– or make a circle of stones– actually forces order upon that power?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Onrack cocked his head, was silent fora time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then it must be that we make our own gods and spirits. That belief demands shape, and shaping brings life into being. Yet were not the Tiste Edur fashioned by Mother Dark? Did not your goddess create you?\"\n\nTrull's smile broadened.\"I was referring to these statues, Onrack. To answer you– I do not know if the hands that fashioned these were Tiste Edur. As for Mother Dark, it maybe that in creating us, she but simply separated what was not separate before. '\n\n\"Are you then the shadows of Tiste Andii? Torn free by the mercy of your goddess mother?\"\n\n\"But Onrack, we are all torn free.\"\n\n\"Two of the Hounds are here, Trull Sengar. Their souls are trapped in the stone. And one more thing of note– these likenesses cast no shadows.\"\n\n\"Nor do the Hounds themselves.\"\n\n\"If they are but reflections, then there must be Hounds of Darkness, from which they were torn,\" Onrack persisted. \"Yet there is no knowledge of such...\" The T'lan Imass suddenly fell silent.\n\nTrull laughed. \"It seems you know more of the human First Empire than you first indicated. What was that tyrant emperor's name? No matter. We should journey onward, to the gate-'\n\n\"Dessimbelackis,\" Onrack whispered. \"The founder of the human First Empire. Long vanished by the time of the unleashing of the Beast Ritual. It was believed he had... veered.\"\n\n\"D'ivers? '\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"And beasts numbered?\"\n\n\"Seven.\"\n\nTrull stared up at the statues, then gestured. \"We didn't build these. No, I am not certain, but in my heart I feel... no empathy. They are ominous and brutal to my eyes, T'lan Imass. The Hounds of Shadow are not worthy of worship. They are indeed untethered, wild and deadly. To truly command them, one must sit in the Throne of Shadow– as master of the realm. But more than that. One must first draw together the disparate fragments. Making Kurald Emurlahn whole once more.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And this is what your kin seek,\" Onrack rumbled. \"The possibility troubles me.\"\n\nThe Tiste Edur studied the T'lan Imass, then shrugged.\"I did not share your distress at the prospect– not at first. And indeed, had it remained... pure, perhaps I would still be standing alongside my brothers. But another power acts behind the veil in all this– I know not who or what, but I would tear aside that veil. '\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nTrull seemed startled by the question, then he shivered. \"Because what it has made of my people is an abomination, Onrack.\"\n\nThe T'lan Imass set out towards the gap between the two nearest statues.\n\nAfter a moment, Trull Sengar followed. \"I imagine you know little of what it is like to see your kin fall into dissolution, to seethe spirit of an entire people grow corrupt, to struggle endlessly to open their eyes– as yours have been opened by whatever clarity chance has gifted you.\"\n\n\"True,\" Onrack replied, his steps thumping the sodden ground.\n\n\"Nor is it mere naïveté,\" the Tiste Edur went on, limping in Onrack's wake.\"Our denial is wilful, our studied indifference conveniently self-serving to our basest desires. We area long-lived people who now kneel before short-term interests-'\n\n\"If you find that unusual,\" the T'lan Imass muttered,\"then it follows that the one behind the veil has need for you only in the short term– if indeed that hidden power is manipulating the Tiste Edur. '\n\n\"An interesting thought. You may well be right. The question then is, once that short-term objective is reached, what will happen to my people?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Things that outlive their usefulness are discarded,\" Onrack replied.\n\n\"Abandoned. Yes-\"\n\n\"Unless, of course,\" the T'lan Imass went on,\"they would then pose a threat to one who had so exploited them. If so, then the answer would be to annihilate them once they are no longer useful. '\n\n\"There is the unpleasant ring of truth to your words, Onrack.\"\n\n\"I am generally unpleasant, Trull Sengar.\"\n\n\"So I am learning. You say the souls of two Hounds are imprisoned within these– which ones again?\"\n\n\"We now walk between them.\"\n\n\"What are they doing here, I wonder?\"\n\n\"The stone has been shaped to encompass them, Trull Sengar. No-one asks the spirit or the god, when the icon is fashioned, if it wishes entrapment. Do they? The need to make such vessels is a mortal's need. That one can rest eyes on the thing one worships is an assertion of control at worst, or at best the illusion that one can negotiate over one's own fate.\"\n\n\"And you find such notions suitably pathetic, Onrack?\"\n\n\"I find most notions pathetic, Trull Sengar.\"\n\n\"Are these beasts trapped for eternity, do you think? Is this where they go when they are destroyed?\"\n\nOnrack shrugged. \"I have no patience with these games. You possess your own knowledge and suspicions, yet would not speak them. Instead, you seek to discover what I know, and what I sense of these snared spirits. I care nothing for the fate either way of these Hounds of Shadow. Indeed, I find it unfortunate that– if these two were slain in some other realm and so have ended up here– there are but five remaining, for that diminishes my chances of killing one myself. And I think I would enjoy killing a Hound of Shadow.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Tiste Edur's laugh was harsh.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Well, I won't deny that confidence counts fora lot. Even so, Onrack of the Logros, I do not think you would walkaway from a violent encounter with a Hound.\"\n\nThe T'lan Imass halted and swung towards Trull Sengar.\"There is stone, and there is stone. '\n\n\"I am afraid I do not understand-\"\n\nIn answer, Onrack unsheathed his obsidian sword. He strode up to the nearer of the two statues. The creature's forepaw was itself taller than the T'lan Imass. He raised his weapon two-handed, then swung a blow against the dark, unweathered stone.\n\nAn ear-piercing crack ripped the air.\n\nOnrack staggered, head tilting back as fissures shot up through the enormous edifice.\n\nIt seemed to shiver, then exploded into a towering cloud of dust.\n\nYelling, Trull Sengar leapt back, scrambling as the billowing dust rolled outward to engulf him.\n\nThe cloud hissed around Onrack. He righted himself, then dropped into a fighting stance as a darker shape appeared through the swirling grey haze.\n\nA second concussion thundered– this time behind the T'lan Imass– as the other statue exploded. Darkness descended as the twin clouds blotted out the sky, closing the horizons to no more than a dozen paces on all sides.\n\nThe beast that emerged before Onrack was as tall at the shoulder as Trull Sengar's full height. Its hide was colourless, and its eyes burned black. Abroad, flat head, small ears...\n\nFaint through the grey gloom, something of the two suns' light, and that reflected from the moons, reached down– to cast beneath the Hound a score of shadows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The beast bared fangs the size of tusks, lips peeling back in a silent snarl that revealed blood-red gums.\n\nThe Hound attacked.\n\nOnrack's blade was a midnight blur, flashing to kiss the creature's thick, muscled neck– but the swing cut only dusty air. The T'lan Imass felt enormous jaws close about his chest. He was yanked from his feet. Bones splintered. A savage shake that ripped the sword from his hands, then he wassailing through the grainy gloom-\n\nTo be caught with a grinding snap by a second pair of jaws.\n\nThe bones of his left arm shattered into a score of pieces within its taut hide of withered skin, then it was torn entirely from his body.\n\nAnother crunching shake, then he was thrown into the air once more. To crash in a splintered heap on the ground, where he rolled once, then was still.\n\nThere was thunder in Onrack's skull. He thought to fall to dust, but for the first time he possessed neither the will nor, it seemed, the capacity to do so.\n\nThe power was shorn from him– the Vow had been broken, ripped away from his body. He was now, he realized, as those of his fallen kin, the ones that had sustained so much physical destruction that they had ceased to be one with the T'lan Imass.\n\nHe lay unmoving, and felt the heavy tread of one of the Hounds as it padded up to stand over him. A dust-and shard-flecked muzzle nudged him, pushed at the broken ribs of his chest. Then lifted away. He listened to its breathing, the sound like waves riding a tide into caves, could feel its presence like a heaviness in the damp air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After along moment, Onrack realized that the beast was no longer looming over him. Nor could he hear the heavy footfalls through the wet earth. As if it and its companion had simply vanished.\n\nThen the scrape of boots close by, a pair of hands dragging him over, onto his back.\n\nTrull Sengar stared down at him. \"I do not know if you can still hear me,\" he muttered. \"But if it is any consolation, Onrack of the Logros, those were not Hounds of Shadow. Oh, no, indeed. They were the real ones. The Hounds of Darkness, my friend. I dread to think what you have freed here...\"\n\nOnrack managed a reply, his words a soft rasp. \"So much for gratitude.\"\n\nTrull Sengar dragged the shattered T'lan Imass to a low wall at the city's edge, where he propped the warrior into a sitting position. \"I wish I knew what else I could do for you,\" he said, stepping back.\n\n\"If my kin were present,\" Onrack said, \"they would complete the necessary rites. They would sever my head from my body, and find for it a suitable place so that I might lookout upon eternity. They would dismember the headless corpse and scatter the limbs. They would take my weapon, to return it to the place of my birth.\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\n\"Of course, you cannot do such things. Thus, I am forced into continuation, despite my present condition.\" With that, Onrack slowly clambered upright, broken bones grinding and crunching, splinters falling away.\n\nTrull grunted, \"You could have done that before I dragged you.\"\n\n\"I regret most the loss of an arm,\" the T'lan Imass said, studying the torn muscles of his left shoulder.\"My sword is most effective when in the grip of two hands. \"He staggered over to where the weapon lay in the mud. Part of his chest collapsed when he leaned down to retrieve it. Straightening, Onrack faced Trull Sengar.\"I am no longer able to sense the presence of gates. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They should be obvious enough,\" the Tiste Edur replied. \"I expect near the centre of the city. We are quite a pair, aren't we? '\n\n\"I wonder why the Hounds did not kill you.\"\n\n\"They seemed eager to leave.\" Trull set off down the street directly opposite, Onrack following. \"I am not even certain they noticed me– the dust cloud was thick. Tell me, Onrack. If there were other T'lan Imass here, then they would have done all those things to you? Despite the fact that you remain... functional? '\n\n\"Like you, Trull Sengar, I am now shorn. From the Ritual. From my own kind. My existence is now without meaning. The final task left tome is to seek out the other hunters, to do what must be done.\"\n\nThe street was layered in thick, wet silt. The low buildings to either side, torn away above the ground level, were similarly coated, smoothing every edge– as if the city was in the process of melting. There was no grand architecture, and the rubble in the streets revealed itself to belittle more than fired bricks. There was no sign of life anywhere.\n\nThey continued on, their pace torturously slow. The street slowly broadened, forming avast concourse flanked by pedestals that had once held statues. Brush and uprooted trees marred the vista, all a uniform grey that gradually assumed an unearthly hue beneath the now-dominant blue sun, which in turn painted a large moon the colour of magenta.\n\nAt the far end was abridge, over what had once been a river but was now filled with silt. A tangled mass of detritus had ridden upon one side of the bridge, spilling flotsam onto the walkway. Among the garbage lay a small box." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trull angled over towards it as they reached the bridge. He crouched down. \"It seems well sealed,\" he said, reaching out to pry the clasp loose, then lifting the lid. \"That's odd. Looks like clay pots. Small ones... '\n\nOnrack moved up alongside the Tiste Edur. \"They are Moranth munitions, Trull Sengar.\"\n\nThe Tiste Edur glanced up. \"I have no knowledge of such things.\"\n\n\"Weapons. Explosive when the clay breaks. They are generally thrown. As far as is possible. Have you heard of the Malazan Empire?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Human. From my birth realm. These munitions belong to that empire.\"\n\n\"Well, that is troubling indeed– for why are they here?\"\n\n\"I do not know.\"\n\nTrull Sengar closed the lid and collected the box. \"While I would prefer a sword, these will have to do. I was not pleased at being unarmed for so long.\"\n\n\"There is a structure beyond– an arch.\"\n\nStraightening, the Tiste Edur nodded. \"Aye. It is what we seek.\"\n\nThey continued on.\n\nThe arch stood on pedestals in the centre of a cobbled square. Floodwaters had carried silt to its mouth where it had dried in strange, jagged ridges. As the two travellers came closer, they discovered that the clay was rock hard. Although the gate did not manifest itself in any discernible way, a pulsing heat rolled from the space beneath the arch.\n\nThe pillars of the structure were unadorned. Onrack studied the edifice. \"What can you sense of this?\" the T'lan Imass asked after a moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trull Sengar shook his head, then approached." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He halted within arm's reach of the gate's threshold. \"I cannot believe this is passable– the heat pouring from it is scalding.\"\n\n\"Possibly award,\" Onrack suggested.\n\n\"Aye. And no means for us to shatter it.\"\n\n\"Untrue.\"\n\nThe Tiste Edur glanced back at Onrack, then looked down at the box tucked under his arm. \"I do not understand how a mundane explosive could destroy award.\"\n\n\"Sorcery depends on patterns, Trull Sengar. Shatter the pattern and the magic fails.\"\n\n\"Very well, let us attempt this thing.\"\n\nThey retreated twenty paces from the gate. Trull unlatched the box and gingerly drew forth one of the clay spheres. He fixed his gaze on the gate, then threw the munition.\n\nThe explosion triggered a coruscating conflagration from the portal. White and gold fires raged beneath the arch, then the violence settled back to form a swirling golden wall.\n\n\"That is the warren itself,\" Onrack said. \"The ward is broken. Still, I do not recognize it.\"\n\n\"Nor I,\" Trull muttered, closing the munitions box once more. Then his head snapped up. \"Something's coming. '\n\n\"Yes.\" Onrack was silent then fora long moment. He suddenly lifted his sword. \"Flee, Trull Sengar– back across the bridge. Flee!\"\n\nThe Tiste Edur spun and began running.\n\nOnrack proceeded to backup a step at a time. He could feel the power of the ones on the other side of the gate, a power brutal and alien. The breaking of the ward had been noted, and the emotion reaching through the barrier was one of indignant outrage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A quick look over his shoulder showed that Trull Sengar had crossed the bridge and was now nowhere insight. Three more steps and Onrack would himself reach the bridge. And there, he would make his stand. He expected to be destroyed, but he intended to purchase time for his companion.\n\nThe gate shimmered, blindingly bright, then four riders cantered through. Riding white, long-limbed horses with wild manes the colour of rust. Ornately armoured in enamel, the warriors were a match for their mounts– pale-skinned and tall, their faces mostly hidden behind slitted visors, cheek and chin guards. Curved scimitars that appeared to have been carved from ivory were held in gauntleted fists. Long silver hair flowed from beneath the helms.\n\nThey rode directly towards Onrack. Canter to gallop. Gallop to charge.\n\nThe battered T'lan Imass widened his stance, lifted his obsidian sword and stood ready to meet them.\n\nThe riders could only come at him on the narrow bridge two at a time, and even then it was clear that they simply intended their horses to ride Onrack down. But the T'lan Imass had fought in the service of the Malazan Empire, in Falar and in Seven Cities– and he had faced horse warriors in many a battle. A moment before the front riders reached him, Onrack leapt forward. Between the two mounts. Ignoring the sword that whirled in from his left, the T'lan Imass slashed his blade into the other warrior's midsection.\n\nTwo ivory blades struck him simultaneously, the one on his left smashing through clavicle and cutting deep into his shoulder blade, then through in a spray of bone shards. The scimitar on his right chopped down through the side of his face, sheering it off from temple to the base of the jaw." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Onrack felt his own obsidian blade bite deep into the warrior's armour. The enamel shattered.\n\nThen both attackers were past him, and the remaining two arrived.\n\nThe T'lan Imass dropped into a crouch and positioned his sword horizontally over his head. A pair of ivory blades hammered down on it, the impacts thundering through Onrack's battered frame.\n\nThey were all past him now, emerging out onto the concourse to wheel their horses round, visored heads turned to regard the lone warrior who had somehow survived their attacks.\n\nHoofs thudding the clay-limned cobbles, the four warriors reined in, weapons lowering. The one whose armour had been shattered by Onrack's obsidian sword was leaning forward, one arm pressed against his stomach. Spatters of blood speckled his horse's flank.\n\nOnrack shook himself, and pieces of shattered bone fell away to patter on the ground. He then settled his own weapon, point to the ground, and waited while one of the riders walked his horse forward.\n\nA gauntleted hand reached up to draw the visor upward, revealing features that were startlingly similar to Trull Sengar's, apart from the white, almost luminous skin. Eyes of cold silver fixed on the T'lan Imass with distaste. \"Do you speak, Lifeless One? Can you understand the Language of Purity?\"\n\n\"It seems no purer than any other,\" Onrack replied.\n\nThe warrior scowled. \"We do not forgive ignorance. You area servant of Death. There is but one necessity when dealing with a creature such as you, and that is annihilation. Stand ready.\"\n\n\"I serve no-one,\" Onrack said, raising his sword once more. \"Come, then.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the wounded one held up a hand. \"Hold, Enias. This world is not ours– nor is this deathless savage one of the trespassers we seek. Indeed, as you yourself must sense, none of them are here. This portal has not been used in millennia. We must needs take our quest elsewhere. But first, I require healing.\" The warrior gingerly dismounted, one arm still pressed against his midsection. \"Orenas, attend me.\"\n\n\"Allow me to destroy this thing first, Seneschal-\"\n\n\"No. We shall tolerate its existence. Perhaps it will have answers for us, to guide us further on our quest. Failing that, we can destroy it later.\"\n\nThe one named Orenas slipped down from his horse and approached the seneschal.\n\nEnias edged his horse closer to the T'lan Imass, as if still mindful of a fight. He bared his teeth.\"There is not much left of you, Lifeless One. Are those the scorings of fangs? Your chest has been in the jaws of some beast, I think. The same that stole your arm? By what sorcery do you hold onto existence? '\n\n\"You are of Tiste blood,\" Onrack observed.\n\nThe man's face twisted into a sneer.\"Tiste blood? Only among the Liosan is the Tiste blood pure. You have crossed paths with our tainted cousins, then. They are little more than vermin. You have not answered my questions. '\n\n\"I know of the Tiste Andii, but I have yet to meet them. Born of Darkness, they were the first-\"\n\n\"The first! Oh, indeed. And so tragically imperfect. Bereft of Father Light's purifying blood. They area most sordid creation. We tolerate the Edur, for they contain something of the Father, but the Andii– death by our hands is the only mercy they deserve. But I grow weary of your rudeness, Lifeless One. I have asked you questions and you are yet to answer a single one. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Yes? What does that mean?\"\n\n\"I agree that I have not answered them. Nor do I feel compelled to do so. My kind has much experience with arrogant creatures. Although that experience is singular: in answer to their arrogance we proclaimed eternal war, until they ceased to exist. I have always believed the T'lan Imass should seek out anew enemy. There is, after all, no shortage to be noted among arrogant beings. Perhaps you Tiste Liosan are numerous enough in your own realm to amuse us fora time. '\n\nThe warrior stared, as if shocked speechless.\n\nBehind him, one of his companions laughed. \"There is little value in conversing with lesser creatures, Enias. They will seek to confound you with falsehoods, to lead you away from the righteous path.\"\n\n\"I see now,\" Enias replied, \"the poison of which you have long warned me, Malachar.\"\n\n\"There will be more to come, young brother, on the trail we must follow.\" The warrior strode up to Onrack. \"You call yourself a T'lan Imass, yes? '\n\n\"I am Onrack, of the Logros T'lan Imass. '\n\n\"Are there others of your kind in this ruined realm, Onrack?\"\n\n\"If I did not answer your brother's questions, why imagine I would answer yours? '\n\nMalachar's face darkened.\"Play such games with young Enias, but not with me-'\n\n\"I am done with you, Liosan.\" Onrack sheathed his sword and swung away.\n\n\"You are done with us! Seneschal Jorrude! If Orenas has completed his ministrations, I humbly request your attention. The Lifeless One seeks to flee.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hear you, Malachar,\" the seneschal rumbled, striding forward. \"Hold, Lifeless One! We have not yet released you. You will tell us what we wish to know, or you will be destroyed here and now.\"\n\nOnrack faced the Liosan once more. \"If that was a threat, the pathos of your ignorance proves an amusing distraction. But I weary of it, and of you.\"\n\nFour ivory scimitars lifted threateningly.\n\nOnrack drew his sword once more.\n\nAnd hesitated, his gaze drawn to something beyond them. Sensing a presence at their backs, the warriors turned.\n\nTrull Sengar stood fifteen paces away, the box of munitions at his feet. There was something odd about his smile. \"This seems an uneven fight. Friend Onrack, do you require assistance? Well, you need not answer, for it has arrived. And for that, I am sorry.\"\n\nDust swirled upward around the Tiste Edur. A moment later, four T'lan Imass stood on the muddy cobbles. Three held weapons ready. The fourth figure stood apace behind and to Trull's right. This one was massively boned, its arms disproportionately long. The fur riding its shoulders was black, fading to silver as it rose up to surround the bonecaster's head in a mangled hood.\n\nOnrack allowed his sword's point to rest on the muddy cobbles once more. With his link, born of the Ritual, now severed, he could only communicate with these T'lan Imass by speaking out loud. \"I, Onrack, greet you, Bonecaster, and recognize you as from the Logros, as I once was. You are Monok Ochem. One of many chosen to hunt the renegades, who, as did those of my own hunt, followed their trail into this realm. Alas, I alone of my hunt survived the flood.\" His gaze shifted to the three warriors. The clan leader, its torso and limbs tightly wrapped in the outer skin of a dhenrabi and a denticulated grey flint sword in its hands, was Ibra Gholan. The remaining two, both armed with bone-hafted, double-bladed axes of chalcedony, were of Ibra's clan, but otherwise unknown to Onrack.\"I greet you as well, Ibra Gholan, and submit to your command. '" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Carry on with the narrative as the plot partner.\nTags: epic fantasy, character study, power struggles, resilience, destiny\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: House of Chains\nChapter: 18" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hear you, Malachar,\" the seneschal rumbled, striding forward. \"Hold, Lifeless One! We have not yet released you. You will tell us what we wish to know, or you will be destroyed here and now.\"\n\nOnrack faced the Liosan once more. \"If that was a threat, the pathos of your ignorance proves an amusing distraction. But I weary of it, and of you.\"\n\nFour ivory scimitars lifted threateningly.\n\nOnrack drew his sword once more.\n\nAnd hesitated, his gaze drawn to something beyond them. Sensing a presence at their backs, the warriors turned.\n\nTrull Sengar stood fifteen paces away, the box of munitions at his feet. There was something odd about his smile. \"This seems an uneven fight. Friend Onrack, do you require assistance? Well, you need not answer, for it has arrived. And for that, I am sorry.\"\n\nDust swirled upward around the Tiste Edur. A moment later, four T'lan Imass stood on the muddy cobbles. Three held weapons ready. The fourth figure stood apace behind and to Trull's right. This one was massively boned, its arms disproportionately long. The fur riding its shoulders was black, fading to silver as it rose up to surround the bonecaster's head in a mangled hood.\n\nOnrack allowed his sword's point to rest on the muddy cobbles once more. With his link, born of the Ritual, now severed, he could only communicate with these T'lan Imass by speaking out loud. \"I, Onrack, greet you, Bonecaster, and recognize you as from the Logros, as I once was. You are Monok Ochem. One of many chosen to hunt the renegades, who, as did those of my own hunt, followed their trail into this realm. Alas, I alone of my hunt survived the flood.\" His gaze shifted to the three warriors. The clan leader, its torso and limbs tightly wrapped in the outer skin of a dhenrabi and a denticulated grey flint sword in its hands, was Ibra Gholan. The remaining two, both armed with bone-hafted, double-bladed axes of chalcedony, were of Ibra's clan, but otherwise unknown to Onrack.\"I greet you as well, Ibra Gholan, and submit to your command. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bonecaster Monok Ochem strode forward with a heavy, shambling gait. \"You have failed the Ritual, Onrack,\" it said with characteristic abruptness, \"and so must be destroyed.\"\n\n\"That privilege will be contested,\" Onrack replied. \"These horse warriors are Tiste Liosan and would view meas their prisoner, to do with as they please.\"\n\nIbra Gholan gestured to his two warriors to join him and the three walked towards the Liosan.\n\nThe seneschal spoke. \"We release our prisoner, T'lan Imass. He is yours. Our quarrel with you is at an end, and so we shall leave. '\n\nThe T'lan Imass halted, and Onrack could sense their disappointment.\n\nThe Liosan commander regarded Trull fora moment, then said, \"Edur– would you travel with us? We have need of a servant. A simple bow will answer the honour of our invitation.\"\n\nTrull Sengar shook his head. \"Well, that is a first for me. Alas, I will accompany the T'lan Imass. But I recognize the inconvenience this will cause you, and so I suggest that you alternate in the role as servant to the others. I am a proponent of lessons in humility, Tiste Liosan, and I sense that among you there is some need. '\n\nThe seneschal smiled coldly. \"I will remember you, Edur.\" He whirled. \"On your horses, brothers. We now leave this realm.\"\n\nMonok Ochem spoke. \"You may find that more difficult than you imagine.\"\n\n\"We have never before been troubled by such endeavours,\" the seneschal replied. \"Are there hidden barriers in this place?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This warren is a shattered fragment of Kurald Emurlahn,\" the bonecaster said. \"I believe your kind have remained isolated for far too long. You know nothing of the other realms, nothing of the Wounded Gates. Nothing of the Ascendants and their wars-\"\n\n\"We serve but one Ascendant,\" the seneschal snapped. \"The Son of Father Light. Our lord is Osric.\"\n\nMonok Ochem cocked its head. \"And when last has Osric walked among you?\"\n\nAll four Liosan visibly flinched.\n\nIn his affectless tone, the bonecaster continued, \"Your lord, Osric, the Son of Father Light, numbers among the contestants in the other realms. He has not returned to you, Liosan, because he is unable to do so. Indeed, he is unable to do much of anything at the moment.\"\n\nThe seneschal took a step forward. \"What afflicts our lord?\"\n\nMonok Ochem shrugged. \"A common enough fate. He is lost.\"\n\n\"Lost?\"\n\n\"I suggest we work together to weave a ritual,\" the bonecaster said, \"and so fashion agate. For this, we shall need Tellann, your own warren, Liosan, and the blood of this Tiste Edur. Onrack, we shall undertake your destruction once we have returned to our own realm.\"\n\n\"That would seem expedient,\" Onrack replied.\n\nTrull's eyes had widened. He stared at the bonecaster.\"Did you say my blood? '\n\n\"Not all of it, Edur... if all goes as planned.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All that breaks must be discarded even as the thunder of faith returns ever fading echoes.\n\nPrelude to Anomandaris Fisher\n\nThe day the faces in the rock awakened was celebrated among the Teblor by a song. The memories of his people were, Karsa Orlong now knew, twisted things. Surrendered to oblivion when unpleasant, burgeoning to a raging fire of glory when heroic. Defeat had been spun into victory in the weaving of every tale.\n\nHe wished Bairoth still lived, that his sagacious companion did more than haunt his dreams, or stand before him as a thing of rough-carved stone in which some chance scarring of his chisel had cast a mocking, almost derisive expression.\n\nBairoth could have told him much of what he needed to know at this moment. While Karsa's familiarity with their homeland's sacred glade was far greater than either Bairoth's or Delum Thord's, and so ensured the likenesses possessed some accuracy, the warrior sensed that something essential was missing from the seven faces he had carved into the stone trees. Perhaps his lack of talent had betrayed him, though that did not seem the case with the carvings of Bairoth and Delum. The energy of their lives seemed to emanate from their statues, as if merged with the petrified wood's own memory. As with the entire forest, in which there was the sense that the trees but awaited the coming of spring, of rebirth beneath the wheel of the stars, it seemed that the two Teblor warriors were but awaiting the season's turn.\n\nBut Raraku defied every season. Raraku itself was eternal in its momentousness, perpetually awaiting rebirth. Patience in the stone, in the restless, ever-murmuring sands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Holy Desert seemed, to Karsa's mind, a perfect place for the Seven Gods of the Teblor. It was possible, he reflected as he slowly paced before the faces he had carved into the boles, that something of that sardonic sentiment had poisoned his hands. If so, the flaw was not visible to his eyes. There was little in the faces of the gods that could permit expression or demeanour– his recollection was of skin stretched over broad, robust bone, of brows that projected like ridges, casting the eyes in deep shadow. Broad, flat cheekbones, a heavy, chinless jaw... a bestiality so unlike the features of the Teblor...\n\nHe scowled, pausing to stand before Urugal which, as with the six others, he had carved level with his own eyes. Serpents slithered over his dusty, bared feet, his only company in the glade. The sun had begun its descent, though the heat remained fierce.\n\nAfter along moment of contemplation, Karsa spoke out loud. \"Bairoth Gild, look with me upon our god. Tell me what is wrong. Where have I erred? That was your greatest talent, wasn't it? Seeing so clearly my every wrong step. You might ask: what did I seek to achieve with these carvings? You would ask that, for it is the only question worth answering. But I have no answer for you– ah, yes, I can almost hear you laugh at my pathetic reply. \"I have no answer.\"Perhaps, Bairoth, I imagined you wished their company. The great Teblor gods, who one day awakened. '\n\nIn the minds of the shamans. Awakened in their dreams. There, and there done. Yet now I know the flavour of those dreams, and it is nothing like the song. Nothing at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had found this glade seeking solitude, and it had been solitude that had inspired his artistic creations." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet now that he was done, he no longer felt alone here. He had brought his own life to this place, the legacies of his deeds. It had ceased to be a refuge, and the need to visit was born now from the lure of his efforts, drawing him back again and again. To walk among the snakes that came to greet him, to listen to the hiss of sands skittering on the moaning desert wind, the sands that arrived in the glade to caress the trees and the faces of stone with their bloodless touch.\n\nRaraku delivered the illusion that time stood motionless, the universe holding its breath. An insidious conceit. Beyond the Whirlwind's furious wall, the hourglasses were still turned. Armies assembled and began their march, the sound of their boots, shields and gear a deathly clatter and roar. And, on a distant continent, the Teblor were a people under siege.\n\nKarsa continued staring at the stone face of Urugal. You are not Teblor. Yet you claim to be our god. You awakened, therein the cliff, so long ago. But what of before that time? Where were you then, Urugal? You and your six terrible companions?\n\nA soft chuckle from across the clearing brought Karsa around.\n\n\"And which of your countless secrets is this one, friend?\"\n\n\"Leoman,\" Karsa rumbled, \"it has been along time since you last left your pit.\"\n\nEdging forward, the desert warrior glanced down at the snakes. \"I was starved for company. Unlike you, I see.\" He gestured at the carved boles. \"Are these yours? I see two Toblakai– they stand in those trees as if alive and but moments from striding forth. It disturbs me to be reminded that there are more of you. But what of these others?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My gods.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He noted Leoman's startled expression and elaborated,\"The Faces in the Rock. In my homeland, they adorn a cliffside, facing onto a glade little different from this one. '\n\nToblakai-'\n\n\"They call upon me still,\" Karsa continued, turning back to study Urugal's bestial visage once more.\"When I sleep. It is as Ghost Hands says– I am haunted. '\n\n\"By what, friend? What is it your... gods... demand of you?\"\n\nKarsa shot Leoman a glance, then he shrugged. \"Why have you sought me out?\"\n\nLeoman made to say one thing, then chose another. \"Because my patience is at an end. There has been news of events concerning the Malazans. Distant defeats. Sha'ik and her favoured few are much excited... yet achieve nothing. Here we await the Adjunct's legions. In one thing Korbolo Dom is right– the march of those legions should be contested. But not as he would have it. No pitched battles. Nothing so dramatic or precipitous. In any case, Toblakai, Mathok has given me leave to ride outwith a company of warriors– and Sha'ik has condescended to permit us beyond the Whirlwind. '\n\nKarsa smiled. \"Indeed. And you are free to harass the Adjunct? Ah, I thought as much. You are to scout, but no further than the hills beyond the Whirlwind. She will not permit you to journey south. But at least you will be doing something, and for that I am pleased for you, Leoman.\"\n\nThe blue-eyed warrior stepped closer. \"Once beyond the Whirlwind, Toblakai-\"\n\n\"She will know none the less,\" Karsa replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And so I will incur her displeasure.\" Leoman sneered. \"There is nothing new in that. And what of you, friend? She calls you her bodyguard, yet when did she last permit you into her presence? In that damned tent of hers? She is reborn indeed, for she is not as she once was-\"\n\n\"She is Malazan,\" Toblakai said.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Before she became Sha'ik. You know this as well as I-'\n\n\"She was reborn! She became the will of the goddess, Toblakai. All that she was before that time is without meaning-\"\n\n\"So it is said,\" Karsa rumbled. \"Yet her memories remain. And it is those memories that chain her so. She is trapped by fear, and that fear is born of a secret which she will not share. The only other person who knows that secret is Ghost Hands.\"\n\nLeoman stared at Karsa fora long moment, then slowly settled into a crouch. The two men were surrounded by snakes, the sound of slithering on sand a muted undercurrent. Lowering one hand, Leoman watched as a flare-neck began entwining itself up his arm. \"Your words, Toblakai, whisper of defeat.\"\n\nShrugging, Karsa strode to where his toolkit waited at the base of a tree. \"These years have served me well. Your company, Leoman. Sha'ik Elder. I once vowed that the Malazans were my enemies. Yet, from what I have seen of the world since that time, I now understand that they are no crueller than any other lowlander. Indeed, they alone seem to profess a sense of justice. The people of Seven Cities, whoso despise them and wish them gone– they seek nothing more than the power that the Malazans took from them. Power that they used to terrorize their own people. Leoman, you and your kind make war against justice, and it is not my war. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Justice?\" Leoman bared his teeth. \"You expect me to challenge your words, Toblakai? I will not. Sha'ik Reborn says there is no loyalty within me. Perhaps she is right. I have seen too much. Yet here I remain– have you ever wondered why? '\n\nKarsa drew out a chisel and mallet. \"The light fades– and that makes the shadows deeper. It is the light, I now realize. That is what is different about them.\"\n\n\"The Apocalyptic, Toblakai. Disintegration. Annihilation. Everything. Every human... lowlander. With our twisted horrors– all that we commit upon each other. The depredations, the cruelties. For every gesture of kindness and compassion, there are ten thousand acts of brutality. Loyalty? Aye, I have none. Not for my kind, and the sooner we obliterate ourselves the better this world will be.\"\n\n\"The light,\" Karsa said, \"makes them look almost human.\"\n\nDistracted as he was, the Toblakai did not notice Leoman's narrowing eyes, nor the struggle to remain silent.\n\nOne does not step between a man and his gods.\n\nThe snake's head lifted in front of Leoman's face and hovered there, tongue flicking.\n\n\"The House of Chains,\" Heboric muttered, his expression souring at the words.\n\nBidithal shivered, though it was hard to tell whether from fear or pleasure. \"Reaver. Consort. The Unbound– these are interesting, yes? For all the world like shattered-\"\n\n\"From whence came these images?\" Heboric demanded. Simply looking upon the wooden cards with their lacquered paintings– blurred as they were– was filling the ex-priest's throat with bile. I sense... flaws. In each and everyone. That is no accident, no failing of the hand that brushed them into being." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There is no doubting,\" L'oric said in answer to his question,\"their veracity. The power emanating from them is a sorcerous stench. I have never before witnessed such a vigorous birth within the Deck. Not even Shadow felt-'\n\n\"Shadow!\" Bidithal snapped. \"Those deceivers could never unveil that realm's true power! No, here, in this new House, the theme is pure. Imperfection is celebrated, the twist of chaotic chance mars one and all-'\n\n\"Silence!\" Sha'ik hissed, her arms wrapped tight about herself.\"We must think on this. No-one speak. Let me think! '\n\nHeboric studied her fora moment, squinting to bring her into focus, even though she sat beside him. The cards from the new House had arrived the same day as the news of the Malazan defeats on Genabackis. And the time since then had been one of seething discord among Sha'ik's commanders, sufficient to dampen her pleasure at hearing of her brother Ganoes Paran's survival, and now leading her to uncharacteristic distraction.\n\nThe House of Chains was woven into their fates. An insidious intrusion, an infection against which they'd had no chance to prepare. But was it an enemy, or the potential source for renewed strength? It seemed Bidithal was busy convincing himself that it was the latter, no doubt drawn in that direction by his growing disaffection with Sha'ik Reborn. L'oric, on the other hand, seemed more inclined to share Heboric's own misgivings; whilst Febryl was unique in remaining silent on the entire matter.\n\nThe air within the tent was close, soured by human sweat. Heboric wanted nothing more than to leave, to escape all this, yet he sensed Sha'ik clinging to him, a spiritual grip as desperate as anything he'd felt from her before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Show once more the new Unaligned.\"\n\nYes. For the thousandth time.\n\nScowling, Bidithal searched through the Deck, then drew out the card, which he laid down in the centre of the goat-hair mat. \"If any of the new arrivals is dubious,\" the old man sneered, \"it is this one. Master of the Deck? Absurd. How can one control the uncontrollable?\"\n\nThere was silence.\n\nThe uncontrollable? Such as the Whirlwind itself?\n\nSha'ik had clearly not caught the insinuation.\"Ghost Hands, I would you take this card, feel it, seek to sense what you can from it. '\n\n\"You make this request again and again, Chosen One,\" Heboric sighed. \"But I tell you, there is no link between the power of my hands and the Deck of Dragons. I am of no help to you-\"\n\n\"Then listen closely and I shall describe it. Never mind your hands– I ask you now as a once-priest, as a scholar. Listen. The face is obscured, yet hints-\"\n\n\"It is obscured,\" Bidithal interrupted in a derisive tone, \"because the card is no more than the projection of someone's wishful thinking. '\n\n\"Cut me off again and you will regret it, Bidithal,\" Sha'ik said.\"I have heard you enough on this subject. If your mouth opens again I will tear out your tongue. Ghost Hands, I will continue. The figure is slightly above average in height. There is the crimson streak of a scar– or blood perhaps– down one side of the face– a wounding, yes? He– yes, I am certain it's a man, not a woman– he stands on abridge. Of stone, shot through with cracks. The horizon is filled with flames. It seems he and the bridge are surrounded, as if by followers, or servants-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Or guardians,\" L'oric added.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Your pardon, Chosen One. '\n\n\"Guardians. Yes, a good possibility. They have the look of soldiers, do they not?\"\n\n\"On what,\" Heboric asked, \"do these guardians stand? Can you seethe ground they stand upon?\"\n\n\"Bones– there is much fine detail there, Ghost Hands. How did you know?\"\n\n\"Describe those bones, please.\"\n\n\"Not human. Very large. Part of a skull is visible, long-snouted, terribly fanged. It bears the remnants of a helmet of some sort-\"\n\n\"A helmet? On the skull?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nHeboric fell silent. He began rocking yet was only remotely aware of the motion. There was a sourceless keening growing in his head, a cry of grief, of anguish.\n\n\"The Master,\" Sha'ik said, her voice trembling,\"he stands strangely. Arms held out, bent at the elbows so that the hands depend, away from the body– it is the strangest posture-'\n\n\"Are his feet together?\"\n\n\"Almost impossibly so.\"\n\nAs if forming a point. Dull and remote to his own ears, Heboric asked, \"And what does he wear?\"\n\n\"Tight silks, from the way they shimmer. Black.\"\n\n\"Anything else?\"\n\n\"There is a chain. It cuts across his torso, left shoulder down to right hip. It is a robust chain, black wrought iron. There are wooden discs on his shoulders– like epaulets, but large, a hand's span each-'\n\n\"How many in all?\"\n\n\"Four. You know something now, Ghost Hands. Tell me!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" L'oric murmured,\"you have thoughts on this-'\n\n\"He lies,\" Bidithal growled. \"He has been forgotten by everyone– even his god– and he now seeks to invent anew importance.\"\n\nFebryl spoke in a mocking rasp. \"Bidithal, you foolish man. He is a man who touches what we cannot feel, and sees what we are blind to. Speak on, Ghost Hands. Why does this Master stand so?\"\n\n\"Because,\" Heboric said, \"he is a sword.\"\n\nBut not any sword. He is one sword, above all, and it cuts cold. That sword is as this man's own nature. He will cleave his own path. None shall lead him. He stands now in my mind. I see him. I see his face. Oh, Sha'ik...\n\n\"A Master of the Deck,\" L'oric said, then sighed.\"A lode-stone to order... in opposition to the House of Chains– yet he stands alone, guardians or no, while the servants of the House are many. '\n\nHeboric smiled. \"Alone? He has always been thus.\"\n\n\"Then why is your smile that of a broken man, Ghost Hands?\"\n\nI grieve for humanity. This family, so at war with itself. \"To that, L'oric, I shall not answer. '\n\n\"I shall now speak with Ghost Hands alone,\" Sha'ik pronounced.\n\nBut Heboric shook his head. \"I am done speaking, for now, even with you, Chosen One. I will say this and nothing more: have faith in the Master of the Deck. He shall answer the House of Chains. He shall answer it.\"\n\nFeeling ancient beyond his years, Heboric climbed to his feet. There was astir of motion beside him, then young Felisin's hand settled on his forearm. He let her guide him from the chamber." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Outside, dusk had arrived, marked by the cries of the goats as they were led into the enclosures. To the south, just beyond the city's outskirts, rumbled the thunder of horse hoofs. Kamist Reloe and Korbolo Dom had absented themselves from the meeting to oversee the exercises of the troops. Training conducted in the Malazan style, which Heboric had to admit was the renegade Fist's only expression of brilliance thus far. For the first time, a Malazan army would meet its match in all things, barring Moranth munitions. Tactics and disposition of forces would be identical, ensuring that numbers alone would decide the day. The threat of the munitions would be answered with sorcery, for the Army of the Whirlwind possessed a full cadre of High Mages, whilst Tavore had– as far as they knew– none. Spies in Aren had noted the presence of the two Wickan children, Nil and Nether, but both, it was claimed, had been thoroughly broken by Coltaine's death.\n\nYet why would she need mages? She carries an otataral sword, after all. Even so, its negating influence cannot be extended over her entire army. Dear Sha'ik, you may well defeat your sister after all.\n\n\"Where would you go, Ghost Hands?\" Felisin asked.\n\n\"To my home, lass.\"\n\n\"That is not what I meant.\"\n\nHe cocked his head. \"I do not know-\"\n\n\"If indeed you do not, then I have seen your path before you have, and this I find hard to believe. You must leave here, Ghost Hands. You must retrace your path, else what haunts you will kill you-\"\n\n\"And that matters? Lass-\"\n\n\"Look beyond yourself fora moment, old man! Something is contained within you. Trapped within your mortal flesh. What will happen when your flesh fails?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was silent fora long moment, then he asked, \"How can you be so sure of this? My death might simply negate the risk of escape– it might shut the portal, as tightly sealed as it had been before-\"\n\n\"Because there is no going back. It's here– the power behind those ghostly hands of yours– not the otataral, which is fading, ever fading-'\n\n\"Fading?\"\n\n\"Yes, fading! Have not your dreams and visions worsened? Have you not realized why? Yes, my mother has told me– on the Otataral Isle, in the desert– that statue. Heboric, an entire island of otataral was created to contain that statue, to hold it prisoner. But you have given it a means to escape– there, through your hands. You must return!\"\n\n\"Enough!\" he snarled, flinging her hand away. \"Tell me, did she also tell you of herself on that journey?\"\n\n\"That which she was before no longer matters-\"\n\n\"Oh, but it does, lass! It does matter!\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\nThe temptation came close to overwhelming him. Because she is Malazan! Because she is Tavore's sister! Because this war is no longer the Whirlwind's– it has been stolen away, twisted by something far more powerful, by the ties of blood that bind us all in the harshest, tightest chains! What chance a raging goddess against that?\n\nInstead, he said nothing.\n\n\"You must undertake the journey,\" Felisin said in a low voice. \"But I know, it cannot be done alone. No. I will go with you-\"\n\nHe staggered away at her words, shaking his head. It was a horrible idea, a terrifying idea. Yet brutally perfect, a nightmare of synchronicity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Listen! It need not be just you and I– I will find someone else. A warrior, a loyal protector-\"\n\n\"Enough! No more of this!\" Yet it will take her away– away from Bidithal and his ghastly desires. It will take her away... from the storm that is coming. \"With whom else have you spoken of this?\" he demanded.\n\n\"No-one, but I thought... Leoman. He could choose for us someone from Mathok's people-'\n\n\"Not a word, lass. Not now. Not yet.\"\n\nHer hand gripped his forearm once more. \"We cannot wait too long, Ghost Hands.\"\n\n\"Not yet, Felisin. Now, take me home, please.\"\n\n\"Will you come with me, Toblakai?\"\n\nKarsa dragged his gaze from Urugal's stone face. The sun had set with its characteristic suddenness, and the stars overhead were bright. The snakes had begun dispersing, driven into the eerily silent forest in search of food.\"Would you I run beside you and your puny horses, Leoman? There are no Teblor mounts in this land. Nothing to match my size-'\n\n\"Teblor mounts? Actually, friend, you are wrong in that. Well, not here, true, as you say. But to the west, in the Jhag Odhan, there are wild horses that area match to your stature. Wild now, in any case. They are Jhag horses– bred long ago by the Jaghut. It may well be that your Teblor mounts are of the same breed– there were Jaghut on Genabackis, after all.\"\n\n\"Why have you not told me this before?\"\n\nLeoman lowered his right hand to the ground, watched as the flare-neck unwound down the length of his arm. \"In truth, this is the first time you have ever mentioned that you Teblor possessed horses. Toblakai, I know virtually nothing of your past. No-one here does. You are not a loquacious man. You and I, we have ever travelled on foot, haven't we? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Jhag Odhan. That is beyond Raraku.\"\n\n\"Aye. Strike west through the Whirlwind, and you will come to cliffs, the broken shoreline of the ancient sea that once filled this desert. Continue on until you come to a small city– Lato Revae. Immediately to the west lies the tip of the Thalas Mountains. Skirt their south edge, ever westward, until you come to River Ugarat. There is a ford south of Y'Ghatan. From the other side, strike west and south and west, for two weeks or more, and you will find yourself in the Jhag Odhan. Oh, there is some irony in this– there were once nomadic bands of Jaghut there. Hence the name. But these Jaghut were fallen. They had been predated on for so long they were little more than savages. '\n\n\"And are they still there?\"\n\n\"No. The Logros T'lan Imass slaughtered them. Not so long ago. '\n\nKarsa bared his teeth. \"T'lan Imass. A name from the Teblor past. '\n\n\"Closer than that,\" Leoman muttered, then he straightened. \"Seek leave from Sha'ik to journey into the Jhag Odhan. You would make an impressive sight on the battlefield, astride a Jhag horse. Did your kind fight on horseback, or simply use them for transport? '\n\nKarsa smiled in the darkness. \"I will do as you say, Leoman. But the journey will take long– do not wait for me. If you and your scouts are still beyond the Whirlwind upon my return, I will ride out to find you.\"\n\n\"Agreed.\"\n\n\"What of Felisin?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Leoman was silent fora moment, then he replied, \"Ghost Hands has been awakened to the... threat.\"\n\nKarsa sneered. \"And what value will that be? I should kill Bidithal and be done with it.\"\n\n\"Toblakai, it is more than you that troubles Ghost Hands. I do not believe he will remain in camp much longer. And when he leaves, he will take the child with him.\"\n\n\"And that is a better option? She will become no more than his nurse.\"\n\n\"For a time, perhaps. I will send someone with them, of course. If Sha'ik did not need you– or at least believe she does– I would ask you. '\n\n\"Madness, Leoman. I have travelled once with Ghost Hands. I shall not do so again.\"\n\n\"He holds truths for you, Toblakai. One day, you will need to seek him out. You might even need to ask for his help.\"\n\n\"Help? I need no-one's help. You speak unpleasant words. I will hear them no more. '\n\nLeoman's grin was visible in the gloom.\"You areas you always are, friend. When will you journey into the Jhag Odhan, then? '\n\n\"I shall leave tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Then I had best get word to Sha'ik. Who knows, she might even condescend to see me in person, whereupon I might well succeed in ending her distraction with this House of Chains-'\n\n\"This what?\"\n\nLeoman waved a dismissive hand. \"The House of Chains. Anew power in the Deck of Dragons. It is all they talk about these days.\"\n\n\"Chains,\" Karsa muttered, swinging round to stare at Urugal. \"I so dislike chains.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I will see you in the morning, Toblakai? Before you depart?\"\n\n\"You shall.\"\n\nKarsa listened to the man stride away. His mind was a maelstrom. Chains. They haunted him, had haunted him ever since he and Bairoth and Delum rode out from the village. Perhaps even before then. Tribes fashioned their own chains, after all. As did kinship, and companions, and stories with their lessons in honour and sacrifice. And chains as well between the Teblor and their seven gods. Between me and my gods. Chains again, therein my visions– the dead I have slain, the souls Ghost Hands says I drag behind me. I am– all that I am– has been shaped by such chains.\n\nThis new House– is it mine?\n\nThe air in the clearing was suddenly cold, bitterly so. A final, thrashing rush as the last of the snakes fled the clearing. Karsa blinked his eyes into focus, and saw Urugal's indurated visage... awakening.\n\nA presence, therein the dark holes of the face's eyes.\n\nKarsa heard a howling wind, filling his mind. A thousand souls moaning, the snapping thunder of chains. Growling, he steeled himself before the onslaught, fixed his gaze on his god's writhing face.\n\n\"Karsa Orlong. We have waited long for this. Three years, the fashioning of this sacred place. You wasted so much time on the two strangers– your fallen friends, the ones who failed where you did not. This temple is not to be sanctified by sentimentality. Their presence offends us. Destroy them this night.\"\n\nThe seven faces were all wakeful now, and Karsa could feel the weight of their regard, a deathly pressure behind which lurked something... avid, dark and filled with glee." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"By my hand,\" Karsa said to Urugal, \"I have brought you to this place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By my hand, you have been freed from your prison of rock in the lands of the Teblor– yes, I am not the fool you believe me to be. You have guided me in this, and now you are come. Your first words are of chastisement? Careful, Urugal. Any carving here can be shattered by my hand, should I so choose.\"\n\nHe felt their rage, buffeting him, seeking to make him wither beneath the onslaught, yet he stood before it unmoving, and unmoved. The Teblor warrior who would quail before his gods was no more.\n\n\"You have brought us closer,\" Urugal eventually rasped. \"Close enough to sense the precise location of what we desire. And there you must now go, Karsa Orlong. You have delayed the journey for so long– your journey to ourselves, and onto the path we have set before you. You have hidden too long in the company of this petty spirit who does little more than spit sand.\"\n\n\"This path, this journey– to what end? What is it you seek?\"\n\n\"Like you, warrior, we seek freedom.\"\n\nKarsa was silent. Avid indeed. Then he spoke. \"I am to travel west. Into the Jhag Odhan.\"\n\nHe sensed their shock and excitement, then the chorus of suspicion that poured out from the seven gods.\n\n\"West! Indeed, Karsa Orlong. But how do you know this?\"\n\nBecause, at last, I am my father's son.\"I shall leave with the dawn, Urugal. And I will find for you what you desire. ' He could feel their presence fading, and knew instinctively that these gods were not as close to freedom as they wanted him to believe. Nor as powerful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Urugal had called this clearing a temple, but it was a contested one, and now, as the Seven withdrew, and were suddenly gone, Karsa slowly turned from the faces of the gods, and looked upon those for whom this place had been in truth sanctified. By Karsa's own hands. In the name of those chains a mortal could wear with pride.\n\n\"My loyalty,\" the Teblor warrior quietly said, \"was misplaced. I served only glory. Words, my friends. And words can wear false nobility. Disguising brutal truths. The words of the past, that so clothed the Teblor in a hero's garb– this is what I served. While the true glory was before me. Beside me. You, Delum Thord. And you, Bairoth Gild. '\n\nFrom the stone statue of Bairoth emerged a distant, weary voice. \"Lead us, Warleader.\"\n\nKarsa flinched. Do I dream this? Then he straightened. \"I have drawn your spirits to this place. Did you travel in the wake of the Seven?\"\n\n\"We have walked the empty lands,\" Bairoth Gild replied. \"Empty, yet we were not alone. Strangers await us all, Karsa Orlong. This is the truth they would hide from you. We are summoned. We are here.\"\n\n\"None,\" came Delum Thord's voice from the other statue,\"can defeat you on this journey. You lead the enemy in circles, you defy every prediction, and so deliver the edge of your will. We sought to follow, but could not. '\n\n\"Who, Warleader,\" Bairoth asked, his voice bolder, \"is our enemy, now?\"\n\nKarsa drew himself up before the two Uryd warriors. \"Witness my answer, my friends. Witness.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Delum spoke, \"We failed you, Karsa Orlong. Yet you invite us to walk with you once again.\"\n\nKarsa fought back an urge to scream, to unleash a warcry– as if such a challenge might force back the approaching darkness. He could make no sense of his own impulses, the torrential emotions threatening to engulf him. He stared at the carved likeness of his tall friend, the awareness in those unmarred features– Delum Thord before the Forkassal– the Forkrul Assail named Calm– had, on a mountain trail on a distant continent, so casually destroyed him.\n\nBairoth Gild spoke. \"We failed you. Do you now ask that we walk with you?\"\n\n\"Delum Thord. Bairoth Gild.\" Karsa's voice was hoarse.\"It is I who failed you. I would be your warleader once more, if you would so permit me. '\n\nAlong moment of silence, then Bairoth replied, \"At last, something to look forward to.\"\n\nKarsa almost fell to his knees, then. Grief, finally unleashed. At an end, his time of solitude. His penance was done. The journey to begin again. Dear Urugal, you shall witness. Oh, how you shall witness.\n\nThe hearth was little more than a handful of dying coals. After Felisin Younger left, Heboric sat motionless in the gloom. A short time passed, then he collected an armload of dried dung and rebuilt the fire. The night had chilled him– even the hands he could not see felt cold, like heavy pieces of ice at the end of his wrists.\n\nThe only journey that lay ahead of him was a short one, and he must walk it alone. He was blind, but in this no more blind than anyone else. Death's precipice, whether first glimpsed from afar or discovered with the next step, was ever a surprise. A promise of the sudden cessation of questions, yet there were no answers waiting beyond. Cessation would have to be enough. And so it must be for every mortal. Even as we hunger for resolution. Or, even more delusional: redemption." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now, after all this time, he was able to realize that every path eventually, inevitably dwindled into a single line of footsteps. There, leading to the very edge. Then... gone. And so, he faced only what every mortal faced. The solitude of death, and oblivion's final gift that was indifference.\n\nThe gods were welcome to wrangle over his soul, to snipe and snap over the paltry feast. And if mortals grieved for him, it was only because by dying he had shaken them from the illusion of unity that comforted life's journey. One lesson the path.\n\nA scratch at the flap entrance, then the hide was drawn aside and someone entered.\n\n\"Would you make of your home a pyre, Ghost Hands?\" The voice was L'oric's.\n\nThe High Mage's words startled Heboric into a sudden realization of the sweat running down his face, the gusts of fierce heat from the now raging hearth. Unthinking, he had fed the flames with piece after piece of dung.\n\n\"I saw the glow– difficult to miss, old man. Best leave it, now, let it die down.\"\n\n\"What do you want, L'oric? '\n\n\"I acknowledge your reluctance to speak of what you know. There is no value, after all, in gifting Bidithal or Febryl with such details. And so I shall not demand that you explain what you've sensed regarding this Master of the Deck. Instead, I offer an exchange, and all that we say will remain between the two of us. No-one else. '\n\n\"Why should I trust you? You are hidden– even to Sha'ik. You give no reason as to why you are here. In her cadre, in this war. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That alone should tell you I am not like the others,\" L'oric replied.\n\nHeboric sneered. \"That earns you less than you might think. There can be no exchange because there is nothing you can tell me that I would be interested in hearing. The schemes of Febryl? The man's a fool. Bidithal's perversions? One day a child will slip a knife between his ribs. Korbolo Dom and Kamist Reloe? They war against an empire that is far from dead. Nor will they be treated with honour when they are finally brought before the Empress. No, they are criminals, and for that their souls will burn for eternity. The Whirlwind? That goddess has my contempt, and that contempt does naught but grow. Thus, what could you possibly tell me, L'oric, that I would value? '\n\n\"Only the one thing that might interest you, Heboric Light Touch. Just as this Master of the Deck interests me. I would not cheat you with the exchange. No, I would tell you all that I know of the Hand of Jade, rising from the otataral sands– the Hand that you have touched, that now haunts your dreams.\"\n\n\"How could you know these-\" He fell silent. The sweat on his brow was now cold.\n\n\"And how,\" L'oric retorted,\"can you sense so much from a mere description of the Master's card? Let us not question these things, else we trap ourselves in a conversation that will outlive Raraku itself. So, Heboric, shall I begin?\"\n\n\"No. Not now. I am too weary for this. Tomorrow, L'oric'\n\n\"Delay may prove... disastrous.\" After a moment, the High Mage sighed. \"Very well. I can see your exhaustion. Permit me, at least, to brew your tea for you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The gesture of kindness was unexpected, and Heboric lowered his head. \"L'oric, promise me this– that when the final day comes, you be along way from here. '\n\n\"A difficult promise. Permit me to think on it. Now, where is the hen'bara? '\n\n\"Hanging from a bag above the pot.\"\n\n\"Ah, of course.\"\n\nHeboric listened to the sounds of preparation, the rustle of flower-heads from the bag, the slosh of water as L'oric filled the pot.\"Did you know, \"the High Mage murmured as he worked,\"that some of the oldest scholarly treatises on the warrens speak of a triumvirate. Rashan, Thyr and Meanas. As if the three were all closely related to one another. And then in turn seek to link them to corresponding Elder warrens. '\n\nHeboric grunted, then nodded. \"All flavours of the same thing? I would agree. Tiste warrens. Kurald this and Kurald that. The human versions can't help but overlap, become confused. I am no expert, L'oric, and it seems you know more of it than I.\"\n\n\"Well, there certainly appears to be a mutual insinuation of themes between Darkness and Shadow, and, presumably, Light. A confusion among the three, yes. Anomander Rake himself has asserted a proprietary claim on the Throne of Shadow, after all...\"\n\nThe smell of the brewing tea tugged at Heboric's mind.\"He has? ' he murmured, only remotely interested.\n\n\"Well, of a sort. He set kin to guard it, presumably from the Tiste Edur. It is very difficult for us mortals to make sense of Tiste histories, for they are such along-lived people. As you well know, human history is ever marked by certain personalities, rising from some quality or notoriety to shatter the status quo. Fortunately for us, such men and women are few and far between, and they all eventually die or disappear. But among the Tiste... well, those personalities never go away, or so it seems. They act, and act yet again. They persist. Choose the worst tyrant you can from your knowledge of human history, Heboric, then imagine him or her as virtually undying. In your mind, bring that tyrant back again and again and again. How, having done so, would you imagine our history then?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Far more violent than that of the Tiste, L'oric." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Humans are not Tiste. Indeed, I have never heard of a Tiste tyrant... '\n\n\"Perhaps I used the wrong word. I meant only– inhuman context– a personality of devastating power, or potential. Look at this Malazan Empire, born from the mind of Kellanved, a single man. What if he had been eternal?\"\n\nSomething in L'oric's musings had reawakened Heboric. \"Eternal?\" He barked a laugh. \"Perhaps he is at that. There is one detail you might consider, perhaps more relevant than anything else that's been said here. And that is, the Tiste are no longer isolated in their scheming. There are humans now, in their games– humans, who've not the patience of the Tiste, nor their legendary remoteness. The warrens of Kurald Galain and Kurald Emurlahn are no longer pure, unsullied by human presence. Meanas and Rashan? Perhaps they are proving the doors into both Darkness and Shadow. Or perhaps the matter is more complex than even that– how can one truly hope to separate the themes of Darkness and Light from Shadow? They areas those scholars said, an interdependent triumvirate. Mother, father and child– a family ever squabbling... only now the in-laws and grandchildren are joining in.\"\n\nHe waited fora reply from L'oric, curious as to how his comments had been received, but none was forthcoming. The ex-priest looked up, struggled to focus on the High Mage-\n\n-who sat motionless, a cup in one hand, the ring of the brewing pot in the other. Motionless, and staring at Heboric.\n\n\"L'oric? Forgive me, I cannot discern your expression-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well that you cannot,\" the High Mage rasped. \"Here I sought to raise the warning of Tiste meddling inhuman affairs– to have you then voice a warning in the opposite direction. As if it is not us who must worry, but the Tiste themselves.\"\n\nHeboric said nothing. A strange, whispering suspicion flitted through him fora moment, as if tickled into being by something in L'oric's voice. After a moment, he dismissed it. Too outrageous, too absurd to entertain.\n\nL'oric poured the tea.\n\nHeboric sighed. \"It seems I am to be ever denied the succour of that brew. Tell me, then, of the giant of Jade.\"\n\n\"Ah, and in return you will speak of the Master of the Deck?\"\n\n\"In somethings I am forbidden to elaborate-\"\n\n\"Because they relate to Sha'ik's own secret past?\"\n\n\"Fener's tusk, L'oric! Who in this rat's nest might be listening into our conversation right now? It is madness to speak-'\n\n\"No-one is listening, Heboric. I have made certain of that. I am not careless with secrets. I have known much of your recent history since the very beginning-\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"We agreed to not discuss sources. My point is, no-one else is aware that you are Malazan, or that you are an escapee from the otataral mines. Except Sha'ik, of course. Since she escaped with you. Thus, I value privacy– with my knowledge and with my thoughts– and am ever vigilant. Oh, there have been probes, sorcerous questings– a whole menagerie of spells as various inhabitants seek to keep track of rivals. As occurs every night. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then your absence will be detected-\"\n\n\"I sleep restful in my tent, Heboric, as far as those questings are concerned. As do you in your tent. Each alone. Harmless.\"\n\n\"You are more than a match for their sorceries, then. Which makes you more powerful than any of them.\" He heard as much as saw L'oric's shrug, and after a moment the ex-priest sighed. \"If you wish details concerning Sha'ik and this new Master of the Deck, then it must be the three of us who meet. And for that to occur, you will have to reveal more of yourself to the Chosen One than you might wish. '\n\n\"Tell me this, at least. This new Master– he was created in the wake of the Malazan disaster on Genabackis. Or do you deny that? That bridge on which he stands– he was of, or is somehow related to, the Bridgeburners. And those ghostly guardians are all that remains of the Bridgeburners, for they were destroyed in the Pannion Domin.\"\n\n\"I cannot be certain of any of that,\" Heboric replied, \"but what you suggest seems likely.\"\n\n\"So, the Malazan influence ever grows– not just on our mundane world, but throughout the warrens, and now in the Deck of Dragons.\"\n\n\"You make the mistake of so many of the empire's enemies, L'oric. You assume that all that is Malazan is perforce unified, in intent and in goal. Things are far more complicated than you imagine. I do not believe this Master of the Deck is some servant of the Empress. Indeed, he kneels before no-one.\"\n\n\"Then why the Bridgeburner guardians?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Heboric sensed that the question was a leading one, but decided he would play along. \"Some loyalties defy Hood himself-\"\n\n\"Ah, meaning he was a soldier in that illustrious company. Well, things are beginning to make sense.\"\n\n\"They are?\"\n\n\"Tell me, have you heard of a Spiritwalker named Kimloc?\"\n\n\"The name is vaguely familiar. But not from around here. Karakarang? Rutu Jelba?\"\n\n\"Now resident of Ehrlitan. His history is not relevant here, but somehow he must have come into recent contact with a Bridgeburner. There is no other explanation for what he has done. He has given them a song, Heboric. A Tanno song, and, curiously, it begins here. In Raraku. Raraku, friend, is the birthplace of the Bridgeburners. Do you know the significance of such a song?\"\n\nHeboric turned away, faced the hearth and its dry heat, and said nothing.\n\n\"Of course,\" L'oric went on after a moment,\"that significance has now diminished somewhat, since the Bridgeburners are no more. There can be no sanctification... '\n\n\"No, I suppose not,\" Heboric murmured.\n\n\"For the song to be sanctified, a Bridgeburner would have to return to Raraku, to the birthplace of the company. And that does not seem likely now, does it?\"\n\n\"Why is it necessary a Bridgeburner return to Raraku?\"\n\n\"Tanno sorcery is... elliptical. The song must be like a serpent eating its tail. Kimloc's Song of the Bridgeburners is at the moment without an end. But it has been sung, and so lives. \"L'oric shrugged. \"It's like a spell that remains active, awaiting resolution. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tell me of the giant of jade.\"\n\nThe High Mage nodded. He poured out the tea and set the cup down in front of Heboric. \"The first one was found deep in the otataral mines-\"\n\n\"The first one!\"\n\n\"Aye. And the contact proved, for those miners who ventured too close, fatal. Or, rather, they disappeared. Leaving no trace. Sections of two others have been discovered– all three veins are now sealed. The giants are... intruders to our world. From some other realm.\"\n\n\"Arriving,\" Heboric muttered, \"only to be wrapped in chains of otataral.\"\n\n\"Ah, you are not without your own knowledge, then. Indeed, it seems their arrival has, each time, been anticipated. Someone, or something, is ensuring that the threat these giants impose is negated-\"\n\nBut Heboric shook his head at that and said, \"No, I think you are wrong, L'oric. It is the very passage– the portal through which each giant comes– that creates the otataral. '\n\n\"Are you certain?\"\n\n\"Of course not. There are too many mysteries surrounding the nature of otataral to be certain of anything. There was a scholar– I forget her name– who once suggested that otataral is created by the annihilation of all that is necessary for sorcery to operate. Like slag with all the ore burned out. She called it the absolute draining of energy– the energy that rightfully exists in all things, whether animate or otherwise.\"\n\n\"And had she a theory as to how that could occur?\"\n\n\"Perhaps the magnitude of the sorcery unleashed– a spell that is all-devouring of the energy it feeds on.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But not even the gods could wield such magic.\"\n\n\"True, but I think it is nevertheless possible... through ritual, such as a cadre– or army– of mortal sorcerers could achieve.\"\n\n\"In the manner of the Ritual of Tellann,\" L'oric nodded.\"Aye. '\n\n\"Or,\" Heboric said softly as he reached for the cup, \"the calling down of the Crippled God...\"\n\nL'oric was motionless, staring fixedly at the tattooed ex-priest. He said nothing fora longtime, whilst Heboric sipped the hen'bara tea. He finally spoke. \"Very well, there is one last piece of information I will tell you– I see now the need, the very great need to do so, though it shall... reveal much of myself.\"\n\nHeboric sat and listened, and as L'oric continued speaking, the confines of his squalid hut dimmed to insignificance, the heat of the hearth no longer reaching him, until the only sensation left came from his ghostly hands. Together, thereat the ends of his wrists, they became the weight of the world.\n\nThe rising sun washed all tones from the sky to the east. Karsa checked his supplies one last time, the foodstuffs and waterskins, the additional items and accoutrements necessary for survival in a hot, arid land. A kit wholly unlike what he had carried for most of his life. Even the sword was different– ironwood was heavier than blood-wood, its edge rougher although almost– but not quite– as hard. It did not slice the air with the ease of his oiled bloodwood sword. Yet it had served him well enough. He glanced skyward; dawn's colours were almost entirely gone, now, the blue directly above vanishing behind suspended dust." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Here, in Raraku's heart, the Whirlwind Goddess had stolen the colour of the sun's own fire, leaving the landscape pallid and deathly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colourless, Karsa Orlong? Bairoth Gild's ghostly voice was filled with wry humour. Not so. Silver, my friend. And silver is the colour of oblivion. Of chaos. Silver is when the last of the blood is washed from the blade-\n\n\"No more words,\" Karsa growled.\n\nLeoman spoke from nearby. \"Having just arrived, Toblakai, I am yet to even speak. Do you not wish my farewell?\"\n\nKarsa slowly straightened, slinging his pack over a shoulder. \"Words need not bespoken aloud, friend, to prove unwelcome. I but answered my own thoughts. That you are here pleases me. When I began my first journey, long ago, none came to witness.\"\n\n\"I asked Sha'ik, \"Leoman replied from where he stood ten paces away, having just passed through the trail's gap in the low, crumbled wall– the mud bricks, Karsa saw, were on their shaded side covered with rhizan, clinging with wings contracted, their mottled colourings making them almost identical to the ochre bricks. \"But she said she would not join me this morning. Even stranger, it seemed as if she already knew of your intentions, and was but awaiting my visit.\"\n\nShrugging, Karsa faced Leoman. \"A witness of one suffices. We may now speak our parting words. Do not hide overlong in your pit, friend. And when you ride outwith your warriors, hold to the Chosen One's commands– too many jabs from the small knife can awaken the bear no matter how deep it sleeps. '\n\n\"It is a young and weak bear, this time, Toblakai.\"\n\nKarsa shook his head. \"I have come to respect the Malazans, and fear that you would awaken them to themselves.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I shall consider your words,\" Leoman replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And now ask that you consider mine. Beware your gods, friend. If you must kneel before a power, first look upon it with clear eyes. Tell me, what would your kin say to you in parting?\"\n\n\"\"May you slay a thousand children.\"\"\n\nLeoman blanched. \"Journey well, Toblakai.\"\n\n\"I shall.\"\n\nKarsa knew that Leoman could neither see nor sense that he was flanked where he stood at the trail's gap in the wall. Delum Thord on the left, Bairoth Gild on the right. Teblor warriors, blood-oil smeared in crimson tones even the Whirlwind could not eradicate, and they stepped forward as the Teblor swung about to face the western trail.\n\n\"Lead us. Lead your dead, Warleader.\"\n\nBairoth's mocking laugh clicked and cracked like the potsherds breaking beneath Karsa Orlong's moccasins. The Teblor grimaced. There would be, it seemed, a fierce price for the honour.\n\nNone the less, he realized after a moment, if there must be ghosts, it was better to lead them than to be chased by them.\n\n\"If that is how you would see it, Karsa Orlong.\"\n\nIn the distance rose the swirling wall of the Whirlwind. It would be good, the Teblor reflected, to seethe world beyond it again, after all these months. He set out, westward, as the day was born.\n\n\"He has left,\" Kamist Reloe said as he settled onto the cushions.\n\nKorbolo Dom eyed the mage, his blank expression betraying nothing of the contempt he felt for the man. Sorcerers did not belong in war. And he had shown the truth of that when destroying the Chain of Dogs. Even so, there were necessities to contemplate, and Reloe was the least of them. \"That leaves only Leoman,\" he rumbled from where he lay on the pillows and cushions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who departs with his rats in a few days.\"\n\n\"Will Febryl now advance his plans?\"\n\nThe mage shrugged. \"It is hard to say, but there is a distinct avidness in his gaze this morning.\"\n\nAvidness. Indeed. Another High Mage, another insane wielder of powers better left untapped. \"There is one who remains, who perhaps presents us with the greatest threat of them all, and that is Ghost Hands.\"\n\nKamist Reloe sneered. \"A blind, doddering fool. Does he even know that hen'bara tea is itself the source of the thinning fabric between his world and all that he would flee from? Before long, his mind will vanish entirely within the nightmares, and we need concern ourselves with him no more. '\n\n\"She has secrets,\" Korbolo Dom muttered, leaning forward to collect a bowl of figs. \"Far beyond those gifted her by the Whirlwind. Febryl proceeds headlong, unmindful of his own ignorance. When the battle with the Adjunct's army is finally joined, successor failure will be decided by the Dogslayers– by my army. Tavore's otataral will defeat the Whirlwind– I am certain of it. All that I ask of you and Febryl and Bidithal is that I am unobstructed in commanding the forces, in shaping that battle.\"\n\n\"We are both aware,\" Kamist growled, \"that this struggle goes far beyond the Whirlwind.\"\n\n\"Aye, so it does. Beyond all of Seven Cities, Mage. Do not lose sight of our final goal, of the throne that will one day belong to us.\"\n\nKamist Reloe shrugged. \"That is our secret, old friend. We need only proceed with caution, and all that opposes us will likely vanish before our very eyes. Febryl kills Sha'ik, Tavore kills Febryl, and we destroy Tavore and her army. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And then become Laseen's saviour– as we crush this rebellion utterly, Gods, I swear I will see this entire land empty of life if need be." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A triumphant return to Unta, an audience with the Empress, then the driven knife. And who will stop us? The Talon are poised to cut down the Claws. Whiskeyjack and the Bridgeburners are no more, and Dujek remains a continent away. How fares the Jhistal priest? '\n\n\"Mallick travels without opposition, ever southward. He is a clever man, a wise man, and he will play out his role to perfection.\"\n\nKorbolo Dom made no reply to that. He despised Mallick Rel, but could not deny his usefulness. Still, the man was not one to be trusted... to which High Fist Pormqual would attest, were the fool still alive. \"Send for Fayelle. I would a woman's company now. Leave me, Kamist Reloe. '\n\nThe High Mage hesitated, and Korbolo scowled.\n\n\"There is the matter,\" Kamist whispered, \"of L'oric... '\n\n\"Then deal with him!\" Korbolo snapped. \"Begone!\"\n\nBowing his head, the High Mage backed out of the tent.\n\nSorcerers. Could he find away to destroy magic, the Napan would not hesitate. The extinction of powers that could slaughter a thousand soldiers in an instant would return the fate of mortals to the mortals themselves, and this could not but be a good thing. The death of warrens, the dissolution of gods as memory of them and their meddling slowly vanished, the withering of all magic... the world then would belong to men such as Korbolo himself. And the empire he would shape would permit no ambiguity, no ambivalence.\n\nHis will unopposed, the Napan could end, once and for all, the dissonant clangour that so plagued humanity– now and throughout its history." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I will bring order. And from that unity, we shall rid the world of every other race, every other people, we shall overpower and crush every discordant vision, for there can in the end be only one way, one way of living, of ruling this realm. And that way belongs tome.\n\nA good soldier well knew that success was found in careful planning, in incremental steps.\n\nOpposition had away of stepping aside all on its own. You are now at Hood's feet, Whiskeyjack. Where I have always wanted you. You and your damned company, feeding worms in a foreign land. None left to stop me, now..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was a path she did not welcome.\n\nThe Sha'ik Rebellion Tursabaal\n\nThe breaths of the horses plumed in the chill morning air. Dawn had but just arrived, the air hinting nothing of the heat the coming day would deliver. Wrapped in the furs of a bhederin, old sweat making the lining of his helm clammy as the touch of a corpse, Fist Gamet sat motionless on his Wickan mount, his gaze fixed on the Adjunct.\n\nThe hill just south of Erougimon where Coltaine had died had come to be known as the Fall. Countless humps on the summit and slopes indicated where bodies had been buried, the metal-strewn earth already cloaked in grasses and flowers.\n\nAnts had colonized this entire hill, or so it seemed. The ground swarmed with them, their red and black bodies coated in dust yet glittering none the less as they set about their daily tasks.\n\nGamet, the Adjunct and Tene Baralta had ridden out from the city before dawn. Outside the gates to the west, the army had begun to stir. The march would begin this day. The journey north, to Raraku, to Sha'ik and the Whirlwind. To vengeance.\n\nPerhaps it was the rumours that had drawn Tavore out hereto the Fall, but already Gamet regretted her decision to bring him along. This place showed him nothing he wanted to see. Nor, he suspected, was the Adjunct well pleased with what they had found.\n\nRed-stained braids, woven into chains, draped across the summit, and coiled around the twin stumps of the cross that had once stood there. Dog skulls crowded with indecipherable hieroglyphs looked out along the crest through empty sockets. Crow feathers dangled from upright-thrust broken arrow shafts. Ragged banners lay pinned to the ground on which were painted various representations of a broken Wickan long-knife. Icons, fetishes, amass of detritus to mark the death of a single man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And all of it was aswarm in ants." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Like mindless keepers of this now hallowed ground.\n\nThe three riders satin their saddles in silence.\n\nFinally, after along while, Tavore spoke. \"Tene Baralta.\" Inflectionless.\n\n\"Aye, Adjunct?\"\n\n\"Who– who is responsible for... for all of this? Malazans from Aren? Your Red Blades?\"\n\nTene Baralta did not immediately reply. Instead, he dismounted and strode forward, his eyes on the ground. Near one of the dog skulls he halted and crouched down. \"Adjunct, these skulls– the runes on them are Khundryl.\" He pointed towards the wooden stumps. \"The woven chains, Kherahn Dhobri.\" A gesture to the slope. \"The banners... unknown, possibly Bhilard. Crow feathers? The beads at their stems are Semk.\"\n\n\"Semk!\" Gamet could not keep the disbelief from his voice. \"From the other side of Vathar River! Tene, you must be in error...\"\n\nThe large warrior shrugged. He straightened and gestured towards the rumpled hills directly north of them. \"The pilgrims only come at night– unseen, which is how they will have it. They're hiding out there, even now. Waiting for night. '\n\nTavore cleared her throat. \"Semk. Bhilard– these tribes fought against him. And now they come to worship. How is this? Explain, please, Tene Baralta.\"\n\n\"I cannot, Adjunct.\" He eyed her, then added, \"But, from what I understand, this is... modest, compared with what lines the Aren Way.\"\n\nThere was silence once more, though Gamet did not need to hear her speak to know Tavore's thoughts." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the author's assistant, please continue the story.\nTags: epic fantasy, character study, power struggles, resilience, destiny\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: House of Chains\nChapter: 20" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And all of it was aswarm in ants." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Like mindless keepers of this now hallowed ground.\n\nThe three riders satin their saddles in silence.\n\nFinally, after along while, Tavore spoke. \"Tene Baralta.\" Inflectionless.\n\n\"Aye, Adjunct?\"\n\n\"Who– who is responsible for... for all of this? Malazans from Aren? Your Red Blades?\"\n\nTene Baralta did not immediately reply. Instead, he dismounted and strode forward, his eyes on the ground. Near one of the dog skulls he halted and crouched down. \"Adjunct, these skulls– the runes on them are Khundryl.\" He pointed towards the wooden stumps. \"The woven chains, Kherahn Dhobri.\" A gesture to the slope. \"The banners... unknown, possibly Bhilard. Crow feathers? The beads at their stems are Semk.\"\n\n\"Semk!\" Gamet could not keep the disbelief from his voice. \"From the other side of Vathar River! Tene, you must be in error...\"\n\nThe large warrior shrugged. He straightened and gestured towards the rumpled hills directly north of them. \"The pilgrims only come at night– unseen, which is how they will have it. They're hiding out there, even now. Waiting for night. '\n\nTavore cleared her throat. \"Semk. Bhilard– these tribes fought against him. And now they come to worship. How is this? Explain, please, Tene Baralta.\"\n\n\"I cannot, Adjunct.\" He eyed her, then added, \"But, from what I understand, this is... modest, compared with what lines the Aren Way.\"\n\nThere was silence once more, though Gamet did not need to hear her speak to know Tavore's thoughts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This– this is the path we now take. We must walk, step by step, the legacy. We? No. Tavore. Alone. \" This is no longer Coltaine's war!\" she said to Temul. But it seems it remains just that. And she now realizes, down in the depths of her soul, that she will stride that man's shadow... all the way to Raraku.\n\n\"You will both leave me now,\" the Adjunct said. \"I shall rejoin you on the Aren Way.\"\n\nGamet hesitated, then said, \"Adjunct, the Crow Clan still claim the right to ride at the forefront. They will not accept Temul as their commander.\"\n\n\"I will see to their disposition,\" she replied. \"For now, go.\"\n\nHe watched Tene Baralta swing back onto his horse. They exchanged a glance, then both wheeled their mounts and set off at a canter along the track leading to the west gate.\n\nGamet scanned the rock-studded ground rolling past beneath his horse's hoofs. This was where the historian Duiker drove the refugees towards the city– this very sweep of empty ground. Where, at the last, that old man drew rein on his weary, loyal mare– the mare that Temul now rode– and watched as the last of his charge was helped through the gate.\n\nWhereupon, it was said, he finally rode into the city.\n\nGamet wondered what had gone through the man's mind at that moment. Knowing that Coltaine and the remnants of the Seventh were still out there, fighting their desperate rearguard action. Knowing that they had achieved the impossible.\n\nDuiker had delivered the refugees.\n\nOnly to end up staked to a tree. It was beyond him, Gamet realized, to comprehend the depth of that betrayal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A body never recovered. No bones laid to rest.\n\n\"There is so much,\" Tene Baralta rumbled at Gamet's side.\n\n\"So much?\"\n\n\"To give answer to, Gamet. Indeed, it takes words from the throat, yet the silence it leaves behind– that silence screams\"\n\nDiscomforted by Tene's admission, Gamet said nothing.\n\n\"Pray remind me,\" the Red Blade went on, \"that Tavore is equal to this task.\"\n\nIs that even possible? \"She is.\" She must be. Else we are lost.\n\n\"One day, Gamet, you shall have to tell me what she has done, to earn such loyalty as you display.\"\n\nGods, what answer to make to that? Damn you, Tene, can you not seethe truth before you? She has done... nothing. I beg you. Leave an old man to his faith.\n\n\"Wish whatever you like,\" Gesler growled, \"but faith is for fools.\"\n\nStrings cleared the dust from his throat and spat onto the side of the track. Their pace was torturously slow, the three squads trailing the wagon loaded down with their supplies. \"What's your point? \"he asked the sergeant beside him.\"A soldier knows but one truth, and that truth is, without faith, you are already as good as dead. Faith in the soldier at your side. But even more important– and no matter how delusional it is in truth– there is the faith that you cannot be killed. Those two and those two alone– they are the legs holding up every army. '\n\nThe amber-skinned man grunted, then waved at the nearest of the trees lining Aren Way. \"Look there and tell me what you see– no, not those Hood-damned fetishes– but what's still visible under all that mess. The spike holes. the dark stains of bile and blood. Ask the ghost of the soldier who was on that tree– ask that soldier about faith. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A faith betrayed does not destroy the notion of faith itself,\" Strings retorted. \"In fact, it does the very opposite-\"\n\n\"Maybe for you, but there are somethings you can't step around with words and lofty ideals, Fid. And that comes down to who is in that vanguard somewhere up ahead. The Adjunct. Who just lost an argument with that pack of hoary Wickans. You've been lucky– you had Whiskeyjack, and Dujek. Do you know who my last commander was– before I was sentenced to the coastal guard? Korbolo Dom. I'd swear that man had a shrine to Whiskeyjack in his tent– but not the Whiskeyjack you know. Korbolo saw him differently. Unfulfilled potential, that's what he saw.\"\n\nStrings glanced over at Gesler. Stormy and Tarr were walking instep behind the two sergeants, close enough to hear, though neither had ventured a comment or opinion. \"Unfulfilled potential? What in Bern's name are you talking about? '\n\n\"Not me. Korbolo Dom. \"If only the bastard had been hard enough,\" he used to say, \"he could've taken the damned throne. Should've.\" As far as Dom is concerned, Whiskeyjack betrayed him, betrayed us all– and that's something that renegade Napan won't forgive.\"\n\n\"Too bad for him,\" Strings growled, \"since there's a good chance the Empress will send the whole Genabackan army over in time for the final battle. Dom can take his complaints to Whiskeyjack himself. '\n\n\"A pleasant thought,\" Gesler laughed. \"But my point was, you've had commanders worthy of the faith you put in them. Most of the rest of us didn't have that luxury. So we got a different feeling about it all. That's it, that's all I was trying to say.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Aren Way marched past on both sides. Transformed into avast, open-air temple, each tree cluttered with fetishes, cloths braided into chains, figures painted on the rough bark to approximate the soldiers who had once writhed thereon spikes driven in by Korbolo Dom's warriors. Most of the soldiers ahead and behind Strings walked in silence. Despite the vast, empty expanse of blue sky overhead, the road was oppressive.\n\nThere had been talk of cutting the trees down, but one of the Adjunct's first commands upon arriving in Aren had been to forbid it. Strings wondered if she now regretted her decision.\n\nHis gaze travelled up to one of the Fourteenth's new standards, barely visible through clouds of roiling dust up ahead. She had understood the whole thing with the finger bones well enough, understood the turning of the omen. The new standard well attested to that. A grimy, thin-limbed figure holding a bone aloft, the details in shades of dun colours that were barely visible on the yellow ochre field, the border a woven braid of the imperial magenta and dark grey. A defiant figure standing before a sandstorm. That the standard could as easily apply to Sha'ik's army of the Apocalypse was a curious coincidence. As if Tavore and Sha'ik– the two armies, the forces in opposition– are in someway mirrored reflections of the other.\n\nThere were many strange... occurrences in all this, nibbling and squirming beneath Strings's skin like bot-fly larvae, and it seemed indeed that he was feeling strangely fevered throughout the day. Strains of a barely heard song rose up from the depths of his mind on occasion, a haunting song that made his flesh prickle. And stranger still, the song was entirely unfamiliar.\n\nMirrored reflections. Perhaps not just Tavore and Sha'ik. What of Tavore and Coltaine? Here we are, reversing the path on that blood-soaked road. And it was that road that proved Coltaine to most of those he led. Will we seethe same with our journey? How will we see Tavore the day we stand before the Whirlwind? And what of my own return? To Raraku, the desert that saw me destroyed only to rise once more, mysteriously renewed– a renewal that persists, since for an old man I neither look nor feel old. And so it remains for all of us Bridgeburners, as if Raraku stole something of our mortality, and replaced it with... with something else." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He glanced back to check on his squad. None were lagging, which was a good sign. He doubted any of them were in the shape required for the journey they were now on. The early days would prove the most difficult, before marching in full armour and weapons became second nature– not that it would ever prove a comfortable second nature– this land was murderously hot and dry, and the handful of minor healers in each of the companies would recall this march as a seemingly endless nightmare offending off heat prostration and dehydration.\n\nThere was noway yet to measure the worth of his squad. Koryk certainly had the look, the nature, of the mailed fist that every squad needed. And the stubborn set to Tarr's blockish features hinted at a will not easily turned aside. There was something about the lass, Smiles, that reminded Strings all too much of Sorry– the remorseless chill of her eyes belonged to those of a murderer, and he wondered at her past. Bottle had all the diffident bluster of a young mage, probably one versed in a handful of spells from some minor warren. The last soldier in his squad, of course, the sergeant had no worries about. He'd known men like Cuttle all his life. A burlier, more miserable version of Hedge. Having Cuttle there was like... coming home.\n\nThe testing would come, and it would probably be brutal, but it would temper those who survived.\n\nThey were emerging from the Aren Way, and Gesler gestured to the last tree on their left. \"That's where we found him, ' he said in a low tone.\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Duiker. We didn't let on, since the lad– Truth– was so hopeful. Next time we came out, though, the historian's body was gone. Stolen. You've seen the markets in Aren– the withered pieces of flesh the hawkers claim belonged to Coltaine, or Bult, or Duiker. The broken long-knives, the scraps of feathered cape... '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Strings was thoughtful fora moment, then he sighed. \"I saw Duiker but once, and that at a distance. Just a soldier the Emperor decided was worth schooling.\"\n\n\"A soldier indeed. He stood on the front line with all the others. A crusty old bastard with his short-sword and shield.\"\n\n\"Clearly, something about him caught Coltaine's eye– after all, Duiker was the one Coltaine chose to lead the refugees. '\n\n\"I'd guess it wasn't Duiker's soldiering that decided Coltaine, Strings. It was that he was the Imperial Historian. He wanted the tale to be told, and told right. '\n\n\"Well, it's turned out that Coltaine told his own tale– he didn't need a historian, did he?\"\n\nGesler shrugged. \"As you say. We weren't in their company long, just long enough to take on a shipload of wounded. I talked a bit with Duiker, and Captain Lull. And then Coltaine broke his hand punching me in the face-'\n\n\"He what?\" Strings laughed. \"No doubt you deserved it-\"\n\nStormy spoke behind them. \"Broke his hand, aye, Gesler. And your nose, too.\"\n\n\"My nose has been broke so many times it does it on instinct,\" the sergeant replied. \"It wasn't much of a punch. '\n\nStormy snorted. \"He dropped you to the ground like a sack of turnips! That punch rivalled Urko's, the time he-'\n\n\"Not even close,\" Gesler drawled. \"I once saw Urko punch down the side of a mudbrick house. Three blows, no more than four, anyway, and the whole thing toppled in a cloud of dust. That Napan bastard could punch.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And that's important to you? ' Strings asked.\n\nGesler's nod was serious.\"The only way any commander will ever earn my respect, Fid. '\n\n\"Planning on testing the Adjunct soon?\"\n\n\"Maybe. Of course, I'll make allowances, she being noble-born and all. '\n\nOnce beyond Aren Way's battered gate and the abandoned ruins of a small village, they could now seethe Seti and Wickan outriders on their flanks– a comforting sight to Strings. The raiding and sniping could begin at anytime, now that the army had left the walls of Aren behind. Most of the tribes had, if the rumours were true, conveniently forgotten the truces they had won from the Malazan Empire. The old ways did naught but sleep restless beneath the surface of such peoples.\n\nThe landscape ahead and to either side was sun-blasted and broken, a place where even wild goats grew lean and listless. The mounded, flat-topped heaps of rubble that marked long-dead cities were visible on every horizon. Ancient raised roads, now mostly dismantled, stitched the rugged hillsides and ridges.\n\nStrings wiped sweat from his brow. \"Green as we are, it's about time she called-'\n\nHorns sounded along the massive train's length. Motion ceased, and the shouts of the water crews rose into the dusty air as they scrambled for the barrels. Strings swung about and studied his squad– they were already on the ground, sitting or sprawled, their long-sleeved undershirts darkened with sweat.\n\nAmong Gesler's and Borduke's squads, the reaction to the rest-halt had been identical, and Borduke's mage, Balgrid– slightly overweight and clearly unused to the armour he was wearing– looked pale and shivering. That squad's healer, a quiet, small man named Lutes, was already moving towards him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A Seti summer,\" Koryk said, offering Strings a carnivorous smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When the grasslands are driven to dust by the herds, when the earth underfoot clicks like breaking metal.\"\n\n\"Hood take you,\" Smiles snapped. \"This land's full of dead things fora reason. '\n\n\"Aye,\" the Seti half-blood replied, \"only the tough survive. There are tribes aplenty out there– they've left enough sign in passing. '\n\n\"You have seen that, have you?\" Strings said. \"Good. You're now the squad's scout.\"\n\nKoryk's white grin broadened.\"If you insist, Sergeant. '\n\n\"Unless it's night, \"Strings added.\"Then it'll be Smiles. And Bottle, assuming his warren is suitable.\"\n\nBottle scowled, then nodded. \"Well enough, Sergeant.\"\n\n\"So what's Cuttle's role, then?\" Smiles demanded. \"Lying around like a beached porpoise?\"\n\nBeached porpoise? Grew up by the sea, did you? Strings glanced over at the veteran soldier. The man was asleep. I used to do that, back in the days when nothing was expected of me, when I wasn't in charge of a damned thing. I miss those days.\"Cuttle's task,\" Strings replied, \"is keeping the rest of you alive when I'm not close by. '\n\n\"Then why isn't he the corporal? ' Smiles wanted to know, a belligerent set to her petite features.\n\n\"Because he's a sapper, and you don't want a sapper fora corporal, lass.\" Of course, I'm a sapper, too. Best keep that to myself...\n\nThree soldiers from the company's infantry arrived with waterskins.\n\n\"Drink it down slow,\" Strings instructed. Gesler caught his eye from a few paces away, near the wagon, and Strings headed over. Borduke joined them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, this is curious,\" Gesler muttered. \"Borduke's sickly mage– his warren's Meanas. And my mage is Tavos Pond, and he's the same. Now, Strings, your lad, Bottle... '\n\n\"I'm not sure yet. '\n\n\"He's also Meanas, \"Borduke growled, pulling at his beard in a habitual gesture Strings knew would come to irritate him.\"Balgrid's confirmed it. They're all Meanas. '\n\n\"Like I said.\" Gesler sighed. \"Curious.\"\n\n\"That could be put to use,\" Strings said. \"Get all three of them working on rituals– illusions are damned useful, when done right. Quick Ben could pull a few– the key is in the details. We should drag them all together tonight-\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said a voice from beyond the wagon, and Lieutenant Ranal strode into view, \"all my sergeants together in one place. Convenient.\"\n\n\"Come to eat dust with the rest of us?\" Gesler asked. \"Damned generous of you.\"\n\n\"Don't think I haven't heard about you,\" Ranal sneered. \"Had it been my choice, you'd be one of the lads carrying those waterskins, Gesler-'\n\n\"You'd go thirsty if I was, ' the sergeant replied.\n\nRanal's face darkened.\"Captain Keneb wants to know if there's any mages in your squads. The Adjunct needs a tally of what's available. '\n\n\"None-\"\n\n\"Three,\" Strings interrupted, ignoring Gesler's glare.\"All minor, as would be expected. Tell the captain we'll be good for covert actions.\"\n\n\"Keep your opinions to yourself, Strings. Three, you said. Very well.\" He wheeled about and marched off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gesler rounded on Strings. \"We could lose those mages-\"\n\n\"We won't. Go easy on the lieutenant, Gesler, at least for now. The lad knows nothing of being an officer in the field. Imagine, telling sergeants to keep their opinions quiet. With Oponn's luck, Keneb will explain a few things to the lieutenant, eventually.\"\n\n\"Assuming Keneb's any better, \"Borduke muttered. He combed his beard.\"Rumour has it he was the only one of his company to survive. And you know what that likely means. '\n\n\"Let's wait and see, \"Strings advised.\"It's a bit early to start honing the knives-\"\n\n\"Honing the knives,\" Gesler said, \"now you're talking a language I understand. I'm prepared to wait and see, as you suggest, Fid. For now. All right, let's gather the mages tonight, and if they can actually get along without killing each other, then we might find ourselves a step or two ahead. '\n\nHorns sounded to announce the resumption of the march. Soldiers groaned and swore as they clambered upright once more.\n\nThe first day of travel was done, and to Gamet it seemed they had travelled a paltry, pathetic distance from Aren. To be expected, of course. The army was along way from finding its feet.\n\nAs am I. Saddle sore and light-headed from the heat, the Fist watched from a slight rise alongside the line of march as the camp slowly took shape. Pockets of order amidst a chaotic sea of motion. Seti and Wickan horse warriors continued to range well beyond the outlying pickets, far too few in number, however, to give him much comfort. And those Wickans– grandfathers and grandmothers one and all. Hood knows, I might well have crossed blades with some of those old warriors. Those ancient ones, they were never settled with the idea of being in the Empire. They were here for another reason entirely. For the memory of Coltaine. And the children– well, they were being fed the singular poison of bitter old fighters filled with tales of past glory. And so, ones who've never known the terror of war and ones who've forgotten. A dreadful pairing..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stretched to ease the kinks in his spine, then forced himself into motion. Down from the ridge, along the edge of the rubble-filled ditch, to where the Adjunct's command tent sat, its canvas pristine, Temul's Wickans standing guard around it.\n\nTemul was not insight. Gamet pitied the lad. He was already fighting a half-dozen skirmishes, without a blade drawn, and he was losing. And there's not a damned thing any of us can do about it.\n\nHe approached the tent's entrance, scratched at the flap and waited.\n\n\"Come in, Gamet,\" the Adjunct's voice called from within.\n\nShe was kneeling in the fore-chamber before along, stone box, and was just settling the lid into place when he stepped through the entrance. A momentary glimpse– her otataral sword– then the lid was in place. \"There is some softened wax– therein that pot over the brazier. Bring it over, Gamet.\"\n\nHe did so, and watched as she brushed the inset join between lid and base, until the container was entirely sealed. Then she rose and swept the windblown sand from her knees. \"I am already weary of this pernicious sand,\" she muttered.\n\nShe studied him fora moment, then said, \"There is watered wine behind you, Gamet. Pour yourself some.\"\n\n\"Do I look in need, Adjunct?\"\n\n\"You do. Ah, I well know, you sought out a quiet life when you joined our household. And here I have dragged you into a war.\"\n\nHe felt himself bridling and stood straighter. \"I am equal to this, Adjunct.\"\n\n\"I believe you. None the less, pour yourself some wine. We await news.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He swung about in search of the clay jug, found it and strode over. \"News, Adjunct?\"\n\nShe nodded, and he saw the concern on her plain features, a momentary revelation that he turned away from as he poured out a cup of wine. Show me no seams, lass. I need to hold onto my certainty.\n\n\"Come stand beside me,\" she instructed, a sudden urgency in her tone.\n\nHe joined her. They faced the clear space in the centre of the chamber.\n\nWhere a portal flowered, spreading outward like liquid staining a sheet of gauze, murky grey, sighing out a breath of stale, dead air. A tall, green-clad figure emerged. Strange, angular features, skin the shade of coal-dust marble; the man's broad mouth had the look of displaying a perpetual half-smile, but he was not smiling now.\n\nHe paused to brush grey dust from his cloak and leggings, then lifted his head and met Tavore's gaze.\"Adjunct, greetings from the Empress. And myself, of course. '\n\n\"Topper. I sense your mission here will bean unpleasant one. Fist Gamet, will you kindly pour our guest some wine?\"\n\n\"Of course.\" Gods below, the damned master of the Claw. He glanced down at his own cup, then offered it to Topper. \"I have yet to sip. Here.\"\n\nThe tall man tilted his head in thanks and accepted the cup.\n\nGamet went to where the jug waited.\n\n\"You have come directly from the Empress?\" Tavore asked the Clawmaster.\n\n\"I have, and before that, from across the ocean... from Genabackis, where I spent a most glum evening in the company of High Mage Tayschrenn. Would it shock you to know that he and I got drunk that night?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gamet's head turned at that. It seemed such an unlikely image in his mind that he was indeed shocked.\n\nThe Adjunct looked equally startled, then she visibly steeled herself. \"What news have you to tell me?\"\n\nTopper swallowed down a large mouthful of wine, then scowled. \"Watered. Ah well. Losses, Adjunct. On Genabackis. Terrible losses...\"\n\nLying motionless in a grassy depression thirty paces beyond the squad's fire, Bottle closed his eyes. He could hear his name being called. Strings– who was called Fid by Gesler– wanted him, but the mage was not ready. Not yet. He had a different conversation to listen to, and managing that– without being detected-was no easy task.\n\nHis grandmother back in Malaz City would have been proud. \"Never mind those damned warrens, child, the deep magic is far older. Remember, seek out the roots and tendrils, the roots and tendrils. The paths through the ground, the invisible web woven from creature to creature. Every creature-on the land, in the land, in the air, in the water– they are all linked. And it is within you, if you have been awakened, and spirits below, you've been awakened, child! Within you, then, to ride those tendrils... '\n\nAnd ride them he did, though he would not surrender his private fascination with warrens, with Meanas in particular. Illusions... playing with those tendrils, with those roots of being, twisting and tying them into deceptive knots that tricked the eye, the touch, that deceived every sense, now that was a game worth playing...\n\nBut for the moment, he had immersed himself in the old ways, the undetectable ways– if one were careful, that is. Riding the life-sparks of capemoths, of rhizan, of crickets and chigger fleas, of roving bloodflies. Mindless creatures dancing on the tent's wall, hearing but not comprehending the sound shivers of the words coming from the other side of that tent wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Comprehension was Bottle's task. And so he listened. As the newcomer spoke, interrupted by neither the Adjunct nor Fist Gamet. Listened, and comprehended.\n\nStrings glared down at the two seated mages. \"You can't sense him? '\n\nBalgrid's shrug was sheepish.\"He's out there, hiding in the dark somewhere.\"\n\n\"And he's up to something, \"Tavos Pond added.\"But we can't tell what.\"\n\n\"It's strange, ' Balgrid muttered.\n\nStrings snorted and strode back to Gesler and Borduke. The other squad members were brewing tea at the small fire they had built to one side of the path. Cuttle's snores were loud from the tent beyond.\"The bastard's vanished,\" Strings said.\n\nGesler grunted. \"Maybe he's deserted, and if that's the case the Wickans will hunt him down and comeback with his head on a spear. There won't be-'\n\n\"He's here! '\n\nThey turned to see Bottle settling down by the fire. Strings stamped over. \"Where in Hood's name have you been? ' he demanded.\n\nBottle looked up, his brows slowly lifting. \"Nobody else felt it?\" He glanced over at Balgrid and Tavos Pond, who were both approaching. \"That portal? The one that opened in the Adjunct's tent? \"He frowned at the blank expressions on the faces of the two other mages, then asked in a deadpan voice,\"Have you two mastered hiding pebbles yet? Making coins disappear? '\n\nStrings lowered himself opposite Bottle. \"What was all that about a portal?\"\n\n\"Bad news, Sergeant,\" the young man replied. \"It all went foul on Genabackis. Dujek's army mostly wiped out. The Bridgeburners annihilated. Whiskeyjack's dead-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dead!\"\n\n\"Hood take us!\"\n\n\"Whiskeyjack? Gods below!\"\n\nThe curses grew more elaborate, along with postulations of disbelief, but Strings no longer heard them. His mind was numb, as if a wildfire had ripped through his inner landscape, scorching the ground barren. He felt a heavy hand settle on his shoulder and vaguely heard Gesler murmuring something, but after a moment he shook the man off, rose and walked into the darkness beyond the camp.\n\nHe did not know how long, or how far he walked. Each step was senseless, the world outside his body not reaching through to him, remaining beyond the withered oblivion of his mind. It was only when a sudden weakness took his legs that he sank down onto the wiry, colourless grasses.\n\nThe sound of weeping, coming from somewhere ahead, a sound of sheer despair that pierced through the fog and thrummed in his chest. He listened to the ragged cries, winced to hear how they seemed torn from a constricted throat, like a dam finally sundered by a flood of grief.\n\nHe shook himself, growing mindful once more of his surroundings. The ground beneath the thin skein of grasses was hard and warm beneath his knees. Insects buzzed and flitted through the dark. Only starlight illuminated the wastes stretching out to all sides. The encamped army was easily a thousand or more paces behind him.\n\nStrings drew a deep breath, then rose. He walked slowly towards the sound of the weeping.\n\nA lad, lean– no, damn near scrawny, crouched down with arms wrapped about his knees, head sunk low. A single crow feather hung from a plain leather headband. A few paces beyond stood a mare, bearing a Wickan saddle, a tattered vellum scroll hanging from the horn. The horse was placidly tugging at the grass, her reins dangling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Strings recognized the youth, though for the moment he could not recall his name. But Tavore had placed him in command of the Wickans.\n\nAfter along moment, the sergeant moved forward, making no effort to stay quiet, and sat down on a boulder a half-dozen paces from the lad.\n\nThe Wickan's head snapped up. Tear-streaked warpaint made a twisted net of his narrow face. Venom flared in his dark eyes and he hissed, a hand unsheathing his long-knife as he staggered upright.\n\n\"Relax,\" Strings muttered. \"I'm in grief's arms this night myself, though likely for an entirely different reason. Neither of us expected company, but here we are.\"\n\nThe Wickan hesitated, then snapped the weapon back into its sheath and made to walkaway.\n\n\"Hold a moment, Horsewarrior. There's no need to flee. '\n\nThe youth spun round, mouth twisting into a snarl.\n\n\"Face me. I will be your witness this night, and we alone will know of it. Give me your words of sorrow, Wickan, and I will listen. Hood knows, it would serve me well right now.\"\n\n\"I flee no-one,\" the warrior rasped.\n\n\"I know. I just wanted to get your attention.\"\n\n\"Who are you?\"\n\n\"Nobody. And that is how I will stay, if you like. Nor will I ask for your name-\"\n\n\"I am Temul.\"\n\n\"Ah, well. So your bravery puts me in my place. My name is Fiddler.\"\n\n\"Tell me,\" Temul's voice was suddenly harsh, and he wiped angrily at his face,\"did you think my grief a noble thing? Did I weep for Coltaine? For my fallen kin? I did not. My pity was for myself! And now you may go. Proclaim me– I am done with commanding, for I cannot command myself-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Easy there, I've no intention of proclaiming anything, Temul. But I can guess at your reasons. Those wrinkled Wickans of the Crow, is my guess. Them and the survivors who walked off Gesler's ship of wounded. They won't accept you as their leader, will they? And so, like children, they blunt you at every turn. Defy you, displaying a mocking regard to your face then whispering behind your back. And where does that leave you? You can't challenge them all, after all-\"\n\n\"Perhaps I can! I shall!\"\n\n\"Well, that will please them no end. Numbers alone will defeat your martial prowess. So you will die, sooner or later, and they will win.\"\n\n\"You tell me nothing I do not know, Fiddler.\"\n\n\"I know. I'm just reminding you that you've good reason to rail at the injustice, at the stupidity of those you would lead. I had a commander once, Temul, who was faced with the same thing you're facing. He was in charge of a bunch of children. Nasty children at that. '\n\n\"And what did he do?\"\n\n\"Not much, and ended up with a knife in his back.\"\n\nThere was a moment of silence, then Temul barked a laugh.\n\nFiddler nodded. \"Aye, I'm not one for stories with lessons in life, Temul. My mind bends to more practical choices. '\n\n\"Such as?\"\n\n\"Well, I would imagine that the Adjunct shares your frustration. She wants you to lead, and would help you do so– but not so you lose face. She's too clever for that. No, the key here is deflection. Tell me, where are their horses right now? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Temul frowned. \"Their horses?\"\n\n\"Aye. I would think the Seti outriders could do without the Crow Clan fora day, don't you think? I'm sure the Adjunct would agree– those Seti are young, by and large, and untested. They need the room to find themselves. There's good reason, then, militarily, to keep the Wickans from their horses come tomorrow. Let them walk with the rest of us. Barring your loyal retinue, of course. And who knows, a day might not be enough. Could end up being three, or even four. '\n\nTemul spoke softly, thoughtfully. \"To get to their horses, we would need to be quiet...\"\n\n\"Another challenge for the Seti, or so I'm sure the Adjunct would note. If children your kin must be, then takeaway their favoured playthings– their horses. Hard to look tall and imperious when you're spitting dust behind a wagon. In any case, you'd best hurry, so as not to awaken the Adjunct-'\n\n\"She may already be asleep-\"\n\n\"No, she isn't, Temul. I am certain of it. Now, before you leave, answer me a question, please. You've a scroll hanging from your mare's saddle. Why? What is written on it? '\n\n\"The horse belonged to Duiker,\" Temul answered, turning to the animal. \"He was a man who knew how to read and write. I rode with him, Fiddler.\" He spun back with a glare. \"I rode with him!\"\n\n\"And the scroll?\"\n\nThe young Wickan waved a hand. \"Men such as Duiker carried such things! Indeed, I believe it once belonged to him, was once in his very hands.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And the feather you wear..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "to honour Coltaine?\"\n\n\"To honour Coltaine, yes. But that is because I must. Coltaine did what he was expected to do. He did nothing that was beyond his abilities. I honour him, yes, but Duiker... Duiker was different.\" He scowled and shook his head. \"He was old, older than you. Yet he fought. When fighting was not even expected of him– I know this to be true, for I knew Coltaine and Bult and I heard them speak of it, of the historian. I was there when Coltaine drew the others together, all but Duiker. Lull, Bult, Chenned, Mincer. And all spoke true and with certainty. Duiker would lead the refugees. Coltaine even gave him the stone the traders brought-\"\n\n\"The stone? What stone?\"\n\n\"To wear about his neck, a saving stone, Nil called it. A soul trapper, delivered from afar. Duiker wore it, though he liked it not, for it was meant for Coltaine, so that he would not be lost. Of course, we Wickans knew he would not be lost. We knew the crows would come for his soul. The elders who have come, who hound me so, they speak of a child born to the tribe, a child once empty, then filled, for the crows came. They came.\"\n\n\"Coltaine has been reborn?\"\n\n\"He has been reborn.\"\n\n\"And Duiker's body disappeared, \"Strings muttered.\"From the tree. '\n\n\"Yes! And so I keep his horse for him, for when he returns. I rode with him, Fiddler!\"\n\n\"And he looked to you and your handful of warriors to guard the refugees. To you, Temul– not just Nil and Nether.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Temul's dark eyes hardened as he studied Strings, then he nodded.\"I go now to the Adjunct. '\n\n\"The Lady's pull on you, Commander. '\n\nTemul hesitated, then said, \"This night... you saw...\"\n\n\"I saw nothing,\" Strings replied.\n\nA sharp nod, then the lad was swinging onto the mare, the reins in one long-fingered, knife-scarred hand.\n\nStrings watched him ride into the darkness. He sat motionless on the boulder fora time, then slowly lowered his head into his hands.\n\nThe three were seated now, in the lantern-glow of the tent's chamber. Topper's tale was done, and it seemed that all that remained was silence. Gamet stared down at his cup, saw that it was empty, and reached for the jug. Only to find that it too was empty.\n\nEven as exhaustion tugged at him, Gamet knew he would not leave, not yet. Tavore had been told of, first, her brother's heroism, then his death. Not a single Bridgeburner left alive. Tayschrenn himself saw their bodies, witnessed their interment in Moon's Spawn. But lass, Ganoes redeemed him-self– redeemed the family name. He did that much at least. But that was where the knife probably dug deepest. She had made harrowing sacrifices, after all, to resurrect the family's honour. Yet all along, Ganoes was no renegade; nor had he been responsible for Lorn's death. Like Dujek, like Whiskeyjack, his outlawry was nothing but a deception. There had been no dishonour. Thus, the sacrifice of young Felisin might have, in the end, proved... unnecessary." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And there was more." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jarring revelations. It had, Topper explained, been the hope of the Empress to land Onearm's Host on the north coast, in time to deliver a double blow to the Army of the Apocalypse. Indeed, the expectation all along had been for Dujek to assume overall command. Gamet could understand Laseen's thinking– to place the fate of the imperial presence on Seven Cities in the hands of anew, young and untested Adjunct was far too long a reach of faith.\n\nThough Tavore had believed the Empress had done just that. Now, to find this measure of confidence so lacking... gods, this had been a Hood-damned night indeed.\n\nDujek Onearm was still coming, with a scant three thousand remaining in his Host, but he would arrive late, and, by both Topper's and Tayschrenn's unforgiving assessments, the man's spirit was broken. By the death of his oldest friend. Gamet wondered what else had happened in that distant land, in that nightmarish empire called the Pannion.\n\nWas it worth it, Empress? Was it worth the devastating loss?\n\nTopper had said too much, Gamet decided. Details of Laseen's plans should have been filtered through a more circumspect, less emotionally damaged agent. If the truth was so important, after all, then it should have been laid out for the Adjunct long before now– when it actually mattered. To tell Tavore that the Empress had no confidence in her, then follow that with the brutal assertion that she was now the empire's last hope for Seven Cities... well, few were the men or women who would not be rocked to their knees by that.\n\nThe Adjunct's expression revealed nothing. She cleared her throat.\"Very well, Topper. Is there more? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Clawmaster's oddly shaped eyes widened momentarily, then he shook his head and rose.\"No. Do you wish me to convey a message to the Empress? '\n\nTavore frowned. \"A message? No, there is no message. We have begun our march to the Holy Desert. Nothing more need be said.\"\n\nGamet saw Topper hesitate, then the Clawmaster said, \"There is one more thing, Adjunct. There are probably worshippers of Fener among your army. I do not think the truth of the god's... fall... can be hidden. It seems the Tiger of Summer is the lord of war, now. It does an army little good to mourn; indeed, grief is anathema to an army as we all well know. There may prove some period of difficult adjustment– it would be well to anticipate and prepare for desertions-'\n\n\"There will be no desertions,\" Tavore said, the flat assertion silencing Topper. \"The portal is weakening, Clawmaster– even a box of basalt cannot entirely block the effects of my sword. If you would leave this night, I suggest you do so now.\"\n\nTopper stared down at her. \"We are badly hurt, Adjunct. And hurting. It is the hope of the Empress that you will exercise due caution, and make no precipitous actions. Suffer no distraction on your march to Raraku– there will be attempts to draw you from the trail, to wear you down with skirmishes and pursuits-\"\n\n\"You area Clawmaster,\" Tavore said, sudden iron in her tone. \"Dujek's advice I will listen to, for he is a soldier, a commander. Until such time as he arrives, I shall follow my own instincts. If the Empress is dissatisfied, she is welcome to replace me. Now, that is all. Goodbye, Topper. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Scowling, the Clawmaster swung about and strode without ceremony into the Imperial Warren. The gate collapsed behind him, leaving only a sour smell of dust.\n\nGamet let out along sigh, pushed himself gingerly from the rickety camp chair. \"You have my sorrow, Adjunct, on the loss of your brother.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Gamet. Now, get some sleep. And stop by-\"\n\n\"T'amber's tent, aye, Adjunct.\"\n\nShe quirked an eyebrow. \"Is that disapproval I hear?\"\n\n\"It is. I'm not the only one in need of sleep. Hood take us, we've not even eaten this night.\"\n\n\"Until tomorrow, Fist.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"Aye. Goodnight, Adjunct.\"\n\nThere was but one figure seated at the ebbing fire when Strings returned.\n\n\"What are you doing up, Cuttle?\"\n\n\"I've done my sleep. You'll be dragging your feet tomorrow, Sergeant.\"\n\n\"I don't think rest will come tome this night, ' Strings muttered, sitting down cross-legged opposite the burly sapper.\n\n\"It's all faraway, ' Cuttle rumbled, tossing a last scrap of dung onto the flames.\n\n\"But it feels close.\"\n\n\"At least you're not walking in the footprints of your fallen companions, Fiddler. But even so, it's all faraway.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm not sure what you mean but I'll take your word for it.\"\n\n\"Thanks for the munitions, by the way.\"\n\nStrings grunted. \"It's the damnedest thing, Cuttle. We always find more, and they're meant to be used, but instead we hoard them, tell no-one we have them– in case they order us to put them to use-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The bastards.\"\n\n\"Aye, the bastards.\"\n\n\"I'll use the ones you've given me,\" Cuttle avowed. \"Once I've crawled under Korbolo Dom's feet. I don't mind going to Hood at the same time, either. '\n\n\"Something tells me that's what Hedge did, in his last moment. He always threw them too close– that man had so many pieces of clay in him you could've made a row of pots from his insides.\" He slowly shook his head, eyes on the dying fire. \"I wish I could have been there. That's all. Whiskeyjack, Trotts, Mallet, Picker, Quick Ben-'\n\n\"Quick's not dead, \"Cuttle said.\"There was more after you'd left– I heard from my tent. Tayschrenn's made your wizard a High Mage. '\n\n\"Well, that doesn't surprise me, actually. That he'd survive, somehow. I wonder if Paran was still the company's captain-'\n\n\"He was. Died with them.\"\n\n\"The Adjunct's brother. I wonder if she grieves this night. '\n\n\"Wondering's a waste of time, Fiddler. We got lads and lasses that need taking care of, right here. Korbolo Dom's warriors know how to fight. My guess is, we'll get whipped and sent back with our tails between our legs– and it'll be another chain, as we stagger back to Aren, only this time we won't get even close. '\n\n\"Well, that's a cheering prediction, Cuttle. '\n\n\"It don't matter. So long as I kill that Napan traitor– and his mage, too, if possible. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And what if you can't get close? '\n\n\"Then I take as many of them with meas I can. I ain't walking back, Fid, not again. '\n\n\"I'll remember that if the moment arrives. But what about taking care of these recruits of ours, Cuttle? '\n\n\"Well, that's the walk, isn't it? This march. We deliver them to that battle, we do that much, if we can. Then we see what kind of iron they're holding. '\n\n\"Iron,\" Strings smiled. \"It's been along time since I last heard that saying. Since we're looking for revenge, you'll want it hot, I expect. '\n\n\"You expect wrong. Look at Tavore– there won't be any heat from her. In that she's just like Coltaine. It's obvious, Fiddler. The iron needs to be cold. Cold. We get it cold enough, who knows, we might earn ourselves a name. '\n\nStrings reached across the fire and tapped the finger bone hanging from Cuttle's belt.\"We've made a start, I think.\"\n\n\"We might have at that, Sergeant. Them and the standards. A start. She knows what's in her, give her that. She knows what's in her.\"\n\n\"And it's for us to bring it out into view. '\n\n\"Aye, Fid, it is at that. Now, go away. These are the hours I spend alone.\"\n\nNodding, the sergeant climbed to his feet. \"Seems I might be able to sleep after all.\"\n\n\"It's my scintillating conversation what's done you in.\"\n\n\"So it was.\"\n\nAs Strings made his way to his small tent, something of Cuttle's words came back to him. Iron. Cold iron. Yes, it's in her. And now I'd better search and search hard... to find it in me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The art of Rashan is found in the tension that binds the games of light, yet its aspect is one of dissipation-the creation of shadow and of dark, although in this case the dark is not absolute, such as is the aspect of the ancient warren, Kurald Galain. No, this dark is particular, for it exists, not through an absence of light, but by virtue of being seen.\n\nThe Mysteries of Rashan– a madman's discourse Untural of Lato Revae" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Light, shadow and dark– This is a war unending.\n\nFisher\n\nGlistening silver, the armour layover at-shaped stand. Oil had dripped down from the ragged knee-length tassels to form a pool on the flagstoned floor beneath. The sleeves were not loose, but appeared intended to be worn almost skin-tight. It had seen much use, and where mended the rings appeared to be a darker, carbon-stained iron.\n\nBeside it, on a free-standing iron frame with horizontal hooks, waited a two-handed sword, the scabbard parallel directly beneath it on another pair of hooks. The sword was extraordinarily thin, with along, tapered tip, edges on both sides, twin-fluted. Its surface was a strangely mottled oily blue, magenta and silver. The grip was round instead of flat, banded in gut, the pommel a single, large oblong sphere of polished haematite. The scabbard was of black wood, banded at the point and at the mouth in silver but otherwise unadorned. The harness belt attached to it was of small, almost delicate, black chain links.\n\nChain gauntlets waited on a wooden shelf on the wall behind the armour. The dull iron helm beside them was little more than a skullcap within a cage of studded bars, the bars reaching down like a massive hand, the gnarled fingers curving down to bridge nose, cheeks and jawlines. A lobster tail of chain depended from the slightly flared neck rim.\n\nStanding just within the entrance to the modest, low-ceilinged room, Cutter watched as Darist began preparations for donning his martial accoutrements. The Daru youth was finding it difficult to convince himself that such beautiful weapons and armour– which had clearly seen decades, if not centuries, of use– could belong to this silver-haired man, who carried himself like an absent-minded scholar, whose amber eyes seemed to hold a perpetual look of confused distraction beneath the glowing sheen. Who moved slowly as if protecting brittle bones-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet I have experienced the old Tiste Andii's strength. And there is a mindfulness to his every movement which I should recognize– for I last saw it on another Tiste Andii, an ocean away. A racial trait? Perhaps, but it whispers like a song of threat, sunk deep in the marrow of my bones.\n\nDarist stood facing his suit of armour, as if frozen in some startled contemplation– as if he'd forgotten how to put it on.\n\n\"These Tiste Edur, Darist,\" Cutter said. \"How many are there?\"\n\n\"Will we survive the coming attack, is your question? Unlikely, is my answer. At least five ships survived the storm. Two have reached our shore and managed landing. There would have been more, but they were engaged by a Malazan fleet that happened upon them by chance. We witnessed the clash from the Cliffs of Purahl...\" The Tiste Andii slowly glanced back at Cutter. \"Your human kin did well– far better than the Edur no doubt anticipated.\"\n\n\"A sea battle between the Malazans and the Tiste Edur? When was this?\"\n\n\"Perhaps a week ago. There were but three Malazan war dromons, yet each managed to find company before plunging to the deep. There was a skilled mage among the humans– the exchange of sorcery was impressive-\"\n\n\"You and your kin watched? Why didn't you help? You must have known the Edur were seeking this island! '\n\nDarist stepped towards the armour, lifted it seemingly effortlessly from its frame. \"We no longer leave this island. For many decades now, we hold to our decision to remain isolated.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nThe Tiste Andii gave no answer. He slipped the mail suit over his shoulders. The sound it made as it flowed down was like liquid. He then reached for the sword." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That looks as if it would snap with the first block of a heavier weapon.\"\n\n\"It will not. There are many names for this particular sword.\" Darist lifted it free of the hooks. \"Its maker named it Vengeance. T'an Aros, in our language. But I call it K'orladis.\"\n\n\"Which means?\"\n\n\"Grief.\"\n\nA faint chill rippled through Cutter. \"Who was its maker?\"\n\n\"My brother.\" He sheathed the sword, slipped his arms through the chain harness. Then he reached for the gauntlets. \"Before he found one... more suited to his nature.\" Darist turned, his gaze travelling the length of Cutter, head to toe, then back again. \"Do you have skill with those knives hidden about your person?\"\n\n\"Some, though I draw no pleasure from spilling blood.\"\n\n\"What else are they for?\" the Tiste Andii asked as he donned the helm.\n\nCutter shrugged, wishing he had an answer to that question.\n\n\"Do you intend to fight the Edur?\"\n\n\"Since they are seeking the throne, yes.\"\n\nDarist slowly cocked his head. \"Yet this is not your battle. Why would you choose to borrow this cause?\"\n\n\"On Genabackis– my homeland– Anomander Rake and his followers chose to fight against the Malazan Empire. It wasn't their battle, but they have now made it so. '\n\nHe was surprised to see awry smile twist the Tiste Andii's weathered features beneath the crooked iron fingers of the guards.\n\n\"That is interesting. Very well, Cutter, join me– though I tell you now it will prove your final fight.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hope not.\"\n\nDarist led him from the room, out into the broad hallway once more, then through a narrow, black-wood-framed archway. The passage within appeared to be a tunnel through a single piece of wood, like the hollowed core of a massive, toppled tree trunk. It stretched on into the gloom, inclining slightly upward.\n\nCutter walked behind the Tiste Andii, the sound of the man's armour soft as the hiss of rain on a beach. The tunnel ended abruptly with an upward turn, the ceiling opening to reveal a vertical shaft. A rough ladder of roots climbed towards a small, pale disc of light.\n\nDarist's ascent was slow and measured, Cutter impatient on the rungs directly beneath until the thought that he might soon die struck him, at which point a dull lassitude settled into his muscles, and it became a struggle to keep up with the ancient Tiste Andii.\n\nThey eventually emerged onto a leaf-cluttered floor of flagstones. Sunlight speared shafts of dust from slitted windows and gaps in the roof overhead– the storm seemed to have missed this place entirely. One wall had mostly collapsed and it was towards this that Darist strode.\n\nCutter followed. \"Some sort of upkeep might well have made this defensible,\" he muttered.\n\n\"These surface structures are not Andii– they are Edur, and were in ruin when we first arrived.\"\n\n\"How close are they?\"\n\n\"They range through the forest, working inland. Cautious. They know they are not alone.\"\n\n\"How many can you sense?\"\n\n\"This first party numbers perhaps a score. We shall meet them in the courtyard, permitting us sufficient room for swordplay yet allowing us a wall to which we can set our backs in the last few moments.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hood's breath, Darist, if we drive them back you'll likely die of shock.\"\n\nThe Tiste Andii glanced back at the Daru, then gestured. \"Follow me.\"\n\nA half-dozen similarly ruined chambers were traversed before they came to the courtyard. The vine-latticed walls were twice the height of a human, ragged-topped. Faded frescoes were hinted at beneath the overgrowth. Opposite the inner entrance through which they strode was an arched gateway, beyond which a trail of pine needles, snaking roots and moss-covered boulders wound into the shadows of enormous trees.\n\nCutter judged the yard to be twenty paces wide, twenty-five deep. \"There's too much room here, Darist, \"he said.\"We'll get flanked-\"\n\n\"I will command the centre. You remain behind, for those who might indeed try to get past me.\"\n\nCutter recalled Anomander Rake's battle with the demon, on the Darujhistan street. The two-handed fighting style the Son of Darkness had employed demanded plenty of room, and it now appeared that Darist would fight in a similar manner– but the sword's blade was, to Cutter's mind, far too thin for such fierce, wheeling swings.\"Is there sorcery invested in that blade of yours? ' he asked.\n\n\"Not as investment is commonly known,\" the Tiste Andii replied, drawing the weapon and wrapping both hands about the grip, one high under the hilt, the other just above the pommel. \"The power of Grief lies in the focused intent in its creation. The sword demands a singular will in its wielder. With such a will, it cannot be defeated.\"\n\n\"And have you that singular will?\"\n\nDarist slowly lowered the tip to the ground. \"Had I, human, this would not be your last day this side of Hood's gate. Now, I suggest you draw your weapons. The Edur have discovered the path and now approach. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cutter found his hands were trembling as he drew out his leading knives." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He possessed four others, two under each arm, sheathed in leather and peace-looped by thongs– which he now pulled clear. These four were weighted for throwing. Once done, he adjusted his grip on the knives in his hands, then had to dry his palms and repeat the task.\n\nA soft whisper of sound made him lookup, to see that Darist had slipped into a fighting stance, though the tip of the sword still rested on the flagstones.\n\nAnd Cutter saw something else. The leaf clutter and detritus on the flagstones was in motion, crawling as if pushed by an unseen wind, gathering towards the gate's end of the courtyard, and out to heap against the walls to either side.\n\n\"Keep your eyes slitted,\" Darist said in a low tone.\n\nSlitted?\n\nThere was movement in the gloom beyond the gateway, furtive, then three figures stepped into view beneath the arch.\n\nAs tall as Darist, their skin a dusky pallor. Long brown hair, knotted and snarled with fetishes. Necklaces of claws and canines competed with the barbarity of their roughly tanned leather armour that was stitched with articulating strips of bronze. Their helms, also bronze, were shaped like bear or wolf skulls.\n\nAmong them, there was nothing of the natural majesty evident in Darist– or in Anomander Rake. Afar more brutal cast, these Edur. Tip-heavy black-bladed scimitars were in their hands, sealskin-covered round shields on their forearms.\n\nThey hesitated before Darist, then the one in the centre snarled something in a language Cutter could not understand.\n\nThe silver-haired Tiste Andii shrugged, said nothing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Edur shouted something that was clearly a demand. Then they readied their weapons and swung their shields around.\n\nCutter could see more of the savage warriors gathered on the trail beyond the gate.\n\nThe three stepped from the archway, spread out to form a slight pincer position– the centre Edur a step further away than his companions on either side.\n\n\"They don't know how you will do this, \"Cutter murmured.\"They've never fought against-\"\n\nThe flankers moved forward in perfect unison.\n\nDarist's sword snapped upward, and with that motion, a fierce gust of wind lifted in the courtyard, and the air around the three Edur was suddenly filled with skirling leaves and dust.\n\nCutter watched as the Tiste Andii attacked. The blade tipped horizontal, point threatening the Edur on the right, but the actual attack was with the pommel, against the warrior on the left. A blurring sideways dip to close, then the pommel struck the swiftly upraised shield, splitting it clean in half. Darist's left hand slipped off the pommel and slapped the warrior's sword away even as the Tiste Andii dropped into a squat, drawing the edge of Grief down his opponent's front.\n\nIt seemed there was no contact at all, yet blood gushed from a rent that began above the Edur's left collarbone and descended in a straight line down to his crotch.\n\nThe squat became a backward springing motion that landed Darist two paces back, his blade already hissing to fend off the other two warriors, both of whom leapt away in alarm.\n\nThe wounded Edur crumpled in a pool of his own blood, and as he fell Cutter saw that Grief had cut through the collarbone and every rib in the cage down the left side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The warriors beyond the archway screamed battlecries and surged into the wind-whipped courtyard.\n\nTheir only chance of success lay in closing on Darist, inside the man's reach, closing and fouling that whispering blade, and the Edur lacked nothing in courage.\n\nCutter saw another cut down, then a third took the pommel on the side of his helm, and the bronze collapsed inward far too deep– the warrior's limbs flailed in strange jerking motions as he fell to the flagstones.\n\nBoth leading knives were in the Daru's left hand, and his right reached to a throwing knife. He sent the weapon darting outwith aback-handed throw, saw it sink to the hilt in an Edur's eye socket– and knew the tip had snapped against the inside of the man's skull at the back. He threw the second one and swore as a shield lifted to take it.\n\nIn the storm of spinning leaves Darist's sword seemed to be everywhere at once, blocking attack after attack, then an Edur flung himself forward to grapple, and managed to wrap both arms around the Tiste Andii's legs.\n\nA scimitar lashed in. There was a spray of blood from Darist's right shoulder. Grief's pommel dented the helm of the grappling warrior, and the Edur sagged. Another swing chopped into the Tiste Andii's hip, the blade bouncing back out from the bone. Darist staggered.\n\nCutter rushed forward as the remaining Edur closed. Through spinning, clattering leaves, into the calmed air at the centre. The Daru had already learned that direct, head-on confrontation was not an ideal tactic when fighting with knives. He chose an Edur whose attention was fixed solely on Darist and was therefore turned slightly away– the warrior caught sight of him peripherally, and was quick to react." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Aback-handed slash of the scimitar, followed by the shield swinging round.\n\nCutter punched his left knife at the blade, to intercept a third of the way down from the tip. Simultaneously, he stop-hit the swing with his other knife, midway along the man's forearm– the point of his weapon punching through leather and stabbing between the bones with both edges on. The hilt of his other weapon then contacted the scimitar– and knocked the weapon from a numbed hand.\n\nThe Edur's grunt was loud, and he swore as, yanking on the knife, Cutter moved past him. The blade was reluctant to pull free and dragged the impaled arm after it. The warrior's legs tangled and he fell to one knee.\n\nEven as he lifted his shield, Cutter's free knife darted in over it, spearing him through the throat.\n\nThe shield's rim cracked hard against the Daru's out-thrust wrist, nearly springing the knife loose, but he managed to retain his grip.\n\nAnother tug and the other knife tore free of the Edur's forearm.\n\nA shield struck him a body blow from his left, lifting Cutter upward, his moccasins leaving the flagstones. He twisted and slashed out at the attacker, and missed. The shield's impact had turned his left side into amass of thrumming pain. He hit the ground and folded into a roll.\n\nSomething thumped in pursuit, bounced once, then twice, and as the Daru regained his feet an Edur's decapitated head cracked hard against his right shin.\n\nThe agony of this last blow– absurdly to his mind– overwhelmed all else thus far. He screamed a curse, hopped backward one-legged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An Edur was rushing him.\n\nA fouler word grated out from Cutter. He flung the knife from his left hand. Shield surged up to meet it, the warrior ducking from view.\n\nGrimacing, Cutter lunged after the weapon– while the Edur remained blind– and stabbed overhand above the shield. The knife sank down behind the man's left collarbone, sprouting a geyser of blood as he pulled it back out.\n\nThere were shouts now in the courtyard– and suddenly it seemed the fighting was everywhere, on all sides. Cutter reeled back a step to see that other Tiste Andii had arrived– and, in their midst, Apsalar.\n\nThree Edur were on the ground in her wake, all writhing amidst blood and bile.\n\nThe rest, barring their kin who had fallen to Apsalar, Cutter and Darist, were retreating, back through the archway.\n\nApsalar and her Tiste Andii companions pursued only so far as the gate.\n\nSlowly, the spinning wind dwindled, the leaf fragments drifting down like ash.\n\nCutter glanced over to see Darist still standing, though he leaned against aside wall, his long, lean frame sheathed in blood, helm gone, his hair matted and hanging down over his face, dripping. The sword Grief remained in his two hands, point once more on the flagstones.\n\nOne of the new Tiste Andii moved to the three noisily dying Edur and unceremoniously slit their throats. When finished, she raised her gaze to study Apsalar fora long moment.\n\nCutter realized that all of Darist's kin were white-haired, though none were as old– indeed, they appeared very young, in appearance no older than the Daru himself. They were haphazardly armed and armoured, and none held their weapons with anything like familiarity. Quick, nervous glances were thrown at the gateway– then over to Darist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sheathing her Kethra knives, Apsalar strode up to Cutter. \"I am sorry we were late.\"\n\nHe blinked, then shrugged. \"I thought you'd drowned. '\n\n\"No, I made shore easily enough– though everything else went with you. There was sorcerous questing, then, but I evaded that.\" She nodded to the youths. \"I found these camped a fair distance inland. They were... hiding.\"\n\n\"Hiding. But Darist said-\"\n\n\"Ah, so that is Darist. Andarist, to be more precise.\" She turned a thoughtful gaze on the ancient Tiste Andii. \"It was by his command. He didn't want them here... because I imagine he expected they would die. '\n\n\"And so they shall,\" Darist growled, finally lifting his head to meet her eyes. \"You have condemned them all, for the Edur will now hunt them down in earnest– the old hatreds, rekindled once more.\"\n\nShe seemed unaffected by his words. \"The throne must be protected.\"\n\nDarist bared red-stained teeth, his eyes glittering in the half-shadows. \"If he truly wants it protected, then he can come here and do it himself.\"\n\nApsalar frowned. \"Who?\"\n\nCutter answered, \"His brother, of course. Anomander Rake.\"\n\nIt had been a guess, but Darist's expression was all the affirmation needed. Anomander Rake's younger brother. In his veins, nothing of the Son of Darkness's Draconian blood. And in his hands, a sword that its maker had judged insufficient, when compared to Dragnipur. But this knowledge alone was barely a whisper– the twisted, dark storm of all that existed between the two siblings was an epic neither man was ever likely to orate, or so Cutter suspected." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Extend the plot as the writer's co-author.\nTags: epic fantasy, character study, power struggles, resilience, destiny\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: House of Chains\nChapter: 22" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Tiste Edur scowled, then nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Take the box of munitions, then. My hands are full.\"\n\nTrull had fixed straps to the box. Onrack collected it then led his companion into the circle.\n\nThe three Liosan had completed breaking their camp and were now saddling their white horses.\n\nThe fires continued flickering in and out of existence around the periphery, none large enough to pose a threat. But Onrack could sense the approach of the Liosan god. Or at least the outermost layers of its disguise. Cautious, mistrustful– not of the seneschal, of course– but for this to work, the hidden spirit would have to come to this realm's very edge.\n\nAnd when Jorrude offered up his own blood, the bridge of power between him and his god would be complete.\n\nThe thud of horse hoofs announced the arrival of the other three Liosan, the four mounts in tow.\n\nOnrack drew forth from beneath rotted furs a small crescent-shaped obsidian knife, single-edged on the inward-curving line, and held it out to Trull. \"When I so instruct you, Trull Sengar, cut yourself. A few drops will suffice.\"\n\nThe Tiste Edur frowned. \"I thought you were-\"\n\n\"I would not be distracted, in the moment of crossing.\"\n\n\"Distracted?\"\n\n\"Say nothing. Attend to yourself.\"\n\nHis frown deepening, Trull crouched to return the two cussers to the box, affixed the lid once more and slung the contrivance over a shoulder, then straightened and accepted the stone blade.\n\nThe flames were now growing, unbroken immediately beyond the inscribed ring. Kurald Thyrllan, but the ascendant shaping it remained unseen. Onrack wondered at its nature. If these Liosan were any indication, it found sustenance from purity, as if such a thing was even possible. Intransigence. Simplicity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The simplicity of blood, a detail whispering of antiquity, of primeval origins. A spirit, then, before whom a handful of savages once bowed. There had been many such entities, once, born of that primitive assertion of meaning to object, meaning shaped by symbols and portents, scratchings on rock-faces and in the depths of caves.\n\nNo shortage... but tribes died out, were winnowed out, were devoured by more powerful neighbours. The secret language of the scratchings, the caves with their painted images that came alive to the pounding of drums– those most mysterious cathedrals of thunder... all lost, forgotten. And with that fading away of secrets, so too the spirits themselves dwindled, usually into oblivion.\n\nThat some lingered was not surprising to Onrack. Even unto usurping the faith of anew tribe. What was new to the warrior, rising like a tightness into his desiccated throat, was the sense of... pathos.\n\nIn the name of purity, the Liosan worship their god. In the name of... of nostalgia, the god worships what was and shall never again return.\n\nThe spilling of blood was the deadliest of games.\n\nAs is about to be seen.\n\nA harsh cry from the seneschal, and the flames rose into a wall on all sides, raging with unbridled power. Jorrude had laid open his left palm. Within the circle, a swirling wind rose, laden with the smells of a thaw– of spring in some northern clime.\n\nOnrack turned to Trull. \"Now.\"\n\nThe Tiste Edur slashed the obsidian blade across the edge of his left hand, then stared down disbelieving at the gash– clear, the flesh neatly parted, frighteningly deep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The blood emerged a moment later, welling forth, red roots racing and branching down his grey-skinned forearm.\n\nThe gate seemed to tear itself open, surrounding the group within the circle. Spiralling tunnels reached outward from it, each seeming to lead on into eternity. A roar of chaos on the flanks, miasmic grey fire in the spaces between the portals. Onrack reached out to catch a reeling Trull Sengar. The blood was spraying out from his left hand, as if the Edur's entire body was being squeezed by some unseen, but unrelenting pressure.\n\nOnrack glanced over– to see Monok Ochem standing alone, head tilted back as the winds of Tellann whipped the silver-tipped fur around his unhelmed head. Beyond the bonecaster, a momentary glimpse of Ibra Gholan, Olar Shayn and Haran Epal vanishing down a tunnel of fire.\n\nThe seneschal's companions were now running towards their master's prone, unconscious body.\n\nSatisfied that the others were occupied– temporarily unmindful– Onrack dragged Trull close until their bodies made contact, the T'lan Imass managing a one-armed embrace.\"Hold onto me, \"he rasped.\"Trull Sengar, hold onto me– but free your left hand. '\n\nFingers clutched at Onrack's ragged cloak, began dragging with growing weight. The T'lan Imass relinquished his one-armed hug and snapped out his hand– to close on Trull's. The blood bit like acid into flesh that had forgotten pain. Onrack almost tore his grip free in the sudden, overwhelming agony, but then he tightened his hold and leaned close to the Tiste Edur.\"Listen! I, Onrack, once of the Logros but now stranger to the Ritual, avow service to Trull Sengar of the Tiste Edur. I pledge to defend your life. This vow cannot be sundered. Now, lead us from here! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their hands still locked together, sealed for the moment by a slowing flow of blood, Onrack pulled Trull around until they faced one of the spiralling tunnels." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then they plunged forward.\n\nOnrack saw the bonecaster wheel to face them. But the distance was too great, and the ritual had already begun tearing itself apart.\n\nThen Monok Ochem veered into his Soletaken form. A blur, then a massive, hulking beast was thundering in pursuit.\n\nOnrack sought to tear his grip from Trull to reach for his sword, to block the Soletaken and so ensure Trull's escape– but the Edur had turned, had seen, and would not let go. Instead, he pulled, hard. Onrack stumbled back.\n\nKnuckles pounded on the ground– the ape that Monok Ochem had become was, despite being gaunt with death, enormous. Patched grey and black skin, tufts of silver-tipped black hair on the broad shoulders and the nape of the neck, a sunken-eyed, withered face, jaws stretching wide to reveal canines– voicing a deep, grating roar.\n\nThen Monok Ochem simply vanished. Swallowed by a surge of chaos.\n\nOnrack stumbled over something, crashed down onto hard-packed ground, gravel skidding under him. Beside him, on his knees, was Trull Sengar.\n\nThe fall had broken their grip, and the Tiste Edur was staring down at his left hand– where only a thin, white scar remained.\n\nA single sun blazed down on them, and Onrack knew they had returned to his native realm.\n\nThe T'lan Imass slowly climbed to his feet.\"We must leave this place, Trull Sengar. My kin shall pursue. Perhaps only Monok Ochem remains, but he will not relent. '\n\nTrull raised his head. \"Remains? What do you mean? Where did the others go?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Onrack looked down on the Tiste Edur. \"The Liosan were too late to realize. The turning of Tellann succeeded in driving all awareness from the seneschal. They were entirely unprepared. Ibra Gholan, Olar Shayn and Haran Epal walked into the warren of Kurald Thyrllan.\"\n\n\"Walked into? Why?\"\n\nOnrack managed a one-sided shrug. \"They went, Trull Sengar, to kill the Liosan god.\"\n\nLittle more than bones and scraps of armour, what had once been an army lay in the thick grey ash, encircling a steeply sloped pit of some kind. There was noway to tell whether the army had faced outward– defending some sort of subterranean entrance– or inward, seeking to prevent an escape.\n\nLostara Yil stood ankle-deep in the trail's ashes. Watching Pearl walk gingerly among the bones, reaching down every now and then to drag some item free fora closer look. Her throat was raw, her hatred of the Imperial Warren deepening with every passing moment.\n\n\"The scenery is unchanging,\" Pearl had noted, \"yet never the same. I have walked this path before– this very path. There were no ruins, then. And no heap of bones or hole in the ground.\"\n\nAnd no winds to shift the ashes.\n\nBut bones and other larger objects had away of rising to the surface, eventually. Or so it was true in the sands– why should ashes be any different? None the less, some of those ruins were massive. Vast expanses of flagstones, unstained, devoid even of dust. Tall, leaning towers– like the rotted stubs of fangs. Abridge spanning nothing, its stones so precisely set that a knife-tip could not be slipped between them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Slapping the dust from his gloved hands, Pearl strode up. \"Curious indeed.\"\n\nLostara coughed, hacked out grey sputum. \"Just find us agate and get us out of here,\" she rasped.\n\n\"Ah, well, as to that, my dear, the gods are smiling down upon us. I have found agate, and a lively one it is.\"\n\nShe scowled at him, knowing he sought the inevitable question from her, but she was in no mood to ask it.\n\n\"Alas, I know your thoughts,\" Pearl continued after a moment, with a quick wry grin. He pointed back towards the pit. \"Down there... unfortunately. Thus, we are left with a dire choice. Continue on– and risk you spitting out your lungs– in search of a more easily approachable gate. Or take the plunge, as it were.\"\n\n\"You're leaving the choice tome? '\n\n\"Why not? Now, I'm waiting. Which shall it be? '\n\nShe drew the scarf over her mouth and nose once more, tightened the straps on her pack, then marched off... towards the pit.\n\nPearl fell instep. \"Courage and foolishness, the distinction so often proves problematic-\"\n\n\"Except in hindsight.\" Lostara kicked herself free of a rib cage that had fouled her stride, then swore at the resultant clouds of ash and dust. \"Who were these damned soldiers? Do you know?\"\n\n\"I may possess extraordinary powers of observation and unfathomable depths of intelligence, lass, but I cannot read when there is nothing to be seen. Corpses. Human, in so far as I can tell. The only detail I can offer is that they fought this battle knee-deep in this ash... meaning-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That whatever crisped this realm had already happened,\" Lostara cut in. \"Meaning, they either survived the event, or were interlopers... like us.\"\n\n\"Very possibly emerging from the very gate we now approach.\"\n\n\"To cross blades with whom?\"\n\nPearl shrugged. \"I have no idea. But I have a few theories.\"\n\n\"Of course you do,\" she snapped. \"Like all men– you hate to say you don't know and leave it at that. You have an answer to every question, and if you don't you make one up.\"\n\n\"An outrageous accusation, my dear. It is not a matter of making up answers, it is rather an exercise in conjecture. There is a difference-\"\n\n\"That's what you say, not what I have to listen to. All the time. Endless words. Does a man even exist who believes there can be too many words? '\n\n\"I don't know, ' Pearl replied.\n\nAfter a moment she shot him a glare, but he was studiously staring ahead.\n\nThey came to the edge of the slope and halted, looking down.\n\nThe descent would be treacherous, jumbled bones, swords jagged with decay, and an unknown depth of ash and dust. The hole at the base was perhaps ten paces across, yawning black.\n\n\"There are spiders in the desert,\" Lostara muttered, \"that build such traps.\"\n\n\"Slightly smaller, surely.\"\n\nShe reached down and collected a thighbone, momentarily surprised at its weight, then tossed it down the slope.\n\nA thud.\n\nThen the packed ash beneath their boots vanished.\n\nAnd down they went, amidst explosions of dust, ashes and splinters of bone. A hissing rush– blind, choking– then they were falling through a dry downpour. To land heavily on yet another slope that tumbled them down a roaring, echoing avalanche." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a descent through splintered bones and bits of iron, and it seemed unending.\n\nLostara was unable to draw breath– they were drowning in thick dust, sliding and rolling, sinking then bursting free once more. Down, down through absolute darkness. A sudden, jarring collision with something– possibly wood– then a withered, rumpled surface that seemed tiled, and down once more.\n\nAnother thump and tumble.\n\nThen she was rolling across flagstones, pushed on by a wave of ash and detritus, finally coming to a crunching halt, flat on her back, a flow of frigid air rising upon her left side– where she reached out, groping, then down, to where the floor should have been. Nothing. She was lying on an edge, and something told her that, had she taken this last descent, Hood alone would greet her at its conclusion.\n\nCoughing from slightly further up the slope on her right. A faint nudge as the heaped bones and ashes on that side shifted.\n\nAnother such nudge, and she would be pushed over the edge. Lostara rolled her head to the left and spat, then tried to speak. The word came out thin and hoarse. \"Don't. '\n\nAnother cough, then, \"Don't what? '\n\n\"Move.\"\n\n\"Oh. That doesn't sound good. It's not good, is it?\"\n\n\"Not good. Another ledge. Another drop... this one I think forever.\"\n\n\"Judicious use of my warren seems appropriate at this point, don't you think? '\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"A moment, then...\"\n\nA dull sphere of light emerged, suspended above them, its illumination struggling in the swirling clouds of dust." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It edged closer– grew larger. Brightened.\n\nRevealing all that was above them.\n\nLostara said nothing. Her chest had contracted as if unwilling to take another breath. Her heart thundered. Wood. An X-shaped cross, tilting over them, as tall as a four-storey building. The glint of enormous, pitted spikes.\n\nAnd nailed to the cruciform-\n\n-a dragon.\n\nWings spread, pinned wide. Hind limbs impaled. Chains wrapped about its neck, holding its massive wedge– shaped head up, as if staring skyward-\n\n-to a sea of stars marked here and therewith swirls of glowing mist.\n\n\"It's not here... ' Pearl whispered.\n\n\"What? It's right above-'\n\n\"No. Well, yes. But... look carefully. It's enclosed in a sphere. A pocket warren, a realm unto itself-'\n\n\"Or the entranceway,\" she suggested. \"Sealing-\"\n\n\"A gate. Queen of Dreams, I think you're right. Even so, its power doesn't reach us... thank the spirits and gods and demons and ascendants and-\"\n\n\"Why, Pearl?\"\n\n\"Because, lass– that dragon is aspected.\"\n\n\"I thought they all were.\"\n\n\"Aye. You keep interrupting me, Lostara Yil. Aspected, I was saying. But not to a warren. Gods! I cannot fathom-\"\n\n\"Damn you, Pearl!\"\n\n\"Otataral.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Otataral. Her aspect is otataral, woman! This is an otataral dragon.\"\n\nNeither spoke fora time. Lostara began edging herself away from the ledge, shifting weight incrementally, freezing at every increase in the stream of dust slipping away beneath her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Turning her head, she could make out Pearl. He had unveiled enough of his warren to draw himself upward, hovering slightly above the slope. His gaze remained fixed on the crucified dragon.\n\n\"Some help down here...\" Lostara growled.\n\nHe started, then looked down at her. \"Right. My deepest apologies, lass. Here, I shall extend my warren...\"\n\nShe felt herself lifted into the air.\n\n\"Make no struggle, lass. Relax, and you'll float up beside me, then pivot upright. '\n\nShe forced herself to grow still, but the result was one of rigid immobility.\n\nPearl chuckled. \"Lacks grace, but it will do.\"\n\nA half-dozen heart-beats later she was beside him, hovering upright.\n\n\"Try to relax again, Lostara.\"\n\nShe glared at him, but he was staring upward once more. Reluctantly, she followed his gaze.\n\n\"It's still alive, you know, ' Pearl whispered.\n\n\"Who could have done this?\"\n\n\"Whoever it was, we have a lot for which to thank him, her... or them. This thing devours magic. Consumes warrens.\"\n\n\"All the old legends of dragons begin with the statement that they are the essence of sorcery. How, then, could this thing even exist?\"\n\n\"Nature always seeks a balance. Forces strive for symmetry. This dragon answers every other dragon that ever existed, or ever will.\"\n\nLostara coughed and spat once more, then she shivered. \"The Imperial Warren, Pearl. What was it before it was... turned to ash?\"\n\nHe glanced over at her, eyes narrowing. He shrugged and began brushing dust from his clothes. \"I see no value in lingering in this horrendous place-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You said there was agate down here– not that one, surely-\"\n\n\"No. Beyond that ledge. I suspect the last time it was used was by whoever or whatever nailed this dragon onto the cross. Surprisingly, they didn't seal the gate behind them. '\n\n\"Careless.\"\n\n\"More like supremely confident, I would think. We'll make our descent a little more orderly this time, agreed? You need not move– leave this tome. '\n\n\"I despise that suggestion in principle, Pearl, but what I hate more is that I see no choice.\"\n\n\"Haven't you had your fill of bared bones yet, lass? A simple sweet smile would have sufficed. '\n\nShe fixed him with a look of steel.\n\nPearl sighed. \"A good try, lass. We'll work on it. '\n\nAs they floated out over the ledge, Lostara looked up one last time, but not at the dragon, rather at the starscape beyond. \"What do you make of that night sky, Pearl? I do not recognize the constellations... nor have I ever before seen those glowing swirls in any night sky I've looked at. '\n\nHe grunted. \"That's a foreign sky– as foreign as can be. A hole leading into alien realms, countless strange worlds filled with creatures unimaginable-'\n\n\"You really don't know, do you? '\n\n\"Of course I don't! ' he snapped.\n\n\"Then why didn't you just say so? '\n\n\"It was more fun conjecturing creatively, of course. How can a man be the object of a woman's interest if he's always confessing his ignorance?\"\n\n\"You want me to be interested in you? Why didn't you say so? Now I will hang on your every word, of course. Shall I gaze adoringly into your eyes as well? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He swung on her a glum look. \"Men really have no chance, do they?\"\n\n\"Typical conceit to have thought otherwise, Pearl.\"\n\nThey were falling gently through darkness. The sorcerous globe of light followed, but at some distance, smudged and faint behind the suspended dust.\n\nLostara looked downward, then snapped her head up and closed her eyes, fighting vertigo. Through gritted teeth she asked, \"How much farther do we sink, do you think?\"\n\n\"I don't know. '\n\n\"You could've given a better answer than that! ' When he made no reply she glanced over at him through slitted eyes.\n\nHe looked positively despondent.\n\n\"Well?\" she demanded.\n\n\"If these are the depths of despair, lass, we're almost there. '\n\nAs it turned out, another hundred heartbeats passed before they reached the dust-laden floor. The sphere of light arrived a short while later, illuminating the surrounding area.\n\nThe floor was solid rock, uneven and littered with still more bones. No walls were insight.\n\nThe magic that had slowly lowered them dissipated. Pearl took two strides then gestured, and, as if he had flung aside an invisible current, the glimmering outlines of agate appeared before them. The Claw grunted.\n\n\"Now what?\" Lostara asked.\n\n\"Thyr. Or, to be more precise, the Elder Warren from which Thyr derived. I can't recall its name. Kurald something. Tiste. Not Edur, not Andii, but the other one. And... \"he added in a low voice,\"the last things to use it left tracks. '\n\nLostara stared down at the threshold. Somewhat obscured, but discernible none the less. Dragons. \"I can make out at least three sets,\" she said after a moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"More like six, maybe more. Those two sets\"– he pointed– \"were the last to leave. Big bastards. Well, that answers the question of who, or what, was capable of subduing the Otataral Dragon. Other dragons, of course. Even so, it could not have been easy.\"\n\n\"Thyr, you said. Can we use it?\"\n\n\"Oh, I imagine so.\"\n\n\"Well, what are we waiting for?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"Follow me, then.\"\n\nStaying close, she fell instep behind him.\n\nThey strode through the gate.\n\nAnd stumbled into a realm of gold fire.\n\nWild storms on all horizons, a raging, blinding sky.\n\nThey stood on a scorched patch of glittering crystals, the past passage of immense heat having burnished the sharp-edged stones with myriad colours. Other such patches were visible here and there.\n\nImmediately before them rose a pillar, shaped like an elongated pyramid, withered and baked, with only the surface facing them dressed smooth. Words in an unknown language had been carved on it.\n\nThe air was searing in Lostara's lungs, and she was sodden with sweat.\n\nBut it was, for the moment, survivable.\n\nPearl walked up to the pillar.\n\n\"We have to get out of here!\" Lostara shouted.\n\nThe firestorms were deafening, but she was certain he heard her, and chose to ignore it.\n\nLostara rarely tolerated being ignored. She strode after him. \"Listen tome!\"\n\n\"Names!\" He spun to her. \"The names! The ones who imprisoned the Otataral Dragon! They're all here! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A growing roar caught her attention, and she turned to face right– to see a wall of flame rolling towards them. \"Pearl!\"\n\nHe looked, visibly blanched. Stepped back– and his foot skidded out from beneath him, dropping him hard onto his backside. Blankly, he reached down under him, and when he brought his gloved hand backup, it was slick with blood.\n\n\"Did you-\"\n\n\"No!\" He clambered upright– and now they both saw the blood-trail, cutting crossways over the patch, vanishing into the flames on the other side.\n\n\"Something's in trouble! ' Pearl said.\n\n\"So are we if we don't get moving! '\n\nThe firestorm now filled half the sky– the heat-\n\nHe grasped her arm and they plunged around the pillar-\n\n-into a glittering cavern. Where blood had sprayed, gouted out to paint walls and ceiling, and where the shattered pieces of a desiccated warrior lay almost at their feet.\n\nA T'lan Imass.\n\nLostara stared down at it. Rotted wolf fur the colour of the desert, a broken bone-hafted double-bladed axe of reddish-brown flint almost entirely obscured beneath a pool of blood. Whatever it had attacked had struck back. The warrior's chest was crushed flat. Both arms had been torn off at the shoulders. And the T'lan Imass had been decapitated. A moment's search found the head, lying off to one side.\n\n\"Pearl– let's get out of here. '\n\nHe nodded. Then hesitated.\n\n\"Now what?\"\n\n\"Your favourite question,\" he muttered. Then he scrambled over to collect the severed head. Faced her once more. \"All right. Let's go. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The strange cave blurred, then vanished.\n\nAnd they were standing on a sun-bleached rock shelf, overlooking a stony basin that had once known a stream.\n\nPearl grinned over at her. \"Home.\" He held up the ghastly head before him and spoke to it. \"I know you can hear me, T'lan Imass. I'll find for you the crotch of a tree for your final resting place, provided I get some answers.\"\n\nThe warrior's reply was strangely echoing, the voice thick and halting.\"What is it you wish to know? '\n\nPearl smiled. \"That's better. First off, your name. '\n\n\"Olar Shayn, of the Logros T'lan Imass. Of Ibra Gholan's clan. Born in the Year of the Two-Headed Snake-\"\n\n\"Olar Shayn. What in Hood's name were you doing in that warren? Who were you trying to kill? '\n\n\"We did not try; we succeeded. The wounds delivered were mortal. It will die, and my kin pursue to witness.\"\n\n\"It? What, precisely?\"\n\n\"A false god. I know no more than that. I was commanded to kill it. Now, find for me a worthy place of rest, mortal.\"\n\n\"I will. As soon as I find a tree.\"\n\nLostara wiped sweat from her brow, then went over to sit on a boulder. \"It doesn't need a tree, Pearl, \"she said, sighing.\"This ledge should do. '\n\nThe Claw swung the severed head so that it faced the basin and the vista beyond. \"Is this pleasing enough, Olar Shayn?\"\n\n\"It is. Tell me your name, and you shall know my eternal gratitude.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Eternal? I suppose that's not an exaggeration either, is it? Well, I am Pearl, and my redoubtable companion is Lostara Yil. Now, let's find a secure place for you, shall we?\"\n\n\"Your kindness is unexpected, Pearl.\"\n\n\"Always is and always will be,\" he replied, scanning the ledge.\n\nLostara stared at her companion, surprised at how thoroughly her sentiments matched those of the T'lan Imass.\"Pearl, do you know precisely where we are? '\n\nHe shrugged. \"First things first, lass. I'd appreciate it if you allowed me to savour my merciful moment. Ah! Here's the spot, Olar Shayn!\"\n\nLostara closed her eyes. From ashes and dust... to sand. At least it was home. Now, all that remained was finding the trail of a Malazan lass who vanished months ago. \"Nothing to it,\" she whispered.\n\n\"Did you say something, lass?\"\n\nShe opened her eyes and studied him where he crouched anchoring stones around the undead warrior's severed head.\"You don't know where we are, do you?\"\n\nHe smiled. \"Is this a time, do you think, for some creative conjecture?\"\n\nThoughts of murder flashed through her, not for the first time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is not unusual to seethe warrens of Meanas and Rashan as the closest of kin. Yet are not the games of illusion and shadow games of light? At some point, therefore, the notion of distinctions between these warrens ceases to have meaning. Meanas, Rashan and Thyr. Only the most fanatic of practitioners among these warrens would object to this. The aspect all three share is ambivalence; their games the games of ambiguity. All is deceit, all is deception. Among them, nothing– nothing at all– is as it seems.\n\nA Preliminary Analysis of the Warrens Konoralandas\n\nFifteen hundred desert warriors had assembled at the southern edge of the ruined city, their white horses ghostly through the clouds of amber dust, the glint of chain vests and scaled hauberks flashing dully every now and then from beneath golden telabas. Five hundred spare mounts accompanied the raiders.\n\nKorbolo Dom stood near Sha'ik and Ghost Hands atop a weathered platform that had once been the foundation of a temple or public building of some sort, allowing them a clear view of the assembling warriors.\n\nThe Napan renegade watched, expressionless, as Leoman of the Flails rode up fora last word with the Chosen One. He himself would not bother with any false blessings, for he would much prefer that Leoman never return. And if he must, then not in triumph in any case. And though his scarred face revealed nothing, he well knew that Leoman entertained no delusions about Korbolo's feelings for him.\n\nThey were allies only in so far as they both served Sha'ik. And even that was far less certain than it might have outwardly seemed. Nor did the Malazan believe that the Chosen One was deluded as to the spite and enmity that existed between her generals. Her ignorance existed solely in the plans that were slowly, incrementally settling into place to achieve her own demise. Of that Korbolo was certain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Else she would have acted long before now.\n\nLeoman reined in before the platform. \"Chosen One! We set out now, and when we return we shall bring you word of the Malazan army. Their disposition. Their rate of march-\"\n\n\"But not,\" Sha'ik cut in sternly,\"their mettle. No engagements, Leoman. The first blooding of her army will be here. By my hand. '\n\nMouth pressing into a thin line, Leoman nodded, then he said, \"Tribes will have conducted raids on them, Chosen One. Likely beginning a league beyond the walls of Aren. They will have already been blooded-\"\n\n\"I cannot see such minor exchanges as making a difference either way,\" Sha'ik replied.\"Those tribes are sending their warriors here– they arrive daily. Your forces would be the largest she would have to face– and I will not have that. Do not argue this point again, Leoman, else I forbid you to leave Raraku! '\n\n\"As you say, Chosen One,\" Leoman grated. His startling blue eyes fixed on Ghost Hands. \"If you require anything, old man, seek out Mathok.\"\n\nKorbolo's brows rose.\n\n\"An odd thing to say,\" Sha'ik commented.\"Ghost Hands is under my protection, after all. '\n\n\"Minor requirements only, of course,\" Leoman said, \"such as might prove distracting, Chosen One. You have an army to ready, after all-\"\n\n\"A task,\" Korbolo cut in, \"which the Chosen One has entrusted in me, Leoman.\"\n\nThe desert warrior simply smiled. Then he collected his reins. \"May the Whirlwind guard you, Chosen One.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And you, Leoman.\"\n\nThe man rode back to his waiting horse warriors.\n\nMay your bones grow white and light as feathers, Leoman of the Flails. Korbolo swung to Sha'ik.\"He will disobey you, Chosen One. '\n\n\"Of course he will.\"\n\nThe Napan blinked, then his gaze narrowed. \"Then it would be madness to yield the wall of sand to him.\"\n\nShe faced him, her eyes questioning. \"Do you fear the Adjunct's army, then? Have you not said tome again and again how superior you have made our forces? Indiscipline, in ferocity? This is not Onearm's Host you will be facing. It is a shaky mass of recruits, and even should they have known hardening in a minor engagment or two, what chance have they against your Dogslayers? As for the Adjunct... leave her tome. Thus, what Leoman does with his fifteen hundred desert wolves is, in truth, without relevance. Or are you now revising all your opinions, Korbolo Dom?\"\n\n\"Of course not, Chosen One. But a wolf like Leoman should remain leashed.\"\n\n\"Leashed? The word you'd rather have used is killed. Not a wolf, but a mad dog. Well, he shall not be killed, and if indeed he is a mad dog then where better to send him than against the Adjunct? '\n\n\"You are wiser in these ways than I, Chosen One.\"\n\nGhost Hands snorted at that, and even Sha'ik smiled. The blood was suddenly hot in Korbolo's face.\n\n\"Febryl awaits you in your tent,\" Sha'ik said.\"He grows impatient with your lateness, Korbolo Dom. You need not remain here any longer. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "From heat to ice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Malazan did not trust himself to speak, and at the Chosen One's dismissive wave he almost flinched. After a moment, he managed to find his voice,\"I had best find out what he wants, then, ' he said.\n\n\"No doubt he views it as important,\" Sha'ik murmured.\"It is a flaw among ageing men, I think, that brittle self-importance. I advise you to calm him, Korbolo Dom, and so slow his pounding heart. '\n\n\"Sound advice, Chosen One.\" With a final salute, Korbolo strode to the platform's steps.\n\nHeboric sighed as the Napan's bootsteps faded behind them.\"The poor bastard's been left reeling. Would you panic them into acting, then? With Leoman now gone? And Toblakai as well? Who is there left to trust, lass?\"\n\n\"Trust? Do you imagine I trust anyone but myself, Heboric? Oh, perhaps Sha'ik Elder knew trust... in Leoman and Toblakai. But when they look upon me, they see an impostor– I can see that well enough, so do not attempt to argue otherwise. '\n\n\"And what about me?\" Heboric asked.\n\n\"Ah, Ghost Hands, now we come to it, don't we? Very well, I shall speak plain. Do not leave. Do not leave me, Heboric. Not now. That which haunts you can await the conclusion of the battle to come. When that is done, I shall extend the power of the Whirlwind– back to the very edge of the Otataral Isle. Within that warren, your journey will be virtually effortless. Otherwise, wilful as you are, I fear you will not survive the long, long walk. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked at her, though the effort earned him little more than a blur where she stood, enfolded in her white telaba. \"Is there anything you do not know about, lass?\"\n\n\"Alas, far too much, I suspect. L'oric, for example. A true mystery, there. He seems able to fend off even the Whirlwind's Elder magic, evading my every effort to discern his soul. And yet he has revealed much to you, I think.\"\n\n\"In confidence, Chosen One. I am sorry. All I can offer you is this: L'oric is not your enemy. '\n\n\"Well, that means more tome than you perhaps realize. Not my enemy. Does that make him my ally, then?\"\n\nHeboric said nothing.\n\nAfter a moment, Sha'ik sighed.\"Very well. He remains a mystery, then, in the most important of details. What can you tell me of Bidithal's explorations of his old warren? Rashan.\"\n\nHe cocked his head. \"Well, the answer to that, Chosen One, depends in part on your own knowledge. Of the goddess's warren– your Elder warren fragment that is the Whirlwind. '\n\n\"Kurald Emurlahn.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"Indeed. And what do you know of the events that saw it torn apart?\"\n\n\"Little, except that its true rulers had ceased to exist, thus leaving it vulnerable. The relevant fact is this, however: the Whirlwind is the largest fragment in this realm. And its power is growing. Bidithal would see himself as its first– and its penultimate– High Priest. What he does not understand is that there is no such role to betaken. I am the High Priestess. I am the Chosen One. I am the single mortal manifestation of the Whirlwind Goddess. Bidithal would enfold Rashan into the Whirlwind, or, conversely, use the Whirlwind to cleanse the Shadow Realm of its false rulers.\" She paused, and Heboric sensed her shrug. \"Those false rulers once commanded the Malazan Empire. Thus. We are all here, preparing fora singular confrontation. Yet what each of us seeks from that battle is at odds. The challenge, then, is to cajole all those disparate motives into one, mutually triumphant effect.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That,\" Heboric breathed, \"is quite a challenge, lass.\"\n\n\"And so I need you, Ghost Hands. I need the secret you possess-\"\n\n\"Of L'oric I can say nothing-'\n\n\"Not that secret, old man. No, the secret I seek lies in your hands.\"\n\nHe started. \"My hands?\"\n\n\"That giant of jade you touched– it is defeating the otataral. Destroying it. I need to discover how. I need an answer to otataral, Heboric.\"\n\n\"But Kurald Emurlahn is Elder, Sha'ik– the Adjunct's sword-\"\n\n\"Will annihilate the advantage I possess in my High Mages. Think! She knows she can't negate the Whirlwind with her sword... so she will not even try! No, instead she will challenge my High Mages. Remove them from the field. She will seek to isolate me-'\n\n\"But if she cannot defeat the Whirlwind, what does that matter?\"\n\n\"Because the Whirlwind, in turn, cannot defeat her!\"\n\nHeboric was silent. He had not heard this before, but after a moment's thought, it began to make sense. Kurald Emurlahn might be Elder, but it was also in pieces. Weakened, riven through with Rashan– a warren that was indeed vulnerable to the effects of otataral. The power of the Adjunct's sword and that of Sha'ik's Whirlwind Goddess would effectively cancel each other out.\n\nLeaving the outcome in the hands of the armies themselves. And there, the otataral would cut through the sorcery of the High Mages. In turn leaving it all to Korbolo Dom. And Korbolo knows it, and he has his own ambitions. Gods, lass, what a mess. \"Alas, Chosen One,\" he muttered, \"I cannot help you, for I do not know why the otataral in me is failing. I have, however, a warning. The power of the jade giant is not one to be manipulated. Not by me, nor by you. If the Whirlwind Goddess seeks to usurp it, she will do more than suffer in the attempt– she will likely get obliterated.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then we must win knowledge without yielding an opportunity.\"\n\n\"And how in Hood's name do you propose achieving that? '\n\n\"I would you give me the answer to that, Heboric.\"\n\nMe? \"Then we are lost. I have no control over that alien power. I have no understanding of it at all!\"\n\n\"Perhaps not yet,\" she replied, with a chilling confidence in her voice. \"But you grow ever closer, Heboric. Every time you partake of hen'bara tea. '\n\nThe tea? That which you gave me so that I might escape my nightmares? Calling upon Sha'ik Elder's knowledge of the desert, you said. A gift of compassion, I thought. A gift... He felt something crumbling inside him. A fortress in the desert of my heart, I should have known it would be a fortress of sand.\n\nHe swung away, made insensate by layer upon layer of blindness. Numbed to the outside world, to whatever Sha'ik was now saying, to the brutal heat of the sun overhead.\n\nStay?\n\nHe felt no longer able to leave.\n\nChains. She has made for me a house of chains...\n\nFelisin Younger came to the edge of the pit and looked down. The sun had left the floor, leaving naught but darkness below. There was no glimmer of hearthlight, confirming that no-one had come to take up residence in Leoman's abode.\n\nA scraping sound nearby made her turn. Toblakai's once-slavemaster had crawled into view around a wall foundation. His sun-blistered skin was caked in dust and excrement, the stumps at the ends of his arms and legs weeping a yellow, opaque liquid. The first signs of leprosy marred his joints at elbow and knee. Red-rimmed eyes fixed on Felisin and the man offered a blackened smile.\"Ah, child. See me your humble servant. Mathok's warrior-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do you know of that?\" she demanded.\n\nThe smile broadened. \"I bring word. See me your humble servant. Everyone's humble servant. I have lost my name, did you know that? I knew it once, but it has fled me. My mind. But I do what I am told. I bring word. Mathok's warrior. He cannot meet you here. He would not be seen. You understand? There, across the plaza, in the sunken ruin. He awaits.\"\n\nWell, she considered, the secrecy made sense. Their escape from the camp demanded it, although Heboric Ghost Hands was by far the one most likely to be under surveillance. And he had gone into his tent days ago and refused all visitors. Even so, she appreciated Mathok's caution.\n\nThough she had not known that Toblakai's slavemaster was apart of their conspiracy.\"The sunken temple? '\n\n\"Yes, there. See me your humble servant. Go. He awaits.\"\n\nShe set out across the flagstoned plaza. Hundreds of the camp's destitute had settled here, beneath palm-frond shelters, making no efforts at organization– the expanse reeked of piss and faeces, streams of the foul mess flowing across the stones. Hacking coughs, mumbled entreaties and blessings followed her as she made her way towards the ruin.\n\nThe temple's foundation walls were hip high; within, a steep set of stone stairs led down to the subterranean floor. The sun's angle had dipped sufficiently to render the area below in darkness.\n\nFelisin halted at the top of the stairs and peered down, seeking to penetrate the gloom. \"Are you there?\" she called.\n\nA faint sound from the far end. The hint of movement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She descended.\n\nThe sandy floor was still warm. Groping, she edged forward.\n\nLess than ten paces from the back wall and she could finally make him out. He was seated with his back to the stone. The gleam of a helm, scale armour on his chest.\n\n\"We should wait for night,\" Felisin said, approaching. \"Then make our way to Ghost Hands's tent. The time has come– he can hide no longer. What is your name? '\n\nThere was no reply.\n\nSomething black and smothering rose up to clamp over her mouth, and she was lifted from the ground. The blackness flowed like serpents around her, pinning her arms and binding her thrashing legs. A moment later she hung motionless, suspended slightly above the sandy floor.\n\nA gnarled fingertip brushed her cheek and her eyes widened as a voice whispered in her ear. \"Sweetest child. Mathok's fierce warrior felt Rashan's caress a short while ago, alas. Now, there is only me. Only humble Bidithal, hereto welcome you. Hereto drink all pleasure from your precious body, leaving naught but bitterness, naught but dead places within. It is necessary, you understand.\" His wrinkled hands were stroking, plucking, pinching, pawing her. \"I take no unsavoury pleasure in what I must do. The children of the Whirlwind must be riven barren, child, to make of them perfect reflections of the goddess herself– oh, you did not know that, did you? The goddess cannot create. Only destroy. The source of her fury, no doubt. So it must be with her children. My duty. My task. There is naught for you to do now but surrender.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Surrender." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had been along time since she had last been made to surrender, to giveaway all that was within her. Along time since she'd let darkness devour all that she was. Years ago, she had not known the magnitude of the loss, for there had been nothing to offer a contrast to misery, hunger and abuse.\n\nBut all that had changed. She had discovered, under Sha'ik's protective wing, the notion of inviolacy.\n\nAnd it was that notion that Bidithal now proceeded to destroy.\n\nLying on the landing at the top of the stairs, the creature that had once been a slavemaster on Genabackis smiled at Bidithal's words, then the smile grew wider at her muffled cries.\n\nKarsa Orlong's favoured child was in the hands of that sick old man. And all that would be done to her could not be undone.\n\nThe sick old man had been kindly with his offers of gifts. Not just the impending return of his hands and feet, but the promise of vengeance against the Teblor. He would find his name once more. He knew he would. And with it, the confusion would go away, the hours of blind terror would no longer plague him, and the beatings at the hands of the others in this plaza would cease. It would have to, for he would be their master.\n\nThey would pay for what they did. Everyone would pay. As soon as he found his name.\n\nThere was weeping now. Despair's own laughter, those racking heaves.\n\nThat lass would no longer look upon him with disgust. How could she? She was now like him. It was a good lesson. Viciously delivered– even the slavemaster could see that, could imagine it at least, and wince at the images he conjured in his head. But still, a good lesson." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Time to leave– footsteps approached from below." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He slithered back into the daylight, and the sound he made over the gravel, potsherds and sand was strangely reminiscent of chains. Chains dragging in his wake.\n\nThough there had been none to witness it, a strange glow had suffused L'oric's tent shortly afternoon. Momentary, then all was normal once more.\n\nNow, as dusk finally approached, a second flare of light burgeoned briefly then died away, again unnoticed.\n\nThe High Mage staggered through the warren's impromptu, momentary gate. He was drenched in blood. He stumbled with his burden across the hide-covered floor, then sank to his knees, dragging the misshapen beast into his arms, a single red hand pulling free to stroke its thick, matted hair.\n\nIts whimpers of pain had ceased. Mercifully, for each soft cry had broken anew L'oric's heart.\n\nThe High Mage slowly lowered his head, finally stricken with the grief he had been forced to hold back during his desperate, ineffectual efforts to save the ancient demon. He was filled with self-loathing, and he cursed his own complacency. Too long separated, too long proceeding as if the other realms held no danger to them.\n\nAnd now his familiar was dead, and the mirrored dead-ness inside him seemed vast. And growing, devouring his soul as sickness does healthy flesh. He was without strength, for the rage had abated.\n\nHe stroked the beast's blood-caked face, wondering anew at how its ugliness– now so still and free of pain– could nevertheless trigger depthless wellsprings of love from him.\"Ah, my friend, we were more of a kind than either of us knew. No... you knew, didn't you? Thus the eternal sorrow in your eyes, which I saw but chose to ignore, each time I visited. I was so certain of the deceit, you see. So confident that we could goon, undetected, maintaining the illusion that our father was still with us. I was...\" He crumpled then and could speak no further fora time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The failure had been his, and his alone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was here, ensnaring himself in these paltry games, when he should have been guarding his familiar's back– as it had done for him for century upon century.\n\nOh, it had been close in any case– one less T'lan Imass, and the outcome might have proved different– no, now you lie to yourself, L'oric. That first axe-blow had done the damage, had delivered the fatal wound. All that transpired thereafter was born of dying rage. Oh, my beloved was no weakling, and the wielder of that stone axe paid for his ambush. And know this, my friend, I left the second one scattered through the fires. Only the clan leader escaped me. But I will hunt him down. This I swear.\n\nBut not yet. He forced clarity into his thoughts, as the weight of the familiar where it lay against his thighs slowly diminished, its very substance ebbing away. Kurald Thyrllan was undefended, now. How the T'lan Imass had managed to penetrate the warren remained a mystery, but they had done so, completing the task they had set out to do with their legendary brutality.\n\nWould the Liosan have sensed the death? Perhaps only the seneschals, at first. Would they speak of it to the others? Not if they pause, for even a moment, and think about it. Of course, they had been the victims of the deceit all along. Osric had vanished– their god was gone– and Kurald Thyrllan was ripe for usurpation. And, eventually, those seneschals would realize that, had it truly been Osric behind the power that answered their prayers, then three T'lan Imass warriors would not have been enough– not nearly enough. My father is many things, but weak does not count among them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The withered, bird-sized thing that had been his familiar slipped down to the tent floor. L'oric stared at it, then slowly wrapped himself in his own arms. I need... I need help. Father's companions. Which one? Anomander Rake? No. A companion, yes, on occasion, but never Osric's friend. Lady Envy? Gods, no! Caladan Brood... but he carries his own burdens, these days. Thus, but one left...\n\nL'oric closed his eyes, and called upon the Queen of Dreams.\"By your true name, T'riss, I would speak with you. In Osric my father's name, hear my prayer... '\n\nA scene slowly formed in his mind, a place unfamiliar to him. A formal garden, high-walled, with a circular pool in the centre. Marble benches waited beneath the shadows of the surrounding growth. The flagstones around the pool were rippled with fine, white sand.\n\nHe found himself approaching the pool, staring down into the mirrored surface.\n\nWhere swam stars in inky blackness.\n\n\"The resemblance is there.\"\n\nHe turned at the liquid voice, to see a woman now seated on the pool's edge. She looked to be no more than twenty, her hair copper-gold and long. A heart-shaped face, pale, the eyes alight grey. She was not looking at him, her languid gaze on the pool's unmarred surface instead. \"Although,\" she added, with a faint smile, \"you have done well to hide your Liosan traits.\"\n\n\"We are skilled in such things, Queen of Dreams.\"\n\nShe nodded, still not meeting his eyes. \"As are all the Tiste. Anomander once spent almost two centuries in the guise of a royal bodyguard... human, in the manner you have achieved.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mistress,\" L'oric said,\"my father-'\n\n\"Sleeps. We all long ago made our choices, L'oric. Behind us, our paths stretch, long and worn deep. There is bitter pathos in the prospect of retracing them. Yet, for those of us who remain... awake, it seems we do nothing but just that. An endless retracing of paths, yet each step we take is forward, for the path has proved itself to be a circle. Yet– and here is the true pathos– the knowledge never slows our steps. '\n\n\"\"Wide-eyed stupid\", the Malazans say.\"\n\n\"Somewhat rough-edged, but accurate enough,\" she replied. She reached along-fingered hand down to the water.\n\nL'oric watched it vanish beneath the surface, but it was the scene around them that seemed to waken, a faint turbulence, the hint of ripples.\"Queen of Dreams, Kurald Thyrllan has lost its protector. '\n\n\"Yes. Tellann and Thyr were ever close, and now more than ever.\"\n\nA strange statement... that he would have to think on later. \"I cannot do it alone-\"\n\n\"No, you cannot. Your own path is about to become fraught, L'oric. And so you have come tome, in the hopes that I will find a suitable... protector. '\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Your desperation urges you to trust... where no trust has been earned-\"\n\n\"You were my father's friend! '\n\n\"Friend? L'oric, we were too powerful to know friendship. Our endeavours far too fierce. Our war was with chaos itself, and, at times, with each other. We battled to shape all that would follow. And some of us lost that battle. Do not misapprehend, I held no deep enmity for your father. Rather, he was as unfathomable as the rest of us– a bemusement we all shared, perhaps the only thing we shared. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You will not help?\"\n\n\"I did not say that.\"\n\nHe waited.\n\nShe continued holding her hand beneath the pool's placid surface, had yet to lift her head and meet his eyes.\"This will take sometime, \"she murmured.\"The present... vulnerability... will exist in the interval. I have someone in mind, but the shaping towards the opportunity remains distant. Nor do I think my choice will please you. In the meantime... '\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"We had best hope that potentially interested entities remain suitably distracted.\"\n\nHe saw her expression suddenly change, and when she spoke again the tone was urgent. \"Return to your realm, L'oric! Another circle has been closed– terribly closed. ' She drew her hand from the pool.\n\nL'oric gasped.\n\nIt was covered in blood.\n\nHis eyes snapped open, and he was kneeling in his tent once more. Night had arrived, and the sounds outside were muted, peaceful, a city settling down to its evening meal. Yet, he knew, something horrible had happened. He went still, questing outward. His powers– so weakened, so tremulous– \"Gods below!\" A swirl of violence, knotted upon itself, radiating waves of agony– a figure, small, twisted inward, in shredded clothes soaked through with blood, crawling through darkness.\n\nL'oric lurched to his feet, head spinning with anguish.\n\nThen he was outside, and suddenly running.\n\nHe found her trail, a smeared track through sand and dust, out beyond the ruins, into the petrified forest. Towards, he knew instinctively, the sacred glade that had been fashioned by Toblakai.\n\nBut there would be no succour for her there. Another abode of false gods. And Toblakai was gone, off to cross blades with his own fate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But she was without clear thought. She was only pain, lancing out to fire instincts of flight. She crawled as would any dying creature.\n\nHe saw her at the edge of the glade, small, bedraggled, pulling herself forward in torturous increments.\n\nL'oric reached her side, a hand reaching to settle at the back of her head, onto sweat-snarled hair. She flinched away with a squeal, fingers clawing against his arm.\"Felisin! He's gone! It is L'oric. You are safe with me. Safe, now-'\n\nBut still she sought to escape.\n\n\"I shall call upon Sha'ik-'\n\n\"No!\" she shrieked, curling tight on the sand. \"No! She needs him! She needs him still!\" Her words were blunted by broken lips but understandable none the less.\n\nL'oric sank back, struck mute by the horror. Not simply a wounded creature, then. A mind clear enough to weigh, to calculate, to put itself aside...\"She will know, lass– she can't help but know.\"\n\n\"No! Not if you help me. Help me, L'oric. Just you– not even Heboric! He would seek to kill Bidithal, and that cannot be. '\n\n\"Heboric? I want to kill Bidithal!\"\n\n\"You mustn't. You can't. He has power-\"\n\nHe saw the shudder run through her at that.\n\nL'oric hesitated, then said,\"I have healing salves, elixirs... but you will need to stay hidden fora time. '\n\n\"Here, in Toblakai's temple. Here, L'oric.\"\n\n\"I will bring water. A tent.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes!\"\n\nThe rage that burned in him had contracted down to a white-hot core. He struggled to control it, his resolve sporadically weakened by doubts that he was doing the right thing. This was... monstrous. There would bean answer to it. There would have to bean answer to it.\n\nEven more monstrous, he realized with a chill, they had all known the risk. We knew he wanted her. Yet we did nothing.\n\nHeboric lay motionless in the darkness. He had a faint sense of being hungry, thirsty, but it remained remote. Hen'bara tea, insufficient amounts, pushed the needs of the outer world away. Or so he had discovered.\n\nHis mind was floating on a swirling sea, and it seemed eternal. He was waiting, still waiting. Sha'ik wanted truths. She would get them. And then he was done, done with her.\n\nAnd probably done with life, as well.\n\nSo be it. He had grown older than he had ever expected to, and these extra weeks and months had proved anything but worth the effort. He had sentenced his own god to death, and now Fener would not be thereto greet him when he finally stepped free of his flesh and bones. Nor would Hood, come to that.\n\nIt did not seem he would awaken from this– he had drunk far more of the tea than he ever had before, and he had drunk it scalding hot, when it was most potent. And now he floated on a dark sea, an invisible liquid warm on his skin, barely holding him up, flowing over his limbs and chest, around his face.\n\nThe giant of jade was welcome to him. To his soul, and to whatever was left of his days as a mortal man. The old gifts of preternatural vision had long vanished, the visions of secrets hidden from most eyes– secrets of antiquity, of history– were long gone. He was old. He was blind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The waters slipped over his face.\n\nAnd he felt himself sliding down– amidst a sea of stars that swirled in the blackness yet were sharp with sudden clarity. In what seemed avast distance, duller spheres swam, clustering about the fiery stars, and realization struck him a hammer blow. The stars, they areas the sun. Each star. Every star. And those spheres– they are worlds, realms, each one different yet the same.\n\nThe Abyss was not as empty as he'd believed it to be. But... where dwell the gods? These worlds-are they warrens? Or are the warrens simply passageways connecting them?\n\nAnew object, growing in his vision as it drifted nearer. A glimmer of murky green, stiff-limbed, yet strangely contorted, torso twisted as if caught in the act of turning. Naked, spinning end over end, starlight playing across its jade surface like beads of rain.\n\nAnd behind it, another, this one broken– a leg and an arm snapped clean off yet accompanying the rest in its silent, almost peaceful sailing through the void.\n\nThen another.\n\nThe first giant cartwheeled past Heboric, and he felt he could simply extend a hand to brush its supple surface as it passed, but he knew it was in truth far too distant for that. Its face came into view. Too perfect for human, the eyes open, an expression too ambiguous to read, though Heboric thought he detected resignation within it.\n\nThere were scores now, all emerging from what seemed a single point in the inky depths. Each one displaying a unique posture; some so battered as to belittle more than a host of fragments and shards, others entirely unmarred. Sailing out of the blackness. An army." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet unarmed. Naked, seemingly sexless. There was a perfection to them– their proportions, their flawless surfaces– that suggested to the ex-priest that the giants could never have been alive. They were constructs, statues in truth, though no two were alike in posture or expression.\n\nBemused, he watched them spin past. It occurred to him that he could turn, to see if they simply dwindled down to another point far behind him, as if he but lay alongside an eternal river of green stone.\n\nHis own motion was effortless.\n\nAshe swung round, he saw-\n\n-and cried out.\n\nA cry that made no sound.\n\nAvast– impossibly vast– red-limned wound cut across the blackness, suppurating flames along its ragged edges. Grey storms of chaos spiralled out in lancing tendrils.\n\nAnd the giants descended into its maw. One after another. To vanish. Revelation filled his mind.\n\nThus, the Crippled God was brought down to our world. Through this... this terrible puncture. And these giants... follow. Like an army behind its commander.\n\nOran army in pursuit.\n\nWere all of the jade giants appearing somewhere in his own realm? That seemed impossible. They would be present in countless locations, if that was the case. Present, and inescapably visible. No, the wound was enormous, the giants diminishing into specks before reaching its waiting oblivion. A wound such as that could swallow thousands of worlds. Tens, hundreds of thousands.\n\nPerhaps all he witnessed here was but hallucination, the creation of a hen'bara-induced fever.\n\nYet the clarity was almost painful, the vision so brutally... strange... that he believed it to be true, or at the very least the product of what his mind could comprehend, could give shape to– statues and wounds, storms and bleeding, an eternal sea of stars and worlds..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A moment's concentration and he was turning about once more." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To face that endless progression.\n\nAnd then he was moving towards the nearest giant.\n\nIt was naught but torso and head, its limbs shorn off and spinning in its wake.\n\nThe mass burgeoned swiftly before him, too fast, too huge. Sudden panic gripped Heboric. He could see into that body, as if the world within the jade was scaled to his own. The evidence of that was terrible– and horrifying.\n\nFigures. Bodies like his own. Humans, thousands upon thousands, all trapped within the statue. Trapped... and screaming, their faces twisted in terror.\n\nA multitude of those faces suddenly swung to him. Mouths opened in silent cries– of warning, or hunger, or fear– there was noway to tell. If they screamed, no sound reached him.\n\nHeboric added his own silent shriek and desperately willed himself to one side, out of the statue's path. For he thought he understood, now– they were prisoners, ensnared within the stone flesh, trapped in some unknown torment.\n\nThen he was past, flung about in the turbulent wake of the broken body's passage. Spinning end over end, he caught a flash of more jade, directly in front of him.\n\nA hand.\n\nA finger, plunging down as if to crush him.\n\nHe screamed as it struck.\n\nHe felt no contact, but the blackness simply vanished, and the sea was emerald green, cold as death.\n\nAnd Heboric found himself amidst a crowd of writhing, howling figures.\n\nThe sound was deafening. There was no room to move– his limbs were trapped against him. He could not breathe.\n\nA prisoner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were voices roaring through his skull. Too many, in languages he could not recognize, much less comprehend. Like storm-waves crashing on ashore, the sound hammered through him, surging and falling, the rhythm quickening as a faint reddish gleam began to stain the green. He could not turn, but did not need to, to know that the wound was moments from swallowing them all.\n\nThen a string of words reached through the tumult, close as if whispered in his ear, and he understood them.\n\n\"You came from there. What shall we find, Handless One? What lies beyond the gash?\"\n\nThen another voice spoke, louder, more imperious: \"What god now owns your hands, old man? Tell me! Even their ghosts are not here– who is holding onto you? Tell me!\"\n\n\"There are no gods,\" a third voice cut in, this one female.\n\n\"So you say!\" came yet another, filled with spite. \"In your empty, barren, miserable world!\"\n\n\"Gods are born of belief, and belief is dead. We murdered it, with our vast intelligence. You were too primitive-\"\n\n\"Killing gods is not hard. The easiest murder of all. Nor is it a measure of intelligence. Not even of civilization. Indeed, the indifference with which such death-blows are delivered is its own form of ignorance.\"\n\n\"More like forgetfulness. After all, it's not the gods that are important, it is the stepping outside of oneself that gifts a mortal with virtue-'\n\n\"Kneel before Order? You blind fool-\"\n\n\"Order? I was speaking of compassion-\"\n\n\"Fine, then go ahead! Step outside yourself, Leandris! No, better yet. Step outside.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Carry on with the narrative as the plot partner.\nTags: epic fantasy, character study, power struggles, resilience, destiny\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: House of Chains\nChapter: 23" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were voices roaring through his skull. Too many, in languages he could not recognize, much less comprehend. Like storm-waves crashing on ashore, the sound hammered through him, surging and falling, the rhythm quickening as a faint reddish gleam began to stain the green. He could not turn, but did not need to, to know that the wound was moments from swallowing them all.\n\nThen a string of words reached through the tumult, close as if whispered in his ear, and he understood them.\n\n\"You came from there. What shall we find, Handless One? What lies beyond the gash?\"\n\nThen another voice spoke, louder, more imperious: \"What god now owns your hands, old man? Tell me! Even their ghosts are not here– who is holding onto you? Tell me!\"\n\n\"There are no gods,\" a third voice cut in, this one female.\n\n\"So you say!\" came yet another, filled with spite. \"In your empty, barren, miserable world!\"\n\n\"Gods are born of belief, and belief is dead. We murdered it, with our vast intelligence. You were too primitive-\"\n\n\"Killing gods is not hard. The easiest murder of all. Nor is it a measure of intelligence. Not even of civilization. Indeed, the indifference with which such death-blows are delivered is its own form of ignorance.\"\n\n\"More like forgetfulness. After all, it's not the gods that are important, it is the stepping outside of oneself that gifts a mortal with virtue-'\n\n\"Kneel before Order? You blind fool-\"\n\n\"Order? I was speaking of compassion-\"\n\n\"Fine, then go ahead! Step outside yourself, Leandris! No, better yet. Step outside.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Only the new one can do that, Cassa. And he'd better be quick about it. '\n\nTwisting, Heboric managed to look down, to catch a glimpse of his left forearm, the wrist, the hand– that was not there. A god. A god has taken them. I was blind to that– the jade's ghost hands made me blind to that-\n\nHe tilted his head back, as the screams and shrieks suddenly rose higher, deafening, mind-numbing. The world turned red, the red of blood-\n\nSomething tugged on his arms. Hard. Once. Twice.\n\nDarkness.\n\nHeboric opened his eyes. Saw above him the colourless canvas of his tent. The air was cold.\n\nA barely human sound escaped him, and he rolled onto his side beneath the blankets, curling tight into a ball. Shivers thrummed through him.\n\nA god. A god has found me.\n\nBut which god?\n\nIt was night, perhaps only a bell from dawn. The camp outside was silent, barring the distant, sorrow-filled howls of desert wolves.\n\nAfter awhile, Heboric stirred once more. The dung fire was out. No lanterns had been lit. He drew aside the blankets and slowly sat up.\n\nThen stared down at his hands, disbelieving.\n\nThey remained ghostly, but the otataral was gone. The power of the jade remained, pulsing dully. Yet now there were slashes of black through it. Lurid– almost liquid– barbs banded the backs of his hands, then tracked upward, shifting angle as they continued up his forearms.\n\nHis tattoos had been transformed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And, in this deepest darkness, he could see. Unhumanly sharp, every detail crisp as if it was day outside.\n\nHis head snapped round at a sound and a motion– but it was simply a rhizan, alighting light as a leaf on the tent roof.\n\nA rhizan! On the tent roof?\n\nHeboric's stomach rumbled in sudden hunger.\n\nHe looked down at his tattoos once more. I have found anew god. Not that I was seeking one. And I know who. What.\n\nBitterness filled him. \"In need of a Destriant, Treach? So you simply... took one. Stole from him his own life. Granted, not much of a life, but still, I owned it. Is this how you recruit followers? Servants? By the Abyss, Treach, you have a lotto learn about mortals.\"\n\nThe anger faded. There had been gifts, after all. An exchange of sorts. He was no longer blind. Even more extraordinary, he could actually hear the sounds of neighbours sleeping in their tents and yurts.\n\nAnd there, faint on the near-motionless air... the smell of... violence. But it was distant. The blood had been spilled sometime earlier in the night. Some domestic dispute, probably. He would have to teach himself to filter out much of what his newly enlivened senses told him.\n\nHeboric grunted under his breath, then scowled. \"All right, Treach. It seems we both have some learning to do. But first... something to eat. And drink.\"\n\nWhen he rose from his sleeping mat, the motion was startlingly fluid, though it was sometime before Heboric finally noted the absence of aches, twinges, and the dull throb of his joints." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was far too busy filling his belly.\n\nForgotten, the mysteries of the jade giants, the innumerable imprisoned souls within them, the ragged wound in the Abyss.\n\nForgotten, as well, that faint blood-scented tremor of distant violence...\n\nThe burgeoning of some senses perforce took away from others. Leaving him blissfully unaware of his newfound singlemindedness. Two truths he had long known did not, for sometime, emerge to trouble him.\n\nNo gifts were truly clean in the giving.\n\nAnd nature ever strives for balance. But balance was not a simple notion. Redress was not simply found in the physical world. Afar grimmer equilibrium had occurred... between the past and the present.\n\nFelisin Younger's eyes fluttered open. She had slept, but upon awakening discovered that the pain had not gone away, and the horror of what he had done to her remained as well, though it had grown strangely cold in her mind.\n\nInto her limited range of vision, close to the sand, a serpent slipped into view directly in front of her face. Then she realized what had awoken her– there were more snakes, slithering over her body. Scores of them.\n\nToblakai's glade. She remembered now. She had crawled here. And L'oric had found her, only to set off once again. To bring medicine, water, bedding, a tent. He had not yet returned.\n\nApart from the whispering slither of the snakes, the glade was silent. In this forest, the branches did not move. There were no leaves to flutter in the cool, faint wind. Dried blood in folds of skin stung as she slowly sat up. Sharp pains flared beneath her belly, and the raw wound where he had cut flesh away– there, between her legs– burned fiercely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I shall bring this ritual to our people, child, when I am the Whirlwind's High Priest. All girls shall know this, in my newly shaped world. The pain shall pass. All sensation shall pass. You are to feel nothing, for pleasure does not belong in the mortal realm. Pleasure is the darkest path, for it leads to the loss of control. And we mustn't have that. Not among our women. Now, you shall join the rest, those I have already corrected...\"\n\nTwo such girls had arrived, then, bearing the cutting instruments. They had murmured encouragement to her, and words of welcome. Again and again, in pious tones, they had spoken of the virtues that came of the wounding. Propriety. Loyalty. A leavening of appetites, the withering of desire. All good things, they said to her. Passions were the curse of the world. Indeed, had it not been passions that had enticed her own mother away, that were responsible for her own abandonment? The lure of pleasure had stolen Felisin's mother... away from the duties of motherhood...\n\nFelisin leaned over and spat into the sand. But the taste of their words would not go away. It was not surprising that men could think such things, could do such things. But that women could as well... that was indeed a bitter thing to countenance.\n\nBut they were wrong. Walking the wrong trail. Oh, my mother abandoned me, but not for the embrace of some lover. No, it was Hood who embraced her.\n\nBidithal would be High Priest, would he? The fool. Sha'ik would find a place for him in her temple– or at least a place for his skull. A cup of bone to piss in, perhaps. And that time was not long incoming." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still... too long. Bidithal takes girls into his arms every night. He makes an army, a legion of the wounded, the bereft. And they will be eager to share out their loss of pleasure. They are human, after all, and it is human nature to transform loss into a virtue. So that it might be lived with, so that it might be justified.\n\nA glimmer of dull light distracted her, and she looked up. The carved faces in the trees around her were glowing. Bleeding grey, sorcerous light. Behind each there was... a presence.\n\nToblakai's gods.\n\n\"Welcome, broken one.\" The voice was the sound of limestone boulders grinding together. \"I am named Ber'ok. Vengeance swarms about you, with such power as to awaken us. We are not displeased with the summons, child. '\n\n\"You are Toblakai's god, \"she muttered.\"You have nothing to do with me. Nor do I want you. Go away, Ber'ok. You and the rest– go away.\"\n\n\"We would ease your pain. I shall make of you my special... responsibility. You seek vengeance? Then you shall have it. The one who has damaged you would take the power of the desert goddess for himself. He would usurp the entire fragment of warren, and twist it into his own nightmare. Oh, child, though you might believe otherwise– now– the wounding is of no matter. The danger lies in Bidithal's ambition. A knife must be driven into his heart. Would it please you to be that knife? '\n\nShe said nothing. There was noway to tell which of the carved faces belonged to Ber'ok, so she could only look from one to the next. A glance to the two fully rendered Toblakai warriors revealed that they possessed no emanation, were grey and lifeless in the pre-dawn darkness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Serve us,\" Ber'ok murmured,\"and we in turn shall serve you. Give us your answer quickly– someone comes. '\n\nShe noted the wavering lantern light on the trail. L'oric.\"How? \"she asked the gods.\"How will you serve me? '\n\n\"We shall ensure that Bidithal's death is in a manner to match his crimes, and that it shall be... timely. '\n\n\"And how am Ito be the knife?\"\n\n\"Child,\" the god calmly replied, \"you already are.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Teblor have long earned their reputation as slayers of children, butcherers of the helpless, as mortal demons delivered unto the Nathii in a curse altogether undeserved. The sooner the Teblor are obliterated from their mountain fastnesses the sooner the memory of them will finally begin to fade. Until Teblor is no more than a name used to frighten children, we see our cause as clear and singular.\n\nThe Crusade of 1147 Ayed Kourbourn\n\nThe wolves loped through the almost luminescent fog, their eyes flashing when they swung their massive heads in his direction. As if he was an elk, struggling through deep snow, the huge beasts kept pace on either side, ghostly, with the implacable patience of the predators they were.\n\nThough it was unlikely these mountain beasts had ever before hunted a Teblor warrior. Karsa had not expected to find snow, particularly since his route took him alongside the north shoulder of the jagged range– it was fortunate that he would not have to climb through any passes. On his right, less than two leagues distant, he could still seethe ochre sands of the desert basin, and well knew that down there, the sun blazed hot– the same sun that looked down upon him now, a blurred orb of cold fire.\n\nThe snow was shin-deep, slowing his steady jog. Somehow, the wolves managed to run across its wind-hardened, crusty surface, only occasionally plunging a paw through. The fog enshrouding hunters and prey was in fact snow crystals, glittering with bright, blinding light.\n\nSomewhere to the west, Karsa had been told, the range of mountains would end. There would be sea on his right, a narrow rumpled passage of hills ahead and on his left. Across those hills, then southward, there would be a city. Lato Revae. The Teblor had no interest in visiting it, though he would have to skirt it. The sooner he left civilized lands behind, the better. But that was two river crossings distant, with weeks of travel between now and then." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Though he ran alone along the slope, he could feel the presence of his two companions. Ghost spirits at the most, but perhaps nothing more than fractured selves of his own mind. Sceptical Bairoth Gild. Stolid Delum Thord. Facets of his own soul, so that he might persist in this dialogue of self-doubt. Perhaps, then, nothing more than an indulgence.\n\nOr so it would seem, if not for the countless, blood-scoring edges of Bairoth Gild's commentary. At times, Karsa felt as if he was a slave once more, hunched beneath endless flagellation. The notion that he was delivering this to himself was beyond contemplating.\n\n\"Not entirely beyond, Warleader, if you'd spare yourself but a moment to regard your own thoughts. '\n\n\"Not now, Bairoth Gild,\" Karsa replied. \"I am running short on breath as it is.\"\n\n\"Altitude, Karsa Orlong,\" came Delum Thord's voice.\"Though you do not feel it, with each step westward you are descending. Soon you will leave the snow behind. Raraku may have once been an inland sea, but it was a sea couched in the lap of high mountains. Your entire journey thus far, Warleader, has been a descent. '\n\nKarsa could spare that thought only a grunt. He had felt no particular descent, but horizons played deceptive games in this land. The desert and mountains ever lied, he had long since discovered.\n\n\"When the snow is gone,\" Bairoth Gild murmured, \"the wolves will attack.\"\n\n\"I know. Now be quiet– I see bare rock ahead.\"\n\nAs did his hunters. They numbered at least a dozen, taller at the shoulder than those of Karsa's homeland, and furred intones of dun, grey and speckled white. The Teblor watched as four of the beasts sprinted ahead, two on each side, making for the exposed rock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Growling, Karsa unslung his wooden sword." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bitter cold air had left his hands slightly numb. Had the western end of the Holy Desert held any sources of water, he would not have climbed to these heights, but there was little point in second-guessing that decision now.\n\nThe panting breaths of the wolves were audible on either side and behind him.\n\n\"They want the sure footing, Warleader. Then again, so do you. Beware the three in your wake– they will strike first, likely apace or two before you reach the rock.\"\n\nKarsa bared his teeth at Bairoth's unnecessary advice. He well knew what these beasts would do, and when.\n\nA sudden thumping of paws, flurries of snow springing into the air, and all the wolves raced pasta surprised Karsa. Claws clattered on the bared rock, water spraying from the sun's melt, and the beasts wheeled to form a half-circle before the Teblor.\n\nHe slowed his steps, readying his weapon. For once, even Bairoth Gild was silenced– no doubt as uncertain as he himself was.\n\nA rasping, panting stranger's voice hissed through Karsa's mind: \"We enjoyed that, Toblakai. You have run without pause for three nights and almost four days. That we are impressed would be a tragic understatement. We have never before seen the like. See our heaving flanks? You have exhausted us. And look at you-you breathe deep and there is red around your eyes, yet you stand ready, with not a waver in your legs, or from the strange sword in your hands. Will you now do us harm, warrior?\"\n\nKarsa shook his head. The language was Malazan. \"You are like a Soletaken, then. But many, not one. This would be... D'ivers? I have killed Soletaken– this fur on my shoulders is proof enough of that, if you doubt me. Attack me if you will, and when I have killed all of you, I will have a cloak even the gods will envy. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We are no longer interested in killing you, warrior." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Indeed, we accost you now to deliver a warning.\"\n\n\"What kind of warning?\"\n\n\"You are on someone's trail. '\n\nKarsa shrugged. \"Two men, both heavy, though one is taller. They walk side by side.\"\n\n\"Side by side, yes. And what does that tell you?\"\n\n\"Neither leads, neither follows.\"\n\n\"Danger rides your shoulders, Toblakai. About you is an air of threat– another reason why we will not cross you. Powers vie for your soul. Too many. Too deadly. But heed our warning: should you cross one of those travellers... the world will come to regret it. The world, warrior.\"\n\nKarsa shrugged a second time. \"I am not interested infighting anyone at the moment, D'ivers. Although, if I am in turn crossed, then I am not the one to answer for whatever regret the world then experiences. Now, I am done with words. Move from my path, or I will kill you all. '\n\nThe wolves hesitated. \"Tell them that Ryllandaras sought to dissuade you. Before you make your last living act one that sees this world destroyed.\"\n\nHe watched them wheel and make their way down the slope.\n\nBairoth Gild's laugh was a faint thunder in his mind. Karsa nodded.\"None would accept the blame for what has not yet occurred, \"he rumbled.\"That, by itself, constitutes a curiously potent warning. '\n\n\"You do indeed grow into yourself, Karsa Orlong. What will you do?\"\n\nKarsa bared his teeth as he reslung his sword over a fur-clad shoulder. \"Do, Bairoth Gild? Why, I would meet these dire travellers, of course.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This time, Bairoth Gild did not laugh.\n\nStrains of meltwater flowed over the brittle rock beneath Karsa's moccasins. Ahead, the descent continued into a crowded maze of sandstone mesas, their level tops capped with ice and snow. Despite the bright, mid-afternoon sun in the cloudless sky, the narrow, twisting channels between the mesas remained in deep shadow.\n\nBut the snow underfoot had vanished, and already he could feel anew warmth in the air. There seemed but one way down, and it was as much a stream as a trail. Given the lack of signs, the Teblor could only assume that the two strangers ahead of him had taken the same route.\n\nHe moved slower now, his legs heavy with fatigue. The truth of his exhaustion had not been something he would reveal to the D'ivers wolves, but that threat was behind him now. He was close to collapse– hardly ideal if he was about to cross blades with a world-destroying demon.\n\nStill his legs carried him forward, as if of their own accord. As if fated.\n\n\"And fate, Karsa Orlong, carries its own momentum.\"\n\n\"Returned at last to hound me once more, Bairoth Gild? At the very least, you should speak words of advice. This Ryllandaras, this D'ivers– portentous words, yes? '\n\n\"Absurdly so, Warleader. There are no powers in this world– or any other– that pose such absolute threat. Spoken through the frenzied currents of fear. Likely personal in nature– whoever walks ahead has had dealings with the one named Ryllandaras, and it was the D'ivers who suffered with the meeting. '\n\n\"You are probably right, Bairoth Gild. Delum Thord, you have been silent along while. What are your thoughts?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am troubled, Warleader. The D'ivers was a powerful demon, after all. To take so many shapes, yet remain one. To speak in your mind as would a god... '\n\nKarsa grimaced. \"A god... or a pair of ghosts. Not a demon, Delum Thord. We Teblor are too careless with that word. Forkrul Assail. Soletaken. D'ivers. None are demons in truth, for none were summoned to this world, none belong to any other realm but this one. They are in truth no different from us Teblor, or the lowlanders. No different from rhizan and capemoths, from horses and dogs. They are all of this world, Delum Thord. '\n\nAs you say, Warleader. But we Teblor were never simplistic in our use of the word. Demon also refers to behaviour, and in this manner all things can be demonic. The one named Ryllandaras hunted us, and had you not driven it into exhaustion, it would have attacked, despite your words to the contrary. '\n\nKarsa considered, then nodded. \"True enough, Delum Thord. You advise caution. This was always your way, so I am not surprised. I will not ignore your words for that, however.\"\n\n\"Of course you will, Karsa Orlong.\"\n\nA last stretch of sunlight, then the Teblor was in shadow. The run-off swept around his ankles as the track narrowed, the footing growing treacherous. Once more he could see his breath.\n\nA short climb to his left ran abroad ledge of some kind, out of the shadow and looking bone dry. Karsa swung from the trail and clambered up the gully's eroded bank until he was able to pull himself onto it. He straightened. Not a natural ledge after all. A road, running parallel to the gorge as it girdled the first mesa on his left. The wall of the mesa itself seemed to have been smoothed once, long ago, to a height twice Karsa's own. Faint pictographic images were visible on it, pitted and made colourless bypassing centuries. A procession of figures, each scaled to that of a lowlander, bareheaded and wearing naught but a loincloth. They held their hands high overhead, fingers stretched out as if clutching at empty air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The road itself was latticed in cracks, battered by incessant rocks tumbling down from the mesa. Despite this, it seemed as if the road was made of a single piece of stone, though of course that was impossible. Heaved and rumpled, it wound along the curve of the mesa wall then shifted away onto a ramp of sorts, hazy in the distance, that presumably led down to the plain. The horizon directly ahead and to Karsa's right was cut short by towers of stone, though he knew that, beyond them, stretched the waters of the Longshan Sea.\n\nWeariness forced the Teblor to slowly settle on the road, removing his pack and sitting against the mesa's rock wall. The journey had been long, but he knew his path ahead was still longer. And, it seemed, he would ever walk it alone. For these ghosts remain just that. Perhaps, in truth, no more than my mind's own conjuring. A displeasing thought.\n\nHe leaned his head back on the rough, sun-warmed stone.\n\nHis eyes blinked open– to darkness.\n\n\"Awake once more, Warleader? We were wondering if your sleep would prove eternal. There are sounds ahead– can you hear them? Oh, they've travelled far, but that is the way with this land, isn't it? Still... stones are being moved, I think. Tossed. Too slow, too regular to be a rockfall. The two strangers, one might conclude.\"\n\nKarsa slowly stood, stretching to ease his sore, chilled muscles. He could hear the steady clack of stones striking stone, but Bairoth Gild was right– they were distant. The warrior crouched down beside his pack and removed foodstuffs and a bladder of meltwater." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was near dawn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whoever it was working somewhere ahead had begun early.\n\nKarsa took his time breaking his fast, and when he was finally done and ready to resume his journey, the sky was pink to the east. A final examination of the condition of his sword and the fittings on his armour, then he was on the move once again.\n\nThe steady clangour of the stones continued through half the morning. The road skirted the mesa fora distance that was longer than he had originally judged, revealing the ramp ahead to be massive, its sides sheer, the plain beneath a third of a league or more below. Just before the road departed the mesa, it opened out into a shelf-like expanse, and here, set into the mesa wall, was the face of a city. Rockslides had buried fully half of it, and the spreading ridges of secondary slides lay atop the main one.\n\nBefore one of these lesser slides sat a pair of tents.\n\nThree hundred paces away from them, Karsa halted.\n\nThere was a figure at the secondary slide, clearing rocks with a steady, almost obsessive rhythm, tossing huge chunks of sandstone out behind him to bounce and roll on the flat concourse. Nearby, seated on a boulder, was another figure, and where the first one was tall– taller than a lowlander by far– this one was impressively wide at the shoulders, dark-skinned, heavy-maned. A large leather sack was beside him, and he was gnawing on a smoke-blackened hind leg– the rest of the small mountain goat was still spitted on a huge skewer over a stone-lined hearth near the tents.\n\nKarsa studied the scene fora time, then, shrugging, made his way towards the two figures.\n\nHe was less than twenty paces away before the huge, barbaric man seated on the boulder swung his head around." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And gestured with the haunch in his hand. \"Help yourself. The thing damn near brained me, falling from the cliffside, so I feel obliged to eat it. Funny, that. You always see them, scampering and clambering way up there, and so you naturally believe they never make a misstep. Well, another delusion shattered.\"\n\nHe was speaking a desert dialect, a lowlander tongue, yet he was no lowlander. Large, thick canines, hair on shoulders like a boar's bristles, a heavy-boned face wide and flat. Eyes the hue of the sandstone cliffs around them.\n\nAt his words, the stranger's companion ceased throwing rocks and straightened, and was now regarding Karsa curiously.\n\nThe Teblor was equally frank as he returned the stare. Almost as tall as he was, though leaner. Greyish, green-tinged skin. Lower canines large enough to be tusks. A longbow leaned nearby, along with a quiver, and a leather-strap harness to which a scabbarded sword was attached. The first weapons Karsa had yet seen– for the other one appeared to be entirely unarmed, barring the thick hunting knife at his belt.\n\nThe mutual examination continued fora moment longer, then the tusked warrior resumed his excavation, disappearing from sight as he strode into the cavity he had cleared in the rockfall.\n\nKarsa glanced back at the other man.\n\nWho gestured again with the goat leg.\n\nThe Teblor approached. He set down his pack near the hearth and drew a knife, then cutaway a slab of meat and returned to where the other sat. \"You speak the language of the tribes,\" Karsa said, \"yet I have never before seen your kind. Nor that of your companion.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And you are an equally rare sight, Thelomen Toblakai. I am named Mappo, of the people known as Trell, who hail from west of the Jhag Odhan. My single-minded companion is Icarium, a Jhag-\"\n\n\"Icarium? Is that a common name, Mappo? There is a figure in my tribe's own legends who is so named. '\n\nThe Trell's ochre eyes narrowed momentarily.\"Common? Not in the way you ask. The name certainly appears in the tales and legends of countless people. '\n\nKarsa frowned at the odd pedantry, if that was what it was. Then he crouched down opposite Mappo and tore off a mouthful of the tender meat.\n\n\"It occurs tome, of a sudden,\" Mappo said, a hint of a grin flickering across his bestial features, \"that this chance encounter is unique... in ways too numerous to list. A Trell, a Jhag, and a Thelomen Toblakai... and we each are likely the only one of our respective kinds in all of Seven Cities. Even more extraordinary, I believe I know of you– by reputation only, of course. Sha'ik has a bodyguard... a Thelomen Toblakai, with an armoured vest made of petrified shells, and a wooden sword... '\n\nKarsa nodded, swallowing down the last of the meat in his mouth before replying, \"Aye, I am in the service of Sha'ik. Does this fact make you my enemy? '\n\n\"Not unless you choose to be,\" Mappo answered, \"and I would advise against that.\"\n\n\"So does everyone,\" Karsa muttered, returning to his meal.\n\n\"Ah, so you are not as ignorant of us as you first said.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A score of wolves spoke tome,\" Karsa explained." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Little was said, barring the warning itself. I do not know what makes you two so dangerous, nor do I much care. Impede me in my journey and I will kill you. It is as simple as that.\"\n\nMappo slowly nodded. \"And have we cause to impede you?\"\n\n\"Not unless you choose to have,\" Karsa responded.\n\nThe Trell smiled. \"Thus, it is best we learn nothing of each other, then.\"\n\n\"Aye, that would be best.\"\n\n\"Alas,\" Mappo sighed, \"Icarium already knows all he needs to of you, and as to what he intends, while already decided, he alone knows.\"\n\n\"If he believes he knows me,\" Karsa growled, \"he deceives himself.\"\n\n\"Well, let us consider the matter. On your shoulders is the fur of a Soletaken. One we both happen to know– you killed a formidable beast, there. Luckily, he was no friend of ours, but the measure of your martial prowess has been taken. Next, you are haunted by ghosts– not just the two kinsmen who even now hover behind you. But the ghosts of those you have slain in your short, but clearly terrible life. They are appallingly numerous, and their hatred for you is a palpable hunger. But who carries their dead in such a manner? Only one who has been cursed, I think. And I speak from long experience; curses are horrible things. Tell me, has Sha'ik ever spoken to you of convergence? '\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"When curses collide, you might say. Flaws and virtues, the many faces of fateful obsession, of singular purpose. Powers and wills are drawn together, as if one must by nature seek the annihilation of the other. Thus, you and Icarium are nowhere, and we are moments from a dreadful convergence, and it is my fate to witness. Helpless unto desperate madness. Fortunately for my own sake, I have known this feeling before.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa had been eating throughout Mappo's words. Now he examined the bone in his hands, then tossed it aside, wiped his palms on the white bear fur of his cloak, and straightened.\"What else have you and Icarium discovered about me, Mappo? '\n\n\"A few more things. Ryllandaras gauged you, and concluded that he had no wish to add his skins to your collection. He is ever wise, is Ryllandaras. A score of wolves, you said? His power has grown, then, a mystery both ominous and curious, given the chaos in his heart. What else? Well, the rest I choose not to reveal.\"\n\nKarsa grunted. He untied the bear cloak and let it fall to the ground, then unslung his sword and turned to face the rockslide.\n\nA boulder sailed out from the cavity, of a size and weight that would strain even Bairoth Gild. The ground shook when it struck and bounced and rolled to a dusty halt.\n\n\"Will he now make me wait?\" Karsa growled.\n\nAs if in answer Icarium emerged from the cave, slapping the dust from his long-fingered hands. \"You are not Fenn,\" he said. \"Indeed, I believe you are Teblor, a son of the fallen tribes in Laederon. You have travelled far, warrior, to meet your end.\"\n\n\"If you are so eager,\" Karsa growled, \"cease your words.\"\n\nThe Jhag's expression grew troubled.\"Eager? No. I am never eager. This is a moment of pathos, I believe. The first time I have felt such a thing, which is strange. \"He turned to his companion.\"Have we known such moments as this one before, Mappo Runt? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aye, my friend. We have.\"\n\n\"Ah, well, then the burden of recollection is yours alone.\"\n\n\"As it ever was, Icarium.\"\n\n\"I grieve for you, friend.\"\n\nMappo nodded. \"I know you do. Now, best unsheathe your sword, Icarium. This Teblor evinces frustration and impatience.\"\n\nThe Jhag went to his weapon. \"What will come of this, Mappo?\"\n\nThe Trell shook his head. \"I do not know, but I am filled with dread.\"\n\n\"I shall endeavour to be efficient, then, so as to diminish the duration of your discomfort.\"\n\n\"Clearly impossible,\" Karsa muttered, \"given your love of words.\" He readied his sword. \"Be on with it, then, I have a horse to find.\"\n\nIcarium's brows rose fractionally, then he drew out his sword. An unusual weapon, single-edged and looking ancient. He approached.\n\nThe Jhag's attack was a flicker of motion, faster than anything Karsa had seen before, yet his sword flashed to meet it.\n\nBlades collided.\n\nThere was a peculiar snick and Karsa found himself holding nothing more than a handle.\n\nOutrage exploded within him and he stepped forward, his huge fist hammering into Icarium's face. The Jhag was thrown backward, leaving his feet, his sword cartwheeling away to clatter on the slope of the rockfall. Icarium landed with a heavy thump, and did not move.\n\n\"Bastard broke my sword-\" Karsa began, turning towards Mappo.\n\nWhite light detonated in his skull." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And he knew no more.\n\nMappo stared down at the motionless Thelomen Toblakai, noting the slow rise and fall of the giant's chest. Hefting his mace, he glanced over to where Icarium lay, saw a hand slowly lift from the ground, twitch, then settle once more.\n\nThe Trell sighed. \"Better than I could have hoped for, I think.\"\n\nHe walked back and returned his weapon to the large leather sack, then set out to strike the camp.\n\nPounding pain behind his eyes, a sound of roaring, as of a river raging through a narrow channel. Karsa groaned.\n\nSometime passed before he finally pushed himself onto his hands and knees.\n\nIt was dawn... again.\n\n\"Say nothing, Bairoth Gild,\" he muttered. \"Nor you, Delum Thord. I can well guess what happened. That bastard Trell struck me from behind. Aye, he didn't kill me, but one day he will wish he had. '\n\nA slow, cautious look around confirmed that he was alone. His broken sword had been positioned beside him, handle and blade side by side, with a small bound bundle of desert flowers lying atop them.\n\nThe blow to his head left him nauseous, and he found he was shaking once he'd managed to climb to his feet. He unstrapped his dented helm and tossed it aside. Dried blood matted his hair and covered the back of his neck.\n\n\"At least you are now well rested, Karsa Orlong.\"\n\n\"You are less amused than you would have me think, Bairoth Gild. The one named Icarium. He is the one from our legends, isn't he? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And you alone among the living Teblor have crossed blades with him.\"\n\n\"He broke my sword.\"\n\nThere was no reply to that. Karsa set about preparing to resume his journey, once more donning the bear cloak, then shouldering the pack. He left the wooden sword pieces and their bouquet, and made to set off down the descending road. Then he paused, turning his attention instead to the cavity that Icarium had excavated into the rockslide.\n\nThe Jhag's efforts had partially uncovered a statue, broken here and there, with what remained fissured with cracks, but recognizable none the less. A grotesque construct, as tall as Karsa, made of a black, grainy stone.\n\nA seven-headed hound.\n\nIt had been completely buried by the fall, and so would have revealed no sign that it existed beneath the rubble. Yet Icarium had found it, though his reasons for uncovering the monstrosity were still unfathomable. \"He has lived too long, I think,\" Karsa murmured.\n\nHe strode back out from the cavity, then swung onto the road.\n\nSix days later, the city of Lato Revae far behind him, the Teblor lay prone in the shadows of a guldindha tree at the edge of a grove, watching a pair of drovers switching their herd of goats towards a dusty corral. A small village lay beyond, its low buildings roofed in palm fronds, the air above it hazy with dung smoke and dust.\n\nThe sun would be down soon, and he could resume his journey. He had waited out the day, unseen. These lands between Lato Revae and the Mersin River were relatively crowded, compared to all that he had seen thus far, reminding him that his travels, since his landing at Ehrlitan, had been mostly through unbroken wilderness. The Pan'potsun Odhan– the Holy Desert itself– was a world virtually abandoned by civilization." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But here, irrigation ditches ribboned the plain. Wells and groves and villages abounded, and there were more roads than he had ever seen before, even in the lands of the Nathii. Most were dusty, winding tracks at ground level, usually situated between ditches. Thus far, the only exceptions were the imperial tracks, raised and straight and substantial enough to permit two wagons to pass each other with room to spare. These Malazan roads had suffered in the last year– despite their obvious value, foundation boulders had been dugout, league-markers uprooted. But the ditches alongside them were deep and wide, and Karsa had used those ditches to remain hidden from sight as he made his way southwestward.\n\nThe village ahead crouched on a crossroads of Malazan tracks, and a squat, square tower rose above the low roofs near the centre. Its limestone walls were stained black, streaks flaring up from arrow-slits and windows. When the sun finally settled beyond the horizon, no lights showed from the tower.\n\nThough it was likely that there were rebel soldiers of the Apocalypse stationed in the village, given its strategic placement on the crossroads, Karsa had no interest in initiating contact. His was a private journey, if for no reason but that he chose to have it so. In any case, it seemed the rebellion was not quite as fierce here; either that or the unbridled bloodthirst had long since abated. There had been no widespread destruction of farms and fields, no slaughter in the village and town streets. Karsa wondered if there had been as many Malazan traders and landowners this far west, or if the garrisons had all been recalled into the major cities, such as Kayhum, Sarpachiya and Ugarat– their fellow noncombatants accompanying them. If so, then it had not helped them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He disliked being weaponless, barring the Malazan short-sword he used as a knife, sheathed at his hip." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But there was no suitable wood in this region. There were said to be iron-wood trees in the Jhag Odhan, and he would wait until then.\n\nThe swift descent into night was done. The Teblor warrior stirred, collecting his pack, then set out along the edge of the guldindha grove. One of the imperial roads led off in the direction he sought, likely the main artery connecting Lato Revae with the Holy City Ugarat. If any bridges across the Mersin River had survived the uprising, it would be the Malazan-built one on that road.\n\nHe skirted the village on its north side, through knee-high grains, the soil soft from the previous night's irrigating. Karsa assumed the water came from the river somewhere ahead, though he could not imagine how the flow was regulated. The notion of a life spent tilling fields was repellent to the Teblor warrior. The rewards seemed to be exclusive to the highborn landowners, whilst the labourers themselves had only a minimal existence, prematurely aged and worn down by the ceaseless toil. And the distinction between high and low status was born from farming itself– or so it appeared to Karsa. Wealth was measured in control over other people, and the grip of that control could never be permitted to loosen. Odd, then, that this rebellion had had nothing to do with such inequities, that in truth it had been little more than a struggle between those who would be in charge.\n\nYet the majority of the suffering had descended upon the lowborn, upon the common folk. What matter the colour of the collar around a man's neck, if the chains linked to them were identical?\n\nBetter to struggle against helplessness, as far as he was concerned. This blood-soaked Apocalypse was pointless, a misdirected explosion of fury that, when it passed, left the world unchanged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He bounded across a ditch, crossed through a narrow fringe of overgrown brush, and found himself at the edge of a shallow pit. Twenty paces across and at least thirty paces wide. The town's refuse was piled here, not entirely successful at covering the mass of lowlander bones.\n\nHere, then, were the Malazans. As tamed and broken as the earth itself. The wealth of flesh, flung back into the ground. Karsa had no doubt that it was their rivals in status who were loudest in exhorting their deaths.\n\n\"And so, once again, Karsa Orlong, we are given the truths of the lowlanders.\" Bairoth Gild's ghostly voice was palpably bitter.\"For every virtue they espouse, a thousand self-serving evils belie their piety. Know them, Warleader, for one day they will be your enemy. '\n\n\"I am no fool, Bairoth Gild. Nor am I blind.\"\n\nDelum Thord spoke. \"A place of haunting lies ahead, Karsa Orlong. As ancient as our own blood. Those who live here avoid it, and have always avoided it.\"\n\n\"Not entirely,\" Bairoth interjected. \"Fear has inspired them on occasion. The place is damaged. None the less, the Elder power lingers. The path beckons– will you walk it, Warleader?\"\n\nKarsa made his way around the pit. He could see something ahead, earthworks rising to break the flatness of the surrounding plain. Elongated barrows, the slabs of stone that formed them visible in places although they were mostly covered in thorny brush and tufts of yellow grasses. The mounds formed an irregular ring around a larger, circular hill that was flat-topped, though slightly canted as if one side had settled overtime. Rising at angles from the summit were standing stones, a score or more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rocks from clearing the nearby fields had been discarded in this once-holy site, around the barrows, heaped against the slope of the central hill, along with other detritus: the withered wooden skeletons of ox ploughs, palm fronds from roofs, piles of potsherds and the bones of butchered livestock.\n\nKarsa slipped between two barrows and made his way up the central slope. The nearest standing stone reached barely to his waist. Black symbols crowded it, the spit and charcoal paint relatively recent. The Teblor recognized various signs, such as had been employed as a secret, native language during the Malazan occupation. \"Hardly a place of fear,\" he muttered. Fully half of the stones were either shattered or toppled, and from the latter Karsa noted that they were, in fact, taller than he was, so deeply had they been anchored in the artificial hill. The summit itself was pitted and uneven.\n\n\"Oh, these are the signs of fear, Karsa Orlong, do not doubt that. This desecration. Were this a place without power, the answer would have been indifference.\"\n\nKarsa grunted, stepping carefully on the treacherous ground as he approached the nominal centre of the stone ring. Four smaller slabs had been tilted together there, the wiry grasses stopping apace away on all sides, leaving only bare earth flecked with bits of charcoal.\n\nAnd fragments, Karsa noted as he crouched, of bone. He picked one up and studied it in the starlight. From a skull, lowlander in scale though somewhat more robust, the outer edge of an eye socket. Thick... like that of my gods... \"Bairoth Gild. Delum Thord. Do either of you sense the presence of a spirit or a god here?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" Delum Thord replied.\n\nBairoth spoke. \"A shaman was buried here, Warleader. His head was severed and left fixed in the apex of the four cardinal stones. Whoever shattered it did so long afterwards. Centuries. Perhaps millennia. So that it would no longer see. No longer watch.\"\n\n\"Then why is this place of value tome?\"\n\n\"For the way through it offers, Warleader.\"\n\n\"The way through what, Bairoth Gild?\"\n\n\"Passage westward, into the Jhag Odhan. A trail in the dreamworld. A journey of months will become one of mere days, should you choose to walk it. It lives still, for it was used not long ago. By an army.\"\n\n\"And how can I walk this trail?\"\n\nDelum Thord replied, \"We can lead you, Karsa Orlong. For, like the one once buried here, we are neither dead nor alive. The lord Hood cannot find our spirits, for they are herewith you. Our presence adds to the god of death's hatred of you, Warleader. '\n\n\"Hatred?\"\n\n\"For what you have taken and would not give to him. Will not. Would you become your own Keeper of Souls? So he must now fear. When last did Hood know a rival?\"\n\nKarsa scowled and spat onto the ground. \"I have no interest in being his rival. I would break these chains. I would free even you and Bairoth Gild.\"\n\n\"We would rather you did not, Warleader.\"\n\n\"You and Bairoth Gild are perhaps alone in that sentiment, Delum Thord.\"\n\n\"What of it?\" Bairoth snapped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa said nothing, for he had begun to understand the choice that lay ahead, sometime in the future. To castoff my enemies... I must also castoff my friends. And so Hood follows, and waits. For the day that must come.\n\n\"You hide your thoughts now, Karsa Orlong. This new talent does not please us.\"\n\n\"I am warleader,\" Karsa growled. \"It is not my task to please you. Do you now regret that you follow?\"\n\n\"No, Karsa Orlong. Not yet.\"\n\n\"Take me into this trail in the dreamworld, Delum Thord.\"\n\nThe air grew suddenly colder, the smell reminding Karsa of the sloped clearings on high mountainsides when spring arrived, the smell of enlivened, softened lichen and moss. And before him, where there had been night-softened farmland a moment ago, there was now tundra, beneath a heavily overcast sky.\n\nAbroad path lay before him, stretching across the rolling land, where the lichen had been crushed, the mosses kicked aside and trampled. As Bairoth Gild had said, an army had passed this way, although by the signs it seemed their journey had been but a moment ago– he half expected to seethe tail end of that solemn column on the distant horizon, but there was nothing. Simply an empty, treeless expanse, stretching out on all sides.\n\nHe moved forward, in the army's wake.\n\nThis world seemed timeless, the sky unchanging. On occasion, herds appeared, too distant to make out the kind of beasts, rolling across hillsides then slipping from view as they streamed down into valleys. Birds flew in arrowhead formation, a strange long-necked breed high overhead, all of them consistently flying back the way Karsa had come. Apart from the whine of the insects swarming about the Teblor, a strange, unreal silence emanated from the landscape." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A dreamworld, then, such as the elders of his tribe were wont to visit, seeking portents and omens. The scene not unlike what Karsa had glimpsed when, in delirium, he had found himself before his god, Urugal.\n\nHe continued on.\n\nEventually, the air grew colder, and frost glittered amidst the lichen and moss to either side of the wide trail. The smell of rotting ice filled Karsa's nose. Another thousand paces brought him to the first dirt-studded sweep of snow, filling a shallow valley on his right. Then shattered chunks of ice, half buried in the ground as if they had fallen from the sky, many of them larger than a lowlander wagon. The land itself was more broken here, the gentle roll giving way to sharp-walled drainage gullies and channels, to upthrust hillsides revealing banded sandstone beneath the frozen, thick skin of peat. Fissures in the stone gleamed with greenish ice.\n\nBairoth Gild spoke. \"We are now at the border of anew warren, Warleader. A warren inimical to the army that arrived here. And so, a war was waged.\"\n\n\"How far have I travelled, Bairoth Gild? In my world, am I approaching Ugarat? Sarpachiya?\"\n\nThe ghost's laughter was like a boulder rolled over gravel. \" They are behind you now, Karsa Orlong. You approach the land known as the Jhag Odhan.\"\n\nIt had seemed no more than a half-day's worth of travel in this dreamworld.\n\nSigns of the army's passage grew less distinct, the ground underfoot frozen rock hard and now consisting mostly of rounded stones. Ahead, a plain studded with huge flat slabs of black rock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Moments later, Karsa was moving among them.\n\nThere were bodies beneath the stones. Pinned down.\n\n\"Will you free these, Karsa Orlong?\"\n\n\"No, Delum Thord, I shall not. I shall pass through this place, disturbing nothing.\"\n\n\"Yet these are not Forkrul Assail. Many are dead, for they had not the power their kind once possessed. While others remain alive, and will not die fora longtime. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. Karsa Orlong, do you no longer believe in mercy?\"\n\n\"My beliefs are my own, Delum Thord. I shall not undo what I do not understand, and that is all.\"\n\nHe travelled on, and soon left the terrible plain behind.\n\nBefore him now stretched afield of ice, crack-riven, with pools of water reflecting the silver sky. Bones were scattered on it, from hundreds, perhaps thousands of figures. Bones of a type he had seen before. Some still sheathed in withered skin and muscle. Shards of stone weapons lay among them, along with fragments of fur, antlered helms and torn, rotting hides.\n\nThe fallen warriors formed avast semicircle around a low, square-walled tower. Its battered stones were limned in runnelled ice, its doorway gaping, the interior dark.\n\nKarsa picked his way across the field, his moccasins crunching through the ice and snow.\n\nThe tower's doorway was tall enough to permit the Teblor to stride through without ducking. A single room lay within. Broken furniture and the pieces of more fallen warriors cluttered the stone floor. A spiral staircase that seemed made entirely of iron rose from the centre.\n\nFrom what he could determine from the wreckage, the furniture was of a scale to suit a Teblor, rather than a lowlander." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa made his way up the ice-sheathed staircase.\n\nThere was a single level above, a high-ceilinged chamber that had once held wooden shelves on all four walls. Tom scrolls, bound books ripped apart, vials and clay jars containing various pungent mixes crushed underfoot, a large table split in half and pushed up against one wall, and on a cleared space on the floor...\n\nKarsa stepped off the landing and looked down.\n\n\"Thelomen Toblakai, welcome to my humble abode.\"\n\nKarsa scowled. \"I crossed blades with one much like you. He was named Icarium. Like you, yet less so.\"\n\n\"Because he is a half-blood, of course. Whilst I am not. Jaghut, not Jhag.\"\n\nShe lay spread-eagled within a ring of fist-sized stones. A larger stone rested on her chest, from which heat rose in waves. The air in the chamber was a swirling mix of steam and suspended frost.\n\n\"You are trapped within sorcery. The army was seeking you, yet they did not kill you.\"\n\n\"Could not would be more accurate. Not immediately, in any case. But eventually, this Tellann Ritual will destroy this core of Omtose Phellack, which will in turn lead to the death of the Jhag Odhan– even now, the north forest creeps onto the plains, whilst from the south the desert claims evermore of the odhan that was my home.\"\n\n\"Your refuge.\"\n\nShe bared her tusks in something like a smile. \"Among the Jaghut, they are now one and the same, Thelomen Toblakai.\"\n\nKarsa looked around, studying the wreckage. He saw no weapons; nor was the woman wearing armour. \"When this core of Omtose Phellack dies, so will you, yes? Yet you spoke only of the Jhag Odhan. As if your own death was of less importance than that of this land.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is less important. On the Jhag Odhan, the past lives still. Not just in my fallen kin, the Jhag– the few that managed to escape the Logros T'lan Imass. There are ancient beasts that walk the treeless lands beside the sheets of ice. Beasts that have died out everywhere else, mostly on the spears of the T'lan Imass. But there were no Imass in the Jhag Odhan. As you said, a refuge.\"\n\n\"Beasts. Including Jhag horses?\"\n\nHe watched her strange eyes narrow. The pupils were vertical, surrounded in pearlescent grey. \"The horses we once bred to ride. Yes, they have gone feral in the odhan. Though few remain, for the Trell come from the west to hunt them. Every year. They drive them off cliffs. As they do to many of the other beasts.\"\n\n\"Why did you not seek to stop them?\"\n\n\"Because, dear warrior, I was hiding.\"\n\n\"A tactic that failed.\"\n\n\"A scouting party of T'lan Imass discovered me. I destroyed most of them, but one escaped. From that moment, I knew their army would come, eventually. Granted, they took their time about it, but time is what they have aplenty. '\n\n\"A scouting party? How many did you destroy?\"\n\n\"Seven.\"\n\n\"And are their remains among those surrounding this tower?\"\n\nShe smiled again. \"I would think not, Thelomen Toblakai. To the T'lan Imass, destruction is failure. Failure must be punished. Their methods are... elaborate. '\n\n\"Yet what of the warriors lying below, and those around the tower?\"\n\n\"Fallen, but not in failure. Here I lie, after all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Enemies should be killed,\" the Teblor growled, \"not imprisoned.\"\n\n\"I would not argue that sentiment,\" the Jaghut replied.\n\n\"I sense nothing evil from you.\"\n\n\"It has been along time since I heard that word. In the wars with the T'lan Imass, even, that word had no place. '\n\n\"I must answer injustice,\" he rumbled.\n\n\"As you will.\"\n\n\"The need overwhelms all caution. Delum Thord would smile.\"\n\n\"Who is Delum Thord?\"\n\nNot answering, Karsa unslung his pack then threw off his bear cloak and stepped towards the ring of stones.\n\n\"Stay back, warrior!\" the Jaghut hissed. \"This is High Tellann-\"\n\n\"And I am Karsa Orlong, of the Teblor,\" the warrior growled. He kicked at the nearest stones.\n\nSearing flame swept up to engulf Karsa. He snarled and pushed his way through it, reaching down both hands to take the slab of stone, grunting as he lifted it from the woman's chest. The flames swarmed him, seeking to rend his flesh from his bones, but his growl simply deepened. Pivoting, flinging the huge slab to one side. Where it struck a wall, and shattered.\n\nThe flames died.\n\nKarsa shook himself, then looked down once more.\n\nThe ring was now broken. The Jaghut's eyes were wide as she stared up at him, movement stirring her limbs.\n\n\"Never before,\" she sighed, then shook her head as if in disbelief. \"Ignorance, honed into a weapon. Extraordinary, Thelomen Toblakai.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa crouched down beside his pack. \"Are you hungry? Thirsty?\"\n\nShe was slow in sitting up. The T'lan Imass had stripped her, leaving her naked, but she seemed unaffected by the bitter cold air now filling the chamber. Though she appeared young, he suspected she was anything but. He felt her eyes watching him as he prepared the meal.\n\n\"You crossed swords with Icarium. There had ever been but a single conclusion to such an ill-fated thing, but that you are here is proof that you somehow managed to avoid it.\"\n\nKarsa shrugged. \"No doubt we will resume our disagreement the next time we meet.\"\n\n\"How did you come to be here, Karsa Orlong?\"\n\n\"I am seeking a horse, Jaghut. The journey was long, and I was led to understand that this dreamworld would make it shorter.\"\n\n\"Ah, the ghost-warriors hovering behind you. Even so, you take a grave risk travelling the Tellann Warren. I owe you my life, Karsa Orlong.\" She cautiously climbed to her feet. \"How can I repay you?\"\n\nHe straightened to face her, and was surprised– and pleased– to see that she almost matched him in height. Her hair was long, murky brown, tied at the back. He studied her fora moment, then said, \"Find for me a horse.\"\n\nHer thin eyebrows rose fractionally. \"That is all, Karsa Orlong?\"\n\n\"Perhaps one more thing– what is your name?\"\n\n\"That is what you would ask?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Aramala.\"\n\nHe nodded and turned once more to readying the meal. \"I would know all you can tell me, Aramala, of the seven who first found you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Very well. If I may ask something in turn. You passed through a place on your way here, where Jhag had been... imprisoned. I shall of course free those who have survived.\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"They are half-bloods.\"\n\n\"Aye, so I am told.\"\n\n\"Do you not wonder at what the other half is?\"\n\nHe glanced up, then slowly frowned.\n\nShe smiled. \"There is much, I think, that I must tell you.\"\n\nSometime later, Karsa Orlong strode from the tower. He moved on, resuming the trail of the army where it began once again beyond the frozen ground of Omtose Phellack.\n\nWhen he finally emerged from the warren, into the heat of late afternoon on the world of his birth, he found himself on the edge of a ridge of battered hills. Pausing, he glanced behind him, and could make out, at the very rim of the horizon, a city– probably Sarpachiya– and the glimmer of avast river.\n\nThe hills ahead formed a spine, a feature on the land that he suspected showed up only on local maps. There were no farms on the lowlands before it, no herds on its broken slopes.\n\nThe T'lan Imass had reappeared in this place before him, though their passage onwards, into those hills, left no sign, for decades had passed in this world since that time. He was on the edge of the Jhag Odhan.\n\nDusk had arrived by the time he reached the foothills and began making his way up the weathered slope. The exposed rock here had a diseased look, as if afflicted by some kind of unnatural decay. Pieces of it collapsed under his feet as he climbed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The summit was little more than a ridge, less than three paces across, crusted with rotten stone and dead grasses. Beyond, the land fell away sharply, forming abroad valley marked by sunken, banded sandstone mesas rising from its base. The valley's opposite side, five thousand or more paces distant, was a sheer cliff of rust-coloured rock.\n\nKarsa could not imagine the natural forces that could have created such a landscape. The mesas below were born of erosion, as if floods had run the length of the valley, or perhaps fierce winds roared down the channels– less dramatic and demanding much greater lengths of time. Or the entire valley could have once stood level with the surrounding hills, only to suffer some subterranean slump. The decayed outcroppings suggested some kind of leaching process afflicting the region.\n\nHe made his way down the steep slope.\n\nAnd quickly discovered that it was honeycombed with caves and pits. Mines, if the scree of calcreted rubble fanning out from them was any indication. But not tin or copper. Flint. Vast veins of the glassy brown material lay exposed like raw wounds in the hillside.\n\nKarsa's eyes narrowed on the mesas ahead. The bands in the sandstone were all sharply tilted, and not all at the same angle. Their caps displayed nothing of the flat plateau formation that one would expect; instead, they were jagged and broken. The valley floor itself– for as far as he could see amidst the squat mesas– seemed to be sharp-edged gravel. Shatter flakes from the mining.\n\nIn this single valley, an entire army could have fashioned its weapons of stone...\n\nAnd the flint in this place was far from exhausted.\n\nBairoth Gild's voice filled his head.\"Karsa Orlong, you circle the truths as alone wolf circles a bull elk. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa grunted, his only reply. He could see, on the cliff on the other side, more caves, these ones carved into the sheer wall. Reaching the shadowed valley floor, he set out for them. The gravel underfoot was thick, shifting treacherously, the sharp edges slicing into the hide soles of his moccasins. The air smelled of limestone dust.\n\nHe approached a large cave mouth situated a third of the way up the cliff. Abroad slope of scree led up to within reach of it, though it shifted ominously under the Teblor as he scrambled upward. He finally managed to clamber onto the uneven floor.\n\nWith the cliff wall facing northeast, and the sun already riding the horizon, there was no ambient light in the cave. The Teblor set down his pack and drew out a small lantern.\n\nThe walls were calcined limestone, blackened by generation upon generation of woodsmoke, the ceiling high and roughly domed. Ten paces further in, the passage swiftly diminished as ceiling, walls and floor converged. Crouching, Karsa slipped through the choke point.\n\nBeyond was avast cavern. Dimly seen on the wall opposite was a monolithic projection of solid, pure flint, reaching almost up to the ceiling. Deeply recessed niches had been bored into the flanking walls. A fissure above the centre of the hewn chamber bled grey light from the dusk outside. Directly beneath it was a heap of sand, and growing from that mound was a knotted, twisted tree– a guldindha, no higher than the Teblor's knee, its leaves a deeper hue of green than was usual.\n\nThat daylight could reach down two-thirds of this cliff was itself a miracle... but this tree..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Karsa walked over to one of the niches and extended the lantern into it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another cavern lay beyond. And it was filled with flint weapons. Some were broken but most were whole. Swords, double-bladed axes with bone shafts, hundreds upon hundreds covering the floor. The next niche contained the same, as did the one after that. Twenty-two side-chambers in all. The weapons of the dead. The weapons of the failed. In every cave on this cliff, he knew, he would find the same.\n\nBut none of the others were important to him. He set the lantern down near the pillar of flint, then straightened. \"Urugal the Woven. Beroke Soft Voice, Kahlb the Silent Hunter, Thenik the Shattered,\"Siballe the Unfound, Halad the Giant, Imroth the Cruel. Faces in the Rock, gods of the Teblor. I, Karsa Orlong of the Uryd Tribe of the Teblor, have delivered you to this place. You were broken. Severed. Weaponless. I have done as you commanded me to do. I have brought you to this place. '\n\nUrugal's broken rasp replied,\"You have found that which was taken from us, Karsa Orlong. You have freed your gods. '\n\nThe Teblor watched the ghost of Urugal slowly take shape before him. A squat, heavy-boned warrior, shorter than a lowlander but much broader. The bones of his limbs were split– where Karsa could see between the taut straps of leather and hide that bound them, that held him together. More straps crossed his chest.\n\n\"Karsa Orlong, you have found our weapons.\"\n\nThe warrior shrugged. \"If indeed they are among the thousands in the chambers beyond.\"\n\n\"They are. They did not fail us.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Extend the plot as the writer's co-author.\nTags: epic fantasy, character study, power struggles, resilience, destiny\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: House of Chains\nChapter: 27" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think not." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No doubt I am believed dead, and nothing of what I did is known to my family or my tribe.\"\n\nCynnigig cutoff a haunch and threw it on the flames. A cloud of smoke rose from the hissing, spitting fire. \"So you might think, but I would hazard otherwise. Word travels, no matter what the barriers. The day you return, you will see.\"\n\n\"I care not for fame,\" Karsa said. \"I did once...\"\n\n\"And then?\"\n\n\"I changed my mind.\"\n\nCynnigig laughed once again, louder this time. \"I have brought wine, my young friend. In yonder chest, yes, there.\"\n\nKarsa straightened and walked over. The chest was massive, iron-bounded and thick-planked, robust enough to challenge even Karsa, should he choose to lift it. \"This should have wheels and a train of oxen,\" the Teblor muttered as he crouched before it. \"How did you bring it with you?\"\n\n\"I didn't. It brought me. '\n\nGames with words. Scowling, Karsa lifted the lid.\n\nA single carafe of crystal stood in its centre, flanked by a pair of chipped clay beakers. The wine's deep red colour gleamed through the transparent crystal, bathing the otherwise empty interior of the chest with a warm, sunset hue. Karsa stared down into it fora moment, then grunted.\"Aye, I can see that it would fit you, provided you curled up. You and the wine and the brazier-'\n\n\"The brazier! That would be a hot journey!\"\n\nThe Teblor's scowl deepened.\"Unlit, of course. '\n\n\"Ah, yes, of course. Cease your gawking, then, and pour us some wine. I'm about to turn the meat here. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Karsa reached down, then snatched his hand back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's cold in there! '\n\n\"I prefer my wine chilled, even the red. I prefer everything chilled, in fact.\"\n\nGrimacing, the Teblor picked up the carafe and the two beakers. \"Then someone must have carried you here.\"\n\n\"Only if you believe all that I tell you. And all that you see, Karsa Orlong. A T'lan Imass army marched by here, not so long ago. Did they find me? No. Why? I was hidden in my chest, of course. Did they find the chest? No, because it was a rock. Did they note the rock? Perhaps. But then, it was only a rock. Now, I know what you're thinking, and you would be precisely correct. The sorcery I speak of is not Omtose Phellack. But why would I seek to employ Omtose Phellack, when that is the very scent the T'lan Imass hunted? Oh no. Is there some cosmic law that Jaghut can only use Omtose Phellack? I've read a hundred thousand night skies and have yet to see it written there– oh, plenty of other laws, but nothing approaching that one, neither in detail nor intent. Thus saving us the bloody recourse of finding a Forkrul Assail to adjudicate, and believe me, such adjudication is invariably bloody. Rarely indeed is anyone satisfied. Rarer still that anyone is left alive. Is there justice in such a thing, I ask you? Oh yes, perhaps the purest justice of all. On any given day, the aggrieved and the aggriever could stand in each other's clothes. Never a question of right and wrong, in truth, simply one of deciding who is least wrong. Do you grasp-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What I grasp,\" Karsa cut in, \"is the smell of burning meat.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes. Rare are my moments of discourse-\"\n\n\"I had no idea.\"\n\n\"-which cannot be said for this meat. Of course you wouldn't, since we have just met. But I assure you, I have little opportunity to talk-'\n\n\"There in your chest.\"\n\nCynnigig grinned. \"Precisely. You have the gist of it. Precisely. Thelomen Toblakai indeed.\"\n\nKarsa handed the Jaghut a beaker filled with wine. \"Alas, my hand has warmed it some.\"\n\n\"I'll suffer the degradation, thank you. Here, help yourself to the deer. Charcoal is good for you, did you know that? Cleanses the digestive tract, confounds the worms, turns your excrement black. Black as a forest bear's. Recommended if you are being pursued, for it will fool most, barring those who have made a study of excrement, of course.\"\n\n\"And do such people exist?\"\n\n\"I have no idea. I rarely get out. What preening empires have risen only to then fall beyond the Jhag Odhan? Pomposity choking on dust, these are cycles unending among short-lived creatures. I do not grieve for my own ignorance. Why should I? Not knowing what I have missed means I do not miss what I do not know. How could I? Do you see? Aramala was ever questing for such pointless knowledge, and look where it got her. Same for Phyrlis, whom you will meet tomorrow. She can never see beyond the leaves in front of her face, though she ceaselessly strives to do so, as if the vast panorama offers something other than time's insectile crawl. Empires, thrones, tyrants and liberators, a hundred thousand tomes filled with versions of the same questions, asked over and over again. Will answers deliver their promised solace? I think not. Here, cook some more, Karsa Orlong, and drink more wine– you seethe carafe never empties. Clever, isn't it? Now, where was I?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You rarely get out.\"\n\n\"Indeed. What preening empires have risen only to then fall beyond the Jhag Odhan? Pomposity choking...\"\n\nKarsa's eyes narrowed on the Jhag Odhan, then he reached for the wine.\n\nAlone tree stood on ground that was the summit of a hill that in turn abutted a larger hill. Sheltered from the prevailing winds, it had grown vast, its bark thin and peeling as if it was skin unable to contain the muscular breadth underneath. Branches as thick around as Karsa's thigh reached out from the massive, knotted trunk. Its top third was thickly leaved, forming broad, flattened canopies of dusty green.\n\n\"Looks old, doesn't it? \"Cynnigig said as they climbed towards it, the Jaghut walking with a hooked, sideways gait.\"You have no idea how old, my young friend. No idea. I dare not reveal to you the truth of its antiquity. Have you seen its like before? I think not. Perhaps reminiscent of the guldindha, such as can be found here and there across the odhan. Reminiscent, as a ranag is reminiscent of a goat. More than simply a question of stature. No, it is in truth a question of antiquity. An Elder species, this tree. A sapling when an inland sea hissed salty sighs over this land. Tens of thousands of years, you wonder? No. Hundreds of thousands. Once, Karsa Orlong, these were the dominant trees across most of the world. All things know their time, and when that time is past, they vanish-'\n\n\"But this one hasn't. '\n\n\"No sharper an observance could be made. And why, you ask?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I do not bother, for I know you will tell me in any case.\"\n\n\"Of course I shall, for I am of a helpful sort, a natural proclivity. The reason, my young friend, shall soon be made evident.\"\n\nThey clambered over the last of the rise and came to the flat ground, eternally shadowed beneath the canopy and so free of grasses. The tree and all its branches, Karsa now saw, were wrapped in spiders' webs that somehow remained entirely translucent no matter how thickly woven, revealed only by a faint flickering reflection. And beneath that glittering shroud, the face of a Jaghut stared back at him.\n\n\"Phyrlis,\" Cynnigig said, \"this is the one Aramala spoke of, the one seeking a worthy horse.\"\n\nThe Jaghut woman's body remained visible here and there, revealing that the tree had indeed grown around her. Yet a single shaft of wood emerged from just behind her right collarbone, rejoining the main trunk along the side of her head.\n\n\"Shall I tell him your story, Phyrlis? Of course, I must, if only for its remarkability.\"\n\nHer voice did not come from her mouth, but sounded, fluid and soft, inside Karsa's head.\"Of course you must, Cynnigig. It is your nature to leave no word unsaid. '\n\nKarsa smiled, for there was too much affection in the tone to lend the words any edge.\n\n\"My Thelomen Toblakai friend, a most extraordinary tale, for which true explanations remain beyond us all,\" Cynnigig began, settling down cross-legged on the stony ground. \"Dear Phyrlis was a child– no, a babe, still suckling from her mother's breast– when a band of T'lan Imass ran them down. The usual fate ensued. The mother was slain, and Phyrlis was dealt with also in the usual fashion– spitted on a spear, the spear anchored into the earth. None could have predicted what then followed, neither Jaghut nor T'lan Imass, for it was unprecedented. That spear, wrought of native wood, took what it could of Phyrlis's lifespirit and so was reborn. Roots reached down to grip the bedrock, branches and leaves sprang anew, and in return the wood's own lifespirit rewarded the child. Together, then, they grew, escaping their relative fates. Phyrlis renews the tree, the tree renews Phyrlis. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa set his sword's point down and leaned on it.\"Yet she was the maker of the Jhag horses. '\n\n\"A small role, Karsa Orlong. From my blood came their longevity. The Jhag horses breed infrequently, insufficient to increase, or even maintain, their numbers, were they not so long-lived.\"\n\n\"I know, for the Teblor– my own people, who dwell in the mountains of north Genabackis– maintain herds of what must be Jhag horses.\"\n\n\"If so, then I am pleased. They are being hunted to extinction hereon the Jhag Odhan.\"\n\n\"Hunted? By whom?\"\n\n\"By distant kin of yours, Thelomen Toblakai. Trell.\"\n\nKarsa was silent fora moment, then he scowled. \"Such as the one known as Mappo?\"\n\n\"Yes indeed. Mappo Runt, who travels with Icarium. Icarium, who carries arrows made from my branches. Who, each time he visits me, remembers naught of the previous encounter. Who asks, again and again, for my heartwood, so that he may fashion from it a mechanism to measure time, for my heartwood alone can outlive all other constructs.\"\n\n\"And do you oblige him?\" Karsa asked.\n\n\"No, for it would kill me. Instead, I bargain. A strong shaft fora bow. Branches for arrows.\"\n\n\"Have you no means to defend yourself, then?\"\n\n\"Against Icarium, no-one has, Karsa Orlong.\"\n\nThe Teblor warrior grunted. \"I had an argument with Icarium, which neither of us won.\" He tapped his stone sword. \"My weapon was of wood, but now I wield this one. The next time we meet, even Mappo Trell's treachery shall not save Icarium. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Both Jaghut were silent fora long moment, and Karsa realized that Phyrlis was speaking to Cynnigig, for he saw his expression twist with alarm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ochre eyes flicked momentarily up to the Teblor, then away again.\n\nFinally, Cynnigig loosed along sigh and said, \"Karsa Orlong, she now calls upon the nearest herd– the lone herd she knows has come close to this area in answer to her first summons. She had hoped for more– evidence, perhaps, of how few Jhag horses remain.\"\n\n\"How many head in this herd?\"\n\n\"I cannot say, Karsa Orlong. They usually number no more than a dozen. Those that now approach are perhaps the last left in the Jhag Odhan.\"\n\nKarsa lifted his gaze suddenly as the noise of hoofs sounded, rumbling through the ground underfoot. \"More than a dozen, I think,\" he murmured.\n\nCynnigig clambered upright, wincing with the effort.\n\nMovement in the valley below. Karsa swung around.\n\nThe ground was shaking, the roar of thunder on all sides now. The tree behind him shook as if struck by a sudden gale. In his mind, the Teblor heard Phyrlis cry out.\n\nThe horses came in their hundreds. Grey as iron, larger even than those Karsa's tribe had bred. Streaming, tossing manes of black. Stallions, flinging their heads back and bucking to clear a space around them. Broad-backed mares, foals racing at their flanks.\n\nHundreds into thousands.\n\nThe air filled with dust, lifting on the wind and corkscrewing skyward as if to challenge the Whirlwind itself.\n\nMore of the wild horses topped the hill above them, and the thunder suddenly fell away as every beast halted, forming avast iron ring facing inward. Silence, the dust cloud rolling, tumbling away on the wind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa faced the tree once more. \"It seems you need not worry that they near extinction, Phyrlis. I have never seen so many foals and yearlings in a herd. Nor have I ever before seen a herd of this size. There must ten, fifteen thousand head– and we cannot even see all of them.\"\n\nPhyrlis seemed incapable of replying. The tree's branches still shook, the branches rattling in the hot air.\n\n\"You speak true, Karsa Orlong,\" Cynnigig rasped, his gaze eerily intent on the Thelomen Toblakai. \"The herds have come together– and some have come far indeed in answer to the summons. But not that of Phyrlis. No, not in answer to her call. But in answer to yours, Karsa Orlong. And to this, we have no answer. But now, you must choose.\"\n\nNodding, he turned to study the horses.\n\n\"Karsa Orlong, you spoke earlier of a wooden weapon. What kind of wood?\"\n\n\"Ironwood, the only choice remaining tome. In my homeland, we use bloodwood.\"\n\n\"And blood-oil?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Rubbed into the wood. Blood-oil, staining your hands. They can smell it, Karsa Orlong-\"\n\n\"But I have none.\"\n\n\"Not on you. In you. It courses in your veins, Karsa Orlong. Bloodwood has not existed in the Jhag Odhan for tens of thousands of years. Yet these horses remember. Now, you must choose.\"\n\n\"Bloodwood and blood-oil,\" Cynnigig said. \"This is an insufficient explanation, Phyrlis.\"\n\n\"Yes, it is. But it is all I have.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa left them to their argument and, leaving his sword thrust upright in the ground, walked down to the waiting horses. Stallions tossed their heads at his approach and the Teblor smiled– careful not to show his teeth, knowing that they saw him as predator, and themselves as his prey. Though they could easily kill me. Among such numbers I would have no chance. He saw one stallion that was clearly dominant among all others, given the wide space around it and its stamping, challenging demeanour, and walked past it, murmuring, \"Not you, proud one. The herd needs you more than I do.\" He spied another stallion, this one just entering adulthood, and made his way towards it. Slowly, approaching at an angle so that the horse could see him.\n\nA mane and tail of white, not black. Long-limbed, muscles rippling beneath its sleek hide. Grey eyes.\n\nKarsa halted a single pace away. He slowly reached out his right hand, until his fingertips settled on the beast's trembling bridge. He began applying pressure. The stallion resisted, backing up a step. He pushed the head further down, testing the flexibility of the neck. Still further, the neck bowing, until the horse's chin almost rested in the space between its breastbones.\n\nThen he withdrew the pressure, maintaining contact as the stallion slowly straightened its neck.\n\n\"I name you Havok,\" he whispered.\n\nHe moved his hand down until his fingertips rested, palm upward, beneath its chin, then slowly walked backward, leading the stallion out from the herd.\n\nThe dominant stallion screamed then, and the herd exploded into motion once more. Outward, dispersing into smaller groups, thundering through the high grasses. Wheeling around the twin hills, west and south, out once more into the heartland of the Jhag Odhan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Havok's trembling had vanished. The beast walked at Karsa's pace as he backed up the hillside.\n\nAshe neared the summit, Cynnigig spoke behind him. \"Not even a Jaghut could so calm a Jhag horse, Karsa Orlong, as you have done. Thelomen Toblakai, yes, you Teblor are that indeed, yet you are also unique among your kind. Thelomen Toblakai horse warriors. I had not thought such a thing possible. Karsa Orlong, why have the Teblor not conquered all of Genabackis?\"\n\nKarsa glanced back at the Jaghut. \"One day, Cynnigig, we shall.\"\n\n\"And are you the one who will lead them?\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\n\"We have witnessed, then, the birth of infamy.\"\n\nKarsa moved alongside Havok, his hand running the length of its taut neck. Witness? Yes, you are witness. Even so, what I, Karsa Orlong, shall shape, you cannot imagine.\n\nNo-one can.\n\nCynnigig satin the shade of the tree that contained Phyrlis, humming sofly. It was approaching dusk. The Thelomen Toblakai was gone, with his chosen horse. He had vaulted onto its back and ridden off without need for saddle or even reins. The herds had vanished, leaving the vista as empty as it had been before.\n\nThe bent-backed Jaghut removed a wrapped piece of the aras deer cooked the night before and began cutting it into small slices. \"A gift for you, dear sister.\"\n\n\"I see,\" she replied. \"Slain by the stone sword?\"\n\n\"Aye.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A bounty, then, to feed my spirit.\"\n\nCynnigig nodded. He paused to gesture carelessly with the knife. \"You've done well, disguising the remains. '\n\n\"The foundations survive, of course. The House's walls. The anchor-stones in the yard's corners– all beneath my cloak of soil.\"\n\n\"Foolish, unmindful T'lan Imass, to drive a spear into the grounds of an Azath House. '\n\n\"What did they know of houses, Cynnigig? Creatures of caves and hide tents. Besides, it was already dying and had been for years. Fatally wounded. Oh, Icarium was on his knees by the time he finally delivered the mortal blow, raving with madness. And had not his Toblakai companion taken that opportunity to strike him unconscious...\"\n\n\"He would have freed his father.\" Cynnigig nodded around a mouthful of meat. He rose and walked to the tree. \"Here, sister,\" he said, offering her a slice.\n\n\"It's burnt. '\n\n\"I doubt you could have managed better.\"\n\n\"True. Goon, push it down-I won't bite. '\n\n\"You can't bite, my dear. I do appreciate the irony, by the way– Icarium's father had no desire to be saved. And so the House died, weakening the fabric...\"\n\n\"Sufficiently for the warren to be torn apart. More, please– you're eating more of it than I am. '\n\n\"Greedy bitch. So, Karsa Orlong... surprised us.\"\n\n\"I doubt we are the first victims of misapprehension regarding that young warrior, brother.\"\n\n\"Granted. Nor, I suspect, will we be the last to suffer such shock.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did you sense the six T'lan Imass spirits, Cynnigig? Hovering there, beyond the hidden walls of the yard? '\n\n\"Oh yes. Servants of the Crippled God, now, the poor things. They would tell him something, I think-\"\n\n\"Tell who? The Crippled God?\"\n\n\"No. Karsa Orlong. They possess knowledge, with which they seek to guide the Thelomen Toblakai– but they dared not approach. The presence of the House, I suspect, had them fearful.\"\n\n\"No, it is dead– all that survived of its lifespirit moved into the spear. Not the House, brother, but Karsa Orlong himself– that was who they feared.\"\n\n\"Ah.\" Cynnigig smiled as he slipped another sliver of meat into Phyrlis's wooden mouth, where it slid from view, falling down into the hollow cavity within. Thereto rot, to gift the tree with its nutrients.\"Then those Imass are not so foolish after all. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You have barred the doors caged the windows every portal sealed to the outside world, and now you find what you feared most– there are killers, and they are in the House.\n\nHouse Talanbal" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The rage of the Whirlwind Goddess was an inferno, beaten on the forge of Holy Raraku.\n\nThe legions that marched in the dust of blood burned by the eye of the sun were cold iron.\n\nThere, on the dry harbour of the dead city where the armies joined to battle Hood walked the fated ground\n\nwhere he walked many times before.\n\nThe Divided Heart Fisher\n\nShe had wormed her way alongside the carefully stacked cut stones, to the edge of the trench– knowing her mother would be furious at seeing how she had ruined her new clothes– and finally came within sight of her sister.\n\nTavore had claimed her brother's bone and antler toy soldiers, and in the rubble of the torn-up estate wall, where repairs had been undertaken by the grounds workers, she had arranged a miniature battle.\n\nOnly later would Felisin learn that her nine-year-old sister had been, in fact, recreating a set battle, culled from historical accounts of a century-old clash between a Royal Untan army and the rebelling House of K'azz D'Avore. A battle that had seen the annihilation of the renegade noble family's forces and the subjugation of the D'Avore household. And that, taking on the role of Duke Kenussen D'Avore, she was working through every possible sequence of tactics towards achieving a victory. Trapped by a series of unfortunate circumstances in a steep-sided valley, and hopelessly outnumbered, the unanimous consensus among military scholars was that such victory was impossible.\n\nFelisin never learned if her sister had succeeded where Kenussen D'Avore– reputedly a military genius-had failed. Her spying had become a habit, her fascination with the hard, remote Tavore an obsession. It seemed, to Felisin, that her sister had never been a child, had never known a playful moment. She had stepped into their brother's shadow and sought only to remain there, and when Ganoes had been sent off for schooling, Tavore underwent a subtle transformation. No longer in Ganoes's shadow, it was as if she had become his shadow, severed and haunting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "None of these thoughts were present in Felisin's mind all those years ago. The obsession with Tavore existed, but its sources were formless, as only a child's could be.\n\nThe stigma of meaning ever comes later, like a brushing away of dust to reveal shapes in stone.\n\nAt the very edge of the ruined city on its south side, the land fell away quickly in what had once been clastic slumps of silty clay, fanning out onto the old bed of the harbour. Centuries of blistering sun had hardened these sweeps, transforming them into broad, solid ramps.\n\nSha'ik stood at the head of the largest of these ancient fans born of a dying sea millennia past, trying to seethe flat basin before her as a place of battle. Four thousand paces away, opposite, rose the saw-toothed remnants of coral islands, over which roared the Whirlwind. That sorcerous storm had stripped from those islands the formidable mantle of sand that had once covered them. What remained offered little in the way of a secure ridge on which to assemble and prepare legions. Footing would be treacherous, formations impossible. The islands swept in avast arc across the south approach. To the east was an escarpment, a fault-line that saw the land falling sharply away eighty or more arm-lengths onto a salt flat– what had once been the inland sea's deepest bed. The fault was a slash that widened in its southwestward reach, just the other side of the reef islands, forming the seemingly endless basin that was Raraku's southlands. To the west lay dunes, the sand deep and soft, wind-sculpted and rife with sink-pits.\n\nShe would assemble her forces on this very edge, positioned to hold the seven major ramps. Mathok's horse archers on the wings, Korbolo Dom's new heavy infantry– the elite core of his Dogslayers– at the head of each of the ramps. Mounted lancers and horse warriors held back as screens for when the Malazans reeled back from the steep approaches and the order was given to advance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or so Korbolo Dom had explained– she was not entirely sure of the sequence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it seemed that the Napan sought an initial defensive stance, despite their superior numbers. He was eager to prove his heavy infantry and shock troops against the Malazan equivalent. Since Tavore was marching to meet them, it was expedient to extend the invitation to its bitter close on these ramps. The advantage was entirely with the Army of the Apocalypse.\n\nTavore was, once again, Duke Kenussen D'Avore in Ibilar Gorge.\n\nSha'ik drew her sheep-hide cloak about her, suddenly chilled despite the heat. She glanced over to where Mathok and the dozen bodyguards waited, discreetly distanced yet close enough to reach her side within two or three heartbeats. She had no idea why the taciturn warchief so feared that she might be assassinated, but there was no danger in humouring the warrior. With Toblakai gone and Leoman somewhere to the south, Mathok had assumed the role of protector of her person. Well enough, although she did not think it likely that Tavore would attempt to send killers– the Whirlwind Goddess could not be breached undetected. Even a Hand of the Claw could not pass unnoticed through her multi-layered barriers, no matter what warren they sought to employ.\n\nBecause the barrier itself defines a warren. The warren that lies like an unseen skin over the Holy Desert. This usurped fragment is a fragment no longer, but whole unto itself. And its power grows. Until one day, soon, it will demand its own place in the Deck of Dragons. As with the House of Chains. Anew House, of the Whirlwind.\n\nFed by the spilled blood of a slain army.\n\nAnd when she kneels before me... what then? Dear sister, broken and bowed, smeared in dust and far darker streaks, her legions a ruin behind her, feast for the capemoths and vultures– shall I then remove my warhelm? Reveal to her, at that moment, my face?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We have taken this war. Away from the rebels, away from the Empress and the Malazan Empire. Away, even, from the Whirlwind Goddess herself. We have supplanted, you and I, Tavore, Dryjhna and the Book of the Apocalypse– for our own, private apocalypse. The family's own blood, and nothing more. And the world, then, Tavore– when I show myself to you and seethe recognition in your eyes-the world, your world, will shift beneath you.\n\nAnd at that moment, dear sister, you will understand. What has happened. What I have done. And why I have done it.\n\nAnd then? She did not know. A simple execution was too easy, indeed, a cheat. Punishment belonged to the living, after all. The sentence was to survive, staggering beneath the chains of knowledge. A sentence not just of living, but of living with; that was the only answer to... everything.\n\nShe heard boots crunching on potsherds behind her and turned. No welcoming smile for this one– not this time. \"L'oric. I am delighted you deigned to acknowledge my request– you seemed to have grown out of the habit of late. \"Oh, how he hides from me, the secrets now stalking him, see how he will not meet my gaze– I sense struggles within him. Things he would tell me. Yet he will say nothing. With all the goddess's powers at my behest, and still I cannot trap this elusive man, cannot force from him his truths. This alone warns me-he is not as he seems. Not simply a mortal man...\n\n\"I have been unwell, Chosen One. Even this short journey from the camp has left me exhausted.\"\n\n\"I grieve for your sacrifice, L'oric. And so I shall come to my point without further delay. Heboric has barred his place of residence– he has neither emerged nor will he permit visitors, and it has been weeks. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was nothing false in his wince." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Barred to us all, mistress.\"\n\nShe cocked her head. \"Yet, you were the last to speak with him. At length, the two of you in his tent.\"\n\n\"I was? That was the last time?\"\n\nNot the reaction she had anticipated. Very well, then whatever secret he possesses has nothing to do with Ghost Hands. \"It was. Was he distressed during your conversation?\"\n\n\"Mistress, Heboric has long been distressed.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nHis eyes flicked momentarily to hers, wider than usual, then away again. \"He... grieves for your sacrifice, Chosen One.\"\n\nShe blinked. \"L'oric, I had no idea my sarcasm could so wound you. '\n\n\"Unlike you,\" he replied gravely, \"I was not being facetious, mistress. Heboric grieves-\"\n\n\"For my sacrifices. Well, that is odd indeed, since he did not think much of me before my... rebirth. Which particular loss does he mark?\"\n\n\"I could not say– you will have to ask him that, I'm afraid. '\n\n\"Your friendship had not progressed to the point of an exchange of confessions, then.\"\n\nHe said nothing to that. Well, no, he couldn't. For that would acknowledge he has something to confess.\n\nShe swung her gaze from him and turned once more to regard the potential field of battle. 1 can envision the armies arrayed, yes. But then what? How are they moved? What is possible and what is impossible? Goddess, you have no answer to such questions. They are beneath you. Your power is your will, and that alone. But, dear Goddess, sometimes will is not enough. \"Korbolo Dom is pleased with this pending... arena.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am not surprised, mistress.\"\n\nShe glanced back at him. \"Why?\"\n\nHe shrugged, and she watched him search for an alternative to what he had been about to say. \"Korbolo Dom would have Tavore do precisely what he wants her to do. To array her forces here, or there, and nowhere else. To make this particular approach. To contest where he would have her contest. He expects the Malazan army to march up to be slaughtered, as if by will alone he can make Tavore foolish, or stupid.\" L'oric nodded towards the vast basin.\"He wants her to fight there. Expects her to. But, why would she? '\n\nShe shivered beneath the cloak as her chill deepened. Yes, why would she? Korbolo's certainty... is it naught but bluster? Does he too demand something to be simply because that is how he must have it? But then, were any of the others any different? Kamist Reloe and his tail-sniffing pups, Fayelle and Henaras? And Febryl and Bidithal? Leoman... who sat with that irritating half-smile, through all of Korbolo's descriptions of the battle to come. As if he knew something... as if he alone is indeed different. But then, that half-smile... the fool is sunk in the pit of durhang, after all. I should expect nothing of him, especially not military genius. Besides, Korbolo Dom has something to prove...\n\n\"There is danger,\" L'oric murmured,\"in trusting to a commander who wars with the aim of slaughter. '\n\n\"Rather than what?\"\n\nHis brows rose fractionally. \"Why, victory.\"\n\n\"Does not slaughter of the enemy achieve victory, L'oric? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But therein lies the flaw in Korbolo's thinking, Chosen One. As Leoman once pointed out, months ago, the flaw is one of sequence. Mistress, victory precedes slaughter. Not the other way round. '\n\nShe stared at him. \"Why, then, have neither you nor Leoman voiced this criticism when we discussed Korbolo Dom's tactics? '\n\n\"Discussed?\" L'oric smiled.\"There was no discussion, Chosen One. Korbolo Dom is not a man who welcomes discussions. '\n\n\"Nor is Tavore,\" she snapped.\n\n\"That is not relevant,\" L'oric replied.\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Malazan military doctrine– something Coltaine well understood, but also something that High Fist Pormqual had clearly lost sight of. Tactics are consensual. Dassem Ultor's original doctrine, when he was finally made First Sword of the Malazan Empire. \"Strategy belongs to the commander, but tactics are the first field of battle, and it is fought in the command tent.\" Dassem's own words. Of course, such a system relied heavily upon capable officers. Incompetent officers– such as those that subseqently infiltrated the chain of-\"\n\n\"noble-born officers, you mean.\"\n\n\"Bluntly, yes. The purchasing of commissions– Dassem would never have permitted that, and from what I gather, nor does the Empress. Not anymore, in any case. There was a cull-\"\n\n\"Yes, I know, L'oric. By your argument, then, Tavore's personality has no relevance-\"\n\n\"Not entirely, mistress. It has, for tactics are the child of strategy. And the truth of Tavore's nature will shape that strategy. Veteran soldiers speak of hot iron and cold iron. Coltaine was cold iron. Dujek Onearm is cold iron, too, although not always– he's a rare one in being able to shift as necessity demands. But Tavore? Unknown.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Explain this'cold iron\", L'oric. '\n\n\"Mistress, this subject is not my expertise-\"\n\n\"You have certainly fooled me. Explain. Now.\"\n\n\"Very well, such as I understand it-\"\n\n\"Cease equivocating.\"\n\nHe cleared his throat, then turned and called out, \"Mathok. Would you join us, please.\"\n\nSha'ik scowled at the presumption behind that invitation, but then inwardly relented. This is important, after all. I feel it. The heart of all that will follow.\"Join us, Mathok, ' she said.\n\nHe dismounted and strode over.\n\nL'oric addressed him.\"I have been asked to explain'cold iron\", Warchief, and for this I need help. '\n\nThe desert warrior bared his teeth. \"Cold iron. Coltaine. Dassem Ultor– if the legends speak true. Dujek Onearm. Admiral Nok. K'azz D'Avore of the Crimson Guard. Inish Garn, who once led the Gral. Cold iron, Chosen One. Hard. Sharp. It is held before you, and so you reach.\" He crossed his arms.\n\n\"You reach,\" L'oric nodded.\"Yes, that's it. You reach. And are stuck fast.\"\n\n\"Cold iron,\" Mathok growled. \"The warchief's soul– it either rages with the fire of life, or is cold with death. Chosen One, Korbolo Dom is hot iron, as am I. As are you. We areas the sun's fires, as the desert's heat, as the breath of the Whirlwind Goddess herself. '\n\n\"The Army of the Apocalypse is hot iron.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aye, Chosen One. And thus, we must pray that the forge of Tavore's heart blazes with vengeance. '\n\n\"That she too is hot iron? Why?\"\n\n\"For then, we shall not lose.\"\n\nSha'ik's knees suddenly weakened and she almost staggered. L'oric moved close to support her, alarm on his face.\n\n\"Mistress?\"\n\n\"I am... I am all right. A moment...\" She fixed her gaze on Mathok once more, saw the brief gauging regard in his eyes that then quickly slipped once again behind his impassive mien. \"Warchief, what if Tavore is cold iron?\"\n\n\"The deadliest clash of all, Chosen One. Which shall shatter first?\"\n\nL'oric said,\"Military histories reveal, mistress, that cold iron defeats hot iron more often than not. By a count of three or four to one. '\n\n\"Yet Coltaine! Did he not fall to Korbolo Dom?\"\n\nShe noted L'oric's eyes meet Mathok's momentarily.\n\n\"Well?\" she demanded.\n\n\"Chosen One,\" Mathok rumbled, \"Korbolo Dom and Coltaine fought nine major engagements– nine battles– on the Chain of Dogs. Of these, Korbolo was clear victor in one, and one only. At the Fall. Outside the walls of Aren. And for that he needed Kamist Reloe, and the power of Mael, as channelled through the jhistal priest, Mallick Rel.\"\n\nHer head was spinning, panic ripping through her, and she knew L'oric could feel her trembling.\n\n\"Sha'ik, \"he whispered, close by her ear,\"you know Tavore, don't you? You know her, and she is cold iron, isn't she? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mute, she nodded. She did not know how she knew, for neither Mathok nor L'oric seemed able to give a concrete definition, suggesting to her that the notion derived from a gut level, a place of primal instinct. And so, she knew.\n\nL'oric had lifted his head.\"Mathok. '\n\n\"High Mage?\"\n\n\"Who, among us, is cold iron? Is there anyone?\"\n\n\"There are two, High Mage. And one of these is capable of both: Toblakai.\"\n\n\"And the other?\"\n\n\"Leoman of the Flails.\"\n\nCorabb Bhilan Thenu'alas lay beneath a sheath of sand. The sweat had soaked through his telaba beneath him, packing down his body's moulded imprint, and had cooled, so that he now shivered unceasingly. The sixth son of a deposed chief among the Pardu, he had been a wanderer of the wastelands for most of his adult life. A wanderer, trader, and worse. When Leoman had found him, three Gral warriors had been dragging him behind their horses for most of a morning.\n\nThe purchase price had been pathetically small, since his skin had been flayed away by the burning sands, leaving only a bloodied mass of raw flesh. But Leoman had taken him to a healer, an old woman from some tribe he'd never heard of before, or since, and she in turn had taken him to a rockspring pool, where he'd lain immersed, raving with fever, for an unknown time, whilst she'd worked a ritual of mending and called upon the water's ancient spirits. And so he had recovered.\n\nCorabb had never learned the reason behind Leoman's mercy, and, now that he knew him well– as well as any who'd sworn fealty to the man– he knew better than to ask. It was one with his contrary nature, his unknowable qualities that could be unveiled but once in an entire lifetime. But Corabb knew one thing: for Leoman of the Flails, he would give his life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had lain side by side, silent and motionless, through the course of the day, and now, late in the after' noon, they saw the first of the outriders appear in the distance, cautiously ranging out as they ventured onto the pan of cracked salts and clay.\n\nCorabb finally stirred. \"Wickans,\" he hissed.\n\n\"And Seti,\" Leoman rumbled in reply.\n\n\"Those grey-armoured ones look... different.\"\n\nThe man beside him grunted, then swore. \"Khundryl, from south of the Vathar River. I had hoped... Still, that arcane armour looks heavy. The Seven know what ancestral tombs they looted for those. The Khundryl came late to the horse, and it's no wonder with that armour, is it? '\n\nCorabb squinted at the vast dust cloud behind the outriders. \"The vanguard rides close to the scouts.\"\n\n\"Aye. We'll have to do something about that. '\n\nWithout another word the two warriors edged back from the crest, beyond the sight of the outriders, pausing briefly to reach back and brush sand over where their bodies had lain, then made their way back to the gully where they'd left their horses.\n\n\"Tonight,\" Leoman said, collecting his mount's reins and swinging up into the saddle.\n\nCorabb did the same and then nodded. Sha'ik would know, of course, that she had been defied. For the Whirlwind Goddess had her eyes on all her children. But this was their land, wasn't it? The invaders could not be left to walk it uncontested. No, the sands would drink their blood, giving voice on this night to the Shrouded Reaper's dark promise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "L'oric stood near the trail that led to Toblakai's glade. A casual look around, then the faintest of gestures from one hand marked a careful unveiling of sorcery– that vanished almost as soon as it arrived. Satisfied, he set off down the trail.\n\nShe might be distracted, but her goddess was not. Increasingly, he sensed questing attention directed towards him, sorcerous tendrils reaching out in an effort to find him, or track his movements. And it was becoming more difficult to elude such probes, particularly since they were coming from more than a single source.\n\nFebryl was growing more nervous, as was Kamist Reloe. Whilst Bidithal's paranoia needed no fuel– and nor should it. Sufficient, then, all these signs of increased restlessness, to convince L'oric that whatever plans existed were soon to seek resolution. One way or another.\n\nHe had not expected to discover Sha'ik so... unprepared. True, she had conveyed a none too subtle hint that she was preternaturally aware of all that went on in the camp, including an alarming ability to defeat his own disguising wards intended to mask his travels. Even so, there was knowledge that, had she possessed it– or even suspected– would have long since triggered a deadly response. Some places must remain closed to her. I had expected her to ask far more dangerous questions of me today. Where is Felisin? Then again, maybe she didn't ask that because she already knew. A chilling thought, not just for evincing the breadth of her awareness, but for what it suggested about Sha'ik herself. That she knows what Bidithal did to Felisin... and she does not care.\n\nDusk ever seemed eager to arrive in the forest of stone trees. The tracks he left in the dusty path revealed, to his relief, that he was still alone in walking the trail these days." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not that the goddess needed trails. But there was a strangeness to Toblakai's glade, hinting at some kind of investment, as if the clearing had undergone a sanctification of some sort. And if that had indeed occurred, then it might exist as a blind spot in the eye of the Whirlwind Goddess.\n\nBut none of this explained why Sha'ik did not ask about Felisin. Ah, L'oric, you are the blind one. Sha'ik's obsession is Tavore. With each day that leaves us, bringing the two armies ever closer, her obsession grows. As does her doubt and, perhaps, her fear. She is Malazan, after all– I was right in that. And within that waits another secret, this one buried deepest of all. She knows Tavore.\n\nAnd that knowledge had guided her every action since the Rebirth. Her recalling the Army of the Apocalpyse when virtually within sight of the Holy City's walls. Retreating into the heart of Raraku... gods, was all that a flight of terror?\n\nA notion that did not bear thinking about.\n\nThe glade appeared before him, the ring of trees with their cold, unhuman eyes gazing down upon the small, bedraggled tent– and the young woman huddled before the stone-lined hearth a few paces from it.\n\nShe did not lookup as he came near. \"L'oric, I was wondering, how can one tell Bidithal's cult of murderers from Korbolo Dom's? It's a crowded camp these days– I am glad I am hiding here, and in turn I find myself pitying you. Did you finally speak with her today?\"\n\nSighing, he settled down opposite her, removing his shoulder pack and drawing food from it. \"I did.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And?\"\n\n\"Her concerns for the impending clash are... overwhelming her-\"\n\n\"My mother did not ask after me,\" Felisin cut in, with a slight smile.\n\nL'oric looked away.\"No, ' he conceded in a whisper.\n\n\"She knows, then. And has judged as I have– Bidithal is close to exposing the plotters. They need him, after all, either to join the conspiracy, or stand aside. This is a truth that has not changed. And the night is drawing nearer, the night of betrayal. And so, Mother needs him to play out his role.\"\n\n\"I am not sure of that, Felisin,\" L'oric began, then shut up.\n\nBut she had understood, and her terrible smile broadened. \"Then the Whirlwind Goddess has stolen the love from her soul. Ah, well, she has been under siege fora longtime, after all. In any case, she was not my mother in truth– that was a title she assumed because it amused her to do so-\"\n\n\"Not true, Felisin. Sha'ik saw your plight-'\n\n\"I was the first one to see her, when she returned, reborn. A chance occurrence, that I should be out gathering hen'bara on that day. Before that day, Sha'ik had never noticed me– why would she? I was one among a thousand orphans, after all. But then she was... reborn.\"\n\n\"Returned to the living as well, perhaps-\"\n\nFelisin laughed. \"Oh, L'oric, you ever strive, don't you? I knew then, as you must know by now– Sha'ik Reborn is not the same woman as Sha'ik Elder.\"\n\n\"That hardly matters, lass. The Whirlwind Goddess chose her-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because Sha'ik Elder died, or was killed. You did not seethe truth as I did, in the faces of Leoman and Toblakai. I saw their uncertainty– they did not know if their ruse would succeed. And that it did, more or less, was as much tome as to any of them. The Whirlwind Goddess chose her out of necessity, L'oric.\"\n\n\"As I said, Felisin, it does not matter.\"\n\n\"Not to you, perhaps. No, you don't understand. I saw Sha'ik Elder up close, once. Her glance swept past me, and that glance saw no-one, and at that moment, child though I was, I knew the truth of her. Of her, and of her goddess.\"\n\nL'oric unstoppered the jug that had followed the food and raised it to wet a mouth that had suddenly gone dry.\"And what truth was that? ' he whispered, unable to meet her eyes. Instead, he drank down a deep draught of the unwatered wine.\n\n\"Oh, that we are, one and all, nothing but slaves. We are the tools she will use to achieve her desires. Beyond that, our lives mean nothing to the goddess. But with Sha'ik Reborn, I thought I saw... something different. '\n\nHis peripheral vision caught her shrug.\n\n\"But,\" she continued, \"the goddess is too strong. Her will too absolute. The poison that is indifference... and I well know that taste, L'oric. Ask any orphan, no matter how old they are now, and they will tell you the same. We all sucked at that same bitter tit. '\n\nHe knew his tears had broken from his eyes, were running down his cheeks, yet could do nothing to stem them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And now, L'oric, \"she went on after a moment,\"we are all revealed. Everyone of us here. We are all orphans. Think on it. Bidithal, who lost his temple, his entire cult. The same for Heboric. Korbolo Dom, who once stood as an equal in rank with great soldiers, like Whiskeyjack, and Coltaine. Febryl– did you know he murdered his own father and mother? Toblakai, who has lost his own people. And all the rest of us here, L'oric– we were children of the Malazan Empire, once. And what have we done? We castoff the Empress, in exchange for an insane goddess who dreams only of destruction, who seeks to feed on a sea of blood...\"\n\n\"And,\" he asked softly, \"am I too an orphan?\"\n\nShe had no need to answer, for they both heard the truth in his own pained words.\n\nOsric...\n\n\"Leaving only... Leoman of the Flails.\" Felisin took the wine from his hands. \"Ah, Leoman. Our flawed diamond. I wonder, can he save us all? Will he get the chance? Among us, only he remains... unchained. No doubt the goddess claims him, but it is an empty claim– you do see that, don't you? '\n\nHe nodded, wiping at his eyes. \"And I believe I have led Sha'ik to that realization, as well. '\n\n\"She knows, then, that Leoman is our last hope?\"\n\nHis sigh was ragged. \"I think so...\"\n\nThey were silent fora time. Night had arrived, and the fire had died down to ashes, leaving only starlight to illuminate the glade." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed, then, that eyes of stone had slowly assumed life, a crescent row fixed now upon the two of them. A regard avid, gleaming with hunger. L'oric's head snapped up. He stared out at the ghostly faces, then at the two Toblakai figures, then settled once more, shivering.\n\nFelisin laughed softly. \"Yes, they do haunt one, don't they? '\n\nL'oric grunted.\"A mystery here, in Toblakai's creations. Those faces– they are T'lan Imass. Yet... '\n\n\"He thought them his gods, yes. So Leoman told me, once, beneath the fumes of durhang. Then he warned me to say nothing to Toblakai.\" She laughed again, louder this time. \"As if I would. A fool indeed, to step between Toblakai and his gods.\"\n\n\"There is nothing simple about that simple warrior,\" L'oric murmured.\n\n\"Just as you are not simply a High Mage,\" she said. \"You must act soon, you know. You have choices to make. Hesitate too long and they will be made for you, to your regret.\"\n\n\"I could well say the same to you in return.\"\n\n\"Well then, it seems we still have more to discuss this night. But first, let us eat– before the wine makes us drunk.\"\n\nSha'ik recoiled, staggered back a step. The breath hissed from her in a gust of alarm– and pain. A host of wards swirled around Heboric's abode, still flickering with the agitation her collision had triggered.\n\nShe bit down on her outrage, pitched her voice low as she said, \"You know who it is who has come, Heboric. Let me pass. Defy me, and I will bring the wrath of the goddess down, here and now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A moment's silence, then,\"Enter. '\n\nShe stepped forward. There was a moment's pressure, then she stumbled through, brought up short against the crumbled foundation wall. A sudden... absence. Terrifying, bursting like the clearest light where all had been, but a moment earlier, impenetrable gloom. Bereft... yet free. Gods, free-the light-\"Ghost Hands! \"she gasped.\"What have you done? '\n\n\"The goddess within you, Sha'ik, \"came Heboric's words, \"is not welcome in my temple.\"\n\nTemple? Roaring chaos was building within her, the vast places in her mind where the Whirlwind Goddess had been now suddenly vacant, filling with the dark, rushing return of... of all that I was. Bitter fury grew like a wildfire as memories rose with demonic ferocity to assail her. Beneth. You bastard. You closed your hands around a child, but what you shaped was anything but a woman. A plaything. A slave to you and your twisted, brutal world.\n\nI used to watch that knife in your hands, the flickering games that were your idle habits. And that's what you taught me, isn't it? Cutting for fun and blood. And oh, how I cut. Baudin. Kulp. Heboric-\n\nA physical presence beside her now, the solid feel of hands– jade green, black-barred– a figure, squat and wide and seemingly beneath the shadow of fronds– no, tattoos. Heboric...\n\n\"Inside, lass. I have made you... bereft. An unanticipated consequence of forcing the goddess from your soul. Come.\"\n\nAnd then he was guiding her into the tent's confines. The air chill and damp, a single small oil lamp struggling against the gloom– aflame that suddenly moved as he lifted the lamp and brought it over to a brazier, where he used its burning oil to light the bricks of dung. And, as he worked, he spoke.\"Not much need for light... the passage of time... before tasked with sanctioning a makeshift temple... what do I know of Treach, anyway? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was sitting on cushions, her trembling hands held before the brazier's growing flames, furs wrapped about her. At the name'Treach' she started, looked up.\n\nTo see Heboric squatting before her. Ashe had squatted that day, so long ago now, in Judgement's Round. When Hood's sprites had come to him... to foretell of Fener's casting down. The flies would not touch his spiral tattoos. I remember that. Everywhere eke, they swarmed like madness. Now, those tattoos had undergone a transformation.\"Treach. '\n\nHis eyes narrowed on hers– a cat's eyes, now– he can see!\"Ascended into godhood, Sha'ik-\"\n\n\"Don't call me that. I am Felisin Paran of House Paran. \"She hugged herself suddenly.\"Sha'ik waits for me... out there, beyond this tent's confines– beyond your wards. '\n\n\"And would you return to that embrace, lass?\"\n\nShe studied the brazier's fire, whispered,\"No choice, Heboric'\n\n\"No, I suppose not.\"\n\nA thunderous shock bolted her upright. \"Felisin!\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Felisin Younger! I have not... not seen her! Days? Weeks? What– where is she!\"\n\nHeboric's motion was feline as he straightened, fluid and precise.\"The goddess must know, lass-'\n\n\"If she does, she's not told me! '\n\n\"But why would...\"\n\nShe saw a sudden knowledge in his eyes, and felt her own answering stab of fear. \"Heboric, what do you-\"\n\nThen he was guiding her to the tent flap, speaking as he drove her back step by step. \"We spoke, you and I, and all is well. Nothing to concern yourself over. The Adjunct and her legions are coming and there is much to do. As well, there are the secret plans of Febryl to keep an eye on, and for that you must rely upon Bidithal-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Heboric!\" She struggled against him, but he would not relent. They reached the flap and he pushed her outside. \"What are you-\" A hard shove and she stumbled back.\n\nThrough a flare of wards.\n\nSha'ik slowly righted herself. She must have stumbled. Oh yes, a conversation with Ghost Hands. All is well. I'm relieved by that, for it allows me to think on more important things. My nest of betrayers, for example. Must have words with Bidithal again tonight. Yes...\n\nShe turned from the ex-priest's tent and made her way back to the palace.\n\nOverhead, the stars of the desert sky were shimmering, as they often did when the goddess had come close... Sha'ik wondered what had drawn her this time. Perhaps no more than casting a protective eye on her Chosen One...\n\nShe was unmindful– as washer goddess– of the barely visible shape that slipped out from the entrance to Heboric's tent, flowing in a blur into the nearest shadows. Unmindful, also, of the scent that barbed shape now followed.\n\nWestward, to the city's edge, and then onto the trail, padding between the stone trees, towards a distant glade.\n\nBidithal satin the seething shadows, alone once more, although the smile remained fixed on his withered face. Febryl had his games, but so did the once High Priest of the Shadow cult. Even betrayers could be betrayed, after all, a sudden turning of the knife in the hand.\n\nAnd the sands would fold one more time, the way they did when the air breathed hard, in, out, back, forth, stirring and shifting the grains as would waves against a beach, to lay one layer over another in thin seams of colour. There were no limits to the number of layers, and this Febryl and his fellow conspirators would soon discover, to their grief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They sought the warren for themselves. It had taken Bidithal along time to unveil that truth, that deep-buried motivation, for it had remained in the silence between every spoken word. This was not a simple, mundane struggle for power. No. This was usurpation. Expropriation– a detail that itself whispered of yet deeper secrets. They wanted the warren... but why? A question yet to be answered, but find an answer he would, and soon.\n\nIn this, he knew, the Chosen One relied upon him, and he would not fail her. In so far as what she expects from me, yes, I will deliver. Of course, there are other issues that extend far beyond Sha'ik, this goddess and the Whirlwind Warren she would rule. The shape of the pantheon itself is at stake... my long-overdue vengeance against those foreign pretenders to the Throne of Shadow.\n\nEven now, if he listened very– very– carefully, he could hear them. And they were coming. Closer, ever closer.\n\nA tremble of fear took his limbs, and shadows scurried away from him momentarily, only returning when he had settled once more. Rashan... and Meanas. Meanas and Thyr. Thyr and Rashan. The three children of the Elder Warrens. Galain, Emurlahn and Thyrllan. Should it be so surprising that they war once more? For do not we ever inherit the spites of our fathers and mothers?\n\nBut a ghost of that fear remained. He had not called them, after all. Had not understood the truth of what lay beneath the Whirlwind Warren, the reason why the warren was held in this single place and nowhere else. Had not comprehended how the old battles never died, but simply slept, every bone in the sand restless with memory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bidithal raised his hands and the army of shadows crowded within his temple gathered closer.\n\n\"My children,\" he whispered, beginning the Closing Chant.\n\n\"Father.\"\n\n\"Do you remember?\"\n\n\"We remember.\"\n\n\"Do you remember the dark?\"\n\n\"We remember the dark. Father-\"\n\n\"Ask it and close this moment, children.\"\n\n\"Do you remember the dark?\"\n\nThe priest's smile broadened. A simple question, one that could be asked of anyone, anyone at all. And perhaps they would understand. But probably not. Yet I understand it.\n\nDo you remember the dark?\n\n\"I remember.\"\n\nAs, with sighs, the shadows dispersed, Bidithal stiffened once more to that almost inaudible call. He shivered again. They were getting close indeed.\n\nAnd he wondered what they would do, when they finally arrived.\n\nThere were eleven in all. His chosen.\n\nKorbolo Dom leaned back on his cushions, eyes veiled as he studied the silent, shrouded line of figures standing before him. The Napan held a goblet carved from crystal in his right hand, in which swirled a rare wine from the Grisian valleys on Quon Tali. The woman who had kept him amused earlier this night was asleep, her head resting on his right thigh. He had plied her with enough durhang to ensure oblivion for the next dozen bells, though it was the expedience of security rather than any insipid desire on his part that necessitated such measures.\n\nDrawn from his Dogslayers, the eleven killers were appallingly skilled. Five of them had been personal assassins to Holy Falah'dan in the days before the Empire, rewarded with gifts of alchemy and sorcery to maintain their youthful appearance and vigour." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Three of the remaining six were Malazan– Korbolo Dom's own, created long ago, when he realized he had cause to worry about the Claw. Cause... now that's a simplification almost quaint in its coyness. A multitude of realizations, of sudden discoveries, of knowledge I had never expected to gain-of things I had believed long dead and gone. There had been ten such bodyguards, once. Evidence of the need for them stood before him now. Three left, the result of a brutal process of elimination, leaving only those with the greatest skill and the most fortuitous alliance of Oponn's luck– two qualities that fed each other well.\n\nThe remaining three assassins were from various tribes, each of whom had proved his worth during the Chain of Dogs. The arrow from one had slain Sormo E'nath, from a distance of seventy paces, on the Day of Pure Blood. There had been other arrows striking true, but it had been the one through the warlock's neck– the assassin's– that had filled the lad's lungs with blood, that had drowned his very breath, so that he could not call upon his damned spirits for healing...\n\nKorbolo sipped wine, slowly licked his lips. \"Kamist Reloe has chosen among you,\" he rumbled after a moment, \"for the singular task that will trigger all that subsequently follows. And I am content with his choices. But do not think this diminishes the rest of you. There will be tasks-essential tasks– on that night. Herein this very camp. I assure you, you will get no sleep that night, so prepare yourselves. Also, two of you will remain with meat all times, for I can guarantee that my death will besought before that fateful dawn arrives.\"\n\nI expect you to die in my place. Of course. It is what you are sworn to do, should the need arise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Leave me now,\" he said, waving his freehand.\n\nThe eleven assassins bowed in unison, then filed silently out of the tent.\n\nKorbolo lifted the woman's head from his thigh, by the hair– noting how she remained insensate to the rough handling– and rose from the cushions, letting her head thump back down. He paused to drink a mouthful of the wine, then stepped from the modest dais and approached the side chamber that had been partitioned off by silk hangings.\n\nWithin the private room, Kamist Reloe was pacing. Hands wringing, shoulders drawn up, neck taut.\n\nKorbolo leaned against a support post, his mouth twisting into a slight sneer at seeing the High Mage's fretting.\"Which of your many fears plagues you now, Kamist? Oh, do not answer. I admit I've ceased caring.\"\n\n\"Foolish complacency on your part, then,\" the High Mage snapped. \"Do you think we are the only clever people?\"\n\n\"In the world? No. Here, in Raraku, well, that's another matter. Who should we fear, Kamist Reloe? Sha'ik? Her goddess devours her acuity– day by day, the lass grows less and less aware of what goes on around her. And that goddess barely takes note of us– oh, there are suspicions, perhaps, but that is all. Thus. Who else? L'oric? I've known many a manlike him– creating mystery around themselves– and I have found that what it usually hides is an empty vessel. He is all pose and nothing more.\"\n\n\"You are wrong in that, I fear, but no, I do not worry about L'oric'\n\n\"Who else? Ghost Hands? The man's vanished into his own pit of hen'bara. Leoman? He's not here and I've plans for his return. Toblakai? I think we've seen the last of him. Who is left? Why, none other than Bidithal. But Febryl swears he almost has him in our fold– it's simply a question of discovering what the bastard truly desires. Something squalid and disgusting, no doubt. He is slave to his vices, is Bidithal. Offer him ten thousand orphaned girls and the smile will never leave his ugly face.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kamist Reloe wrapped his arms about himself as he continued pacing. \"It's not who we know to be among us that is the source of my concerns, Korbolo Dom, it's who is among us that we do not know.\"\n\nThe Napan scowled. \"And how many hundreds of spies do we have in this camp? And what of the Whirlwind Goddess herself– do you imagine she will permit the infiltration of strangers?\"\n\n\"Your flaw, Korbolo Dom, is that you think in a strictly linear fashion. Ask that question again, only this time ask it in the context of the goddess having suspicions about us.\"\n\nThe High Mage was too distracted to notice the Napan's half-step forward, one hand lifting. But Korbolo Dom's blow died at that very moment, as the import of Kamist Reloe's challenge reached him. His eyes slowly widened. Then he shook his head.\"No, that would be too great a risk to take. A Claw let loose in this camp would endanger everyone– there would be noway to predict their targets-'\n\n\"Would there be a need to?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"We are the Dogslayers, Korbolo Dom. The murderers of Coltaine, the Seventh, and the legions at Aren. More, we also possess the mage cadre for the Army of the Apocalypse. Finally, who will be commanding that army on the day of battle? How many reasons do the Claw need to strike at us, and at us specifically? What chance would Sha'ik have if we were all dead? Why kill Sha'ik at all? We can fight this war without her and her damned goddess– we've done it before. And we're about to-\"\n\n\"Enough of that, Kamist Reloe. I see your point. So, you fear that the goddess will permit a Claw to infiltrate... in order to deal with us. With you, Febryl and myself. An interesting possibility, but I still think it remote. The goddess is too heavy-handed, too ensnared by emotion, to think with such devious, insidious clarity.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Support the writer, proceed with the storyline.\nTags: epic fantasy, character study, power struggles, resilience, destiny\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: House of Chains\nChapter: 29" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kamist Reloe wrapped his arms about himself as he continued pacing. \"It's not who we know to be among us that is the source of my concerns, Korbolo Dom, it's who is among us that we do not know.\"\n\nThe Napan scowled. \"And how many hundreds of spies do we have in this camp? And what of the Whirlwind Goddess herself– do you imagine she will permit the infiltration of strangers?\"\n\n\"Your flaw, Korbolo Dom, is that you think in a strictly linear fashion. Ask that question again, only this time ask it in the context of the goddess having suspicions about us.\"\n\nThe High Mage was too distracted to notice the Napan's half-step forward, one hand lifting. But Korbolo Dom's blow died at that very moment, as the import of Kamist Reloe's challenge reached him. His eyes slowly widened. Then he shook his head.\"No, that would be too great a risk to take. A Claw let loose in this camp would endanger everyone– there would be noway to predict their targets-'\n\n\"Would there be a need to?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"We are the Dogslayers, Korbolo Dom. The murderers of Coltaine, the Seventh, and the legions at Aren. More, we also possess the mage cadre for the Army of the Apocalypse. Finally, who will be commanding that army on the day of battle? How many reasons do the Claw need to strike at us, and at us specifically? What chance would Sha'ik have if we were all dead? Why kill Sha'ik at all? We can fight this war without her and her damned goddess– we've done it before. And we're about to-\"\n\n\"Enough of that, Kamist Reloe. I see your point. So, you fear that the goddess will permit a Claw to infiltrate... in order to deal with us. With you, Febryl and myself. An interesting possibility, but I still think it remote. The goddess is too heavy-handed, too ensnared by emotion, to think with such devious, insidious clarity.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She does not have to initiate the scheme, Korbolo Dom. She need only comprehend the offer, and then decide either to acquiesce or not. It is not her clarity that is relevant, but that of Laseen's Claw. And do you doubt the cleverness of Topper? '\n\nGrowling under his breath, Korbolo Dom looked away fora moment. \"No,\" he finally admitted. \"But I do rely on the goddess being in no mind to accept communication from the Empress, from Topper, or anyone else who refuses to kneel to her will. You have thought yourself into a nightmare, Kamist Reloe, and now you invite me to join you. I decline the offer, High Mage. We are well protected, and too far advanced in our efforts for all of this fretting.\"\n\n\"I have survived this long, Korbolo Dom, because of my talent in anticipating what my enemies would attempt. Soldiers say no plan of battle survives contact with the enemy. But the game of subterfuge is the very opposite. Plans derive from persistent contact with the enemy. Thus, you proceed on your terms, and I will proceed on mine.\"\n\n\"As you like. Now, leave me. It is late, and I would sleep.\"\n\nThe High Mage stopped pacing to fix the Napan with an unreadable look fora moment, then he swung about and left the chamber.\n\nKorbolo listened until he heard the flap in the outer room swish open, then close. He listened on, and was satisfied to hear the draws being tightened by one of his bodyguards positioned just outside the entrance.\n\nDraining the last of the wine– damned expensive but tastes no different from the dockside swill I choked down on the Isle– he flung the goblet down and strode to the mass of cushions at the far end. Beds in every room. I wonder what that signifies of my personality? Then again, those other ones are not for sleeping in, are they. No, only this one..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the front room on the other side of the silk partitions, the woman lay unmoving on her own heap of cushions, where Korbolo had left her sometime back.\n\nContinuous, overwhelming imbibing of durhang– like any other intoxicant– created a process of diminishment of its effects. Until, while a layer of insensate numbness still persisted– a useful barrier against such things as having her head yanked up by her hair then dropped back down– cool awareness remained beneath it.\n\nAdvantageous, as well, the rituals her master had inflicted upon her, rituals that eliminated the weakness of pleasure. There could be no loss of control, not anymore, for her mind no longer warred with feelings, for of feelings she had none. An easy surrender, she had found to her delight, for there had been little in her life before her initiation to seed warm remembrances of childhood.\n\nAnd so she was well suited to this task. Uttering the right sounds of pleasure to disguise her indifference to all of Korbolo Dom's peculiar preferences. And lying motionless, unmindful even of a throat slowly filling with phlegm from the near-liquid smoke of the durhang, for as much time as was needed, before the subtle, tasteless drops she had added to his wine took effect.\n\nWhen she could hear his deep, slow breaths that told her he would not easily awaken, she rolled onto her side in a fit of coughing. When it had passed she paused again, just to be certain that the Napan still slept. Satisfied, she clambered to her feet and tottered to the tent flap.\n\nFumbled with the ties until a gruff voice from just beyond said, \"Scillara, off to the latrines again?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And another voice softly laughed and added, \"It's a wonder there's any meat on her at all, the way she heaves night after night.\"\n\n\"It's the rust-leaf and the bitter berries crushed in with the durhang, ' the other replied, as his hands took over the task of loosening the draws, and the flap was drawn aside.\n\nScillara staggered out, bumping her way between the two guards.\n\nThe hands that reached out to steady invariably found unusual places to rest, and squeeze.\n\nShe would have enjoyed that, once, in a slightly offended, irritated way that none the less tickled with pleasure. But now, it was nothing but clumsy lust to be endured.\n\nAs everything else in this world had to be endured, while she waited for her final reward, the blissful new world beyond death. \"The left hand of life, holding all misery. And the right hand– yes, the one with the glittering blade, dear– the right hand of death, holding, as it does, the reward you would offer to others, and then take upon yourself. At your chosen moment.\"\n\nHer master's words made sense, as they always did. Balance was the heart of all things, after all. And life– that time of pain and grief– was but one side of that balance.\"The harder, the more miserable, the more terrible and disgusting your life, child, the greater the reward beyond death... ' Thus, as she knew, it all made sense.\n\nNo need, then, to struggle. Acceptance was the only path to walk.\n\nBarring this one. She weaved her way between the tent rows. The Dogslayers' encampment was precise and ordered, in the Malazan fashion– a detail she knew well from her days as a child when her mother followed the train of the Ashok Regiment. Before that regiment went overseas, leaving hundreds destitute– lovers and their get, servants and scroungers. Her mother had then sickened and died. She had a father, of course, one of the soldiers. Who might be alive, or dead, but either way was thoroughly indifferent to the child he had left behind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Balance.\n\nDifficult with ahead full of durhang, even inured to it as she had become.\n\nBut there were the latrines, down this slope, and onto the wooden walkways spanning the trench. Smudge-pots smouldering to cover some of the stench and keep the flies away. Buckets beside the holed seats, filled with hand-sized bundles of grass. Larger open-topped casks with water, positioned out over the trench and fixed to the walkways.\n\nHands held out to either side, Scillara navigated carefully across one of the narrow bridges.\n\nLong-term camp trenches such as this one held more than just human wastes. Garbage was regularly dumped in by soldiers and others– or what had passed for garbage with them. But for the orphans of this squalid city, some of that refuse was seen as treasure. To be cleaned, repaired and sold.\n\nAnd so, figures swarmed in the darkness below.\n\nShe reached the other side, her bare feet sinking into the mud made by splashes that had reached the ridge. \"I remember the dark!\" she sang out, voice throaty from years of durhang smoke.\n\nThere was a scrabbling from the trench, and a small girl, sheathed in excrement, clambered up to her, teeth flashing white. \"Me too, sister.\"\n\nScillara drew out a small bag of coins from her sash. Their master frowned on such gestures, and indeed, they ran contrary to his teachings, but she could not help herself. She pressed it into the girl's hands.\"For food. '\n\n\"He will be displeased, sister-\"\n\n\"And of the two of us, I alone will suffer a moment of torment. So be it. Now, I have words from this night, to be brought to our master...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had always walked with a pitching gait, low to the ground, sufficient to have earned him a host of unflattering nicknames. Toad, crab-legs... the names children gave each other, some of which were known to persist into adulthood. But Heboric had worked hard as a youth– long before his first, fateful visit into a temple of Fener– to excoriate those appellations, to eventually earn Light Touch, in response to certain skills he had acquired on the streets. But now, his sidling walk had undergone a transformation, yielding to an instinctive desire to drop even lower, even to using his hands to propel him along.\n\nHad he considered it, he would have concluded, sourly, that he moved less like a cat than an ape, such as those found in the jungles of Dal Hon. Unpleasant to the eye, perhaps, but efficacious none the less.\n\nHe slowed on the trail as he approached Toblakai's glade. A faint smell of smoke, the dull gleam of a fast-cooling fire, the murmur of voices.\n\nHeboric slipped to one side, among the stone trees, then sank down within sight of the two seated at the hearth.\n\nToo long his self-obsession, the seemingly endless efforts to create his temple– that now struck him as a strange kind of neurotic nesting; he had ignored the world beyond the walls for too long. There had been, he realized with a surge of bitter anger, a host of subtle alterations to his personality, concomitant with the physical gifts he had received.\n\nHe had ceased being mindful.\n\nAnd that, he realized as he studied the two figures in the glade, had permitted a terrible crime.\n\nShe's healed well... but not well enough to disguise the truth of what has happened. Should I reveal myself? No. Neither of them has made a move to expose Bidithal, else they would not be hiding here. That means they would try to talk me out of what must be done." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But I warned Bidithal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I warned him, and he was... amused. Well, I think that amusement is about to end.\n\nHe slowly backed away.\n\nThen, deep in the shadows, Heboric hesitated. There was no clash between his new and old instincts on this matter. Both demanded blood. And this night. Immediately. But something of the old Heboric was reasserting itself. He was new to this role as Destriant. More than that, Treach himself was a newly arrived god. And while Heboric did not believe Bidithal held any position– not anymore– within the realm of Shadow, his temple was sanctified to someone.\n\nAn attack would draw in their respective sources of power, and there was no telling how swiftly, and how uncontrollably, that clash could escalate.\n\nBetter had I just remained old Heboric. With hands of otataral entwined with an unknown being's immeasurable power... Then I could have torn him limb from limb.\n\nHe realized that, instead, he could do nothing. Not this night, in any case. He would have to wait, seeking an opportunity, a moment of distraction. But to achieve that, he would have to remain hidden, unseen– Bidithal could not discover his sudden elevation. Could not learn that he had become Destriant to Treach, the new god of war.\n\nThe rage suddenly returned, and he struggled to push it away.\n\nAfter a moment his breathing slowed. He turned round and edged back onto the trail. This would require more thought. Measured thought. Damn you, Treach. You knew the guise of a tiger. Gift me some of your cunning ways, a hunter's ways, a killer's...\n\nHe approached the head of the trail, and halted at a faint sound. Singing. Muted, a child's, coming from the ruins of what had once been a modest building of some sort. Indifferent to the darkness, his eyes caught movement and fixed hard on that spot, until a shape resolved itself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A girl in rags, carrying a stick that she held in both hands. A dozen or so dead rhizan hung by their tails from her belt. Ashe watched, he saw her leap up and swing the stick. It struck something and she scrambled in pursuit, jumping about to trap a tiny shape writhing on the ground. A moment later and she lifted the rhizan into view. A quick twist of the neck, then another tiny body was tied to her belt. She bent down and retrieved her stick. And began singing once more.\n\nHeboric paused. He would have difficulty passing by her unnoticed. But not impossible.\n\nProbably an unnecessary caution. Even so. He held to the shadows as he edged forward, moving only when her back was turned, his eyes never leaving her form fora moment.\n\nA short while later and he was past.\n\nDawn was approaching, and the camp was moments from stirring awake. Heboric increased his pace, and eventually reached his tent, slipping inside.\n\nApart from the girl, he'd seen no-one.\n\nAnd when she judged that he was finally gone, the girl slowly turned about, her singing falling away as she peered out into the gloom. \"Funny man,\" she whispered, \"do you remember the dark?\"\n\nA sixth of a bell before dawn, Leoman and two hundred of his desert warriors struck the Malazan encampment. The infantry stationed at the pickets were at the end of their watch, gathered in weary groups to await the sun's rise– a lapse indiscipline that presented easy targets for the archers who had, on foot, closed to within thirty paces of the line. A whispery flit of arrows, all loosed at the same time, and the Malazan soldiers were down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At least half of the thirty or so soldiers had not been killed outright, and their screams of pain and fear broke the stillness of the night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The archers had already set their bows down and were darting forward with their kethra knives to finish the wounded sentries, but they had not gone ten paces before Leoman and his horse warriors thundered around them, striking hard through the breach.\n\nAnd into the camp.\n\nCorabb Bhilan Thenu'alas rode at his commander's side, along-hafted weapon that was half sword, half axe, in his right hand. Leoman was the centre of a curved sweep of attackers, protecting a knot of additional horse warriors from which a steady whirring sound rose. Corabb knew what that sound signified– his commander had invented his own answer to Moranth munitions, employing a pair of clay balls filled with oil and connected by a thin chain. Lit like lamps, they were swung and thrown in the manner of bolas.\n\nThe desert warriors were among the huge supply wagons now, and Corabb heard the first of those bolas whip out-ward, the sound followed by a whooshing roar of fire. The darkness vanished in a red glare.\n\nAnd then Corabb saw a figure running from his horse's path. He swung his long-bladed axe. The impact, as it struck the back of the fleeing Malazan's helmed head, nearly dislocated Corabb's shoulder. A spray of blood spattered hard against his forearm as he dragged the weapon free– it was suddenly heavier, and he glanced down at it, to see that the blade had taken the helm with it, having cut fully half through. Brains and bits of bone and scalp were spilling from the bronze bowl.\n\nSwearing, he slowed his mount's wild charge and tried to shake the axe clear. There was fighting on all sides, now, as well as raging flames engulfing at least a dozen wagons– and squad-tents. And soldiers appearing, more and more of them. He could hear barked orders in the Malazan tongue, and crossbow quarrels had begun flitting through the air towards the horse warriors." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A horn sounded, high and wavering. His curses growing fiercer, Corabb wheeled his horse round. He had already lost contact with Leoman, although a few of his comrades were insight. All of them responding to the call to withdraw. Ashe must, as well.\n\nThe axe dragged at his aching shoulder, still burdened with that damned helm. He drove his horseback up the broad track between the mess-tents. Smoke tumbled, obscuring the view before him, stinging his eyes and harsh in his lungs.\n\nSudden burning agony slashed across his cheek, snapping his head around. A quarrel clattered against the ground fifteen paces ahead and to one side. Corabb ducked low, twisting in search of where it had come from.\n\nAnd saw a squad of Malazans, all with crossbows– all but one cocked and trained on the desert warrior, with a sergeant berating the soldier who had fired too early. A scene taken in, in its entirety, between heartbeats. The bastards were less then ten paces distant.\n\nCorabb flung his axe away. With a scream, he pitched his horse sideways, directly into the wall of one of the mess-tents. Ropes tautened and snapped heavy stakes skyward, poles splintering. Amidst this stumbling chaos, the warrior heard the crossbows loose– but his horse was going down, onto its side– and Corabb was already leaping clear of the saddle, his moccasined feet slipping out from the stirrups as he dived.\n\nInto the collapsing tent wall, a moment before his horse, rolling with a scream, followed.\n\nThe pressure of that waxed fabric vanished suddenly and Corabb tumbled into a somersault, once, twice, then skidded onto his feet, spinning round-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "-in time to see his horse rollback upright.\n\nCorabb leapt alongside his mount and vaulted up into the saddle– and they were off.\n\nAnd in the desert warrior's mind: numb disbelief.\n\nOn the opposite side of the avenue, seven Malazan marines stood or crouched with spent crossbows, staring as the rider thundered off into the smoke.\n\n\"Did you see that?\" one asked.\n\nAnother frozen moment, shattered at last when the soldier named Lutes flung his weapon down in disgust.\n\n\"Pick that up,\" Sergeant Borduke growled.\n\n\"If Maybe hadn't fired early-'\n\n\"I wasn't sure! ' Maybe replied.\n\n\"Load up, idiots– there might be a few left.\"\n\n\"Hey, Sergeant, maybe that horse killed the cook.\"\n\nBorduke spat. \"The gods smiling down onus this night, Hubb?\"\n\n\"Well...\"\n\n\"Right. The truth remains, then. We'll have to kill him ourselves. Before he kills us. But never mind that for now. Let's move...\"\n\nThe sun had just begun to rise when Leoman drew rein and halted his raiders. Corabb was late in arriving– among the last, in fact– and that earned a pleased nod from his commander. As if he'd assumed that Corabb had been taking up the rear out of a sense of duty. He did not notice that his lieutenant had lost his main weapon.\n\nBehind them, they could seethe columns of smoke rising into sunlit sky, and the distant sound of shouts reached them, followed moments later by the thunder of horse hoofs.\n\nLeoman bared his teeth. \"And now comes the real objective of our attack. Well done thus far, my soldiers. Hear those horses? Seti, Wickans and Khundryl– and that will be the precise order of the pursuit. The Khundryl, whom we must be wary of, will be burdened by their armour. The Wickans will range cautiously. But the Seti, once they sight us, will be headlong in their pursuit.\" He then raised the flail in his right hand, and all could seethe bloody, matted hair on the spike ball. \"And where shall we lead them?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"To death!\" came the roaring reply.\n\nThe rising sun had turned the distant wall of spinning, whirling sand gold, a pleasing colour to Febryl's old, watery eyes. He sat facing east, cross-legged atop what had once been agate tower but was now a shapeless heap of rubble softened by windblown sand.\n\nThe city reborn lay to his back, slow to awaken on this day for reasons of which only a scant few were aware, and Febryl was one of those. The goddess devoured. Consuming life's forces, absorbing the ferocious will to survive from her hapless, misguided mortal servants.\n\nThe effect was gradual, yet, day after day, moment by moment, it deadened. Unless one was cognizant of that hunger, of course. And was able to take preventative measures to evade her incessant demands.\n\nLong ago, Sha'ik Reborn had claimed to know him, to have plumbed his every secret, to have discerned the hue of his soul. And indeed, she had shown an alarming ability to speak in his mind– almost as if she was always present, and only spoke to occasionally remind him of that terrifying truth. But such moments had diminished infrequency– perhaps as a result of his renewed efforts to mask himself– until, now, he was certain that she could no longer breach his defences.\n\nPerhaps, however, the truth was far less flattering to his own proficiencies. Perhaps the influence of the goddess had lured Sha'ik Reborn into... indifference. Aye, it maybe that I am already dead and am yet to know it. That all I have planned is known to the woman and goddess both. Am I alone in having spies? No. Korbolo has hinted of his own agents, and indeed, nothing of what I seek will come to pass without the efforts of the Napan's hidden cadre of killers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was, he reflected with bitter humour, the nature of everyone in this game to hide as much of themselves from others as they could, from allies as well as enemies, since such appellations were in the habit of reversing without warning.\n\nNone the less, Febryl had faith in Kamist Reloe. The High Mage had every reason to remain loyal to the broader scheme– the scheme that was betrayal most prodigious– since the path it offered was the only one that ensured Reloe's survival in what was to come. And as for the more subtle nuances concerning Febryl himself, well, those were not Kamist Reloe's business. Were they?\n\nEven if their fruition should prove fatal... to everyone but me.\n\nThey all thought themselves too clever, and that was a flaw inviting exploitation.\n\nAnd what of me? Eh, dear Febryl? Do you think yourself clever? He smiled at the distant wall of sand. Cleverness was not essential, provided one insisted on keeping things simple. Complexity beckoned error, like a whore a soldier on leave. The lure of visceral rewards that proved never quite as straightforward as one would have imagined from the start. But I will avoid that trap. I will not suffer deadly lapses, such as has happened to Bidithal, since they lead to complications– although his failings will lead him into my hands, so I suppose I should not complain too much.\n\n\"The sun's light folds over darkness. '\n\nHe started, twisted around. \"Chosen One!\"\n\n\"Deep breaths, old man, will ease your hammering heart. I can wait a moment, for I am patient.\"\n\nShe stood almost at his side– of course he had seen no shadow, for the sun was before him. But how had she come with such silence? How long had shebeen standing there? \"Chosen One, have you come to join me in greeting the dawn?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is that what you do, when you come here at the beginning of each day?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'd wondered. '\n\n\"I am a man of humble habits, mistress.\"\n\n\"Indeed. A certain bluntness that affects a quality of simplicity. As if by adhering to simple habits in the flesh and bone, your mind will in turn strive towards the same perfection.\"\n\nHe said nothing, though his heart had anything but slowed its thundering pace.\n\nSha'ik then sighed.\"Did I say perfection? Perhaps I should tell you something, then, to aid you in your quest. '\n\n\"Please,\" he gasped softly.\n\n\"The Whirlwind Wallis virtually opaque, barring that diffuse sunlight. And so I am afraid I must correct you, Febryl. You are facing northeast, alas.\" She pointed. \"The sun is actually over there, High Mage. Do not fret so– you have at least been consistent. Oh, and there is another matter that I believe must be clarified. Few would argue that my goddess is consumed by anger, and so consumes in turn. But what you might see as the loss of many to feed a singular hunger is in truth worthy of an entirely different analogy.\"\n\n\"Oh?\"\n\n\"Yes. She does not strictly feed on the energies of her followers, so much as provide for them a certain focus. Little different, in fact, from that Whirlwind Wall out there, which, while seeming to diffuse the light of the sun, in fact acts to trap it. Have you ever sought to pass through that wall, Febryl? Particularly at dusk, when the day's heat has most fully been absorbed? It would burn you down to bone, High Mage, in an instant. So, you see how something that appears one way is in truth the very opposite way? Burnt crisp– a horrible image, isn't it? One would need to be desert-born, or possess powerful sorcery to defy that. Or very deep shadows...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Living simply, Febryl belatedly considered, should not be made synonymous with seeing simply, since the former was both noble and laudable, whilst the latter was a flaw most deadly. A careless error, and, alas, he had made it.\n\nAnd now, he concluded, it was too late.\n\nAnd as for altering the plans, oh, it was too late for that as well.\n\nSomehow, the newly arriving day had lost its glamour." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was said the captain's adopted child– who at that time was known by the unfortunate name of Grub– refused the wagon on the march. That he walked the entire way, even as, in the first week beneath the year's hottest sun, fit and hale soldiers stumbled and fell.\n\nThis is perhaps invention, for by all accounts he was at that time no more than five years of age. And the captain himself, from whose journals much of that journey and the clash in which it culminated is related in detail, writes very little of Grub, more concerned as he was with the rigours of command. As a result, of the future First Sword of the Late Empire period, scant details, beyond the legendary and probably fictitious, are known.\n\nLives of the Three Moragalle\n\nThe sound of flies and wasps was a solid, buzzing hum in the hot air of the gorge, and already the stench had grown overpowering. Fist Gamet loosened the clasp on the buckle and lifted the battered iron helmet from his head. The felt liner was sodden with sweat, itching against his scalp, but, as the flies swarmed him, he did not remove it.\n\nHe continued watching from the slight rise at the south end of the gorge as the Adjunct walked her horse through the carnage below.\n\nThree hundred Seti and over a hundred horses lay dead, mostly from arrows, in the steep-sided ravine they had been led into. It could not have taken long, even including rounding up and leading off the surviving mounts. There had been less than a bell between the advance Seti riders and the Khundryl, and had Temul not ordered his Wickans back to cover the main army... well, we would have lost them as well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As it was, those Wickans had prevented another raid on the supply train, their presence alone sufficient to trigger a sudden withdrawal by the enemy– with not a single drop of blood spilled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The warleader commanding the desert horse warriors had been too cagey to see his force ensnared in an out-and-out battle.\n\nFar better to rely upon... errors in judgement. The Seti not assigned as flanking riders to the vanguard had defied orders, and had died as a result. And all the bastard needs from us is more stupid mistakes.\n\nSomething in the scene below was raising the hairs on his neck. The Adjunct rode alone through the slaughter, her back straight, unmindful of her horse's skittish progress.\n\nIt's never the flies that are the trouble, it's the wasps. One sting and that well-bred beast will lose its mind. Could rear and throw her off, break her neck. Or could bolt, straight down the gorge, and then try to take one of the steep sides... like some of those Seti horses tried to do...\n\nInstead, the horse simply continued picking its way over the bodies, and the clouds of wasps did little more than rise and then wheel from its path, alighting once more upon their feast as soon as mount and rider had passed.\n\nAn old soldier at the Fist's side coughed and spat, then, at Gamet's glance, mumbled an apology.\n\n\"No need... Captain. It's a grisly sight, and we're all too close...\"\n\n\"Not that, sir. Only...\" he paused, then slowly shook his head. \"Never mind, sir. Just an old memory, that's all. '\n\nGamet nodded. \"I've a few of those myself. So, Fist Tene Baralta wants to know if he needs to send his healers forward. The answer you may bring him lies before you. '\n\n\"Aye, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He watched the grizzled old soldier back his horse clear then swing it round and ride off. Then Gamet fixed his attention once more upon the Adjunct.\n\nShe had reached the far end, where most of the bodies lay, heaped up against blood-splashed stonewalls, and, after along moment, during which she scanned the scene on all sides, she gathered the reins and began retracing her path.\n\nGamet set the helm on his head once more and closed the clasp.\n\nShe reached the slope and rode up to halt alongside him.\n\nHe had never before seen her expression so severe. A woman with few of a woman's charms, as they say of her, intones approaching pity.\"Adjunct. '\n\n\"He left many of them wounded,\" she said. \"Anticipating, perhaps, that we'd reach them in time. Wounded Malazans are better than dead ones, after all. '\n\n\"Assuming that warleader seeks to delay us, aye.\"\n\n\"He does. Even with the Khundryl supply lines, our resources are strained as it is. The loss of the wagons last night will be felt by everyone.\"\n\n\"Then why didn't Sha'ik send this warleader against us as soon as we crossed the Vathar River? We're a week or less away from the Whirlwind Wall. She could have purchased another month or more, and we'd be in far worse shape when we finally arrived.\"\n\n\"You are correct, Fist. And I have no answer for you. Temul has gauged this raiding party's strength at just under two thousand– he was fairly certain that the midday contact on the flank revealed the enemy's full force, since he sighted supply horses as well as those taken from the Seti. Thus, a rather large raiding army.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gamet ruminated on this fora time, then he grunted. \"It's almost as if we're facing a confused opposition, one at odds with itself.\"\n\n\"The same thought had occurred tome. For the moment, however, we must concern ourselves with this warleader, else he bleed us to death.\"\n\nGamet swung his horse around. \"More words with Gall, then,\" he said, grimacing. \"If we can get them out of their great-grandfathers\" armour, they might actually manage a ride up a hill without leaving their horses blown. '\n\n\"I want the marines out tonight, Fist.\"\n\nHis eyes narrowed. \"The marines, Adjunct? On foot? You wish the pickets bolstered?\"\n\nShe drew a deep breath. \"In the year 1147, Dassem Ultor was faced with a similar situation, with a much smaller army and three entire tribal nations mauling him virtually every night.\"\n\nAfter a moment Gamet nodded. \"I know the scenario, Adjunct, and I recall his answer. The marines will be sent out tonight.\"\n\n\"Be sure they understand what is expected of them, Fist Gamet.\"\n\n\"There's some veterans among them, \"he replied.\"And in any case, I plan to command the operation myself. '\n\n\"That will not be-\"\n\n\"Yes, it will, Adjunct. My apologies. But... yes, it will.\"\n\n\"So be it.\"\n\nIt was one thing to doubt his commander's measure, but another entirely to doubt his own.\n\nThere were three types of scorpion common in the odhan, none of which displayed any toleration for either of the others. Early in the second week Strings had drawn his two fellow sergeants aside to unveil his scheme. Both Gesler and Borduke had proved agreeable, particularly at the offer of splitting the profits three ways. Borduke was first to draw the odd-coloured stone and was quick to choose the Red-backed Bastard– outwardly the meanest of the three scorpion types. Gesler had followed, choosing the amber In Out– so named for its transparent exoskeleton through which, if one was inclined to look carefully, various poisons could be seen racing beneath its carapace." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The two sergeants had then looked with pity upon their hapless companion. The Lord's luck that the man with the idea in the first place should be left with the Birdshit scorpion– puny and flat and black and looking like its namesake. Of course, when it came to the three-way split of the main profits, none of that really mattered. Only in the private wagers between the three sergeants would Strings come out wanting.\n\nBut Strings had affected only mild disappointment at being left with the Birdshit, answering with naught but a slight shrug as he collected the handful of pebbles they had used in choosing the order of selection. And neither Gesler nor Borduke caught the old sapper's twitch of a smile as he turned away, nor his seemingly casual glance to where Cuttle satin the shade of a boulder– a glance answered with the slightest of nods.\n\nThe squads were then set to the task of finding their respective champions whilst on the march, and, when that failed, at dusk when the horrid little creatures were wont to scuttle out from their hiding places in search of something to kill.\n\nWord quickly spread, and soon the wagers started pouring in. Borduke's soldier, Maybe, was chosen for the task of bet-holder, given his extraordinary ability to retain facts. And one Holder was selected from each squad, who then in turn selected a Trainer.\n\nThe afternoon following the raid and the slaughter of the Seti, Strings slowed his pace during the march, until he fell instep with Bottle and Tarr. Despite his casual expression, the truth was, the bile roiled sour in his stomach. The Fourteenth had found its own scorpion, out therein the wastes beyond, and it had just delivered its first sting. The mood of the soldiers was low, and uncertainty gnawed at their confidence. None had believed, it was clear, that the first blood they tasted would be their own. Got to get their minds off it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How's little Joyful, Bottle? '\n\nThe mage shrugged. \"As hungry and nasty as ever, Sergeant.\"\n\nStrings nodded. \"And how's the training coming along, Corporal? '\n\nTarr frowned beneath the rim of his helm. \"All right, I suppose. As soon as I figure out what kind of training it needs, I'll get right on it. '\n\n\"Good, the situation sounds ideal. Spread the word. First battle's tonight, one bell after we set camp. '\n\nBoth soldiers swung their heads round at this.\n\n\"Tonight?\" Bottle asked. \"After what just-\"\n\n\"You heard me. Gesler and Borduke are getting their beauties primed, same as us. We're ready, lads. '\n\n\"It's going to draw quite a crowd, \"Corporal Tarr said, shaking his head.\"The lieutenant won't help but wonder-\"\n\n\"Not just the lieutenant, I'd imagine, \"Strings replied.\"But there won't be much of a crowd. We'll use the old word-line system. Run the commentary back through the whole camp. '\n\n\"Joyful's going to get skewered, \"Bottle muttered, his expression growing sorrowful.\"And here I been feeding her, every night. Big juicy capemoths... she'd just pounce real pretty, then start eating until there wasn't nothing left but a couple wings and a crunched-up ball. Then she'd spend half the night cleaning her pincers and licking her lips-\"\n\n\"Lips?\" Smiles asked from behind the three men. \"What lips? Scorpions don't have lips-'\n\n\"What do you know?\" Bottle shot back. \"You won't even get close-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When I get close to a scorpion I kill it. Which is what any sane person would do.\"\n\n\"Sane?\" the mage retorted. \"You pick them up and start pulling things off! Tail, pincers, legs– I ain't seen nothing so cruel in my life! '\n\n\"Well, ain't that close enough to see if it's got lips?\"\n\n\"Where's it all go, I wonder? ' Tarr muttered.\n\nBottle nodded. \"I know, it's amazing. She's so tiny...\"\n\n\"That's our secret, ' Strings said quietly.\n\n\"What is?\"\n\n\"The reason why I picked a Birdshit, soldiers.\"\n\n\"You didn't pick... '\n\nAt the suspicious silence that followed, Strings simply smiled. Then he shrugged. \"Hunting's one thing. An easy thing. Birdshits don't need to get... elaborate, killing a maimed capemoth. It's when they have to fight. Protecting territory, or their young. That's when the surprise comes. You think Joyful's going to lose tonight, Bottle? Think your heart's going to get broken? Relax, lad, old Strings here has always got your tender feelings in mind...\"\n\n\"You can drop that'Strings\" bit, Sergeant,\" Bottle said after a moment. \"We all know who you are. We all know your real name.\"\n\n\"Well, that's damned unfortunate. If it gets out to the command-'\n\n\"Oh, it won't, Fiddler. '\n\n\"Maybe not on purpose, but in the heat of battle?\"\n\n\"Who's going to listen to our screams of panic in a battle, Sergeant? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fiddler shot the young man a look, gauging, then he grinned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good point. Still, be careful what you say and when you say it.\"\n\n\"Aye, Sergeant. Now, could you explain that surprise you were talking about?\"\n\n\"No. Wait and see.\"\n\nStrings fell silent then, noting a small party of riders approaching down the line of march. \"Straighten up, soldiers. Officers coming.\"\n\nFist Gamet, the sergeant saw, was looking old, worn out. Getting dragged out of retirement was never a good thing, he knew, since the first thing that an old soldier put away was his nerve, and that was hard, if not impossible, to get back. That stepping away, of course, marked a particular kind of retirement– and one a cautious soldier usually avoided. Abandoning the lifestyle was one thing, but surrendering the deadly edge was another. Studying the Fist as the man rode up, Fiddler felt a tremor of unease.\n\nAccompanying Gamet were Captain Keneb and the lieutenant, the latter so grim-faced as to be near comical. His officer mask, with which he tries to look older and thus more professional. Instead, it's the scowl of a constipated man. Someone should tell him...\n\nThe threesome reined into walk their horses alongside Fiddler's own squad– somewhat unnerving to the sergeant, though he offered them a nod. Keneb's eyes, he noted, were on Cuttle.\n\nBut it was Ranal who spoke first. \"Sergeant Strings.\"\n\n\"Aye, sir?\"\n\n\"You and Cuttle, please, off to one side fora private conversation.\" Then he raised his voice to the squad marching ahead. \"Sergeant Gesler and Corporal Stormy, back with us on the double.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Four should be enough,\" the Fist rumbled, \"to seethe instructions properly delivered to the other squads.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said Ranal, who had been about to call over Borduke.\n\nWhen the four marines were assembled, Fist Gamet cleared his throat, then began, \"It's clear you are all veterans. And Captain Keneb informs me that you have marched in these lands before– no, I need no more details of that. My reliance depends on that very experience, however. The Adjunct wishes the marines to answer the desert raiders tonight. '\n\nHe fell silent then.\n\nAnd no-one spoke fora time, as the significance of the Fist's words slowly settled in the minds of the four marines.\n\nFinally, Captain Keneb said, \"Aye, Dassem's answer, all those years ago. It's fortunate, then, that you'd planned on using the word-line this evening. Simple enough to keep it going once the three-way fight's finished.\" He leaned over slightly in his saddle and said to Fiddler, \"You've the Birdshit, Sergeant? What are the odds running at right now? '\n\n\"Maybe says it's about forty to one, ' Fiddler replied, keeping his face straight.\n\n\"Even better than I'd hoped, \"Keneb replied, leaning back.\"But I should add, Sergeant, that I've convinced the Fist to back your Birdshit as well.\"\n\n\"Ten jakatas,\" Gamet said, \"and in this I rely upon the captain's... experience. And yours, Sergeant... Strings. '\n\n\"Uh, we'll do our best, sir. '\n\nGesler turned to Stormy. \"Smell something, Corporal?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The huge Falari with the flint sword on his back scowled. \"Ain't no scorpions on the coasts, dammit. Aye, Sergeant, I'm smelling something all right.\"\n\n\"Get used to it,\" Cuttle advised.\n\nRanal was looking confused, but wisely said nothing... for now.\n\n\"Use the word-line,\" Keneb said, resuming his instructions, \"and remember, make sure the toughest squads are the ones showing their smiles.\"\n\n\"Aye, Captain,\" Fiddler replied, wondering if he should reassess his opinion of Keneb.\n\n\"One last thing,\" the man added. \"Fist Gamet will be commanding the operation tonight. Accordingly, I want your two squads and Borduke's to double your duties tonight. '\n\nOh, Hood's balls under a big rock.\"Understood, Captain. '\n\nThe soldiers of the Fourteenth Army were strangely arrayed throughout the encampment once the tents had been raised and the cookfires started, seemingly casually seated in a manner that, if seen from on high, would have resembled avast, knotted rope. And following the meal, activities seemed to cease entirely, barring the reluctant marching out of the soldiers on first picket duty.\n\nIn one particular place, centred on the marines of the 9th Company of the 8th Legion, a somewhat different assembly of soldiers was apparent– a smallish, exclusive ring, surrounding a still smaller ring of daggers thrust into the ground, edge inward, at a spacing of two finger-widths. For the moment, that inner ring was empty, the sand smoothed flat and free of pebbles.\n\nMaybe was the last soldier to join the others waiting impatiently around the modest arena, saying nothing though his lips moved in a silent recitation of numbers and names. Seeing the eyes of the others on him, he gave a single nod." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fiddler swung to Bottle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bring out Joyful Union, lad.\"\n\nBorduke and Gesler issued similar instructions for their respective combatants. The Red-backed Bastard had been named Mangonel by Borduke's squad, while Gesler and company had named their amber In Out scorpion Clawmaster.\n\nThe three boxes were brought forward and Fiddler said to his fellow sergeants, \"All right, here and now we're to look upon our beauties, and so swear that no alterations have been made to them, either by sorcery or alchemy or any other means. They are natural as the day we first found them. Unchanged. Each of us will examine each of the three scorpions– as closely as we might choose, including the assistance of a mage if desired, and then swear out loud, by whatever gods we normally swear by, as precise a statement of what we see as we can. Here, I'll start.\"\n\nHe gestured and the three boxes were set down just outside the knife ring. The first wooden container– Borduke's– had its lid removed and Fiddler leaned close. He was silent fora longtime, then he nodded.\"I, Sergeant Strings of the 4th squad in the 9th Company of the 8th Legion, swear by the ghosts of the Deadhouse and every other nasty nightmare that haunts me that the creature before me is a natural, unaltered Red-backed Bastard scorpion. '\n\nThe sergeant then moved onto Gesler's champion, and after along examination he sighed and nodded, repeating his sworn vow on behalf of the In Out scorpion scuttling about in the small wooden box.\n\nHe then concluded with his own Joyful Union.\n\nGesler followed the procedure, seeking the added opinions of both Tavos Pond and Sands during his protracted examination of Joyful Union, whilst Fiddler leaned back with a slight smile on his bearded face, waiting patiently until, with a snarl, Gesler swore his vow. \"I, Sergeant Gesler of the 5th squad in the 9th Company of the 8th Legion, swear by the two Lords of Summer, Fener and Treach, that the creature before me is a natural, unaltered Birdshit scorpion– even though I know there's something about it I'm not seeing and I'm about to lose my life's savings on the Sergeants\" Wager. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fiddler's smile broadened momentarily.\n\nBorduke crawled up to Joyful Union and came as close as was possible without being stung, his face almost inside the small box. Since that draped the motionless creature in shadow he cursed and leaned back slightly. \"I should know about scorpions, shouldn't I? But all I ever do is stamp on them– like any sane man would do. Sure, I knew a whore once who kept one on a thong about her neck, as golden as the skin of her breasts– tender nipples, you see, and she didn't like them manhandled-\"\n\n\"Get on with it,\" Gesler snapped.\n\n\"Don't rush me. I don't like being rushed.\"\n\n\"All right, I won't rush you. Just swear your damned vow before my heart flies out to fill my breeches. '\n\n\"I, Borduke of the 6th squad in the 9th Company of the 8th Legion, swear on the downy belly of the Queen of Dreams that the creature before me is a natural, unaltered Birdshit scorpion, and may my father's ghost remain in its tomb, since the inheritance was mine to lose anyway, right? Dead means you don't care anymore, right? It had better, because if it doesn't, then I'm doomed to paternal haunting for the rest of my days.\"\n\n\"The worst kind, ' Lutes muttered.\n\n\"Another word from you, soldier,\" Borduke growled, moving back into the circle, \"and I'll make you the only one smiling later tonight. '\n\n\"Besides,\" Balgrid said, \"it ain't the worst kind. Maternal haunting– now that's a killer. How long can a man stand being seven years old?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Will you two be quiet!\" Borduke snarled, his large-knuckled fingers clutching as if squeezing invisible throats.\n\n\"We ready?\" Fiddler quietly asked.\n\n\"She'll hide, won't she?\" Gesler demanded. \"Wait till the other two have chopped and stabbed each other up before pouncing on the mangled survivor! That's it, isn't it? Her jelly brains are purer than theirs, purer and smarter, aren't they? '\n\nFiddler shrugged. \"Wouldn't know about that, Gesler. Are you done? '\n\nThe bronzed-hued marine settled back, the muscles of his jaw bunching.\n\n\"How's the word-line, Cuttle? '\n\n\"Been repeating every word since we first settled, Fid,\" the sapper replied.\n\n\"And so legends were born,\" Koryk rumbled with facetious portent.\n\n\"Into the arena, then,\" Fiddler instructed.\n\nThe boxes were gingerly lifted and held over the arena.\n\n\"Equidistant? Good. Tip'em, lads. '\n\nMangonel was the first to land, tail arched and pincers out as it scuttled close to the knife-edge barrier, upon which, a hair's breadth from the iron blades, it halted and then backed away, its carapace flushing red with its characteristic mindless rage. Clawmaster was next, seeming to leap down ready for war, fluids racing beneath its amber-tinted shell.\n\nJoyful Union came last, slow and measured, so low on the sand as to seem belly-down. Pincers tucked away, tail curled to port and quiescent. Dwarfed by the other two scorpions, its black shell somewhere between glossy and flat. Its multiple legs scuttled it forward slightly, then it froze." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gesler hissed. \"If she plucks a couple knives from the ring and uses'em, I'm going to kill you, Fid.\"\n\n\"No need,\" Fiddler replied, his attention divided between what was going on in the arena and Ibb's running commentary, the man's voice harsh with tension as he waxed creative in describing what had, up to now, been essentially nothing worth comment.\n\nThat suddenly changed as three things occurred almost simultaneously. Joyful Union sauntered into the middle of the arena. Mangonel's assortment of natural weapons all cocked in unison, even as the creature began backing up, its shell turning fiery red. Clawmaster suddenly wheeled and darted straight at the nearest wall of blades, halting a moment before impact, pincers waving wildly.\n\n\"He wants mommy, looks like, Hubb,\" Koryk drily observed.\n\nClawmaster's Holder softly whimpered in answer.\n\nThen, after a frozen moment from all three scorpions, Joyful Union finally lifted its tail.\n\nUpon which, all but Fiddler stared in utter disbelief, as Joyful Union seemed to... split. Horizontally. Into two identical, but thinner, flatter scorpions. That then raced outward, one to Mangonel, the other to Clawmaster– each like a village mongrel charging a bull bhederin, so extreme their comparative sizes.\n\nRed-backed Bastard and In Out both did their best, but were no match in speed, nor ferocity, as tiny pincers snipped– audibly– through legs, through tail, through arm-joints, then, with the larger creature immobile and helpless, a casual, almost delicate stab of stinger.\n\nWith In Out's translucent shell, the horrid bright green of that poison was visible– and thus described in ghastly detail by Ibb– as it spread out from the puncture until Clawmaster's once beautiful amber was gone, replaced by a sickly green that deepened before their eyes to a murky black." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Dead as dung,\" Hubb moaned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Clawmaster...\"\n\nMangonel suffered an identical fate.\n\nWith its enemies vanquished, the two Birdshit scorpions rushed back into each other's arms– and, in the blink of an eye, were as one once more.\n\n\"Cheat!\" Stormy bellowed, rearing to his feet and fumbling to draw his flint sword.\n\nGesler leapt up and, along with Truth, struggled to restrain their raging comrade. \"We looked, Stormy!\" Gesler yelled. \"We looked for anything– then we swore! I swore! By Fener and Treach, damn you! How could any of us have known'Joyful Union\" wasn't just acute name? '\n\nGlancing up, Fiddler met Cuttle's steady gaze. The sapper mouthed the words We're rich, you bastard.\n\nThe sergeant, with a final glance at Gesler and Truth– who were dragging a foaming Stormy away– then moved to crouch down beside Ibb. \"All right, lad, what follows is for the marines only, and especially the sergeants. We're about to become our own Joyful Union to big, bad Mangonel tonight. I'll explain what the Adjunct has ordered– repeat what I say, Ibb, word for word– got it?\"\n\nThree bells had passed since the sunset. Dust from the Whirlwind Wall obscured the stars, making the darkness beyond the hearth-fires almost impenetrable. Squads from the infantry trooped out to relieve those stationed at the pickets. In the Khundryl camp, the warriors removed their heavy armour and prepared to settle in for the night. Along the army encampment's outermost trenches, Wickan and Seti horse warriors patrolled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the 4th squad's fire, Fiddler returned from the company's wagons with his kit bag." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He set it down and untied the draws.\n\nNearby sprawled Cuttle, his eyes glittering reflected flames, watching as the sergeant began withdrawing variously sized, hide-wrapped objects. Moments later he had assembled a dozen such items, which he then began unwrapping, revealing the glint of polished wood and blackened iron.\n\nThe others in the squad were busy checking over their weapons and armour one last time, saying nothing as the tension slowly built among the small group of soldiers.\n\n\"Been sometime since I last saw one of those,\" Cuttle muttered as Fiddler laid out the objects. \"I've seen imitations, some of them almost as good as the originals. '\n\nFiddler grunted. \"There's a few out there. It's the knock-back where the biggest danger lies, since if it's too hard the whole damn thing explodes upon release. Me and Hedge worked out this design ourselves, then we found a Mare jeweller in Malaz City– what she was doing there I've no idea-\"\n\n\"A jeweller? Not a weaponsmith?\"\n\n\"Aye.\" He began assembling the crossbow. \"And a wood-carver for the stops and plugs– those need replacing after twenty or so shots-\"\n\n\"When they're pulped. '\n\n\"Or splitting, aye. It's the ribs, when they spring back– that's what sends the shockwave forward. Unlike a regular crossbow, where the quarrel's fast enough out of the slot to escape that vibration. Here, the quarrel's a pig, heavy and weighted on the head end– it never leaves the slot as fast as you'd like, so you need something to absorb that knock-back, before it gets to the quarrel shaft. '\n\n\"And the clay ball attached to it. Clever solution, Fid.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's worked so far." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'\n\n\"And if it does fail...\"\n\nFiddler looked up and grinned. \"I won't be the one with breath to complain. ' The last fitting clicked into place, and the sergeant set the bulky weapon down, turning his attention to the individually wrapped quarrels.\n\nCuttle slowly straightened. \"Those ain't got sharpers on them. '\n\n\"Hood no, I can throw sharpers.\"\n\n\"And that crossbow can lob cussers far enough? Hard to believe.\"\n\n\"Well, the idea is to aim and shoot, then bite a mouthful of dirt.\"\n\n\"I can seethe wisdom in that, Fid. Now, you let us all know when you're firing, right? '\n\n\"Nice and loud, aye.\"\n\n\"And what word should we listen for?\"\n\nFiddler noticed that the rest of his squad had ceased their preparations and were now waiting for his answer. He shrugged. \"Duck. Or sometimes what Hedge used to use.\"\n\n\"Which was?\"\n\n\"A scream of terror.\" He climbed to his feet. \"All right, soldiers, it's time. '\n\nWhen the last grains trickled down, the Adjunct turned from the hourglass and nodded to Gamet. \"When will you join your companies, Fist?\"\n\n\"In a few moments, Adjunct. Although, because I intend to remain in my saddle, I will not ride out to them until the fighting starts.\"\n\nHe saw her frown at that, but she made no comment, focusing instead on the two Wickan youths standing near the tent's entrance.\"Have you completed your rituals? '\n\nThe lad, Nil, shrugged. \"We have spoken with the spirits, as you ordered.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Spoken? That is all?\"\n\n\"Once, perhaps, we could have... compelled. But as we warned you long ago in Aren, our power is not as it once was.\"\n\nNether added, \"This land's spirits are agitated at the moment, easily distracted. Something else is happening. We have done all we could, Adjunct. At the very least, if the desert raiders have a shaman among them, there will belittle chance of the secret's unveiling.\"\n\n\"Something else is happening, you said. What, specifically?\"\n\nBefore she could answer, Gamet said, \"Your pardon, Adjunct. I will take my leave now.\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\nThe Fist left them to resume their conversation. A fog had settled on his mind, the moments before an engagement when uncertainty engendered unease and confusion. He had heard of this affliction claiming other commanders, but had not thought it would befall him. The rush of his own blood had created a wall of sound, muting the world beyond. And it seemed his other senses had dulled as well.\n\nAshe made his way towards his horse– held ready by a soldier– he shook his head, seeking to clear it. If the soldier said something to him when he took the reins and swung up into the saddle, he did not hear it.\n\nThe Adjunct had been displeased by his decision to ride into the battle. But the added mobility was, to Gamet's mind, worth the risk. He set out through the camp at a slow canter. Fires had been allowed to die, the scenes surrounding him strangely ethereal. He passed figures hunched down around coals and envied them their freedom. Life had been simpler as a plain soldier. Gamet had begun to doubt his ability to command." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Age is no instant purchase of wisdom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it's more than that, isn't it? She may have made me a Fist and given me a legion. And soldiers might well salute when they pass-though of course not here, in enemy territory, thank Hood. No, all these trappings are no assurance of my competence.\n\nThis night shall be my first test. Gods, I should have stayed retired. I should have refused her insistence– dammit, her assumption– that I would simply accept her wishes.\n\nThere was, he had come to believe, a weakness within him. A fool might call it a virtue, such... pliable equanimity. But he knew better.\n\nHe rode on, the fog of his mind growing ever thicker.\n\nEight hundred warriors crouched motionless, ghostly, amidst the boulders on the plain. Wearing dulled armour and telabas the colour of the terrain around them, they were virtually invisible, and Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas felt a surge of dark pride, even as another part of his mind wondered at Leoman's protracted... hesitation.\n\nTheir warchief lay flat on the slope's rise ten paces ahead. He had not moved in sometime. Despite the chill, sweat trickled beneath Corabb's armour, and he shifted his grip once more on the unfamiliar tulwar in his right hand. He'd always preferred axe-like weapons– something with a haft he could, if need be, grip with his other hand. He disliked the blade edge that reached down all the way to the hilt and wished he'd had time to file it blunt for the first half of its length.\n\nI am a warrior who cannot tolerate sharp edges close to his body. Which spirits thought to make of me such an embodiment of confused irony? I curse them all.\n\nHe could wait no longer, and slowly crawled up alongside Leoman of the Rails." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Beyond the crest sprawled another basin, this one hummocked and thick with thorny brush." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It flanked the encamped Malazan army on this side, and was between sixty and seventy paces in breadth.\n\n\"Foolish,\" Corabb muttered, \"to have chosen to stop here. I think we need have nothing to fear from this Adjunct.\"\n\nThe breath slowly hissed between Leoman's teeth.\"Aye, plenty of cover for our approach. '\n\n\"Then why do we wait, Warchief?\"\n\n\"I am wondering, Corabb.\"\n\n\"Wondering?\"\n\n\"About the Empress. She was once Mistress of the Claw. Its fierce potency was given shape by her, and we have all learned to fear those mage-assassins. Ominous origins, yes? And then, as Empress, there were the great leaders of her imperial military. Dujek Onearm. Admiral Nok. Coltaine. Greymane.\"\n\n\"But here, this night, Warchief, we face none of those.\"\n\n\"True. We face the Adjunct Tavore, who was personally chosen by the Empress. To act as the fist of her vengeance.\"\n\nCorabb frowned, then he shrugged. \"Did the Empress not also choose High Fist Pormqual? Korbolo Dom? Did she not demote Whiskeyjack– the fiercest Malazan our tribes ever faced? And, if the tales are true, she was also responsible for the assassination of Dassem Ultor.\"\n\n\"Your words are sharp, Corabb. She is not immune to grave... errors in judgement. Well then, let us make her pay for them.\" He twisted round and gestured his warriors forward.\n\nCorabb Bhilan Thenu'alas grinned. Perhaps the spirits would smile on him this night. Pray that I find a worthy axe or mace among the countless dead Malazan soldiers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Borduke's squad had found a small hill for their position, swearing and cursing as they clawed their way to its modest summit, then began digging holes and repositioning rocks.\n\nTheir hill was likely some old round barrow– the hummocks in this basin were far too regular to be natural. Twenty paces away, Fiddler listened to the 6th squad marines muttering and shuffling about on their strong-point, their efforts punctuated every now and then by Borduke's impatient growl. Fifty paces to the west another squad was digging in on another hill, and the sergeant began to wonder if they'd held off too long. Barrows tended to be big heaps of rocks beneath the cloak of sandy soil, after all, and burrowing into them was never easy. He could hear rocks being pried loose, iron shovels grating on heavy granite, and a few tumbling wildly down the hillsides through the thick, brittle bushes.\n\nHood's breath, how clumsy do you idiots have to get?\n\nAs Corabb was about to move onto the next cover, Leoman's gloved hand reached out and snagged his shoulder. The warrior froze.\n\nAnd now he could hear it. There were soldiers in the basin.\n\nLeoman moved up alongside him. \"Outlying pickets,\" he muttered under his breath. \"On those barrows. It seems she's sent us a gift after all, \"the Warchief added with a grin.\"Listen to them stumble about– they waited too long, and now the darkness confounds them. '\n\nThere was no difficulty in locating the enemy positions– they'd selected the barrows one and all, and were making loud work of digging in. And, Corabb realized, they were spaced too far apart for mutual support. Each position could be easily isolated, surrounded, and every last soldier slaughtered. Long before any relief could arrive from the main camp." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Likely, Corabb reflected as he slipped through the darkness towards the nearest enemy position, the Malazans had been anticipating a pre-dawn raid, identical to the first one. And so the Adjunct had ordered the emplacements as a pre-emptive measure. But, as Leoman had once explained to him, every element of an army in the field needed to follow the rules of mutual support– even the pickets where first contact would occur. Clearly, the Adjunct had failed to apply this most basic tenet.\n\nAdded to her inability to control her Seti horse warriors, this was further proof, in Corabb's eyes, of Tavore's incompetence.\n\nHe adjusted his grip on the tulwar, halting fifteen paces from the nearest strong-point. He could actually seethe helms of at least two of the Malazan soldiers, poking up over the holes they had dug. Corabb concentrated on slowing his breathing, and waited for the signal.\n\nGamet reined in at the edge of the now unoccupied marine camp. The quiet call would have gone out through the rest of the army, awakening the cutters and healers. Precautionary, of course, since there was noway to predict whether the raiders would attack from the approach the Adjunct had arranged. Given that all the other angles held either natural obstacles or easily defensible positions, the desert warleader might well balk at such an obvious invitation. Ashe waited, the Fist began to think that nothing would come of this gambit, at least on this night. And what were the chances that a day's march would bring the army to yet another ideal combination of terrain and timing?\n\nHe settled back in the saddle, the strange, cloying lassitude in his mind deepening. The night had, if anything, grown even darker, the stars struggling to pierce the veil of suspended dust." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Proceed with the plot as the storytelling partner.\nTags: epic fantasy, character study, power struggles, resilience, destiny\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: House of Chains\nChapter: 31" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And the voices within the song... strange, yet familiar. Like friends... who never sang a word in their lives. Nothing to quell the spirit– no, these voices give music to war...\n\nHe collected his waterskin and drank deep to wash the taste of dust from his mouth, then spent a few moments checking his weapons and gear. By the time he was done his heart had slowed and the trembling was gone from his hands.\n\nHe did not think it likely that the Whirlwind Goddess would detect his presence, so long as he travelled through shadows at every opportunity. And, in a sense, he well knew, night itself was naught but a shadow. Provided he hid well during the day, he expected to be able to reach Sha'ik's encampment undiscovered.\n\nShouldering his pack, he set off. The stars overhead were barely visible through the suspended dust. Raraku, for all its wild, blasted appearance, was crisscrossed with countless trails. Many led to false or poisoned springs; others to an equally certain death in the wastes of sand. And beneath the skein of footpaths and old tribal cairns, the remnants of coastal roads wound atop the ridges, linking what would have been islands in avast, shallow bay long ago.\n\nKalam made his way in a steady jog across a stone-littered depression where a half-dozen ships– the wood petrified and looking like grey bones in the gloom– had scattered their remnants in the hard-packed clay. The Whirlwind had lifted the mantle of sands to reveal Raraku's prehistory, the long-lost civilizations that had known only darkness for millennia. The scene was vaguely disturbing, as if whispering back to the nightmares that had plagued his sleep.\n\nAnd that damned song." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The bones of sea-creatures crunched underfoot as the assassin continued on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no wind, the air almost preternatural in its stillness. Two hundred paces ahead, the land rose once more, climbing to an ancient, crumbled causeway. A glance up to the ridge froze Kalam in his tracks. He dropped low, hands closing on the grips of his long-knives.\n\nA column of soldiers was walking along the causeway. Helmed heads lowered, burdened with wounded comrades, pikes wavering and glinting in the grainy darkness.\n\nKalam judged their numbers as close to six hundred. A third of the way along the column rose a standard. Affixed to the top of the pole was a human ribcage, the ribs bound together by leather strips, in which two skulls had been placed. Antlers rode the shaft all the way down to the bearer's pallid hands.\n\nThe soldiers marched in silence.\n\nHood's breath. They're ghosts.\n\nThe assassin slowly straightened. Strode forward. He ascended the slope until he stood, like someone driven to the roadside by the army's passage, whilst the soldiers shambled past– those on his side close enough to reach out and touch, were they flesh and blood.\n\n\"He walks up from the sea.\"\n\nKalam started. An unknown language, yet he understood it. A glance back– and the depression he had just crossed was filled with shimmering water. Five ships rode low in the waters a hundred sweeps of the oar offshore, three of them inflames, shedding ashes and wreckage as they drifted. Of the remaining two, one was fast sinking, whilst the last seemed lifeless, bodies visible on its deck and in the rigging.\n\n\"A soldier.\"\n\n\"A killer.\"\n\n\"Too many spectres on this road, friends. Are we not haunted enough?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aye, Dessimbelackis throws endless legions at us, and no matter how many we slaughter, the First Emperor finds more.\"\n\n\"Not true, Kullsan. Five of the Seven Protectors are no more. Does that mean nothing? And the sixth will not recover, now that we have banished the black beast itself.\"\n\n\"I wonder, did we indeed drive it from this realm?\"\n\n\"If the Nameless Ones speak true, then yes-\"\n\n\"Your question, Kullsan, confuses me. Are we not marching from the city? Were we not just victorious?\"\n\nThe conversation had begun to fade as the soldiers who had been speaking marched onward, but Kalam heard the doubting Kullsan's reply:\"Then why is our road lined with ghosts, Erethal? '\n\nMore importantly, Kalam added to himself, why is mine?\n\nHe waited as the last of the soldiers marched past, then stepped forward to cross the ancient road.\n\nAnd saw, on the opposite side, a tall, gaunt figure in faded orange robes. Black pits for eyes. One fleshless hand gripping an ivory staff carved spirally, on which the apparition leaned as if it was the only thing holding it up.\n\n\"Listen to them now, spirit from the future,\" it rasped, cocking its head.\n\nAnd now Kalam heard it. The ghost soldiers had begun singing.\n\nSweat sprang out on the assassin's midnight skin. I've heard that song before... or no, something just like it. A variation... \"What in the Abyss... You, Tanno Spiritwalker, explain this-\"\n\n\"Spiritwalker? Is that the name I will acquire? Is it an honorific? Or the acknowledgement of a curse?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do you mean, priest?\"\n\n\"I am no priest. I am Tanno, the Eleventh and last Seneschal of Yaraghatan, banished by the First Emperor for my treasonous alliance with the Nameless Ones. Did you know what he would do? Would any of us have guessed? Seven Protectors indeed, but far more than that, oh yes, far more...\" Steps halting, the spectre walked onto the road and began dragging itself along in the wake of the column. \"I gave them a song, to mark their last battle,\" it rasped. \"I gave them that at least...\"\n\nKalam watched as the figures disappeared into the darkness. He swung about. The sea was gone, the basin's bones revealed once more. He shivered. Why am I witness to these things? I'm reasonably certain I'm not dead... although I soon might be, I suppose. Are these death-visions? He had heard of such things, but held little stock in them. Hood's embrace was far too random to be knotted into the skein of fate... until it had already occurred– or so the assassin's experience told him.\n\nHe shook his head and crossed the road, slipping down the crumbling verge to the boulder-strewn flat beyond. This stretch had once been naught but dunes, before the Whirlwind's rise. Its elevation was higher– perhaps twice the height of a man– than the ancient seabed he had just traversed, and here, beyond the tumbled stones, lay the gridwork foundations of a city. Deep canals cut through it, and he could make out where bridges had once spanned them here and there. Few of the wall foundations rose higher than the assassin's shins, but some of the buildings looked to have been large– a match to anything found in Unta, or Malaz City. Deep pits marked where cisterns had been built, where the seawater from the other side of the causeway could, stripped of salt by the intervening sands, collect. The remnants of terraces indicated a proliferation of public gardens." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He set out, and soon found himself walking down what had once been a main thoroughfare, aligned north– south. The ground underfoot was a thick, solid carpet of potsherds, scoured and bleached by sand and salt. And now I am like a ghost, the last to walk these thoroughfares, with every wall transparent, every secret revealed.\n\nIt was then that he heard horses.\n\nKalam sprinted to the nearest cover, a set of sunken stairs that once led to the subterranean level of a large building. The thump of horse hoofs drew closer, approaching from one of the side avenues on the opposite side of the main street. The assassin ducked lower as the first rider appeared.\n\nPardu.\n\nDrawing rein, cautious, weapons out. Then a gesture. Four more desert warriors appeared, followed by a fifth Pardu, this last one a shaman, Kalam concluded, given the man's wild hair, fetishes and ratty goat-hide cape. Glaring about, eyes glinting as if raging with some internal fire, the shaman drew out along bone and began waving it in circles overhead. Then he lifted his head and loudly sniffed the air.\n\nKalam slowly eased his long-knives from their scabbards.\n\nThe shaman growled a few words, then pivoted on the high Pardu saddle and slipped to the ground. He landed badly, twisting an ankle, and spent the next few moments hobbling about, cursing and spitting. His warriors swung down from their horses in a more graceful fashion, and Kalam caught the flash of a quickly hidden grin from one of them.\n\nThe shaman began stamping around, muttering under his breath, reaching up with his freehand to tug at his tangled hair every now and then. And in his movements Kalam saw the beginnings of a ritual." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something told the assassin that these Pardu did not belong to Sha'ik's Army of the Apocalypse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were too furtive by far. He slowly sheathed his otataral long-knife and settled back in the deep shadow of the recess, to wait, and watch.\n\nThe shaman's muttering had fallen into a rhythmic cadence, and he reached into a bag of sewn hides at his belt, collecting a handful of small objects which he began scattering about as he walked his endless circle. Black and glittering, the objects crackled and popped on the ground as if they had been just plucked from a hearth. An acrid stench wafted out from the ritual circle.\n\nKalam never discovered if what occurred next had been intended; without doubt its conclusion was not. The darkness lying heavy on the street seemed to convulsively explode– and then screams tore the air. Two massive beasts had arrived, immediately attacking the Pardu warriors. As if darkness itself had taken form, only the shimmer of their sleek hides betrayed their presence, and they moved with blurring speed, amidst spraying blood and snapping bones. The shaman shrieked as one of the enormous beasts closed. Huge blackhead swung to one side, jaws opening wide, and the shaman's head vanished within the maw. A wet crunch as the jaws ground shut.\n\nThe hound– for that, Kalam realized, was what it was– then stepped away, as the shaman's headless body staggered back, then sat down with a thump.\n\nThe other hound had begun feeding on the corpses of the Pardu warriors, and the sickening sound of breaking bones continued.\n\nThese, Kalam could well see, were not Hounds of Shadow. If anything, they were larger, bulkier, massing more like a bear than a dog. Yet, as they now filled their bellies with raw human flesh, they moved with savage grace, primal and deadly. Devoid of fear and supremely confident, as if this strange place they had come to was as familiar to them as their own hunting grounds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sight of them made the assassin's skin crawl. Motionless, he had slowed his own breathing, then the pace of his heart. There were no other alternatives available to him, at least until the hounds left.\n\nBut they seemed to be in no hurry, both settling down to split the last long bones and gnaw at joints.\n\nHungry, these bastards. Wonder where they came from... and what they're going to do now.\n\nThen one lifted its head, and stiffened. With a deep grunt it rose. The other continued crunching through a human knee, seemingly indifferent to its companion's sudden tension.\n\nEven when the beast turned to stare at the place where Kalam crouched.\n\nIt came at him fast.\n\nKalam leapt up the worn stairs, one hand reaching into the folds of his telaba. He pivoted hard and sprinted, even as he flung his last handful of smoky diamonds– his own cache, not Iskaral Pust's– into his wake.\n\nA skittering of claws immediately behind him, and he flung himself to one side, rolling over a shoulder as the hound flashed through the place where he had been a moment earlier. The assassin continued rolling until he was on his feet once more, tugging desperately at the whistle looped around his neck.\n\nThe hound skidded across dusty flagstones, legs cycling wildly beneath it as it twisted around.\n\nA glance showed the other hound entirely unmindful, still gnawing away in the street beyond.\n\nThen Kalam clamped the whistle between his teeth. He scrambled in a half-circle to bring the scatter of diamonds between himself and the attacking hound.\n\nAnd blew through the bone tube as hard as he could." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Five azalan demons rose from the ancient stone floor. There seemed to be no moment of disorientation among them, for three of the five closed instantly on the nearer hound, whilst the remaining two flanked Kalam as they clambered, in a blur of limbs, towards the hound in the street. Which finally looked up.\n\nCurious as he might have been to witness the clash of behemoths, Kalam wasted no time in lingering. He ran, angling southward as he leapt over wall foundations, skirted around black-bottomed pits, and set his gaze fixedly on the higher ground fifteen hundred paces distant.\n\nSnaps and snarls and the crash and grind of tumbling stones evinced an ongoing battle in the main street behind him. My apologies, Shadowthrone... but at least one of your demons should survive long enough to escape. In which case, you will be informed of anew menace unleashed on this world. And consider this– if there's two of them, there's probably more.\n\nHe ran onward through the night, until all sounds behind him vanished.\n\nAn evening of surprises. Ina jewelmonger's kiosk in G'danisban. At a sumptuous, indolent dinner shared by a Kaleffa merchant and one of his prized client's equally prized wives. And in Ehrlitan, among a fell gathering of flesh-traders and murderers plotting the betrayal of a Malazan collaborator who had issued a secret invitation to Admiral Nok's avenging fleet– which even now was rounding the Otataral Sea on its way to an ominous rendezvous with eleven transports approaching from Genabackis– a collaborator who, it would turnout, would awaken the next morning not only hale, but no longer facing imminent assassination. And on the coastal caravan trail twenty leagues west of Ehrlitan, the quietude of the night would be broken by horrified screams– loud and lingering, sufficient to awaken a maul-fisted old man living alone in a tower overlooking the Otataral Sea, if only momentarily, before he rolled over and fell once more into dreamless, restful sleep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the distant, virtually inaudible whistle, countless smoky diamonds that had originated from a trader in G'danisban's market round crumbled into dust– whether placed for safe-keeping in locked chests, worn as rings or pendants, or residing in a merchant's hoard. And from the dust rose azalan demons, awakened long before their intended moment. But that suited them just fine.\n\nThey had, one and all, appointed tasks that demanded a certain solitude, at least initially. Making it necessary to quickly silence every witness, which the azalan were pleased to do. Proficiently and succinctly.\n\nFor those that had appeared in the ruins of a city in Raraku, however, to find two creatures whose existence was very nearly lost to the demons' racial memory, the moments immediately following their arrival proved somewhat more problematic. For it became quickly apparent that the hounds were not inclined to relinquish their territory, such as it was.\n\nThe fight was fierce and protracted, concluding unsatisfactorily for the five azalan, who were eventually driven off, battered and bleeding and eager to seek deep shadows in which to hide from the coming day. To hide, and lick their wounds.\n\nAnd in the realm known as Shadow, a certain god sat motionless on his insubstantial throne. Already recovered from his shock, his mind was racing.\n\nRacing.\n\nGrinding, splintering wood, mast snapping overhead to drag cordage down, a heavy concussion that shivered through the entire craft, then only the sound of water dripping onto a stone floor.\n\nWith a muted groan, Cutter dragged himself upright. \"Apsalar?\"\n\n\"I'm here. '\n\nTheir voices echoed. Walls and ceiling were close– the runner had landed in a chamber." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So much for subtle,\" the Daru muttered, searching for his pack amidst the wreckage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've a lantern. Give me a moment. '\n\n\"I am not going anywhere,\" she replied from somewhere near the stern.\n\nHer words chilled him, so forlorn did they sound. His groping hands closed on his pack and he dragged it close. He rummaged inside until his hand closed on and retrieved first the small lantern and then the tinderbox.\n\nThe fire-making kit was from Darujhistan, and consisted of flint andiron bar, wick-sticks, igniting powder, the fibrous inner lining from tree bark, and along-burning gel the city's alchemists rendered from the gas-filled caverns beneath the city. Sparks flashed three times before the powder caught with a hiss and flare of flame. The bark lining followed, then, dipping a wick-stick into the gel, Cutter set it alight. He then transferred the flame to the lantern.\n\nA sphere of light burgeoned in the chamber, revealing the crushed wreckage of the runner, rough-hewn stonewalls and vaulted ceiling. Apsalar was still seated near the splintered shaft of the tiller, barely illumined by the lantern's light. More like an apparition than a flesh and blood person.\n\n\"I see a doorway beyond,\" she said.\n\nHe swung about, lifting the lantern. \"All right, at least we're not in a tomb, then. More like some kind of storage room. '\n\n\"I smell dust... and sand.\"\n\nHe slowly nodded, then scowled in sudden suspicion. \"Let's do some exploring, \"he grated as he began collecting his gear, including the bow. He froze at a chittering sound from the doorway, looked up to see a score of eyes, gleaming with the lantern's reflected light. Close-set but framing the doorway on all sides, including the arch where, Cutter suspected, they were hanging upside down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bhok'arala, \"Apsalar said.\"We've returned to Seven Cities.\"\n\n\"I know,\" the Daru replied, wanting to spit. \"We spent most of last year trudging across that damned wasteland, and now we're back where we started. '\n\n\"So it would seem. So, Crokus, are you enjoying being the plaything of a god?\"\n\nHe saw little value in replying to that question, and chose instead to clamber down to the puddled floor and approach the doorway.\n\nThe bhok'arala scampered with tiny shrieks, vanishing into the darkness of the hallway beyond. Cutter paused at the threshold and glanced back.\"Coming? '\n\nApsalar shrugged in the gloom, then made her way forward.\n\nThe corridor ran straight and level for twenty paces, then twisted to the right, the floor forming an uneven, runnelled ramp that led upward to the next level. There were no side chambers or passages until they reached a circular room, where sealed doorways lining the circumference hinted at entrances to tombs. In one curved wall, between two such doorways, there was an alcove in which stairs were visible.\n\nAnd crouched at the base of those stairs was a familiar figure, teeth gleaming in a wide smile.\n\n\"Iskaral Pust!\"\n\n\"Missed me, didn't you, lad? \"He edged forward like a crab, then cocked his head.\"I should soothe him now– both of them, yes. Welcoming words, a wide embrace, old friends, yes, reunited in a great cause once more. Never mind the extremity of what will be demanded of us in the days and nights to come. As if I need help– Iskaral Pust requires the assistance of no-one. Oh, she might be useful, but she hardly looks inclined, does she? Miserable with knowledge, is my dear lass. \"He straightened, managing something between an upright stance and a crouch. His smile suddenly broadened.\"Welcome! My friends! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cutter advanced on him. \"I've no time for any of this, you damned weasel-'\n\n\"No time? Of course you have, lad! There's much to be done, and much time in which to do it! Doesn't that make fora change? Rush about? Not us. No, we can dawdle! Isn't that wonderful? '\n\n\"What does Cotillion want of us?\" Cutter demanded, forcing his fists to unclench.\n\n\"You are asking me what Cotillion wants of you? How should I know?\" He ducked down. \"Does he believe me?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"No what? Have you lost your mind, lad? You won't find it here! Although my wife might– she's ever cleaning and clearing up– at least, I think she is. Though she refuses to touch the offerings– my little bhok'arala children leave them everywhere I go, of course. I've become used to the smell. Now, where was I? Oh yes, dearest Apsalar– should you and I flirt? Won't that make the witch spit and hiss! Hee hee! '\n\n\"I'd rather flirt with a bhok'aral,\" she replied.\n\n\"That too– I'm not the jealous type, you'll be relieved to hear, lass. Plenty of'em about for you to choose from, in any case. Now, are you hungry? Thirsty? Hope you brought your own supplies. Just head on up these stairs, and when she asks, you haven't seen me.\"\n\nIskaral Pust stepped back and vanished.\n\nApsalar sighed. \"Perhaps his... wife will prove a more reasonable host.\"\n\nCutter glanced back at her. Somehow I doubt it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There is no death in light.\"\n\nAnarmann, High Priest of Osserc\n\n\"Mezla one and all,\" Febryl muttered as he hobbled along the worn, dusty path, his breath growing harsher. There was little in this world that much pleased him anymore. Malazans. His failing body. The blind insanity of power so brutally evinced in the Whirlwind Goddess. In his mind, the world was plunging into chaos, and all that it had been– all that he had been– was trapped in the past.\n\nBut the past was not dead. It merely slept. The perfect, measured resurrection of old patterns could achieve a rebirth. Not a rebirth such as had taken Sha'ik– that had been nothing more than the discarding of one, badly worn vessel fora new one not nearly so battered. No, the rebirth Febryl imagined was far more profound.\n\nHe had once served the Holy Falah'd Enqura. The Holy City of Ugarat and its host of tributary cities had been in the midst of a renaissance. Eleven great schools of learning were thriving in Ugarat. Knowledge long lost was being rediscovered. The flower of a great civilization had turned to face the sun, had begun to open.\n\nThe Mezla and their implacable legions had destroyed... everything. Ugarat had fallen to Dassem Ultor. The schools were assailed by soldiers, only to discover, to their fury, that their many riches and texts had, along with philosophers and academics, vanished. Enqura had well understood the Mezla thirst for knowledge, the Emperor's lust for foreign secrets, and the city's Holy Protector would give them nothing. Instead, he had commanded Febryl, a week before the arrival of the Malazan armies, to shutdown the schools, to confiscate the hundred thousand scrolls and bound volumes, the ancient relics of the First Empire, and the teachers and scholars themselves. By the Protector's decree, Ugarat's coliseum became the site of avast conflagration, as everything was burned, destroyed. The scholars were crucified– those that did not fling themselves on the pyre in a fit of madness and grief– and their bodies dumped into the pits containing the smashed relics just outside the city wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Febryl had done as he had been commanded. His last gesture of loyalty, of pure, unsullied courage. The terrible act was necessary. Enqura's denial was perhaps the greatest defiance in the entire war. One for which the Holy Protector paid with his life, when the horror that was said to have struck Dassem Ultor upon hearing of the deed transformed into rage.\n\nFebryl's loss of faith had come in the interval, and it had left him a broken man. In following Enqura's commands, he had so outraged his mother and father– both learned nobles in their own right– that they had disowned him to his face. And Febryl had lost his mind that night, recovering his sanity with dawn staining the horizon, to find that he had murdered his parents. And their servants. That he had unleashed sorcery to flay the flesh from the guards. That such power had poured through him as to leave him old beyond his years, wrinkled and withered, his bones brittle and bent.\n\nThe old man hobbling out through the city gate that day was beneath notice. Enqura searched for him, but Febryl succeeded in evading the Holy Protector, in leaving the man to his fate.\n\nUnforgivable.\n\nA hard word, a truth harder than stone. But Febryl was never able to decide to which crime it applied. Three betrayals, or two? Was the destruction of all that knowledge– the slaying of all those scholars and teachers– was it, as the Mezla and other Falad'han later pronounced– the foulest deed of all? Fouler even than the T'lan Imass rising to slaughter the citizens of Aren? So much so that Enqura's name has become a curse for Mezla and natives of Seven Cities alike? Three, not two?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And the bitch knew. She knew his every secret. It had not been enough to change his name; not enough that he had the appearance of an old man, when the High Mage Iltara, most trusted servant to Enqura, had been young, tall and lusted after by both men and women? No, she had obliterated, seemingly effortlessly, his every barricade, and plundered the pits of his soul.\n\nUnforgivable.\n\nNo possessor of his secrets could be permitted to live. He refused to be so... vulnerable. To anyone. Even Sha'ik. Especially Sha'ik.\n\nAnd so she must be removed. Even if it means dealing with Mezla. He had no illusions about Korbolo Dom. The Napan's ambitions– no matter what claims he made at present– went far beyond this rebellion. No, his ambitions were imperial. Somewhere to the south, Mallick Rel, the Jhistal priest of Elder Mael, was trekking towards Aren, thereto surrender himself. He would, in turn, be brought before the Empress herself.\n\nAnd then what? That snake of a priest would announce an extraordinary reversal of fortunes in Seven Cities. Korbolo Dom had been working in her interests all along. Or some such nonsense. Febryl was certain of his suspicions. Korbolo Dom wanted a triumphant return into the imperial fold. Probably the title of High Fist of Seven Cities as well. Mallick Rel would have twisted his part in the events at the Fall and immediately afterwards. The dead man, Pormqual, would be made the singular focus for the debacle of Coltaine's death and the slaying of the High Fist's army. The Jhistal would slip through, somehow, or, if all went awry, he would somehow manage to escape. Korbolo Dom, Febryl believed, had agents in the palace in Unta– what was being played out herein Raraku was but a tremble on a much vaster web." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But I shall defeat it in the end." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even if I must appear to acquiesce right now. He has accepted my conditions, after all-a lie, of course-and I in turn accept his-another lie, naturally.\n\nHe had walked through the outskirts of the city and now found himself in the wilder region of the oasis. The trail had the appearance of long disuse, covered in crackling, dried palm fronds and gourd husks, and Febryl knew his careless passage was destroying that illusion, but he was indifferent to that. Korbolo's killers would repair the mess, after all. It fed their self-deceptions well enough.\n\nHe rounded a bend in the path and entered a clearing ringed in low stones. There had once been a well here, but the sands had long since filled it. Kamist Reloe stood near the centre, hooded and vulpine, with four of Korbolo's assassins positioned in a half-circle behind him.\n\n\"You're late, ' Kamist Reloe hissed.\n\nFebryl shrugged. \"Do I look like a prancing foal? Now, have you begun the preparations?\"\n\n\"The knowledge here is yours, Febryl, not mine.\"\n\nFebryl hissed, then waved one claw-like hand. \"No matter. There's still time. Your words only remind me that I must suffer fools-'\n\n\"You're not alone in that, ' Kamist Reloe drawled.\n\nFebryl hobbled forward. \"The path your... servants would take is along one. It has not been trod by mortals since the First Empire. It has likely grown treacherous-\"\n\n\"Enough warnings, Febryl,\" Kamist Reloe snapped, his fear showing through. \"You need only open the path. That is all we ask of you– all we have ever asked.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You need more than that, Kamist Reloe,\" Febryl said with a smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Would you have these fools stride in blind? The goddess was a spirit, once-\"\n\n\"That is no secret.\"\n\n\"Perhaps, but what kind of spirit? One that rides the desert winds, you might think. But you are wrong. A spirit of stone? Sand? No, none of these.\" He waved one hand. \"Look about you. Raraku holds the bones of countless civilizations, leading back to the First Empire, the empire of Dessimbelackis. And still further– aye, the signs of that are mostly obliterated, yet some remain, if one has the eyes to see... and understand.\" He limped over to one of the low stones ringing the clearing, struggling to hide the wince of pain from his overworked bones. \"Were you to dig down through this sand, Kamist Reloe, you would discover that these boulders are in fact menhirs, stones standing taller than any of us here. And their flanks are pitted and grooved in strange patterns...\"\n\nKamist swung in a slow circle, studying the protruding rocks with narrowed eyes. \"T'lan Imass? '\n\nFebryl nodded. \"The First Empire of Dessimbelackis, Kamist Reloe, was not the first. That belonged to the T'lan Imass. There was little, it is true, that you or I might recognize as being... imperial. No cities. No breaking of the ground to plant crops or irrigate. And its armies were undead. There was a throne, of course, upon which was meant to sit a mortal– the progeny race of the T'lan Imass. A human. Alas, humans viewed empire... differently. And their vision did not include T'lan Imass. Thus, betrayal. Then war. An unequal contest, but the T'lan Imass were reluctant to annihilate their mortal children. And so they left-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Only to return with the shattering of the warren,\" Kamist Reloe muttered, nodding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When the chaos erupted with the ritual of Soletaken and D'ivers. \"He faced Febryl once more.\"The goddess spirit is... was... T'lan Imass?\"\n\nFebryl shrugged. \"There were once texts– inscribed on fired clay– from a cult of the First Empire, copies of which survived until the fall of Ugarat. The few T'lan Imass the humans managed to destroy when they rebelled were each buried in sacred sites. Sites such as this one, Kamist Reloe. '\n\nBut the other mage shook his head. \"She is a creature of rage. Such fury does not belong to T'lan Imass-'\n\n\"Unless she had reason. Memories of a betrayal, perhaps, from her mortal life. A wound too deep to be eradicated by the Ritual of Tellann.\" Febryl shrugged. \"It does not matter. The spirit is T'lan Imass. '\n\n\"It is rather late in the day for you to be revealing this to us,\" Kamist Reloe growled, turning his head to spit. \"Does the Ritual of Tellann still bind her?\"\n\n\"No. She broke those chains long ago and has reclaimed her soul– Raraku's secret gifts are those of life and death, as primal as existence itself. It returned to her all that she had lost– perhaps even the rebirth of her rage. Raraku, Kamist Reloe, remains the deepest mystery of all, for it holds its own memories... of the sea, of life's very own waters. And memories are power.\"\n\nKamist Reloe drew his cloak tighter about his gaunt form. \"Open the path.\"\n\nAnd when I have done this for you and your Mezla friends, High Mage, you will be indebted tome, and my desires. Seven Cities shall be liberated. The Malazan Empire will withdraw all interests, and our civilization shall flower once more..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stepped to the centre of the ring of stones and raised his hands.\n\nSomething was coming. Bestial and wild with power. And with each passing moment, as it drew ever nearer, L'oric's fear grew. Ancient wars... such is the feel of this, as of enmity reborn, a hatred that defies millennia. And though he sensed that no-one mortal in the oasis city was the subject of that wrath, the truth remained that... we are all in the way.\n\nHe needed to learn more. But he was at a loss as to which path he should take. Seven Cities was a land groaning beneath unseen burdens. Its skin was thick with layers, weathered hard. Their secrets were not easily prised loose, especially in Raraku.\n\nHe sat cross-legged on the floor of his tent, head lowered, thoughts racing. The Whirlwind's rage had never before been so fierce, leading him to suspect that the Malazan army was drawing close, that the final clash of wills was fast approaching. This was, in truth, a convergence, and the currents had trapped other powers, pulling them along with relentless force.\n\nAnd behind it all, the whispers of a song...\n\nHe should flee this place. Take Felisin– and possibly Heboric as well– with him. And soon. Yet curiosity held him here, at least for the present. Those layers were splitting, and there would be truths revealed, and he would know them. I came to Raraku because I sensed my father's presence... somewhere close. Perhaps here no longer, but he had been, not long ago. The chance of finding his trail...\n\nThe Queen of Dreams had said Osric was lost. What did that mean? How? Why? He hungered for answers to such questions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kurald Thyrllan had been born of violence, the shattering of Darkness. The Elder Warren had since branched off in many directions, reaching to within the grasp of mortal humans as Thyr. And, before that, in the guise of life-giving fire, Tellann.\n\nTellann was a powerful presence herein Seven Cities, obscure and buried deep perhaps, but pervasive none the less. Whereas Kurald Thyrllan had been twisted and left fraught by the shattering of its sister warren. There were no easy passages into Thyrllan, as he well knew.\n\nVery well, then. I shall try Tellann.\n\nHe sighed, then slowly climbed to his feet. There were plenty of risks, of course. Collecting his bleached telaba in the crook of one arm, he moved to the chest beside his cot. He crouched, passing a handover it to temporarily dispel its wards, then lifted back the lid.\n\nLiosan armour, the white enamel gouged and scarred. A visored helm of the same material, the leather underlining webbed over eyes and cheeks by black iron mail. Alight, narrow-bladed longsword, its point long and tapering, scabbarded in pale wood.\n\nHe drew the armour on, including the helm, then pulled his telaba over it, raising the hood as well. Leather gauntlets and sword and belt followed.\n\nThen he paused.\n\nHe despised fighting. Unlike his Liosan kin, he was averse to harsh judgement, to the assertion of a brutally delineated world-view that permitted no ambiguity. He did not believe order could be shaped by a sword's edge. Finality, yes, but finality stained with failure.\n\nNecessity was a most bitter flavour, but he saw no choice and so would have to suffer the taste." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Once more he would have to venture forth, through the encampment, drawing ever so carefully on his powers to remain unseen by mortals yet beneath the notice of the goddess." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ferocity of her anger was his greatest ally, and he would have to trust in that.\n\nHe set out.\n\nThe sun was a crimson glare behind the veil of suspended sand, still a bell from setting, when L'oric reached the Toblakai's glade. He found Felisin sleeping beneath the shade they had rigged between three poles on the side opposite the carved trees, and decided he would leave her to her rest. Instead, sparing a single bemused glance at the two Teblor statues, he strode over to stand before the seven stone faces.\n\nTheir spirits were long gone, if they had ever been present. These mysterious T'lan Imass who were Toblakai's gods. And the sanctification had been wrested from them, leaving this place sacred to something else. But a fissure remained, the trail, perhaps, from a brief visitation. Sufficient, he hoped, for him to breach away into the Warren of Tellann.\n\nHe unveiled power, forcing his will into the fissure, widening it until he was able to step through-\n\nOnto a muddy beach at the edge of avast lake. His boots sank to the ankles. Clouds of insects flitted up from the shoreline to swarm around him. L'oric paused, stared upward at an overcast sky. The air was sultry with late spring.\n\nI am in the wrong place... or the wrong time. This is Raraku's most ancient memory.\n\nHe faced inland. A marshy flat extended for another twenty paces, the reeds waving in the mild wind, then the terrain rose gently onto savanna. A low ridge of darker hills marked the horizon. A few majestic trees rose from the grasslands, filled with raucous white-winged birds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A flash of movement in the reeds caught his attention, and his hand reached for the hilt of his sword as a bestial head appeared, followed by humped shoulders. A hyena, such as could be found west of Aren and, more rarely, in Karashimesh, but this one was as large as a bear. It lifted its wide, stubby head, nose testing the air, eyes seeming to squint.\n\nThe hyena took a step forward.\n\nL'oric slid the sword from the scabbard.\n\nAt the blade's hiss the beast reared up, lunging to its left, and bolted into the reeds.\n\nHe could mark its flight by the waving stalks, then it appeared once more, sprinting up the slope.\n\nL'oric resheathed his weapon. He strode from the muddy bank, intending to take the trail the hyena had broken through the reeds, and, four paces in, came upon the gnawed remains of a corpse. Far along in its decay, limbs scattered by the scavenger's feeding, it was a moment before the High Mage could comprehend its form. Humanoid, he concluded. As tall as a normal man, yet what remained of its skin revealed a pelt of fine dark hair. The waters had bloated the flesh, suggesting the creature had drowned. A moment's search and he found the head.\n\nHe crouched down over it and was motionless for sometime.\n\nSloped forehead, solid chinless jaw, a brow ridge so heavy it formed a contiguous shelf over the deep-set eye sockets. The hair still clinging to fragments of scalp was little longer than what had covered the body, dark brown and wavy.\n\nMore ape-like than a T'lan Imass... the skull behind the face is smaller, as well. Yet it stood taller by far, more human in proportion. What manner of man was this?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no evidence of clothing, or any other sort of adornment. The creature– a male– had died naked.\n\nL'oric straightened. He could seethe hyena's route through the reeds, and he set out along it.\n\nThe overcast was burning away and the air growing hotter and, if anything, thicker. He reached the sward and stepped onto dry ground for the first time. The hyena was nowhere to be seen, and L'oric wondered if it was still running. An odd reaction, he mused, for which he could fashion no satisfactory explanation.\n\nHe had no destination in mind; nor was he even certain that what he sought would be found here. This was not, after all, Tellann. If anything, he had come to what lay beneath Tellann, as if the Imass, in choosing their sacred sites, had been in turn responding to a sensitivity to a still older power. He understood now that Toblakai's glade was not a place freshly sanctified by the giant warrior; nor even by the T'lan Imass he had worshipped as his gods. It had, at the very beginning, belonged to Raraku, to whatever natural power the land possessed. And so he had pushed through to a place of beginnings. But did I push, or was I pulled?\n\nA herd of huge beasts crested a distant rise on his right, the ground trembling as they picked up speed, stampeding in wild panic.\n\nL'oric hesitated. They were not running towards him, but he well knew that such stampedes could veer at anytime. Instead, they swung suddenly the other way, wheeling as a single mass. Close enough for him to make out their shapes. Similar to wild cattle, although larger and bearing stubby horns or antlers. Their hides were mottled white and tan, their long manes black." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wondered what had panicked them and swung his gaze back to the place where the herd had first appeared.\n\nL'oric dropped into a crouch, his heart pounding hard in his chest.\n\nSeven hounds, black as midnight, of a size to challenge the wild antlered cattle. Moving with casual arrogance along the ridge. And flanking them, like jackals flanking a pride of lions, a score or more of the half-human creatures such as the one he had discovered at the lakeshore. They were clearly subservient, in the role of scavengers to predators. No doubt there was some mutual benefit to the partnership, though L'oric could imagine no real threat in this world to those dark hounds.\n\nAnd, there was no doubt in his mind, those hounds did not belong here.\n\nIntruders. Strangers to this realm, against which nothing in this world can challenge. They are the dominators... and they know it.\n\nAnd now he saw that other observers were tracking the terrible beasts. K'Chain Che'Malle, three of them, the heavy blades at the end of their arms revealing that they were K'ell Hunters, were padding along a parallel course a few hundred paces distant from the hounds. Their heads were turned, fixed on the intruders– who in turn ignored them.\n\nNot of this world either, if my father's thoughts on the matter are accurate. He was Rake's guest for months in Moon's Spawn, delving its mysteries. But the K'Chain Che'Malle cities lie on distant continents. Perhaps they but recently arrived here, seeking new sites for their colonies... only to find their dominance challenged.\n\nIf the hounds saw L'oric, they made no sign of it. Nor did the half-humans." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The High Mage watched them continue on, until they finally dipped into a basin and disappeared from sight.\n\nThe K'ell Hunters all halted, then spread out cautiously and slowly closed to where the hounds had vanished.\n\nA fatal error.\n\nBlurs of darkness, launching up from the basin. The K'ell Hunters, suddenly surrounded, swung their massive swords. Yet, fast as they were, in the span of a single heartbeat two of the three were down, throats and bellies torn open. The third one had leapt high, sailing twenty paces to land in a thumping run.\n\nThe hounds did not pursue, gathering to sniff at the K'Chain Che'Malle corpses whilst the half-humans arrived with hoots and barks, a few males clambering onto the dead creatures and jumping up and down, arms waving.\n\nL'oric thought he now understood why the K'Chain Che'Malle had never established colonies on this continent.\n\nHe watched the hounds and the half-humans mill about the kill site fora while longer, then the High Mage began a cautious retreat, back to the lake. He was nearing the edge of the slope down to the reeds when his last parting glance over one shoulder revealed the seven beasts all facing in his direction, heads raised.\n\nThen two began a slow lope towards him. A moment later the remaining five fanned out and followed.\n\nOh...\n\nSudden calm descended upon him. He knew he was as good as already dead. There would be no time to open the warren to return to his own world– nor would he, in any case, since to do so would give the hounds a path to follow– and I'll not have their arrival in the oasis a crime staining my soul. Better to die here and now. Duly punished for my obsessive curiosity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hounds showed nothing of the speed they had unveiled against the K'ell Hunters, as if they sensed L'oric's comparative weakness.\n\nHe heard water rushing behind him and spun round.\n\nA dragon filled his vision, low over the water– so fast as to lift a thrashing wave in its wake– and the talons spread wide, the huge clawed hands reaching down.\n\nHe threw his arms over his face and head as the enormous scaled fingers closed like a cage around him, then snatched him skyward.\n\nA brief, disjointed glimpse of the hounds scattering from the dragon's shadow– the distant sound of half-human yelps and shrieks– then naught before his eyes but the glistening white belly of the dragon, seen between two curled talons.\n\nHe was carried far, out onto a sea, then towards an island where stood a squat tower, its flat roof broad and solid enough for the dragon, wings spreading to thunder against the air, to settle.\n\nThe claws opened, tumbling L'oric onto the gouged and scraped stones. He rolled up against the platform's low wall, then slowly sat up.\n\nAnd stared at the enormous gold and white dragon, its lambent eyes fixed upon him with, L'oric knew instinctively, reproach. The High Mage managed a shrug.\n\n\"Father,\" he said, \"I've been looking for you. '\n\nOsric was not one for furnishings and decor. The chamber beneath the platform was barren, its floor littered with the detritus left by nesting swallows, the air pungent with guano.\n\nL'oric leaned against a wall, arms crossed, watching his father pace.\n\nHe was pure Liosan in appearance, tall and pale as snow, his long, wavy hair silver and streaked with gold. His eyes seemed to rage with an inner fire, its tones a match to his hair, silver licked by gold. He was wearing plain grey leathers, the sword at his belt virtually identical to the one L'oric carried." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Father. The Queen of Dreams believes you lost,\" he said after along moment.\n\n\"I am. Or, rather, I was. Further, I would remain so.\"\n\n\"You do not trust her?\"\n\nHe paused, studied his son briefly, then said, \"Of course I trust her. And my trust is made purer by her ignorance. What are you doing here?\"\n\nSometimes longing is to be preferred to reality. L'oric sighed.\"I am not even sure where here is. I was... questing for truths. '\n\nOsric grunted and began pacing once more. \"You said earlier you were looking for me. How did you discover my trail?\"\n\n\"I didn't. My searching for you was more of a, ah, generalized sort of thing. This present excursion was an altogether different hunt. '\n\n\"That was about to see you killed.\"\n\nL'oric nodded. He looked around the chamber.\"You live here? '\n\nHis father grimaced. \"An observation point. The K'Chain Che'Malle skykeeps invariably approach from the north, over water.\"\n\n\"Skykeeps... such as Moon's Spawn? '\n\nA veiled glance, then a nod. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"And it was in Rake's floating fortress that you first embarked on the trail that took you here. What did you discover that the Tiste Andii Lord of Darkness didn't?\"\n\nOsric snorted. \"Only that which was at his very feet. Moon's Spawn bore signs of damage, of breaching. Then slaughter. None the less, a few survived, at least long enough to begin it on its journey home. North, out over the icefields. Of course, it never made it past those icefields. Did you know that the glacier that held Moon's Spawn had travelled a thousand leagues with its prize? A thousand leagues, L'oric, before Rake and I stumbled upon it north of Laederon Plateau. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are saying Moon's Spawn was originally one of these skykeeps that arrived here?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'\n\n\"It was. Three have come in the time that I have been here. None survived the Deragoth.\"\n\nThe what? '\n\nOsric halted and faced his son once more. \"The Hounds of Darkness. The seven beasts that Dessimbelackis made pact with– and oh, weren't the Nameless Ones shaken by that unholy alliance? The seven beasts, L'oric, that gave the name to Seven Cities, although no memory survives of that particular truth. The Seven Holy Cities of our time are not the original ones, of course. Only the number has survived.\"\n\nL'oric closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the damp stonewall.\"Deragoth. What happened to them? Why are they here and not there? '\n\n\"I don't know. Probably it had something to do with the violent collapse of the First Empire. '\n\n\"What warren is this?\"\n\n\"Not a warren at all, L'oric. A memory. Soon to end, I believe, since it is... shrinking. Fly northward and by day's end you will see before you a wall of nothingness, of oblivion.\"\n\n\"A memory. Whose memory?\"\n\nOsric shrugged. \"Raraku's. '\n\n\"You make that desert sound as if it is alive, as if it is an entity.\"\n\n\"Isn't it? '\n\n\"You're saying it is? '\n\n\"No, I'm not saying that. I was asking you– have you not just come from there? '\n\nL'oric opened his eyes and regarded his father. You area frustrating man. No wonder Anomander Rake lost his temper.\"What of those half-humans that ran with these Deragoth? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A quaint reversal, wouldn't you say? The Deragoth's only act of domestication. Most scholars, in their species-bound arrogance, believe that humans domesticated dogs, but it may well have been the other way round, at least to start. Who ran with whom?\"\n\n\"But those creatures aren't humans. They're not even Imass.\"\n\n\"No, but they will be, one day. I've seen others, scampering on the edges of wolf packs. Standing upright gives them better vision, a valuable asset to complement the wolves'superior hearing and sense of smell. A formidable combination, but the wolves are the ones in charge. That will eventually change... but not for those serving the Deragoth, I suspect.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because something is about to happen. Here, in this trapped memory. I only hope that I will be privileged to witness it before the world fades entirely.\"\n\n\"You called the Deragoth'Hounds of Darkness\". Are they children of Mother Dark, then?\"\n\n\"They are no-one's children, \"Osric growled, then he shook his head.\"They have that stench about them, but in truth I have no idea. It just seemed an appropriate name. \"Deragoth\" in the Tiste Andii tongue. '\n\n\"Well,\" L'oric muttered,\"actually, it would be Dera'tin'jeragoth. '\n\nOsric studied his son. \"So like your mother,\" he sighed. \"And is it any wonder we could not stand each other's company? The third day, always by the third day. We could make a lifetime of those three days. Exaltation, then comfort, then mutual contempt. One, two, three. '\n\nL'oric looked away.\"And for your only son? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Osric grunted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"More like three bells.\"\n\nClimbing to his feet, L'oric brushed dust from his hands.\"Very well. I may require your help in opening the path back to Raraku. But you might wish to know something of the Liosan and Kurald Thyrllan. Your people and their realm have lost their protector. They pray for your return, Father. '\n\n\"What of your familiar?\"\n\n\"Slain. By T'lan Imass. '\n\n\"So,\" Osric said, \"find yourself another.\"\n\nL'oric flinched, then scowled.\"It's not as easy as that! In any case, do you hold no sense of responsibility for the Liosan? They worship you, dammit!\"\n\n\"The Liosan worship themselves, L'oric. I happen to be a convenient figurehead. Kurald Thyrllan may appear vulnerable, but it isn't.\"\n\n\"And what if these Deragoth are servants of Darkness in truth? Do you still make the same claim, Father?\"\n\nHe was silent, then strode towards the gaping entrance-way. \"It's all her fault, ' he muttered as he passed.\n\nL'oric followed his father outside.\"This... observation tower. Is it Jaghut? '\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"So, where are they?\"\n\n\"West. South. East. But not here– I've seen none. '\n\n\"You don't know where they are, do you? '\n\n\"They are not in this memory, L'oric. That is that. Now, stay back. '\n\nThe High Mage remained near the tower, watching his father veer into his draconic form. The air suddenly redolent with a sweet, spicy aroma, a blurring of shape before L'oric's eyes. Like Anomander Rake, Osric was more dragon than anything else. They were kin in blood, if not in personality. I wish I could understand this man, this father of mine. Queen take me, I wish I could even like him. He strode forward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The dragon lifted one forelimb, talons opening.\n\nL'oric frowned.\"I would rather ride your shoulders, Father-'\n\nBut the reptilian hand reached out and closed about him.\n\nHe resolved to suffer the indignity in silence.\n\nOsric flew westward, following the coastline. Before too long forest appeared, and the land reached around northward. The air whipping between the dragon's scaled fingers grew cold, then icy. The ground far below began climbing, the forests flanking mountainsides shifting into conifers. Then L'oric saw snow, reaching like frozen rivers in crevasses and chasms.\n\nHe could recall no mountains from the future to match this ancient scene. Perhaps this memory, like so many others, is flawed.\n\nOsric began to descend– and L'oric suddenly saw avast white emptiness, as if the mountain rearing before them had been cut neatly in half. They were approaching that edge.\n\nA vaguely level, snow-crusted stretch was the dragon's destination. Its southern side was marked by a sheer cliff. To the north... opaque oblivion.\n\nWings pounding, raising clouds of powdery white, Osric hovered fora moment, then released L'oric.\n\nThe High Mage landed in waist-deep snow. Cursing, he kicked his way onto firmer footing, as the enormous dragon settled with a shuddering crunch off to one side.\n\nOsric quickly sembled into Liosan form, the wind whipping at his hair, and strode over.\n\nThere were... things near the faded edge of the memory. Some of them moving about feebly. Osric stomped through the deep snow towards them, speaking as he went. \"Creatures stumble out. You will find such all along the verge. Most of them quickly die, but some linger.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are they?\"\n\n\"Demons, mostly.\"\n\nOsric changed direction slightly, closing on one such creature, from which steam was rising. Its four limbs were moving, claws scraping through the slush surrounding it.\n\nFather and son halted before it.\n\nDog-sized and reptilian, with four hands, similar to an ape's. A wide, flat head with abroad mouth, two slits for nostrils, and four liquid, slightly protruding eyes in a diamond pattern, the pupils vertical and, in the harsh glare of the snow and sky, surprisingly open.\n\n\"This one might suit Kurald Thyrllan,\" Osric said.\n\n\"What kind of demon is it?\" L'oric asked, staring down at the creature.\n\n\"I have no idea,\" Osric replied. \"Reach out to it. See if it is amenable.\"\n\n\"Assuming it has any mind at all,\" L'oric muttered, crouching down.\n\nCan you hear me? Can you comprehend?\n\nThe four eyes blinked up at him. And it replied. \"Sorcerer. Declaration. Recognition. We were told you'd come, but so soon? Rhetorical. '\n\nI am not from this place, L'oric explained. You are dying, I think.\n\n\"Is that what this is? Bemused.\"\n\nI would offer you an alternative. Have you a name?\n\n\"A name? You require that. Observation. Of course. Comprehension. A partnership, a binding of spirits. Power from you, power from me. In exchange for my life. Uneven bargain. Position devoid of clout.\"\n\nNo, I will save you none the less. We will return to my world... to a warmer place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Warmth? Thinking. Ah, air that does not steal my strength. Considering. Save me, Sorcerer, and then we will talk more of this alliance.\"\n\nL'oric nodded.\"Very well. '\n\n\"It's done? ' Osric asked.\n\nHis son straightened. \"No, but it comes with us.\"\n\n\"Without the binding, you will have no control over the demon, L'oric. It could well turn on you as soon as you return to Raraku. Best we resume our search, find a creature more tractable. '\n\n\"No. I will risk this one.\"\n\nOsric shrugged. \"As you like, then. We must proceed now to the lake, where you first appeared.\"\n\nL'oric watched his father walkaway, then halt and veer once more into his dragon form.\n\n\"Eleint!\" the demon cried in the High Mage's mind.\"Wonder. You have an Eleint fora companion! '\n\nMy father.\n\n\"Your father! Excited delight! Eager. I am named Greyfrog, born of Mirepool's Clutch in the Twentieth Season of Darkness. Proudly. I have fathered thirty-one clutches of my own-'\n\nAnd how, Greyfrog, did you come here?\n\n\"Sudden moroseness. One hop too far.\"\n\nThe dragon approached.\n\nGreyfrog dragged itself onto the warm sand. L'oric turned about, but the gate was already closing. So, he had found his father, and the parting had been as blunt as the meeting. Not precisely indifference. More like... distraction. Osric's interest was with Osric. His own pursuits.\n\nOnly now did a thousand more questions rise in L'oric's thoughts, questions he should have asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Regret?\"\n\nL'oric glanced down at the demon.\"Recovering, Greyfrog? I am named L'oric. Shall we now discuss our partnership?\"\n\n\"I smell raw meat. I am hungry. Eat. Then talk. Firm.\"\n\n\"As you wish. As for raw meat... I will find you something that is appropriate. There are rules, regarding what you can and cannot kill.\"\n\n\"Explain them tome. Cautious. Not wishing to offend. But hungry.\"\n\n\"I shall...\"\n\nVengeance had been her lifeblood for so long, and now, within days, she would come face to face with her sister, to play out the game's end run. A vicious game, but a game none the less. Sha'ik knew that virtually every conceivable advantage lay with her. Tavore's legions were green, the territory was Sha'ik's own, her Army of the Apocalypse were veterans of the rebellion and numerically superior. The Whirlwind Goddess drew power from an Elder Warren– she now realized– perhaps not pure but either immune or resistant to the effects of otataral. Tavore's mages amounted to two Wickan warlocks both broken of spirit, whilst Sha'ik's cadre included four High Mages and a score of shamans, witches and sorcerers, including Fayelle and Henaras. In all, defeat seemed impossible.\n\nAnd yet Sha'ik was terrified.\n\nShe sat alone in the central chamber of the vast, multi-roomed tent that washer palace. The braziers near the throne were slowly dimming, shadows encroaching on all sides. She wanted to run. The game was too hard, too fraught. Its final promise was cold– colder than she had ever imagined. Vengeance is a wasted emotion, yet I have let it consume me. I gave it like a gift to the goddess." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fragments of clarity– they were diminishing, withering like flowers in winter– as the hold of the Whirlwind Goddess tightened on her soul. My sister traded me for the faith of the Empress, to convince Laseen of Tavore's own loyalty. All to serve her ambition. And her reward was the position of Adjunct. Such are the facts, the cold truths. And I, in turn, have traded my freedom for the power of the Whirlwind Goddess, so that I can deliver just vengeance against my sister.\n\nAre we, then, so different?\n\nFragments of clarity, but they led nowhere. She could ask questions, yet seemed incapable of seeking answers. She could make statements, but they seemed strangely hollow, devoid of significance. She was being kept from thinking.\n\nWhy?\n\nAnother question she knew she would not answer, would not, even, make an effort to answer. The goddess doesn't want me to think. Well, at least that was a recognition of sorts.\n\nShe sensed the approach of someone, and issued a silent command to her guards– Mathok's chosen warriors– to permit the visitor to pass within. The curtains covering the entrance to the chamber parted.\n\n\"A late night for an ancient one such as you, Bidithal,\" Sha'ik said.\"You should be resting, in preparation for the battle. '\n\n\"There are many battles, Chosen One, and some have already begun.\" He leaned heavily on his staff, looking around with a slight smile on his wrinkled lips. \"The coals are fading,\" he murmured.\n\n\"I would have thought the growing shadows would please you.\"\n\nHis smile tightened, then he shrugged. \"They are not mine, Chosen One.\"\n\n\"Aren't they? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The smile grew more strained still. \"I was never a priest of Meanas.\"\n\n\"No, here it was Rashan, ghost-child of Kurald Galain... yet the warren it claimed was, none the less, Shadow. We are both well aware that the distinctions diminish the closer one delves into the mysteries of the most ancient triumvirate. Shadow, after all, was born of the clash between Light and Dark. And Meanas is, in essence, drawn from the warrens of Thyrllan and Galain, Thyr and Rashan. It is, if you will, a hybrid discipline.\"\n\n\"Most sorcerous arts available to mortal humans are, Chosen One. I do not, I am afraid, comprehend the point you wish to make.\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"Only that you send your shadow servants hereto spy on me, Bidithal. What is it you hope to witness? I am as you see me.\"\n\nHe spread his hands, staff resting against one shoulder. \"Perhaps not spies, then, but protectors.\"\n\n\"And I am in such dire need of protection, Bidithal? Are your fears... specific? Is this what you have come to tell me?\"\n\n\"I am close to discovering the precise nature of that threat, Chosen One. Soon, I will be able to deliver my revelations. My present concerns, however, are with High Mage L'oric and, perhaps, Ghost Hands. '\n\n\"Surely you do not suspect either of them of being part of the conspiracy.\"\n\n\"No, but I am coming to believe that other forces are at play here. We are at the heart of a convergence, Chosen One, and not just between us and the Malazans.\"\n\n\"Indeed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ghost Hands is not as he once was. He is a priest once more.\"\n\nSha'ik's brows lifted in frank disbelief. \"Fener is gone, Bidithal-\"\n\n\"Not Fener. But consider this. The god of war has been dethroned. And another has risen in its place, as necessity demanded. The Tiger of Summer, who was once the First Hero, Treach. A Soletaken of the First Empire... now a god. His need will be great, Chosen One, for mortal champions and avatars, to aid him in establishing the role he would assume. A Mortal Sword, a Shield Anvil, a Destriant– all of the ancient titles... and the powers the god invests in them.\"\n\n\"Ghost Hands would never accept a god other than Fener,\" Sha'ik asserted.\"Nor, I imagine, would a god be foolish enough to embrace him in turn. You know little of his past, Bidithal. He is not a pious man. He has committed... crimes-'\n\n\"None the less, Chosen One. The Tiger of Summer has made his choice.\"\n\n\"As what?\"\n\nBidithal shrugged. \"What else could he be but Destriant.\"\n\n\"What proof have you of this extraordinary transformation?\"\n\n\"He hides well... but not well enough, Chosen One.\"\n\nSha'ik was silent fora long moment, then she replied with a shrug of her own.\"Destriant to the new god of war. Why wouldn't he be here? We are at war, after all. I will think of this... development, Bidithal. At the moment, however, I cannot– assuming it is true– see its relevance.\"\n\n\"Perhaps, Chosen One, the most significant relevance is also the simplest one: Ghost Hands is not the broken, useless man he once was. And, given his... ambivalence to our cause, he presents us with a potential threat-\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Support the writer, proceed with the storyline.\nTags: epic fantasy, character study, power struggles, resilience, destiny\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: House of Chains\nChapter: 33" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where a cusser killed your horse and nearly took your head off.\"\n\n\"I was addled before then, Blistig.\"\n\n\"Only because you rode into the skirmish. A Fist should not do that. You stay back, surrounded by messengers and guards. You may find yourself not issuing a single order, but you are the core position none the less, the immovable core. Just being there is enough. They can get word to you, you can get word to them. You can shore up, relieve units, and respond to developments. It's what an officer of high rank does. If you find yourself in the midst of a fight, you are useless, a liability to the soldiers around you, because they're obliged to save your skin. Even worse, you can see nothing, your messengers can't find you. You've lost perspective. If the core wavers or vanishes, the legion falls.\"\n\nGamet considered Blistig's words fora long moment, then he sighed and shrugged.\"None of that matters anymore. I am no longer a Fist. Keneb is, and he knows what to do-'\n\n\"He's acting Fist. The Adjunct made that clear. It's temporary. And it now falls to you to resume your title, and your command.\"\n\n\"I will not.\"\n\n\"You have to, you stubborn bastard. Keneb's a damned good captain. Now, there's a noble-born in that role, replacing him. The man's a damned fool. So long as he was under Keneb's heel he wasn't a problem. You need to return things to their proper order, Gamet. And you need to do it today. '\n\n\"How do you know about this new captain? It's not even your legion. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Keneb told me. He would rather have promoted one of the sergeants– there's a few with more experience than anyone else in the entire army. They're lying low, but it shows anyway. But the officer corps the Adjunct had to draw from was filled with noble-born– the whole system was its own private enterprise, exclusionary and corrupt. Despite the Cull, it persists, right herein this army.\"\n\n\"Besides,\" Gamet nodded, \"those sergeants are most useful right where they are.\"\n\n\"Aye. So cease your selfish sulking, old man, and step back inline.\"\n\nThe back of Gamet's gloved hand struck Blistig's face hard enough to break his nose and send him pitching backward off the rump of his horse.\n\nHe heard another horse reining in nearby and turned to seethe Adjunct, a cloud of dust rolling out from under her mount's stamping hoofs. She was staring at him.\n\nSpitting blood, Blistig slowly climbed to his feet.\n\nGrimacing, Gamet walked his horse over to where the Adjunct waited. \"I am ready,\" he said, \"to return to duty, Adjunct.\"\n\nOne brow arched slightly. \"Very good. I feel the need to advise you, however, to give vent to your disagreements with your fellow Fists in more private locations in the future.\"\n\nGamet glanced back. Blistig was busy dusting himself off, but there was a grim smile on his bloodied face.\n\nThe bastard. Even so, I owe him a free shot at me, don't I?\n\n\"Inform Keneb,\" the Adjunct said.\n\nGamet nodded. \"With your leave, Adjunct, I'd like another word with Fist Blistig. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Less dramatic than the last one, I would hope, Fist Gamet.\"\n\n\"We'll see, Adjunct. '\n\n\"Oh?\"\n\n\"Depends on how patient he is, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Be on your way then, Fist.\"\n\n\"Aye, Adjunct.\"\n\nStrings and a few other sergeants had climbed up onto a hill– everyone else being busy with breaking camp and preparing for the march– fora clearer view of the collapsed Whirlwind Wall. Sheets of dust were still cascading down, though the freshening wind was quickly tearing through them.\n\n\"Not even a whimper,\" Gesler sighed behind him.\n\n\"The goddess withdrew, is my guess,\" Strings said. \"I would bet the Adjunct didn't even draw her sword. '\n\n\"Then why raise the wall in the first place?\" Borduke wondered.\n\nStrings shrugged. \"Who can say? There are other things going on herein Raraku, things we know nothing about. The world didn't sit still during the months we spent marching here. '\n\n\"It was thereto keep the Claw out,\" Gesler pronounced. \"Both Sha'ik and her goddess want this battle. They want it clean. Soldier against soldier, mage against mage, commander against commander. '\n\n\"Too bad for them,\" Strings muttered.\n\n\"So you've been hinting at. Outwith it, Fid. '\n\n\"Just a hunch, Gesler. I get those sometimes. They've been infiltrated. That's what I saw from Bottle's divination. The night before the battle, that oasis will get hairy. Wish I could be thereto see it. Damn, wish I could be thereto help. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We'll have our turn being busy, I think, ' Gesler muttered.\n\nThe last sergeant who had accompanied them sighed, then said in a rasp, \"Moak thinks we won't be busy. Unless the new captain does something stupid. The Adjunct's going to do something unexpected. We may not get a fight at all.\"\n\nStrings coughed. \"Where does Moak get all this, Tugg?\"\n\n\"Squatting over the latrine, is my guess,\" Borduke grunted, then spat.\n\nThe heavy infantry sergeant shrugged. \"Moak knows things, that's all. '\n\n\"And how many times does he get it wrong?\" Gesler asked, clearing his throat.\n\n\"Hard to say. He says so many things I can't remember them all. He's been right plenty of times, I think. I'm sure of it, in fact. Almost sure. \"Tugg faced Strings.\"He says you were in Onearm's Host. And the Empress wants your head on a spike, because you've been outlawed. \"The man then turned to Gesler.\"And he says you and your corporal, Stormy, are Old Guard. Underage marines serving Dassem Ultor, or maybe Cartheron Crust or his brother Urko. That you were the ones who brought that old Quon dromon into Aren Harbour with all the wounded from the Chain of Dogs. And you, Borduke, you once threw a noble-born officer off a cliff, near Karashimesh, only they couldn't prove it, of course.\"\n\nThe three other men stared at Tugg, saying nothing.\n\nTugg rubbed his neck. \"Well, that's what he says, anyway. '\n\n\"Amazing how wrong he got it all,\" Gesler said drily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And I take it he's been spreading these tales around? ' Strings asked.\n\n\"Oh no. Just me and Sobelone. He told us to keep our mouths shut.\" Tugg blinked, then added, \"But not with you, obviously, since you already know. I was just making conversation. Just being friendly. Amazing how that Whirlwind Wall just collapsed like that, isn't it? '\n\nHorns sounded in the distance.\n\n\"Time to march,\" Gesler muttered, \"praise Hood and all...\"\n\nKeneb rode up alongside Gamet. Their legion had been positioned as rearguard for this day of travel and the dust was thick in the hot air.\n\n\"I'm starting to doubt the Whirlwind Wall ever vanished, ' Keneb said.\n\n\"Aye, there's less we're kicking up than is still coming down,\" Gamet replied. He hesitated, then said, \"My apologies, Captain-\"\n\n\"No need, sir. I am in fact relieved– if you'll excuse the pun. Not just from the pressure of being a Fist, but also because Ranal's promotion was rescinded. It was a pleasure informing him of that. Were you aware he had restructured the units? Using Greymane's arrangements? Of course, Greymane was fighting a protracted war over a huge territory with no defined front. He needed self-contained fighting units, ready for any contingency. Even more irritating, he neglected to inform anyone else. '\n\n\"Are you returning the squads to their original placement, Captain?\"\n\n\"Not yet, sir. Waiting for your word.\"\n\nGamet thought about it fora time. \"I will inform the Adjunct of our legion's new structure. '\n\n\"Sir?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It might prove useful. We are to hold the rear at the battle, on a broken landscape. Ranal's decision, no doubt made in ignorance, is none the less suitable. '\n\nKeneb sighed, but said nothing, and Gamet well understood. I may have returned as Fist with the Adjunct's confirmation, but her decision on our positioning has made it clear she's lost confidence in me.\n\nThey rode on in silence, but it was not a comfortable one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Who among the pantheon would the Fallen One despise and fear the most? Consider the last chaining, in which Hood, Fener, the Queen of Dreams, Osserc and Oponn all participated, in addition to Anomander Rake, Caladan Brood and a host of other ascendants. It is not so surprising, then, that the Crippled God could not have anticipated that his deadliest enemy was not found among those mentioned...\n\nThe Chainings Istan Hela\n\n\"Just because I'm a woman– all woman– it doesn't mean I can cook.\"\n\nCutter glanced across at Apsalar, then said, \"No, no, it's very good, really-'\n\nBut Mogora wasn't finished, waving a grass-snarled wooden ladle about as she stomped back and forth.\"There's no larder, nothing at all! And guests! Endless guests! And is he around to go find us some food? Never! I think he's dead-'\n\n\"He's not dead, \"Apsalar cut in, holding her spoon motionless above the bowl.\"We saw him only a short while ago. '\n\n\"So you say, with your shiny hair and pouty lips– and those breasts– just wait till you start dropping whelps, they'll beat your ankles one day, big as they are– not the whelps, the breasts. The whelps will be in your hair– no, not that shiny hair on your head, well, yes, that hair, but only as a manner of speech. What was I talking about? Yes, I have to go out everyday, climbing up and down that rope ladder, scrounging food– yes, that grass is edible, just chew it down. Chew and chew. Everyday, armfuls of grasses, tubers, rhizan, cockroaches and bloodflies-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Both Cutter and Apsalar put down their spoons.\n\n\"-and me tripping over my tits. And then!\" She waved the ladle, flinging wet grass against a wall. \"Those damned bhok'arala get into my hoard and steal all the yummy bits– every single cockroach and bloodfly! Haven't you noticed? There's no vermin in this ruin anywhere! Not a mouse, not a bug– what's a thousand spiders to do?\"\n\nCautiously, the two guests resumed eating, their sips preceded by close examination of the murky liquid in their spoons.\n\n\"And how long do you plan to stay here? What is this, a hostel? How do you expect my husband and me to return to domestic normality? If it's not you it's gods and demons and assassins messing up the bedrooms! Will I ever get peace?\" With that she stomped from the room.\n\nAfter a moment, Cutter blinked and sat straighter. \"Assassins?\"\n\n\"Kalam Mekhar,\" Apsalar replied. \"He left marks, an old Bridgeburner habit.\"\n\n\"He's back? What happened? '\n\nShe shrugged. \"Shadowthrone and Cotillion have, it seems, found use for us all. If I were to guess, Kalam plans on killing as many of Sha'ik's officers as he can.\"\n\n\"Well, Mogora did raise an interesting question. Cotillion wanted us here, but why? Now what?\"\n\n\"I have no answers for you, Crokus. It would seem Cotillion's interests lie more with you than with me. Which is not surprising. '\n\n\"It isn't? It is tome. Why would you say otherwise? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She studied him fora moment, then her eyes shifted away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because I am not interested in becoming his servant. I possess too many of his memories, including his mortal life as Dancer, to be entirely trustworthy.\"\n\n\"That's not an encouraging statement, Apsalar-'\n\nAnew voice hissed from the shadows, \"Encouragement is needed? Simple, easy, unworthy of concern– why can't I think of a solution! Something stupid to say, that should be effortless for me. Shouldn't it?\" After a moment, Iskaral Pust edged out from the gloom, sniffing the air. \"She's been... cooking! \"His eyes then lit on the bowls on the table.\"And you've been eating it! Are you mad? Why do you think I've been hiding all these months? Why do you think I have my bhok'arala sift through her hoard for the edible stuff? Gods, you fools! Oh yes, fine food... if you're an antelope! '\n\n\"We're managing, \"Cutter said.\"Is there something you want with us? If not, I'm with Mogora on one thing– the less I see of you the better-\"\n\n\"She wants to see me, you Daru idiot! Why do you think she's always trying to hunt me down? '\n\n\"Yes, it's a good act, isn't it? But let's be realistic, Pust, she's happier without you constantly in her face. You're not wanted. Not necessary. In fact, Pust, you are completely useless. '\n\nThe High Priest's eyes widened, then he snarled and bolted back into the corner of the room, vanishing into its shadows.\n\nCutter smiled and leaned back in his chair. \"That worked better than I could have hoped.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You have stepped between husband and wife, Crokus. Not a wise decision.\"\n\nHe narrowed his gaze on her. \"Where do you want to go from here, Apsalar?\"\n\nShe would not meet his eyes. \"I have not yet made up my mind.\"\n\nAnd Cutter knew that she had.\n\nThe spear was a heavy wood, yet surprisingly flexible for its solid feel. Upright, its fluted chalcedony point reached to Trull Sengar's palm when he stood with one arm stretched upward.\"Rather short for my fighting style, but I will make do. I thank you, Ibra Gholan. '\n\nThe T'lan Imass swung round and strode to where Monok Ochem waited.\n\nOnrack watched Trull Sengar blow on his hands, then rub them on his tattered buckskin leggings. He flexed the spear shaft once more, then leaned it on one shoulder and faced Onrack. \"I am ready. Although I could do with some furs– this warren is cold, and the wind stinks of ice– we'll have snow by nightfall. '\n\n\"We shall be travelling south,\" Onrack said. \"Before long, we shall reach the treeline, and the snow will turn to rain.\"\n\n\"That sounds even more miserable.\"\n\n\"Our journey, Trull Sengar, shall be less than a handful of days and nights. And in that time we shall travel from tundra to savanna and jungle.\"\n\n\"Do you believe we will reach the First Throne before the renegades?\"\n\nOnrack shrugged. \"It is likely. The path of Tellann will present to us no obstacles, whilst that of chaos shall slow our enemies, for its path is never straight.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Never straight, aye. That notion makes me nervous.\"\n\nAh. That is what I am feeling. \"A cause for unease, granted, Trull Sengar. None the less, we are faced with a more dire concern, for when we reach the First Throne we must then defend it.\"\n\nIbra Gholan led the way, Monok Ochem waiting until Onrack and the Tiste Edur passed by before falling instep.\n\n\"We are not trusted,\" Trull Sengar muttered.\n\n\"That is true,\" Onrack agreed. \"None the less, we are needed.\"\n\n\"The least satisfying of alliances.\"\n\n\"Yet perhaps the surest, until such time as the need passes. We must remain mindful, Trull Sengar.\"\n\nThe Tiste Edur grunted in acknowledgement.\n\nThey fell silent then, as each stride took them further south.\n\nAs with so many tracts within Tellann, the scars of Omtose Phellack remained both visible and palpable to Onrack's senses. Rivers of ice had gouged this landscape, tracing the history of advance and, finally, retreat, leaving behind fluvial spans of silts, rocks and boulders in screes, fans and slides, and broad valleys with basins worn down to smooth-humped bedrock. Eventually, permafrost gave way to sodden peat and marshland, wherein stunted black spruce rose in knotted stands on islands formed by the rotted remains of ancestral trees. Pools of black water surrounded these islands, layered with mists and bubbling with the gases of decay.\n\nInsects swarmed the air, finding nothing to their liking among the T'lan Imass and the lone mortal, though they circled in thick, buzzing clouds none the less. Before long, the marshes gave way to upthrust domes of bedrock, the low ground between them steep-sided and tangled with brush and dead pines. The domes then merged, creating a winding bridge of high ground along which the four travelled with greater ease than before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It began to rain, a steady drizzle that blackened the basaltic bedrock and made it slick.\n\nOnrack could hear Trull Sengar's harsh breathing and sensed his companion's weariness. But no entreaties to rest came from the Tiste Edur, even as he increasingly used his spear as a staff as they trudged onward.\n\nForest soon replaced the exposed bedrock, slowly shifting from coniferous to deciduous, the hills giving way to flatter ground. The trees then thinned, and suddenly, beyond a line of tangled deadfall, plains stretched before them, and the rain was gone. Onrack raised a hand. \"We shall halt here.\"\n\nIbra Gholan, ten paces ahead, stopped and swung round. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Food and rest, Ibra Gholan. You may have forgotten that these number among the needs of mortals.\"\n\n\"I have not forgotten, Onrack the Broken.\"\n\nTrull Sengar settled onto the grasses, awry smile on his lips as he said, \"It's called indifference, Onrack. I am, after all, the least valuable member of this war party. '\n\n\"The renegades will not pause in their march,\" Ibra Gholan said. \"Nor should we.\"\n\n\"Then journey ahead,\" Onrack suggested.\n\n\"No,\" Monok Ochem commanded. \"We walk together. Ibra Gholan, a short period of rest will not prove a great inconvenience. Indeed, I would the Tiste Edur speak to us.\"\n\n\"About what, Bonecaster?\"\n\n\"Your people, Trull Sengar. What has made them kneel before the Chained One?\"\n\n\"No easy answer to that question, Monok Ochem.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ibra Gholan strode back to the others." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I shall hunt game,\" the warrior said, then vanished in a swirl of dust.\n\nThe Tiste Edur studied the fluted spearhead of his new weapon fora moment, then, setting the spear down, he sighed. \"It is along tale, alas. And indeed, I am no longer the best choice to weave it in a manner you might find useful-\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because, Monok Ochem, I am Shorn. I no longer exist. To my brothers, and my people, I never existed.\"\n\n\"Such assertions are meaningless in the face of truth,\" Onrack said. \"You are here before us. You exist. As do your memories.\"\n\n\"There have been Imass who have suffered exile,\" Monok Ochem rasped. \"Yet still we speak of them. We must speak of them, to give warning to others. What value a tale if it is not instructive?\"\n\n\"A very enlightened view, Bonecaster. But mine are not an enlightened people. We care nothing for instruction. Nor, indeed, for truth. Our tales exist to give grandeur to the mundane. Or to give moments of great drama and significance an air of inevitability. Perhaps one might call that'instruction\" but that is not their purpose. Every defeat justifies future victory. Every victory is propitious. The Tiste Edur make no misstep, for our dance is one of destiny.\"\n\n\"And you are no longer in that dance.\"\n\n\"Precisely, Onrack. Indeed, I never was.\"\n\n\"Your exile forces you to lie even to yourself, then,\" Onrack observed.\n\n\"In a manner of speaking, that is true. I am therefore forced to reshape the tale, and that is a difficult thing. There was much of that time that I did not understand at first– certainly not when it occurred. Much of my knowledge did not come tome until much later-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Following your Shorning.\"\n\nTrull Sengar's almond-shaped eyes narrowed on Onrack, then he nodded.\"Yes. '\n\nAs knowledge flowered before my mind's eye in the wake of the Ritual of Tellann's shattering. Very well, this I understand. \"Prepare for the telling of your tale, Trull Sengar. If instruction can be found within it, recognition is the responsibility of those to whom the tale is told. You are absolved of the necessity.\"\n\nMonok Ochem grunted, then said, \"These words are spurious. Every story instructs. The teller ignores this truth at peril. Excise yourself from the history you would convey if you must, Trull Sengar. The only lesson therein is one of humility.\"\n\nTrull Sengar grinned up at the bonecaster. \"Fear not, I was never pivotal among the players. As for excision, well, that has already occurred, and so I would tell the tale of the Tiste Edur who dwelt north of Lether as would they themselves tell it. With one exception– which has, I admit, proved most problematic in my mind– and that is, there will be no aggrandizement in my telling. No revelling in glory, no claims of destiny or inevitability. I shall endeavour, then, to be other than the Tiste Edur I appear to be, to tearaway my cultural identity and so cleanse the tale-\"\n\n\"Flesh does not lie,\" Monok Ochem said. \"Thus, we are not deceived.\"\n\n\"Flesh may not lie, but the spirit can, Bonecaster. Instruct yourself in blindness and indifference– I in turn intend to attempt the same.\"\n\n\"When will you begin your tale?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"At the First Throne, Monok Ochem. Whilst we await the coming of the renegades... and their Tiste Edur allies.\"\n\nIbra Gholan reappeared with a broken-necked hare, which he skinned in a single gesture, then flung the blood-smeared body to the ground beside Trull Sengar. \"Eat,\" the warrior instructed, tossing the skin aside.\n\nOnrack moved off while the Tiste Edur made preparations fora fire. He was, he reflected, disturbed by Trull Sengar's words. The Shorning had made much of excising the physical traits that would identify Trull Sengar as Tiste Edur. The bald pate, the scarred brow. But these physical alterations were as nothing, it appeared, when compared to those forced upon the man's spirit. Onrack realized that he had grown comfortable in Trull Sengar's company, lulled, perhaps, by the Edur's steady manner, his ease with hardship and extremity. Such comfort was deceiving, it now seemed. Trull Sengar's calm was born of scars, of healing that left one insensate. His heart was incomplete. He is as a T'lan Imass, yet clothed in mortal flesh. We ask that he resurrect his memories of life, then wonder at his struggle to satisfy our demands. The failure is ours, not his.\n\nWe speak of those we have exiled, yet not to warn– as Monok Ochem claims. No, nothing so noble. We speak of them in reaffirmation of our judgement. But it is our intransigence that finds itself fighting the fiercest war-with time itself, with the changing world around us.\n\n\"I will preface my tale,\" Trull Sengar was saying as he roasted the skinned hare, \"with an admittedly cautionary observation.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tell me this observation,\" Monok Ochem said.\n\n\"I shall, Bonecaster. It concerns nature... and the exigency of maintaining a balance.\"\n\nHad he possessed a soul, Onrack would have felt it grow cold as ice. As it was, the warrior slowly turned in the wake of Trull Sengar's words.\n\n\"Pressures and forces are ever in opposition,\" the Edur was saying as he rotated the spitted hare over the flames. \"And the striving is ever towards a balance. This is beyond the gods, of course– it is the current of existence– but no, beyond even that, for existence itself is opposed by oblivion. It is a struggle that encompasses all, that defines every island in the Abyss. Or so I now believe. Life is answered by death. Dark by light. Overwhelming success by catastrophic failure. Horrific curse by breathtaking blessing. It seems the inclination of all people to lose sight of that truth, particularly when blinded by triumph upon triumph. See before me, if you will, this small fire. A modest victory... but if I feed it, my own eager delight is answered, until this entire plain is aflame, then the forest, then the world itself. Thus, an assertion of wisdom here... in the quenching of these flames once this meat is cooked. After all, igniting this entire world will also kill everything in it, if not inflames then in subsequent starvation. Do you see my point, Monok Ochem?\"\n\n\"I do not, Trull Sengar. This prefaces nothing.\"\n\nOnrack spoke. \"You are wrong, Monok Ochem. It prefaces... everything.\"\n\nTrull Sengar glanced over, and answered with a smile.\n\nOf sadness overwhelming. Of utter... despair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And the undead warrior was shaken.\n\nA succession of ridges ribboned the landscape, seeming to slowly melt as sand drifted down from the sky.\n\n\"Soon,\" Pearl murmured, \"those beach ridges will vanish once more beneath dunes.\"\n\nLostara shrugged. \"We're wasting time, ' she pronounced, then set off towards the first ridge. The air was thick with settling dust and sand, stinging the eyes and parching the throat. Yet the haze served to draw the horizons closer, to make their discovery increasingly unlikely. The sudden demise of the Whirlwind Wall suggested that the Adjunct and her army had reached Raraku, were even now marching upon the oasis. She suspected that there would be few, if any, scouts patrolling the northeast approaches.\n\nPearl had announced that it was safe now to travel during the day. The goddess had drawn inward, concentrating her power for, perhaps, one final, explosive release. For the clash with the Adjunct. A singularity of purpose locked in rage, a flaw that could be exploited.\n\nShe allowed herself a private smile at that. Flaws. No shortage of those hereabouts, is there? Their moment of wild passion had passed, as far as she was concerned. The loosening of long pent-up energies– now that it was done, they could concentrate on other things. More important things. It seemed, however, that Pearl saw it differently. He'd even tried to take her hand this morning, a gesture that she decisively rebuffed despite its pathos. The deadly assassin was on the verge of transforming into a squirming pup– disgust threatened to overwhelm her, so she shifted her thoughts onto another track.\n\nThey were running short on time, not to mention food and water. Raraku was a hostile land, resentful of whatever life dared exploit it. Not holy at all, but cursed. Devourer of dreams, destroyer of ambitions. And why not? It's a damned desert." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Clambering over the cobbles and stones, they reached the first ridge.\n\n\"We're close, \"Pearl said, squinting ahead.\"Beyond that higher terrace, we should come within sight of the oasis. '\n\n\"And then what?\" she asked, brushing dust from her tattered clothes.\n\n\"Well, it would be remiss of me not to take advantage of our position– I should be able to infiltrate the camp and stir up some trouble. Besides,\" he added, \"one of the trails I am on leads into the heart of that rebel army.\"\n\nThe Talons. The master of that revived cult. \"Are you so certain of that?\"\n\nHe nodded, then half shrugged. \"Reasonably. I have come to believe that the rebellion was compromised long ago, perhaps from the very start. That the aim of winning independence for Seven Cities was not quite as central to some as it should have been, and indeed, that those hidden motives are about to be unveiled.\"\n\n\"And it is inconceivable to you that such unveilings should occur without your hand in their midst.\"\n\nHe glanced at her. \"My dear, you forget, I am an agent of the Malazan Empire. I have certain responsibilities...\"\n\nHer eyes lit on an object lying among the cobbles– a momentary recognition, then her gaze quickly shifted away. She studied the murky sky. \"Has it not occurred to you that your arrival might well jeopardize missions already underway in the rebel camp? The Empress does not know you're here. In fact, even the Adjunct likely believes we are faraway from this place. '\n\n\"I am not uncomfortable with a supporting role-\"\n\nLostara snorted.\n\n\"Well,\" he amended, \"such a role is not entirely reprehensible. I can live with it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Liar. She settled down on one knee to adjust the greaves lashed to her leather-clad shins. \"We should be able to make that terrace before the sunsets.\"\n\n\"Agreed.\"\n\nShe straightened.\n\nThey made their way down the rock-studded slope. The ground was littered with the tiny, shrivelled bodies of countless desert creatures that had been swept up into the Whirlwind, dying within that interminable storm yet remaining suspended within it until, with the wind's sudden death, falling to earth once more. They had rained down fora full day, husks clattering and crunching on all sides, pattering on her helm and skidding from her shoulders. Rhizan, capemoths and other minuscule creatures, for the most part, although occasionally something larger had thumped to the ground. Lostara was thankful that the downpour had ended.\n\n\"The Whirlwind has not been friendly to Raraku,\" Pearl commented, kicking aside the corpse of an infant bhok'aral.\n\n\"Assuming the desert cares one way or another, which it doesn't, I doubt it will make much difference in the long run. A land's lifetime is far vaster than anything with which we are familiar, vaster, by far, than the spans of these hapless creatures. Besides, Raraku is already mostly dead.\"\n\n\"Appearances deceive. There are deep spirits in this Holy Desert, lass. Buried in the rock-\"\n\n\"And the life upon that rock, like the sands,\" Lostara asserted, \"means nothing to those spirits. You area fool to think otherwise, Pearl.\"\n\n\"I am a fool to think many things,\" he muttered.\n\n\"Do not expect me to object to that observation.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It never crossed my mind that you might, Lostara Yil." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In any case, I would none the less advise that you cultivate a healthy respect for the mysteries of Raraku. It is far too easy to be blindsided in this seemingly empty and lifeless desert.\"\n\n\"As we've already discovered. '\n\nHe frowned, then sighed. \"I regret that you view... things that way, and can only conclude that you derive a peculiar satisfaction from discord, and when it does not exist– or, rather, has no reason to exist– you seek to invent it.\"\n\n\"You think too much, Pearl. It's your most irritating flaw, and, let us be honest, given the severity and sheer volume of your flaws, that is saying something. Since this seems to be a time for advice, I suggest you stop thinking entirely. '\n\n\"And how might I achieve that? Follow your lead, perhaps?\"\n\n\"I think neither too much nor too little. I am perfectly balanced– this is what you find so attractive. As a cape-moth is drawn to fire.\"\n\n\"So I am in danger of being burned up?\"\n\n\"To a blackened, shrivelled crust.\"\n\n\"So, you're pushing me away for my own good. A gesture of compassion, then. '\n\n\"Fires neither push nor pull. They simply exist, com-passionless, indifferent to the suicidal urges of flitting bugs. That is another one of your flaws, Pearl. Attributing emotion where none exists.\"\n\n\"I could have sworn there was emotion, two nights past-\"\n\n\"Oh, fire burns eagerly when there's fuel-'\n\n\"And in the morning there's naught but cold ashes. '\n\n\"Now you are beginning to understand. Of course, you will see that as encouragement, and so endeavour to take your understanding further. But that would be a waste of time, so I suggest you abandon the effort. Be content with the glimmer, Pearl.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I see... murkily. Very well, I will accept your list of advisements.\"\n\n\"You will? Gullibility is a most unattractive flaw, Pearl.\"\n\nShe thought he would scream, was impressed by his sudden clamping of control, releasing his breath like steam beneath a cauldron's lid, until the pressure died away.\n\nThey approached the ascent to the last ridge, Lostara at her most contented thus far this day, Pearl likely to be feeling otherwise.\n\nAs they reached the crest the Claw spoke again. \"What was that you picked upon the last ridge, lass?\"\n\nSaw that, did you? \"A shiny rock. Caught my eye. I've since discarded it. '\n\n\"Oh? So it no longer hides in that pouch on your belt?\"\n\nSnarling, she plucked the leather bag from her belt and flung it to the ground, then drew out her chain-backed gauntlets. \"See for yourself, then.\"\n\nHe gave her a startled glance, then bent down to collect the pouch.\n\nAshe straightened, Lostara stepped forward.\n\nHer gauntlets cracked hard against Pearl's temple.\n\nGroaning, he collapsed unconscious.\n\n\"Idiot,\" she muttered, retrieving the pouch.\n\nShe donned the gauntlets, then, with a grunt, lifted the man and settled him over one shoulder.\n\nLess than two thousand paces ahead lay the oasis, the air above it thick with dust and the smoke of countless fires. Herds of goats were visible along the fringes, in the shade of trees. The remnants of a surrounding wall curved roughly away in both directions.\n\nCarrying Pearl, Lostara made her way down the slope." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was nearing the base when she heard horses off to her right. Crouching down and thumping Pearl to the ground beside her, she watched as a dozen desert warriors rode into view, coming from the northwest. Their animals looked half starved, heads hanging low, and she saw, among them, two prisoners.\n\nDespite the dust covering them, and the gloom of approaching dusk, Lostara recognized the remnants of uniforms on the two prisoners. Malazans. Ashok Regiment. Thought they'd been wiped out.\n\nThe warriors rode without outriders, and did not pause in their steady canter until they reached the oasis, whereupon they vanished beneath the leather-leaved branches of the trees.\n\nLostara looked around and decided that her present surroundings were ideal for staying put for the night. A shallow basin in the lee of the slope. By lying flat they would not be visible from anywhere but the ridge itself, and even that was unlikely with night fast falling. She checked on Pearl, frowning at the purple-ringed bump on his temple. But his breathing was steady, the beat of his heart unhurried and even. She laid out his cloak and rolled him onto it, then bound and gagged him.\n\nAs gloom gathered in the basin, Lostara settled down to wait.\n\nSometime later a figure emerged from the shadows and stood motionless fora moment before striding silently to halt directly over Pearl.\n\nLostara heard a muted grunt. \"You came close to cracking open his skull.\"\n\n\"It's harder than you think, ' she replied.\n\n\"Was it entirely necessary?\"\n\n\"I judged it so. If you've no faith in that, then why recruit me in the first place? '\n\nCotillion sighed. \"He's not a badman, you know. Loyal to the empire. You have sorely abused his equanimity. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He was about to interfere." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Unpredictably. I assumed you wished the path clear.\"\n\n\"Initially, yes. But I foresee a certain usefulness to his presence, once matters fully... unfold. Be sure to awaken him sometime tomorrow night, if he has not already done soon his own.\"\n\n\"Very well, since you insist. Although I am already deeply fond of my newfound peace and solitude.\"\n\nCotillion seemed to study her a moment, then the god said, \"I will leave you then, since I have other tasks to attend to this night.\"\n\nLostara reached into the pouch and tossed a small object towards him.\n\nHe caught it in one hand and peered down to study it.\n\n\"I assumed that was yours,\" she said.\n\n\"No, but I know to whom it belongs. And am pleased. May I keep it?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"It matters not tome.\"\n\n\"Nor should it, Lostara Yil.\"\n\nShe heard a dry amusement in those words, and concluded that she had made a mistake in letting him keep the object; that, indeed, it did matter to her, though for the present she knew not how. She shrugged again. Too late now, I suppose. \"You said you were leaving?\"\n\nShe sensed him bridling, then in a swirl of shadows he vanished.\n\nLostara lay back on the stony ground and contentedly closed her eyes.\n\nThe night breeze was surprisingly warm. Apsalar stood before the small window overlooking the gully. Neither Mogora nor Iskaral Pust frequented these heights much, except when necessity forced them to undertake an excursion in search of food, and so her only company was a half-dozen elderly bhok'arala, grey-whiskered and grunting and snorting as they stiffly moved about on the chamber's littered floor. The scattering of bones suggested that this top level of the tower was where the small creatures came to die." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As the bhok'arala shuffled back and forth behind her, she stared out onto the wastes. The sand and outcrops of limestone were silver in the starlight. On the rough tower walls surrounding the window rhizan were landing with faint slaps, done with their feeding, and now, claws whispering, they began crawling into cracks to hide from the coming day.\n\nCrokus slept somewhere below, whilst resident husband and wife stalked each other down the unlit corridors and in the musty chambers of the monastery. She had never felt so alone, nor, she realized, so comfortable with that solitude. Changes had come to her. Hardened layers sheathing her soul had softened, found new shape in response to unseen pressures from within.\n\nStrangest of all, she had come, overtime, to despise her competence, her deadly skills. They had been imposed upon her, forced into her bones and muscles. They had imprisoned her in blinding, gelid armour. And so, despite the god's absence, she still felt as if she was two women, not one.\n\nLeading her to wonder with which woman Crokus had fallen in love.\n\nBut no, there was no mystery there. He had assumed the guise of a killer, hadn't he? The young wide-eyed thief from Darujhistan had fashioned of himself a dire reflection– not of Apsalar the fisher-girl, but of Apsalar the assassin, the cold murderer. In the belief that likeness would forge the deepest bond of all. Perhaps that would have succeeded, had she liked her profession, had she not found it sordid and reprehensible. Had it not felt like chains wrapped tight about her soul.\n\nShe was not comforted by company within her prison. His love was for the wrong woman, the wrong Apsalar. And hers was for Crokus, not Cutter. And so they were together, yet apart, intimate yet strangers, and it seemed there was nothing they could do about it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The assassin within her preferred solitude, and the fisher-girl had, from an entirely different path, come into a similar comfort. The former could not afford to love. The latter knew she had never been loved. Like Crokus, she stood in a killer's shadow.\n\nThere was no point in railing against that. The fisher-girl had no life-skills of a breadth and stature to challenge the assassin's implacable will. Probably, Crokus had similarly succumbed to Cutter.\n\nShe sensed a presence close by her side, and murmured, \"Would that you had taken all with you when you departed.\"\n\n\"You'd rather I left you bereft? '\n\n\"Bereft, Cotillion? No. Innocent.\"\n\n\"Innocence is only a virtue, lass, when it is temporary. You must pass from it to look back and recognize its unsullied purity. To remain innocent is to twist beneath invisible and unfathomable forces all your life, until one day you realize that you no longer recognize yourself, and it comes to you that innocence was a curse that had shackled you, stunted you, defeated your every expression of living.\"\n\nShe smiled in the darkness. \"But, Cotillion, it is knowledge that makes one aware of his or her own chains.\"\n\n\"Knowledge only makes the eyes see what was there all along, Apsalar. You are in possession of formidable skills. They gift you with power, a truth there is little point in denying. You cannot unmake yourself.\"\n\n\"But I can cease walking this singular path.\"\n\n\"You can,\" he acknowledged after a moment. \"You can choose others, but even the privilege of choice was won by virtue of what you were-\"\n\n\"What you were.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nor can that be changed. I walked in your bones, your flesh, Apsalar. The fisher-girl who became a woman– we stood in each other's shadow. '\n\n\"And did you enjoy that, Cotillion?\"\n\n\"Not particularly. It was difficult to remain mindful of my purpose. We were in worthy company for most of that time– Whiskeyjack, Mallet, Fiddler, Kalam... a squad that, given the choice, would have welcomed you. But I prevented them from doing so. Necessary, but not fair to you or them.\" He sighed, then continued, \"I could speak endlessly of regrets, lass, but I see dawn stealing the darkness, and I must have your decision.\"\n\n\"My decision? Regarding what?\"\n\n\"Cutter.\"\n\nShe studied the desert, found herself blinking back tears. \"I would take him from you, Cotillion. I would prevent you doing to him what you did tome.\"\n\n\"He is that important to you?\"\n\n\"He is. Not to the assassin within me, but to the fisher-girl... whom he does not love.\"\n\n\"Doesn't he? '\n\n\"He loves the assassin, and so chooses to be like her.\"\n\n\"I understand now the struggle within you.\"\n\n\"Indeed? Then you must understand why I will not let you have him.\"\n\n\"But you are wrong, Apsalar. Cutter does not love the assassin within you. It attracts him, no doubt, because power does that... to us all. And you possess power, and that implicitly includes the option of not using it. All very enticing, alluring. He is drawn to emulate what he sees as your hard-won freedom. But his love? Resurrect our shared memories, lass. Of Darujhistan, of our first brush with the thief, Crokus. He saw that we had committed murder, and knew that discovery made his life forfeit in our eyes. Did he love you then? No, that came later, in the hills east of the city– when I no longer possessed you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Love changes with time-\"\n\n\"Aye, it does, but not like a capemoth flitting from corpse to corpse on a battlefield.\" He cleared his throat. \"Very well, a poor choice of analogy. Love changes, aye, in the manner of growing to encompass as much of its subject as possible. Virtues, flaws, limitations, everything– love will fondle them all, with child-like fascination.\"\n\nShe had drawn her arms tight about herself with his words. \"There are two women within me-\"\n\n\"Two? There are multitudes, lass, and Cutter loves them all.\"\n\n\"I don't want him to die! '\n\n\"Is that your decision?\"\n\nShe nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The sky was lightening, transforming into avast, empty space above a dead, battered landscape. She saw birds climb the winds into its expanse.\n\nCotillion persisted, \"Do you know, then, what you must do?\"\n\nOnce again, Apsalar nodded.\n\n\"I am... pleased.\"\n\nHer head snapped round, and she stared into his face, seeing it fully, she realized, for the first time. The lines bracketing the calm, soft eyes, the even features, the strange hatch pattern of scars beneath his right eye. \"Pleased,\" she whispered, studying him. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Because,\" he answered with a faint smile, \"I like the lad, too.\"\n\n\"How brave do you think I am?\"\n\n\"As brave as is necessary.\"\n\n\"Again.\"\n\n\"Aye. Again.\"\n\n\"You don't seem much like a god at all, Cotillion. '\n\n\"I'm not a god in the traditional fashion, I am a patron. Patrons have responsibilities. Granted, I rarely have the opportunity to exercise them. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Meaning they are not yet burdensome.\"\n\nHis smile broadened, and it was a lovely smile. \"You are worth far more for your lack of innocence, Apsalar. I will see you again soon.\" He stepped back into the shadows of the chamber.\n\n\"Cotillion.\"\n\nHe paused, arms half raised. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Thank you. And take care of Cutter. Please.\"\n\n\"I will, as if he were my own son, Apsalar. I will.\"\n\nShe nodded, and then he was gone.\n\nAnd, a short while later, so was she.\n\nThere were snakes in this forest of stone. Fortunately for Kalam Mekhar, they seemed to lack the natural belligerence of their kind. He was lying in shadows amidst the dusty, shattered fragments of a toppled tree, motionless as serpents slithered around him and over him. The stone was losing its chill from the night just past, a hot wind drifting in from the desert beyond.\n\nHe had seen no sign of patrols, and little in the way of well-trod trails. None the less, he sensed a presence in this petrified forest, hinting of power that did not belong on this world. Though he could not be certain, he sensed something demonic about that power.\n\nSufficient cause for unease. Sha'ik might well have placed guardians, and he would have to get past those.\n\nThe assassin lifted a flare-neck to one side then drew his two long-knives. He examined the grips, ensuring that the leather bindings were tight. He checked the fittings of the hilts and pommels. The edge of the otataral long-knife's blade was slightly rough– otataral was not an ideal metal for weapons. It cut ragged and needed constant sharpening, even when it had seen no use, and the iron had a tendency to grow brittle overtime. Before the Malazan conquest, otataral had been employed by the highborn of Seven Cities in their armour for the most part. Its availability had been tightly regulated, although less so than when under imperial control." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Few knew the full extent of its properties. When absorbed through the skin or breathed into the lungs for long periods, its effects were varied and unpredictable. It often failed in the face of Elder magic, and there was another characteristic that Kalam suspected few were aware of– a discovery made entirely by accident during a battle outside Y'Ghatan. Only a handful of witnesses survived the incident, Kalam and Quick Ben among them, and all had agreed afterwards that their reports to their officers would be deliberately vague, questions answered by shrugs and shakes of the head.\n\nOtataral, it seemed, did not go well with Moranth munitions, particularly burners and flamers. Or, to put it another way, it doesn't like getting hot. He knew that weapons were quenched in otataral dust at a late stage in their forging. When the iron had lost its glow, in fact. Likely, blacksmiths had arrived at that conclusion the hard way. But even that was not the whole secret. It's what happens to hot otataral... when you throw magic at it.\n\nHe slowly resheathed the weapon, then focused his attention on the other. Here, the edge was smooth, slightly wavy as often occurred with rolled, multi-layered blades. The water etching was barely visible on this gleaming, black surface, the silver inlay fine as thread. Between the two long-knives, he favoured this one, for its weight and balance.\n\nSomething struck the ground beside him, bouncing with a pinging sound off a fragment of tree trunk, then rattling to a stop down beside his right knee.\n\nKalam stared at the small object fora moment. He then looked up at the tree looming over him. He smiled. \"Ah, an oak,\" he murmured. \"Let it not be said I don't appreciate the humour of the gesture. \"He sat up and reached down to collect the acorn. Then leaned back once more.\"Just like old times... glad, as always, that we don't do this sort of thing anymore...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Plains to savanna, then, finally, jungle. They had arrived in the wet season, and the morning suffered beneath a torrential deluge before, just past noon, the sunburned through to lade the air with steam as the three T'lan Imass and one Tiste Edur trudged through the thick, verdant undergrowth.\n\nUnseen animals fled their onward march, thrashing heavily through the brush on all sides. Eventually, they stumbled onto a game trail that led in the direction they sought, and their pace increased.\n\n\"This is not your natural territory, is it, Onrack?\" Trull Sengar asked between gasps of the humid, rank air. \"Given all the furs your kind wear...\"\n\n\"True,\" the T'lan Imass replied.\"We area cold weather people. But this region exists within our memories. Before the Imass, there was another people, older, wilder. They dwelt where it was warm, and they were tall, their dark skins covered in fine hair. These we knew as the Eres. Enclaves survived into our time– the time captured within this warren. '\n\n\"And they lived in jungles like this one?\"\n\n\"Its verges, occasionally, but more often the surrounding savannas. They worked in stone, but with less skill than us.\"\n\n\"Were there bonecasters among them?\"\n\nMonok Ochem answered from behind them. \"All Eres were bonecasters, Trull Sengar. For they were the first to carry the spark of awareness, the first so gifted by the spirits.\"\n\n\"And are they now gone, Monok Ochem?\"\n\n\"They are.\"\n\nOnrack added nothing to that. After all, if Monok Ochem found reasons to deceive, Onrack could find none to contradict the bonecaster. It did not matter in any case. No Eres had ever been discovered in the Warren of Tellann." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After a moment, Trull Sengar asked, \"Are we close, Onrack?\"\n\n\"We are.\"\n\n\"And will we then return to our own world?\"\n\n\"We shall. The First Throne lies at the base of a crevasse, beneath a city-\"\n\n\"The Tiste Edur,\" Monok Ochem cut in, \"has no need for learning the name of that city, Onrack the Broken. He already knows too much of our people.\"\n\n\"What I know of you T'lan Imass hardly qualifies as secrets, \"Trull Sengar said.\"You prefer killing to negotiation. You do not hesitate to murder gods when the opportunity arises. And you prefer to cleanup your own messes– laudable, this last one. Unfortunately, this particular mess is too big, though I suspect you are still too proud to admit to that. As for your First Throne, I am not interested in discovering its precise location. Besides, I'm not likely to survive the clash with your renegade kin.\"\n\n\"That is true,\" Monok Ochem agreed.\n\n\"You will likely make sure of it,\" Trull Sengar added.\n\nThe bonecaster said nothing.\n\nThere was no need to, Onrack reflected. But I shall defend him. Perhaps Monok and Ibra understand this, and so they will strike at me first. It is what I would do, were I in their place. Which, oddly enough, I am.\n\nThe trail opened suddenly into a clearing filled with bones. Countless beasts of the jungle and savanna had been dragged hereby, Onrack surmised, leopards or hyenas. The longbones he noted were all gnawed and split open by powerful jaws. The air reeked of rotted flesh and flies swarmed in the thousands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Eres did not fashion holy sites of their own,\" Monok Ochem said, \"but they understood that there were places where death gathered, where life was naught but memories, drifting lost and bemused. And, to such places, they would often bring their own dead. Power gathers in layers– this is the birthplace of the sacred.\"\n\n\"And so you have transformed it into agate,\" Trull Sengar said.\n\n\"Yes,\" the bonecaster replied.\n\n\"You are too eager to credit the Imass, Monok Ochem,\" Onrack said. He faced the Tiste Edur. \"Eres holy sites burned through the barriers of Tellann. They are too old to be resisted.\"\n\n\"You said their sanctity was born of death. Are they Hood's, then? '\n\n\"No. Hood did not exist when these were fashioned, Trull Sengar. Nor are they strictly death-aspected. Their power comes, as Monok Ochem said, from layers. Stone shaped into tools and weapons. Air shaped by throats. Minds that discovered, faint as flickering fires in the sky, the recognition of oblivion, of an end... to life, to love. Eyes that witnessed the struggle to survive, and saw with wonder its inevitable failure. To know and to understand that we must all die, Trull Sengar, is not to worship death. To know and to understand is itself magic, for it made us stand tall.\"\n\n\"It seems, then,\" Trull Sengar muttered, \"that you Imass have broken the oldest laws of all, with your Vow.\"\n\n\"Neither Monok Ochem nor Ibra Gholan will speak in answer to that truth,\" Onrack said. \"You are right, however. We are the first lawbreakers, and that we have survived this long is fit punishment. And so, it remains our hope that the Summoner will grant us absolution.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Faith is a dangerous thing,\" Trull Sengar sighed. \"Well, shall we make use of this gate?\"\n\nMonok Ochem gestured, and the scene around them blurred, the light fading.\n\nA moment before the darkness became absolute, a faint shout from the Tiste Edur drew Onrack's attention. The warrior turned, in time to see a figure standing a dozen paces away. Tall, lithely muscled, with a fine umber-hued pelt and long, shaggy hair reaching down past the shoulders. A woman. Her breasts were large and pendulous, her hips wide and full. Prominent, flaring cheekbones, abroad, full-lipped mouth. All this registered in an instant, even as the woman's dark brown eyes, shadowed beneath a solid brow, scanned across the three T'lan Imass before fixing on Trull Sengar.\n\nShe took a step towards the Tiste Edur, the movement graceful as a deer's-\n\nThen the light vanished entirely.\n\nOnrack heard another surprised shout from Trull Sengar. The T'lan Imass strode towards the sound, then halted, thoughts suddenly scattering, a flash of images cascading through the warrior's mind. Time folding in on itself, sinking away, then rising once more-\n\nSparks danced low to the ground, tinder caught, flames flickering.\n\nThey were in the crevasse, standing on its littered floor. Onrack looked for Trull Sengar, found the Tiste Edur lying prone on the damp rock a half-dozen paces away.\n\nThe T'lan Imass approached.\n\nThe mortal was unconscious. There was blood smearing his lap, pooling beneath his crotch, and Onrack could see it cooling, suggesting that it did not belong to Trull Sengar, but to the Eres woman who had... taken his seed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His first seed. But there had been nothing to her appearance suggesting virginity. Her breasts had swollen with milk in the past; her nipples had known the pressure of a pup's hunger. The blood, then, made no sense.\n\nOnrack crouched beside Trull Sengar.\n\nAnd saw the fresh wound of scarification beneath his bellybutton. Three parallel cuts, drawn across diagonally, and the stained imprints of three more– likely those the woman had cut across her own belly– running in the opposite direction.\n\n\"The Eres witch has stolen his seed,\" Monok Ochem said from two paces away.\n\n\"Why?\" Onrack asked.\n\n\"I do not know, Onrack the Broken. The Eres have the minds of beasts-\"\n\n\"Not to the exclusion of all else,\" Onrack replied, \"as you well know.\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\"\n\n\"Clearly, this one had intent.\"\n\nMonok Ochem nodded. \"So it would seem. Why does the Tiste Edur remain unconscious?\"\n\n\"His mind is elsewhere-\"\n\nThe bonecaster cocked its head. \"Yes, that is the definition of unconscious-\"\n\n\"No, it is elsewhere. When I stepped close, I came into contact with sorcery. That which the Eres projected. For lack of any other term, it was a warren, barely formed, on the very edge of oblivion. It was,\" Onrack paused, then continued, \"like the Eres themselves. A glimmer of light behind the eyes.\"\n\nIbra Gholan suddenly drew his weapon.\n\nOnrack straightened.\n\nThere were sounds, now, beyond the fire's light, and the T'lan Imass could seethe glow of flesh and blood bodies, a dozen, then a score. Something else approached, the footfalls uneven and shambling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A moment later, an aptorian demon loomed into the light, a shape unfolding like black silk. And riding its humped, singular shoulder, a youth. Its body was human, yet its face held the features of the aptorian– a massive, lone eye, glistening and patterned like honeycomb. A large mouth, now opening to reveal needle fangs that seemed capable of retracting, all but their tips vanishing from sight. The rider wore black leather armour, shaped like scales and overlapping. A chest harness bore at least a dozen weapons, ranging from long-knives to throwing darts. Affixed to the youth's belt were two single-hand crossbows, their grips fashioned from the base shafts of antlers.\n\nThe rider leaned forward over the spiny, humped shoulder. Then spoke in a low, rasping voice. \"Is this all that Logros can spare?\"\n\n\"You,\" Monok Ochem said, \"are not welcome.\"\n\n\"Too bad, Bonecaster, for we are here. To guard the First Throne.\"\n\nOnrack asked, \"Who are you, and who has sent you here?\"\n\n\"I am Panek, son of Apt. It is not for me to answer your other question, T'lan Imass. I but guard the outer ward. The chamber that is home to the First Throne possesses an inner warden– the one who commands us. Perhaps she can answer you. Perhaps, even, she will. '\n\nOnrack picked up Trull Sengar. \"We would speak with her, then.\"\n\nPanek smiled, revealing the crowded row of fangs. \"As I said, the Throne Room. No doubt,\" he added, smile broadening, \"you know the way.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the oldest, most fragmentary of texts, will be found obscure mention of the Eres'al, a name that seems to refer to those most ancient of spirits that are the essence of the physical world. There is, of course, no empirical means of determining whether the attribution of meaning– the power inherent in making symbols of the inanimate– was causative, in essence the creative force behind the Eres'al; or if some other mysterious power was involved, inviting the accretion of meaning and significance by intelligent forms of life at some later date.\n\nIn either case, what cannot be refuted is the rarely acknowledged but formidable power that exists like subterranean layers in notable features of the land; nor that such power is manifested with subtle yet profound efficacy, even so much as to twist the stride of gods– indeed, occasionally sufficient to bring them down with finality...\n\nPreface to the Compendium of Maps Kellarstellis of Li Heng\n\nThe vast shelves and ridges of coral had been worn into flat-topped islands by millennia of drifting sand and wind. Their flanks were ragged and rotted, pitted and undercut, the low ground in between them narrow, twisting and filled with sharp-edged rubble. To Gamet's eye, the gods could not have chosen a less suitable place to encamp an army.\n\nYet there seemed little choice. Nowhere else offered an approach onto the field of battle, and, as quickly became evident, the position, once taken, was as defensible as the remotest mountain keep: alone saving grace.\n\nTavore's headlong approach into the maw of the enemy, to the battleground of their choosing, was, the Fist suspected, the primary source of the unease and vague confusion afflicting the legions. He watched the soldiers proceeding, in units of a hundred, on their way to taking and holding various coral islands overlooking the basin. Once in place, they would then construct from the rubble defensive barriers and low walls, followed by ramps on the south sides." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Captain Keneb shifted nervously on his saddle beside the Fist as they watched the first squads of their own legion set out towards a large, bone-white island on the westernmost edge of the basin. \"They won't try to dislodge us from these islands, \"he said.\"Why bother, since it's obvious the Adjunct intends to march us right into their laps?\"\n\nGamet was not deaf to the criticisms and doubt hidden beneath Keneb's words, and he wished he could say something to encourage the man, to bolster faith in Tavore's ability to formulate and progress sound tactics. But even the Fist was unsure. There had been no sudden revelation of genius during the march from Aren. They had, in truth, walked straight as a lance northward. Suggesting what, exactly? A singlemindedness worthy of imitation, or a failure of imagination? Are the two so different, or merely alternate approaches to the same thing? And now they were being arrayed, as stolid as ever, to advance– probably at dawn the next day– towards the enemy and their entrenched fortifications. An enemy clever enough to create singular and difficult approaches to their positions.\n\n\"Those ramps will seethe death of us all,\" Keneb muttered. \"Korbolo Dom's prepared for this, as any competent, Malazan-trained commander would. He wants us crowded and struggling uphill, beneath an endless hail of arrows, quarrels and ballista, not to mention sorcery. Look at how smooth he's made those ramp surfaces, Fist. The cobbles, when slick with streaming blood, will be like grease underfoot. We'll find no purchase-'\n\n\"I am not blind,\" Gamet growled. \"Nor, we must assume, is the Adjunct.\"\n\nKeneb shot the older man a look. \"It would help to have some reassurance of that, Fist.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There shall be a meeting of officers tonight,\" Gamet replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And again a bell before dawn.\"\n\n\"She's already decided the disposition of our legion, ' Keneb grated, leaning on his saddle and spitting in the local fashion.\n\n\"Aye, she has, Captain.\" They were to guard avenues of retreat, not for their own forces, but those the enemy might employ. A premature assumption of victory that whispered of madness. They were outnumbered. Every advantage was with Sha'ik, yet almost one-third of the Adjunct's army would not participate in the battle. \"And the Adjunct expects us to comply with professional competence,\" Gamet added.\n\n\"As she commands,\" Keneb growled.\n\nDust was rising as the sappers and engineers worked on the fortifications and ramps. The day was blisteringly hot, the wind barely a desultory breath. The Khundryl, Seti and Wickan horse warriors remained south of the coral islands, awaiting the construction of a road that would give them egress to the basin. Even then, there would be scant room to manoeuvre. Gamet suspected that Tavore would hold most of them back– the basin was not large enough for massed cavalry charges, for either side. Sha'ik's own desert warriors would most likely beheld in reserve, afresh force to pursue the Malazans should they be broken. And, in turn, the Khundryl can cover such a retreat... or rout. A rather ignoble conclusion, the remnants of the Malazan army riding double on Khundryl horses– the Fist grimaced at the image and angrily swept it from his mind. \"The Adjunct knows what she is doing,\" he asserted.\n\nKeneb said nothing.\n\nA messenger approached on foot. \"Fist Gamet,\" the man called out, \"the Adjunct requests your presence.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I will keep an eye on the legion,\" Keneb said.\n\nGamet nodded and wheeled his horse around. The motion made his head spin fora moment– he was still waking with headaches– then he steadied himself with a deep breath and nodded towards the messenger.\n\nThey made slow passage through the chaotic array of troops moving to and fro beneath the barked commands of the officers, towards a low hill closest to the basin. Gamet could seethe Adjunct astride her horse on that hill, along with, on foot, Nil and Nether.\n\n\"I see them,\" Gamet said to the messenger.\n\n\"Aye, sir, I'll leave you to it, then. '\n\nRiding clear of the press, Gamet brought his horse into a canter and moments later reined in alongside the Adjunct.\n\nThe position afforded them a clear view of the enemy emplacements, and, just as they observed, so too in turn were they being watched by a small knot of figures atop the central ramp.\n\n\"How sharp are your eyes, Fist?\" the Adjunct asked.\n\n\"Not sharp enough,\" he replied.\n\n\"Korbolo Dom. Kamist Reloe. Six officers. Kamist has quested in our direction, seeking signs of mages. High Mages, specifically. Of course, given that Nil and Nether are with me, they cannot be found by Kamist Reloe's sorceries. Tell me, Fist Gamet, how confident do you imagine Korbolo Dom feels right now? '\n\nHe studied her a moment. She was in her armour, the visor of her helm lifted, her eyes half-lidded against the bright glare bouncing from the basin's hard-packed, crackled clay.\"I would think, Adjunct, \"he replied slowly,\"that his measure of confidence is wilting. '" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the author's co-writer, advance the plot.\nTags: epic fantasy, character study, power struggles, resilience, destiny\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: House of Chains\nChapter: 35" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I will keep an eye on the legion,\" Keneb said.\n\nGamet nodded and wheeled his horse around. The motion made his head spin fora moment– he was still waking with headaches– then he steadied himself with a deep breath and nodded towards the messenger.\n\nThey made slow passage through the chaotic array of troops moving to and fro beneath the barked commands of the officers, towards a low hill closest to the basin. Gamet could seethe Adjunct astride her horse on that hill, along with, on foot, Nil and Nether.\n\n\"I see them,\" Gamet said to the messenger.\n\n\"Aye, sir, I'll leave you to it, then. '\n\nRiding clear of the press, Gamet brought his horse into a canter and moments later reined in alongside the Adjunct.\n\nThe position afforded them a clear view of the enemy emplacements, and, just as they observed, so too in turn were they being watched by a small knot of figures atop the central ramp.\n\n\"How sharp are your eyes, Fist?\" the Adjunct asked.\n\n\"Not sharp enough,\" he replied.\n\n\"Korbolo Dom. Kamist Reloe. Six officers. Kamist has quested in our direction, seeking signs of mages. High Mages, specifically. Of course, given that Nil and Nether are with me, they cannot be found by Kamist Reloe's sorceries. Tell me, Fist Gamet, how confident do you imagine Korbolo Dom feels right now? '\n\nHe studied her a moment. She was in her armour, the visor of her helm lifted, her eyes half-lidded against the bright glare bouncing from the basin's hard-packed, crackled clay.\"I would think, Adjunct, \"he replied slowly,\"that his measure of confidence is wilting. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She glanced over. \"Wilting. Why?\"\n\n\"Because it all looks too easy. Too overwhelmingly in his favour, Adjunct.\"\n\nShe fell silent, returning her gaze to the distant enemy.\n\nIs this what she wanted me for? To ask that one question?\n\nGamet switched his attention to the two Wickans. Nil had grown during the march, leading Gamet to suspect that he would be a tall man in a few years' time. He wore only a loincloth and looked feral with his wild, unbraided hair and green and black body-paint.\n\nNether, he realized with some surprise, had filled out beneath her deer-skin hides, a chubbiness that was common to girls before they came of age. The severity of her expression was very nearly fixed now, transforming what should have been a pretty face into a mien forbidding and burdened. Her black hair was shorn close, betokening avow of grief.\n\n\"Kamist's questing is done, \"the Adjunct suddenly pronounced.\"He will need to rest, now. ' She turned in her saddle and by some prearranged signal two Wickan warriors jogged up the slope. Tavore unhitched her sword-belt and passed it to them. They quickly retreated with the otataral weapon.\n\nReluctantly, Nil and Nether settled cross-legged onto the stony ground.\n\n\"Fist Gamet,\" the Adjunct said, \"if you would, draw your dagger and spill a few drops from your right palm.\"\n\nWithout a word he tugged off his gauntlet, slid his dagger from its scabbard and scored the edge across the fleshy part of his hand. Blood welled from the cut. Gamet held it out, watched as the blood spilled down to the ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dizziness struck him and he reeled in the saddle a moment before regaining his balance.\n\nNether voiced a hiss of surprise.\n\nGamet glanced down at her. Her eyes were closed, both hands pressed against the sandy ground. Nil had assumed the same posture and on his face flitted a wild sequence of emotions, fixing at last on fear.\n\nThe Fist was still feeling light-headed, a faint roaring sound filling his skull.\n\n\"There are spirits here,\" Nil growled. \"Rising with anger-\"\n\n\"A song,\" Nether cut in. \"Of war, and warriors-\"\n\n\"New and old,\" her brother said. \"So very new... and so very old. Battle and death, again and again-\"\n\n\"The land remembers every struggle played out on its surface, on all its surfaces, from the very beginning.\" Nether grimaced, then shivered, her eyes squeezed shut. \"The goddess is as nothing to this power– yet she would... steal.\"\n\nThe Adjunct's voice was sharp.\"Steal? '\n\n\"The warren,\" Nil replied. \"She would claim this fragment, and settle it upon this land like a parasite. Roots of shadow, slipping down to draw sustenance, to feed on the land's memories. '\n\n\"And the spirits will not have it,\" Nether whispered.\n\n\"They are resisting?\" the Adjunct asked.\n\nBoth Wickans nodded, then Nil bared his teeth and said, \"Ghosts cast no shadows. You were right, Adjunct. Gods, you were right!\"\n\nRight? Gamet wondered. Right about what?\n\n\"And will they suffice?\" Tavore demanded.\n\nNil shook his head. \"I don't know. Only if the Talon Master does what you think he will do, Adjunct. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Assuming,\" Nether added, \"Sha'ik is unaware of the viper in her midst. '\n\n\"Had she known,\" Tavore said, \"she would have separated his head from his shoulders long ago.\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" Nether replied, and Gamet heard the scepticism in her tone. \"Unless she and her goddess decided to wait until all their enemies were gathered.\"\n\nThe Adjunct returned her gaze to the distant officers. \"Let us see, shall we?\"\n\nBoth Wickans rose, then shared a glance unwitnessed by Tavore.\n\nGamet rubbed his uncut hand along his brow beneath the helm's rim, and his fingers came away dripping with sweat. Something had used him, he realized shakily. Through the medium of his blood. He could hear distant music, a song of voices and unrecognizable instruments. A pressure was building in his skull.\"If you are done with me, Adjunct, ' he said roughly.\n\nShe nodded without looking over. \"Return to your legion, Fist. Convey to your officers, please, the following. Units may appear during the battle on the morrow which you will not recognize. They may seek orders, and you are to give them as if they were under your command.\"\n\n\"Understood, Adjunct.\"\n\n\"Have a cutter attend to your hand, Fist Gamet, and thank you. Also, ask the guards to return tome my sword.\"\n\n\"Aye.\" He wheeled his horse and walked it down the slope.\n\nThe headache was not fading, and the song itself seemed to have poisoned his veins, a music of flesh and bone that hinted of madness. Leave me in peace, damn you. I am naught but a soldier. A soldier..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Strings sat on the boulder, his head in his hands. He had flung off the helm but had no memory of having done so, and it lay at his feet, blurry and wavering behind the waves of pain that rose and fell like a storm-tossed sea. Voices were speaking around him, seeking to reach him, but he could make no sense of what was being said. The song had burgeoned sudden and fierce in his skull, flowing through his limbs like fire.\n\nA hand gripped his shoulder, and he felt a sorcerous questing seep into his veins, tentatively at first, then flinching away entirely, only to return with more force– and with it, a spreading silence. Blissful peace, cool and calm.\n\nFinally, the sergeant was able to lookup.\n\nHe found his squad gathered around him. The hand fixed onto his shoulder was Bottle's, and the lad's face was pale, beaded with sweat. Their eyes locked, then Bottle nodded and slowly withdrew his hand.\n\n\"Can you hear me, Sergeant?\"\n\n\"Faint, as if you were thirty paces away.\"\n\n\"Is the pain gone?\"\n\n\"Aye– what did you do?\"\n\nBottle glanced away.\n\nStrings frowned, then said, \"Everyone else, back to work. Stay here, Bottle.\"\n\nCuttle cuffed Tarr and the corporal straightened and mumbled, \"Let's go, soldiers. There's pits to dig.\"\n\nThe sergeant and Bottle watched the others head off, retrieving their picks and shovels as they went. The squad was positioned on the southwesternmost island, overlooking dunes that reached out to the horizon. A single, sufficiently wide corridor lay directly to the north, through which the enemy– if broken and fleeing– would come as they left the basin. Just beyond it lay a modest, flat-topped tel, on which a company of mounted desert warriors were ensconced, the crest dotted with scouts keeping a careful eye on the Malazans." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right, Bottle,\" Strings said, \"out with it.\"\n\n\"Spirits, Sergeant. They're... awakening. '\n\n\"And what in Hood's name has that got to do with me? '\n\n\"Mortal blood, I think. It has its own song. They remember it. They came to you, Sergeant, eager to add their voices to it. To... uh... to you.\"\n\n\"Why me?\"\n\n\"I don't know. '\n\nStrings studied the young mage fora moment, mulling on the taste of that lie, then grimaced and said, \"You think it's because I'm fated to die here– at this battle.\"\n\nBottle looked away once more. \"I'm not sure, Sergeant. It's way beyond me... this land. And its spirits. And what it all has to do with you-\"\n\n\"I'm a Bridgeburner, lad. The Bridgeburners were born here. In Raraku's crucible.\"\n\nBottle's eyes thinned as he studied the desert to the west.\"But... they were wiped out. '\n\n\"Aye, they were.\"\n\nNeither spoke fora time. Koryk had broken his shovel on a rock and was stringing together an admirable list of Seti curses. The others had stopped to listen. On the northern edge of the island Gesler's squad was busy building a wall of rubble, which promptly toppled, the boulders tumbling down the far edge. Distant hoots and howls sounded from the tel across the way.\n\n\"It won't be your usual battle, will it? ' Bottle asked.\n\nStrings shrugged. \"There's no such thing, lad. There's nothing usual about killing and dying, about pain and terror.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's not what I meant-'\n\n\"I know it ain't, Bottle. But wars these days are fraught with sorcery and munitions, so you come to expect surprises. '\n\nGesler's two dogs trotted past, the huge cattle dog trailing the Hengese Roach as if the hairy lapdog carried its own leash.\n\n\"This place is... complicated,\" Bottle sighed. He reached down and picked up a large, disc-shaped rock. \"Eres'al, \"he said.\"A hand-axe– the basin down there's littered with them. Smoothed by the lake that once filled it. Took days to make one of these, then they didn't even use them– they just flung them into the lake. Makes no sense, does it? Why make a tool then not use it? '\n\nStrings stared at the mage. \"What are you talking about, Bottle? Who are the Eres'al? '\n\n\"Were, Sergeant. They're long gone. '\n\n\"The spirits?\"\n\n\"No, those are from all times, from every age this land has known. My grandmother spoke of the Eres. The Dwellers who lived in the time before the Imass, the first makers of tools, the first shapers of their world.\" He shook his head, fought down a shiver. \"I never expected to meet one– it was there, she was there, in that song within you.\"\n\n\"And she told you about these tools?\"\n\n\"Not directly. More like I shared it– well, her mind. She was the one who gifted you the silence. It wasn't me– I don't have that power– but I asked, and she showed mercy. At least\"– he glanced at Strings– \"I gather it was a mercy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aye, lad, it was. Can you still... speak with that Eres?\"\n\n\"No. All I wanted to do was get out of there– out of that blood-\"\n\n\"My blood.\"\n\n\"Well, most of it's your blood, Sergeant. '\n\n\"And the rest?\"\n\n\"Belongs to that song. The, uh, Bridgeburners\" song. '\n\nStrings closed his eyes, settled his head against the boulder behind him. Kimloc, that damned Tanno Spiritwalker in Ehrlitan. I said no, but he did it anyway. He stole my story-not just mine, but the Bridgeburners\"-and he made of it a song. The bastard's gone and given us back to Raraku...\n\n\"Go help the others, Bottle.\"\n\n\"Aye, Sergeant.\"\n\n\"And... thanks.\"\n\n\"I'll pass that along, when next I meet the Eres witch. '\n\nStrings stared after the mage. So there'll be a next time, will there? Just how much didn't you tell me, lad? He wondered if the morrow would indeed be witness to his last battle. Hardly a welcome thought, but maybe it was necessary. Maybe he was being called to join the fallen Bridgeburners. Not so bad, then. Couldn't ask for more miserable company. Damn, but I miss them. I miss them all. Even Hedge.\n\nThe sergeant opened his eyes and climbed to his feet, collecting then donning his helm. He turned to stare out over the basin to the northeast, to the enemy emplacements and the dust and smoke of the city hidden within the oasis. You too, Kalam Mekhar. I wonder if you know why you're here..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The shaman was in a frenzy, twitching and hissing as he scuttled like a crab in dusty circles around the flat slab of bone that steadily blackened on the hearth. Corabb, his mouth filled with a half-dozen of the scarab shells strung round his neck toward off evil, winced as his chattering teeth crunched down on one carapace, filling his mouth with a bitter taste. He plucked the necklace from his mouth and began spitting out pieces of shell.\n\nLeoman strode up to the shaman and grabbed the scrawny man by his telaba, lifted him clear off the ground, then shook him. A flurry of cloth and hair and flying spittle, then Leoman set the shaman down once more and growled, \"What did you see?\"\n\n\"Armies!\" the old man shrieked, tugging at his nose as if it had just arrived on his face.\n\nLeoman scowled. \"Aye, we can see those too, you damned fakir-\"\n\n\"No! More armies!\" He scrabbled past and ran to the southern crest of the tel, where he began hopping about and pointing at the Malazans entrenching on the island opposite the old drainage channel.\n\nLeoman made no move to follow. He walked over to where Corabb and three other warriors crouched behind a low wall. \"Corabb, send another rider to Sha'ik-no, on second thought, you go yourself. Even if she will not bother acknowledging our arrival, I want to know how Mathok's tribes will be arrayed come the dawn. Find out, once you have spoken with Sha'ik– and Corabb, be certain you speak with her in person. Then return here. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I shall do as you command,\" Corabb announced, straightening.\n\nTwenty paces away the shaman wheeled round and screamed, \"They are here! The dogs, Leoman! The dogs! The Wickan dogs\". '\n\nLeoman scowled. \"The fool's gone mad... '\n\nCorabb jogged over to his horse. He would waste no time saddling the beast, especially if it meant hearing more of the shaman's insane observations. He vaulted onto the animal, tightened the straps holding the lance crossways on his back, then collected the reins and spurred the animal into motion.\n\nThe route to the oasis was twisting and tortured, winding between deep sand and jagged outcrops, forcing him to slow his mount's pace and let it pick its own way along the trail.\n\nThe day was drawing to a close, shadows deepening where the path wound its way into high-walled gullies closer to the southwestern edge of the oasis. As his horse scrabbled over some rubble and walked round a sharp bend, the sudden stench of putrefaction reached both animal and man simultaneously.\n\nThe path was blocked. A dead horse and, just beyond it, a corpse.\n\nHeart thudding, Corabb slipped down from his mount and moved cautiously forward.\n\nLeoman's messenger, the one he had sent as soon as the troop had arrived. A crossbow quarrel had taken him on the temple, punching through bone then exploding out messily the other side.\n\nCorabb scanned the jagged walls to either side. If there'd been assassins stationed there he would already be dead, he reasoned. Probably, then, they weren't expecting anymore messengers.\n\nHe returned to his horse. It was a struggle coaxing the creature over the bodies, but eventually he led the beast clear of them and leapt onto its back once more. Eyes roving restlessly, he continued on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sixty paces later and the trail ahead opened out onto the sandy slope, beyond which could be seen the dusty mantles of guldindha trees.\n\nBreathing a relieved sigh, Corabb urged his horse forward.\n\nTwo hammer blows against his back flung him forward. Without stirrups or saddlehorn to grab onto, Corabb threw his arms out around the horse's neck– even as the animal squealed in pain and bolted. The motion almost jolted loose his panicked grip, and the horse's right knee cracked hard, again and again, into his helm, until it fell away and the knobby joint repeatedly pounded against his head.\n\nCorabb held on, even as he continued slipping down, then around, until his body was being pummelled by both front legs. The encumbrance proved sufficient to slow the animal as it reached the slope, and Corabb, one leg dangling, his heel bouncing over the hard ground, managed to pull himself up under his horse's head.\n\nAnother quarrel cracked into the ground and skittered away off to the left.\n\nThe horse halted halfway up the slope.\n\nCorabb brought his other leg down, then pivoted around to the opposite side and vaulted onto the animal once more. He'd lost the reins, but closed both fingers in the horse's mane as he drove his heels into the beast's flanks.\n\nYet another quarrel caromed from the rocks, then hooves were thudding on sand, and sudden sunlight bathed them.\n\nDirectly ahead lay the oasis, and the cover of trees.\n\nCorabb leaned onto the mount's neck and urged it ever faster.\n\nThey plunged onto a trail between the guldindhas. Glancing back, he saw a deep rip running down his horse's left flank, leaking blood. And then he caught sight of his lance, dangling loose now from his back. There were two quarrels embedded in the shaft. Each had struck at a different angle, and the impact must have been nearly simultaneous, since the splits had bound against each other, halting the momentum of both quarrels." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Corabb lifted the ruined weapon clear and flung it away.\n\nHe rode hard down the trail.\n\n\"A tiger's barbs, \"she murmured, her eyes veiled behind rust-leaf smoke,\"painted onto a toad. Somehow, it makes you look even more dangerous. '\n\n\"Aye, lass, I'm pure poison, \"Heboric muttered as he studied her in the gloom. There was life in her gaze once more, a sharpness that went beyond the occasional cutting remark, hinting at a mind finally cleared of durhang's dulling fog. She still coughed as if her lungs were filled with fluid, although the sage mixed in with the rust-leaf had eased that somewhat.\n\nShe was returning his regard with an inquisitive– if slightly hard– expression, drawing steadily on the hookah's mouthpiece, smoke tumbling down from her nostrils.\n\n\"If I could see you,\" Heboric muttered, \"I'd conclude you've improved some.\"\n\n\"I have, Destriant of Treach, though I would have thought those feline eyes of yours could pierce every veil.\"\n\nHe grunted. \"It's more that you no longer slur your words, Scillara. '\n\n\"What do we do now?\" she asked after a moment.\n\n\"Dusk will soon arrive. I would go out to find L'oric, and I would that you accompany me. '\n\n\"And then?\"\n\n\"Then, I would lead you to Felisin Younger.\"\n\n\"Sha'ik's adopted daughter.\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\nScillara glanced away, meditative as she drew deep on the rust-leaf.\n\n\"How old are you, lass?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She shrugged, \"As old as I have to be. If I am to take Felisin Younger's orders, so be it. Resentment is pointless. '\n\nAn awkward conversation, progressing in leaps that left Heboric scrambling. Sha'ik was much the same. Perhaps, he reflected with a grimace, this talent for intuitive thinking was a woman's alone– he admittedly had little experience upon which he could draw, despite his advanced years. Fener's temple was predominantly male, when it came to the holy order itself, and Heboric's life as a thief had, of necessity, included only a handful of close associations. He was, once more, out of his depth. \"Felisin Younger has, I believe, little interest in commanding anyone. This is not an exchange of one cult for another, Scillara– not in the way you seem to think it is, at any rate. No-one will seek to manipulate you here.\"\n\n\"As you have explained, Destriant.\" She sighed heavily and sat straighter, setting down the hookah's mouthpiece.\"Very well, lead me into the darkness. '\n\nHis eyes narrowed on her. \"I shall... as soon as it arrives...\"\n\nThe shadows were drawing long, sufficient to swallow the entire basin below their position. Sha'ik stood at the crest of the northernmost ramp, studying the distant masses of Malazan soldiery on the far rises as they continued digging in. Ever methodical, washer sister.\n\nShe glanced to her left and scanned Korbolo Dom's positions. All was in readiness for the morrow's battle, and she could seethe Napan commander, surrounded by aides and guards, standing at the edge of the centre ramp, doing as she herself was doing: watching Tavore's army." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We are all in place. Suddenly, the whole thing seemed so pointless. This game of murderous tyrants, pushing their armies forward into an inevitable clash. Coldly disregarding of the lives that would be lost in the appeasement of their brutal desires. What value this mindless hunger to rule? What do you want with us, Empress Laseen? Seven Cities will never rest easy beneath your yoke. You shall have to enslave, and what is gained by that? And what of her own goddess? Was she any different from Laseen? Every claw was outstretched, eager to grasp, to rend, to soak the sand red with gore.\n\nBut Raraku does not belong to you, dear Dryjhna, no matter how ferocious your claims. I see that now. This desert is holy unto itself. And now it rails– feel it, goddess! It rails! Against one and all.\n\nStanding beside her, Mathok had been studying the Malazan positions in silence. But now he spoke. \"The Adjunct has made an appearance, Chosen One.\"\n\nSha'ik dragged her gaze from Korbolo Dom and looked to where the desert warchief pointed.\n\nAstride a horse from the Paran stables. Of course. Two Wickans on foot nearby. Her sister was in full armour, her helm glinting crimson in the dying light.\n\nSha'ik's eyes snapped back to Korbolo's position.\"Kamist Reloe has arrived... he's opened his warren and now quests towards the enemy. But Tavore's otataral sword defies him... so he reaches around, into the army itself. Seeking High Mages... unsuspected allies... \"After a moment she sighed.\"And finds none but a few shamans and squad mages. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mathok rumbled, \"Those two Wickans with the Adjunct. They are the ones known as Nil and Nether.\"\n\n\"Yes. Said to be broken of spirit– they have none of the power that their clans once gave them, for those clans have been annihilated.\"\n\n\"Even so, Chosen One,\" Mathok muttered, \"that she holds them within the fog of otataral suggests they are not as weak as we would believe.\"\n\n\"Or that Tavore does not want their weakness revealed.\"\n\n\"Why bother if such failure is already known to us?\"\n\n\"To deepen our doubt, Mathok,\" she replied.\n\nHe curtly gestured, adding a frustrated growl. \"This mire has no surface, Chosen One-\"\n\n\"Wait!\" Sha'ik stared once again at Tavore.\"She has sent her weapon away– Kamist Reloe has withdrawn his questing– and now... ah! ' The last word was a startled cry, as she felt the muted unveiling of power from both Nil and Nether– a power far greater than it had any right to be.\n\nSha'ik then gasped, as the goddess within her flinched back– as if stung-and loosed a shriek that filled her skull.\n\nFor Raraku was answering the summons, a multitude of voices, rising in song, rising with raw, implacable desire– the sound, Sha'ik realized, of countless souls straining against the chains that bound them.\n\nChains of shadow. Chains like roots. From this torn, alien fragment of warren. This piece of shadow, that has risen to bind their souls and so feeds upon the life-force. \"Mathok, where is Leoman?\" We need Leoman." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I do not know, Chosen One.\"\n\nShe turned once more and stared at Korbolo Dom. He stood foremost on the ramp, his stance squared, thumbs hitched into his sword-belt, studying the enemy with an air of supreme confidence that made Sha'ik want to scream.\n\nNothing– nothing was as it seemed.\n\nTo the west, the sun had turned the horizon into a crimson conflagration. The day was drowning in a sea of flame, and she watched shadows flowing across the land, her heart growing cold.\n\nThe alley outside Heboric's tent was empty in both directions. The sun's sudden descent seemed to bring a strange silence along with the gloom. Dust hung motionless in the air.\n\nThe Destriant of Treach paused in the aisle.\n\nBehind him Scillara said, \"Where is everyone?\"\n\nHe had been wondering the same thing. Then, slowly, the hairs rose on the back of his neck. \"Can you hear that, lass?\"\n\n\"Only the wind...\"\n\nBut there was no wind.\n\n\"No, not wind,\" Scillara murmured. \"A song. From faraway– the Malazan army, do you think?\"\n\nHe shook his head, but said nothing.\n\nAfter a moment Heboric gestured Scillara to follow and he set out down the alley. The song seemed suspended in the very air, raising a haze of dust that seemed to shiver before his eyes. Sweat ran down his limbs. Fear. Fear has driven this entire city from the streets. Those voices are the sound of war.\n\n\"There should be children,\" Scillara said. \"Girls...\"\n\n\"Why girls more than anyone else, lass?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bidithal's spies. His chosen servants. '\n\nHe glanced back at her. \"Those he... scars?\"\n\n\"Yes. They should be... everywhere. Without them-\"\n\n\"Bidithal is blind. It may well be he has sent them elsewhere, or even withdrawn them entirely. There will be... events this night, Scillara. Blood will be spilled. The players are, no doubt, even now drawing into position.\"\n\n\"He spoke of this night,\" she said. \"The hours of darkness before the battle. He said the world will change this night.\"\n\nHeboric bared his teeth. \"The fool has sunk to the bottom of the Abyss, and now stirs the black mud.\"\n\n\"He dreams of true Darkness unfolding, Destriant. Shadow is but an upstart, a realm born of compromise and filled with impostors. The fragments must be returned to the First Mother.\"\n\n\"Not just a fool, then, but mad. To speak of the most ancient of battles, as if he himself is a force worthy of it– Bidithal has lost his mind.\"\n\n\"He says something is coming,\" Scillara said, shrugging. \"Suspected by no-one, and only Bidithal himself has any hope of controlling it, for he alone remembers the Dark.\"\n\nHeboric halted. \"Hood take his soul. I must go to him. Now.\"\n\n\"We will find him-\"\n\n\"In his damned temple, aye. Come on.\"\n\nThey swung about.\n\nEven as two figures emerged from the gloom of an alley mouth, blades flickering out.\n\nWith a snarl, Heboric closed on them. One taloned hand shot out, tore under and into an assassin's neck, then snapped upward, lifting the man's head clean from his shoulders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The other killer lunged, knife-point darting for Heboric's left eye. The Destriant caught the man's wrist and crushed both bones. A slash from his other hand spilled the assassin's entrails onto the dusty street.\n\nFlinging the body away, Heboric glared about. Scillara stood a few paces back, her eyes wide. Ignoring her, the Destriant crouched down over the nearest corpse. \"Korbolo Dom's. Too impatient by far-'\n\nThree quarrels struck him simultaneously. One deep into his right hip, shattering bone. Another plunging beneath his right shoulder blade to draw short a finger's breadth from his spine. The third, arriving from the opposite direction, took him high on his left shoulder with enough force to spin him round, so that he tumbled back-ward over the corpse.\n\nScillara scrabbled down beside him. \"Old man? Do you live?\"\n\n\"Bastards,\" he growled. \"That hurts.\"\n\n\"They're coming-'\n\n\"To finish me off, aye. Flee, lass. To the stone forest. Go!\"\n\nHe felt her leave his side, heard her light steps patter away.\n\nHeboric sought to rise, but agony ripped up from his broken hip, left him gasping and blinded.\n\nApproaching footsteps, three sets, moccasined, two from the right and one from the left. Knives whispered from sheaths. Closing... then silence.\n\nSomeone was standing over Heboric. Through his blurred vision, he could make out dust-smeared boots, and from them a stench, as of musty, dry death. Another set of boots scuffed the ground beyond the Destriant's feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Begone, wraiths,\" a voice hissed from a half-dozen paces away.\n\n\"Too late for that, assassin,\" murmured the figure above Heboric. \"Besides, we've only just arrived. '\n\n\"In the name of Hood, Hoarder of Souls, I banish you from this realm.\"\n\nA soft laugh answered the killer's command.\"Kneel before Hood, do you? Oh yes, I felt the power in your words. Alas, Hood's out of his depth on this one. Ain't that right, lass? '\n\nA deep, grunting assent from the one standing near Heboric's feet.\n\n\"Last warning,\" the assassin growled. \"Our blades are sanctioned– they will bleed your souls-\"\n\n\"No doubt. Assuming they ever reach us.\"\n\n\"There are but two of you... and three of us.\"\n\n\"Two?\"\n\nScuffing sounds, then, sharp and close, the spray of blood onto the ground. Bodies thumped, long breaths exhaled wetly.\n\n\"Should've left one alive, \"said another woman's voice.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"So we could send him back to that fly-blown Napan bastard with a promise for the morrow.\"\n\n\"Better this way, lass. No-one appreciates surprise anymore– that's what's gone wrong with the world, if you ask me-\"\n\n\"Well, we wasn't asking you. This old man going to make it, you think? '\n\nA grunt. \"I doubt Treach will give upon his new Destriant with nary a meow. Besides, that sweet-lunged beauty is on her way back.\"\n\n\"Time for us to leave, then.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aye.\"\n\n\"And from now on we don't surprise no-one, \"til come the dawn. Understood?\"\n\n\"Temptation got the better of us. Won't happen again. '\n\nSilence, then footsteps once more. A small hand settled on his brow.\n\n\"Scillara?\"\n\n\"Yes, it's me. There were soldiers here, I think. They didn't look too good-\"\n\n\"Never mind that. Pull the quarrels from me. Flesh wants to heal, bone to knit. Pull'em out, lass. '\n\n\"And then?\"\n\n\"Drag me back to my temple... if you can.\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\nHe felt a hand close on the quarrel buried in his left shoulder. A flash of pain, then nothing.\n\nElder Sha'ik's armour was laid out on the table. One of Mathok's warriors had replaced the worn straps and fittings, then polished the bronze plates and the full, visored helm. The longsword was oiled, its edges finely honed. The iron-rimmed hide-covered shield leaned against one table leg.\n\nShe stood, alone in the chamber, staring down at the accoutrements left by her predecessor. The old woman reputedly had skill with the blade. The helm seemed strangely oversized, its vented cheek guards flared and full length, hinged to the heavy brow-band. Fine blackened chain hung web-like across the eye-slits. Along, wide lobster-tail neck guard sprawled out from the back rim.\n\nShe walked over to the quilted under-padding. It was heavy, sweat-stained, the laces beneath the arms and running the length of the sides. Boiled leather plates covered her upper thighs, shoulders, arms and wrists. Working methodically, she tightened every lace and strap, shifting about to settle the weight evenly before turning to the armour itself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Most of the night remained, stretching before her like infinity's dark road, but she wanted to feel the armour encasing her; she wanted its massive weight, and so she affixed the leg greaves, footplates and wrist vambraces, then shrugged her way into the breastplate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sorcery had lightened the bronze, and its sound as it rustled was like thin tin. The design allowed her to cinch the straps herself, and moments later she picked up the sword and slid it into its scabbard, then drew the heavy belt about her waist, setting the hooks that held it to the cuirass so that its weight did not drag at her hips.\n\nAll that remained was the pair of gauntlets, and the under-helm and helm itself. She hesitated. Have I any choice in all this? The goddess remained a towering presence in her mind, rooted through every muscle and fibre, her voice whispering in the flow of blood in her veins and arteries. Ascendant power was in Sha'ik's grasp, and she knew she would use it when the time came. Or, rather, it would use her.\n\nTo kill my sister.\n\nShe sensed the approach of someone and turned to face the entrance. \"You may enter, L'oric. '\n\nThe High Mage stepped into view.\n\nSha'ik blinked. He was wearing armour. White, enamelled, scarred and stained with use. Along, narrow-bladed sword hung at his hip. After a moment, she sighed.\"And so we all make preparations... '\n\n\"As you have observed before, Mathok has over three hundred warriors guarding this palace, Chosen One. Guarding... you.\"\n\n\"He exaggerates the risk. The Malazans are far too busy-\"\n\n\"The danger he anticipates, Chosen One, lies not with the Malazans.\"\n\nShe studied him. \"You look exhausted, L'oric. I suggest you return to your tent and get some rest. I shall have need for you on the morrow. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You will not heed my warning?\"\n\n\"The goddess protects me. I have nothing to fear. Besides,\" she smiled, \"Mathok has three hundred of his chosen warriors guarding this palace.\"\n\n\"Sha'ik, there will be a convergence this night. You have readers of the Deck among your advisers. Command they field their cards, and all that I say will be confirmed. Ascendant powers are gathering. The stench of treachery is in the air. '\n\nShe waved a hand. \"None of it matters, L'oric. I cannot be touched. Nor will the goddess be denied. '\n\nHe stepped closer, his eyes wide. \"Chosen One! Raraku is awakening.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"Can you not hear it?\"\n\n\"The rage of the goddess consumes all, L'oric. If you can hear the voice of the Holy Desert, then it is Raraku's death-cry. The Whirlwind shall devour this night. And any ascendant power foolish enough to approach will be annihilated. The goddess, L'oric, will not be denied. '\n\nHe stared at her a moment longer, then seemed to sag beneath his armour. He drew a hand across his eyes, as if seeking to claw some nightmarish vision from his sight. Then, with a nod, he swung about and strode towards the doorway.\n\n\"Wait!\" Sha'ik moved past him then halted.\n\nVoices sounded from beyond the canvas walls.\n\n\"Let him pass!\" she cried.\n\nTwo guards stumbled in, dragging a man between them. Smeared in dust and sweat, he was unable to even stand, so exhausted and battered was he. One of the guards barked, \"It is Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas. One of Leoman's officers.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Chosen One!\" the man gasped. \"I am the third rider Leoman has sent to you! I found the bodies of the others– assassins pursued me almost to your very palace!\"\n\nSha'ik's face darkened with fury. \"Get Mathok,\" she snapped to one of the guards. \"L'oric, gift this man some healing, to aid in his recovery. '\n\nThe High Mage stepped forward, settled a hand on Corabb's shoulder.\n\nThe desert warrior's breathing slowed, and he slowly straightened.\"Leoman sends his greetings, Chosen One. He wishes to know of Mathok's deployment-\"\n\n\"Corabb,\" Sha'ik cut in.\"You will return to Leoman– with an escort. My orders to him areas follows– are you listening? '\n\nHe nodded.\n\n\"Leoman is to ride immediately back tome. He is to takeover command of my armies.\"\n\nCorabb blinked. \"Chosen One?\"\n\n\"Leoman of the Flails is to assume command of my armies. Before the dawn. L'oric, go to Korbolo Dom and convey to him my summons. He is to attend me immediately. '\n\nL'oric hesitated, then nodded.\"As you command, Chosen One. I will take my leave of you now. '\n\nHe exited the chamber, made his way through the intervening rooms and passageways, passing guard after guard, seeing weapons drawn and feeling hard eyes on him. Korbolo Dom would be a fool to attempt to reach her with his assassins. Even so, the night had begun, and in the oasis beyond starlight now played on drawn blades.\n\nEmerging onto the concourse before the palace, L'oric paused. His warren was unveiled, and he made that fact visible through a spark-filled penumbra surrounding his person. He wanted no-one to make any fatal mistakes. Feeling strangely exposed none the less, he set out towards Korbolo Dom's command tent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Dogslayers were ready in their reserve trenches, a ceaseless rustling of weapons and armour and muted conversations that fell still further as he strode past, only to rise again in his wake. These soldiers, L'oric well knew, had by choice and by circumstance made of themselves a separate force. Marked by the butchery of their deeds. By the focus of Malazan outrage. They know that no quarter will be given them. Their bluster was betrayed by diffidence, their reputed savagery streaked now with glimmers of fear. And their lives were in Korbolo Dom's stained hands. Entirely. They will not sleep this night.\n\nHe wondered what would happen when Leoman wrested command from the Napan renegade. Would there be mutiny? It was very possible. Of course, Sha'ik possessed the sanction of the Whirlwind Goddess, and she would not hesitate to flex that power should Leoman's position be challenged. Still, this was not the way to ready an army on the night before battle.\n\nShe has waited too long. Then again, perhaps this was intended. Designed to knock Korbolo off balance, to give him no time to prepare any counter-moves. If so, then it is the boldest of risks, on this, the most jagged-edged of nights.\n\nHe made his way up the steep pathway to the Napan's command tent. Two sentries emerged from near the entrance to block his progress.\n\n\"Inform Korbolo Dom that I bring word from Sha'ik. '\n\nHe watched the two soldiers exchange a glance, then one nodded and entered the tent.\n\nA few moments later the sorceress, Henaras, strode out from the entrance. Her face knotted in a scowl. \"High Mage L'oric. You shall have to relinquish your warren to seek audience with the Supreme Commander of the Apocalypse. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One brow rose at that lofty title, but he shrugged and lowered his magical defences. \"I am under your protection, then,\" he said.\n\nShe cocked her head. \"Against whom do you protect yourself, High Mage? The Malazans are on the other side of the basin.\"\n\nL'oric smiled.\n\nGesturing, Henaras swung about and entered the command tent. L'oric followed.\n\nThe spacious chamber within was dominated by a raised dais at the end opposite the doorway, on which sat a massive wooden chair. The high headrest was carved in arcane symbols that L'oric recognized– with a shock– as Hengese, from the ancient city of Li Heng in the heart of the Malazan Empire. Dominating the carvings was a stylized rendition of a raptor's talons, outstretched, that hovered directly over the head of the seated Napan, who sat slouched, his hooded gaze fixed on the High Mage.\n\n\"L'oric, \"he drawled.\"You foolish man. You are about to discover what happens to souls who are far too trusting. Granted, \"he added with a smile,\"you might have assumed we were allies. After all, we have shared the same oasis for sometime now, have we not? '\n\n\"Sha'ik demands that you attend her, Korbolo Dom. Immediately. '\n\n\"To relieve me of my command, yes. With the ill-informed belief that my Dogslayers will accept Leoman of the Flails– did you peruse them on your way here, L'oric? Were you witness to their readiness? My army, High Mage, is surrounded by enemies. Do you understand? Leoman is welcome to attempt an approach, with all the desert warriors he and Mathok care to muster-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You would betray the Apocalypse?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Turn on your allies and win the battle for the Adjunct, Korbolo Dom? All to preserve your precious position?\"\n\n\"If Sha'ik insists. '\n\n\"Alas, Sha'ik is not the issue, \"L'oric said. \"The Whirlwind Goddess, however, is, and I believe her toleration of you, Korbolo Dom, is about to end.\"\n\n\"Do you think so, L'oric? Will she also accept the destruction of the Dogslayers? For destroy them she must, if she is to wrest control from me. The decimation of her vaunted Army of the Apocalypse. Truly, will the goddess choose this? '\n\nL'oric slowly cocked his head, then he slowly sighed.\"Ah, I see now the flaw. You have approached this tactically, as would any soldier. But what you clearly do not understand is that the Whirlwind Goddess is indifferent to tactics, to grand strategies. You rely upon her commonsense, but Korbolo, she has none. The battle tomorrow? Victory or defeat? The goddess cares neither way. She desires destruction. The Malazans butchered on the field, the Dogslayers slaughtered in their trenches, an enfilade of sorcery to transform the sands of Raraku into a red ruin. This is what the Whirlwind Goddess desires. '\n\n\"What of it?\" the Napan rasped, and L'oric saw sweat beading the man's scarred brow. \"Even the goddess cannot reach me, not here, in this sanctified place-\"\n\n\"And you call me the fool? The goddess will see you slain this night, but you are too insignificant for her to act directly in crushing you under thumb.\"\n\nKorbolo Dom bolted forward on the chair. \"Then who?\" he shrieked. \"You, L'oric? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The High Mage spread his hands and shook his head. \"I am less than a messenger in this, Korbolo Dom. I am, if anything at all, merely the voice of... commonsense. It is not who she will send against you, Supreme Commander. It is, I believe, who she will allow through her defences. Don't you think? '\n\nKorbolo stared down at the High Mage, then he snarled and gestured.\n\nThe knife plunging into his back had no chance of delivering a fatal wound. L'oric's tightly bound defences, his innermost layers of Kurald Thyrllan, defied the thirst of iron. Despite this, the blow drove the High Mage to his knees. Then he pitched forward onto the thick carpets, almost at the Napan's boots.\n\nAnd already, he was ignored as he lay there, bleeding into the weave, as Korbolo rose and began bellowing orders. And none were close enough to hear the High Mage murmur, \"Blood is the path, you foolish man. And you have opened it. You poor bastard...\"\n\n\"Grim statement. Greyfrog must leave your delicious company.\"\n\nFelisin glanced over at the demon. Its four eyes were suddenly glittering, avid with palpable hunger. \"What has happened?\"\n\n\"Ominous. An invitation from my brother.\"\n\n\"Is L'oric in trouble? '\n\n\"There is darkness this night, yet the Mother's face is turned away. What comes cannot be chained. Warning. Caution. Remain here, lovely child. My brother can come to no further harm, but my path is made clear. Glee. I shall eat humans this night. '\n\nShe drew her telaba closer about herself and fought off a shiver. \"I am, uh, pleased for you, Greyfrog.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Uncertain admonition. The shadows are fraught– no path is entirely clear, even that of blood. I must needs bob and weave, hop this way and that, grow still under baleful glare, and hope for the best.\"\n\n\"How long should I wait for you, Greyfrog?\"\n\n\"Leave not this glade until the sunrises, dearest she whom I would marry, regardless of little chance for proper broods. Besotted. Suddenly eager to depart.\"\n\n\"Go, then.\"\n\n\"Someone approaches. Potential ally. Be kind.\"\n\nWith that the demon scrambled into the shadows.\n\nPotential ally? Who would that be?\n\nShe could hear the person on the trail now, bared feet that seemed to drag with exhaustion, and a moment later a woman stumbled into the glade, halting in the gloom to peer about.\n\n\"Here,\" Felisin murmured, emerging from the shelter.\n\n\"Felisin Younger?\"\n\n\"Ah, there is but one who calls me that. Heboric has sent you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" The woman came closer, and Felisin saw that she was stained with blood, and a heavy bruise marred her jaw. \"They tried to kill him. There were ghosts. Defending him against the assassins-\"\n\n\"Wait, wait. Catch your breath. You're safe here. Does Heboric still live? '\n\nShe nodded. \"He heals– in his temple. He heals-\"\n\n\"Slow your breathing, please. Here, I have wine. Say nothing for now– when you are ready, tell me your tale.\"\n\nShadow-filled hollows rippled the hills that marked the northwest approach to the oasis. A haze of dust dulled the starlight overhead. The night had come swiftly to Raraku, as it always did, and the day's warmth was fast dissipating. On this night, there would be frost." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Four riders sat still on motionless horses in one such hollow, steam rising from their lathered beasts. Their armour gleamed pale as bone, the skin of their exposed faces a pallid, deathly grey.\n\nThey had seen the approaching horse warrior from a distance, sufficient to permit them this quiet withdrawal unseen, for the lone rider was not their quarry, and though none said it out loud, they were all glad for that.\n\nHe was huge, that stranger. Astride a horse to match. And a thousand ravaged souls trailed him, bound by ethereal chains that he dragged as if indifferent to their weight. A sword of stone hung from his back, and it was possessed by twin spirits raging with bloodthirst.\n\nIn all, a nightmarish apparition.\n\nThey listened to the heavy hoofs thump past, waited until the drumming sound dwindled within the stone forest on the edge of the oasis.\n\nThen Jorrude cleared his throat. \"Our path is now clear, brothers. The trespassers are camped nearby, among the army that has marched to do battle with the dwellers of this oasis. We shall strike them with the dawn.\"\n\n\"Brother Jorrude,\" Enias rumbled, \"what conjuration just crossed our trail?\"\n\n\"I know not, Brother Enias, but it was a promise of death.\"\n\n\"Agreed,\" Malachar growled.\n\n\"Our horses are rested enough,\" Jorrude pronounced.\n\nThe four Tiste Liosan rode up the slope until they reached the ridge, then swung their mounts southward. Jorrude spared a last glance back over his shoulder, to make certain the stranger had not reversed his route– had not spied them hiding therein that hollow. Hiding. Yes, that is the truth of it, ignoble as the truth often proves to be. He fought off a shiver, squinting into the darkness at the edge of the stone forest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the apparition did not emerge.\n\n\"In the name of Osric, Lord of the Sky,\" Jorrude intoned under his breath as he led his brothers along the ridge, \"thank you for that...\"\n\nAt the edge of the glade, Karsa Orlong stared back at the distant riders. He had seen them long before they had seen him, and had smiled at their cautious retreat from his path.\n\nWell enough, there were enemies aplenty awaiting him in the oasis, and no night lasted forever.\n\nAlas." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hear them rattle These chains of living Bound to every moment passed Until the wreckage clamours In deafening wake And each stride trails A dirge of the lost.\n\nHouse of Chains Fisher kel Tath\n\nHe sat cross-legged in the darkness, perched in his usual place on the easternmost ridge, his eyes closed, a small smile on his withered face. He had unveiled his warren in the most subtle pattern, an unseen web stretched out across the entire oasis. It would be torn soon, he well knew, but for the moment he could sense every footpad, every tremble. The powers were indeed converging, and the promise of blood and destruction whispered through the night.\n\nFebryl was well pleased. Sha'ik had been isolated, utterly. The Napan's army of killers were even now streaming from their places of hiding, as panic closed hands around Korbolo Dom's throat. Kamist Reloe was returning from his secret sojourn through the warrens. And, across the basin, the Malazan army was entrenching, the Adjunct whetting her otataral sword in anticipation of the morning's battle.\n\nThere was but one troubling detail. A strange song, faint yet growing. The voice of Raraku itself. He wondered what it would bring to this fated night. Hood was close– aye, the god himself– and this did much to mask other... presences. But the sands were stirring, awakened perhaps by the Lord of Death's arrival. Spirits and ghosts, no doubt come to witness the many deaths promised in the hours to come. A curious thing, but he was not unduly concerned.\n\nThere will be slaughter. Yet another apocalypse on Raraku's restless sands. It is as it should be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To all outward appearances, L'oric was dead. He had been roughly dragged to one wall in the command tent and left; there. The knife had been yanked from his back, and he now lay with his face to the rough fabric of the wall, eyes open and seemingly sightless.\n\nBehind him, the Supreme Commander of the Apocalypse was speaking.\n\n\"Unleash them all, Henaras, barring my bodyguards. I want everyone of Bidithal's cute little spies hunted down and killed– and find Scillara. That bitch has played her last game.\n\n\"You, Duryl, take another and ride out to the Adjunct. Deliver my missive-and make certain you are not seen by anyone. Mathok has his warriors out. Fayelle will work sorcery to aid you. And impress upon Tavore the need to withdraw her killers, lest they do the Whirlwind Goddess's work for her. '\n\n\"Supreme Commander,\" a voice spoke, \"what of Leoman of the Flails?\"\n\n\"The 4th Company and Fayelle are to leave quietly with the next bell. Leoman will get nowhere near us, or the army. Corporal Ethume, I want you within crossbow range of Febryl– the bastard's hiding in the usual place. Now, have I missed anything? '\n\n\"My fear is deepening,\" Henaras murmured. \"Something is happening... in the holy desert. Worse, I feel the approach of terrible powers-\"\n\n\"Which is why we need the Adjunct and her damned sword. Are we safe enough inhere, Henaras?\"\n\n\"I think so– the wards Kamist, Fayelle and I have woven about this tent would confound a god.\"\n\n\"That claim might well be challenged,\" Korbolo Dom growled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He added something more, but a strange gurgling sound, from just beyond the tent wall in front of L'oric, overrode the Napan's voice. A wetness, spattering the opposite side, then a sigh– audible to L'oric only because he was so close. Talons then raked along the base of the wall, reducing the fabric to ribbons. A four-eyed, immeasurably ugly face peered in through the gap.\n\n\"Brother, you look unwell.\"\n\nAppearances deceive, Greyfrog. For example, you have never looked prettier.\n\nThe demon reached in and grasped L'oric by one arm. He then began dragging him by increments through the tear.\"Confident. They are too preoccupied. Disappointed. I have eaten but two guards, the wards sleep and our path of retreat is clear. Things are coming. Suitably ominous. Frankly. I admit to fear, and advise we... hide. '\n\nFora time, yes, we do just that. Find us somewhere, Greyfrog.\n\n\"Assured. I shall.\"\n\nThen leave me there and return to Felisin. Assassins are out hunting...\n\n\"Delightful.\"\n\nKasanal had been a Semk shaman once, but now he murdered at his new master's bidding. And he enjoyed it, although, admittedly, he preferred killing Malazans rather than natives. At least his victims this night would not be Semk– to slay those from his own tribe would be a difficult thing to accept. But that did not seem likely. Korbolo Dom had as much as adopted the last survivors of the clans that had fought for him and Kamist Reloe on the Chain of Dogs.\n\nAnd these two were mere women, both servants of that butcher, Bidithal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was now lying motionless on the edge of the glade, watching the two." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One was Scillara, and Kasanal knew his master would be pleased when he returned with her severed head. The other one was also familiar– he had seen her in Sha'ik's company, and Leoman's.\n\nIt was also clear that they were in hiding, and so likely to be principal agents in whatever Bidithal was planning.\n\nHe slowly raised his right hand, and two quick gestures sent his four followers out along the flanks, staying within the trees, to encircle the two women's position. Under his breath, he began murmuring an incantation, a weaving of ancient words that deadened sound, that squeezed lassitude into the victims, dulling their every sense. And he smiled as he saw their heads slowly settle in unison.\n\nKasanal rose from his place of concealment. The need for hiding had passed. He stepped into the glade. His four Semk kin followed suit.\n\nThey drew their knives, edged closer.\n\nKasanal never saw the enormous blade that cut him in half, from the left side of his neck and out just above his right hip. He had a momentary sense of falling in two directions, then oblivion swallowed him, so he did not hear the cries of his four cousins, as the wielder of the stone sword marched into their midst.\n\nWhen Kasanal at last opened ethereal eyes to find himself striding towards Hood's Gate, he was pleased to find his four kinsmen with him.\n\nWiping the blood from his sword, Karsa Orlong swung to face the two women. \"Felisin,\" he growled, \"your scars burn bright on your soul. Bidithal chose to ignore my warning. So be it. Where is he?\"\n\nStill feeling the remnants of the strange dullness that had stolen her senses, Felisin could only shake her head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karsa scowled at her, then his gaze shifted to the other woman. \"Has the night stolen your tongue as well?\"\n\n\"No. Yes. No, clearly it hasn't. I believe we were under sorcerous attack. But we are now recovering, Toblakai. You have been gone long. '\n\n\"And I am now returned. Where is Leoman? Bidithal? Febryl? Korbolo Dom? Kamist Reloe? Heboric Ghost Hands?\"\n\n\"An impressive list– you've a busy night ahead, I think. Find them where you will, Toblakai. The night awaits you. '\n\nFelisin drew a shaky breath, wrapping her arms about herself as she stared up at the terrible warrior. He had just killed five assassins with five sweeping, almost poetic passes of that enormous sword. The very ease of it horrified her. True, the assassins had intended the same for her and Scillara.\n\nKarsa loosened his shoulders with a shrug, then strode towards the path leading to the city. In moments he was gone.\n\nScillara moved closer to Felisin and laid a hand on her shoulder. \"Death is always a shock,\" she said. \"The numbness will pass. I promise.\"\n\nBut Felisin shook her head. \"Except for Leoman,\" she whispered.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Those he named. He is going to kill them all. Except for Leoman.\"\n\nScillara slowly turned to face the trail, a cool, speculative look stealing across her face.\n\nThe last two had taken down four warriors and come within thirty paces of his tent before finally falling. Scowling, Mathok stared down at the arrow-studded, sword-slashed corpses. Six attempted assassinations this night alone, and the first bell had yet to sound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Enough.\n\n\"T'morol, gather my clan. '\n\nThe burly warrior grunted assent and strode off. Mathok drew his furs tighter about himself and returned to his tent.\n\nWithin its modest confines, he paused fora long moment, deep in thought. Then he shook himself and walked over to a hide-covered chest near his cot. He crouched, swept aside the covering, and lifted the ornate lid.\n\nThe Book of Dryjhna resided within.\n\nSha'ik had given it into his keeping.\n\nTo safeguard.\n\nHe closed the lid and locked it, then picked up the chest and made his way outside. He could hear his warriors breaking camp in the darkness beyond. \"T'morol. '\n\n\"Warchief.\"\n\n\"We ride to join Leoman of the Flails. The remaining clans are to guard Sha'ik, though I am confident she is not at risk– she may have need for them in the morning. '\n\nT'morol's dark eyes were fixed on Mathok, cold and impervious to surprise. \"We are to ride from this battle, Warchief?\"\n\n\"To preserve the Holy Book, such flight maybe a necessity, old friend. Come the dawn, we hover... on the very cusp.\"\n\n\"To gauge the wind.\"\n\n\"Yes, T'morol, to gauge the wind. '\n\nThe bearded warrior nodded. \"The horses are being saddled. I will hasten the preparations.\"\n\nHeboric listened to the silence. Only his bones could feel the tingling hum of a sorcerous web spanning the entire oasis and its ruined city, the taut vibrations rising and falling as disparate forces began to move across it, then, with savage disregard, tore through it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stirred from the cot, groaning with the stab of force-healed wounds, and climbed shakily to his feet. The coals had died in their braziers. The gloom felt solid, reluctant to yield as he made his way to the doorway. Heboric bared his teeth. His taloned hands twitched.\n\nGhosts stalked the dead city. Even the gods felt close, drawn to witness all that was to come. Witness, or to seize the moment and act directly. A nudge here, a tug there, if only to appease their egos... if only to see what happens. These were the games he despised, source of his fiercest defiance all those years ago. The shape of his crime, if crime it was.\n\nAnd so they took my hands.\n\nUntil another god gave them back.\n\nHe was, he realized, indifferent to Treach. A reluctant Destriant to the new god of war, despite the gifts. Nor had his desires changed. Otataral Island, and the giant of jade-that is what awaits me. The returning of power. Even as those last words tracked across his mind, he knew that a deceit rode among them. A secret he knew but to which he would fashion no shape. Not yet, perhaps not until he found himself standing in the wasteland, beneath the shadow of that crooked spire.\n\nBut first, I must meet a more immediate challenge– getting out of this camp alive.\n\nHe hesitated another moment at the doorway, reaching out into the darkness beyond with all his senses. Finding the path clear– his next twenty strides at least– he darted forward.\n\nRolling the acorn in his fingers one last time, he tucked it into a fold in his sash and eased snake-like from the crack." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, Hood's heartless hands... '\n\nThe song was a distant thunder trembling along his bones, and he didn't like it. Worse yet, there were powers awakened in the oasis ahead that even he, anon-practitioner of sorcery, could feel like fire in his blood.\n\nKalam Mekhar checked his long-knives yet again, then resheathed them. The temptation was great to keep the otataral weapon out, and so deny any magic sent his way. But that goes both ways, doesn't it?\n\nHe studied the way ahead. The starlight seemed strangely muted. He drew from memory as best he could, from what he had seen from his hiding place during the day. Palms, their boles spectral as they rose above tumbled mudbricks and cut stone. The remnants of corrals, pens and shepherds' huts. Stretches of sandy ground littered with brittle fronds and husks. There were no new silhouettes awaiting him.\n\nKalam set forth.\n\nHe could seethe angular lines of buildings ahead, all low to the ground, suggesting little more than stretches of mud-brick foundations from which canvas, wicker and rattan walls rose. Occupied residences, then.\n\nFar off to Kalam's right was the grey smudge of that strange forest of stone trees. He had considered making his approach through it, but there was something uncanny and unwelcoming about that place, and he suspected it was not as empty as it appeared.\n\nApproaching what seemed to be a well-trod avenue between huts, he caught a flash of movement, darting from left to right across the aisle. Kalam dropped lower and froze. A second figure followed, then a third, fourth and fifth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A hand. Now, who in this camp would organize their assassins into hands? He waited another half-dozen heartbeats, then set off. He came opposite the route the killers had taken and slipped into their wake. The five were moving at seven paces apart, two paces more than would a Claw. Damn, did Cotillion suspect? Is this what he wanted me to confirm?\n\nThese are Talons.\n\nSeven or five, it made little difference to Kalam.\n\nHe came within sight of the trailing assassin. The figure bore magically invested items, making his form blurry, wavering. He was wearing dark grey, tight-fitting clothes, moccasined, gloved and hooded. Blackened daggers gleamed in his hands.\n\nNot just patrolling, then, but hunting.\n\nKalam padded to within five paces of the man, then darted forward.\n\nHis right hand reached around to clamp hard across the man's mouth and jaw, his left hand simultaneously closing on the head's opposite side. A savage twist snapped the killer's neck.\n\nVomit spurted against Kalam's leather-sheathed palm, but he held onto his grip, guiding the corpse to the ground. Straddling the body, he released his grip, wiped his hand dry against the grey shirt, then moved on.\n\nTwo hundred heartbeats later and there were but two left. Their route had taken them, via a twisting, roundabout path, towards a district marked by the ruins of what had once been grand temples. They were drawn up at the edge of abroad concourse, awaiting their comrades, no doubt.\n\nKalam approached them as would the third hunter in the line. Neither was paying attention, their gazes fixed on a building on the other side of the concourse. At the last moment Kalam drew both long-knives and thrust them into the backs of the two assassins." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Collaborating with the writer, advance the narrative.\nTags: epic fantasy, character study, power struggles, resilience, destiny\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: House of Chains\nChapter: 36" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A hand. Now, who in this camp would organize their assassins into hands? He waited another half-dozen heartbeats, then set off. He came opposite the route the killers had taken and slipped into their wake. The five were moving at seven paces apart, two paces more than would a Claw. Damn, did Cotillion suspect? Is this what he wanted me to confirm?\n\nThese are Talons.\n\nSeven or five, it made little difference to Kalam.\n\nHe came within sight of the trailing assassin. The figure bore magically invested items, making his form blurry, wavering. He was wearing dark grey, tight-fitting clothes, moccasined, gloved and hooded. Blackened daggers gleamed in his hands.\n\nNot just patrolling, then, but hunting.\n\nKalam padded to within five paces of the man, then darted forward.\n\nHis right hand reached around to clamp hard across the man's mouth and jaw, his left hand simultaneously closing on the head's opposite side. A savage twist snapped the killer's neck.\n\nVomit spurted against Kalam's leather-sheathed palm, but he held onto his grip, guiding the corpse to the ground. Straddling the body, he released his grip, wiped his hand dry against the grey shirt, then moved on.\n\nTwo hundred heartbeats later and there were but two left. Their route had taken them, via a twisting, roundabout path, towards a district marked by the ruins of what had once been grand temples. They were drawn up at the edge of abroad concourse, awaiting their comrades, no doubt.\n\nKalam approached them as would the third hunter in the line. Neither was paying attention, their gazes fixed on a building on the other side of the concourse. At the last moment Kalam drew both long-knives and thrust them into the backs of the two assassins." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Soft grunts, and both men sank to the dusty flagstones. The blow to the leader of the Talon's hand was instantly fatal, but Kalam had twisted the other thrust slightly to one side, and he now crouched down beside the dying man.\"If your masters are listening, \"he murmured,\"and they should be. Compliments of the Claw. See you soon... '\n\nHe tugged the two knives free, cleaned the blades and sheathed them.\n\nThe hunters' target was, he assumed, within the ruined building that had been the sole focus of their attention. Well enough– Kalam had no friends in this damned camp.\n\nHe set out along the edge of the concourse.\n\nAt the mouth of another alley he found three corpses, all young girls. The blood and knife-wounds indicated they had put up a fierce fight, and two spattered trails led away, in the direction of the temple.\n\nKalam tracked them until he was certain that they led through the half-ruined structure's gaping doorway, then he halted.\n\nThe bitter reek of sorcery wafted from the broad entrance. Damn, this place has been newly sanctified.\n\nThere was no sound from within. He edged forward until he came to one side of the doorway.\n\nA body lay just inside, grey-swathed, fixed in a contortion of limbs, evincing that he had died beneath a wave of magic. Shadows were flowing in the darkness beyond.\n\nKalam drew his otataral long-knife, crept in through the doorway.\n\nThe shadowy wraiths flinched back.\n\nThe floor had collapsed long ago, leaving avast pit. Five paces ahead, at the base of a rubble-strewn ramp, a young girl sat amidst the blood and entrails of three more corpses. She was streaked with gore, her eyes darkly luminous as she looked up at Kalam. \"Do you remember the dark?\" she asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ignoring her question, he stepped past at a safe distance. \"Make no move, lass, and you'll survive my visit. '\n\nA thin voice chuckled from the gloom at the far end of the pit. \"Her mind is gone, Claw. No time, alas, to fully harden my subjects to the horrors of modern life, try though I might. In any case, you should know that I am not your enemy. Indeed, the one who seeks to kill me this night is none other than the Malazan renegade, Korbolo Dom. And, of course, Kamist Reloe. Shall I give you directions to their abode?\"\n\n\"I'll find it in due course, ' Kalam murmured.\n\n\"Do you think your otataral blade sufficient, Claw? Here, in my temple? Do you understand the nature of this place? I imagine you believe you do, but I am afraid you are in error. Slavemaster, offer our guest some wine from that jug.\"\n\nA misshapen figure squirmed wetly across the rubble from Kalam's left. No hands or feet. Amass of suppurating sores and the mangled rot of leprosy. With horrible absurdity, a silver tray had been strapped to the creature's back, on which sat a squat, fired clay jug.\n\n\"He is rather slow, I'm afraid. But I assure you, the wine is so exquisite that you will agree it is worth the wait. Assassin, you are in the presence of Bidithal, archpriest of all that is sundered, broken, wounded and suffering. My own... awakening proved both long and torturous, I admit. I had fashioned, in my own mind, every detail of the cult I would lead. All the while unaware that the shaping was being... guided." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Blindness, wilful and, indeed, spiteful. Even when the fated new House was laid out before me, I did not realize the truth. This shattered fragment of Kurald Emurlahn, Claw, shall not be the plaything of a desert goddess. Nor of the Empress. None of you shall have it, for it shall become the heart of the new House of Chains. Tell your empress to stand aside, assassin. We are indifferent to who would rule the land beyond the Holy Desert. She can have it.\"\n\n\"And Sha'ik? '\n\n\"You can have her as well. Marched back to Unta in chains– and that is far more poetic than you will ever know.\"\n\nThe shadow-wraiths– torn souls from Kurald Emurlahn– were drawing closer round Kalam, and he realized, with a chill, that his otataral long-knife might well prove insufficient. \"An interesting offer,\" he rumbled. \"But something tells me there are more lies than truths within it, Bidithal.\"\n\n\"I suppose you are right,\" the archpriest sighed. \"I need Sha'ik, for this night and the morrow at least. Febryl and Korbolo Dom must be thwarted, but I assure you, you and I can work together towards such an end, since it benefits us both. Korbolo Dom calls himself Master of the Talon. Yes, he would return to Laseen's embrace, more or less, and use Sha'ik to bargain for his own position. As for Febryl, well, I assure you, what he awaits no-one but he is mad enough to desire. '\n\n\"Why do you bother with all this, Bidithal? You've no intention of letting me leave here alive. And here's another thing. A pair of beasts are coming– hounds, not of Shadow, but something else. Did you summon them, Bidithal? Do you, or your Crippled God, truly believe you can control them? If so, then it is you two who are mad.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bidithal leaned forward. \"They seek a master!\" he hissed.\n\nAh, so Cotillion was right about the Chained One. \"One who is worthy,\" Kalam replied. \"In other words, one who is meaner and tougher than they are. And in this oasis, they will find no such individual. And so, I fear, they will kill everyone.\"\n\n\"You know nothing of this, assassin,\" Bidithal murmured, leaning back. \"Nor of the power I now possess. As for not permitting you to leave here alive... true enough, I suppose. You've revealed too much knowledge, and you are proving far less enthusiastic to my proposals than I would have hoped. An unfortunate revelation, but it no longer matters. My servants were scattered about earlier, you see, defending every approach, requiring time to draw them in, to arrange them between us. Ah, Slavemaster has arrived. By all means, have some wine. I am prepared to linger here for that. Once you are done, however, I must take my leave. I made a promise to Sha'ik, after all, and I mean to keep it. Should you, by some strange miracle, escape here alive, know that I will not oppose your efforts against Korbolo Dom and his cadre. You will have earned that much, at least.\"\n\n\"Best leave now, then, Bidithal. I have no interest in wine this night.\"\n\n\"As you wish.\"\n\nDarkness swept into engulf the archpriest, and Kalam shivered at the uncanny familiarity of the sorcerous departure.\n\nThe wraiths attacked.\n\nBoth knives slashed out, and inhuman screams filled the chamber. As it turned out, his otataral weapon proved sufficient after all. That, and the timely arrival of a god." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Korbolo Dom seemed to have unleashed an army upon his own allies this night. Again and again, Karsa Orlong found his path blocked by eager killers. Their corpses were strewn in his wake. He had taken a few minor wounds from knives invested with sorcery, but most of the blood dripping from the giant warrior belonged to his victims.\n\nHe strode with his sword in both hands now, tip lowered and to one side. There had been four assassins hiding outside Heboric Ghost Hands's dwelling. After killing them, Karsa slashed anew doorway in the tent wall and entered, only to find the abode empty. Frustrated, he set out for the temple round. Leoman's pit was unoccupied as well, and appeared to have been so for sometime.\n\nApproaching Bidithal's temple, Karsa slowed his steps as he heard fierce fighting within. Shrill screams echoed. Raising his weapon, the Toblakai edged forward.\n\nA figure was crawling out from the doorway on its belly, gibbering to itself. A moment later Karsa recognized the man. He waited until Slavemaster's desperate efforts brought him up against the Toblakai's feet. A disease-ravaged face twisted into view.\n\n\"He fights like a demon!\" Silgar rasped. \"Both blades cut through the wraiths and leave them writhing in pieces! A god stands at his shoulder. Kill them, Teblor! Kill them both!\"\n\nKarsa sneered. \"I take no commands from you, Slavemaster, or have you forgotten that?\"\n\n\"Fool!\" Silgar spat. \"We are brothers in the House now, you and I. You are the Knight of Chains, and I am the Leper. The Crippled God has chosen us! And Bidithal, he has become the Magi-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, Bidithal. He hides within?\"\n\n\"No– he wisely fled, as I am doing. The Claw and his patron god are even now slaying the last of his shadow servants. You are the Knight– you possess your own patron, Karsa Orlong of the Teblor. Kill the enemy– it is what you must do-\"\n\nKarsa smiled. \"And so I shall.\" He reversed his grip on his sword and drove the point down between Silgar's shoulder blades, severing the spine then punching out through the sternum to bury itself a hand's width deep between two flagstones.\n\nVile fluids poured from the Slavemaster. His head cracked down on the stone, and his life was done. Leoman was right, long ago-a quick death would have been the better choice.\n\nKarsa pulled the sword free. \"I follow no patron god,\" he growled.\n\nHe turned from the temple entrance. Bidithal would have used sorcery to escape, drawing shadows about himself in an effort to remain unseen. Yet his passage would leave footprints in the dust.\n\nThe Toblakai stepped past the body of Silgar, the man who had once sought to enslave him, and began searching.\n\nTwenty of Mathok's clan warriors accompanied Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas on his return to Leoman's encampment. Their journey was unopposed, although Corabb was certain hidden eyes followed their progress.\n\nThey rode up the slope to the hill's summit and were challenged by sentinels. A more welcoming sound Corabb could not imagine. Familiar voices, warriors he had fought alongside against the Malazans.\n\n\"It is Corabb!\" He had been given a hook-bladed sword drawn from the Chosen One's armoury, and he now raised it high in salute as the picket guards emerged from their places of hiding.\"I must speak with Leoman! Where is he? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Asleep,\" one of the sentinels growled. \"If you're lucky, Bhilan, your arrival, loud as it was, has awakened him. Ride to the centre of the summit, but leave your escort here. '\n\nThat brought Corabb up short. \"They are Mathok's own-'\n\n\"Leoman's orders. No-one from the oasis is allowed to enter our camp. '\n\nScowling, Corabb nodded and waved back his fellow horse warriors. \"Take no offence, friends,\" he called, \"I beg you.\" Without waiting to gauge their reaction, he dismounted and hurried to Leoman's tent.\n\nThe warleader was standing outside the flap, drinking deep from a waterskin. He was out of his armour, wearing only a thin, sweat-stained linen shirt.\n\nCorabb halted before him. \"There is much to tell you, Leoman of the Flails.\"\n\n\"Out with it, then,\" Leoman replied when he'd finished drinking.\n\n\"I was your only messenger to survive to reach Sha'ik. She has had a change of heart– she now commands that you lead the Army of the Apocalpyse come the morrow. She would have you, not Korbolo Dom, leading us to victory. '\n\n\"Would she now,\" he drawled, then squinted and looked away. \"The Napan has his assassins between us and Sha'ik? '\n\n\"Aye, but they will not challenge our entire force– they would be mad to attempt such a thing.\"\n\n\"True. And Korbolo Dom knows this-\"\n\n\"He has not yet been informed of the change of command– at least he hadn't when I left. Although Sha'ik had issued a demand for his presence-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Which he will ignore. As for the rest, the Napan knows. Tell me, Corabb, do you think his Dogslayers will follow any other commander?\"\n\n\"They shall have no choice! The Chosen One has so ordered!\"\n\nLeoman slowly nodded. Then he turned back to his tent. \"Break camp. We ride to Sha'ik. '\n\nExultation filled Corabb's chest. Tomorrow would belong to Leoman of the Flails.\"As it should be, ' he whispered.\n\nKalam stepped outside. His clothes were in tatters, but he was whole. Though decidedly shaken. He had always considered himself one of the ablest of assassins, and he had drawn a blade against a veritable host of inimical, deadly foes over the years. But Cotillion had put him to shame.\n\nNo wonder the bastard's a god. Hood's breath, I've never before seen such skill. And that damned rope!\n\nKalam drew a deep breath. He had done as the Patron of Assassins had asked. He had found the source of the threat to the Realm of Shadow. Or at least confirmed a host of suspicions. This fragment of Kurald Emurlahn will be the path to usurpation... by none other than the Crippled God. The House of Chains had come into play, and the world had grown very fraught indeed.\n\nHe shook himself. Leave that to Cotillion and Ammanas. He had other, more immediate tasks to attend to this night. And the Patron of Assassins had been kind enough to deliver a pair of Kalam's favourite weapons...\n\nHis eyes lit upon the leprous corpse lying a half-dozen paces away, then narrowed. Kalam moved closer. Gods below, that is some wound. If I didn't know better, I'd say from the sword of a T'lan Imass. The blood was thickening, soaking up dust from the flagstones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kalam paused to think." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Korbolo Dom would not establish his army's camp among the ruins of this city. Nor in the stone forest to the west. The Napan would want an area both clear and level, with sufficient room for banking and trenches, and open lines of sight.\n\nEast, then, what had once been irrigated fields for the city, long ago.\n\nHe swung in that direction and set out.\n\nFrom one pool of darkness to the next, along strangely empty streets and alleys. Heavy layers of sorcery had settled upon this oasis, seeming to flow in streams– some of them so thick that Kalam found himself leaning forward in order to push his way through. A miasma of currents, mixed beyond recognition, and none of them palatable. His bones ached, his head hurt, and his eyes felt as if someone was stirring hot sand behind them.\n\nHe found a well-trod track heading due east and followed it, staying to one side where the shadows were deep. Then saw, two hundred paces ahead, a fortified embankment.\n\nMalazan layout. That, Napan, was a mistake.\n\nHe was about to draw closer when he saw the vanguard to a company emerge through the gate. Soldiers on foot followed, flanked by lancers.\n\nKalam ducked into an alley.\n\nThe troop marched past at half-pace, weapons muffled, the horses' hoofs leather-socked. Curious, but the fewer soldiers in the camp the better, as far as he was concerned. It was likely that all but the reserve companies would have been ensconced in their positions overlooking the field of battle. Of course, Korbolo Dom would not be careless when it came to protecting himself.\n\nHe calls himself master of the Talon, after all. Not that Cotillion, who was Dancer, knows a damned thing about them. Sparing the revelation only a sneer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The last of the soldiers filed past. Kalam waited another fifty heartbeats, then he set out towards the Dogslayer encampment.\n\nThe embankment was preceded by a steep-sided trench. Sufficient encumbrance to a charging army, but only a minor inconvenience to alone assassin. He clambered down, across, then up the far side, halting just beneath the crest-line.\n\nThere would be pickets. The gate was thirty paces on his left, lantern-lit. He moved to just beyond the light's range, then edged up onto the bank. A guard patrolled within sight on his right, not close enough to spot the assassin as he squirmed across the hard-packed, sun-baked earth to the far edge.\n\nAnother trench, this one shallower, and beyond lay the ordered ranks of tents, the very centre of the grid dominated by a larger command tent.\n\nKalam made his way into the camp.\n\nAshe had suspected, most of the tents were empty, and before long he was crouched opposite the wide street encircling the command tent.\n\nGuards lined every side, five paces apart, assault crossbows cocked and cradled in arms. Torches burned on poles every ten paces, bathing the street in flickering light. Three additional figures blocked the doorway, grey-clad and bearing no visible weapons.\n\nFlesh and blood cordon... then sorcerous wards. Well, one thing at a time.\n\nHe drew out his pair of ribless crossbows. A Claw's weapons, screw-torqued, the metal blackened. He set the quarrels in their grooves and carefully cocked both weapons. Then settled back to give the situation some thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even as he watched he saw the air swirl before the command tent's entrance, and a portal opened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Blinding white light, the flare of fire, then Kamist Reloe emerged. The portal contracted behind him, then winked out.\n\nThe mage looked exhausted but strangely triumphant. He gestured at the guards then strode into the tent. The three grey-clothed assassins followed the mage inside.\n\nA hand light as a leaf settled on Kalam's shoulder, and a voice rasped,\"Eyes forward, soldier. '\n\nHe knew that voice, from more years back than he'd like to think. But that bastard's dead. Dead before Surly took the throne.\n\n\"Granted,\" the voice continued, and Kalam knew that acid-spattered face was grinning, \"no love's lost between me and the company I'm sharing... again. Figured I'd seen the last of every damn one of them... and you. Well, never mind that. Need away in there, right? Best we mount a diversion, then. Give us fifty heartbeats... at least you can count those, Corporal. '\n\nThe hand lifted away.\n\nKalam Mekhar drew a deep, shaky breath. What in Hood's name is going on here? That damned captain went renegade. They found his body in Malaz City the morning after the assassinations... or something closely approximating his body...\n\nHe focused his gaze once more upon the command tent.\n\nFrom beyond it a scream broke the night, then the unmistakable flash and earth-shaking thump of Moranth munitions.\n\nSuddenly the guards were running.\n\nTucking one of the crossbows into his belt, Kalam drew out the otataral long-knife. He waited until only two Dogslayers were visible, both to the right of the entrance, facing the direction of the attack– where screams ripped the air, as much born of horror as from the pain of wounds– then surged forward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Raising the crossbow in his left hand. The recoil thrumming the bones of his arm. The quarrel burying itself in the back of the further guard. Long-knife thrusting into the nearer man, point punching through leather between plates of bronze, piercing flesh then sliding between ribs to stab the heart.\n\nBlood sprayed as he tugged the weapon free and darted into the tent's doorway.\n\nWards collapsed around him.\n\nWithin the threshold he reloaded the crossbow and affixed it in the brace on his wrist– beneath the voluminous sleeves. Then did the same with the other one on his left wrist.\n\nThe main chamber before him held but alone occupant, a grey-robed assassin who spun at Kalam's arrival, a pair of hooked Kethra knives flashing into guard position. The face within the hood was expressionless, a narrow, sun-darkened visage tattooed in the Pardu style, the swirling artistry broken by afar heavier sigil branded into the man's forehead– a talon.\n\nThe grey-clad assassin suddenly smiled. \"Kalam Mekhar. I suppose you don't remember me. '\n\nIn answer Kalam drew out his second long-knife and attacked.\n\nSparks bit the air as the blades clashed and whispered, the Pardu driven back two steps until, with a sweeping backslash, he leapt to the right and sidestepped round to give himself more space. Kalam maintained the pressure, weapons flashing as they darted out, keeping the Talon on the defensive.\n\nHe had skill with those heavy Kethra knives, and both quickness and strength. Kalam's blades took blocking blows that reverberated up the bones of his arms. Clearly, the Pardu was seeking to break the thinner weapons, and, well made as they were, nicks and notches were being driven into the edges." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Further, Kalam knew he was running out of time. The diversion continued, but now, along with the crack of sharpers ripping the air, waves of sorcery had begun rolling in deafening counterpoint. Whatever the nature of the squads attacking the Dogslayers, mages were giving answer.\n\nWorse yet, this Talon didn't enter here alone.\n\nKalam suddenly shifted stance, extending the knife in his left hand and drawing his right hand back to take guard position. He led with the point, evading the parries, and, in increments, slowly retracted his left arm, beginning at the shoulder. The faintest pivoting of hips, drawing the lead leg back-\n\nAnd the Pardu closed the distance with a single step.\n\nKalam's right hand shot across, beating aside both Kethra blades, simultaneously lunging high with his left hand.\n\nThe Pardu flung both weapons up to parry and trap the thrust.\n\nAnd Kalam stepped instill closer, stabbing crossways with the long-knife in his right hand. Punching the tip into the man's lower belly.\n\nA gush of fluids, the edge gouging along the spine, the point then plunging out the other side.\n\nThe parry and trap had torn the long-knife in his left hand from its grasp, flinging it to one side.\n\nBut the Talon was already sagging, folding over the belly wound and the weapon impaling him.\n\nKalam leaned closer. \"No,\" he growled. \"I don't. '\n\nHe tugged his knife free and let the dying man fall to the layered rugs of the tent floor.\n\n\"A damned shame,\" mused a voice near the back wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kalam slowly turned. \"Kamist Reloe. I've been looking for you. '\n\nThe High Mage smiled. He was flanked by the other two Talons, one of whom held Kalam's second long-knife and was examining it curiously.\"We've been expecting a strike by the Claws,\" Kamist Reloe said. \"Although an attack by long-dead ghosts was, I admit, not among our expectations. It is Raraku, you understand. This damned land is... awakening. Well, never mind that. Soon, there will be... silence.\"\n\n\"He holds an otataral weapon,\" the assassin on Kamist's right said.\n\nKalam glanced down at the blood-smeared long-knife in his right hand. \"Ah, well, that.\"\n\n\"Then,\" the High Mage sighed, \"you two shall have to take him in the, uh, mundane way. Will you suffice?\"\n\nThe one holding the long-knife flung it behind him and nodded. \"We've watched. He has patterns... and skill. Against either one of us singly we'd be in trouble. But against both of us?\"\n\nKalam had to agree with the man's assessment. He stepped back, and sheathed his weapon.\"He's probably right,\" he rumbled. With his other hand he drew out the acorn and tossed it on the floor. All three men flinched back as it bounced then rolled towards them. The innocuous object came to a halt.\n\nOne of the Talons snorted. Kicked it to one side.\n\nThen the two assassins stepped forward, knives flickering.\n\nKalam raised both arms, twisted his wrists outward, then flexed them hard.\n\nBoth Talons grunted, then staggered backward, each impaled by a quarrel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Careless of you,\" Kalam muttered.\n\nKamist shrieked, unveiling his warren.\n\nThe wave of sorcery that struck the High Mage caught him entirely unawares, coming from one side. Death-magic closed around him in a sizzling, raging web of black fire.\n\nHis shriek escalated. Then Kamist Reloe sprawled, the sorcery still flickering over his twitching, burned body.\n\nA figure slowly emerged from where the Talon had kicked the acorn moments earlier, and crouched down beside Kamist Reloe. \"It's disloyalty that bothers us the most, \"he said to the dying High Mage.\"We always answer it. Always have. Always will. '\n\nKalam recovered his second long-knife, eyes on the closed flaps on the chamber's back wall.\"He's through there,\" he said, then paused and grinned. \"Good to see you, Quick.\"\n\nQuick Ben glanced over and nodded.\n\nThe wizard was, Kalam saw, looking older. Worn down. Scars not written on his skin, but on his heart. He will, I suspect, have nothing good to tell me when all this is done. \"Did you,\" he asked Quick Ben, \"have anything to do with the diversion?\"\n\n\"No. Nor did Hood, although the hoary bastard's arrived. This is all Raraku. '\n\n\"So Kamist said, not that I understand either of you.\"\n\n\"I'll explain later, friend, \"Quick Ben said, rising. He faced the back flap.\"He has that witch Henaras with him, I think. She's behind some fierce wards that Kamist Reloe raised.\"\n\nKalam approached the doorway. \"Leave those tome,\" he growled, unsheathing his otataral long-knife." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The room immediately beyond was small, dominated by a map table, on which was sprawled the corpse of Henaras." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Blood was still flowing in streams down the table's sides.\n\nKalam glanced back at Quick Ben and raised his brows.\n\nThe wizard shook his head.\n\nThe assassin gingerly approached, and his eyes caught something glimmering silver-white on the woman's chest.\n\nA pearl.\n\n\"Seems the way is clear,\" Kalam whispered.\n\nAnother flap slashed the wall opposite.\n\nUsing the points of his knives, Kalam prised it open.\n\nA large high-backed chair filled the next chamber, on which was seated Korbolo Dom.\n\nHis blue skin was a ghastly grey, and his hands shook where they rested on the chair's ornate arms. When he spoke his voice was high and tight, jittery with fear.\"I sent an emissary to the Adjunct. An invitation. I am prepared to attack Sha'ik and her tribes– with my Dogslayers.\"\n\nKalam grunted. \"If you think we've come with her answer, you'd be wrong, Korbolo.\"\n\nThe Napan's eyes darted to Quick Ben.\"We assumed you were either dead with the rest of the Bridgeburners, or still on Genabackis. '\n\nThe wizard shrugged. \"Tayschrenn sent me ahead. Even so, he's brought the fleet across on mage-driven winds. Dujek Onearm and his legions reached Ehrlitan a week past-'\n\n\"What's left of those legions, you mean-'\n\n\"More than enough to complement the Adjunct's forces, I should think. '\n\nKalam stared between the two men. The Bridgeburners... dead? Whiskeyjack? Onearm's Host– gods below, what happened over there?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We can salvage this,\" Korbolo Dom said, leaning forward." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All of Seven Cities, returned to the Empire. Sha'ik brought in chains before the Empress-'\n\n\"And for you and your soldiers a pardon?\" Quick Ben asked. \"Korbolo Dom, you have truly lost your mind-\"\n\n\"Then die!\" the Napan shrieked, leaping forward, hands reaching for the wizard's throat.\n\nKalam stepped in and, knife reversed, struck Korbolo Dom hard against the side of the head.\n\nThe Napan staggered.\n\nA second fist shattered his nose and sent him sprawling.\n\nQuick Ben stared down at the man. \"Truss him up, Kalam. That diversion's over, from the silence outside– I'll find us away out.\"\n\nKalam began tying the unconscious man's hands.\"Where are we taking him? '\n\n\"I've a thought to that. '\n\nThe assassin glanced up at his friend. \"Quick? The Bridgeburners? Whiskeyjack?\"\n\nThe hard, dark eyes softened. \"Dead. Barring Picker and a handful of others. There's a tale there, and I promise I will tell it in full... later. '\n\nKalam stared down at Korbolo Dom. \"I feel like cutting throats,\" he rasped.\n\n\"Not him. Not now.\"\n\nHold back on the feelings, Kalam Mekhar. Hold back on everything. Quick's right. In time. In time...\n\nOh, Whiskeyjack...\n\nThere was time for... everything. This night and for the day to come, Bidithal needed Sha'ik. And the Whirlwind Goddess. And perhaps, if all went well, there would be the opportunity for bargaining. Once the goddess's rage has cooled, annealed into beauty by victory– we can still achieve this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But I know now what Febryl has done. I know what Korbolo Dom and Kamist Reloe plan for the dawn.\n\nThey could be stopped. The knives could be turned.\n\nHe hobbled as quickly as he could towards Sha'ik's palace. Ghosts flitted about on the edges of his vision, but his shadows protected him. In the distance he heard screams, detonations and sorcery– coming, he realized, from the Dogslayers'camp. Ah, so that Claw's made it that far, has he? Both good and... troubling. Well, at the very least he'll keep Kamist occupied.\n\nOf course, the danger posed by the roving assassins still existed, though that was diminishing the closer he got to Sha'ik's abode.\n\nStill, the streets and alleys were disturbingly deserted.\n\nHe came within sight of the sprawling palace, and saw with relief the pools of torchlight surrounding it.\n\nCounter the Napan's gambit– awaken the goddess to the threat awaiting her. Then hunt down that gnarled bhok'aral Febryl and see his skin stripped from his writhing flesh. Even the goddess-yes, even the goddess will have to recognize me. My power. When flanked by my new pets-\n\nA hand shot out of the darkness and closed about Bidithal's neck. He was lifted into the air– flailing– then thrown hard to the ground. Blinded. Choking.\n\nHis shadow-servants swarmed to defend him.\n\nA growl, the hissing swing of something massive that cut a sweeping path– and suddenly the wraiths were gone.\n\nSlowly, Bidithal's bulging eyes made out the figure crouched above him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Toblakai-\n\n\"You should have left her alone,\" Karsa Orlong said quietly, his voice devoid of inflection. Behind and around the giant were gathering ghosts, chained souls.\n\nWe are both servants of the same god! You fool! Let me speak! I would save Sha'ik!\n\n\"But you didn't. I know, Bidithal, where your sick desires come from. I know where your pleasure hides– the pleasure you would take from others. Witness. '\n\nKarsa Orlong set down his stone sword, then reached between Bidithal's legs.\n\nA hand closed indiscriminately around all that it found.\n\nAnd tore.\n\nUntil, with a ripping of tendons and shreds of muscle, a flood of blood and other fluids, the hand came away with its mangled prize.\n\nThe pain was unbearable. The pain was a rending of his soul. It devoured him.\n\nAnd blood was pouring out, hot as fire, even as deathly cold stole across his skin, seeped into his limbs.\n\nThe scene above him blackened, until only Toblakai's impassive, battered face remained, coolly watching Bidithal's death.\n\nDeath? Yes. You fool, Toblakai-\n\nThe hand around his neck relaxed, drew away.\n\nInvoluntarily, Bidithal drew in an agonizing breath and made to scream-\n\nSomething soft and bloody was pushed into his mouth.\n\n\"For you, Bidithal. For every nameless girl-child you destroyed. Here. Choke on your pleasure.\"\n\nAnd choke he did. Until Hood's Gate yawned-\n\nAnd there, gathered by the Lord of Death, waited demons who were of like nature to Bidithal himself, gleefully closing about their new victim." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A lifetime of vicious pleasure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An eternity of pain in answer.\n\nFor even Hood understood the necessity for balance.\n\nLostara Yil edged up from the sinkhole and squinted in an effort to pierce the gloom. A glance behind her revealed a starlit desert, luminous and glittering. Yet, ahead, darkness swathed the oasis and the ruined city within it. A short while earlier she had heard distant thumps, faint screams, but now silence had returned.\n\nThe air had grown bitter cold. Scowling, Lostara checked her weapons, then made to leave.\n\n\"Make no move,\" a voice murmured from apace or two off to her right.\n\nHer head snapped round, then her scowl deepened. \"If you're hereto watch, Cotillion, there's little to see. I woke Pearl, and he hardly swore at all, despite the headache. He's in there, somewhere-'\n\n\"Aye, he is, lass. But already he's returning... because he can feel what's coming.\"\n\n\"What's coming. Enough to make you hide here beside me? '\n\nThe shadow-shrouded god seemed to shrug. \"There are times when it is advisable to step back... and wait. The Holy Desert itself senses the approach of an ancient foe, and will rise in answer if need be. Even more precarious, the fragment of Kurald Emurlahn that the Whirlwind Goddess would claim is manifesting itself. The goddess is fashioning a portal, agate– one massive enough to swallow this entire oasis. Thus, she too makes a play for Raraku's immortal heart. The irony is that she herself is being manipulated, by afar cleverer god, who would take this fragment for himself, and call it his House of Chains. So you see, Lostara Shadow Dancer, best we remain precisely where we are. For tonight, and in this place, worlds are at war. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is nothing to Pearl and me,\" she insisted, squinting hard into the gloom. \"We're here for Felisin-'\n\n\"And you have found her, but she remains beyond you. Beyond Pearl as well. For the moment...\"\n\n\"Then we must needs but await the clearing of the path.\"\n\n\"Aye. As I have advised, patience.\"\n\nShadows swirled, hissed over sand, then the god was gone.\n\nLostara grunted. \"Goodbye to you as well,\" she muttered, then drew her cloak tighter about herself and settled down to wait.\n\nAssassins armed with crossbows had crept up behind him. Febryl had killed them, one after another, as soon as they arrived, with a host of most painful spells, and now his sorcerous web told him that there were no more. Indeed, Korbolo Dom and Kamist Reloe had been bearded in their den. By ghosts and worse– agents of the Malazan Empire.\n\nWide and bloody paths had carved messily across his web, leaving him blind here and there, but none stretched anywhere close to his position... so far. And soon, the oasis behind him would become as a nightmare wakened into horrid reality, and Febryl himself would vanish from the minds of his enemies in the face of more immediate threats.\n\nDawn was but two bells away. While, behind him, darkness had devoured the oasis, the sky overhead and to the east was comparatively bright with the glitter of stars. Indeed, everything was proceeding perfectly.\n\nThe starlight also proved sufficient for Febryl to detect the shadow that fell over him.\n\n\"I never liked you much,\" rumbled a voice above him.\n\nSquealing, Febryl sought to dive forward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But was effortlessly plucked and lifted high from the ground.\n\nThen broken.\n\nThe snap of his spine was like brittle wood in the cold night air.\n\nKarsa Orlong flung Febryl's corpse away. He glared up at the stars fora moment, drew a deep breath into his lungs, and sought to clear his mind.\n\nUrugal's withered voice was screaming in his skull. It had been that voice, and that will, that had driven him step by step from the oasis.\n\nThe false god of the Uryd tribe wanted Karsa Orlong... gone.\n\nHe was being pushed hard... away from what was coming, from what was about to happen in the oasis.\n\nBut Karsa did not like being pushed.\n\nHe lifted his sword clear of his harness rings and closed both hands about the grip, lowering the point to hover just above the ground, then forced himself to turnabout and face the oasis.\n\nA thousand ghostly chains stretched taut behind him, then began pulling.\n\nThe Teblor growled under his breath and leaned forward. I am the master of these chains. I, Karsa Orlong, yield to none. Not gods, not the souls I have slain. I will walk forward now, and either resistance shall end, or the chains will be snapped.\n\nBesides, I have left my horse tethered in the stone forest.\n\nTwin howls tore the night air above the oasis, sudden and fierce as cracks of lightning.\n\nKarsa Orlong smiled. Ah, they have arrived.\n\nHe lifted his sword's point slightly higher, then surged forward.\n\nIt would not do– it turned out– to have the chains sundered. The tension suddenly vanished, and, for this night at least, all resistance to Toblakai's will had ended." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He left the ridge and descended the slope, into the gloom once more.\n\nFist Gamet was lying on his cot, struggling to breathe as a tightness seized his throat. Thunder filled his head, in thrumming waves of pain radiating out from a spot just above and behind his right eye.\n\nPain such as he had never felt before, driving him onto his side, the cot creaking and pitching as nausea racked him, the vomit spraying onto the floor. But the emptying of his stomach offered no surcease from the agony in his skull.\n\nHis eyes were open but he was blind.\n\nThere had been headaches. Everyday, since his fall from his horse. But nothing like this.\n\nThe barely healed knife-slash in his palm had reopened during his contortions, smearing sticky blood across his face and brow when he sought to claw the pain out from his head, and the wound now felt as if it was afire, scorching his veins.\n\nGroaning, he clambered sideways from the cot and then halted, on his hands and knees, head hanging down, as waves of trembling shivered through him.\n\nI need to move. I need to act. Something. Anything.\n\nI need-\n\nA time of blankness, then he found himself standing near the tent flap. Weighted in his armour, gauntlets covering his hands, helm on his head. The pain was fading, a cool emptiness rising in its wake.\n\nHe needed to go outside. He needed his horse.\n\nGamet strode from the tent. A guard accosted him but he waved the woman away and hurried towards the corrals.\n\nRide. Ride out. It's time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he was cinching the saddle of his horse, waiting for the beast to release its breath, then drawing it a notch tighter. A clever horse. Paran stables, of course. Fast and of almost legendary endurance. Impatient with incompetence, ever testing the rider's claim to being in charge, but that was to be expected from such a fine breed.\n\nGamet swung himself into the saddle. It felt good to be riding once more. On the move, the ground whispering pastas he rode down the back ramp, then round the jagged island and towards the basin.\n\nHe saw three figures ahead, standing at the ridge, and thought nothing strange as to their presence. They are what will come. These three.\n\nNil. Nether. The lad, Grub.\n\nThe last turned as Gamet reined in beside them. And nodded. \"The Wickans and Malazans are on the flanks, Fist. But your assault will be straight up the Dogslayers\" main ramp. ' And he pointed.\n\nFootsoldiers and cavalry were massing in the basin, moving through the thick gloom. Gamet could hear the whisper of armour, feel the thud of countless horse hoofs. He saw banners and standards, hanging limp and ragged.\n\n\"Ride to them, Fist,\" Grub said.\n\nAnd he saluted the child and set heels to his mount's flanks.\n\nBlack and rust-red armour, visored helms with ornate cheek-guards, short thrusting javelins and kite shields, the rumble of countless booted feet– he rode alongside one column, casting an appraising eye over the companies of infantry.\n\nThen awing of cavalry swept round to engulf him. One rider rode close. A dragon-winged helm swivelled to face him. \"Ride with us, soldier?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I cannot,\" Gamet replied. \"I am the Fist. I must command.\"\n\n\"Not this night,\" the warrior replied. \"Fight at our sides, as the soldier you are. Remember the old battles? When all that was required was the guarding of the companions flanking you. Such will be this night. Leave the commanding to the lords. Ride with us in freedom. And glory.\"\n\nA surge of exultation swept through Gamet. The pain in his head was gone. He could feel his blood racing like fire in his muscles. He wanted this. Yes, he wanted this very thing.\n\nGamet unsheathed his sword, the sound an echoing rasp in the chill air.\n\nHis helmed companion laughed. \"Are you with us, soldier?\"\n\n\"I am, friend.\"\n\nThey reached the base of the cobbled ramp, slowing to firm up their formation. Abroad wedge that then began assailing the slope, hoofs striking sparks off the stones.\n\nThe Dogslayers had yet to sound an alarm.\n\nFools. They've slept through it all. Or perhaps sorcery has deadened the sounds of our preparation. Ah, yes. Nil and Nether. They are still there, on the ridge the other side of the basin.\n\nThe company's standard bearer was just a few horses to Gamet's left. He squinted up at the banner, wondered that he had never seen it before. There was something of the Khundryl in its design, torn and frayed though it was. A clan of the Burned Tears, then– which made sense given the archaic armour his comrades were wearing. Archaic and half rotting, in fact. Too long stored in chests– moths and other vermin have assailed it, but the bronze looks sound enough, if tarnished and pitted. A word to the commanders later, I think..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cool, gauging thoughts, even as his proud horse thundered alongside the others. Gamet glared upward, and saw the crest directly before them. He lifted high his longsword and loosed a savage scream.\n\nThe wedge poured over the crest, swept out into the unaware ranks of Dogslayers, still huddled down in their trenches.\n\nScreams on all sides, strangely muted, almost faint. Sounds of battle, yet they seemed a league distant, as if carried on the wind. Gamet swung his sword, his eyes meeting those of Dogslayers, seeing the horror writ there. Watching mouths open to shriek, yet hardly any sound came forth, as if the sands were swallowing everything, absorbing sound as eagerly as they did blood and bile.\n\nMasses surged over the trenches, blackened swords swinging and chopping down. The ramp to the east had been overrun by the Wickans. Gamet saw the waving standards and grinned. Crow. Foolish Dog. Weasel.\n\nOut of the impenetrably black sky descended butterflies, in swarms, to flit above the carnage in the trenches.\n\nOn the ramp to the west there was the flash of Moranth munitions, sending grim reverberations through the earth, and Gamet could watch the slaughter over there, a scene panoramic and dulled, as if he was looking upon a mural– a painting where ancient armies warred in eternal battle.\n\nThey had come for the Dogslayers. For the butcherers of unarmed Malazans, soldier and civilian, the stubborn and the fleeing, the desperate and the helpless. The Dogslayers, who had given their souls to betrayal.\n\nThe fight raged on, but it was overwhelmingly one-sided. The enemy seemed strangely incapable of mustering any kind of defence. They simply died in their trenches, or seeking to retreat they were rundown after but a few strides. Skewered by lances, javelins. Trampled beneath chopping hoofs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gamet understood their horror, saw with a certain satisfaction the terror in their faces as he and his comrades delivered death.\n\nHe could hear the battle song now, rising and falling like waves on a pebbled shore, yet building towards a climax yet to come– yet to come, but soon. Soon. Yes, we've needed a song. We've waited along time for such a song. To honour our deeds, our struggles. Our lives and our deaths. We've needed our own voice, so that our spirits could march, march ever onward.\n\nTo battle.\n\nTo war.\n\nManning these walls of crumbled brick and sand. Defending the bone-dry harbours and the dead cities that once blazed with ancient dreams, that once flickered life's reflection on the warm, shallow sea.\n\nEven memories need to be defended.\n\nEven memories.\n\nHe fought on, side by side with his dark warrior companions– and so grew to love them, these stalwart comrades, and when at last the dragon-helmed horse warrior rode up and reined in before him, Gamet whirled his sword in greeting.\n\nThe rider laughed once again. Reached up a blood-spattered, gauntleted hand, and raised the visor– to reveal the face of a dark-skinned woman, her eyes a stunning blue within a web of desert lines.\n\n\"There are more!\" Gamet shouted– though even to his own ears his voice sounded faraway. \"More enemies! We must ride!\"\n\nHer teeth flashed white as she laughed again. \"Not the tribes, my friend! They are kin. This battle is done– others will shed blood come the morrow. We march to the shores, soldier– will you join us?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He saw more than professional interest in her eyes.\n\n\"I shall.\"\n\n\"You would leave your friends, Gamet Ul'Paran? '\n\n\"For you, yes.\"\n\nHer smile, and the laugh that followed, stole the old man's heart.\n\nA final glance to the other ramps showed no movement. The Wickans to the east had ridden on, although alone crow was wheeling overhead. The Malazans to the west had withdrawn. And the butterflies had vanished. In the trenches of the Dogslayers, an hour before dawn, only the dead remained.\n\nVengeance. She will be pleased. She will understand, and be pleased.\n\nAs am I.\n\nGoodbye, Adjunct Tavore.\n\nKoryk slowly settled down beside him, stared northeastward as if seeking to discover what so held the man's attention.\"What is it? \"he asked after a time.\"What are you looking at, Sergeant? '\n\nFiddler wiped at his eyes. \"Nothing... or nothing that makes sense.\"\n\n\"We're not going to see battle in the morning, are we? '\n\nHe glanced over, studied the young Seti's hard-edged features, wanting to see something in them, though he was not quite certain what. After a moment, he sighed and shrugged.\"The glory of battle, Koryk, dwells only in the bard's voice, in the teller's woven words. Glory belongs to ghosts and poets. What you hear and dream isn't the same as what you live– blur the distinction at your own peril, lad.\"\n\n\"You've been a soldier all your life, Sergeant. If it doesn't ease athirst within you, why are you here?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've no answer to that, \"Fiddler admitted.\"I think, maybe, I was called here. '\n\n\"That song Bottle said you were hearing?\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"What does it mean? That song?\"\n\n\"Quick Ben will have a better answer to that, I think. But my gut is whispering one thing over and over again. The Bridgeburners, lad, have ascended.\"\n\nKoryk made awarding sign and edged away slightly.\n\n\"Or, at least, the dead ones have. The rest of us, we're just... malingering. Herein the mortal realm. '\n\n\"Expecting to die soon, then?\"\n\nFiddler grunted. \"Wasn't planning on it. '\n\n\"Good, because we like our sergeant just fine.\"\n\nThe Seti moved away. Fiddler returned his gaze to the distant oasis. Appreciate that, lad. He narrowed his eyes, but the darkness defied him. Something was going on there. Feels as if... as if friends are fighting. I can almost hear sounds of battle. Almost.\n\nSuddenly, two howls rose into the night.\n\nFiddler was on his feet. \"Hood's breath! '\n\nFrom Smiles: \"Gods, what was that?\"\n\nNo. Couldn't have been. But...\n\nAnd then the darkness above the oasis began to change.\n\nThe row of horse warriors rode up before them amidst swirling dust, the horses stamping and tossing heads in jittery fear.\n\nBeside him, Leoman of the Flails raised a hand to halt his company, then gestured Corabb to follow as he trotted his mount towards the newcomers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mathok nodded in greeting. \"We have missed you, Leoman-\"\n\n\"My shaman has fallen unconcious,\" Leoman cut in. \"He chose oblivion over terror. What is going on in the oasis, Mathok?\"\n\nThe warleader made awarding sign. \"Raraku has awakened. Ghosts have risen, the Holy Desert's very own memories. '\n\n\"And who is their enemy?\"\n\nMathok shook his head. \"Betrayal upon betrayal, Leoman. I have withdrawn my warriors from the oasis and encamped them between Sha'ik and the Malazans. Chaos has claimed all else-'\n\n\"So you do not have an answer for me.\"\n\n\"I fear the battle is already lost-\"\n\n\"Sha'ik? '\n\n\"I have the Book with me. I am sworn to protect it.\"\n\nLeoman frowned.\n\nShifting on his saddle, Corabb glared northeastward. Preternatural darkness engulfed the oasis, and it seemed to swarm as if filled with living creatures, winged shadows, spectral demons. And on the ground beneath, he thought he could seethe movement of masses of soldiery. Corabb shivered.\n\n\"To Y'Ghatan? ' Leoman asked.\n\nMathok nodded. \"With my own tribe as escort. Leaving almost nine thousand desert warriors at your disposal... for you to command.\"\n\nBut Leoman shook his head. \"This battle will belong to the Dogslayers, Mathok. There is no choice left tome. I have not the time to greatly modify our tactics. The positions are set– she waited too long. You did not answer me, Mathok. What of Sha'ik? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The goddess holds her still,\" the warleader replied. \"Even Korbolo Dom's assassins cannot get to her. '\n\n\"The Napan must have known that would happen,\" Leoman muttered. \"And so he has planned... something else.\"\n\nMathok shook his head. \"My heart has broken this night, my friend.\"\n\nLeoman studied the old warrior fora time, then he nodded. \"Until Y'Ghatan, then, Mathok. '\n\n\"You ride to Sha'ik? '\n\n\"I must.\"\n\n\"Tell her-\"\n\n\"I will.\"\n\nMathok nodded, unmindful of the tears glistening down his lined cheeks. He straightened suddenly in his saddle. \"Dryjhna once belonged to us, Leoman. To the tribes of this desert. The Book's prophecies were sewn to afar older skin. The Book was in truth naught but a history, a telling of apocalyptic events survived– not of those to come-'\n\n\"I know, my friend. Guard well the Book, and go in peace.\"\n\nMathok wheeled his horse to face the west trail. An angry gesture and his riders followed as he rode into the gloom.\n\nLeoman stared after them fora long moment.\n\nHowls shattered the night.\n\nCorabb saw his commander suddenly bare his teeth as he glared into the darkness ahead. Like two beasts about to come face to face. Spirits below, what awaits us?\n\n\"Weapons!\" Leoman snarled.\n\nThe company thundered forward, along the trail Corabb had now traversed what seemed countless times.\n\nThe closer they drew to the oasis, the more muted the sound of their passage, as if the darkness was devouring all sound. Those howls had not been repeated, and Corabb was beginning to wonder if they had been real at all. Perhaps not a mortal throat at all. An illusion, a cry to freeze all in their tracks-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The vanguard entered a defile and suddenly quarrels sprouted from riders and horses. Screams, toppling warriors, stumbling horses. From further back in the column, the clash of swords and shields.\n\nDogslayers!\n\nSomehow, Corabb and his horse found themselves plunging clear. A figure darted close to his left and he shrieked, raising his weapon.\n\n\"It's me, damn you! '\n\n\"Leoman!\"\n\nHis commander's horse had been killed beneath him. He reached up.\n\nCorabb clasped Leoman's arm and vaulted him onto his horse's back.\n\n\"Ride, Bhilan! Ride!\"\n\nBlack-armoured horse warriors plunged through the low wall, massive axes whirling in their gauntleted hands.\n\nQuick Ben yelped and dived for cover.\n\nCursing, Kalam followed, Korbolo Dom's bound body bouncing on his shoulders. He flung himself down beside the wizard as hoofs flashed over them, raining sand and bits of mortar.\n\nThen the heavy cavalry was past.\n\nKalam pushed the Napan off his back and twisted onto his side to glare at Quick Ben. \"Who in Hood's name were those bastards? '\n\n\"We'd best lie low fora time, \"the wizard muttered with a grimace, rubbing grit from his eyes.\"Raraku's unleashed her ghosts-\"\n\n\"And are they the ones singing? Those voices are right inside my head-\"\n\n\"Mine, too, friend. Tell me, had any conversations with a Tanno Spiritwalker lately?\"\n\n\"A what? No. Why?\"\n\n\"Because that is what you're hearing. If it was a song woven around these ancient ghosts we're seeing, well, we'd not be hearing it. In fact, we'd not be hearing much of anything at all. And we'd have been chopped into tiny pieces by now. Kalam, that Tanno song belongs to the Bridgeburners. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What?\n\n\"Makes you wonder about cause and effect, doesn't it? A Tanno stole our tale and fashioned a song– but for that song to have any effect, the Bridgeburners had to die. As a company. And now it has. Barring you and me-'\n\n\"And Fiddler. Wait! Fid mentioned something about a Spiritwalker in Ehrlitan.\"\n\n\"It would have had to have been direct contact. A clasping of hands, an embrace, or a kiss-\"\n\n\"That bastard sapper– I remember he was damned cagey about something. A kiss? Remind me to give Fiddler a kiss next time I see him, one he'll never forget-'\n\n\"Whoever it was and however it happened,\" Quick Ben said, \"the Bridgeburners have now ascended-\"\n\n\"Ascended? What in the Queen's name does that mean? '\n\n\"Damned if I know, Kalam. I've never heard of such a thing before. A whole company– there's no precedent for this, none at all.\"\n\n\"Except maybe the T'lan Imass. '\n\nThe wizard's dark eyes narrowed on his friend.\"An interesting thought, \"he murmured. Then sighed.\"In any case, Raraku's ghosts have risen on that song. Risen... to battle. But there's more– I swear I saw a Wickan standard back near the Dogslayer trenches just as we were hightailing it out of there. '\n\n\"Well, maybe Tavore's taken advantage of all this-'\n\n\"Tavore knows nothing of it, Kalam. She carries an otataral sword, after all. Maybe the mages she has with her sense something, but the darkness that's descended on this oasis is obscuring everything. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kalam grunted. \"Any other good news to tell me, Quick?\"\n\n\"The darkness is sorcery. Remember whenever Anomander Rake arrived someplace with his warren unveiled? That weight, the trembling ground, the overwhelming pressure?\"\n\n\"Don't tell me the Son of Darkness is coming-'\n\n\"I hope not. I mean, I don't think so. He's busy– I'll explain later. No, this is more, uh, primal, I think. '\n\n\"Those howls,\" Kalam grated. \"Two hounds, Quick Ben. I had a run in with them myself. They're like the Shadow Hounds, only somehow worse-'\n\nThe wizard was staring across at him.\n\n\"Stop it, Quick. I don't like that look. I got away because I loosed a handful of azalan demons at them. Didn't stop those hounds, but it was enough for me to make good my escape.\"\n\nQuick Ben's brows slowly arched.\" \"A handful of azalan demons,\" Kalam? And where have you been lately? '\n\n\"You ain't the only one with a few tales to tell. '\n\nThe wizard cautiously rose into a crouch, scanned the area on the other side of the crumbled wall. \"Two Hounds of Darkness, you said. The Deragoth, then. So, who broke their chains, I wonder?\"\n\n\"That's just typical! \"Kalam snapped.\"What don't you know?\"\n\n\"A few things,\" the wizard replied under his breath. \"For example, what are those hounds doing here?\"\n\n\"So long as we stay out of their path, I couldn't careless-'\n\n\"No, you misunderstood.\" Quick Ben nodded towards where his gaze was fixed on the clearing beyond. \"What are they doing here?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kalam groaned.\n\nTheir bristly hackles were raised above their strangely humped, massive shoulders. Thick, long necks and broad, flattened heads, the jaw muscles bulging. Scarred, black hides, and eyes that burned pure and empty of light.\n\nAs large as a steppe horse, but bulkier by far, padding with heads lowered into the flagstoned square. There was something about them that resembled a hyena, and a plains bear as well. A certain sly avidness merged with arrogant brutality.\n\nThey slowed, then halted, lifting glistening snouts into the air.\n\nThey had come to destroy. To tear life from all flesh, to mock all claims of mastery, to shatter all that stood in their path. This was anew world for them. New, yet once it had been old. Changes had come. A world of vast silences where once kin and foe alike had opened throats in fierce challenge.\n\nNothing was as it had been, and the Deragoth were made uneasy.\n\nThey had come to destroy.\n\nBut now hesitated.\n\nWith eyes fixed on the one who had arrived, who now stood before them, at the far end of the square.\n\nHesitate. Yes.\n\nKarsa Orlong strode forward. He addressed them, his voice low and rumbling. \"Urugal's master had... ambitions, \"he said.\"A dream of mastery. But now he understands better, and wants nothing to do with you. \"Then the Teblor smiled.\"So I do. '\n\nBoth hounds stepped back, then moved to open more space between them.\n\nKarsa smiled. You do not belong here. \"You would let me pass?\" He continued on. And I have had my fill of strangers. \"Do you remember the Toblakai, beasts? But they had been gentled. By civilization. By the soft trappings of foolish peace. So weakened that they could not stand before T'lan Imass, could not stand before Forkrul Assail and Jaghut. And now, they cannot stand before Nathii slavers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"An awakening was needed, friends. Remember the Toblakai, if it comforts you.\" He strode directly between the two hounds, as if he intended to accept their invitation to pass.\n\nThe hounds attacked.\n\nAshe knew they would.\n\nKarsa dropped into a crouch that leaned far to his left, as he brought up the massive stone sword over his head, point sliding left– directly into the path of the hound charging from that side.\n\nStriking it in the chest.\n\nThe heavy sternum cracked but did not shatter, and the rippled blade edge scored a bloody path down along the ribs.\n\nKarsa's crouch then exploded after his weapon, his legs driving his shoulder forward and up to hammer the beast at the level of its collarbones.\n\nJaws snapped above the back of the Toblakai's neck, then the impact jolted through warrior and hound both.\n\nAnd the latter's sword-gouged ribs splintered.\n\nJaws closed around Karsa's right leg just below the knee.\n\nAnd he was lifted clear of the ground. Then thrown to one side, though the jaws did not loosen. The wrench snapped the sword from his hands.\n\nMolars ground against bone, incisors shredded muscle. The second hound closed on Karsa, savagely shaking the leg in its jaws.\n\nThe first hound staggered away a few paces, left foreleg dragging, blood spilling out beneath it.\n\nKarsa made no effort to pull away from the beast seeking to chew off his lower leg. Instead, he pushed himself upright on his one free leg and lunged into the hound. Arms wrapping around the rippling body behind the shoulders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With a bellow, the Teblor lifted the hound. Hind legs kicked in wild panic, but he was already wrenching the entire beast over.\n\nThe jaws were torn loose even as Karsa drove the creature down onto its back.\n\nFlagstones cracked with explosions of dust.\n\nThe Teblor then sank to his knees, straddling the writhing hound, and closed both hands around its throat.\n\nA snarling frenzy answered him.\n\nCanines ripped into his forearms, the jaws gnawed frantically, chewing free chunks of skin and flesh.\n\nKarsa released one hand and pushed it against the hound's lower jaw.\n\nMuscles contracted as two unhuman strengths collided.\n\nLegs scored Karsa's body, the claws tearing through leathers and into flesh, but the Teblor continued pushing. Harder and harder, his other hand edging up to join in the effort.\n\nThe kicks went wild. Panicked.\n\nKarsa both felt and heard a grinding pop, then the flat head of the hound cracked against the flagstones.\n\nA strange keening sound twisted out from the throat.\n\nAnd the warrior pulled his right hand back, closed it into a fist, and drove it down into the animal's throat.\n\nCrushing trachea.\n\nThe legs spasmed and went limp.\n\nWith a roar, Karsa reared upright, dragging the hound by its neck, then hammering it down once more. Aloud snap, a spray of blood and saliva.\n\nHe straightened, shook himself, his mane raining blood and sweat, then swung his gaze to where the other hound had been.\n\nOnly a blood trail remained." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Help the author by continuing the tale.\nTags: epic fantasy, character study, power struggles, resilience, destiny\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: House of Chains\nChapter: 37" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sometime later, the sergeant clambered to his feet.\n\nOn the hill's opposite side, Truth was trying to run in every direction at once, the horses trailing loose reins as they pelted in wild panic.\n\n\"Hood's balls on a skillet! ' Gesler planted his hands on his hips and glared about. The other soldiers were picking themselves up, shaken and smeared in dust. Stormy closed on Sands and grabbed him by the throat.\n\n\"Not too hard, Corporal,\" Gesler said as Stormy began shaking the sapper about. \"I want him alive for my turn. And dammit, make sure he ain't got any sharpers on his body. '\n\nThat stopped Stormy flat.\n\nGesler walked to the now pitted edge of the hill and looked down. \"Well,\" he said, \"they won't be chasing us anymore, I'd say.\"\n\n\"Wonder who they were?\" Pella asked.\n\n\"Armour seems to have weathered the blast– you could go down and scrape out whatever's left inside \"em... on second thought, never mind. We need to roundup our horses.\" He faced the others. \"Enough pissing about, lads. Let's get moving. '\n\nLying on the smoking edge of the crater, sprayed in horseflesh and deafened by the blast, Jorrude groaned. He was amass of bruises, his head ached, and he wanted to throw up– but not until he pried the helm from his head.\n\nNearby in the rubble, Brother Enias coughed. Then said, \"Brother Jorrude?\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"I want to go home.\"\n\nJorrude said nothing. It would not do, after all, to utter a hasty, heartfelt agreement, despite their present circumstance. \"Check on the others, Brother Enias.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Were those truly the ones who rode that ship through our realm?\"\n\n\"They were,\" Jorrude answered as he fumbled with the helm's straps.\"And I have been thinking. I suspect they were ignorant of Liosan laws when they travelled through our realm. True, ignorance is an insufficient defence. But one must consider the notion of innocent momentum. '\n\nFrom off to one side, Malachar grunted. \"Innocent momentum?\"\n\n\"Indeed. Were not these trespassers but pulled along– beyond their will– in the wake of the draconian T'lan Imass bonecaster? If an enemy we must hunt, then should it not be that dragon? '\n\n\"Wise words,\" Malachar observed.\n\n\"A brief stay in our realm,\" Jorrude continued, \"to re-supply and requisition new horses, along with repairs and such, seems to reasonably obtain in this instance.\"\n\n\"Truly judged, brother.\"\n\nFrom the other side of the crater sounded another cough.\n\nAt least, Jorrude dourly reflected, they were all still alive.\n\nIt's all the dragon's fault, in fact. Who would refute that?\n\nThey rode into the sandstorm, less than fifty strides behind the fleeing horse warriors, and found themselves floundering blind in a maelstrom of shrieking winds and whipping gravel.\n\nFiddler heard a horse scream.\n\nHe drew hard on his own reins, the wind hammering at him from all sides. Already he'd lost sight of his companions. This is wide-eyed stupid.\n\nNow, if I was the commander of those bastards, I'd-\n\nAnd suddenly figures flashed into view, scimitars and round shields, swathed faces and ululating warcries. Fiddler threw himself down against his horse's withers as a heavy blade slashed, slicing through sand-filled air where his head had been a moment earlier." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Wickan mare lunged forward and to one side, choosing this precise moment to buck its hated rider from the saddle.\n\nWith profound success.\n\nFiddler found himself flying forward, his bag of munitions rolling up his back, then up over his head.\n\nStill in mid-air, but angling down to the ground, he curled himself into a tight ball– though he well knew, in that instant, that there was no hope of surviving. No hope at all. Then he pounded into the sand, and rolled– to see, upside-down, a huge hook-bladed sword spinning end over end across his own wake. And a stumbling horse. And its rider, a warrior thrown far back on his saddle– with the munition bag wrapped in his arms.\n\nA surprised look beneath the ornate helm– then rider, horse and munitions vanished into the whirling sands.\n\nFiddler clambered to his feet and began running. Sprinting, in what he hoped– what he prayed– was the opposite direction.\n\nA hand snagged his harness from behind. \"Not that way, you fool!\" And he was yanked to one side, flung to the ground, and a body landed on top of him.\n\nThe sergeant's face was pushed into the sand and held there.\n\nCorabb bellowed. The bulky, heavy sack was hissing in his arms. As if filled with snakes. It had clunked hard against his chest, arriving like a flung boulder out of the storm, and he'd time only to toss his sword away and raise both arms.\n\nThe impact threw him onto the horse's rump, but his feet stayed in the stirrups.\n\nThe bag's momentum carried it over his face, and the hissing filled his ears." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Snakes!\n\nHe slid on his back down one side of the mount's heaving hindquarters, letting the bag's weight pull his arms with it. Don't panic! He screamed.\n\nSnakes!\n\nThe bag tugged in his hands as it brushed the ground.\n\nHe held his breath, then let go.\n\nTumbling clunks, a burst of frenzied hissing– then the horse's forward charge carried him blissfully away.\n\nHe struggled to right himself, his leg and stomach muscles fiercely straining, and finally was able to grasp the horn and pull himself straight.\n\nOne pass, Leoman had said. Then wheel and into the storm's heart.\n\nHe'd done that much. One pass. Enough.\n\nTime to flee.\n\nCorabb Bhilan Thun'alas leaned forward, and bared muddy teeth.\n\nSpirits below, it is good to be alive!\n\nThe detonation should have killed Fiddler. There was fire. Towering walls of sand. The air concussed, and his breath was torn from his lungs even as blood spurted from his nose and both ears.\n\nAnd the body lying atop him seemed to wither in shreds.\n\nHe'd recognized the voice. It was impossible. It was... infuriating.\n\nHot smoke rolled over them.\n\nAnd that damned voice whispered, \"Can't leave you on your own fora Hood-damned minute, can I? Say hello to Kalam for me, will ya? I'll see you again, sooner or later. And you'll see me, too. You'll see us all.\" A laugh. \"Just not today. Damned shame'bout your fiddle, though. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The weight vanished.\n\nFiddler rolled over. The storm was tumbling away, leaving a white haze in its wake. He groped with his hands.\n\nA terrible, ragged moan ripped from his throat, and he lifted himself onto his knees. \"Hedge!\" he screamed. \"Damn you! Hedge!\"\n\nSomeone jogged into view, settled down beside him. \"Slamming gates, Fid– you're Hood-damned alive! '\n\nHe stared at the man's battered face, then recognized it.\"Cuttle? He was here. He– you're covered in blood-\"\n\n\"Aye. I wasn't as close as you. Luckily. \"Fraid I can't say the same for Ranal. Someone had taken down his horse. He was stumbling around. '\n\n\"That blood-\"\n\n\"Aye,\" Cuttle said again, then flashed a hard grin. \"I'm wearing Ranal. '\n\nShouts, and other figures were closing in. Everyone of them on foot.\n\n\"-killed the horses. Bastards went and-\"\n\n\"Sergeant! You all right? Bottle, get over here-\"\n\n\"Killed the-\"\n\n\"Be quiet, Smiles, you're making me sick. Did you hear that blast? Gods below-'\n\nCuttle clapped Fiddler on one shoulder, then dragged him to his feet.\n\n\"Where's the lieutenant? ' Koryk asked.\n\n\"Right here,\" Cuttle answered, but did not elaborate.\n\nHe's wearing Ranal.\n\n\"What just happened?\" Koryk asked.\n\nFiddler studied his squad. All here. That's a wonder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cuttle spat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What happened, lad? We got slapped down. That's what happened. Slapped down hard. '\n\nFiddler stared at the retreating storm. Aw, shit. Hedge.\n\n\"Here comes Borduke's squad! '\n\n\"Find your horses, everyone,\" Corporal Tarr said. \"Sergeant's been knocked about. Collect whatever you can salvage– we gotta wait for the rest of the company, I reckon. '\n\nGood lad.\n\n\"Look at that crater,\" Smiles said. \"Gods, Sergeant, you couldn't have been much closer to Hood's Gate and lived, could you?\"\n\nHe stared at her. \"You've no idea how right you are, lass. '\n\nAnd the song rose and fell, and he could feel his heart matching that cadence. Ebb and flow. Raraku has swallowed more tears than can be imagined. Now comes the time for the Holy Desert to weep. Ebb and flow, his blood's song, and it lived on.\n\nIt lives on.\n\nThey had fled in the wrong direction. Fatal, but unsurprising. The night had been a shambles. The last survivor of Korbolo Dom's cadre of mages, Fayelle rode a lathered horse in the company of thirteen other Dogslayers down the channel of along-dead river, boulders and banks high on either side.\n\nHerself and thirteen battered, bloodied soldiers. All that was left.\n\nThe clash with Leoman had begun well enough, a perfectly sprung ambush. And would have ended perfectly, as well.\n\nIf not for the damned ghosts.\n\nAmbush turned over, onto its back like an upended tortoise. They'd been lucky to get outwith their lives, these few. These last." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fayelle well knew what had happened to the rest of Korbolo's army. She had felt Henaras's death. And Kamist Reloe's.\n\nAnd Raraku was not finished with them. Oh no. Not at all finished.\n\nThey reached a slope leading out of the defile.\n\nShe had few regrets-\n\nCrossbow quarrels whizzed down. Horses and soldiers screamed. Bodies thumped onto the ground. Her horse staggered, then rolled onto its side. She'd no time to kick free of the stirrups, and as the dying beast pinned her leg its weight tore the joint from her hip, sending pain thundering through her. Her left arm was trapped awkwardly beneath her as her own considerable weight struck the ground– and bones snapped.\n\nThen the side of her head hammered against rock.\n\nFayelle struggled to focus. The pain subsided, became a distant thing. She heard faint pleas for mercy, the cries of wounded soldiers being finished off.\n\nThen a shadow settled over her.\n\n\"I've been looking for you. '\n\nFayelle frowned. The face hovering above her belonged to the past. The desert had aged it, but it nevertheless remained a child's face. Oh, spirits below. The child. Sinn. My old... student...\n\nShe watched the girl raise a knife between them, angle the point down, then set it against her neck.\n\nFayelle laughed. \"Go ahead, you little horror. I'll wait for you at Hood's Gate... and the wait won't belong-'\n\nThe knife punched through skin and cartilage.\n\nFayelle died.\n\nStraightening, Sinn swung to her companions. They were, one and all, busy gathering the surviving horses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sixteen left. The Ashok Regiment had fallen on hard times. Thirst and starvation. Raiders. This damned desert.\n\nShe watched them fora moment, then something else drew her gaze.\n\nNorthward.\n\nShe slowly straightened. \"Cord.\"\n\nThe sergeant turned. \"What– oh, Beru fend!\"\n\nThe horizon to the west had undergone a transformation. It was now limned in white, and it was rising.\n\n\"Double up!\" Cord bellowed. \"Now!\"\n\nA hand closed on her shoulder. Shard leaned close. \"You ride with me.\"\n\n\"Ebron!\"\n\n\"I hear you,\" the mage replied to Cord's bellow.\"And I'll do what I can with these blown mounts, but I ain't guaranteeing-'\n\n\"Get on with it! Bell, help Limp onto that horse– he's busted up that knee again! '\n\nSinn cast one last glance at Fayelle's corpse. She'd known, then. What was coming.\n\nI should be dancing. The bloodied knife fell from her hands.\n\nThen she was roughly grasped and pulled up onto the saddle behind Shard.\n\nThe beast's head tossed, and it shook beneath them.\n\n\"Queen take us,\" Shard hissed, \"Ebron's filled these beasts with fire. '\n\nWe'll need it...\n\nAnd now they could hear the sound, a roar that belittled even the Whirlwind Wall in its fullest rage.\n\nRaraku had risen.\n\nTo claim a shattered warren.\n\nThe Wickan warlocks had known what was coming. Flight was impossible, but the islands of coral stood high– higher than any other feature this side of the escarpment– and it was on these that the armies gathered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To await what could be their annihilation.\n\nThe north sky was a massive wall of white, billowing clouds. A cool, burgeoning wind thrashed through the palms around the oasis.\n\nThen the sound reached them.\n\nA roar unceasing, building, of water, cascading, foaming, tumbling across the vast desert.\n\nThe Holy Desert, it seemed, held far more than bones and memories. More than ghosts and dead cities. Lostara Yil stood near the Adjunct, ignoring the baleful glares Tene Baralta continued casting her way. Wondering... if Pearl was on that high ground, standing over Sha'ik's grave... if that ground was in fact high enough.\n\nShe wondered, too, at what she had seen these past months. Visions burned into her soul, fraught and mysterious, visions that could still chill her blood if she allowed them to rise before her mind's eye once more. Crucified dragons. Murdered gods. Warrens of fire and warrens of ashes.\n\nIt was odd, she reflected, to bethinking these things, even as a raging sea was born from seeming nothing and was sweeping towards them, drowning all in its path.\n\nOdder, still, to bethinking of Pearl. She was hard on him, viciously so at times. Not because she cared, but because it was fun. No, that was too facile, wasn't it? She cared indeed.\n\nWhat a stupid thing to have let happen.\n\nA weary sigh close beside her. Lostara scowled without turning. \"You're back. '\n\n\"As requested,\" Pearl murmured.\n\nOh, she wanted to hit him for that.\n\n\"The task is... done?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aye. Consigned to the deep and all that. If Tene Baralta still wants her, he'll have to hold his breath. '\n\nShe looked then. \"Really? The sea is already that deep?\" Then we're-\n\n\"No. High and dry, actually. The other way sounded more... poetic.\"\n\n\"I really hate you.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"And you'll have plenty of time in which to luxuriate in it. '\n\n\"You think we'll survive this? '\n\n\"Yes. Oh, we'll get our feet wet, but these were islands even back then. This sea will flood the oasis. It will pound up against the raised road west of here– since it was the coastal road back then. And wash up close to the escarpment, maybe even reach it. '\n\n\"That's all very well, \"she snapped.\"And what will we be doing, stuck hereon these islands in the middle of a landlocked sea? '\n\nInfuriatingly, Pearl simply shrugged. \"A guess? We build a flotilla of rafts and bind them together to form abridge, straight to the west road. The sea will be shallow enough there anyway, even if that doesn't work as well as it should– but I have every confidence in the Adjunct. '\n\nThe wall of water then struck the far side of the oasis, with the sound of thunder. Palms waved wildly, then began toppling.\n\n\"Well, now we know what turned that other forest to stone,\" Pearl said loudly over the thrashing roar of water-\n\nThat now flowed across the ruins, filling the Dogslayer trenches, tumbling down into the basin.\n\nAnd Lostara could see that Pearl was right. Its fury was already spent, and the basin seemed to swallow the water with a most prodigious thirst." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She glanced over to study the Adjunct.\n\nImpassive, watching the seas rise, one hand on the hilt of her sword.\n\nOh, why does looking at you break my heart?\n\nThe sands were settling on the carcasses of the horses. The three squads sat or stood, waiting for the rest of the legion. Bottle had walked up to the road to seethe source of the roar, had come staggering back with the news.\n\nA sea.\n\nA damned sea.\n\nAnd its song was in Fiddler's soul, now. Strangely warm, almost comforting.\n\nOne and all, they then turned to watch the giant rider and his giant horse thunder along that road, heading westward. Dragging something that kicked up a lot of dust.\n\nThe image of that stayed with Fiddler long after the clouds of dust had drifted off the road, down the nearside of the slope.\n\nCould have been a ghost.\n\nBut he knew it wasn't.\n\nCould have been their worst enemy.\n\nBut if he was, it didn't matter. Not right now.\n\nA short while later there was a startled shout from Smiles, and Fiddler turned, in time to see two figures stride out from a warren.\n\nDespite everything, he found himself grinning.\n\nOld friends, he realized, were getting harder to find.\n\nStill, he knew them, and they were his brothers.\n\nMortal souls of Raraku. Raraku, the land that had bound them together. Bound them all, as was now clear, beyond even death.\n\nFiddler was unmindful of how it looked, of what the others thought, upon seeing the three men close to a single embrace." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The horses clambered up the slope to the ridge. Where their riders reined them in, and one and all turned to stare at the yellow, foaming seas churning below. A moment later a squat four-eyed demon scrabbled onto the summit to join them.\n\nThe Lord of Summer had lent wings to their horses– Heboric could admit no other possibility, so quickly had they covered the leagues since the night past. And the beasts seemed fresh even now. As fresh as Greyfrog.\n\nThough he himself was anything but.\n\n\"What has happened?\" Scillara wondered aloud.\n\nHeboric could only shake his head.\n\n\"More importantly,\" Felisin said, \"where do we go now? I don't think I can sit in the saddle much longer-'\n\n\"I know how you feel, lass. We should find somewhere to make camp-\"\n\nThe squeal of a mule brought all three around.\n\nA scrawny, black-skinned old man was riding up towards them, seated cross-legged atop the mule. \"Welcome!\" he shrieked– a shriek because, even as he spoke, he toppled to one side and thumped hard onto the stony trail. \"Help me, you idiots!\"\n\nHeboric glanced at the two women, but it was Greyfrog who moved first.\n\n\"Food!\"\n\nThe old man shrieked again. \"Get away from me! I have news to tell! All of you! Is L'oric dead? No! My shadows saw everything! You are my guests! Now, come prise my legs loose! You, lass. No, you, the other lass! Both of you! Beautiful women with their hands on my legs, my thighs! I can't wait! Do they seethe avid lust in my eyes? Of course not, I'm but a helpless wizened creature, potential father figure-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cutter stood in the tower's uppermost chamber, staring out of the lone window. Bhok'arala chittered behind him, pausing every now and then to make crooning, mournful sounds.\n\nHe'd woken alone.\n\nAnd had known, instantly, that she was gone. And there would be no trail for him to follow.\n\nIskaral Pust had conjured up a mule and ridden off earlier. Of Mogora there was, mercifully, no sign.\n\nThoroughly alone, then, for most of this day.\n\nUntil now.\n\n\"There are countless paths awaiting you.\"\n\nCutter sighed. \"Hello, Cotillion. I was wondering if you'd show up... again. '\n\n\"Again?\"\n\n\"You spoke with Apsalar. Herein this very chamber. You helped her decide.\"\n\n\"She told you?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"Not entirely.\"\n\n\"Her decision washers to make, Cutter. Hers alone.\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter. Never mind. Odd, though. You see countless paths. Whilst I see... none worth walking. '\n\n\"Do you seek, then, something worthy?\"\n\nCutter slowly closed his eyes, then sighed. \"What would you have me do?\"\n\n\"There was a man, once, whose task was to guard the life of a young girl. He did the best he could– with such honour as to draw, upon his sad death, the attention of Hood himself. Oh, the Lord of Death will look into a mortal's soul, given the right circumstances. The, uh, the proper incentive. Thus, that man is now the Knight of Death-'\n\n\"I don't want to be Knight of anything, nor for anyone, Cotillion-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The wrong track, lad. Let me finish my tale. This man did the best he could, but he failed. And now the girl is dead. She was named Felisin. Of House Paran.\"\n\nCutter's head turned. He studied the shadowed visage of the god.\"Captain Paran? His-'\n\n\"His sister. Look down upon the path, here, out the window, lad. Ina short time Iskaral Pust will return. With guests. Among them, a child named Felisin-\"\n\n\"But you said-\"\n\n\"Before Paran's sister... died, she adopted a waif. A sorely abused foundling. She sought, I think– we will never know for certain, of course– to achieve something... something she herself had no chance, no opportunity, to achieve. Thus, she named the waif after herself. '\n\n\"And what is she tome, Cotillion?\"\n\n\"You are being obstinate, I think. The wrong question.\"\n\n\"Oh, then tell me what is the right question.\"\n\n\"What are you to her?\"\n\nCutter grimaced.\n\n\"The child approaches in the company of another woman, a very remarkable one, as you– and she– will come to see. And with a priest, sworn now to Treach. From him, you will learn... much of worth. Finally, a demon travels with these three humans. For the time being...\"\n\n\"Where are they going? Why stop here, as Iskaral's guests? '\n\n\"Why, to collect you, Cutter.\"\n\n\"I don't understand. '\n\n\"Symmetry, lad, is a power unto itself. It is the expression, if you will, of nature's striving for balance. I charge you with protecting Felisin's life. To accompany them on their long, and dangerous, journey.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How epic of you.\"\n\n\"I think not,\" Cotillion snapped.\n\nSilence, fora time, during which Cutter regretted his comment.\n\nFinally, the Daru sighed. \"I hear horses. And Pust... in one of his nauseating diatribes.\"\n\nCotillion said nothing.\n\n\"Very well,\" Cutter said. \"This Felisin... abused, you said. Those ones are hard to get to. To befriend, I mean. Their scars stay fresh and fierce with pain-\"\n\n\"Her adopted mother did well, given her own scars. Be glad, lad, that she is the daughter, not the mother. And, in your worst moments, think of how Baudin felt.\"\n\n\"Baudin. The elder Felisin's guardian? '\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"All right,\" Cutter said. \"It will do.\"\n\n\"What will?\"\n\n\"This path. It will do.\" He hesitated, then said, \"Cotillion. This notion of... balance. Something has occurred tome-\"\n\nCotillion's eyes silenced him, shocked him with their unveiling of sorrow... of remorse. The patron of assassins nodded.\"From her... to you. Aye. '\n\n\"Did she see that, do you think?\"\n\n\"All too clearly, I'm afraid. '\n\nCutter stared out the window. \"I loved her, you know. I still do.\"\n\n\"So you do not wonder why she has left.\"\n\nHe shook his head, unable to fightback the tears anymore. \"No, Cotillion,\" he whispered. \"I don't. '\n\nThe ancient coast road long behind him, Karsa Orlong guided Havok northward along the shore of the new inland sea. Rain clouds hungover the murky water to the east, but the wind was pushing them away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He studied the sky fora moment, then reined in on a slight rise studded with boulders and slipped down from the horse's back. Walking over to a large, flat-topped rock, the Teblor unslung his sword and set it point downward against a nearby boulder, then sat. He drew off his pack and rummaged in an outside pocket for some salted bhederin, dried fruit, and goat cheese.\n\nStaring out over the water, he ate. When he was done, he loosened the pack's straps and dragged out the broken remains of the T'lan Imass. He held it up so that \"Siballe's withered face looked out upon the rippling waves.\n\n\"Tell me,\" Karsa said, \"what do you see?\"\n\n\"My past.\" A moment of silence, then, \"All that I have lost...\"\n\nThe Teblor released his grip and the partial corpse collapsed into a cloud of dust. Karsa found his waterskin and drank deep. Then he stared down at \"Siballe.\"You once said that if you were thrown into the sea, your soul would be freed. That oblivion would come to you. Is this true? '\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nWith one hand he lifted her from the ground, rose and walked to the sea's edge.\n\n\"Wait! Teblor, wait! I do not understand!\"\n\nKarsa's expression soured.\"When I began this journey, I was young. I believed in one thing. I believed in glory. I know now, \"Siballe, that glory is nothing. Nothing. This is what I now understand.\"\n\n\"What else do you now understand, Karsa Orlong?\"\n\n\"Not much. Just one other thing. The same cannot be said for mercy.\" He raised her higher, then swung her body outward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It struck the water in the shallows." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And dissolved into a muddy bloom, which the waves then swept away.\n\nKarsa swung about. Faced his sword of stone. He then smiled. \"Yes. I am Karsa Orlong of the Uryd, a Teblor. Witness, my brothers. One day I will be worthy to lead such as you. Witness.\"\n\nSword once more slung on his back, Havok once more solid beneath him, the Toblakai rode from the shoreline. West, into the wastes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And nowhere I sit, on my brow a circlet of fire, and this kingdom I rule is naught but the host of my life's recollections, unruly subjects, so eager for insurrection, to usurp the aged man from his charred throne and raise up younger versions one by one.\n\nThe Crown of Years Fisher kel Tat\n\nBy any standards, she was a grim woman.\n\nOnrack the Broken watched her stand in the centre of the chamber and cast a harsh, appraising eye upon the disposition of her young killers. The grimace that twisted her handsome features suggested that she found nothing awry. Her gaze fell at last upon the Tiste Edur, Trull Sengar, and the grimace shifted into a scowl.\n\n\"Must we watch our backs as well, with you here?\"\n\nSeated on the hewn floor, his back to an equally rough wall, Trull Sengar shrugged. \"I see no easy way of convincing you that I am worthy of your trust, Minala. Apart from weaving for you my lengthy and rather unpleasant story.\"\n\n\"Spare me,\" she growled, then strode from the room.\n\nTrull Sengar glanced over at Onrack and grinned. \"No-one wants to hear it. Well, I am not surprised. Nor am I even stung. It is a rather squalid tale-\"\n\n\"I will hear your story,\" Onrack replied.\n\nNear the entrance, Ibra Gholan's neck creaked as the T'lan Imass looked back over one shoulder to regard Onrack fora moment, before returning to his position guarding the approach.\n\nTrull Sengar barked a laugh. \"This is ideal for an unskilled weaver of tales. My audience comprises a score of children who do not understand my native tongue, and three expressionless and indifferent undead. By tale's end, only I will be weeping... likely for all the wrong reasons. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Monok Ochem, who was standing three paces back from Ibra Gholan, slowly pivoted until the bonecaster faced Onrack. \"You have felt it, then, Broken One. And so you seek distraction.\"\n\nOnrack said nothing.\n\n\"Felt what?\" Trull Sengar asked.\n\n\"She is destroyed. The woman who gave Onrack her heart in the time before the Ritual. The woman to whom he avowed his own heart... only to steal it back. In many ways, she was destroyed then, already begun on her long journey to oblivion. Do you deny that, Onrack?\"\n\n\"Bonecaster, I do not.\"\n\n\"Madness, of such ferocity as to defeat the Vow itself. Like a camp dog that awakens one day with fever in its brain. That snarls and kills in a frenzy. Of course, we had no choice but to track her down, corner her. And so shatter her, imprison her within eternal darkness. Or so we thought. Madness, then, to defy even us. But now, oblivion has claimed her soul at last. A violent, painful demise, but none the less...\" Monok Ochem paused, then cocked its head. \"Trull Sengar, you have not begun your tale, yet already you weep.\"\n\nThe Tiste Edur studied the bonecaster fora long moment, as the tears ran down his gaunt cheeks. \"I weep, Monok Ochem, because he cannot.\"\n\nThe bonecaster faced Onrack once more. \"Broken One, there are many things you deserve... but this man is not among them.\" He then turned away.\n\nOnrack spoke. \"Monok Ochem, you have travelled far from the mortal you once were, so far as to forget a host of truths, both pleasant and unpleasant. The heart is neither given nor stolen. The heart surrenders.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bonecaster did not turn round. \"That is a word without power to the T'lan Imass, Onrack the Broken. '\n\n\"You are wrong, Monok Ochem. We simply changed the word to make it not only more palatable, but also to empower it. With such eminence that it devoured our souls.\"\n\n\"We did no such thing,\" the bonecaster replied.\n\n\"Onrack's right, \"Trull Sengar sighed.\"You did. You called it the Ritual of Tellann. '\n\nNeither Monok Ochem nor Ibra Gholan spoke.\n\nThe Tiste Edur snorted. \"And you've the nerve to call Onrack broken. '\n\nThere was silence in the chamber then, for sometime.\n\nBut Onrack's gaze remained fixed on Trull Sengar. And he was, if he was anything, a creature capable of supreme patience. To grieve is a gift best shared. As a song is shared.\n\nDeep in the caves, the drums beat. Glorious echo to the herds whose thundering hoofs celebrate what it is to be alive, to run as one, to roll in life's rhythm. This is how, in the cadence of our voice, we serve nature's greatest need.\n\nFacing nature, we are the balance.\n\nEver the balance to chaos.\n\nEventually, his patience was rewarded.\n\nAshe knew it would be." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Advance the storyline as the writer's tale partner.\nTags: epic fantasy, alliance, ancient threats, camaraderie, tragic events\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Memories of Ice\nChapter: 10" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Antsy's red face paled.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Why won't he make it? What's gone wrong? Picker-'\n\n\"Ain't nothing's gone wrong, Antsy! Hood's breath! Quick Ben will get here today– assure as that sun just rose and is even now baking your brain! Look at your new squad members, Sergeant– Mallet, there, and Hedge– you're embarrassing the rest of us!\"\n\nAntsy snarled and clambered to his feet. \"What're you toads staring at? Get to work! You, Mallet, give Detoran a hand– I want those hearth-stones level! If the pot tips because they weren't, you'll be sorry and I ain't exaggerating neither. And you, Hedge, go find Spindle-\"\n\nThe sapper pointed up the hill. \"He's right there, Sergeant. Checking out that upside-down tree. '\n\nHands on hips, Antsy pivoted, then slowly nodded. \"And it's no wonder. What kinda trees grow upside-down, anyway? A smart man can't help but be curious.\"\n\n\"If you're so curious, \"Picker muttered,\"why not go and look for yourself? '\n\n\"Nah, what's the point? Go collect Spindle, then, Hedge. Double-time. '\n\n\"Double-time up a hill? Beru fend, Antsy, it's not like we're going anywhere!\"\n\n\"You heard me, soldier.\"\n\nScowling, the sapper began jogging up the slope. After a few strides, he slowed to a stagger. Picker grinned.\n\n\"Now where's Blend? ' Antsy demanded.\n\n\"Right here beside you, sir.\"\n\n\"Hood's breath! Stop doing that! Where you been skulking, anyway? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nowhere,\" she replied.\n\n\"Liar,\" Picker said. \"Caught you sliding up outa the corner of my eye, Blend. You're mortal, after all. '\n\nShe shrugged. \"Heard an interesting conversation between Paran and Trotts. Turns out that Barghast bastard once had some kind of high rank in his own tribe. Something about all those tattoos. Anyway, turns out we're hereto find the biggest local tribe– the White Faces– with the aim of enlisting their help. An alliance against the Pannion Domin. '\n\nPicker snorted. \"Flown then dropped off at the foot of the Barghast Range, what else did you think we were up to?\"\n\n\"Only there's a problem, \"she continued laconically, examining her nails.\"Trotts will get us face to face without all of us getting skewered, but he might end up fighting a challenge or two. Personal combat. If he wins, we all live. If he gets himself killed... '\n\nAntsy's mouth hung open, his moustache twitching as if independently alive.\n\nPicker groaned.\n\nThe sergeant spun. \"Corporal– find Trotts! Sit'im down with that fancy whetstone of yours and get \"im to sharpen his weapons real good-\"\n\n\"Oh, really, Antsy!\"\n\n\"We gotta do something!\"\n\n\"About what?\" anew voice asked.\n\nAntsy whirled again. \"Spindle, thank the Queen! Trotts is going to get us all killed!\"\n\nThe mage shrugged beneath his hairshirt. \"That explains all those agitated spirits in this hill, then. They can smell him, I guess-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Smell?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Agitated? Hood's bones, we're all done for!\"\n\nStanding with the rest of the Bridgeburners, Paran's eyes narrowed on the squad at the foot of the barrow.\"What's got Antsy all lit up?\" he wondered aloud.\n\nTrotts bared his teeth. \"Blend was here,\" he rumbled. \"Heard everything.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's terrific news– why didn't you say anything?\"\n\nThe Barghast shrugged his broad shoulders, was silent.\n\nGrimacing, the captain strode over to the Black Moranth commander.\n\n\"Is that quorl of yours rested enough, Twist? I want you high over us. I want to know when we've been spotted-'\n\nThe chitinous black helm swung to face him. \"They are already aware, Nobleborn.\"\n\n\"Captain will do, Twist. I don't need reminding of my precious blood. Aware, are they? How, and just as important, how do you know they know? '\n\n\"We stand on their land, Captain. The soul beneath us is the blood of their ancestors. Blood whispers. The Moranth hear.\"\n\n\"Surprised you can hear anything inside that helm of yours,\" Paran muttered, tired and irritated. \"Never mind. I want you over us anyway.\"\n\nThe commander slowly nodded.\n\nThe captain turned and surveyed his company. Veteran soldiers– virtually everyone of them. Silent, frighteningly professional. He wondered what it would be like to see out through the eyes of anyone of them, through the layers of the soul's exhaustion that Paran had barely begun to find within himself. Soldiers now and soldiers to the end of their days– none would dare leave to find peace. Solicitude and calm would unlock that safe prison of cold control– the only thing keeping them sane." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whiskeyjack had said to Paran that, once this war was done, the Bridgeburners would be retired. Forcibly if necessary.\n\nArmies possessed traditions, and these had less to do with discipline than with the fraught truths of the human spirit. Rituals at the beginning, shared among each and every recruit. And rituals at the end, a formal closure that was recognition– recognition in every way imaginable. They were necessary. Their gift was a kind of sanity, a means of coping. A soldier cannot be sent away without guidance, cannot be abandoned and left lost in something unrecognizable and indifferent to their lives. Remembrance and honouring the ineffable. Yet, when it's done, what is the once-soldier? What does he or she become? An entire future spent walking backward, eyes on the past– its horrors, its losses, its grief, its sheer heart-bursting living? The ritual is a turning round, a facing forward, a gentle and respectful hand like a guide on the shoulder.\n\nSorrow was a steady, faint susurration within Paran, a tide that neither ebbed nor flowed, yet threatened to drown him none the less.\n\nAnd when the White Faces find us... each and every man and woman here could end up with slit throats, and Queen help me, I begin to wonder if it would be a mercy. Queen help me...\n\nA swift flutter of wings and the quorl was airborne, the Black Moranth commander perched on the moulded saddle.\n\nParan watched them rise fora moment longer, his stomach churning, then turned to his company. \"On your feet, Bridgeburners. Time to march.\"\n\nThe dark, close air was filled with sickly mist. Quick Ben felt himself moving through it, his will struggling like a swimmer against a savage current. After a few more moments he withdrew his questing, slipped sideways into yet another warren." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It fared little better. Some kind of infection had seeped in from the physical world beyond, was corrupting every sorcerous path he attempted. Fighting nausea, he pushed himself forward.\n\nThis has the stench of the Crippled God... yet the enemy whose lands we approach is the Pannion Seer. Granted, an obvious means of self-defence, sufficient to explain the coincidence. Then again, since when do I believe in coincidences? No, this comingling of scents hinted at a deeper truth. That bastard ascendant may well be chained, his body broken, but I can feel his hand– even here– twitching at invisible threads.\n\nThe faintest of smiles touched the wizard's lips. A worthy challenge.\n\nHe shifted warrens once again, and found himself on the trail of... something. A presence was ahead, leaving a cooled, strangely lifeless wake. Well, perhaps no surprise– I'm striding the edge of Hood's own realm now, after all. None the less... Unease pattered within him like sleet. He pushed his nervousness down. Hood's warren was resisting the poison better than many others Quick Ben had attempted.\n\nThe ground beneath him was clay, damp and clammy, the cold reaching through the wizard's moccasins. Faint, colourless light bled down from a formless sky that seemed no higher than a ceiling. The haze filling the air felt oily, thick enough on either side to make the path seem like a tunnel.\n\nQuick Ben's steps slowed. The clay ground was no longer smooth. Deep incisions crossed it, glyphs in columns and panels. Primitive writing, the wizard suspected, yet... He crouched and reached down.\"Freshly cut... or timeless. \"At a faint tingle from the contact he withdrew his hand.\"Wards, maybe. Bindings. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stepping carefully to avoid the glyphs, Quick Ben padded forward.\n\nHe skirted abroad sinkhole filled with painted pebbles– offerings to Hood from some holy temple, no doubt– benedictions and prayers in a thousand languages from countless supplicants. And there they lie. Unnoticed, ignored or forgotten. Even clerks die, Hood– why not put them to good use cleaning all this up? Of all our traits to survive the passage of death, surely obsessiveness must be counted high among them.\n\nThe incisions grew thicker, more crowded, forcing the wizard to slow his pace yet further. It was becoming difficult to find a clear space on the clay for his feet. Binding sorceries– the whispered skeins of power made manifest, hereon the floor of Hood's realm.\n\nA dozen paces ahead was a small, bedraggled object, surrounded in glyphs. Quick Ben's frown deepened as he edged closer. Like the makings of fire... sticks and twisted grasses on around, pale hearthstone.\n\nThen he saw it tremble.\n\nAh, these binding spells belong to you, little one. Your soul, trapped. As I once did to that mage, Hairlock, someone's done to you. Curious indeed. He moved as close as he could, then slowly crouched.\n\n\"You're looking a little worse for wear, friend, ' the wizard said.\n\nThe minuscule acorn head swivelled slightly, then flinched back. \"Mortal!\" the creature hissed in the language of the Barghast. \"The clans must be told! I can go no further– look, the wards pursued, the wards closed the web– I am trapped!\"\n\n\"So I see. You were of the White Faces, shaman?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And so I remain!\"\n\n\"Yet you escaped your barrow– you eluded the binding spells of your kin, fora while at least, in any case. Do you truly believe they will welcome your return, Old One?\"\n\n\"I was dragged from my barrow, fool! You are journeying to the clans– I seethe truth of that in your eyes. I shall tell you my tale, mortal, and so they know the truth of all that you tell them, I shall give you my true name-\"\n\n\"A bold offer, Old One. What's to prevent me from twisting you to my will? '\n\nThe creature twitched, a snarl in its tone as it replied, \"You could be no worse than my last masters. I am Talamandas, born of the First Hearth in the Knotted Clan. The first child birthed on this land– do you know the significance of that, mortal?\"\n\n\"I am afraid not, Talamandas.\"\n\n'My previous masters– those damned necromancers– had worked through, mortal, were mere moments from discovering my true name– worked through, I tell you, with brutal claws indifferent to pain. With my name they would have learned secrets that even my own people have long forgotten. Do you know the significance of the trees on our barrows? No, you do not. Indeed they hold the soul, keep it from wandering, but why?\n\n\"We came to this land from the seas, plying the vast waters in dugouts– the world was young, then, our blood thick with the secret truths of our past. Look upon the faces of the Barghast, mortal– no, look upon a Barghast skull stripped of skin and muscle...\"\n\n\"I've seen... Barghast skulls, ' Quick Ben said slowly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ah, and have you seen their like..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "animate?\"\n\nThe wizard scowled. \"No, but something similar, squatter– the features slightly more pronounced-\"\n\n\"Slightly, aye, slightly. Squatter? No surprise, we never went hungry, for the sea provided. Yet more, Tartheno Toblakai were among us...\"\n\n\"You were T'lan Imass! Hood's breath! Then... you and your kin must have defied the Ritual-\"\n\n\"Defied? No. We simply failed to arrive in time– our pursuit of the Jaghut had forced us to venture onto the seas, to dwell among iceflows and on treeless islands. And in our isolation from kin, among the elder peoples– the Tartheno– we changed... when our distant kin did not. Mortal, wherever land proved generous enough to grant us a birth, we buried our dugouts– forever. From this was born the custom of the trees on our barrows– though none among my kind remembers. It has been so long...\"\n\n\"Tell me your tale, Talamandas. But first, answer me this. What would you do... if I freed you of these bindings?\"\n\n\"You cannot.\"\n\n\"Not an answer.\"\n\n\"Very well, though it be pointless. I would seek to set free the First Families– aye, we are spirits, and now worshipped by the living clans. But the ancient bindings have kept us as children in so many ways. Well meant, yet a curse none the less. We must be freed. To grow into true power-\"\n\n\"To ascend into true gods,\" Quick Ben whispered, his eyes wide as he stared down at the ragged figure of grasses and twigs.\n\n\"The Barghast refuse to change, the living think now as the living always did. Generation after generation. Our kind are dying out, mortal. We rot from within. For the ancestors are prevented from giving true guidance, prevented from maturing into their power– our power. To answer your question, mortal, I would save the living Barghast, if I could.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tell me, Talamandas,\" Quick Ben asked with veiled eyes, \"is survival aright, or a privilege?\"\n\n\"The latter, mortal. The latter. And it must be earned. I wish for the chance. For all my people, I wish for the chance.\"\n\nThe wizard slowly nodded. \"A worthy wish, Old One.\" He held out his hand, palm up, stared down at it. \"There's salt in this clay, is there not? I smell it. Clay is usually airless, lifeless. Defiant of the tireless servants of the soil. But the salt, well... \"A writhing clump took shape on Quick Ben's palm. \"Sometimes,\" he went on, \"the simplest of creatures can defeat the mightiest sorceries, in the simplest way imaginable.\" The worms– red like blood, thin, long and ridged with leg-like cilia along their lengths– twisted and heaved, fell in clumps to the glyph-strewn ground. \"These are native to a distant continent. They feed on salt, or so it seems– the mines on the dry seabeds of Setta are thick with these things, especially in the dry season. They can turn the hardest pan of clay into sand. To put it another way, they bring air to the airless.\" He dropped the clump onto the ground, watched as the worms spread out, began burrowing. \"And they breed faster than maggots. Ah, see those glyphs– there, on the edges? Their binding's crumbling– can you feel the loosening? '\n\n\"Mortal, who are you?\"\n\n\"In the eyes of the gods, Talamandas? Just a lowly salt-worm. I'll hear your tale now, Old One... '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the subcontinent of Stratem, beyond Korelri's south range, can be found avast peninsula where even the gods do not tread. Reaching to each coast, encompassing an area of thousands of square leagues, stretches avast plaza. Aye, dear readers, there is no other word for it. Fashion this in your mind: near-seamless flagstones, unmarred by age and of grey, almost black, stone. Rippled lines of dark dust, minuscule dunes heaped by the moaning winds, these are all that break the breathless monotony. Who laid such stones?\n\nShould we give credence to Gothos's hoary tome, his glorious'Folly\"? Should we attach a dread name to the makers of this plaza? If we must, then that name is K'Chain Che'Malle. Who, then, were the K'Chain Che'Malle? An Elder Race, or so Gothos tells. Extinct even before the rise of the Jaghut, the T'lan Imass, the Forkrul Assail.\n\nTruth? Ah, if so, then these stones were laid down half a million– perhaps more– years ago. In the opinion of this chronicler, what utter nonsense.\n\nMy Endless Travels Esslee Monot (the Dubious)\n\n\"HOW DO YOU measure a life, Toc the Younger? Please, darling, I would hear your thoughts. Deeds are the crudest measure of all, wouldn't you say? '\n\nHe cast her a glower as they walked. \"You suggesting that good intentions are enough, Lady?\"\n\nEnvy shrugged. \"Can no value be found in good intentions?\"\n\n\"What, precisely, are you trying to justify? And tome, or yourself?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She glared, then quickened her pace. \"You're no fun at all, \"she sniffed as she pulled ahead,\"and presumptuous as well. I'm going to talk with Tool– his moods don't swing! '\n\nNo, they just hang there, twisting in the wind.\n\nNot entirely true, he realized after a moment. The T'lan Imass had showed the fullest measure of his emotions a week past. With his sister's departure. None of us are immune to tortured hearts, I guess. He rested a hand on Baaljagg's shoulder, squinted towards the distant ridgeline to the northeast, and the washed-out mountains beyond.\n\nThe ridge marked the borders of the Pannion Domin. There was a city at the foot of those mountains, or so the Lady had assured him. Bastion. An ominous name. And strangers aren't welcome... So why in Hood's name are we heading there?\n\nOnearm's Host had effectively declared war on the theocratic empire. Tool's knowledge of the details had Toc wondering, but not doubting. Every description of the Pannion Domin simply added fuel to the likelihood of Dujek taking... umbrage. The old High Fist despised tyranny. Which is ironic, since the Emperor was a tyrant... I think. Then again, maybe not. Despotic, sure, and mono-maniacal, even slightly insane... He scowled, glanced back to the three Seguleh trailing him. Glittering eyes within hard masks. Toc resumed his study of the ridge ahead, shivering.\n\nSomething's awry, somewhere. Maybe right here. Since her return from Callows, with Mok in tow and his mask sporting a crimson, thickly planted kiss– Hood's breath, does the man even know? If I was Senu or Thurule, would I dare tell him? Since her return, yes, there's been a change. A skittery look in her eyes– just the occasional flash, but I'm not mistaken. The stakes have been raised, and I'm in a game I don't even know. I don't know the players ranged against me, either." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He blinked suddenly, finding Lady Envy walking alongside him once again. \"Tool say the wrong thing?\" he asked.\n\nHer nose wrinkled in distaste. \"Haven't you ever wondered what the undead think about, Toc the Younger? '\n\n\"No. That is, I don't ever recall musing on the subject, Lady. '\n\n\"They had gods, once, you know.\"\n\nHe shot her a glance. \"Oh?\"\n\n\"Well. Spirits, then. Earth and rock and tree and beast and sun and stars and antler and bone and blood-\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, Lady, I grasp the theme.\"\n\n\"Your interruptions are most rude, young man– are you typical of your generation? If so, then the world is indeed on a downward spiral into the Abyss. Spirits, I was saying. All extinct now. All nothing more than dust. The Imass have outlasted their own deities. Difficult to imagine, but they are godless in every sense, Toc the Younger. Faith... now ashes. Answer me this, my dear, do you envisage your afterlife?\"\n\nHe grunted. \"Hood's gate? In truth, I avoid thinking about it, Lady. What's the point? We die and our soul passes through. I suppose it's up to Hood or one of his minions to decide what to do with it, if anything. '\n\nHer eyes flashed. \"If anything. Yes.\"\n\nA chill prickled Toc's skin.\n\n\"What would you do,\" Lady Envy asked, \"with the knowledge that Hood does nothing with your soul? That it's left to wander, eternally lost, purposeless? That it exists without hope, without dreams? '\n\n\"Do you speak the truth, Lady? Is this knowledge you possess? Or are you simply baiting me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am baiting you, of course, my young love." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How would I know anything of Hood's hoary realm? Then again, think of the physical manifestations of that warren– the cemeteries in your cities, the forlorn and forgotten barrows– not places conducive to festive occasions, yes? Think of all of Hood's host of holidays and celebrations. Swarming flies, blood-covered acolytes, cackling crows and faces stained with the ash from cremations– I don't know about you, but I don't see much fun going on, do you?\"\n\n\"Can't we behaving some other kind of conversation, Lady Envy? This one's hardly cheering me up.\"\n\n\"I was simply musing on the T'lan Imass. '\n\nYou were? Oh... right. He sighed. \"They war with the Jaghut, Lady. That is their purpose, and it certainly seems sufficient to sustain them. I'd imagine they've little need for spirits or gods or faith, even. They exist to wage their war, and so long as a single Jaghut's still breathing on this world... '\n\n\"And are any? Still breathing, that is?\"\n\n\"How should I know? Ask Tool.\"\n\n\"I did.\"\n\n\"And?\"\n\n\"And... he doesn't know. '\n\nToc stumbled a step, slowed, staring at her, then at the T'lan Imass striding ahead.\" He doesn't know?\"\n\n\"Indeed, Toc the Younger. Now, what do you make of that?\"\n\nHe could manage no reply.\n\n\"What if the war's ended? What next, for the T'lan Imass?\"\n\nHe considered, then slowly said, \"A second Ritual of Gathering?\"\n\n\"Mhmm...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"An end? An end to the T'lan Imass? Hood's breath!\"\n\n\"And not a single spirit waiting to embrace all those weary, so very weary souls...\"\n\nAn end, an end. Gods, she might be right. He stared at Tool's fur-clad back, and was almost overcome with a sense of loss. Vast, ineffable loss.\"You might be wrong, Lady. '\n\n\"I might,\" she agreed affably. \"Do you hope that I am, Toc the Younger?\"\n\nHe nodded.\n\n\"Why?\" she asked.\n\nWhy? Unhuman creatures sworn to genocide. Brutal, deadly, implacable. Relentless beyond all reason. Toc nodded towards the T'lan Imass ahead of them.\"Because he's my friend, Lady Envy.\"\n\nThey had not been speaking in low tones. At Toc's words, Tool's head turned, the shelf of the brow hiding the pits of eyes that seemed to fix on the Malazan fora moment. Then the head swung forward once more.\n\n\"The summoner of the Gathering,\" Lady Envy slowly spoke, \"is among your Malazan punitive army, Toc the Younger. We shall converge within the Pannion Domin. Us, them, and the surviving clans of the T'lan Imass. There will be, without doubt, battles aplenty. The crushing of an empire is never easy. I should know, having crushed a few in my time. '\n\nHe stared at her, said nothing.\n\nShe smiled. \"Alas, they will approach from the north, whilst we approach from the south. Our journey ahead will be fraught indeed.\"\n\n\"I admit I have been wondering,\" Toc said. \"How, precisely, will we manage to cross a hostile, fanatic territory?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Simple, love, we shall carve our way through.\"\n\nGods, if I stay with these people, I am a dead man.\n\nLady Envy was still smiling, her eyes on Tool. \"Like a white-hot knife through ice, we thrust to the heart... of a frozen, timeless soul.\" Her voice rising slightly, she added, \"Or so we suspect, do we not, Onos T'oolan? '\n\nThe T'lan Imass stopped.\n\nBaaljagg pulled away from beneath Toc's hand, padded forward. The dog Garath followed.\n\nThe Malazan spun upon hearing three sets of swords slide from scabbards.\n\n\"Oh,\" Lady Envy said. \"Something's coming. '\n\nToc unslung his bow and planted its butt to string it as he scanned the horizon ahead. \"I don't see anything... but I'll take everyone's word for it. '\n\nMoments later a K'Chain Che'Malle crested the ridgeline a hundred paces ahead, huge, slung forward and seeming to flow over the ground on two legs. Blades flashed at the ends of its arms.\n\nAy and dog flinched back.\n\nToc's recollection of such a creature– fraught with the pained memories of Trake's death– returned to him with a jolt that shortened his breath.\n\n\"K'ell Hunter, \"Tool said.\"Lifeless. \"He had not yet reached for his stone sword. The T'lan Imass pivoted, faced the three Seguleh. A frozen moment stretched between them, then Tool nodded.\n\nSenu on Mok's right, Thurule on his left and both brothers a step ahead of the Third, the Seguleh padded forward to meet the K'Chain Che'Malle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A gamble,\" Lady Envy murmured.\n\n\"The time has come,\" Tool said, \"to gauge their worth, Lady. Here, at the border to the Domin. We must know our... knife's efficacy. '\n\nToc nocked an arrow. \"Something tells me I might as well throw twigs at it,\" he muttered, recalling Trake's death.\n\n\"Wrong,\" Tool said, \"yet there is no need to test the stone's power of your arrows. '\n\n\"Power, huh? Fine, but that's not the problem. I've only got one eye, Tool. I can't judge distances worth a damn. And that thing's fast.\"\n\n\"Leave this one to the Seguleh,\" the T'lan Imass said.\n\n\"As you say,\" Toc replied, shrugging. His heart did not slow its hammering.\n\nThe K'Chain Che'Malle was blurred lightning as it plunged among the three brothers. The Seguleh were faster. Senu and Thurule had already moved past the creature, throwing savage, unerring blows behind them without turning, sliding effortlessly like snakes to avoid the hunter's whipping tail.\n\nMok, standing directly in front of the creature, had not backed up a step.\n\nThe beast's huge arms flew past to either side of the Third– both severed at the shoulder joint by the flanking brothers in their single pass. Mok's swords darted upward, stabbed, cut, twisted, hooked then withdrew with the hunter's massive head balanced on the tips for the briefest of moments before the Third flung its blade-bending weight aside and leapt to the right, barely avoiding the decapitated body's forward pitch.\n\nThe K'Chain Che'Malle thundered as it struck the ground, legs kicking and tail thrashing. Then its movements ceased." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well,\" Toc said after he'd regained his breath,\"that wasn't so hard. Those beasts look tougher than they are, obviously. Good thing, too. We'll just stroll into the Domin, now, right? Gawking at Bastion's wonder, then beyond-\"\n\n\"You're babbling, \"Lady Envy said.\"Very unattractive, Toc the Younger. Please stop, now. '\n\nMouth clamped shut, Toc managed a nod.\n\n\"Now, let us go and examine the K'Chain Che'Malle. I, for one, am curious.\"\n\nHe watched her walk ahead, then followed at a stumble. Ashe passed Tool, he offered the T'lan Imass a sickly grin.\"I think you can relax, now, right? '\n\nThe deathless face turned to him. \"The Third's dismantling, Toc the Younger... '\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"I could not have done that. I have never seen such... skill.\"\n\nToc paused, his eye narrowing. \"Tool, that was glorified dissection– are you not his match in speed?\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\"\n\n\"And could he have done that without his brothers slicing those arms off? What if the beast had attacked with its feet instead of its jaws? Tool, that K'Chain Che'Malle was trying for all three of them at once. Stupid. Arrogant.\"\n\nThe T'lan Imass cocked his head.\"Arrogance. A vice of being undead, Toc the Younger. '\n\nThe Malazan's grin broadened.\"And yours has just been shaken, Tool? '\n\n\"An unfamiliar sensation.\"\n\nToc shrugged, about to turn and rejoin Lady Envy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The stone sword was in Tool's hands.\"I must challenge him. '\n\nGrin falling away, Toc stepped closer. \"Hold on, friend– you don't-'\n\n\"I must challenge him. Now.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"The First Sword of the T'lan Imass must be without equal, Aral Fayle. '\n\n\"Gods, not you too!\"\n\nThe T'lan Imass set off towards the Seguleh.\n\n\"Wait! Tool-\"\n\nThe First Sword glanced back. \"You share my shaken faith, mortal, despite your earlier words.\"\n\n\"Damn it, Tool, now's not the time for this! Think! We need all of you– each in one piece. Intact-'\n\n\"Enough words, Aral Fayle.\"\n\nThe brothers stood around the fallen K'Chain Che'Malle. Lady Envy had joined them and was now crouched, examining the creature's corpse.\n\nFilled with dread, Toc matched Tool's steady, determined pace as they approached.\n\nSenu was the first of the Seguleh to notice them. He slowly sheathed his swords, stepped back. A moment later Thurule did the same. Mok slowly faced the T'lan Imass.\n\n\"By the Abyss!\" Lady Envy snapped, straightening, her expression darkening. \"Not now.\" She waved a hand.\n\nMok collapsed.\n\nTool staggered to a halt. \"Awaken him, Lady,\" he rasped.\n\n\"I shall not. Senu, you and Thurule, rig up a travois for your sleeping brother. You two can pull it.\"\n\n\"Lady-\"\n\n\"I'm not talking to you, T'lan Imass.\" And to reinforce her announcement, she crossed her arms and turned her back on Tool." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After along moment in which neither moved, the First Sword finally sheathed his blade. \"He cannot remain asleep forever, Lady Envy,\" he said. \"You do naught but prolong the inevitable.\"\n\nShe made no reply.\n\nToc drew a deep breath. \"What a lovely woman,\" he softly sighed.\n\nShe heard, and turned with a heart-stopping smile. \"Why, thank you!\"\n\n\"That's not-' He stopped.\n\nHer brow knitted. \"Excuse me?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\" Gods, nothing!\n\nFashioned of straps, leather webbing and two spear-shafts that Lady Envy conjured from somewhere, the travois carrying the Third was pulled by Senu and Thurule from rigged shoulder slings. The two brothers were clearly agitated by the turn of events but, as was evident to Toc– and doubtless the T'lan Imass too– there would be no challenging the Lady's will.\n\nThey ascended the ridge as the afternoon waned. Rain clouds approached from the north, obscuring the mountains beyond. The air grew cooler.\n\nThe border itself was marked by a series of cairns lining the ridge. Long-abandoned enclosures were visible here and there, the low unmortared stonewalls hinting of more affluent times in the past. Flagstone byways crisscrossed the land ahead, overgrown with grasses. The hills gave way to abroad, shallow valley, treed at its base where a stream twisted its way northward. Three squat farmhouses were visible on the valley floor, and a cluster of structures positioned at the stream marked a hamlet at what had to be a ford. No livestock was insight, nor were the chimneys streaming smoke, lending an eerie quality to the pastoral scene." }, { "from": "human", "value": "None the less, the transition from barren plain to green pastures and signs of human acitivity was something of a shock to Toc the Younger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He realized, with a dull and faint surge of unease, that he'd grown used to the solitude of the plain the Elin called Lamatath. Absence of people– those outside the group... strangers– had diminished what he now understood to be a constant tension in his life. Perhaps in all our lives. Unfamiliar faces, gauging regard, every sense heightened in an effort to read the unknown. The natural efforts of society. Do we all possess a wish to remain unseen, unnoticed? Is the witnessing of our actions by others our greatest restraint?\n\n\"You are looking thoughtful, darling,\" Lady Envy murmured at his side.\n\nHe shrugged. \"We're not... unobtrusive, are we? This group of ours. Masked warriors and giant wolf and dog– and a T'lan Imass-\"\n\nTool stopped and faced them. \"I shall make myself unseen, now.\"\n\n\"When you fall to dust the way you do,\" Toc asked, \"are you entering your Tellann warren?\"\n\n\"No. I simply return to what I was meant to be, had not the Ritual taken place. It would be unwise to employ Tellann within this Domin, Toc the Younger. I shall, however, remain close, and vigilant.\"\n\nToc grunted. \"I was used to having you around. In the flesh, I mean.\" He scowled. \"As it were.\"\n\nThe T'lan Imass shrugged, then vanished in a sluice of dust.\n\n\"Other solutions present themselves,\" Lady Envy said, \"with respect to our canine companions. Observe.\" She walked towards Baaljagg. \"You, pup, are far too... alarming in appearance... in your present form. Shall we make you smaller?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ay had not moved, and watched as she reached out a slim hand and rested a finger on its brow.\n\nBetween blinks, Baaljagg shifted from tall and gaunt to a size to match the dog, Garath. Smiling, Lady Envy glanced southward. \"Those yellow wolves are still following, so very curious, but it seems unlikely they will approach now that we are among humans. Alas, reducing the Seguleh to the size of children would achieve little in the way of anonymity, wouldn't you concur, Toc the Younger? '\n\nThe Malazan conjured in his mind an image of two masked, death-dealing \"children\", and a moment later his imagination was in full retreat. \"Uh,\" he managed, \"No. I mean, yes. Yes, I concur.\"\n\n\"The hamlet yonder,\" she continued, \"will prove a modest test as to how the locals react to the Seguleh. If further illusory adjustments to our party prove necessary, we can address them later. Have I covered all considerations, my dear?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he reluctantly grumbled, \"I suppose.\"\n\n\"The hamlet might have an inn of some sort.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't count on it, Lady. These trader tracks haven't seen use in years.\"\n\n\"How uncivilized! Shall we make our way down therein any case?\"\n\nThe first drops of rain were spattering the stony trail when they reached the first of the hamlet's half-dozen squalid and ramshackle buildings. It had once been a travellers\" inn, complete with stables and a low-walled compound for merchant carts, but was now unoccupied and partially dismantled, the wood and dressed stone of the kitchen wall scavenged, leaving the interior exposed to the elements. High grasses and herbs rose amidst the brick ovens." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Three small buildings lay just beyond the abandoned inn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Smithy and tack stall, and a tithe-collector's office and residence. All lifeless. The only structure showing evidence of upkeep was on the other side of the shallow ford. High-walled– the stones revealing disparate provenance– and gated with wooden doors beneath an arch, all that was visible of the structure within was a pyramidal peak scaled in polished copper.\n\n\"I'd guess that to be a temple, \"Toc muttered, standing in the centre of the hamlet's lone street, his eye narrowed on the building on the other side of the stream.\n\n\"Indeed,\" Lady Envy replied. \"And those within are aware of us.\"\n\nHe shot her a glance. \"How aware?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"We are strangers from Lamatath– a priest within has the power to quest, but he's easily led. You forget-\"She smiled.\"I have had generations in which to perfect my innocuous persona. '\n\nInnocuous? Hood's breath, woman, have you got that wrong!\n\n\"I already have the priest in hand, my dear, all unsuspecting, of course. Indeed, I believe if we ask they will grant us accommodation. Follow me.\"\n\nHe stumbled after her. \"Accommodation? Have you lost your mind, Lady?\"\n\n\"Hush, young man. I am feeling amicable at the moment– you wouldn't want to see me cross, would you? '\n\n\"No. Absolutely not. Still, Lady Envy, this is a risk we-\"\n\n\"Nonsense! You must learn to have faith in me, Toc the Younger.\" She reached out, curled an arm about his lower back and pulled him close. \"Walk with me, dearest. There, isn't this nice? The brushing contact of our hips, the sudden familiarity that sends the heart racing. The dampness of the rain, matching-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, yes, Lady! Please, no more details, else my walking prove most awkward.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"I believe I have finally succeeded in charming you, my love. And now I wonder, upon what path shall I lead you? So many choices! How exciting. Tell me, do you think me cruel, Toc the Younger?\"\n\nHe kept his gaze on the temple.\n\nThey stepped into the cool water of the stream, the flow swirling around their ankles but no higher.\n\n\"Yes,\" he replied at length.\n\n\"I can be. In fact, I usually am. I suspected you always knew. I sympathize with your desire to resist, you know. What lies ahead, do you think?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Well, here we are. Do we knock? '\n\nLady Envy sighed. \"I hear the patter of feet.\"\n\nThe door on their left creaked open, revealing a naked, emaciated man of indeterminate age, pale-skinned, head and eyebrows shaved, his watery grey eyes fixed on Lady Envy.\n\n\"Welcome, mistress,\" the man said. \"Please, enter. The Pannion Domin extends its hospitality\"– his eyes flicked past her to take in the wolf and dog, then the Seguleh– \"to you and your companions.\" He stepped back.\n\nWith an unreadable glance at Toc, Lady Envy followed the priest.\n\nThe compound's hot, moist air was rife with the stench of decay, and as soon as the Malazan strode from the shadow of the gate, he saw the source of the smell. A score of bodies lined the inside walls, large iron hooks jutting from beneath their breastbones, feet dangling an arm's length above the ground. The stone at their backs was stained yellow and deep red. Eyeless heads hung downward, strands of hair dripping with rainwater." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The priest, seeing where the attention of his guests had focused, surveyed the corpses with a faint smile. \"The villagers have been delivered. Once the labours of building this temple were completed, they were given their reward. They remain before us as reminders of our Lord's mercy. '\n\n\"A rather peculiar version of mercy,\" Toc muttered, struggling against a wave of nausea.\n\n\"One you will come to understand in time, sir,\" the priest replied. \"Please. A meal is being prepared. Seerdomin Kahlt– the master of this temple– awaits you within the guest hall.\"\n\n\"How kind,\" Lady Envy said. \"An extraordinary construction, this temple of yours.\"\n\nPulling his gaze from the murdered villagers, Toc studied the edifice rearing before them. The pyramidal shape continued down to ground level, the copper sheathing broken only by a dozen randomly placed skylights, each paned with slabs of thin rose quartzite. A narrow but high portal marked the entrance, framed by four massive cut-stones– abroad threshold underfoot, two tapering, flanking menhirs, and a single lintel stone overhead. The corridor beyond was three strides in length, revealing the breadth of the pyramid's foundations.\n\nThe air within, as they emerged into a wide and shallow chamber, proved hotter than in the compound, the light tinted pink and fractiously cast by the windows. A low table awaited them, crowded with footstuffs and lined by pillows on which to recline. Standing before another triangular doorway– this one directly opposite the entrance– stood a huge figure in arcane, black-wrought armour. A double-bladed, long-handled axe leaned on the door's frame to his left. The warrior was bare-headed, his pate shaved, and his angular beardless face revealed old scars along his jawline and down the length of his nose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hood's breath, I recognize those scars– a cheek-guarded, bridged helm makes those marks... when someone swings a mace flush against it, that is.\n\nFrowning, Lady Envy hesitated, then turned to the priest. \"I believe you said the High Priest awaits us?\"\n\nThe gaunt man smiled. \"And he does, mistress.\" He bowed towards the warrior. \"This is Seerdomin Kahlt, the master of this temple. Seerdomin are the Gifted among the Pannion Seer's children. Warriors without parallel, yet learned as well. Now, to complete the introductions, will you grant me the honour of your names? '\n\n\"I am Lady Islah'Dracon, \"Lady Envy said, eyes now on the Seerdomin.\"My companion is named Toc the Younger; my bodyguards Senu, Thurule, and the one presently sleeping is Mok. Do you wish the names of my pets as well? '\n\nYou just gave them, didn't you?\n\nThe priest shook his head. \"That will not be necessary. No respect is accorded mindless animals within the Domin. Provided you have them within control, they will, for the sake of hospitality, be tolerated. Thank you for the introductions, Lady. I shall now take my leave.\" With another bow, he turned and hobbled towards a small side door.\n\nSeerdomin Kahlt took a step forward, armour clanking. \"Seat yourselves,\" he said, his voice soft and calm. \"It is not often that we are privileged with guests.\"\n\nLady Envy raised an eyebrow. \"Not often?\"\n\nKahlt smiled. \"Well, you are the first, in fact. The Pannion Domin is an insular land. Few visit, and rarely more than once. There are some, of course, who receive the wisdom and so take the faith, and these are welcomed as brothers and sisters. Great are the rewards when the faith is embraced.\" His eyes glittered. \"It is my fervent hope that such gifting will come to you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Toc and Lady Envy settled onto the cushions. Baaljagg and Garath remained with the Seguleh, who stood just within the entrance.\n\nSeerdomin Kahlt sat down opposite his guests. \"One of your servants is ill?\" he asked. \"Shall I send fora healer, Lady?\"\n\n\"Not necessary. Mok will recover in time. I am curious, Seerdomin. Why build a temple in such a paltry settlement? Particularly if you then execute all the inhabitants?\"\n\n\"The inhabitants were rewarded, not executed,\" Kahlt said, face darkening. \"We only execute criminals.\"\n\n\"And the victims were satisfied with the distinction?\"\n\n\"Perhaps you might enquire that of them yourselves, before too long, Lady.\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\"\n\n\"To answer your question. This temple is one of seventy such recent constructions, each commanding a traditional border crossing to and from the Domin. The Pannion Seer's borders are ones of spirit as well as geography. It falls to his most faithful to accept the responsibility of regulation and protection. '\n\n\"We are your guests, then, so that you may gauge our measure and judge us worthy of entering your empire, or unworthy.\"\n\nKahlt shrugged, reaching fora wedge of some local fruit Toc did not recognize. \"Please, refresh yourselves. The wine is from Gredfallan, most agreeable. The slices of flesh are bhederin-\"\n\nLady Envy leaned forward and daintily picked up a slice, which she then tossed towards the chamber's entrance. Garath stepped forward, sniffed the meat, then ate it. She smiled at the high priest.\"Thank you, we will. '\n\n\"Among our people,\" Kahlt rasped, his hands twitching, \"what you have just done is a grave insult.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Among mine it's a matter of pragmatism." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'\n\nThe Seerdomin bared his teeth in a cold smile. \"Trust and honour are valued traits in the Pannion Domin, Lady. The contrast with the culture you are from can be made no more obvious.\"\n\n\"Indeed. Do you dare risk our corrupting influence?\"\n\n\"You have no influence, Lady. Perhaps, however, we have.\"\n\nToc poured himself some wine, wondering at what Envy was up to. They had walked into a hornets'nest and, smiling, she was plucking one man's wings.\n\nKahlt had regained his composure. \"Is it wise to mask your servants, Lady? The practice seems to run contrary to the needs of your unfortunate paranoia.\"\n\n\"Ah, but they are more than simple servants, Seerdomin. They are, in fact, emissaries. Tell me, are you familiar with the Seguleh?\"\n\nKahlt slowly leaned back, studying the silent warriors at the entrance. \"The island people... who slay all our monks. And have asked us to declare war upon them, and mount an invasion fleet. Arrogance reaps its own reward, as they shall discover. After all, it is one thing to murder unarmed priests... Ten thousand Seerdomin shall enact vengeance upon the Seguleh. Very well,\" he sighed, \"do these emissaries now come to beg forgiveness?\"\n\n\"Oh no,\" Lady Envy said. \"They come to-\"\n\nToc's hand snapped out, closed on her arm. Surprised, she faced him.\"Lady, \"he murmured, then turned to Kahlt.\"They have been sent to deliver a message to the Pannion Seer. In person. '\n\n\"That's certainly one way of putting it, ' Envy remarked drily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Withdrawing his hand, Toc sat back, waiting for his heart to slow its wild hammering.\n\n\"There are provisos to such an audience,\" Kahlt said, eyes still on the Seguleh. \"Disarmed. Unmasked. Perhaps more– but that is not for me to decide.\" His gaze flicked back to Lady Envy. \"How can these emissaries be your servants?\"\n\n\"A woman's wiles, ' she replied, flashing him a smile.\n\nHe visibly flinched.\n\nAye, I know what that's like. Your heart's just turned to water. Struggling not to prostrate yourself at her feet. Aye, plucked and now pinned and writhing...\n\nKahlt cleared his throat. \"I shall now leave you to your repast. Sleeping chambers have been prepared. The monk who met you at the door will be your guide. Day's end is in a bell's time. Thank you for this most enlightening conversation.\" He rose, collected his axe from the wall behind him, then exited through the inner door.\n\nToc grunted as the panel closed. \"Enlightening? Was that a joke?\"\n\n\"Eat up, my love,\" Envy said. \"Belly filled and content... before we receive our reward.\"\n\nToc choked on a mouthful of wine, coughed helplessly fora time, then looked at her through a bleary eye. \"Reward?\" he rasped.\n\n\"You and I, yes. I suspect the Seguleh will be given a proper escort or some such thing. Baaljagg and Garath will be butchered, of course. Here, try this, it's delicious. Before dawn, is my guess, the fire in our veins released to greet the sun's rise, or some such thing equally pathetic. Then again, we could embrace the faith– do you think we'll convince him? What kind of fruit is this? Tastes like a soldier's foot-wrap. I don't– he's made up his mind, you see.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And you helped him along, Lady.\"\n\n\"Did I?\" She paused, looked thoughtful fora moment, then reached for some bread. \"I can't imagine how. True, I was irritated. Have you ever noticed how language can be twisted to mask brutality? Ah, a thought! Look at the Seguleh– masked, yes, yet they speak true and plain, do they not? Is there something in that, do you think? Some hidden significance? Our malleable, fleshy visages are skilled at deceit– afar more subtle mask than what the brothers over there are wearing. More wine? Quite wonderful. Gredfallan? Never heard of it. The Seguleh reveal only their eyes, devoid of framing expression, yet portals to the soul none the less. Remarkable. I wonder who originated the custom, and why. '\n\n\"Lady, please,\" Toc cut in. \"If they intend to kill us-\"\n\n\"Intentions are unimportant, my dear. I taste clover in this honey. Lovely. By the way, the walls around us are mostly hollow, but not unoccupied. Would you be so kind as to deliver these plates of meat to my pups? Thank you, darling, you're sweet. '\n\n\"All right,\" Toc growled. \"So now they know that we know. What now?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know about you, but I am dead tired. I do hope the beds are soft. Are the Pannions interested in such conveniences as plumbing, do you think? '\n\n\"Nobody's interested in plumbing, Lady Envy, but I'm sure they've worked something out. '\n\n\"Repast complete! Now where is our poor little monk?\"\n\nAside door opened and the man appeared." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Extraordinary coincidence. Thank your master for the repast, cowed one, and please, lead the way.\"\n\nThe monk bowed, gestured. \"Follow me, honoured guests. Alas, the beasts must remain outside, in the compound.\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\nThe man bowed again.\n\nLady Envy fluttered the fingers of one thin hand and Baaljagg and Garath loped outside.\n\n\"Well trained, Lady,\" the monk murmured.\n\n\"You have no idea,\" she replied.\n\nThe sleeping chambers ran the length of one wall, small square, low-ceilinged rooms, unfurnished except for narrow hide-mattressed cots and a lantern sitting on a shelf on one wall. A room at the far end of the hallway was provided for communal bathing, its floors tiled and sunken at gradating levels in the various pools, the water continually flowing and cool and clean.\n\nLeaving the lady to her ablutions, Toc entered his sleeping chamber and set his pack down with a sigh. His nerves were already in tatters, and listening to Envy's melodic singing wasn't helping. He threw himself on the cot. Sleep? Impossible. These bastards are whetting their knives right now, preparing our reward. We're about to embrace the faith, and its face is a death's head...\n\nHis eye snapped open at a sudden, curdling scream. It was dark– the lanterns had either gone out or been removed. Toc realized he'd fallen asleep after all, and that had the stench of sorcery. The scream sounded again, ending in a dwindling gurgle.\n\nClaws clicked down the hallway outside his room.\n\nCovered in sweat yet shivering, Toc the Younger edged off the bed. He drew the broad-bladed obsidian dagger Tool had made for him, settled the hide-wrapped grip in his right hand, then unsheathed his own iron knife with his left." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Claws. Either there's Soletaken here... or Baaljagg and Garath are paying a visit. He silently prayed it was the latter.\n\nA crash of masonry made him jump, a wall tumbling into ruin somewhere close. Someone whimpered, then squealed as bones snapped. The sound of a body being dragged just outside his door had Toc crouching low, knives trembling.\n\nDark. What in Hood's name am I supposed to do? I can't see a damned thing!\n\nThe door splintered in its frame under the impact of some large body. As the report echoed, the door fell inward... beneath the weight of a naked corpse faintly illuminated by low light coming from the hallway.\n\nA massive head slid into view, eyes dully glowing.\n\nToc loosed a shuddering sigh. \"Baaljagg,\" he whispered. \"You've grown since I last saw you. '\n\nThe ay, after the briefest pause of mutual recognition, lumbered past the doorway. Toc watched the full length of the beast's body slide by, then he followed.\n\nThe hallway was a shambles. Shattered stone, mangled cots and pieces of flesh everywhere. The walls were painted in splashes of blood and bile. Gods, has this wolf been crashing through arm-length-thick stonewalls? How?\n\nHead slung low, claws clacking, Baaljagg padded towards the bathing chamber. Toc moved lightly in the ay's wake.\n\nBefore they arrived a second four-legged shape emerged from aside passage beside the entrance, dark, mottled grey and black, and dwarfing Baaljagg. Coal-lit eyes set in abroad, blood-soaked head slowly fixed on Toc the Younger.\n\nGarath?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The creature's shoulders were covered in white dust. It edged to one side to allow Baaljagg to pass.\n\n\"Garath,\" Toc murmured as he followed, well within reach of those huge, dripping jaws. \"What was in those bhederin slices you ate, anyway?\"\n\nThe gentle pet was gone this night, and in its place Garath had become a slayer of the highest, coldest order. Death capered in the huge hound's eyes.\n\nThe beast allowed Toc to pass, then swung round and slunk off back the way it had come.\n\nA row of candles on the far wall lit the bathing chamber. Baaljagg, nose to the tiles, was skirting the pools. The trickling water was crimson and steaming. Through its murk Toc could see four corpses, all armoured, lying at the bottom of the pools. He could not be sure, but he thought that they had been boiled alive.\n\nThe Malazan pitched against a wall, and, in a series of racking heaves, lost the supper the Seerdomin had so kindly provided.\n\nDistant crashing shook the floor beneath his feet. Garath continuing his relentless hunt. Oh, you poor bastards, you invited the wrong guests into your temple...\n\n\"Oh, there you are!\"\n\nStill sickened, he twisted round to see Lady Envy, dressed in her spotless white nightclothes, her raven hair tied up and pinned, standing at the doorway. \"That armour proved fatally heavy, alas,\" she said regretfully, her eyes on the corpses in the pools, then brightened. \"Oh well! Come along, you two! Senu and Thurule should be finished with the Seerdomin warriors.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's more than one? ' Toc asked, bewildered.\n\n\"There were about twenty in all. Kahlt was their captain as well as being this temple's high priest. Warrior-priests– what an unfortunate combination. Back to your room, now, my dear. You must gather up your belongings. We're rendezvousing in the compound.\"\n\nShe set off.\n\nStumbling in her wake, with Baaljagg trailing, Toc drew a deep, shuddering breath. \"Has Tool shown up for this?\" he asked.\n\n\"I've not seen him. He wasn't required in any case. We had matters in hand.\"\n\n\"With me snoring like a fool!\"\n\n\"Baaljagg watched out on your behalf, my love. You were weary, were you not? Ah, here we are. Gather your accoutrements. Garath intends to destroy this temple-\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Toc snapped. \"About Garath-\"\n\n\"You don't wake up well at all, do you, young man? Surely we can discuss all this later? '\n\n\"Fine,\" he growled, entering his room. \"We will indeed.\"\n\nThe inner chambers of the temple thundering into dust, Toc stood in the compound, watching the two Seguleh dismounting the corpses of the villagers and replacing them with the freshly butchered bodies of the Seerdomin warriors. Kahlt, bearing a single thrust wound through the heart, was among them.\n\n\"He fought with fierce determination,\" Lady Envy murmured at Toc's side.\"His axe was everywhere, yet it seemed that Thurule barely moved. Unseen parries. Then he languidly reached out, and stabbed the Seerdomin captain straight through the heart. A wondrous display, Toc the Younger. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No doubt,\" he muttered. \"So tell me, does the Seer know about us, now?\"\n\n\"Oh yes, and the destruction of this temple will pain him greatly.\"\n\n\"He'll send a Hood-damned army down onus. '\n\n\"Assuming he can spare one from his northern endeavours, that seems likely. Certainly he will feel the need to respond in some manner, if only to slow our progress.\"\n\n\"I might as well turn back here and now,\" Toc said.\n\nShe raised an eyebrow. \"You lack confidence?\"\n\n\"Lady, I'm no Seguleh. I'm not an ay on the edge of ascendancy. I'm not a T'lan Imass. I'm not a dog that can stare eye-to-level-eye with a Hound of Shadow! And I'm not a witch who can boil men alive with a snap of her fingers!\"\n\n\"A witch! Now I am offended!\" She advanced on him, arms crossed, eyes flaring. \"A witch! And have you ever seen me snap my fingers? By the Abyss, what an inelegant notion!\"\n\nHe took an involuntary step back. \"A figure of speech-\"\n\n\"Oh, be quiet!\" She took his face in her hands, pulled him inexorably closer. Her full lips parted slightly.\n\nToc tried to pull away, but his muscles seemed to be dissolving around his bones.\n\nShe stopped suddenly, frowned. \"No, perhaps not. I prefer you... free.\" The frown shifted to a scowl. \"Most of the time, in any case, though you have tried my patience this morning.\"\n\nShe released him, studied his face fora moment longer, then smiled and turned away. \"I need to get changed, I think. Senu! When you're done, find me my wardrobe! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Toc slowly shook himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was trembling, chilled in the wake of a sure, instinctive knowledge of what that kiss would have done. And poets write of the chains of love. Hah! What they write figuratively she embodies literally. If desire could have a goddess...\n\nA swirl of dust, and Tool rose from the ground beside him. The T'lan Imass turned his head, stared over at Mok's recumbent form near the outer gate, then said. \"K'ell Hunters are converging onus. \"It seemed the T'lan Imass was about to say something more, then simply vanished once again.\n\n\"See?\" Lady Envy called out to the Malazan. \"Now aren't you glad that I insisted you get some sleep? '\n\nThey came to a crossroads marked by two menhirs, leaning and half buried on a low rise between the two cobbled roads. Arcane hieroglyphs had been carved into their faces, the pictographs weathered and faint.\n\nLady Envy stood before them, chin propped on one hand as she studied the glyphs. \"How curious. The root of this language is Imari. Genostelian, I suspect.\"\n\nToc rubbed sweaty dust from his brow. \"What do they say? Let me guess. \"All who come here shall be torn in two, flayed alive, beheaded and badly beaten.\"\"\n\nShe glanced back at him, a brow raised. \"The one to the right indicates the road to Kel Tor. The one to the left, Bastion. None the less remarkable, for all the mundanity of the messages. Clearly, the Pannion Domin was once a Genostel colony– the Genostelians were distant seafarers, my dear. Alas, their glory waned centuries ago. A measure of their height is evinced by what we see before us, for the Genostel archipelago is halfway across the world from here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Grunting, Toc squinted up the heaved road that led to Bastion. \"Well, maybe their cities survived, but by all accounts the Pannions were once hill peoples. Herders. Barbaric. Rivals of the Daru and Gadrobi tribes. Your colony was conquered, Lady Envy.\"\n\n\"It's always the way, isn't it? A civilization flowers, then a horde of grunting savages with close-set eyes show up and step on it. Malazan Empire take note.\"\n\n\"\"Never ignore the barbarians,\"\" Toc muttered. \"Emperor Kellanved's words. '\n\n\"Surprisingly wise. What happened to him?\"\n\n\"He was murdered by a woman with close-set eyes... but she was from civilized stock. Napan... if you can call Napans civilized. From the heart of the empire, in any case.\"\n\n\"Baaljagg looks restless, my dear. We should resume our journey, what with all these undead two-legged lizards on their way.\"\n\n\"Tool said the nearest ones were still days distant. How far is it to Bastion?\"\n\n\"We should arrive by dusk tomorrow night, assuming the distance indicated on these milestones remains accurate.\"\n\nThey set off down the road, the Seguleh trailing with the travois. The cobbles underfoot, though worn deep in places, were now mostly clothed in grasses. There had been few if any travellers this season, and Toc saw no-one on the road as the day wound on. Old carcasses of cattle and sheep in the pastures to either side showed evidence of predation by wolves. No shepherds to tend the flocks, and among all domesticated livestock only goats and horses could survive a return to the wild." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As they paused fora mid-afternoon rest on the outskirts of yet another abandoned hamlet– this one without a temple– Toc checked his weapons one more time, then hissed in frustration and glared at Lady Envy who was sitting across from him. \"This doesn't make sense. The Domin's expanding. Voraciously. Armies need food. So do cities. If the countryside's home to nothing but ghosts, who in Hood's name is supplying them?\"\n\nLady Envy shrugged. \"I am not the one to ask, my love. Questions of matériel and economics leave me deathly bored. Perhaps the answers to your irrelevant concerns will be found in Bastion.\"\n\n\"Irrelevant?\"\n\n\"Well, yes. The Domin is expanding. It has armies, and cities. These are facts. Details are for academics, Toc the Younger. Shouldn't you be concerning yourself with more salient matters, such as your survival? '\n\nHe stared at her, then slowly blinked. \"Lady Envy, I am already as good as dead. So why think about it?\"\n\n\"Absurd! I value you too highly to see you simply cut down. You must learn to trust me, darling.\"\n\nHe looked away. \"Details, Lady, reveal hidden truths. Know your enemy– that's a basic tenet. What you know you can use. \"He hesitated, then continued.\"Details can lead one to trust, as well, when it comes to the motives and interests of those who would be allies. '\n\n\"Ah, I see. And what is it you wish to know?\"\n\nHe met her eyes. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"Why, Toc the Younger, have you forgotten? Your T'lan Imass companion has said that the secrets of the Morn Rent can only be found within the Domin. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A convenience, Lady,\" he growled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're busy manipulating. All of us. Me, the Seguleh, even Tool himself. \"He gestured.\"Garath, your pup. He could be a Hound of Shadow-'\n\n\"He could be indeed,\" she smiled. \"I believe, however, that he is reluctant.\"\n\n\"What does that mean?\"\n\n\"You are very easily exasperated, my dear. If you're a leaf trembling on a wide, deep river, relax and ride the current. It's always worked for me, I assure you. As for manipulation, do you truly believe I have the power to pull and prod a T'lan Imass? The Seguleh are, uhm, unique– we travel instep, after all, thus the notion of coercion does not arise. '\n\n\"Not yet, maybe. But it will, Lady.\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"Finally, I have no control over Garath, or Baaljagg. Of that I assure you.\"\n\nHe bared his teeth. \"Leaving just me.\"\n\nShe reached out, rested a slim hand lightly on his arm. \"In that, darling, I am simply a woman.\"\n\nHe shook her hand off. \"There's sorcery in your charms, Lady Envy. Don't try and tell me otherwise.\"\n\n\"Sorcery? Well, yes, you could call it that, I suppose. Mystery as well, yes? Wonder, and excitement. Hope and possibilities. Desire, darling, is a most alluring magic. And, my love, it is one to which I am not immune...\"\n\nShe leaned closer, her eyes half closed. \"I will not force my kiss upon you, Toc the Younger. Don't you see? The choice must be yours, else you shall indeed be enslaved. What do you say? '" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Carry on with the plot as the author's writing partner.\nTags: epic fantasy, alliance, ancient threats, camaraderie, tragic events\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Memories of Ice\nChapter: 14" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Seer rose from the chair, walked stiffly to a window. \"I have learned,\" the ancient creature said, \"that mortal armies are insufficient to the task of defeating this threat that approaches from the south. Accordingly, I have withdrawn my forces, and will now dismiss the enemy with my own hand.\" The Seer swung about and studied Toc. \"It is said wolves avoid human flesh, given the choice. Do not believe me without mercy, Toc the Younger. The meat before you is venison.\"\n\nI know, you bastard. It seems I've more than a wolf's eye– I've its sense of smell as well. He picked up another chunk.\"It no longer matters, Seer. '\n\n\"I am pleased. Do you feel strength returning to your body? I have taken the liberty of healing you– slowly, so as to diminish the trauma of the spirit. I like you, Toc the Younger. Though few know it, I can be the kindliest of masters.\" The old man faced the window once more.\n\nToc continued eating, feeling the life flow back into him, his lone eye fixed on the Seer, narrrowing at the power that had begun building around the old man's animated corpse. Cold, that sorcery. The smell of ice on the wind– here are memories, ancient memories– whose?\n\nThe room blurred, dissolved before his vision. Baaljagg... A steady padding forward, an eye that swung to the left to see Lady Envy striding a dozen paces away. Beyond her loped Garath, massive, flanks crisscrossed in scars that still leaked seething, virulent blood– the blood of chaos. To Garath's left walked Tool. Swords had carved anew map on the T'lan Imass's body, splintering bones, splitting withered skin and muscle– Toc had never before seen a T'lan Imass so badly damaged. It seemed impossible that Tool could stand, much less walk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Baaljagg's head did not turn to survey the Seguleh marching on his right, yet Toc knew that they were there, Mok included." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ay, like Toc himself, was gripped in memories sprung to life by the scent on that new, chill wind coming down from the north– memories that drew their twinned attention to Tool.\n\nThe T'lan Imass had lifted his head, steps slowing until he came to a halt. The others followed suit. Lady Envy turned to Tool.\n\n\"What sorcery is this, T'lan Imass? '\n\n\"You know as well as I, Lady,\" Tool rasped in reply, still scenting the air. \"Unexpected, a deepening of the confusion surrounding the entity known as the Pannion Seer.\"\n\n\"An unimaginable alliance, yet it would appear...\"\n\n\"It would appear,\" Tool agreed.\n\nBaaljagg's eyes returned to the north, gauging the preternatural glow building on the jagged horizon, aglow that began flowing down between the mountains, filling the valleys, spreading outward. The wind rose to a howl, gelid and bitter.\n\nMemories resurrected... this is Jaghut sorcery-\n\n\"Can you defeat it, Tool?\" Lady Envy asked.\n\nThe T'lan Imass turned to her.\"I am clanless. Weakened. Lady, unless you can negate it, we shall have to cross as best we can, and it will build all the while, striving to deny us. '\n\nThe Lady's expression was troubled. Her frown deepened as she studied the emanation to the north.\"K'Chain Che'Malle... and Jaghut together. Is there precedence for such an alliance? '\n\n\"There is not,\" Tool said.\n\nSleet swept down on the small group, swiftly turning into hail. Toc felt the stinging impacts through Baaljagg's hide as the animal hunched lower. A moment later they began moving once more, leaning against the blistering wind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Before them, the mountains thickened with a mantle of green-veined white...\n\nToc blinked. He was in the tower, crouched before the meat-laden table. The Seer's back was to him, suffused with Jaghut sorcery– the creature within the old man's carcass was now entirely visible, thin, tall, hairless, tinted green. But no, there's more– grey roots roped down from the body's legs, chaotic power, plunging down through the stone floor, twisting with something like pain or ecstacy. The Jaghut draws on another sorcery, something older, far more deadly than Omtose Phellack.\n\nThe Seer turned. \"I am... disappointed, Toc the Younger. Did you think you could reach out to your wolf kin without my knowing it? So, the one within you readies for its rebirth.\"\n\nThe one within me?\n\n\"Alas,\" the Seer went on, \"the Beast Throne is vacant– neither you nor that beast god can match my strength. Even so, had I remained ignorant, you might well have succeeded in assassinating me. You lied!\"\n\nThis last accusation came as a shriek, and Toc saw, not an old man, but a child standing before him.\n\n\"Liar! Liar! And for that you shall suffer!\" The Seer gestured wildly.\n\nPain clenched Toc the Younger, wrapped iron bands around his body, his limbs, lifted him into the air. Bones snapped. The Malazan screamed.\n\n\"Break! Yes, break into pieces! But I won't kill you, no, not yet, not fora long, longtime! Oh, look at you writhe, but what do you know of true pain, mortal? Nothing. I will show you, Toc the Younger. I will teach you-' He gestured again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Toc found himself hovering in absolute darkness. The agony clutching him did not cease, yet drew no tighter. His gasps echoed dully in heavy, stale air. He– he sent me away. My god sent me away... and now I'm truly alone. Alone...\n\nSomething moved nearby, something huge, hard skin rasping against stone. A mewling sound reached Toc's ears, growing louder, closer.\n\nWith a shriek, leathery arms wrapped around the Malazan, pulled him into a suffocating, desperate embrace. Pinned against a flabby, pebble-skinned bosom, Toc found himself in the company of a score or more corpses, in various stages of decomposition– all within the yearning hug of giant, reptilian arms.\n\nBroken ribs ground and tore in Toc's chest. His skin was slippery with blood, yet whatever healing sorcery the Seer had gifted to him persisted, slowly mending, knitting, only to have the bones break yet again within the savage embrace of the creature who now held him.\n\nThe Seer's voice filled his skull. I tired of the others... but you I shall keep alive. You are worthy to take my place in that sweet, motherly hug. Oh, she is mad. Mindless with insanity, yet the sparks of need reside within her. Such need. Beware, or it will devour you, as it did me– until I grew so foul that she spat me back out. Need, when it overwhelms, becomes poison, Toc the Younger. The great corrupter of love, and so it shall corrupt you. Your flesh. Your mind. Can you feel it? It has begun. Dear Malazan, can you feel it?\n\nHe had no breath with which to scream, yet the arms holding him felt his shudder, and squeezed tighter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Soft whimpers filled the chamber, the twin voices of Toc and his captor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Onearm's Host, in that time, was perhaps the finest army the Malazan Empire had yet to produce, even given the decimation of the Bridgeburners at the Siege of Pale. Drawn from disparate regiments that included companies from Seven Cities, Falar, and Malaz Island, these ten thousand soldiers were, by roll, four thousand nine hundred and twelve women, the remaining men; one thousand two hundred and sixty-seven under the recorded age of twenty-five years, seven hundred and twenty-one over the age of thirty-five years; the remaining in between.\n\nRemarkable indeed. More so when one considers this: among its soldiers could be found veterans of the Wickan Wars (see Coltaine's Rebellion), the Aren Uprising (on both sides), and Blackdog Forest and Mott Wood.\n\nHow does one measure such an army? By their deeds; and that which awaited them in the Pannion Domin would make of Onearm's Host a legend carved in stone.\n\nEast of Saltoan, a History of the Pannion Wars Gouridd Palah\n\nMIDGES SWARMED THE tall-grass prairie, the grainy black clouds tumbling over the faded, wavering green. Oxen bellowed and moaned in their yokes, their eyes covered with clusters of the frenzied insects. The Mhybe watched her Rhivi kin move among the beasts, their hands laden with grease mixed with the crushed seeds of lemongrass, which they smeared around the eyes, ears, nose and mouth. The unguent had served the bhederin well for as long as the huge bison had been under the care of the Rhivi; a slighter thinner version was used by the Rhivi themselves. Most of Brood's soldiers had taken to the pungent yet effective defence as well, whilst the Tiste Andii had proved evidently unpalatable to the biting insects. What had drawn the midges this time was the rank upon rank of unprotected Malazan soldiers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet another march across this Hood-forsaken continent for that weary army of foreigners, these strangers who had been, for so many years, unwelcome, detested, feared. Our new allies, their surcoats dyed grey, their colourless standards proclaiming an unknown loyalty. They follow one man, and ask nothing of justification, or cause.\n\nShe drew the rough weave of her hood over her head as the slanting sun broke through the clouds gathered to the southwest. Her back was to the march; she satin the bed of a Rhivi wagon, eyes on the trailing baggage train and the companies of Malazan soldiers flanking it.\n\nDoes Brood command such loyalty? He was the warlord who delivered the first defeat to the Malazan army. Our lands were being invaded. Our cause was clear, and we fought for the commander who could match the enemy. And even now, we face anew threat to our homeland, and Brood has chosen to lead us. Still, should he command us into the Abyss– would we follow? And now, knowing what I know, would I?\n\nHer thoughts travelled from the warlord to Anomander Rake and the Tiste Andii. All strangers to Genabackis, yet they fought in its defence, in the name of its people's liberty. Rake's rule over his Tiste Andii was absolute. Aye, they would stride unblinking into the Abyss. The fools.\n\nAnd now, marching at their sides, the Malazans. Dujek Onearm. Whiskeyjack. And ten thousand unwavering souls. What made such men and women so intractable in their sense of honour?\n\nShe had come to fear their courage. Within the husk of her body, there was a broken spirit. Dishonoured by its own cowardice, bereft of dignity, a mother no longer. Lost, even, to the Rhivi. I am no more than food to the child. I have seen her, from a distance now and no closer– she is taller, she has filled out, her hips, her breasts, her face. This Tattersail was no gazelle. She devours me, this new woman, with her sleepy eyes, her full, broad mouth, her swaying, sultry walk-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A horseman rode to the wagon's rear, his armour clanking, his dusty cloak flapping as he slowed his charger. The visor on his burnished helm was raised, revealing a grey-shot beard, trimmed close, beneath hard eyes.\n\n\"Will you send me away as well, Mhybe?\" he growled, his horse slowing to a walk to keep pace.\n\n\"Mhybe? That woman is dead,\" she replied. \"You may leave here, Whiskeyjack.\"\n\nShe watched him pull the tanned leather gloves from his wide, scarred hands, studied those hands as they finally came to a rest on the saddlehorn. There is a mason's brutality about them, yet they are endearing none the less. Any woman still alive would desire their touch...\n\n\"An end to the foolishness, Mhybe. We've need of your counsel. Korlat tells me you are racked with dreams. You cry out against a threat that approaches us, something vast and deadly. Woman, your terror is palpable– even now, I see that my words have rekindled it in your eyes. Describe your visions, Mhybe. '\n\nStruggling against a painfully hammering heart, she barked a rough, broken laugh. \"You are all fools. Would you seek to challenge my enemy? My deadly, unopposable foe? Will you draw that sword of yours and stand in my stead?\"\n\nWhiskeyjack scowled. \"If that would help.\"\n\n\"There is no need. What comes for me in my dreams comes for us all. Oh, perhaps we soften its terrible visage, the darkness of a cowl, a vague human shape, even a skull's grin which only momentarily shocks yet remains, none the less, deeply familiar– almost comforting. And we build temples to blunt the passage into its eternal domain. We fashion gates, raise barrows-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your enemy is death?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whiskeyjack glanced away, then met her eyes again. \"This is nonsense, Mhybe. You and I are both too old to fear death.\"\n\n\"Face to face with Hood!\" she snapped. \"That is how you see it– you fool! He is the mask behind which hides something beyond your ability to comprehend. I have seen it! I know what awaits me!\"\n\n\"Then you no longer yearn for it-\"\n\n\"I was mistaken, back then. I believed in my tribe's spirit-world. I have sensed the ghosts of my ancestors. But they are but memories made manifest, a sense of self desperately holding itself together by strength of its own will and naught else. Fail in that will, and all is lost. Forever. '\n\n\"Is oblivion so terrible, Mhybe?\"\n\nShe leaned forward, gripping the wagon's sides with fingers that clawed, nails that dug into the weathered wood.\"What lies beyond is not oblivion, you ignorant man! No, imagine a place crowded with fragmented memories– memories of pain, of despair– all those emotions that carve deepest upon our souls. \"She fell back, weakened, and slowly sighed, her eyes closing.\"Love drifts like ashes, Whiskeyjack. Even identity is gone. Instead, all that is left of you is doomed to an eternity of pain and terror– a succession of fragments from everyone– everything– that has ever lived. In my dreams... I stand upon the brink. There is no strength in me– my will has already shown itself weak, wanting. When I die... I see what awaits me, I see what hungers for me, for my memories, for my pain. \"She opened her eyes, met his gaze.\"It is the true Abyss, Whiskeyjack. Beyond all the legends and stories, it is the true Abyss. And it lives unto itself, consumed by rapacious hunger. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dreams can be naught but an imagination's fashioning of its own fears, Mhybe, \"the Malazan said.\"You are projecting a just punishment for what you perceive as your life's failure.\"\n\nHer eyes narrowed on him. \"Get out of my sight,\" she growled, turning away, drawing her hood tighter about her head, cutting off the outside world– all that lay beyond the warped, stained planks of the wagon's bed. Begone, Whiskeyjack, with your sword-thrust words, the cold, impervious armour of your ignorance. You cannot answer all that I have seen with a simple, brutal statement. I am not a stone for your rough hands. The knots within me defy your chisel.\n\nYour sword-thrust words shall not cut to my heart.\n\nI dare not accept your wisdom. I dare-\n\nWhiskeyjack. You bastard.\n\nThe commander rode at a gentle canter through the dust until he reached the vanguard of the Malazan army. Here, he found Dujek, flanked by Korlat on one side and the Daru, Kruppe, on the other, the latter tottering uneasily on a mule, hands waving about at the swarming midges.\n\n\"A plague on these pernicious gnats! Kruppe despairs!\"\n\n\"The wind will pickup soon enough,\" Dujek growled. \"We're approaching hills. '\n\nKorlat drew closer alongside Whiskeyjack. \"How does she fare, Commander?\"\n\nHe grimaced. \"No better. Her spirit is as twisted and shrunken as her body. She has fashioned a vision of death that has her fleeing it in terror.\"\n\n\"Tat-Silverfox feels abandoned by her mother. This leads to bitterness. She no longer welcomes our company.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Her too? This is turning into a contest of wills, I think. Isolation is the last thing she needs, Korlat.\"\n\n\"In that she is like her mother, as you have just intimated.\"\n\nHe let out along sigh, shifted in his saddle. His thoughts began to drift; he was weary, his leg aching and stiff. Sleep had been eluding him. They had heard virtually nothing of the fate of Paran and the Bridgeburners. The warrens had become impassable. Nor were they certain if the siege of Capustan was underway, or of the city's fate. Whiskeyjack had begun to regret sending the Black Moranth away. Dujek and Brood's armies were marching into the unknown; even the Great Raven Crone and her kin had not been seen for over a week.\n\nIt's these damned warrens and the sickness now filling them...\n\n\"They're late, ' Dujek muttered.\n\n\"And no more than that, Kruppe assures one and all. Recall the last delivery. Almost dusk, it was. Three horses left on the lead wagon, the others killed and cut from the traces. Four shareholders gone, their souls and earnings scattered to the infernal winds. And the merchant herself! Near death, she was. The warning was clear, my friends– the warrens have been compromised. And as we march ever closer to the Domin, the foulment grows evermore... uh, foul.\"\n\n\"Yet you insist they'll make it through again. '\n\n\"Kruppe does, High Fist! The Trygalle Trade Guild honours its contracts. They are not to be underestimated.\"Tis the day of their delivery of supplies. Said supplies shall therefore be delivered. And, assuming Kruppe's request has been honoured, among those supplies will be crates of the finest insect repellent ever created by the formidable alchemists of Darujhistan!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whiskeyjack leaned towards Korlat. \"Where in the line does she walk?\" he asked quietly.\n\n\"At the very rear, Commander-\"\n\n\"And is anyone watching her?\"\n\nThe Tiste Andii woman glanced over and frowned. \"Is there need?\"\n\n\"How in Hood's name should I know? \"he snapped. A moment later he scowled.\"Your pardon, Korlat. I shall seek her out myself. ' He swung his mount around, nudged it into a canter.\n\n\"Tempers grow short,\" Kruppe murmured as the commander rode away. \"But not as short as Kruppe, for whom all nasty words whiz impactless over his head, and are thus lost in the ether. And those darts aimed lower, ah, they but bounce from Kruppe's ample equanimity-'\n\n\"Fat, you mean,\" Dujek said, wiping dust from his brow then leaning over to spit onto the ground.\n\n\"Ahem, Kruppe, equably cushioned, blithely smiles at the High Fist's jibe. It is the forthright bluntness of soldiers that one must bathe in whilst on the march leagues from civilization. Antidote to the snipes of gutter rats, a refreshing balm to droll, sardonic nobles– why prick with a needle when one can use a hammer, eh? Kruppe breathes deep– but not so deep as to cough from the dust-laden stench of nature– such simple converse. The intellect must needs shift with alacrity from the intricate and delicate steps of the court dance to the tribal thumping of boots in grunting cadence-'\n\n\"Hood take us,\" Korlat muttered to the High Fist, \"you got under his skin after all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dujek's answering grin was an expression of perfect satisfaction.\n\nWhiskeyjack angled his horse well to one side of the columns, then drew rein to await the rearguard. There were Rhivi everywhere insight, moving singly or in small groups, their long spears balanced on their shoulders. Brown-skinned beneath the sun, they strode with light steps, seemingly immune to the heat and the leagues passing under their feet. The bhederin herd was being driven parallel to the armies, a third of a league to the north. The intervening gap revealed a steady stream of Rhivi, returning from the herd or setting off towards it. The occasional wagon joined the to-and-fro, unladen on its way north, burdened with carcasses on the way back.\n\nThe rearguard came within sight, flanked by outriders, the Malazan companies insufficient strength to blunt a surprise attack long enough for the main force to swing round and come to their relief. The commander lifted the water-bladder from his saddle and filled his mouth, eyes narrowed as he studied the disposition of his soldiers.\n\nSatisfied, he urged his mount into a walk, squinting into the trailing clouds of dust at the rearguard's tail-end.\n\nShe walked in that cloud as if seeking obscurity, her stride so like Tattersail's that Whiskeyjack felt a shiver dance up his spine. Twenty paces behind her marched a pair of Malazan soldiers, crossbows slung over their shoulders, helms on and visors lowered.\n\nThe commander waited until the trio had passed, then guided his horse into their wake. Within moments he was alongside the two marines.\n\nThe soldiers glanced up. Neither saluted, following standard procedure for battlefields. The woman closest to Whiskeyjack offered a curt nod. \"Commander. Hereto fill your quota of eating dust, are ya?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And how did you two earn the privilege?\"\n\n\"We volunteered, sir,\" the other woman said. \"That's Tattersail up there. Yeah, we know, she calls herself Silverfox now, but we ain't fooled. She's our Cadre Mage, all right. '\n\n\"So you've elected to guard her back. '\n\n\"Aye. Fair exchange, sir. Always.\"\n\n\"And are the two of you enough?\"\n\nThe first woman grinned beneath her half-visor. \"We're Hood-damned killers, me and my sister, sir. Two quarrels every seventy heartbeats, both of us. And when time's run out for that, why, then, we switch to longswords, one for each hand. And when they're all busted, it's pig-stickers-\"\n\n\"And,\" the other growled, \"when we're outa iron we use our teeth, sir. '\n\n\"How many brothers did you two grow up with?\"\n\n\"Seven, only they all ran away as soon as they was able. So did Da, but Mother was better off without'im and that wasn't just bluster when she said so, neither.\"\n\nWhiskeyjack edged closer, rolling up his left sleeve. He leaned down and showed the two marines his forearm. \"See those scars– no, these ones here.\"\n\n\"A nice even bite,\" the nearest woman observed. \"Pretty small, though.\"\n\n\"She was five, the little banshee. I was sixteen. The first fight I ever lost.\"\n\n\"Did the lass grow up to be a soldier, Commander?\"\n\nHe straightened, lowering his sleeve. \"Hood, no. When she was twelve, she set off to marry a king. Or so she claimed. That was the last any of us ever saw or heard of her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'd bet she did just that, sir, \"the first woman said.\"If she was anything like you. '\n\n\"Now I'm choking on more than just dust, soldier. Carry on. '\n\nWhiskeyjack trotted ahead until he reached Silverfox.\n\n\"They'll die for you now, \"she said as soon as he came alongside.\"I know, \"she continued,\"you don't do it on purpose. There's nothing calculated when you're being human, old friend. That's what makes you so deadly. '\n\n\"No wonder you're walking hereon your own, ' he replied.\n\nHer smile was sardonic. \"We're very much alike, you know. All we need do is cup our hands and ten thousand souls rush into fill them. And every now and then one of us recognizes that fact, and the sudden, overwhelming pressure hardens us a little more deep down inside. And what was soft gets a little smaller, a little weaker. '\n\n\"Not weaker, Silverfox. Rather, more concentrated, more selective. That you feel the burden at all is proof that it remains alive and well.\"\n\n\"There is a difference, now that I think on it,\" she said. \"For you, ten thousand souls. For me, a hundred thousand.\"\n\nHe shrugged.\n\nShe was about to continue, but a sharp crack filled the air behind them. They spun to see a savage parting in their wake, a thousand paces away, from which poured a crimson river. The two marines backpedalled as the torrent tumbled towards them.\n\nThe high grasses blackened, wavered, then sank down on all sides. Distant shouts rose from the Rhivi who had seen the conflagration.\n\nThe Trygalle wagon that emerged from the fissure burned with black fire. The horses themselves were engulfed, their screams shrill and horrible as they plunged madly onto the flooded plain. The beasts were devoured in moments, leaving the wagon to roll forward of its own momentum in the spreading red stream. One front wheel collapsed. The huge contrivance pitched, pivoted, burnt bodies falling from its flanks, then careened onto its side in an explosion of ebon flames." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The second wagon that emerged was licked by the same sorcerous fire, though not yet out of control. A nimbus of protective magic surrounded the eight horses in the train, fraying even as they thundered into the clear, splashing through the river of blood that continued to spread out from the portal. The driver, standing like a mad apparition with his cloak streaming black fire, bellowed a warning to the two marines before leaning hard to one side and sawing the traces. The horses swerved, pulling the huge wagon onto two wheels a moment before it came crunching back down. A guardsman who had been clinging to its side was thrown by the impact, landing with a turgid splash in the spreading river. A red-sheathed arm rose above the tide, then sank back down and out of sight.\n\nThe horses and wagon missed the two marines by a dozen paces, slowing as they cleared the river, its fires dying.\n\nA third wagon appeared, followed by another, and another. The vehicle that then emerged was the size of a house, rolling on scores of iron-spoked wheels, caged by shimmering sorcery. Over thirty dray horses pulled it, but, Whiskeyjack guessed, even that many of the powerful beasts would be insufficient if not for the visible magic carrying much of the enormous wagon's weight.\n\nBehind it the portal closed abruptly in a spray of blood.\n\nThe commander glanced down to see his horse's legs ankle-deep in the now-slowing flow. He glanced over at Silverfox. She stood motionless, looking down at the liquid as it lapped against her bared shins.\"This blood, \"she said slowly, almost disbelieving,\"is his. '\n\n\"Who?\"\n\nShe looked up, her expression one of dismay. \"An Elder God's. A– a friend's. This is what is filling the warrens. He has been wounded. Somehow. Wounded... perhaps fatally– gods! The warrens!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With a curse, Whiskeyjack collected his reins and kicked his horse into a splashing canter towards the giant wagon.\n\nMassive gouges had been ripped from its ornate sides. Blackened smears showed where guards had once clung. Smoke drifted above the entire train. Figures had begun emerging, staggering as if blind, moaning as if their souls had been torn from their bodies. He saw guards fall to their knees in the sludgy blood, weeping or simply bowing in shuddering silence.\n\nThe side door nearest Whiskeyjack opened as he rode up.\n\nA woman climbed weakly into view, was helped down the steps. She pushed her companions away once her boots sank into the crimson, grass-matted mud and found purchase.\n\nThe commander dismounted.\n\nThe merchant bowed her head, her red-rimmed eyes holding steady as she drew herself straight. \"Please forgive the delay, sir,\" she said in a voice that rasped with exhaustion.\n\n\"I take it you will find an alternate route back to Darujhistan,\" Whiskeyjack said, eyeing the wagon behind her.\n\n\"We shall decide once we assess the damage.\" She faced the dustcloud to the east. \"Has your army encamped for the night?\"\n\n\"No doubt the order's been given. '\n\n\"Good. We're in no condition to chase you. '\n\n\"I've noticed. '\n\nThree guards– shareholders– approached from one of the lead wagons, struggling beneath the weight of a huge, bestial arm, torn at the shoulder and still dripping blood. Three taloned fingers and two opposable thumbs twitched and waved a hand's breath away from the face of one of the guards. All three men were grinning.\n\n\"We figured it was still there, Haradas! Lost the other three, though. Still, ain't it a beauty? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The merchant, Haradas, briefly closed her eyes and sighed. \"The attack came early on,\" she explained to Whiskeyjack. \"A score of demons, probably as lost and frightened as we were.\"\n\n\"And why should they attack you?\"\n\n\"Wasn't an attack, sir, \"one of the guards said.\"They just wanted a ride outa that nightmare. We would've obliged, too, only they was too heavy-\"\n\n\"And they didn't sign a waiver neither, \"another guard pointed out.\"We even offered a stake-'\n\n\"Enough, gentlemen,\" Haradas said. \"Take that thing away.\"\n\nBut the three men had come too close to the lead wheel of the huge wagon. As soon as the demonic handmade contact with the rim it closed with a snap around it. The three guards leapt back, leaving the arm hanging from the wheel.\n\n\"Oh, that's just terrific! \"Haradas snapped.\"And whenever will we get that off? '\n\n\"When the fingers wear through, I guess,\" a guard replied, frowning at the arm. \"Gonna be a lumpy ride fora while, dear. Sorry about that.\"\n\nA troop of riders approached from the army's train.\n\n\"Your escort's arrived, \"Whiskeyjack noted.\"We will ask fora detailed report of the journey, mistress– I suggest you stand down until this evening, and leave the details of distribution to your second. '\n\nShe nodded. \"Good idea.\"\n\nThe commander searched for Silverfox. She had resumed her march, the two marines trailing. The blood of the god had stained the marines'boots and the Rhivi's legs.\n\nAcross the plain, for two hundred or more paces, the earth looked like a red matted, tattered blanket, plucked and torn into dissolving disarray." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As ever, Kallor's thoughts were dark.\n\nAshes and dust. The fools prattle on and on in the command tent, avast waste of time. Death flows through the warrens– what matter? Order ever succumbs to chaos, broken unto itself by the very strictures it imposes. The world will do better without mages. I for one will not rue the demise of sorcery.\n\nThe lone candle, streaked with the crushed fragments of a rare sea-worm, gusted thick, heavy smoke, filling the tent. Shadows crawled beneath the drifting plumes. Flickering yellow light glinted off ancient, oft-mended armour.\n\nSeated on the ornate, ironwood throne, Kallor breathed deep of the invigorating fumes. Alchemy is not magic. The arcana of the natural world holds far more wonders than any wizard could conjure in a thousand lifetimes. These Century Candles, for one, are well named. Upon my life, yet another layer seeps into my flesh and bone– I can feel it with each breath. A good thing, too. Who would want to live forever in a body too frail to move? Another hundred years, gained in the passage of a single night, in the depth of this one reach of columned wax. And I have scores more...\n\nNo matter the stretch of decades and centuries, no matter the interminable boredom of inactivity that was so much apart of living, there were moments... moments when I must act, explosively, with certainty. And all that seemed nothing before was in truth preparation. There are creatures that hunt without moving; when they become perfectly still, perfectly motionless, they are at their most dangerous. I am as such a creature. I have always been so, yet all who know me are... gone. Ashes and dust. The children who now surround me with their gibbering worries are blind to the hunter in their midst. Blind..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pale hands gripping the arms of the throne, he sat unmoving, stalking the landscape of his own memories, dragging them forth like corpses pulled from the ground, drawing their visages close fora moment before casting them away and moving on.\n\nEight mighty wizards, hands linked, voices rising in unison. Desperate for power. Seeking it from a distant, unknown realm. Unsuspecting, curious, the strange god in that strange place edged closer, then the trap was sprung. Down he came, torn to pieces yet remaining alive. Brought down, shattering a continent, obliterating warrens. Himself broken, damaged, crippled...\n\nEight mighty wizards, who sought to oppose me and so loosed a nightmare that rises once more, millennia later. Fools. Now, they are dust and ashes...\n\nThree gods, assailing my realm. Too many insults delivered by my hand. My existence had gone beyond irritation, and so they banded together to crush me once and for all. In their ignorance, they assumed I would play by their rules. Either fight, or yield my realm. My, weren't they surprised, striding into my empire, only to find... nothing left alive. Nothing but charred bones and lifeless ash.\n\nThey could not comprehend– nor did they ever– that I would yield nothing. Rather than surrender all I had fashioned, I destroyed it. That is the privilege of the creator– to give, then to takeaway. I shall never forget the world's death cry– for it was the voice of my triumph...\n\nAnd one of you remains, pursuing me once more. Oh, I know it is you, K'rul. But, instead of me, you have found another enemy, and he is killing you. Slowly, deliciously. You have returned to this realm, only to die, as I said you would. And did you know? Your sister has succumbed to my ancient curse as well. So little left of her, will she ever recover? Not if I can help it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A faint smile spread across his withered, pallid face.\n\nHis eyes narrowed as a portal began to take shape before him. Miasmic power swirled from it. A figure emerged, tall, gaunt, a face shattered– massive cuts gaping red, the shards of broken bone glimmering in the candlelight. The portal closed behind the Jaghut, who stood relaxed, eyes flickering pools of darkness.\n\n\"I convey greetings from the Crippled God,\" the Jaghut said, \"to you, Kallor\"– he paused to survey the tent's interior–\"and your vast empire. '\n\n\"You tempt me,\" Kallor rasped, \"to add to your... facial distress, Gethol. My empire maybe gone, but I shall not yield this throne. You, of all people, should recognize that I am not yet done in my ambitions, and I am a patient man.\"\n\nGethol grunted a laugh. \"Ah, dear Kallor. You are tome the exception to the rule that patience is a virtue.\"\n\n\"I can destroy you, Jaghut, no matter who you call master these days. I can complete what your capable punisher began. Do you doubt me?\"\n\n\"Most certainly not,\" Gethol replied easily. \"I've seen you wield that two-handed sword of yours. '\n\n\"Then withdraw your verbal knives and tell me what you do here.\"\n\n\"Apologies for disrupting your... concentration. I shall now explain. I am Herald to the Crippled God– aye, anew House has come to the Deck of Dragons. The House of Chains. The first renditions have been fashioned. And soon every Reader of the Deck will be seeking their likenesses.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kallor snorted. \"And you expect this gambit to work? That House shall be assailed. Obliterated.\"\n\n\"Oh, the battle is well underway, old man. You cannot be blind to that, nor to the fact that we are winning.\"\n\nKallor's eyes thinned to slits.\"The poisoning of the warrens? The Crippled God is a fool. What point in destroying the power he requires to assert his claim? Without the warrens, the Deck of Dragons is nothing. '\n\n\"The appellation'poison\" is erroneous, Kallor. Rather, consider the infection one of enforcing a certain... alteration... to the warrens. Aye, those who resist it view it as a deadly manifestation, a'poison\" indeed. But only because its primary effect is to make the warrens impassable to them. Servants of the Crippled God, however, will find themselves able to travel freely in the paths.\"\n\n\"I am servant to no-one,\" Kallor growled.\n\n\"The position of High King is vacant within the Crippled God's House of Chains. '\n\nKallor shrugged. \"None the less requiring that I stain my knees before the Chained One.\"\n\n\"No such gestures are demanded of the High King. The House of Chains exists beyond the Crippled God's influence– is that not obvious? He is chained, after all. Trapped in a lifeless fragment of along-dead warren. Bound to the flesh of the Sleeping Goddess– aye, that has proved his singular means of efficacy, but it is limited. Understand, Kallor, that the Crippled God now casts the House of Chains into the world, indeed, abandons it to its fate. Survival depends on those who come to the titles it contains. Some of those the Chained One can influence– though never directly– whilst others, such as that of King of High House Chains, must be freely assumed. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If so,\" Kallor rumbled after along moment, \"why are you not the King?\"\n\nGethol bowed his head. \"You honour me, sir,\" he said drily. \"I am, however, content to be Herald-\"\n\n\"Under the delusion that the messenger is ever spared, no matter what the message? You were never as smart as your brother, were you? Somewhere, Gothos must be laughing.\"\n\n\"Gothos never laughs. But, given that I know where he languishes, I do. Often. Now, should I remain here much longer awaiting your answer, my presence may well be detected. There are Tiste Andii nearby-\"\n\n\"Very near. Not to mention Caladan Brood. Lucky for you Anomander Rake has left– returned to Moon's Spawn, wherever it is-'\n\n\"Its location must be discovered, revealed to the Crippled God.\"\n\nThe grey-haired warrior raised an eyebrow. \"A task for the King?\"\n\n\"Does betrayal sting your sense of honour, Kallor?\"\n\n\"If you call it a sudden reversal of strategy, the sting fades. What I require, in exchange, is an opportunity, arranged howsoever the Crippled God pleases.\"\n\n\"What is the nature of this opportunity, High King?\"\n\nKallor smiled, then his expression hardened. \"The woman Silverfox... a moment of vulnerability, that is all I ask.\"\n\nGethol slowly bowed. \"I am your Herald, sire, and shall convey your desires to the Crippled God.\"\n\n\"Tell me,\" Kallor said, \"before you go. Does this throne suit the House of Chains, Gethol?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Jaghut studied the battered, iron-coloured wood, noted the cracks in its frame. \"It most certainly does, sire.\"\n\n\"Begone, then.\"\n\nThe Herald bowed once more, the portal opening behind him. A moment later he stepped back, and was gone.\n\nSmoke from the candle swirled in the wake of the vanishing portal. Kallor drew a deep breath. Adding years and years of renewed vigour. He sat motionless... a hunter on the edge of ambush. Suitably explosive. Suitably deadly.\n\nWhiskeyjack stepped out of the command tent, stood gazing up at the sweep of stars overhead. It had been along time since he'd felt so weary.\n\nHe heard movement behind him, then a soft, long-fingered hand settled on his shoulder, the touch sending waves through him. \"It would be nice,\" Korlat murmured, \"to hear good news fora change.\"\n\nHe grunted.\n\n\"I seethe worry in your eyes, Whiskeyjack. It's along list, isn't it? Your Bridgeburners, Silverfox, her mother, and now this assault on the warrens. We are marching blind. So much rests on unknowns. Does Capustan still hold, or has the city fallen? And what of Trotts? And Paran? Quick Ben?\"\n\n\"I am aware of that list, Korlat,\" he rumbled.\n\n\"Sorry. I share them, that is all.\"\n\nHe glanced at her. \"Forgive me, but why? This is not your war– gods below, it's not even your world! Why are you yielding to its needs? \"He sighed loudly and shook his head, returning his gaze to the nightsky.\"That's a question we asked often, early in the campaigns. I remember, in Blackdog Forest, stumbling over a half-dozen of your kin. A Moranth cusser had taken them out. A squad of regulars was busy looting the bodies. They were cursing– not finding anything of worth. A few knotted strips of coloured cloth, a stream-polished pebble, plain weapons– the kind you could pickup in any market in any city.\" He was silent fora moment, then he continued, \"And I remember wondering– what was the story of their lives? Their dreams, their aspirations? Would their kin miss them? The Mhybe once mentioned that the Rhivi took on the task of burying the Tiste Andii fallen... well, we did the same, therein that wood. We sent the regulars packing with boots to the backside. We buried your dead, Korlat. Consigned their souls in the Malazan way...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her eyes were depthless as she studied him. \"Why?\" she asked quietly.\n\nWhiskeyjack frowned. \"Why did we bury them? Hood's breath! We honour our enemies– no matter who they might be. But the Tiste Andii most of all. They accepted prisoners. Treated those that were wounded. They even accepted withdrawal– not once were we pursued after hightailing it from an unwinnable scrap. '\n\n\"And did not the Bridgeburners return the favour, time and again, Commander? And indeed, before long, so did the rest of Dujek Onearm's soldiers. '\n\n\"Most campaigns get nastier the longer they dragon,\" Whiskeyjack mused, \"but not that one. It got more... civilized. Unspoken protocols...\"\n\n\"Much of that was undone when you took Pale.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"More than you know.\"\n\nHer hand was still on his shoulder. \"Come with me back to my tent, Whiskeyjack.\"\n\nHis brows rose, then he smiled and said in a dry tone, \"Not a night to be alone-\"\n\n\"Don't be a fool! \"she snapped.\"I did not ask for company– I asked for you. Not a faceless need that must be answered, and anyone will do. Not that. Am I understood? '\n\n\"Not entirely.\"\n\n\"I wish us to become lovers, Whiskeyjack. Beginning tonight. I wish to awaken in your arms. I would know if you have feelings for me.\"\n\nHe was silent fora long moment, then he said, \"I'd be a fool not to, Korlat, but I had also considered it even more foolish to attempt any advance. I assumed you were mated to another Tiste Andii– a union no doubt centuries long-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And what would be the point of such a union?\"\n\nHe frowned, startled. \"Well, uh, companionship? Children?\"\n\n\"Children arrive. Rarely, as much a product of boredom as anything else. Tiste Andii do not find companionship among their own kind. That died out long ago, Whiskeyjack. Yet even rarer is the occasion of a Tiste Andii emerging from the darkness, into the mortal world, seeking a reprieve from... from-\"\n\nHe set a finger to her lips. \"No more. I am honoured to accept you, Korlat. More than you will ever realize, and I will seek to be worthy of your gift.\"\n\nShe shook her head, eyes dropping. \"It is a scant gift. Seek my heart and you maybe disappointed in what you find.\"\n\nThe Malazan stepped back and reached for his belt-pouch. He untied it, upended the small leather sack into one cupped hand. A few coins fell out, then a small, bedraggled, multicoloured knot of cloth strips, followed by alone dark, smooth pebble. \"I'd thought, \"he said slowly, eyes on the objects in his hand,\"that one day I might have the opportunity to return what was clearly of value to those fallen Tiste Andii. All that was found in that search... I realized– even then– that I could do naught but honour them. '\n\nKorlat closed her handover his, trapping the objects within their joined clasp. She led him down the first row of tents.\n\nThe Mhybe dreamed. She found herself clinging to the edge of a precipice, white-knuckled hands gripping gnarled roots, the susurration of trickling dirt dusting her face as she strained to hold on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Below waited the Abyss, racked with the storm of dismembered memories, streamers of pain, fear, rage, jealousy and dark desires." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That storm wanted her, was reaching up for her, and she was helpless to defend herself.\n\nHer arms were weakening.\n\nA shrieking wind wrapped around her legs, yanked, snatched her away, and she was falling, adding her own scream to the cacophony. The winds tossed her this way and that, twisting, tumbling-\n\nSomething hard and vicious struck her hip, glanced away. Air buffeted her hard. Then the hard intrusion was back– talons closing around her waist, scaled, cold as death. A sharp tug snapped her head back, and she was no longer falling, but rising, carried higher and higher.\n\nThe storm's roar faded below her, then dwindled away to one side.\n\nThe Mhybe twisted her head, looked up.\n\nAn undead dragon loomed above her, impossibly huge. Desiccated, dried flaps of skin trailing from its limbs, its almost translucent wings thundering, the creature was bearing her away.\n\nShe turned to study what lay below.\n\nA featureless plain stretched out beneath her, dun brown. Long cracks in the earth were visible, filled with dully glowing ice. She saw a darker patch, ragged at its edges, flow over a hillside. A herd. I have walked that land before. Here, in my dreams... there were footprints...\n\nThe dragon banked suddenly, crooked its wings, and began a swift spiral earthward.\n\nShe found herself wailing– was shocked to realize that it was not terror she was feeling, but exhilaration. Spirits above, this is what it is to fly! Ah, now I know envy in truth!\n\nThe land rushed up to meet her. Moments before what would have been a fatal impact, the dragon's wings snapped wide, caught the air, then, the leg directly above curling upward to join its twin, the creature glided silently an arm's length above the loamy ground. Forward momentum abated. The leg lowered, the talons releasing her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She landed with barely a thump, rolled onto her back, then sat up to watch the enormous dragon rising once more, wings thundering.\n\nThe Mhybe looked down and saw a youthful body– her own. She cried out at the cruelty of this dream. Cried out again, curling tight on the cool, damp earth.\n\nOh, why did you save me! Why? Only to awaken– spirits below– to awaken-\n\n\"She was passing through.\" A soft voice– a stranger's voice, in the language of the Rhivi– spoke in her mind.\n\nThe Mhybe's head snapped up. She looked around.\"Who speaks? Where are you? '\n\n\"We're here. When you are ready to see us, you shall. Your daughter has a will to match yours, it seems. To have so commanded the greatest of the Bonecasters– true, she comes in answer to the child's summons. The Gathering. Making the detour a minor one. None the less... we are impressed.\"\n\n\"My daughter?\"\n\n'She still stings from harsh words– we can feel that. Indeed, it is how we have come to dwell here. That small, round man hides obsidian edges beneath his surfeit of flesh. Who would have thought? \"She has given to you all she has, Silverfox. The time has come for you to gift in answer, lass. Kruppe is not alone in refusing to abandon her to her fate.\" Ah, he opened her eyes, then, swept away her obsessing with her selves, and she only a child at the time, but she heeded his words– though in truth he spoke only within her dreams at that time. Heeded. Yes indeed.\n\n\"So,\" the voice continued, \"will you see us now?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She stared down at her smooth hands, her young arms, and screamed. \"Stop torturing me with this dream! Stop! Oh, stop-\"\n\nHer eyes opened to the musty darkness of her tent. Aches and twinges prodded her thinned bones, her shrunken muscles. Weeping, the Mhybe pulled her ancient body into a tight ball. \"Gods,\" she whispered, \"how I hate you. How I hate you!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If you can, dear friends, do not live through a siege.\n\nUbilast (the Legless)\n\nTHE INN COMMANDING the southeast corner of old Daru Street held no more than half a dozen patrons, most of them visitors to the city who, like Gruntle, were now trapped. The Pannion armies surrounding Capustan's walls had done nothing for five days and counting. There had been clouds of dust from beyond the ridgeline to the north, the caravan captain had heard, signalling... something. But that had been days ago and nothing had come of it.\n\nWhat Septarch Kulpath was waiting for, no-one knew, though there was plenty of speculation. More barges carrying Tenescowri had been seen crossing the river, until it seemed that half the empire's population had joined the peasant army.\"With numbers like that, \"someone had said a bell earlier,\"there'll be barely a mouthful of Capan citizen each.\" Gruntle had been virtually alone in appreciating the jest.\n\nHe sat at a table near the entrance, his back to the rough-plastered, double-beamed door-frame, the door itself on his right, the low-ceilinged main room before him. A mouse was working its way along the earthen floor beneath the tables, scampering from shadow to shadow, slipping between the shoes or boots of whatever patron its path intersected. Gruntle watched its progress with low-lidded eyes. There was still plenty of food to be found in the kitchen– or so its nose was telling it. That bounty, Gruntle well knew, would not last if the siege drew out.\n\nHis gaze flicked up to the smoke-stained main truss spanning the room, where the inn's cat slept, limbs dangling from the crossbeam. The feline hunted only in its dreams, for the moment at least." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The mouse reached the foot-bar of the counter, waddled parallel to it towards the kitchen entrance.\n\nGruntle took another mouthful of watered wine– more water than wine after almost a week's stranglehold on the city by the Pannions. The six other patrons were each sitting alone at a table or leaning up against the counter. Words were exchanged among them every now and then, a few desultory comments, usually answered by little more than a grunt.\n\nOver the course of a day and night, the inn was peopled by two types, or so Gruntle had observed. The ones before him now virtually lived in the common room, nursing their wine and ale. Strangers to Capustan and seemingly friendless, they'd achieved a kind of community none the less, characterized by avast ability to do nothing together for long periods of time. Come the night the other type would begin to assemble. Loud, boisterous, drawing the street whores inside with their coins which they tumbled onto the tabletops with no thought of tomorrow. Theirs was a desperate energy, a bluff hail to Hood. We're yours, you scything bastard, they seemed to say. But not till the dawn!\n\nThey'd churn like a foaming sea around the immovable, indifferent rocks that were the silent, friendless patrons.\n\nThe sea and the rocks. The sea celebrates in the face of Hood as soon as he looms close. The rocks have stared the bastard in the eye for so long they're past budging, much less celebrating. The sea laughs uproariously at its own jokes. The rocks grind out a terse line that can silence an entire room. A Capan mouthful...\n\nNext time, I'll keep my tongue to myself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The cat rose on the crossbeam, stretching, its banded black stripes rippling across its dun fur." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cocked its head downward, ears pricking.\n\nThe mouse was at the edge of the kitchen entrance, frozen.\n\nGruntle hissed under his breath.\n\nThe cat looked his way.\n\nThe mouse darted into the kitchen and out of sight.\n\nWith aloud creak, the inn door swung inward. Buke stepped inside, crossed Gruntle's view then sank down into the chair beside him.\n\n\"You're predictable enough, \"the old man muttered, gesturing for two of the same when he caught the barkeep's eye.\n\n\"Aye,\" Gruntle replied. \"I'm a rock. '\n\n\"A rock, huh? More like a fat iguana clinging to one. And when the big wave comes-\"\n\n\"Whatever. You've found me, Buke. Now what? '\n\n\"Just wanted to thank you for all the help, Gruntle.\"\n\n\"Was that subtle irony, old man? A little honing-\"\n\n\"Actually, I was almost serious. That muddy water you made me drink– Keruli's concoction– it's done wonders.\" His narrow face revealed a slightly secretive smile. \"Wonders...\"\n\n\"Glad to hear you're all better. Anymore earth-shattering news? If not... '\n\nBuke leaned back as the barkeep delivered the two tankards, then said after the man shambled away, \"I've met with the elders of the Camps. At first they wanted to go straight to the prince-'\n\n\"But then they came to their senses.\"\n\n\"With a little prodding.\"\n\n\"So now you've got all the help you need in keeping that insane eunuch from playing doorman to Hood's gate. Good. Can't have panic in the streets, what with a quarter-million Pannions laying siege to the city. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Buke's eyes thinned on Gruntle.\"Thought you'd appreciate the calm.\"\n\n\"Now that's much better. '\n\n\"I still need your help.\"\n\n\"Can't see how, Buke. Unless you want me to kick down the door and separate Korbal Broach's head from his shoulders. In which case you'll need to keep Bauchelain distracted. Set him on fire or something. I only need a moment. Of course, timing's everything. Once the walls have been breached, say, and there's Tenescowri mobbing the streets. That way we can all go hand in hand to Hood singing a merry tune. '\n\nBuke smiled behind his tankard. \"That'll do, ' he said, then drank.\n\nGruntle drained his own cup, reached for the new one. \"You know whereto find me,\" he said after a moment.\n\n\"Until the wave comes.\"\n\nThe cat leapt down from the crossbeam, pounced forward, trapping a cockroach between its paws. It began playing.\n\n\"All right,\" the caravan captain growled after a moment, \"what else do you want to say?\"\n\nBuke shrugged offhandedly. \"I hear Stonny has volunteered. Latest rumours have it the Pannions are finally ready for the first assault– anytime now.\"\n\n\"The first? Likely they'll only need the one. As for being ready, they've been ready for days, Buke. If Stonny wants to throwaway her life defending the indefensible, that's her business. '\n\n\"What's the alternative? The Pannions won't take prisoners, Gruntle. We'll all have to fight, sooner or later. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That's what you think.\n\n\"Unless,\" Buke continued after a moment as he raised his tankard, \"you plan on switching sides. Finding faith as a matter of expedience-\"\n\n\"What other way is there?\"\n\nThe old man's eyes sharpened.\"You'd fill your belly with human flesh, Gruntle? Just to survive? You'd do that, would you? '\n\n\"Meat is meat,\" Gruntle replied, his eyes on the cat. A soft crunch announced that it had finished playing.\n\n\"Well,\" Buke said, rising, \"I didn't think you were capable of shocking me. I guess I thought I knew you-'\n\n\"You thought.\"\n\n\"So this is the man Harllo gave his life for.\"\n\nGruntle slowly raised his head. Whatever Buke saw in his eyes made him step back. \"Which Camp are you working with right now?\" the caravan captain calmly asked.\n\n\"Uldan,\" the old man whispered.\n\n\"I'll look in on you, then. In the meantime, Buke, get out of my sight. '\n\nThe shadows had retreated across most of the compound, leaving Hetan and her brother, Cafal, in full sunlight. The two Barghast were squatting on a worn, faded rug, heads bowed. Sweat– blackened with ash– dripped from them both. Between them was abroad, shallow brazier, perched on three hand-high iron legs and filled with smouldering coals.\n\nSoldiers and court messengers flowed around them on all sides.\n\nShield Anvil Itkovian studied the siblings from where he stood near the headquarters entrance. He had not known the Barghast as a people enamoured of meditation, yet Hetan and Cafal had done little else, it seemed, since their return from the Thrall. Fasting, uncommunicative, inconveniently encamped in the centre of the barracks compound, they had made of themselves an unapproachable island." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Theirs is not a mortal calm. They travel among the spirits. Brukhalian demands that I find away through– by any means. Does Hetan possess yet one more secret? An avenue of escape, for her, her brother, and for the bones of the Founding Spirits? An unknown weakness in our defence? A flaw in the Pannion investiture?\n\nItkovian sighed. He had tried before, without success. He would now try once again. Ashe prepared to step forward, he sensed a presence at his side and turned, to find Prince Jelarkan.\n\nThe young man's face was etched deep with exhaustion. His long-fingered, elegant hands trembled despite being knitted together just above his robe's belt. His gaze was fixed on the swirling activity in the compound as he said, \"I must know, Shield Anvil, what Brukhalian intends. He holds what you soldiers calla shaved knuckle in the hole– that much is clear. And so I have come, once again, seeking audience with the man in my employ.\" He made no effort to hide the sardonic bitterness of that statement. \"To no avail. The Mortal Sword has no time for me. No time for the Prince of Capustan.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" Itkovian said, \"you may ask your questions of me, and I shall do all I canto answer you.\"\n\nThe young Capan swung to the Shield Anvil. \"Brukhalian has given you leave to speak?\"\n\n\"He has.\"\n\n\"Very well. The Kron T'lan Imass and their undead wolves. They have destroyed the Septarch's K'Chain demons. '\n\n\"They have.\"\n\n\"Yet the Pannion Domin has more. Hundreds more.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Then why do the T'lan Imass not march into the empire? An assault into the Seer's territory may well achieve the withdrawal of Kulpath's besieging forces. The Seer would have no choice but to pull them back across the river. '\n\n\"Were the T'lan Imass a mortal army, the choice would indeed be obvious, and consequently beneficial to our own needs, \"Itkovian replied.\"Alas, Kron and his undead kin are bound by unearthly demands, of which we know virtually nothing. We have been told of a gathering, a silent summoning for purposes unknown. This, for the moment, takes precedence overall else. Kron and the T'lan Ay destroyed the Septarch's K'Chain Che'Malle because their presence was deemed a direct threat to the gathering. '\n\n\"Why? That explanation is insufficient, Shield Anvil.\"\n\n\"I do not disagree with your assessment, sir. There does appear to be another reason– for Kron's reluctance to march southward. A mystery concerning the Seer himself. It seems the word'Pannion\" is Jaghut. The Jaghut were the mortal enemies of the T'lan Imass, as you may know. It is my personal belief that Kron awaits the arrival of... allies. Other T'lan Imass, come to this impending gathering. '\n\n\"You are suggesting that Kron is intimidated by the Pannion Seer-\"\n\n\"Aye, in his belief that the Seer is Jaghut.\"\n\nThe prince was silent fora long moment, then he shook his head. \"Even should the T'lan Imass decide to march upon the Pannion Domin, the decision will come too late for us. '\n\n\"That seems likely.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Very well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now, another question. Why is this gathering occurring here?\"\n\nItkovian hesitated, then slowly nodded to himself. \"Prince Jelarkan, the one who has summoned the T'lan Imass is approaching Capustan... in the company of an army. '\n\n\"An army?\"\n\n\"An army marching to wage war against the Pannion Domin; indeed, with the additional aim of relieving the siege here at Capustan.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Sir, they are five weeks away.\"\n\n\"We cannot hold-\"\n\n\"This truth is known, Prince.\"\n\n\"And does this summoner command that army?\"\n\n\"No. Command is shared between two men. Caladan Brood and Dujek Onearm.\"\n\n\"Dujek– High Fist Onearm? The Malazan? Lords below, Itkovian! How long have you known this?\"\n\nThe Shield Anvil cleared his throat. \"Preliminary contact was established sometime ago, Prince. Through sorcerous avenues. These have since grown impassable-\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, I know that well enough. Continue, damn you.\"\n\n\"The presence of the summoner among their company was news only recently told us– by a Bonecaster of the Kron T'lan Imass-'\n\n\"The army, Itkovian! Tell me more of this army!\"\n\n\"Dujek and his legions have been outlawed by Empress Laseen. They are now acting independently. His complement numbers perhaps ten thousand. Caladan Brood has under his command a number of small mercenary companies, three Barghast clans, the Rhivi nation and the Tiste Andii– a total number of combatants of thirty thousand.\"\n\nPrince Jelarkan's eyes were wide. Itkovian watched the information breach the man's inner defences, watched as the host of hopes flowered then withered in swift succession." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"On the surface,\" the Shield Anvil said quietly, \"all that I have told you seems of vital import. Yet, as I see you now comprehend, it is in truth all meaningless. Five weeks, Prince. Leave them to their vengeance, if you will, for that is all they might manage. And even then, given their limited numbers-\"\n\n\"Are these Brukhalian's conclusions, or yours? '\n\n\"Both, I regret to say.\"\n\n\"You fools,\" the young man grated. \"You Hood-damned fools.\"\n\n\"Sire, we cannot withstand the Pannions for five weeks.\"\n\n\"I know that, damn you! The question now is: why do we even try?\"\n\nItkovian frowned. \"Sir, such was the contract. The defence of the city-\"\n\n\"Idiot– what do I care about your damned contract? You've already concluded you will fail in any case! My concern is for the lives of my people. This army comes from the west? It must. Marching beside the river-'\n\n\"We cannot breakout, Prince. We would be annihilated.\"\n\n\"We concentrate everything to the west. A sudden sortie, that flows into an exodus. Shield Anvil-\"\n\n\"We will be slaughtered,\" Itkovian cut in. \"Sire, we have considered this. It will notwork. The Septarch's wings of horsemen will surround us, grind us to a halt. Then the Beklites and Tenescowri will arrive. We will have yielded a defensible position for an indefensible one. It would all be over within the span of a single bell. '\n\nPrince Jelarkan stared at the Shield Anvil with undisguised contempt and, indeed, hatred. \"Inform Brukhalian of the following,\" he rasped. \"In the future, it is not the task of the Grey Swords to do the prince's thinking for him. It is not their task to decide what he needs to know and what he doesn't. The prince is to be informed of all matters, regardless of how you judge their relevance. Is this understood, Shield Anvil?\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Collaborate on the narrative and advance it.\nTags: epic fantasy, alliance, ancient threats, camaraderie, tragic events\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Memories of Ice\nChapter: 18" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sir!\" she gasped. \"I bring word from Rath'Fener! A message, passed onto me by an acolyte! '\n\n\"Let us hear it, then, sir.\"\n\n\"The Thrall is assailed! Rath'Fener invokes the Reve's Eighth Command. You are to ride with all in your company to his aid. Rath'Fener kneels before the hooves– you are to be the Twin Tusks of his and Fener's shadow!\"\n\nBrukhalian's eyes narrowed.\"Sir, this acolyte managed to leave the Thrall in order to convey his priest's holy invocation. Given the protective sorcery around the building, how was this managed?\"\n\nThe young woman shook her head. \"I do not know, sir.\"\n\n\"And your path across the city, to arrive here, was it contested?\"\n\n\"None living stood before me, sir.\"\n\n\"Can you explain that?\"\n\n\"No, sir, I cannot. Fener's fortune, perhaps... '\n\nBrukhalian studied her a moment longer. \"Recruit, will you join us in our deliverance?\"\n\nShe blinked, then slowly nodded. \"I would be honoured, Mortal Sword.\"\n\nHis reply was a gruff, sorrowful whisper that only deepened her evident bewilderment, \"As would I, sir.\" Brukhalian lowered the visor, swung to his followers. \"Eleventh Mane to remain with the Destriant and his cutters!\" he commanded. \"Remaining companies, we march to the Thrall! Rath'Fener has invoked the Reve, and to this we must answer! \"He then dismounted and handed the reins of his warhorse to the messenger.\"My mind has changed, \"he rumbled.\"You are to remain here, sir, to guard my destrier. Also, to inform the Shield Anvil of my disposition once he awakens. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your disposition, sir?\"\n\n\"You will know it soon, recruit.\" The Mortal Sword faced his troops once more. They stood in ranks, waiting, silent. Four hundred Grey Swords, perhaps the last left alive. \"Sirs,\" Brukhalian asked them, \"are you in full readiness?\"\n\nA veteran officer grated, \"Ready to try, Mortal Sword.\"\n\n\"Your meaning?\" the commander asked.\n\n\"We are to cross half the city, sir. We shall not make it.\"\n\n\"You assume our path to the Thrall will be contested, Nilbanas. Yes?\"\n\nThe old soldier frowned, said nothing.\n\nBrukhalian reached for his shield, which had waited at his side in the hands of an aide. \"I shall lead us,\" he said. \"Do you follow?\"\n\nEvery soldier nodded, and the Mortal Sword saw in those half-visored faces the emergence of an awareness, a knowledge to which he had already arrived. There would be no return from the journey to come. Some currents, he knew, could not be fought.\n\nReadying the large bronze-plated shield on his left arm, adjusting his grip on his holy sword, Brukhalian strode forward. His Grey Swords fell in behind him. He chose the most direct route, not slowing even as he set across open, corpse-strewn squares.\n\nThe murmuring rumble of humanity was on all sides. Isolated sounds of battle, the collapse of burning buildings and the roar of unchecked fires, streets knee-deep in bodies– scenes of Hood's infernal pit rolled past them as they marched, as of two unfurling tapestries woven by a mad, soul-tortured artisan.\n\nYet their journey was uncontested." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As they neared the aura-sheathed Thrall, the veteran increased his pace to come alongside Brukhalian. \"I heard the messenger's words, sir-'\n\n\"Of that I am aware, Nilbanas.\"\n\n\"It cannot be really from Rath'Fener-'\n\n\"But it is, sir.\"\n\n\"Then the priest betrays us!\"\n\n\"Yes, old friend, he betrays us.\"\n\n\"He has desecrated Fener's most secret Reve! By the Tusks, sir-'\n\n\"The words of the Reve are greater than he is, Nilbanas. They are Fener's own. '\n\n\"Yet he has twisted them malign, sir! We should not abide!\"\n\n\"Rath'Fener's crime shall be answered, but not by us.\"\n\n\"At the cost of our lives?\"\n\n\"Without our deaths, sir, there would be no crime. Thus, no punishment to match.\"\n\n\"Mortal Sword-\"\n\n\"We are done, my friend. Now, in this manner, we choose the meaning of our deaths.\"\n\n\"But... but what does he gain? Betraying his own god-\"\n\n\"No doubt,\" Brukhalian said with a private, grim smile, \"his own life. Fora time. Should the Thrall's protective sorcery be sundered, should the Council of Masks betaken, he will be spared the horrors that await his fellow priests. He judges this a worthwhile exchange. '\n\nThe veteran was shaking his head. \"And so Fener allows his own words to assume the weight of betrayal. How noble his Bestial Mien when he finally corners Rath'Fener? '\n\n\"Our god shall not be the one to deliver the punishment, Nilbanas. You are right, he could not do so in fullest conscience, for this is a betrayal that wounds him deeply, leaves him weakened and vulnerable to fatal consequence, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then,\" the man almost sobbed, \"then who shall be our vengeful hand, Brukhalian?\"\n\nIf anything, the Mortal Sword's smile grew grimmer.\"Even now, the Shield Anvil no doubt regains consciousness. And is moments from hearing the messenger's report. Moments from true comprehension. Nilbanas, our vengeful hand shall be Itkovian's. What is your countenance now, old friend? '\n\nThe soldier was silent for another half-dozen paces. Before them was the open concourse before the gate to the Thrall. \"I am calmed, sir,\" he said, his voice deep and satisfied. \"I am calmed.\"\n\nBrukhalian cracked his sword against his shield. Black fire lit the blade, sizzled and crackled. \"They surround the concourse before us. Shall we enter?\"\n\n\"Aye, sir, with great joy.\"\n\nThe Mortal Sword and his four hundred followers strode into the clearing, not hesitating as the streets and alley mouths on all sides swiftly filled with Septarch Kulpath's crack troops, his Urdomen, Seerdomin and Betaklites, including the avenue they had just quitted. Archers appeared on the rooftops, and the hundreds of Seerdomin lying before the Thrall's gate, feigning death, now rose, readying weapons.\n\nAt Brukhalian's side, Nilbanas snorted.\"Pathetic. '\n\nThe Mortal Sword grunted a laugh that was heard by all. \"The Septarch deems himself clever, sir.\"\n\n\"And us stupid with honour.\"\n\n\"Aye, we are that indeed, are we not, old friend?\"\n\nNilbanas raised his sword and roared triumphantly. Blade whirling over his head, he spun in place his dance of delighted defiance. The Grey Swords locked shields, ends curling to enclose the Mortal Sword as they readied their last stand in the centre of the concourse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The veteran remained outside it, still spinning, still roaring, sword high in the air.\n\nFive thousand Pannions and the Septarch himself looked on, in wonder, disbelieving, profoundly alarmed by the man's wild, bestial stamping on the cobbles. Then, with a silent snarl, Kulpath shook himself and raised one gauntleted hand.\n\nHe jerked it down.\n\nThe air of the concourse blackened as fifteen hundred bows whispered as one.\n\nEyes snapping open, Itkovian heard that whisper. He saw, with a vision filling his awareness, to the exclusion of all else, as the barbed heads plunged into the shielded turtle that was the Grey Swords. Shafts slipped through here and there. Soldiers reeled, fell, folded in on themselves.\n\nNilbanas, pierced through by a hundred arrows or more, whipped round one last time in a haze of blood droplets, then collapsed.\n\nIn roaring masses, the Pannion foot soldiers surged into the concourse. Crashed against the locked shields of the surviving Grey Swords even as they struggled to close the gaps in their ranks. The square was shattered, ripped apart. Battle turned to slaughter.\n\nStill standing, the Mortal Sword's whirling blade raged with black fire. Studded with arrow shafts, he stood like a giant amidst feral children.\n\nAnd fought on.\n\nPikes drove into him from all sides, lifted him off his feet. Sword arm swinging down, he chopped through the shafts, landed amidst writhing bodies.\n\nItkovian saw as a double-bladed axe separated Brukhalian's left arm from his body, at the shoulder, where blood poured unchecked as the severed, shield-laden arm fell away, frenziedly contracting at the elbow as would an insect's dismembered limb." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The huge man folded to his right.\n\nMore pikes jabbed, ripping into his torso.\n\nThe grip on the sword did not falter. The burning blade continued to spread its devouring flame outward, incinerating as it went. Screams filled the air.\n\nUrdomen closed in with their short, heavy blades. Began chopping.\n\nThe Mortal Sword's intestines, snagged on a sword tip, unravelled like a snake from his gut. Another axe crashed down on Brukhalian's head, splitting the heavy black-iron helm, then the skull, then the man's face.\n\nThe burning sword exploded in a dark flash, the shards cutting down yet more Pannions.\n\nThe corpse that was Fener's Mortal Sword tottered upright a moment longer, riven through, almost headless, then slowly settled to its knees, back hunching, a scarecrow impaled by a dozen pikes, countless arrows.\n\nKneeling, now motionless, in the deepening shadow of the Thrall, as the Pannions slowly withdrew on all sides– their battle-rage gone and something silent and dreadful in its stead– staring at the hacked thing that had been Brukhalian... and at the tall, barely substantial apparition that took form directly before the Mortal Sword. A figure shrouded in black, hooded, hands hidden within the tattered folds of broad sleeves.\n\nHood. King of High House Death... come to greet this man's soul. In person.\n\nWhy?\n\nA moment later and the Lord of Death was gone. Yet no-one moved.\n\nIt began to rain. Hard.\n\nKneeling, watery blood staining the black armour, making the chain's iron links gleam crimson." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Another set of eyes was sharing Itkovian's inner vision, eyes that he knew well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And in the Shield Anvil's mind there came a cold satisfaction, and in his mind he addressed the other witness and knew, without doubt, that his words were heard.\n\nI have you, Rath'Fener.\n\nYou are mine, betrayer.\n\nMine.\n\nThe sparrowhawk twisted through the wind-whipped rain clouds, felt the drops like nails as they battered its wings, its splayed tail. Lurid flames glimmered in the city below amidst the grey, blackening buildings.\n\nThe day was drawing to a close, but the horror did not relent. Buke's mind was numb with all that he had witnessed, and the distance afforded him by his Soletaken form was no release. These eyes were too sharp, too sharp by far.\n\nHe banked hard directly over the estate that was home to Bauchelain and Korbal Broach. The gate was amass of bodies. The mostly ornamental corner towers and the walkways along the compound's walls were occupied by silent sentinels, dark and motionless in the rain.\n\nKorbal Broach's army of animated corpses had grown. Hundreds of Tenescowri had breached the gate and poured into the compound earlier. Bauchelain had greeted them with waves of deadly sorcery– magic that blackened their flesh, cracked it, then made it curl away in strips from their bones. Long after they were dead, the spell continued its relentless work, until the cobbles were ankle-deep in charred dust.\n\nTwo more attempts had been made, each more desperate than the last. Assailed by sorcery and the implacable savagery of the undead warriors, the Tenescowri had finally reeled back, fleeing in terror. A company of Beklites fared no better later in the afternoon. Now, as dusk swept in behind the rain, the streets surrounding the estate held only the dead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On wearying wings, Buke climbed higher once more, following the Daru District's main avenue westward.\n\nGutted tenement buildings, smoke billowing from rubble, the fitful lick of flames. Seething mobs of Tenescowri, huge bonfires where spitted human flesh roasted. Roving squads and companies of Scalandi, Beklites and Betaklites, Urdomen and Seerdomin.\n\nBewildered, enraged, wondering where Capustan's citizens have gone. Oh, you have the city, now, yet you feel cheated none the less.\n\nHis acute vision was failing with the fading light. To the southeast, hazy with rain and smoke, rose the prince's palace towers. Dark, seemingly inviolate. Perhaps its inhabitants held out still. Or perhaps it was, once more, a lifeless edifice home only to ghosts. Returned to the comfort of silence, such as it had known for centuries before the coming of the Capan and Daru.\n\nTurning his head back, Buke caught glimpse of a single tenement building just off to his left. Fires surrounded it, but it seemed the squat structure defied the flames. In the glow of the banked bonfires, he saw red-limned, naked corpses. Filling the surrounding streets and alleys.\n\nNo, that must be a mistake. My eyes deceive. Those dead are lying on rubble. They must be. Gods, the tenement's ground level isn't even visible. Buried. Rubble. There cannot be naught but bodies, not piled that high... oh... depthless Abyss!\n\nThe building was where Gruntle had taken a room.\n\nAnd, assailed by flames, it would not burn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And there, lit on all sides from below, the walls wept.\n\nNot water, but blood.\n\nBuke wheeled closer, and the closer he flew, the more horrified he became. He could see windows, shutterless, on the first visible floor. Packed with bodies. The same on the next floor, and on the one above that, directly beneath the roof.\n\nThe entire building was, he realized, virtually solid. Amass of flesh and bone, seeping from the windows tears of blood and bile. A giant mausoleum, a monument to this day.\n\nHe saw figures on the roof. A dozen, huddled here and there beneath makeshift awnings and lean-to shelters. And one, standing apart, head bowed as if studying the horror in the street below. Tall, hulking. Broad, sloping shoulders. Strangely barbed in shadows. A cutlass hung heavy in each gauntleted hand, stripped and gleaming like bone.\n\nA dozen paces behind him a standard had been raised, held upright by bundles that might be food packs, such as the Grey Swords issued. Sodden, yellow stained with dark bars of blood, a child's tunic.\n\nBuke drew still closer, then swung away. He was not ready. Not for Gruntle. Not for the man as he was now, as he had become. A terrible transformation... one more victim of this siege.\n\nAs are we all.\n\nBlinking, Itkovian struggled to make sense of his surroundings. A low, damp-blighted ceiling, the smell of raw meat. Yellow lantern light, the weight of a rough woollen blanket on his chest. He was lying on a narrow cot, and someone was holding his hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He slowly turned his head, wincing at the lash of pain the motion elicited from his neck. Healed, yet not healed. The mending... incomplete...\n\nKarnadas was at his side, collapsed onto his haunches, folded and motionless, the pale, wrinkled pate of his bowed head level with Itkovian's eyes.\n\nThe hand gripping his was all bone and deathly dry skin, icy cold.\n\nThe Shield Anvil squeezed it slightly.\n\nThe Destriant's face, as he lifted it into view, was skeletal, the skin mottled with deep bruises originating from the joints of his jaw; his red-webbed eyes sunken within charcoal-black pits.\n\n\"Ah,\" the old man rasped, \"I have failed you, sir...\"\n\n\"You have not.\"\n\n\"Your wounds-\"\n\n\"The flesh is sealed– I can feel as much. My neck, my back, my knee. There is naught but a tenderness, sir. Easily managed.\" He slowly sat up, keeping his expression calm despite the agony that ripped through him. Flexing his knee left him bathed in sweat, suddenly chilled and lightheaded. He did not alter his firm grip on the Destriant's hand.\"Your gift ever humbles me, sir. '\n\nKarnadas settled his head on Itkovian's thigh.\"I am done, my friend, ' he whispered.\n\n\"I know,\" the Shield Anvil replied. \"But I am not.\"\n\nThe Destriant's head moved in a nod but he did not lookup.\n\nItkovian glanced around. Four other cots, each bearing a soldier. Rough blankets had been drawn up over their faces. Two of the priest's cutters sat on the blood-gummed floor, their backs to a wall, their eyes closed in the sleep of the exhausted. Near the small room's door stood a Grey Sword messenger, Capan by her features beneath the rim of her helmet. He had seen a younger version of her, among the recruits... perhaps a sister. \"How long have I been unconscious? Do I hear rain?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Karnadas made no answer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Neither surgeon stirred awake. After a moment, the messenger cleared her throat. \"Sir, it is less than a bell before midnight. The rain came with the dusk.\"\n\nWith the dusk, and with a man's death. The hand holding his slackened in increments.\"How many soldiers here, sir? How many do I still command? '\n\nShe flinched. \"There are one hundred and thirty-seven in all, sir. Of these, ninety-six recruits. Of the Manes who stood with you at the cemetery, eleven soldiers survive.\"\n\n\"Our barracks?\"\n\n\"Fallen, sir. The structure burns.\"\n\n\"Jelarkan's Palace? '\n\nShe shook her head. \"No word, sir.\"\n\nItkovian slowly disengaged his hand from Karnadas's limp grip and looked down upon the motionless figure. He stroked the wisps of the man's hair. Moments passed, then the Shield Anvil broke the silence. \"Find us an orderly, sir. The Destriant is dead.\"\n\nHer eyes widened on him.\n\n\"He joins our Mortal Sword, Brukhalian. It is done.\"\n\nFollowing these words, Itkovian settled his boots onto the floor, almost blacking out at the pain in his ruined knee. He drew a deep, shaky breath, slowly straightened. \"Do any armourers remain?\"\n\n\"An apprentice, sir,\" she replied after a moment, her tone brittle as burned leather.\n\n\"I shall need a brace for my knee, sir. Anything he or she can fashion.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" she whispered. \"Shield Anvil-\"\n\nHe paused in his search for his surcoat, glanced over. The woman had gone deathly white." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I– I voice the Reve's Thirteenth Law. I request... rightful punishment. ' She was trembling.\n\n\"Punishment, sir? What was your crime?\"\n\n\"I delivered the message. From Rath'Fener's acolyte.\" She reeled at her own words, armour clunking as her back came up against the door. \"Fener forgive me! I sent the Mortal Sword to his death!\"\n\nItkovian's eyes thinned as he studied her.\"You are the recruit who accompanied me and my wings on the last excursion onto the plain. My apologies, sir, for not recognizing you earlier. I should have anticipated the intervening... experience, writ so clearly upon your face. I deny your voicing the Reve, soldier. Now, find us that orderly, and the apprentice. '\n\n\"But sir-\"\n\n\"Brukhalian was not deceived. Do you understand? Moreover, your presence here evinces your innocence in the matter. Had you been party to the betrayal, you would have ridden with him at his command. And would have been dealt with accordingly. Now go. We cannot wait here much longer.\"\n\nIgnoring the tears now streaking her mud-spattered face, the Shield Anvil slowly made his way to a heap of discarded armour. A moment later she swung about, opened the door and fled out into the hallway.\n\nItkovian paused in his hobbling. He glanced over at the sleeping cutters. \"I am the bearer of Fener's grief, \"he intoned in a whisper.\"I am my vow incarnate. This, and in all that follows. We are not yet done here. I am not yet done. Behold, I yield to nothing. ' He straightened, expressionless once more. His pain retreated. Soon, it would be irrelevant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One hundred and thirty-seven armoured faces looked upon the Shield Anvil. Through the streaming rain, he in turn surveyed them as they stood in their ranks on the dark street. Two warhorses remained; his own– chest wound a red welt but fire undimmed in the eyes– and Brukhalian's black destrier. The messenger held both sets of reins.\n\nStrips from a banded cuirass had been lashed to either side of Itkovian's damaged knee, providing sufficient flex for him to ride and walk while offering vital support when he stood. The rents in his chain surcoat had been mended with copper wire; the weight of the sleeve was noticeable only on his left arm– there was little strength in it, and the skin between his neck and shoulder felt stretched and hot over the incompletely knitted tissue beneath. Straps had been rigged that would hold his arm at an angle when it bore his shield.\n\n\"Grey Swords.\" The Shield Anvil addressed them. \"We have work before us. Our captain and her sergeants have formed you into squads. We march to the palace of the prince. The journey is not far. It appears that the enemy is chiefly massed around the Thrall. Should we happen to encounter roving bands, however, they will probably be small, and most likely Tenescowri and thus ill armed and untrained. March, therefore, in readiness.\" Itkovian faced his lone captain, who had only days earlier been the master-sergeant responsible for the training of the Capan recruits. \"Sir, array the squads.\"\n\nThe woman nodded.\n\nItkovian strode to his horse. A makeshift mounting block had been prepared, easing the transition into the saddle. Accepting the reins from the messenger, the Shield Anvil looked down upon her. \"The captain will walk with her soldiers, sir,\" he said. \"The Mortal Sword's horse should be ridden. She is yours, recruit. She will know your capacity by your seat, and respond in accordance to ensure your safety. It will not avail you to defy her in this. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Blinking, the young woman slowly nodded.\n\n\"Mount up, then, sir, and ride at my side.\"\n\nThe ramp leading to Jelarkan's Palace's narrow, arched gateway was unoccupied, swept clean. The gates themselves had been shattered. Faint torchlight glimmered from the antechamber immediately beyond. Not a single soldier stood on the walls or revetments. Apart from the drumming rain, there was naught but silence to greet Itkovian and his Grey Swords.\n\nPoint squads had scouted to the gate's threshold, confirming that the enemy was nowhere to be seen. Nor, it seemed, were there any surviving defenders. Or bodies.\n\nSmoke and hissing mist filled the spaces between stone, sheets of rain the night sky overhead. All sounds of fighting in other sections were gone.\n\nBrukhalian had asked for six weeks. Itkovian had given him less than three days. The truth of that gnawed within him, as if a broken blade or arrowhead still remained in his body– missed by the cutters– buried in his gut, wrapping its pain around his heart.\n\nBut I am not yet done.\n\nHe held to those words. Back straight, teeth gritted. A gesture with one gauntleted hand sent the first scouts through the gateway. They were gone for sometime, then a single runner returned, padding down the ramp to where Itkovian waited.\n\n\"Sir,\" the woman reported, \"there are Tenescowri within. In the main hall, we believe. Sounds of feasting and revelry.\"\n\n\"And are the approaches guarded?\" the Shield Anvil asked.\n\n\"The three that we have found are not, sir.\"\n\nThere were four entrances to Jelarkan's main hall. The double doors facing the gate on the other side of the antechamber, two flanking portals in the chamber itself that led to guest and guardrooms, and a narrow, curtain-shielded passage directly behind the prince's throne. \"Very well. Captain, position one squad to each of the two side entrances. Quietly. Six squads here at the gate. The remaining five are with me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Shield Anvil carefully dismounted, landing mostly on his undamaged leg. He reeled none the less at the jolt that shot up his spine. The messenger had followed suit and now stepped to his side. Slowing his breathing, he glanced at her. \"Get me my shield,\" he grated.\n\nAnother soldier assisted her in strapping the bronze shield to Itkovian's arm, drawing the supporting sling over his shoulder.\n\nThe Shield Anvil lowered the visor on his helm, then slid his sword from its scabbard while the captain issued commands to the five squads arrayed around them.\n\n\"Those with crossbows to the second line, stay low and keep your weapons cocked but lower still. Front line overlapping shields, swords on guard. All visors down. Sir,\" the captain addressed Itkovian, \"we are ready.\"\n\nHe nodded, said to the recruit, \"You are to be on my left. Now, forward at my pace.\"\n\nHe strode slowly up the rain-slick ramp.\n\nFifty-three silent soldiers followed.\n\nInto the antechamber, the squarish, high-ceilinged room lit by a single wavering torch set in a bracket on the right-hand wall. The two squads assigned to the chamber split to either side as the Shield Anvil led his troop towards the broad hallway where waited the main hall's double doors. The patter of shed rain accompanied them.\n\nAhead, muted through the thick, oak doors, was the sound of voices. Laughter tinged with hysteria. The crackle of burning wood.\n\nItkovian did not pause upon reaching the entrance, using shield and mailed fist to thrust open the twin doors. Ashe stepped through, the squads behind him spread out to take command of his end of the long, vaulted chamber." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Faces snapped round. Gaunt figures in rags lurched up from the chairs on either side of the long table. Utensils clattered and bones thumped to the floor. A wild-haired woman shrieked, scrabbled madly towards the young man seated in Jelarkan's throne.\n\n\"Gentle Mother,\" the man rasped, reaching out a shiny, grease-stained hand to her, yet holding his yellow-tinged eyes on Itkovian all the while, \"be calmed.\"\n\nShe grasped that hand in both of hers, fell to her knees whimpering.\n\n\"These are naught but guests, Mother. Come too late, alas, to partake of the... royal feast.\"\n\nSomeone screamed a laugh.\n\nOn the centre of the table was a huge silver plate, on which had been made afire from snapped chair legs and picture frames– mostly charcoal now. Spitted above it was the remains of a skinned human torso, no longer being turned, underside blackening. Severed at the knees, the two thighs bound as one by copper wire. Arms pulled off at the shoulders, though they too had once been tied. Head left on, split and charred.\n\nKnives had sliced off the flesh in places allover the body. Thighs, buttocks, chest, back, face. But this, Itkovian knew, had not been a feast born of hunger. These Tenescowri in this room looked better fed than any other he had yet seen. No, here, this night, had been a celebration.\n\nTo the left of the throne, half in shadow, was an X-shaped cross made from two pikes. On it was stretched Prince Jelarkan's skin.\n\n\"The dear prince was dead before we began cooking,\" the young man on the throne said. \"We are not consciously cruel, after all. You are not Brukhalian, for Brukhalian is dead. You must be Itkovian, the so-called Shield Anvil of Fener.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Seerdomin appeared from behind the throne, pale-armoured and helmed, fur-backed, their faces hidden by grilled face-baskets, heavy battleaxes in their gauntleted hands. Four, eight, a dozen. Twenty. And still more filed out.\n\nThe man on the throne smiled. \"Your soldiers look... tired. Unequal to this particular task. Do you know me, Itkovian? I am Anaster, First Child of the Dead Seed. Tell me, where are the people of this city? What have you done with them? Oh, let me guess. They cower in tunnels beneath the streets. Guarded by a handful of surviving Gidrath, a company or two of your Grey Swords, some of the prince's Capan Guard. I imagine Prince Arard hides below as well. A shame, that. We have wanted him along time. Well, the search for the hidden entrances continues. They shall be found. Capustan shall be cleansed, Shield Anvil, though, alas, you will not live to see that glorious day. '\n\nItkovian studied the young man, and saw what he had not expected to see. \"First Child,\" he said. \"There is despair within you. I will take it from you, sir, and with it your burdens.\"\n\nAnaster jolted as if he had been physically struck. He drew his knees up, climbed onto the seat of the throne, face twitching. A hand closed on the strange obsidian dagger in his belt, then flinched away as if the stone was hot.\n\nHis mother screamed, clawed up her son's outstretched arm. Snarling, he pulled himself free. She sank down to the floor, curled up.\n\n\"I am not your father,\" Itkovian continued, \"but I shall be as him. Unleash your flood, First Child.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The young man stared, lips peeling back to bare his teeth. \"Who– what are you?\" he hissed.\n\nThe captain stepped forward. \"We forgive your ignorance, sir,\" she said. 'He is the Shield Anvil. Fener knows grief, so much grief that it is beyond his capacity to withstand it. And so he chooses a human heart. Armoured. A mortal soul, to assume the sorrow of the world. The Shield Anvil.\n\n\"These days and nights have witnessed vast sorrow, profound shame– all of which, we see now, is writ as plain knowledge in your eyes. You cannot deceive yourself, sir, can you?\"\n\n\"You never could,\" Itkovian said. \"Give me your despair, First Child. I am ready to receive it.\"\n\nAnaster's wail rang through the main hall. He clambered still further up the throne's high back, arms wrapping around himself.\n\nAll eyes held on him.\n\nNo-one moved.\n\nChest heaving, the First Child stared at Itkovian. Then he shook his head. \"No,\" he whispered, \"you shall not have my– my despair.\"\n\nThe captain hissed. \"This is a gift! First Child-\"\n\n\"Not!\"\n\nItkovian seemed to sag. Sword-point wavering, lowering. The recruit moved close to support the Shield Anvil.\n\n\"You cannot have it! You cannot have it!\"\n\nThe captain's eyes were wide as she turned to Itkovian.\"Sir, I am unable to countenance this-'\n\nThe Shield Anvil shook his head, slowly straightened once more. \"No, I understand. The First Child– within him there is naught but despair. Without it...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He is as nothing.\n\n\"I want them all killed!\" Anaster shrieked brokenly. \"Seerdomin! Kill them all!\"\n\nForty Seerdomin surged forward to either side of the table.\n\nThe captain snapped a command. The front line behind her dropped in unison to one knee. The second line raised into view their crossbows. Twenty-four quarrels crossed the room. Not one missed.\n\nFrom the flanking guest-room entrances, more quarrels flashed.\n\nThe front line behind Itkovian rose and readied their weapons.\n\nOnly six Seerdomin remained standing. Figures both writhing and motionless covered the floor.\n\nThe Tenescowri at the table were fleeing towards the portal behind the throne.\n\nAnaster himself was the first to reach it, his mother a step behind him.\n\nThe Seerdomin charged Itkovian.\n\nI am not yet done.\n\nHis blade flashed. A helmed head leapt from its shoulders. A backhand slash snapped chain links and opened wide another Seerdomin's belly.\n\nCrossbows sounded once more.\n\nAnd the Grey Swords stood unopposed.\n\nThe Shield Anvil lowered his weapon. \"Captain,\" he said after a moment. \"Retrieve the prince's body. Have the skin taken down. We shall return Prince Jelarkan to his throne, to his rightful place. And this room, we shall now hold. Fora time. In the name of the prince. '\n\n\"The First Child-\"\n\nItkovian faced her. \"We will meet him again. I am his only salvation, sir, and I shall not fail him.\"\n\n\"You are the Shield Anvil,\" she intoned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am the Shield Anvil.\" I am Fener's grief. I am the world's grief. And I will hold. I will hold it all, for we are not yet done." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What the soul can house, flesh cannot fathom.\n\nThe Reve of Fener Imarak, First Destriant\n\nHOT, FEVERED, THE pebbled skin moved like a damp rock-filled sack. The Matron's body exuded an acrid oil. It had permeated Toc the Younger's ragged clothes. He slid between folds of flesh as the huge, bloated K'Chain Che'Malle shifted about on the gritty floor, massive arms wrapped around him in a fierce embrace.\n\nDarkness commanded the cave. The glimmers of light he saw were born within his mind. Illusions that might have been memories. Torn, fragmented scenes, of yellow-grassed low hills beneath warm sunlight. Figures, caught at the very edge of his vision. Some wore masks. One was naught but dead skin stretched over robust bone. Another was... beauty. Perfection. He believed in none of them. Their faces were the faces of his madness, looming ever closer, hovering at his shoulder.\n\nWhen sleep took him he dreamed of wolves. Hunting, not to feed, but to deliver... something else; he knew not what. The quarry wandered alone, the quarry fled when it saw him. Brothers and sisters at his side, he pursued. Relentless, leagues passing effortlessly beneath his paws. The small, frightened creature could not elude them. He and his kin drew nearer, exhausting it against the slopes of hills, until finally it faltered, then collapsed. They surrounded it.\n\nAs they closed in, to deliver... what was to be delivered... the quarry vanished.\n\nShock, then despair.\n\nHe and his kin would circle the spot where she'd lain. Heads lifted skyward, mournful howls issuing from their throats. Howling without surcease. Until Toc the Younger blinked awake, in the embrace of the Matron, the turgid air of the cave seeming to dance with the fading echoes of his howls. The creature would tighten her hold, then. Whimpering, prodding the back of his neck with a fanged snout, her breath like sugared milk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The cycles of his life. Sleep, then wakefulness punctuated by hallucinations. Smeared scenes of figures in golden sunlight, delusions of being a babe in his mother's arms, suckling at her breast– the Matron possessed no breasts, so he knew these to be delusions, yet was sustained by them none the less– and times when he began voiding his bladder and bowels, and she held him out when he did this, so he fouled only himself. She would then lick him clean, a gesture that stripped him of his last shreds of dignity.\n\nHer embrace broke bones. The more he screamed with the pain, the tighter she held him. He had learned to suffer in silence. His bones knitted with preternatural swiftness. Sometimes unevenly. He knew himself to be malformed– his chest, his hips, the blades of his shoulders.\n\nThen there came the visitations. A ghostly face, sheathed in the wrinkled visage of an old man, the hint of gleaming tusks, took form within his mind. Yellowed eyes that shone with glee fixed on his own.\n\nFamiliar, those overlapping faces, but Toc was unable to take his recognition any further.\n\nThe visitor would speak to him.\n\nThey are trapped, my friend. All but the T'lan Imass, who fears solitude. Why else would he not leave his companions? Swallowed in ice. Helpless. Frozen. The Seguleh– no need to fear them. Never was. I but played. And the woman! My rimed beauteous statue! Wolf and dog have vanished. Fled. Aye, the kin, brother of your eyes... fled. Tail between legs, hee hee!\n\nAnd again.\n\nYour Malazan army is too late! Too late to save Capustan! The city is mine. Your fellow soldiers are still a week away, my friend. We shall await them. We shall greet them as we greet all enemies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I will bring you the head of the Malazan general. I will bring you his cooked flesh, and we shall dine together, you and I, once more.\n\nHow much blood can one world shed? Have you ever wondered, Toc the Younger? Shall we see? Let us see, then. You and I, and dear Mother here– oh, is that horror I see in her eyes? Some sanity still resides in her rotted brain, it seems. How unfortunate... for her.\n\nAnd now, after along absence, he returned once more. The false skin of the old man was taut against the unhuman visage. The tusks were visible as if through a transparent sheath. The eyes burned, but not, this time, with glee.\n\nDeceit! They are not mortal beasts! How dare they assail my defences! Here, at the very gates! And now the T'lan Imass has vanished– I can find him nowhere! Does he come as well?\n\nSo be it. They shall not find you. We journey, the three of us. North, far beyond their reach. I have prepared another... nest for you two.\n\nThe inconvenience...\n\nBut Toc no longer heard him. His mind had been snatched away. He saw brittle white sunlight, a painful glare shimmering from ice-clad mountains and valleys buried in rivers of snow. In the sky, wheeling condors. And then, far more immediate, there was smoke, wooden structures shattered, stonewalls tumbled. Figures running, screaming. Crimson spattering the snow, filling the milky puddles of a gravel road.\n\nThe point of view– eyes that saw through a red haze– shifted, swung to one side. A mottled black and greyhound kept pace, shoulders at eye level to the armoured figures it was tearing into with blurred savagery. The creature was driving towards a second set of gates, an arched portal at the base of a towering fortress. None could stand before it, none could slow its momentum." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Grey dust swirled from the hound's shoulders. Swirled. Spun, twisted into arms, legs gripping the creature's flanks, a bone-helmed head, torn fur a ragged wing behind it. Raised high, a rippled sword the colour of old blood.\n\nHis bones are well, his flesh is not. My flesh is well, my bones are not. Are we brothers?\n\nHound and rider– nightmare vision– struck the huge, iron-banded gates.\n\nWood exploded. In the archway's gloom, terror plunged among a reeling knot of Seerdomin.\n\nLoping towards the breached portal, Toc rode his wolf's vision, saw into the shadows, where huge, reptilian shapes stepped into view to either side of the hound and its undead rider.\n\nThe K'ell Hunters raised their broad blades.\n\nSnarling, the wolf sprinted. His focus was the gate, every detail there sharp as broken glass whilst all that lay to either side blurred. A shift of weight brought him to the Ke'll Hunter closing from the hound and rider's left.\n\nThe creature pivoted, sword slashing to intercept his charge.\n\nThe wolf ducked beneath it, then surged upward, jaws wide. Leathery throat filled his mouth. His canines sank deep into lifeless flesh. Jaw muscles bunched. Bone cracked, then crumbled as the wolf inexorably closed its vice-grip, even as the momentum of his charge drove the K'ell Hunter back onto its tail, crashing against a wall that shuddered with the impact. Upper and lower canines met. Jagged molars ground together, slicing through wood-like tendon and dry muscle.\n\nThe wolf was severing the head from the body." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The K'Chain Che'Malle shook beneath him, spasmed. A flailing blade sliced into the wolf's right haunch.\n\nToc and beast flinched at the pain, yet did not relent.\n\nThe ornately helmed head fell back, away, thumped as it struck the slush-covered cobbles.\n\nSnarling, lifeless shreds snagged on his teeth, the wolf spun round.\n\nThe hound crouched, spine hunched, in a corner of the archway. Blood poured from it. Alone, to battle its wounds.\n\nThe undead swordsman– my brother– was on his leather-wrapped feet now, his flint sword trading blows with the other K'ell Hunter's twin blades. At speeds unimaginable. Chunks of the K'Chain Che'Malle flew. A sword-bound forearm spun end over end to land near the flinching hound.\n\nThe K'ell Hunter lurched back in the face of the onslaught. Shin-bones snapped with a brittle report. The huge creature fell over, spraying slush out to all sides.\n\nThe undead warrior clambered onto it, systematically swinging his sword to dismember the K'Chain Che'Malle. It was a task swiftly completed.\n\nThe wolf approached the wounded hound. The animal snapped a warning to stay away-\n\nToc was suddenly blind, ripped away from the wolf's vision.\n\nBitter winds tore at him, but the Matron held him tight. On the move. Swiftly. They travelled a warren, a path of riven ice. They were, he realized, fleeing Outlook, fleeing the fortress that had just been breached.\n\nBy Baaljagg. And Garath and Tool. Garath– those wounds-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Silence!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "a voice shrieked.\n\nThe Seer was with them, leading the way through Omtose Phellack.\n\nThe gift of clarity remained in Toc's mind. His laugh was a ragged gurgle.\n\n\"Shut up!\"\n\nThe entire warren shook to distant thunder, the sound of vast ice... cracking, exploding in a conflagration of sorcery.\n\nLady Envy. With us once more-\n\nThe Seer screamed.\n\nReptilian arms clenched Toc. Bones cracked, splintered. Pain shoved him over a precipice. My kin, my brothers-He blacked out.\n\nThe night sky to the south was lit red. Though over a league distant, from the slope of the sparsely wooded hill, Capustan's death was plain to see, drawing the witnesses to silence apart from the rustle of armour and weapons, and the squelch of boots and moccasins in mud.\n\nLeaves dripped a steady susurration. The soaked humus filled the warm air with its fecundity. Somewhere nearby a man coughed.\n\nCaptain Paran drew a dagger and began scraping the mud from his boots. He had known what to expect at this moment– his first sight of the city. Humbrall Taur's scouts had brought word back earlier in the day. The siege was over. The Grey Swords might well have demanded an emperor's ransom for their services, but fire-charred, tooth-gnawed bones could not collect it. Even so, knowing what to expect did little to diminish the pathos of a dying city.\n\nHad those Grey Swords been Crimson Guard, the scene before Paran might well be different. With the lone exception of Prince K'azz D'Avore's Company of the Avowed, mercenaries were less than worthless as far as the captain was concerned. Tough talk and little else." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Let's hope those children of Humbrall Taur have fared better. It did not seem likely. Pockets of resistance perhaps remained. Small knots of cornered soldiers, knowing mercy was out of the question, would fight to the last. In alleys, in houses, in rooms. Capustan's death-throes would be protracted. Then again, if these damned Barghast can actually manage a doubletime– instead of this squabbling saunter– we might be able to adjust that particular fate's conclusion.\n\nParan turned at the arrival of his new commander, Trotts.\n\nThe huge Barghast's eyes glittered as he studied the burning city.\"The rains have done little to dim the flames, ' he rumbled, scowling.\n\n\"Perhaps it's not as bad as it looks, \"Paran said.\"I can make out maybe five major fires. It could be worse– I've heard tales of firestorms...\"\n\n\"Aye. We saw one from afar, in Seven Cities, once.\"\n\n\"What's Humbrall Taur had to say, Warchief? Do we pickup our pace or do we just stand here? '\n\nTrotts bared his filed teeth. \"He will send the Barahn and the Ahkrata clans southeast. They are tasked with taking the landings and the floating bridges and barges. His own Senan and the Gilk will strike towards Capustan. The remaining clans will seize the Septarch's main supply camp, which lies between the landings and the city. '\n\n\"That's all very well, but if we keep dawdling-'\n\n\"Hetan and Cafal, Taur's children, are alive and not at risk. So the shouldermen insist. The bones are being protected, by strange sorceries. Strange, yet profoundly powerful. There is-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Damn you, Trotts! People are dying down there! People are being devoured!\"\n\nThe Barghast's grin broadened.\"Thus, I have been given leave... to lead my clan at apace of my own choosing. Captain, are you eager to be first among the White Faces into Capustan? '\n\nParan growled under his breath. He felt a need to draw his sword, felt a need to deliver vengeance, to finally– after all this time– strike a blow against the Pannion Domin. Quick Ben, in those moments when he was lucid and not raving with fever, had made it clear that the Domin held dire secrets, and a malevolence stained its heart. The fact of the Tenescowri was proof enough of that to the captain's mind.\n\nBut there was more to his need. He lived with pain. His stomach raged with spotfires. He had thrown up acidic bile and blood– revealing that truth to no-one. The pain bound him within himself, and those bindings were getting tighter.\n\nAnd another truth, one I keep pushing away. She's haunting me. Seeking my thoughts. But I'm not ready for her. Not yet, not with my stomach aflame...\n\nIt was no doubt madness– a delusion– but Paran believed that the pain would relent– all would be well once more– as soon as he delivered to the world the violence trapped within him. Folly or not, he clung to that belief. Only then will these pressures relent. Only then.\n\nHe was not ready to fail.\n\n\"Call up the Bridgeburners, then,\" Paran muttered. \"We can beat the north gate inside of a bell.\"\n\nTrotts grunted. \"All thirty-odd of us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, damn if we can't shame these Barghast into some haste-'\n\n\"This is your hope?\"\n\nParan glanced over at the man. \"Hood take us all, Trotts, you were the one who asked Taur to grant you leave. Do you expect the thirty-seven of us to retake Capustan all on our own? With an unconscious mage in tow?\"\n\nThe Barghast, eyes thinned to slits as he studied the city ahead, rolled his shoulders and said, \"We leave Quick Ben behind. As for retaking the city, I mean to try.\"\n\nAfter along moment, the captain grinned. \"Glad to hear it.\"\n\nThe march of the White Face Barghast had been slow, torturous. Early on, during the southward journey across the high plains, sudden duels brought the clans to a halt a half-dozen times a day. These were, finally, diminishing, and Humbrall Taur's decision to assign entire clans to specific tasks in the upcoming battle would effectively remove the opportunity in the days to come. For all that every warchief had bowed to the single cause– the liberation of their gods– longstanding enmities persisted.\n\nTrotts's new role as warchief of the Bridgeburners had proved something of a relief for Paran. He'd hated the responsibility of command. The pressure that was the well-being of every soldier under him had been a growing burden. As second-in-command, that pressure had diminished, if only slightly– but it was, for now, enough. Less pleasant was the fact that Paran had lost his role as representative of the Bridgeburners. Trotts had taken on the task of attending the war councils, leaving the captain out of the picture.\n\nIn the strictest sense, Paran remained in command of the Bridgeburners. But the company had become a tribe, insofar as Humbrall Taur and the Barghast were concerned, and tribes elected warchiefs, and that role belonged to Trotts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tree-studded hills behind them, the company of Bridgeburners moved down to the muddy verges of a seasonal stream that wound its way towards the city. Smoke from Capustan's fires obscured the stars overhead, and the rain of the past few days had softened the ground underfoot, lending it a spongy silence. Armour and weapons had been strapped tight; the Bridgeburners padded forward through the darkness without a sound.\n\nParan was three paces behind Trotts, who still held to his old role in Whiskeyjack's squad– that of taking point. Not the ideal position for the commander, but one that complemented the Barghast role of warchief. The captain was not happy with it. Worse, it showed Trotts's stubborn side all too clearly. Alack of adaptability that was disturbing in a leader.\n\nAn invisible presence seemed to settle on his shoulder, the touch of a distant, familiar mind. Paran grimaced. His link with Silverfox was growing stronger. This was the third time she had reached out to him this week. A faint brush of awareness, like the touching of fingers, tip to tip. He wondered if that made her able to see what he saw, wondered if she was reading his thoughts. Given all that he held within himself, Paran was beginning to instinctively recoil from her contact. His secrets were his own. She had no right to plunder them, if that was what she was doing. Even tactical necessity could not justify that to his mind. His frown deepened as her presence lingered. If it is her. What if-\n\nAhead, Trotts stopped, settling into a crouch, one hand raised. He gestured twice.\n\nParan and the soldier immediately behind him moved to join the Barghast warrior." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had reached the Pannions' north pickets. The encampment was a shambles, bereft of organization, sloppily prepared and seriously undermanned. Litter cluttered the trodden paths between trenches, pits, and the ragged sprawl of makeshift tents. The air was redolent with poorly placed latrines.\n\nThe three men studied the scene fora moment longer, then withdrew to rejoin the others. The squad sergeants slipped forward. A huddle was formed.\n\nSpindle, who had been the soldier accompanying Paran, was the first to speak. \"Medium infantry on station,\" he whispered. \"Two small companies by the pair of standards-\"\n\n\"Two hundred,\" Trotts agreed. \"More in the tents. Sick and wounded.\"\n\n\"Mostly sick, I'd say, \"Spindle replied.\"Dysentery, I'd guess, by the smell. These Pannion officers ain't worth dung. Them sick ones won't be in the fighting no matter what we do. Guess everyone else is in the city.\"\n\n\"The gates beyond,\" Trotts growled.\n\nParan nodded. \"Lots of bodies before it. A thousand corpses, maybe more. No barricades at the gates themselves, nor could I see any guard. The overconfidence of victors.\"\n\n\"We gotta punch through them medium infantry,\" Sergeant Antsy muttered. \"Spindle, how are you and the rest of the sappers for Moranth munitions?\"\n\nThe small man grinned. \"Found your nerve again, eh, Antsy?\"\n\nThe sergeant scowled. \"This is fightin\", ain't it? Now answer my question, soldier.\"\n\n\"We got plenty. Wish we had a few of them lobbers Fiddler makes, though.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Paran blinked, then recalled the oversized crossbows Fiddler and Hedge used to extend the range of cussers. \"Doesn't Hedge have one? ' he asked.\n\n\"He broke it, the idiot. No, we'll prime some cussers but that'll be just for sowing. Sharpers, tonight. Burners would make too much light– let the enemy see how few of us there really are. Sharpers. I'll gather the lads and lasses. '\n\n\"I thought you were a mage,\" Paran muttered as the man turned towards the waiting squads.\n\nSpindle glanced back. \"I am, Captain. And I'm a sapper, too. Deadly combination, eh? '\n\n\"Deadly for us,\" Antsy retorted. \"That and your damned hairshirt-\"\n\n\"Hey, the burnt patches are growing back– see?\"\n\n\"Get to it,\" Trotts growled.\n\nSpindle started tagging off squad sappers.\n\n\"So we just punch right through,\" Paran said. \"With the sharpers that should be no problem, but then the ones on the outside flanks will sweep in behind us-\"\n\nSpindle rejoined them in time to grunt and say, \"That's why we'll sow cussers, Captain. Two drops on the wax. Ten heartbeats. The word's\"run\", and when we shout it that's what you'd better do, and fast. If you're less than thirty paces away when they go up, you're diced liver. '\n\n\"You ready?\" Trotts asked Spindle.\n\n\"Aye. Nine of us, so expect just under thirty paces wide, the path we carve.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Weapons out,\" the Barghast said. Then he reached out and gripped Spindle's hairshirt and dragged him close. Trotts grinned.\"No mistakes. '\n\n\"No mistakes,\" the man agreed, eyes widening as Trotts clacked his sharpened teeth inches from his face.\n\nA moment later, Spindle and his eight fellow sappers were moving towards the enemy lines, hooded and shapeless in their rain-capes.\n\nThe presence brushed Paran's awareness once again. He did all he could in his mind to push it away. The acid in his stomach swirled, murmuring a promise of pain. He drew a deep breath to steady himself. If swords clash... it will be my first. After all this time, my first battle...\n\nThe enemy medium infantry were huddled in groups, twenty or more to each of a row of hearths on the encampment's only high ground– what used to be a cart track running parallel to the city wall. Paran judged that a path thirty paces wide would takeout most of three groups.\n\nLeaving well over a hundred Pannions capable of responding. If there were any capable officers among them, this could get ugly. Then again, if there were any capable officers there the squads wouldn't be clumped up the way they are...\n\nThe sappers had gone to ground. The captain could no longer see them. Shifting his grip on his sword, he checked back over a shoulder to scan the rest of the Bridgeburners. Picker was at the forefront, a painful expression on her face. He was about to ask her what was wrong when detonations cracked through the night. The captain spun round.\n\nBodies writhed in the firelight of the now scattered hearths." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trotts loosed a quavering warcry.\n\nThe Bridgeburners sprinted forward.\n\nMore sharpers exploded, out to the sides now, dropping the mobbed, confused soldiers around adjacent hearths.\n\nParan saw the dark forms of the sappers, converging directly ahead, squatting down amidst dead and dying Pannions.\n\nCrossbows thunked in the hands of the dozen or so Bridgeburners who carried them.\n\nScreams rang.\n\nTrotts leading the way, the Bridgeburners reached the charnel path, passed around the crouching sappers who were one and all readying the larger cussers. Two drops of acid to the wax plug sealing the hole in the clay grenado.\n\nA chorus of muted hisses.\n\n\"Run!\"\n\nParan cursed. Ten heartbeats suddenly seemed no time at all. Cussers were the largest of the Moranth munitions. A single one could make the intersection of four streets virtually impassable. The captain ran.\n\nHis heart almost seized in his chest as he fixed his eyes on the gate directly ahead. The thousand corpses were stirring. Oh damn. Not dead at all. Sleeping. The bastards were sleeping!\n\n\"Down down down!\"\n\nThe word was Malazan, the voice was Hedge's.\n\nParan hesitated only long enough to see Spindle, Hedge and the other sappers arrive among them... to throw cussers. Forward. Into the massing ranks of Tenescowri between them and the gates. Then they dived flat.\n\n\"Oh, Hood!\" The captain threw himself down, slid across gritty mud, releasing his grip on his sword and clamping both hands to his ears." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ground punched the breath from his lungs, threw his legs into the air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He thumped back down in the mud. On his back. He had time to begin his roll before the cussers directly ahead exploded. The impact sent him tumbling. Bloody shreds rained down on him.\n\nA large object thumped beside Paran's head. He blinked his eyes open. To see a man's hips– just the hips, the concavity where intestines belonged yawning black and wet. Thighs were gone, taken at the joints. The captain stared.\n\nHis ears were ringing. He felt blood trickling from his nose. His chest ached. Distant screaming wailed through the night.\n\nA hand closed on his rain-cape, tugged him upright.\n\nMallet. The healer leaned close to press the captain's sword into his hands, then shouted words Paran barely heard.\"Come on! They're all getting the Hood out of here!\" A shove sent the captain stumbling forward.\n\nHis eyes saw, but his mind failed in registering the devastation to either side of the path they now ran down towards the north gate. He felt himself shutting down inside, even as he slipped and staggered through the human ruin... shutting down as he had once before, years ago, on a road in Itko Kan.\n\nThe hand of vengeance stayed cold only so long. Any soul possessing a shred of humanity could not help but seethe reality behind cruel deliverance, no matter how justified it might have at first seemed. Faces blank in death. Bodies twisted in postures no-one unbroken could achieve. Destroyed lives. Vengeance yielded a mirror to every atrocity, where notions of right and wrong blurred and lost all relevance.\n\nHe saw, to the right and left, fleeing figures. A few sharpers cracked, hastening the rout." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Bridgeburners had announced themselves to the enemy.\n\nWe are their match, the captain realized as he ran, in calculated brutality. But this is a war of nerves where no-one wins.\n\nThe unchallenged darkness of the gate swallowed Paran and his fellow Bridgeburners. Boots skidded as the soldiers halted their mad sprint. Dropping into crouches. Reloading crossbows. Not a word spoken.\n\nTrotts reached a handout and dragged Hedge close. The Barghast shook the man hard fora moment, then made to throw him down. A squeal from Spindle stopped him. Hedge, after all, carried a leather sack half full of munitions.\n\nHis face still amass of bruises from Detoran's fond touch, Hedge cursed.\"Ain't no choice, you big ape!\"\n\nParan could hear the words. An improvement. He wasn't sure who he sided with on this one, but the truth of it was, it no longer mattered.\"Trotts! \"he snapped.\"What now? If we wait here-'\n\nThe Barghast grunted. \"Into the city, low and quiet.\"\n\n\"Which direction?\" Antsy asked.\n\n\"We head to the Thrall-\"\n\n\"Fine, and what's that? '\n\n\"The glowing keep, you thick-skulled idiot.\"\n\nThey edged forward, out from beneath the archway's gloom, onto the concourse immediately beyond. Their steps slowed as flickering firelight revealed the nightmare before them.\n\nThere had been vast slaughter, and then there had been a feast. The cobbles were ankle-deep in bones, some charred, others red and raw with bits of tendon and flesh still clinging to them. And fully two-thirds of the dead, the captain judged from what he could see of uniforms and clothing, belonged to the invaders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Gods,\" Paran muttered, \"the Pannions paid dearly.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I think I should revise my estimation of the Grey Swords.\n\nSpindle nodded. \"Even so, numbers will tell.\"\n\n\"A day or two earlier...\" Mallet said.\n\nNo-one bothered finishing the thought. There was no need.\n\n\"What's your problem, Picker? ' Antsy demanded.\n\n\"Nothing!\" the woman snapped. \"It's nothing. '\n\n\"Is that the Thrall, then?\" Hedge asked. \"That glowing dome? There, through the smoke-\"\n\n\"Let's go, ' Trotts said.\n\nThe Bridgeburners ranging out cautiously in the Barghast's wake, they set forth, across the grisly concourse, to a main avenue that seemed to lead directly towards the strangely illumined structure. The style of the houses and tenement blocks to either side– those that were still standing– was distinctly Daru to Paran's eyes. The rest of the city, he saw from fragmented glimpses downside alleys and avenues where fires still burned– was completely different. Vaguely alien. And, everywhere, bodies.\n\nFurther down the street, piles of still-fleshed corpses rose like the slope of a hill.\n\nThe Bridgeburners said nothing as they neared that slope. The truth before them was difficult to comprehend. On this street alone, there were at least ten thousand bodies. Maybe more. Sodden, already swollen, the flesh pale around gaping, blood-drained wounds. Concentrated mounds around building entrances, alley mouths, an estate's gate, the stepped approaches to gutted temples. Faces and sightless eyes reflected flames, making expressions seem to writhe in mocking illusion of animation, of life.\n\nTo continue on the street, the Bridgeburners would have to climb that slope." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trotts did not hesitate.\n\nWord arrived from the small company's rearguard. Tenescowri had entered through the gate, were keeping pace like silent ghosts behind them. A few hundred, no more than that. Poorly armed. No trouble. Trotts simply shrugged at the news.\n\nThey scrambled their way up the soft, flesh-laden ramp.\n\nDo not look down. Do not think of what is underfoot. Think only of the defenders, who must have fought on. Think of courage almost inhuman, defying mortal limits. Of these Grey Swords– those motionless, uniformed corpses in those door-ways, crowding the alley mouths. Fighting on, and on. Yielding nothing. Cut to pieces where they stood.\n\nThese soldiers humble us all. A lesson... for the Bridgeburners around me. This brittle, heart-broken company. We've come to a war devoid of mercy.\n\nThe ramp had been fashioned. There was an intention to its construction. It was an approach. To what?\n\nIt ended in a tumbled heap, at a level less than a man's height below the roof of a tenement block. Opposite the building there had been another just like it, but fire had reduced it to smouldering rubble.\n\nTrotts stopped at the ramp's very edge. The rest followed suit, crouching down, looking around, trying to comprehend the meaning of all that they saw. The ragged end revealed the truth: there was no underlying structure to this ghastly construct. It was indeed solid bodies.\n\n\"A siege ramp,\" Spindle finally said in a quiet, almost diffident tone. \"They wanted to get to somebody-\"\n\n\"Us,\" a low voice rumbled from above them." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Keep the narrative going for the author.\nTags: epic fantasy, alliance, ancient threats, camaraderie, tragic events\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Memories of Ice\nChapter: 20" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You make it clear that my welcome is at an end,\" Quick Ben said, sighing as he set down the goblet.\n\n\"Not necessarily. You need only tell me everything, and we can continue in this civil fashion.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid that won't be possible,\" the Malazan replied. \"None the less, I will inform you that the entity poisoning the warrens is the Crippled God. You will have to consider... retaliation... against him. Rather sooner than you might think.\"\n\n\"Thank you. I'll not deny I am impressed by your mastery of six warrens, Quick Ben. In retrospect, you should have held back on at least half of what you command. ' The man made to rise.\n\n\"But, Bauchelain,\" the wizard replied, \"I did.\"\n\nThe divan, and the man on it, fared little better when struck by the power of a half-dozen bound warrens than had the wall and Korbal Broach moments earlier.\n\nQuick Ben met Emancipor Reese in the smoky hallway leading to the estate's front doors. The servant had wrapped a cloth around the lower half of his face, his eyes streaming as he squinted at the wizard.\n\n\"Your masters require your attention, Emancipor.\"\n\n\"They're alive? '\n\n\"Of course. Although smoke inhalation-\"\n\nThe servant pushed past Quick Ben. \"What is wrong with all of you?\" he barked.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" the Malazan asked after him.\n\nEmancipor half turned. \"Ain't it obvious? When you swat a wasp to the ground, you then use your heel, right? Otherwise, you're liable to get stung!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you encouraging me to kill your masters?\"\n\n\"You're all Hood-damned idiots, that's what you are! Clean this up, Mancy! Scrub that down! Bury this in the garden! Pack those trunks– we're leaving in a hurry! It's my curse– no-one kills them! You think I like my job? Idiots! You think-\"\n\nThe old man was still roaring as Quick Ben retreated outside.\n\nTalamandas awaited him on the threshold. \"He's right, you know-'\n\n\"Quiet,\" the wizard snapped.\n\nIn the courtyard beyond, the undead guards had all toppled from the walkway on the wall and lay sprawled on the flagstones, but movement was returning to them. Limbs wavered and twitched. Like armoured beetles on their backs. We'd better get out of here. Because, now, I am all used up.\n\n\"I'd almost moved to that wall you destroyed, you know. '\n\n\"That would have been very unfortunate,\" Quick Ben replied. \"Climb aboard– we're leaving. '\n\n\"Finally, some wisdom!\"\n\nBauchelain's eyes opened. Emancipor looked down on him.\n\n\"We're in the garden, master, \"the servant said.\"I dragged you and Korbal out. Doused the fire, too. Got to go open all the windows now... '\n\n\"Very good, Emancipor,\" the grey-bearded necromancer groaned after a moment. \"Emancipor,\" he called when the servant made to move away.\n\n\"Master?\"\n\n\"I confess... to a certain... confusion. Do we possess some chronic flaw, Emancipor?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sir?\"\n\n\"Underestima-oh, never mind, Emancipor. Be about your tasks, then.\"\n\n\"Aye, master.\"\n\n\"Oh, and you've earned a bonus for your efforts– what do you wish? '\n\nThe servant stared down at Bauchelain fora dozen heartbeats, then he shook his head. \"It's all right, master. Part of my job. And I'll be about it, now.\"\n\nThe necromancer raised his head to watch the old man trudge back into the house. \"Such a modest man,\" he breathed. He looked down the length of his tattered, bruised body, and raggedly sighed. \"What's left in my wardrobe, I wonder? '\n\nInsofar as he could recall– and given recent events– not much.\n\nShrouded once more in shadow, Quick Ben made his way down the rubble-littered street. Most of the fires had either died down or been extinguished, and not one of the remaining structures showed any light behind shutters or from gaping windows. The stars commanded the night sky, though darkness ruled the city.\n\n\"Damned eerie,\" Talamandas whispered.\n\nThe wizard softly grunted. \"That's rich, coming from someone who's spent generations in an urn in the middle of a barrow.\"\n\n\"Wanderers like you have no appreciation of familiarity,\" the sticksnare sniffed.\n\nThe dark mass of the Thrall blotted the skyline directly ahead. Faint torchlight from the square before the main gate cast the structure's angled stones in dulled relief. As they entered an avenue that led to the concourse they came upon the first knot of Barghast, surrounding a small fire built from broken furniture. Tarps slung between the buildings down the avenue's length made the passage beyond a kind of tunnel, strikingly similar to market streets in Seven Cities. Figures lay sleeping along the edges down the entire length. Various cookfires painted smoke-stained, mottled patterns of light on the undersides of the tarps. A good many Barghast warriors remained awake, watchful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Try wending unseen through that press, Wizard,\" Talamandas murmured." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We'll have to go round, assuming you still cling to your bizarre desire to slink like a mouse in a hut full of cats. In case you've forgotten, those are my kin-\"\n\n\"Be quiet,\" Quick Ben commanded under his breath. \"Consider this another test of our partnership– and the warrens.\"\n\n\"We're going straight through? '\n\n\"We are.\"\n\n\"Which warren? Not D'riss again, please– these cobbles-'\n\n\"No no, we'd end up soaked in old blood. We won't go under, Talamandas. We'll go over. Serc, the Path of the Sky. '\n\n\"Thought you'd exhausted yourself back at the estate. '\n\n\"I have. Mostly. We could sweat a bit on this one.\"\n\n\"I don't sweat. '\n\n\"Let's test that, shall we? \"The wizard unveiled the warren of Serc. Little alteration was discernible in the scene around them. Then, slowly, as Quick Ben's eyes adjusted, he detected currents in the air, the layers of cold and warm flowing parallel to the ground, the spirals coiling skyward from between the tarps, the wake of passing figures, the heat-memory of stone and wood.\n\n\"Looks sickly,\" the sticksnare muttered. \"You would swim those currents?\"\n\n\"Why not? We're almost as insubstantial as the air we see before us. I can get us started, but the problem then is keeping me afloat. You're right– I've no reserves left. So, it's up to you, Talamandas.\"\n\n\"Me? I know nothing of Serc.\"\n\n\"I'm not asking you to learn, either. What I want is your power. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That wasn't part of the deal! '\n\n\"It is now.\"\n\nThe sticksnare shifted and twitched on Quick Ben's shoulder.\"By drawing on my power, you weaken the protection I offer against the poison. '\n\n\"And we need to find that threshold, Talamandas. I need to know what I can pull from you in an emergency.\"\n\n\"Just how nasty a situation are you anticipating when we finally challenge the Crippled God?\" the sticksnare demanded. \"Those secret plans of yours– no wonder you're keeping them secret! '\n\n\"I could have sworn you said you were offering yourself up as a sacrifice to the cause– do you now balk?\"\n\n\"At madness? Count on it, Wizard!\"\n\nQuick Ben smiled to himself. \"Relax, I'm not stoking a pyre for you. Nor have I any plans to challenge the Crippled God. Not directly. I've been face to face with him once, and once remains enough. Even so, I was serious about finding that threshold. Now, pull the cork, shaman, and let's see what we can manage. '\n\nHissing with fury, Talamandas growled reluctant assent.\n\nQuick Ben rose from the ground, slipped forward on the nearest current sweeping down the length of the street. The flow was cool, dipping down beneath the tarps. A moment before reaching the downdraught, the wizard nudged himself upward, into a spiral of heat from one of the fires. They shot straight up.\n\n\"Dammit!\" Quick Ben snapped as he spun and cavorted on the column of heat. Gritting his teeth, the wizard reached for the sticksnare's power– and found what he had suspected to be the truth all along." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hood's." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Through and through. Of the Barghast gods, barely a drop of salty piss. The damned newcomers are stretched far too thin. Wonder what's drawing on their energies? There's a card in the Deck, in the House of Death, that's been a role unfilled fora long, longtime. The Magi. I think it's just found a face– one painted on a stupid acorn. Talamandas, you may have made a terrible mistake. And as for you, Barghast gods, here's some wisdom to heed in the future. Never hand your servants over to another god, because they're not likely to stay your servants for long. Instead, that god's likely to turn them into weapons... aimed directly at your backs.\n\nDear Barghast gods, you're in a world of predators, nastier by far than what was around in the past. Lucky for you I'm here.\n\nHe drew on that power, harshly.\n\nThe sticksnare writhed, twig fingers digging into the wizard's shoulder and neck.\n\nIn his mind, Quick Ben closed an implacable grip on the Lord of Death's power, and pulled.\n\nCome tome, bastard. We're going to talk, you and I.\n\nWithin his clenched hand was the rough weave of cloth, stretching, bunching. The breath of Death flowed over the wizard, the presence undeniable, heavy with rage.\n\nAnd, in the clutch of a mortal, entirely helpless.\n\nQuick Ben grunted a laugh. \"So much for thresholds. You want to ally with me, Hood? All right, I'll give you fair consideration, despite the deception. But you're going to have to tell me what you're up to. '\n\n\"Damned fool!\" Hood's voice was thunderous in the wizard's skull, launching waves of pain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Quieter,\" Quick Ben gritted. \"Or I'll drag you through hide and all and Fener won't be the only god who's fair game. '\n\n\"The House of Chains must be denied!\"\n\nThe wizard blinked, knocked sideways by Hood's statement.\"The House of Chains? It's the poison we're trying to excise, isn't it? Burn's fever– the infected warrens-'\n\n\"The Master of the Deck must be convinced, mortal. The Crippled God's House is finding... adherents-'\n\n\"Wait a moment. Adherents? Among the pantheon?\"\n\n\"Betrayal, aye. Poliel, Mistress of Pestilence, aspires to the role of Consort to the King in Chains. A Herald has been... recruited. An ancient warrior seeks to become Reaver; whilst the House has found, in a distant land, its Mortal Sword. Mowri now embraces the Three– Cripple, Leper and Fool– which are in place of Spinner, Mason and Soldier. Most disturbing of all, ancient power trembles around the last of the dread cards... mortal, the Master of the Deck must not remain blind to the threat.\"\n\nQuick Ben scowled. \"Captain Paran's not the blinkered type, Hood. Indeed, he likely sees things clearer than even you– far more dispassionately, at least, and something tells me that cold reason is what will be needed come the time to decide. In any case, the House of Chains maybe your problem, but the poison within the warrens is mine. \"That, and what it's doing to Burn.\n\n\"Misdirection, wizard– you are being led astray. You will find no answers, no solutions within the Pannion Domin, for the Seer is at the heart of an altogether different tale.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'd guessed as much, Hood. Even so, I plan on unravelling the bastard– and his power. '\n\n\"Which will avail you nothing.\"\n\n\"That's what you think, \"Quick Ben replied, grinning.\"I am going to call upon you again, Hood. '\n\n\"And why should I answer? You've not heard a word I've-\"\n\n\"I have, but consider this, Lord. The Barghast gods maybe young and inexperienced, but that won't last. Besides, young gods are dangerous gods. Scar them now and they'll not forget the one who delivered the wound. You've offered to help, so you'd better do just that, Hood.\"\n\n\"You dare threaten me-\"\n\n\"Now who's not listening? I am not threatening you, I am warning you. And not just about the Barghast gods, either. Treach has found a worthy Mortal Sword– can you not feel him? Here I am, a thousand paces or more away from him, with at least twenty walls of stone between us, and I can feel the man. He's wrapped in the pain of a death– someone close, whose soul you now hold. He's no friend of yours, Hood, this Mortal Sword. '\n\n\"Do you not think I welcomed all that he has delivered? Treach promised me souls, and his human servant has provided them.\"\n\n\"In other words, the Tiger of Summer and the Barghast gods have followed through on their sides of the deal. Now, you'd better do the same, and that includes relinquishing Talamandas when the time comes. Hold to the spirit of the agreement, Hood... unless you learned nothing from the mistakes you made with Dassem Ultor... '\n\nThe wizard felt seething rage burgeon from the Lord of Death, yet the god remained silent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aye,\" Quick Ben growled, \"think on that. In the meantime, you're going to ease loose your power, sufficient to carry me over this crowd of Barghast, and into the plaza in front of the Thrall. Then you're going to withdraw, far enough to give Talamandas the freedom he's supposed to have. Hover behind his painted eyes, if you so desire, but no closer. Until I decide I need you once more. '\n\n\"You will be mine one day, mortal-\"\n\n\"No doubt, Hood. In the meantime, let's just luxuriate in the anticipation, shall we? \"With these words, the wizard released his grip on the god's cloak. The presence flinched back.\n\nPower flowed steady, the currents of air drawing Quick Ben and the sticksnare clinging to his shoulder over the tops of the canopies.\n\nTalamandas hissed. \"What has happened? I, uh, vanished fora moment.\"\n\n\"Everything's fine, \"the wizard murmured.\"Does the power feel true, Sticksnare? '\n\n\"Aye, it does. This, this I can use.\"\n\n\"Glad to hear it. Now, guide us to the plaza.\"\n\nA thin gauze of old smoke dulled the stars overhead. Captain Paran sat on the wide steps of the Thrall's main entrance. Directly ahead, at the end of a wide avenue, stood the gatehouse. Visible through its open doorway, in the plaza beyond, firelight from Barghast camps gleamed through gathering mists.\n\nThe Malazan was exhausted, yet sleep would not come to him. His thoughts had wandered countless paths since he'd left Cafal's company two bells earlier. Barghast shouldermen still worked in the chamber, dismantling the canoes, collecting ancient weapons. Outside that room and beyond that activity, the Thrall seemed virtually deserted, lifeless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The empty halls and corridors led Paran inexorably to what he imagined his parents'estate in Unta might now look like, with his mother and father dead, Felisin chained to a line in some mining pita thousand leagues away, and dear sister Tavore dwelling in a score opulent chambers in Laseen's palace.\n\nA house alone with its memories, looted by servants and guards and the street's gutter rats. Did the Adjunct ever ride past? Did her thoughts turn to it in the course of her busy day?\n\nShe was not one to spare a moment to sentiment. Cold-eyed, hers was a brutal rationality, pragmatism with a thousand honed edges– to cut open anyone foolish enough to come close.\n\nThe Empress would be well pleased with her new Adjunct.\n\nAnd what of you, Felisin? With your wide smile and dancing eyes? There is no modesty in the Otataral Mines, nothing to shield you from the worst of human nature. You'll have been taken under wing none the less, by some pimp or pit-thug.\n\nA flower crushed underfoot.\n\nYet your sister has it in mind to retrieve you– that much I know of her. She might well have thrown in a guardian or two for the length of your sentence.\n\nBut she'll not be rescuing a child. Not anymore. No smile, and something hard and deadly in those once-dancing eyes. You should have found another way, sister. Gods, you should have killed Felisin outright– that would have been a mercy.\n\nAnd now, now I fear you will someday pay dearly...\n\nParan slowly shook his head. His was a family none would envy. Torn apart by our own hands, no less. And now, we siblings, each launched on our separate fates. The likelihood of those fates' one day converging never seemed so remote." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The worn steps before him were flecked with ash; as if the only survivor in this city was the stone itself. The darkness felt solemn, sorrowful. All the sounds that should have accompanied the night, in this place, were absent. Hood feels close this night...\n\nOne of the massive double doors behind him swung open. The captain glanced back over a shoulder, then nodded. \"Mortal Sword. You look well... rested.\"\n\nThe huge man grimaced. \"I feel beaten to within a finger's breadth of my life. That's a mean woman.\"\n\n\"I've heard men say that of their women before, and always there's a pleased hint to the complaint. As I hear now.\"\n\nGruntle frowned. \"Aye, you're right. Funny, that. '\n\n\"These stairs are wide. Have a seat if you like.\"\n\n\"I would not disturb your solitude, Captain.\"\n\n\"Please do, it's nothing I would regret abandoning. Too many dark thoughts creep in when I'm alone.\"\n\nThe Mortal Sword moved forward and slowly settled down onto the step at Paran's side, his tattered armour– straps loose– rustling and clinking. He rested his forearms on his knees, the gauntleted hands dangling.\"I share the same curse, Captain. '\n\n\"Fortunate, then, that you found Hetan.\"\n\nThe man grunted. \"Problem is, she's insatiable. '\n\n\"In other words, you're the one in search of solitude, which my presence has prevented. '\n\n\"So long as you don't claw my back, your company is welcome. '\n\nParan nodded. \"I'm not the catty type– uh, sorry. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No need. If Trake ain't got a sense of humour that's his problem. Then again, he must have, since he picked meas his Mortal Sword.\"\n\nParan studied the man beside him. Behind the barbed tattoos was a face that had lived hard years. Weathered, roughly chiselled, with eyes that matched those of a tiger's now that the god's power was within his flesh and blood. None the less, there were laugh lines around those eyes. \"Seems tome Trake chose wisely...\"\n\n\"Not if he expects piety, or demands vows. Hood knows, I don't even like fighting. I'm not a soldier and have no desire to be. How, then, am I supposed to serve the God of War?\"\n\n\"Better you, I think, than some blood-lusting square-foot with a single eyebrow, Gruntle. Reluctance to unsheathe those swords and all they represent seems a good thing tome. The gods know it's rare enough at the moment. '\n\n\"Not sure about that. This whole city was reluctant. The priests, the Gidrath, even the Grey Swords. If there'd been any other way... \"He shrugged.\"The same for me. If it wasn't for what happened to Harllo and Stonny, I'd be down in the tunnels right now, gibbering with the rest of them. '\n\n\"Stonny's your friend with the broken rapier, right? Who's Harllo?\"\n\nGruntle turned his head away fora moment. \"Another victim, Captain.\" Bitterness filled his tone. \"Just one more on the trail. So I hear that your Malazan army's just west of here, come to join this death-cursed war. Why? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A temporary aberration. We ran out of enemies.\"\n\n\"Soldiers\" humour. I never could understand it. Is fighting that important to you? '\n\n\"If you mean me, personally, then no, it isn't. But for men like Dujek Onearm and Whiskeyjack, it's the sum total of their lives. They're makers of history. Their gift is the power to command. What they do revises the scholar's maps. As for the soldiers who follow them, I'd say that most of them see it as a profession, a career, probably the only one they're any good at. They are the physical will of the commanders they serve, and so are their own makers of history, one soldier at a time.\"\n\n\"And what happens if their commanders are suicidal fools?\"\n\n\"It's a soldier's lotto complain about their officers. Every mud-crusted footman is an artist at second-guessing, master strategists after the fact. But the truth is, the Malazan Empire has a tradition of superb, competent commanders. Hard and fair, usually from the ranks, though I'll grant you my own noble class has made destructive inroads on that tradition. Had I myself followed a safer path, I might well be a Fist by now– not through competence, of course, or even experience. Connections would have sufficed. The Empress has finally recognized the rot, however, and has already acted upon it, though likely too late. '\n\n\"Then why in Hood's name would she have outlawed Dujek Onearm? '\n\nParan was silent fora moment, then he shrugged. \"Politics. Expedience can force even the hand of an Empress, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Has the sound of a feint tome,\" Gruntle muttered. \"You don't cut loose your best commander in a fit of pique. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You might be right. Alas, I'm not the one who can either confirm or deny. There's some old wounds still festering between Laseen and Dujek, in any case.\"\n\n\"Captain Paran, you speak too freely for your own good– not that I'm a liability, mind you. But you've an openness and an honesty that might earn you the gallows someday.\"\n\n\"Here's some more, Mortal Sword. Anew House has appeared, seeking membership in the Deck of Dragons. It belongs to the Crippled God. I can feel the pressure– the voice of countless gods, all demanding that I deny my sanction, since it seems that I am the one cursed with that responsibility. Do I bless the House of Chains, or not? The arguments against such a blessing are overwhelming, and I don't need any god whispering in my head to apprise me of that.\"\n\n\"So, where is the problem, Captain?\"\n\n\"It's simple. There's alone voice crying out, deep within me, so buried as to be almost inaudible. Alone voice, Gruntle, demanding the very opposite. Demanding that I must sanction the House of Chains. I must bless the Crippled God's right to a place within the Deck of Dragons. '\n\n\"And whose voice cries out such madness?\"\n\n\"I think it's mine. '\n\nGruntle was silent fora dozen heartbeats, yet Paran felt the man's unhuman eyes fixed on him. Eventually, the Mortal Sword looked away and shrugged.\"I don't know much about the Deck of Dragons. Used for divinations, yes? Not something I've ever pursued. '\n\n\"Nor I,\" Paran admitted.\n\nGruntle barked a laugh, sharp and echoing, then he slowly nodded. \"And what did you say of me earlier? Better a man who hates war to serve the God of War than one who lusts for it. Thus, why not a man who knows nothing of the Deck of Dragons to adjudicate it rather than a lifelong practitioner?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You may have something there. Not that it alleviates my sense of inadequacy.\"\n\n\"Aye, just that.\" He paused, then continued, \"I felt my god recoil at your words, Captain– your instincts on the Crippled God's House of Chains. But as I said before, I'm not a follower. So I guess I saw it different. If Trake wants to tremble on four watery legs that's his business. '\n\n\"Your lack of fear has me curious, Gruntle. You seem to see no risk in legitimizing the House of Chains. Why is that?\"\n\nThe man shrugged his massive shoulders. \"But that's just it, isn't it. Legitimizing. Right now, the Crippled God's outside the whole damned game, meaning he's not bound by any rules whatsoever-\"\n\nParan suddenly sat straight. \"You're right. Abyss take me, that's it. If I bless the House of Chains then the Crippled God becomes... bound-\"\n\n\"Just another player, aye, jostling on the same board. Right now, he just keeps kicking it whenever he gets the chance. When he's on it, he won't have that privilege. Anyway, that's how it seems tome, Captain. So when you said you wanted to sanction the House, I thought: why the fuss? Sounds perfectly reasonable tome. The gods can be damned thick-witted on occasion– probably why they need us mortals to do the straight thinking when straight thinking's required. Listen to that lone voice, lad, that's my advice. '\n\n\"And it's good advice-'\n\n\"Maybe, or maybe not. I might end up being roasted over the eternal fires of the Abyss by Trake and all the other gods for having given it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll have company, then, ' Paran said, grinning.\n\n\"Good thing we both hate solitude.\"\n\n\"That's a soldier's humour, Gruntle.\"\n\n\"Is it? But I was being serious, Captain.\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\nGruntle glanced over. \"Got you.\"\n\nA sliding downdraught of cool air brought Quick Ben onto the gritty flagstones of the plaza. A dozen paces ahead loomed the gatehouse. Beyond it, seated side by side on the Thrall's wide, low steps, were Captain Paran and the Mortal Sword.\n\n\"Just the two I wanted to talk with,\" the wizard muttered, relinquishing the Warren of Serc.\n\n\"No more arguments, please,\" Talamandas replied from his perch on Quick Ben's shoulder.\"Those are two powerful men-'\n\n\"Relax,\" the wizard said. \"I'm not anticipating a confrontation. '\n\n\"Well, I'll make myself unseen, just in case. '\n\n\"Suit yourself.\"\n\nThe sticksnare vanished, though the wizard could still feel his meagre weight, and the twig fingers gripping his cloak.\n\nThe two men looked up as Quick Ben approached.\n\nParan nodded a greeting. \"Last time I saw you, you were racked with fever. I'm glad to see you're better. Gruntle, this is Quick Ben, a soldier in the Bridgeburners.\"\n\n\"A mage.\"\n\n\"That, too.\"\n\nGruntle studied Quick Ben fora moment, and Paran sensed a bestial presence shifting uneasily behind the man's amber, feline eyes. Then the Daru said,\"You smell of death and it's not to my liking.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Quick Ben started. \"Indeed? I've been consorting with the wrong company lately. Unpalatable, agreed, but, alas, necessary. '\n\n\"Is it just that?\"\n\n\"I hope so, Mortal Sword.\"\n\nA brutal threat glared fora moment in Gruntle's eyes, then, slowly, dimmed. He managed a shrug.\"It was a Bridgeburner who saved Stonny's life, so I'll keep my reins taut. At least until I see if it wears off. '\n\n\"Consider it,\" Paran said to Quick Ben, \"an elaborate way of saying you need to bathe soon.\"\n\n\"Well,\" the wizard replied, eyes on the captain, \"humour from you makes fora change.\"\n\n\"Plenty of changes,\" Paran agreed, \"of late. If you're looking to rejoin the company they're in the Gidrath barracks.\"\n\n\"Actually, I bring word from Whiskeyjack.\"\n\nParan sat straighter. \"You've managed to contact him? Despite the poisoned warrens? Impressive, Wizard. Now you have my utmost attention. Has he new orders for me? '\n\n\"Another parley has been requested by Brood,\" Quick Ben said. \"With all the commanders, including Gruntle here, and Humbrall Taur and whomever's left of the Grey Swords. Can you make the request known to the other principals herein Capustan? '\n\n\"Aye, I suppose so. Is that it?\"\n\n\"If you've a report to make to Whiskeyjack, I can convey it. '\n\n\"No thank you. I'll save that for when we meet in person. '\n\nQuick Ben scowled. Be that way, then. \"Regarding the rest, best we speak in private, Captain.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gruntle made to rise but Paran reached out and halted the motion.\n\n\"I can probably anticipate your questions right here and now, Quick Ben.\"\n\n\"Maybe you can but I'd rather you didn't.\"\n\n\"Too bad for you, then. I'll make it plain. I have not yet decided whether or not to sanction the House of Chains. In fact, I haven't decided anything about anything, and it might be sometime before that changes. Don't bother trying to pressure me, either. '\n\nQuick Ben raised both hands. \"Please, Captain. I have no intention of pressuring you, since I was the victim of such an effort only a short while ago, by Hood himself, and it's left me riled. When someone warns me to follow one course of action, my instinct is to do the very opposite. You're not the only one inclined to stir the manure.\"\n\nGruntle barked a laugh. \"Such droll understatement! Seems I've found perfect company this night. Do goon, Wizard. '\n\n\"Only one more thing to add,\" Quick Ben continued, studying Paran. \"An observation. Might be a wrong one, but I don't think so. You got sick, Captain, not from resisting the power forced upon you, but from resisting yourself. Whatever your instincts are demanding, listen to them. Follow them, and Abyss take the rest. That's all.\"\n\n\"Is that your advice,\" Paran quietly asked, \"or Whiskeyjack's? '\n\nQuick Ben shrugged. \"If he was here, he'd say no different, Captain. '\n\n\"You've known him along time, haven't you?\"\n\n\"Aye, I have.\"\n\nAfter a moment, Paran nodded. \"I'd just about reached the same conclusion myself, this night, with Gruntle's help, that is. Seems the three of us are about to make some very powerful beings very angry.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let'em squeal, \"the Mortal Sword growled.\"Hood knows, we've done more than our share, while they sat back and laughed. Time's come to pull the gauntlet onto the other hand. '\n\nQuick Ben sighed under his breath. All right, Hood, so I didn't really try, but only because it was clear that Paran wasn't inclined to heed you. And maybe I see why, now that I think on it. So, for what it's worth, consider this advice: there will be a House of Chains. Accept it, and prepare for it. You've ample time... more or less.\n\nOh, one more thing, Hood. You and your fellow gods have been calling out the rules uncontested for far too long. Step back, now, and see how us mortals fare... I think you're in fora surprise or two.\n\nWan, dirt-smeared, but alive. The survivors of Capustan emerged from the last pit mouth as the sky paled to the east, blanched dwellers from the city's roots, shying from the torchlight as they stumbled onto the concourse, where they milled, as if lost in the place they had once known as home.\n\nShield Anvil Itkovian sat once more astride his warhorse, even though any quick movement made him sway, head spinning with exhaustion and the pain of his wounds. His task now was to be visible, his sole purpose was his presence. Familiar, recognizable, reassuring.\n\nCome the new day, the priests of the Mask Council would begin a procession through the city, to add their own reassurance– that authority remained, that someone was in control, that things– life– could now begin again. But here, in the still darkness– a time Itkovian had chosen to ease the shock of the surrounding ruination– with the priests sleeping soundly in the Thrall, the Grey Swords, numbering three hundred and nineteen in all when including those from the tunnels, were positioned at every tunnel mouth and at everyplace of convergence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were thereto ensure martial law and impart a sombre order to the proceedings, but their greatest value, as Itkovian well knew, was psychological.\n\nWe are the defenders. And we still stand.\n\nWhile grieving was darkness, victory and all it meant was a greying to match the dawn, a lessening of the oppression that was loss, and of the devastation that slowly revealed itself on all sides. There could be no easing of the conflict within each and every survivor– the brutal randomness of fate that plagued the spirit– but the Grey Swords made of themselves a simple, solid presence. They had become, in truth, the city's standard.\n\nAnd we still stand.\n\nOnce this task was complete, the contract was, to Itkovian's mind, concluded. Law and order could be left to the Gidrath from the Thrall. The surviving Grey Swords would leave Capustan, likely never to return. The question now occupying the Shield Anvil concerned the company's future. From over seven thousand to three hundred and nineteen: this was a siege from which the Grey Swords might never recover. But even such horrific losses, if borne alone, were manageable. The expelling of Fener from his warren was another matter. An army sworn to a god bereft of its power was, as far as Itkovian was concerned, no different from any other band of mercenaries: a collection of misfits and a scattering of professional soldiers. A column of coins offered no reliable backbone; few were the existent companies that could rightly lay claim to honour and integrity; few would stand firm when flight was possible.\n\nRecruiting to strength had become problematic. The Grey Swords needed sober, straight-backed individuals; ones capable of accepting discipline of the highest order; ones for whom avow held meaning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Twin Tusks, what I need is fanatics...\n\nAt the same time, such people had to be without ties, of any sort. An unlikely combination.\n\nAnd, given such people could be found, to whom could they swear? Not Trake– that army's core already existed, centred around Gruntle.\n\nThere were two other war-aspected gods that Itkovian knew of; northern gods, rarely worshipped herein the midlands or to the south.\n\nWhat did Hetan call me? She never likened me to a cat, or a bear. No. In her eyes, I was a wolf.\n\nVery well, then...\n\nHe raised his head, scanned over the heads of the milling survivors in the concourse until he spied the other lone rider.\n\nShe was watching him.\n\nItkovian gestured her over.\n\nIt was a few moments before she could pick her horse through the press and reach his side. \"Sir?\"\n\n\"Find the captain. We three have a task before us, sir.\"\n\nThe woman saluted, swung her mount round.\n\nHe watched her ride onto aside street, then out of sight. There was a strong logic behind his decision, yet, for him, it felt hollow, as if he personally was to have no part to play in what was to come beyond the act of preparation– no subsequent role in what had to be. None the less, the survival of the Grey Swords took precedence over his own wishes; indeed, his own life. It has to be this way. I can think of no other. Anew Reve must be fashioned. Even in this, I am not yet done.\n\nCaptain Norul had found a horse for herself. Her face was aged beneath the rim of her helm: sleep had been denied them all for too long. She said nothing as she and the recruit reined in beside the Shield Anvil." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Follow me, sirs,\" Itkovian said, wheeling his mount.\n\nThey rode through the city, the sky paling to cerulean blue overhead, and left through the north gate. Encamped on the hills a third of a league away were the Barghast, the yurts and tents sparsely patrolled by a modest rearguard. Smoke rose from countless fires as the camp's old men and women began the morning meal. Children already ran down the uneven aisles, quieter than their city counterparts, but no less energetic.\n\nThe three Grey Swords crossed the looted remains of the Pannion lines and rode directly for the nearest Barghast camp.\n\nItkovian was not surprised to see a half-dozen old women gathering to meet them at the camp's edge. There is a current that carries us to this, and you witches have felt it as surely as have I, and thus the trueness is made known and plain. The realization did little to diminish the bleakness of his resolution. Consider it but one more burden, Shield Anvil, one for which you were made as you were for all the others.\n\nThey drew rein before the Barghast elders.\n\nNo-one spoke fora long moment, then one old woman cackled and gestured. \"Come, then.\"\n\nItkovian dismounted, his companions following suit. Children appeared to take the reins of the three horses and the beasts were led away.\n\nThe elders, led by the spokeswoman, set off down the camp's main path, to a large yurt at the far end. The entrance was flanked by two Barghast warriors. The old woman hissed at them and both men retreated.\n\nItkovian, the recruit and the captain followed the elders into the yurt's interior." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Rare is the man who comes to this place,\" the spokeswoman said as she hobbled to the other side of the central hearth and lowered herself onto a bundle of furs.\n\n\"I am honoured-\"\n\n\"Don't be! \"she replied with a cackle.\"You would have to beat a warrior senseless and drag him, and even then it's likely his brothers and friends would attack you before you reached the entrance. You, a young man, are among old women, and there is nothing in the world more perilous!\"\n\n\"But look at him!\" another woman cried. \"He has no fear!\"\n\n\"The hearth of his soul is nothing but ashes,\" a third sniffed.\n\n\"Even so,\" the first woman retorted, \"with what he now seeks, he would promise a firestorm to a frozen forest. Togctha and Farand, the lovers lost to each other for eternity, the winter hearts that howl in the deep fastnesses of Laederon and beyond– we have all heard those mournful cries, in our dreams. Have we not? They come closer– only not from the north, oh no, not the north. And now, this man.\" She leaned forward, lined face indistinct behind the hearth's smoke.\"This man... '\n\nThe last words were a sigh.\n\nItkovian drew a deep breath, then gestured to the recruit. \"The Mortal Sword-\"\n\n\"No,\" the old woman growled.\n\nThe Shield Anvil faltered. \"But-\"\n\n\"No,\" she repeated. \"He has been found. He exists. It is already done. Look at her hands, Wolf. There is too much caring in them. She shall be the Destriant.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you– are you certain of this?\"\n\nThe old woman nodded towards the captain. \"And this one,\" she continued, ignoring Itkovian's question,\"she is to be what you were. She will accept the burden– you, Wolf, have shown her all she must know. The truth of that is in her eyes, and in the love she holds for you. She would be its answer, in kind, in blood. She shall be the Shield Anvil. '\n\nThe other elders were nodding agreement, their eyes glittering in the gloom above beaked noses– as if a murder of crows now faced Itkovian.\n\nHe slowly turned to Captain Norul. The veteran looked stricken.\n\nShe faced him. \"Sir, what-\"\n\n\"For the Grey Swords,\" Itkovian said, struggling to contain his own welling of pain and anguish. \"It must be done, sir,\" he rasped. \"Togg, Lord of Winter, a god of war long forgotten, recalled among the Barghast as the wolf-spirit, Togctha. And his lost mate, the she-wolf, Fanderay. Farand in the Barghast tongue. Among our company, now, more women than men. A Reve must be proclaimed, kneeling before the wolf god and the wolf goddess. You are to be the Shield Anvil, sir. And you,\" he said to the recruit– whose eyes were wide– \"are to be the Destriant. The Grey Swords are remade, sirs. The sanction is here, now, among these wise women.\"\n\nThe captain stepped back, armour clanking. \"Sir, you are the Shield Anvil of the Grey Swords-\"\n\n\"No. I am the Shield Anvil of Fener, and Fener, sir, is... gone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The company is virtually destroyed, sir,\" the veteran pointed out. \"Our recovery is unlikely. The matter of quality-\"\n\n\"You will require fanatics, Captain. That cast of mind, of breeding and culture, is vital. You must search, sir, you must needs find such people. People with nothing left to their lives, with their faith dismantled. People who have been made... lost.\"\n\nNorul was shaking her head, but he could see growing comprehension in her grey eyes.\n\n\"Captain,\" Itkovian continued inexorably, \"the Grey Swords shall march with the two foreign armies. South, to seethe end of the Pannion Domin. And, at a time deemed propitious, you will recruit. You will find the people you seek, sir, among the Tenescowri.\"\n\nFear not, I shall not abandon you yet, my friend. There is much you must learn.\n\nAnd, it seems, no end to my purpose.\n\nHe saw the bleakness come to her, saw it, and struggled against the horror of what he had done. Somethings should never be shared. And that is my most terrible crime, for to the title– the burden that is Shield Anvil– I gave her no choice.\n\nI gave her no choice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were dark surprises that day.\n\nThe Year of the Gathering Koralb\n\n\"WE ARE BEING followed.\"\n\nSilverfox turned in her saddle, eyes narrowing. She sighed. \"My two Malazan minders.\" She hesitated, then added, \"I doubt we'll dissuade them. '\n\nKruppe smiled. \"Clearly, your preternaturally unseen departure from the camp was less than perfect in its sorcerous efficacy. More witnesses, then, to the forthcoming fell event. Are you shy of audiences, lass? Dreadful flaw, if so-\"\n\n\"No, Kruppe, I am not.\"\n\n\"Shall we await them?\"\n\n\"Something tells me they prefer it this way– at a distance. We goon, Daru. We're almost there. '\n\nKruppe scanned the low grass-backed hills on all sides. The sun's morning light was sharp, stripping away the last of shadows in the broad, shallow basins. They were, barring the two Malazan soldiers a thousand paces behind them, entirely alone.\"A modest army, it seems, \"he observed.\"Entrenched in gopher holes, no doubt. '\n\n\"Their gift, and curse,\" Silverfox replied. \"As dust, in all things, the T'lan Imass. '\n\nEven as she spoke– their mounts carrying them along at a slow trot– shapes appeared on the flanking hills. Gaunt wolves, loping in silence. The T'lan Ay, at first only a score to either side, then in their hundreds.\n\nKruppe's mule brayed, ears snapping and head tossing.\"Be calmed, beast! ' the Daru cried, startling the animal yet further.\n\nSilverfox rode close and stilled the mule with a touch to its neck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They approached a flat-topped hill between two ancient, long-dry riverbeds, the channels wide, their banks eroded to gentle slopes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ascending to the summit, Silverfox reined in and dismounted.\n\nKruppe hastily followed suit.\n\nThe T'lan Ay remained circling at a distance. The wolves numbered in the thousands, now, strangely spectral amidst the dust lifted into the air by their restless padding.\n\nArriving behind Rhivi and Daru, and ignored by the T'lan Ay, the two marines walked their horses up the slope.\n\n\"It's going to be a hot one, ' one commented.\n\n\"Plenty hot,\" the other woman said.\n\n\"Good day to miss a scrap, too.\"\n\n\"That it is. Wasn't much interested infighting Tenescowri in any case. A starving army's apathetic sight. Walking skeletons-\"\n\n\"Curious image, that,\" Kruppe said. \"All things considered.\"\n\nThe two marines fell silent, studying him.\n\n\"Excuse my interrupting the small talk,\" Silverfox said drily. \"If you would all take position behind me. Thank you, no, a little farther back. Say, five paces, at the very least. That will do. I'd prefer no interruptions, if you please, in what follows. '\n\nKruppe's gaze– and no doubt that of the women flanking him– had gone past her, to the lowlands surrounding the hill, where squat, fur-clad, desiccated warriors were rising from the ground in a sea of shimmering dust. A sudden, uncannily silent conjuration.\n\nAs dust, in all things...\n\nBut the dust had found shape.\n\nUneven ranks, the dull glimmer of flint weapons a rippling of grey, black and russet brown amidst the betel tones of withered, polished skin. Skull helms, a few horned or antlered, made of every slope and every basin a spread of bone, as of stained, misaligned cobbles on some vast plaza. There was no wind to stir the long, ragged hair that dangled beneath those skullcaps, and the sun's light could not dispel the shadow beneath helm and brow ridge that swallowed the pits of the eyes. But every gaze was fixed on Silverfox, a regard of vast weight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Within the span of a dozen heartbeats, the plain to all sides had vanished. The T'lan Imass, in their tens of thousands, now stood in its place, silent, motionless.\n\nThe T'lan Ay were no longer visible, ranging beyond the periphery of the amassed legions. Guardians. Kin, Hood-forsworn.\n\nSilverfox turned to face the T'lan Imass.\n\nSilence.\n\nKruppe shivered. The air was pungent with undeath, the gelid exhalation of dying ice, filled with something like loss.\n\nDespair. Or perhaps, after this seeming eternity, only its ashes.\n\nThere is, all about us, ancient knowledge– that cannot be denied. Yet Kruppe wonders, are there memories? True memories? Of enlivened flesh and the wind's caress, of the laughter of children? Memories of love?\n\nWhen frozen between life and death, in the glacial in-between, what can exist of mortal feeling? Not even an echo. Only memories of ice, of ice and no more than that. Gods below... such sorrow...\n\nFigures approached the slope before Silverfox. Weaponless, robed in furs from ancient, long-extinct beasts. Kruppe's eyes focused on one in particular, abroad-shouldered Bonecaster, wearing an antlered skullcap and the stained fur of an arctic fox. With a shock the Daru realized that he knew this apparition.\n\nAh, we meet again, Pran Chole. Forgive me, but my heartbreaks at the sight of you– at what you have become.\n\nThe antlered Bonecaster was the first to address Silverfox. \"We are come,\" he said, \"to the Second Gathering.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You have come,\" Silverfox grated, \"in answer to my summons.\"\n\nThe Bonecaster slowly tilted his head. \"What you are was created long ago, guided by the hand of an Elder God. Yet, at its heart, Imass. All that follows has run in your blood from the moment of your birth. The wait, Summoner, has been long. I am Pran Chole, of Kron T'lan Imass. I stood, with K'rul, to attend your birth.\"\n\nSilverfox's answering smile was bitter.\"Are you my father, then, Pran Chole? If so, this reunion has come far too late. For us both. '\n\nDespair flooded Kruppe. This was old anger, held back overlong, now turning the air gelid and brittle. A dreadful exchange to mark the first words of the Second Gathering.\n\nPran Chole seemed to wilt at her words. His desiccated face dropped, as if the Bonecaster was overcome with shame.\n\nNo, Silverfox, how could you do this?\n\n\"Where you then went, daughter,\" Pran Chole whispered, \"I could not follow.\"\n\n\"True,\" she snapped. \"After all, you had avow awaiting you. A ritual. The ritual, the one that turned your hearts to ash. All fora war. But that is what war is all about, isn't it? Leaving. Leaving home. Your loved ones– indeed, the very capacity of love itself. You chose to abandon it all. You abandoned everything! You abandoned-' She cut her words off suddenly.\n\nKruppe closed his eyes fora brief moment, so that he might in his mind complete her sentence. You abandoned... me.\n\nPran Chole's head remained bowed. Finally, he raised it slightly.\"Summoner, what would you have us do? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We will get to that soon enough.\"\n\nAnother Bonecaster stepped forward, then. The rotted fur of a large brown bear rode his shoulders and it seemed the beast itself had reared behind the shadowed eyes. \"I am Okral Lom,\" he said in a voice like distant thunder. \"All the Bonecasters of Kron T'lan Imass now stand before you. Agkor Choom. Bendal Home, Ranag Ilm, and Brold Chood. Kron, as well, who was chosen as War Leader at the First Gathering. Unlike Pran Chole, we care nothing for your anger. We played no role in your creation, in your birth. None the less, you cling to a misapprehension, Summoner. Pran Chole can in noway be considered your father. He stands here, accepting the burden of your rage, for he is what he is. If you would call anyone your father, if you so require a face upon which hatred can focus, then you must forbear, for the one you seek is not among us. '\n\nThe blood had slowly drained from Silverfox's face, as if she'd not been prepared for such brutal condemnation flung back at her by this Bonecaster. \"N-not among you?\"\n\n\"Your souls were forged in the Warren of Tellann, yet not in the distant past– the past in which Pran Chole lived– not at first, at any rate. Summoner, the unveiled warren of which I speak belonged to the First Sword, Onos T'oolan. Now clanless, he walks alone, and that solitude has twisted his power of Tellann-'\n\n\"Twisted? How?\"\n\n\"By what he seeks, by what lies at the heart of his desires.\"\n\nSilverfox was shaking her head, as if striving to deny all that Okral Lom said. \"And what does he seek?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Bonecaster shrugged. \"Summoner, you will discover that soon enough, for Onos T'oolan has heard your call to the Second Gathering. He will, alas, be rather late. '\n\nKruppe watched as Silverfox slowly returned her gaze to Pran Chole, whose head was bowed once more.\n\nIn assuming the responsibility for her creation, this Bonecaster offered her a gift– a focus for her anger, a victim to stand before its unleashing. I do remember you, Pran Chole, therein my dream-world. Your face, the compassion in your eyes. Would I the courage to ask: were you Imass once, in truth, all like this?\n\nAnother pair was emerging from the ranks. In the silence that followed Okral Lom's words, the foremost one spoke.\"I am Ay Estos, of Logros T'lan Imass.\" The furs of arctic wolves hung from the Bonecaster, who was taller, leaner than the others.\n\nSilverfox's reply was almost distracted.\"I greet you, Ay Estos. You are given leave to speak. '\n\nThe T'lan Imass bowed in acknowledgement, then said,\"Logros could but send two Bonecasters to this Gathering, for the reason I would now tell you. \"He paused, then, as Silverfox made no reply to that, he continued.\"Logros T'lan Imass hunts renegades– our own kin, who have broken from the Vow. Crimes have been committed, Summoner, which must be answered. I have come, then, on behalf of the clans of Logros.\"\n\nSilverfox shook herself, visibly wrenching her gaze from Pran Chole. She drew a deep breath, straightened. \"You said,\" she said tonelessly, \"that another Bonecaster of Logros is present.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wolf-clad T'lan Imass stepped to one side. The figure standing behind him was hugely boned, the skull beneath the thin, withered flesh bestial. She wore a scaled, leathery cloak of skin that hung down to the ground behind her. Unadorned by a helm, the broad, flat skull revealed only a few remaining patches of skin that each bore but a few strands of long, white hair.\n\n\"Olar Ethil,\" Ay Estos said. \"First among the Bonecasters. Eleint, the First Soletaken. She has not journeyed with me, for Logros set for her another task, which has taken her far from the clans. Until this day, we among the Logros had not seen Olar Ethil in many years. Eleint, will you speak of successor failure in what you have sought?\"\n\nThe First Bonecaster tilted her head, then addressed Silverfox. \"Summoner. As I neared this place, you commanded my dreams.\"\n\n\"I did, though I knew not who you were. We can discuss that another time. Tell me of this task set for you by Logros.\"\n\n\"Logros sent me in search of the remaining T'lan Imass armies, such as we knew from the First Gathering. The Ifayle, the Kerluhm, the Bentract and the Orshan. '\n\n\"And did you find them?\" she asked.\n\n\"The four remaining clans of Bentract T'lan Imass are on Jacuruku, I believe, yet trapped within the Warren of Chaos. I searched there, Summoner, without success. Of the Orshan, the Ifayle and Kerluhm, I report my failure in discovering any sign. It follows that we must conclude they no longer exist. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Silverfox was clearly shaken by Olar Ethil's words.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So many... \"she whispered,\"lost? \"A moment later Kruppe saw her steel herself.\"Olar Ethil, what inspired Logros to despatch you to find the remaining armies? '\n\n\"Summoner, the First Throne found a worthy occupant. Logros was commanded so by the occupant.\"\n\n\"An occupant? Who?\"\n\n\"A mortal known then as Kellanved, Emperor of Malaz.\"\n\nSilverfox said nothing fora long moment, then, \"Of course. But he no longer occupies it, does he?\"\n\n\"He no longer occupies it, Summoner, yet he has not yielded it.\"\n\n\"What does that mean? Ah, because the Emperor didn't die, did he? '\n\nOlar Ethil nodded. \"Kellanved did not die. He ascended, and has taken the Throne of Shadow. Had he died in truth, the First Throne would be unoccupied once more. He has not, so it is not. We are at an impasse.\"\n\n\"And when this... event... occurred– the result was your ceasing to serve the Malazan Empire, leaving Laseen to manage on her own for the first, crucial years of her rule.\"\n\n\"They were uncertain times, Summoner. Logros T'lan Imass was divided unto itself. The discovery of surviving Jaghut in the Jhag Odhan proved a timely, if short-lived, distraction. Clans among us have since returned to the Malazan Empire's service.\"\n\n\"And was the schism responsible for the renegades the rest now pursue?\"\n\nAh, her mind returns, sharply honed. This is fell information indeed. Renegades among the T'lan Imass...\n\n\"No, Summoner. The renegades have found another path, which as yet remains hidden from us. They have, on occasion, employed the Warren of Chaos in their flight.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chaos? I wonder, to whom do these renegade T'lan Imass now kneel? No, muse on it not. Still a distant threat, Kruppe suspects. All in its own time...\n\nSilverfox asked, \"What Soletaken shape do you assume, Olar Ethil?\"\n\n\"When I veer, I am as an undead twin to Tiam, who spawned all dragons.\"\n\nNothing more was added. The thousands of T'lan Imass stood motionless, silent. A score heartbeats passed in Kruppe's chest. Finally, he cleared his throat and stepped closer to Silverfox. \"It appears, lass, that they await your command– whatever command that might be. A reasonable resolu-\"\n\nSilverfox swung to face him. \"Please,\" she grated. \"No advice. This is my Gathering, Kruppe. Leave me to it.\"\n\n\"Of course, my dear. Humblest apologies. Please do resume your hesitation.\"\n\nShe made a sour face. \"Impudent bastard.\"\n\nKruppe smiled.\n\nSilverfox turned back to the awaiting T'lan Imass.\"Pran Chole, please forgive my earlier words. '\n\nHe raised his head. \"Summoner, it is I who must ask for forgiveness.\"\n\n\"No. Okral Lom was right in condemning my anger. I feel as if I have awaited this meeting fora thousand lifetimes– the expectation, the pressure...\"\n\nKruppe cleared his throat. \"A thousand lifetimes, Silverfox? Scry more closely those who stand before you-\"\n\n\"Thank you, that's enough, Kruppe. Believe me, I am quite capable of castigating myself without any help from you. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course,\" the Daru murmured.\n\nSilverfox settled her gaze on Pran Chole once more. \"I would ask of you and your kin a question.\"\n\n\"We await, Summoner.\"\n\n\"Are there any Jaghut left?\"\n\n\"Of pure blood, we know of but one who remains in this realm. One, who hides not in the service of a god, or in service to the Houses of the Azath.\"\n\n\"And he will be found at the heart of the Pannion Domin, won't he? '\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Commanding K'Chain Che'Malle undead. How can that be?\"\n\nKruppe noted the hesitation in Pran Chole as the Bonecaster replied. \"We do not know, Summoner.\"\n\n\"And when he is destroyed, Pran Chole, what then?\"\n\nThe Bonecaster seemed taken aback by the question. \"Summoner, this is your Gathering. You are flesh and blood– our flesh and blood, reborn. When the last Jaghut is slain-\"\n\n\"A moment, if you please!\" Kruppe said, edging another step forward. Silverfox hissed in exasperation but the Daru continued. \"Pran Chole, do you recall worthy Kruppe?\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"Worthy, clever Kruppe, yes? You said you know of but one Jaghut. No doubt accurate enough. None the less, saying such is not quite the same assaying there is but one left, is it? Thus, you are not certain, are you?\"\n\nOlar Ethil replied. \"Mortal, other Jaghut remain. Isolated. Hidden– they have learned to hide very well indeed. We believe they exist, but we cannot find them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yet you seek an official end to the war, do you not?\"\n\nA susurration of motion rippled through the undead ranks.\n\nSilverfox wheeled on him. \"How did you know, damn you?\"\n\nKruppe shrugged. \"Sorrow unsurpassed and unsurpassing. They in truth seek to become dust. Had they eyes, Kruppe would seethe truth no plainer writ. The T'lan Imass wish oblivion. '\n\n\"Which I would only grant if all the Jaghut on this world had ceased to exist,\" Silverfox said. \"For that is the burden laid upon me. My intended purpose. The threat of tyranny removed, finally, once and for all time. Only then could I grant the T'lan Imass the oblivion they seek– so the Ritual demands of me, for that is a linkage that cannot be broken. '\n\n\"You must make the pronouncement, Summoner,\" Okral Lom said.\n\n\"Yes,\" she replied, still glaring at Kruppe.\n\n\"Your words,\" Pran Chole added, \"can shatter the Ritual's bindings. '\n\nHer head snapped round. \"So easily? Yet-\" She faced the Daru once more, and scowled. \"Kruppe, you force into the open an unpleasant truth-\"\n\n\"Aye, Silverfox, but not the same truth as that which you seem to see. No, Kruppe has unveiled a deeper one, far more poignant.\"\n\nShe crossed her arms. \"And that is?\"\n\nKruppe studied the sea of undead figures, narrowed his gaze on the shadowed sockets of countless eyes. After along moment, he sighed, and it was a sigh ragged with emotion. 'Ah, my dear, look again, please. It was apathetic deceit, not worth condemnation. Understand, if you will, the very beginning. The First Gathering. There was but one enemy, then. One people, from whom tyrants emerged. But time passes, aye? And now, dominators and tyrants abound on all sides– yet are they Jaghut? They are not. They are human, for the most part, yes?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The truth in all its layers? Very well. Silverfox, the T'lan Imass have won their war. Should anew tyrant emerge from among the few hidden Jaghut, he or she will not find the world so simple to conquer as it once was. There are gods to oppose the effort; nay, there are mere ascendants! Men such as Anomander Rake, women such as Korlat– have you forgotten the fate of the last Jaghut Tyrant?\n\n\"The time has passed, Silverfox. For the Jaghut, and thus, for the T'lan Imass. \"Kruppe rested a hand on her shoulder and looked up into her eyes.\"Summoner, \"he whispered,\"these indomitable warriors are... weary. Weary beyond all comprehension. They have existed for hundreds of thousands of years, for one sole cause. And that cause is now... a farce. Pointless. Irrelevant. They want it to end, Silverfox. They tried to arrange it with Kellanved and the First Throne, but the effort failed. Thus, they gave shape to you, to what you would become. For this one task.\n\n\"Redeem them. Please.\"\n\nPran Chole spoke, \"Summoner, we shall destroy the Jaghut who hides within this Pannion Domin. And then, we would ask for an end. It is as Kruppe has said. We have no reason to exist, thus we exist without honour, and it is destroying us. The renegades Logros T'lan Imass hunts are but the first. We shall lose more of our kin, or so we fear. '\n\nKruppe saw that Silverfox was trembling, but her words were tightly controlled as she addressed the antlered shaman. \"You create meas the first flesh and blood Bonecaster in almost three hundred thousand years. The first, and, it seems, the last.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do as we ask, Summoner, and the remainder of your life is yours.\"\n\n\"What life? I am neither Rhivi nor Malazan. I am not even truly human. It is what all of you do not grasp!\" She jabbed a finger at Kruppe and the two marines to complete an all-encompassing gesture. \"None of you! Not even Paran, who thinks– no, what he thinks I will deal within my own time– it is not for any of you. T'lan Imass! I am your kin, damn you! Your first child in three hundred thousand years! Am Ito be abandoned again? '\n\nKruppe stepped back. Again? Oh, gods below-\"Silverfox-\"\n\n\"Silence!\"\n\nBut there was no silence. Instead, a rustling and creaking whispered through the air, and Silverfox and Kruppe swung to the sound.\n\nTo see tens of thousands of T'lan Imass lowering themselves to their knees, heads bowing.\n\nOlar Ethil was the last standing. She spoke. \"Summoner, we beg you to release us.\" With those words, she too settled onto the ground.\n\nThe scene twisted a knife in Kruppe's very soul. Unable to speak, barely able to breathe, he simply stared out at the broken multitude ingrowing horror. And when Silverfox gave answer, the Daru's heart threatened to burst.\n\n\"No.\"\n\nIn the distance, on all sides, the undead wolves began to howl.\n\n\"Hood's breath! ' one of the marines swore.\n\nAye, theirs is a voice of such unearthly sorrow, it tears at the mortal mind. Oh, K'rul, what are we to do now?" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Move the story forward in your role as narrative aide.\nTags: epic fantasy, alliance, ancient threats, camaraderie, tragic events\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Memories of Ice\nChapter: 21" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do as we ask, Summoner, and the remainder of your life is yours.\"\n\n\"What life? I am neither Rhivi nor Malazan. I am not even truly human. It is what all of you do not grasp!\" She jabbed a finger at Kruppe and the two marines to complete an all-encompassing gesture. \"None of you! Not even Paran, who thinks– no, what he thinks I will deal within my own time– it is not for any of you. T'lan Imass! I am your kin, damn you! Your first child in three hundred thousand years! Am Ito be abandoned again? '\n\nKruppe stepped back. Again? Oh, gods below-\"Silverfox-\"\n\n\"Silence!\"\n\nBut there was no silence. Instead, a rustling and creaking whispered through the air, and Silverfox and Kruppe swung to the sound.\n\nTo see tens of thousands of T'lan Imass lowering themselves to their knees, heads bowing.\n\nOlar Ethil was the last standing. She spoke. \"Summoner, we beg you to release us.\" With those words, she too settled onto the ground.\n\nThe scene twisted a knife in Kruppe's very soul. Unable to speak, barely able to breathe, he simply stared out at the broken multitude ingrowing horror. And when Silverfox gave answer, the Daru's heart threatened to burst.\n\n\"No.\"\n\nIn the distance, on all sides, the undead wolves began to howl.\n\n\"Hood's breath! ' one of the marines swore.\n\nAye, theirs is a voice of such unearthly sorrow, it tears at the mortal mind. Oh, K'rul, what are we to do now?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One assumes alack of complexity in people whose lives are so short.\"\n\nWhiskeyjack grinned sourly. \"If that's meant to bean apology, you'll have to do better, Korlat.\"\n\nThe Tiste Andii sighed, ran a hand through her long black hair in a very human gesture.\n\n\"Then again,\" the Malazan continued, \"from you, woman, even a grunt will do.\"\n\nHer eyes flashed. \"Oh? And how am Ito take that?\"\n\n\"Try the way it was meant, lass. I've not enjoyed the last few days much, and I'd rather we were as before, so I will take what I can get. There, as simple as I can make it.\"\n\nShe leaned in her saddle and laid a hand against his chain-clothed arm. \"Thank you. It seems I am the one needing things simple.\"\n\n\"To that, my lips are sealed.\"\n\n\"You area wise man, Whiskeyjack.\"\n\nThe plain before them, at a distance of two thousand paces and closing, swarmed with Tenescowri. There was no order to their ranks, barring the lone rider who rode before them, a thin, gaunt youth, astride a spine-bowed roan dray. Immediately behind the young man– whom Whiskeyjack assumed to be Anaster– ranged a dozen or so women. Wild-haired, loosing random shrieks, there was an aura of madness and dark horror about them.\n\n\"Women of the Dead Seed, presumably,\" Korlat said, noting his gaze. \"There is sorcerous power there. They are the First Child's true bodyguard, I believe. '\n\nWhiskeyjack twisted in his saddle to examine the Malazan legions formed up behind him fifty paces away. \"Where is Anomander Rake? This mob could charge at any moment.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They will not,\" Korlat asserted. \"Those witches sense my Lord's nearness. They are made uneasy, and cry out caution to their chosen child. '\n\n\"But will he listen?\"\n\n\"He had bett-\"\n\nA roaring sound shattered her words.\n\nThe Tenescowri were charging, a surging tide of fearless desperation. A wave of power from the Women of the Dead Seed psychically assailed Whiskeyjack, made his heart thunder with a strange panic.\n\nKorlat hissed between her teeth. \"Resist the fear, my love!\"\n\nSnarling, Whiskeyjack drew his sword and wheeled his horse round to face his troops. The sorcerous assault of terror had reached them, battering at the lines. They rippled, but not a single soldier stepped back. A moment later, his Malazans steadied.\n\n\"\"Ware! \"Korlat cried.\"My Lord arrives in his fullest power! '\n\nThe air seemed to descend on all sides, groaning beneath avast, invisible weight. The sky darkened with a palpable dread.\n\nWhiskeyjack's horse stumbled, legs buckling momentarily before the animal regained its balance. The beast screamed.\n\nA cold, bitter wind whistled fiercely, flattening the grasses before the commander and Korlat, then it struck the charging mass of Tenescowri.\n\nThe Women of the Dead Seed were thrown back, staggering, stumbling, onto the ground where they writhed. Behind them, the front runners in the mob tried to stop and were overrun. Within a single heartbeat, the front ranks collapsed into chaos, figures seething over others, bodies trampled or pushed forward in a flailing of limbs.\n\nThe silver-maned black dragon swept low over Whiskeyjack's head, sailing forward on that gelid gale." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lone figure of Anaster, astride his roan horse that had not even flinched, awaited him. The front line of the Tenescowri was a tumbling wall behind the First Child.\n\nAnomander Rake descended on the youth.\n\nAnaster straightened in his saddle and spread his arms wide.\n\nHuge talons snapped down. Closed around the First Child and plucked him from the horse.\n\nThe dragon angled upward with its prize.\n\nThen seemed to stagger in the air.\n\nKorlat cried out. \"Gods, he is as poison!\"\n\nThe dragon's leg whipped to one side, flinging Anaster away. The young man spun, cartwheeling like a tattered doll through the air. To plunge into the mob of Tenescowri on the far right, where he disappeared from view.\n\nRighting himself, Anomander Rake lowered his wedge-shaped head as he closed on the peasant army. Fanged mouth opened.\n\nRaw Kurald Galain issued from that maw. Roiling darkness that Whiskeyjack had seen before, long ago, outside the city of Pale. But then, it had been tightly controlled. And more recently, when led by Korlat through the warren itself; again, calmed. But now, the Elder Warren of Darkness was unleashed, wild.\n\nSo there's another way into the Warren of Kurald Galain– right down that dragon's throat.\n\nAbroad, flattened swathe swept through the Tenescowri. Bodies dissolving to nothing, leaving naught but ragged clothing. The dragon's flight was unswerving, cutting a path of annihilation that divided the army into two seething, recoiling halves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first pass completed, Anomander Rake lifted skyward, banked around for another.\n\nIt was not needed. The Tenescowri forces had broken, figures scattering in all directions. Here and there, Whiskeyjack saw, it turned on itself, like a hound biting its own wounds. Senseless murder, self-destruction, all that came of blind, unreasoning terror.\n\nThe dragon glided back over the writhing mobs, but did not unleash its warren a second time.\n\nThen Whiskeyjack saw Anomander Rake's head turn.\n\nThe dragon dropped lower, a wide expanse clearing before it as the Tenescowri flung themselves away, leaving only a half-score of figures, lying prone but evincing motion none the less– slowly, agonizingly attempting to regain their feet.\n\nThe Women of the Dead Seed.\n\nThe dragon, flying now at a man's height over the ground, sembled, blurred as it closed on the witches, reformed into the Lord of Moon's Spawn– who strode towards the old women, hand reaching up to draw his sword.\n\n\"Korlat-\"\n\n\"I am sorry, Whiskeyjack.\"\n\n\"He's going to-'\n\n\"I know.\"\n\nWhiskeyjack stared in horror as Anomander Rake reached the first of the women, a scrawny, hunchbacked hag half the Tiste Andii's height, and swung Dragnipur.\n\nHer head dropped to the ground at her feet on a stream of gore. The body managed an eerie side-step, as if dancing, then crumpled.\n\nAnomander Rake walked to the next woman.\n\n\"No– this is not right-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Please-\"\n\nIgnoring Korlat's plea, Whiskeyjack spurred his horse forward, down the slope at a canter, then a gallop as they reached level ground.\n\nAnother woman was slain, then a third before the Malazan arrived, sawing his reins to bring his horse to a skidding halt directly in Rake's path.\n\nThe Lord of Moon's Spawn was forced to halt his stride. He looked up in surprise, then frowned.\n\n\"Stop this,\" Whiskeyjack grated. He realized he still held his sword unsheathed, saw Rake's unhuman eyes casually note it before the Tiste Andii replied.\n\n\"To one side, my friend. What I do is a mercy-\"\n\n\"No, it is a judgement, Anomander Rake. And,\" he added, eyes on Dragnipur's black blade,\"a sentence. '\n\nThe Lord's answering smile was oddly wistful.\"If you would have it as you say, Whiskeyjack. None the less, I claim the right to judgement of these creatures. '\n\n\"I will not oppose that, Anomander Rake.\"\n\n\"Ah, it is the... sentence, then.\"\n\n\"It is.\"\n\nThe Lord sheathed his sword. \"Then it must be by your hand, friend. And quickly, for they recover their powers.\"\n\nHe flinched in his saddle. \"I am no executioner.\"\n\n\"You'd best become one, or step aside. Now. '\n\nWhiskeyjack wheeled his horse round. The seven remaining women were indeed regaining their senses, though he saw in the one nearest him a glaze of incomprehension lingering still in her aged, yellowed eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hood take me-\n\nHe kicked his mount into motion, readied his blade in time to drive its point into the nearest woman's chest.\n\nDry skin parted almost effortlessly. Bones snapped like twigs. The victim reeled back, fell.\n\nPushing his horse on, Whiskeyjack shook the blood from his sword, then, reaching the next woman, he swung crossways, opened wide her throat.\n\nHe forced a cold grip onto his thoughts, holding them still, concentrated on the mechanics of his actions. No errors. No pain-stretched flaws for his victims. Precise executions, one after another, instinctively guiding his horse, shifting his weight, readying his blade, thrusting or slashing as was required.\n\nOne, then another, then another.\n\nUntil, swinging his mount around, he saw that he was done. It was over.\n\nHis horse stamping as it continued circling, Whiskeyjack looked up.\n\nTo see Onearm's Host lining the ridge far to his left– the space between them littered with trampled bodies but otherwise open. Unobstructed.\n\nHis soldiers.\n\nLining the ridge. Silent.\n\nTo have witnessed this... Now, I am indeed damned. From this, no return. No matter what the words of explanation, of justification. No matter the crimes committed by my victims. I have slain. Not soldiers, not armed opponents, but creatures assailed by madness, stunned senseless, uncomprehending.\n\nHe turned, stared at Anomander Rake.\n\nThe Lord of Moon's Spawn returned the regard without expression.\n\nThis burden– you have taken it before, assumed it long ago, haven't you? This burden, that now assails my soul, it is what you live with– have lived with for centuries. The price for the sword on your back-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You should have left it with me, friend,\" the Tiste Andii said quietly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I might have insisted, but I would not cross blades with you. Thus,\" he added with a sorrowful smile, \"the opening of my heart proves, once more, a curse. Claiming those I care for, by virtue of that very emotion. Would that I had learned my lesson long ago, do you not agree?\"\n\n\"It seems,\" Whiskeyjack managed, \"we have found something new to share.\"\n\nAnomander Rake's eyes narrowed.\"I would not have wished it. '\n\n\"I know.\" He held hard on his control. \"I'm sorry I gave you no choice. '\n\nThey regarded each other.\n\n\"I believe Korlat's kin have captured this Anaster, \"Rake said after a moment.\"Will you join me in attending to him? '\n\nWhiskeyjack flinched.\n\n\"No, my friend,\" Rake said. \"I yield judgement of him. Let us leave that to others, shall we?\"\n\nIn proper military fashion, you mean. That rigid structure that so easily absolves personal responsibility. Of course. We've time for that, now, haven't we? \"Agreed, Lord. Lead on, if you please.\"\n\nWith another faint, wistful smile, Anomander Rake strode past him.\n\nWhiskeyjack sheathed his bloodied sword, and followed.\n\nHe stared at the Tiste Andii's broad back, at the weapon that hung from it. Anomander Rake, how can you bear this burden? This burden that has so thoroughly broken my heart?\n\nBut no, that is not what so tears at me.\n\nLord of Moon's Spawn, you asked me to step aside, and you called it a mercy. I misunderstood you. A mercy, not to the Women of the Dead Seed. But tome. Thus your sorrowed smile when I denied you." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ah, my friend, I saw only your brutality– and that hurt you.\n\nBetter, for us both, had you crossed blades with me.\n\nFor us both.\n\nAnd I– I am not worth such friends. Old man, foolish gestures plague you. Be done with it. Make this your last war.\n\nMake it your last.\n\nKorlat waited with her Tiste Andii kin, surrounding the gaunt figure that was Anaster, First Child of the Dead Seed, at a place near where the youth had landed when thrown by Anomander Rake.\n\nWhiskeyjack saw tears in his lover's eyes, and the sight of them triggered a painful wrench in his gut. He forced himself to look away. Although he needed her now, and perhaps she in turn needed him to share all that she clearly comprehended, it would have to wait. He resolved to take his lead from Anomander Rake, for whom control was both armour and, if demanded by circumstance, a weapon.\n\nRiders were approaching from the Malazan position, as well as from Brood's. There would be witnesses to what followed– and that I now curse such truths is true revelation of how far I have fallen. When, before, did I ever fear witnesses to what I did or said? Queen of Dreams, forgive me. I have found myself in a living nightmare, and the monster that stalks me is none other than myself.\n\nReining his horse to a halt before the gathered Tiste Andii, Whiskeyjack was able to examine Anaster closely for the first time.\n\nDisarmed, bruised and blood-smeared, his face turned away, he looked pitiful, weak and small.\n\nBut that is always the way with leaders who have been broken. Whether kings or commanders, defeat withers them-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then he saw the youth's face. Something had gouged out one of his eyes, leaving a welter of deep red blood. The remaining eye lifted, fixed on Whiskeyjack. Intent, yet horrifyingly lifeless, a stare both cold and casual, curious yet vastly– fundamentally– indifferent.\"The slayer of my mother, ' Anaster said in a lilting voice, cocking his head as he continued to study the Malazan.\n\nWhiskeyjack's voice was hoarse.\"I am sorry for that, First Child. '\n\n\"I am not. She was insane. A prisoner of herself, possessed by her own demons. Not alone in that curse, we must presume.\"\n\n\"Not anymore,\" Whiskeyjack answered.\n\n\"It is as a plague, is it not? Ever spreading. Devouring lives. That is why you will, ultimately, fail. All of you. You become what you destroy.\"\n\nThe tone of Anomander Rake's response was shockingly vulgar.\"No more appropriate words could come from a cannibal. What, Anaster, do you think we should do with you? Be honest, now. '\n\nThe young man swung his singular gaze to the Lord of Moon's Spawn. Whatever self-possession he contained seemed to falter suddenly with that contact, for he reached up a tentative hand to hover before the bloodied eye-socket, and his paleface grew paler.\"Kill me, ' he whispered.\n\nRake frowned. \"Korlat?\"\n\n\"Aye, he lost control, then. His fear has a face. One that I have not seen before-\"\n\nAnaster turned on her. \"Shut up! You saw nothing!\"\n\n\"There is darkness within you,\" she replied in calm tones. \"Virulent cousin to Kurald Galain. A darkness of the soul. When you falter, child, we see what hides within it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Liar!\" he hissed.\n\n\"A soldier's face, \"Anomander Rake said. He slowly faced westward.\"From the city. From Capustan. \"He turned back to Anaster.\"He is still there, isn't he? It seems, mortal, that you have acquired a nemesis– one who promises something other than death, something far more terrible. Interesting.\"\n\n\"You do not understand! He is Itkovian! Shield Anvil! He wishes my soul! Please, kill me!\"\n\nDujek and Caladan Brood had arrived from the allied lines, as well as Kallor and Artanthos. They sat on their horses, watchful, silent.\n\n\"Perhaps we will,\" the Lord of Moon's Spawn replied after a moment.\"In time. For now, we will take you with us to Capustan-'\n\n\"No! Please! Kill me now!\"\n\n\"I see no absolution in your particular madness, child,\" Anomander Rake said. \"No cause for mercy. Not yet. Perhaps, upon meeting the one– Itkovian? – whoso terrifies you, we will judge otherwise, and so grant you a swift end. As you are our prisoner, that is our right. You might be spared your nemesis after all.\" He faced Brood and the others. \"Acceptable?\"\n\n\"Aye,\" Dujek growled, eyes on Whiskeyjack.\n\n\"Agreed,\" Brood said.\n\nAnaster made a desperate attempt to snatch a dagger from a Tiste Andii warrior beside him, which was effortlessly denied. The youth collapsed, then, weeping, down onto his knees, his thin frame racked by heaves.\n\n\"Best take him away,\" Anomander Rake said, studying the broken figure. \"This is no act.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That much was plain to everyone present.\n\nWhiskeyjack nudged his horse to come alongside Dujek.\n\nThe old man nodded in greeting, then muttered, \"That was damned unfortunate.\"\n\n\"It was.\"\n\n\"From the distance, it looked-\"\n\n\"It looked bad, High Fist, because it was.\"\n\n\"Understand, Whiskeyjack, I comprehend your... your mercy. Rake's sword– but, dammit, could you not have waited? '\n\nExplanations, sound justifications crowded Whiskeyjack's mind, but all he said was,\"No. '\n\n\"Executions demand procedures-\"\n\n\"Then strip me of my rank, sir.\"\n\nDujek winced, looked away. He sighed roughly. \"That's not what I meant, Whiskeyjack. I know well enough the significance of such procedures– the real reason for their existing in the first place. A sharing of necessary but brutal acts-'\n\n\"Diminishes the personal cost, aye,\" Whiskeyjack answered in low tones. \"No doubt Anomander Rake could have easily managed those few souls added to his legendary list. But I took them instead. I diminished his personal cost. A paltry effort, granted, and one he asked me not to do. But it is done now. The issue is ended.\"\n\n\"The issue is anything but,\" Dujek grated. \"I am your friend-\"\n\n\"No.\" We're not at risk of crossing blades, so there won't be any sharing of this one. \"No,\" he repeated. Not this time.\n\nHe could almost hear Dujek's teeth grinding.\n\nKorlat joined them. \"A strange young man, the one known as Anaster.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The two Malazans turned at her words.\n\n\"Does that surprise you?\" Dujek asked.\n\nShe shrugged. \"There was much hidden within the darkness of his soul, High Fist. More than just a soldier's face. He could not bear leading his army. Could not bear to seethe starvation, the loss and desperation. And so was resolved to send it to its death, to absolute annihilation. As an act of mercy, no less. To relieve the suffering.\n\n\"For himself, he committed crimes that could only be answered with death. Execution at the hands of those survivors among his victims. But not a simple death– he seeks something more. He seeks damnation as his sentence. An eternity of damnation. I cannot fathom such self-loathing.\"\n\nI can, for I feel as if I am tottering on the very edge of that steep slope myself. One more misstep... Whiskeyjack looked away, towards the Malazan legions massed on the distant ridge. The sun flashing from armour and weapons was blinding, making his eyes water.\n\nDujek moved his horse away, rejoining Artanthos, Brood and Kallor.\n\nLeaving Whiskeyjack alone with Korlat.\n\nShe reached up, touched his gauntleted hand.\n\nHe could not meet her gaze, continued studying the motionless lines of his soldiers.\n\n\"My love,\" she murmured. \"Those women– they were not defenceless. The power they drew on came from the Warren of Chaos itself. My Lord's initial attack was intended to destroy them; instead, it but left them momentarily stunned. They were recovering. And, in their awakened power, they would have unleashed devastation. Madness and death, for your army. This entire day could have been lost. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He grimaced. \"I do not rail at necessity,\" he said.\n\n\"It seems... you do.\"\n\n\"War has its necessities, Korlat, and I have always understood that. Always known the cost. But, this day, by my own hand, I have realized something else. War is not a natural state. It is an imposition, and a damned unhealthy one. With its rules, we willingly yield our humanity. Speak not of just causes, worthy goals. We are takers of life. Servants of Hood, one and all.\"\n\n\"The Women of the Dead Seed would have killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, Whiskeyjack-\"\n\n\"And I have commanded the same, in my time, Korlat. What difference is there between us?\"\n\n\"You are not afraid of the questions that follow such acts,\" she said. \"Those that you willingly ask of yourself. Perhaps you see that as self-destructive ruthlessness, but I see it as courage– a courage that is extraordinary. A man less brave would have left my Lord to his unseemly task.\"\n\n\"These are pointless words, Korlat. The army standing over there has witnessed its commander committing murder-\"\n\nKorlat's hissing retort shocked him.\"Do not dare underestimate them! '\n\n\"Underest-\"\n\n\"I have come to know many of your soldiers, Whiskeyjack. They are not fools. Perhaps many of them– if not most– are unable to articulate their fullest understanding, but they understand none the less. Do you not think that they– each in his or her own way– have faced the choice you faced this morning? The knife-point turn of their lives? And everyone of them still feels the scar within them.\"\n\n\"I see little-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Whiskeyjack, listen tome. They witnessed. They saw, in fullest knowing. Damn you, I know this for I felt the same. They hurt for you. With every brutal blow, they felt the old wounds within them resonate in sympathy. Commander, your shame is an insult. Discard it, or you will deliver unto your soldiers the deepest wound of all.\"\n\nHe stared down at her. \"We're a short-lived people, \"he said after along moment.\"We lack such complexity in our lives. '\n\n\"Bastard. Remind me to never again apologize to you.\"\n\nHe looked back once more at the Malazan legions. \"I still fear to face them at close range,\" he muttered.\n\n\"The distance between you and them has already closed, Whiskeyjack. Your army will follow you into the Abyss, should you so command.\"\n\n\"The most frightening thought uttered thus far today.\"\n\nShe made no reply to that.\n\nAye, war's imposition– of extremities. Harsh, yet simple. It is no place for humanity, no place at all.\"Dujek was displeased, ' he said.\n\n\"Dujek wants to keep his army alive.\"\n\nHis head snapped round.\n\nHer eyes regarded him, cool and gauging.\n\n\"I have no interest in usurping his authority-\"\n\n\"You just did, Whiskeyjack. Laseen's fear of you be damned, the natural order has reasserted itself. She could handle Dujek. That's why she demoted you and put him in charge. Gods, you can be dense at times!\"\n\nHe scowled. \"If I am such a threat to her, why didn't she-\"He stopped, closed his mouth. Oh, Hood. Pale. Darujhistan. It wasn't the Bridgeburners she wanted destroyed. It was me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Guard your trust, my love,\" Korlat said. \"It maybe that your belief in honour is being used against you.\"\n\nHe felt himself go cold inside.\n\nOh, Hood.\n\nHood's marble balls on an anvil...\n\nColl made his way down the gentle slope towards the Mhybe's wagon. Thirty paces to the right were the last of the Trygalle Trade Guild's carriages, a group of shareholders throwing bones on a tarp nearby. Messengers rode in the distance, coming from or returning to the main army's position a league to the southwest.\n\nMurillio sat with his back to one of the Rhivi wagon's solid wood wheels, eyes closed.\n\nThey opened upon the councillor's arrival.\n\n\"How does she fare?\" Coll asked, crouching down beside him.\n\n\"It is exhausting,\" Murillio replied. \"To see her suffer those nightmares– they are endless. Tell me the news.\"\n\n\"Well, Kruppe and Silverfox haven't been seen since yesterday; nor have those two marines Whiskeyjack had guarding the Mhybe's daughter. As for the battle...\" Coll looked away, squinting southwestward. \"It was short-lived. Anomander Rake assumed his Soletaken form. A single pass dispersed the Tenescowri. Anaster was captured, and, uh, the mages in his service were... executed.\"\n\n\"Sounds unpleasant,\" Murillio commented.\n\n\"By all reports it was. In any case, the peasants are fleeing back to Capustan, where I doubt they will be much welcome. It's a sad fate indeed for those poor bastards. '\n\n\"She's been forgotten, hasn't she?\"\n\nColl did not need to ask for elaboration. \"A hard thing to swallow, but aye, it does seem that way.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Outlived her usefulness, and so discarded.\"\n\n\"I cling to a faith that this is a tale not yet done, Murillio.\"\n\n\"We are the witnesses. Hereto oversee the descent. Naught else, Coll. Kruppe's assurances are nothing but wind. And you and I, we are prisoners of this unwelcome circumstance– as much as she is, as much as that addled Rhivi woman who comes by to comb her hair. '\n\nColl slowly swung to study his old friend. \"What do you suggest we do?\" he asked.\n\nShrugging, Murillio growled, \"What do most prisoners do sooner or later?\"\n\n\"They try to escape.\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\nColl said nothing fora long moment, then he sighed. \"And how do you propose we do that? Would you just leave her? Alone, untended-\"\n\n\"Of course not. No, we take her with us.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"I don't know! Anywhere! So long as it's away.\"\n\n\"And how far will she need to go to escape those nightmares?\"\n\n\"We need only find someone willing to help her, Coll. Someone who does not judge a life by expedience and potential usefulness.\"\n\n\"This is an empty plain, Murillio.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"Whereas, in Capustan...\"\n\nThe younger man's eyes narrowed.\"By all accounts, it's little more than rubble.\"\n\n\"There are survivors. Including priests.\"\n\n\"Priests!\" he snorted. \"Self-serving confidence artists, swindlers of the gullible, deceivers of-\"\n\n\"Murillio, there are exceptions to that-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've yet to see one. '\n\n\"Perhaps this time. My point is, if we're to escape this– with her– we've a better chance of finding help in Capustan than out herein this wasteland.\"\n\n\"Saltoan-\"\n\n\"Is a week or more away, longer with this wagon. Besides, the city is Hood's crusted navel incarnate. I wouldn't take Rallick Nom's axe-wielding mother to Saltoan. '\n\nMurillio sighed. \"Rallick Nom.\"\n\n\"What of him?\"\n\n\"I wish he were here.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"So he could kill someone. Anyone. The man's a wonder at simplifying matters. '\n\nColl grunted a laugh. \"\"Simplifying matters.\" Wait until I tell him that one. Hey, Rallick, you're not an assassin, you know, you're just a man who simplifies.\"\n\n\"Well, it's a moot point in any case, since he disappeared. '\n\n\"He's not dead. '\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"I just know. So, Murillio, do we wait until Capustan?\"\n\n\"Agreed. And once there, we follow the example of Kruppe and Silverfox. We slip away. Vanish. Hood knows, I doubt anyone will notice, much less care.\"\n\nColl hesitated, then said, \"Murillio, if we find someone– someone who can do something for the Mhybe– well, it's likely to be expensive. '\n\nThe man shrugged. \"I've been in debt before. '\n\n\"As have I. So long as it's understood that this will likely mean our financial ruin, and all that might be achieved is a kinder end to her life. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A worthwhile exchange, then.\"\n\nColl did not ask for another affirmation of his friend's resolve. He knew Murillio too well for that. Aye, it's naught but coin, isn't it? No matter the amount, a fair exchange to ease an old woman's suffering. One way or the other. For at least we will have cared– even if she never again awakens and thus knows nothing of what we do. Indeed, it is perhaps better that way. Cleaner. Simpler...\n\nThe howl echoed as if from avast cavern. Echoed, folded in on itself until the mourning call became a chorus. Bestial voices in countless numbers, voices that stripped away the sense of time itself, that made eternity into a single now.\n\nThe voices of winter.\n\nYet they came from the south, from the place where the tundra could go no further; where the trees were no longer ankle-high, but rose, still ragged, wind-torn and spindly, over her head, so that she could pass unseen– no longer towering above the landscape.\n\nKin answered that howl. The pursuing beasts, still on her trail, yet losing her now, as she slipped among the black spruce, the boggy ground sucking hungrily at her bare feet, the black-stained water swirling thick and turgid as she waded chill pools. Huge mosquitoes swarmed her, each easily twice the size of those she knew on the Rhivi Plain. Blackflies crawled in her hair, bit her scalp. Round leeches like black spots covered her limbs.\n\nIn her half-blind flight she had stumbled into a spatulate antler, jammed in the crotch of two trees at eye-level. The gouge a tine had made under her right cheek still trickled blood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is my death that approaches. That gives me strength. I draw from that final moment, and now they cannot catch me.\n\nThey cannot catch me.\n\nThe cavern lay directly ahead. She could not yet see it, and there was nothing in the landscape to suggest a geology natural to caves, but the echoing howl was closer.\n\nThe beast calls tome. A promise of death, I think, for it gives me this strength. It is my siren call-\n\nDarkness drew down around her, and she knew she had arrived. The cavern was a shaping of a soul, a soul lost within itself.\n\nThe air was damp and cool. No insects buzzed or lit on her skin. The stone under the soles of her feet was dry.\n\nShe could see nothing, and the howl had fallen silent.\n\nWhen she stepped forward she knew it washer mind that moved, her mind alone, leaving her body, questing out, seeking that chained beast.\n\n\"Who?\"\n\nThe voice startled her. A man's voice, muffled, taut with pain.\n\n\"Who comes?\"\n\nShe did not know how to answer, and simply spoke the first words that came into her head. \"It is I.\"\n\n\"I?\"\n\n\"A– a mother...\"\n\nThe man's laugh grated harshly.\"Another game, then? You've no words, Mother. You've never had them. You've whimpers and cries, you've warning growls, you've a hundred thousand wordless sounds to describe your need– that is your voice and I know it well.\"\n\n\"A mother.\"\n\n\"Leave me. I am beyond taunting. I circle my own chain, herein my mind. This place is not for you. Perhaps, in finding it, you think you've defeated my last line of defence. You think you now know all of me. But you've no power here. Do you know, I imagine seeing my own face, as if in a mirror." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But it's the wrong eye– the wrong eye staring back at me. And worse, it's not even human. It took me along time to understand, but now I do.\n\n\"You and your kind played with winter. Omtose Phellack. But you never understood it. Not true winter, not the winter that is not sorcery, but born of the cooling earth, the dwindling sun, the shorter days and longer nights. The face I see before me, Seer, it is winter's face. A wolf's. A god's. '\n\n\"My child knows wolves,\" the Mhybe said.\n\n\"He does indeed.\"\n\n\"Not he. She. I have a daughter-\"\n\n\"Confusing the rules defeats the game, Seer. Sloppy-\"\n\n\"I am not who you think I am. I am– I am an old woman. Of the Rhivi. And my daughter wishes to see me dead. But not a simple passage, not for me. No. She's sent wolves after me. To rend my soul. They hunt my dreams– but here, I have escaped them. I've come hereto escape.\"\n\nThe man laughed again. \"The Seer has made this my prison. And I know it to be so. You are the lure of madness, of strangers\" voices in my head. I defy you. Had you known of my real mother, you might have succeeded, but your rape of my mind was ever incomplete. There is a god here, Seer, crouched before my secrets. Fangs bared. Not even your dear mother, who holds me so tight, dares challenge him. As for your Omtose Phellack– he would have confronted you at that warren's gate long ago. He would have denied it to you, Jaghut. To all of you. But he was lost. Lost. And know this, I am helping him. I am helping him to find himself. He's growing aware, Seer. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I do not understand you,\" the Mhybe replied, faltering as despair slowly stole through her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was not the place she had believed it to be. She had indeed fled to another person's prison, a place of personal madness.\"I came here for death-'\n\n\"You'll not find it, not in these leathery arms. '\n\n\"I am fleeing my daughter-\"\n\n' Flight is an illusion. Even Mother here comprehends that. She knows I am not her child, yet she cannot help herself. She even possesses memories, of a time when she was a true Matron, a mother to areal brood. Children who loved her, and other children– who betrayed her. And left her to suffer for eternity.\n\n'She never anticipated an escape from that. Yet when she found herself free at last, it was to discover that her world had turned to dust. Her children were long dead, entombed in their barrows– for without a mother, they withered and died. She looked to you, then, Seer. Her adopted son. And showed you your power, so that she could use it. To recreate her world. She raised her dead children. She set them to rebuilding the city. But it was all false, the delusion could not deceive her, could only drive her mad.\n\n\"And that,\" he continued, \"is when you usurped her. Thus, her child has made her a prisoner once more. There is no escaping the paths of our lives, it seems. A truth you're not prepared to face, Seer. Not yet. '\n\n\"My child has made me a prisoner as well,\" the Mhybe whispered. \"Is this the curse of all mothers?\"\n\n\"It is the curse of love.\"\n\nA faint howl rang through the dark air.\n\n\"Hear that?\" the man asked. \"That is my mate. She's coming. I looked for so long. For so long. And now, she's coming.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The voice had acquired a deeper timbre with these words." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed to be no longer the man's voice.\n\n\"And now,\" the words continued, \"now, I answer.\"\n\nHis howl tore through her, flung her mind back. Out of the cavern, out beyond the straggly forests, back onto the tundra's barren plain.\n\nThe Mhybe screamed.\n\nHer wolves answered. Triumphantly.\n\nThey had found her once again.\n\nA hand touched her cheek. \"Gods, that was blood-curdling.\"\n\nA familiar voice, but she could not yet place it.\n\nAnother man spoke, \"There is more to this than we comprehend, Murillio. Look at her cheek.\"\n\n\"She has clawed herself-\"\n\n\"She cannot lift her arms, friend. And look, the nails are clean. She did not inflict this wound on herself.\"\n\n\"Then who did? I've been here all this time. Not even the old Rhivi woman has visited since I last looked upon her– and there was no wound then. '\n\n\"As I said, there is a mystery here...\"\n\n\"Coll, I don't like this. Those nightmares– could they be real? Whatever pursues her in her dreams– are they able to physically damage her? '\n\n\"We seethe evidence-\"\n\n\"Aye, though I scarce believe my own eyes. Coll, this cannot goon.\"\n\n\"Agreed, Murillio. First chance in Capustan...\"\n\n\"The very first. Let's move the wagon to the very front of the line– the sooner we reach the streets the better. '\n\n\"As you say.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is a most ancient tale. Two gods from before the time of men and women. Longing and love and loss, the beasts doomed to wander through the centuries.\n\nA tale of mores, told with the purpose of no resolution. Its meaning, gentle readers, lies not in a soul-warming conclusion, but in all that is unattainable in this world.\n\nWho then could have imagined such closure?\n\nWinter's Love Silbaratha\n\nTHE HEART OF the vast palace lay buried in the cliff. Seas born to the east of the bay battered the cliff's jagged hooves, lifting spray to darken the rockface. Immediately beyond the broken shore's rough spars, the waters of Coral Bay pitched into inky blackness, fathoms deep. The city's harbour was little more than a narrow, crooked cut on the lee side of the cliff, a depthless fissure that opened a split nearly bisecting the city. It was a harbour without docks. The sheer faces of the sides had been carved into long piers, surmounted by causeways. At high tide level, mooring rings had been driven into the living stone. Broad sweeps of thick netting, twice the height of an ocean trader's masts, spanned the entire breadth of water from the harbour's mouth all the way to its apex. Where no tethered anchor could touch the fjord's bottom, and where the shores themselves offered no strand, no shallows whatsoever, a ship's anchors were drawn upward. The cat-men, as they were called– that strange, almost tribal collection of workers who lived with their wives and children in shacks on the netting and whose sole profession was the winching of anchors and the tethering of sway-lines– had made of the task artistry in motion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From the wide, sea-facing battlement of the palace, the sealskin-roofed huts and driftwood sheds of the cat-men were like a scattering of brown pebbles and beach detritus, snagged on netting that was thread-like with distance. No figures scampered between the structures. No smoke rose from the angled hood-chimneys. Had he an eagle's eye, Toc the Younger would have had no trouble seeing the salt-dried bodies tangled here and therein the netting; as it was, he could only take the Seerdomin's word for it that those small, bedraggled smudges were indeed corpses.\n\nThe trader ships no longer came to Coral. The cat-men had starved. Every man, every woman, every child. A legendary and unique people within the city had become extinct.\n\nThe observation had been delivered in a detached tone, but Toc sensed an undercurrent in the nameless warrior-priest's words. The huge man stood close, one hand gripping Toc's left arm above the elbow. To keep him from flinging himself from the cliff. To keep him standing upright. What had begun as one task had quickly become the other. This reprieve from the clutches of the Matron was but temporary. The Malazan's broken body had no strength left within it. Muscles had atrophied. Warped bones and seized joints gave him the flexibility of dry wood. His lungs were filled with fluid, making his drawn breath a wheeze, his exhalation a milky gurgle.\n\nThe Seer had wanted him to see. Coral. The palace fortress– often assailed, by Elingarth warships and pirate fleets, never taken. His vast cordon of mages, the thousand or more K'Chain Che'Malle K'ell Hunters, the elite legions of his main army. The defeats to the north meant little to him; indeed, he would yield Setta, Lest and Maurik; he would leave the invaders to their long, exhausting march– through scorched lands that offered no sustenance; where even the wells had been fouled. As for the enemies to the south, there was now avast stretch of rough sea to impede their progress– a sea the Seer had filled with shattered mountains of ice. There were no boats to be found on the far shore in any case. A journey to the western end of Ortnal Cut would take months. True, the T'lan Imass could cross the water, as wave-borne dust. But it would have to fight the fierce currents the entire way, currents that plunged into the depths on cold streams, that swept in submerged rivers eastward, out into the ocean." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Seer was well satisfied, said the nameless Seerdomin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pleased enough to yield Toc this momentary mercy. Out from his Mother's arms.\n\nThe chill, salty wind whipped at his face, tugged at his ragged, long, dirty hair. His clothes were little more than crusted strips– the Seerdomin had given him his cloak, which Toc had wrapped about himself like a blanket. It had been this gesture that had hinted to the Malazan that the man at his side still possessed a shred of humanity.\n\nThe discovery had brought water to his eyes.\n\nClarity had been reborn within him, aided by the Seerdomin's detailed account of the battles to the south. Perhaps it was insanity's final, most convincing delusion, but Toc clung to it none the less. He stared southward across the wind-whipped seas. The mountainous shoreline on the far side was barely visible.\n\nThey had surely reached it by now. They might well be standing on the beach, staring bleakly towards him, and all that lay in between. Baaljagg would not be discouraged. A goddess hid within her, driving ever onward, ever onward, to find her mate.\n\nThe mate who hides within me. We'd travelled, side by side, all unknowing of the secrets within each other. Ah, such brutal irony...\n\nAnd perhaps Tool would not be daunted. Time and distance meant nothing to the T'lan Imass. The same, no doubt, was true for the three Seguleh– they still had their singular message to deliver, after all. Their people's invitation to war.\n\nBut Lady Envy...\n\nMistress of adventure, seduced by serendipity– true, she was angry, now. That much was clear from the Seerdomin's reportage. Affronted was a better description, Toc corrected. Sufficient to see her temper flare, but that temper was not a driven thing. She was not one to smoulder, not one to kindle deep-bedded fires of vengeance. She existed for distraction, for wayward whims." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lady Envy, and likely her wounded, hurting dog, Garath, would turn away now, at last." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tired of the hunt, they would not set to themselves the task of pursuit, not across this violent sea with its glowing, awash leviathans of jagged ice.\n\nHe told himself not to be disappointed, but a pang of sadness twisted within him at the thought. He missed her, not as a woman– not precisely, in any case. No, the immortal face she presents, I think. Unburdened, a trickster's glint to her millennial regard. I teased her, once... danced around that nature... made her stamp her foot and frown. As only an immortal could do when the unlikely brunt of such mocking. I turned the knife. Gods, did I truly possess such audacity?\n\nWell, dear Lady, I humbly apologize, now. I am not the brave man I once was, if it was indeed bravery and not simple stupidity. Mocking's been taken from my nature. Never to return, and perhaps that's a good thing. Ah, I can see you nod most wholeheartedly at that. Mortals should not mock, for all the obvious reasons. Detachment belongs to gods, because only they can afford its price. So be it.\n\nThank you, Lady Envy. No recriminations will pursue you. It was well run.\n\n\"You should have seen Coral in its day, Malazan.\"\n\n\"It was your home, wasn't it? '\n\n\"Aye. Though my home now is in the heart of my Seer.\"\n\n\"Where the winds are even colder,\" Toc muttered.\n\nThe Seerdomin was silent fora moment.\n\nToc was expecting a blow from a gauntleted fist, or a painful wrench from the hand gripping his frail arm. Either one would have been an appropriate response; either one would have elicited an approving nod from the Seer. Instead, the man said, \"This is a summer day, but not like the summer days I remember in my youth. Coral's wind was warm. Soft, caressing as a lover's breath. My father, he fished out beyond the cut. Up along the coast north of here. Vast, rich shoals. He'd begone fora week or more with every season's run. We'd all go down to the causeway to watch the fleets return, to see our father's orange sail among the barques.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Toc glanced up at the man, saw the smile, the glimmering echo of a child's joy in his eyes.\n\nSaw them die once more.\n\n'He came back the last time... to find that his family had embraced the Faith. His wife, to the Tenescowri. His sons, to the ranks, eldest begun schooling as Seerdomin. He did not throw his lines tome on that day– seeing my uniform. Seeing my mother– hearing her mindless shrieks. Seeing my brothers with spears in hand, my sisters naked and clinging to men thrice their age. No, he swung the boom, tacked onto the offshore breeze.\n\n\"I watched his sail until I could see it no more. It was my way, Malazan-\"\n\n\"Of saying goodbye,\" Toc whispered.\n\n\"Of saying good luck. Of saying... well done.\"\n\nDestroyer of lives. Seer, how could you have done this to your people?\n\nA distant bell rang in the palace behind them.\n\nThe Seerdomin's grip tightened.\"The allotted time is done. '\n\n\"Back to my own embrace,\" Toc said, his gaze straining to catch, one last time, the world before him. Remember this, for you will not see it again, Toc the Younger.\n\n\"Thank you for the use of your cloak,\" he said.\n\n\"You are welcome, Malazan. These winds were once warm. Come, lean on me while we walk– your weight is as nothing.\"\n\nThey slowly made their way towards the building. \"Easily borne, you mean.\"\n\n\"I did not say that, Malazan. I did not say that.\"\n\nThe gutted tenement seemed to shiver a moment before collapsing in a cloud of dust. The cobbles of the street trembled beneath Shield Anvil Itkovian's boots and thunder shook the air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hedge turned to him, grinning through the smears of soot. \"See? Easy.\"\n\nItkovian answered the Bridgeburner with a nod, watched as Hedge rejoined his fellow sappers and they set off for the next unrecoverable building.\n\n\"At the very least,\" Captain Norul said beside him as she brushed dust from her surcoat, \"there will be no shortage of material.\"\n\nThe morning was hot, the sun bright. Life was returning to Capustan. People with scarves covering their faces crawled through the rubble of their homes. Bodies were still being retrieved as wreckage was cleared away, wrapped and thrown onto fly-swarmed wagons. The air of the street stank with decay, but it seemed that the horses they rode had long since grown used to it.\n\n\"We should proceed, sir,\" the captain said.\n\nThey resumed their journey. Beyond the west gate were gathering the official representatives– the contingent that would set out to meet the approaching armies of Dujek Onearm and Caladan Brood. The parley was set to take place in three bells' time.\n\nItkovian had left the company's new Destriant in command. Tenescowri refugees were arriving from the plain by the hundreds. Those few who'd attempted to enter Capustan had been set upon by the survivors. Reports of peasants being torn apart by frenzied mobs had reached the Shield Anvil. In response he had sent the Grey Swords out to establish an internment camp outside the west wall. Food was scarce. Itkovian wondered how his new Destriant was managing. At the very least, shelters were being prepared for the hapless refugees.\n\nWho will soon become recruits. Those who survive the next few weeks in any case. It's likely the Grey Swords\" coffers will be emptied purchasing food and supplies from the Barghast. Fener grant– no, Togg grant that the investment will prove worthwhile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was not looking forward to the parley. Indeed, the truth was, he had no real business attending it. The captain at his side was now the commander of the Grey Swords. His role as her adviser was dubious; she was capable of representing the company's interests without any help from him.\n\nThey approached the west gate, which now resembled nothing more than a massive hole in the city's wall.\n\nLeaning against one of the burnt-out, most fallen gate-towers, Gruntle watched them with a half-grin on his barbed face. Stonny Menackis paced nearby, apparently in a temper.\n\n\"Now there's only Humbrall Taur to wait for, ' Gruntle said.\n\nItkovian frowned as he reined in. \"Where is the Mask Council's retinue? '\n\nStonny spat. \"They've gone ahead. Seems they want a private chat first. '\n\n\"Relax, lass,\" Gruntle rumbled. \"Your friend Keruli's with them, right? '\n\n\"That's not the point! They hid. While you and the Grey Swords here kept them and their damned city alive! '\n\n\"None the less,\" Itkovian said, \"with Prince Jelarkan dead and no heir apparent, they are Capustan's ruling body. '\n\n\"And they could damn well have waited!\"\n\nCaptain Norul twisted in her saddle to look backup the avenue. \"Humbrall Taur's coming. Perhaps, if we rode fast enough, we could catch them. '\n\n\"Is it important?\" Itkovian asked her.\n\n\"Sir, it is.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"I concur.\"\n\n\"Let's ready our horses, Stonny, ' Gruntle said, pushing himself from the wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They set out across the plain, Humbrall Taur, Hetan and Cafal equally awkward on their borrowed mounts. The Barghast had been none too pleased by the Mask Council's attempted usurpation– old enmities and mistrust had flared to life once more. By all reports, the approaching armies were still a league, perhaps two, distant. Keruli, Rath'Hood, Rath'Burn and Rath'Shadowthrone were in a carriage, drawn by the three horses of the Gidrath that had not been butchered and eaten during the siege.\n\nItkovian recalled the last time he had ridden this road, recalled faces of soldiers now dead. Farakalian, Torun, Sidlis. Behind the formality imposed by the Reve, these had been his friends. A truth I dared not approach. Not as Shield Anvil, not as a commander. But that has changed. They are my own grief, as difficult to bear as those tens of thousands of others.\n\nHe pushed the thought away. Control was still necessary. He could afford no emotions.\n\nThey came within sight of the priests' carriage.\n\nStonny snarled in triumph. \"Won't they be delighted! '\n\n\"Ease on the gloating, lass,\" Gruntle advised. \"We reach them now in all innocence-\"\n\n\"Do you think mean idiot? Do you think me incapable of subtlety? I'll have you know-'\n\n\"All right, woman,\" her companion growled. \"Forget I spoke-\"\n\n\"I always do, Gruntle.\"\n\nThe Gidrath driver drew the carriage to a halt as they rode up. A window shutter slid to one side and Rath'Shadowthrone's masked face appeared, the expression neutral. \"How fortunate! The rest of our honourable entourage!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Itkovian sighed under his breath. There was nothing subtle in that tone, alas.\n\n\"Honourable?\" Stonny queried, brows lifting, \"I'm surprised you recognize the concept, Priest. '\n\n\"Ah.\" The mask swivelled to her. \"Master Keruli's wench. Shouldn't you be on your knees?\"\n\n\"I'll give you a knee, runt– right between the-'\n\n\"Well now!\" Gruntle said loudly. \"We're all here. I see outriders ahead. Shall we proceed? '\n\n\"We're early, \"Rath'Shadowthrone snapped.\n\n\"Aye, and that's unfortunately unprofessional of us. Never mind. We can continue at the slowest pace possible, to give them time to prepare. '\n\n\"A wise course, in the circumstances,\" Rath'Shadowthrone conceded. The mask's hinged lips twisted into abroad smile, then the head withdrew and the shutter slid back in place.\n\n\"I am going to cut that man into very small pieces,\" Stonny said in a bright tone.\n\n\"We all appreciated your sense of subtlety, lass,\" Gruntle muttered.\n\n\"And well you should, oaf.\"\n\nItkovian stared at the woman, then at the caravan captain, wondering.\n\nCorporal Picker sat on the dusty steps of what had once been a temple. Her back and shoulders ached from throwing chunks of masonry since dawn.\n\nBlend must have been hovering nearby for she appeared with a waterskin. \"You look thirsty.\"\n\nPicker accepted it. \"Funny how you do your vanishing act whenever there's hard work to be done. '\n\n\"Well, I brought you water, didn't I? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Picker scowled.\n\nAcross the street Captain Paran and Quick Ben were saddling horses, preparing to head out to the reunion with Onearm's Host and Brood's army. They'd been uncommonly cosy since meeting up once more, making Picker suspicious. Quick Ben's schemes were never pleasant.\n\n\"I'd rather we were all going, ' she muttered.\n\n\"To the parley? Why? This way everyone else does the walking.\"\n\n\"Easier to be lurking about, is it? Weighed down with a half-full waterskin. You'd be saying different if you'd been tossing rocks with the rest of us, Blend.\"\n\nThe lean woman shrugged. \"I've been busy enough. '\n\n\"Doing what?\"\n\n\"Gathering information.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah. Whose whispering you been listening in on, then?\"\n\n\"People. Us and them, here and there.\"\n\n\"Them? Who's them? '\n\n\"Uhm, let's see. Barghast. Grey Swords. A couple of loose-lipped Gidrath from the Thrall. Three acolytes from the temple behind you-'\n\nPicker flinched, swiftly rose to cast a nervous eye on the fire-scorched building behind her. \"Which god, Blend? No lies-\"\n\n\"Why would I lie, Corporal? Shadowthrone.\"\n\nPicker grunted. \"Spyin\" on the sneaks, was you? And what were they talking about? '\n\n\"Some bizarre plan of their master's. Vengeance against a couple of necromancers holed up in an estate just up the street. '\n\n\"The one with all the bodies out front and the smelly guards on the walls?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Presumably the same and none other.\"\n\n\"All right, so let's hear the report on the rest of them. '\n\n\"The Barghast are crowing. Agents of the Mask Council are buying food to feed the citizens. The Grey Swords are buying food, too, to feed a fast-growing camp of Tenescowri refugees outside the city. The White Faces are getting rich.\"\n\n\"Hold on, Blend. Did you say Tenescowri refugees? What are the Grey Swords up to? Hood knows there's enough corpses lying around for those cannibals, why give \"em real food? Why feed the evil bastards at all?\"\n\n\"Sound questions,\" Blend agreed. \"Certainly, I admit my own curiosity was piqued.\"\n\n\"No doubt you've come up with a theory, too. '\n\n\"I have assembled the puzzle, to be more precise. Disparate facts. Observances. Offhand comments believed to be uttered in private, overheard by none other than the faithful servant standing before you-\"\n\n\"Oponn's quivering knees, woman, get on with it! '\n\n\"You never did appreciate a good gloat. All right. The Grey Swords were sworn to Fener. They weren't just a mercenary company, more like damned crusaders to the holy cause of war. And they took it seriously. Only something's happened. They've lost their god-'\n\n\"No doubt there's a tale there. '\n\n\"Indeed, but it's not relevant. '\n\n\"Meaning you don't know it. '\n\n\"Precisely. The point is, the company's surviving officers rode off to the Barghast camps, found a gaggle of tribal witches waiting for them, and together they all arranged a reconsecration. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You mean they switched gods. Oh no, don't tell me Treach-'\n\n\"No, not Treach. Treach already has his crusaders.\"\n\n\"Oh, right. Must be Jhess, then. Mistress of Weaving. They're all taking up knitting, but fiercely-'\n\n\"Not quite. Togg. And Fanderay, the She-Wolf of Winter– Togg's long lost mate. Recall the story? You must have heard it when you were a child, assuming you were ever a child-'\n\n\"Careful, Blend.\"\n\n\"Sorry. Anyway, the Grey Swords were virtually wiped out. They're looking for recruits. '\n\nPicker's brows rose.\"The Tenescowri? Hood's breath!\"\n\n\"Makes sense, actually.\"\n\n\"Sure. If I needed an army I'd look first to people who eat each other when things get tough. Absolutely. In an instant. '\n\n\"Well, that's an unfortunate angle to take. It's more a question of finding people with no lives-\"\n\n\"Losers, you mean.\"\n\n\"Uh, yes. No ties, no loyalties. Ripe for arcane rituals of induction.\"\n\nPicker grunted again. \"Mad. Everyone's gone mad. '\n\n\"Speaking of which,\" Blend murmured.\n\nCaptain Paran and Quick Ben rode up.\n\n\"Corporal Picker.\"\n\n\"Aye, Captain?\"\n\n\"Do you know where Spindle is right now?\"\n\n\"No idea, sir.\"\n\n\"I'd suggest you keep better track of your squad, then. '\n\n\"Well, he went off with Sergeant Antsy. Someone's come up from the tunnels, claiming to be Prince Arard– some dispossessed ruler from one of the cities south of the river. The man was demanding to speak with a representative of Onearm's Host and since we couldn't find you at the time... '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Paran cursed under his breath. \"Let me get this straight. Sergeant Antsy and Spindle elected themselves to be Onearm's Host's official representatives to take audience with a prince? Antsy? Spindle?\"\n\nBeside the captain, Quick Ben choked back a laugh, earning a glare from Paran.\n\n\"Detoran volunteered, too,\" Picker added in an innocent tone. \"So it was the three of them, I think. Maybe a few others.\"\n\n\"Mallet?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"He's with Hedge, sir. Tending to healing and whatever. '\n\n\"Captain,\" Quick Ben interjected. \"We'd best start our journey. Antsy will stall as soon as he gets confused, and he usually gets confused immediately after the making of introductions. Detoran won't say a thing and likely none of the others will, either. Spindle might babble, but he's wearing a hairshirt. It should be all right. '\n\n\"Really? And shall I hold you to that, Wizard?\"\n\nQuick Ben's eyes widened.\n\n\"Never mind,\" Paran growled, gathering his reins. \"Let's quit this city... before we find ourselves in a whole new war. Corporal Picker. '\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\n\"Why are you just standing hereon your own?\"\n\nShe quickly glanced around. \"The bitch,\" she whispered.\n\n\"Corporal?\"\n\n\"Nothing. Sorry, sir. I was just resting.\"\n\n\"When you're done resting, Corporal, go retrieve Antsy, Spindle and the others. Send Arard to the Thrall, with word that the real representatives of Onearm's Host will see him shortly, should he wish an audience.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Understood, Captain.\"\n\n\"I hope so.\"\n\nShe watched the two men ride off down the street, then spun around. \"Where are you, you coward?\"\n\n\"Sir?\" Blend queried, emerging from the shadows of the temple's entrance.\n\n\"You heard me.\"\n\n\"I'd noted something inside this hovel, went to investigate-'\n\n\"Hovel? Shadowthrone's sacred abode, you mean. '\n\nShe was pleased to see Blend suddenly pale. \"Oh. I'd, uh, forgotten. '\n\n\"You panicked. Hee hee. Blend panicked. Smelled a scene about to happen and fled into the nearest building like a rabbit down a bolt-hole! Just wait until I tell the others-\"\n\n\"An unseemly version,\" Blend sniffed, \"malignly twisting a purely coincidental occurrence. They'll not believe you. '\n\n\"That's what you-'\n\n\"Oh oh.\"\n\nBlend vanished once again.\n\nStartled, Picker looked round.\n\nTwo black-cloaked figures were coming down the street, making directly for the corporal.\n\n\"Dear soldier,\" the taller, pointy-bearded one called out.\n\nHer hackles rose at the imperious tone. \"What?\"\n\nA thin brow arched. \"Respect is accorded ourselves, woman. We demand no less. Now listen. We are in need of supplies to effect the resumption of our journey. We require food, clean water and plenty of it, and if you could direct us to a clothier...\"\n\n\"At once. Here-\" She stepped up to him and drove her gauntleted fist full into his face. The man's feet flew out from under him and he struck the cobbles with a meaty smack. Out cold." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Take on the role of the writer's aide and proceed with the narrative.\nTags: epic fantasy, alliance, ancient threats, camaraderie, tragic events\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Memories of Ice\nChapter: 22" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had pulled their tethers taut, backing as far as they could, tugging on the tent peg. A Rhivi wedge, the peg's design was intended to hold against even the fiercest prairie wind. Driven deep in the hard-packed earth, it did not budge.\n\nColl's leather-gauntleted hand snapped out, closed on one of the tethers. He tugged sharply down as he dropped from the wagon.\n\nThe animal stumbled towards him, snorting. Its comrade skittered back in alarm.\n\nThe Daru collected the reins from the saddle-horn, still gripping the tether in his other hand and holding the horse's head down, and edged to its shoulder. He planted a boot in the stirrup and swung himself into the saddle in a single motion.\n\nThe horse tried to duck out from under his weight, a sideways slew that thudded against its comrade– with Coll's leg trapped in between.\n\nHe grunted but held the reins firm.\n\n\"That'll be a nice bruise, ' Murillio commented.\n\n\"Keep saying pleasant things why don't you? \"Coll said through gritted teeth.\"Now come over and slip the tether. Carefully, mind. There's alone vulture above our heads, looking hopeful.\"\n\nHis companion glanced skyward, scanned fora moment, then hissed. \"All right, so I was momentarily gullible– stop gloating.\" He clambered over the seat-back.\n\nColl watched him drop lightly to the ground and warily approach the tent peg.\n\n\"On second thoughts, maybe you should have found me that mallet.\"\n\n\"Too late now, friend,\" Murillio said, pulling the knot free." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The horse plunged back a half-dozen steps, then planted its hind legs and reared.\n\nTo Murillio's eyes, Coll's backward somersault displayed almost poetic grace, artfully concluded by the big Daru's landing squarely on his feet, only to lunge straight back to avoid a vicious two-hoofed kick that, had it connected, would have shattered his chest. He landed four paces away with a thud.\n\nThe horse ran off, bucking with glee.\n\nColl lay unmoving fora moment, blinking at the sky.\n\n\"You all right?\" Murillio asked.\n\n\"Get me a lasso. And some sweetroot.\"\n\n\"I'd suggest a mallet instead, \"Murillio replied,\"but since you know your mind, I won't.\"\n\nDistant horns sounded.\n\n\"Hood's breath, \"Coll groaned.\"The march to Capustan's begun.\" He slowly sat up. \"We were supposed to be upfront for this.\"\n\n\"We could always ride in the wagon, friend. Return the horses to the Mott Irregulars and get our money back.\"\n\n\"That wagon's overloaded as it is. \"Coll painfully regained his feet.\"Besides, he said no refunds. '\n\nMurillio squinted at his companion. \"Did he now? And not even astir of suspicion from you at that?\"\n\n\"Quiet.\"\n\n\"But-\"\n\n\"Murillio, you want the truth? The man was so homely I felt sorry for him, all right? Now stop babbling and let's get on with this. '\n\n\"Coll! He was asking a prince's ransom for-'\n\n\"Enough,\" he growled. \"That ransom's going to pay for the privilege of killing the damned beasts, or you– which do you prefer? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You can't kill them-'\n\n\"Then another word from you and it's this hillside under a pile of boulders for dear old Murillio of Darujhistan. Am I understood? Good. Now hand me that lasso and the sweet-root– we'll start with the one still here.\"\n\n\"Wouldn't you rather run after-'\n\n\"Murillio,\" Coll warned.\n\n\"Sorry. Make the boulders small, please.\"\n\nThe miasmic clouds churned low over the heaving waves, waves that warred with each other amidst jagged mountains of ice, waves that spun and twisted even as they struck the battered shoreline, flinging spume skyward. The thunderous roar was shot through with grinding, cracking, and the ceaseless hiss of driving rain.\n\n\"Oh my,\" Lady Envy murmured.\n\nThe three Seguleh crouched on the leeside of a large basaltic boulder, applying thick grease to their weapons. They were a sadly bedraggled trio, sodden with rain, smeared with mud, their armour in tatters. Minor wounds crisscrossed their arms, thighs and shoulders, the deeper ones roughly stitched with gut, the rows of knots black and gummed with old blood that streamed crimson in the rain.\n\nNearby, surmounting a jutting spar of basalt, stood Baaljagg. Matted, scabbed, her fur in tangled tufts around bare patches, a hand's length of broken spear shaft jutting from her right shoulder– three days it had been, yet the beast would not allow Envy close, nor the Seguleh– the giant wolf stared steadily northward with feverish, gleaming eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Garath lay three paces behind her, shivering uncontrollably, wounds suppurating as if his body wept since he could not, massive and half mad, allowing no-one– not even the wolf– to come near.\n\nOnly Lady Envy remained, to all outward appearances, untouched by the horrendous war they had undertaken; untouched, even, by the driving rain. Her white telaba showed not a single stain. Her unbound black hair hung full and straight down to the small of her back. Her lips were painted a deep, vaguely menacing red. The kohl above her eyes contained the hues of dusk.\n\n\"Oh my,\" she whispered yet again. \"How shall we follow Tool across... this? And why was he not a T'lan Elephant, or a T'lan Whale, so that he could carry us on his back, in sumptuous howdahs? With running hot water and ingenious plumbing.\"\n\nMok appeared at her side, rain streaming from his enamel mask. \"I will face him yet,\" he said.\n\n\"Oh really. And when did duelling Tool become more important than your mission to the Seer? How will the First or the Second react to such self-importance?\"\n\n\"The First is the First and the Second is the Second,\" Mok replied laconically.\n\nLady Envy rolled her eyes. \"How astute an observation.\"\n\n\"The demands of the self have primacy, mistress. Always, else there would be no champions. There would be no hierarchy at all. The Seguleh would be ruled by mewling martyrs blindly trampling the helpless in their lust for the common good. Or we would be ruled by despots who would hide behind an army to every challenge, creating of brute force a righteous claim to honour. We know of other lands, mistress. We know much more than you think.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She turned to study him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Goodness. And here I have been proceeding on the assumption that entertaining conversation was denied tome.\"\n\n\"We are immune to your contempt, mistress.\"\n\n\"Hardly, you've been smarting ever since I reawakened you. Smarting? Indeed, seething. '\n\n\"There are matters to be discussed,\" Mok said.\n\n\"Are you sure? Would you by chance be referring to this tumultuous tempest barring our advance? Or perhaps to the fleeing remnants of the army that pursued us here? They'll not return, I assure you-'\n\n\"You have sent a plague among them.\"\n\n\"What an outrageous accusation! It's been a miracle that disease has not struck them long ago, what with eating each other without even the civil application of cooking. Dear me, that you would so accuse-'\n\n\"Garath succumbs to that plague, mistress.\"\n\n\"What? Nonsense! He is ailed by his wounds-\"\n\n\"Wounds that the power of his spirit should have long since healed. The fever within the beast, that so fills the lungs, is the same as that which afflicts the Pannions.\" He slowly turned to face her. \"Do something.\"\n\n\"An outrage-\"\n\n\"Mistress.\"\n\n\"Oh, all right! But don't you seethe delicious irony? Poleil, Queen of Disease, has allied herself with the Crippled God. A decision that deeply affronts me, I will have you know. How cunning of me to loot her warren and so beset her allies! '\n\n\"I doubt the victims appreciate the irony, mistress. Nor, I imagine, does Garath.\"\n\n\"I'd much rather you'd stayed taciturn!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Heal him.\"\n\n\"He'll not let me close! '\n\n\"Garath is no longer capable of standing, mistress. Where he now lies, he will not rise from, unless you heal him.\"\n\n\"Oh, what a miserable man you are! If you're wrong and he tries to bite me, I will be very upset with you, Mok. I will lay waste to your loins. I will make your eyes crossed so that everyone who looks at you and your silly mask will not be able to help but laugh. And I will think of other things, too, I assure you. '\n\n\"Heal him.\"\n\n\"Of course I will! Garath is my beloved companion, after all. Even if he once tried topee on my robe– though I will acknowledge that since he was asleep at the time it was probably one of K'rul's pranks. All right, all right, stop interrupting me.\"\n\nShe approached the huge hound.\n\nHis eyes were glazed, each breath a hacking contortion. Garath did not raise his head as she edged closer.\n\n\"Oh, dear, forgive my inattention, dearest pup. I'd thought only the wounds, and so had already begun to grieve. You are felled by an unseemly vapour? Unacceptable. Easily negated, in fact. \"She reached out, fingers lightly resting on the hot, steaming hide.\"There-'\n\nGarath swung his head, lips slowly peeling back.\n\nLady Envy scampered away. \"And that is how you thank me? I have healed you, dearest one!\"\n\n\"You made him ill in the first place, mistress,\" Mok said behind her.\n\n\"Be quiet, I'm not talking to you anymore. Garath! Look at how your strength returns, even as we watch! See, you are standing! Oh, how wonderful! And– no, stay away, please. Unless you want a pat? Do you want a pat? If so, you must stop growling at once! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mok stepped between them, eyes on the bristling hound. \"Garath, we have need of her, even as we have need of you. There is no value in continuing this enmity.\"\n\n\"He can't understand you! \"Lady Envy said.\"He's a dog! An angry dog, in fact.\"\n\nThe hulking creature turned away, padded slowly to where Baaljagg stood facing the storm. The wolf did not so much as glance at him.\n\nMok stepped forward. \"Baaljagg sees something, mistress.\"\n\n\"What? Out there?\"\n\nThey hurried up the pinnacle's slope.\n\nThe bergs of ice had captured a prize. Less than a thousand paces away, at the very edge of the small inlet before them, floated a structure. High-walled on two sides with what appeared to be a latticework of wicker, and surmounted by frost-rimed houses– three in all– it looked nothing more than a broken, torn-away piece of a port town or city. A narrow, crooked alley was indeed visible between the tall, warped houses. As the ice gripping the base of the structure twisted to some unseen current, the two opposites sides came into view, revealing the broken maw of wooden framework reaching beneath the street level, crowded with enormous balsa logs and what appeared to be massive inflated bladders, three of them punctured and flaccid.\n\n\"How decidedly peculiar,\" Lady Envy said.\n\n\"Meckros,\" Mok said.\n\n\"Excuse me?\"\n\n\"The home of the Seguleh is an island, mistress. We are, on rare occasion, visited by the Meckros, who dwell in cities that ride the oceans. They endeavour to raid our coastline, ever forgetful of the unfortunate results of the previous raids. Their fierce zeal entertains those among the Lower Schools.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well,\" Lady Envy sniffed, \"I see no occupants in that... misplaced neighbourhood.\"\n\n\"Nor do I, mistress. However, look at the ice immediately beyond the remnant. It has found an outward current and now seeks to join it.\"\n\n\"Goodness, you can't be suggesting-'\n\nBaaljagg gave clear answer to her unfinished question. The wolf spun, flashed past them, and hastened down to the wave-hammered rocks below. Moments later, they saw the huge wolf lunging from the thrashing water onto abroad raft of ice, then scampering across to the other side. Baaljagg then leapt outward, to land skidding on another floe.\n\n\"The method seems viable,\" Mok said.\n\nGarath plunged past them, following the wolf's route down to the shoreline.\n\n\"Oh!\" Lady Envy cried, stamping afoot. \"Can't we ever discuss things? '\n\n\"I see a possible route forming, mistress, which might well permit us to avoid getting too wet-\"\n\n\"Wet? Who's wet? Very well, call your brothers and lead the way. '\n\nThe journey across the pitching, heaving, often awash floes of ice proved frantic, perilous and exhausting. Upon reaching the rearing wall of wicker, they found no sign of Baaljagg or Garath, yet could follow their tracks on the snow-crusted raft, which seemed to beholding afloat most of the Meckros structure, round to the unwalled, broken side.\n\nWithin the chaotic framework of beams and struts, steeply angled, thick-planked ladders had been placed– no doubt originally built to assist in maintenance of the city's undercarriage. The frosted steps within sight all revealed deep gouging from the wolf's and the hound's passage upward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Water streamed down the jumbled, web-like framework, revealing the sundered nature of the street and houses above.\n\nSenu in the lead, followed by Thurule then Mok, with Lady Envy last, the travellers climbed slowly, cautiously upward.\n\nThey eventually emerged through a warehouse-sized trapdoor that opened onto the pitched, main floor of one of the houses. The chamber was crowded along three of its four walls with burlap-wrapped supplies. Huge barrels had tumbled, rolled, and were now gathered atone end. To its right were double doors, now shattered open, no doubt by Baaljagg and Garath, revealing a cobbled street beyond.\n\nThe air was bitter cold.\n\n\"It might be worthwhile,\" Mok said to Lady Envy, \"to examine each of these houses, from level to level, to determine which is the most structurally sound and therefore inhabitable. There seem to be considerable stores remaining which we can exploit.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" Lady Envy said distractedly. \"I leave to you and your brothers such mundane necessities. The assumption that our journey has brought us to, however, rests in the untested belief that this contraption will perforce carry us north, across the entire breadth of Coral Bay, and hence to the city that is our goal. I, and I alone, it seems, must do the fretting on this particular issue.\"\n\n\"As you like, mistress.\"\n\n\"Watch yourself, Mok!\" she snapped.\n\nHe tilted his masked head in silent apology.\n\n\"My servants forget themselves, it seems. Think on the capacity of my fullest irritation, you three. In the meantime, I shall idle on the city's street, such as it is. ' With that, she pivoted and strode languidly towards the doorway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Baaljagg and Garath stood three paces beyond, the rain striking their broad backs hard enough to mist with spray." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Both animals faced alone figure, standing in the gloom of the opposite house's overhanging dormer.\n\nFora moment, Lady Envy almost sighed, then the fact that she did not recognize the figure struck home. \"Oh! And here I was about to say: dear Tool, you waited for us after all! But lo, you are not him, are you?\"\n\nThe T'lan Imass before them was shorter, squatter than Tool. Three black-iron broadswords of unfamiliar style impaled this undead warrior's broad, massive chest, two of them driven in from behind, the other from the T'lan Imass's left. Broken ribs jutted through black, salt-rimed skin. The leather strapping of all three sword handles hung in rotted, unravelled strips from the grips' wooden under-plates. Wispy remnants of old sorcery flowed fitfully along the pitted blades.\n\nThe warrior's features were extraordinarily heavy, the brow ridge a skinless shelf of bone, stained dark brown, the cheekbones swept out and high to frame flattened oval-shaped eye sockets. Cold-hammered copper fangs capped the undead's upper canines. The T'lan Imass did not wear a helm. Longhair, bleached white, dangled to either side of the broad, chinless face, weighted at the ends with shark teeth.\n\nA most dreadful, appalling apparition, Lady Envy reflected. \"Have you a name, T'lan Imass? ' she asked.\n\n\"I have heard the summons,\" the warrior said in a voice that was distinctly feminine. \"It came from a place to match the direction I had already chosen. North. Not far, now. I shall attend the Second Gathering, and I shall address my Kin of the Ritual, and so tell them that I am Lanas Tog. Sent to bring word of the fates of the Ifayle T'lan Imass and of my own Kerluhm T'lan Imass.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How fascinating,\" Lady Envy said. \"And their fates are?\"\n\n\"I am the last of the Kerluhm. The Ifayle, who heeded our first summons, are all but destroyed. Those few that remain cannot extricate themselves from the conflict. I myself did not expect to survive the attempt. Yet I have.\"\n\n\"A horrific conflict indeed,\" Lady Envy quietly observed. \"Where does it occur?\"\n\n\"The continent of Assail. Our losses: twenty-nine thousand eight hundred and fourteen Kerluhm. Twenty-two thousand two hundred Ifayle. Eight months of battle. We have lost this war.\"\n\nLady Envy was silent fora long moment, then she said, \"It seems you've finally found a Jaghut Tyrant who is more than your match, Lanas Tog. '\n\nThe T'lan Imass cocked her head.\"Not Jaghut. Human. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Your friend's face might prove the mask the daub found in subtle shift to alter the once familiar visage. Or the child who formed unseen in private darkness as you whiled oblivious to reveal cruel shock as a stone through a temple's pane. To these there is no armour on the soul. And upon the mask is writ the bold word, echoed in the child's eyes, a sudden stranger to all you have known. Such is betrayal.\n\nDeath Vigil of Sorulan Minir Othal\n\nCAPTAIN PARAN REINED in his horse near the smoke-blackened rubble of the East Watch redoubt. He twisted in his saddle fora last look at Capustan's battered walls. Jelarkan's Palace reared tall and dark against the bright blue sky. Streaks of black paint etched the tower like cracks, a symbol of the city's mourning for its lost prince. The next rain would see that paint washed away, leaving no sign. That structure, he had heard, never wore the mortal moment for very long.\n\nThe Bridgeburners were filing out through the East Gate.\n\nFirst in, last out. They're always mindful of such gestures.\n\nSergeant Antsy was in the lead, with Corporal Picker a step behind. The two looked to be arguing, which was nothing new. Behind them, the soldiers of the other seven squads had lost all cohesion; the company marched in no particular order. The captain wondered at that. He'd met the other sergeants and corporals, of course. He knew the names of every surviving Bridgeburner and knew their faces as well. None the less, there was something strangely ephemeral about them. His eyes narrowed as he watched them walk the road, veiled in dust, like figures in a sun-bleached, threadbare tapestry. The march of armies, he reflected, was timeless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Horse hooves sounded to his right and he swung to see Silverfox ride up to halt at his side.\n\n\"Better we'd stayed avoiding each other, ' Paran said, returning his gaze to the soldiers on the road below.\n\n\"I'd not disagree, \"she said after a moment.\"But something's happened.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"No, you don't. What you no doubt refer to is not what I'm talking about, Captain. It's my mother– she's gone missing. Her and those two Daru who were caring for her. Somewhere in the city they turned their wagon, left the line. No-one seems to have seen a thing, though of course I cannot question an entire army-\"\n\n\"What of your T'lan Imass? Could they not find them easily enough? '\n\nShe frowned, said nothing.\n\nParan glanced at her. \"They're not happy with you, are they? '\n\n\"That is not the problem. I have sent them and the T'lan Ay across the river. '\n\n\"We've reliable means of reconnoitring already, Silverfox-'\n\n\"Enough. I do not need to explain myself.\"\n\n\"Yet you're asking for my help-'\n\n\"No. I am asking if you knew anything about it. Those Daru had to have had assistance.\"\n\n\"Have you questioned Kruppe?\"\n\n\"He's as startled and dismayed as I am, and I believe him. '\n\n\"Well,\" Paran said, \"people have a habit of underestimating Coll. He's quite capable of pulling this off all on his own. '\n\n\"You do not seem to realize the severity of what they've done. In kidnapping my mother-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hold on, Silverfox. You left your mother to their care. Left? No, too calm a word. Abandoned her. And I have no doubt at all that Coll and Murillio took the charge seriously, with all the compassion for the Mhybe you do not seem to possess. Consider the situation from their point of view. They're taking care of her, day in and day out, watching her wither. They seethe Mhybe's daughter, but only from a distance. Ignoring her own mother. They decide that they have to find someone who is prepared to help the Mhybe. Or at the very least grant her a dignified end. Kidnapping is taking someone away from someone else. The Mhybe has been taken away, but from whom? No-one. No-one at all.\"\n\nSilverfox, her face pale, was slow to respond. When she did, it was in a rasp, \"You have no idea what lies between us, Ganoes.\"\n\n\"And it seems you've no idea of how to forgive– not her, not yourself. Guilt has become a chasm-'\n\n\"That is rich indeed, coming from you.\"\n\nHis smile was tight. \"I've done my climb down, Silverfox, and am now climbing up the other side. Things have changed for both of us. '\n\n\"So you have turned your back on your avowed feelings for me.\"\n\n\"I love you still, but with your death I succumbed to a kind of infatuation. I convinced myself that what you and I had, so very briefly, was of far vaster and deeper import than it truly was. Of all the weapons we turn upon ourselves, guilt is the sharpest, Silverfox. It can carve one's own past into unrecognizable shapes, false memories leading to beliefs that sow all kinds of obsessions. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Delighted to have you clear the air so, Ganoes. Has it not occurred to you that clinical examination of oneself is yet another obsession? What you dissect has to be dead first– that's the principle of dissection, after all. '\n\n\"So my tutor explained,\" Paran replied, \"all those years ago. But you miss a more subtle truth. I can examine myself, my every feeling, until the Abyss swallows the world, yet come no closer to mastery of those emotions within me. For they are not static things; nor are they immune to the outside world– to what others say, or don't say. And so they are inconstant flux. '\n\n\"Extraordinary,\" she murmured. \"Captain Ganoes Paran, the young master of self-control, the tyrant unto himself. You have indeed changed. So much so that I no longer recognize you.\"\n\nHe studied her face, searching fora hint of the feelings behind those words. But she had closed herself to him. \"Whereas,\" he said slowly, \"I find you all too recognizable.\"\n\n\"Would you call that ironic? You see meas a woman you once loved, while I see you as a man I never knew.\"\n\n\"Too many tangled threads for irony, Silverfox.\"\n\n\"Perhaps pathos, then.\"\n\nHe looked away. \"We've wandered far from the subject. I am afraid I can tell you nothing of your mother's fate. Yet I am confident, none the less, that Coll and Murillio will do all they can for her.\"\n\n\"Then you're an even bigger fool than they are, Ganoes. By stealing her, they have sealed her doom. '\n\n\"I didn't know you for the melodramatic type. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am not-\"\n\n\"She is an old woman, an old, dying woman. Abyss take me, leave her alone-\"\n\n\"You are not listening!\" Silverfox hissed. \"My mother is trapped in a nightmare– within her own mind, lost, terrified. Hunted! I have stayed closer to her than any of you realized. Far closer!\"\n\n\"Silverfox,\" Paran said quietly, \"if she is within a nightmare, then her living has become a curse. The only true mercy is to see it ended, once and for all.\"\n\n\"No! She is my mother, damn you! And I will not abandon her!\"\n\nShe wheeled her horse, drove her heels into its flanks.\n\nParan watched her ride off. Silverfox, what machinations have you wrapped around your mother? What is it you seek for her? Would you not tell us, please, so that we are made to understand that what we all see as betrayal is in fact something else?\n\nIs it something else?\n\nAnd these machinations– whose? Not Tattersail, surely. No, this must be Nightchill. Oh, how you've closed yourself tome, now. When once you reached out, incessantly, relentlessly seeking to pry open my heart. It seems that what we shared, so long ago in Pale, is as nothing.\n\nI begin to think, now, that it was far more important tome than it was to you. Tattersail... you were, after all, an older woman. You'd lived your share of loves and losses. On the other hand, I'd barely lived at all.\n\nWhat was, then, is no more.\n\nFlesh and blood Bonecaster, you've become colder than the T'lan Imass you now command." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I suppose, then, they have indeed found a worthy master.\n\nBeru fend us all.\n\nOf the thirty transport barges and floating bridges the Pannions had used to cross the Catlin River, only a third remained serviceable, the others having fallen prey to the overzealous White Face Barghast during the first day of battle. Companies from Caladan Brood's collection of mercenaries had begun efforts at salvaging the wrecks with the intention of cobbling together a few more; while alone serviceable floating bridge and the ten surviving barges already rode the lines across the river's expanse, loaded with troops, mounts and supplies.\n\nItkovian watched them as he walked the shoreline. He'd left his horse on a nearby hillock where the grasses grew thick, and now wandered alone, with only the shift of pebbles underfoot and the soft rush of the river accompanying him. The wind was sweeping up the river's mouth, a salt-laden breath from the sea beyond, so the sounds of the barges behind him– the winches, the lowing of yoked cattle, the shouts of drivers– did not reach him.\n\nGlancing up, he saw a figure on the beach ahead, seated cross-legged and facing the scene of the crossing. Wild-haired, wearing a stained collection of rags, the man was busy painting on wood-backed muslin. Itkovian paused, watching the artist's head bob up and down, the long-handled brush darting about in his hand, now hearing his mumbling conversation with himself.\n\nOr, perhaps, not with himself. One of the skull-sized boulders near the artist moved suddenly, revealing itself to be a large, olive-green toad.\n\nAnd it had just replied to the artist's tirade, in a low, rumbling voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Itkovian approached.\n\nThe toad saw him first and said something in a language Itkovian did not understand.\n\nThe artist looked up, scowled. \"Interruptions,\" he snapped in Daru, \"are not welcome!\"\n\n\"My apologies, sir-\"\n\n\"Wait! You're the one named Itkovian! Defender of Capustan! '\n\n\"Failed defen-\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, everyone's heard your words from the parley. Idiocy. When I paint you in the scene, I'll be sure to include the noble failure– in your stance, perhaps, in where your eyes rest, maybe. A certain twist to the shoulders, yes, I think I see it now. Precisely. Excellent.\"\n\n\"You are Malazan?\"\n\n\"Of course I'm Malazan! Does Brood give one whit for history? He does not. But the old Emperor! Oh yes, he did, he did indeed! Artists with every army! On every campaign! Artists of purest talent, sharp-eyed– yes, dare I admit it, geniuses. Such as Ormulogun of Li Heng! '\n\n\"I am afraid I've not heard that name– he was a great artist of the Malazan Empire? '\n\n\"Was? Is! I am Ormulogun of Li Heng, of course. Endlessly mimicked, never surpassed! Ormulogun seraith Gumble!\"\n\n\"An impressive title-\"\n\n\"It's not a title, you fool. Gumble is my critic. \"With that he gestured at the toad, then said to it,\"Mark him well, Gumble, so that you note the brilliance of my coming rendition. He stands straight, does he not? Yet his bones may well be iron, their burden that of a hundred thousand foundation stones... or souls, to be more precise. And his features, yes? Look carefully, Gumble, and you will seethe fullest measure of this man. And know this, though I capture all he is on the canvas recording the parley outside Capustan, know this... in that image you will see that Itkovian is not yet done. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The soldier started.\n\nOrmulogun grinned. \"Oh yes, warrior, I see all too well for your comfort, yes? Now Gumble, spew forth your commentary, for I know its tide is building! Come now!\"\n\n\"You are mad,\" the toad observed laconically. \"Forgive him, Shield Anvil, he softens his paint in his own mouth. It has poisoned his brain-\"\n\n\"Poisoned, pickled, poached, yes, yes, I've heard every variation from you until I'm sick to my stomach!\"\n\n\"Nausea is to be expected,\" the toad said with a sleepy blink. \"Shield Anvil, I am no critic. Merely a humble observer who, when able, speaks on behalf of the tongue-tied multitudes otherwise known as the commonalty, or, more precisely, the rabble. An audience, understand, wholly incapable of self-realization or cogent articulation, and thus possessors of depressingly vulgar tastes when not apprised of what they truly like, if only they knew it. My meagre gift, therefore, lies in the communication of an aesthetic framework upon which most artists hang themselves.\"\n\n\"Ha, slimy one! Ha! So very slimy! Here, have a fly!\" Ormulogun plunged his paint-smeared fingers into a pouch at his side. He withdrew a deerfly and tossed it at the toad.\n\nThe still living but dewinged insect landed directly in front of Gumble, who lunged forward and devoured it in a pink flash. \"As I was saying-\"\n\n\"A moment, if you please,\" Itkovian interrupted.\n\n\"I will allow a moment,\" the toad said, \"if possessing admirable brevity.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you, sir. Ormulogun, you say it was the practice of the Emperor of Malaz to assign artists to his armies. Presumably to record historical moments. Yetis not Onearm's Host outlawed? For whom, then, do you paint? '\n\n\"A record of the outlawry is essential! Besides, I had little choice but to accompany the army. What would you have me do, paint sunsets on cobbles in Darujhistan fora living? I found myself on the wrong continent! As for the so-called community of artisans and patrons in the so-called city of Pale and their so-called styles of expression-\"\n\n\"They hated you,\" Gumble said.\n\n\"And I hated them! Tell me, did you see anything worthy of mention in Pale? Did you?\"\n\n\"Well, there was one mosaic-\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Fortunately, the attributed artist was long dead, permitting my effusiveness in its praise.\"\n\n\"You call that effusive? \"It shows promise...\" Isn't that what you said? You well know it's precisely what you said, as soon as that foppish host mentioned the artist was dead!\"\n\n\"Actually,\" Itkovian commented, \"rather droll, to say such a thing.\"\n\n\"I am never droll,\" the toad said.\n\n\"Though you do drool on occasion! Ha! Slimy one, yes? Ha!\"\n\n\"Suck another lump of paint, will you? There, that quicksilvered white. Looks very tasty.\"\n\n\"You just want me dead,\" Ormulogun muttered, reaching for the small gummy piece of paint. \"So you can get effusive.\"\n\n\"If you say so.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're a leech, you know that? Following me around everywhere. A vulture. '\n\n\"Dear man,\" Gumble sighed, \"I am a toad. While you are an artist. And for my fortune in the distinction, I daily thank every god that is and every god that ever was.\"\n\nItkovian left them exchanging evermore elaborate insults, and continued on down the shoreline. He forgot to look at Ormulogun's canvas.\n\nOnce the armies were across the river, they would divide. The city of Lest lay directly south, four days' march, while the road to Setta angled west-southwest. Setta was at the very feet of the Vision Mountains, rising on the banks of the river from which it took its name. That same river continued onto the sea south of Lest, and would need to be crossed by both forces, eventually.\n\nItkovian would accompany the army that struck for Lest, which consisted of the Grey Swords, elements of Tiste Andii, the Rhivi, Ilgres Barghast, a regiment of cavalry from Saltoan, and a handful of lesser mercenary companies from North Genabackis. Caladan Brood remained in overall command, with Kallor and Korlat as his seconds. The Grey Swords were attached in the manner of an allied force, with the Shield Anvil considered Brood's equal. This distinction did not apply to the other mercenary companies, for they were one and all contracted to the warlord. The Daru, Gruntle, and his motley followers were being viewed as wholly independent, welcome at the briefings but free to do as they pleased.\n\nAll in all, Itkovian concluded, the organization of the command was confused, the hierarchies of rank ephemeral. Not unlike our circumstances in Capustan, with the prince and the Mask Council ever muddying the waters. Perhaps this is a characteristic of the north and its independent city-states– before the Malazan invasion forced them into a confederacy of sorts, that is. And even then, it seemed, old rivalries and feuds perennially undermined the unification, to the invaders' advantage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The structure imposed by the Malazan High Fist upon those forces accompanying him was far clearer in its hierarchy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The imperial way was instantly recognizable to Itkovian, and indeed was similar to what he would have established, were he in Dujek Onearm's place. The High Fist commanded. His seconds were Whiskeyjack and Humbrall Taur– the latter displaying his wisdom by insisting upon Dujek's pre-eminence– as well as the commander of the Black Moranth, whom Itkovian had yet to meet. These three were considered equal in rank, yet distinct in their responsibilities.\n\nItkovian heard horse hooves and turned to seethe Malazan second, Whiskeyjack, riding towards him along the strand. That he had paused to speak with the artist was evident in Ormulogun's hastily gathering up his supplies in the soldier's wake.\n\nWhiskeyjack reined in. \"Good day to you, Itkovian.\"\n\n\"And to you, sir. Is there something you wish of me?\"\n\nThe bearded soldier shrugged, scanning the area. \"I am looking for Silverfox. Her, or the two marines who are supposed to be accompanying her.\"\n\n\"Following her, you no doubt mean. They passed me earlier, first Silverfox, then the two soldiers. Riding east.\"\n\n\"Did any of them speak with you?\"\n\n\"No. They rode at some distance from me, so courtesies were not expected. Nor did I endeavour to hail them.\"\n\nThe commander grimaced.\n\n\"Is something wrong, sir?\"\n\n\"Quick Ben's been using his warrens to assist in the crossing. Our forces are on the other side and are ready to march, since we've the longer road.\"\n\n\"Indeed. Is Silverfox not of the Rhivi, however? Or do you simply wish to make formal your goodbye?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His frown deepened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's as much Malazan as Rhivi. I would ask her to choose whom to accompany. '\n\n\"Perhaps she has, sir.\"\n\n\"Maybe not,\" Whiskeyjack replied, eyes now fixed on something to the east.\n\nItkovian turned, but since he was on foot it was a moment longer before the two riders came into his line of sight. The marines, approaching at a steady canter.\n\nThey drew up before their commander.\n\n\"Where is she?\" Whiskeyjack asked.\n\nThe marine on the right shrugged. \"We followed her to the coast. Above the tide-line was a row of lumpy hills surrounded by swampy ditches. She rode into one of the hills, Whiskeyjack-\"\n\n\"Rode into the side of one of'em, \"the other elaborated.\"Vanished. Not a pause nor a stumble from her horse. We rode up to the spot but there was nothing there but grass, mud and rocks. We've lost her, which is, I guess, what she wanted.\"\n\nThe commander was silent.\n\nItkovian had expected a heartfelt curse at the very least, and was impressed at the man's self-control.\n\n\"All right. Ride back with me. We're crossing to the other side. '\n\n\"We saw Gumble's pet on the way out. '\n\n\"I've already sent him and Ormulogun back. Theirs is the last wagon, and you well know Ormulogun's instructions regarding his collection.\"\n\nThe marines nodded.\n\nItkovian asked, \"His collection? How many scenes has he painted since Pale?\"\n\n\"Since Pale?\" one of the marines grinned. \"There's over eight hundred stretches in that wagon. Ten, eleven years'worth. Dujek here, Dujek there, Dujek even where he wasn't but should have been. He's already done one of the siege of Capustan, with Dujek arriving in the nick of time, tall in his saddle and coming through the gate. There's one White Face Barghast crouching in the gate's shadow, looting a dead Pannion. And in the storm clouds over the scene you'll make out Laseen's face if you look carefully enough-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Enough,\" Whiskeyjack growled. \"Your words give offence, soldier. The man before you is Itkovian.\"\n\nThe marine's grin broadened but she said nothing.\n\n\"We know that, sir,\" the other one said. \"Which is why my comrade here was teasing him. Itkovian, there's no such painting. Ormulogun is the Host's historian, since we ain't got any other, and he's charged on pain of death to keep things accurate, right down to the nosehairs.\"\n\n\"Ride,\" Whiskeyjack told them. \"I would a private word with Itkovian.\"\n\n\"Aye, sir.\"\n\nThe two marines departed.\n\n\"Apologies, Itkovian-\"\n\n\"No need, sir. There is welcome relief to such irreverence. In fact, it pleases me that they would display such comfort.\"\n\n\"Well, they're only like that with people they respect, though it's often taken as the opposite, which can lead to all sorts of trouble.\"\n\n\"So I would imagine.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Whiskeyjack said gruffly, then surprised Itkovian by dismounting, stepping up to him and holding out his gauntleted hand. \"Among the soldiers of the Empire,\" he said, \"where the worn gauntlet is for war and nothing other than war, to remain gauntleted when grasping the hand of another, in peace, is the rarest of gestures.\"\n\n\"So it, too, is often misunderstood,\" Itkovian said. \"I, sir, do not miscomprehend the significance, and so am honoured.\" He grasped the commander's hand.\"You accord me far too much-'\n\n\"I do not, Itkovian. I only wish you were travelling with us, so that I could come to know you better.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yet we will meet at Maurik, sir.\"\n\nWhiskeyjack nodded. \"Until then, Itkovian.\"\n\nThey released their grips. The commander swung himself back into the saddle and gathered the reins. He hesitated, then said, \"Are all Elin like you, Itkovian?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"I am not unique.\"\n\n\"Then'ware the Empress the day her legions assail your homeland's borders.\"\n\nHis brows rose. \"And come that day, will you be commanding those legions?\"\n\nWhiskeyjack grinned. \"Go well, sir.\"\n\nItkovian watched the man ride away, down the strand, his horse's hooves kicking up green clumps of sand. He had a sudden, inexplicable conviction that they would never see each other again. After a moment, he shook his head to dispel the dread thought.\n\n\"Well, of course Kruppe will bless this company with his presence!\"\n\n\"You misunderstood,\" Quick Ben sighed. \"That was only a question, not an invitation.\"\n\n\"Poor wizard is weary, yes? So many paths of sorcery to take the place of mundane barges plagued with leaky lack of integrity. None the less, Kruppe is impressed with your prowess– such a dance of warrens rarely if ever before witnessed by humble self. And each one pristine! As if to say faugh! to the foolish one in chains! Such a bold challenge! Such a-\"\n\n\"Oh, be quiet! Please!\" Quick Ben stood on the river's north shore. Mud covered his leggings to mid-thigh, the price for minimizing as much as possible the distance of the paths he had fashioned for the columns of troops, the wagons, the livestock and the spare mounts. He only awaited the last few stragglers who'd yet to arrive, Whiskeyjack included. To make his exhaustion even more unpleasant, the spirit of Talamandas whined unceasing complaint from his invisible perch on the wizard's left shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Too much power had been unveiled here. Sufficient to draw notice. Careless, claimed the sticksnare in a whisper. Suicidal, in fact. The Crippled God cannot help but find us. Stupid bluster! And what of the Pannion Seer? A score of dread warrens all trembling to our passage! Proof of our singular efficacy against the infection! Will either of them simply sit back and do nothing in answer to what they have seen here?\n\n\"Silence,\" Quick Ben muttered.\n\nKruppe's wiry brows rose.\"One rude command was sufficient, Kruppe haughtily assures miserable wizard! '\n\n\"Not you. Never mind. I was thinking aloud.\"\n\n\"Curious habit fora mage, yes? Dangerous.\"\n\n\"You think so? How about some more loudly uttered thoughts, Daru? The display is deliberate. The unveiling of power here is precisely intended to kick the hornet nests. Both of them! Clumsily massive, an appalling absence of subtlety. Thunder to those who had been expecting the almost soundless padding of a mouse's feet and its whispering tail. Now, why would I do that, do you wonder? '\n\n\"Kruppe does not wonder at all, except, perhaps, at your insisting on explaining such admirable tactics of misdirection to these squalling seagulls.\"\n\nQuick Ben scowled down at the round little man. \"Really? I had no idea I was that obvious. Maybe I should reconsider.\"\n\n\"Nonsense, Wizard! Hold to your unassailable self-confidence– aye, some might well call it megalomania, but not Kruppe, for he too is in possession of unassailable self-confidence, such as only mortals are capable of and then rightfully but a mere handful the world over. You've singular company, Kruppe assures you! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Quick Ben grinned. \"Singular? And what about these seagulls?\"\n\nKruppe waved a plump hand. \"Pah! Lest one should land on your left shoulder, that is. Which would be another matter entirely, would it not?\"\n\nThe wizard's dark eyes thinned suspiciously on the Daru at his side.\n\nKruppe blithely continued, \"In which case, poor ignorant bird would be witness to such potent plurality of cunning converse so as to reel confused if not mercifully constipated!\"\n\nQuick Ben blinked in startlement. \"What did you say?\"\n\n\"Well sir, were we not suggesting the placement of corks? Be quiet. Shut up. Kruppe simply advised of an internal version with which seagull's ceaseless bleating complaint is silenced, indeed, stoppered up to the relief of one and all! '\n\nTwo hundred paces to their right another barge loaded with Brood's forces set out, the craft quickly drawing the lines down-current as it left the shore.\n\nA pair of marines rode up to Quick Ben and Kruppe.\n\nThe wizard scowled at them. \"Where's Whiskeyjack? '\n\n\"On the way, Bridgeburner. Did the toad and his artist show up?\"\n\n\"Just in time to take charge of their wagon, aye. They're on the other side. '\n\n\"Fancy work. We crossing the same way?\"\n\n\"Well, I was thinking of dropping you halfway– when did you two last bathe?\"\n\nThe women exchanged a glance, then one shrugged and said, \"Don't know. A month? Three? We've been busy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And we'd rather not get wet, Wizard, \"the other marine said.\"Our armour and the clothes under \"em might fall apart.\"\n\n\"Kruppe asserts that would prove a sight never to be forgotten!\"\n\n\"Bet your eyes'd fallout, \"the soldier agreed.\"And if they didn't we'd have to help \"em along some.\"\n\n\"At least our nails would be clean,\" the other observed.\n\n\"Aai! Coarse women! Kruppe sought only to compliment!\"\n\n\"You're the one needing a bath, ' the marine said.\n\nThe Daru's expression displayed shock, then dismay.\"Outrageous notion. Sufficient layers of sweet scent applied over sufficient years, nay, decades, have resulted in a permanent and indeed impervious bouquet of gentlest fragrance. \"He waved his plump, pale hands.\"A veritable aura about oneself to draw lovestruck butterflies-'\n\n\"Look like deerflies tome-\"\n\n\"These are uncivil lands– yet do you see a single insect alight?\"\n\n\"Well, there's a few drowned in your oily hair, now that you ask. '\n\n\"Precisely. Inimical foes one and all fall to the same fate.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" Quick Ben said, \"here comes Whiskeyjack. Finally. Thank the gods.\"\n\nDarkness swallowed the alley as dusk descended on the ruined city. A few oil lamps lit the major thoroughfares, and the occasional squad of Gidrath walked rounds carrying lanterns of their own.\n\nWrapped in a cloak hiding his full armour, Coll stood within an alcove and watched one such squad troop past at the alley's mouth, watched as the pool of yellow light slowly dwindled, until the night once more reclaimed the street." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stepped out and gestured.\n\nMurillio flicked the traces, startling the oxen into motion. The wagon creaked and rocked over the cracked, heat-blasted cobbles.\n\nColl strode in advance, out onto the street. It had been only partially cleared of rubble. Three gutted temples were within the range of his vision, showing no indication of having been reoccupied. No different from the four others they had found earlier that afternoon.\n\nAt the moment, the prospects were grim. It seemed the only surviving priests were those in the Thrall, and that was the last place they wanted to visit. Rumour was, political rivalries had reached a volatile state, now that the Mask Council was free of the presence of powerful allies; free, as well, of a royal presence who traditionally provided a levelling influence on their excesses. The future of Capustan was not a promising one.\n\nColl turned to the right– northeast– waving behind him as he made his way up the street. He heard Murillio's muted cursing as he slapped the traces down onto the backs of the two oxen. The animals were tired and hungry, the wagon behind them overburdened.\n\nHood take us, we might have made a terrible mistake...\n\nHe heard the flap of a bird's wings overhead, soft and momentary, and thought nothing of it.\n\nDeep ruts had been worn into the cobbles from the passage of countless wagons, many of them of late heavily loaded down with broken stone, but their width did not match that of the Rhivi wagon– a thick-wheeled, plains vehicle built to contest high grasses and muddy sinkholes. Nor could Murillio manage to avoid the wagon's slipping into one of the ruts, for the oxen had a grooved path of their own on this side of the street. The result was a sharply canted, awkward progress, the yokes shifted into angles that were clearly uncomfortable for the oxen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Behind him, Coll heard one low a complaint, which ended with a strange grunt and whip of the traces. He spun in time to see Murillio's body pitching from the seat, to strike the cobbles with a bone-cracking impact.\n\nA huge figure, all in black, who seemed for the briefest moment to be winged, now stood atop the wagon.\n\nMurillio lay in a motionless heap beside the front wheel.\n\nFear ripped through the Daru. \"What the-\"\n\nThe figure gestured. Black sorcery bloomed from him, swept tumbling towards Coll.\n\nSwearing, the Daru flung himself to the right, rolled clanking, metal snapping on stone, to collide with the first half-moon step of a temple.\n\nBut the magic flowed too wide to escape, swirling and spinning its inky power to fill the street like a flash-flood.\n\nLying on his side, back jammed against the step, Coll could only throw up a forearm to cover his eyes as the sorcery loomed over him, then plunged down.\n\nAnd vanished. Blinking, Coll grunted, dropped his arm in time to see a dark, armoured figure step directly over him from behind– from the direction of the temple's entrance.\n\nHis peripheral vision caught flanking longswords, one of them strangely bent, gliding pastas the massive warrior reached the cobbles of the street.\n\nThe attacker perched on the wagon spoke in a high voice, the tone bemused. \"You should be dead. I can feel the coldness of you. I can sense the fist of Hood, coiled therein your lifeless chest. He's kept you here. Wandering. '\n\nHuh, this new arrival doesn't look very dead tome. His eyes scanned the shadows to the right of the wagon, seeking Murillio's motionless form." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not wandering,\" the warrior rasped, still striding towards the figure. \"Hunting.\"\n\n\"Us? But we've taken so few from you! Less than a score in this city. Knight of Death, has your master not fed unto bursting of late? And I but sought the unconscious hag– she lies in the bed of this wagon. Hovering at the very edge of the chasm. Surely your master-'\n\n\"Not for you,\" the warrior rumbled. \"Her spirit awaits. And those of her gathered kin. And the beasts whose hearts are empty. All await. Not for you.\"\n\nThe air in the alley had grown bitter cold.\n\n\"Oh, all right, then,\" the attacker sighed. \"What of this driver and his guard? I could use so many pieces of them-\"\n\n\"No. Korbal Broach, hear the words of my master. You are to release the undead who guard your compound. You and the one named Bauchelain are to leave the city. This night.\"\n\n\"We'd planned on a morning departure, Knight of Death– for you are the Knight, yes? High House Death stirs to wakefulness, I now sense. A morning departure, yes? To follow these fascinating armies southward-'\n\n\"This night, or I shall descend upon you, and claim your souls. Do you realize the fate my master has in store for you two?\"\n\nColl watched as the bald, pallid-faced man atop the wagon raised his arms– which then blurred, broadened into midnight wings. He giggled. \"You will have to catch us first!\" The blurring became a smear, then where the man had stood there was only a bedraggled crow, cawing sharply as it rose upward, wings thrumming, and was swallowed by darkness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The warrior walked to where Murillio lay.\n\nColl drew a deep breath, seeking to slow his hammering heart, then climbed painfully to his feet. \"My thanks to you, sir,\" he grunted, wincing at what in the morning would be fierce bruising on his right shoulder and hip. \"Does my companion live?\"\n\nThe warrior, who Coll now saw was wearing the remnants of Gidrath armour, swung to face him. \"He lives. Korbal Broach requires that they be alive... for his work. At least at first. You are to come with me.\"\n\n\"Ah, when you said hunting, that sorceror assumed it was him you were hunting. But it wasn't, was it? '\n\n\"They are an arrogant pair.\"\n\nColl slowly nodded. He hesitated, then said, \"Forgive me if I am being rude, but I would know what you– what your Lord– would do with us? We've an elderly woman to care for-'\n\n\"You are to have my master's protection. Come, the Temple of Hood has been prepared for your residence. '\n\n\"Not sure how I should take that. The Mhybe needs help.\"\n\n\"What the Mhybe needs, Coll of Darujhistan, is not for you to give.\"\n\n\"Is it for Hood to give?\"\n\n\"The woman's flesh and bone must be maintained. Fed, given water, cared for. That is your responsibility. '\n\n\"You did not answer.\"\n\n\"Follow me. We have not far to go.\"\n\n\"At the moment,\" Coll said quietly, \"I am inclined otherwise.\" He reached for his sword.\n\nThe Knight of Death cocked his head. \"Tell me, Coll of Darujhistan, do you sleep?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Daru frowned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course. What-\"\n\n\"I did once, too. I must have, yes? But now, I do not. Instead, I pace. You see, I cannot remember sleep. I cannot remember what it was like.\"\n\n\"I– I am sorry for that.\"\n\n\"Thus, one who does not sleep... and, herein this wagon, one who will not awaken. I believe, Coll of Darujhistan, that we will have need of each other. Soon. This woman and I.\"\n\n\"What kind of need?\"\n\n\"I do not know. Come, we've not far. '\n\nColl slowly resheathed his sword. He could not have explained why he did so; none of his questions had been answered to his satisfaction, and the thought of entering Hood's protection chilled his skin. None the less, he nodded and said,\"A moment, if you will. I have to lift Murillio onto the bed. '\n\n\"Ah, yes. That is true. I would have done so but, alas, I find myself unable to release my swords from my own hands.\" The warrior was silent a moment longer, then he said, \"Korbal Broach saw into me. His words have made my mind... troubled. Coll of Darujhistan, I think I am dead. Am I? Am I dead?\"\n\n\"I don't know, \"the Daru replied,\"but... I think so. '\n\n\"The dead, it is said, do not sleep.\"\n\nColl well knew the saying, and knew that it had originally come from Hood's own temple. He knew, as well, the wry observation that closed the quote.\" \"While the living do not live.\" Not that that makes much sense. '\n\n\"It does tome,\" the warrior said. \"For I now know that I have lost what I did not know I once possessed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Coll's mind stumbled through that statement, then he sighed.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'd be a fool not to take your word for it... have you a name?\"\n\n\"I believe so, but I have forgotten it.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Coll said as he crouched down over Murillio and gathered the man into his arms, \"Knight of Death won't do, I'm afraid.\" He straightened, grunting at the weight in his arms. \"You were a Gidrath, yes? And a Capan– though I admit, with that bronze hue to your skin, you've more the colouring of-'\n\n\"No, I was not Gidrath. Not Capan. I am not, I think, from this continent at all. I do not know why I appeared here. Nor how. I have not been here long. This is as my master wills. Of my past, I recall but one thing.\"\n\nColl carried Murillio to the back of the wagon and laid the man down. \"And what's that? '\n\n\"I once stood within fire.\"\n\nAfter along moment, Coll sighed roughly. \"An unfortunate memory...\"\n\n\"There was pain. Yet I held on. Fought on. Or so I believe. I was, I think, sworn to defend a child's life. But the child was no more. It maybe... that I failed. '\n\n\"Well, we still need a name for you.\"\n\n\"Perhaps one will come to you eventually, Coll of Darujhistan.\"\n\n\"I promise it.\"\n\n\"Or perhaps one day my memories will return in full, and with them my name.\"\n\nAnd if Hood has any mercy in him that day will never come, friend. For I think there was nothing easy in your life. Orin your death. And it seems he does possess mercy, for he's taken you faraway from all that you once knew, for if I'm not mistaken, if only by your features and never mind that strange skin, you're Malazan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Itkovian had crossed on the last barge, beneath avast spread of spearpoint stars, in the company of Stonny Menackis and Gruntle and his score of barbed followers, along with a hundred or so Rhivi– mostly elders and their dogs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The animals snapped and squabbled in the confines of the flat, shallow craft, then settled down for the journey's second half once they'd managed to fight their way to the gunnels and could lookout over the river.\n\nThe dogs were the first off when the barge ground ashore on the south side, barking wildly as they splashed through the reeds, and Itkovian was glad for their departure. Only half listening to Gruntle and Stonny exchanging insults like a husband and wife who had known each other far too long, Itkovian readied his horse to await the laying down of planks, and watched with mild interest the Rhivi elders following in the wake of their dogs without heed to the shore's churned mud and matted reeds.\n\nThe low, worn-downhills on this side of the river still held a haze of dust and dung-smoke, draped like a mourner's veil over the army's score thousand or more tents. Apart from a few hundred Rhivi herders and the bhederin herd they were tasked to drive across come the dawn, the entire force of the invaders was now on Pannion territory.\n\nNo-one had contested the landing. The low hills to the south seemed devoid of life, revealing naught but the worn tracks left behind by Septarch Kulpath's besieging army.\n\nGruntle moved up alongside him. \"Something tells me we'll be marching through razed land all the way down to Coral. '\n\n\"That seems likely, sir. It is as I would have done, were I the Seer.\"\n\n\"I sometimes wonder if Brood and Dujek realize that the army that besieged Capustan was but one among at least three of comparable size. And while Kulpath was a particularly effective Septarch, there are six others competent enough to cause us grief.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Itkovian pulled his gaze from the encampment ahead to study the hulking warrior at his side." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We must assume our enemy is preparing for us. Yet, within the Domin, the last grains of the bell-glass are even now trickling down.\"\n\nTreach's Mortal Sword grunted.\"You know something the rest of us don't?\"\n\n\"Not specifically, sir. I have but drawn conclusions based on such details as I was able to observe when viewing Kulpath's army, and the Tenescowri. '\n\n\"Well, don't keep them to yourself. '\n\nItkovian returned his gaze to the south. After a moment he sighed. \"Cities and governments are but the flowering head of a plant whose stalk is the commonalty, and it is the commonalty whose roots are within the earth, drawing the necessary sustenance that maintains the flower. The Tenescowri, sir, is the Domin's surviving commonalty– people torn from their land, from their villages, their homes, their farms. All food production has ceased, and in its place has arisen the horror of cannibalism. The countryside before us is indeed razed, but not in answer to us. It has been a wasteland for sometime, sir. Thus, while the flower still blazes its colour, it is in fact already dead. '\n\n\"Drying from a hook beneath the Crippled God's shelf? '\n\nItkovian shrugged. \"Caladan Brood and the High Fist have selected cities as their destinations. Lest, Setta, Maurik and Coral. Of these, I believe only the last still lives. None of the others would be able to feed a defending army; indeed, not even its own citizenry– if any still remain. The Seer has no choice but to concentrate his forces on the one city where he now resides, and his soldiers will have no choice but to assume the practices of the Tenescowri. I suspect that the Tenescowri were created for that eventual purpose– as food for the soldiers.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gruntle's expression was troubled.\"What you describe, Itkovian, is an empire that was never meant to sustain itself. '\n\n\"Unless it could continue to expand without surcease.\"\n\n\"But even then, it would be alive only on its outer, ever-advancing edges, spreading out from a dead core, a core that grew with it.\"\n\nItkovian nodded. \"Aye, sir.\"\n\n\"So, if Brood and Dujek are expecting battles at Setta, Lest and Maurik, they maybe in fora surprise.\"\n\n\"So I believe.\"\n\n\"Those Malazans will end up doing a lot of pointless marching,\" Gruntle observed, \"if you're right. '\n\n\"Perhaps there are other issues sufficient to justify the division of forces, Mortal Sword.\"\n\n\"Not quite as united as they would have us believe?\"\n\n\"There are powerful leaders gathered within that command, sir. It is perhaps miraculous that a serious clash of wills has not yet occurred.\"\n\nGruntle said nothing fora time.\n\nThe broad wicker platforms were being anchored in place at the front of the barge, a company of mercenaries assembling the walkway with practised efficiency.\n\n\"Let us hope, then,\" he finally rumbled, \"the siege at Coral is not along one.\"\n\n\"It will not be,\" Itkovian asserted. \"I predict a single attack, intended to overwhelm. A combination of soldiery and sorcery. The massive sundering of defences is the intention of the warlord and the High Fist. Both are well aware of the risks inherent in any prolonged investment.\"\n\n\"Sounds messy, Itkovian.\"\n\nStonny Menackis came up behind them, leading her horse. \"Get moving, you two– you're holding us all up and this damned barge is settling. If I get any mud on these new clothes, I will kill whoever's to blame. Barbed or otherwise.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Itkovian smiled. \"I'd intended complimenting you on your garb-'\n\n\"The wonders of the Trygalle. Made to order by my favourite tailor in Darujhistan.\"\n\n\"You seem to favour green, sir.\"\n\n\"Ever seen a jaelparda?\"\n\nItkovian nodded. \"Such snakes are known in Elingarth.\"\n\n\"Deadly kissers, jaelparda. This green is a perfect match, isn't it? It'd better be. It's what I paid for and it wasn't cheap. And this pale gold– you see? Lining the cloak? Ever looked at the underbelly of a white paralt?\"\n\n\"The spider?\"\n\n\"The death-tickler, aye. This is the colour.\"\n\n\"I could not have mistaken it for otherwise,\" Itkovian replied.\n\n\"Good, I'm glad someone here understands the subtle nuances of high civilization. Now move your damned horse or what you ain't used for far too long will get introduced to the toe of my shiny new boot.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nCorporal Picker watched Detoran drag Hedge towards her tent. The two passed in silence along the very edge of the firepit's light. Before they vanished once more into the gloom, Picker was witness to a comic pantomime as Hedge, the skin of his face stretched taut in a wild grimace, sought to bolt in an effort to escape Detoran. She responded by reaching up to grip the man's throat and shaking his head back and forth until his struggles ceased.\n\nAfter they'd disappeared, Blend grunted.\"What night thankfully hides... '\n\n\"Not well enough, alas,\" Picker muttered, poking at the fire with a splintered spear-shaft." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Partner with the writer, carry on with the story.\nTags: epic fantasy, alliance, ancient threats, camaraderie, tragic events\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Memories of Ice\nChapter: 27" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Silverfox opened the Warren of Tellann.\n\nVanished within.\n\nA mother's love abides.\n\nBut I was never meant to be a mother. I wasn't ready. I was unprepared to give so much of myself. A self I had only begun to unveil.\n\nThe Mhybe could have turned away. At the very beginning. She could have defied Kruppe, defied the Elder God, the Imass– what were these lost souls to her? Malazans, one and all. The enemy. Dire in the ways of magic. All with the blood of Rhivi staining their hands.\n\nChildren were meant to be gifts. The physical manifestation of love between a man and a woman. And for that love, all manner of sacrifice could be borne.\n\nIs it enough that the child issued from my flesh? Arrived in this world in the way of all children? Is the simple pain of birth the wellspring of love? Everyone else believed so. They took the bond of mother and child as given, a natural consequence of the birth itself.\n\nThey should not have done that.\n\nMy child was not innocent.\n\nConceived out of pity, not love; conceived with dread purpose– to take command of the T'lan Imass, to draw them into yet another war– to betray them.\n\nAnd now, the Mhybe was trapped. Lost in a dreamworld too vast to comprehend, where forces were colliding, demanding that she act, that she do... something.\n\nAncient gods, bestial spirits, a man imprisoned in pain, in a broken, twisted body. This cage of ribs before me– is it his? The one I spoke with, so long ago? The one writhing so in a mother's embrace? Are we as kin, he and I? Both trapped in ravaged bodies, both doomed to slide ever deeper into this torment of pain?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The beast waits for me– the man waits for me. We must reach out to each other. To touch, to give proof to both of us that we are not alone.\n\nIs this what awaits us?\n\nThe cage of ribs, the prison, must be broken from the outside.\n\nDaughter, you may have forsaken me. But this man, this brother of mine, him I shall not forsake.\n\nShe could not be entirely sure, but she believed that she started crawling once more.\n\nThe beast howled in her mind, a voice raw with agony.\n\nShe would have to free it, if she could. Such was pity's demand.\n\nNot love.\n\nAh, now I see...\n\nThus.\n\nHe would embrace them. He would take their pain. In this world, where all had been taken from him, where he walked without purpose, burdened with the lives and deaths of tens of thousands of mortal souls– unable to grant them peace, unable– unwilling– to simply cast them off, he was not yet done.\n\nHe would embrace them. These T'lan Imass, who had twisted all the powers of the Warren of Tellann into a ritual that devoured their souls. A ritual that had left them– in the eyes of all others– as little more than husks, animated by a purpose they had set outside themselves, yet were chained to– for eternity.\n\nHusks, yet... anything but.\n\nAnd that was a truth Itkovian had not expected, had noway to prepare for.\n\nInsharak Ulan, who was born third to Inal Thoom and Sultha A'rad of the Nashar Clan that would come to be Kron's own, in the spring of the Year of Blighted Moss, below the Land of Raw Copper, and I remember-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I remember-\n\nA snow hare, trembling, no more than a dusk-shadow's length from my reach, my child's arm and hand stretching. Streaks in the white, the promise of summer. Trembling hand, trembling hare, born together in the snows just past. Reaching out. Lives touching– small-heart-patter, slow-drum-hunger my chest's answer to the world's hidden music– I remember-\n\nKalas Agkor– my arms wrapped about little Jala, little sister, hot with fever but the fire grew too hot, and so, in my arms, her flesh cooled to dawn-stone, mother keening– Jala was the ember now lifeless, and from that day, in mother's eyes, I became naught but its bed of ash-\n\nUlthan Arlad herd-tracks in the snow, tufts of moult, ay on the flanks, we were hungry in that year yet held to the trail, old as it was-\n\nKaras Av riding Bonecaster Thal's son in the Valley of Deep Moss, beneath the sun we were breaking the ancient law– I was breaking the ancient law, I, mate to Ibinahl Chode, made the boy a man before his circle was knotted-\n\n-in the Year of the Broken Antler, we found wolf cubs-\n\n-I dreamed I said no to the Ritual, I dreamed I strode to Onos T'oolan's side-\n\n-a face streaming tears– my tears-\n\n-Chode, who watched my mate lead the boy into the valley, and knew the child would be remade into a man– knew that he was in the gentlest of hands-\n\n-the grasslands were burning-\n\n-ranag in the Horned Circle-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "-I loved her so-\n\nVoices, a flood, memories– these warriors had not lost them. They had known them as living things– within their own dead bodies.\n\nKnown them.\n\nFor almost three hundred thousand years.\n\n-friend to Onrack of the Logros, I last saw him kneeling amidst the corpses of his clan. All slain in the street, yet the Soletaken were finally broken. Ah, at such a cost-\n\n-oh, heart laid at his feet, dear Legana Breed. So clever, sharpest of wit, oh how he made me laugh-\n\n-our eyes met, Maenas Lot and I, even as the Ritual began its demand, and we saw the fear in each other's eyes– our love, our dreams of more children, to fill the spaces of those we had lost out on the ice, our lives of mingled shadows– our love, that must now be surrendered-\n\n-I, Cannig Tol, watched as my hunters hurled their spears. She fell without making a sound, the last of her kind on this continent, and had Ia heart, it would have burst, then. There was no justice in this war. We'd left our gods behind, and knelt only before an altar of brutality. Truth. And I, Cannig Tol, shall not turn away from truth-\n\nItkovian's mind reeled back, sought to fend off the diluvial tide, to fight himself clear of his own soul's answering cry of sorrow, the torrent of truths shattering his heart, the secrets of the T'lan Imass– no, the Ritual– how– Fener's Tusks, how could you have done that to yourselves?\n\nAnd she has denied you. She has denied you all-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could not escape– he had embraced their pain, and the flood of memories was destroying him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Too many, too fiercely felt– relived, every moment relived by these lost creatures– he was drowning.\n\nHe had promised them release, yet he knew now he would fail. There was no end, noway he could encompass this yearning gift, this desperate, begging desire.\n\nHe was alone-\n\n-am Pran Chole, you must hear me, mortal!\n\nAlone. Fading...\n\nHear me, mortal! There is a place– I can lead you! You must carryall we give you– not far, not long– carry us, mortal! There is a place!\n\nFading...\n\nMortal! For the Grey Swords– you must do this! Hold on– succeed– and you will gift them. I can lead you!\n\nFor the Grey Swords...\n\nItkovian reached out-\n\n-and a hand, solid, warm, clasped his forearm-\n\nThe ground crawled beneath her. Lichens– green-stalked and green-cupped, the cups filled with red; another kind, white as bone, intricate as coral; and beneath these, grey shark-skin on the mostly buried stones– an entire world, here, a hand's width from the ground.\n\nHer slow, inexorable passage destroyed it all, scraped a swathe through the lichens' brittle architecture. She wanted to weep.\n\nAhead, close now, the cage of bone and stained skin, the creature within it a shapeless, massive shadow.\n\nWhich still called to her, still exerted its terrible demand.\n\nTo reach.\n\nTo touch the ghastly barrier.\n\nThe Mhybe suddenly froze in place, avast, invisible weight pinning her to the ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something was happening.\n\nThe earth beneath her twisting, flashes through the gathering oblivion, the air suddenly hot. A rumble of thunder-\n\nDrawing up her legs, pushing with one arm, she managed to roll onto her back. Breath rasping in shallow lungs, she stared-\n\nThe handheld firm. Itkovian began to comprehend. Behind the memories awaited the pain, awaited all that he come to embrace. Beyond the memories, absolution was his answering gift– could he but survive...\n\nThe hand was leading him. Through a mindscape. Yet he strode across it as would a giant, the land distant below him.\n\nMortal, shed these memories. Free them to soak the earth in the season's gift. Down to the earth, mortal– through you, they can return life to a dying, desolate land.\n\nPlease. You must comprehend. Memories belong in the soil, in stone, in wind. They are the land's unseen meaning, such that touches the souls of all who would look– truly look– upon it. Touches, in faintest whisper, old, almost shapeless echoes– to which a mortal life adds its own.\n\nFeed this dreamscape, mortal.\n\nAnd know this. We kneel before you. Silenced in our hearts by what you offer to us, by what you offer of yourself.\n\nYou are Itkovian, and you would embrace the T'lan Imass.\n\nShed these memories– weep for us, mortal-\n\nHeaving, churning cloud where before there had been naught but a formless, colourless, impossibly distant dome– the cloud spreading, tumbling out to fill the entire sky, drawing dark curtains across bruised rainbows. Lightning, crimson-stained, flickered from horizon to horizon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She watched the falling, watched the descent– rain, no, hail-\n\nIt struck. Drumming roar on the ground, the sound filling her ears– sweeping closer-\n\nTo pummel her.\n\nShe screamed, throwing up her hands.\n\nEach impact was explosive, something more than simply frozen rain.\n\nLives. Ancient, long forgotten lives.\n\nAnd memories-\n\nAll raining down.\n\nThe pain was unbearable-\n\nThen cessation, a shadow slipping over her, close, a figure, hunched beneath the trammelling thud of hail. A warm, soft hand on her brow, a voice-\n\n\"Not much further, dear lass. This storm– unexpected-\" the voice broke, gasping as the deluge intensified, \"yet... wonderful. But you must not stop now. Here, Kruppe will help you...\"\n\nShielding as much of her from the barrage as he could, he began dragging her forward, closer...\n\nSilverfox wandered. Lost, half blinded by the tears that streamed without surcease. What she had begun as a child, on along forgotten barrow outside the city of Pale– what she had begun so long ago– now seemed pathetic.\n\nShe had denied the T'lan Imass.\n\nDenied the T'lan Ay.\n\nBut only fora time– or so had been her intent. A brief time, in which she would work to fashion the world that awaited them. The spirits that she had gathered, spirits who would serve that ancient people, become their gods– she had meant them to bring healing to the T'lan Imass, to their long-bereft souls.\n\nA world where her mother was young once more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A dreamworld, gift of K'rul. Gift of the Daru, Kruppe.\n\nGift of love, in answer to all she had taken from her mother.\n\nBut the T'lan Ay had turned away, were silent to her desperate call– and now Whiskeyjack was dead. Two marines, two women whose solid presence she had come to depend on– more than they could ever have realized. Two marines, killed defending her.\n\nWhiskeyjack. All that was Tattersail keened with inconsolable grief. She had turned from him as well. Yet he had stepped into Kallor's path.\n\nHe had done that, for he remained the man he had always been.\n\nAnd now, lost too were the T'lan Imass. The man, Itkovian, the mortal, Shield Anvil without a god, who had taken into himself the slain thousands of Capustan– he had opened his arms-\n\nYou cannot embrace the pain of the T'lan Imass. Were your god still with you, he would have refused your thought. You cannot. They are too much. And you, you are but one man– alone– you cannot take their burden. It is impossible.\n\nHeart-breakingly brave.\n\nBut impossible.\n\nAh, Itkovian...\n\nCourage had defeated her, but not her own– which had never been strong– no, the courage of those around her. On all sides– Coll and Murillio, with their misguided honour, who had stolen her mother and were no doubt guarding her even now, as she slowly died. Whiskeyjack and the two marines. Itkovian. And even Tayschrenn, who had torn himself– badly– unleashing his warren to drive Kallor away. Such extraordinary, tragically misguided courage-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I am Nightchill, Elder Goddess. I am Bellurdan, Thelomen Skullcrusher. I am Tattersail, who was once mortal. And I am Silverfox, flesh and blood Bonecaster, Summoner of the T'lan.\n\nAnd I have been defeated.\n\nBy mortals-\n\nThe sky heaved over her– she looked up. Eyes widening in disbelief-\n\n---\n\nThe wolf thrashed, battered against the bone bars of its cage– its cage... my ribs. Trapped. Dying-\n\nAnd that is a pain I share.\n\nHis chest was on fire, blossoms of intense agony lashing into him as if arriving from somewhere outside, a storm, blistering the skin covering his ribs-\n\n-yet it grew no stronger, indeed, seemed to fade, as if with each wounding something was imparted to him, a gift-\n\nGift? This pain? How– what is it? What comes tome?\n\nOld, so very old. Bittersweet, lost moments of wonder, of joy, of grief– a storm of memories, not his– so many, arriving like ice, then melting in the flare of impact– he felt his flesh grow numb beneath the unceasing deluge-\n\n-was suddenly tugged away-\n\nBlinking in the darkness, his lone eye as blind as the other one– the one he had lost at Pale. Something was pounding at his ears, a sound, then. Shrieking, the floor and walls shaking, chains snapping, dust raining from the low ceiling. I am not alone inhere. Who? What?\n\nClaws gouged the flagstones near his head, frantic and yearning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reaching. It wants me. What does? What am Ito it?\n\nThe concussions were growing closer. And now voices, desperate bellowing coming from the other side of walls... down a corridor, perhaps. Clash of weapons, screams and gurgles, clatter of armour– pieces dancing on the floor.\n\nToc shifted his head– and saw something in the darkness. Huge, straining as it shrieked without pause. Massive, taloned hands stretched imploringly– reaching out-\n\nFor me.\n\nGrey light flashed in the cavern, revealing in an instant the monstrous, fat-layered reptile chained opposite Toc, its eyes lit with terror. The stone that was within reach of the creature was gouged with countless scars, on all sides, a hatch-marked nightmare of madness, triggering horror within the Malazan... for it was a nightmare he recognized within himself.\n\nShe– she is my soul-\n\nThe Seer stood before him, moving in desperate, jerky motions– the old man's body, that the Jaghut had occupied for so long, was falling to pieces– and muttering a singsong chant as, ignoring Toc, he edged ever closer to the Matron, to Mother.\n\nThe enormous beast cringed, claws scraping as it pushed itself against the wall. Its shrieks did not pause, resounding through the cavern.\n\nThe Seer held something in his hands, pallid, smooth and oblong– an egg, not from a bird. A lizard's egg, latticed in grey magic.\n\nMagic that waxed with every word of the Seer's song.\n\nToc watched as something exploded from the Matron's body, a coruscation of power that sought to flee upward-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "-but was, instead, snared by the web of sorcery; snared, then drawn into the egg in the Seer's hands.\n\nThe Matron's shrieking suddenly ceased. The creature settled back with a mindless whimper.\n\nIn the numbing silence within the cavern, Toc could now hear more clearly the sounds of battle in the corridor beyond. Close, and closing.\n\nThe Seer, clutching the Finnest, spun to stare down at Toc. The Jaghut's smile split the corpse's desiccated lips. \"We shall return,\" he whispered.\n\nThe sorcery blossomed once more, then, as heavy chains clattered freely to the floor, darkness returned.\n\nAnd Toc knew that he was alone within the cavern. The Seer had taken Mother's power, and then he had taken her as well.\n\nThe wolf thrashed in his chest, launching spikes of pain along his broken, malformed limbs. It yearned to loose its howl, its call to lover and to kin. Yet it could not draw breath-\n\n-cannot draw breath. It dies. The hail, these savage gifts, they mean nothing. With me, the god's fatal choice, we die-\n\nThe sounds of fighting had stopped. Toc heard iron bars snap, one after another, heard metal clang on the flagstones.\n\nThen someone was crouching down beside him. A hand that was little more than rough bone and tendon settled on Toc's forehead.\n\nThe Malazan could not see. There was no light. But the hand was cool, its weight gentle.\n\n\"Hood? Have you come for us, then?\" The words were clearly spoken in his mind, but came out incomprehensibly– and he realized that his tongue was gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ah, my friend,\" the figure replied in a rasp." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is I, Onos T'oolan, once of the Tarad Clan, of the Logros T'lan Imass, but now kin to Aral Fayle, to Toc the Younger.\"\n\nKin.\n\nWithered arms gathered him up.\n\n\"We are leaving now, young brother.\"\n\nLeaving?\n\nPicker eyed the breach. The bravado that had been behind her proclamation that they would follow the T'lan Imass into the keep had not survived a sudden return to caution once they came within sight of the fortress. It was under assault, and whatever enemy had stormed into the keep had kicked hard the hornet nest.\n\nK'Chain Che'Malle were thundering back through the compound gate. Sorcerous detonations shook the entire structure. Urdomen and Beklites raced along the top of the walls. Twisting spirals of grey lightning writhed skyward from the south roof, linking the score of condors wheeling overhead. Beyond it, filling the sky above the harbour, was an enormous storm-cloud, flashes burgeoning from its heaving depths.\n\nThe lieutenant glanced back at her paltry squads. They'd lost the three badly wounded soldiers, as she had expected. Not one of the Bridgeburners crouching in the smoke-hazed street had been spared– she saw far too much blood on the soot-smeared uniforms behind her.\n\nTo the northwest, the sounds of battle continued, drawing no closer. Picker knew that Dujek would have sought to reach the keep, if at all possible. From what she could hear, however, he was being pushed back, street by street.\n\nThe gambit had failed.\n\nLeaving us on our own.\n\n\"K'Chain Che'Malle!\" a soldier hissed from the back. \"Coming up behind us!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, that settles it, then,\" Picker muttered. \"Doubletime to Hedge's breach! '\n\nThe Bridgeburners sprinted across the rubble-littered street.\n\nBlend was the first to complete her scramble over the tower's wreckage. Immediately beyond was a shattered building– three walls and half of the roof remaining. Within lay dusty darkness, and what might be a doorway far to the left of the room's far wall.\n\nTwo steps behind Blend, Picker leapt clear of the tumbled stone blocks to land skidding on the room's floor– colliding with a cursing, backpedalling Blend.\n\nFeet tangling, the two women fell.\n\n\"Damn it, Blend-\"\n\n\"Guards-\"\n\nA third voice cut in. \"Picker! Lieutenant!\"\n\nAs her Bridgeburners gathered behind her, Picker sat up to see Hedge, Bluepearl and seven additional Bridgeburners– the ones who had taken crossbows to the top of the wall and had survived the consequences– emerge from the shadows.\n\n\"We tried getting back to you-\"\n\n\"Never mind, Hedge,\" Picker said, clambering to her feet. \"You played it right, soldier, trust me-\"\n\nHedge was holding a cusser in one hand, which he raised with a grin. \"Held one back-\"\n\n\"Did a T'lan Imass come through here? '\n\n\"Aye, a beat-up bastard, looked neither left nor right– just walked right past us– deeper into the keep-\"\n\nA Bridgeburner to the rear shouted, \"We got that K'Chain Che'Malle coming up behind us!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Through the door back there!\" Hedge squealed. \"Clear the way, idiots! I've been waiting for this-'\n\nPicker began shoving her soldiers towards the back wall.\n\nThe sapper scrambled back towards the breach.\n\nThe following events were a tumble in Picker's mind-\n\nBlend gripped her arm and bodily threw her towards the doorway, where her soldiers were plunging through into whatever lay beyond. Picker swore, but Blend's hands were suddenly on her back, pushing her face first through the portal. Picker twisted with a snarl, and saw over Blend's shoulder-\n\nThe K'Chain Che'Malle seemed to flow as it raced over the rubble, blades lifting.\n\nHedge looked up– to find himself four paces away from the charging reptile.\n\nPicker heard him grunt, a muted, momentary sound-\n\nThe sapper threw the cusser straight down.\n\nThe K'Chain Che'Malle was already swinging– two huge blades descending-\n\nThe explosion beat them clean.\n\nBlend and Picker were thrown through the doorway. The lieutenant's head snapped back to the thudding, staccato impact of flying stones against her helm and the lowered visor and cheek-guards. Those that made it past lanced fire into her face, filled her nose and mouth with blood.\n\nDeafened, she reeled back through clouds of dust and smoke.\n\nVoices were screaming– issuing from what seemed very faraway then swiftly closing to surround her.\n\nStones falling– across-beam of tarred wood, raging with flames, sweeping down, ending with a solid thud and crunch of bones– a death-groan amidst the chaos, so close to Picker that she wondered if it wasn't her own." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hands gripped her once again, pulled her round, propelled her down what seemed to be a corridor.\n\nA tunnel of smoke and dust– no air– the pounding of boots, blind collisions, curses– darkness– that suddenly dissipated.\n\nPicker stumbled into the midst of her soldiers, spitting blood, coughing. Around them, a room littered with dead Beklites, another door, opposite, that looked to have been shattered with a single punch. Alone lantern swung wildly from a hook above them.\n\n\"Look!\" someone grunted. \"A dog's been chewing on the lieutenant's chin!\"\n\nNot even a jest– simply the absurd madness of battle. Shaking her head to a spatter of blood, Picker spat again and surveyed her troops through stinging, streaming eyes.\n\n\"Blend?\" The name came out mangled but understandable.\n\nSilence.\n\n\"Bucklund– back into the corridor! Find her!\"\n\nThe Twelfth Squad's sergeant was back a moment later, dragging a blood-drenched body through the doorway.\"She's breathing– Hood knows how! Her back's full of stones and shards! '\n\nPicker dropped to her knees beside her friend. \"You damned idiot,\" she mumbled.\n\n\"We should've had Mallet with us, ' Bucklund grumbled beside her.\n\nAye, not the only mistake in this fouled-up game.\n\n\"Oh!\" a woman's voice cried.\"You are not Pannions! '\n\nWeapons swung to the doorway.\n\nA woman in a blindingly white telaba stood there, her long black hair shimmering, impossibly clean, perfectly combed. Veiled, stunningly beautiful eyes studied them. \"Have you, by any chance, seen three masked warriors? They should have passed this way, looking for the throne room, assuming there is one, that is. You might have heard some fighting-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" Bucklund growled. \"I mean, yes, we've heard fighting. Everywhere, ma'am. That is-\"\n\n\"Shut up,\" Picker sighed. \"No,\" she said to the woman, \"we ain't seen no three masked warriors-'\n\n\"What of a T'lan Imass? '\n\n\"As a matter of fact, yeah-\"\n\n\"Excellent! Tell me, does she still have all those swords impaling her? I can't imagine she'd leave-\"\n\n\"What swords?\" Picker demanded. \"Besides, it was male. I think.\"\n\n\"It was,\" another soldier piped up, then reddened as her comrades swung to her with broad grins.\n\n\"A male T'lan Imass? \"The white-robed woman raised a finger to her full lips, then smiled,\"Why, that would be Tool! Excellent! \"The smile vanished.\"Unless, of course, Mok finds him... '\n\n\"Who are you?\" Picker demanded.\n\n\"You know, dear, it's growing increasingly difficult to understand what you are saying through all that blood and such. I believe you're Malazans, yes? Unwitting allies, but you are all so terribly injured. I have an idea, a wonderful idea– as are all my ideas, of course. Wonderful, that is. We are here, you see, to effect the rescue of one Toc the Younger, a soldier of-\"\n\n\"Toc the Younger?\" Picker repeated. \"Toc? But he's-'\n\n\"A prisoner of the Seer, alas. A distressing fact, and I dislike being distressed. It irritates me. Immeasurably. Now, as I was saying, I have an idea. Assist me in this rescue, and I will heal those of you who need healing– which seems to be all of you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Picker gestured down at Blend. \"Deal. Start with her.\"\n\nAs the woman stepped into the room, Bucklund shouted and scrabbled back from the doorway.\n\nPicker looked up. A massive wolf stood in the hallway beyond, eyes gleaming through the dust-shrouded gloom.\n\nThe woman glanced back. \"Oh, not to worry. That is Baaljagg. Garath has wandered off, I believe. Busy killing Pannions, I expect. He seems to have acquired a taste for Seerdomin... now, this poor woman– well, we'll have you right in no time, dear... '\n\n\"What in Hood's name is happening over there? '\n\nOn the other side of the low wall, a flight of stairs gave access to the parapet overlooking the harbour and the bay beyond– or, rather, so Paran concluded, since nothing else made sense. In any case, some kind of approach was being contested, and from the screams, whatever was on its way to the flat rooftop was wreaking havoc on the defenders.\n\nBeside Paran, Quick Ben raised his head a fraction. \"I don't know and I'm not popping up fora look, either,\" he said in answer to the captain's question,\"but let's hope it proves a worthwhile diversion. I can't keep us here much longer, without those condors finding us. '\n\n\"Something's keeping them busy, \"Spindle asserted,\"and you know it, Quick. If one of them took the time to look hard– we'd be feeding the chicks in its nest by now.\"\n\n\"You're right. '\n\n\"Then what in Hood's name are we still doing here? '\n\nGood question. Paran twisted round, looked back along the roof to the north. There was a trapdoor there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're still here, \"Quick Ben grated,\"because this is where we need to be-'\n\n\"Hold it,\" Paran growled, reaching up to wipe what he thought was sweat from his eyes, though the smear on his hand was red– the stitches on his temple had pulled loose. \"Not quite true, Quick. It's where you and I need to be. Mallet, if there's anything left of the Bridgeburners, they need you right now.\"\n\n\"Aye, Captain, and knowing that's been eating me up inside. '\n\n\"All right. Listen, then. The fiery Abyss has broken loose down in this keep under us. We've no idea who's doing the fighting, but we do know one thing– they're no friends of the Pannions. So, Mallet, take Spindle and the rest– that trapdoor back there looks flimsy enough to break open if it's locked.\"\n\n\"Aye, Captain. Only, how do we get there without being seen?\"\n\n\"Spindle's right about those condors– they're busy with something else, and looking more agitated with every beat of the heart. It's a short sprint, Healer. But if you're not willing to risk it-\"\n\nMallet glanced at Spindle, then at Detoran and Trotts. Finally, at Antsy. The sergeant nodded. Mallet sighed. \"Aye, sir, we'll give it ago. '\n\nParan glanced at Quick Ben. \"Any objections, Wizard?\"\n\n\"No, Captain. At the very least...\" He fell silent.\n\nAt the very least, they've a better chance of getting out alive. I hear you, Quick.\"OK, Mallet, make your run when you're ready.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Push and pull, Captain.\"\n\n\"And to you, Healer.\"\n\nWith a grunted command, the squad scrambled for the trapdoor.\n\nDujek dragged the wounded soldier through the doorway, and only then noticed that the man's legs had been left behind, and the trail of blood leading back to the limbs thinned to virtually nothing by the time it reached the threshold. He let the body drop, sagged against the frame.\n\nThe K'Chain Che'Malle had cut through the company in the span of a dozen heartbeats, and though the Hunter had lost an arm, it had not slowed as it thumped westward– in search of another company of hapless Malazans.\n\nDujek's elite bodyguard of Untan heavy infantry lay in a chopped ruin in front of the building into which they had pushed the High Fist. As sworn, they'd given their lives in his defence. At the moment, however, Dujek would rather they'd failed– or, better yet, fled.\n\nLocked in battle since dawn with Beklites, Urdomen and Seerdomin, Onearm's Host had more than held its own. And when the first dozen or so K'Chain Che'Malle appeared, Moranth munitions– cussers and burners– destroyed the undead K'ell Hunters. The same fate befell the second wave. By the time the third arrived, the cussers were gone, and soldiers died by the score. The fifth and sixth waves were met only with swords, and battle became slaughter.\n\nDujek had no idea how many remained among the five thousand Malazans who had been delivered into the city. He did not think a cohesive defence still existed. The battle had become a hunt, plain and simple. A cleansing by the K'Chain Che'Malle of pockets of Malazan resistance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Until recently, he could still hear sounds of battle– of collapsing walls and perhaps sorcery– from the keep, though perhaps, he now reflected, he had been wrong in that– the storm-cloud that filled the sky to the south was itself thundering, arcs of lightning splitting the sky to lance at the thrashing seas below. Its rage now overwhelmed all other sounds.\n\nA scrabble of boots behind him. Dujek swung about, shortsword in hand.\n\n\"High Fist!\"\n\n\"Which company, soldier?\"\n\n\"Eleventh, sir,\" the woman gasped. \"Captain Hareb sent a squad to look for you, High Fist. I'm what's left.\"\n\n\"Does Hareb still hold?\"\n\n\"Aye, sir. We're collecting souvenirs– pieces of K'Chain Che'Malle. '\n\n\"And how in Hood's name are you managing that? '\n\n\"Twist, sir, he led a final flight in with the last of the munitions– mostly sharpers and crackers, High Fist– but the sappers are rigging buildings along our retreat, dropping tons of brick and stone on the damned lizards– your pardon, sir– on the Hunters.\"\n\n\"Where is Hareb's company right now, soldier? '\n\n\"Not far, High Fist. Follow me.\"\n\nHareb, that Seven Cities nobleborn with the permanent sneer. Gods, I could kiss the man.\n\nMoving to the head of his legion, Gruntle watched the Shield Anvil of the Grey Swords approach. The woman reined in even as he arrived.\n\n\"I greet you, sir,\" she said, only the lower half of her face visible beneath the helm's broad, flaring cheek-guards.\"We are about to advance upon the enemy– would you flank us? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Daru grimaced." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, Shield Anvil.\"\n\nShe hesitated, then gave a brusque nod and gathered up her reins. \"As you wish, sir. No dishonour in refusing a suicidal engagement.\"\n\n\"You misunderstand,\" Gruntle interrupted her. \"My legion leads, you follow in our wake– as close as you can. We'll drive across that stone bridge and head straight for the gate. Granted, it looks damned solid, but we might still batter it down. '\n\n\"We are seeking to relieve Dujek Onearm, agreed, Mortal Sword?\"\n\n\"Aye.\" And we both know we will fail.\n\nThey turned at the sound of horns, the sudden staccato of Malazan drums.\n\nThe standard-bearer– sorcery swirling from the manlike flecks of gold– seemed to have taken command, calling together the company officers. Along the line, shields were readied, locked overlapping. Pikes, twice the height of a man, wavered like wind-tugged reeds above the ranks of soldiery– an uncharacteristic unsteadiness that Gruntle found disturbing.\n\nArtanthos had despatched a rider who rode towards the Daru and the Shield Anvil at a gallop.\n\nThe Malazan reined in. \"Sirs! The High Mage Tayschrenn would know your intentions!\"\n\nGruntle bared his teeth. \"Tayschrenn, is it? Let's hear his, first. '\n\n\"Dujek, sirs. These K'Chain Che'Malle must be broken, the gate breached, an assault on the defenders-\"\n\n\"And what of the High Mage himself?\" the Shield Anvil enquired.\n\n\"They're mages on the walls, sir. Tayschrenn will endeavour to deny their involvement. Orfantal and his Tiste Andii will seek to assist us in our attack upon the K'Chain Che'Malle, as will the shouldermen of the White Faces. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Inform the High Mage,\" the Shield Anvil said, \"that Trake's Legion will initiate the charge, supported by my company. '\n\nThe soldier saluted and rode back towards the Malazan line.\n\nGruntle turned to study his followers. He wondered again at the effect that the Lord of Summer's gift had had upon these grim-faced Capans. Like D'ivers... only in reverse. From many, to one– and such power! They had crossed the land swift as a flowing shadow. Gruntle had found himself looking out upon the world with a tiger's eyes– no, not simply a tiger, a creature immortal, boundless in strength, amass of muscle and bone within which was the Legion. His Legion. A will, fused, terrifyingly focused.\n\nAnd now they would become that beast once again. This time, to enter battle.\n\nHis god seemed to possess a particular hatred for these K'Chain Che'Malle, as if Treach had a score to settle. The cold killer was giving way to bloodlust– a realization that left Gruntle vaguely troubled.\n\nHis gaze flicked to the hilltop– to see Caladan Brood, Korlat slowly straightening beside him. Distance was irrelevant– she was covered in blood, and he could feel the sickly pain that flowed and ebbed, then flowed again within her.\n\nBrood's warren suffers, and if that's the case, then so too must... He swung round, back to where Artanthos– High Mage Tayschrenn– stood before the Malazan companies. Ah, I seethe price he pays... \"Shield Anvil.\"\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\n\"\"Ware the mages on the city wall. '\n\n\"We await you, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gruntle nodded.\n\nA moment later, the Mortal Sword and his Legion were one, bones and muscle merging, identities– entire lives– swept under a deluge of cold, animal rage.\n\nA tawny swirl, surging, flowing forward.\n\nAhead, K'Chain Che'Malle raised weapons. And stood their ground.\n\nAgain. We have done this before– no, not us. Our Lord. Tearing dead flesh... the spray of blood... blood... oh, Hood-\n\nKurald Galain, the darkness within the soul, flowing outward, filling her limbs, sweeping round to swallow her feelings– the comfort of oblivion. Korlat stood, her back to the three lifeless figures on the hilltop that still lay where they fell. Stood, silent, the power of her warren– flickering, dimming to surges of pain– reaching out, seeking her kin.\n\nCaladan Brood, hammer unlimbered in his hands, was beside her. He was speaking, his rumbling voice as distant as thunder on the sea's horizon.\"Late afternoon. No earlier. It will be overlong before then... one way or another. Korlat, please listen tome. You must seek your Lord– that storm-cloud, does Moon's Spawn hide within it? He said he would come. At the precise moment. He said he would strike...\"\n\nKorlat no longer heard him.\n\nOrfantal was veering, there before the now marching Malazan forces, black, blossoming outward, wings spreading, sinuous neck lifting– a thudding pulsation of sorcery and the dragon was in the air, climbing-\n\nCondors winged out from the keep, a dozen of the demonic creatures, each linked by a writhing chain of chaotic magic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the plain below, the beast that was the Mortal Sword and Trake's Legion seemed to flow in and out of her vision, blurred, deadly motion– and struck the line of K'Chain Che'Malle.\n\nSorcery stained the air around the impact in blood-spattered sheets as within the savage maelstrom blades flashed. A K'ell Hunter reeled away and toppled, its bones shattered. The huge tiger twisted from side to side as swords descended, tore into its flanks. Where each blade struck, human figures fell away from the beast, limbs severed, torsos cut through, heads crushed.\n\nSorcery was building along the top of the city wall.\n\nKorlat saw Artanthos– Tayschrenn– step forward then, to answer it.\n\nA golden wave appeared suddenly behind the K'Chain Che'Malle, rose fora moment, building, then tumbled forward. The ground it rolled over on its way to the wall burned with fierce zeal, then the wave lifted, climbed towards the Pannion mages.\n\nThis– this is what was launched against Moon's Spawn. This is what my Lord struggled against. Alone, in the face of such power-\n\nThe ground trembled beneath her boots as the wave crashed into the top of the wall to the west of the gate. Blinding– this is High Telas, the Warren of Fire– child of Tellann-\n\nChaotic magic exploded from the conflagration like shrapnel. The raging fire then dispersed.\n\nThe top third of the city wall, from near the gate and westward for at least forty paces, was simply gone. And with it, at least a dozen Pannion mages.\n\nOn the killing field, Trake's Legion was now surrounded by K'Chain Che'Malle, who were a match for the enormous beast's lightning speed. K'ell Hunters were falling, but the tiger was being, literally, cut to pieces." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Grey Swords, all mounted, were attempting to open an avenue for it on the other side. Long, strangely barbed lances were being driven into Hunters from behind, fouling their steps as they wheeled to lash out at the enemy harrying them. Lassos spun in the air, snapped tight around necks, limbs-\n\nA grey wave of sorcery raced out from the mages on the wall east of the gate, swept over the heads of those battling on the killing field, clambered through the air like some multilimbed beast– to strike Artanthos.\n\nCoruscating fire met the assault, and both sorceries seemed to devour each other. When they vanished, Artanthos was on his knees. Soldiers ran towards him from the Malazan lines.\n\nHe is done. Too soon-\n\n\"Korlat!\"\n\nThe bellow shook her. Blinking, she turned to Brood. \"What?\"\n\n\"Call your Lord, Korlat! Call him!\"\n\nCall? I cannot. Could not– dare not.\n\n\"Korlat! Look to that damned storm-cloud!\"\n\nShe twisted her head. Beyond the city, rising skyward in a churning, towering column, the storm-cloud was tearing itself apart even as it rose– rose, shreds spinning away, sunlight shafting through-\n\nMoon's Spawn... not within– the cloud hid nothing. Nothing but senseless, empty violence. Dissipating.\n\nCall him? Despair ripped through her. She heard her own dull reply, \"Anomander Rake is no more, Warlord.\" He is dead. He must be-\n\n\"Then help your damned brother, woman! He is assailed-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked up, saw Orfantal high above, harried by specks. Sorcery lanced at the black dragon like darts.\n\nBrother... Korlat looked back down, at the Malazan ranks that had now closed with the K'Chain Che'Malle. Darkness shrouded them– Kurald Galain's whisper. A whisper... and no more than a whisper-\n\n\"Korlat!\"\n\n\"Move away from me, Warlord. I shall now veer... and join my brother.\"\n\n\"When you two are done with those condors, will you-\"\n\nShe turned away from the killing field. \"This battle is lost, Caladan Brood. I fly to save Orfantal.\" Without awaiting a reply, she strode down the slope, unfolding the power within her as she did so. Draconian blood, cold as ice in her veins, a promise of murder. Brutal, unwavering hunger.\n\nWings, into the sky.\n\nWedge-shaped head tilted, fixed on the condors circling her brother. Her talons twitched, then stretched in anticipation.\n\nCaladan Brood stood on the very edge of the slope, the hammer in his hands. K'Chain Che'Malle had pulled away from the assault upon Trake's Legion– the giant tiger was dying, surrounded on all sides by flashing blades– and were now wading through the Malazan press, slaying soldiers by the score. Others pursued the Grey Swords, whose ranks had been scattered by the far too quick Hunters.\n\nBarghast had closed from both flanks, to add their spilled blood to the slaughter.\n\nSlowly, the warlord swung about and surveyed the hilltop behind him. Three bodies. Four Malazan soldiers who had carried an unconscious Kruppe to the summit and were now laying the Daru down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Brood's eyes held on Kruppe, wondering at the man's sudden, inexplicable collapse, then he turned.\n\nThe T'lan Imass, in their tens of thousands, still kneeled, motionless, before Itkovian, who had himself sunk down, a mortal reflection of them. Whatever was happening there had taken them all faraway, to a place from which it seemed there would be no return– not, in any case, until it was far too late.\n\nNo choice.\n\nBurn... forgive me...\n\nCaladan Brood faced the city once more. Eyes on the masses warring on the killing field below, the warlord slowly raised his hammer-\n\n-then froze.\n\nThey came to yet another hallway filled with the dead and dying. Picker scowled. \"Mistress, how many in this Seguleh army you told us about?\"\n\n\"Three, my dear. Clearly, we are on the right path-\"\n\n\"The right path for what, Lady Envy?\"\n\nThe woman turned. \"Hmm, an interesting point. The Seguleh are no doubt eagerly lobbying for an audience with the Seer, but who's to say the Seer has Toc the Younger with him? Indeed, is it not more likely that our friendlies in chains somewhere far below? '\n\nBlend spoke from beside Picker. \"There looks to be a landing of some sort at the far end. Could be stairs...\"\n\n\"Sharp-eyed,\" Lady Envy murmured in appreciation. \"Baaljagg, dear pup, will you lead the way?\"\n\nThe huge wolf slipped past noiselessly, somehow managing to stay silent even as it clambered over the bodies down the length of the corridor. At the far end, it halted, swung its long-snouted head back, eyes like smouldering coals." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah, the all-clear,\" Lady Envy sighed, softly clapping her hands. \"Come along, then, you grim-faced Malazans.\"\n\nAs they approached, Blend plucked at Picker's sleeve.\"Lieutenant, \"she whispered,\"there's fighting up ahead...\"\n\nThey reached the landing. Dead Urdomen lay heaped, their bodies sprawled on steps that led upward. A second flight of stone stairs, leading down, showed only the flow of thickening blood from the landing.\n\nBlend edged forward to crouch before the descending steps. \"There's tracks herein the blood, \"she said,\"three sets... the first one, uh, bony, followed by someone in moccasins– a woman, I'd say-\"\n\n\"In moccasins?\" Lady Envy wondered, brows lifting. \"How peculiar. The bony ones are likely to be either Tool or Lanas Tog. Now who might be following either of them? Such mystery! And the last set?\"\n\nBlend shrugged. \"Worn boots. A man's. '\n\nThe sound of fighting that Blend had detected earlier was audible to everyone now– from somewhere up the flight of stairs, distant, possibly at the uppermost floor, which was at least a half-dozen levels above them.\n\nBaaljagg had limped to stand beside Blend. The wolf lowered its head, nose testing the footprints leading down.\n\nA moment later the animal was a grey flash, racing downward and out of sight.\n\n\"Well!\" Lady Envy said. \"The issue seems decided, wouldn't you say? The ailing pup has a certain... feeling for Toc the Younger. An affinity, to be more precise. '\n\n\"Your pardon,\" Picker snapped, \"but what in Hood's name are you going on about? \"One more cryptic statement from this lady and I'll brain her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That was rude. None the less, I will acknowledge that the matter is a secret but not one of my own, so I shall freely speak of it.\"\n\n\"Oh good,\" one of the soldiers behind Picker muttered, \"gossip.\"\n\nLady Envy wheeled. \"Who said that?\"\n\nNo-one spoke.\n\n\"I abhor gossip, I will have you all know. Now, shall I tell you the tale of two ancient gods, who each in turn found mortal flesh– or, rather, somewhat mortal flesh in the case of Baaljagg, but all too mortal flesh in the case of dear Toc the Younger?\"\n\nPicker stared at the woman, and was about to speak when one of her soldiers cursed loud and with feeling– and blades clashed-\n\n-shouts-\n\nA score Urdomen had just arrived from behind the squads, and the hallway was suddenly filled with vicious, close-infighting.\n\nPicker snapped out a hand and caught Blend's blood-stiffened cloak, pulled. As the lieutenant dragged free her sword, she hissed:\"Head down the stairs, lass! We'll follow once we clear this up.\" She shoved Blend towards the stairs, then spun.\n\n\"Will this take long?\" Lady Envy asked, her voice somehow cutting through the tumult to echo in Picker's ears as she pushed into the press. The Urdomen were better armoured, fresher, and had had surprise on their side. Picker saw Bucklund reel, half his head cutaway.\"No, \"she grated, as two more Bridgeburners crumpled,\"it won't...\"\n\nDetoran had moved to point as the four Bridgeburners headed down the corridor. Mallet strode five paces behind the big Napan woman, Spindle trotting at his heels, followed by Antsy, with Trotts a dozen paces back as rearguard. Thus far, they'd found naught but bodies– Pannion bodies– cut down one and all by blades." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Someone's a holy terror, ' Spindle muttered behind the healer.\n\nThey could hear fighting, but the echoes were bouncing, making it difficult to determine the direction.\n\nDetoran drew up and raised a hand, then waved Mallet forward.\n\n\"Stairs ahead,\" she grunted. \"Going down.\"\n\n\"Clear,\" the healer observed.\n\n\"For now.\"\n\nAntsy joined them. \"What's the hold-up? We gotta keep moving. '\n\n\"We know, Sergeant,\" Mallet said, then he swung back to the Napan. \"It'll have to do. Lead us down, Detoran. '\n\nMore corpses littered the stone steps, the blood making purchase uncertain.\n\nThey descended past two landings unchallenged. Halfway down the next flight, at a switchback in the stairs, Mallet heard the Napan grunt, and weapons suddenly rang.\n\nA wordless shout from behind twisted into a Barghast warcry.\n\n\"Dammit!\" Mallet snapped. Fighting above and below– they were in trouble. \"Spin, backup Antsy and Trotts! I'll lend Det a hand! '\n\n\"Aye, sir!\"\n\nThe healer plunged down a half-dozen steps to the bend. Detoran had already pushed her attackers back to a landing. The healer saw, beyond the Napan, at least six Seerdomin, heavy, short-handled double-bladed axes in their gauntleted hands. Detoran, a shortsword in her left hand, broadsword in her right, had just cut down the warrior in front of her. Without hesitating, she stepped over the dying Seerdomin, reaching the landing.\n\nThe Seerdomin rushed her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was noway to get past the Napan. Swearing, Mallet sheathed his shortsword and unlimbered his crossbow. A quarrel already rested in the slot, held in place by a loop of leather that the healer now pulled clear. Ignoring the bellows and singing iron, he hooked the clawfoot over the braided string and cinched it back.\n\nUp beyond the bend in the staircase, Trotts had begun chanting, broken only by an ominous shriek from Antsy. Fresh blood thinned with bile was streaming down the steps.\n\nMallet moved back to find a clear shot over Detoran.\n\nThe Napan had thrust her shortsword up into a Seerdomin's head from below. The blade jammed between the mandibles. Instead of pulling, Detoran pushed, sending the victim and weapon flying back to foul the two warriors beyond. With the broadsword in her right hand extended, she was keeping another Seerdomin at bay. He was swinging his shorter weapons at the blade in an effort to bat it aside so he could close, but Detoran made her heavy blade dance and weave as if it was a duellist's rapier.\n\nMallet's attention fixed on the two recovering Seerdomin. A third warrior was pulling the fallen Seerdomin away. The healer snapped the crossbow up and depressed the trigger. The weapon bucked in his hands.\n\nOne of the recovering Seerdomin shrieked, a quarrel buried to its leather fins in his chest. He sagged back.\n\nA tumbling body knocked Mallet from his feet as he was about to reload. Cursing, the healer fell back against aside wall and made to kick the corpse away with his boots as he fumbled fora quarrel, then he saw that it was Antsy. Not yet dead, though his chest was sheathed in blood. From the sounds above, Trotts was pushing his way backup the stairs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He twisted round at a shout from Detoran. She had lunged with her broadsword, breaking her timing to dip her blade round a desperate parry, then sliding the edge up and under the Seerdomin's helm, ripping open the side of the man's neck– even as his other axe slashed a wild arc, straight for Detoran's head.\n\nThe Napan threw her left shoulder into its path.\n\nChain snapped, blood sprayed. The axe-blade cut clear, carrying with it most of the muscle of Detoran's shoulder.\n\nShe reeled. Then, blood spurting, righted herself and rushed the remaining two Seerdomin.\n\nThe nearest one threw one of his axes.\n\nThe Napan chopped it aside then swung a backhand slash that the man barely managed to block. Detoran closed, dropping her sword and jamming her fingers into the helm's eye-slit. The momentum of her rush carried her round the man, twisting his head to follow.\n\nMallet heard an audible pop of vertebrae, even as he finished loading his crossbow. He raised it-\n\nThe last Seerdomin's axes flashed.\n\nDetoran's right arm, stretched outwith the fingers still snagged in the visor, was severed halfway between shoulder and elbow.\n\nThe second axe drove deep between her shoulder-blades, throwing her forward to slap face first against the landing's wall.\n\nThe Seerdomin moved forward to tug the second axe free.\n\nMallet's quarrel vanished into the man's right arm-pit. He buckled, then collapsed in a clatter of armour.\n\nThe healer, setting another quarrel into the slot, clambered to where Detoran still leaned, upright, face first against the wall. The rush of blood from her wounds had slowed to turgid streams." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did not need to reach out to touch the Napan to know that she was dead.\n\nBoots thumped on the stairs and the healer swung round to see Spindle stumbling onto the landing. He'd taken a blow against his pot-helm, snapping the brow-band and its rivets on one side. Blood painted that side of his face. His eyes were wild.\n\n\"A score of'em up there, Mallet! Trotts is holding them off-'\n\n\"The damned idiot!\" The healer finished loading his crossbow and scrambled to the stairs, pausing briefly to examine Antsy. \"Find yourself anew helm, Spin, then follow!\"\n\n\"What about Antsy?\"\n\n\"He'll live awhile longer. Hurry, damn you! '\n\nThe staircase was crowded with fresh bodies, all the way up to the next landing.\n\nMallet arrived in time to find himself caught in a descending rush– Seerdomin and, in their midst, a snarling Trotts, tumbling in a thrashing wall of flesh straight down onto the healer. A blade– the Barghast's– plunged through Mallet's shoulder, then whipped back out as they one and all fell onto the hard stone steps. Axe-blades, daggers, gauntlets, helms and greaves made the human avalanche a vicious shock of pain that did not end even when they were brought to a flailing halt at the bend in the stairwell.\n\nTrotts was the first one to extricate himself, stabbing down with his shortsword, kicking and stamping with his boots. Cursing, Mallet dragged himself clear of the Barghast's frenzy, fire lancing from the wound in his shoulder.\n\nMoments later, there was only the sound of gasping breaths in the stairwell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The healer twisted round, found a wall at his back, and slowly pushed himself upright– to glare up at Trotts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You stabbed me, you bastard!\"\n\nEven as he said it, his words fell away as he looked at the Barghast. The huge warrior had taken more wounds than Mallet had thought possible. He had been chopped to pieces. Yet he did not even so much as waver as he grinned down at the healer. \"Stabbed you, did I? Good.\"\n\nMallet grimaced. \"I see your point, you blue-toothed cattle-dog. Why should you get all the fun?\"\n\n\"Aye. Where's Antsy and Det and Spin? '\n\n\"Landing below. Det's dead. We'll have to carry Antsy. From the sound, Spin's still looking fora new helm. '\n\n\"They'll all be too big, \"Trotts growled.\"We need to find the kitchen– a cup. '\n\nMallet pushed himself from the wall. \"Good idea. Let's get going, then. '\n\n\"I'll take point, now– cooks are dangerous. '\n\nThe Barghast, streaming blood, moved past the healer.\n\n\"Trotts.\"\n\nHe paused. \"Aye?\"\n\n\"Spin said a score.\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"All dead?\"\n\n\"Maybe half. The rest ran away.\"\n\n\"You scared them off, did you?\"\n\n\"Spin's hairshirt, is my guess. Come on, Healer. '\n\nToc's head lolled, the scene rising and falling as the T'lan Imass carried him down the torchlit corridor. Occasionally, Tool stepped over a body or two.\n\nMy brother. He called me that.\n\nI have no brother." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Only a mother.\n\nAnd a god. Seer, where are you? Will you not come for me, now? The wolf dies. You have won. Free me, Lord of All. Free me to walk through Hood's Gate.\n\nThey reached an arched doorway, the door lying shattered on this side. Wood still nailed to bronze bands shifted unsteadily underfoot as Tool crossed it. A large, domed chamber, twenty paces across, was before them. It had once been filled with strange mechanisms– machines used by torturers– but these had all been smashed into ruin, flung to the sides to lean like broken-boned beasts against the walls.\n\nVictims of rage... was this Tool's work? This undead, emotionless... thing?\n\nA sudden clang of blades from the arched doorway opposite.\n\nThe T'lan Imass stopped.\"I shall have to set you down, now. '\n\nDown. Yes. It's time.\n\nToc twisted his head as Tool slowly lowered him to the flagstones. A figure stood in the doorway on the other side of the chamber. Masked, white enamel, twin-scarred. A sword in each hand. Oh, I know you, do I not?\n\nThe figure said nothing and simply waited until Tool had stepped away from Toc. The battered T'lan Imass drew the two-handed flint sword from his shoulder sling, then spoke,\"Mok, Third among the Seguleh, when you are done with me, would you take Toc the Younger from this place? '\n\nLying on his side, Toc watched as the masked warrior tilted his head in acknowledgement. Mok, you damned fool. You are about to kill my friend... my brother.\n\nBlurred motion, two warriors closing too fast for Toc's lone eye to follow. Iron sang with stone. Sparks shooting through the gloom to light the broken instruments of torture surrounding them, in racing flashes of revelation– shadows dancing in the wood and metal tangle, and, to Toc, it was as if all the accumulated pain that these mechanisms had absorbed in their lifetimes was suddenly freed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the sparks.\n\nBy the two warriors... and all that sheathed their hidden souls.\n\nFreed, writhing, dancing, spider-bitten– mad, frantic in answer...\n\nIn answer...\n\nSomewhere within him– as the battle continued on, the masked warrior driving the T'lan Imass back, back– the wolf stirred.\n\nTrapped. In this bent but unbroken mechanism, this torturing cage of bone... He saw, close, the shattered frame of... something. Abeam, massive, its end capped in black, bruised bronze. Where bits were smeared– flesh, flesh and hair.\n\nCage.\n\nToc the Younger drew his mangled legs under him, planted a pustuled, malformed elbow on the flagstones, felt flesh tear as he twisted round, pivoted, dragged his legs up to kneel– then, hands, frozen into fists, pushing down on the stone. Lifting, tilting back to settle weight on hips that ground and seemed to crumble beneath tendon and thin muscle.\n\nHe set his hands down once more, drew the knobbed things that had once been his feet under him, knees lifting.\n\nBalance... now. And will.\n\nTrembling, slick with sweat beneath the tattered remnants of his shapeless tunic, Toc slowly rose upright. His head spun, blackness threatening, but he held on.\n\nKruppe gasped, lifting her, pulling at her arm. \"You must touch, lass. This world– it was made for you– do you understand? A gift– there are things that must be freed.\"\n\nFreed.\n\nYes, she understood that word. She longed for it, worshipped it, knelt, head bowed, before its altar. Freed. Yes, that made sense." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Like these memories of ice, raining, raining down upon us.\n\nFreed... to feed the earth-\n\n-deliverance, of meaning, of emotion, history's gift– the land underfoot, the layers, so many layers-\n\nTo feed the earth.\n\nWhat place is this?\n\n\"Reach, dearest Mhybe, Kruppe begs you! Touch-\"\n\nShe raised a trembling hand-\n\nUpright.\n\nTo see Tool reeling beneath blows, the flint sword fending slower with each flashing blade that reached for him.\n\nUpright. A step. One step. Will do.\n\nThe cage, the wolf stirring, the wolf seeking to draw breath– unable-\n\nHe lurched towards the beam and its upthrust, bronze-capped end.\n\nOne step, then toppling.\n\nForward, lifting his arms high– clear– the beam's end seeming to rise to meet him. Meet his chest– the ribs– bones shattering in an explosion of pain-\n\nTo touch-\n\nThe cage!\n\nBroken!\n\nFreed!\n\nThe wolf drew breath.\n\nAnd howled.\n\nThe hammer held high in Brood's hands, trembling, iron shaking-\n\nAs a god's howl ripped the air, a howl climbing, a call-\n\nAnswered.\n\nOn the killing field, T'lan Ay rising from the ground, the beasts blurring forward in a silent, grey wave, cutting through K'Chain Che'Malle– tearing the undead reptiles down, rending– the giant, armoured reptiles buckling before the onslaught." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Other K'ell Hunters wheeling, racing for the gate– wolves pursuing.\n\nFar overhead, condors breaking away from their deadly dance with two black dragons, speeding back towards the keep, Korlat and Orfantal following, and behind them, tens of thousands of Great Ravens-\n\n-and above the keep, something was happening-\n\nHolding the Mhybe, now unconscious, in his arms, Kruppe staggered back as Togg tore itself free of the shattered cage, the god's howl blistering the air.\n\nThe deluge of hail ceased. Abrupt. The sky darkened.\n\nA pressure, a force, ancient and bestial. Growing.\n\nTogg, huge, one-eyed, white, silver-tipped fur– howling–\n\nThe wolf-god, emerging with the force of heaving stone, his cry seeming to span the sky.\n\nA cry that was answered.\n\nOn all sides.\n\nParan ducked even lower to a sudden descent of gloom, cold, a weight overwhelming the captain.\n\nBeside him, Quick Ben groaned, then hissed. \"This is it, friend. Kurald Galain. I can use this– get us over this wall– we have to see-\"\n\nSee what? Gods, I'm being crushed!\n\nThe pressure dimmed suddenly. Hands gripped his harness, dragged him up, metal scraping, leather catching, up and over the low wall to thump down on the other side.\n\nThe darkness continued its preternatural fall, dulling the sun to a grey, fitfully wavering disc.\n\nCondors overhead, screaming-\n\n-and in those screams, raw terror-\n\nParan twisted round, looked upon the scene on the parapet. Thirty paces away, on the far edge, crouching, was a figure the captain knew instinctively to be the Seer. Human flesh and skin had sloughed away, revealing a Jaghut, naked, surrounded in misty clouds of ice crystals. Clutched in the Seer's hands, an egg the size of a cusser. At his side, huge and misshapen, a K'Chain Che'Malle– no. The Matron. What flowed from her left Paran horrified and filled with pity. She was mindless, her soul stripped, filled with a pain he knew she could not even feel– the only mercy that remained." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Scribe for the author and continue the tale.\nTags: epic fantasy, alliance, ancient threats, camaraderie, tragic events\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Memories of Ice\nChapter: 27" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Other K'ell Hunters wheeling, racing for the gate– wolves pursuing.\n\nFar overhead, condors breaking away from their deadly dance with two black dragons, speeding back towards the keep, Korlat and Orfantal following, and behind them, tens of thousands of Great Ravens-\n\n-and above the keep, something was happening-\n\nHolding the Mhybe, now unconscious, in his arms, Kruppe staggered back as Togg tore itself free of the shattered cage, the god's howl blistering the air.\n\nThe deluge of hail ceased. Abrupt. The sky darkened.\n\nA pressure, a force, ancient and bestial. Growing.\n\nTogg, huge, one-eyed, white, silver-tipped fur– howling–\n\nThe wolf-god, emerging with the force of heaving stone, his cry seeming to span the sky.\n\nA cry that was answered.\n\nOn all sides.\n\nParan ducked even lower to a sudden descent of gloom, cold, a weight overwhelming the captain.\n\nBeside him, Quick Ben groaned, then hissed. \"This is it, friend. Kurald Galain. I can use this– get us over this wall– we have to see-\"\n\nSee what? Gods, I'm being crushed!\n\nThe pressure dimmed suddenly. Hands gripped his harness, dragged him up, metal scraping, leather catching, up and over the low wall to thump down on the other side.\n\nThe darkness continued its preternatural fall, dulling the sun to a grey, fitfully wavering disc.\n\nCondors overhead, screaming-\n\n-and in those screams, raw terror-\n\nParan twisted round, looked upon the scene on the parapet. Thirty paces away, on the far edge, crouching, was a figure the captain knew instinctively to be the Seer. Human flesh and skin had sloughed away, revealing a Jaghut, naked, surrounded in misty clouds of ice crystals. Clutched in the Seer's hands, an egg the size of a cusser. At his side, huge and misshapen, a K'Chain Che'Malle– no. The Matron. What flowed from her left Paran horrified and filled with pity. She was mindless, her soul stripped, filled with a pain he knew she could not even feel– the only mercy that remained." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two heavily armoured K'ell Hunters had been guarding their mother, but were now moving forward, weapons rising, thumping across the roof as, at a stairwell fifteen paces to Paran's left, two figures appeared. Masked, painted from head to toe in blood, each wielding two swords, clambering free of a passageway strewn with the bodies of Urdomen and Seerdomin.\n\n\"Hood take us!\" Quick Ben swore. \"Those are Seguleh!\"\n\nBut Paran's attention had already left them, was oblivious of the battle as the K'ell Hunters closed with the Seguleh. The storm-cloud that had towered overhead for so long was still climbing, shredding apart, almost lost in darkness. Something, he realized with a chill, was coming.\n\n\"Captain! Follow me!\"\n\nQuick Ben was edging along the low wall, following its curve towards the harbourside.\n\nParan scrambled after the wizard. They halted where they had a full view of the harbour and the bay.\n\nFar out in the bay, the horizon's line of ice was exploding all along its length, in white, spewing clouds.\n\nThe waters of the harbour had grown glass-smooth beneath the dark, now motionless air. The web of ropes spanning it– with its shacks and dangling lines and withered corpses– suddenly trembled.\n\n\"In Hood's name what's-\"\n\n\"Shh! Oh, Abyss! Watch!\"\n\nAnd he did.\n\nThe glass-smooth waters of the harbour... shivered... swelled... bulged.\n\nThen, impossibly, fled on all sides.\n\nBlack, enormous– something– rising from the depths." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Seas thrashed, a ring of foam racing outward." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A sudden push of cold wind hammered the parapet, made the structure sway, then tremble.\n\nRock, ragged, scarred– a Hood-damned mountain! – rising from the harbour, lifting the vast net with it.\n\nAnd the mountain grew larger, rose higher, darkness bleeding from it in radiating waves.\n\n\"They've unveiled Kurald Galain! \"Quick Ben shouted through the roaring wind.\" All of them! '\n\nParan stared.\n\nMoon's Spawn.\n\nRising.\n\nRake hid it–\n\n-oh, Abyss below, did Rake hide it!\n\nRising, water descending down its battered sides in tumbling falls, into mist that flowed as the edifice climbed ever higher.\n\nThe Cut. Ortnal's Cut– that chasm-\n\n\"Look!\" Quick Ben hissed. \"Those cracks...\"\n\nAnd now he saw the cost of Rake's gambit. Huge fissures scarred the face of Moon's Spawn, fissures from which water still poured in undiminished volume.\n\nRising.\n\nTwo-thirds now clear of the churned seas.\n\nSlowly spinning, bringing into view, high on one side, a ledge-\n\nWhere stood alone figure.\n\nMemories... gone. In their wake, tens of thousands of souls. Silent.\n\n\"To me, then, I will take your pain, now.\"\n\n\"You are mortal.\"\n\n\"I am mortal.\"\n\n\"You cannot carry our pain.\"\n\n\"I can.\"\n\n\"You cannot deliver it-\"\n\n\"I shall.\"\n\n\"Itkovian-\"\n\n\"Your pain, T'lan Imass. Now. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It rose before him, a wave of immeasurable height, rose, towering, then plunged towards him.\n\nAnd they saw, one and all.\n\nThey saw Itkovian's welcoming smile.\n\nMoon's Spawn rose, shrouded in darkness, beyond the city. Caladan Brood stared. Cascading clouds of mist, streams of water falling, fading. Dragons, now, wheeling outward, black, one crimson, waves of Kurald Galain, lashing out, incinerating the demonic condors.\n\nMoon's Spawn, leaning– a massive chunk of midnight stone sloughing from one side, rocking the entire edifice– leaning, sliding, forward, towards the keep-\n\nOn the killing field below, scattered remnants of soldiers– Malazan, Barghast, Grey Swords, Gruntle and the handful of followers that were all that remained of his legion– had one and all crossed the stone bridge and were converging on the shattered north gate. Unimpeded. The wall east of the gate was empty of mages, of anyone– stripped clean.\n\nFires lit the city beyond the wall. The sky was filling with Black Moranth, Great Ravens– Kurald Galain spreading out, down, onto Coral-\n\nA true unveiling. All of the Tiste Andii, joined in ritual magic– the world has never known this– in all the millennia since their arrival– never known this. Burn's heart, what will come of this unveiling?\n\nHe continued staring, overcome with avast, soul-numbing helplessness.\n\nThe power flowed towards Korlat. Her eyes flashed as she and her brother swept on the cold, familiar currents of Kurald Galain, towards Moon's Spawn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Oh, it was dying– she could see that. Dying, but not yet completed its dreadful, deadly task.\n\nShe watched it moving, drawing closer to the keep's parapet– to where, she could now see, stood the Seer– the Jaghut, clutching the Matron's Finnest, staring upward, frozen, as the black, towering mountain inexorably approached.\n\nDarkness, come to this world. To this place, this city.\n\nDarkness, that would never dissipate.\n\nCoral. Black, black Coral...\n\nIt took no more than a half-dozen heartbeats before Lady Envy realized– as she watched the Bridgeburners crumble before the Urdomen attack– that she had misunderstood Picker's last comment. Not confidence, not even bravado. Rather, a comment rife with fatalism, no doubt typical of these soldiers, but entirely new to Lady Envy.\n\nAs comprehension struck her, she acted. A small gesture with one hand.\n\nSufficient to rupture the flesh of the Urdomen warriors.\n\nThey crumpled en masse.\n\nBut the damage had already been done.\n\nTwo Bridgeburners remained standing, and both bore wounds.\n\nShe watched as they began checking their fallen comrades, finally gathering around one, pulling him clear. Only one among those fallen, then, who still breathed.\n\nHeavy boots down the hallway, fast approaching.\n\nLady Envy scowled, raised her hand again-\n\n\"Wait!\" Picker screamed. \"That's Mallet! Spin! Over here, you bastards! '\n\nBehind the first two who had appeared– Mallet and Spin, she presumed– staggered two more soldiers in the garb of the Bridgeburners. All were terribly wounded– the Barghast in particular, whose armour was nothing more than fragments and whose body was amass of cuts and gaping holes. Even as she watched, he staggered, sank to his knees, teeth bared in a smeared grin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And died.\n\n\"Mallet!\"\n\nThe large man in the lead spun round, reeled at the sudden motion– and Lady Envy noted that he had taken a sword thrust that had gone right through him, just below the right shoulder. He stumbled back towards the Barghast.\n\n\"It is too late for him, I am afraid,\" Lady Envy called out. \"And you, Healer– Mallet– you are done with your warren and you know it. Gather tome, then, and I shall oblige. As for you, Picker, a more honest answer to my question earlier would have resulted in afar less horrible episode.\"\n\nWiping blood from her eyes, Picker simply stared.\n\n\"Ah, well,\" Lady Envy sighed, \"perhaps it is best that you have no recollection of that sardonic quip. Come forward all of you– oh!\"\n\nShe swung about suddenly, as sorcery descended– Kurald Galain– overwhelming in its power.\n\n\"Down those stairs!\" she cried. \"We must work clear of this! Quickly!\"\n\nFour dragging one, the surviving Bridgeburners followed Lady Envy.\n\nSplinters of bone struck the wall. Tool staggered back, crashing against the stone, sword falling from his hands, ringing on the flagstones.\n\nMok raised both weapons-\n\n-and flew to one side, through the air, spinning, weapons sailing from his hands– to collide with a wall, then slide in a heap among shattered wood and metal.\n\nTool raised his head.\n\nA huge black panther, lips peeled back in a silent snarl, slowly padded towards the unconscious Seguleh.\n\n\"No, sister.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Soletaken hesitated, then glanced back.\n\n\"No. Leave him.\"\n\nThe panther swung round, sembled.\n\nYet the rage remained in Kilava's eyes as she strode towards Tool.\"You were defeated! You! The First Sword! '\n\nTool slowly lowered himself to collect his notched sword. \"Aye.\"\n\n\"He is a mortal man!\"\n\n\"Go to the Abyss, Kilava.\" He straightened, back scraping as he continued leaning against the wall.\n\n\"Let me kill him. Now. Then once more you shall have no worthy challenger.\"\n\n\"Oh, sister,\" Tool sighed. \"Do you not realize? Our time– it has passed. We must relinquish our place in this world. Mok– that man you so casually struck from behind– he is the Third. The Second and the First are his masters with swords. Do you understand me, Kilava? Leave him... leave them all.\"\n\nHe slowly turned until he could see Toc the Younger.\n\nThe body, speared through on a shaft of wood, did not move.\n\n\"The ancient wolf-god is free,\" Kilava said, following his gaze. \"Can you not hear it?\"\n\n\"No. I cannot.\"\n\n\"That howl now fills another realm, the sound of birth. A realm... brought into existence by the Summoner. As for what now gives it life, something else, something else entire.\"\n\nA scrape from the doorway.\n\nBoth swung their heads.\n\nAnother T'lan Imass stood beneath the arch. Impaled with swords, cold-hammered copper sheathing canines.\"Where is she? '\n\nTool tilted his head. \"Who do you seek, kin?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are Onos T'oolan. \"The attention then shifted to Kilava.\"And you are his sister, the One who Defied-'\n\nKilava's lip curled in contempt.\"And so I remain. '\n\n\"Onos T'oolan, First Sword, where is the Summoner? '\n\n\"I do not know. Who are you?\"\n\n\"Lanas Tog. I must find the Summoner.\"\n\nTool pushed himself from the wall. \"Then we shall seek her together, Lanas Tog.\"\n\n\"Fools,\" Kilava spat.\n\nThe patter of claws behind Lanas Tog– she wheeled, then backed away.\n\nBaaljagg limped into the chamber. Ignoring everyone but Toc the Younger, the wolf approached the body, whimpered.\n\n\"He is free,\" Tool said to Baaljagg. \"Your mate.\"\n\n\"She is not deaf to that howl,\" Kilava muttered. \"Togg has passed into the Warren of Tellann. Then... to a place beyond. Brother, take that path, since you are so determined to find the Summoner. They converge, one and all.\"\n\n\"Come with us.\"\n\nKilava turned away. \"No.\"\n\n\"Sister. Come with us.\"\n\nShe spun, face dark. \"No! I've come for the Seer. Do you understand me? I've come-\"\n\nTool's gaze fell to Toc's broken corpse. \"For redemption. Yes. I understand. Find him, then.\"\n\n\"I shall! Now that I've saved you, I am free to do as I please. '\n\nTool nodded. \"And when you are done, sister, seek me out once more.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And why should I?\"\n\n\"Kilava. Blood-kin. Seek me out.\"\n\nShe was silent fora long moment, then she gave a curt nod.\n\nLanas Tog strode to Tool's side.\"Lead me, then, First Sword. '\n\nThe two T'lan Imass fell to dust, then that, too, vanished.\n\nKilava was alone in the chamber.\n\nBarring an unconscious Seguleh.\n\nAnd an ay now lying beside a corpse.\n\nShe hesitated, took a step towards Mok's inert form, then sighed, wheeled about and approached Baaljagg.\n\n\"You grieve for this mortal,\" she whispered, reaching down to rest her hand on the beast's lowered head.\"For him, you hold back on what you so long for– your reunion with your lost mate. Was this man truly worthy of such loyalty? No, answer not– that is plain enough in your eyes.\n\n\"And so I will tell you something, Baaljagg, that you clearly fail to realize. This mortal's soul– it rides Togg's own– and your mate would deliver it, but not to Hood's Gate. Go, then, pursue that trail. Here, I shall open the way. '\n\nShe straightened, gestured.\n\nThe Warren of Tellann opened. The chamber's musty air was swept away. A sweet smell of wet tundra, acrid mosses and softened lichen flowed in on a soft, warm breeze.\n\nThe ay bound through the portal.\n\nKilava closed it after the beast.\n\nThen walked from the chamber.\n\nA moment later, Blend stepped from the shadows. She strode to where Mok lay amidst broken wood and twisted metal, looked down on the unconscious figure. Oh, that mask. So... tempting-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Startled shouts from the corridor behind her, the sound of soldiers scattering, then heartfelt curses.\n\n\"-a damned panther!\"\n\n\"Kilava,\" Lady Envy replied. \"I have crossed paths with her before. Rude, indeed, to push us all aside in such contemptuous fashion.\"\n\nBlend turned as the troop arrived.\n\nLady Envy paused, veiled eyes flicking from Mok to Toc the Younger. \"Oh,\" she said in a low voice, \"my dear lad... Would that you had remained in our company.\"\n\nPicker. Mallet. Spindle. Antsy. Bluepearl.\n\nBlend closed her eyes.\n\n\"Well, that settles it, then,\" Lady Envy said. \"We return to the keep's roof. Swiftly, before Kilava robs me of my vengeance against the Seer. '\n\n\"You can return to the roof,\" Picker growled. \"We're leaving. '\n\nLeaving, oh, my love...\n\nLady Envy crossed her arms. \"I exhaust myself healing you ungracious soldiers, and this is your answer? I want company!\"\n\nMallet and Spindle moved to retrieve Toc's body.\n\nPicker slumped against a wall, studied Lady Envy with red-shot eyes. \"Our thanks for the healing,\" she muttered. \"But we need to rejoin Onearm's Host. '\n\n\"And what if still more Pannion soldiers are lurking about?\"\n\n\"Then we join our slain brothers and sisters. What of it?\"\n\n\"Oh, you're all the same! '\n\nWith that, and a flurry of white robes, Lady Envy stormed from the chamber." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Blend drew closer to Picker, quietly said, \"There's a hint of fresh air... coming from the doorway beyond. '\n\nThe lieutenant nodded. \"Lead on.\"\n\nCanted to one side, shrouded in black mist, the ruptured basalt groaning like a living thing, Moon's Spawn drew ever closer to the keep's parapet.\n\nBeneath the vast, overwhelming weight of Kurald Galain, the Seer crouched in his madness, head tilted to stare up at the edifice, the Finnest cradled with desperate possessiveness in his arms. Off to one side, the Matron seemed to be trying to claw her way through the tiles beneath her. The pressure was unrelenting.\n\nThe two Seguleh had not reached the rooftop unscathed, and the K'ell Hunters were proving more than their match. Both masked warriors had been driven back over the low ringwall, leaving trails of blood. Even so, Paran had never before seen such a display of skill. The swords were a blur, seemingly everywhere at once, and the K'ell Hunters were being hacked to shreds even as they pressed on. The captain had thought to help the two strangers, but had concluded that he'd prove more a hindrance.\n\nParan glanced back at the sky to the north.\n\nDragons, diving towards the city, waves of power lashing down to thunder in the streets, against buildings, darkness billowing.\n\nGreat Ravens, wheeling, voicing triumphant cries.\n\n\"Uh, it's not going to clear... '\n\nThe captain frowned at Quick Ben's strange statement. Clear? What's not– he snapped his head round, back to Moon's Spawn. Oh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The base of the floating mountain was directly opposite, sliding ever closer. So close– towering, filling the sky.\n\n\"I thought Rake would at least comedown in person for this,\" the wizard went on. \"Instead, he's elected something... uh, less subtle. '\n\nLike obliterating this entire keep and everyone in it. \"Quick Ben-\"\n\n\"Aye, we'd better make our move. '\n\nA huge black panther flowed from the stairwell, paused, lambent eyes taking in the scene on the rooftop, then fixing on the Seer.\n\nQuick Ben was suddenly on his feet. \"No!\" he shouted to the beast. \"Wait!\"\n\nThe panther's huge head swung to the wizard, eyes blazing, lips peeling back.\n\n\"I don't think it wants to wait. '\n\nTail lashing, the panther drew a step closer to the cowering Seer– whose back was to them all-\n\n\"Damn!\" Quick Ben hissed. \"Time's now, Talamandas! '\n\nWho?\n\nMoon's Spawn struck the parapet roof's wall with a grinding, grating crunch. The inexorable wall of stone ploughed forward-\n\nThe Matron screamed-\n\nWet, streaming basalt pinned the K'Chain Che'Malle where she lay, then seemed to gather her in. Blood sprayed, bones snapped, Moon's Spawn's apex edging across the rooftop, leaving in its wake chewed tiles and smears of blood and flesh.\n\nThe Seer shrieked, back-pedalled– directly towards the panther, which suddenly coiled-\n\nMoon's Spawn sank suddenly, dropping a man's height, punching through the roof." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tiles dipped beneath Paran, bricks buckling on all sides– the world swayed.\n\nQuick Ben struck. Sorcery tumbling out, hammering into the panther's flank– sending it flying, claws skittering-\n\n\"Follow me!\" the wizard screamed, lunging forward.\n\nParan, struggling to maintain his balance, reached and grasped the wizard's rain-cape, was pulled along. So it's now– to cheat them all. Gods forgive us.\n\nThe Seer spun to them– \"What?\"\n\n\"Talamandas!\" Quick Ben roared as they closed with the Seer, the wizard throwing himself onto the Jaghut-\n\nWarren opening round them-\n\n-and away.\n\nPortal closing– then flaring as the panther plunged through it in pursuit.\n\nMoon's Spawn settled further, and the parapet burst apart, bricks snapping out to all sides. The two Seguleh darted back from the K'ell Hunters, leapt the low wall behind which Paran and Quick Ben had hidden, and raced for the far end of the roof. Behind them, where the Seer had crouched, a massive chunk of basalt split away from the apex in a gush of saltwater, plunged down to bury the two K'ell Hunters, down, through floor after floor, into the bowels of the keep.\n\nGruntle staggered, shoulder striking a wall, leaving a red stain as he slowly slid to a crouch. Before him, bent over in exhaustion or pain, kneeling, or standing, blank-faced and ashen, were eight Capan women. Three little more than children, two others with grey in their tangled, sweat-matted hair, their weapons hanging from trembling hands. All he had left." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His Lestari officer was gone, dead, what was left of his body somewhere out in the killing field beyond the wall.\n\nGruntle lowered his swords, leaned his head back against the dusty stone facing, and closed his eyes.\n\nHe could hear fighting to the west. The Grey Swords had ridden in that direction, searching for Dujek. The Black Moranth had returned to the sky above the westernmost third of the city, and seemed to be concentrated in one particular area, plunging in small groups down into streets as if participating in a desperate defence. The snap of sharpers echoed.\n\nCloser at hand, directly opposite Gruntle and what was left of his legion, a cusser had struck a large tenement. The building was moments from collapsing, raging with flames. Bodies of Pannion soldiers lay amidst rubble in the street.\n\nAnd, slowly tearing its way through the keep, Moon's Spawn, bleeding its darkness out into the city, the path of its destruction a chorus of demolition.\n\nHis eyes remained closed.\n\nBoots kicked through broken masonry, then one nudged Gruntle's thigh.\n\n\"Lazy pig!\"\n\nThe Mortal Sword sighed. \"Stonny-\"\n\n\"This fight ain't over. '\n\nHe opened his eyes, stared up at her. \"It is. Coral's fallen– ha, no, it's falling. And isn't the victory sweet. Where have you been? '\n\nThe dusty, sweat-streaked woman shrugged, glanced down at the rapier in her hand. \"Here and there. Did what I could, which wasn't much. The Mott Irregulars are here, did you know that? How in Hood's name did they manage that? Damn if they weren't there, inside the gate, when me and the Grey Swords showed up– and we thought we were first. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stonny-\"\n\nThe preternatural darkness deepened suddenly.\n\nMoon's Spawn had drawn clear of the keep in a final toppling of walls. Still canted, still raining water and chunks of black rock, it drifted closer, a few men's heights above the city's buildings, filling the sky– now almost above them.\n\nOn the high ledge, no-one remained visible. Great Ravens were swinging close to the Moon's sides, then wheeling away again with loud, echoing shrieks.\n\n\"Abyss take us,\" Stonny whispered, \"that thing looks like it could fall at any moment. Just drop. Straight down– or in pieces. It's finished, Gruntle. Finished. '\n\nHe could not disagree. The edifice looked ready to break apart.\n\nSalty rain soaked his upturned face, mist from the mountain looming directly overhead. It was, all at once, as dark as an overcast night, and if not for the reflection from the fires spotting the city, Moon's Spawn would have been virtually invisible. Gods, I wish it was.\n\nThe sound of fighting to the west fell away, strangely sudden.\n\nThey heard horse hooves pounding the cobbles. A moment later, riding into the glare of the burning buildings opposite, the Destriant of the Grey Swords.\n\nShe saw them, slowed her canter and swung her warhorse round to approach, then halt.\n\n\"We have found the High Fist, sirs. He lives, as well as at least eight hundred of his soldiers. The city is taken. I return, now, to our staging area beyond the killing field. Will you accompany me, sirs? There will be a gathering...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of survivors. He looked around once more. The T'lan Ay were gone. Without those undead wolves, the K'Chain Che'Malle would have killed everyone outside the city. Perhaps they, too, are gathering around that hill. And what of Itkovian? That damned fool. Does he still kneel before the T'lan Imass? Does he still live? Gruntle sighed, slowly pushed himself upright. His gaze fell once more on his few remaining followers. All this, just to get fifty paces inside the gate. \"Aye, Destriant, we'll follow. '\n\nWings spread wide, flowing across power-ridden air, Korlat sailed in a slow bank around Moon's Spawn. Blood-matted feathers and bits of flesh still clung to her claws. At the end, the demonic condors had died easily– proof enough that the Seer had either fled or had been killed. Perhaps her Lord had descended, had drawn Dragnipur to take the Jaghut's soul. She would discover the truth soon enough.\n\nHead twisting, she glanced at her brother flying beside her, guarding her flank. Orfantal bore wounds, yet did not waver, his power and will still formidable weapons should any surprises rise up to challenge them.\n\nNone did.\n\nTheir path took them out towards the sea, east of Coral, and within sight of the ocean. Late afternoon's light still commanded the distance.\n\nAnd she saw, half a league from shore, four ships of war, sails out, flying the colours of the Malazan Imperial Navy as they skirted the periphery of dying ice floes.\n\nArtanthos– Tayschrenn... oh, the plans within plans, the games of deceit and misdirection...\n\nOur history, my lost love, our history destroyed us all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Swinging around yet further, until they approached Coral once more, angling down and away from Moon's Spawn's slow path as it continued drifting northward. Below, the shattered gate. Figures, torchlight.\n\nHer eyes found Caladan Brood, soldiers of the Grey Swords, Barghast and others.\n\nOrfantal spoke within her mind. \"Go down, sister. I will guard the skies. I, our Soletaken kin, and Silanah. Look, Crone descends. Join her.\"\n\nI would guard you, Brother-\n\n\"The enemy is destroyed, Korlat. What you would guard, staying with me, is the heart within you. You would fend it from pain. From loss. Sister, he deserves more. Go down, now. To grieve is the gift of the living– a gift so many of our kin have long lost. Do not retreat. Descend, Korlat, to the mortal realm.\"\n\nKorlat crooked her wings, spiralled earthward. Brother, thank you.\n\nShe sembled as she landed in the modest concourse onto which the north gate opened. Her arrival had forced soldiers to scatter, if only momentarily. Tiste Andii once more, suddenly weak from the wound that Brood had managed to heal but superficially, she stumbled slightly as she made her way to where the Warlord waited just inside the gate. Crone had reported something to him and now rose once more into the darkness.\n\nShe had never seen Brood look so... defeated. The notion of victory seemed... irrevelant, in the face of such personal loss. For us all.\n\nAs she drew nearer, a man walked up to the warlord. Lean, slope-shouldered, his long, pale hair a tangled mess that sat strangely high on his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Korlat watched the man salute, heard him say, \"High Marshal Stump, sir. Mott Irregulars. About that order-\"\n\n\"What order?\" Brood snapped.\n\nThe man's smile revealed long, white teeth.\"Never mind. We were there, you see-'\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"Uh, this side of the wall, east of the gate, sir, and there was mages up top. The Bole brothers didn't like that, so they roughed them up some. Ain't none breathing anymore. Anyway, what do you want us to do now?\"\n\nCaladan Brood stared at the man, expressionless, then he shook his head. \"I have not a clue, High Marshal Stump.\"\n\nThe man from Mott nodded. \"Well, we could putout some fires.\"\n\n\"Go to it, then.\"\n\n\"Yes sir.\"\n\nKorlat, who had held back during the exchange, now stepped forward as the High Marshal ambled off.\n\nBrood was staring after the man.\n\n\"Warlord?\"\n\n\"We'd left them behind, I'd thought,\" he muttered. \"But then... they were in the city. They were on the other side of the K'Chain Che'Malle– through the gate or over the wall, taking out mages. Now, how did they...\"\n\n\"Warlord, there are Malazan ships. Approaching.\"\n\nBrood slowly nodded. \"So Artanthos informed me, before he travelled by warren to the deck of the command ship. There is an imperial delegation aboard, an ambassador, a legate, a governor-\"\n\n\"All three?\"\n\n\"No, just one. Lots of titles, depending on the negotiations to follow.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Korlat drew a deep breath. Hold back on the pain, on the loss– just a short while longer. \"With Onearm's Host so badly... damaged... the Malazans won't be bargaining from a position of strength.\"\n\nBrood's eyes narrowed on her.\"Korlat, \"he said softly,\"as far as I am concerned, the Malazans have earned all they might ask for. If they want it, Coral is theirs. '\n\nKorlat sighed. \"Warlord, the unveiling of Kurald Galain... is a permanent manifestation. The city now lies as much within the Tiste Andii warren as within this world.\"\n\n\"Aye, meaning the negotiations are properly between Rake and the Malazans. Not me. Tell me, will your Lord claim Coral? Moon's Spawn... '\n\nThere was no need to continue. The city within the mountain of rock still held, trapped in its deepest chambers, massive volumes of water, weight that could not be withstood for much longer. Moon's Spawn was dying. It would, she knew, have to be abandoned. A place, our home for so long. Will I grieve? I know not.\n\n\"I have not spoken with Anomander Rake, Warlord. I cannot anticipate his disposition.\" She turned away, began walking towards the gate.\n\nBrood called after her.\n\nNot yet.\n\nShe continued on, beneath the gate's arch, her eyes fixing on the hilltop beyond the shattered corpses carpeting the killing field. Where I will find him. All that is left. His face, gift of memories, now grown cold. I saw the life flee his eyes. That moment of death, of dying. Withdrawing, away from those eyes, withdrawing, back and away. Leaving, leaving me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her steps slowed, the pain of loss threatening to overwhelm her.\n\nDear Mother Dark, do you look down upon me, now? Do you see me, your child? Do you smile, to see me so broken? I have, after all, repeated your fatal errors of old. Yielding my heart, succumbing to the foolish dream– Light's dance, you longed for that embrace, didn't you?\n\nAnd were betrayed.\n\nYou left us, Mother... to eternal silence.\n\nYet...\n\nMother Dark, with this unveiling, I feel you close. Was it grief that sent you away, sent you so far from your children? When, in our deadly, young way– our appalling insensitivity– we cursed you. Added another layer to your pain.\n\nThese steps... you walked them once.\n\nHow can you help but smile?\n\nRain struck her brow, stung the ragged, open gash of her wound. She halted, looked up, to see Moon's Spawn directly overhead... weeping down upon her...\n\n... and upon the field of corpses surrounding her, and, beyond and to the right, upon thousands of kneeling T'lan Imass. The dead, the abandoned, awash of deepening colours, as if in the rain the scene, so softly saturated, was growing more solid, more real. No longer the faded tableau of a Tiste Andii's regard. Life, drawn short, to sharpen every detail, flush every colour, to make every moment an ache.\n\nAnd she could hold back no longer. Whiskeyjack. My love.\n\nMoments later, her own tears joined the salt-laden water running down her face.\n\nIn the gate's gloom, Caladan Brood stared out, across the stone bridge, over the mangled plain to where Korlat stood halfway to the hill, surrounded by corpses and shattered K'Chain Che'Malle. Watched as her head tilted back, face slowly lifting to the grey shroud of the rain. The black mountain, fissures widening, groans issuing from the dying edifice, seemed to pause directly over her. A heart, once of stone, made mortal once more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This image– what he now saw– he knew, with bleak certainty, would never leave him.\n\nSilverfox had walked for what seemed along time, heedless of direction, insensate to all that surrounded her, until distant movement caught her attention. She now stood on the barren tundra, beneath solid white overcast, and watched the approach of the Rhivi spirits.\n\nA small band, pitifully small, less than forty individuals, insignificant in the distance, almost swallowed by the immense landscape, the sky, this damp air with its unforgiving chill that had settled into her bones like the blood of failure.\n\nEvents had occurred. Elsewhere in this nascent realm. She could sense that much– the hail, deluge of memories, born from she knew not where. And though they had struck her with the same indiscriminate randomness as they struck the ground on all sides, she had felt but the faintest hint of all that they had contained.\n\nIf a gift, then a bitter one.\n\nIf a curse, then so too is life itself a curse. For there were lives within that frozen rain. Entire lives, sent down to strike the flesh of this world, to seep down, to thaw the soil with its fecundity.\n\nBut it has nothing to do with me.\n\nNone of this. All that I sought to fashion... destroyed. This dreamworld was itself a memory. Ghostworld of Tellann, remembrance of my own world, from long, long ago. Remembrances, taken from the Bonecaster who was therein my refashioning, taken from the Rhivi spirits, the First Clan, taken from K'rul, from Kruppe. Taken from the slumbering land itself– Burn's own flesh.\n\nI myself... possessed nothing. I simply stole." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To fashion a world for my mother, a world where she could be young once more, where she could live out a normal life, growing old through the normal span of seasons.\n\nAll that I stole from her, I would giveback.\n\nBitterness filled Silverfox. It had begun with that first barrow, outside Pale. This belief in the righteousness, the efficacy, of theft. Justified by the worthiest of ends.\n\nBut ownership bereft of propriety was a lie. All that she hoarded was in turn stripped of value. Memories, dreams, lives.\n\nGone to dust.\n\nThe hapless band of Rhivi spirits drew closer, cautiously, hesitating.\n\nYes. I understand. What demands will I make of you now? How many more empty promises will I voice? I had a people for you, a people who had long since lost their own gods, their own spirits to whom they had once avowed allegiance, were less than the dust they could make of themselves. A people.\n\nFor you.\n\nLost.\n\nWhat a lesson for four bound souls– no matchmaker, we four.\n\nShe did not know what to tell them– these modest, timid spirits.\n\n\"Bonecaster, we greet you.\"\n\nSilverfox blinked her eyes clear. \"Elder Spirit. I have-\"\n\n\"Have you seen?\"\n\nShe saw then, in all their faces, a kind of wonder. And frowned in reply.\n\n\"Bonecaster,\" the foremost Rhivi continued, \"we have found something. Not far from here– do you know of what we speak?\"\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n\"There are thrones, Bonecaster. Two thrones. Ina long hut of bones and hide.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Thrones?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What– why? Why should there be thrones in this realm? Who-?\"\n\nThe elder shrugged, then offered her a soft smile. \"They await, Bonecaster. We can feel the truth of that. Soon. Soon, will come this warren's true masters. '\n\n\"True masters!\" Anger flared in Silverfox. \"This realm– it was for you! Who dares seek to usurp-\"\n\n\"No,\" the spirit's quiet denial cut through her, swept the breath from her lungs.\"Not for us. Bonecaster, we are not powerful enough to command such a world as this. It has grown too vast, too powerful. Do not fear– we do not wish to leave, and we will endeavour to treat with the new masters. I believe they will permit us to remain. Perhaps indeed we will find ourselves pleased to serve them. '\n\n\"No!\" No! Not how it was supposed to be!\n\n\"Bonecaster, there is no need for such strong feelings within you. The shaping continues. The fulfilment of your desires is still possible– perhaps not in the manner you originally intended...\"\n\nShe no longer heard him. Despair was sundering her soul. As I stole... so it has been stolen from me. There is no injustice here, no crime. Accept the truth.\n\nNightchill's strength of will.\n\nTattersail's empathy.\n\nBellurdan's loyalty.\n\nA Rhivi child's wonder.\n\nNone were enough. None could of themselves– or together– absolve what has been done, the choices made, the denials voiced.\n\nLeave them. Leave them to this, to all of this, and all that is to come. Silverfox turned away. \"Find her, then. Go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Will you not walk with us? Your gift to her-\"\n\n\"Go.\"\n\nMy gift to her. My gift to you. They are all as one. Grand failures, defeats born from the flaws within me. I will not stand witness to my own shame– I cannot. I have not the courage for that.\n\nI'm sorry.\n\nShe walked away.\n\nBrief flower. Seed to stalk to deadly blossom, all in the span of a single day. Bright-burning poison, destroying all who came too close.\n\nAn abomination.\n\nThe Rhivi spirits– a small band, men, women, children and elders, wearing hides and furs, their round faces burnished by sun and wind– watched Silverfox leave them. The elder who had spoken with her did not move until she slipped out of sight beneath the rim of a worn beach ridge, then he ran the back of four spread fingers across his eyes in a gesture of sad departing, and said, \"Build afire. Prepare the ranag's shoulder blade. We have walked this land enough to seethe map within. '\n\n\"Once more,\" an old woman sighed.\n\nThe elder shrugged. \"The Bonecaster commanded that we find her mother.\"\n\n\"She will simply flee us again. As she did the ay. Like a hare-\"\n\n\"None the less. The Bonecaster has commanded. We shall lay the blade upon the flames. We shall seethe map find its shape.\"\n\n\"And why should it be true this time?\"\n\nThe elder slowly lowered himself to press a hand down on the soft mosses. \"Why? Open your senses, doubting one. This land...\" he smiled, \"now lives.\"\n\nRunning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Free!\n\nRiding the soul of a god, within the muscles of a fierce, ancient beast. Riding a soul-\n\n-suddenly singing with joy. Mosses and lichen beneath the paws, spray of old rainwater to streak the leg-fur. Smell of rich, fertile life– a world-\n\nRunning. Pain already a fading memory, vague recollections of a cage of bone, growing pressure, evermore shallow breaths.\n\nThrowing head back, loosing a thunderous howl that trembled the sky.\n\nDistant answers.\n\nWhich drew closer.\n\nShapes, grey, brown and black flashes of movement on the tundra, streaming over ridges, sweeping down into shallow valleys, broad moraines. Ay. Kin. The children of Baaljagg– of Fanderay– ghost memories that were the souls of the T'lan Ay. Baaljagg had not released them, had held to them, within herself, within her dreams– in an ageless world into which an Elder God had breathed eternal life.\n\nAy.\n\nTheir god had challenged the heavens with his bestial voice, and now they came to him.\n\nAnd... another.\n\nTogg slowed, head lifting– the ay all around him now, clan after clan, long-legged tundra wolves, swirling-\n\nShe was here. She had come.\n\nShe had found him.\n\nRunning. Coming nearer. Shoulder to shoulder with Baaljagg, with the ay who had carried her wounded, lost soul for so long. Baaljagg, coming to rejoin her kin– the kin of her dreams.\n\nEmotions. Beyond measure-\n\nThen, Fanderay was padding at his side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their beast-minds touched. A moment. Nothing else. Nothing more was needed.\n\nTogether, shoulders brushing-\n\nTwo ancient wolves. God and goddess.\n\nHe looked upon them, without knowing who he, himself, was; nor even where he might be, that he might so witness this reunion. Looked, and, for these two, knew nothing but gentle joy.\n\nRunning.\n\nAhead awaited their thrones.\n\nThe Mhybe's head snapped up, her body stiffening, writhing in an attempt to break his grip. Small as he was, his strength defeated her.\n\n\"Wolves, lass. We've nothing to fear. '\n\nNothing to fear. Lies. They have hunted me. Again and again. Pursuing me across this empty land. And now, listen, they come once more. And this Daru who drags me, he has not even so much as a knife.\n\n\"Something ahead,\" Kruppe gasped, shifting his awkward embrace as he staggered under her weight. \"Easier,\" he panted, \"when you were but a hag! Now, but you found the will, you could throw me down– nay! You could carry me!\"\n\nWill. Need I only find the will? To break from this grip? To flee?\n\nFlee where?\n\n\"Lass, hear Kruppe's words! He begs you! This– this world– Kruppe's dream no longer! Do you understand? It must pass from me. It must be passed on!\"\n\nThey were stumbling up a gentle slope.\n\nWolves howled behind them, fast approaching.\n\nLeave me.\n\n\"Dearest Mhybe, so aptly named! You are the vessel in truth, now! Within you– take this dream from me. Allow it to fill your spirit. Kruppe must pass it onto you– do you understand?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Will.\n\nShe twisted suddenly, threw an elbow into Kruppe's stomach. He gasped, doubled over. She pulled herself free as he fell, leapt to her feet-\n\nBehind them, tens of thousands of wolves. Charging towards her. And, leading them, two gigantic beasts that radiated blinding power.\n\nThe Mhybe cried out, spun.\n\nA shallow depression before her. Along, low hut of arched bones, hides, bound with hemp rope, the entrance yawning wide.\n\nAnd, standing in a clump before the hut, a band of Rhivi.\n\nThe Mhybe staggered towards them.\n\nWolves were suddenly all around, flowing in a wild, chaotic circle around the hut. Ignoring the Rhivi. Ignoring her.\n\nGroaning, Kruppe levered himself, after a couple of tries, to his feet. Weaving, he joined her. She stared at him without comprehension.\n\nHe drew a faded handkerchief from his sleeve and daubed the sweat from his brow. \"Any lower with that elbow, dear...\"\n\n\"What? What is happening?\"\n\nKruppe paused, looked around. \"They are within, then.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Why, Togg and Fanderay, of course. Come to claim the Beast Throne. Or, in this case, Thrones. Not that, should we enter the hut, we will see two wolves perched on chairs, of course. Presence alone asserts possession, no doubt. Kruppe's imagination tempts other, shall we say, prosaic images, but best avoid those, yes? Now, lass, permit Kruppe to edge back. Those who approach you now– well, this is the passing of a dream, from one to the other, and into the background noble Kruppe must now go. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She swung round.\n\nA Rhivi elder faced her, face creasing in a sad smile. \"We asked her to come with us,\" he said.\n\nThe Mhybe frowned. \"Asked who?\"\n\n\"Your daughter. This world– it is for you. Indeed, it exists within you. With this world, your daughter asks for forgiveness.\"\n\n\"S-she made this-\"\n\n\"There were many participants, each and all driven by the injustice that befell you. There was... desperation, the day your daughter was... created. The one known as Kruppe. The Elder God, K'rul. The one named Pran Chole. And yourself. And, when she gathered us within her, ourselves as well. Silverfox sought to answer yet more– the tragedy that are the T'lan Imass and the T'lan Ay. It maybe, \"he added, one hand making a faint gesture of bereavement,\"that what her heart sought has proved too vast-'\n\n\"Where is she? Where is my daughter?\"\n\nThe elder shook his head. \"Despair has taken her. Away.\"\n\nThe Mhybe fell silent. I was hunted. You were hunting me. And the ay. She looked down, slowly raised her youthful limbs. Is this real, then? She slowly turned about, looked across to meet Kruppe's eyes.\n\nThe Daru smiled.\n\nThe old woman...\n\n\"Will I awaken?\"\n\nKruppe shook his head. \"That woman now sleeps eternal, lass. Warded, guarded. Your daughter spoke with Hood. Reached an agreement, yes? She believes, having lost the T'lan Imass, that she has broken it. Yet, one cannot but think that there are facets to this... resolution. Kruppe remains confident. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "An agreement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Freedom for the T'lan Imass. An end. Their souls... delivered to Hood.\n\nSpirits below– she has lost them? Lost the T'lan Imass?\"Hood will not abide-'\n\n\"Ah, but won't he? Whyever not, dear? If the Lord of Death is without patience, then Kruppe can dance on Coll's pointy head! Which he most assuredly cannot. You shall not return to that ancient body.\"\n\nThe Mhybe glanced back at the Rhivi spirits. \"Will I age here? Will I eventually...\"\n\nThe elder shrugged. \"I do not know, but I suspect not. You are the vessel. The Mhybe.\"\n\nThe Mhybe... Oh, Silverfox. Daughter. Why are you not here? Why can I not look now into your eyes. The begging for forgiveness goes both ways. She drew a deep breath, tasted the sweet life filling the cool, moist air. So easily, then, to take this world into myself. She removed the first copper bracelet, held it out to the Rhivi. \"This is yours, I believe.\"\n\nThe elder smiled. \"Did its power serve you well?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Without measure...\"\n\nA presence filled her mind. \"Mhybe.\"\n\nTogg, a rumbling power, the will of winter itself.\n\n\"We reside within this realm, realm of the Beast Thrones, but you are its mistress. There is one within me. A mortal spirit. Cherished spirit. I would release him. We would release him. From this realm. Do you give us-\"\n\nYes. Release him.\n\nBenediction. Godless, he could not give it. Not in its truest form." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he had not comprehended the vast capacity within him, within a mortal soul, to take within itself the suffering of tens of thousands, the multitudes who had lived with loss and pain for almost three hundred thousand years.\n\nHe saw faces, countless faces. Desiccated, eyes nothing more than shadowed pits. Dry, torn skin. He saw bone glimmering from between layers of root-like tendons and muscles. He saw hands, chipped, splintered, empty now– yet the ghost of swords lingered there still.\n\nHe was on his knees, looking out upon their ranks, and it was raining, a wavering deluge accompanied by reverberating groans, splintering cracks filling the darkness above.\n\nHe looked upon them, and they were motionless, heads bowed.\n\nYet he could see their faces. Each face. Every face.\n\nI have your pain.\n\nHeads slowly lifted.\n\nHe sensed them, sensed the sudden lightness permeating them. I have done all I am able to do. Yes, it was not enough, I know. Yet. I have taken your suffering-\n\n\"You have taken our suffering, mortal.\"\n\nInto myself-\n\n\"We do not understand how.\"\n\nAnd so I will now leave you-\n\n\"We do not understand... why.\"\n\nFor all that my flesh cannot encompass-\n\n\"We cannot answer the gift you have given.\"\n\nI will take with me.\n\n\"Please, mortal-\"\n\nSomehow.\n\n\"The reason. Please. That you would so bless us-\"\n\nI am the...\n\n\"Mortal?\"\n\nYour pardon, sirs. You wish to know of me. I am... a mortal, as you say. A man, born three decades ago in the city of Erin. My family name, before I surrendered it to Fener's Reve, was Otanthalian. My father was a hard, just man. My mother smiled but once in all the years I knew her. The moment when I departed. Still, it is the smile I remember. I think now that my father embraced in order to possess. That she was a prisoner. I think, now, that her smile answered my escape. I think now that in my leaving, I took something of her with me. Something worthy of being set free." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fener's Reve. In the Reve... I wonder, did I simply find for myself another prison?\n\n\"She is free within you, mortal.\"\n\nThat would be... a good thing.\n\n\"We would not lie to you, Itkovian Otanthalian. She is free. And smiles still. You have told us what you were. But we still do not understand– your... generosity. Your compassion. And so we ask again. Why have you done this for us?\"\n\nSirs, you speak of compassion. I understand something, now, of compassion. Would you hear?\n\n\"Speak on, mortal.\"\n\nWe humans do not understand compassion. In each moment of our lives, we betray it. Aye, we know of its worth, yet in knowing we then attach to it a value, we guard the giving of it, believing it must be earned. T'lan Imass. Compassion is priceless in the truest sense of the word. It must be given freely. In abundance.\n\n\"We do not understand, but we will consider long your words.\"\n\nThere is always more to do, it seems.\n\n\"You do not answer our question-\"\n\nNo.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nBeneath the rain, as darkness gathered, with every face raised to him, Itkovian closed himself about all that he held within him, closed himself, then fell back.\n\nBack.\n\nBecause. I was the Shield Anvil. But now...\n\nI am done.\n\nAnd beneath the Moon's torrential rain, he died.\n\nOn the vast, reborn tundra with its sweet breath of spring, Silverfox looked up.\n\nStanding before her were two T'lan Imass. One speared through with swords. The other so badly battered that it could barely stand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Beyond them, silent, motionless, the T'lan Ay.\n\nSilverfox made to turn away.\n\n\"No. You shall not.\"\n\nSilverfox glared back at the battered warrior who'd spoken.\"You dare torment me? ' she hissed.\n\nThe T'lan Imass seemed to rock in the face of her vehemence, then steadied.\"I am Onos T'oolan, First Sword. You are the Summoner. You shall listen tome.\"\n\nSilverfox said nothing fora long moment, then she nodded. \"Very well. Speak.\"\n\n\"Free the T'lan Ay. '\n\n\"They have denied me-\"\n\n\"They are here before you, now. They have come. Their spirits await them. They would be mortal once more, in this world that you have created. Mortal, no longer lost within dreams, Summoner. Mortal. Gift them. Now.\"\n\nGift them... \"And this is what they wish?\"\n\n\"Yes. Reach to them, and you will know the truth of that.\"\n\nNo, no more pain. She raised her arms, drew on the power of Tellann, closed her eyes– for too long have they known chains. For too long have these creatures known the burden of loyalty-\n\n-and released them of the Ritual. An effort demanding so little of herself, she was left feeling appalled. So easy, then, to release. To make free once more.\n\nShe opened her eyes. The undead wolves were gone.\n\nNot into oblivion, however. Their souls had been reunited, she knew, with flesh and bone. Extinct no longer. Not here, within this realm and its wolf gods. She was a Bonecaster, after all. Such gifts were hers to give. No, they are not gifts. They are what I was fashioned to do, after all. My purpose. My sole purpose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Onos T'oolan's bones creaked as he slowly looked around, scanning the now empty barrens surrounding them. His shoulders seemed to slump. \"Summoner. Thank you. The ancient wrong is righted.\"\n\nSilverfox studied the First Sword. \"What else do you wish of me?\"\n\n\"She who stands beside me is Lanas Tog. She will lead you back to the T'lan Imass. Words must be exchanged. '\n\n\"Very well.\"\n\nOnos T'oolan made no move.\n\nSilverfox frowned. \"What are we waiting for, then?\"\n\nHe was motionless a moment longer, then he reached up and slowly drew his flint sword. \"For me,\" he rasped, raising the sword-\n\n-then releasing it, to fall to the ground at his feet.\n\nShe frowned down at the weapon, wondering at the significance of the gesture– from the warrior who was called the First Sword.\n\nSlowly, as comprehension filled her, her eyes widened.\n\nWhat, after all, I was fashioned to do...\n\n\"The time has come.\"\n\nColl started. He had been dozing. \"What? What time?\"\n\nMurillio rushed over to the Mhybe.\n\nThe Knight of Death continued, \"She is ready for interment. My Lord has avowed his eternal protection.\"\n\nThe Elder God, K'rul, was studying the huge, undead warrior.\"I remain bemused. No– astonished. Since when has Hood become a generous god? '\n\nThe Knight slowly faced K'rul.\"My Lord is ever generous. '\n\n\"She's still alive, \"Murillio pronounced, straightening to place himself between the Mhybe and the Knight of Death.\"The time has not come. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is not a burial,\" K'rul said to him.\"The Mhybe now sleeps, and will sleep forevermore. She sleeps, to dream. And within her dream, Murillio, lives an entire world. '\n\n\"Like Burn?\" Coll asked.\n\nThe Elder God smiled in answer.\n\n\"Wait a moment!\" Murillio snapped. \"Just how many sleeping old women are there?\"\n\n\"She must be laid to rest,\" the Knight of Death pronounced.\n\nColl stepped forward, settled a hand on Murillio's shoulder.\"Come on, let's make sure she's comfortable down there– furs, blankets... '\n\nMurillio seemed to shiver under Coll's hand.\"After all this? \"He wiped at his eyes.\"We just... leave her? Here, in a tomb? '\n\n\"Help me with the bedding, my friend,\" Coll said.\n\n\"There is no need,\" the Knight said. \"She will feel nothing.\"\n\n\"That's not the point, \"Coll sighed. He was about to say something more, then he saw that Rath'Fanderay and Rath'Togg had both removed their masks. Pallid, wrinkled faces, eyes closed, streaming with tears.\"What's wrong with them?\" he demanded.\n\n\"Their gods have finally found each other, Coll. Within the Mhybe's realm, home now to the Beast Thrones. You do not witness sorrow, but joy. '\n\nAfter a moment, Coll grunted. \"Let's get to work, Murillio. Then we can go home. '\n\n\"I still want to know about these old women dreaming up worlds like this!\"\n\n---\n\nThe warren flared, the three figures emerging from it spilling onto dusty grey earth in a tangle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Paran rolled clear of Quick Ben and the Seer as sorcery roiled around the two grappling men. As the captain drew his sword, he heard the Jaghut shriek. Black webs raced, wrapped tight about the thrashing Seer.\n\nGasping, Quick Ben kicked himself away, the Finnest in his hands.\n\nCrouched on the Jaghut's chest was a tiny figure of twigs and knotted grasses, cackling with glee.\n\n\"Who in Hood's name-'\n\nA massive black shape exploded from the portal with a hissing snarl. Paran cried out, wheeled, sword swinging in a desperate horizontal slash.\n\nWhich bit muscle then bone.\n\nSomething– a paw– hammered Paran's chest, throwing him from his feet.\n\n\"Stop– you damned cat!\"\n\nQuick Ben's frantic shout was punctuated by a sorcerous detonation that made the panther scream in pain.\n\n\"On your feet, Paran!\" the wizard gasped. \"I've nothing left. '\n\nOn my feet? Gods, I feel broken into a thousand pieces, and the man wants me on my feet. Somehow, he pushed himself upright, tottering as he faced the beast once more.\n\nIt crouched six paces away, tail thrashing, coal-lit eyes fixed on his own. It bared its fangs in a silent snarl.\n\nFrom somewhere within the captain emerged an answering growl. Deeper than a human throat could manage. A brutal strength flowed into him, stealing from him all awareness of his own body– except that now, he realized, he was– somehow– on eye-level with the gigantic panther.\n\nHe heard Quick Ben's ragged whisper behind him:\" Abyss below! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The cat, ears laid back flat, was clearly hesitating.\n\nWhat in Hood's name is it seeing?\n\n\"Bonecaster!\" Quick Ben snapped. \"Hold. Look around you– see where we are! We're not your enemies– we seek what you seek. Here. Right now. '\n\nThe panther drew back another step, and Paran saw it tensing fora charge.\n\n\"Vengeance is not enough!\" the wizard cried.\n\nThe cat flinched. A moment later, Paran saw its muscles relax, then the entire beast blurred, changed shape– and a small, dark, heavy-boned woman stood before them. On her right shoulder was a deep gash, the blood freely flowing down to paint her arm, dripping from her fingertips to the dusty ground. Black, extraordinarily beautiful eyes regarded him.\n\nParan slowly sighed, felt something subside within him– and he could sense his own body once more, limbs trembling, sword-grip slick in his hand.\n\n\"Who are you?\" she asked.\n\nThe captain shrugged.\n\nHer gaze dismissed him, lifted past him. \"Morn,\" she said.\n\nParan slowly turned.\n\nHe felt the rent like a physical blow against his heart. A welt in the air, almost within reach of the ragged roof of an abandoned tower. A wound, bleeding pain– such pain... an eternity– gods below, there is a soul within it. A child. Trapped. Sealing the wound. I remember that child– the child of my dreams...\n\nQuick Ben had regained his feet, stood looking down on the magically imprisoned Seer, the sticksnare crouched on the man's chest.\n\nThe Jaghut, unhuman eyes filled with terror, stared backup at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wizard smiled. \"You and I, Seer. We are going to come to an arrangement.\" He still held the Finnest and now slowly raised it. \"The Matron's power... resides within this egg. Correct? A power unable to sense itself, yet alive none the less. Torn from the body that once housed it, presumably it feels no pain. It simply exists, herein this Finnest, for anyone to use it. Anyone at all. '\n\n\"No,\" the Jaghut rasped, eyes widening with fear. \"The Finnest is aspected tome. Tome alone. You foolish-\"\n\n\"Enough of the insults, Seer. Do you want to hear my proposal? Or will Paran and I simply step back and leave you to this Bonecaster's tender talons? '\n\nThe dark-haired woman approached them. \"What do you plan, Wizard?\"\n\nQuick Ben glanced back at her. \"An arrangement, Bonecaster, where everyone wins.\"\n\nShe sneered. \"No-one wins. Ever. Leave him tome now.\"\n\n\"The T'lan Vow is that important to you? I think not. You are flesh and blood-you did not participate in that ritual. '\n\n\"I am not bound to any vow,\" she replied. \"I act now for my brother.\"\n\n\"Your brother?\" Paran asked, sheathing his sword and joining them.\n\n\"Onos T'oolan. Who knew a mortal, and called him kin. '\n\n\"I imagine such an honour is... rare,\" Paran acknowledged, \"but what has that to do with the Seer?\"\n\nShe looked down at the bound Jaghut. \"To answer the death of Toc the Younger, brother to Onos T'oolan, I must kill you, Seer. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Paran stared, disbelieving the name he had just heard.\n\nThe Jaghut's response was a grim unsheathing of his lower tusks. Then he said,\"You should have killed us the first time. Yes, I remember you. Your lies. '\n\n\"Toc the Younger?\" Quick Ben asked. \"From Onearm's Host? But-'\n\n\"He was lost,\" Paran said. \"Thrown into a chaotic warren by Hairlock.\"\n\nThe wizard was scowling. \"To land in the Seer's lap? That hardly seems-'\n\n\"He appeared here,\" the woman cut in. \"At Morn. The Seer interrupted his journey north to rejoin his people, a journey that, fora time, he shared with Onos T'oolan. The Seer tortured the mortal, destroyed him. '\n\n\"Toc's dead? ' Paran asked, his mind feeling rocked in every direction.\n\n\"I saw his body, yes. And now, I will deliver unto this Jaghut pain to match.\"\n\n\"Have you not already done so?\" the Jaghut hissed.\n\nThe Bonecaster's face tightened.\n\n\"Wait,\" Quick Ben said, looking now to both her and Paran. \"Listen tome. Please. I knew Toc as well, and I grieve for the loss. But it changes nothing, not here, not now.\" He turned once more back to the Seer. \"She is still in there, you know.\"\n\nThe Jaghut flinched, eyes widening.\n\n\"Didn't you understand that? The Matron could only take one. You. '\n\n\"No-\"\n\n\"Your sister is still there. Her soul seals that wound. It's the way warrens heal themselves, to keep from bleeding into each other. The first time, it was the Matron– the K'Chain Che'Malle. Time's come, Seer, to send her back. Hood knows what that Finnest will do– once you release it, once you send it into that rent-\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "In partnership with the author, move the story forward.\nTags: epic fantasy, alliance, ancient threats, camaraderie, tragic events\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Memories of Ice\nChapter: 27" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I did, Anaster." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Relax, lad– about everything. Did you think I asked to be Trake's Mortal Sword? I was a caravan guard, and a miserable one and I was happy with it-'\n\n\"You were happy being miserable?\"\n\n\"Damned right I was.\"\n\nAnaster suddenly smiled. \"I stumbled on a small cask of ale– it's back in the camp of the Grey Swords. We should go fora walk, Gruntle. '\n\n\"Under the trees, aye. I'll find Stonny– a friend. You'll like her, I think.\"\n\n\"A woman? I like her already. I'll get the ale, meet you back here. '\n\n\"A sound plan, Anaster. Oh, and don't tell the Destriant or the Shield Anvil-'\n\n\"I won't, even if they torture me... \"His voice fell away, and Gruntle saw the young man grow paler than usual. Then he shook his head.\"See you soon, friend. '\n\n\"Aye.\" Friend... Yes, I think so.\n\nHe watched Anaster swing back onto the horse– the man he had been knew how to ride.\n\nNo, not the man he had been. The man he is. Gruntle watched him riding away fora moment longer, then turned back to find Stonny.\n\nSteam or smoke still drifted from the four Trygalle Trade Guild carriages waiting at the base of the hill. Quick Ben had gone ahead to speak with the train's master– an opulently dressed, overweight man whose bone-deep exhaustion was discernible from fifty paces away.\n\nParan, waiting with the Bridgeburners for Dujek on the crest of the hill, watched the wizard and the Trygalle mage engaging in a lengthy conversation the result of which seemed to leave Quick Ben bemused. The Daru, Kruppe, then joined them, and the discussion resumed once more. Heatedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's all that about? ' Picker wondered beside the captain.\n\nParan shook his head. \"I have no idea, Lieutenant.\"\n\n\"Sir.\"\n\nSomething in her tone brought him round. \"Yes?\"\n\n\"You shouldn't have left me in command– I messed it up, bad, sir. '\n\nHe saw the raw pain in her eyes, continued to meet them despite a sudden desire to look away. \"Not you, Lieutenant. The command was mine, after all. I abandoned all of you.\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"Quick's told us what you two did, Captain. You went where you had to, sir. It was well played. It'd seemed to us that there was no victory to be found, in any of this, but now we know that's not true– and that means more than you might realize. '\n\n\"Lieutenant, you walked out of that keep with survivors. No-one could have done better.\"\n\n\"I agree,\" anew voice growled.\n\nDujek's appearance shocked both soldiers to silence. The man seemed to have aged ten years in the span of a single day and night. He was bent, the hand of his lone arm trembling.\"Lieutenant, call the Bridgeburners over. I would speak to you all. '\n\nPicker turned and gestured the five soldiers closer.\n\n\"Good,\" the High Fist grunted. \"Now, hear me. There's half a wagon of back pay being loaded onto one of those Trygalle carriages below. Back pay for the company known as the Bridgeburners. Full complement. Enough to buy each of you an estate and a life of well-earned idyll. The Trygalle will take you to Darujhistan– I don't recommend you head back to the Empire. As far as Tayschrenn and Fist Aragan and I are concerned, not one Bridgeburner walked out of that keep. No, say not a single word, soldiers– Whiskeyjack wanted this for you. Hood, he wanted it for himself, too. Respect that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Besides, you've one more mission, and it takes you to Darujhistan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Trygalle has delivered someone. He's presently in the care of the High Alchemist, Baruk. The man's not well– he needs you, I think. Malazans. Soldiers. Do what you can for him when you're there, and when you decide that you can't do anything more, then walkaway. '\n\nDujek paused, eyed them, then nodded and said, \"That's all, Bridgeburners. The Trygalle are waiting for you. Captain, remain a moment– I would a private word with you. Oh, Picker, send High Mage Quick Ben up here, will you? '\n\nPicker blinked. \"High Mage?\"\n\nDujek grimaced. \"That bastard can't hide any longer. Tayschrenn's insisted.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nParan watched the small troop head down the hill.\n\nDujek drew a palsied hand across his face, turned away. \"Walk with me, Paran.\"\n\nParan did. \"That was well done, sir.\"\n\n\"No, it wasn't, Ganoes, but it was all I could do. I don't want the last of the Bridgeburners to die on some field of battle, or in some nameless city that's fighting hard to stay free. I'm taking what's left of my Host to Seven Cities, to reinforce Adjunct Tavore's retributive army. You are welcome-\"\n\n\"No, sir. I'd rather not. '\n\nDujek nodded, as if he had expected that. \"There's a dozen or so columns for you, near the carriages below. Go with your company, then, with my blessing. I'll have you counted among the casualties.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you, High Fist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I don't think I was ever cutout to be a soldier. '\n\n\"Not another word of that, Captain. Think what you like about yourself, but we will continue seeing you as you are– a nobleman.\"\n\n\"Noble-\"\n\n\"Not that kind of noble, Ganoes. This is the kind that's earned, the only kind that means anything. Because, in this day and age, it's damned rare.\"\n\n\"Well, sir, there I'll respectfully disagree with you. If there's but one experience I will carry with me of my time in this campaign, High Fist, it is that of being humbled, again and again, by those around me.\"\n\n\"Go join your fellow Bridgeburners, Ganoes Paran.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. Goodbye, High Fist.\"\n\n\"Goodbye.\"\n\nAs Paran made his way down the slope, he stumbled momentarily, then righted himself. My fellow Bridgeburners, he said... well, the achievement is shortlived, but even so.\n\nI made it.\n\nIgnoring the grim-faced soldiers on all sides, Toc– Anaster– reined in beside the small tent the Grey Swords had given him. Aye, I remember Anaster, and this maybe his body, but that's all. He slipped from the saddle and entered it.\n\nHe hunted until he found the cask, hid it within a leather sack and slung that over a shoulder, then hurried back outside.\n\nAshe drew himself into the saddle once more, a man stepped up to him.\n\nToc frowned down at him. This was no Tenescowri, nor a Grey Sword. If anything, he looked, from his faded, tattered leathers and furs, to be Barghast." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Covered in scars– more scars of battle than Toc had ever seen on a single person before. Despite this, there was a comfort, therein his face– a gentleman's face, no more than twenty years of age, the features pronounced, heavy-boned, framed in long black hair devoid of any fetishes or braids. His eyes were a soft brown as he looked up at Toc.\n\nToc had never met this man before. \"Hello. Is there something you wish?\" he asked, impatient to be away.\n\nThe man shook his head. \"I only sought to look upon you, to see that you were well.\"\n\nHe believes me to be Anaster. A friend of old, perhaps– not one of his lieutenants, though– I would have remembered this one. Well, I'll not disappoint him.\"Thank you. I am. '\n\n\"This pleases me.\" The man smiled, reached up and laid a hand on Toc's leg.\"I will go, now, brother. Know that I hold you in my memory. ' Still smiling, he turned and strode away, passing through the midst of curious Grey Swords, heading north towards the forest.\n\nToc stared after him. Something... something about that walk...\n\n\"Mortal Sword-\"\n\nThe Shield Anvil was approaching.\n\nToc gathered the reins. \"Not now,\" he called out. \"Later.\" He swung his horse round. \"All right, you wretched hag, let's see how you gallop, shall we? \"He drove his heels into the beast's flanks.\n\nHis sister awaited him at the edge of the forest. \"You are done?\" she asked him.\n\n\"I am.\"\n\nThey continued on, under the trees. \"I have missed you, brother.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And I you.\"\n\n\"You have no sword...\"\n\n\"Indeed, I have not. Do you think I will need one?\"\n\nShe leaned close to him. \"Now more than before, I would think.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you are right. We must needs find a quarry.\"\n\n\"The Barghast Range. A flint the colour of blood– I will invest it, of course, to prevent its shattering.\"\n\n\"As you did once before, sister.\"\n\n\"Long ago.\"\n\n\"Aye, so very long ago.\"\n\nUnder the impassive gaze of the two brothers, Lady Envy relinquished the sorcery that kept Mok from returning to consciousness. She watched as the Third slowly regained awareness, the eyes within the mask dulled with pain. \"There, now,\" she murmured. \"You have suffered of late, haven't you? '\n\nMok struggled to sit upright, his gaze hardening upon finding his brothers.\n\nLady Envy straightened and glanced over at Senu and Thurule with an appraising eye. After a moment, she sighed. \"Indeed, they area sight. They suffered in your absence, Third. Then again,\" she noted brightly, \"you've not fared much better! I must inform you, Mok, that your mask has cracked. '\n\nThe Seguleh reached up, probed tentatively, finding then following the hairline fissure running two-thirds of the length on the left side.\n\nLady Envy continued, \"In fact, I reluctantly admit, none of our façades has survived... unfractured. If you can imagine it, Anomander Rake– the Seventh– has unceremoniously banished us from the city.\"\n\nMok climbed unsteadily to his feet, looked around." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes,\" Lady Envy said, \"we find ourselves in the very same forest we spent days trudging through." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Your punitive exercise is concluded, perhaps satisfactorily, perhaps not. The Pannion Domin is no more, alas. Time's come, my three grim servants, to begin the journey home. '\n\nMok examined his weapons, then faced her. \"No. We shall demand an audience with the Seventh-\"\n\n\"Oh, you foolish man! He'll not see you! Worse, you'll have to carve your way through a few hundred Tiste Andii to get to him– and no, they won't cross blades with you. They will simply annihilate you with sorcery. They're a perfunctory people, the Children of Mother Dark. Now, I have decided to escort the three of you home. Isn't that generous of me? '\n\nMok regarded her, the silence stretching.\n\nLady Envy offered him a sweet smile.\n\nOn their long journey north, the White Face Barghast broke up into clans, then family bands, ranging far and wide as was their wont. Hetan walked with Cafal, lagging behind their father and his closest followers and angling some distance eastward.\n\nThe sun was warm on their heads and shoulders, the air fresh with the gentle surf brushing the shore two hundred paces to their right.\n\nIt was midday when she and her brother spotted the two travellers ahead. Close kin, Hetan judged as they drew nearer. Neither one particularly tall, but robust, both black-haired, walking very slowly side by side closer to the coastline.\n\nThey looked to be Barghast, but of a tribe or clan unknown to either Hetan or Cafal. A short while later they came alongside the two strangers.\n\nHetan's eyes focused on the man, studied the extraordinary scars crisscrossing his flesh.\"We greet you, strangers! ' she called out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Both turned, clearly surprised that they had company.\n\nHetan now looked upon the man's face. That the woman beside him was his sister could be no more obvious.\n\nGood. \"You!\" she called to the man, \"what is your name?\"\n\nThe man's smile made her heart catch.\"Onos Toolan. '\n\nHetan strode closer, offering a wink to the dark-haired woman, then settling her eyes once more on the man called Onos Toolan. \"I see more than you imagine,\" she said in a low voice.\n\nThe young warrior cocked his head. \"You do?\"\n\n\"Aye, and what I see tells me you've not bedded a woman in along time. '\n\nThe man's eyes widened– oh, such lovely eyes, a lover's eyes– \"Indeed,\" he said, his smile broadening.\n\nOh yes, my lover's eyes..." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Proceed with the plot in your role as storytelling partner.\nTags: epic fantasy, new characters, commerce, betrayal, cultural clash\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Midnight Tides\nChapter: 3" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The First Days of the Sundering of Emurlahn The Edur Invasion, the Age of Scabandari Bloodeye The Time of the Elder Gods\n\nFROM THE TWISTING, SMOKE-FILLED CLOUDS, BLOOD rained down. The last of the sky keeps, flame-wreathed and pouring black smoke, had surrendered the sky. Their ragged descent had torn furrows through the ground as they struck and broke apart with thunderous reverberations, scattering red-stained rocks among the heaps of corpses that covered the land from horizon to horizon.\n\nThe great hive cities had been reduced to ash-layered rubble, and the vast towering clouds above each of them that had shot skyward with their destruction– clouds filled with debris and shredded flesh and blood– now swirled in storms of dissipating heat, spreading to fill the sky.\n\nAmidst the annihilated armies the legions of the conquerors were reassembling on the centre plain, most of which was covered in exquisitely fitted flagstones– where the impact of the sky keeps had not carved deep gouges– although the reassertion of formations was hampered by the countless carcasses of the defeated. And by exhaustion. The legions belonged to two distinct armies, allies in this war, and it was clear that one had fared far better than the other.\n\nThe blood mist sheathed Scabandari's vast, iron-hued wings as he swept down through the churning clouds, blinking nictitating membranes to clear his ice-blue draconean eyes. Banking in his descent, the dragon tilted his head to survey his victorious children. The grey banners of the Tiste Edur legions wavered fitfully above the gathering warriors, and Scabandari judged that at least eighteen thousand of his shadow-kin remained. For all that, there would be mourning in the tents of the First Landing this night. The day had begun with over two hundred thousand Tiste Edur marching onto the plain. Still... it was enough." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Edur had clashed with the east flank of the K'Chain Che'Malle army, prefacing their charge with waves of devastating sorcery. The enemy's formations had been assembled to face a frontal assault, and they had proved fatally slow to turn to the threat on their flank. Like a dagger, the Edur legions had driven to the army's heart.\n\nBelow, as he drew closer, Scabandari could see, scattered here and there, the midnight banners of the Tiste Andii. A thousand warriors left, perhaps less. Victory was a more dubious claim for these battered allies. They had engaged the K'ell Hunters, the elite bloodkin armies of the three Matrons. Four hundred thousand Tiste Andii, against sixty thousand Hunters. Additional companies of both Andii and Edur had assailed the sky keeps, but these had known they were going to their own deaths, and their sacrifices had been pivotal in this day's victory, for the sky keeps had been prevented from coming to the aid of the armies on the plain below. By themselves, the assaults on the four sky keeps had yielded only marginal effect, despite the Short-Tails being few in number– their ferocity had proved devastating– but sufficient time had been purchased in Tiste blood for Scabandari and his Soletaken draconean ally to close on the floating fortresses, unleashing upon them the warrens of Starvald Demelain, and Kuralds Emurlahn and Galain.\n\nThe dragon swept downward to where a jumbled mountain of K'Chain Che'Malle carcasses marked the last stand of one of the Matrons. Kurald Emurlahn had slaughtered the defenders, and wild shadows still flitted about like wraiths on the slopes. Scabandari spread his wings, buffeting the steamy air, then settled atop the reptilian bodies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A moment later he sembled into his Tiste Edur form. Skin the shade of hammered iron, long grey hair unbound, a gaunt, aquiline face with hard, close-set eyes. Abroad, downturned mouth that bore no lines of laughter. High, unlined brow, diagonally scarred livid white against the dusky skin. He wore a leather harness bearing his two-handed sword, a brace of long-knives at his hip, and hanging from his shoulders a scaled cape– the hide of a Matron, fresh enough to still glisten with natural oils.\n\nHe stood, a tall figure sheathed in droplets of blood, watching the legions assemble. Edur officers glanced his way, then began directing their troops.\n\nScabandari faced northwest then, eyes narrowing on the billowing clouds. A moment later avast bone-white dragon broke through– if anything, larger than Scabandari himself when veered into draconean form. Also sheathed in blood... and much of it his own, for Silchas Ruin had fought alongside his Andii kin against the K'ell Hunters.\n\nScabandari watched his ally approach, stepping back only when the huge dragon settled onto the hilltop and then quickly sembled. Ahead or more taller than the Tiste Edur Soletaken, yet terribly gaunt, muscles bound like rope beneath smooth, almost translucent skin. Talons from some raptor gleamed in the warrior's thick, long white hair. The red of his eyes seemed feverish, so brightly did it glow. Silchas Ruin bore wounds: sword-slashes across his body. Most of his upper armour had fallen away, revealing the blue-green of his veins and arteries tracking branching paths beneath the thin, hairless skin of his chest. His legs were slick with blood, as were his arms. The twin scabbards at his hips were empty– he had broken both weapons, despite the weavings of sorcery invested in them. His had been a desperate battle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Scabandari bowed his head in greeting. \"Silchas Ruin, brother inspirit. Most stalwart of allies. Behold the plain– we are victorious.\"\n\nThe albino Tiste Andii's pallid face twisted in a silent snarl.\n\n\"My legions were late incoming to your aid,\" Scabandari said. \"And for that, my heartbreaks at your losses. Even so, we now hold the gate, do we not? The path to this world belongs to us, and the world itself lies before us... to plunder, to carve for our people worthy empires.\"\n\nRuin's long-fingered, stained hands twitched, and he faced the plain below. The Edur legions had re-formed into a rough ring around the last surviving Andii.\"Death fouls the air, \"Silchas Ruin growled.\"I can barely draw it to speak. '\n\n\"There will be time enough for making new plans later,\" Scabandari said.\n\n\"My people are slaughtered. You now surround us, but your protection is far too late.\"\n\n\"Symbolic, then, my brother. There are other Tiste Andii on this world– you said so yourself. You must needs only find that first wave, and your strength will return. More, others will come. My kind and yours both, fleeing our defeats.\"\n\nSilchas Ruin's scowl deepened.\"This day's victory is a bitter alternative.\"\n\n\"The K'Chain Che'Malle are all but gone– we know this. We have seen the many other dead cities. Now, only Morn remains, and that on a distant continent– where the Short-Tails even now break their chains in bloody rebellion. A divided enemy is an enemy quick to fall, my friend. Who else in this world has the power to oppose us? Jaghut? They are scattered and few. Imass? What can weapons of stone achieve against our iron?\" He was silent a moment, then continued, \"The Forkrul Assail seem unwilling to pass judgement onus. And each year there seem to be fewer and fewer of them in any case. No, my friend, with this day's victory this world lies before our feet. Here, you shall not suffer from the civil wars that plague Kurald Galain. And I and my followers shall escape the rivening that now besets Kurald Emurlahn-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Silchas Ruin snorted. \"A rivening by your own hand, Scabandari.\"\n\nHe was still studying the Tiste forces below, and so did not seethe flash of rage that answered his offhand remark, a flash that vanished a heartbeat later as Scabandari's expression returned once more to equanimity.\"A new world for us, brother. '\n\n\"A Jaghut stands atop a ridge to the north,\" Silchas Ruin said. \"Witness to the war. I did not approach, for I sensed the beginning of a ritual. Omtose Phellack.\"\n\n\"Do you fear that Jaghut, Silchas Ruin?\"\n\n\"I fear what I do not know, Scabandari... Bloodeye. And there is much to learn of this realm and its ways.\"\n\n\"Bloodeye.\"\n\n\"You cannot see yourself,\" Ruin said, \"but I give you this name, for the blood that now stains your... vision.\"\n\n\"Rich, Silchas Ruin, coming from you.\" Then Scabandari shrugged and walked to the north edge of the heap, stepping carefully on the shifting carcasses. \"A Jaghut, you said...\" He swung about, but Silchas Ruin's back was to him as the Tiste Andii stared down upon his few surviving followers on the plain below.\n\n\"Omtose Phellack, the Warren of Ice,\" Ruin said without turning. \"What does he conjure, Scabandari Bloodeye? I wonder...\"\n\nThe Edur Soletaken walked back towards Silchas Ruin.\n\nHe reached down to the outside of his left boot and drew out a shadow-etched dagger. Sorcery played on the iron.\n\nA final step, and the dagger was driven into Ruin's back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Tiste Andii spasmed, then roared-\n\n-even as the Edur legions turned suddenly on the Andii, rushing inward from all sides to deliver the day's final slaughter.\n\nMagic wove writhing chains about Silchas Ruin, and the albino Tiste Andii toppled.\n\nScabandari Bloodeye crouched down over him. \"It is the way of brothers, alas,\" he murmured. \"One must rule. Two cannot. You know the truth of that. Big as this world is, Silchas Ruin, sooner or later there would be war between the Edur and the Andii. The truth of our blood will tell. Thus, only one shall command the gate. Only the Edur shall pass. We will hunt down the Andii who are already here– what champion can they throw up to challenge me? They areas good as dead. And so it must be. One people. One ruler.\" He straightened, as the last cries of the dying Andii warriors echoed from the plain below. \"Aye, I cannot kill you outright– you are too powerful for that. Thus, I will take you to a suitable place, and leave you to the roots, earth and stone of its mangled grounds...\"\n\nHe veered into his draconean form. An enormous taloned foot closed about the motionless Silchas Ruin, and Scabandari Bloodeye rose into the sky, wings thundering.\n\nThe tower was less than a hundred leagues to the south, only its low battered wall enclosing the yard revealing that it was not of Jaghut construction, that it had arisen beside the three Jaghut towers of its own accord, in answer to a law unfathomable to god and mortal alike. Arisen... to await the coming of those whom it would imprison for eternity. Creatures of deadly power." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Such as the Soletaken Tiste Andii, Silchas Ruin, third and last of Mother Dark's three children.\n\nRemoving from Scabandari Bloodeye's path his last worthy opponent among the Tiste.\n\nMother Dark's three children.\n\nThree names...\n\nAndarist, who long ago surrendered his power in answer to a grief that could never heal. All unknowing that the hand that delivered that grief was mine...\n\nAnomandaris Irake, who broke with his mother and with his kind. Who then vanished before I could deal with him. Vanished, probably never to be seen again.\n\nAnd now Silchas Ruin, who in a very short time will know the eternal prison of the Azath.\n\nScabandari Bloodeye was pleased. For his people. For himself. This world he would conquer. Only the first Andii settlers could pose any challenge to his claim.\n\nA champion of the Tiste Andii in this realm? I can think of no-one... no-one with the power to stand before me...\n\nIt did not occur to Scabandari Bloodeye to wonder where, of the three sons of Mother Dark, the one who had vanished might have gone.\n\nBut even that was not his greatest mistake...\n\nOn a glacial berm to the north, the lone Jaghut began weaving the sorcery of Omtose Phellack. He had witnessed the devastation wrought by the two Soletaken Eleint and their attendant armies. Little sympathy was spared for the K'Chain Che'Malle. They were dying out anyway, for myriad reasons, none of which concerned the Jaghut overmuch. Nor did the intruders worry him. He had long since lost his capacity for worry. Along with fear. And, it must be admitted, wonder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He felt the betrayal when it came, the distant bloom of magic and the spilling of ascendant blood. And the two dragons were now one.\n\nTypical.\n\nAnd then, a short while later, in the time when he rested between weavings of his ritual, he sensed someone approaching him from behind. An Elder god, come in answer to the violent rift torn between the realms. As expected. Still... which god? K'rul? Draconus? The Sister of Cold Nights? Osserc? Kilmandaros? Sechul Lath? Despite his studied indifference, curiosity finally forced him to turn to look upon the newcomer.\n\nAh, unexpected... but interesting.\n\nMael, Elder Lord of the Seas, was wide and squat, with deep blue skin that faded to pale gold at throat and bared belly. Lank blond hair hung unbound from his broad, almost flat pate. And in Mael's amber eyes, sizzling rage.\n\n\"Gothos,\" Mael rasped, \"what ritual do you invoke in answer to this?\"\n\nThe Jaghut scowled. \"They've made a mess. I mean to cleanse it. '\n\n\"Ice,\" the Elder god snorted. \"The Jaghut answer to everything.\"\n\n\"And what would yours be, Mael? Flood, or... flood?\"\n\nThe Elder god faced south, the muscles of his jaw bunching. \"I am to have anally. Kilmandaros. She comes from the other side of the rent.\"\n\n\"Only one Tiste Soletaken is left,\" Gothos said. \"Seems he struck down his companion, and even now delivers him into the keeping of the Azath Tower's crowded yard. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Premature." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Does he think the K'Chain Che'Malle his only opposition in this realm?\"\n\nThe Jaghut shrugged. \"Probably.\"\n\nMael was silent fora time, then he sighed and said, \"With your ice, Gothos, do not destroy all of this. Instead, I ask that you... preserve.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"I have my reasons.\"\n\n\"I am pleased for you. What are they?\"\n\nThe Elder god shot him a dark look. \"Impudent bastard.\"\n\n\"Why change?\"\n\n\"In the seas, Jaghut, time is unveiled. In the depths ride currents of vast antiquity. In the shallows whisper the future. The tides flow between them in ceaseless exchange. Such is my realm. Such is my knowledge. Seal this devastation in your damned ice, Gothos. In this place, freeze time itself. Do this, and I will accept an indebtedness to you... which one day you might find useful.\"\n\nGothos considered the Elder god's words, then nodded.\"I might at that. Very well, Mael. Go to Kilmandaros. Swat down this Tiste Eleint and scatter his people. But do it quickly. '\n\nMael's eyes narrowed.\"Why? '\n\n\"Because I sense a distant awakening– but not, alas, as distant as you would like.\"\n\n\"Anomander Rake.\"\n\nGothos nodded.\n\nMael shrugged. \"Anticipated. Osserc moves to stand in his path.\"\n\nThe Jaghut's smile revealed his massive tusks.\"Again? '\n\nThe Elder god could not help but grin in answer.\n\nAnd though they smiled, there was little humour on that glacial berm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "---\n\n1159th Year of Bum's Sleep Year of the White Veins in the Ebony Three years before the Letherii Seventh Closure\n\nHe awoke with a bellyful of salt, naked and half buried in white sand amidst the storm's detritus. Seagulls cried overhead, their shadows wheeling across the rippled beach. Cramps spasming his gut, he groaned and slowly rolled over.\n\nThere were more bodies on the beach, he saw. And wreckage. Chunks and rafts of fast-melting ice rustled in the shallows. Crabs scuttled in their thousands.\n\nThe huge man lifted himself to his hands and knees. And then vomited bitter fluids onto the sands. Pounding throbs racked his head, fierce enough to leave him half blind, and it was sometime before he finally rocked back to sit up and glare once more at the scene around him.\n\nAshore where no shore belonged.\n\nAnd the night before, mountains of ice rising up from the depths, one– the largest of them all– reaching the surface directly beneath the vast floating Meckros city. Breaking it apart as if it were a raft of sticks. Meckros histories recounted nothing remotely like the devastation he had seen wrought. Sudden and virtually absolute annihilation of a city that was home to twenty thousand. Disbelief still tormented him, as if his own memories held impossible images, the conjuring of a fevered brain.\n\nBut he knew he had imagined nothing. He had but witnessed.\n\nAnd, somehow, survived.\n\nThe sun was warm, but not hot. The sky overhead was milky white rather than blue. And the seagulls, he now saw, were something else entirely. Reptilian, pale-winged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He staggered to his feet. The headache was fading, but shivers now swept through him, and his thirst was a raging demon trying to claw up his throat.\n\nThe cries of the flying lizards changed pitch and he swung to face inland.\n\nThree creatures had appeared, clambering through the pallid tufts of grass above the tideline. No higher than his hip, black-skinned, hairless, perfectly round heads and pointed ears. Bhoka'ral– he recalled them from his youth, when a Meckros trading ship had returned from Nemil– but these seemed to be muscle-bound versions, at least twice as heavy as the pets the merchants had brought back to the floating city. They made directly for him.\n\nHe looked round for something to use as a weapon, and found apiece of driftwood that would serve as a club. Hefting it, he waited as the bhoka'ral drew closer.\n\nThey halted, yellow-shot eyes staring up at him.\n\nThen the middle one gestured.\n\nCome. There was no doubting the meaning of that all-too-human beckoning.\n\nThe man scanned the strand again– none of the bodies he could see were moving, and the crabs were feeding unopposed. He stared up once more at the strange sky, then stepped towards the three creatures.\n\nThey backed away and led him up to the grassy verge.\n\nThose grasses were like nothing he had ever seen before, long tubular triangles, razor-edged– as he discovered once he passed through them when he found his low legs crisscrossed with cuts. Beyond, a level plain stretched inland, bearing only the occasional tuft of the same grass. The ground in between was salt-crusted and barren. A few chunks of stone dotted the plain, no two alike and all oddly angular, unweathered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the distance stood alone tent.\n\nThe bhoka'ral guided him towards it.\n\nAs they drew near, he saw threads of smoke drifting out from the peak and the slitted flap that marked the doorway.\n\nHis escort halted and another wave directed him to the entrance. Shrugging, he crouched and crawled inside.\n\nIn the dim light sat a shrouded figure, a hood disguising its features. A brazier was before it, from which heady fumes drifted. Beside the entrance stood a crystal bottle, some dried fruit and a loaf of dark bread.\n\n\"The bottle holds spring water,\" the figure rasped in the Meckros tongue. \"Please, take time to recover from your ordeal.\"\n\nHe grunted his thanks and quickly took the bottle.\n\nThirst blissfully slaked, he reached for the bread. \"I thank you, stranger,\" he rumbled, then shook his head. \"That smoke makes you swim before my eyes.\"\n\nA hacking cough that might have been laughter, then something resembling a shrug. \"Better than drowning. Alas, it eases my pain. I shall not keep you long. You are Withal, the Swordmaker.\"\n\nThe man started, and his broad brow knotted. \"Aye, I am Withal, of the Third Meckros city– which is now no more.\"\n\n\"A tragic event. You are the lone survivor... through my own efforts, though it much strained my powers to intervene.\"\n\n\"What place is this?\"\n\n\"Nowhere, in the heart of nowhere. A fragment, prone to wander. I give it what life I can imagine, conjured from memories of my home. My strength returns, although the agony of my broken body does not abate. Yet listen, I have talked and not coughed. That is something.\" A mangled hand appeared from a ragged sleeve and scattered seeds onto the brazier's coals. They spat and popped and the smoke thickened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who are you?\" Withal demanded.\n\n\"A fallen god... who has need of your skills. I have prepared for your coming, Withal. A place of dwelling, a forge, all the raw materials you will need. Clothes, food, water. And three devoted servants, whom you have already met-\"\n\n\"The bhoka'ral? \"Withal snorted.\"What can-'\n\n\"Not bhoka'ral, mortal. Although perhaps they once were. These are Nachts. I have named them Rind, Mape and Pule. They are of Jaghut fashioning, capable of learning all that you require of them. '\n\nWithal made to rise. \"I thank you for the salvation, Fallen One, but I shall take my leave of you. I would return to my own world-\"\n\n\"You do not understand, Withal,\" the figure hissed. \"You will do as I say here, or you will find yourself begging for death. I now own you, Swordmaker. You are my slave and I am your master. The Meckros own slaves, yes? Hapless souls stolen from island villages and such on your raids. The notion is therefore familiar to you. Do not despair, however, for once you have completed what I ask of you, you shall be free to leave.\"\n\nWithal still held the club, the heavy wood cradled on his lap. He considered.\n\nA cough, then laughter, then more coughing, during which the god raised a staying hand. When the hacking was done, he said, \"I advise you to attempt nothing untoward, Withal. I have plucked you from the seas for this purpose. Have you lost all honour? Oblige me in this, for you would deeply regret my wrath.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What would you have me do?\"\n\n\"Better. What would I have you do, Withal? Why, only what you do best. Make me a sword.\"\n\nWithal grunted. \"That is all?\"\n\nThe figure leaned forward. \"Ah well, what I have in mind is a very particular sword...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is a spear of ice, newly thrust into the heart of the land. The soul within it yearns to kill. He who grasps that spear will know death. Again and again, he shall know death.\n\nHannan Mosag's Vision" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Listen! The seas whisper and dream of breaking truths in the crumbling of stone\n\nHantallit of Miner Sluice\n\nYear of the Late Frost One year before the Letherii Seventh Closure The Ascension of the Empty Hold\n\nHere, then, is the tale. Between the swish of the tides, when giants knelt down and became mountains. When they fell scattered on the land like the ballast stones of the sky, yet could not hold fast against the rising dawn. Between the swish of the tides, we will speak of one such giant. Because the tale hides with his own.\n\nAnd because it amuses.\n\nThus.\n\nIn darkness he closed his eyes. Only by day did he elect to open them, for he reasoned in this manner: night defies vision and so, if little can be seen, what value seeking to pierce the gloom?\n\nWitness as well, this. He came to the edge of the land and discovered the sea, and was fascinated by the mysterious fluid. A fascination that became a singular obsession through the course of that fated day. He could see how the waves moved, up and down along the entire shore, a ceaseless motion that ever threatened to engulf all the land, yet ever failed to do so. He watched the sea through the afternoon's high winds, witness to its wild thrashing far up along the sloping strand, and sometimes it did indeed reach far, but always it would sullenly retreat once more.\n\nWhen night arrived, he closed his eyes and lay down to sleep. Tomorrow, he decided, he would look once more upon this sea.\n\nIn darkness he closed his eyes.\n\nThe tides came with the night, swirling up round the giant. The tides came and drowned him as he slept. And the water seeped minerals into his flesh, until he became as rock, a gnarled ridge on the strand. Then, each night for thousands of years, the tides came to wear away at his form. Stealing his shape." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But not entirely. To see him true, even to this day, one must look in darkness. Or close one's eyes to slits in brightest sunlight. Glance askance, or focus on all but the stone itself.\n\nOf all the gifts Father Shadow has given his children, this one talent stands tallest. Look away to see. Trust in it, and you will be led into Shadow. Where all truths hide.\n\nLook away to see.\n\nNow, look away.\n\nThe mice scattered as the deeper shadow flowed across snow brushed blue by dusk. They scampered in wild panic, but, among them, one's fate was already sealed. Alone tufted, taloned foot snapped down, piercing furry flesh and crushing minute bones.\n\nAt the clearing's edge, the owl had dropped silently from its branch, sailing out over the hard-packed snow and its litter of seeds, and the arc of its flight, momentarily punctuated by plucking the mouse from the ground, rose up once more, this time in a heavy flapping of wings, towards a nearby tree. It landed one-legged, and a moment later it began to feed.\n\nThe figure who jogged across the glade a dozen heartbeats later saw nothing untoward. The mice were all gone, the snow solid enough to leave no signs of their passing, and the owl froze motionless in its hollow amidst the branches of the spruce tree, eyes wide as they followed the figure's progress across the clearing. Once it had passed, the owl resumed feeding.\n\nDusk belonged to the hunters, and the raptor was not yet done this night.\n\nAshe weaved through the frost-rimed humus of the trail, Trull Sengar's thoughts were distant, making him heedless of the forest surrounding him, uncharacteristically distracted from all the signs and details it offered. He had not even paused to make propitiation to Sheltatha Lore, Daughter Dusk, the most cherished of the Three Daughters of Father Shadow– although he would make recompense at tomorrow's sunset– and, earlier, he had moved unmindful through the patches of lingering light that blotted the trail, risking the attention of fickle Sukul Ankhadu, the Daughter of Deceit, also known as Dapple." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Calach breeding beds swarmed with seals." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They'd come early, surprising Trull in his collecting of raw jade above the shoreline. Alone, the arrival of the seals would engender only excitement in the young Tiste Edur, but there had been other arrivals, in ships ringing the bay, and the harvest had been well underway.\n\nLetherii, the white-skinned peoples from the south.\n\nHe could imagine the anger of those in the village he now approached, once he delivered the news of his discovery– an anger he shared. This encroachment on Edur territories was brazen, the theft of seals that rightly belonged to his people an arrogant defiance of the old agreements.\n\nThere were fools among the Letherii, just as there were fools among the Edur. Trull could not imagine this broaching being anything but unsanctioned. The Great Meeting was only two cycles of the moon away. It served neither side's purpose to spill blood now. No matter that the Edur would be right in attacking and destroying the intruder ships; the Letherii delegation would be outraged at the slaughter of its citizens, even citizens contravening the laws. The chances of agreeing upon anew treaty had just become minuscule.\n\nAnd this disturbed Trull Sengar. One long and vicious war had just ended for the Edur: the thought of another beginning was too hard to bear.\n\nHe had not embarrassed his brothers during the wars of subjugation; on his wide belt was a row of twenty-one red-stained rivets, each one marking a coup, and among those seven were ringed in white paint, to signify actual kills. Only his elder brother's belt sported more trophies among the male children of Tomad Sengar, and that was right and proper, given Fear Sengar's eminence among the warriors of the Hiroth tribe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of course, battles against the five other tribes of the Edur were strictly bound in rules and prohibitions, and even vast, protracted battles had yielded only a handful of actual deaths. Even so, the conquests had been exhausting. Against the Letherii, there were no rules to constrain the Edur warriors. No counting coup. Just killing. Nor did the enemy need a weapon in hand– even the helpless and the innocent would know the sword's bite. Such slaughter stained warrior and victim alike.\n\nBut Trull well knew that, though he might decry the killing that was to come, he would do so only to himself, and he would stride alongside his brothers, sword in hand, to deliver the Edur judgement upon the trespassers. There was no choice. Turn away from this crime and more would follow, in waves unending.\n\nHis steady jog brought him past the tanneries, with their troughs and stone-lined pits, to the forest edge. A few Letherii slaves glanced his way, quickly bowing in deference until he was past. The towering cedar logs of the village wall rose from the clearing ahead, over which woodsmoke hung in stretched streams. Fields of rich black soil spread out to either side of the narrow, raised track leading to the distant gate. Winter had only just begun to release its grip on the earth, and the first planting of the season was still weeks away. By midsummer, close to thirty different types of plants would fill these fields, providing food, medicine, fibres and feed for the livestock, many among the thirty of a flowering variety, drawing the bees from which honey and wax were procured. The tribe's women oversaw the slaves in such harvesting. The men would leave in small groups to journey into the forest, to cut timber or hunt, whilst others set out in the Knarri ships to harvest from the seas and shoals." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or so it should be, when peace ruled the tribes. The past dozen years had seen more war-parties setting out than any other kind, and so the people had on occasion suffered. Until the war, hunger had never threatened the Edur. Trull wanted an end to such depredations. Hannan Mosag, Warlock King of the Hiroth, was now overlord to all the Edur tribes. From a host of warring peoples, a confederacy had been wrought, although Trull well knew that it was a confederacy in name only. Hannan Mosag held as hostage the firstborn sons of the subjugated chiefs– his K'risnan Cadre– and ruled as dictator. Peace, then, at the point of a sword, but peace none the less.\n\nA recognizable figure was striding from the palisade gate, approaching the fork in the trail where Trull now halted. \"I greet you, Binadas,\" he said.\n\nA spear was strapped to his younger brother's back, a hide pack slung round one shoulder and resting against a hip; at the opposite side a single-edged longsword in a leather-wrapped wooden scabbard. Binadas was half ahead taller than Trull, his visage as weathered as his buckskin clothes. Of Trull's three brothers, Binadas was the most remote, evasive and thus difficult to predict, much less understand. He resided in the village only infrequently, seeming to prefer the wilds of the western forest and the mountains to the south. He had rarely joined others in raids, yet often when he returned he carried trophies of coup, and so none doubted his bravery.\n\n\"You are winded, Trull,\" Binadas observed, \"and I see distress once more upon your face.\"\n\n\"There are Letherii moored off\" the Calach beds.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Binadas frowned. \"I shall not delay you, then.\"\n\n\"Will you begone long, brother?\"\n\nThe man shrugged, then stepped past Trull, taking the westerly fork of the trail.\n\nTrull Sengar moved on, through the gate and into the village.\n\nFour smithies dominated this inland end of the vast walled interior, each surrounded by a deep sloping trench that drained into a buried channel that led away from the village and the surrounding fields. For what seemed years the forges had rung almost ceaselessly with the fashioning of weapons, and the stench of heavy, acrid fumes had filled the air, rising up to coat nearby trees in white-crusted soot. Now, as he passed, Trull saw that only two were occupied, and the dozen or so visible slaves were unhurried in their work.\n\nBeyond the smithies ran the elongated, brick-lined storage chambers, a row of segmented beehive-shaped buildings that held surplus grains, smoked fish and seal meat, whale oil and harvested fibre plants. Similar structures existed in the deep forest surrounding each village– most of which were empty at the moment, a consequence of the wars.\n\nThe stone houses of the weavers, potters, carvers, lesser scribes, armourers and other assorted skilled citizens of the village rose round Trull once he was past the storage chambers. Voices called out in greeting, to which he made the minimal response that decorum allowed, such gestures signifying to his acquaintances that he could not pause for conversation.\n\nThe Edur warrior now hurried through the residential streets. Letherii slaves called villages such as this one cities, but no citizen saw the need for changing their word usage– a village it had been at birth, thus a village it would always be, no matter that almost twenty thousand Edur and thrice that number of Letherii now resided within it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shrines to the Father and his Favoured Daughter dominated the residential area, raised platforms ringed by living trees of the sacred Blackwood, the surface of the stone discs crowded with images and glyphs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kurald Emurlahn played ceaselessly within the tree-ringed circle, rippling half-shapes dancing along the pictographs, the sorcerous emanations awakened by the propitiations that had accompanied the arrival of dusk.\n\nTrull Sengar emerged onto the Avenue of the Warlock, the sacred approach to the massive citadel that was both temple and palace, and the seat of the Warlock King, Hannan Mosag. Black-barked cedars lined the approach. The trees were a thousand years old, towering over the entire village. They were devoid of branches except for the uppermost reaches. Invested sorcery suffused every ring of their midnight wood, bleeding out to fill the entire avenue with a shroud of gloom.\n\nAt the far end, a lesser palisade enclosed the citadel and its grounds, constructed of the same black wood, these boles crowded with carved wards. The main gate was a tunnel formed of living trees, a passage of unrelieved shadow leading to a footbridge spanning a canal in which sat a dozen K'orthan raider longboats. The footbridge opened out onto abroad flagstoned compound flanked by barracks and storehouses. Beyond stood the stone and timber longhouses of the noble families– those with blood-ties to Hannan Mosag's own line– with their wood-shingled roofs and Blackwood ridgepoles, the array of residences neatly bisected by a resumption of the Avenue, across yet another footbridge to the citadel proper.\n\nThere were warriors training in the compound, and Trull saw the tall, broad-shouldered figure of his elder brother, Fear, standing with a half-dozen of his assistants nearby, watching the weapons practice. A pang of sympathy for those young warriors flickered through Trull. He himself had suffered beneath his brother's critical, unrelenting eye during the years of his own schooling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A voice hailed him and Trull glanced over to the other side of the compound, to see his youngest brother, Rhulad, and Midik Buhn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had been doing their own sparring, it seemed, and a moment later Trull saw the source of their uncharacteristic diligence– Mayen, Fear's betrothed, had appeared with four younger women in tow, probably on their way to the market, given the dozen slaves accompanying them. That they had stopped to watch the sudden, no doubt impromptu martial demonstration was of course obligatory, given the complex rules of courtship. Mayen was expected to treat all of Fear's brothers with appropriate respect.\n\nAlthough there was nothing untoward in the scene Trull looked upon, he nevertheless felt a tremor of unease. Rhulad's eagerness to strut before the woman who would be his eldest brother's wife had crept to the very edge of proper conduct. Fear was, in Trull's opinion, displaying far too much indulgence when it came to Rhulad.\n\nAs have we all. Of course, there were reasons for that.\n\nRhulad had clearly bested his childhood companion in the mock contest, given the flushed pride in his handsome face. \"Trull!\" He waved his sword. \"I have drawn blood once this day, and now thirst for more! Come, scrape the rust off that sword at your side!\"\n\n\"Some other time, brother,\" Trull called back. \"I must speak with our father without delay.\"\n\nRhulad's grin was amiable enough, but even from ten paces away Trull saw the flash of triumph in his clear grey eyes.\"Another time, then, ' he said, with a final dismissive wave of his sword as he turned back to face the women.\n\nBut Mayen had gestured to her companions and the party was already moving off.\n\nRhulad opened his mouth to say something to her, but Trull spoke first. \"Brother, I invite you to join me. The news I must give our father is of grave import, and I would that you are present, so that your words are woven into the discussion that will follow.\" An invitation that was normally made only to those warriors with years of battle on their belts, and Trull saw the sudden pride lighting his brother's eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am honoured, Trull,\" he said, sheathing his sword.\n\nLeaving Midik standing alone and tending to a sword-cut on his wrist, Rhulad joined Trull and they strode to the family longhouse.\n\nTrophy shields cluttered the outside walls, many of them sun-faded by the centuries. Whale bones clung to the underside of the roof's overhang. Totems stolen from rival tribes formed a chaotic arch over the doorway, the strips of fur, beaded hide, shells, talons and teeth looking like an elongated bird's nest.\n\nThey passed within.\n\nThe air was cool, slightly acrid with woodsmoke. Oil lamps satin niches along the walls, between tapestries and stretched furs. The traditional hearthstone in the centre of the chamber, where each family had once prepared its meals, remained stoked with tinder, although the slaves now worked in kitchens behind the longhouse proper, to reduce the risk of fires. Blackwood furniture marked out the various rooms, although no dividing walls were present. Hung from hooks on the crossbeams were scores of weapons, some from the earliest days, when the art of forging iron had been lost in the dark times immediately following Father Shadow's disappearance, the rough bronze of these weapons pitted and warped.\n\nJust beyond the hearthstone rose the bole of a living Blackwood, from which the gleaming upper third of a longsword thrust upward and outward at just above head height: a true Emurlahn blade, the iron treated in some manner the smiths had yet to rediscover. The sword of the Sengar family, signifier of their noble bloodline; normally, these original weapons of the noble families, bound against the tree when it was but a sapling, were, after centuries, gone from sight, lying as they did along the heartwood. But some twist in this particular tree had pried the weapon away, thus revealing that black and silver blade. Uncommon, but not unique." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Both brothers reached out and touched the iron as they passed.\n\nThey saw their mother, Uruth, flanked by slaves as she worked on the bloodline's tapestry, finishing the final scenes of the Sengar participation in the War of Unification. Intent on her work, she did not lookup as her sons strode past.\n\nTomad Sengar sat with three other noble-born patriarchs around a game board fashioned from a huge palmate antler, the playing pieces carved from ivory and jade.\n\nTrull halted at the edge of the circle. He settled his right handover the pommel of his sword, signifying that the words he brought were both urgent and potentially dangerous. Behind him, he heard Rhulad's quickly indrawn breath.\n\nAlthough none of the elders looked up, Tomad's guests rose as one, while Tomad himself began putting away the game pieces. The three elders departed in silence, and a moment later Tomad set the game board to one side and settled back on his haunches.\n\nTrull settled down opposite him. \"I greet you, Father. A Letherii fleet is harvesting the Calach beds. The herds have come early, and are now being slaughtered. I witnessed these things with my own eyes, and have not paused in my return.\"\n\nTomad nodded. \"You have run for three days and two nights, then.\"\n\n\"I have.\"\n\n\"And the Letherii harvest, it was well along?\"\n\n\"Father, by dawn this morning, Daughter Menandore will have witnessed the ships\" holds filled to bursting, and the sails filling with wind, the wake of every ship a crimson river. '\n\n\"And new ships arriving to take their places!\" Rhulad hissed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tomad frowned at his youngest son's impropriety, and made his disapproval clear with his next words.\"Rhulad, take this news to Hannan Mosag. '\n\nTrull sensed his brother's flinch, but Rhulad nodded.\"As you command, Father. ' He pivoted and marched away.\n\nTomad's frown deepened.\"You invited an unblooded warrior to this exchange? '\n\n\"I did, Father.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nTrull said nothing, as was his choice. He was not about to voice his concern over Rhulad's undue attentions towards Fear's betrothed.\n\nAfter a moment, Tomad sighed. He seemed to be studying his large, scarred hands where they rested on his thighs. \"We have grown complacent,\" he rumbled.\n\n\"Father, is it complacency to assume the ones with whom we treat are honourable?\"\n\n\"Yes, given the precedents.\"\n\n\"Then why has the Warlock King agreed to a Great Meeting with the Letherii?\"\n\nTomad's dark eyes flicked up to pin Trull's own. Of all Tomad's sons, only Fear possessed a perfect, unwavering match to his father's eyes, in hue and indurative regard. Despite himself, Trull felt himself wilt slightly beneath that scornful gaze.\n\n\"I withdraw my foolish question,\" Trull said, breaking contact to disguise his dismay. A measuring of enemies. This contravention, no matter its original intent, will become a double-pointed blade, given the inevitable response to it by the Edur. A blade both peoples shall grasp. \"The unblooded warriors will be pleased.\"\n\n\"The unblooded warriors shall one day sit in the council, Trull.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is that not the reward of peace, Father?\"\n\nTomad made no reply to that. \"Hannan Mosag shall call the council. You must needs be present to relate what you witnessed. Further, the Warlock King has made a request of me, that I give my sons to him fora singular task. I do not think that decision will be affected by the news you deliver.\"\n\nTrull worked through his surprise, then said, \"I passed Binadas on the way into the village-\"\n\n\"He has been informed, and will return within a moon's time. '\n\n\"Does Rhulad know of this?\"\n\n\"No, although he will accompany you. An unblooded is an unblooded.\"\n\n\"As you say, Father.\"\n\n\"Now, rest. You shall be awakened in time for the council.\"\n\nA white crow hopped down from a salt-bleached root and began picking through the midden. At first Trull had thought it to be a gull, lingering on the strand in the fast-fading light, but then it cackled and, mussel shell in its pallid beak, sidled down from the midden towards the waterline.\n\nSleep had proved an impossibility. The council had been called for midnight. Restless, nerves jangling along his exhausted limbs, Trull had walked down to the pebble beach north of the village and the river mouth.\n\nAnd now, as darkness rolled in with the sleepy waves, he had found himself sharing the strand with a white crow. It had carried its prize down to the very edge, and with each whispering approach, the bird dipped the mussel shell into the water. Six times.\n\nA fastidious creature, Trull observed, watching as the crow hopped onto a nearby rock and began picking at the shell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "White was evil, of course." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Common enough knowledge. The blush of bone, Menandore's hateful light at dawn. The sails of the Letherii were white, as well, which was not surprising. And the clear waters of Calach Bay would reveal the glimmer of white cluttering the sea bottom, from the bones of thousands of slaughtered seals.\n\nThis season would have marked a return to surplus for the six tribes, beginning the replenishment of depleted reserves to guard against famine. Thoughts that led him to another way of seeing this illegal harvesting. A perfectly timed gesture to weaken the confederacy, a ploy intended to undermine the Edur position at the Great Meeting. The argument of inevitability. The same argument first thrown into our faces with the settlements on the Reach. \" The kingdom of Lether is expanding, its needs growing. Your camps on the Reach were seasonal, after all, and with the war they had been all but abandoned. '\n\nIt was inevitable that more and more independent ships would come to ply the rich waters of the north coast. One could not police them all. The Edur need only look at other tribes that had once dwelt beyond the Letherii borderlands, the vast rewards that came with swearing fealty to King Ezgara Diskanar of Lether.\n\nBut we are not as other tribes.\n\nThe crow cackled from atop its stone throne, flinging the mussel shell away with a toss of its head, then, spreading its ghostly wings, rose up into the night. A final drawn out cawl from the darkness. Trull made awarding gesture.\n\nStones turned underfoot behind him and he swung about to see his elder brother approaching.\n\n\"I greet you, Trull,\" Fear said in a quiet voice. \" The words you delivered have roused the warriors. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And the Warlock King?\"\n\n\"Has said nothing.\"\n\nTrull returned to his study of the dark waves hissing on the strand. \"Their eyes are fixed upon those ships,\" he said.\n\n\"Hannan Mosag knows to look away, brother.\"\n\n\"He has asked for the sons of Tomad Sengar. What do you know of that?\"\n\nFear was at his side now, and Trull sensed his shrug. \"Visions have guided the Warlock King since he was a child,\" Fear said after a moment. \"He carries blood memories all the way back to the Dark Times. Father Shadow stretches before him with every stride he takes.\"\n\nThe notion of visions made Trull uneasy. He did not doubt their power– in fact, the very opposite. The Dark Times had come with the rivening of Tiste Edur, the assault of sorceries and strange armies and the disappearance of Father Shadow himself. And, although the magic of Kurald Emurlahn was not denied to the tribes, the warren was lost to them: shattered, the fragments ruled by false kings and gods. Trull suspected that Hannan Mosag possessed an ambition far vaster than simply unifying the six tribes.\n\n\"There is reluctance in you, Trull. You hide it well enough, but I can see where others cannot. You area warrior who would rather not fight.\"\n\n\"That is not a crime,\" Trull muttered, then he added: \"Of all the Sengar, only you and Father carry more trophies.\"\n\n\"I was not questioning your bravery, brother. But courage is the least of that which binds us. We are Edur. We were masters of the Hounds, once. We held the throne of Kurald Emurlahn. And would hold it still, if not for betrayal, first by the kin of Scabandari Bloodeye, then by the Tiste Andii who came with us to this world. We area beset people, Trull. The Letherii are but one enemy among many. The Warlock King understands this.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trull studied the glimmer of starlight on the placid surface of the bay. \"I will not hesitate infighting those who would be our enemies, Fear.\"\n\n\"That is good, brother. It is enough to keep Rhulad silent, then.\"\n\nTrull stiffened. \"He speaks against me? That unblooded... pup?\"\n\n\"Where he sees weakness...\"\n\n\"What he sees and what is true are different things,\" Trull said.\n\n\"Then show him otherwise,\" Fear said in his low, calm voice.\n\nTrull was silent. He had been openly dismissive of Rhulad and his endless challenges and postures, as was his right given that Rhulad was unblooded. But more significantly, Trull's reasons were raised like a protective wall around the maiden that Fear was towed. Of course, to voice such things now would be unseemly, whispering as they would of spite and malice. After all, Mayen was Fear's betrothed, not Trull's, and her protection was Fear's responsibility.\n\nThings would be simpler, he ruefully reflected, if he had a sense of Mayen herself. She did not invite Rhulad's attention, but nor did she turn a shoulder to it. She walked the cliff-edge of propriety, as self-assured as any maiden would– and should– be when privileged to become the wife of the Hiroth's Weapons Master. It was not, he told himself once again, any of his business. \"I will not show Rhulad what he should already see,\" Trull growled. \"He has done nothing to warrant the gift of my regard.\"\n\n\"Rhulad lacks the subtlety to see your reluctance as anything but weakness-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"His failing, not mine!\"\n\n\"Do you expect a blind elder to cross a stream's steppingstones unaided, Trull? No, you guide him until in his mind's eye he finally sees that which everyone else can see.\"\n\n\"If everyone else can see,\" Trull replied, \"then Rhulad's words against me are powerless, and so I am right to ignore them. '\n\n\"Brother, Rhulad is not alone in lacking subtlety.\"\n\n\"Is it your wish, Fear, that there be enemies among the sons of Tomad Sengar?\"\n\n\"Rhulad is not an enemy, not of you nor of any other Edur. He is young and eager for blood. You once walked his path, so I ask that you remember yourself back then. This is not the time to deliver wounds sure to scar. And, to an unblooded warrior, disdain delivers the deepest wound of all.\"\n\nTrull grimaced. \"I seethe truth of that, Fear. I shall endeavour to curtail my indifference.\"\n\nHis brother did not react to the sarcasm. \"The council is gathering in the citadel, brother. Will you enter the King's Hall at my side? '\n\nTrull relented. \"I am honoured, Fear.\"\n\nThey turned away from the black water, and so did not seethe pale-winged shape gliding over the lazy waves a short distance offshore.\n\nThirteen years ago Udinaas had been a young sailor in the third year of his family's indenture to the merchant Intaros of Trate, the northernmost city of Lether. He was aboard the whaler Brunt and on the return run from Beneda waters. They had slipped in undercover of darkness, killing three sows, and were towing the carcasses into the neutral Troughs west of Calach Bay when five K'orthan ships of the Hiroth were sighted in hard pursuit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The captain's greed had spelled their doom, as he would not abandon the kills.\n\nUdinaas well remembered the faces of the whaler's officers, the captain included, as they were bound to one of the sows to be left to the sharks and dhenrabi, whilst the common sailors were taken off the ship, along with every piece of iron and every other item that caught the Edur's fancy. Shadow wraiths were then loosed on the Brunt, to devour and tear apart the deadwood of the Letherii ship. Towing the other two sows, the five Blackwood K'orthan ships then departed, leaving the third whale to the slayers of the deep.\n\nEven back then, Udinaas had been indifferent to the grisly fate of the captain and his officers. He had been born into debt, as had his father and his father before him. Indenture and slavery were two words for the same thing. Nor was life as a slave among the Hiroth particularly harsh. Obedience was rewarded with protection, clothing and a dwelling sheltered from the rain and snow, and, until recently, plenty of food.\n\nAmong Udinaas's many tasks within the household of the Sengar was the repair of nets for the four Knarri fisher-boats owned by the noble family. Because he had been a sailor, he was not permitted to leave land, and knotting the nets and affixing weight-stones down on the strand south of the river mouth was as close as he ever came to the open waters of the sea. Not that he had any desire to escape the Edur. There were plenty of slaves in the village– all Letherii, of course– so he did not miss the company of his own kind, miserable as it often was. Nor were the comforts of Lether sufficient lure to attempt what was virtually impossible anyway– he had memory of seeing such comforts, but never of partaking in them. And finally, Udinaas hated the sea with a passion, just as he had done when he was a sailor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the failing light he had seen the two eldest sons of Tomad Sengar on the beach on the other side of the river mouth, and was not surprised to hear the faint, indistinguishable words they exchanged." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Letherii ships had struck again– the news had raced among the slaves before young Rhulad had even reached the entrance of the citadel. A council had been called, which was to be expected, and Udinaas assumed that there would be slaughter before too long, that deadly, terrifying merging of iron-edged ferocity and sorcery that marked every clash with the Letherii of the south. And, truth be told, Udinaas wished them good hunting. Seals taken by the Letherii threatened famine among the Edur, and in famine it was the slaves who were the first to suffer.\n\nUdinaas well understood his own kind. To the Letherii, gold was all that mattered. Gold and its possession defined their entire world. Power, status, self-worth and respect– all were commodities that could be purchased by coin. Indeed, debt bound the entire kingdom, defining every relationship, the motivation casting the shadow of every act, every decision. This devious hunting of the seals was the opening move in a ploy the Letherii had used countless times, against every tribe beyond the borderlands. To the Letherii, the Edur were no different. But they are, you fools.\n\nEven so, the next move would come at the Great Meeting, and Udinaas suspected that the Warlock King and his advisers, clever as they were, would walk into that treaty like blind elders. What worried him was all that would follow.\n\nLike hatchlings borne on the tide, the peoples of two kingdoms were rushing headlong into deep, deadly waters.\n\nThree slaves from the Buhn household trotted past, bundles of bound seaweed on their shoulders. One called out to Udinaas, \"Feather Witch will cast tonight, Udinaas! Even as the council gathers.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Udinaas began folding the net over the drying rack." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I will be there, Hulad.\"\n\nThe three left the strand, and Udinaas was alone once more. He glanced north and saw Fear and Trull walking up the slope towards the outer wall's postern gate.\n\nFinished with the net, he placed his tools in the small basket and fastened the lid, then straightened.\n\nHe heard the flap of wings behind him and turned, startled by the sound of a bird in flight so long after the sun had set. A pale shape skimmed the waterline, and was gone.\n\nUdinaas blinked, straining to see it again, telling himself that it was not what it had appeared to be. Not that. Anything but that. He moved to his left to a bare patch of sand. Crouching, he quickly sketched an invoking sigil into the sand with the small finger of his left hand, lifting his right hand to his face, first two fingers reaching to his eyes to pull the lids down fora brief moment, as he whispered a prayer, \"Knuckles cast, Saviour look down upon me this night. Errant! Look down upon us all!\"\n\nHe lowered his right hand and dropped his gaze to the symbol he had drawn.\n\n\"Crow, begone!\"\n\nThe sigh of wind, the murmur of waves. Then a distant cackle.\n\nShivering, Udinaas bolted upright. Snatching up the basket, he ran for the gate.\n\nThe King's Meet was avast, circular chamber, the Blackwood boles of the ceiling reaching up to a central peak lost in smoke. Unblooded warriors of noble birth stood at the very edge, the outermost ring of those attending to witness the council. Next, and seated on backed benches, were the matrons, the wedded and widowed women. Then came the unwedded and the betrothed, cross-legged on hides. Apace before them, the floor dropped an arm's length to form a central pit of packed earth where sat the warriors. At the very centre was a raised dais, fifteen paces across, where stood the Warlock King, Hannan Mosag, with the five hostage princes seated around him, facing outward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As Trull and Fear descended to the pit to take their place among the blooded warriors, Trull stared up at his king." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of average height and build, Hannan Mosag seemed unprepossessing at first glance. His features were even, a shade paler than most Edur, and there was a wide cast to his eyes that gave him a perpetually surprised look. The power, then, was not physical. It lay entirely in his voice. Rich and deep, it was a voice that demanded to be listened to without regard to volume.\n\nStanding in silence, as he did now, Hannan Mosag's claim to kingship seemed a mere accident of placement, as if he had wandered into the centre of the huge chamber, and now looked about with a vaguely bemused expression. His clothing was no different from that of any other warriors, barring the absence of trophies– for his trophies, after all, were seated around him on the dais, the first sons of the five subjugated chiefs.\n\nA more concerted study of the Warlock King revealed another indication of his power. His shadow reared behind him. Huge, hulking. Long, indistinct but deadly swords gripped in both gauntleted hands. Helmed, the shoulders angular with plates of armour. Hannan Mosag's shadow wraith bodyguard never slept. There was, Trull reflected, nothing bemused in its wide stance.\n\nFew warlocks were capable of conjuring such a creature when drawing from the life-force of their own shadows. Kurald Emurlahn flowed raw and brutal in that silent, ever-vigilant sentinel.\n\nTrull's gaze fell to those of the hostages facing him. The K'risnan. More than representatives of their fathers, they were Hannan Mosag's apprentices in sorcery. Their names had been stripped from them, the new ones chosen in secret by their master and bound with spells. One day, they would return to their tribes as chiefs. And their loyalty to their king would be absolute." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hostage from the Merude tribe was directly opposite Trull. Largest of the six tribes, the Merude had been the last to capitulate. They had always maintained that, with their numbers approaching one hundred thousand, forty thousand of which were blooded or soon-to-be-blooded warriors, they should by right have held pre-eminence among the Edur. More warriors, more ships, and ruled by a chief with more trophies at his belt than had been seen in generations. Domination belonged to the Merude.\n\nOr it should have, if not for Hannan Mosag's extraordinary mastery of those fragments of Kurald Emurlahn from which power could be drawn. Chief Hanradi Khalag's skill with the spear far outweighed his capacity as a warlock.\n\nNo-one but Hannan Mosag and Hanradi Khalag knew the details of that final surrendering. Merude had been holding strong against the Hiroth and their contingents of Arapay, Sollanta, Den-Ratha and Beneda warriors, and the ritual constraints of the war were fast unravelling, in their place an alarming brutality born of desperation. The ancient laws had been on the verge of shattering.\n\nOne night, Hannan Mosag had walked, somehow unseen by anyone, into the chief's village, into the ruler's own longhouse. And by the first light of Menandore's cruel awakening, Hanradi Khalag had surrendered his people.\n\nTrull did not know what to make of the tales that persisted, that Hanradi no longer cast a shadow. He had never seen the Merude chief.\n\nThat man's first son now sat before him, head shaved to denote the sundering from his bloodline, a skein of deep-cut, wide scars ribboning his face with shadows, his eyes flat and watchful, as if anticipating an assassination attempt herein the Warlock King's own hall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The oil lamps suspended from the high ceiling flickered as one, and everyone grew still, eyes fixing on Hannan Mosag.\n\nThough he did not raise his voice, its deep timbre reached across the vast space, leaving none with the necessity to strain to hear his words. \"Rhulad, unblooded warrior and son of Tomad Sengar, has brought tome words from his brother, Trull Sengar. This warrior had travelled to the Calach shore seeking jade. He was witness to a dire event, and has run without pause for three days and two nights.\" Hannan Mosag's eyes fixed on Trull.\"Rise to stand at my side, Trull Sengar, and relate your tale. '\n\nHe walked the path the other warriors made for him and leapt up onto the raised dais, fighting to disguise the exhaustion in his legs that made him come close to sagging with the effort. Straightening, he stepped between two K'risnan and positioned himself to the right of the Warlock King. He looked out onto the array of upturned faces, and saw that what he would say was already known to most of them. Expressions dark with anger and a hunger for vengeance. Here and there, frowns of concern and dismay.\n\n\"I bring these words to the council. The tusked seals have come early to the breeding beds. Beyond the shallows I saw the sharks that leap in numbers beyond counting. And in their midst, nineteen Letherii ships-\"\n\n\"Nineteen!\"\n\nA half-hundred voices uttered that cry in unison. An uncharacteristic breach of propriety, but understandable none the less. Trull waited a moment, then resumed. \"Their holds were almost full, for they sat low in the water, and the waters around them were red with blood and offal. Their harvest boats were alongside the great ships. In the fifty heartbeats that I stood and watched, I was witness to hundreds of seal carcasses rising on hooks to swing into waiting hands. On the strand itself twenty boats waited in the shallows and seventy men were on the beach, among the seals-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did they see you?\" one warrior asked.\n\nIt seemed Hannan Mosag was prepared to ignore the rules– for the time being at least.\n\n\"They did, and checked their slaughter... fora moment. I saw their mouths move, though I could not hear their words above the roar of the seals, and I saw them laugh-\"\n\nRage erupted among the gathering. Warriors leapt upright.\n\nHannan Mosag snapped out a hand.\n\nSudden silence.\n\n\"Trull Sengar is not yet finished his tale.\"\n\nClearing his throat, Trull nodded. \"You see me before you now, warriors, and those of you who know me will also know my preferred weapon– the spear. When have you seen me without my iron-hafted slayer of foes? Alas, I have surrendered it... in the chest of the one who first laughed.\"\n\nA roar answered his words.\n\nHannan Mosag settled a hand on Trull's shoulder, and the young warrior stepped aside. The Warlock King scanned the faces before him fora moment, then spoke.\"Trull Sengar did as every warrior of the Edur would do. His deed has heartened me. Yet here he now stands, weaponless. '\n\nTrull stiffened beneath the weight of that hand.\n\n\"And so, in measured thought, such as must be made by a king,\" Hannan Mosag went on, \"I find I must push my pride to one side, and look beyond it. To what is signified. A thrown spear. A dead Letherii. A disarmed Edur. And now, I see upon the faces of my treasured warriors a thousand flung spears, a thousand dead Letherii. A thousand disarmed Edur.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Collaborate with the author and advance the plot.\nTags: epic fantasy, new characters, commerce, betrayal, cultural clash\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Midnight Tides\nChapter: 6" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The red-haired woman set her bottle down with a clunk. \"We've made a mistake. '\n\n\"I'm sorry to hear that-'\n\n\"No,\" the bald woman said to her companion. \"This is an affectation. We should have anticipated a certain degree of... mockery.\"\n\n\"He has no trousers.\"\n\nThe dark-eyed woman added, \"And his arms are lopsided.\"\n\n\"Not quite accurate,\" Tehol said to her. \"It's only the sleeves that are somewhat askew. '\n\n\"I don't like him, ' she pronounced, crossing her arms.\n\n\"You don't have to, \"the bald woman said.\"Errant knows, we're not going to bed him, are we?\"\n\n\"I'm crushed. '\n\n\"You would be,\" the red-haired woman said, with an unpleasant smile.\n\n\"Bed him? On the roof? You must be insane, Shand.\"\n\n\"How cannot liking him be unimportant?\"\n\nThe bald woman, the one named Shand, sighed and rubbed her eyes. \"Listen tome, Hejun. This is business. Sentiments have no place in business– I've already told you that. '\n\nHejun's arms remained crossed, and she shook her head.\"You can't trust who you don't like. '\n\n\"Of course you can!\" Shand said, blinking.\n\n\"It's his reputation I'm not happy with,\" said the third, as yet unnamed, woman.\n\n\"Rissarh,\" Shand said, sighing again, \"it's his reputation what's brought us here.\"\n\nTehol clapped his hands. Once, loud enough to startle the three women. \"Excellent. Rissarh with the red hair. Hejun, with Faraed blood. And Shand, no hair at all. Well,\" he set his hands on the table and rose, \"I'm content with that. Goodbye-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sit down!\"\n\nThe growl was so menacing that Tehol found himself seated once more, the prickle of sweat beneath his woollen shirt.\n\n\"That's better, \"Shand said in a more mellow tone. She leaned forward.\"Tehol Beddict. We know all about you. '\n\n\"Oh?\"\n\n\"We even know why what happened happened.\"\n\n\"Indeed.\"\n\n\"And we want you to do it again.\"\n\n\"You do?\"\n\n\"Yes. Only this time, you'll have the courage to go through with it. All the way. '\n\n\"I will?\"\n\n\"Because we– myself, Hejun and Rissarh– we're going to be your courage. This time. Now, let's get out of here, before that server comes back. We've purchased a building. We can talk there. It doesn't smell.\"\n\n\"Now that's a relief, ' Tehol said.\n\nThe three women rose.\n\nHe did not.\n\n\"I told you,\" Hejun said to Shand. \"It's not going to work. There's nothing left in there. Look at him.\"\n\n\"It'll work, ' Shand said.\n\n\"Hejun is, alas, right,\" Tehol said. \"It won't. '\n\n\"We know where the money went,\" Shand said.\n\n\"That's no secret. Riches to rags. I lost it. '\n\nBut Shand shook her head. \"No you didn't. Like I said, we know. And if we talk... '\n\n\"You keep saying you know something,\" Tehol said, adding a shrug.\n\n\"As you said,\" she replied, smiling, \"we're from the islands. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But not those islands.\"\n\n\"Of course not– who'd go there? And that's what you counted on.\"\n\nTehol rose. \"As they say, five wings will buy you a grovel. All right, you've purchased a building. '\n\n\"You'll do it, \"Shand insisted.\"Because if it comes out, Hull will kill you. '\n\n\"Hull?\" Finally Tehol could smile. \"My brother knows nothing about it.\"\n\nHe savoured the pleasure, then, in seeing these three women knocked off balance. There, now you know how it feels.\n\n\"Hull may prove a problem.\"\n\nBrys Beddict could not hold his gaze on the man standing before him. Those small, placid eyes peering out from the folds of pink flesh seemed in someway other than human, holding so still that the Finadd of the Royal Guard imagined he was looking into the eyes of a snake. A flare'neck, coiled on the centre of the river road when the rains are but days away. Up from the river, three times as long as a man is tall, head resting on the arm-thick curl of its body.\"Ware the plodding cattle dragging their carts on that road. 'Ware the drover stupid enough to approach.\n\n\"Finadd?\"\n\nBrys forced his eyes back to the huge man. \"First Eunuch, I am at a loss as to how to respond. I have neither seen nor spoken with my brother in years. Nor will I be accompanying the delegation.\"\n\nFirst Eunuch Nifadas turned away, and walked noiselessly to the high-backed wooden chair behind the massive desk that dominated the chamber of his office. He sat, the motion slow and even. \"Be at ease, Finadd Beddict. I have immense respect for your brother Hull. I admire the extremity of his conviction, and understand to the fullest extent the motivation behind his... choices in the past.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then, if you will forgive me, you are further down the path than I, First Eunuch. Of my brother– of my brothers– I understand virtually nothing. Alas, it has always been so.\"\n\nNifadas blinked sleepily, then he nodded. \"Families are odd things, aren't they? Naturally, my own experience precludes many of the subtleties regarding that subject. Yet, if you will, my exclusion has, in the past, permitted me a certain objectivity, from which I have often observed the mechanisms of such fraught relationships with a clear eye. \"He looked up and fixed Brys once more with his regard.\"Will you permit me a comment or two? '\n\n\"Forgive me, First Eunuch-\"\n\nNifadas waved him silent with one plump hand. \"No need. I was presumptuous. Nor have I explained myself. As you know, preparations are well along. The Great Meeting looms. I am informed that Hull Beddict has joined Buruk the Pale and Seren Pedac on the trail to Hiroth lands. Further, it is my understanding that Buruk is charged with a host of instructions– none issued by me, I might add. In other words, it is likely that those instructions not only do not reflect the king's interests, but in fact may contradict our Sire's wishes.\" He blinked again, slow and measured. \"Precarious, agreed. Unwelcome, as well. My concern is this. Hull may... misunderstand...\"\n\n\"By assuming that Buruk acts on behalf of King Diskanar, you mean.\"\n\n\"Just so.\"\n\n\"He would then seek to counter the merchant.\"\n\nNifadas sighed his agreement.\n\n\"Which,\" Brys continued, \"is itself not necessarily a bad thing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"True, in itself not necessarily a bad thing.\"\n\n\"Unless you intend, as the king's official representative and nominal head of the delegation, to counter the merchant in your own way. To deflect those interests Buruk has been charged with presenting to the Edur. '\n\nThe First Eunuch's small mouth hinted at a smile.\n\nNothing more than that, yet Brys understood. His gaze travelled to the window behind Nifadas. Clouds swam blearily through the bubbled, wavy glass. \"Not Hull's strengths, ' he said\n\n\"No, we are agreed in that. Tell me, Finadd, what do you know of this Acquitor, Seren Pedac?\"\n\n\"Reputation only. But it's said she owns a residence herein the capital. Although I have never heard if she visits. '\n\n\"Rarely. The last time was six years ago.\"\n\n\"Her name is untarnished,\" Brys said.\n\n\"Indeed. Yet one must wonder... she is not blind, after all. Nor, I gather, unthinking.\"\n\n\"I would imagine, First Eunuch, that few Acquitors are.\"\n\n\"Just so. Well, thank you for your time, Finadd. Tell me,\" he added as he slowly rose, indicating the audience was at an end, \"have you settled well as the King's Champion? '\n\n\"Uh, well enough, First Eunuch.\"\n\n\"The burden is easily shouldered by one as young and fit as you, then?\"\n\n\"Not easily. I would make no claim to that.\"\n\n\"Not comfortable, but manageable.\"\n\n\"A fair enough description.\"\n\n\"You are an honest man, Brys. As one of the king's advisers, I am content with my choice. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But you feel I need the reminder. Why is that? \"I remain honoured, First Eunuch, by the king's faith, and of course, yours. '\n\n\"I will delay you no longer, Finadd.\"\n\nBrys nodded, turned and strode from the office.\n\nApart of him longed for the days of old, when he was just an officer in the Palace Guard. When he carried little political weight, and the presence of the king was always at a distance, with Brys and his fellow guardsmen standing at attention along one wall at official audiences and engagements. Then again, he reconsidered as he walked down the corridor, the First Eunuch had called him because of his blood, not his new role as King's Champion.\n\nHull Beddict. Like a restless ghost, a presence cursed to haunt him no matter where he went, no matter what he did. Brys remembered seeing his eldest brother, resplendent in the garb of Sentinel, the King's Reed at his belt. A last and lasting vision for the young, impressionable boy he had been all those years ago. That moment remained with him, a tableau frozen in time that he wandered into in his dreams, or at reflective moments like these. A painted image. Brothers, man and child, the two of them cracked and yellowed beneath the dust. And he would stand witness, like a stranger, to the boy's wide-eyed, adoring expression, and would follow that uplifted gaze and then shift his own uneasily, suspicious of that uniformed soldier's pride.\n\nInnocence was a blade of glory, yet it could blind on both sides.\n\nHe'd told Nifadas he did not understand Hull. But he did. All too well.\n\nHe understood Tehol, too, though perhaps marginally less well. The rewards of wealth beyond measure had proved cold; only the hungry desire for that wealth hissed with heat. And that truth belonged to the world of the Letherii, the brittle flaw at the core of the golden sword. Tehol had thrown himself on that sword, and seemed content to bleed to death, slowly and with amiable aplomb. Whatever final message he sought in his death was a waste of time, since no-one would look his way when that day came. No-one dared. Which is why, I suspect, he's smiling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His brothers had ascended their peaks long ago– too early, it turned out– and now slid down their particular paths to dissolution and death. And what of me, then? I have been named King's Champion. Judged the finest swordsman in the kingdom. I believe I stand, here and now, upon the highest reach. There was no need to take that thought further.\n\nHe reached a T-intersection and swung right. Ten paces ahead aside door spilled light into the corridor. Ashe came opposite it a voice called to him from the chamber within.\n\n\"Finadd! Come quick.\"\n\nBrys inwardly smiled and turned. Three strides into the spice-filled, low-ceilinged room. Countless sources of light made a war of colours on the furniture and tables with their crowds of implements, scrolls and beakers.\n\n\"Ceda?\"\n\n\"Over here. Come and see what I've done. '\n\nBrys edged pasta bookcase extending out perpendicularly from one wall and found the King's Sorceror behind it, perched on a stool. A tilted table with a level bottom shelf was at the man's side, cluttered with discs of polished glass.\n\n\"Your step has changed, Finadd,\" Kuru Qan said, \"since becoming the King's Champion. '\n\n\"I was not aware of that, Ceda.\"\n\nKuru Qan spun on his seat and raised a strange object before his face. Twin lenses of glass, bound in place side by side with wire. The Ceda's broad, prominent features were made even more so by a magnifying effect from the lenses. Kuru Qan set the object against his face, using ties to bind it so that the lenses sat before his eyes, making them huge as he blinked up at Brys." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You areas I imagined you. Excellent. The blur diminishes in importance. Clarity ascends, achieving preeminence among all the important things. What I hear now matters less than what I see. Thus, perspective shifts. The world changes. Important, Finadd. Very important.\"\n\n\"Those lenses have given you vision? That is wonderful, Ceda!\"\n\n\"The key was in seeking a solution that was the antithesis of sorcery. Looking upon the Empty Hold stole my sight, after all. I could not effect correction through the same medium. Not yet important, this detail. Pray indeed it never becomes so.\"\n\nCeda Kuru Qan never held but one discourse at anyone time. Or so he had explained it once. While many found this frustrating, Brys was ever charmed.\n\n\"Am I the first to be shown your discovery, Ceda?\"\n\n\"You would see its importance more than most. Swordsman, dancing with place, distance and timing, with all the material truths. I need to make adjustments.\" He snatched the contraption off and hunched over it, minuscule tools flicking in his deft hands. \"You were in the First Eunuch's chamber of office. Not an altogether pleasing conversation for you. Unimportant, for the moment. '\n\n\"I am summoned to the throne room, Ceda.\"\n\n\"True. Not entirely urgent. The Preda would have you present... shortly. The First Eunuch enquired after your eldest brother?\"\n\nBrys sighed.\n\n\"I surmised,\" Kuru Qan said, glancing up with abroad smile. \"Your unease tainted your sweat. Nifadas is sorely obsessed at the moment.\" He set the lenses against his eyes once more. Focused on the Finadd's eyes– disconcerting, since it had never happened before.\"Who needs spies when one's nose roots out all truths?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hope, Ceda, that you do not lose that talent, with this new invention of yours.\"\n\n\"Ah, see! A swordsman indeed. The importance of every sense is not lost on you! What a measurable delight– here, let me show you.\" He slid down from the stool and approached a table, where he poured clear liquid into a translucent beaker. Crouched low to check its level, then nodded. \"Measurable, as I had suspected.\" He plucked the beaker from its stand and tossed the contents back, smacking his lips when he was done. \"But it is both brothers who haunt you now.\"\n\n\"I am not immune to uncertainty.\"\n\n\"One should hope not! An important admission. When the Preda is done with you– and it shall not belong– return tome. We have a task before us, you and I.\"\n\n\"Very well, Ceda.\"\n\n\"Time for some adjustments.\" He pulled off the lenses once more. \"For us both,\" he added.\n\nBrys considered, then nodded. \"Until later, then, Ceda.\"\n\nHe made his way from the sorceror's chamber.\n\nNifadas and Kuru Qan, they stand to one side of King Diskanar. Would that there was no other side.\n\nThe throne room was misnamed, in that the king was in the process of shifting the royal seat of power to the Eternal Domicile, now that the leaks in its lofty roof had been corrected. A few trappings remained, including the ancient rug approaching the dais, and the stylized gateway arching over the place where the throne had once stood.\n\nWhen Brys arrived, only his old commander, Preda Unnutal Hebaz, was present. As always, a dominating figure, no matter how exalted her surroundings. She stood taller than most women, nearly Brys's own height. Fair-skinned, with a burnished cast to her blonde hair yet eyes of a dark hazel, she turned to face him at his approach. In her fortieth year, she was none the less possessed of extraordinary beauty that the weather lines only enhanced." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Finadd Beddict, you are late.\"\n\n\"Impromptu audiences with the First Eunuch and the Ceda-\"\n\n\"We have but a few moments,\" she interrupted. \"Take your place along the wall, as would a guard. They might recognize you, or they might assume you are but one of my underlings, especially given the poor light now that the sconces have been taken down. Either way, you are to stand at attention and say nothing.\"\n\nFrowning, Brys strode to his old guard's niche, turned about to face the chamber, then edged back into the shadows until hard stone pressed against his shoulders. He saw the Preda studying him fora moment, then she nodded and swung to face the doorway at the far corner of the wall behind the dais.\n\nAh, this meeting belongs to the other side...\n\nThe door slammed open to the gauntleted hand of a Prince's Guardsman, and the helmed, armoured figure of that man strode warily into the chamber. His sword was still in its scabbard, but Brys knew that Moroch Nevath could draw it in a single beat of a heart. He knew, also, that'Moroch had been the prince's own candidate for King's Champion. And well deserved too. Moroch Nevath not only possesses the skill, he also has the presence... And, although that bold manner irritated Brys in some indefinable way, he found himself envying it as well.\n\nThe Prince's Guard studied the chamber, fixing here and thereon shadowed recesses, including the one wherein Brys stood– but it was a momentary thing, seeming only to acknowledge the presence of one of the Preda's guards– and Moroch finally settled his attention on Unnutal Hebaz." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A single nod of acknowledgement, then Moroch stepped to one side.\n\nPrince Quillas Diskanar entered. Behind him came Chancellor Triban Gnol. Then, two figures that made Brys start. Queen Janall and her First Consort, Turudal Brizad.\n\nBy the Errant, the entire squalid nest.\n\nQuillas bared his teeth at Unnutal Hebaz as would a dog at the end of his chain. \"You have released Finadd Gerun Eberict to Nifadas's entourage. I want him taken back, Preda. Choose someone else. '\n\nUnnutal's tone was calm.\"Gerun Eberict's competence is above reproach, Prince Quillas. I am informed that the First Eunuch is pleased with the selection.\"\n\nChancellor Triban Gnol spoke in an equally reasonable voice. \"Your prince believes otherwise, Preda. It behoves you to accord that opinion due respect.\"\n\n\"The prince's beliefs are his own concern. I am charged by his father, the king, in this matter. Regarding what I do and do not respect, Chancellor, I strongly suggest you retract your challenge. '\n\nMoroch Nevath growled and stepped forward.\n\nThe Preda's hand snapped out– not to the Prince's Guardsman, but towards the niche where Brys stood, halting him a half-stride from his position. The sword was already in his hand, and its freeing from the scabbard had been as silent as it had been fast.\n\nMoroch's gaze flashed to Brys, the startled expression giving way to recognition. The man's own sword was but halfway out of its scabbard.\n\nA dry chuckle from the queen. \"Ah, the Preda's decision for but one guard is... explained. Step forward, if you please, Champion. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That will not be necessary,\" Unnutal said.\n\nBrys nodded and slowly stepped back, sheathing his sword as he did so.\n\nQueen Janall's brows rose at the Preda's brusque countermand. \"Dear Unnutal Hebaz, you rise far above your station.\"\n\n\"The presumption is not mine, Queen. The Royal Guard answer to the king and no-one else.\"\n\n\"Well, forgive me if I delight in challenging that antiquated conceit.\" Janall fluttered one thin hand. \"Strengths are ever at risk of becoming weaknesses.\" She stepped close to her son. \"Heed your mother's advice, Quillas. It was folly to cut at the Preda's pedestal, for it has not yet turned to sand. Patience, beloved one.\"\n\nThe Chancellor sighed. \"The queen's advice-'\n\n\"Is due respect,\" Quillas mimed. \"As you will, then. As you all will. Moroch!\"\n\nBodyguard trailing, the prince strode from the chamber.\n\nThe queen's smile was tender as she said,\"Preda Unnutal Hebaz, we beg your forgiveness. This meeting was not of our choice, but my son insisted. From the moment our procession began, the Chancellor and I both sought to dissuade him. '\n\n\"To no avail,\" the Chancellor said, sighing once more.\n\nThe Preda's expression did not change.\"Are we done? '\n\nQueen Janall wagged a single finger in mute warning, then gestured to her First Consort, slipping her arm through his as they left.\n\nTriban Gnol remained a moment longer. \"My congratulations, Preda,\" he said. \"Finadd Gerun Eberict was an exquisite choice.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Unnutal Hebaz said nothing.\n\nFive heartbeats later and she and Brys were alone in the chamber.\n\nThe Preda turned. \"Your speed, Champion, never fails to take my breath away. I did not hear you, only... anticipated. Had I not, Moroch would now be dead.\"\n\n\"Possibly, Preda. If only because he had dismissed my presence.\"\n\n\"And Quillas would have only himself to blame.\"\n\nBrys said nothing.\n\n\"I should not have halted you.\"\n\nHe watched her leave.\n\nGerun Eberict, you poor bastard.\n\nRecalling that the Ceda wanted him, Brys swung about and strode from the chamber.\n\nLeaving behind no blood.\n\nAnd he knew that Kuru Qan would hear the relief in his every step.\n\nThe Ceda had been waiting outside his door, seemingly intent on practising a dance step, when Brys arrived.\n\n\"A few fraught moments?\" Kuru Qan asked without looking up. \"Unimportant. For now. Come.\"\n\nFifty paces on, down stone steps, along dusty corridors, and Brys guessed at their destination. He felt his heart sinking. A place he had heard of, but one he had yet to visit. It seemed the King's Champion was permitted to walk where a lowly Finadd was not. This time, however, the privilege was suspect.\n\nThey came to a pair of massive copper-sheathed doors. Green and rumpled with moss, they were bare of markings and showed no locking mechanism. The Ceda leaned on them and they parted with a grinding squeal.\n\nBeyond rose narrow steps, leading to a walkway suspended knee-high above the floor by chains that reached down from the ceiling. The room was circular, and in the floor were set luminous tiles forming a spiral. The walkway ended at a platform in the chamber's centre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Trepidation, Finadd? Well deserved.\" Gesturing, Kuru Qan led Brys onto the walkway.\n\nIt swayed alarmingly.\n\n\"The striving for balance is made manifest,\" the Ceda said, arms held out to the sides. \"One's steps must needs find the proper rhythm. Important, and difficult for all that there are two of us. No, do not look down upon the tiles– we are not yet ready. To the platform first. Here we are. Stand at my side, Finadd. Look with me upon the first tile of the spiral. What do you see? '\n\nBrys studied the glowing tile. It was large, not quite square. Two spans of a spread hand in length, slightly less so in width.\n\nThe Holds. The Cedance. Kuru Qan's chamber of divination. Throughout Letheras there were casters of the tiles, readers of the Holds. Of course, their representations were small, like flattened dice. Only the King's Sorceror possessed tiles such as these. With ever-shifting faces. \"I see a barrow in a yard.\"\n\n\"Ah, then you see truly. Good. An unhinged mind would reveal itself at this moment, its vision poisoned with fear and malice. Barrow, third from last among the tiles of the Azath Hold. Tell me, what do you sense from it?\"\n\nBrys frowned. \"Restlessness.\"\n\n\"Aye. Disturbing, agreed?\"\n\n\"Agreed.\"\n\n\"But the Barrow is strong, is it not? It will not yield its claim. Yet, consider fora moment. Something is restless, there beneath that earth. And each time I have visited herein the past month, this tile has begun the spiral.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Or ended it.\"\n\nKuru Qan tilted his head. \"Possibly. A swordsman's mind addresses the unexpected. Important? We'll see, won't we? Begins, or ends. So. If the Barrow is in no danger of yielding, then why does this tile persist? Perhaps we but witness what is, whilst that restlessness promises what will be. Alarming. '\n\n\"Ceda, have you visited the site of the Azath?\"\n\n\"I have. Both tower and grounds are unchanged. The Hold's manifestation remains steadfast and contained. Now, drag your gaze onward, Finadd. Next? '\n\n\"A gate, formed of a dragon's gaping jaws. '\n\n\"Fifth in the Hold of the Dragon. Gate. How does it relate to Barrow of the Azath? Does the Gate precede or follow? In the span of my life, this is the first time I have seen a tile of Dragon Hold in the pattern. We are witness– or shall be witness– to a momentous occasion.\"\n\nBrys glanced at the Ceda. \"We are nearing Seventh Closure. It is momentous. The First Empire shall be reborn. King Diskanar shall be transformed– he shall ascend and assume the ancient title of First Emperor.\"\n\nKuru Qan hugged himself. \"The popular interpretation, aye. But the true prophecy, Finadd, is somewhat more... obscure.\"\n\nBrys was alarmed by the Ceda's reaction. Nor had he known that the popular interpretation was other than accurate.\"Obscure? In what way? '\n\n\"\"The king who rules at the Seventh Closure shall be transformed and so shall become the First Emperor reborn.\" Thus. Yet, questions arise. Transformed– how? And reborn– in the flesh? The First Emperor was destroyed along with the First Empire, in a distant land. Leaving the colonies here bereft. We have existed in isolation fora very longtime, Finadd. Longer than you might believe.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Almost seven thousand years.\"\n\nThe Ceda smiled. \"Language changes overtime. Meaning twists. Mistakes compound with each transcribing. Even those stalwart sentinels of perfection– numbers– can, in a single careless moment, be profoundly altered. Shall I tell you my belief, Finadd? What would you say to my notion that some zeroes were dropped? At the beginning of this the Seventh Closure.\"\n\nSeventy thousand years? Seven hundred thousand?\n\n\"Describe for me the next four tiles.\"\n\nFeeling slightly unbalanced, Brys forced his attention back to the floor. \"I recognize that one. Betrayer of the Empty Hold. And the tile that follows: White Crow, of the Fulcra. The third is unknown tome. Shards of ice, one of which is upthrust from the ground and grows bright with reflected light.\"\n\nKuru Qan sighed and nodded. \"Seed, last of the tiles in the Hold of Ice. Another unprecedented appearance. And the fourth?\"\n\nBrys shook his head. \"It is blank.\"\n\n\"Just so. The divination ceases. Is blocked, perhaps, by events yet to occur, by choices as yet unmade. Or, it marks the beginning, the flux that is now, this very moment. Leading to the end, which is the last tile– Barrow. Unique mystery. I am at a loss.\"\n\n\"Has anyone else seen this, Ceda? Have you discussed your impasse with anyone?\"\n\n\"The First Eunuch has been informed, Brys Beddict. To ensure that he does not walk into the Great Meeting blind to whatever portents might arise there. And now, you. Three of us, Finadd.\"\n\n\"Why me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because you are the King's Champion. It is your task to guard his life. '\n\nBrys sighed. \"He keeps sending me away.\"\n\n\"I will remind him yet again,\" Kuru Qan said. \"He must surrender his love of solitude, or come to see no-one when he glances your way. Now, tell me what the queen incited her son to do in the old throne room.\"\n\n\"Incited? She claimed the very opposite.\"\n\n\"Unimportant. Tell me what your eyes witnessed, what your ears heard. Tell me, Brys Beddict, what your heart whispered.\"\n\nBrys stared down at the blank tile. \"Hull may prove a problem,\" he said in a dull voice.\n\n\"This is what your heart whispered?\"\n\n\"It is.\"\n\n\"At the Great Meeting?\"\n\nHe nodded.\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"I fear, Ceda, that he might kill Prince Quillas Diskanar.\"\n\nThe building had once housed a carpenter's shop on the ground floor, with a modest collection of low-ceilinged residential rooms on the upper level, reached via a dropdown staircase. The front faced out onto Quillas Canal, opposite a landing where, presumably, the carpenter had received his supplies.\n\nTehol Beddict walked around the spacious workshop, noting the holes in the hardwood floor where mechanisms had been fitted, hooks on walls for tools still identifiable by the faded outlines. The air still smelled of sawdust and stains, and a single worktable ran the full length of the wall to the left of the entrance. The entire front wall, he saw, was constructed with removable panels. \"You purchased this outright?\" he asked, facing the three women who had gathered at the foot of the staircase." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The owner's business was expanding, \"Shand said,\"as was his family." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'\n\n\"Fronting the canal... this place was worth something...\"\n\n\"Two thousand thirds. We bought most of his furniture upstairs. Ordered a desk that was delivered last night.\" Shand waved a hand to encompass the ground level. \" This area's yours. I'd suggest a wall or two, leaving a corridor from the door to the stairs. That clay pipe is the kitchen drain. We knocked out the section leading to the kitchen upstairs, since we expect your servant to feed the four of us. The privy's out in the backyard, empties into the canal. There's also a cold shed, with a water-tight icebox big enough fora whole Nerek family to live in. '\n\n\"A rich carpenter with time on his hands,\" Tehol said.\n\n\"He has talent,\" Shand said, shrugging. \"Now, follow me. The office is upstairs. We've things to discuss. '\n\n\"Doesn't sound like it, \"he replied.\"Sounds like everything is already decided. I can imagine Bugg's delight at the news. I hope you like figs.\"\n\n\"You could take the roof,\" Rissarh said with a sweet smile.\n\nTehol crossed his arms and rocked on his heels. \"Let me see if I understand all this. You threaten to expose my terrible secrets, and then offer me some kind of partnership for some venture you haven't even bothered describing. I can see this relationship setting deep roots, given such fertile soil. '\n\nShand scowled.\n\n\"Let's beat him senseless first, ' Hejun said.\n\n\"It's simple, \"Shand said, ignoring Hejun's suggestion. \"We have thirty thousand thirds and with it we want you to make ten.\"\n\n\"Ten thousand thirds?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ten peaks.\"\n\nTehol stared at her. \"Ten peaks. Ten million thirds. I see, and what precisely do you want with all that money?\"\n\n\"We want you to buy the rest of the islands.\"\n\nTehol ran a hand through his hair and began pacing. \"You're insane. I started with a hundred docks and damn near killed myself making a single peak-'\n\n\"Only because you were frivolous, Tehol Beddict. You did it inside of a year, but you only worked a day or two every month.\"\n\n\"Well, those days were murderous.\"\n\n\"Liar. You never stepped wrong. Not once. You folded in and folded out and left everyone else wallowing in your wake. And they worshipped you for it.\"\n\n\"Until you knifed them all,\" Rissarh said, her smile broadening.\n\n\"Your skirt's slipping, ' Hejun observed.\n\nTehol adjusted it. \"It wasn't exactly a knifing. What terrible images you conjure. I made my peak. I wasn't the first to ever make a peak, just the fastest.\"\n\n\"With a hundred docks. Hard with a hundred levels, maybe. But docks? I made a hundred docks every three months when I was a child, picking olives and grapes. Nobody starts with docks. Nobody but you.\"\n\n\"And now we're giving you thirty thousand thirds, \"Rissarh said.\"Work the columns, Beddict. Ten million peaks? Why not? '\n\n\"If you think it's so easy why don't you do it yourselves?\"\n\n\"We're not that smart, \"Shand said.\"We're not easily distracted, either. We stumbled onto your trail and we followed it and here we are.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I left no trail.\"\n\n\"Not one most could see, true. But as I said, we don't get distracted. '\n\nTehol continued pacing. \"The Merchant Tolls list Letheras's gross at between twelve and fifteen peaks, with maybe another five buried-'\n\n\"Is that five including your one?\"\n\n\"Mine was written off, remember.\"\n\n\"After a whole lot of pissing blood. Ten thousand curses tied to docks at the bottom of the canal, all with your name on them.\"\n\nHejun asked in surprise, \"Really, Shand? Maybe we should get dredging rights-\"\n\n\"Too late,\" Tehol told her. \"Biri's got those. '\n\n\"Biri's a front man, \"Shand said.\"You've got those rights, Tehol. Biri may not know it but he works for you.\"\n\n\"Well, that's a situation I've yet to exploit.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nHe shrugged. Then he halted and stared at Shand. \"There's noway you could know that. '\n\n\"You're right. I guessed. '\n\nHis eyes widened. \"You could make ten peaks, with an instinct like that, Shand.\"\n\n\"You've fooled everyone because you don't make a wrong step, Tehol Beddict. They don't think you've buried your peak– not anymore, not after this long with you living like a rat under the docks. You've truly lost it. Where, nobody knows, but somewhere. That's why they wrote off the loss, isn't it? '\n\n\"Money is sleight of hand,\" Tehol said, nodding. \"Unless you've got diamonds in your hands. Then it's not just an idea anymore. If you want to know the cheat behind the whole game, it's right there, lasses. Even when money's just an idea, it has power. Only it's not real power. Just the promise of power. But that promise is enough so long as everyone keeps pretending it's real. Stop pretending and it all falls apart.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Unless the diamonds are in your hands,\" Shand said.\n\n\"Right. Then it's real power. '\n\n\"That's what you began to suspect, isn't it? So you went and tested it. And everything came within a stumble of falling apart.\"\n\nTehol smiled. \"Imagine my dismay.\"\n\n\"You weren't dismayed, \"she said.\"You just realized how deadly an idea could be, in the wrong hands. '\n\n\"They're all the wrong hands, Shand. Including mine. '\n\n\"So you walked away.\"\n\n\"And I'm not going back. Do your worst with me. Let Hull know. Take it all down. What's written off can be written back in. The Tolls are good at that. In fact, you'll trigger a boom. Everyone will sigh with relief, seeing that it was all in the game after all. '\n\n\"That's not what we want, \"Shand said.\"You still don't get it. When we buy the rest of the islands, Tehol, we do it the same way you did. Ten peaks... disappearing.\"\n\n\"The entire economy will collapse!\"\n\nAt that the three women all nodded.\n\n\"You're fanatics! '\n\n\"Even worse,\" Rissarh said, \"we're vengeful. '\n\n\"You're all half-bloods, aren't you?\" He didn't need their answers to that. It was obvious. Not every half-blood had to look like a half-blood.\"Faraed, for Hejun. You two? Tarthenal? '\n\n\"Tarthenal. Letheras destroyed us. Now, we're going to destroy Letheras. '\n\n\"And,\" Rissarh said, smiling again, \"you're going to show us how. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because you hate your own people,\" Shand said. \"The whole rapacious, cold-blooded lot of them. We want those islands, Tehol Beddict. We know about the remnants of the tribes you delivered to the ones you bought. We know they're hiding out there, trying to rebuild all that they had lost. But it's not enough. Walk this city's streets and the truth of that is plain. You did it for Hull. I had no idea he didn't know about it– you surprised me there. You know, I think you should tell him.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because he needs healing, that's why. '\n\n\"I can't do that. '\n\nShand stepped close and settled a hand on Tehol's shoulder. The contact left him weak-kneed, so unexpected was the sympathy.\"You're right, you can't. Because we both know, it wasn't enough.\"\n\n\"Tell him our way,\" Hejun said. \"Tehol Beddict. Do it right this time.\"\n\nHe pulled away and studied them. These three damned women. \"It's the Errant's curse, that he walks down paths he's walked before. But that trait of yours, of not getting distracted, it blinds both ways, I'm afraid.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I mean, Shand, that Lether is about to fall– and not through my doing. Find Hull and ask him– I'm sure he's up there, somewhere. In the north. And, you know, it's rather amusing, how he fought so hard for your people, for everyone of those tribes Lether then devoured. Because now, knowing what he knows, he's going to fight again. Only, this time, not fora tribe– not for the Tiste Edur. This time, for Lether. Because he knows, my friends, that we've met our match in those damned bastards. This time, it's the Edur who will do the devouring.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What makes you think so?\" Shand demanded, and he saw the disbelief in her expression.\n\n\"Because they don't play the game, ' he said.\n\n\"What if you're wrong? '\n\n\"It's possible. Either way, it's going to be bloody.\"\n\n\"Then let's make it easier for the Tiste Edur. '\n\n\"Shand, you're talking treason. '\n\nHer lips pressed into a thin line.\n\nRissarh barked a laugh. \"You idiot. We've been doing that all along. '\n\nErrant take me, she's right.\"I'm not convinced a host of barbaric Edur overlords will do any better.\"\n\n\"We're not talking about what's better,\" Shand said. \"We're talking about revenge. Think of Hull, of what was done to him. Do it back, Tehol. '\n\nI don't believe Hull would see it that way. Not quite. Not fora long, longtime.\"You realize, don't you, that I've worked very hard at cultivating apathy. In fact, it seems to be bear-ing endless fruit. '\n\n\"Yes, the skirt doesn't hide much. '\n\n\"My instincts maybe a bit dull.\"\n\n\"Liar. They've just been lying in wait and you know it. Where do we start, Tehol Beddict? '\n\nHe sighed. \"All right. First and foremost, we lease out this ground floor. Biri needs the storage.\"\n\n\"What about you?\"\n\n\"I happen to like my abode, and I don't intend to leave. As far as anyone else is concerned, I'm still not playing the game. You three are the investors. So, put those damned weapons away; we're in afar deadlier war now. There's a family of Nerek camped outside my house. A mother and two children. Hire them as cook and runners. Then head down to the Merchant Tolls and get yourselves listed. You deal in property, construction and transportation. No other ventures. Not yet. Now, seven properties are for sale around the fifth wing of the Eternal Domicile. They're going cheap. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because they're sinking. '\n\n\"Right. And we're going to fix that. And once we've done that, expect a visit from the Royal Surveyor and a motley collection of hopeful architects. Ladies, prepare to get rich.\"\n\nLooking for solid grounding? Bugg's Construction is your answer.\n\nUntil the flood sweeps the entire world away, that is.\n\n\"Can we buy you some clothes?\"\n\nTehol blinked. \"Why?\"\n\nSeren stared down. The valley stretched below, its steep sides unrelieved forest, a deep motionless green. The glitter of rushing water threaded through the shadows in the cut's nadir. Blood of the Mountains, the Edur called that river. Tis'forundal. Its waters ran red with the sweat of iron.\n\nThe track they would take crossed that river again and again.\n\nThe lone Tiste Edur far below had, it seemed, emerged from that crimson stream. Striding to the head of the trail then beginning the ascent.\n\nAs if knowing we're here.\n\nBuruk the Pale was taking his time with this journey, calling a halt shortly after midday. The wagons would not tip onto that rocky, sliding path into the valley until the morrow. Caution or drunk indifference, the result was the same.\n\nHull stood at her side. Both of them watched the Tiste Edur climb closer.\n\n\"Seren.\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"You weep at night.\"\n\n\"I thought you were asleep.\"\n\nHe said nothing fora moment, then, \"Your weeping always woke me.\"\n\nAnd this is as close as you dare, isn't it?\"Would that yours had me. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am sure it would have, Seren, had I wept.\"\n\nAnd this eases my guilt? She nodded towards that distant Tiste Edur. \"Do you recognize him?\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"Will he cause us trouble?\"\n\n\"No, I don't think so. I believe he will be our escort back to Hiroth lands. '\n\n\"Noble-born?\"\n\nHull nodded. \"Binadas Sengar.\"\n\nShe hesitated, then asked, \"Have you cut flesh for him?\"\n\n\"I have. Ashe has for me.\"\n\nSeren Pedac drew her furs tighter about her shoulders. The wind had not relented, though something of the valley's damp rot now rode its bludgeoning rush.\"Hull, do you fear this Great Meeting? '\n\n\"I need only look back to see what lies ahead.\"\n\n\"Are you so sure of that?\"\n\n\"We will buy peace, but it will be, for the Tiste Edur, a deadly peace.\"\n\n\"But peace none the less, Hull.\"\n\n\"Acquiror, you might as well know, and so understand me clearly. I mean to shatter that gathering. I mean to incite the Edur into war with Letheras.\"\n\nStunned, she stared at him.\n\nHull Beddict turned away. \"With that knowledge,\" he said, \"do as you will.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Face to the Light betrayed by the Dark Father Shadow lies bleeding Unseen and unseeing lost until his Children take the final path and in the solitude of strangers Awaken once more\n\nTiste Edur prayer\n\nA hard silence that seemed at home in the dense, impenetrable fog. The Blackwood paddles had been drawn from water thick as blood, which ran in rivulets, then beads, down the polished shafts, finally drying with a patina of salt in the cool, motionless air. And now there was nothing to do but wait.\n\nDaughter Menandore had delivered a grim omen that morning. The body of a Beneda warrior. A bloated corpse scorched by sorcery, skin peeled back by the ceaseless hungers of the sea. The whispering roar of flies stung into flight by the arrival of those Edur whose slaves had first found it.\n\nLetherii sorcery.\n\nThe warrior wore no scabbard, no armour. He had been fishing.\n\nFour K'orthan longboats had set out from the river mouth shortly after the discovery. In the lead craft rode Hannan Mosag and his K'risnan Cadre, along with seventy-five blooded warriors. Crews of one hundred followed in the three additional raiders.\n\nThe tide carried them out fora time. It soon became clear that no wind waited offshore, so they left the three triangular sails on each ship furled and, thirty-five warriors to aside, had begun paddling.\n\nUntil the Warlock King had signalled a halt.\n\nThe fog enclosed the four raider longboats. Nothing could be seen twenty strokes of the paddle in any direction. Trull Sengar sat on the bench behind Fear. He had set his paddle down and now gripped the new iron-sheathed spear his father had given him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Letherii ships were close, he knew, drifting in the same manner as the Edur longboats. But they relied solely upon sail and so could do nothing until a wind rose.\n\nAnd Hannan Mosag had made certain there would be no wind.\n\nShadow wraiths flickered over the deck, roving restlessly, long-clawed hands reaching down as they clambered on all fours. They prowled as if eager to leave the confines of the raider. Trull had never seen so many of them, and he knew that they were present on the other longboats as well. They would not, however, be the slayers of the Letherii. For that, the Warlock King had summoned something else.\n\nHe could feel it. Waiting beneath them. Avast patience, suspended in the depths.\n\nNear the prow, Hannan Mosag slowly raised a hand, and, looking beyond the Warlock King, Trull saw the hulk of a Letherii harvest ship slowly emerge from the fog. Sails furled, lanterns at the end of out-thrust poles, casting dull, yellow light.\n\nAnd then a second ship, bound to the first by a thick cable.\n\nShark fins cut the pellucid surface of the water around them.\n\nAnd then, suddenly, those fins were gone.\n\nWhatever waited below rose.\n\nEmerged unseen with a shivering of the water.\n\nA moment, blurred and uncertain.\n\nThen screams.\n\nTrull dropped his spear and clapped both hands to his ears– and he was not alone in that response, for the screams grew louder, drawn out from helpless throats and rising to shrieks. Sorcery flashed in the fog, briefly, then ceased." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Letherii ships were on all sides now. Yet nothing could be seen of what was happening on them. The fog had blackened around them, coiling like smoke, and from that impenetrable gloom only the screams clawed free, like shreds of horror, the writhing of souls.\n\nThe sounds were in Trull's skull, indifferent to his efforts to block them. Hundreds of voices. Hundreds upon hundreds.\n\nThen silence. Hard and absolute.\n\nHannan Mosag gestured.\n\nThe white cloak of fog vanished abruptly.\n\nThe calm seas now rolled beneath a steady wind. Above, the sun glared down from a fiercely blue sky.\n\nGone, too, was the black emanation that had engulfed the Letherii fleet.\n\nThe ships wallowed, burned-out lanterns pitching wildly.\n\n\"Paddle.\"\n\nHannan Mosag's voice seemed to issue from directly beside Trull. He started, then reached down, along with everyone else, fora paddle. Rose to plant his hip against the gunnel, then chopped down into the water.\n\nThe longboat surged forward.\n\nIn moments they were holding blades firm in the water, halting their craft alongside the hull of one of the ships.\n\nShadow wraiths swarmed up its red-stained side.\n\nAnd Trull saw that the waterline on the hull had changed. Its hold was, he realized, now empty.\n\n\"Fear,\" he hissed. \"What is going on? What has happened?\"\n\nHis brother turned, and Trull was shocked by Fear's pallid visage.\"It is not for us, Trull, ' he said, then swung round once more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is not for us. What does he mean by that? What isn't?\n\nDead sharks rolled in the waves around them. Their carcasses were split open, as if they had exploded from within. The water was streaked with viscid froth.\n\n\"We return now,\" Hannan Mosag said. \"Man the sails, my warriors. We have witnessed. Now we must leave.\"\n\nWitnessed– in the name of Father Shadow, what?\n\nAboard the Letherii ships, canvas snapped and billowed.\n\nThe wraiths will deliver them. By the Dusk, this is no simple show of power. This– this is a challenge. A challenge, of such profound arrogance that it far surpassed that of these Letherii hunters and their foolish, suicidal harvest of the tusked seals. At that realization, anew thought came to Trull as he watched other warriors tending to the sails. Who among the Letherii would knowingly send the crews of nineteen ships to their deaths? And why would those crews even agree to it?\n\nIt was said gold was all that mattered to the Letherii. But who, in their right mind, would seek wealth when it meant certain death? They had to have known there would be no escape. Then again, what if I had not stumbled upon them? What if I had not chosen the Calach strand to look for jade? But no, now he was the one being arrogant. If not Trull, then another. The crime would never have gone unnoticed. The crime was never intended to go unnoticed.\n\nHe shared the confusion of his fellow warriors. Something was awry here. With both the Letherii and with... us. With Hannan Mosag. Our Warlock King." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Our shadows are dancing. Letherii and Edur, dancing out a ritual– but these are not steps I can recognize. Father Shadow forgive me, I am frightened.\n\nNineteen ships of death sailed south, while four K'orthan raiders cut eastward. Four hundred Edur warriors, once more riding a hard silence.\n\nIt fell to the slaves to attend to the preparations. The Beneda corpse was laid out on abed of sand on the floor of a large stone outbuilding adjoining the citadel, and left to drain.\n\nThe eye sockets, ears, nostrils and gaping mouth were all cleaned and evened outwith soft wax. Chewed holes in its flesh were packed with a mixture of clay and oil.\n\nWith six Edur widows overseeing, a huge iron tray was set atop a trench filled with coals that had been prepared alongside the corpse. Copper coins rested on the tray, snapping and popping as the droplets of condensation on them sizzled and hissed then vanished.\n\nUdinaas crouched beside the trench, staying far enough back to ensure that his sweat did not drip onto the coins– a blasphemy that meant instant death for the careless slave– and watched the coins, seeing them darken, becoming smoky black. Then, as the first glowing spot emerged in each coin's centre, he used pincers to pluck it from the tray and set it down on one of a row of fired-clay plates– one plate for each widow.\n\nThe widow, kneeling before the plate, employed a finer set of pincers to pickup the coin. And then pivoted to lean over the corpse.\n\nFirst placement was the left eye socket. A crackling hiss, worms of smoke rising upward as the woman pressed down with the pincers, keeping the coin firmly in place, until it melded with the flesh and would thereafter resist being dislodged. Right eye socket followed. Nose, then forehead and cheeks, every coin touching its neighbours." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When the body's front and sides, including all the limbs, were done, melted wax was poured over the coin-sheathed corpse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And, when that had cooled, it was then turned over. More coins, until the entire body was covered, excepting the soles of the feet and the palms of the hands. Another layer of melted wax followed.\n\nThe task of sheathing consumed most of the day, and it was near dusk when Udinaas finally stumbled from the outbuilding and stood, head bowed, while the cool air plucked at the sweat on his skin. He spat in an effort to get the foul stench out of his mouth. Burnt, rotting flesh in the building's turgid, oven-hot confines. The reek of scorched hair. No amount of scented oil and skin-combing could defeat what had seeped into his pores. It would be days before Udinaas had rid himself of that cloying, dreadful taste.\n\nHe stared down at the ground between his feet. His shoulder still ached from the forced healing done by Uruth. Since that time, he had had no opportunity to speak with Feather Witch.\n\nTo his masters, he had explained nothing. They had, in truth, not pressed him very hard. A handful of questions, and they'd seemed content with his awkward, ineffectual answers. Udinaas wondered if Uruth had been as unmotivated in her own questioning of Feather Witch. The Tiste Edur rarely displayed much awareness of their slaves, and even less understanding of their ways. It was, of course, the privilege of the conquerors to be that way, and the universal fate of the conquered to suffer that disregard.\n\nYet identities persisted. On a personal level. Freedom was little more than a tattered net, draped over a host of minor, self-imposed bindings. Its stripping away changed little, except, perhaps, the comforting delusion of the ideal. Mind bound to self, self to flesh, flesh to bone. As the Errant wills, we area latticework of cages, and whatever flutters within knows but one freedom, and that is death." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The conquerors always assumed that what they conquered was identity. But the truth was, identity could only be killed from within, and even that gesture was but a chimera. Isolation had many children, and dissolution was but one of them– yet its path was unique, for that path began when identity was left behind.\n\nFrom the building behind him emerged the song of mourning, the Edur cadence of grief. Hunh, hunk, hunk, hunh... A sound that always chilled Udinaas. Like emotion striking the same wall, again and again and again. The voice of the trapped, the blocked. A voice overwhelmed by the truths of the world. For the Edur, grieving was less about loss than about being lost.\n\nIs that what comes when you live a hundred thousand years?\n\nThe widows then emerged, surrounding the corpse that floated waist-high on thick, swirling shadows. A figure of copper coins. The Edur's singular use of money. Copper, tin, bronze, iron, silver and gold, it was the armour of the dead.\n\nAt least that's honest. Letherii use money to purchase the opposite. Well, not quite. More like the illusion of the opposite. Wealth as life's armour. Keep, fortress, citadel, eternally vigilant army. But the enemy cares nothing for all that, for the enemy knows you are defenceless.\n\n\"Hunh, hunh, hunh, hunh...\"\n\nThis was Daughter Sheltatha Lore's hour, when all things material became uncertain. Smudged by light's retreat, when the air lost clarity and revealed its motes and grains, the imperfections both light and dark so perfectly disguised at other times. When the throne was shown to be empty.\n\nWhy not worship money? At least its rewards are obvious and immediate. But no, that was simplistic. Letherii worship was more subtle, its ethics bound to those traits and habits that well served the acquisition of wealth. Diligence, discipline, hard work, optimism, the personalization of glory. And the corresponding evils: sloth, despair and the anonymity of failure. The world was brutal enough to winnow one from the other and leave no room for doubt or mealy equivocation. In this way, worship could become pragmatism, and pragmatism was a cold god." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Errant make ours a cold god, so we may act without constraint." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A suitable Letherii prayer, though none would utter it in such a bold fashion. Feather Witch said that every act made was a prayer, and thus in the course of a day were served a host of gods. Wine and nectar and rustleaf and the imbibing thereof was a prayer to death, she said. Love was a prayer to life. Vengeance was a prayer to the demons of righteousness. Sealing a business pact was, she said with a faint smile, a prayer to the whisperer of illusions. Attainment for one was born of deprivation for another, after all. A game played with two hands.\n\n\"Hunh, hunh, hunh, hunh...\"\n\nHe shook himself. His sodden tunic now wrapped him in damp chill.\n\nA shout from the direction of the sea. The K'orthan raiders were returning. Udinaas walked across the compound, towards the Sengar household. He saw Tomad Sengar and his wife Uruth emerge, and dropped to his knees, head pressed to the ground, until they passed. Then he rose and hurried into the longhouse.\n\nThe copper-sheathed corpse would be placed within the hollowed trunk of a Blackwood, the ends sealed with discs of cedar. Six days from now, the bole would be buried in one of a dozen sacred groves in the forest. Until that moment, the dirge would continue. The widows taking turns with that blunt, terrible utterance.\n\nHe made his way to the small alcove where his sleeping pallet waited. The longboats would file into the canal, one after the other in the grainy half-light. They would not have failed. They never did. The crews of nineteen Letherii ships were now dead– no slaves taken, not this time. Standing on both sides of the canal, the noble wives and fathers greeted their warriors in silence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In silence.\n\nBecause something terrible has happened.\n\nHe lay down on his back, staring up at the slanted ceiling, feeling a strange, unnerving constriction in his throat. And could hear, in the rush of his blood, a faint echo behind his heart. A double beat. Hunh hunh Huh huh. Hunh hunh Huh huh...\n\nWho are you? What are you waiting for? What do you want with me?\n\nTrull clambered onto the landing, the cold haft of his spear in his right hand, its iron-shod butt striking sparks on the flagstones as he stepped away from the canal's edge and halted beside Fear. Opposite them, but remaining five paces away, stood Tomad and Uruth. Rhulad was nowhere to be seen.\n\nNor, he realized, was Mayen.\n\nA glance revealed that Fear was scanning the welcoming crowd. There was no change in expression, but he strode towards Tomad.\n\n\"Mayen is in the forest with the other maidens,\" Tomad said. \"Collecting morok. They are guarded by Theradas, and Midik and Rhulad.\"\n\n\"My son.\" Uruth stepped closer, eyes searching Fear's visage.\"What did he do? '\n\nFear shook his head.\n\n\"They died without honour,\" Trull said. \"We could not seethe hand that delivered that death, but it was... monstrous.\"\n\n\"And the harvest?\" Tomad asked.\n\n\"It was taken, Father. By that same hand.\"\n\nA flash of anger in Uruth's eyes.\"This was no full unveiling. This was a demonic summoning. '\n\nTrull frowned. \"I do not understand, Mother. There were shadows-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And a darkness,\" Fear cut in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"From the depths... darkness.\"\n\nShe crossed her arms and looked away. Trull had never seen Uruth so distressed.\n\nAnd in himself, his own growing unease. Fully three-fifths of the Tiste Edur employed sorcery. A multitude of fragments from the riven warren of Kurald Emurlahn. Shadow's power displayed myriad flavours. Among Uruth's sons, only Binadas walked the paths of sorcery. Fear's words had none the less triggered a recognition in Trull. Every Tiste Edur understood his own, after all. Caster of magic or not.\n\n\"Mother, Hannan Mosag's sorcery was not Kurald Emurlahn. \"He did not need their expressions to realize that he had been the last among them to understand that truth. He grimaced.\"Forgive me my foolish words-'\n\n\"Foolish only in speaking them aloud,\" Uruth said. \"Fear, take Trull and Rhulad. Go to the Stone Bowl-\"\n\n\"Stop this. Now.\" Tomad's voice was hard, his expression dark.\"Fear. Trull. Return to the house and await me there. Uruth, tend to the needs of the widows. A fallen warrior faces his first dusk among kin. Propitiations must be made. '\n\nFora moment Trull thought she was going to object. Instead, lips pressed into a line, she nodded and strode away.\n\nFear beckoned Trull and they walked to the longhouse, leaving their father standing alone beside the canal.\n\n\"These are awkward times,\" Trull said.\n\n\"Is there need,\" Fear asked, \"when you stand between Rhulad and Mayen?\"\n\nTrull clamped his mouth shut. Too off-balance to deflect the question with a disarming reply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fear took the silence for an answer. \"And when you stand between them, who do you face?\"\n\n\"I– I am sorry, Fear. Your question was unexpected. Is there need, you ask. My answer is: I don't know. '\n\n\"Ah, I see.\"\n\n\"His strutting... irritates me.\"\n\nFear made no response.\n\nThey came to the doorway. Trull studied his brother. \"Fear, what is this Stone Bowl? I have never heard-\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter, ' he replied, then walked inside.\n\nTrull remained at the threshold. He ran a hand through his hair, turned and looked back across the compound. Those who had stood in welcome were gone, as were their warrior kin. Hannan Mosag and his K'risnan Cadre were nowhere to be seen. Alone figure remained. Tomad.\n\nAre we so different from everyone else?\n\nYes. For the Warlock King has asked for Tomad's sons. To pursue a vision.\n\nHe has made us his servants. Yet... is he the master?\n\nIn his dream, Udinaas found himself kneeling in ashes. He was cut and bleeding. His hands. His legs. The ash seemed to gnaw into the wounds with avid hunger. The tightness in his throat made him gasp for breath. He clawed at the air as he clambered onto his feet and stood, wavering– and the sky roared and raced in on all sides.\n\nFire. A storm of fire.\n\nHe screamed.\n\nAnd found himself on his knees once more.\n\nBeyond his ragged breathing, only silence. Udinaas lifted his head. The storm was gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Figures on the plain. Walking, dust roiling up behind them like wind-tossed shrouds. Weapons impaled them. Limbs hung from shreds of tendon and muscle. Sightless eyes and expressions twisted with fearful recognition– faces seeing their own deaths– blind to his own presence as they marched past.\n\nRising up within him, avast sense of loss. Grief, then the bitter whisper of betrayal.\n\nSomeone will pay for this. Someone will pay.\n\nSomeone.\n\nSomeone.\n\nThe words were not his, the thoughts were another's, but the voice, therein the centre of his skull– that voice was his own.\n\nA dead warrior walked close. Tall, black-skinned. A sword had taken most of his face. Bone gleamed, latticed with red cracks from some fierce impact.\n\nA flash of motion.\n\nMetal-clad hand crashed into the side of Udinaas's head. Blood sprayed. He was in a cloud of grey ash, on the ground. Blinking burning fire.\n\nHe felt gauntleted fingers close about his left ankle. His leg was viciously yanked upward.\n\nAnd then the warrior began dragging him.\n\nWhere are we going?\n\n\"The Lady is harsh.\"\n\nThe Lady?\n\n\"Is harsh.\"\n\nShe awaits us at journey's end?\n\n\"She is not one who waits.\"\n\nHe twisted as he was pulled along, found himself staring back at the furrow he'd made in the ashes. A track reaching to the horizon. And black blood was welling from that ragged gouge. How long has he been dragging me? Whom do I wound?\n\nThe thunder of hoofs." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist with the plot and keep the story going.\nTags: epic fantasy, new characters, commerce, betrayal, cultural clash\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Midnight Tides\nChapter: 9" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You claim the privilege of pride?\"\n\n\"I am more than a slave, Wither, as you well know.\"\n\n\"But you must behave as if you were not. I call you'slave\" to remind you of that. Fail in your deception, and the pain they shall inflict upon you in the search for all you would hide from them shall be without measure-\"\n\n\"Enough.\" He walked down to the waterline. The sun threw his shadow into his wake, pulled long and monstrous.\n\nThe rollers had built a humped sweep of sand over the stones, on which lay tangled strands of seaweed and a scattering of detritus. Apace inland of this elongated rise was a depression filled with slick pebbles and rocks. \"Where should I be looking?\"\n\n\"Among the stones. A little further. Three, two paces. Yes. Here.\"\n\nUdinaas stared down, scanning the area. \"I see nothing.\"\n\n\"Dig. No, to your left– those rocks, move those. That one. Now, deeper. There, pull it free.\"\n\nA misshapen lump that sat heavy in his hand. Finger-length and tapered atone end, the metal object within swallowed by thick calcifications. \"What is it?\"\n\n\"An arrowhead, slave. Hundreds of millennia, crawling to this shore. The passage of ages is measured by chance. The deep roll of tides, the succession of wayward storms. This is how the world moves-\"\n\n\"Hundreds of millennia? There would be nothing left-\"\n\n\"A blade of simple iron without sorcerous investment would indeed have vanished. The arrowhead remains, slave, because it will not surrender. You must chip away at all that surrounds it. You must resurrect it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why?\"\n\n\"I have my reasons, slave.\"\n\nThere was nothing pleasing in this, but Udinaas straightened and tucked the lump in his belt pouch. He returned to his nets. \"I shall not,\" he muttered, \"be the hand of your vengeance.\"\n\nWither's laugh followed him in the crunch of stones.\n\n---\n\nThere was smoke hanging above the lowlands, like clouds dragged low and now shredded by the dark treetops.\n\n\"A funeral,\" Binadas said.\n\nSeren Pedac nodded. There had been no storms, and besides, the forest was too wet to sustain a wildfire. The Edur practice of burial involved a tumulus construction, which was then covered to form a pyre. The intense heat baked the coin-sheathed corpse as if it was clay, and stained the barrow stones red. Shadow wraiths danced amidst the flames, twisted skyward with the smoke, and would linger long after the mourners were gone.\n\nSeren drew her knife and bent to scrape mud from her boots. This side of the mountains the weather daily crept in from the sea shedding rain and mist in pernicious waves. Her clothes were soaked through. Three times since morning the heavily burdened wagons had skidded off the trail, once crushing a Nerek to death beneath the solid, iron-rimmed wheels.\n\nStraightening, she cleaned her knife between two gloved fingers, then sheathed it at her side.\n\nMoods were foul. Buruk the Pale had not emerged from his wagon in two days, nor had his three half-blood Nerek concubines. But the descent was finally done, and ahead was a wide, mostly level trail leading to Hannan Mosag's village." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Binadas stood and watched as the last wagon rocked clear of the slope, and Seren sensed the Edur's impatience. Someone had died in his village, after all. She glanced over at Hull Beddict, but could sense nothing from him. He had withdrawn deep into himself, as if building reserves in anticipation of what was to come. Or, equally likely, struggling to bolster crumbling resolve. She seemed to have lost her ability to read him. Pain worn without pause and for so long could itself become a mask.\n\n\"Binadas,\" Seren said, \"the Nerek need to rest. The journey before us is clear. There is no need for you to remain with us as escort. Go to your people.\"\n\nHis eyes narrowed on her, suspicious of her offer.\n\nShe added nothing more. He would believe what he would believe, after all, no matter how genuine her intent.\n\n\"She speaks true,\" Hull said. \"We would not constrain you, Binadas.\"\n\n\"Very well. I shall inform Hannan Mosag of your impending visit.\"\n\nThey watched the Edur set off down the trail. In moments the trees swallowed him.\n\n\"Do you see?\" Hull asked her.\n\n\"I saw only conflicting desires and obligations,\" Seren replied, turning away.\n\n\"Only, then, what you chose to.\"\n\nSeren's shrug was weary.\"Oh, Hull, that is the way of us all. '\n\nHe stepped close. \"But it need not be so, Acquitor.\"\n\nSurprised, she met his gaze, and wondered at the sudden earnestness there. \"How am I supposed to respond to that?\" she asked. \"We are all like soldiers, crouching behind the fortifications we have raised. You will do what you believe you must, Hull.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And you, Seren Pedac? What course awaits you?\"\n\nEver the same course. \"The Tiste Edur are not yours to use. They may listen, but they are not bound to follow.\"\n\nHe turned away. \"I have no expectations, Seren, only fears. We should resume the journey.\"\n\nShe glanced over at the Nerek. They sat or squatted near the wagons, steam rising from their backs. Their expressions were slack, strangely indifferent to the dead kin they had left behind in his makeshift grave of rutted mud, rocks and roots. How much could be stripped from a people before they began stripping away themselves? The steep slope of dissolution began with a skid, only to become a headlong run.\n\nThe Letherii believed in cold-hearted truths. Momentum was an avalanche and no-one was privileged with the choice of stepping aside. The division between life and death was measured in incremental jostling for position amidst all-devouring progress. No-one could afford compassion. Accordingly, none expected it from others either.\n\nWe live in an inimical time. But then, they are all inimical times.\n\nIt began to rain once more.\n\nFar to the south, beyond the mountains they had just crossed, the downfall of the Tiste Edur was being plotted. And, she suspected, Hull Beddict's life had been made forfeit. They could not afford the risk he presented, the treason he had as much as promised. The irony existed in their conjoined desires. Both sought war, after all. It was only the face of victory that was different.\n\nBut Hull possessed little of the necessary acumen to play this particular game and stay alive.\n\nAnd she had begun to wonder if she would make any effort to save him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A shout from Buruk's wagon. The Nerek climbed wearily to their feet. Seren drew her cloak tighter about her shoulders, eyes narrowed on the path ahead. She sensed Hull coming to her side, but did not look over.\n\n\"What temple was it you were schooled at?\"\n\nShe snorted, then shook her head. \"Thurlas, the Shrouded Sisters of the Empty Throne.\"\n\n\"Just opposite Small Canal. I remember it. What sort of child were you, Seren?\"\n\n\"Clearly, you have an image in your mind.\"\n\nShe caught his nod in her periphery, and he said, \"Zealous. Proper to excess. Earnest.\"\n\n\"There are ledgers, recording the names of notable students. You will find mine in them, again and again. For example, I hold title to the most punishments inflicted in a year. Two hundred and seventy-one. I was more familiar with the Unlit Cell than my own room. I was also accused of seducing a visiting priest. And before you ask, yes, I was guilty. But the priest swore otherwise, to protect me. He was excommunicated. I later heard he killed himself. Had I still possessed any innocence, I would have lost it then.\"\n\nHe came round to stand before her, as the first wagon was pulled past by the Nerek. She was forced to look at him. Hesitated, then offered him awry smile. \"Have I shocked you, Hull Beddict?\"\n\n\"The ice has broken beneath me.\"\n\nA flash of anger, then she realized the self-mockery in his confession. \"We are not born innocent, simply unmeasured.\"\n\n\"And, presumably, immeasurable as well.\"\n\n\"For a few years at least. Until the outside is inflicted upon the inside, then the brutal war begins. We are not born to compassion either– large wide eyes and sweet demeanour notwithstanding.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And you came to recognize your war early.\"\n\nSeren shrugged. \"My enemy was not authority, although perhaps it seemed so. It was childhood itself. The lowered expectations of adults, the eagerness to forgive. It sickened me-\"\n\n\"Because it was unjust.\"\n\n\"A child's sense of injustice is ever self-serving, Hull. I couldn't fool myself with that indignation. Why are we speaking of this?\"\n\n\"Questions I forgot to ask. Back then. I think I was a child myself in those days. All inside, no outside.\"\n\nHer brows rose, but she said nothing.\n\nHull understood anyway. \"You might be right. In somethings, that is. But not when it comes to the Edur.\"\n\nThe second wagon trundled past. Seren studied the man before her. \"Are you so certain of that?\" she asked. \"Because I see you driven by your own needs. The Edur are the sword but the hand is your own, Hull. Where is the compassion in that?\"\n\n\"You have it wrong, Seren. I intend to be the sword.\"\n\nThe chill in her bones deepened. \"In what way?\"\n\nBut he shook his head. \"I cannot trust you, Seren. Like everyone else, you shall have to wait. One thing, however. Do not stand in my way. Please.\"\n\nI cannot trust you. Words that cut to her soul. Then again, the issue of trust stood on both sides of the path, didn't it?\n\nThe third wagon halted beside them. The curtain in the door window was dragged aside and Buruk's deathly face peered out.\"And this is guidance? Who blazes the trail? Are we doomed now to wander lost? Don't tell me you have become lovers once more! Seren, you look positively besieged. Such is the curse of love, oh, my heart weeps for you!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Enough, Buruk,\" Seren said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wiped the rain from her face and, ignoring Hull, moved past onto the path. Nerek stepped to either side to let her pass.\n\nThe forest trail was flanked by Blackwood trees, planted to assert Edur possession of these lands. Rough midnight bark that had been twisted into nightmarish images and arcane script by the shadow wraiths that clung to every groove and fissure in the rugged skin. Wraiths that now rose into view to watch Seren and those following in her wake.\n\nThere seemed more than usual. Flowing restless like black mist between the huge boles. Scores, then hundreds, crowding either side of the trail. Seren's steps slowed.\n\nShe could hear the Nerek behind her, low moans, the clack of the wagons slowing, then halting.\n\nHull came alongside her. \"They have raised an army,\" he whispered.\n\nThere was dark satisfaction in his tone.\n\n\"Are they truly the ancestors of the Edur?\"\n\nHis gaze snapped to her, feverish. \"Of course. What else could they be?\"\n\nShe shook herself. \"Urge the Nerek onward, Hull. They'll listen to you. Two days remaining, that's all-\" And then she fell silent.\n\nFora figure was standing upon the trail. Skin the colour of bleached linen, tall as an Edur, a face obscured by dark streaks, as if blood-stained fingers had drawn down the gaunt cheeks. An apparition, the dull red eyes burning from those deep sockets dead. Mould hung in ragged sheets from rotting armour. Two scabbards, both empty.\n\nWraiths swarmed at the figure's feet, as if in worship.\n\nA wagon door clattered and Buruk staggered out, wrapped in a blanket that dragged the ground behind him as he came to Seren's side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Barrow and Root!\" the merchant hissed. \"The tiles did not lie!\"\n\nSeren took a step forward.\n\nHull reached out a hand. \"No-\"\n\n\"Would you have us stand here forever?\" she snapped, pulling herself free. Despite the bravado of her words, she was terrified. Ghosts revealed themselves in childhood tales and legends, and in the occasional fevered rumour in the capital. She had believed in such apparitions in a halfhearted way, an idea made wilfully manifest. A whispery vision of history, risen as harbinger, as silent warning. A notion, then, as much symbolic as actual.\n\nAnd even then, she had imagined something far more... ephemeral. Lacking distinction, a face comprised of forlorn hints, features blurred by the fading of their relevance. Half seen in currents of darkness, there one moment, gone the next.\n\nBut there was a palpability in the tall conjuration standing before her, an assertion of physical insistence. Etched details on the long, pallid face, the flat, filmed eyes watching her approach with fullest comprehension.\n\nAs if he has just clambered free of one of the barrows in this forest. But he is not... is not Edur.\n\n\"A dragon,\" the apparition said in the language of the Tiste, \"once dragged itself down this trail. No forest back then. Naught but devastation. Blood in the broken earth. The dragon, mortal, made this trail. Do you feel this? Beneath you, the scattering of memory that pushes the roots away, that bows the trees to either side. A dragon.\" The figure then turned, looked down the path behind it. \"The Edur– he ran unseeing, unmindful. Kin of my betrayer. Yet... an innocent.\" He faced her once more. \"But you, mortal, are not nearly so innocent, are you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Taken aback, Seren said nothing.\n\nBehind her, Hull Beddict spoke. \"Of what do you accuse her, ghost?\"\n\n\"A thousand. A thousand upon a thousand misdeeds. Her. You. Your kind. The gods areas nothing. Demons less than children. Every Ascendant an awkward mummer. Compared to you. Is it ever the way, I wonder? That depravity thrives in the folds of the flower, when its season has come. The secret seeds of decay hidden beneath the burgeoning glory. All of us, herein your wake, we areas nothing.\"\n\n\"What do you want?\" Hull demanded.\n\nThe wraiths had slipped away, back among the trees. But anew tide had come to swarm about the ghost's tattered boots. Mice, a seething mass pouring up the trail. Ankle deep, the first reached Seren's feet, scampered round them. A grey and brown tide, mindless motion. A multitude of tiny selves, seized by some unknown and unknowable imperative. From here... to there.\n\nThere was something terrible, horrifying, about them. Thousands, tens of thousands– the trail ahead, for as far as she could see, was covered with mice.\n\n\"The land was shattered,\" the apparition said. \"Not a tree left standing. Naught but corpses. And the tiny creatures that fed on them. Hood's own legion. Death's sordid tide, mortals, fur-backed and rising. It seems so... facile.\" The undead seemed to shake himself. \"I want nothing from you. The journeys are all begun. Do you imagine that your path has never before known footfalls?\"\n\n\"We are not so blind as to believe that,\" Seren Pedac said. She struggled against kicking away the mice swarming around her ankles, fearing the descent into hysteria. \"If you will not– or cannot– clear this trail, then we've little choice-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The apparition's head tilted.\"You would deliver countless small deaths? In the name of what? Convenience? '\n\n\"I see no end to these creatures of yours, ghost.\"\n\n\"Mine? They are not mine, mortal. They simply belong to my time. To the age of their squalid supremacy on this land. A multitude of tyrants to rule over the ash and dust we left in our wake. They see in my spirit a promise.\"\n\n\"And,\" Hull growled, \"are we meant to seethe same?\"\n\nThe apparition had begun fading, colours bleeding away. \"If it pleases you,\" came the faint, derisive reply. \"Of course, it maybe that the spirit they see is yours, not mine.\"\n\nThen the ghost was gone.\n\nThe mice began flowing out to the forest on either side of the trail, as if suddenly confused, blinded once more to whatever greater force had claimed them. They bled away into the mulch, the shadows and the rotted wood of fallen trees. One moment there, the next, gone.\n\nSeren swung to Buruk the Pale. \"What did you mean when you said the tiles didn't lie? Barrow and Root, those are tiles in the Hold of the Azath, are they not? You witnessed a casting before you began this journey. In Trate. Do you deny it? '\n\nHe would not meet her eyes. His face was pale. \"The Holds are awakening, Acquitor. All of them.\"\n\n\"Who was he, then?\" Hull Beddict asked.\n\n\"I do not know.\" Abruptly Buruk scowled and turned away. \"Does it matter? The mud stirs and things clamber free, that is all. The Seventh Closure draws near– but I fear it will be nothing like what all of us have been taught. The birth of empire, oh yes, but who shall rule it? The prophecy is perniciously vague. The trail has cleared– let us proceed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He clambered back into his wagon.\n\n\"Are we to make sense of that?\" Hull asked.\n\nSeren shrugged. \"Prophecies are like the tiles themselves, Hull. See in them what you will.\" The aftermath of her terror was sour in her throat, and her limbs felt loose and weak. Suddenly weary, she unstrapped her helm and lifted it off. The fine rain was like ice on her brow. She closed her eyes.\n\nI can't save him. I can't save any of us.\n\nHull Beddict spoke to the Nerek.\n\nBlinking her eyes open, Seren shook herself. She tied her helm to her pack.\n\nThe journey resumed. Clattering, groaning wagons, the harsh breathing of the Nerek. Motionless air and the mist falling through it like the breath of an exhausted god.\n\nTwo days. Then it is done.\n\nThirty paces ahead, unseen by any of them, an owl sailed across the path, silent on its broad, dark wings. There was blood on its talons, blood around its beak.\n\nSudden bounties were unquestioned. Extravagance unworthy of celebration. The hunter knew only hunting, and was indifferent to the fear of the prey. Indifferent, as well, to the white crow that sailed in its wake.\n\nA random twist of the wind drew the remnants of the pyre's smoke into the village. It had burned fora day and a night, and Trull Sengar emerged from his father's longhouse the following morning to find the mist drifting across the compound bitter with its taint.\n\nHe regretted the new world he had found. Revelations could not be undone. And now he shared secrets and the truth was, he would rather have done without them. Once familiar faces had changed. What did they know? How vast and insidious this deceit? How many warriors had Hannan Mosag drawn into his ambitions? To what extent had the women organized against the Warlock King?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No words on the subject had been exchanged among the brothers, not since that conversation in the pit, the stove-in dragon skull the only witness to what most would call treason. The preparations for the impending journey were underway. There would be no slaves accompanying them, after all. Hannan Mosag had sent wraiths ahead to the villages lying between here and the ice-fields, and so provisions would await them, mitigating the need for burdensome supplies, at least until the very end.\n\nA wagon drawn by a half-dozen slaves had trundled across the bridge, in its bed newly forged weapons. Iron-tipped spears stood upright inbound bundles. Copper sheathing protected the shafts for fully half their length. Cross-hilted swords were also visible, hand-and-a-half grips and boiled leather scabbards. Billhooks for unseating riders, sheaves of long arrows with leather fletching. Throwing axes, as favoured by the Arapay. Broad cutlasses in the Merude style.\n\nThe forges hammered the din of war once more.\n\nTrull saw Fear and Rhulad stride up to the wagon, more slaves trailing them, and Fear began directing the storage of the weapons.\n\nRhulad glanced over as Trull approached. \"Have you need of more spears, brother?\" he asked.\n\n\"No, Rhulad. I see Arapay and Merude weapons here– and Beneda and Den-Ratha-\"\n\n\"Every tribe, yes. So it is now among all the forges, in every village. A sharing of skills.\"\n\nTrull glanced over at Fear. \"Your thoughts on this, brother? Will you now be training the Hiroth warriors in new weapons?\"\n\n\"I have taught how to defend against them, Trull. It is the Warlock King's intention to create a true army, such as those of the Letherii. This will involve specialist units. \"Fear studied Trull fora moment, before adding,\"I am Weapons Master for the Hiroth, and now, at the Warlock King's command, for all of the tribes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are to lead this army?\"\n\n\"If war should come, yes, I will lead it into battle.\"\n\n\"Thus are the Sengar honoured,\" Rhulad said, his face expressionless, the tone without inflection.\n\nThus are we rewarded.\n\n\"Binadas returned at dawn,\" Fear said. \"He will take this day in rest. Then we shall depart.\"\n\nTrull nodded.\n\n\"A Letherii trader caravan is coming,\" Rhulad said. \"Binadas met them on the trail. The Acquitor is Seren Pedac. And Hull Beddict is with them.\"\n\nHull Beddict, the Sentinel who betrayed the Nerek, the Tarthenal and the Faraed. What did he want? Not all Letherii were the same, Trull knew. Opposing views sang with the clash of swords. Betrayals abounded among the rapacious multitude in the vast cities and indeed, if rumours were true, in the palace of the king himself. The merchant was charged to deliver the words of whoever had bought him. Whilst Seren Pedac, in the profession of Acquitor, would neither speak her mind nor interfere with the aims of the others. He had not been in the village during her other visits, and so could judge no more than that. But Hull, the once Sentinel– it was said he was immune to corruption, such as only a man once betrayed could be.\n\nTrull was silent as he watched the slaves drag the weapon bundles from the cart bed and carry them off to the armoury.\n\nEven his brothers seemed... different somehow. As if shadows stretched taut between them, unseen by anyone else, and could make the wind drone with weighted trepidation. Darkness, then, in the blood of brothers. None of this served the journey about to begin. None of it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was ever the worrier. I do not see too much, I see only the wrong things. And so the fault is mine, within me. I need to remain mindful of that. Such as with my assumptions about Rhulad and Mayen. Wrong things, wrong thoughts, they are the ones that seem to be... tireless...\n\n\"Binadas says Buruk carries Letherii iron,\" Rhulad said, breaking Trull's reverie.\"That will prove useful. Dapple knows, the Letherii are truly fools-'\n\n\"They are not,\" Fear said. \"They are indifferent. They see no contradiction in selling us iron atone moment and waging war with us the next.\"\n\n\"Nor the harvesting of tusked seals,\" Trull added, nodding. \"They area nation often thousand grasping hands, and none can tell which ones are true, which ones belong to those in power.\"\n\n\"King Ezgara Diskanar is not like Hannan Mosag,\" Fear said. \"He does not rule his people with absolute...\"\n\nTrull glanced over as his brother's voice trailed off.\n\nFear swung away. \"Mayen is guest tonight,\" he said. \"Mother may request you partake in the supper preparations.\"\n\n\"And so we shall,\" Rhulad said, meeting Trull's eyes a moment before fixing his attention once more on the slaves.\n\nAbsolute power... no, we have undone that, haven't we? And indeed, perhaps it never existed at all. The women, after all...\n\nThe other slaves were busy in the longhouse, scurrying back and forth across the trusses as Udinaas entered and made his way to his sleeping pallet. He was to serve this night, and so was permitted a short period of rest beforehand. He saw Uruth standing near the central hearth but was able to slip past unnoticed in the confusion, just another slave in the gloom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Feather Witch's assertions remained with him, tightening his every breath. Should the Edur discover the truth that coursed through his veins, they would kill him. He knew he must hide, only he did not know how.\n\nHe settled onto his mat. The sounds and smells of the chambers beyond drifted over him. Lying back, he closed his eyes.\n\nThis night he would be working alongside Feather Witch. She had visited him that onetime, in his dream. Apart from that, he had had no occasion to speak with her. Nor, he suspected, was she likely to invite an exchange of words. Beyond the mundane impropriety established by their respective class, she had seen in him the blood of the Wyval– or so she had claimed in the dream. Unless that was not her at all. Nothing more than a conjuration from my own mind, a reshaping of dust. He would, if possible, speak to her, whether invited or not.\n\nRugs had been dragged outside and laid across trestles. The thump of the clubs the slaves used to beat the dust from them was like distant, hollow thunder.\n\nA flitting thought, vague wondering where the shadow wraith had gone, then sleep took him.\n\nHe was without form, an insubstantial binding of senses. In ice. A blue, murky world, smeared with streaks of green, the grit of dirt and sand, the smell of cold. Distant groaning sounds, solid rivers sliding against each other. Lenses of sunlight delivering heat into the depths, where it built until a thundering snap shook the world.\n\nUdinaas flowed through this frozen landscape, which to all eyes in the world beyond was locked motionless, timeless. And nothing of the pressures, the heaved weights and disparate forces, was revealed, until that final explosive moment when things broke." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were shapes in the ice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bodies lifted from the ground far below and held in awkward poses. Fleshed, eyes half open. Blossoms of blood suspended in motionless clouds around wounds. Flows of bile and waste. Udinaas found himself travelling through scenes of slaughter. Tiste Edur and darker-skinned kin. Enormous reptilian beasts, some with naught but blades for hands. In multitudes beyond counting.\n\nHe came to a place where the reptilian bodies formed a near-solid mass. Flowing among them, he suddenly recoiled. A vertical stream of melt water rose through the ice before him, threading up and out from the heaped corpses. The water was pink, mud-streaked, pulsing as it climbed upward, as if driven by some deep, subterranean heart.\n\nAnd that water was poison.\n\nUdinaas found himself fleeing through the ice, clashing with corpses, rock-hard flesh. Then past, into fissure-twisted sweeps devoid of bodies. Down solid channels. Racing, ever faster, the gloom swallowing him.\n\nMassive brown-furred creatures, trapped standing upright, green plants in their mouths. Herds held suspended above black earth. Ivory tusks and glittering eyes. Tufts of uprooted grasses. Long shapes– wolves, steep-shouldered and grey– caught in the act of leaping, running alongside an enormous homed beast. This was yet another scene of slaughter, lives stolen in an instant of catastrophic alteration– the world flung onto its side, the rush of seas, breathless cold that cut through flesh down to bone.\n\nThe world... the world itself betrays. Errant take us, how can this be?\n\nUdinaas had known many for whom certainty was a god, the only god, no matter the cast of its features. And he had seen the manner in which such belief made the world simple, where all was divisible by the sharp cleaving of cold judgement, after which no mending was possible. He had seen such certainty, yet had never shared it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he had always believed the world itself was... unquestionable. Not static– never static– but capable of being understood. It was undoubtedly cruel at times, and deadly... but you could almost always see it coming. Creatures frozen in mid-leap. Frozen whilst standing, grasses hanging from their mouths. This was beyond comprehension. Sorcery. It must have been. Even then, the power seemed unimaginable, for it was a tenet that the world and all that lived on it possessed a natural resistance to magic. Self-evident, else mages and gods would have reshaped and probably destroyed the balance of all things long ago. Thus, the land would resist. The beasts that dwelt upon it would resist. The flow of air, the seep of water, the growing plants and the droning insects– all would resist.\n\nYet they failed.\n\nThen, in the depths, a shape. Squatting on bedrock, a stone tower. A tall narrow slash suggested a doorway, and Udinaas found himself approaching it through solid ice.\n\nInto that black portal.\n\nSomething shattered, and, suddenly corporeal, he stumbled onto his knees. The stone was cold enough to tear the skin from his knees and the palms of his hands. He staggered upright, and his shoulder struck something that tottered with the impact.\n\nThe cold made the air brutal, blinding him, shocking his lungs. Through freezing tears he saw, amidst a faint blue glow, a tall figure. Skin like bleached vellum, limbs too long and angular with too many joints. Black, frosted eyes, an expression of faint surprise on its narrow, arched features. The clothes it wore consisted of a harness of leather straps and nothing more. It was unarmed. A man, but anything but a man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then Udinaas saw, scattered on the floor around the figure, corpses twisted in death. Dark, greenish skin, tusked. A man, a woman, two children. Their bodies had been broken, the ends of shattered bone jutting out from flesh. The way they lay suggested that the white-skinned man had been their killer.\n\nUdinaas was shivering uncontrollably. His hands and feet were numb. \"Wither? Shadow wraith? Are you with me?\"\n\nSilence.\n\nHis heart began hammering hard in his chest. This did not feel like a dream. It was too real. He felt no dislocation, no whispering assurance of a body lying on its sleeping pallet in an Edur longhouse.\n\nHe was here, and he was freezing to death.\n\nHere. In the depths of ice, this world of secrets where time has ceased.\n\nHe turned and studied the doorway.\n\nAnd only then noticed the footprints impressed upon the frost-laden flagstones. Leading out. Bared feet, human, a child's.\n\nThere was no ice visible beyond the portal. Naught but opaque silver, as if a curtain had fallen across the entrance.\n\nFeeling ebbing from his limbs, Udinaas backtracked the footprints. To behind the standing figure. Where he saw, after a numbed moment, that the back of the man's head had been stove in. Hair and skin still attached to the shattered plates of the skull that hung down on the neck. Something like a fist had reached into the figure's head, tearing through the grey flesh of the brain.\n\nThe break looked unaccountably recent.\n\nTiny tracks indicated that the child had stood behind the figure– no, had appeared behind it, for there were no others to be found. Had appeared... to do what? Reach into a dead man's skull? Yet the figure was as tall as an Edur. The child would have had to climb." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His thoughts were slowing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a pleasurable languor to his contemplation of this horrid mystery. And he was growing sleepy. Which amused him. A dream that made him sleepy. A dream that will kill me. Would they find a frozen corpse on the sleeping pallet? Would it betaken as an omen?\n\nOh well, follow the prints... into that silver world. What else could he do?\n\nWith a final glance back at the immobile scene of past murder and recent desecration, Udinaas staggered slowly towards the doorway.\n\nThe silver enveloped him, and sounds rushed in from all sides. Battle. Screams, the ringing hammering of weapons. But he could see nothing. Heat rolled over him from the left, carrying with it a cacophony of inhuman shrieks.\n\nContact with the ground beneath vanished, and the sounds dropped, swiftly dwindled to far below. Winds howled, and Udinaas realized he was flying, held aloft on leathery wings. Others of his kind sailed the tortured currents– he could see them now, emerging from the cloud. Grey-scaled bodies the size of oxen, muscle-bunched necks, taloned hands and feet. Long, sloping heads, the jaws revealing rows of dagger-like teeth and the pale gums that held them. Eyes the colour of clay, the pupils vertical slits.\n\nLocqui Wyval. That is our name. Spawn of Starvald Demelain, the squalid children whom none would claim as their own. We areas flies spreading across a rotting feast, one realm after another. D'isthal Wyvalla, Enkar'al, Trol, we area plague of demons in a thousand pantheons.\n\nSavage exultation. There were things other than love upon which to thrive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A tide of air pushed– drove him and his kind to one side. Bestial screams from his kin as something loomed into view.\n\nEleint! Soletaken but oh so much draconic blood. Tiam's own.\n\nBone-white scales, the red of wounds smeared like misty paint, monstrously huge, the dragon the Wyval had chosen to follow loomed alongside them.\n\nAnd Udinaas knew its name.\n\nSilchas Ruin. Tiste Andii, who fed in the wake of his brother– fed on Tiam's blood, and drank deep. Deeper than Anomander Rake by far. Darkness and chaos. He would have accepted the burden of godhood... had he been given the chance.\n\nUdinaas knew now what he was about to witness. The sembling on the hilltop far below. The betrayal. Shadow's murder of honour in the breaking of vows. A knife in the back and the screams of the Wyval herein the roiling skies above the battlefield. The shadow wraith had not lied. The legacy of the deed remained in the Edur's brutal enslavement of Tiste Andii spirits. Faith was proved a lie, and in ignorance was found weakness. The righteousness of the Edur stood on shifting sands.\n\nSilchas Ruin. The weapons of those days possessed terrifying power, but his had been shattered. By a K'Chain Che'Malle matron's death-cry.\n\nThe silver light flickered. A physical wrenching, and he found himself lying on his sleeping pallet in the Sengar longhouse.\n\nThe skin had been torn from his palms, his knees. His clothes were sodden with melted frost.\n\nA voice murmured from the shadows, \"I sought to follow, but could not. You travelled far.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wither." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Udinaas rolled onto his side. \"Your place of slaughter,\" he whispered. \"I was there. What do you want of me?\"\n\n\"What does anyone want, slave? Escape. From the past, from their past. I will lead you onto the path. The blood of the Wyval shall protect you-\"\n\n\"Against the Edur?\"\n\n\"Leave the threat of the Edur tome. Now, ready yourself. You have tasks before you this night.\"\n\nAsleep that had left him exhausted and battered. Grimacing, he climbed to his feet.\n\nWith two of her chosen slaves, Mayen walked across the threshold then paused two strides into the main chamber. She was willow thin, the shade of her skin darker than most. Green eyes framed by long, umber hair in which glittered beads of onyx. A traditional tunic of silver sealskin and a wide belt of pearlescent shells. Bracelets and anklets of whale ivory.\n\nTrull Sengar could see in her eyes a supreme awareness of her own beauty, and there was darkness within that heavy-lidded regard, as if she was not averse to wielding that beauty, to achieving dominance, and with it a potentially unpleasant freedom in which to indulge her desires.\n\nThere were all kinds of pleasure, and hungers which spoke naught of virtues, only depravity. Once again, however, Trull was struck by self-doubt as he watched his mother stride to stand before Mayen to voice the household's welcome. Perhaps he once more saw through shadows of his own casting.\n\nLeaning until his back was to the wall, he glanced over at Fear. Uncertain pride. There was also unease in his brother's expression, but it could have been born of anything– the journey they would undertake on the morrow, the very future of his people. Just beyond him, Rhulad, whose eyes devoured Mayen as if her mere presence answered his cruellest appetites." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mayen herself held Uruth in her gaze.\n\nShe absorbs. These tumbling waves of attention, drawn in and fed upon. Dusk shield me, am I mad, to find such thoughts spilling from the dark places in my own soul?\n\nThe formal greeting was complete. Uruth stepped to one side and Mayen glided forward, towards the Blackwood table on which the first course had already been arrayed. She would take her place at the nearest end, with Tomad opposite her at the table's head. On her left, Fear, on her right, Uruth. Binadas beside Uruth and Trull beside Fear. Rhulad was to Binadas's right.\n\n\"Mayen,\" Tomad said once she had seated herself, \"welcome to the hearth of the Sengar. It grieves me that this night also marks, for the next while, the last in which all my sons are present. They undertake a journey for the Warlock King, and I pray for their safe return.\"\n\n\"I am led to believe the ice-fields pose no great risks for warriors of the Edur,\" Mayen replied. \"Yet I see gravity and concern in your eyes, Tomad Sengar.\"\n\n\"An aged father's fretting, \"Tomad said with a faint smile.\"Nothing more. '\n\nRhulad spoke, \"The Arapay rarely venture onto the icefields, for fear of hauntings. More, ice can blind, and the cold can steal lifelike the bleeding of an unseen wound. It is said there are beasts as well-\"\n\nFear cut in, \"My brother seeks resounding glory in the unknown, Mayen, so that you may look upon us all with awe and wonder.\"\n\n\"I am afraid he has left me with naught but dread,\" she said. \"And now I must worry for your fates.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We are equal to all that might assail us,\" Rhulad said quickly.\n\nBarring the babbling tongue of an unblooded fool.\n\nWine goblets were refilled, and a few moments passed, then Uruth spoke. \"When one does not know what one seeks, caution is the surest armour.\" She faced Binadas. \"Among us, you alone have ventured beyond the eastern borders of Arapay land. What dangers do the ice-fields pose?\"\n\nBinadas frowned. \"Old sorcery, Mother. But it seems inclined to slumber.\" He paused, thinking. \"A tribe of hunters who live on the ice– I have seen naught but tracks. The Arapay say they hunt at night.\"\n\n\"Hunt what?\" Trull asked.\n\nHis brother shrugged.\n\n\"There will be six of us,\" Rhulad said. \"Theradas and Midik Buhn, and all can speak to Theradas's skills. Although unblooded, \"he added,\"Midik is nearly my equal with the sword. Hannan Mosag chose well in choosing the warrior sons of Tomad Sengar. '\n\nThis last statement hung strange in the air, as if rife with possible meanings, each one tumbling in a different direction. Such was the poison of suspicion. The women had their beliefs, Trull well knew, and now probably looked upon the six warriors in question, wondering at Hannan Mosag's motivations, his reasons for choosing these particular men. And Fear, as well, would hold to his own thoughts, knowing what he knew– as we Sengar all know, now.\n\nTrull sensed the uncertainty and began wondering for himself. Fear, after all, was Weapons Master for all the tribes, and indeed had been tasked with reshaping the Edur military structure. From Weapons Master to War Master, then. It seemed capricious to so risk Fear Sengar. And Binadas was considered by most to be among the united tribes' more formidable sorcerors. Together, Fear and Binadas had been crucial during the campaigns of conquest, whilst Theradas Buhn was unequalled in leading raids from the sea. The only expendable members of this expedition are myself, Rhulad and Midik. Was the issue, therefore, one of trust?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What precisely was this gift they were to recover?\n\n\"There have been untoward events of late,\" Mayen said, with a glance at Uruth.\n\nTrull caught his father's scowl, but Mayen must have seen acquiescence in Uruth's expression, for she continued, \"Spirits walked the darkness the night of the vigil. Unwelcome of aspect, intruders upon our holy sites– the wraiths fled at their approach.\"\n\n\"This is the first I have heard of such things,\" Tomad said.\n\nUruth reached for her wine cup and held it out to be refilled by a slave. \"They are known none the less, husband. Hannan Mosag and his K'risnan have stirred deep shadows. The tide of change rises– and soon, I fear, it will sweep us away. '\n\n\"But it is we who are rising on that tide,\" Tomad said, his face darkening. \"It is one thing to question defeat, but now you question victory, wife.\"\n\n\"I speak only of the Great Meeting to come. Did not our own sons tell of the summoning from the depths that stole the souls of the Letherii seal-hunters? When those ships sail into the harbour at Trate, how think you the Letherii will react? We have begun the dance of war.\"\n\n\"If that were so,\" Tomad retorted, \"then there would belittle point to treat with them.\"\n\n\"Except,\" Trull cut in, recalling his father's own words when he first returned from the Calach beds,\"to take their measure. '\n\n\"It was taken long ago,\" Fear said. \"The Letherii will seek to do to us as they have done to the Nerek and the Tarthenal. Most among them see no error or moral flaw in their past deeds. Those who do are unable or unwilling to question the methods, only the execution, and so they are doomed to repeat the horrors, and seethe result– no matter its nature– as yet one more test of firmly held principles. And even should the blood run in a river around them, they will obsess on the details. One cannot challenge the fundamental beliefs of such people, for they will not hear you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then there will be war,\" Trull whispered.\n\n\"There is always war, brother,\" Fear replied. \"Faiths, words and swords: history resounds with their interminable clash.\"\n\n\"That, and the breaking of bones,\" Rhulad said, with the smile of a man with a secret.\n\nFoolish conceit, for Tomad could not miss it and he leaned forward. \"Rhulad Sengar, you speak like a blind elder with a sack full of wraiths. I am tempted to drag you across this table and choke the gloat from your face.\"\n\nTrull felt sweat prickle beneath his clothes. He saw the blood leave his brother's face. Oh, Father, you deliver a wound deeper than you could ever have imagined. He glanced over at Mayen and was startled to see something avid in her eyes, a malice, a barely constrained delight.\n\n\"I am not so young, Father,\" Rhulad said in a rasp, \"nor you so old, to let such words pass-\"\n\nTomad's fist thumped the tabletop, sending cups and plates clattering.\"Then speak like a man, Rhulad! Tell us all this dread knowledge that coils your every strut and has for the past week! Or do you seek to part tender thighs with your womanish ways? Do you imagine you are the first young warrior who seeks to walk instep with women? Sympathy, son, is a poor path to lust-'\n\nRhulad was on his feet, his face twisting with rage. \"And which bitch would you have me bed, Father? To whom am I promised? And in whose name? You have leashed me herein this village and then you mock when I strain.\" He glared at the others, fixing at last on Trull. \"When the war begins, Hannan Mosag will announce a sacrifice. He must. A throat will be opened to spill down the bow of the lead ship. He will choose me, won't he? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Rhulad,\" Trull said, \"I have heard no such thing-\"\n\n\"He will! I am to bed three daughters! Sheltatha Lore, Sukul Ankhadu and Menandore!\"\n\nA plate skittered out from the hands of a slave and cracked onto the tabletop, spilling the shellfish it held. As the slave reached forward to contain the accident, Uruth's hands snapped out and grasped the Letherii by the wrists. A savage twist to reveal the palms.\n\nThe skin had been torn from them, raw, red, glittering wet and cracked.\n\n\"What is this, Udinaas?\" Uruth demanded. She rose and yanked him close.\n\n\"I fell-\" the Letherii gasped.\n\n\"To weep your wounds onto our food? Have you lost your mind?\"\n\n\"Mistress!\" another slave ventured, edging forward. \"I saw him come in earlier– he bore no such wounds then, I swear it!\"\n\n\"He is the one who fought the Wyval!\" another cried, backing away in sudden terror.\n\n\"Udinaas is possessed!\" the other slave shrieked.\n\n\"Quiet!\" Uruth set a hand against Udinaas's forehead and pushed back hard. He grunted in pain.\n\nSorcery swirled out to surround the slave. He spasmed, then went limp, collapsing at Uruth's feet.\n\n\"There is nothing within him,\" she said, withdrawing a trembling hand.\n\nMayen spoke. \"Feather Witch, attend to Uruth's slave. '\n\nThe young Letherii woman darted forward. Another slave appeared to help her drag the unconscious man away.\n\n\"I saw no insult in the slave's actions, \"Mayen continued.\"The wounds were indeed raw, but he held cloth against them. ' She reached out and lifted the plate to reveal the bleached linen that Udinaas had used to cover his hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Uruth grunted and slowly sat. \"None the less, he should have informed me. And for that oversight he must be punished.\"\n\n\"You just raped his mind,\" Mayen replied. \"Is that not sufficient?\"\n\nSilence.\n\nDaughters take us, the coming year should prove interesting. One year, as demanded by tradition, and then Fear and Mayen would take up residence in a house of their own.\n\nUruth simply glared at the younger woman, then, to Trull's surprise, she nodded.\"Very well, Mayen. You are guest this night, and so I will abide by your wishes. '\n\nThrough all of this Rhulad had remained standing, but now he slowly sat once more.\n\nTomad said, \"Rhulad, I know of no plans to resurrect the ancient blood sacrifice to announce a war. Hannan Mosag is not careless with the lives of his warriors, even those as yet unblooded. I cannot fathom how you came to believe such a fate awaited you. Perhaps,\" he added, \"this journey you are about to undertake will provide you with the opportunity to become a blooded warrior, and so stand with pride alongside your brothers. So I shall pray.\"\n\nIt was a clear overture, this wish for glory, and Rhulad displayed uncharacteristic wisdom in accepting it with a simple nod.\n\nNeither Feather Witch nor Udinaas returned, but the remaining slaves proved sufficient in serving the rest of the meal.\n\nAnd for all this, Trull still could not claim any understanding of Mayen, Fear's betrothed.\n\nA stinging slap and he opened his eyes.\n\nTo see Feather Witch's face hovering above his own, a face filled with rage.\"You damned fool! ' she hissed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Blinking, Udinaas looked around. They were huddled in his sleeping niche. Beyond the cloth hanging, the low sounds of eating and soft conversation.\n\nUdinaas smiled.\n\nFeather Witch scowled. \"She-\"\n\n\"I know,\" he cut in. \"And she found nothing.\"\n\nHe watched her beautiful eyes widen. \"It is true, then?\"\n\n\"It must be.\"\n\n\"You are lying, Udinaas. The Wyval hid. Somehow, somewhere, it hid itself from Uruth.\"\n\n\"Why are you so certain of that, Feather Witch?\"\n\nShe sat back suddenly. \"It doesn't matter-'\n\n\"You have had dreams, haven't you? '\n\nShe started, then looked away. \"You area Debtor's son. You are nothing tome. '\n\n\"And you are everything tome, Feather Witch.\"\n\n\"Don't bean idiot, Udinaas! I might as well wed a hold rat! Now, be quiet, I need to think. '\n\nHe slowly sat up, drawing their faces close once again. \"There is no need,\" he said. \"I trust you, and so I will explain. She looked deep indeed, but the Wyval was gone. It would have been different, had Uruth sought out my shadow.\"\n\nShe blinked in sudden comprehension, then: \"That cannot be,\" she said, shaking her head. \"You are Letherii. The wraiths serve only the Edur-\"\n\n\"The wraiths bend a knee because they must. They areas much slaves to the Edur as we are, Feather Witch. I have found anally...\"\n\n\"To what end, Udinaas?\"\n\nHe smiled again, and this time it was a much darker smile. \"Something I well understand. The repaying of debts, Feather Witch. In full.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We are seized in the age of our youth dragged over this road's stones spent and burdened by your desires. And unshod hoofs clatter beneath bones to remind us of every fateful charge upon the hills you have sown with frozen seeds in this dead earth. Swallowing ground and grinding bit we climb into the sky so alone in our fretted ways a heaving of limbs and the iron stars burst from your heels baffling urgency warning us of your savage bite.\n\nDestriers (Sons to Fathers) Fisher kel Tath" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Errant bends fate, As unseen armour Lifting to blunt the blade On afield sudden With battle, and the crowd Jostles blind their eyes gouged out By the strait of these affairs Where dark fools dance on tiles And chance rides a spear With red bronze To spit worlds like skulls One upon the other Until the seas pour down To thicken metal-clad hands So this then is the Errant Who guides every fate Unerring Upon the breast of men.\n\nThe Casting of Tiles Ceda Ankaran Qan (1059 Burn's Sleep)\n\nThe Tarancede tower rose from the south side of Trate's harbour. Hewn from raw basalt it was devoid of elegance or beauty, reaching like a gnarled arm seven storeys from an artificial island of jagged rocks. Waves hammered it from all sides, flinging spume into the air. There were no windows, no doors, yet a series of glossy obsidian plates ringed the uppermost level, each one as tall as a man and almost as wide.\n\nNine similar towers rose above the borderlands, but the Tarancede was the only one to stand above the harsh seas of the north.\n\nThe sun's light was a lurid glare against the obsidian plates, high above a harbour already swallowed by the day's end. A dozen fisherboats rode the choppy waters beyond the bay, plying the shelf of shallows to the south. They were well out of the sea-lanes and probably heedless of the three ships that appeared to the north, their full-bellied sails as they drove on down towards the harbour, the air around them crowded with squalling gulls.\n\nThey drew closer, and a ship's pilot scow set out from the main pier to meet them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The three harvest ships were reflected in the tower's obsidian plates, sliding in strange ripples from one to the next, the gulls smudged white streaks around them.\n\nThe scow's oars suddenly backed wildly, twisting the craft away.\n\nShapes swarmed across the rigging of the lead ship. The steady wind that had borne the sails fell, sudden as a drawn breath, and canvas billowed down. The figures flitting above the deck, only vaguely human-shaped, seemed to drift away, like black banners, across the deepening gloom. The gulls spun from their paths with shrill cries.\n\nFrom the scow an alarm bell began clanging. Not steady. Discordant, a cacophony of panic.\n\nNo sailor who had lived or would ever live discounted the sea's hungry depths. Ancient spirits rode the currents of darkness far from the sun's light, stirring silts that swallowed history beneath endless layers of indifferent silence. Their powers were immense, their appetites insatiable. All that came down from the lit world above settled into their embrace.\n\nThe surface of the seas, every sailor knew, was ephemeral. Quaint sketchings across an ever-changing slate, and lives were but sparks, so easily quenched by the demon forces that could rise from far below to shake their beast hides and soup-end the world.\n\nPropitiation was aversion, a prayer to pass unnoticed, to escape untaken. Blood before the bow, dolphins dancing to starboard and a gob of spit to ride blessed winds. The left hand scrubs, the right hand dries. Wind widdershins on the cleats, sun-bleached rags tied to the sea-anchor's chain. A score of gestures, unquestioned and bound in tradition, all to slide the seas in peace." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "None sought to call up the ravelled spirits from those water-crushed valleys that saw no light. They were not things to be bound, after all. Nor bargained with. Their hearts beat in the cycles of the moon, their voice was the heaving storm and their wings could spread from horizon to horizon, in towering white-veined sheets of water that swept all before them.\n\nBeneath the waves of Trate Harbour, with three dead ships like fins on its back, the bound spirit clambered in a surge of cold currents towards shore. The last spears of sunlight slanted through its swirling flesh, and the easing of massive pressures made the creature grow in size, pushing onto the rocky coastlines ahead and to the sides the bay's own warmer waters, so that the fish and crustaceans of the shallows tumbled up from the waves in mangled shreds of flesh and shattered shell, granting the gulls and land crabs a sudden feast of slaughter.\n\nThe spirit lifted the ships, careering wild now, on a single wave that rose high as it swelled shoreward. The docks, which had a few moments earlier been crowded with silent onlookers, became a swarm of fleeing figures, the streets leading inland filling with stampedes that slowed to choking, crushing masses of humanity.\n\nThe wave tumbled closer, then suddenly fell away. Hulls thundered at the swift plunge, spars snapped and, on the third ship, the mainmast exploded in a cloud of splintered wood. Rocking, trailing wreckage, the harvesters coasted between the piers.\n\nPressures drawing inward, building once more, the spirit withdrew from the bay. In its wake, devastation.\n\nGlimmering in its obsidian world, the first ship crunched and slid against a pier, and came to a gentle rest. The white flecks of the gulls plunged down to the deck, to begin at long last their feeding. The Tarancede Tower had witnessed all, the smooth tiles near its pinnacle absorbing every flickering detail of the event, despite the failing light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And, in a chamber beneath the old palace in the city of Letheras, far to the southeast, Ceda Kuru Qan watched. Before him lay a tile that matched those of the distant tower above Trate's harbour, and, as he stared at the enormous black shadow that had filled the bay and most of the inlet, and was now beginning its slow withdrawal, the sorceror blinked sweat from his eyes and forced his gaze back to those three harvest ships now lolling against the piers.\n\nThe gulls and the gathering darkness made it difficult to see much, barring the twisted corpses huddled on the deck, and the last few flickering wraiths.\n\nBut Kuru Qan had seen enough.\n\nFive wings to the Eternal Domicile, of which only three were complete. Each of the latter consisted of wide hallways with arched ceilings sheathed in gold-leaf. Between elaborate flying buttresses to either side and running the entire length were doorways leading to chambers that would serve as offices and domiciles of the Royal Household's administrative and maintenance staff. Towards the centre the adjoining rooms would house guards, armouries and trapdoors leading to private passages– beneath ground level– that encircled the entire palace that was the heart of the Eternal Domicile.\n\nAt the moment, however, those passages were chest-deep in muddy water, through which rats moved with no particular purpose barring that of, possibly, pleasure. Brys Beddict stood on a landing three steps from the silt-laden flood and watched the up-thrust heads swimming back and forth in the gloom. Beside him stood a palace engineer covered in drying mud.\n\n\"The pumps are next to useless,\" the man was saying. \"We went with big hoses, we went with small ones, made no difference. Once the pull got strong enough in went a rat, or ten, plugging things up. Besides, the seep's as steady as ever. Though the Plumbs still swear we're above the table here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sure the Ceda will consent to attaching a mage to your crew. '\n\n\"I'd appreciate it, Finadd. All we need is to hold the flow back fora time, so's we can bucket the water out and the catchers can go down and collect the rats. We lost Ormly last night, the palace's best catcher. Likely drowned– the fool couldn't swim. If the Errant's looking away, we might be spared finding much more than bones. Rats know when it's a catcher they've found, you know. '\n\n\"These tunnels are essential to maintaining the security of the king-\"\n\n\"Well, ain't nobody likely to try using them if they're flooded-\"\n\n\"Not as a means of ingress for assassins,\" Brys cut in. \"They are to permit the swift passage of guards to any area above that is breached.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes. I was only making a joke, Finadd. Of course, you could choose fast swimmers among your guards... all right, never mind. Get us a mage to sniff round and tell us what's going on and then to stop the water coming in and we'll take care of the rest.\"\n\n\"Presumably,\" Brys said, \"this is not indicative of subsidence-\"\n\n\"Like the other wings? No, nothing's slumped– we'd be able to tell. Anyway, there's rumours that those ones are going to get afresh look at. Anew construction company has been working down there, nearby. Some fool bought up the surrounding land. There's whispers they've figured out how to shore up buildings. '\n\n\"Really? I've heard nothing about it. '\n\n\"The guilds aren't happy about it, that's for sure, since these upstarts are hiring the Unwelcomes– those malcontents who made the List. Paying'em less than the usual rate, though, which is the only thing going for them, I suppose. The guilds can't close them down so long as they do that.\" The engineer shrugged, began prying pieces of hardened clay from his forearms, wincing at the pulled hairs. \"Of course, if the royal architects decide that Bugg's shoring works, then that company's roll is going sky-high.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Brys slowly turned from his study of the rats and eyed the engineer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bugg?\"\n\n\"Damn, I need a bath. Look at my nails. Yeah, Bugg's Construction. There must be a Bugg, then, right? Else why name it Bugg's Construction?\"\n\nA shout from a crewman down on the lowest step, then a scream. Wild scrambling up to the landing, where the worker spun round and pointed.\n\nAmass of rats, almost as wide as the passageway itself, had edged into view. Moving like a raft, it crept into the pool of lantern light towards the stairs. In its centre– the revelation eliciting yet another scream from the worker and a curse from the engineer– floated a human head. Yellow-tinted silver hair, a pallid, deeply lined face with a forehead high and broad above staring, narrow-set eyes.\n\nOther rats raced away as the raft slipped to nudge against the lowest step.\n\nThe worker gasped, \"Errant take us, it's Ormly! '\n\nThe eyes flickered, then the head was rising, lifting the nearest rats in the raft with it, humped over shoulders, streaming glimmering water. \"Who in the Hold else would it be?\" the apparition snapped, pausing to hawk up a mouthful of phlegm and spitting it into the swirling water. \"Like my trophies?\" he asked, raising his arms beneath the vast cape of rats. \"Strings and tails. Damned heavy when wet, though.\"\n\n\"We thought you were dead,\" the engineer muttered, in atone suggesting that he would rather it were true.\n\n\"You thought. You're always thinking, ain't ya, Grum? Maybe this, probably that, could be, might be, should be– hah! Think these rats scared me? Think I was just going to drown? Hold's welcoming pit, I'm a catcher and not any old catcher. They know me, all right. Every rat in this damned city knows Ormly the Catcher! Who's this? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Finadd Brys Beddict.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The King's Champion introduced himself.\"That is an impressive collection of trophies you've amassed there, Catcher.\"\n\nThe man's eyes brightened.\"Isn't it just! Better when it's floating, though. Right now, damned heavy. Damned heavy. '\n\n\"Best climb out from under it,\" Brys suggested. \"Engineer Grum, I think a fine meal, plenty of wine and a night off is due Ormly the Catcher.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"I will speak with the Ceda regarding your request.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\"\n\nBrys left them on the landing. It seemed increasingly unlikely that the Eternal Domicile would be ready for the birth of the Eighth Age. Among the populace, there seemed to be less than faint enthusiasm for the coming celebration. The histories might well recount prophecies about the glorious empire destined to rise once more in less than a year from now, but in truth, there was little in this particular time that supported the notion of a renaissance, neither economically nor militarily. If anything, there was a slight uneasiness, centred on the impending treaty gathering with the tribes of the Tiste Edur. Risk and opportunity; the two were synonymous for the Letherii. Even so, war was never pleasant, although thus far always satisfactory in its conclusion. Thus risk led to opportunity, with few thoughts spared for the defeated.\n\nGranted, the Edur tribes were now united. At the same time, other such alliances had formed in opposition to Letherii ambitions in the past, and not one had proved immune to divisive strategies. Gold bought betrayal again and again. Alliances crumbled and the enemy collapsed. What likelihood that it would be any different this time round?\n\nBrys wondered at the implicit complacency of his own people. He was not, he was certain, misreading public sentiment. Nerves were on edge, but only slightly. Markets remained strong. And the day-in, day-out mindless yearnings of a people for whom possession was everything continued unabated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Within the palace, however, emotions were more fraught. The Ceda's divinations promised a fundamental alteration awaiting Lether. Kuru Qan spoke, in a meandering, bemused way, of some sort of Ascension. A transformation... from king to emperor, although how such a progression would manifest itself remained to be seen. The annexation of the Tiste Edur and their rich homelands would indeed initiate a renewed vigour, a frenzy of profit. Victory would carry its own affirmation of the righteousness of Lether and its ways.\n\nBrys emerged from the Second Wing and made his way down towards Narrow Canal. It was late morning, almost noon. Earlier that day, he had exercised and sparred with the other off-duty palace guards in the compound backing the barracks, then had breakfasted at a courtyard restaurant alongside Quillas Canal, thankful for this brief time of solitude, although his separation from the palace– permitted only because the king was visiting the chambers of the First Concubine and would not emerge until mid-afternoon– was an invisible tether that gradually tightened, until he felt compelled to resume his duties by visiting the Eternal Domicile and checking on progress there. And then back to the old palace.\n\nTo find it, upon passing through the main gate and striding into the Grand Hall, in an uproar.\n\nHeart thudding hard in his chest, Brys approached the nearest guard. \"Corporal, what has happened?\"\n\nThe soldier saluted. \"Not sure, Finadd. News from Trate, I gather. The Edur have slaughtered some Letherii sailors. With foulest sorcery.\"\n\n\"The king?\"\n\n\"Has called a council in two bells\" time. '\n\n\"Thank you, Corporal.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Collaborate with the author and advance the plot.\nTags: epic fantasy, new characters, commerce, betrayal, cultural clash\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Midnight Tides\nChapter: 11" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Within the palace, however, emotions were more fraught. The Ceda's divinations promised a fundamental alteration awaiting Lether. Kuru Qan spoke, in a meandering, bemused way, of some sort of Ascension. A transformation... from king to emperor, although how such a progression would manifest itself remained to be seen. The annexation of the Tiste Edur and their rich homelands would indeed initiate a renewed vigour, a frenzy of profit. Victory would carry its own affirmation of the righteousness of Lether and its ways.\n\nBrys emerged from the Second Wing and made his way down towards Narrow Canal. It was late morning, almost noon. Earlier that day, he had exercised and sparred with the other off-duty palace guards in the compound backing the barracks, then had breakfasted at a courtyard restaurant alongside Quillas Canal, thankful for this brief time of solitude, although his separation from the palace– permitted only because the king was visiting the chambers of the First Concubine and would not emerge until mid-afternoon– was an invisible tether that gradually tightened, until he felt compelled to resume his duties by visiting the Eternal Domicile and checking on progress there. And then back to the old palace.\n\nTo find it, upon passing through the main gate and striding into the Grand Hall, in an uproar.\n\nHeart thudding hard in his chest, Brys approached the nearest guard. \"Corporal, what has happened?\"\n\nThe soldier saluted. \"Not sure, Finadd. News from Trate, I gather. The Edur have slaughtered some Letherii sailors. With foulest sorcery.\"\n\n\"The king?\"\n\n\"Has called a council in two bells\" time. '\n\n\"Thank you, Corporal.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Brys continued on into the palace.\n\nHe made his way into the inner chambers. Among the retainers and messengers rushing along the central corridor he saw Chancellor Triban Gnol standing with a handful of followers, a certain animation to his whispered conversation. The man's dark eyes flicked to Brys as the Champion strode past, but his lips did not cease moving. Behind the Chancellor, Brys saw, was the Queen's Consort, Turudal Brizad, leaning insouciantly against the wall, his soft, almost feminine features displaying a faint smirk.\n\nBrys had always found the man strangely disturbing, and it had nothing to do with his singular function as consort to Janall. He was a silent presence, often at meetings dealing with the most sensitive issues of state, ever watchful despite his studied indifference. And it was well known that he shared his bed with more than just the queen, although whether Janall herself knew of that was the subject of conjecture in the court. Among his lovers, it was rumoured, was Chancellor Triban Gnol.\n\nAn untidy nest, all in all.\n\nThe door to the First Eunuch's office was closed and guarded by two of Nifadas's own Rulith, eunuch bodyguards, tall men with nothing of the common body-fat one might expect to see. Heavy kohl lined their eyes and red paint broadened their mouths into a perpetual downturned grimace. Their only weapons were a brace of hooked daggers sheathed under their crossed arms, and if they wore any armour it was well disguised beneath long, crimson silk shirts and tan pantaloons. They were barefoot.\n\nBoth nodded and stepped aside to permit Brys to pass.\n\nHe tugged the braided tassel and could faintly hear the dull chime sound in the chamber beyond." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The door clicked open.\n\nNifadas was alone, standing behind his desk, the surface of which was crowded with scrolls and unfurled maps. His back was to the room, and he seemed to be staring at a wall. \"King's Champion. I have been expecting you. '\n\n\"This seemed the first in order, First Eunuch.\"\n\n\"Just so.\" He was silent fora few heartbeats, then: \"There are beliefs that constitute the official religion of a nation, but those beliefs and that religion are in truth little more than the thinnest gold hammered on far older bones. No nation is singular, or exclusive– rather, it should not be, for its own good. There is much danger in asserting for oneself a claim to purity, whether of blood or of origin. Few may acknowledge it, but Lether is far richer for its devouring minorities, provided that digestion remains eternally incomplete.\"\n\n\"Be that as it may, Finadd, I confess to you a certain ignorance. The palace isolates those trapped within it, and its roots nurture poorly. I would know of the people's private beliefs. '\n\nBrys thought fora moment, then asked, \"Can you be more specific, First Eunuch?\"\n\nNifadas still did not turn to face him. \"The seas. The denizens of the deep. Demons and old gods, Brys.\"\n\n\"The Tiste Edur call the dark waters the realm of Galain, which is said to belong to kin, for whom Darkness is home. The Tarthenal, I have heard, view the seas as a single beast with countless limbs– including those that reach inland as rivers and streams. The Nerek fear it as their netherworld, a place where drowning is eternal, a fate awaiting betrayers and murderers.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And the Letherii?\"\n\nBrys shrugged. \"Kuru Qan knows more of this than I, First Eunuch. Sailors fear but do not worship. They make sacrifices in the hopes of avoiding notice. On the seas, the arrogant suffer, whilst only the meek survive, although it's said if abasement is carried too far, the hunger below grows irritated and spiteful. Tides and currents reveal the patterns one must follow, which in part explains the host of superstitions and rituals demanded of those who would travel by sea. '\n\n\"And this... hunger below. It has no place among the Holds?\"\n\n\"Not that I know of, First Eunuch.\"\n\nNifadas finally turned, regarded Brys with half-closed eyes. \"Does that not strike you as odd, Finadd Beddict? Lether was born of colonists who came here from the First Empire. That First Empire was then destroyed, the paradise razed to lifeless desert. Yet it was the First Empire in which the Holds were first discovered. True, the Empty Hold proved a later manifestation, at least in so far as it related to ourselves. Thus, are we to imagine that yet older beliefs survived and were carried to this new land all those millennia ago? Or, conversely, does each land– and its adjoining seas– evoke an indigenous set of beliefs? If that is the case, then the argument supporting the presence of physical, undeniable gods is greatly supported.\"\n\n\"But even then,\" Brys said, \"there is no evidence that such gods are remotely concerned with mortal affairs. I do not think sailors envisage the hunger I spoke of as a god. More as a demon, I think.\"\n\n\"To answer the unanswerable, a need from which we all suffer.\" Nifadas sighed. \"Finadd, the independent seal harvesters were all slain. Three of their ships survived the return journey to Trate, crewed up to the very piers by Edur wraiths, yet carried on seas that were more than seas. A demon, such as the sailors swear upon... yet, it was something far more, or so our Ceda believes. Are you familiar with Faraed beliefs? Theirs is an oral tradition, and if the listing of generations is accurate and not mere poetic pretence, then the tradition is ancient indeed. The Faraed creation myths centre on Elder gods. Each named and aspected, a divisive pantheon of entirely unwholesome personalities. In any case, among them is the Elder Lord of the Seas, the Dweller Below. It is named Mael. Furthermore, the Faraed have singled out Mael in their oldest stories. It once walked this land, Finadd, as a physical manifestation, following the death of an Age.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"An Age? What kind of Age?\"\n\n\"Of the time before the Faraed, I think. There are... contradictions and obscurities.\"\n\n\"Ceda Kuru Qan believes the demon that carried the ships was this Mael?\"\n\n\"If it was, then Mael has suffered much degradation. Almost mindless, a turgid maelstrom of untethered emotions. But powerful none the less.\"\n\n\"Yet the Tiste Edur have chained it?\"\n\nNifadas's thin brows rose.\"Clear a path through a forest and every beast will use it. Is this control? Of a sort, perhaps. '\n\n\"Hannan Mosag sought to make a statement.\"\n\n\"Indeed, Finadd, and so he has. Yetis it a true statement or deceptive bravado?\"\n\nBrys shook his head. He had no answer to offer.\n\nNifadas swung away once more. \"The king has deemed this of sufficient import. The Ceda even now prepares the... means. None the less, you deserve the right to be asked rather than commanded.\"\n\n\"What is it I am asked to do, First Eunuch?\"\n\nA faint shrug. \"Awaken an Elder god.\"\n\n\"There is great flux in the composite. Is this relevant? I think not.\" Ceda Kuru Qan pushed his wire-bound lenses further up the bridge of his nose and peered at Brys. \"This is a journey of the mind, King's Champion, yet the risk to you is such that you might as well travel into the netherworld in truth. If your mind is slain, there is no return. Extreme necessity, alas; the king wills that you proceed. '\n\n\"I did not imagine that there would be no danger, Ceda. Tell me, will my martial skills be applicable?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Unknown." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But you are young, quick-witted and resilient.\" He turned away and scanned the cluttered worktop behind him. \"Great flux, alas. Leaving but one choice.\" He reached out and picked up a goblet. A pause, a dubious squint at its contents, then he took a cautious sip. \"Ah! As suspected. The flux in the composite is due entirely to curdled milk. Brys Beddict, are you ready?\"\n\nThe King's Champion shrugged.\n\nKuru Qan nodded. \"I was going to have you drink this.\"\n\n\"Curdled milk will not harm me,\" Brys said, taking the goblet from the Ceda. He quickly tossed it down, then set the silver cup on the table. \"How long?\"\n\n\"For what?\"\n\n\"Until the potion takes effect.\"\n\n\"What potion? Come with me. We shall use the Cedance for this journey.\"\n\nBrys followed the old sorceror from the chamber. At the door he cast a glance back at the goblet. The mixture had tasted of citrus and sour goat's milk; he could already feel it bubbling ominously in his stomach.\"I must now assume there was no purpose to what I just drank. '\n\n\"A repast. One of my experiments. I was hoping you'd enjoy it, but judging by your pallor it would seem that that was not the case. '\n\n\"I'm afraid you are correct. '\n\n\"Ah well, if it proves inimical you will no doubt bring it backup.\"\n\n\"That's comforting knowledge, Ceda. '\n\nThe remainder of the journey to the palace depths was mercifully uneventful. Ceda Kuru Qan led Brys into the vast chamber where waited the tiles of the Holds. \"We shall employ a tile of the Fulcra in this effort, King's Champion. Dolmen. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They walked out across the narrow causeway to the central disc. The massive tiles stretched out on all sides beneath them.\n\nThe roiling in Brys's stomach had subsided somewhat. He waited for the Ceda to speak.\n\n\"Some things are important. Others are not. Yet all would claim a mortal's attention. It falls to each of us to remain ever mindful, and thus purchase wisdom in the threading of possibilities. It is our common failing, Brys Beddict, that we are guided by our indifference to eventualities. The moment pleases, the future can await consideration.\n\n'The old histories we brought with us from the First Empire recount similar failings. Rich ports at river mouths that were abandoned after three centuries, due to silting caused by the clearing of forests and poorly conceived irrigation methods. Ports that, were you to visit their ruins now, you would find a league or more inland of the present coast. The land crawls to the sea; it was ever thus. Even so, what we humans do can greatly accelerate the process.\n\n\"Is all that relevant? Only partly, I admit. As I must perforce admit to many things, I admit to that. There are natural progressions that, when unveiled, are profoundly exemplary of the sheer vastness of antiquity. Beyond even the age of the existence of people, this world is very, very old, Brys Beddict.\" Kuru Qan gestured.\n\nBrys looked down to where he had indicated, and saw the tile of the Dolmen. The carved and painted image depicted a single, tilted monolith half-buried in lifeless clay. The sky behind it was colourless and devoid of features.\n\n\"Even seas are born only to one day die,\" Kuru Qan said. \"Yet the land clings to its memory, and all that it has endured is clawed onto its visage. Conversely, at the very depths of the deepest ocean, you will find the traces of when it stood above the waves. It is this knowledge that we shall use, Brys.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nifadas was rather vague as to my task, Ceda. I am to awaken Mael, presumably to apprise the Elder god that it is being manipulated. But I am not a worshipper, nor is there a single Letherii who would claim otherwise for him or herself– why would Mael listen tome?\"\n\n\"I have no idea, Brys. You shall have to improvise.\"\n\n\"And if this god is truly and absolutely fallen, until it is little more than a mindless beast, then what?\"\n\nKuru Qan blinked behind the lenses, and said nothing.\n\nBrys shifted uneasily. \"If my mind is all that shall make the journey, how will I appear to myself? Can I carry weapons?\"\n\n\"How you manifest your defences is entirely up to you, Finadd. Clearly, I anticipate you will find yourself as you are now. Armed and armoured. All conceit, of course, but that is not relevant. Shall we begin?\"\n\n\"Very well.\"\n\nKuru Qan stepped forward, one arm snapping out to grasp Brys by his weapons harness. A savage, surprisingly powerful tug pitched him forward, headlong over the edge of the disc. Shouting in alarm, he flailed about, then plummeted down towards the tile of the Dolmen.\n\n\"Even in the noblest of ventures, there's the occasional stumble. '\n\nBugg's eyes were flat, his lined face expressionless, as he stared steadily at Tehol without speaking.\n\n\"Besides, it's only a small failing, all things considered. As for myself, why, I am happy enough. Truly. Yours is the perfectly understandable disappointment and, dare I say it, a modest battering of confidence, that comes with an effort poorly conceived. No fault in the deed itself, I assure you. \"As proof he did a slow turn in front of his manservant.\"See? The legs are indeed of matching length. I shall remain warm, no matter how cool the nights become. Granted, we don't have cool nights. Sultry is best we can manage, I'll grant you, but what's a little sweat between... uh... the legs?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That shade of grey and that tone of yellow are the worst combination I have ever attempted, master,\" Bugg said. \"I grow nauseous just looking at you.\"\n\n\"But what has that to do with the trousers?\"\n\n\"Very little, admittedly. My concern is with principles, of course.\"\n\n\"Can't argue with that. Now, tell me of the day's doings, and hurry up, I've a midnight date with a dead woman. '\n\n\"The extent of your desperation, master, never fails to astonish me.\"\n\n\"Did our favourite money-lender commit suicide as woefully anticipated?\"\n\n\"With nary a hitch.\"\n\n\"Barring the one by which he purportedly hung himself?\"\n\n\"As you say, but that was before fire tragically swept through his premises.\"\n\n\"And any word on Finadd Gerun Eberict's reaction to all this? '\n\n\"Decidedly despondent, master.\"\n\n\"But not unduly suspicious?\"\n\n\"Who can say? His agents have made inquiries, but more directly towards a search fora hidden cache of winnings, an attempt to recoup the loss and such. No such fortune, however, has surfaced.\"\n\n\"And it had better not. Eberict needs to swallow the loss entire, not that it was in truth a loss, only a denial of increased fortune. His primary investments remain intact, after all. Now, stop blathering, Bugg. I need to do some thinking.\" Tehol hitched up his trousers, wincing at Bugg's sudden frown.\"Must be losing weight, ' he muttered, then began pacing.\n\nFour steps brought him to the roof's edge. He wheeled and faced Bugg.\"What's that you're wearing? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's the latest fashion among masons and such. '\n\n\"The Dusty Few.\"\n\n\"Exactly.\"\n\n\"A wide leather belt with plenty of loops and pouches.\"\n\nBugg nodded.\n\n\"Presumably,\" Tehol continued, \"there are supposed to be tools and assorted instruments in those loops and pouches. Things a mason might use.\"\n\n\"Well, I run the company. I don't use those things. '\n\n\"But you need the belt.\"\n\n\"If I'm to betaken seriously, master, yes. '\n\n\"Oh yes, that is important, isn't it? Duly noted in expenses, I presume? '\n\n\"Of course. That and the wooden hat.\"\n\n\"You mean one of those red bowl-shaped things?\"\n\n\"That's right. '\n\n\"So why aren't you wearing it? '\n\n\"I'm not working right now. Not as sole proprietor of Bugg's Construction, anyway.\"\n\n\"Yet you've got the belt. '\n\n\"It's comforting, master. I suppose this must be what it's like wearing a sword-belt. There's something immensely reassuring about a solid weight on the hips. '\n\n\"As if you were eternally duelling with your materials.\"\n\n\"Yes, master. Are you done with your thinking?\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\n\"Good.\" Bugg unstrapped his belt and tossed it to the rooftop. \"Makes my hips lopsided. I walk in circles.\"\n\n\"How about some herbal tea?\"\n\n\"I'd love some. '\n\n\"Excellent.\"\n\nThey stared atone another fora moment longer, then Bugg nodded and made his way to the ladder. As soon as his back was turned, Tehol tugged the trousers higher once more. Glancing down at the belt, he hesitated, then shook his head. That would be a presumption." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bugg climbed down and out of sight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tehol strode to his bed and settled down on the creaking frame. He stared up at the murky stars. A holiday festival was approaching, this one dedicated to the Errant, that eternally mysterious purveyor of chance, fateful circumstance and ill-chosen impulses. Or some such thing. Tehol was never certain. The Holds and their multitude of denizens were invented as dependable sources of blame for virtually anything, or so he suspected. Evading responsibility was a proclivity of the human species, it seemed.\n\nThere would be vast senseless celebration, in any case. Of something, perhaps nothing, and certainly involving everything. Frenzied wagers at the Special Drownings, in which the most notorious criminals would try to swim like swans. People who liked to be seen would make a point of being seen. Spectacle was an investment in worthy indolence, and indolence bespoke wealth. And meanwhile, housebound guards in empty estates would mutter and doze at their posts.\n\nA scuffing sound from the gloom to his right. Tehol glanced over. \"You're early. '\n\nShurq Elalle stepped closer. \"You said midnight.\"\n\n\"Which is at least two bells from now.\"\n\n\"Is it? Oh.\"\n\nTehol sat up. \"Well, you're here. No point in sending you away. Even so, we're not to visit Selush until a chime past midnight.\"\n\n\"We could go early.\"\n\n\"We could, although I'd rather not alarm her. She indicated she'd need lots of supplies, after all.\"\n\n\"What makes me worse than any other corpse?\"\n\n\"Other corpses don't fightback, for one thing. '\n\nThe undead woman came closer. \"Why would I feel compelled to resist? Is she not simply making me pretty?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Of course." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was just making conversation. And how have you been, Shurq Elalle?\"\n\n\"The same.\"\n\n\"The same. Which is?\"\n\n\"I've been better. Still, many would call consistency a virtue. Those are extraordinary trousers. '\n\n\"I agree. Not to everyone's taste, alas-'\n\n\"I have no taste.\"\n\n\"Ah. And is that a consequence of being dead, or a more generic self-admission?\"\n\nThe flat, lifeless eyes, which had until now been evading direct contact, fixed on Tehol. \"I was thinking... the night of Errant's Festival. '\n\nTehol smiled. \"You anticipate me, Shurq.\"\n\n\"There are sixteen guards on duty at all times, with an additional eight sleeping or gambling in the barracks, which is attached to the estate's main house via a single covered walkway that is nineteen strides in length. All outer doors are double-barred. There are four guards stationed in cubbies at each corner of the roof, and wards skeined over every window. The estate walls are twice the height of a man. '\n\n\"Sounds formidable.\"\n\nShurq Elalle's shrug elicited a wet-leather sound, though whether from her clothes or from somewhere else could not be determined.\n\nBugg reappeared, climbing one-handed, the other balancing a tray made from a crate lid. Two clay cups were on the tray, their contents steaming. He slowly edged onto the roof, then, glancing up and seeing the two of them, he halted in consternation. \"My apologies. Shurq Elalle, greetings. Would you care for some tea?\"\n\n\"Don't be absurd. '\n\n\"Ah, yes. Thoughtless of me. Your pardon.\" Bugg walked over with the tray." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tehol collected his cup and cautiously sniffed. Then he frowned at his manservant.\n\nWho shrugged. \"We don't have no herbs, master. I had to improvise. '\n\n\"With what? Sheep hide?\"\n\nBugg's brows rose.\"Very close indeed. I had some leftover wool. '\n\n\"The yellow or the grey?\"\n\n\"The grey.\"\n\n\"Well, that's all right, then. \"He sipped.\"Smooth. '\n\n\"Yes, it would be.\"\n\n\"We're not poisoning ourselves, are we? '\n\n\"Only mildly, master.\"\n\n\"There are times,\" Shurq Elalle said, \"when I regret being dead. This is not one of those times, however.\"\n\nThe two men eyed her speculatively, sipping at their tea.\n\n\"Ideally,\" she continued, \"I would now clear my throat to cover this moment of awkwardness. But I am incapable of feeling anymore awkward than is my normal state. Secondly, clearing my throat has unpleasant consequences.\"\n\n\"Ah, but Selush has devised a pump,\" Tehol said. \"The operation will be, uh, not for the delicate. Even so, soon you shall exude the perfume of roses.\"\n\n\"And how will she manage that?\"\n\n\"With roses, I imagine.\"\n\nShurq raised a thin brow. \"I am to be stuffed with dried flowers?\"\n\n\"Well, not everywhere, of course.\"\n\n\"A practical question, Tehol Beddict. How am Ito be stealthy if I crackle with every step I take?\"\n\n\"A good question. I suggest you bring that up with Selush.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Along with everything else, it would seem. Shall I resume my account of the potential victim's estate? I assume your manservant is trustworthy. '\n\n\"Exceptionally so,\" Tehol replied. \"Please continue.\"\n\n\"Finadd Gerun Eberict will be attending the Special Drownings, whereupon, at its conclusion, he will be a guest at an event hosted by Turudal Brizad-\"\n\n\"The Queen's Consort? '\n\n\"Yes. I once robbed him.\"\n\n\"Indeed! And what did you take?\"\n\n\"His virginity. We were very young– well, he was, anyway. This was long before he danced at the palace and so earned the interest of the queen.\"\n\n\"Now that's an interesting detail. Were you his truelove, if I may ask such a personal question? '\n\n\"Turudal's only love is for himself. As I said, he was younger and I the older. Of course, he's now older than me, which is a curious fact. Somewhat curious, anyway. In any case, there was no shortage of men and women pursuing him even back then. I imagine he believed the conquest was his. Perhaps he still does. The measure of the perfect theft is when the victim remains blissfully unaware that he or she has been stolen from.\"\n\n\"I'd think, \"observed Bugg,\"that Turudal Brizad did not regret his surrender. '\n\n\"None the less,\" Shurq Elalle said. She was silent, then: \"There is nothing in this world that cannot be stolen.\"\n\n\"And with that thought swirling like lanolin in our stomachs,\" Tehol said, setting his cup down, \"you and I should take a walk, Shurq.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How far to Selush's? '\n\n\"We can stretch it out. Thank you, dear Bugg, for the delightfully unique refreshment. Cleanup around here, will you?\"\n\n\"If I've the time. '\n\nShurq hesitated. \"Should I climb down the wall then shadow you unseen?\"\n\nTehol frowned. \"Only if you must. You could just draw that hood up and so achieve anonymity.\"\n\n\"Very well. I will meet you in the street, so that I am not seen exiting a house I never entered.\"\n\n\"There are still watchers spying on me?\"\n\n\"Probably not, but it pays to be cautious.\"\n\n\"Very good. I will see you in a moment, then.\"\n\nTehol descended the ladder. The single room reeked of sheep sweat, and the heat from the hearth was fierce. He quickly made his way outside, turned right instead of left and came to what had once been a sort of unofficial mews, now cluttered with refuse and discarded building materials, the fronts facing onto it sealed by bricks or doors with their latches removed.\n\nShurq Elalle emerged from the shadows, her hood drawn about her face. \"Tell me more about this Selush.\"\n\nThey began walking, threading single file down a narrow lane to reach the street beyond. \"A past associate of Bugg's. Embalmers and other dealers of the dead area kind of extended family, it seems. Constantly exchanging techniques and body parts. It's quite an art, I gather. A body's story can be unfurled from avast host of details, to be read like a scroll. '\n\n\"What value assembling a list of flaws when the subject is already dead?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Morbid curiosity, I imagine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or curious morbidity.\"\n\n\"Are you trying to be funny?\"\n\n\"Never, Shurq Elalle. I have taken to heart your warnings on that.\"\n\n\"You, Tehol Beddict, are very dangerous tome. Yet I am drawn, as if you were intellectual white nectar. I thirst for the tension created by my struggle to avoid being too amused.\"\n\n\"Well, if Selush succeeds in what she intends, the risk associated with laughter will vanish, and you may chortle fearlessly.\"\n\n\"Even when I was alive, I never chortled. Nor do I expect to do so now that I am dead. But what you suggest invites... disappointment. A releasing of said tension, a dying of the sparks. I now fear getting depressed.\"\n\n\"The risk of achieving what you wish for,\" Tehol said, nodding as they reached Trench Canal and began to walk along its foul length. \"I empathize, Shurq Elalle. It is a sore consequence to success.\"\n\n\"Tell me what you know of the old tower in the forbidden grounds behind the palace.\"\n\n\"Not much, except that your undead comrade resides in the vicinity. The girl.\"\n\n\"Yes, she does. I have named her Kettle.\"\n\n\"We cross here.\" Tehol indicated a footbridge. \"She means something to you?\"\n\n\"That is difficult to answer. Perhaps. It may prove that she means something to all of us, Tehol Beddict.\"\n\n\"Ah. And can I be of some help in this matter?\"\n\n\"Your offer surprises me.\"\n\n\"I endeavour to remain ever surprising, Shurq Elalle.\"\n\n\"I am seeking to discover her... history. It is, I think, important. The old tower appears to be haunted in someway, and that haunting is in communication with Kettle. It poses desperate need.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For what?\"\n\n\"Human flesh.\"\n\n\"Oh my.\"\n\n\"In any case, this is why Gerun Eberict is losing the spies he sets on you.\"\n\nTehol halted. \"Excuse me?\"\n\n\"Kettle kills them.\"\n\nSteeply sloped, the black wall of rock reached up into the light. The currents swept across its rippled face with unceasing ferocity, and all that clung to it to draw sustenance from that roiling stream was squat, hard-shelled and stubborn. Vast flats stretched out from the base of the trench wall, and these were scoured down to bedrock. Enormous tangled islands of detritus, crushed and bound together by unimaginable pressures, crawled across the surface, like migrating leviathans in the flow of dark water.\n\nBrys stood on the plain, watching the nearest tumbling mass roll past. He knew he was witness to sights no mortal had ever seen, where natural eyes would see only darkness, where the pressures would have long since killed corporeal flesh descending from the surface far above. Yet here he stood, to his own senses as real, as physical, as he had been in the palace. Clothed, armoured, his sword hanging at his hip. He could feel the icy water and its wild torrent in a vague, remote fashion, but the currents could not challenge his balance, could not drag him off his feet. Nor did the cold steal the strength from his limbs.\n\nHe drew breath, and the air was cool and damp– it was, he realized, the air of the subterranean chamber of the Cedance.\n\nThat recognition calmed his heart, diminished his disorientation.\n\nA god dwells in this place. It seemed well suited for such a thing. Primal, fraught with extremes, a realm of raw violence and immense, clashing forces of nature." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another mass of wreckage shambled past, and Brys saw, amidst pale, skeletal branches and what seemed to be bundles of unravelled rope, flattened pieces of metal whose edges showed extruded white tendrils. By the Errant, that metal is armour, and those tendrils are...\n\nThe detritus tumbled away. As it did, Brys saw something beyond it. Stationary, blockish, vertical shapes rearing from the plain.\n\nHe walked towards them.\n\nDolmens.\n\nThis beggared comprehension. It seemed impossible that the plain before him had once known air, sunlight and dry winds.\n\nAnd then he saw that the towering stones were of the same rock as the plain, and that they were indeed part of it, lifting as solid projections. As Brys drew nearer, he saw that their surfaces were carved, an unbroken skein of linked glyphs.\n\nSix dolmens in all, forming a row that cut diagonally from the angle of the trench wall.\n\nHe halted before the nearest one.\n\nThe glyphs formed a silver latticework over the black stone, and in the uneven surface beneath the symbols he saw the hints of a figure. Multi-limbed, the head small, sloping and squat, a massive brow ridge projecting over a single eye socket. The broad mouth appeared to be a row of elongated tendrils, the end of each sporting long, thin fangs, and it was closed to form an interlocking, spiny row. Six segmented arms, two– possibly four– legs, barely suggested in the black stone's undulations.\n\nThe glyphs shrouded the figure, and Brys suspected they formed a prison of sorts, a barrier that prevented the emergence of the creature.\n\nThe silver seemed to flow in its carved grooves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Brys circled the dolmen, and saw other shapes on every side, no two alike, a host of nightmarish, demonic beasts. After along moment's regard, he moved onto the next standing stone. And found more.\n\nThe fourth dolmen was different. On one side the glyphs had unravelled, the silver bled away, and where a figure should have been there was a suggestive indentation, a massive, hulking creature, with snaking tentacles for limbs.\n\nThe mute absence was chilling. Something was loose, and Brys did not think it was a god.\n\nMael, where are you? Are these your servants?\n\nOr your trophies?\n\nHe stared up at the indentation. The absence here was more profound than that which reared before him. His soul whispered... abandonment. Mael was gone. This world had been left to the dark, torrid currents and the herds of detritus.\n\n\"Come for another one, have you?\"\n\nBrys whirled. Ten paces away stood a huge figure sheathed in armour. Black, patinated iron studded with rivets green with verdigris. A great helm with full cheek guards vertically slatted down to the jawline, reinforced along the bridge of the nose to the chin. The thin eye slits were caged in a grille mesh that extended down beneath the guards to hang ragged and stiff on shoulders and breastplate. Barnacles crusted the joints of arms and legs, and tendrils of brightly coloured plants clinging to joins in the armour streamed in the current. Gauntlets of overlapping plates of untarnished silver held onto a two-handed sword, the blade as wide as Brys's hands were long. The sword's blunt end rested on the bedrock. From those metal-clad hands, he now saw, blood streamed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Letherii drew his own longsword." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The roiling currents suddenly tugged at him, as if whatever had held him immune to the ravages of this deep world had vanished. The blade was turned and twisted in his hand with every surge of water. To counter such a weapon as that wielded by the warrior, he would need speed, his primary tactic one of evasion. The Letherii steel of his longsword would not break clashing in hard parry, but his arms might.\n\nAnd now, the currents buffeted him, battled with the sword in his hand. He had no hope of fighting this creature.\n\nThe words the warrior had spoken were in a language unknown to Brys, yet he understood it. \"Come for another one? I am not hereto free these demons from their sorcerous cages-\"\n\nThe apparition stepped forward. \"Demons? There are no demons here. Only gods. Forgotten gods. You think the skein of words is a prison?\"\n\n\"I do not know what to think. I do not know the words written-\"\n\n\"Power is remembrance. Power is evocation– a god dies when it becomes nameless. Thus did Mael offer this gift, this sanctuary. Without their names, the gods vanish. The crime committed here is beyond measure. The obliteration of the names, the binding of anew name, the making of a slave. Beyond measure, mortal. In answer I was made, to guard those that remain. It is my task.\" The sword lifted and the warrior took another step closer.\n\nSome fighters delivered an unseen wound before weapons were even drawn. In them, raised like a penumbra, was the promise of mortality. It drew blood, weakened will and strength. Brys had faced men and women with this innate talent before. And he had answered it with... amusement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The guardian before him promised such mortality, with palpable force.\n\nAnother heavy step. A force to match the roiling waters. In sudden understanding, Brys smiled.\n\nThe vicious current ceased its maelstrom. Speed and agility returned in a rush.\n\nThe huge sword slashed horizontally. Brys leapt back, the point of his sword darting out and up in a stop-thrust against the only target within reach.\n\nLetherii steel slipped in between the silver plates of the left gauntlet, sank deep.\n\nBehind them a dolmen exploded, the concussion thundering through the bedrock underfoot. The warrior staggered, then swung his sword in a downward chop. Brys threw himself backward, rolling over one shoulder to regain his feet in a crouch.\n\nThe warrior's sword had driven into the basalt a quarter of its length. And was stuck fast.\n\nHe darted to close. Planting his left leg behind the guardian, Brys set both hands against the armoured chest and shoved.\n\nThe effort failed as the guardian held himself upright by gripping the embedded sword.\n\nBrys spun and hammered his right elbow into the iron-sheathed face. Pain exploded in his arm as the head was snapped back, and the Letherii pitched to one side, his left hand taking the longsword from his fast-numbing right.\n\nThe warrior tugged on his own sword, but it did not budge.\n\nBrys leapt forward once again, driving his left boot down onto the side of the guardian's nearest leg, low, a hand's width above the ankle.\n\nAncient iron crumpled. Bones snapped.\n\nThe warrior sank down on that side, yet remained partly upright by leaning on the jammed sword." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Brys quickly backed away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Enough. I have no desire to kill anymore gods.\"\n\nThe armoured face lifted to regard him. \"I am defeated. We have failed.\"\n\nThe Letherii studied the warrior fora long moment, then spoke. \"The blood seeping from your hands– does it belong to the surviving gods here?\"\n\n\"Diminished, now.\"\n\n\"Can they heal you?\"\n\n\"No. We have nothing left.\"\n\n\"Why does the blood leak? What happens when it runs out?\"\n\n\"It is power. It steals courage– against you it failed. It was expected that the blood of slain enemies would... it does not matter now.\"\n\n\"What of Mael? Can you receive no help from him?\"\n\n\"He has not visited in thousands of years.\"\n\nBrys frowned. Kuru Qan had said to follow his instincts. He did not like what had come to pass here. \"I would help. Thus, I would give you my own blood.\"\n\nThe warrior was silent fora longtime. Then, \"You do not know what you offer, mortal.\"\n\n\"Well, I don't mean to die. I intend to survive the ordeal. Will it suffice? '\n\n\"Blood from a dying or dead foe has power. Compared to the blood from a mortal who lives, that power is minuscule. I say again, you do not know what you offer.\"\n\n\"I have more in mind, Guardian. May I approach?\"\n\n\"We are helpless before you.\"\n\n\"Your sword isn't going anywhere, even with my help. I would give you mine. It cannot be broken, or so I am told. And indeed I have never seen Letherii steel break. Your two-handed weapon is only effective if your opponent quails and so is made slow and clumsy. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So it would seem.\"\n\nBrys was pleased at the wry tone in the warrior's voice. While there had been no self-pity in the admissions of failure, he had disliked hearing them. He reversed grip on his longsword and offered the pommel to the warrior.\"Here. '\n\n\"If I release my hands I will fall.\"\n\n\"One will do.\"\n\nThe guardian prised a hand loose and grasped the longsword. \"By the Abyss, it weighs as nothing!\"\n\n\"The forging is a secret art, known only to my people. It will not fail you.\"\n\n\"Do you treat all your defeated foes in this manner?\"\n\n\"No, only the ones I had no wish to harm in the first place.\"\n\n\"Tell me, mortal, are you considered a fine swordsman in your world?\"\n\n\"Passing.\" Brys tugged off the leather glove on his right hand, then drew his dagger. \"This arm is still mostly numb-\"\n\n\"I am pleased. Although I wish I could say the same for my face.\"\n\nBrys cut his palm, watched as blood blossomed out to whip away on the current. He set the bleeding hand down on the warrior's left, which was still closed about the grip of the embedded weapon. He felt his blood being drawn between the silver plates.\n\nThe warrior's hand twisted round to grasp his own in a grip hard as stone. A clenching of muscles, and the guardian began straightening.\n\nBrys glanced down and saw that the shattered leg was mending in painful-looking spasms, growing solid beneath the huge warrior's weight.\n\nSudden weakness rushed through him.\n\n\"Release my hand,\" the warrior said, \"lest you die.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nodding, Brys pulled his hand free, and staggered back.\n\n\"Will you live?\"\n\n\"I hope so,\" he gasped, his head spinning. \"Now, before I go, tell me their names.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I have a good memory, Guardian. There will be no more enslavement, so long as I remain alive. And beyond my life, I will ensure that those names are not forgotten-\"\n\n\"We are ancient gods, mortal. You risk-\"\n\n\"You have earned your peace, as far as I am concerned. Against the Tiste Edur– those who came before to chain one of your kin– you will be ready next time. My life can add to your strength, and hopefully it will be sufficient for you to resist.\"\n\nThe guardian straightened to its full height. \"It shall, mortal. Your sacrifice shall not be forgotten.\"\n\n\"The names! I feel– I am fading-\"\n\nWords filled his mind, a tumbling avalanche of names, each searing a brand in his memory. He screamed at the shock of the assault, of countless layers of grief, dreams, lives and deaths, of realms unimaginable, of civilizations crumbling to ruins, then dust.\n\nStories. So many stories– ah, Errant-\n\n\"Errant save us, what have you done?\"\n\nBrys found himself lying on his back, beneath him a hard, enamelled floor. He blinked open his eyes and saw Kuru Qan's wizened face hovering over him.\n\n\"I could not find Mael,\" the King's Champion said. He felt incredibly weak, barely able to lift a hand to his face.\n\n\"You've scarcely a drop of blood left in you, Finadd. Tell me all that happened. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Holds forsake me, stories without end... \"I discovered what the Tiste Edur have done, Ceda. An ancient god, stripped of its names, bound by anew one. It now serves the Edur.\"\n\nKuru Qan's eyes narrowed behind the thick lenses.\"Stripped of its names. Relevant? Perhaps. Can one of those names be found? Will it serve to pry it loose from Hannan Mosag's grasp?\"\n\nBrys closed his eyes. Of all the names now held within him... had any of the other gods known its kin's identity?\"I may have it, Ceda, but finding it will take time. '\n\n\"You return with secrets, Finadd Brys Beddict.\"\n\n\"And barely a handful of answers.\"\n\nThe Ceda leaned back. \"You need time to recover, my young friend. Food, and wine, and plenty of both. Can you stand?\"\n\n\"I will try...\"\n\nThe humble manservant Bugg walked through the darkness of Sherp's Last Lane, so named because poor Sherp died there a few decades past. He had been a fixture in this neighbourhood, Bugg recalled. Old, half blind and muttering endlessly about a mysterious cracked altar long lost in the clay beneath the streets. Or, more specifically, beneath this particular lane.\n\nHis body had been found curled up within a scratched circle, amidst rubbish and a half-dozen neck-wrung rats. Peculiar as that had been, there were few who cared or were curious enough to seek explanations. People died in the alleys and streets all the time, after all.\n\nBugg missed old Sherp, even after all these years, but somethings could not be undone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had been awakened by a rattling of the reed mat that now served as a door to Tehol's modest residence. A dirt-smeared child delivering an urgent summons. She now scampered a few paces ahead, glancing back every now and then to make sure she was still being followed.\n\nAt the end of Sherp's Last Lane was another alley, this one running perpendicular, to the left leading down to a sinkhole known as Errant's Heel which had become a refuse pit, and to the right ceasing after fifteen paces in a ruined house with a mostly collapsed roof.\n\nThe child led Bugg to that ruin.\n\nOne section remained with sufficient headroom to stand, and in this chamber a family now resided. Nerek: six children and a grandmother who'd wandered down from the north after the children's parents died of Truce Fever– which itself was a senseless injustice, since Truce Fever was easily cured by any Letherii healer, given sufficient coin.\n\nBugg did not know them, but he knew of them, and clearly they in turn had heard of the services he was prepared to offer, in certain circumstances, free of charge.\n\nA tiny hand reached out to close about his own and the girl led him through the doorway into a corridor where he was forced to crouch beneath the sagging, sloping ceiling. Three paces along and the lower half of another doorway was revealed and, beyond it, a crowded room.\n\nSmelling of death.\n\nMurmured greetings and bowed heads as Bugg entered, his eyes settling on the motionless form lying on a bloody blanket in the room's centre. After a moment's study, he glanced up and sought out the gaze of the eldest of the children, a girl of about tenor eleven years of age– though possibly older and stunted by malnutrition, or younger and prematurely aged by the same. Large, hard eyes met his." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where did you find her?\"\n\n\"She made it home,\" the girl replied, her tone wooden.\n\nBugg looked down at the dead grandmother once more. \"From how faraway?\"\n\n\"Buried Round, she said.\"\n\n\"She spoke, then, before life left her.\" Bugg's jaw muscles bunched. Buried Round was two, three hundred paces distant. An extraordinary will, in the old woman, to have walked all that distance with two mortal sword-thrusts in her chest.\"She knew great need, I think. '\n\n\"To tell us who killed her, yes.\"\n\nAnd not to simply disappear, as so many of the destitute do, thus raising the spectre of abandonment– a scar these children could do without.\n\n\"Who, then?\"\n\n\"She was crossing the Round, and found herself in the path of an entourage. Seven men and their master, all armed. The master was raging, something about all his spies disappearing. Our grandmother begged for coin. The master lost his mind with anger and ordered his guards to kill her. And so they did.\"\n\n\"And is the identity of this master known?\"\n\n\"You will find his face on newly minted docks.\"\n\nAh.\n\nBugg knelt beside the old woman. He laid a hand on her cold, lined forehead, and sought the remnants of her life. \"Urusan of the Clan known as the Owl. Her strength was born of love. For her grandchildren. She is gone, but she has not gone far.\" He raised his head and met the eyes of each of the six children. \"I hear the shifting of vast stones, the grinding surrender of along closed portal. There is cold clay, but it did not embrace her.\" He drew a deep breath. \"I will prepare this flesh for Nerek interment-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We would have your blessing,\" the girl said.\n\nBugg's brows lifted.\"Mine? I am not Nerek, nor even a priest-'\n\n\"We would have your blessing.\"\n\nThe manservant hesitated, then sighed. \"As you will. But tell me, how will you live now?\"\n\nAs if in answer there was a commotion at the doorway, then a huge figure lumbered into the small room, seeming to fill it entirely. He was young, his size and features evincing Tarthenal and Nerek blood both. Small eyes fixed upon Urusan's corpse, and the whole face darkened.\n\n\"And who is this?\" Bugg asked. A shifting of vast stones– now this... this shoving aside of entire mountains. What begins here?\n\n\"Our cousin,\" the girl said, her eyes wide and adoring and full of pleading as she looked up at the young man. \"He works on the harbour front. Unn is his name. Unn, this is the man known as Bugg. A dresser of the dead.\"\n\nUnn's voice was so low-pitched it could barely be heard.\"Who did this? '\n\nOh, Finadd Gerun Eberict, to your senseless feast of blood you shall have an uninvited guest, and something tells me you will come to regret it.\n\nSelush of the Stinking House was tall and amply proportioned, yet her most notable feature washer hair. Twenty-seven short braids of the thick black hair, projecting in all directions, each wrapped round an antler tine, which meant that the braids curved and twisted in peculiar fashion. She was somewhere between thirty-five and fifty years of age, the obscurity the product of her formidable talent as a disguiser of flaws. Violet eyes, produced by an unusual ink collected from segmented worms that lived deep in the sand of the south island beaches, and lips kept full and red by a mildly toxic snake venom that she painted on every morning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As she stood before Tehol and Shurq Elalle at the threshold of her modest and unfortunately named abode, she was dressed in skin-tight silks, inviting Tehol against his own sense of decorum to examine her nipples beneath the gilt sheen– and so it was along moment before he looked up to seethe alarm in her eyes.\n\n\"You're early! I wasn't expecting you. Oh! Now I'm all nervous. Really, Tehol, you should know better than to do the unexpected! Is this the dead woman? '\n\n\"If not,\" Shurq Elalle replied, \"then I'm in even deeper trouble, wouldn't you say?\"\n\nSelush stepped closer. \"This is the worst embalming I've ever seen. '\n\n\"I wasn't embalmed. '\n\n\"Oh! An outrage! How did you die?\"\n\nShurq raised a lifeless brow. \"I am curious. How often is that question answered by your clients?\"\n\nSelush blinked. \"Enter, if you must. So early!\"\n\n\"My dear,\" Tehol said reasonably, \"it's less than a couple of hundred heartbeats from the midnight bell. '\n\n\"Precisely! See how flustered you've made me? Quickly, inside, I must close the door. There! Oh, the dark streets are so frightening. Now, sweetie, let me look more closely at you. My servant was unusually reticent, I'm afraid.\" She abruptly leaned close until her nose was almost touching Shurq's lips.\n\nTehol flinched, but luckily neither woman noticed.\n\n\"You drowned.\"\n\n\"Really.\"\n\n\"In Quillas Canal. Just downstream of Windlow's Meatgrinders on the last day of a summer month. Which one? Wanderer's Month? Watcher's? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Betrayer's." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'\n\n\"Oh! Windlow must have had unusually good business that month, then. Tell me, do people scream when they see you?\"\n\n\"Sometimes.\"\n\n\"Me too.\"\n\n\"Do you,\" Shurq asked, \"get compliments on your hair?\"\n\n\"Never.\"\n\n\"Well, that was pleasing small-talk,\" Tehol said hastily. \"We haven't got all night, alas-'\n\n\"Why, yes we have, you silly man,\" Selush said.\n\n\"Oh, right. Sorry. In any case. Shurq was a victim of the Drownings, and, it turned out, an abiding curse.\"\n\n\"Isn't it always the way? ' Selush sighed, turning to walk to the long table along the back wall of the room.\n\n\"Tehol mentioned roses,\" Shurq said, following.\n\n\"Roses? Dear me, no. Cinnamon and patchouli, I would think. But first, we need to do something about all that mould, and the moss in your nostrils. And then there's the ootooloo-'\n\n\"The what?\" Shurq and Tehol asked in unison.\n\n\"Lives in hot springs in the Bluerose Mountains.\" She swung about and regarded Shurq with raised brows. \"A secret among women. I'm surprised you've never heard of them.\"\n\n\"It would seem my education is lacking.\"\n\n\"Well, an ootooloo is a small soft-bodied creature that feeds through a crevice, a sort of vertical slit fora mouth. Its skin is covered in cilia with the unusual quality of transmitting sensation. These cilia can take root in membranous flesh-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hold on a moment,\" Tehol said, aghast, \"you're not suggesting-'\n\n\"Most men can't tell the difference, but it enhances pleasure many times... or so I am led to believe. I have never invited one inside, since the emplacement of an ootooloo is permanent, and it needs, uhm, constant feeding. '\n\n\"How often?\" Shurq demanded, and Tehol heard suitable alarm in her tone.\n\n\"Daily.\"\n\n\"But Shurq's nerves are dead– how can she feel what this ottoolie thing feels? '\n\n\"Not dead, Tehol Beddict, simply unawakened. Besides, before too long, the ootooloo's cilia will have permeated her entire body, and the healthier the organism the brighter and more vigorous her glowing flesh! '\n\n\"I see. And what of my brain? Will these roots grow in it as well?\"\n\n\"Well, we can't have that, can we, lest you live out the remainder of existence drooling in a hot bath. No, we shall infuse your brain with a poison– well, not a true poison, but the exudation of a small creature that shares those hot springs with the ootooloo. Said exudation is unpalatable to the ootooloo. Isn't nature wonderful?\"\n\nGrainy-eyed, Bugg staggered inside his master's home. It was less than an hour before dawn. He felt drained, more by the blessing he had given than by preparing the old woman's corpse for burial. Two strides into the single room and he halted.\n\nSeated on the floor and leaning against the wall opposite was Shand. \"Where is the bastard, Bugg?\"\n\n\"Working, although I imagine you are sceptical. I've not slept this night and so am unequal to conversation, Shand-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And I care?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What kind of work? What's he doing that has to be done when the rest of the world's asleep?\"\n\n\"Shand, I-\"\n\n\"Answer me!\"\n\nBugg walked over to the pot sitting on a grille above the now cool hearth. He dipped a cup into the tepid, stewed tea. \"Twelve lines of investment, like unseen streams beneath foundations, eating away but yet to reveal a tremor. There are essential trusses to every economy, Shand, upon which all else rests.\"\n\n\"You can't do business in the middle of the night. '\n\n\"Not that kind of business, no. But there are dangers to all this, Shand. Threats. And they need to be met. Anyway, what are you doing out at night without your bodyguard?\"\n\n\"Ublala? That oaf? In Rissarh's bed. Or Hejun's. Not mine, not tonight, anyway. We take it in turns.\"\n\nBugg stared at her through the gloom. He drank the last of the tea and set the cup down.\n\n\"Is all that true?\" Shand asked after a moment. \"Those investments?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Why isn't he telling us these things? '\n\n\"Because your investments have to remain separate, disconnected. There can be no comparable pattern. Thus, follow his instructions with precision. It will all come clear eventually.\"\n\n\"I hate geniuses.\"\n\n\"Understandable. All he does seems to confound, it's true. One gets used to it. '\n\n\"And how is Bugg's Construction doing? '\n\n\"Well enough.\"\n\n\"What's the purpose of it, anyway? Just to make money? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No. The intention is to acquire the contract for the Eternal Domicile.\"\n\nShand stared. \"Why?\"\n\nBugg smiled.\n\nDisinfecting, bleaching, scraping, combing. Fragrant oils rubbed into clothing and skin. Preserving oils rubbed in everywhere else. Scouring flushes of eyes, nose, ears and mouth. Then it was time for the pump.\n\nAt which point Tehol staggered outside for some air.\n\nThe sky was paling to the east, the city's less sane denizens already risen and venturing out onto the streets. Clattering carts on the cobbles. Somewhere a rooster crowed, only to have its exuberant cry cutoff into strangled silence. A dog barked happily.\n\nFootsteps, halting to Tehol's right.\"You still here? '\n\n\"Ah, Selush's assistant. And how are you this grisly morning, Padderunt? '\n\nThe old man's expression was eternally sour, but at Tehol's courteous enquiry it seemed to implode into a wrinkled mess. \"How am I? Sleepless! That's how I am, y'damned snake! They still in there? It's a lost cause, I say. A lost cause. Just like you, Tehol Beddict. I knew your mother– what would she say seeing you now? '\n\n\"You knew her corpse, you old fool. Before that we'd never met you. '\n\n\"Think she didn't tell me all about herself anyway? Think I can't see what's thereto be seen? The soul inside shapes the flesh. Oh, she talked tome all right. '\n\nTehol's brows rose.\"The soul inside shapes the flesh? \"He stared down at the wrinkled prune face glaring up at him.\"Oh my. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, that's a cutting remark, is it? True enough, here's what happens when a decent man gets no sleep!\"\n\nA small clay pot exploded on the cobbles between them, followed by a furious shout from a window in the building opposite.\n\n\"There!\" Padderunt cried, hand to his head as he staggered in circles. \"Make of our neighbours vicious enemies! You don't live here, do you? '\n\n\"Calm down,\" Tehol said. \"I simply asked how you were this morning, in case you've forgotten. Your reply was supposed to be equally inane and nondescript. If I'd wanted a list of your ailments– well, I wouldn't. Who would? Innocuous civility is what was expected, Padderunt. Not foul invective. '\n\n\"Oh really? Well, how am I supposed to know that? Come on, there's a place nearby makes great grain cakes. And rustleaf tea, which can wake the dead. '\n\nThe two made their way down the street.\n\n\"Have you tried it?\" Tehol asked.\n\n\"Tried what?\"\n\n\"Waking the dead with rustleaf tea.\"\n\n\"Should've worked. '\n\n\"But, alas, it didn't. '\n\n\"Still should've. The stuff doubles your heart rate and makes you heave everything in your stomach. '\n\n\"I can't wait. '\n\n\"Until you get used to it. Makes a fine insect killer, too. Just splash it on the floor and in cracks and such. I can't recommend it highly enough. '\n\n\"Most people smoke rustleaf, not drink it.\"\n\n\"Barbarians. Here we are. You're buying, right? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"With what?\"\n\n\"Then it goes on Selush's account, meaning you just have to pay later. '\n\n\"Fine.\"\n\nShurq Elalle stood in front of the long silver mirror. Instinct had her gauging the worth of all that silver fora moment before she finally focused on the reflected image. A healthy pallor to her skin, her cheeks glowing with vigour. Her hair was clean and had been cut for the first time in years, scented with a hint of patchouli oil. The whites of her eyes were clear, a wet gleam reflecting from her pupils.\n\nThe rotted leathers and linen of her clothing had been replaced with black silks beneath a short black calf-hide jacket. Anew weapons belt, tanned leggings and high boots. Tight leather gloves. \"I look like a whore.\"\n\n\"Not any old whore, though, right?\" Selush said.\n\n\"True, I'll take your coin then kill you. That's how I look.\"\n\n\"There are plenty of men out there who'll go for that, you know. '\n\n\"Getting killed?\"\n\n\"Absolutely. In any case, I was led to believe that wasn't your profession. Although I suppose you might feel inclined to try something new– how does the ootooloo feel, by the way? '\n\n\"Hungry. Can't I feed it, uh, something else? '\n\nSelush's eyes sparkled.\"Experimentation, that's the spirit!\"\n\nSome comments, the undead woman reflected, deserved no response.\n\nShurq Elalle flexed the muscles that would permit her to draw breath– they were long out of practice, and it was strange to feel the still vague and remote sense of air sliding down her throat and filling her chest. After the pump, there had been infusions. The breath she released smelled of cinnamon and myrrh. Better than river mud any day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your work is acceptable,\" she said.\n\n\"Well, that's a relief! It's nearly dawn, and I'm starving. Shall we test you out, dear? I imagine my assistant and Tehol are at the local establishment, breaking their fast. Let us join them. '\n\n\"I thought I wasn't supposed to eat or drink. '\n\n\"No, but you can preen and flirt, can't you? '\n\nShurq stared at the woman.\n\nSelush smiled. Then her eyelids fluttered and she turned away. \"Where's my shawl? '\n\nKuru Qan had left and returned with two assistants who carried Brys back to the Ceda's chambers, where he was laid down on a bench and plied with various liquids and food. Even so, strength was slow to return and he was still lying supine, head propped upon a cushion, when the doors opened and First Eunuch Nifadas entered.\n\nHis small eyes glittered as he looked down on Brys. \"King's Champion, are you well enough to meet your king? He will be herein a moment. '\n\nBrys struggled to sit straighter. \"This is unfortunate. I am, for the moment, unequal to my responsibilities-\"\n\n\"Never mind that, Finadd. Your king seeks only to ensure you will recover from your ordeal. Genuine concern motivates Ezgara Diskanar in this instance. Please, remain where you are. I have never seen you so pale.\"\n\n\"Something has fed on his blood,\" Kuru Qan said, \"but he will not tell me what it was.\"\n\nNifadas pursed his lips as he regarded Brys. \"I cannot imagine that a god would do such a thing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mael was not there, First Eunuch,\" Brys said. \"The Tiste Edur found something else, and have bound it to their service.\"\n\n\"Can you tell us what this thing is?\"\n\n\"A forgotten god, but that is the extent of my knowledge. I do not know its nature, nor the full breadth of its power. It is old, older than the ocean itself. Whatever worshipped it was not human.\"\n\nA voice spoke from the doorway. \"I am ever careless with my assets, although the Errant has spared me the cruellest consequence thus far, for which I am thankful.\"\n\nKuru Qan and Nifadas both bowed low as Ezgara Diskanar entered the chamber. In his sixth decade, the king's features remained surprisingly youthful. He was of average height, slightly on the lean side, his gestures revealing a nervous energy that seemed tireless. The bones beneath his features were prominent and somewhat asymmetrical, the result of a childhood incident with a bad-tempered horse. Right cheekbone and orbital arch sat flatter and higher than their counterparts on the left side of the king's face, making the eye on that side seem larger and rounder. It was a poorly functioning eye and had a tendency to wander independently when Ezgara was irritated or weary. Healers could have corrected the damage, but the king forbade it– even as a child, he had been obstinate and wilful, and not in the least concerned with outward appearance.\n\nFurther proof of that observation was evinced in his modest attire, more befitting a citizen in the markets than a king.\n\nBrys managed a slight bow from his reclined position. \"My apologies, your highness-\"\n\n\"None needed, Finadd,\" Ezgara Diskanar cut in, waving a hand. \"Indeed, it is I who must apologize to you. Unpleasant tasks that take you from your official functions. I have sorely abused your loyalty, my young Champion. And you have suffered for it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I shall recover, sire,\" Brys said.\n\nEzgara smiled, then surveyed the others in the room. \"Well, this is a fell gathering, isn't it? We should be relieved that my dearest wife is at the moment senseless beneath an exhausted consort, so that even her most trusted spies dare not intrude to report on this meeting. Hopefully, when that finally occurs, it will be far too late. '\n\nNifadas spoke. \"My king, I shall be the first to take my leave, if you will permit. The hour of my departure from the city fast approaches, and my preparations are far from complete.\"\n\nEzgara's lopsided smile broadened.\"First Eunuch, your diligence in such matters is legendary, leaving me sceptical of your claims. None the less, you have my leave, if only that you might ensure your spies are made aware of precisely when her spies make their report, so that they in turn may report to you and you may then report tome. Although what I am to do with such knowledge will no doubt escape me, given that the event initiating these flurries of reporting is none other than the one occurring right now in this room. '\n\nNifadas bowed. \"None can rest in this dance, sire, as you well know.\"\n\nThe king's smile tightened.\"Well I do, indeed, First Eunuch. Be off with you, then. '\n\nBrys watched Nifadas depart. As soon as the door was closed the king faced Kuru Qan. \"Ceda, the Chancellor continues to petition against Finadd Gerun Eberict's attachment to the delegation. His arguments are persuasive. '\n\n\"He fears for the life of your son, your highness.\"\n\nEzgara nodded. \"And has the Finadd's restraint so weakened that he might murder my heir? '" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "As the writer's tale assistant, advance the plot.\nTags: epic fantasy, new characters, commerce, betrayal, cultural clash\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Midnight Tides\nChapter: 13" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pigeons overhead whipped round and round, the only sound in the massive barn.\n\n\"Contestants to the Empty Throne,\" Feather Witch whispered in atone heavy with sorrow. \"Blood and madness...\"\n\nUdinaas slowly released his grip on Seren Pedac.\n\nShe made no move, as frozen in place as everyone else present.\n\nUdinaas grunted, amused, and said to the Acquitor, \"She's not slept well lately, you see. '\n\n---\n\nSeren Pedac staggered outside, into a solid sheet of cold rain. A hissing deluge on the path's pebbles, tiny rivers cutting through the sands, the forest beyond seeming pulled down by streaming threads and ropes. An angry susurration from the direction of the river and the sea. As if the world was collapsing in melt water.\n\nShe blinked against the cold tears.\n\nAnd recalled the play of Edur children, the oblivious chatter of a thousand moments ago, so far back in her mind now as to echo like someone else's reminiscence. Of times weathered slick and shapeless.\n\nMemories rushing, rushing down to the sea.\n\nLike children in flight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where are the days we once held So loose in our sure hands? When did these racing streams Carve depthless caves beneath our feet? And how did this scene stagger And shift to make fraught our deft lies In the places where youth will meet, In the lands of our proud dreams? Where, among all you before me, Are the faces I once knew?\n\nWords etched into the wall, K'rul Belfry, Darujhistan\n\nIn the battle that saw Theradas Buhn blooded, a Merude cutlass had laid open his right cheek, snapping the bone beneath the eye and cutting through maxilla and the upper half of his mandible. The savage wound had been slow to heal, and the thread that had been used to seal the gaping hole into his mouth had festered the flesh before his comrades could return the warrior to a nearby Hiroth encampment, where a healer had done what she could– driving out the infection, knitting the bones. The result was along, crooked scar within a seamed concave depression on that side of his face, and a certain flat look to his eyes that hinted of unseen wounds that would never heal.\n\nTrull Sengar sat with the others five paces from the edge of the ice-field, watching Theradas as he paced back and forth along the crusted line of ice and snow, the red-tipped fox fur of his cloak flashing in the gusting wind. The Arapay lands were behind them now, and with them the grudging hospitality of that subjugated Edur tribe. The Hiroth warriors were alone, and before them stretched a white, shattered landscape.\n\nIt looked lifeless, but the Arapay had spoken of night hunters, strange, fur-shrouded killers who came out of the darkness wielding jagged blades of black iron. They took body parts as trophies, to the point of leaving limbless, headless torsos in their wake. None had ever been captured, and the bodies of those who fell were never left where they lay." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even so, they tended to prey only upon paired Edur hunters. More formidable groups were generally left alone. The Arapay called them Jheck, which meant, roughly, standing wolves.\n\n\"There are eyes upon us,\" Theradas pronounced in his thick, blunted voice.\n\nFear Sengar shrugged. \"The ice wastes are not as lifeless as they appear. Hares, foxes, ground owls, white wolves, bears, aranag-\"\n\n\"The Arapay spoke of huge beasts,\" Rhulad cut in. \"Brown-furred and tusked– we saw the ivory-\"\n\n\"Old ivory, Rhulad,\" Fear said. \"Found in the ice. It is likely such beasts are no more.\"\n\n\"The Arapay say otherwise.\"\n\nTheradas grunted. \"And they live in fear of the ice wastes, Rhulad, and so have filled them with nightmare beasts and demons. It is this: we will see what we see. Are you done your repasts? We are losing daylight.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Fear said, rising, \"we should goon.\"\n\nRhulad and Midik Buhn moved out to the flanks. Both wore bear furs, black and silver-collared. Their hands, within fur-lined gauntlets– Arapay gifts– were wrapped round the long spears they used as walking sticks, testing the packed snow before them with each step. Theradas moved to point, fifteen paces ahead, leaving Trull, Fear and Binadas travelling as the core group, pulling the two sleds packed with leather satchels filled with supplies.\n\nIt was said that, further out in the wastes, there was water beneath the ice, salt-laden remnants from an inland sea, and cavernous pockets hidden beneath thin-skin mantles of snow. Treachery waited underfoot, forcing them to travel slowly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The windswept down upon them, biting at exposed skin, and they were forced to lean forward against its gusting, frigid blasts.\n\nDespite the furs enshrouding him, Trull felt the shock of that sudden cold, a force mindless and indifferent, yet eager to steal. Flooding his air passages in a numbing assault. And within that current, a faint smell of death.\n\nThe Edur wrapped swaths of wool about their faces, leaving the barest of slits for their eyes. Conversations were quickly abandoned, and they walked in silence, the crunch of their fur-lined moccasins muffled and distant.\n\nThe sun's warmth and turn of season could not win the war in this place. The snow and ice rose on the wind to glitter overhead, mocking the sun itself with twin mirror images, leading Trull to suspect that the wind held close to the ground, whilst high overhead the suspended ice crystals hovered unmoving, inured to the passing of seasons, of years.\n\nHe tilted his head to stare upward fora moment, wondering if that glistening, near-opaque canopy above them held the frozen memories of the past, minute images locked in each crystal, bearing witness to all that had occurred below. A multitude of fates, perhaps reaching back to when there was sea, in place of the ice. Did unknown creatures ply the waters in arcane, dugout canoes all those thousands of years ago? Would they one day become these Jheck?\n\nThe Letherii spoke of Holds, that strange pantheon of elements, and among them there was the Hold of Ice. As if winter was born of sorcery, as if ice and snow were instruments of wilful destruction. Something of that notion was present in Edur legends as well. Ice plunging down to steal the land that was soaked in Tiste blood, the brutal theft of hard-won territories committed as an act of vengeance, perhaps the gelid flowering of some curse uttered in a last breath, a final defiance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sentiment, then– if one such existed– was of old enmity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ice was a thief, of life, land and righteous reward. Bound in death and blood, an eternal prison. From all this, it could earn hatred.\n\nThey continued through the day, moving slowly but steadily, through jumbled fields of broken, upthrust shards of ice that in the distance seemed simply white, but when neared was revealed to possess countless shades of greens, blues and browns. They crossed flats of wind-sculpted, hard-packed snow that formed rippled patterns as smooth as sand. Strange fault lines where unseen forces had sheered the ice, pushing one side up against the other, grinding opposing paths as if the solid world beneath them jostled in wayward migration.\n\nTowards late afternoon, a muted shout from Theradas halted them. Trull, who had been walking with his eyes on the ground before him, looked up at the muffled sound and saw that Theradas was standing before something, gesturing them forward with a fur-wrapped hand. A few moments later they reached his side.\n\nAbroad crevasse cut across their path, the span at least fifteen paces. The sheer walls of ice swept down into darkness, and from its depths rose a strange smell.\n\n\"Salt,\" Binadas said after pulling away his face-covering. \"Tidal pools.\"\n\nRhulad and Midik joined them from the flanks. \"It seems to stretch to the very horizon,\" Rhulad said.\n\n\"The break looks recent,\" Binadas observed, crouching at the edge. \"As if the surface is shrinking.\"\n\n\"Perhaps summer has managed a modest alteration to these wastes,\" Fear mused. \"We have passed sealed faults that might be the remnant scars from similar wounds in the past.\"\n\n\"How will we cross?\" Midik asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I could draw shadows from below,\" Binadas said, then shook his head, \"but the notion makes me uneasy. If there are spirits within, they might well prove unruly. There are layers of sorcery here, woven in the snow and ice, and they do not welcome Emurlahn.\"\n\n\"Get out the ropes,\" Fear said.\n\n\"Dusk approaches.\"\n\n\"If necessary we will camp below.\"\n\nTrull shot Fear a look. \"What if it closes whilst we are down there?\"\n\n\"I do not think that likely,\" Fear said. \"Besides, we will remain unseen this night, hidden as we will be in the depths. If there are indeed beasts in this land– though we've seen no true sign as yet– then I would rather we took every opportunity to avoid them. '\n\nWet pebbles skidded under his moccasins as Trull alighted, stepping clear of the ropes. He looked around, surprised at the faint green glow suffusing the scene. They were indeed on a seabed. Salt had rotted the ice at the edges, creating vast caverns crowded with glittering pillars. The air was cold, turgid and rank.\n\nOff to one side Midik and Rhulad had drawn bundles of wood out from a pack and were preparing a cookfire. Binadas and Fear were reloading the sleds to keep the food satchels off the wet ground, and Theradas had set off to scout the caverns.\n\nTrull strode to a shallow pool and crouched down at its edge. The saline water swarmed with tiny grey shrimps. Barnacles crowded the waterline.\n\n\"The ice is dying.\"\n\nAt Fear's words behind him, Trull rose and faced his brother.\"Why do you say that? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The salt gnaws its flesh. We are at the lowest region of the ancient seabed, I believe. Where the last of the water gathered, then slowly evaporated. Those columns of salt are all that remains. If the entire basin was like this place, then the canopy of ice would have collapsed-\"\n\n\"Perhaps it does just that,\" Binadas suggested, joining them. \"In cycles over thousands of years. Collapse, then the salt begins its work once again.\"\n\nTrull stared into the gloomy reaches. \"I cannot believe those pillars can holdup all this ice. There must be a cycle of collapse, as Binadas has said.\" His eyes caught movement, then Theradas emerged, and Trull saw that the warrior had his sword out.\n\n\"There is a path,\" Theradas said. \"And a place of gathering. We are not the first to have comedown here.\"\n\nRhulad and Midik joined them. No-one spoke fora time.\n\nThen Fear nodded and asked, \"How recent are the signs, Theradas?\"\n\n\"Days.\"\n\n\"Binadas and Trull, go with Theradas to this place of gathering. I will remain herewith the Unblooded.\"\n\nThe path began twenty paces in from the crevasse, a trail cleared of cobbles and detritus that wound between the rough, crystalline columns of salt. Melt water dripped from the rotting ceiling in a steady downpour. Theradas led them onward another thirty paces, where the path ended at the edge of avast roughly domed expanse devoid of pillars.\n\nNear the centre squatted a low, misshapen altar stone. Votive offerings surrounded it– shells, mostly, among which the odd piece of carved ivory was visible. Yet Trull spared it but a momentary glance, for his gaze had been drawn to the far wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A sheer plane of ice a hundred paces or more across, rising in a tilted overhang– a wall in which countless beasts had been caught in mid-stampede, frozen in full flight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Antlers projected from the ice, heads and shoulders– still solid and immobile– and forelegs lifted or stretched forward. Frost-rimed eyes dully reflected the muted blue-green light. Deeper within, the blurred shapes of hundreds more.\n\nStunned by the vista, Trull slowly walked closer, round the altar, half expecting at any moment to seethe charging beasts burst into sudden motion, onrushing, to crush them all beneath countless hoofs.\n\nAshe neared, he saw heaped bodies near the base, beasts that had fallen out from the retreating ice, had thawed, eventually collapsing into viscid pools.\n\nTiny black flies rose in clouds from the decaying flesh and hide, swarmed towards Trull as if determined to defend their feast. He halted, waved his hands until they dispersed and began winging back to the rotting carcasses. The beasts– caribou– had been running on snow, a packed layer kneedeep above the seabed. He could still seethe panic in their eyes– and there, smeared behind an arm's length of ice, the head and shoulders of an enormous wolf, silver-haired and amber-eyed, running alongside a caribou, shoulder to shoulder. The wolf's head was raised, jaws open, close to the victim's neck. Canines as long as Trull's thumb gleamed beneath peeled-back lips.\n\nNature's drama, life unheeding of the cataclysm that rushed upon it from behind– or above. The brutal hand of a god as indifferent as the beasts themselves.\n\nBinadas came to his side. \"This was born of a warren,\" he said.\n\nTrull nodded. Sorcery. Nothing else made sense. \"A god.\"\n\n\"Perhaps, but not necessarily so, brother. Some forces need only be unleashed. A natural momentum then burgeons.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Hold of Ice,\" Trull said. \"Such as the Letherii describe in their faith.\"\n\n\"The Hand of the Watcher,\" Binadas said, \"who waited until the war was done before striding forward to unleash his power.\"\n\nTrull had thought himself more knowledgeable than most Edur warriors regarding the old legends of their people. With Binadas's words echoing in his head, however, he felt woefully ignorant.\"Where have they gone? \"he asked.\"Those powers of old? Why do we dwell as if... as if ahne? '\n\nHis brother shrugged, ever reluctant to surrender his reserve, his mindful silence. \"We remain alone,\" he finally said, \"to preserve the sanctity of our past.\"\n\nTrull considered this, his gaze travelling over the tableau before him, those dark, murky lives that could not outrun their doom, then said, \"Our cherished truths are vulnerable.\"\n\n\"To challenge, yes.\"\n\n\"And the salt gnaws at the ice beneath us, until our world grows perilously thin beneath our feet.\"\n\n\"Until what was frozen... thaws.\"\n\nTrull took a step closer to the one of the charging caribou. \"What thaws in turn collapses and falls to the ground. And rots, Binadas. The past is covered in flies.\"\n\nHis brother walked towards the altar, and said, \"The ones who kneel before this shrine were here only a few days ago.\"\n\n\"They did not come the way we did.\"\n\n\"No doubt there are other paths into this underworld.\"\n\nTrull glanced over at Theradas, only now recalling his presence. The warrior stood at the threshold, his breath pluming in the air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We should return to the others,\" Binadas said. \"We have far to walk tomorrow.\"\n\nThe night passed, damp, cold, the melt water ceaselessly whispering. Each Edur stood watch in turn, wrapped in furs and weapons at the ready. But there was nothing to see in the dull, faintly luminescent light. Ice, water and stone, death, hungry motion and impermeable bones, a blind triumvirate ruling a gelid realm.\n\nJust before dawn the company rose, ate a quick meal, then Rhulad clambered up the ropes, trusting to the spikes driven into the ice far overhead, about two-thirds of the way, where the fissure narrowed in one place sufficient to permit across-over to the north wall. Beyond that point, Rhulad began hammering new spikes into the ice. Splinters and shards rained down on the waiters below fora time, then there came a distant shout from Rhulad. Midik went to the ropes and began climbing, while Trull and Fear bound the food packs to braided leather lines. The sleds would be pulled up last.\n\n\"Today,\" Binadas said, \"we will have to be careful. They will know we were here, that we found their shrine.\"\n\nTrull glanced over. \"But we did not desecrate it.\"\n\n\"Perhaps our presence alone was sufficient outrage, brother.\"\n\nThe sun was above the horizon by the time the Edur warriors were assembled on the other side of the crevasse, the sleds loaded and ready. The sky was clear and there was no wind, yet the air was bitter cold. The sun's fiery ball was flanked on either side by smaller versions– sharper and brighter than last time, as if in the course of the night just past the world above them had completed its transformation from the one they knew to something strange and forbidding, inimical to life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Theradas in the lead once more, they set out.\n\nIce crunching underfoot, the hiss and clatter of the antler-rimmed sled runners, and a hissing sound both close and distant, as if silence had itself grown audible, a sound that Trull finally understood was the rush of his own blood, woven in and around the rhythm of his breath, the drum of his heart. The glare burned his eyes. His lungs stung with every rush of air.\n\nThe Edur did not belong in this landscape. The Hold of Ice. Feared by the Letherii. Stealer of life– why has Harmon Mosag sent us here?\n\nTheradas halted and turned about. \"Wolf tracks,\" he said, \"heavy enough to breakthrough the crust of snow.\"\n\nThey reached him, stopped the sleds. Trull drew the harness from his aching shoulders.\n\nThe tracks cut across their route, heading west. They were huge.\n\n\"These belong to a creature such as the one we saw in the ice last night,\" Binadas said. \"What do they hunt? We've seen nothing. '\n\nFear grunted, then said, \"That does not mean much, brother. We are not quiet travellers, with these sleds.\"\n\n\"Even so,\" Binadas replied, \"herds leave sign. We should have come upon something, by now.\"\n\nThey resumed the journey.\n\nShortly past midday Fear called a halt for another meal. The plain of ice stretched out flat and featureless on all sides.\n\n\"There's nothing to worry about out here, \"Rhulad said, sitting on one of the sleds.\"We can see anyone coming... or anything, for that matter. Tell us, Fear, how much farther will we go? Where is this gift that Hannan Mosag wants us to find? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Another day to the north,\" Fear replied.\n\n\"If it is indeed a gift,\" Trull asked, \"who is offering it?\"\n\n\"I do not know.\"\n\nNo-one spoke fora time.\n\nTrull studied the hard-packed snow at his feet, his unease deepening. Something ominous hung in the still, frigid air. Their solitude suddenly seemed threatening, absence a promise of unknown danger. Yet he was among blood kin, among Hiroth warriors. Thus.\n\nStill, why does this gift stink of death?\n\nAnother night. The tents were raised, a meal cooked, then the watches were set. Trull's was first. He walked the perimeter of their camp, spear in hand, in a continuous circuit in order to keep awake. The food in his stomach made him drowsy, and the sheer emptiness of the ice wastes seemed to project a force that dulled concentration. Overhead the sky was alive with strange, shifting hues that rose and fell in disconnected patterns. He had seen such things before, in the deepest winter in Hiroth lands, but never as sharp, never as flush, voicing a strange hissing song as of broken glass crunching underfoot.\n\nWhen it was time, he awoke Theradas. The warrior emerged from his tent and rose, adjusting his fur cloak until it wrapped him tightly, then drawing his sword. He glared at the lively night sky, but said nothing.\n\nTrull crawled into the tent. The air within was damp. Ice had formed on the tent walls, etching maps of unknown worlds on the stretched, waxy fabric. From outside came the steady footsteps of Theradas as he walked his rounds. The sound followed Trull into sleep.\n\nDisjointed dreams followed. He saw Mayen, naked in the forest, settling down atop a man, then writhing with hungry lust. He stumbled closer, ever seeking to see that man's face, to discover who it was– and instead he found himself lost, the forest unreadable, unrecognizable, a sensation he had never experienced before, and it left him terrified. Trembling on his knees in the wet loam, while from somewhere beyond he could hear her cries of pleasure, bestial and rhythmic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And desire rose within him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not for Mayen, but for what she had found, in her wild release, closing down into the moment, into the present, future and past without meaning. A moment unmindful of consequences. His hunger became a pain within him, lodged like a broken knife-tip in his chest, cutting with each ragged breath, and in his dream he cried out, as if answering Mayen's own voice, and he heard her laugh with recognition. A laugh inviting him to join her world.\n\nMayen, his brother's betrothed. A detached part of his mind remained cool and objective, almost sardonic in its self-regard. Understanding the nature of this web, this sideways envy and his own burgeoning appetites.\n\nEdur males were slow to such things. It was the reason betrothal and marriage followed at least a decade– often two– of full adulthood. Edur women arrived at their womanly hungers far earlier in their lives. It was whispered, among the men, that they often made use of the Letherii slaves, but Trull doubted the truth of that. It seemed... inconceivable.\n\nThe detached self was amused by that, as if derisive of Trull's own naivety.\n\nHe awoke chilled, weak with doubts and confusion, and lay fora time in the pale half-light that preceded dawn, watching his breath plume in the close air of the tent.\n\nSomething gnawed at him, but it was along time before he realized what it was. No footsteps.\n\nTrull scrambled from the tent, stumbling on the snow and ice, and straightened.\n\nIt was Rhulad's watch. Near the dead fire, the hunched, bundled form of his brother, seated with hooded head bowed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trull strode up to stand behind Rhulad. Sudden rage took him with the realization that his brother slept. He lifted his spear into both hands, then swung the butt end in a snapping motion that connected with the side of Rhulad's head.\n\nA muffled crack that sent his brother pitching to one side. Rhulad loosed a piercing shriek as he sprawled on the hard-packed snow, then rolled onto his back, scrabbling for his sword.\n\nTrull's spear-point was at his brother's neck. \"You slept on your watch!\" he hissed.\n\n\"I did not!\"\n\n\"I saw you sleeping! I walked right up to you!\"\n\n\"I did not!\" Rhulad scrambled to his feet, one handheld against the side of his head.\n\nThe others were emerging now from their tents. Fear stared at Trull and Rhulad fora moment, then turned to the packs.\n\nTrull was trembling, drawing deep, frigid breaths. Fora moment, it struck him how disproportionate his anger was, then the magnitude of the risk flooded through him yet again.\n\n\"We have had visitors,\" Fear announced, rising and scanning the frozen ground. \"They left no tracks-\"\n\n\"How do you know, then?\" Rhulad demanded.\n\n\"Because all our food is gone, Rhulad. It seems we shall grow hungry fora time.\"\n\nTheradas swore and began a wider circuit, seeking a trail.\n\nThey were among us. The Jheck. They could have killed us all where we slept. All because Rhulad will not grasp what it is to be a warrior. There was nothing more to be said, and all knew it.\n\nExcept for Rhulad. \"I wasn't sleeping! I swear it! Fear, you have to believe me! I simply sat down fora moment to rest my legs. I saw no'one!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Behind closed lids,\" Theradas growled, \"that's not surprising. '\n\n\"You think I'm lying, but I'm not! I'm telling the truth, I swear it! '\n\n\"Never mind,\" Fear said. \"It is done. From now on, we will double the watch.\"\n\nRhulad walked towards Midik. \"You believe me, don't you? '\n\nMidik Buhn turned away. \"It was a battle just waking you for your watch, Rhulad,\" he said, his tone both sad and weary.\n\nRhulad stood as if in shock, the pain of what he saw as betrayal clear and deep-struck on his face. His lips thinned, jaw muscles bunching, and he slowly turned away.\n\nThe bastards were in our camp. Hannan Mosag's faith in us...\n\n\"Let us strike the tents,\" Fear said, \"and be on our way.\"\n\nTrull found himself scanning the horizon in an endless sweep, his sense of vulnerability at times near overwhelming. They were being watched, tracked. The emptiness of the landscape was a lie, somehow. Possibly there was sorcery at work, although this did not– could not– excuse Rhulad's failing.\n\nTrust was gone, and Trull well knew that Rhulad's future would now be dominated by the effort to regain it. A lapse, and the young man's future path awaited him, deep-rutted and inevitable. A private journey beset by battle, each step resisted by a host of doubts, real and imagined– the distinction made no difference anymore. Rhulad would see in his brothers and friends an unbroken succession of recriminations. Every gesture, every word, every glance. And, the tragedy was, he would not be far from the truth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This would not be kept from the village. Sengar shame or not, the tale would come out, sung with quiet glee among rivals and the spiteful– and, given the opportunity, there were plenty of those to be found. A stain that claimed them all, the entire Sengar line.\n\nThey moved on. Northward, through the empty day.\n\nLate in the afternoon, Theradas caught sight of something ahead, and moments later the others saw it as well. A glimmer of reflected sunlight, tall and narrow and angular, rising from the flat waste. Difficult to judge its size, but Trull sensed that the projection was substantial, and unnatural.\n\n\"That is the place,\" Fear said. \"Hannan Mosag's dreams were true. We shall find the gift there. '\n\n\"Then let us be about it,\" Theradas said, setting off.\n\nThe spar grew steadily before them. Cracks appeared in the snow and ice underfoot, the surface sloping upward the closer they approached. The shard had risen up from the deep, cataclysmically, a sudden upthrust that had sent wagon-sized chunks of ice into the air, to crash and tumbledown the sides. Angular boulders of mud, now frozen and rimed, had rolled across the snow and ringed the area in a rough circle.\n\nPrismatic planes caught and split the sunlight within the spar. The ice in that towering shard was pure and clear.\n\nAt the base of the fissured up-welling– still thirty or more paces from the spar– the group halted. Trull slipped out from the sled harness, Binadas following suit.\n\nTheradas, Midik, stay here and guard the sleds, \"Fear said.\"Trull, draw your spear from its sling. Binadas, Rhulad, to our flanks. Let's go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They climbed the slope, winding their way between masses of ice and mud.\n\nAfoul smell filled the air, of old rot and brine.\n\nBinadas hissed warningly, then said, \"The spirit Hannan Mosag called up from the ocean deep has been here, beneath the ice. This is its handiwork, and the sorcery lingers.\"\n\n\"Emurlahn?\" Trull asked.\n\n\"No.\"\n\nThey came to the base of the spar. Its girth surpassed that of thousand-year-old Blackwood trees. Countless planes rose in twisted confusion, amass of sharp, sheered surfaces in which the setting sun's red light flowed thick as blood.\n\nFear pointed. \"There. The gift.\"\n\nAnd now Trull saw it. Faint and murky, the smudged form of a two-handed sword, bell-hilted, its blade strangely fractured and mottled– although perhaps that effect was created by the intervening thickness of ice.\n\n\"Binadas, weave Emurlahn into Trull's spear. As much as you can– this will take many, many shadows. '\n\nTheir brother frowned. \"Take? In what way?\"\n\n\"Shattering the ice will destroy them. Annihilation is demanded, to free the gift. And remember, do not close your unguarded hand about the grip, once the weapon comes free. And keep the wraiths from attempting the same, for attempt it they will. With desperate resolve.\"\n\n\"What manner of sword is this?\" Trull whispered.\n\nFear did not answer.\n\n\"If we are to shatter this spar,\" Binadas said after a moment, \"all of you should stand well clear of myself and Trull.\"\n\n\"We shall not be harmed,\" Fear said. \"Hannan Mosag's vision was clear on this. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And how far did that vision go, brother?\" Trull asked. \"Did he see our return journey?\"\n\nFear shook his head. \"To the shattering, to the fall of the last fragment of ice. No further.\"\n\n\"I wonder why?\"\n\n\"This is not a time for doubt, Trull,\" Fear said.\n\n\"Isn't it? It would seem that this is precisely the time for doubt. '\n\nHis brothers faced him.\n\nTrull looked away. \"This feels wrong.\"\n\n\"Have you lost your courage?\" Rhulad snapped. \"We have walked all this way, and now you voice your doubts?\"\n\n\"What sort of weapon is this gift? Who fashioned it? We know nothing of what we are about to release.\"\n\n\"Our Warlock King has commanded us,\" Fear said, his expression darkening. \"What would you have us do, Trull?\"\n\n\"I don't know. \"He turned to Binadas.\"Is there no means of prying the secrets loose? '\n\n\"I will know more, I think, when we have freed the sword.\"\n\nFear grunted. \"Then begin, Binadas.\"\n\nThey were interrupted by a shout from Theradas. \"A wolf!\" he cried, pointing to the south.\n\nThe beast was barely visible, white-furred against the snow, standing motionless a thousand or more paces distant, watching them.\n\n\"Waste no more time,\" Fear said to Binadas.\n\nShadows spun from where Binadas was standing, blue stains crawling out across the snow, coiling up the shaft of the Blackwood spear in Trull's hands, where they seemed to sink into the glossy wood. The weapon felt no different through the thick fur of his gauntlets, but Trull thought he could hear something new, a keening sound that seemed to reverberate in his bones. It felt like terror." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No more,\" Binadas gasped.\n\nTrull glanced at his brother, saw the pallor of his face, the glistening sweat on his brow. \"They are resisting this?\"\n\nBinadas nodded. \"They know they are about to die.\"\n\n\"How can wraiths die?\" Rhulad demanded. \"Are they not already ghosts? The spirits of our ancestors?\"\n\n\"Not ours,\" Binadas replied, but did not elaborate, gesturing instead towards Trull. \"Strike at the ice, brother.\"\n\nTrull hesitated. He looked round over his left shoulder, searched until he found the distant wolf. It had lowered its head, legs gathering under it. \"Daughter Dusk,\" he whispered, \"it's about to charge. ' Below, Theradas and Midik were readying their spears.\n\n\"Now, Trull!\"\n\nFear's bellow startled him, so that he almost dropped the spear. Jaw clenching, he faced the spar once more, then slashed the iron spear-head against the ice.\n\nEven as the weapon whipped forward, Trull's peripheral vision caught motion on all sides, as figures seemed to rise from the very snow itself.\n\nThen the spar exploded into blinding, white mist.\n\nSudden shouts.\n\nTrull felt a savage wrench on the spear in his hands, the Blackwood ringing like iron as countless wraiths were torn free. Their death-cries filled his skull. Stumbling, he tightened his grip, striving to see through the cloud.\n\nWeapons clashed.\n\nAn antler clawed for his face, each tine carved into a barbed point tipped with quartzite. Trull reeled back, flinging the spear shaft into the antler's path. Trapping it. He twisted the spear round, reversing grip, and succeeded in forcing the attacker into releasing the antler. It spun away to one side. An upward slash with the spear, and Trull felt the iron blade tear through hide and flesh, clattering along ribs before momentarily springing free, to connect hard against the underside of a jaw." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The scene around him was becoming more visible. They were beset by savages, small and bestial, wearing white-skinned hides, faces hidden behind flat white masks. Wielding claw-like antler weapons and short stabbing spears with glittering stone points, the Jheck swarmed on all sides.\n\nFear was holding three at bay, and behind him stood the sword, upright and freed from the ice, its point jammed into the frozen ground. It seemed the Jheck were desperate to claim it.\n\nTrull struck at the closest of Fear's opponents, iron tip punching deep into the savage's neck. Blood sprayed, jetted down the spear-shaft. He tore the weapon loose, in time to seethe last of the Jheck in front of Fear wheel away, mortally wounded by a sword-thrust.\n\nSpinning round, Trull saw Binadas go down beneath amass of Jheck. Shadows then enveloped the writhing figures.\n\nRhulad was nowhere to be seen.\n\nDown below, Theradas and Midik had met the wolf's charge, and the huge beast was on its side, skewered by spears, legs kicking even as Theradas stepped in with his broad-bladed cutlass. Two more wolves were closing in, alongside them a half-dozen Jheck.\n\nAnother score of the savages were ascending the slope.\n\nTrull readied his weapon.\n\nNearby, Binadas was climbing free of a mound of corpses. He was sheathed in blood, favouring his right side.\n\n\"Behind us, Binadas,\" Fear commanded. \"Trull, get on my left. Quickly.\"\n\n\"Where is Rhulad?\"\n\nFear shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As Trull moved to his brother's left he scanned the bodies sprawled on the snow. But they were all Jheck. Even so, the belief struck him hard as a blow to his chest. They were going to die here. They were going to fail.\n\nThe savages on the slope charged.\n\nAntlers flew from their hands, dagger-sharp tines flashing as the deadly weapons spun end over end.\n\nTrull shouted, warding with his spear as he ducked beneath the whirling onslaught. One flew past his guard, a tine clipping his left knee. He gasped at the pain and felt the sudden spurt of blood beneath his leggings, but his leg held his weight and he remained upright.\n\nBehind the flung weapons, the Jheck arrived in a rush.\n\nA dozen heartbeats on the defensive, then the Edur warriors found openings for counter-attacks almost simultaneously. Sword and spear bit flesh, and two of the Jheck were down.\n\nA shriek from behind Trull and Fear, and the savages recoiled, then in unison darted to their right-\n\n-as Rhulad leapt into their midst, the long, bell-hilted sword in his hands.\n\nA wild slash, and a Jheck head pitched away from shoulders to bounce and roll down the slope.\n\nAnother chop, a gush of blood.\n\nBoth Fear and Trull rushed to close with the combatants-\n\n-even as stabbing spears found their way into Rhulad from all sides. He shrieked, blood-slick blade wavering over his head. Then he sagged. A shove toppled him onto his back, the sword still in his hands.\n\nThe surrounding Jheck darted away, then ran down the slope, weapons dropping or flung aside in sudden panic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trull arrived, skidding on the blood-slick ice, the wound in his leg forgotten as he knelt at Rhulad's side.\n\n\"They're withdrawing, ' Fear said between harshly drawn breaths, moving to stand guard before Trull and Rhulad.\n\nNumbed, Trull tore off a gauntlet and set his hand against Rhulad's neck, seeking a pulse.\n\nBinadas staggered over, settling down opposite Trull. \"How does he fare, brother?\"\n\nTrull looked up, stared until Binadas glanced up and locked gazes.\n\n\"Rhulad is dead,\" Trull said, dropping his eyes and seeing now, for the first time, the massive impaling wounds punched into his brother's torso, the smear of already freezing blood on the furs, smelling bitter urine and pungent faeces.\n\nTheradas and Midik are coming, \"Fear said.\"The Jheck have fled. ' He then set off, round towards the back of the rise.\n\nBut that makes no sense. They had us. There were too many of them. None of this makes sense. Rhulad. He's dead. Our brother is dead.\n\nA short time later, Fear returned, crouched down beside him, and tenderly reached out... to take the sword. Trull watched Fear's hands close about Rhulad's where they still clutched the leather-wrapped grip. Watched, as Fear sought to pry those dead fingers loose.\n\nAnd could not.\n\nTrull studied that fell weapon. The blade was indeed mottled, seemingly forged of polished iron and black shards of some harder, glassier material, the surface of both cracked and uneven. Splashes of blood were freezing black here and there, like a fast-spreading rot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fear sought to wrench the sword free.\n\nBut Rhulad would not release it.\n\n\"Hannan Mosag warned us,\" Binadas said, \"did he not? Do not allow your flesh to touch the gift.\"\n\n\"But he's dead, ' Trull whispered.\n\nDusk was swiftly closing round them, the chill in the air deepening.\n\nTheradas and Midik arrived. Both were wounded, but neither seriously so. They were silent as they stared down on Rhulad.\n\nFear leaned back, having reached some sort of decision. He was silent a moment longer, slowly pulling on his gauntlets. Then he straightened. \"Carry him– sword and all– down to the sleds. We will wrap body and blade together. Releasing the gift from our brother's hands is for Hannan Mosag to manage, now. '\n\nNo-one else spoke.\n\nFear studied each of them in turn, then said, \"We travel through this night. I want us out of these wastes as soon as possible.\" He looked down on Rhulad once more. \"Our brother is blooded. He died a warrior of the Hiroth. His shall be a hero's funeral, one that all the Hiroth shall remember. '\n\nIn the wake of numbness came... other things. Questions. But what was the point of those? Any answers that could be found were no better than suppositions, born of uncertainties vulnerable to countless poisons– that host of doubts even now besieging Trull's thoughts. Where had Rhulad disappeared to? What had he sought to achieve by charging into that knot of Jheck savages? And he had well understood the prohibition against taking up the gift, yet he had done so none the less." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So much of what happened seemed..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "senseless.\n\nEven in his final act of extremity, Rhulad answers not the loss of trust under which he laboured. No clean gesture, this messy end. Fear called him a hero, but Trull suspected the motivation behind that claim. A son of Tomad Sengar had failed in his duties on night watch. And now was dead, the sacrifice itself marred with incomprehensible intentions.\n\nThe questions led Trull nowhere, and faded to anew wave, one that sickened him, clenching at his gut with spasms of anguish. There had been bravery in that last act. If nothing else. Surprising bravery, when Trull had, of his brother Rhulad, begun to suspect... otherwise. I doubted him. In every way, I doubted him.\n\nInto his heart whispered... guilt, a ghost and a ghost's voice, growing monstrous with taloned hands tightening, ever tightening, until his soul began to scream. A piercing cry only Trull could hear, yet a sound that threatened to drive him mad.\n\nAnd through it all, a more pervasive sense, a hollowness deep within him. The loss of a brother. The face that would never again smile, the voice that Trull would never again hear. There seemed no end to the layers of loss settling dire and heavy upon him.\n\nHe helped Fear wrap Rhulad and the sword in a waxed canvas groundsheet, hearing Midik's weeping as if from a great distance, listening to Binadas talk as he bound wounds and drew upon Emurlahn to quicken healing. As the stiff folds closed over Rhulad's face, Trull's breath caught in a ragged gasp, and he flinched back as Fear tightened the covering with leather straps.\n\n\"It is done,\" Fear murmured. \"Death cannot be struggled against, brother. It ever arrives, defiant of every hiding place, of every frantic attempt to escape. Death is every mortal's shadow, his true shadow, and time is its servant, spinning that shadow slowly round, until what stretched behind one now stretches before him. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You called him a hero.\"\n\n\"I did, and it was not an empty claim. He went to the other side of the rise, which is why we did not see him, and discovered Jheck seeking the sword by subterfuge.\"\n\nTrull looked up.\n\n\"I needed answers of my own, brother. He killed two on that side of the hill, yet lost his weapon doing so. Others were coming, I imagine, and so Rhulad must have concluded he had no choice. The Jheck wanted the sword. They would have to kill him to get it. Trull, it is done. He died, blooded and brave. I myself came upon the corpses beyond the rise, before I came back to you and Binadas.\"\n\nAll my doubts... the poisons of suspicion, in all their foul flavours– Daughter Dusk take me– but I have drunk deep.\n\n\"Trull, we need you and your skills with that spear in our wake,\" Fear said. \"Both Binadas and Rhulad here will have to be pulled on the sleds, and for this Theradas and I will be needed. Midik takes point.\"\n\nTrull blinked confusedly. \"Binadas cannot walk?\"\n\n\"His hip is broken, and he has not the strength left to heal it.\"\n\nTrull straightened. \"Do you think they will pursue?\" \"Yes,\" Fear said.\n\nTheir flight began. Darkness swept down upon them, and a wind began blowing, lifting high the fine-grained snow until the sky itself was grey-white and lowering. The temperature dropped still further, as if with vicious intent, until even the furs they wore began to fail them.\n\nFavouring his wounded leg, Trull jogged twenty paces behind the sleds– they were barely visible through the wind-whipped snow. The blood-frosted spear was in his grip, a detail he confirmed every few moments since his fingers had gone numb, but this did little to encourage him. The enemy might well be all around him, just beyond the range of his vision, padding through the darkness, only moments from rushing in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would have no time to react, and whatever shout of warning he managed would be torn away by the wind, and his companions would hear nothing. Nor would they return for his body. The gift must be delivered.\n\nTrull ran on, constantly scanning to either side, occasionally twisting round to look behind, seeing nothing but faint white. The rhythmic stab of pain in his knee cut through a growing, deadly lassitude, the seep of exhaustion slowing his shivering beneath the furs, dragging at his limbs.\n\nDawn's arrival was announced by a dull, reluctant surrender of the pervasive gloom– there was no break in the blizzard's onslaught, no rise in temperature. Trull had given up his vigil. He simply ran on, one foot in front of the other, his ice-clad moccasins the entire extent of his vision. His hands had grown strangely warm beneath the gauntlets, a remote warmth, pooled somewhere beyond his wrists. Something about that vaguely disturbed him.\n\nHunger had faded, as had the pain in his knee.\n\nA tingling unease, and Trull looked up.\n\nThe sleds were nowhere insight. He gasped bitter air, slowed his steps, blinking in an effort to see through the ice crystals on his lashes. The muted daylight was fading. He had run through the day, mindless as a millstone, and another night was fast approaching. And he was lost.\n\nTrull dropped the spear. He cried out in pain as he wheeled his arms, seeking to pump more blood into his cold, stiff muscles. He drew his fingers into fists within the gauntlets, and was horrified by nearly failing at so simple a task. The warmth grew wanner, then hot, then searing as if his fingers were on fire. He fought through the agony, pounding his fists on his thighs, flexing against the waves of burning pain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was surrounded in white, as if the physical world had been scrubbed away, eroded into oblivion by the snow and wind. Terror whispered into his mind, for he sensed that he was not alone.\n\nTrull retrieved the spear. He studied the blowing snow on all sides. One direction seemed slightly darker than any other– the east– and he determined that he had been running due west. Following the unseen sun. And now, he needed to turn southerly.\n\nUntil his pursuers tired of their game.\n\nHe set out.\n\nA hundred paces, and he glanced behind him, to see two wolves emerge from the blowing snow. Trull halted and spun round. The beasts vanished once more.\n\nHeart thundering, Trull drew out his longsword and jammed it point-first into the hard-packed snow. Then he strode six paces back along his trail and readied his spear.\n\nThey came again, this time at a charge.\n\nHe had time to plant his spear and drop to one knee before the first beast was upon him. The spear shaft bowed as the iron point slammed dead-centre into the wolf's sternum. Bone and Blackwood shattered simultaneously, then it was as if a boulder hammered into Trull, throwing him back in the air. He landed on his left shoulder, to skid and roll in a spray of snow. Ashe tumbled, he caught sight of his left forearm, blood whipping out from the black splinters jutting from it. Then he came to a stop, up against the longsword.\n\nTrull tugged it loose and half rose as he turned about.\n\nAmass of white fur, black-gummed jaws stretched wide.\n\nBellowing, Trull slashed horizontally with the sword, falling in the wake of the desperate swing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Iron edge sheared through bones, one set, then another.\n\nThe wolf fell onto him, its forelimbs severed halfway down and spraying blood.\n\nTeeth closed down on the blade of his sword in a snapping frenzy.\n\nTrull kicked himself clear, tearing his sword free of the wolf's jaws. Tumbling blood, amass of tongue slapping onto the crusty ice in front of his face, the muscle twitching like a thing still alive. He scrambled into a crouch, then lunged towards the thrashing beast. Thrusting the sword-point into its neck.\n\nThe wolf coughed, kicking as if seeking to escape, then slumped motionless on the red snow.\n\nTrull reeled back. He saw the first beast, lying where the spear had stolen its life before breaking. Beyond it stood three Jheck hunters– who melted back into the whiteness.\n\nBlood was streaming down Trull's left forearm, gathering in his gauntlet. He lifted the arm and tucked it close against his stomach. Pulling the splinters would have to wait. Gasping, he set his sword down and worked his left forearm through his spear harness. Then, retrieving the sword, he set out once more.\n\nOblivion on all sides. In which nightmares could flower, sudden and unimpeded, rushing upon him, as fast as his terror-filled mind could conjure them into being, one after another, the succession endless, until death took him– until the whiteness slipped behind his eyes.\n\nHe stumbled on, wondering if the fight had actually occurred, unwilling to look down to confirm the wounds on his arm– fearing that he would see nothing. He could not have killed two wolves. He could not have simply chosen to face in one direction and not another, to find himself meeting that charge head-on. He could not have thrust his sword into the ground the precise number of paces behind him, as if knowing how far he would be thrown by the impact. No, he had conjured the entire battle from his own imagination. No other explanation made sense." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And so he looked down.\n\nAmass of splinters rising like crooked spines from his forearm. A blackening sword in his right hand, tufts of white fur caught in the clotted blood near the hilt. His spear was gone.\n\nI am fevered. The will of my thoughts has seeped out from my eyes, twisting the truth of all that I see. Even the ache in my shoulder is but an illusion.\n\nA rush of footsteps behind him.\n\nWith a roar, Trull whipped around, sword hissing.\n\nBlade chopping into the side of a savage's head, just above the ear. Bone buckling, blood spurting from eye and ear on that side. Figure toppling.\n\nAnother, darting in low from his right. Trull leapt back, stop-thrusting. He watched, the motion seeming appallingly slow, as the Jheck turned his stabbing spear to parry. Watched as the sword dipped under the block, then extended once more, to slide point-first beneath the man's left collarbone.\n\nA third attacker on his left, slashing a spear-point at Trull's eyes. He leaned back, then spun full circle, pivoting on his right foot, and brought his sword's edge smoothly across the savage's throat. A red flood down the Jheck's chest.\n\nTrull completed his spin and resumed his jog, the snow stinging his eyes.\n\nNothing but nightmares.\n\nHe was lying motionless, the snow slowly covering him, whilst his mind ran on and on, fleeing this lie, this empty world that was not empty, this thick whiteness that exploded into motion and colour again and again.\n\nAttackers, appearing out of the darkness and blowing snow. Moments of frenzied fighting, sparks and the hiss of iron and the bite of wood and stone. A succession of ambushes that seemed without end, convincing Trull that he was indeed within a nightmare, ever folding in on itself. Each time, the Jheck appeared in threes, nevermore, and the Hiroth warrior began to believe that they were the same three, dying only to rise once again– and so it would continue, until they finally succeeded, until they killed him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet he fought on, leaving blood and bodies in his wake.\n\nRunning, snow crunching underfoot.\n\nAnd then the wind fell off, sudden like a spent breath.\n\nPatches of dark ground ahead. An unseen barrier burst across, the lurid glare of a setting sun to his right, the languid flow of cool, damp air, the smell of mud.\n\nAnd shouts. Figures off to his left, half a thousand paces distant. Brothers of the hearth, the dead welcoming his arrival.\n\nGladness welling in his heart, Trull staggered towards them. He was not to be a ghost wandering forever alone, then. There would be kin at his side. Fear, and Binadas. And Rhulad.\n\nMidik Buhn, and Theradas, rushing towards him.\n\nBrothers, all of them. My brothers-\n\nThe sun's light wavered, rippled like water, then darkness rose up in a devouring flood.\n\nThe sleds were off to one side, their runners buried in mud. On one was a wrapped figure, around which jagged slabs of ice had been packed and strapped in place. Binadas was propped upon the other sled, his eyes closed, his face deeply lined with pain.\n\nTrull slowly sat up, feeling light-headed and strangely awkward. Furs tumbled from him as he clambered to his feet and stood, wavering, and dazedly looked around. To the west shimmered a lake, flat grey beneath the overcast sky. The faint wind was warm and humid.\n\nAfire had been lit, and over it was spit a scrawny hare, tended to by Midik Buhn. Off to one side stood Fear and Theradas, facing the distant ice-fields to the east as they spoke in quiet tones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The smell of the roasting meat drew Trull to the fire. Midik Buhn glanced up at him, then looked quickly away, as if shamed by something.\n\nTrull's fingers were fiercely itching, and he lifted them into view. Red, the skin peeling, but at least he had not lost them to the cold. Indeed, he seemed intact, although his leather armour was split and cut all across his chest and shoulders, and he could see that the quilted under-padding bore slices, here and there stained dark red, and beneath them was the sting of shallow wounds on his body.\n\nNot a nightmare, then, those countless attacks. He checked for his sword and found he was not wearing the belted scabbard. A moment later he spied his weapon, leaning against a pack. It was barely recognizable. The blade was twisted, the edge so battered as to make the sword little more than a club.\n\nFootsteps, and Trull turned.\n\nFear laid a hand upon his shoulder. \"Trull Sengar, we did not expect to see you again. Leading the Jheck away from our path was a bold tactic, and it saved our lives.\" He nodded towards the sword. \"Your weapon tells the tale. Do you know how many you defeated?\"\n\nTrull shook his head. \"No. Fear, I did not intentionally lead them away from you. I became lost in the storm.\"\n\nHis brother smiled and said nothing.\n\nTrull glanced over at Theradas. \"I became lost, Theradas Buhn.\"\n\n\"It matters not,\" Theradas replied in a growl.\n\n\"I believed I was dead.\" Trull looked away, rubbed at his face. \"I saw you, and thought I was joining you in death. I'd expected... \"He shook his head.\"Rhulad... '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He was a true warrior, Trull,\" Fear said. \"It is done, and now we must move on. There are Arapay on the way– Binadas managed to awaken their shamans to our plight. They will hasten our journey home.\"\n\nTrull nodded distractedly. He stared at the distant field of ice. Remembering the feel and sound beneath his moccasins, the blast of the wind, the enervating cold. The horrifying Jheck, silent hunters who claimed a frozen world as their own. They had wanted the sword. Why?\n\nHow many Jheck could those ice-fields sustain? How many had they killed? How many wives and children were left to grieve? To starve?\n\nThere should have been five hundred of us. Then they would have left us alone.\n\n\"Over there!\"\n\nAt Midik's shout Trull swung round, then faced in the direction Midik was pointing. Northward, where a dozen huge beasts strode, coming down from the ice, four-legged and brown-furred, each bearing long, curved tusks to either side of a thick, sinuous snout.\n\nPonderous, majestic, the enormous creatures walked towards the lake.\n\nThis is not our world.\n\nA sword waited in the unyielding grip of a corpse, sheathed in waxed cloth, bound with ice. A weapon familiar with cold's implacable embrace. It did not belong in Hannan Mosag's hands.\n\nUnless the Warlock King had changed.\n\nAnd perhaps he has.\n\n\"Come and eat, Trull Sengar,\" his brother called behind him.\n\nSisters have mercy onus, in the way we simply goon, and on. Would that we had all died, back thereon the ice. Would that we had failed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You maybe written this way Spun in strands sewn in thread Blood woven to the child you once were Huddled in the fold of night And the demons beyond the corner Of your eye stream down A flurry of arachnid limbs Twisting and tumbling you tight To feed upon later. You maybe written this way Stung senseless at the side of the road Waylaid on the dark trail And the recollections beyond the corner Of your eye suckle in the mud Dreadful fluids seeping From improbable pasts And all that might have been. You would be written this way Could you crack the carcass And unfurl once more The child you once were\n\nWaylaid Wrathen Urut\n\nRolled onto the beach, naked and grey, the young man lay motionless in the sand. His long brown hair was tangled, snarled with twigs and strands of sea-weed. Scaled birds pranced around the body, serrated beaks gaping in the morning heat.\n\nThey scattered at Withal's arrival, flapping into the air. Then, as three black Nachts bounded down from the verge, the birds screamed and whirled out over the waves.\n\nWithal crouched down at the figure's side, studied it fora moment, then reached out and rolled the body onto its back.\n\n\"Wake up, lad.\"\n\nEyes snapped open, filled with sudden terror and pain. Mouth gaped, neck stretched, and piercing screams rose into the air. The young man convulsed, legs scissoring the sand, and clawed at his scalp.\n\nWithal leaned back on his haunches and waited.\n\nThe screams grew hoarse, were replaced by weeping. The convulsions diminished to waves of shuddering as the young man slowly curled up in the sand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It gets easier, one hopes,\" Withal murmured.\n\nHead twisted round, large, wet eyes fixing on Withal's own.\"What... where... '\n\n\"The two questions I am least able to answer, lad. Let's try the easier ones. I'm named Withal, once of the Third Meckros city. You are here– wherever here is– because my master wills it.\" He rose with a grunt. \"Can you stand? He awaits you inland– not far.\"\n\nThe eyes shifted away, focused on the three Nachts at the edge of the verge. \"What are those things? What's that one doing? '\n\n\"Bhoka'ral. Nachts. Name them as you will. As I have. The one making the nest is Pule, a young male. This particular nest has taken almost a week– see how he obsesses over it, adjusting twigs just so, weaving the seaweed, going round and round with a critical eye. The older male, over there and watching Pule, is Rind. He's moments from hilarity, as you'll see. The female preening on the rock is Mape. You've arrived at a propitious time, lad. Watch.\"\n\nThe nest-builder, Pule, had begun backing away from the intricate construct on the verge, black tail flicking from side to side, head bobbing. Fifteen paces from the nest, it suddenly sat, arms folded, and seemed to study the colourless sky.\n\nThe female, Mape, ceased preening, paused a moment, then ambled casually towards the nest.\n\nPule tensed, even as it visibly struggled to keep its gaze on the sky.\n\nReaching the nest, Mape hesitated, then attacked. Driftwood, grasses and twigs flew in all directions. Within moments, the nest had been destroyed in a wild frenzy, and Mape was squatting in the wreckage, urinating." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nearby, Rind was rolling about in helpless mirth.\n\nPule slumped in obvious dejection.\n\n\"This has happened more times than I'd care to count, ' Withal said, sighing.\n\n\"How is it you speak my language?\"\n\n\"I'd a smattering, from traders. My master has, it seems, improved upon it. A gift, you might say, one of a number of gifts, none of which I asked for. I suspect, \"he continued,\"you will come to similar sentiments, lad. We should get going. '\n\nWithal watched the young man struggle to his feet. \"Tall,\" he observed, \"but I've seen taller. '\n\nPain flooded the youth's features once more and he doubled over. Withal stepped close and supported him before he toppled.\n\n\"It's ghost pain, lad. Ghost pain and ghost fear. Fight through it. '\n\n\"No! It's real! It's real, you bastard!\"\n\nWithal strained as the youth's full weight settled in his arms.\"Enough of that. Stand up! '\n\n\"It's no good! I'm dying!\"\n\n\"On your feet, dammit!\"\n\nA rough shake, then Withal pushed him away.\n\nHe staggered, then slowly straightened, drawing in deep, ragged breaths. He began shivering. \"It's so cold... '\n\n\"Hood's breath, lad, it's blistering hot. And getting hotter with everyday.\"\n\nArms wrapped about himself, the young man regarded Withal. \"How long have you lived... lived here?\"\n\n\"Longer than I'd like. Some choices aren't for you to make. Not for you, not for me. Now, our master's losing patience. Follow me. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The youth stumbled along behind him. \"You said'our\".\"\n\n\"Did I?\"\n\n\"Where are my clothes? Where are my– no, never mind– it hurts to remember. Never mind.\"\n\nThey reached the verge, withered grasses pulling at their legs as they made their way inland. The Nachts joined them, clambering and hopping, hooting and snorting as they kept pace.\n\nTwo hundred paces ahead squatted a ragged tent, the canvas sun-bleached and stained. Wafts of grey-brown smoke drifted from the wide entrance, where most of one side had been drawn back to reveal the interior.\n\nWhere sat a hooded figure.\n\n\"That's him? \"the youth asked.\"That's your master? Are you a slave, then?\"\n\n\"I serve,\" Withal replied, \"but I am not owned.\"\n\n\"Who is he?\"\n\nWithal glanced back. \"He is a god.\" He noted the disbelief writ on the lad's face, and smiled wryly.\"Who's seen better days.\"\n\nThe Nachts halted and huddled together in a threesome.\n\nA last few strides across withered ground, then Withal stepped to one side. \"I found him on the strand,\" he said to the seated figure, \"moments before the lizard gulls did.\"\n\nDarkness hid the Crippled God's features, as was ever the case when Withal had been summoned to an attendance. The smoke from the brazier filled the tent, seeping out to stream along the mild breeze. A gnarled, thin hand emerged from the folds of a sleeve as the god gestured.\"Closer, \"he rasped.\"Sit. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are not my god,\" the youth said.\n\n\"Sit. I am neither petty nor overly sensitive, young warrior.\"\n\nWithal watched the lad hesitate, then slowly settle onto the ground, cross-legged, arms wrapped about his shivering frame. \"It's cold. '\n\n\"Some furs for our guest, Withal.\"\n\n\"Furs? We don't have any-\"He stopped when he noticed the bundled bearskin heaped beside him. He gathered it up and pushed it into the lad's hands.\n\nThe Crippled God scattered some seeds onto the brazier's coals. Popping sounds, then more smoke.\"Peace. Warm yourself, warrior, while I tell you of peace. History is unerring, and even the least observant mortal can be made to understand, through innumerable repetition. Do you see peace as little more than the absence of war? Perhaps, on a surface level, it is just that. But let me describe the characteristics of peace, my young friend. A pervasive dulling of the senses, a decadence afflicting the culture, evinced by a growing obsession with low entertainment. The virtues of extremity– honour, loyalty, sacrifice– are lifted high as shoddy icons, currency for the cheapest of labours. The longer peace lasts, the more those words are used, and the weaker they become. Sentimentality pervades daily life. All becomes a mockery of itself, and the spirit grows... restless. '\n\nThe Crippled God paused, breath rasping. 'Is this a singular pessimism? Allow me to continue with a description of what follows a period of peace. Old warriors sit in taverns, telling tales of vigorous youth, their pasts when all things were simpler, clearer cut. They are not blind to the decay all around them, are not immune to the loss of respect for themselves, for all that they gave for their king, their land, their fellow citizens." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist the writer by carrying on with the story.\nTags: epic fantasy, new characters, commerce, betrayal, cultural clash\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Midnight Tides\nChapter: 20" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Won't happen, and what if it did? They couldn't be worse.\"\n\nTehol studied Hejun briefly, then he shrugged. \"All of this awaits resolution. In the meantime, remain vigilant. There are still things that need doing. What happened to that Nerek mother and her children I sent you?\"\n\n\"We shipped them to the islands,\" Shand said. \"They ate more than she cooked. Started getting fat. It was all very sad.\"\n\n\"Well, it's late and I'm hungry, so I will take my leave now.\"\n\n\"What about Ublala?\" Rissarh demanded.\n\n\"What about him?\"\n\n\"We want him back.\"\n\n\"Too late, I'm afraid. That's what happens when you won't commit. '\n\nTehol quickly made his way out.\n\nWalking the quiet streets back to his abode, Tehol considered his earlier words. He had to admit to himself that he was troubled. There was sufficient mystery in some of the rumours to suggest that the impending war would not be like all the others Letherii had waged. A collision of wills and desires, and beneath it a host of dubious assumptions and suspect sentiments. In that alone, no different from any other war. But in this case, the outcome was far from certain, and even the notion of victory seemed confused and elusive.\n\nHe passed through Burl Square and came to the entrance to the warehouse storage area, beyond which was the alley leading to his home. Pausing to push up his lopsided sleeves and cinch tight his trousers, he frowned. Was he losing weight? Hard to know. Wool stretched, after all.\n\nA figure stepped from the nearby shadows of an alley mouth. \"You're late. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tehol started, then said, \"For what?\"\n\nShurq Elalle came to within two paces of him. \"I've been waiting. Bugg made soup. Where have you been? '\n\n\"What are you doing out?\" Tehol asked. \"You're supposed to be holed upright now. This is dangerous-'\n\n\"I needed to talk to you,\" she cut in. \"It's about Harlest. '\n\n\"What about him?\"\n\n\"He wants his sharp teeth and talons. It's all we ever hear. Fangs and talons, fangs and talons. We're sick of it. Where's Selush? Why haven't you made arrangements? You're treating us like corpses, but even the dead have needs, you know. '\n\n\"Well, no, I didn't know that. In any case, tell Harlest that Selush is working on this, probably right now in fact. Sharp solutions are forthcoming. '\n\n\"Don't make me laugh. '\n\n\"Sorry. Are you in need of a refill?\"\n\n\"A what?\"\n\n\"Well, uh, more herbs and stuff, I mean.\"\n\n\"I don't know. Am I? Do I smell or something? '\n\n\"No. Only of sweet things, Shurq. I assure you.\"\n\n\"I am less inspired by your assurances as time goes on, Tehol Beddict.\"\n\n\"What a terrible thing to say! Have we stumbled yet?\"\n\n\"When is Gerun Eberict returning?\"\n\n\"Soon, it turns out. Things should get exciting then.\"\n\n\"I am capable of excitement regarding one thing and one thing only, and that has nothing to do with Gerun Eberict. However, I want to steal again. Anything, from whomever. Point me in a direction. Any direction.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, there is of course the Tolls Repository. But that's impregnable, obviously. Or, let's see, the royal vaults, but again, impossible.\"\n\n\"The Tolls. Yes, that sounds challenging.\"\n\n\"You won't succeed, Shurq. No-one ever has, and that includes Green Pig who was a sorceror nearly to rival the Ceda himself-'\n\n\"I knew Green Pig. He suffered from overconfidence.\"\n\n\"And was torn limb from limb as a result.\"\n\n\"What do you want stolen from the Tolls Repository?\"\n\n\"Shurq-\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nTehol glanced round. \"All right. I want to find out which lender holds the largest royal debt. The king has been borrowing prodigiously, and not just to finance the Eternal Domicile. So, who and how much. Same for Queen Janall. And whatever she's done in her son's name.\"\n\n\"Is that all? No gold? No diamonds?\"\n\n\"That's right. No gold, no diamonds, and no evidence left behind that anyone was ever in there. '\n\n\"I can do that.\"\n\n\"No you can't. You'll get caught. And dismembered.\"\n\n\"Oh, that will hurt.\"\n\n\"Maybe not, but it'll prove inconvenient. '\n\n\"I won't get caught, Tehol Beddict. Now, what did you want from the royal vaults? '\n\n\"A tally.\"\n\n\"You want to know the present state of the treasury.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I can do that.\"\n\n\"No you can't. '\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Because you'll have been dismembered by then. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thus permitting me to slip into places where I otherwise wouldn't fit. '\n\n\"Shurq, they take your head off too, you know. It's the last thing they do. '\n\n\"Really? That's barbaric. '\n\n\"Like I said, you would be greatly inconvenienced.\"\n\n\"I would at that. Well, I shall endeavour to be careful. Mind you, even ahead can count.\"\n\n\"What would you have me do, break in and lob your head into the vaults? Tied to a rope so I can pull you out again when you're done? '\n\n\"That sounds somewhat problematic.\"\n\n\"It does, doesn't it? '\n\n\"Can't you plan any better than that, Tehol Beddict? My faith in you is fast diminishing. '\n\n\"Can't be helped, I suppose. What's this I hear about you purchasing a seagoing vessel?\"\n\n\"That was supposed to be a secret. Bugg said he wouldn't tell-'\n\n\"He didn't. I have my own sources of intelligence, especially when the owner of the vessel just sold happens to be me. Indirectly, of course. '\n\n\"All right. Me and Ublala and Harlest, we want to be pirates.\"\n\n\"Don't make me laugh, Shurq. '\n\n\"Now you're being cruel. '\n\n\"Sorry. Pirates, you say. Well, all three of you are notoriously hard to drown. Might work at that.\"\n\n\"Your confidence and well-wishing overwhelms me.\"\n\n\"And when do you plan on embarking on this new venture?\"\n\n\"When you're done with us, of course. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tehol tugged up his trousers again. \"Yet another edifying conversation with you, Shurq. Now, I smell something that might well be soup, and you need to go back to your crypt.\"\n\n\"Sometimes I really hate you.\"\n\nHe led her by the hand down the shallow, crumbling steps. She liked these journeys, even though the places he took her were strange and often... disturbing. This time, they descended an inverted stepped pyramid– at least that was what he called it. Four sides to the vast, funnelled pit, and at the base there was a small square of darkness.\n\nThe air was humid enough to leave droplets on her bare arms. Far overhead, the sky was white and formless. She did not know if it was hot– memories of such sensations had begun to fade, along with so many other things.\n\nThey reached the base of the pit and she looked up at the tall, pale figure at her side. His face was becoming more visible, less blurred. It looked handsome, but hard. \"I'm sorry, \"she said after a moment,\"that she's got you by the ankles.\"\n\n\"We all have our burdens, Kettle.\"\n\n\"Where are we?\"\n\n\"You have no recognition of this place?\"\n\n\"No. Maybe.\"\n\n\"Let us continue down, then.\"\n\nInto the darkness, three rungs to a landing, then a spiral staircase of black stone.\n\n\"Round and round,\" Kettle said, giggling.\n\nA short while later they came to the end, the stairs opening out onto a sprawling, high-ceilinged chamber. The gloom was no obstacle to Kettle, nor, she suspected, to her companion. She could see a ragged mound heaped against the far wall to their right, and made to move towards it, but his hand drew her back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, lass. Not there.\"\n\nHe led her instead directly ahead. Three doorways, each one elaborately arched and framed with reverse impressions of columns. Between them, the walls displayed deeply carved images.\n\n\"As you can see,\" he said, \"there is a reversal of perspective. That which is closest is carved deepest. There is significance to all this.\"\n\n\"Where are we?\"\n\n\"To achieve peace, destruction is delivered. To give the gift of freedom, one promises eternal imprisonment. Adjudication obviates the need for justice. This is a studied, deliberate embrace of diametric opposition. It is a belief in balance, a belief asserted with the conviction of religion. But in this case, the proof of a god's power lies not in the cause but in the effect. Accordingly, in this world and in all others, proof is achieved by action, and therefore all action– including the act of choosing inaction– is inherently moral. No deed stands outside the moral context. At the same time, the most morally perfect act is the one taken in opposition to what has occurred before. '\n\n\"What do the rooms look like through those openings?\"\n\n\"In this civilization,\" he continued, \"its citizens were bound to acts of utmost savagery. Vast cities were constructed beneath the world's surface. Each chamber, every building, assembled as the physical expression of the quality of absence. Solid rock matched by empty space. From these places, where they did not dwell, but simply gathered, they set out to achieve balance. '\n\nIt seemed he would not lead her through any of the doorways, so she fixed her attention instead on the images. \"There are no faces.\"\n\n\"The opposite of identity, yes, Kettle.\"\n\n\"The bodies look strange.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Physically unique. In someways more primitive, but as a consequence less... specialized, and so less constrained. Profoundly long-lived, more so than any other species. Very difficult to kill, and, it must be said, they needed to be killed. Or so was the conclusion reached after any initial encounter with them. Most of the time. They did fashion the occasional alliance. With the Jaghut, for example. But that was yet another tactic aimed at reasserting balance, and it ultimately failed. As did this entire civilization.\"\n\nKettle swung round to study that distant heap of... something. \"Those are bodies, aren't they? '\n\n\"Bones. Scraps of clothing, the harnesses they wore.\"\n\n\"Who killed them?\"\n\n\"You had to understand, Kettle. The one within you must understand. My refutation of the Forkrul Assail belief in balance is absolute. It is not that I am blind to the way in which force is ever countered, the way in which the natural world strains towards balance. But in that striving I see no proof of a god's power; I see no guiding hand behind such forces. And, even if one such existed, I see no obvious connection with the actions of a self-chosen people for whom chaos is the only rational response to order. Chaos needs no allies, for it dwells like a poison in everyone of us. The only relevant struggle for balance I acknowledge is that within ourselves. Externalizing it presumes inner perfection, that the internal struggle is over, victory achieved. '\n\n\"You killed them.\"\n\n\"These ones here, yes. As for the rest, no. I was too late arriving and my freedom too brief for that. In any case, but a few enclaves were left by that time. My draconic kin took care of that task, since no other entity possessed the necessary power. As I said, they were damned hard to kill.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kettle shrugged, and she heard him sigh.\n\n\"There are places, lass, where Forkrul Assail remain. Imprisoned for the most part, but ever restless. Even more disturbing, in many of those places they are worshipped by misguided mortals.\" He hesitated, then said, \"You have no idea, Kettle, of the extremity the Azath tower found itself in. To have chosen a soul such as yours... it was like reaching into the heart of the enemy camp. I wonder if, in its last moments, it knew regret. Misgivings. Mother knows, I do.\"\n\n\"What is this soul you are talking about?\"\n\n\"Perhaps it sought to use the soul's power without fully awakening it. We will never know. But you are loose upon the world now. Shaped to fight as a soldier in the war against chaos. Can that fundamental conflict within you be reconciled? Your soul, lass? It is Forkrul Assail. '\n\n\"So you have brought me home?\"\n\nHis hand betrayed his sudden flinch. \"You were also a mortal human child, once. And there is a mystery in that. Who birthed you? Who took away your life, and why? Was all this in preparation for your corpse to house the Assail soul? If that is the case, then the Azath tower was either deceived by someone capable of communicating with it, or it had in truth nothing at all to do with the creation of you as you now are. But that makes no sense– why would the Azath lie tome?\"\n\n\"It said you were dangerous.\"\n\nHe was silent for sometime. Then, \"Ah, you are to kill me once I have vanquished the other entombed creatures.\"\n\n\"The tower is dead,\" Kettle said. \"I don't have to do anything it told me. Do I? ' She looked up and found him studying her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What path will you choose, child?\"\n\nShe smiled. \"Your path. Unless you're bad. I'll be very angry if you're bad. '\n\n\"I am pleased, Kettle. Best that you stay close tome, assuming we succeed in what we must do.\"\n\n\"I understand. You may have to destroy me.\"\n\n\"Yes. If I can.\"\n\nShe gestured with her freehand at the heap of bones. \"I don't think you'll have much trouble.\"\n\n\"Let us hope it doesn't come to that. Let us hope the soul within you does not entirely awaken. '\n\n\"It won't. That's why none of this matters.\"\n\n\"What makes you so certain, Kettle?\"\n\n\"The tower told me.\"\n\n\"It did? What did it say to you? Try to recall its exact words.\"\n\n\"It never spoke with words. It just showed me things. My body, all wrapped up. People were crying. But I could see through the gauze. I'd woken up. I was seeing everything with two sets of eyes. It was very strange. One set behind the wrappings, the other standing nearby. '\n\n\"What else did the Azath show you?\"\n\n\"Those eyes from the outside. There were five others. We were just standing in the street, watching the family carrying the body. My body. Six of us. We'd walked along way, because of the dreams. We'd been in the city for weeks, waiting for the Azath to choose someone. But I wasn't the same as the five others, though we were here for the same reason, and we'd travelled together. They were Nerek witches, and they'd prepared me. Theme on the outside, not theme all wrapped up. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The you on the outside, Kettle, were you a child?\"\n\n\"Oh no. I was tall. Not as tall as you. And I had to wear my hood up, so no-one could see how different I was. I'd come from very faraway. I'd walked, when I was young, hot sands– the sands that covered the First Empire. Whatever that is.\"\n\n\"What did the Nerek witches call you? Had you a name?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"A title?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"I'd forgotten all this. They called me the Nameless One. Is this important? '\n\n\"I think it is, Kettle. Although I am not sure in what way. Much of this realm remains unknown tome. It was very young when I was imprisoned. You are certain this'Nameless One\" was an actual title? Not just something the Nerek used because they didn't know your true name? '\n\n\"It was a title. They said I'd been prepared from birth. That I was a true child of Eres. And that I was the answer to the Seventh Closure, because I had the blood of kin. \"The blood of kin\". What did they mean by that? '\n\n\"When I am finally free,\" he said in a voice revealing strain, \"I will be able to physically touch you, Kettle. My fingers upon your brow. And then I will have your answer.\"\n\n\"I guess this Eres was my real mother.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And soon you will know who my father is.\"\n\n\"I will know his blood, yes. At the very least.\"\n\n\"I wonder if he's still alive. '\n\n\"Knowing how Eres plays the game, lass, he might not even be your father yet. She wanders time, Kettle, in a manner no-one else can even understand, much less emulate. And this is very much her world. She is the fire that never dies.\" He paused, then said, \"She will choose– or has chosen– with great deliberation. Your father was, is, or will be someone of great importance.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So how many souls are in me?\"\n\n\"Two, sharing the flesh and bone of a child corpse. Lass, we shall have to find away to get you out of that body, eventually.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because you deserve something better.\"\n\n\"I want to go back. Will you take me back now?\"\n\n\"I've given upon the eel itself, \"Bugg said, ladling out the soup.\"It's still too tough.\"\n\n\"None the less, my dear manservant, it smells wonderful.\"\n\n\"That would be the wine. Courtesy of Chief Investigator Rucket, whose request fora meeting with you was for purposes not entirely professional.\"\n\n\"And how did you fare on my behalf?\"\n\n\"I ensured that her interest in you only deepened, master.\"\n\n\"By way of contrast?\"\n\n\"Indeed.\"\n\n\"Well, is that a good thing? I mean, she's rather frightening. '\n\n\"You don't know the half of it. Even so, she is exceptionally clever. '\n\n\"Oh, I don't like that at all, Bugg. You know, I am tasting something fishy. A hint, anyway. Just how dried up was this eel you found? '\n\nThe manservant probed with his ladle and lifted the mentioned object into view. Black, wrinkled and not nearly as limp as it should have been.\n\nTehol leaned closer and studied it fora moment. \"Bugg...\"\n\n\"Yes, master?\"\n\n\"That's the sole of a sandal. '\n\n\"It is? Oh. I was wondering why it was flatter atone end than the other.\"\n\nTehol settled back and took another sip. \"Still fishy, though. One might assume the wearer, being in the fish market, stepped on an eel, before the loss of his or her sole.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am mildly disturbed by the thought of what else he or she might have stepped in.\"\n\n\"There are indeed complexities on the palate, suggesting a varied and lengthy history. Now, how was your day and the subsequent evening?\"\n\n\"Uneventful. Rucket informs me that Gerun Eberict has killed about three thousand citizens this year.\"\n\n\"Three thousand? That seems somewhat excessive.\"\n\n\"I thought so, too, master. More soup?\"\n\n\"Yes, thank you. So, what is his problem, do you think?\"\n\n\"Gerun's? A taste for blood, I'd wager.\"\n\n\"As simple as that? How egregious. We'll have to do something about it, I think. '\n\n\"And how was your day and evening, master?\"\n\n\"Busy. Exhausting, even.\"\n\n\"You were on the roof?\"\n\n\"Yes, mostly. Although, as I recall, I came down here once. Can't remember why. Or, rather, I couldn't at the time, so I went backup.\"\n\nBugg tilted his head. \"Someone's approaching our door. '\n\nThe sound of boots in the alley, the faint whisper of armour.\n\n\"My brother, I'd hazard, \"Tehol said, then, turning to face the curtained doorway, he raised his voice.\"Brys, do come in. '\n\nThe hanging was pulled aside and Brys entered. \"Well, that is an interesting smell,\" he said.\n\n\"Sole soup,\" Tehol said. \"Would you like some?\"\n\n\"No, thank you. I have already eaten, it being well after the second bell. I trust you have heard the rumours.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The war?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I've heard hardly a thing, ' Tehol said.\n\nBrys hesitated, glancing at Bugg, then he sighed. \"A new emperor has emerged to lead the Tiste Edur. Tehol, Hull has sworn his allegiance to him.\"\n\n\"Now, that is indeed unfortunate.\"\n\n\"Accordingly, you are at risk.\"\n\n\"Arrest?\"\n\n\"No, more likely assassination. All in the name of patriotism.\"\n\nTehol set his bowl down. \"It occurs tome, Brys, that you are more at risk than I am.\"\n\n\"I am well guarded, brother, whilst you are not.\"\n\n\"Nonsense! I have Bugg!\"\n\nThe manservant looked up at Brys with a bland smile.\n\n\"Tehol, this is not time for jokes-\"\n\n\"Bugg resents that!\"\n\n\"I do?\"\n\n\"Well, don't you? I would, if I were you-'\n\n\"It seems you just were.\"\n\n\"My apologies for making you speak out of turn, then.\"\n\n\"Speaking on your behalf, master, I accept.\"\n\n\"You are filled with relief-\"\n\n\"Will you two stop it!\" Brys shouted, throwing up his hands. He began pacing the small confines of the room. \"The threat is very real. Agents of the queen will not hesitate. You are both in very grave danger.\"\n\n\"But how will killing me change the fact of Hull forsaking our homeland?\"\n\n\"It won't, of course. But your history, Tehol, makes you a hated man. The queen's investments suffered thanks to you, and she's not the type to forgive and forget. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, what do you suggest, Brys?\"\n\n\"Stop sleeping on your roof, for one. Let me hire a few bodyguards-\"\n\n\"A few? How many are you thinking?\"\n\n\"Four, at least.\"\n\n\"One.\"\n\n\"One?\"\n\n\"One. No more than that. You know how I dislike crowds, Brys.\"\n\n\"Crowds? You've never disliked crowds, Tehol. '\n\n\"I do now.\"\n\nBrys glowered, then sighed. \"All right. One.\"\n\n\"And that will make you happy, then? Excellent-\"\n\n\"No more sleeping on your roof.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid, brother, that won't be possible.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nTehol gestured. \"Look at this place! It's a mess! Besides, Bugg snores. And we're not talking mild snoring, either. Imagine being chained to the floor of a cave, with the tide crashing in, louder, louder, louder-\"\n\n\"I have in mind three guards, all brothers,\" Brys said, \"who can spell each other. One will therefore always be with you, even when you're sleeping on your roof. '\n\n\"So long as they don't snore-'\n\n\"They won't be asleep, Tehol! They'll be standing guard!\"\n\n\"All right. Calm down. I am accepting, aren't I? Now, how about some soup, just to tide you over until you break your fast? '\n\nBrys glanced at the pot. \"There's wine in it, isn't there?\"\n\n\"Indeed. Only the best, at that.\"\n\n\"Fine. Half a bowl.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tehol and Bugg exchanged pleased smiles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Black glass stands between us The thin face of otherness Risen into difference These sibling worlds You cannot reach through Or pierce this shade so distinct As to make us unrecognizable Even in reflection The black glass stands And that is more than all And the between us Gropes but never finds Focus or even meaning The between us is ever lost In that barrier of darkness When backs are turned And we do little more than refuse Facing ourselves.\n\nPreface to The Nerek Absolution Myrkas Preadict\n\nLight and heat rose in waves from the rock, swirled remorselessly along the narrow track. The wraiths had fled to cracks and fissures and huddled there now, like bats awaiting dusk. Seren Pedac paused to await Buruk. She set her pack down, then tugged at the sweat-sodden, quilted padding beneath her armour, feeling it peel away from her back like skin. She was wearing less than half her kit, the rest strapped onto the pack, yet it still dragged at her after the long climb to the summit of the pass.\n\nShe could hear nothing from beyond the crest twenty paces behind her, and considered going back to check on her charge. Then, faintly, came a curse, then scrabbling sounds.\n\nThe poor man.\n\nThey had been hounded by the wraiths the entire way. The ghostly creatures made the very air agitated and restless. Sleep was difficult, and the constant motion flitting in their peripheral vision, the whispered rustling through their camps, left their nerves raw and exhausted.\n\nShe glared a moment at the midday sun, then wiped the gritty sweat from her brow and walked a few paces ahead on the trail. They were almost out of Edur territory. Another thousand paces. After that, another day's worth of descent to the river. Without the wagons, they would then be able to hire a riverboat to take them the rest of the way down to Trate. Another day for that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then? Will he still hold me to the contract? It seemed pointless, and so she had assumed he would simply release her, at least for the duration of the war, and she would be free to journey back to Letheras. But Buruk the Pale had said nothing of that. In fact, he had not said much of anything since leaving the Hiroth village.\n\nShe turned as he clambered onto the summit's flat stretch. Clothed in dust and streaks of sweat, beneath them a deeply flushed face and neck. Seren walked back towards him.\"We will rest here fora time. '\n\nHe coughed, then asked, \"Why?\" The word was a vicious growl.\n\n\"Because we need it, Buruk.\"\n\n\"You don't. And why speak for me? I am fine, Acquitor. Just get us to the river. '\n\nHer pack held both their possessions and supplies. She had cut down a sapling and trimmed it to serve as a walking stick for him, and this was all he carried. His once fine clothes were ragged, the leggings torn by sharp rocks. He stood before her, wheezing, bent over and leaning heavily on the stick. \"I mean to rest, Buruk,\" she said after a moment. \"You can do as you please.\"\n\n\"I can't stand being watched! \"the merchant suddenly shrieked.\"Always watching! Those damned shades! No more! ' With that he stumbled past heron the trail.\n\nSeren returned to her pack and slung it once moreover her shoulders. One sentiment she could share with Buruk: the sooner this trip was over, the better. She set out in his wake.\n\nA dozen paces along and she reached his side. Then was past." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the time Seren arrived at the clearing where the borders had been agreed over a century ago, Buruk the Pale was once more out of sight somewhere back on the trail. She halted, flung down her pack, and walked over to the sheer wall of polished black stone, recalling when she had last touched that strange– and strangely welcoming– surface.\n\nSome mysteries would not unravel, whilst others were peeled back by fraught circumstance or deadly design, to reveal mostly sordid truths.\n\nShe set her hands against the warm, glassy stone, and felt something like healing steal into her. Beyond, figures in ceaseless motion, paying no attention to her whatsoever. Preferable to the endless spying of wraiths. And this was as it had always been. Seren settled her forehead against the wall, closing her eyes.\n\nAnd heard whispering.\n\nA language kin to Tiste Edur. She struggled to translate. Then meaning was found.\n\n\"-when he who commands cannot be assailed. Cannot be defeated.\"\n\n\"And now he feeds on our rage. Our anguish.\"\n\n\"Of the three, one shall return. Our salvation-\"\n\n\"Fool. From each death power burgeons anew. Victory is impossible.\"\n\n\"There is no place for us. We but serve. We but bleed out terror and the annihilation begins-\"\n\n\"Ours as well.\"\n\n\"Yes, ours as well.\"\n\n\"Do you think she will come again? Does anyone think she will come again? She will, I am certain of it. With her bright sword. She is the rising sun and the rising sun ever comes, sending us scurrying, cutting us to pieces with that sharp, deadly light-\"\n\n\"-annihilation well serves us. Make of us dead shards. To bring an end to this-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Someone is with us.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"A mortal is herewith us. Two Mistresses to the same Hold. She is one, and she is here. She is here now and she listens to our words.\"\n\n\"Steal her mind!\"\n\n\"Take her soul!\"\n\n\"Let us out!\"\n\nSeren reeled away from the black wall. Staggered, hands to her ears, shaking her head. \"Enough,\" she moaned. \"No more, please. No more.\" She sank to her knees, was motionless as the voices faded, their screams dwindling. \"Mistress?\" she whispered. I am no-one's mistress. Just one more reluctant... lover of solitude. No place for voices, no place for hard purposes... fierce fires.\n\nLike Hull, only ashes. The smudged remnants of possibilities. But, unlike the man she had once thought to love, she had not knelt before anew icon to certainty. No choices to measure out like the soporific illusion of some drug, the consigning invitation to addiction. She wanted no new masters over her life. Nor the burden of friendships.\n\nA croaking voice behind her. \"What's wrong with you? '\n\nShe shook her head. \"Nothing, Buruk.\" She climbed wearily to her feet. \"We have reached the border.\"\n\n\"I'm not blind, Acquitor. '\n\n\"We can move on away, then make camp.\"\n\n\"You think me weak, don't you? '\n\nShe glanced over at him. \"You are sick with exhaustion, Buruk. So am I. What point all this bravado?\"\n\nSudden pain in his expression, then he turned away. \"I'll show you soon enough. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What of my contract?\"\n\nHe did not face her. \"Done. Once we reach Trate. I absolve you of further responsibility.\"\n\n\"So be it,\" she said, walking to her pack.\n\nThey built a small fire with the last of their wood. The wraiths, it seemed, cared nothing for borders, flitting along the edges of the flickering light. A renewed interest, and Seren thought she knew why. The spirits within the stonewall. She was now marked.\n\nMistress of the Hold. Mistresses. There are two, and they think I am one of those two. A lie, a mistake.\n\nWhich Hold?\n\n\"You were young,\" Buruk suddenly said, his eyes on the fire. \"When I first saw you.\"\n\n\"And you were happy, Buruk. What of it?\"\n\n\"Happiness. Ah, now that is a familiar mask. True, I wore it often, back then. Joyful in my spying, my unceasing betrayals, my deceits and the blood that appeared again and again on my hands.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"My debts, Acquitor. Oh yes, outwardly I stand as a respected merchant... of middling wealth.\"\n\n\"And what are you in truth?\"\n\n\"It is where dreams fall away, Seren Pedac. That crumbling edifice where totters self-worth. You stand, too afraid to move, and watch your hands in motion, mangling every dream, every visage of the face you would desire, the true face of yourself, behind that mask. It is not helpful, speaking of truths.\"\n\nShe thought fora time, then her eyes narrowed. \"You are being blackmailed.\" He voiced no denial, so she continued, \"You are Indebted, aren't you? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Debts start small. Barely noticeable. Temporary. And so, in repayment, you are asked to do something. Something vile, a betrayal. And then, they have you. And you are indebted anew, in the maintenance of the secret, in your gratitude for not being exposed in your crime, which has since grown larger. As it always does, if you are in possession of a conscience.\" He was silent a moment, then he sighed and said, \"I do envy those who have no conscience.\"\n\n\"Can you not get out, Buruk?\"\n\nHe would not lookup from the flames. \"Of course I can,\" he said easily.\n\nThat tone, so at odds with all else he had said, frightened her. \"Make yourself... un-useful, Buruk.\"\n\n\"Indeed, that seems the way of it, Acquitor. And I am in a hurry to do just that.\" He rose. \"Time to sleep. Downhill to the river, then we can trail our sore feet in the cool water, all the way to Trate.\"\n\nShe remained awake fora while longer, too tired to think, too numb to feel fear.\n\nAbove the fire, sparks and stars swam without distinction.\n\nDusk the following day, the two travellers reached Kraig's Landing, to find its three ramshackle buildings surrounded by the tents of an encamped regiment. Soldiers were everywhere, and at the dock was tethered an ornate, luxuriously appointed barge above which drifted in the dull wind the king's banner, and directly beneath it on the spar the crest of the Ceda.\n\n\"There's a cadre here, ' Buruk said as they strode down the trail towards the camp, which they would have to pass through to reach the hostel and dock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She nodded. \"And the soldiers are here as escort. There can't have been engagements already, can there? '\n\nHe shrugged. \"At sea, maybe. The war is begun, I think.\"\n\nSeren reached out and halted Buruk. \"There, those three.\"\n\nThe merchant grunted.\n\nThe three figures in question had emerged from the rows of tents, the soldiers nearby keeping their distance but fixing their attention on them as they gathered fora moment, about halfway between the two travellers and the camp.\n\n\"The one in blue– do you recognize her, Acquitor?\"\n\nShe nodded. Nekal Bara, Trate's resident sorceress, whose power was a near rival to the Ceda's own. \"The man on her left, in the black furs, that's Arahathan, commander of the cadre in the Cold Clay Battalion. I don't know the third one.\"\n\n\"Enedictal,\" Buruk said. \"Arahathan's counterpart in the Snakebelt Battalion. We see before us the three most powerful mages of the north. They intend a ritual. '\n\nShe set off towards them.\n\n\"Acquitor! Don't! '\n\nIgnoring Buruk, Seren unslung her pack and dropped it to the ground. She had caught the attention of the three mages. Visible in the gloom, Nekal Bara's mocking lift of the eyebrows.\n\nAcquitor Seren Pedac. The Errant smiles upon you indeed. '\n\n\"You're going to launch an attack, \"Seren said.\"You mustn't.\"\n\n\"We do not take orders from you,\" Enedictal said in a growl.\n\n\"You're going to strike the villages, aren't you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Only the ones closest to the borders,\" Nekal Bara said, \"and those are far enough away to permit us a full unveiling– beyond those mountains, yes? If the Errant wills it, that's where the Edur armies will have already gathered. '\n\n\"We shall obliterate the smug bastards,\" Enedictal said. \"And end this stupid war before it's begun. '\n\n\"There are children-\"\n\n\"Too bad.\"\n\nWithout another word the three mages moved to take positions, twenty paces distant from one another. They faced the slope of the trail, the rearing mountains before them.\n\n\"No!\" Seren shouted.\n\nSoldiers appeared, surrounding her, expressions dark and angry beneath the rim of their helms. One spoke. \"It's this, woman, or the fields of battle. Where people die. Make no move. Say nothing. '\n\nBuruk the Pale arrived to stand nearby. \"Leave it be, Acquitor.\"\n\nShe glared at him. \"You don't think he'll retaliate? He'll disperse the attack, Buruk. You know he will. '\n\n\"He may not have the time,\" the merchant replied. \"Oh, perhaps his own village, but what of the others?\"\n\nA flash of light caught her attention and she turned to see that but one mage remained, Nekal Bara. Then Seren saw, two hundred paces distant, the figure of Enedictal. Twisting round, she could make out Arahathan, two hundred paces in the opposite direction. More flashes, and the two sorcerors reappeared again, double the distance from Nekal Bara.\n\n\"They're spreading out, \"Buruk observed.\"This is going to be a big ritual. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A soldier said, \"The Ceda himself is working tonight. Through these three here, and the rest of the cadre strung out another league in both directions. Four villages will soon be nothing but ashes.\"\n\n\"This is a mistake,\" Seren said.\n\nSomething was building between the motionless sorcerors. Blue and green light, ravelled taut, like lightning wound round an invisible rope linking the mages. The glow building like sea foam, a froth that began crackling, spitting drawn-out sparks that whipped like tendrils.\n\nThe sound became a hissing roar. The light grew blinding, the tendrils writhing out from the glowing foam. The twisting rope bucked and snapped between the stationary mages, reaching out past the three who were still visible, out beyond the hills to either side.\n\nShe watched the power burgeoning, the bucking frenzied, the tendrils whipping like the limbs of some giant, wave-thrashed anemone.\n\nDarkness had been peeled back by the bristling energy, the shadows dancing wild.\n\nA sudden shout.\n\nThe heaving chain sprang loose, the roar of its escape thundering in the ground beneath Seren's feet. Figures staggered as the wave launched skyward, obliterating the night. It crest was blinding green fire, the curving wall in its wake a luminescent ochre, webbed with foam in a stretching latticework.\n\nThe wall swallowed the north sky, and still the crest rose, power streaming upward. The grasses near the mages blackened, then spun into white ash on swirling winds.\n\nBeneath the roar, a shriek, then screams. Seren saw a soldier stumbling forward, against the glowing wall at the base of the wave. It took him, stripped armour, clothes, then hair and skin, then, in a gush of blood, it devoured his flesh. Before the hapless figure could even crumple, the bones were plucked away, leaving naught but a single upright boot on the blistered ground in front of the foaming wall. The crimson blush shot upward, paling as it went. Until it was gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Air hissed past her, buffeting and bitter cold.\n\nShe sank down, the only response possible to fight that savage tugging, and dug her fingers into the stony ground. Others did the same around her, clawing in panic. Another soldier was dragged away, pulled shrieking into the wave.\n\nThe roaring snapped suddenly, like a breath caught in a throat, and Seren saw the base lift away, roll upward like avast curtain, rising to reveal, once again, the battered slopes leading to the pass, then the pallid mountains and their blunt, ancient summits.\n\nThe wave swiftly dwindled as it soared northward, its wild light reflected momentarily in a patchwork cascade across reflective surfaces far below, sweeps of snow near the peaks and ice-polished stone blossoming sickly green and gold, as if awakened to an unexpected sunset.\n\nThen the mountains were black silhouettes once more.\n\nBeyond them, the wave, from horizon to horizon, was descending. Vanishing behind the range.\n\nIn the corner of her vision, Seren saw Nekal Bara slump to her knees.\n\nSudden light, across the rim of the world to the north, billowing like storm seas exploding against rock. The glow shot back into the night sky, this time in fiery arms and enormous, whipping tentacles.\n\nShe saw a strange ripple of grey against black on the facing mountainside, swiftly plunging.\n\nThen comprehension struck her. \"Lie flat! Everyone! Down!\"\n\nThe ripple struck the base of the slope. The few scraggly trees clinging to a nearby hillside toppled in unison, as if pushed over by a giant invisible hand.\n\nThe sound struck.\n\nAnd broke around them, strangely muted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dazed, Seren lifted her head. Watched the shale tiles of an outlying building's roof dance away into the darkness. Watched as the north-facing wall tilted, then collapsed, taking the rest of the structure with it. She slowly climbed to her hands and knees.\n\nNekal Bara stood nearby, her hair and clothes untouched by the wind that raged on all sides.\n\nMuddy rain sifted down through the strangely thick air. The stench of charred wood and the raw smell of cracked stone.\n\nBeyond, the wind had died, and the rain pummelled the ground. Darkness returned, and if fires still burned beyond the mountains, no sign was visible from this distance.\n\nBuruk the Pale staggered to her side, his face splashed with mud. \"He did not block it, Acquitor!\" he gasped. \"It is as I said: no time to prepare.\"\n\nA soldier shouted, \"Errant take us! Such power!\"\n\nThere was good reason why Lether had never lost a war. Even the Onyx Wizards of Bluerose had been crushed by the cadres of the Ceda. Archpriests, shamans, witches and rogue sorcerors, none had ever managed to stand for long against such ferocity.\n\nSeren felt sick inside. Sick, and bereft.\n\nThis is not war. This is... what? Errant save us, I have no answer, noway to describe the magnitude of this slaughter. It is mindless. Blasphemous. As if we have forgotten dignity. Theirs, our own. The word itself. No distinction between innocence and guilt, condemned by mere existence. People transformed against their will into nothing more than symbols, sketchy representations, repositories of all ills, of all frustrations." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Is this what must be done? Take the enemy's flesh and fill it with diseases, corrupting and deadly to the touch, breath of poison? And that which is sick must be exterminated, lest it spread its contamination.\n\n\"I doubt,\" Buruk said in an empty voice, \"there was time to suffer.\"\n\nTrue. Leave that to us.\n\nThere had been no defence. Hannan Mosag, Rhulad, the slave Udinaas and Feather Witch. Hull Beddict. The names skittered away in her mind, and she saw– with a sudden twisting of her insides that left her shocked– the face of Trull Sengar. No. It was Hull I was thinking of. No. Why him? \"But they're dead. '\n\n\"They're all dead, \"Buruk said beside her.\"I need a drink. '\n\nHis hand plucked at her arm.\n\nShe did not move. \"There's nowhere to go. '\n\n\"Acquitor. The tavern beneath the hostel's built solid enough to withstand a siege. I'd imagine that's where those soldiers just went, to toast their lost comrades. Poor fools. The dead ones, I mean. Come on, Seren. I'm in the mood to spend coin.\"\n\nBlinking, she looked round. The mages were gone.\n\n\"It's raining, Acquitor. Let's go.\"\n\nHis hand closed on her arm. She allowed him to drag her away.\n\n\"What's happened? '\n\n\"You're in shock, Acquitor. No surprise. Here, I've some tea for you, the captain's own. Enjoy the sunshine– it's been rare enough lately.\"\n\nThe river's swift current pulled the barge along. Ahead, the sun was faintly copper, but the breeze sidling across the water's spinning surface was warm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She took the cup from his hands.\n\n\"We'll be thereby dusk, \"Buruk said.\"Soon, we should be able to make out its skyline. Or at least the smoke. '\n\n\"The smoke,\" she said. \"Yes, there will be that.\"\n\n\"Think on it this way, Seren. You'll soon be free of me. '\n\n\"Not if there's not to be a war. '\n\n\"No. I intend to release you from your contract in any case.\"\n\nShe looked over at him, struggled to focus. There had been a night. After the sorcerous assault. In the tavern. Boisterous soldiers. Scouting parties were to head north the next day– today. She was starting to recall details, the gleam of some strange excitement as lurid as the tavern's oil lamps.\"Why would you do that? '\n\n\"My need for you is ended, Acquitor.\"\n\n\"Presumably, the Edur will sue for peace. If anything, Buruk, you will find yourself far busier than ever.\" She sipped the tea.\n\nHe nodded, slowly, and she sensed from him a kind of resignation.\n\n\"Oh,\" she said, \"I'd forgotten. You must needs make yourself of no use. '\n\n\"Indeed. My days as a spy are over, Acquiror.\"\n\n\"You will be the better for it, Buruk.\"\n\n\"Assuredly.\"\n\n\"Will you stay in Trate?\"\n\n\"Oh yes. It is my home, after all. I intend never to leave Trate.\"\n\nSeren drank her tea. Mint, and something else that thickened her tongue. Flowed turgid and cloying through her thoughts. \"You have poisoned this tea, Buruk.\" The words slurred." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Had to, Seren Pedac. Since last night. I can't have you thinking clearly. Not right now. You'll sleep again. One of the dockhands will waken you tonight– I will make sure of that, and that you're safe. '\n\n\"Is this another... another betrayal?\" She felt herself sagging on the bench.\n\n\"My last, dear. Remember this, if you can: I didn't want your help. '\n\n\"My... help.\"\n\n\"Although,\" he added from a great distance, \"you have always held my heart.\"\n\nFierce pain behind her eyes. She blinked them open. It was night. A robe covered her, tucked up round her chin. The slow rise and fall beneath her and the faint creaks told her she was still aboard the barge, which was now tied up alongside a stone pier. Groaning, she sat up.\n\nScuffling sounds beside her, then a tankard was hovering before her face. \"Drink this, lass.\"\n\nShe did not recognize the voice, but pushed the tankard away.\n\n\"No, it's all right, \"the man insisted.\"Just ale. Clean, cool ale. To take the ache from your head. He said you'd be hurting, you see. And ale's always done it for me, when I done and drunk too much. '\n\n\"I wasn't drunk-'\n\n\"No matter, you wasn't sleeping a natural sleep. It ain't no different, you see? Come now, lass, I need to get you up and around. It's my wife, you see, she's poorly. We're past the third bell an'I don't like leaving her too long alone. But he paid me good. Errant knows, more than an honest man makes in a year. Jus'to sit with you, you see. See you're safe an'up and walking.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She struggled to her feet, clutching at and missing the cloak as it slipped down to her feet.\n\nThe dockhand, a bent, wizened old man, set the tankard down and collected it. \"Turn now, lass. I got the clasps. There's a chill this night– you're shivering. Turn now, yes, good, that's it. '\n\n\"Thank you.\" The weight of the cloak pulled at her neck muscles and shoulders, making the pain in her head throb.\n\n\"I had a daughter, once. A noble took her. Debts, you see. Maybe she's alive, maybe she isn't. He went through lasses, that one. Back in Letheras. We couldn't stay there, you see, not after that. Chance t'see her, or a body turning up, like they do. Anyway, she was tall like you, that's all. Here, have some ale. '\n\nShe accepted the tankard, drank down three quick mouthfuls.\n\n\"There, better now.\"\n\n\"I have to go. So do you, to your wife.\"\n\n\"Well enough, lass. Can you walk?\"\n\n\"Where's my pack? '\n\n\"He took it with him, said you could collect it. In the shed behind his house. He was specific'bout that. The shed. Don't go in the house, he said. Very specific-\"\n\nShe swung to the ladder. \"Help me.\"\n\nRough hands under her arms, moving down to her behind as she climbed, then her thighs. \"Best I can do, lass,\" came a gasp below her as she moved beyond his reach. She clambered onto the pier.\n\n\"Thank you, sir,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The city was quiet, barring a pair of dogs scrapping somewhere behind a warehouse. Seren stumbled on occasion as she hurried down the streets. But, true to the dockhand's word, the ale dulled the pain behind her eyes. Made her thoughts all too clear.\n\nShe reached Buruk the Pale's home, an old but well-maintained house halfway down a row on the street just in from the riverside warehouses.\n\nNo lights showed behind the shuttered windows.\n\nSeren climbed the steps and drove her boot against the door.\n\nFour kicks and the locks broke. By this time, neighbours had awakened. There were shouts, calls for the guard. Somewhere down the row a bell began ringing.\n\nShe followed the collapsing door into the cloakroom beyond. No servants, no sound from within. Into the dark hallway, ascending the stairs to the next level. Another hallway, step by step closing in on the door to Buruk's bedroom. Through the doorway. Inside.\n\nWhere he hung beneath a crossbeam, face bloated in the shadows. A toppled chair off to one side, up against the narrow bed.\n\nA scream, filled with rage, tore loose from Seren's throat.\n\nBelow, boots on the stairs.\n\nShe screamed again, the sound falling away to a hoarse sob.\n\nYou have always held my heart.\n\nSmoke rising in broad plumes, only to fallback and unfold like a grey cloak over the lands to the north. Obscuring all, hiding nothing.\n\nHanradi Khalag's weathered face was set, expressionless, as he stared at the distant devastation. Beside the chief of the Merude, Trull Sengar remained silent, wondering why Hanradi had joined him at this moment, when the mass of warriors were in the midst of breaking camp on the forested slopes all around them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hull Beddict spoke true,\" the chief said in his raspy voice. \"They would strike pre-emptively. Beneda, Hiroth and Arapay villages.\"\n\nA night of red fires filling the north. At least four villages, and among them Trull's own. Destroyed.\n\nHe swung round to study the slopes. Seething with warriors, Edur women and their slaves, elders and children. No going back, now. The Letherii sorcery has obliterated our homes... but those homes were empty, the villages left to the crows.\n\nAnd a handful of hapless Nerek.\n\nNothing but ashes, now.\n\n\"Trull Sengar,\" Hanradi Khalag said, \"our allies arrived last night. Three thousand. You were seen. It seems they know you well, if only by reputation. The sons of Tomad Sengar, but you especially. The one who leads them is called the Dominant. A hulk of a man, even for one of his kind. More grey than black in his mane. He is named B'nagga-'\n\n\"This does not interest me, Chief,\" Trull cut in. \"They have been as sorely used as we have, and that use is far from over. I do not know this B'nagga. '\n\n\"As I said, he knows you, and would speak with you.\"\n\nTrull turned away.\n\n\"You had best accept the truth of things, Trull Sengar-\"\n\n\"One day I will know your mind, Hanradi Khalag. The self you hide so well. Hannan Mosag bent you to his will. And now you kneel before my brother, the emperor. The usurper. Is this what the unification of the tribes was intended to mean? Is this the future you desired?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Usurper." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Words like that will see you killed or cast out.\"\n\nTrull grunted. \"Rhulad is with the western army-\"\n\n\"But the wraiths now serve him.\"\n\n\"Ah, and we are to have spies among us now? An emperor who fears his own. An emperor who would be immune to criticism. Someone must speak in the name of reason.\"\n\n\"Speak no more of this. Not tome. I reject all you say. You are being foolish, Trull Sengar. Foolish. Your anger is born of envy. No more.\" He turned and walked back down the narrow track, leaving Trull alone once again on the precipice rising above the valleys of the pass. It did not occur to him to see if Hanradi had indeed lost his shadow.\n\nA precipice. Where he could look down and watch the thousands swarm among the trees.\n\nThree land armies and four fleets held, divided among them, the entire population of the Tiste Edur. This camp before him was a league wide and two leagues deep. Trull had never seen so many Edur gathered in one place. Hiroth, Arapay, Sollanta, Beneda.\n\nHe caught movement below, on the edge of Fear's command area, squat, fur-clad figures, and felt himself grow cold. Our... allies.\n\nJheck.\n\nSummoned by the Edur they had killed. Worshippers of the sword.\n\nThe night just past, beginning at dusk, had vanished behind a nightmarish display of sorcery. Unimaginable powers unveiled by the Letherii mages, an expression of appalling brutality in its intent. This was clearly going to be a war where no quarter was given, where conquest and annihilation were, for the Letherii, synonymous. Trull wondered if Rhulad would answer in like manner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Except we have no homes to return to. We are committed to occupation of the south. Of Lether. We cannot raze the cities... can we? He drew a deep breath. He needed to talk to Fear again. But his brother had plunged into his role as commander of this army. His lead elements, half a day ahead, would come within sight of High Fort. The army would cross the Katter River at the Narrow Chute, which was spanned by a stone bridge centuries old, then swing down to join those lead elements.\n\nAnd there would be a battle.\n\nFor Fear, the time for questions was past.\n\nBut why can I not manage the same for myself? Certainty, even fatality, eluded Trull. His mind would not rest from its tortured thoughts, his worries of what awaited them.\n\nHe made his way down the track. The Jheck were there, a contingent present in Fear's command area. He was not required, he told himself, to speak to them.\n\nEdur warriors readying armour and weapons on all sides. Women chanting protective wards to weave a net of invisibility about the entire encampment. Wraiths darting among the trees, most of them streaming southward, through the pass and into the southlands. Here and there, demonic conjurations towered, hulking and motionless along the many newly worn trails leading to the summit. They were in full armour of bronze scales, green with verdigris, with heavy helms, the cheek guards battered plates that reached down past the jawlines, their faces hidden. Polearms, glaives, double-edged axes and maces, an array of melee weapons. Once, not so long ago, such summoned demons had been rare, the ritual– conducted by women– one of cajoling, false promises and final deception. The creatures were bound, now doomed to fight a war not of their making, where the only release was annihilation. They numbered in the high hundreds in this, Fear's army. The truth of that sickened him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Helping with the striking of tents, children. Torn from their familiar world, subject to anew shaping. If this gambit failed...\n\nFear was standing near the remnants of a hearth from which smoke rose in a low wreath about his legs. Flanked by the two K'risnan the emperor had attached to this force. Hanradi Khalag stood off to one side.\n\nA Jheck was approaching, probably the one the Merude chief had spoken of, given the wild iron-streaked, tangled head of hair, the flattened, seamed face displaying countless battle-scars. Various shells dangled from knotted strips hanging on his sleeveless sealskin shirt. Other small trophies depended from a narrow belt beneath the man's round paunch– pieces of Edur armour, jewellery. A bold reminder of past enmity.\n\nWhat had Hanradi called him? The Dominant. B'nagga.\n\nThe Jheck's eyes were yellow, the whites dull grey and embryonic with blue vessels. They looked half mad.\n\nFiled teeth flashed in a fierce smile. \"See who comes, Fear Sengar!\" The accent was awkward behind the Arapay intonations. \"The one we could not defeat!\"\n\nTrull scowled as his brother turned to watch him approach. To the Dominant, he said, \"You'll find no fields of ice to the south, Jheck. '\n\n\"Mange and moult, Slayer. No other enemy gives us such terror.\" His broadening smile underscored the irony of his words. \"Fear Sengar, your brother is worthy of much pride. Again and again, my hunters sought to best this warrior in individual combat. Veered or sembled, it mattered not. He defeated them all. Never before have we witnessed such skill, such ferocity.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Among all who I trained, B'nagga, \"Fear said,\"Trull was and remains the finest. '\n\nTrull started, then his scowl deepened with disbelief. \"Enough of this. Fear, has our emperor spoken to us through the wraiths? Does he voice his satisfaction at the failed attempt by the Letherii? Does he spit with rage?\"\n\nOne of the K'risnan spoke.\"Not a single Edur was lost, Trull Sengar. For that, we have Hull Beddict to thank. '\n\n\"Ah yes, the traitor. And what of the Nerek camped in our village?\"\n\nThe warlock shrugged. \"We could not command them.\"\n\n\"Relinquish your anger, brother,\" Fear said. \"The devastation was wrought by the Letherii, not us.\"\n\n\"True. And now it is our turn.\"\n\n\"Yes. The wraiths have reported an army ascending to the pass.\"\n\nAh, no. So soon.\n\nB'nagga laughed.\"Do we ambush them? Shall I send my wolves forward? '\n\n\"They are not yet at the bridge,\" Fear replied. \"I expect they will seek to contest that crossing should we fail to reach it before them. For the moment, however, they are in a slow-march, and, it seems, not expecting much opposition.\"\n\n\"That much is clear,\" Hanradi said. \"What commander would seek an engagement against an enemy upslope? This is a probe. At first contact they will withdraw. Back to High Fort. Fear, we should bloody them all the way.\"\n\n\"B'nagga, send half your force forward. Observe the enemy, but remain unseen. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The K'risnan who had spoken earlier said,\"Fear, there will be a mage cadre attached to the army. '\n\nFear nodded. \"Withdraw the wraiths barring a dozen or so. I would convey the belief that those few are but residents of the area. The enemy must remain unsuspecting. Hanradi Khalag, our warriors must be made ready to march. You will lead them.\"\n\n\"We shall be underway before mid-morning.\"\n\nTrull watched the Merude chief walkaway, then said, \"Those Letherii mages will prove troublesome.\"\n\nThe K'risnan grunted.\"Trull Sengar, we are their match. '\n\nHe looked at the two warlocks. Chiefs'sons. Of Rhulad's age.\n\nThe K'risnan's smile was knowing. \"We are linked to Hannan Mosag, and through him to the emperor himself. Trull Sengar, the power we now call upon is more vast, and deadlier, than any the Edur have known before.\"\n\n\"And that does not concern you? What is the aspect of this power? Do you even know? Does Hannan Mosag know? Rhulad?\"\n\n\"The power comes to the emperor through the sword,\" the K'risnan said.\n\n\"That is no answer-\"\n\n\"Trull!\" Fear snapped. \"No more. I have asked that you assemble a unit from our village. Have you done so?\"\n\n\"Yes, brother. Fifty warriors, half of them unblooded, as you commanded.\"\n\n\"And have you created squads and chosen your officers?\"\n\nTrull nodded.\n\n\"Lead them to the bridge. Take advance positions on the other side and wait until Hanradi's forces reach you– it should not be along wait. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And if the Letherii have sent scouts ahead and they arrive first?\"\n\n\"Gauge their strength and act accordingly. But Trull, no last stands. A skirmish will suffice to holdup the enemy's advance, particularly if they are uncertain as to your strength. Now, gather your warriors and be off. '\n\n\"Very well.\"\n\nThere was no point in arguing any further, he told himself as he made his way to where his company waited. No-one wanted to listen. Independent thought had been relinquished, with appalling eagerness, it seemed to him, and in its place had risen a stolid resolve to question nothing. Worse, Trull found he could not help himself. Even as he saw the anger grow in the faces of those around him– anger that he dare challenge, that he dare think in ways contrary to theirs, and so threaten their certainty– he was unable to stay silent.\n\nMomentum was building all around him, and the stronger it grew, the more he resisted it. Ina way, he suspected, he was becoming as reactionary as they were, driven into extreme opposition, and though he struggled against this dogmatic obstinacy it was a battle he sensed he was losing.\n\nThere was nothing of value in such opposed positions of thought. And no possible conclusion but his own isolation and, eventually, the loss of trust.\n\nHis warriors were waiting, gear packed, armour donned. Trull knew them all by name, and had endeavoured to achieve a balanced force, not just in skill but in attitude. Accordingly, he knew many of them resented being under his command, for his dissatisfaction with this war was well known. None the less, he knew they would follow him.\n\nThere were no nobles among them.\n\nTrull joined the warrior he had chosen as his captain. Ahlrada Ahn had trained alongside Trull, specializing in the Merude cutlass as his preferred weapon. He was left-handed, rare among the Edur, yet used his other hand to wield a short, wide-bladed knife for close fighting. The bell-hilt of his cutlass sprouted a profusion of quillons designed to trap opposing sword-blades and spear-shafts, and his ceaseless exercises concentrating on that tactic had made his left wrist almost twice the bulk of its opposite. Trull had seen more than one of his practice spears snap at a shoulder-wrenching twist from Ahlrada's sword-arm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The warrior also hated him, for reasons Trull had yet to fathom. Although now, he amended, Ahlrada had probably found anew reason.\n\n\"Captain.\"\n\nThe dark eyes would not meet his. They never did. Ahlrada's skin was darker than any other Edur Trull had seen. There were colourless streaks in his long, unbound hair. Shadow wraiths swarmed round him– another strange detail unique to the warrior.\"Leader, ' he replied.\n\n\"Inform the sergeants, we're heading out. Minimum kits– we need to travel quickly. '\n\n\"Already done. We were waiting for you.\"\n\nTrull walked over to his own gear, shouldered the small leather pack, then selected four spears from his cache. Whatever was left behind would be collected by the Letherii slaves and carried with the main body as it made its cautious way south in the wake of Trull's company and Hanradi's forces.\n\nWhen he turned, he saw that the company were on their feet, all eyes fixed on him. \"We must needs run, warriors. The south end of the bridge. Once through the pass, each squad sends out a point and makes its own way off-trail down to the bridge. Thus, you must be both swift and silent.\"\n\nA sergeant spoke. \"Leader, if we leave the trail we are slowed.\"\n\n\"Then we had best get moving.\"\n\n\"Leader,\" the sergeant persisted, \"we will lose speed-\"\n\n\"I do not trust the trail beyond the pass, Canarth. Now, move out.\" In his head he cursed himself. A leader need not give reasons. The command was sufficient. Nor, he silently added, was a sergeant expected to voice public challenge. This was not beginning well." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Aid the author, keep the plot going.\nTags: epic fantasy, new characters, commerce, betrayal, cultural clash\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Midnight Tides\nChapter: 21" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The warrior also hated him, for reasons Trull had yet to fathom. Although now, he amended, Ahlrada had probably found anew reason.\n\n\"Captain.\"\n\nThe dark eyes would not meet his. They never did. Ahlrada's skin was darker than any other Edur Trull had seen. There were colourless streaks in his long, unbound hair. Shadow wraiths swarmed round him– another strange detail unique to the warrior.\"Leader, ' he replied.\n\n\"Inform the sergeants, we're heading out. Minimum kits– we need to travel quickly. '\n\n\"Already done. We were waiting for you.\"\n\nTrull walked over to his own gear, shouldered the small leather pack, then selected four spears from his cache. Whatever was left behind would be collected by the Letherii slaves and carried with the main body as it made its cautious way south in the wake of Trull's company and Hanradi's forces.\n\nWhen he turned, he saw that the company were on their feet, all eyes fixed on him. \"We must needs run, warriors. The south end of the bridge. Once through the pass, each squad sends out a point and makes its own way off-trail down to the bridge. Thus, you must be both swift and silent.\"\n\nA sergeant spoke. \"Leader, if we leave the trail we are slowed.\"\n\n\"Then we had best get moving.\"\n\n\"Leader,\" the sergeant persisted, \"we will lose speed-\"\n\n\"I do not trust the trail beyond the pass, Canarth. Now, move out.\" In his head he cursed himself. A leader need not give reasons. The command was sufficient. Nor, he silently added, was a sergeant expected to voice public challenge. This was not beginning well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One squad in the lead, followed by Trull, then the remaining squads with Ahlrada taking up the rear, the company set out for the pass at a steady run. They quickly left the camp behind. Then, through an avenue provided them, they swept past Hanradi Khalag's forces.\n\nTrull found pleasure, and relief, in the pace they set. The mind could vanish in the steady rhythm, and the forest slid past with each stride, the trees growing more stunted and thinner on the ground the closer they approached the summit, while overhead the sun climbed a cloudless sky.\n\nShortly before mid-morning they halted on the south end of the pass. Trull was pleased to see that none of his warriors was short of breath, instead drawing long, deep lungfuls to slow their hearts. The exertion and the heat left them, one and all, sheathed in sweat. They drank a little water, then ate a small meal of dried salmon and thin bread wrapped round pine nut paste.\n\nRested and fed, the warriors formed up into their squads, then, without another word, headed into the sparse forest to either side of the trail.\n\nTrull elected to accompany the squad led by Canarth. They headed into the forest on the trail's west side, then began the slow, silent descent, staying thirty or so paces from the main path. Another squad was further west, fifteen paces distant, whilst the third trailed midway between them and thirty paces back. An identical pattern had been formed on the eastern side.\n\nSergeant Canarth made his disapproval plain, constantly edging ahead until he was almost on the heels of the warrior at point. Trull thought to gesture him back but Canarth was ignoring him as if he was not there.\n\nThen, halfway down the slope, the point halted and crouched low, one hand reaching back to stop Canarth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trull and the others also ceased moving. The forest had thickened during the descent, an army of blackened pine boles blocking line of sight beyond fifteen paces. There was little undergrowth, but the slope was uneven and treacherous with moss-coated boulders and rotting tree-falls. A glance to his right showed the nearest warrior of the flanking squad a half-dozen paces further down, but now also halted, one hand raised, his gaze fixed on Trull.\n\nAhead, the point was whispering to Canarth. After a moment, the sergeant reversed direction and made his way cautiously back to where Trull and the others waited.\n\n\"There is a scout on the edge of the main trail. Faraed, likely serving with the Letherii army. He has a good line of sight on the trail itself, maybe seventy-five or more paces.\"\n\nTrull looked back at the rest of the squad. He singled one warrior out and beckoned him closer. \"Badar, go back to the third squad. They are to choose a warrior to head upslope a hundred and twenty paces, then cut into the main path. He is then to make his way down, as if on point. Once you have delivered the message, return to us.\"\n\nBadar nodded and slipped away.\n\n\"What of us?\" Canarth asked.\n\n\"We wait, then join the squad to our west. Make our way down below the scout's position, and lay our own trap. '\n\n\"What of the squads to the east of the trail?\"\n\nA good question. He had split his forces with noway of communicating with half his company. A mistake. \"We had best hope they too have seen the scout. And will have rightly judged that a Faraed is virtually impossible to sneak upon.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sergeant simply nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did not need to point out Trull's error. Nor, it was evident, his own.\n\nWe even out. Fair enough..\n\nA short time later Badar returned and gave them a perfunctory nod. Trull gestured the squad to follow and struck out westward to join the outlying warriors.\n\nOnce there, he quickly related his plan and the fifteen warriors set off downslope.\n\nThey descended sixty paces before Trull waved them towards the main path. The position they reached was directly below a crook in the trail. He had his warriors draw and ready weapons.\n\nCanarth gestured. \"Across from us, Leader. Rethal's squad. They have anticipated you. '\n\nTrull nodded. \"Into position. We'll take him when he comes opposite us. '\n\nHeartbeats. The sun's heat bouncing from the gravel and dust of the trail. Insects buzzing past.\n\nThen, light thumping, the sound swiftly growing. Suddenly upon them.\n\nThe Faraed was a blur, plunging round the bend in the trail then flashing past.\n\nSpears darted out shin-high to trip him up.\n\nThe scout leapt them.\n\nA curse, then a shaft raced past Trull, the iron head crunching into the Faraed's back, between the shoulder blades. Snapping through the spine. The scout sprawled, then tumbled, limbs flopping, and came to a rest ten paces down the path.\n\nSettling dust. Silence.\n\nTrull made his way down to where the body lay in a twisted heap. The scout, he saw, was a boy. Fourteen, fifteen years of age. His smeared face held an expression of surprise, filling the eyes. The mouth was a grimace of terror. \"We killed a child.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"An enemy,\" Canarth said beside him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is the Letherii you must look to, Leader. They throw children into this war.\" He turned to face uptrail. \"Well thrown, Badar. You are now blooded.\"\n\nBadar scrambled down and retrieved his spear.\n\nThe third squad appeared at the crook. One of them spoke. \"I never even saw him.\"\n\n\"Our first kill, Leader,\" Ahlrada Ahn said. Trull felt sick. \"Drag the body from the trail, Sergeant Canarth. Cover this blood with dust. We must move on.\"\n\nThe bridge was not abridge at all. Trull had visited it once before, and left with naught but questions. Constructed, it seemed, from a single massive disc, notched in rows across its rim, which was broad enough to permit eight warriors to stride across it without shoulders touching. The disc was on end, filling the gap of the deep gorge below which roared the Katter River. The base of the wheel was lost in the chute's darkness and the mist rising ceaselessly from the rushing water. To cross to the other side, one had to walk that curved, slick rim. The hub of the enormous wheel was visible, at least three man-lengths down. Thigh-thick rods of polished stone, spear-shaft straight, angled out from a projection on the hub on both sides, appearing to plunge into the rock wall of the gorge's south side.\n\nThe squads gathered on the north edge, scanning the treeline opposite. Two of the Edur had already crossed, one returning to report back. No signs of scouts, no evidence of recent camps. The lone Faraed they had killed seemed to have been sent far in advance of the main forces, or had taken upon himself the task of a deep mission. His courage and his intelligence had cost him his life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trull approached the very edge of the wheel, where the angle of the stone first emerged from the surrounding rock. As before, he saw a thin, milky film between that carved perfection and the rough rock of the precipice. Ashe had done once before, long ago, he wiped that foam away with a finger, to reveal the straight line, too narrow to slip a dagger blade into, that separated the construct from the raw stone. A disc in truth, somehow set into the notch of the gorge.\n\nAnd, even stranger, the disc moved. Incrementally turning in place. At the moment, it was midway along one of the shallow grooves carved in parallel rows across the rim. He knew he could set his feet on that first notch, and halt. And, had he the patience, he would eventually– days, maybe a week, maybe more– find himself stepping off onto the south side of the gorge.\n\nA mystery without an answer. Trull suspected it was never intended as abridge. Rather, it had been built for some other purpose. It did not make sense to him that it functioned solely as what had immediately occurred to him the first time he had visited. There were, after all, easier ways to measure the passage of time.\n\nTrull straightened, then waved his warriors across.\n\nAhlrada took the lead.\n\nThey reached the other side and fanned out, seeking cover. The ground resumed its downward slope, amidst boulders, pines and straggly oaks. They would cautiously move down in a few moments, to search for defensible positions that permitted a line of sight down the trail.\n\nTrull crouched near Ahlrada, scanning the area ahead, when he heard the warrior grunt, then step away, swearing under his breath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's wrong, Captain? '\n\n\"I felt it... move. Here.\"\n\nTrull edged over, and saw that Ahlrada's original position had been on a slightly curved panel of stone, set lower than the surrounding rock. It was covered in dust and gravel, but looked too smooth to be natural. He reached down and brushed the panel clear.\n\nAnd saw arcane symbols carved into the stone, row upon row, the language unknown to him. Deeply delineated grooves formed an incomplete box around the writing, the base and sidelines visible. Beneath the base anew row of lettering was just beginning to show.\n\nTrull glanced back at the bridge, then back at the recessed panel. \"It moved?\"\n\n\"Yes, I am certain of it,\" Ahlrada said. \"Not much, but yes.\"\n\n\"Was there a sound?\"\n\n\"More felt than heard, Leader. As if something huge and buried was... shifting.\"\n\nTrull stared down at the panel, running his fingers along the lettering. \"Do you recognize the language?\"\n\nAhlrada shrugged and looked away. \"We should head down, Leader.\"\n\n\"You have seen such writing before.\"\n\n\"Not in... stone. In ice. It doesn't matter. '\n\n\"Ice?\"\n\n\"I once lived and hunted with the Den-Ratha, on the north coast. North and east, deep into the ice seas. Before the unification. There was a wall, covered in such writing, a berg that blocked our way. Twenty man-heights high, half a league wide. But it sank into the sea– it was gone the next season.\"\n\nTrull knew that Ahlrada had, like Binadas, journeyed far and wide, had fashioned blood-bound kinships with many Edur from rival tribes. And, like Trull himself, had opposed the wars of subjugation conducted by Hannan Mosag. By all counts, he realized, they should befriends. \"What did your Den-Ratha comrades say about it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Tusked Man wrote them, they said.\" He shrugged again. \"It is nothing. A myth.\"\n\n\"A man with tusks?\"\n\n\"He has been... seen. Over generations, sightings every now and then. Skin of green or grey. Tusks white as whalebone. Always to the north, standing on snow or ice. Leader, this is not the time.\"\n\nTrull sighed, then said, \"Send the squads down.\"\n\nA short time later Canarth reported that he smelled rotting meat.\n\nBut it was only a dead owl, lying beside the trail.\n\nThere were dark times for the Letherii, so long ago now. The First Empire, from which vast fleets had sailed forth to map the world. The coasts of all six continents had been charted, eight hundred and eleven islands scattered in the vast oceans, ruins and riches discovered, ancient sorceries and fierce, ignorant tribes encountered. Other peoples, not human, all of whom bled easily enough. Barghast, Trell, Tartheno, Fenn, Mare, Jhag, Krinn, Jheck... Colonies had been established on foreign coasts. Wars and conquests, always conquests. Until... all was brought down, all was destroyed. The First Empire collapsed in upon itself. Beasts rose in the midst of its cities, a nightmare burgeoning like plague.\n\nThe Emperor who was One was now Seven, and the Seven were scattered, lost in madness. The great cities burned. And people died in the millions.\n\nThe nightmare had a name, and that name was T'lan Imass.\n\nTwo words, inspiring hatred and terror. But, beyond those two words, there was nothing. All memory of who or what the T'lan Imass had been was lost in the chaos that followed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Few Letherii remained who were aware of even that much. True, they knew the name \"First Empire\". And they knew of the fall of that glorious civilization of so long ago, a civilization that was their legacy. And little else, barring the prophecy of rebirth.\n\nUdinaas could no longer make that claim of blissful ignorance for himself. Within the world of ghosts and shades, the past lived on, breathed like a thing alive and ever restive. And voices haunted him, long dead voices. The Tiste Andii shade, Wither, was indifferent to the Letherii slave's own desires, his pleading for silence, for an end to the grisly cacophony of regrets which seemed to be all that held ghosts together.\n\nUdinaas knew enough horror, here among the living. And the distilling of old truths was, as far as he was concerned, not worth it.\n\nT'lan Imass.\n\nT'lan Imass...\n\nWhat did he care about some ancient nemesis?\n\nBecause the dust of over four thousand of them was beneath their feet at this moment. A truth riding Wither's raspy laughter.\n\n'And that dust has eyes, slave. Should you fear? Probably\n\nnot. They're not interested. Much. Not enough to rise up and slaughter you all, which they might not succeed in doing anyway. But, I tell you this, Udinaas, they would give it a good try.\"\n\n\"If they are dust,\" Udinaas muttered, \"they cannot slaughter anyone.\"\n\nIt was night. He sat with his back to a sloping rock face, on a ledge perched above the massive Edur encampment. The emperor had sent him off a short while ago. The hulking, gold-smeared bastard was in afoul mood. Wearied from dragging his bulk around, arguments with Hannan Mosag, the endless logistics of moving an army tens of thousands strong, families in tow. Not all was glory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The dust can rise, Udinaas. Can take shape. Warriors of bone and withered flesh, with swords of stone. Where are these ones from? Which warleader sent them here? They do not answer our questions. They never do. There are no bonecasters among them. They are, like us, lost.\"\n\nUdinaas was tired of listening. The wraith was worse than a burrowing tick, buried deep in his brain. He had begun to doubt its existence. More likely the product of madness, a persona invented in his own mind. An inventor of secrets, seeding armies of ghosts to explain the countless voices whispering in his skull. Of course, it would insist otherwise. It might even flit across his vision, creeping disembodied, the sourceless, inexplicably moving shadow where none belonged. But the slave knew his eyes could be deceived. All part of the same corrupted perception.\n\nThe wraith hides in the blood of the Wyval. The Wyval hides in the shadow of the wraith. A game of mutual negation. The emperor sensed nothing. Hannan Mosag and his K'risnan sensed nothing. Feather Witch, Mayen, Uruth, the host of bound wraiths, the hunting dogs, the birds and the buzzing insects– all sensed nothing.\n\nAnd that was absurd.\n\nAs far as Udinaas was concerned, in any case– the judgement conjured by some rational, sceptical part of his brain, that knot of consciousness the wraith endlessly sought to unravel– Wither was not real.\n\nWyval blood. Sister of Dawn, the sword-wielding mistress known to the Edur as Menandore– her and the hungry place between her legs. Infection and something like rape. He thought he understood the connection now. He was indeed infected, and true to Feather Witch's prediction, that un-human blood was driving him mad. There had been no blazing white bitch who stole his seed. Fevered delusions, visions of self-aggrandizement, followed by the paranoid suspicion that the promised glory had been stolen from him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thus explaining his sordid state right now, slave to an insane Tiste Edur. A slave, huddled beneath every conceivable heel. Cowering and useless once all the internal posturing and self-justifications were castaway.\n\nFeather Witch. He had loved her and he would never have her and that was that. The underscored truth laid bare, grisly exposure from which he withheld any direct, honest examination.\n\nMadmen built houses of solid stone. Then circled looking fora way inside. Inside, where cosy perfection waited. People and schemes and outright lies barred his every effort, and that was the heart of the conspiracy. From outside, after all, the house looked real. Therefore it was real. Just a little more clawing at the stone door, a little more battering, one more pounding collision will burst that barrier.\n\nAnd on and on and round and round. The worn ruts of madness.\n\nHe heard scrabbling on the stone below, and a moment later Feather Witch clambered into view. She pulled herself up beside him, her motions jerky, as if fevered.\n\n\"Is it my turn to run?\" he asked.\n\n\"Take me there, Indebted. That dream realm. Where I found you before.\"\n\n\"You were right all along,\" Udinaas said. \"It doesn't exist. '\n\n\"I need to go there. I need to see for myself.\"\n\n\"No. I don't know how. '\n\n\"Idiot. I can open the path. I'm good at opening paths. '\n\n\"Then what?\"\n\n\"Then you choose. Udinaas, take me to the ghosts.\"\n\n\"This is not a good place to do that-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had one hand clenched around something, and she now reached out and clutched his arm with that hand, and he felt the impression of a tile pressed between them.\n\nAnd there was fire.\n\nBlinding, raging on all sides.\n\nUdinaas felt a weight push him from behind and he stumbled forward. Through the flames. In the world he had just left, he would now befalling down the cliffside, briefly, then striking the rocky slope and tumbling towards the treeline. But his moccasins skidded across flat, dusty ground.\n\nTwisting, down onto one knee. Feather Witch staggered into view, like him passing unharmed through the wall of fire. He wheeled on her. \"What have you done?\"\n\nA hand closed round the back of his neck, lifted him clear of the ground, then flung him down onto his back. The cold, ragged edge of a stone blade pressed against the side of his neck. He heard Feather Witch scream.\n\nBlinking, in a cloud of dust.\n\nA man stood above him. Short but amass of muscles. Broad shoulders and overlong arms, the honey-coloured skin almost hairless. Long black hair hanging loose, surrounding a wide, heavily featured face. Dark eyes glittered from beneath a shelf-like brow. Furs hung in a roughly sewn cloak, a patchwork of tones and textures, the visible underside pale and wrinkled.\n\n\"Peth tol ool havra d ara.\" The words were thick, the vocal range oddly truncated, as if the throat from which those sounds issued lacked the flexibility of a normal man's.\n\n\"I don't understand you, ' Udinaas said. He sensed others gathered round, and could hear Feather Witch cursing as she too was thrown to the ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Arad havra'd ara." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "En'aralack havra d'drah. '\n\nCountless scars. Evidence of a broken forearm, the bone unevenly mended and now knotted beneath muscle and skin. The man's left cheekbone was dimpled inward, his broad nose flattened and pressed to one side. None of the damage looked recent.\"I do not speak your language. '\n\nThe sword-edge lifted away from the slave's neck. The warrior stepped back and gestured.\n\nUdinaas climbed to his feet.\n\nMore fur-clad figures.\n\nA natural basin, steeply walled on three sides. Vertical cracks in the stonewalls, some large enough to provide shelter. Where these people lived.\n\nOn the final side of the basin, to the Letherii's left, the land opened out. And in the distance– the slave's eyes widened– a shattered city. As if it had been pulled from the ground, roots and all, then broken into pieces. Timber framework beneath tilted, heaved cobble streets. Squat buildings pitched at random angles. Toppled columns, buildings torn in half with the rooms and floors inside revealed, many of those rooms still furnished. Vast chunks of rotting ice were visible in the midst of the broken cityscape.\n\n\"What place is this?\" Feather Witch asked.\n\nHe turned to see her following his gaze from a few paces away.\n\n\"Udinaas, where have you brought us? Who are these savages?\"\n\n\"Vis vol'raele absi'arad.\"\n\nHe glanced at the warrior who'd spoken, then shrugged and returned his attention to the distant city.\"I want to go and look. '\n\n\"They won't let you. '\n\nThere was only one way to find out. Udinaas set out for the plain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The warriors simply watched.\n\nAfter a moment, Feather Witch followed, and came to his side. \"It looks as if it has just been... left here. Dropped.\"\n\n\"It is a Meckros city,\" he said. \"The wood at the bases, it is the kind that never grows waterlogged. Never rots. And see there\"– he pointed– \"those are the remnants of docks. Landings. That's a ship's rail, dangling from those lines. I've never seen a Meckros city, but I've heard enough descriptions, and this is one. Plucked from the sea. That ice came with it.\"\n\n\"There are mounds, freshly raised,\" she said. \"Do you see them?\"\n\nRaw, dark earth rising from the flats around the ruins, each barrow ringed in boulders. \"The savages buried the Meckros dead,\" he said.\n\n\"There are hundreds...\"\n\n\"And everyone big enough to hold hundreds of corpses.\"\n\n\"They feared disease,\" she said.\n\n\"Or, despite their appearance, they area compassionate people.\"\n\n\"Don't be a fool, Indebted. The task would have taken months. '\n\nHe hesitated, then said, \"That was but one clan, Feather Witch, back there. There are almost four thousand living in this region.\"\n\nShe halted, grasped his arm and pulled him round. \"Explain this tome!\" she hissed.\n\nHe twisted his arm loose and continued walking. \"These ghosts hold strong memories. Of their lives, of their flesh. Strong enough to manifest as real, physical creatures. They're called T'lan Imass-\"\n\nHer breath caught. \"The Beast Hold.\"\n\nHe glanced at her. \"What?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Bone Perch. Elder, Crone, Seer, Shaman, Hunter and Tracker. The Stealers of Fire. Stolen from the Eres'al. '\n\n\"Eres'al. That's the Nerek goddess. The false goddess, or so claimed our scholars and mages, as justification for conquering the Nerek. I am shocked to discover the lie. In any case, aren't the images on the tiles those of beasts? For the Beast Hold, I mean. '\n\n\"Only among the poorer versions. The skins of beasts, draped round dark, squat savages. That is what you will see on the oldest, purest tiles. Do not pretend at ignorance, Udinaas. You brought us here, after all.\"\n\nThey were approaching the nearest barrows, and could see, studding the raw earth, countless objects. Broken pottery, jewellery, iron weapons, gold, silver, small wooden idols, scraps of cloth. The remnant possessions of the people buried beneath.\n\nFeather Witch made a sound that might have been a laugh. \"They left the treasure on the surfaces, instead of burying it with the bodies. What a strange thing to do.\"\n\n\"Maybe so looters won't bother digging and disturbing the corpses. '\n\n\"Oh, plenty of looters around here.\"\n\n\"I don't know this realm well enough to say either way, ' Udinaas said, shrugging.\n\nThe look she cast him was uneasy.\n\nCloser now, the destroyed city loomed before them. Crusted barnacles clinging to the bases of massive upright wooden pillars. Black, withered strips of seaweed. Above, the cross-sectioned profiles of framework and platforms supporting streets and buildings. And, in the massive chunks of grey, porous ice, swaths of rotting flesh– not human. Oversized limbs, clad in dull scales. Along, reptilian head, dangling from a twisted, torn neck. Entrails spilled from a split belly. Taloned, three-toed feet. Serrated tails. Misshapen armour and harnesses of leather, stretches of brightly coloured cloth, shiny as silk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are those things?\"\n\nUdinaas shook his head. \"This city was struck by ice, even as it was torn from our world. Clearly, that ice held its own ancient secrets.\"\n\n\"Why did you bring us here?\"\n\nHe rounded on her, struggled to contain his anger, and managed to release it in along sigh. Then he said, \"Feather Witch, what was the tile you held in your hand?\"\n\n\"One of the Fulcra. Fire.\" She faltered, then resumed. \"When I saw you, that first time, I lied when I said I saw nothing else. No-one.\"\n\n\"You saw her, didn't you? '\n\n\"Sister Dawn... the flames-\"\n\n\"And you saw what she did tome.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" A whisper.\n\nUdinaas turned away. \"Not imagined, then,\" he muttered. \"Not conjured by my imagination. Not... madness...\"\n\n\"It is not fair. You, you're nothing. An Indebted. A slave. That Wyval was meant for me. Me, Udinaas! '\n\nHe flinched from her rage, even as understanding struck him. Forcing a bitter laugh. \"You summoned it, didn't you? The Wyval. You wanted its blood, and it had you, and so its poison should have infected you. But it didn't. Instead, it chose me. If I could, Feather Witch, I'd give it to you. With pleasure– no, that is not true, much as I'd like it to be. Be thankful that blood does not flow in your veins. It is in truth the curse you said it was.\"\n\n\"Better to be cursed than-\" She stopped, looked away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He studied her paleface, and around it the blonde, crinkled hair shivering in the vague, near-lifeless wind. \"Than what, Feather Witch? A slave born of slaves. Doomed to listen to endless dreams of freedom– a word you do not understand, probably will never understand. The tiles were to be your way out, weren't they? Not taken in service to your fellow Letherii. But for yourself. You caught a whisper of freedom, didn't you, deep within those tiles? Or, something you thought was freedom. For what it is worth, Feather Witch, a curse is not freedom. Every path is a trap, a snare, to entangle you in the games of forces beyond all understanding. Those forces probably prefer slaves when they use mortals, since slaves understand intrinsically the nature of the relationship imposed.\"\n\nShe glared at him. \"Then why you?\"\n\n\"And not you?\" He looked away. \"Because I wasn't dreaming of freedom. Perhaps. Before I was a slave, I was Indebted– as you remind meat every opportunity. Debt fashions its own kind of slavery, Feather Witch, within a system designed to ensure few ever escape once those chains have closed round them. '\n\nShe lifted her hands and stared at them. \"Are we truly here? It all seems so real.\"\n\n\"I doubt it,\" Udinaas replied.\n\n\"We can't stay? '\n\n\"In the world of the tiles? You tell me, Feather Witch.\"\n\n\"This isn't the realm of your dreaming, is it? '\n\nHe grimaced to hide his amusement at the unintended meaning behind her question. \"No. I did warn you.\"\n\n\"I have been waiting for you to say that. Only not in such atone of regret.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Expecting anger?\"\n\nShe nodded.\n\n\"I had plenty of that,\" he admitted. \"But it went away.\"\n\n\"How? How do you make it go away?\"\n\nHe met her eyes, then simply shook his head. A casual turning away, gaze once more upon the ruins. \"This destruction, this slaughter. A terrible thing to do.\"\n\n\"Maybe they deserved it. Maybe they did something-\"\n\n\"Feather Witch, the question of what is deserved should rarely, if ever, be asked. Asking it leads to deadly judgement, and acts of unmitigated evil. Atrocity revisited in the name of justice breeds its own atrocity. We Letherii are cursed enough with righteousness, without inviting yet more.\"\n\n\"You live soft, Udinaas, in a very hard world.\"\n\n\"I told you I was not without anger.\"\n\n\"Which you bleed away, somehow, before it can hurt anyone else.\"\n\n\"So I do all the bleeding, do I?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"I'm afraid you do, Udinaas. '\n\nHe sighed and turned. \"Let's go back. '\n\nSide by side, they made their way towards the waiting savages and their village of caves.\n\n\"Would that we could understand them,\" Feather Witch said.\n\n\"Their shaman is dead.\"\n\n\"Damn you, Udinaas!\"\n\nInto the basin, where something had changed. Four women had appeared, and with them was a young boy. Who was human.\n\nThe warrior who had spoken earlier now addressed the boy, and he replied in the same language, then looked over at Udinaas and Feather Witch. He pointed, then, with a frown, said, \"Letherii.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you understand me?\" Udinaas asked.\n\n\"Some.\"\n\n\"You are Meckros?\"\n\n\"Some. Letherii Indebted. Indebted. Mother and father. They fled to live with Meckros. Live free, freedom. In freedom.\"\n\nUdinaas gestured towards the ruined city. \"Your home?\"\n\n\"Some.\" He took the hand of one of the women attending him. \"Here.\"\n\n\"What is your name?\"\n\n\"Rud Halle.\"\n\nUdinaas glanced at Feather Witch. Rud meant found in the Meckros trade tongue. But, of course, he realized, she would not know that. \"Found Elalle,\" he said in the traders'language,\"can you understand me better? '\n\nThe boy's face brightened.\"Yes! Good, yes! You area sailor, like my father was. Yes. '\n\n\"These people rescued you from the city?\"\n\n\"Yes. They are Bentract. Or were, whatever that means– do you know?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"Found, were there any other survivors?\"\n\n\"No. All dead. Or dying, then dead.\"\n\n\"And how did you survive?\"\n\n\"I was playing. Then there were terrible noises, and screams, and the street lifted then broke, and my house was gone. I slid towards a big crack that was full of ice fangs. I was going to die. Like everyone else. Then I hit two legs. Standing, she was standing, as if the street was still level.\"\n\n\"She?\"\n\n\"This is traders\" tongue, isn't it?\" Feather Witch said. \"I'm starting to understand it– it's what you and Hulad use when together.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She was white fire,\" the boy said. \"Tall, very very tall, and she reached down and picked me up.\" He made a gesture to mime a hand gripping the collar of his weathered shirt. \"And she said: Oh no he won't. Then we were walking. In the air. Floating above everything until we all arrived here. And she was swearing. Swearing and swearing. '\n\n\"Did she say anything else, apart from swearing?\"\n\n\"She said she worked hard on this beget, and that damned legless bastard wasn't going to ruin her plans. Not a chance, no, not a chance, and he'll pay for this. What's beget mean? '\n\n\"I thought so,\" Feather Witch muttered in Letherii.\n\nNo.\n\n\"Remarkable eyes,\" Feather Witch continued. \"Must be hers. Yours are much darker. Duller. But that mouth...\"\n\nNo. \"Found,\" Udinaas managed, \"how old are you?\"\n\n\"I forget.\"\n\n\"How old were you before the ice broke the city?\"\n\n\"Seven.\"\n\nTriumphant, Udinaas spun to face Feather Witch.\n\n\"Seven,\" the boy said again. \"Seven weeks. Mother kept saying I was growing too fast, so I must be tall for my age.\"\n\nFeather Witch's smile was strangely broken.\n\nThe Bentract warrior spoke again.\n\nThe boy nodded, and said, \"Ulshun Pral says he has a question he wants to ask you.\"\n\nA numbed reply. \"Go ahead.\"\n\n\"Rae'd. Veb entara tog'rudd n'lan n'vis thal? List vah olar n'lan? Ste shabyn? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The women want to know if I will eat them when I get older. They want to know what dragons eat. They want to know if they should be afraid. I don't know what all that means. '\n\n\"How can they be eaten? They're-\"Udinaas stopped. Errant take me, they don't know they're dead!\"Tell them not to worry, Found. '\n\n\"Ki'bri arasteshabyn bri por'tol tun logdara kul absi.\"\n\n\"Ulshun Pral says they promised her to take care of me until she returns.\"\n\n\"Entara tog'rudd av? '\n\nThe boy shook his head and replied in the warrior's language.\n\n\"What did he ask?\" Udinaas demanded.\n\n\"Ulshun Pral wanted to know if you're my father. I told him my father's dead. I told him, no, you aren't. My father was Araq Elalle. He died. '\n\nIn Letherii, Feather Witch said, \"Tell him, Udinaas.\"\n\n\"No. There's nothing to tell. '\n\n\"You would leave him to that... woman?\"\n\nHe spun to face her. \"And what would you have me do? Take him with us? We're not even here! '\n\n\"T'un havra'ad eventara. T'un veb vol'raele bri rea hand En'ev? '\n\nThe boy said, \"Ulshun Pral is understanding you now. Some. He says there are holes and would you like to go there?\"\n\n\"Holes?\" Udinaas asked.\n\nFeather Witch snorted. \"Gates. He means gates. I have been sensing them. There are gates, Udinaas. Powerful ones.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right,\" Udinaas said to Found.\n\n\"I don't like that place, \"the boy said.\"But I will come with you. It's not far.\"\n\nThey strode towards the mouth of one of the larger caves. Passed into the cool darkness, the rough floor sloping upward for twenty or so paces, then beginning to dip again. Into caverns with the walls crowded with painted images in red and yellow ochre, black outlines portraying ancient beasts standing or running, some falling with spears protruding from them. Further in, a smaller cavern with black stick-like efforts on the walls and ceiling, a struggling attempt by the T'lan Imass to paint their own forms. Blooms of red paint outlining ghostly hand-prints. Then the path narrowed and began a gradual ascent once more. Ahead, a vertical fissure from which light spilled inward, alight filled with flowing colours, as if some unearthly flame burned beyond.\n\nThey emerged onto an uneven but mostly level sweep of blackened bedrock. Small boulders set end to end formed an avenue of approach from the cave mouth that led them on an inward spiral towards the centre of the clearing. Beyond, the sky shimmered with swirling colours, like shattered rainbows. A cairn of flat stones dominated the centre of the spiral, in the rough, awkward form of a figure standing on two legs made of stacked stones, a single broad one forming the hips, the torso made of three more, the arms each a single projecting, rectangular stone out to the side, the head a single, oblong rock sheathed in lichen. The crude figure stood before a squat tower-like structure with at least twelve sides. The facings were smooth, burnished like the facets of natural crystal. Yet light in countless colours flared beneath each of those surfaces, each plane spiralling inward to a dark hole." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Udinaas could feel a pressure in the air, as of taut forces held in balance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The scene seemed perilously fragile.\n\n\"Vi han onralmashalle. S'ril k'ul havra En'ev. N'vist\". Lan'te.\"\n\n\"Ulshun says his people came herewith a bonecaster. It was a realm of storms. And beasts, countless beasts coming from those holes. They did not know what they were, but there was much fighting.\"\n\nThe T'lan Imass warrior spoke again, at length.\n\n\"Their bonecaster realized that the breaches must be sealed, and so she drew upon the power of stone and earth, then rose into her new, eternal body to stand before the wounds. And holdall with stillness. She stands there now and she shall stand therefor all time.\"\n\n\"Yet her sacrifice has stranded the T'lan Imass here, hasn't it?\" Udinaas asked.\n\n\"Yes. But Ulshun and his people are content.\"\n\n\"Vi truh larpahal. Ranag, bhed, tenag tollarpahal. Kul havra thelar. Kul.\"\n\n\"This land is a path, what we would calla road,\" Found said, frowning as he struggled to make sense of Ulshun's words.\"Herds migrate, back and forth. They seem to come from nowhere, but they always come. '\n\nBecause, like the T'lan Imass themselves, they are ghost memories.\n\n\"The road leads here?\" Feather Witch asked in halting traders' tongue.\n\n\"Yes,\" Found said.\n\n\"And comes from where?\"\n\n\"Epal en. Vol'sav, thelan. '\n\nThe boy sighed, crossed his arms in frustration. \"Ulshun says we are in an... overflow? Where the road comes from has bled out to claim the road itself. And surround this place. Beyond, there is... nothing. Oblivion. Unrealized.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So we are within a realm?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Feather Witch asked. \"Which Hold claims this place?\"\n\n\"A evbrox'l list Tev. Starvald Demelain Tev. '\n\n\"Ulshun is pleased you understand Holds. He is bright-gem-eye. Pleased, and surprised. He calls this Hold Starvald Demelain.\"\n\n\"I do not know that name,\" she said, scowling.\n\nThe T'lan Imass spoke again, and in the words Udinaas sensed a list. Then more lists, and in hearing the second list, he began to recognize names.\n\nThe boy shrugged. \"T'iam, Kalse, Silannah, Ampelas, Okaros, Karosis, Sorrit, Atrahal, Eloth, Anthras, Kessobahn, Alkend, Karatallid, Korbas... Olar. Eleint. Draconean. Dragons. The Pure Dragons. The place where the road comes from is closed. By the mixed bloods who gathered long ago. Draconus, K'rul, Anomandaris, Osserc, Silchas Ruin, Scabandari, Sheltatha Lore, Sukul Ankhadu and Menandore. It was, he says, Menandore who saved me.\" The boy's eyes suddenly widened.\"She didn't look like a dragon!\"\n\nUlshun spoke.\n\nFound nodded. \"All right. He says you should be able to pass through from here. He looks forward to seeing you again. They will prepare a feast for you. Tenag calf. You are coming back, aren't you? '\n\n\"If we can,\" Feather Witch said, then switched to Letherii. \"Aren't we, Udinaas? '\n\nHe scowled. \"How would I know?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Be gracious.\"\n\n\"To you or them?\"\n\n\"Both. But especially to your son.\"\n\nHe didn't want to hear any of this, and chose to study the faceted tower instead. Not a single path, then, but multiple doorways. At least twelve. Twelve other worlds, then? What would they be like? What kind of creatures populated them? Demons. And perhaps that was all the word'demon' meant. Some creature torn from its own realm. Bound like a slave by anew master who cared nothing for its life, its well-being, who would simply use it like any other tool. Until made useless, whereupon it would be discarded.\n\nBut I am tired of sympathy. Of feeling it, at least. I'd welcome receiving it, if only to salve all this self-pity. Be gracious, she said. A little rich, coming from her. He looked back down at the boy. My son. No, just my seed. She took nothing else, needed nothing else. It was the Wyval blood that drew her, it must have been. Nothing else. Not my son. My seed.\n\nGrowing too fast. Was that the trait of dragons? No wonder the T'lan Imass women were frightened. He sighed, then said,\"Found, thank you. And our thanks as well to Ulshun Pral. We look forward to a feast of Tenag calf. \"He faced Feather Witch.\"Can you choose the proper path? '\n\n\"Our flesh will draw us back,\" she replied. \"Come, we have no idea how much time has passed in our world.\" She took him by the hand and led him past the stone figure. \"Dream worlds. Imagine what we might see, were we able to choose...\"\n\n\"They're not dreamworlds, Feather Witch. They're real. In those places, we are the ghosts.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She snorted, but said nothing.\n\nUdinaas turned fora final glance back. The boy, Found, get of a slave and a draconic-blooded woman, raised by neither. And at his side this rudely fashioned savage who believed he still lived. Believed he was flesh and blood, a hunter and leader with appetites, desires, a future to stride into. Udinaas could not decide which of the two was the more pathetic. Seeing them, as he did now, they both broke his heart, and there seemed noway to distinguish between the two. As if grief had flavours.\n\nHe swung round. \"All right, take us back.\"\n\nHer hand tightened on his, and she drew him forward. He watched her stride into the wall of flaring light. Then followed.\n\nAtri-Preda Yan Tovis, called Twilight by those soldiers under her command who possessed in their ancestry the blood of the long-vanished indigenous fishers of Fent Reach– for that was what her name meant– stood on the massive wall skirting the North Coast Tower, and looked out upon the waters of Nepah Sea. Behind her, abroad, raised road exited from the base of the watchtower and cut a straight path south through two leagues of old forest, then a third of a league of farmland, to end at the crossroads directly before the Inland Gate of the fortified city of Fent Reach.\n\nThat was a road she was about to take. In haste.\n\nBeside her, the local Finadd, a willow-thin, haunted man whose skin seemed almost bloodless, cleared his throat for the third time in the last dozen heartbeats.\n\n\"All right, Finadd,\" Twilight said.\n\nThe man sighed, a sound of unabashed relief. \"I will assemble the squads, Atri-Preda.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In a moment. You've still a choice to make. '\n\n\"Atri-Preda?\"\n\n\"By your estimate, how many Edur ships are we looking at?\"\n\nThe Finadd squinted northward. \"Eight, nine hundred of their raiders, I would judge. Merude, Den-Ratha, Beneda. Those oversized transports– I've not seen those before. Five hundred? '\n\n\"Those transports are modelled on our own,\" Twilight said. \"And ours hold five hundred soldiers each, one full supply ship in every five. Assuming the same ratio here. Four hundred transports packed with Edur warriors. That's two hundred thousand. Those raiders carry eighty to a hundred. Assume a hundred. Thus, ninety thousand. The force about to land on the strand below is, therefore, almost three hundred thousand. '\n\n\"Yes, Atri-Preda.\"\n\n\"Five thousand Edur landed outside First Maiden Fort this morning. The skeleton garrison saddled every horse they had left and are riding hard for Fent Reach. Where I have my garrison.\"\n\n\"We can conclude,\" the Finadd said, \"that this represents the main force of the Edur fleet, the main force, indeed, of the entire people and their suicidal invasion.\"\n\nShe glanced at him. \"No, we cannot conclude any such thing. We have never known the population of Edur lands.\"\n\n\"Atri-Preda, we can hold Fent Reach for weeks. In that time, a relieving army will have arrived and we can crush the grey-skinned bastards.\"\n\n\"My mage cadre in the city,\" she said after a moment, \"amounts to three dubious sorcerors, one of them never sober and the other two seemingly intent on killing each other over some past slight. Finadd, do you seethe darkness of the sea beneath those ships? The residents of Trate know well that dark water, and what it holds.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are you saying, Atri-Preda?\"\n\n\"By all means ride back with us with your soldiers, Finadd. Or stay and arrange your official surrender with the first elements to land.\"\n\nThe man's mouth slowly opened.\n\nTwilight turned away and walked to the stairs leading down to the courtyard. \"I am surrendering Fent Reach, Finadd.\"\n\n\"But Atri-Preda! We could withdraw back to Trate! All of us!\"\n\nShe stopped three steps down. \"A third fleet has appeared, Finadd. In Katter Sea. We have already been cutoff.\"\n\n\"Errant take us!\"\n\nTwilight resumed her descent. Under her breath, she muttered, \"If only he could...\"\n\nAll the questions were over. The invasion had begun.\n\nMy city is about to be conquered. Again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The old drainage trench had once been a stream, long before the huts were knocked down and the overlords began building their houses of stone. Rubble and foul silts formed the banks, crawling with vermin. But therein my chest some dark fire flamed in quiet rage as I walked the track seeking the lost voice, the voice of that freed watery flow, the pebbles beneath the streaming tongue. Oh I knew so well those smooth stones, the child's treasure of comforting form and the way, when dried, a single drop of tear or rain could make the colour blossom once more the found recollection of its home– this child's treasure and the child was me and the treasure was mine, and mine own child this very morning I discovered, kneeling smeared on the rotting bank playing with shards of broken pots that knew only shades of grey no matter how deep and how streaming these tears.\n\nBefore Trate Nameless Fent\n\nDreams could pass between the blinks of a man's eyes, answered by wild casting about, disorientation, and an unstoppered flood of discordant emotions. Udinaas found he had slid down, was perched precariously on the ledge, his limbs stiff and aching. The sun had fallen lower, but not by much. Behind him, rising from a crumpled heap, was Feather Witch, the two halves of a broken tile falling from one hand to clatter on the stone a moment before sliding off into the brush and rocks below. Her hair disguised her face, hid the emotions writ there.\n\nUdinaas wanted to scream, let loose his grief, and the sourceless anger beneath it. But what was new in being used? What was new in having nothing to reach for, nothing to strive towards? He pulled himself up from the edge of crumbling stone, and looked about." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The army was on the move." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something had changed. He saw haste below. \"We must return,\" he said.\n\n\"To what?\" Harsh, bitter.\n\n\"To what we were before.\"\n\n\"Slaves, Udinaas.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I've tasted it now. I've tasted it!\"\n\nHe glanced over at her, watched as she sat straighter, dragging the hair from her eyes, and fixed him with a fierce glare. \"You cannot live like this.\"\n\n\"I can't? '\n\nShe looked away. Not wanting to see, he guessed. Not wanting to understand.\n\n\"We're marching to Trate, Feather Witch. '\n\n\"To conquer. To... enslave.\"\n\n\"Details,\" he muttered, climbing cautiously to his feet. He offered her a hand. \"Mayen wants you.\"\n\n\"She beats me, now.\"\n\n\"I know. You've failed to hide the bruises. '\n\n\"She tears my clothes off. Uses me. In ways that hurt. I hurt all the time.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Udinaas said, \"he doesn't do that to her. Not that there's much... tenderness. He's too young for that, I suppose. Nor has she the power to take charge. Teach him. She's... frustrated.\"\n\n\"Enough of your understanding this, understanding that. Enough, Indebted! I don't care about her point of view, I'm not interested in stepping into her shadow, in trying to seethe world how she sees it. None of that matters, when she twists, when she bites, when she pushes... just stop talking, Udinaas. Stop. No more.\"\n\n\"Take my hand, Feather Witch. It's time. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'd rather bite it off. '\n\nI know. He said nothing.\n\n\"So he doesn't hurt her, does he? '\n\n\"Not physically,\" he replied.\n\n\"Yes. What he does to her...\" she looked up, searching his eyes, \"I do to you.\"\n\n\"And you'd rather bite. '\n\nShe made no reply. Something flickered in her gaze, then she turned away even as she took his hand.\n\nHe drew her onto her feet.\n\nShe would not look at him. \"I'll go down first. Wait a bit. '\n\n\"All right.\"\n\nAn army kicked awake, swarming the forest floor. To the north, the ashes of home. To the south, Trate. There would be... vengeance.\n\nDetails.\n\nA flicker of movement downslope, then... nothing.\n\nTrull Sengar continued scanning fora moment longer, then he settled back down behind the tree-fall. \"We have been discovered,\" he said.\n\nAhlrada Ahn grunted. \"Now what?\"\n\nTrull looked to the left and the right. He could barely make out the nearest warriors, motionless and undercover. \"That depends,\" he muttered. \"If they now come in force.\"\n\nThey waited, as the afternoon waned.\n\nSomewhere in the forest below was a Letherii brigade, and within it a mage cadre that had detected the presence of Tiste Edur positioned to defend the bridge. Among the officers, surprise, perhaps consternation. The mages would beat work attempting to discern precise numbers, but that would prove difficult. Something in Edur blood defied them, remained elusive to their sorcerous efforts. A decision would have to be made, and much depended on the personality of the commander. Proceed in a cautious and measured way until direct contact was established, whereupon a succession of probes would determine the strength of the enemy. There were risks, however, to that. Drawing close enough to gauge the sharpness of the enemy's fangs invited a bite that might not let go, leading to a pitched engagement where all the advantage lay with the Tiste Edur. Uphill battles were always costly. And often withdrawal proved bloody and difficult. Worse, there was a good chance of an all-out rout, which would lead to slaughter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or the commander could order the mage cadre to unleash a sorcerous attack and so lay waste the forest reaches above them. Such an attack, of course, served to expose the mages' position to those Edur warlocks who might be present. And to the wraiths and demons attending them. If the attack was blunted, the cadre was in trouble.\n\nFinally, the commander could choose to pullback. Yield the bridge, and return to the solid defences of High Fort, inviting a more traditional battle– the kind the Letherii had fought for centuries, against enemy forces of all sorts, and almost invariably with great success.\n\nWas the commander overconfident and precipitous? If so, then Trull Sengar and his fifty warriors would either be slaughtered or forced back to the other side of the bridge, either result proving tactically disastrous for Hanradi Khalag and his advancing warriors. A contested crossing of the bridge would force Fear and Hanradi into unveiling the full extent of the sorcerous power accompanying the army– power intended to shatter the defenders of High Fort. Conversely, a cautious or timid commander would elect to retreat, and that would ensure an Edur success.\n\nTrull edged his way backup to peer over the tree-fall. No movement below. The air seemed preternaturally still.\n\n\"If they don't close soon, \"Ahlrada said in a low voice,\"they will have lost the advantage. '\n\nTrull nodded. Sufficient concerns to occupy his mind, to steal his fullest attention. He did not have the luxury of thinking of other things. This, he decided, was preferable. A relief. And I can stay here, in this tense cast of my mind's thoughts, from now on. It will take me through this war. It has to. Please, take me through this war." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The shadows were long on the slope below, cutting cross-ways, the shafts of dusty sunlight ebbing into golden mist through which insects flitted.\n\nA whisper of sound– behind them, then on all sides.\n\nWraiths, streaming down, slipping past into the spreading gloom below.\n\n\"They've arrived, ' Ahlrada said.\n\nTrull slid back down and rolled onto his back. Padding between brush and trees upslope, silver-backed wolves. A half-dozen, then a score, lambent eyes flashing from lowered heads.\n\nOne beast approached Trull. It suddenly blurred, the air filling with a pungent, spicy scent, and a moment later Trull found himself looking into the amber eyes of B'nagga.\n\nThe Jheck grinned. \"A thousand paces below, Trull Sengar. They are in full retreat.\"\n\n\"You made good time,\" Ahlrada said.\n\nThe grin widened. \"The warriors are but two thousand paces from the bridge. My brothers found a body, hidden in the brush. Your work?\"\n\n\"An advance scout,\" Trull said.\n\n\"The mages had tied a thread to him. They knew you were coming. No doubt that slowed them even more.\"\n\n\"So,\" Ahlrada said, \"are we to contest their retreat?\"\n\n\"It was a thought. But no, the wraiths will do naught but hound them. Keep them on edge and moving at double-march. By the time they reach High Fort they will be footsore and bleary-eyed. We won't be giving them much time to rest. \"He settled into a crouch.\"I have news. First Maiden Fort has fallen. No battle– the garrison had already fled back to Fent Reach. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As anticipated,\" Trull said.\n\n\"Yes. If the Letherii choose to make a stand at Fent Reach, it will be a short siege. Even now, our ships have made landing and the warriors march on the city.\"\n\n\"No contact with any Letherii fleets?\" Trull was surprised. Those transports were vulnerable.\n\n\"None. The emperor's forces are poised above Trate, undetected as yet. Within the next few days, my friends, there will be four major battles. And, sword willing, the northern frontier shall fall. '\n\nAt the very least, we'll have their fullest attention.\n\nBlind drunk. A description Seren Pedac sought to explore, with all the fumbling murky intent of a mind poisoned into stupidity. But, somehow, she was failing. Instead of blind, she was painfully aware of the figures on all sides of her small table, the seething press and the loose rubble sound of countless voices. Stupidity had yet to arrive and possibly never would, as stolid sobriety held on, dogged and immovable and indifferent to the seemingly endless cups of wine she drank down.\n\nFevered excitement, scores of voices uttering their I-told-you-so variations to herds of nodding heads. Proclamations and predictions, the gleaming words of greed eager to be unleashed on the booty of battlefields crowded with dead Edur. Give \"em First Maiden Fort, aye. Why not? Pull the bastards in and in. You saw what the cadre did that night? They'll do it again, this time against the ash-faced bastards themselves. I've got a perch halfway up the lighthouse, paid a fortune for it, I'll see it all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It'll all be over at Fent Reach. They'll get their noses bloodied and that's when the cadre will hit the fleet in Katter Sea. I got an interest in a stretch on Bight Coast, salvage rights. Heading up there as soon as it's over.\n\nThey let themselves get surrounded, I tell you. Twilight's just waiting for the siege to settle in. What's that? You saying she surrendered? Errant take us, man, what kind of lies you throwing about inhere? You a damned traitor, you a damned Hull Beddict! Shut that mouth of yours or I'll do it for you-\n\nI'll help, Cribal, that's a promise. Sewing lips tight is easy as mending sails an' I been doing that for years-\n\nWhere'd he go?\n\nAh, never mind him, Cribal-\n\nTraitors need to be taught a lesson, Feluda. Come on, I see 'im making for the door-\n\nSittin alone don't do no woman no good, sweetheart. Leta decent man take you away from all this...\n\nSeren Pedac frowned, looked up at the figure looming over her table. Her mind replied, AH right, even as she scowled and turned away.\n\n\"Nothing worth its spit is being said here, lass. You want to drink. Fine, jus\" sit and drink. All I was offerin'was a quieter place to do it, is all.\"\n\n\"Go away.\"\n\nInstead, the man sat down. \"Been watchin\" you all evening. Jus'another Letherii? Asked myself that once and once only. No, I think, not this one. So I ask, and someone says, \"That's the Acquitor, Seren Pedac. Was up at the treaty that went sour. Was under contract with Buruk the Pale, the one that hung himself and damned if it wasn't her that found him all fish-eyed and fouled.\" And I think, that ain't an easy thing. No wonder she's sittin\" there tryin't\"get drunk an'it's not working. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She fixed her gaze on him, seeing him clearly for the first time. Seamed face, clean-shaven, hair shoulder-length and the hue of polished iron. His voice sounded again in her head, confirming what she saw. \"You're no Letherii. '\n\nAbroad smile, even, white teeth. \"You got that right, and, no offence, but glad of it.\"\n\n\"You're not Faraed. Nerek. Tarthenal. Not Fent, either, not even Meckros-'\n\n\"What I am you never heard of, believe me, lass. Along way from home.\"\n\n\"What do you want?\"\n\n\"Was making an offer, but it needed to be done in quiet. Private-\"\n\n\"I'm sure-'\n\n\"Not like that, though I'd consider my fortunes on the upswing if it was to happen the way you think I meant. No. ' He leaned forward, gesturing her closer as well.\n\nHer smile ironic, she tilted over the table until their noses were almost touching. \"I can't wait. '\n\nHe withdrew a fraction. \"Lass, you're a breathin'vineyard. All right, then, listen. We got ourselves a boat-\"\n\n\"We?\"\n\n\"A boat, and we're leaving this pock-on-Hood's-ass of a kingdom.\"\n\n\"Where to? Korshenn? Pilott, Truce? Kolanse?\"\n\n\"What would be the point of that? The first three you named are all paying tribute to Lether, and Kolanse is a mess from all we hear. Acquitor, the world's a lot bigger than you might think-'\n\n\"Is it? Actually, it's smaller than I think. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Same rubbish, different hole, eh? Maybe you're right. But maybe not. '\n\n\"Who are you?\"\n\n\"Just someone along way from home, like I said. We clawed our way out of Assail, only to find ourselves here, and just by arriving in our damned sieve of a boat, we owed money. Just by steppin\" onto the dock, we owed more. It's been seven months, and we're so far in debt Prince K'azz himself couldn't clear our way back out. Livin'off scraps and doin\" ugly work and it's rotting us all-\"\n\n\"You were a soldier.\"\n\n\"Still am, lass.\"\n\n\"So join a brigade-\"\n\nHe rubbed at his face, closed his eyes fora moment, then seemed to reach a decision. He fixed her with his cool, blue eyes. \"It's shouting to the Abyss, lass, and not one Letherii's listening. You people are in trouble. Serious trouble. Fent Reach surrendered. Now, Twilight's a smart, able commander, so what made her do that? Think, Acquitor. '\n\n\"She saw it was hopeless. She saw she couldn't hold the city, and there was noway to retreat. '\n\nHe nodded. \"You weren't here when the harvest ships returned. You didn't see what delivered'em. We did. Lass, if dhenrabi worship a god then that was it, right therein the harbour. '\n\n\"Who are dhenrabi?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"We got room for people worth their salt. And you won't be the only woman, so it's not like that.\"\n\n\"So why meat all, then?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because you ain't blind, Seren Pedac." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'\n\nSmiling, she leaned back, then looked away. Not drunk, either. \"Who are you?\"\n\n\"It won't mean a thing-'\n\n\"Tell me anyway.\"\n\n\"Iron Bars, Second Blade, Fourth Company, Crimson Guard. Was in the service of Commander Cal-Brinn before we was all scattered between here and Hood's gates. '\n\n\"Meaningless and long. I'm impressed, Iron Bars. '\n\n\"Lass, you got more sharp teeth than an enkar'al with a mouthful of rhizan. Probably why I like you so much. '\n\nAll right. \"I'm not interested in your offer, Iron Bars. '\n\n\"Try thinking on it. There's time for that, provided you get out of Trate as soon as you can. '\n\nShe looked at him. \"That doesn't make any sense. '\n\n\"You'd be right, if our boat was in the harbour here. But it isn't. It's in Letheras. We signed on as crew, through an agent. \"He shrugged.\"As soon as we get out to sea... '\n\n\"You'll kill the captain and mates and turn pirate. '\n\n\"We won't kill anybody if there's away round it, and we're not pirates. We just want to get home. We need to get home. \"He studied her fora moment, then rose.\"If it works outright, we'll look you up in Letheras.\"\n\nAll right. \"You'd be wasting your time. '\n\nHe shrugged. \"Between here and then, Acquitor, a whole lot is going to change. Get out of this city, lass. As soon as you sober up, go. Just go.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist the writer by carrying on with the story.\nTags: epic fantasy, new characters, commerce, betrayal, cultural clash\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Midnight Tides\nChapter: 22" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because you ain't blind, Seren Pedac." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'\n\nSmiling, she leaned back, then looked away. Not drunk, either. \"Who are you?\"\n\n\"It won't mean a thing-'\n\n\"Tell me anyway.\"\n\n\"Iron Bars, Second Blade, Fourth Company, Crimson Guard. Was in the service of Commander Cal-Brinn before we was all scattered between here and Hood's gates. '\n\n\"Meaningless and long. I'm impressed, Iron Bars. '\n\n\"Lass, you got more sharp teeth than an enkar'al with a mouthful of rhizan. Probably why I like you so much. '\n\nAll right. \"I'm not interested in your offer, Iron Bars. '\n\n\"Try thinking on it. There's time for that, provided you get out of Trate as soon as you can. '\n\nShe looked at him. \"That doesn't make any sense. '\n\n\"You'd be right, if our boat was in the harbour here. But it isn't. It's in Letheras. We signed on as crew, through an agent. \"He shrugged.\"As soon as we get out to sea... '\n\n\"You'll kill the captain and mates and turn pirate. '\n\n\"We won't kill anybody if there's away round it, and we're not pirates. We just want to get home. We need to get home. \"He studied her fora moment, then rose.\"If it works outright, we'll look you up in Letheras.\"\n\nAll right. \"You'd be wasting your time. '\n\nHe shrugged. \"Between here and then, Acquitor, a whole lot is going to change. Get out of this city, lass. As soon as you sober up, go. Just go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he was gone.\n\nThey caught him, dragged him into the alley and they're sewing up his mouth– c'mon, let's watch-\n\nJust his mouth? He's a damned traitor. No reason to go easy on the bastard. Sew him up everywhere, see how he likes that-\n\nWish it was Hull Beddict, that's what I wish-\n\nThey'll do a lot worse on'im, mark my words. You just wait and see...\n\nHer blue silks snapping in the wind, Nekal Bara stood atop the lighthouse tower and faced out to sea. Nothing was going as planned. Their pre-emptive attack had destroyed empty villages; the entire Tiste Edur people were on the move. And they're about to arrive on our very doorstep.\n\nThe fleet that had appeared in Katter Sea, poised to interpose its forces to prevent the retreat of Twilight's garrison at Fent Reach, had, upon the city's surrender, simply moved on. Preternaturally swift, the blood-red sails of five hundred raiders now approached Trate Bay. And in the waters beneath those sleek hulls... a thing. Ancient, terrible, eager with hunger. It knew this path. It had been here before.\n\nSince that time, and at the Ceda's command, she had delved deep in her search to discover the nature of the creature the Tiste Edur had bound to their service. The harbour and the bay beyond had once been dry land, a massive limestone shelf beneath which raced vast underground rivers. Erosion had collapsed the shelf in places, creating roughly circular, deep wells. Sometimes the water below continued to flow as part of the rivers. But in some, the percolating effect of the limestone was blocked by concretions overtime, and the water was black and still." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One such well had become, long ago, a place of worship. Treasures were flung into its depths. Gold, jade, silver and living sacrifices. Drowning voices had screamed in the chill water, cold flesh and bone had settled on the pale floor.\n\nAnd a spirit was fashioned. Fed on blood and despair, beseeching propitiation, the unwilling surrender of mortal lives. There were mysteries to this, she well knew. Had the spirit existed before the worship began, and was simply drawn to the gifts offered? Or was it conjured into existence by the very will of those ancient worshippers? Either way, the result was the same. A creature came into being, and was taught the nature of hunger, of desire. Made into an addict of blood and grief and terror.\n\nThe worshippers vanished. Died out or departed, or driven to such extreme sacrifices as to destroy themselves. There was no telling how deep the bed of bones at the bottom of that well, but, by the end, it must have been appalling in its vastness.\n\nThe spirit was doomed, and should have eventually died. Had not the seas risen to swallow the land, had not its world's walls suddenly vanished, releasing it to all that lay beyond.\n\nShorelines were places of worship the world over. The earliest records surviving from the First Empire made note of that again and again among peoples encountered during the explorations. The verge between sea and land marked the manifestation of the symbolic transition between the known and the unknown. Between life and death, spirit and mind, between an unlimited host of elements and forces contrary yet locked together. Lives were given to the seas, treasures were flung into their depths. And, upon the waters themselves, ships and their crews were dragged into the deep time and again.\n\nFor all that, the spirit had known... competition. And, Nekal Bara suspected, had fared poorly. Weakened, suffering, it had returned to its hole, there beneath the deluge. Returned to die." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was noway of knowing how the Tiste Edur warlocks had found it, or came to understand its nature and the potential within it. But they had bound it, fed it blood until its strength returned, and it had grown, and with that growth, a burgeoning hunger.\n\nAnd now, I must find away to kill it.\n\nShe could sense its approach, drawing ever nearer beneath the Edur raiders. Along the harbour front below, soldiers were crowding the fortifications. Crews readied at the trebuchets and ballistae. Fires were stoked and racks of hull-breaching quarrels were wheeled out.\n\nArahathan in his black furs had positioned himself at the far end of the main pier and, like her, stood facing the fast-approaching Edur fleet. He would seek to block the spirit's attack, engage it fully for as long as it took for Nekal Bara to magically draw close to the entity and strike at its heart.\n\nShe wished Enedictal had remained in the city, rather than returning to his battalion at Awl. Indeed, she wished the Snakebelts had marched to join them here. Once the spirit was engaged, Enedictal could have then shattered the Edur fleet. She had no idea how much damage she and Arahathan would sustain while killing the spirit– it was possible they would have nothing left with which to destroy the fleet. It might comedown to hand to hand fighting along the harbour front.\n\nAnd that is the absurdity of magic in war– we do little more than negate each other. Unless one cadre finds itself outnumbered...\n\nShe had six minor sorcerors under her command, interspersed among the companies of the Cold Clay Battalion arrayed below. They would have to be sufficient against the Edur warlocks accompanying the fleet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nekal Bara was worried, but not unduly so.\n\nThe red sails fluttered. She could just make out the crews, scampering on the foredecks and in the rigging. The fleet was heaving to. Beneath the lead ships, a dark tide surged forward, spreading its midnight bruise into the harbour.\n\nShe felt a sudden fear. It was... huge.\n\nA glance down. To the lone, black-swathed figure at the very end of the main pier. The arms spreading wide.\n\nThe spirit heaved up in a swelling wave, gaining speed as it rushed towards the harbour front. On the docks, soldiers behind shields, a wavering of spear-heads. Someone loosed a ball of flaming pitch from one of the trebuchets. Fascinated, Nekal Bara watched its arcing flight, its smoke-trailing descent, down towards the rising wave.\n\nIt vanished in a smear of steam.\n\nShe heard Arahathan's roar, saw a line of water shiver, then boil just beyond the docks, lifting skyward a wall of steam even as the spirit's bulk seemed to lunge a moment before striking it.\n\nThe concussion sent the lighthouse wavering beneath her feet and she threw her arms out for balance. Two-thirds of the way down, along a narrow iron balcony, onlookers were flung into the air, to pitch screaming down to the rocks below. The balcony twisted like thin wire in the hands of a blacksmith, the fittings exploding in puffs of dust. A terrible groaning rose up through the tower as it rocked back and forth.\n\nSteam and dark water raged in battle, clambering ever higher directly before Arahathan. The sorceror was swallowed by shadow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lighthouse was toppling.\n\nNekal Bara faced the harbour, held her arms out, then flung herself from the edge.\n\nVanishing within a tumbling shaft of magic. Slanting downward in coruscating threads of blue fire that swarmed around a blinding, white core.\n\nLike a god's spear, the shaft pierced the flank of the spirit. Tore a path of incandescence into the dark, surging water.\n\nErrant– he's failing! Falling! She sensed, then saw, Arahathan. Red flesh curling away from his bones, blackening, snatched away as if by a fierce whirling wind. She saw his teeth, the lips gone, the grimace suddenly a maddening smile. Eyes wrinkled, then darkening, then collapsing inward.\n\nShe sensed, in that last moment, his surprise, his disbelief-\n\nInto the spirit's flesh, down through layer upon layer of thick, coagulated blood, matted hair, slivered pieces of bone. Encrusted jewellery, mangled coins. Layers of withered newborn corpses, each one wrapped in leather, each one with its forehead stove in, above a face twisted with pain and baffled suffering. Layers. Oh, Mistress, what have we mortals done? Done, and done, and done?\n\nStone tools, pearls, bits of shell-\n\nThrough-\n\nTo find that she had been wrong. Terribly wrong.\n\nThe spirit– naught but a shell, held together by the memory within bone, teeth and hair, by that memory and nothing more.\n\nWithin-\n\nNekal Bara saw that she was about to die. Against all that rose to greet her, she had no defence. None. Could not– could never– Ceda! Kuru Qan! Hear me! See-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Seren Pedac staggered out into the street. Pushed, spun round, knocked to her knees by fleeing figures.\n\nShe had woken in a dark cellar, surrounded by empty, broken kegs. She had been robbed, most of her armour stripped away. Sword and knife gone. The ache between her legs told her that worse had happened. Lips puffed and cut by kisses she had never felt, her hair tangled and matted with blood, she crawled across greasy cobbles to curl up against a stained brick wall. Stared out numbly on the panicked scene.\n\nSmoke had stolen the sky. Brown, murky light, the distant sound of battle– at the harbour front to her left, and along the north and east walls ahead and to her right. In the street before her, citizens raced in seemingly random directions. Across from her, two men were locked in mortal combat, and she watched as one managed to pin the other, then began pounding the man's head against the cobbles. The hard impacts gave way to soft crunches, and the victor rolled away from the spasming victim, scrambled upright, then limped away.\n\nDoors were being kicked down. Women screamed as their hiding places were discovered.\n\nThere were no Tiste Edur insight.\n\nFrom her right, three men shambling like marauders. One carried a bloodstained club, another a single-handed sickle. The third man was dragging a dead or unconscious girl-child by one foot.\n\nThey saw her. The one with the club smiled. \"We was coming to c'llect you, Acquitor. Woke up wanting more, did ya? '\n\nShe did not recognize any of them, but there was terrible familiarity in their eyes as they looked upon her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The city's fallen, \"the man continued, drawing closer.\"But we got away out, an'we're taking you with us. '\n\nThe one with the sickle laughed. \"We've decided to keep you to ourselves, lass. Don't worry, we'll keep you safe. '\n\nSeren curled tighter against the wall.\n\n\"Hold there!\"\n\nAnew voice. The three men looked up.\n\nIron-haired, blue-eyed– she recognized the newcomer. Maybe. She wasn't sure. She'd never seen armour like that before: she would have remembered the blood-red surcoat. A plain sword at the stranger's left hip, which he was not reaching towards.\n\n\"It's that foreign bastard, \"the man with the club said.\"Find your own. '\n\n\"I just have,\" he replied. \"Been looking for her the last two days-\"\n\n\"She's ours, ' said the sickle-wielder.\n\n\"No closer,\" the third man growled, raising the child in one hand as if he meant to use the body fora weapon.\n\nWhich, Seren now saw, he had done already. Oh, please be dead, child. Please have been dead all along...\n\n\"You know us, foreigner,\" the man with the club said.\n\n\"Oh yes, you're the terrors of the shantytown. I've heard all about your exploits. Which puts meat an advantage.\"\n\n\"How so?\"\n\nThe stranger continued walking closer. She saw something in his eyes, as he said, \"Because you haven't heard a thing about mine. '\n\nClub swung. Sickle flashed. Body whipped through the air.\n\nAnd the girl-child was caught by the stranger, who then reached one handover, palm up, and seemed to push his fingertips under the man's chin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She didn't understand.\n\nThe man with the club was on the ground. The other had his own sickle sticking from his chest and he stood staring down at it. Then he toppled.\n\nA snap. Flood and spray of blood.\n\nThe stranger stepped back, tucking the girl-child's body under his right arm, the hand of his left holding, like a leather-wrapped handle from a pail, the third man's lower jaw.\n\nHorrible grunting sounds from the staggering figure to her right. Bulging eyes, a spattered gust of breath.\n\nThe stranger tossed the mandible away with its attendant lower palate and tongue. He set the child down, then stepped closer to the last man. \"I don't like what you did. I don't like anything you've done, but most of all, I don't like what you did to this woman here, and that child. So, I am going to make you hurt. A lot.\"\n\nThe man spun as if to flee. Then he slammed onto the cobbles, landing on his chest, his feet taken out from under him– but Seren didn't see how it had happened.\n\nWith serene patience, the stranger crouched over him. Two blurred punches to either side of the man's spine, almost at neck level, and she heard breastbones snap. Blood was pooling around the man's head.\n\nThe stranger shifted to reach down between the man's legs.\n\n\"Stop.\"\n\nHe looked over, brows lifting.\n\n\"Stop. Kill him. Clean. Kill him clean, Iron Bars.\"\n\n\"Are you sure?\"\n\nFrom the buildings opposite, faces framed by windows. Eyes fixed, staring down.\n\n\"Enough,\" she said, the word a croak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right.\"\n\nHe leaned back. One punch to the back of the man's head. It folded inward. And all was still.\n\nIron Bars straightened. \"All right?\"\n\nAH right, yes.\n\nThe Crimson Guardsman came closer. \"My fault,\" he said. \"I had to sleep, thought you'd be safe fora bit. I was wrong. I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"The child? '\n\nA pained look. \"Run down by horses, I think. Sometime past.\"\n\n\"What's happening? '\n\nTrate's falling. The Edur fleet held off. Until Nekal Bara and Arahathan were finished. Then closed. The defences were swarmed by shadow wraiths. Then the warriors landed. It was bad, Acquitor.\" He glanced over a shoulder, said, \"At about that time, an army came down from inland. Swept the undermanned fortifications and, not a hundred heartbeats ago, finally succeeded in knocking down the North Gate. The Edur are taking their time, killing every soldier they find. No quarter. So far, they've not touched non-combatants. But that's no guarantee of anything, is it?\"\n\nHe helped her to stand, and she flinched at the touch of his hands– those weapons, stained with murder.\n\nIf he noticed he gave nothing away. \"My Blade's waiting. Corlo's managed to find a warren in this damned Hood-pit– first time in the two years we been stuck here. What the Edur brought, he says. That's why. '\n\nShe realized they were walking now. Taking winding alleys and avoiding the main thoroughfares. The sound of slaughter was on all sides. Iron Bars suddenly hesitated, cocked his head. \"Damn, we've been cutoff. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dragged into the slaughter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bemused witness to the killing of hapless, disorganized soldiers. Wondering if the moneylenders would be next. Udinaas was left staggering in the wake of the emperor of the Tiste Edur and twelve frenzied warriors as they waded through flesh, cutting lives down as if clearing a path through reeds.\n\nRhulad was displaying skill that did not belong to him. His arms were a blur, his every move heedless and fearless. And he was gibbering, the manic sound punctuated every now and then by a scream that was as much terror as it was rage. Not a warrior triumphant. Neither berserk nor swathed in drenched glory. A killer... killing.\n\nAn Edur warrior near him fell to a Letherii soldier's desperate sword-thrust, and the emperor shrieked, lunged forward. The mottled sword swung, and blood splashed like water. His laughter pulled at his breath, making him gasp. Edur faces flashed furtively towards their savage ruler.\n\nDown the street, carving through a rearguard of some sort. Udinaas stumbled over corpses, writhing, weeping figures. Blind with dying, men called for their mothers, and to these the slave reached down and touched a shoulder, or laid fingertips to slick foreheads, and murmured, \"I'm here, my boy. It's all right. You can go now.\"\n\nThe apologetic priest, chain-snapped forward step by step, whispering hollow blessings, soft lies, forgiving even as he prayed for someone– something– to forgive him in turn. But no-one touched him, no fingertips brushed his brow.\n\nFor the burned villages. Retribution. Where were the moneylenders? This war belonged to them, after all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Another hundred paces." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Three more Edur were down. Rhulad and eight brethren. Fighting on. Where was the rest of the army?\n\nSomewhere else.\n\nIf one could always choose the right questions, then every answer could be as obvious. A clever revelation, he was onto something here...\n\nAnother Edur screamed, skidded and fell over, face smacking the street.\n\nRhulad killed two more soldiers, and suddenly no-one stood in their path.\n\nHalting in strange consternation, trapped in the centre of an intersection, drifts of smoke sliding past.\n\nFrom the right, a sudden arrival.\n\nTwo Edur reeled back, mortally wounded.\n\nThe attacker reached outwith his left hand, and a third Edur warrior's head snapped round with aloud crack.\n\nClash of blades, more blood, another Edur toppling, then the attacker was through and wheeling about.\n\nRhulad leapt to meet him. Swords– one heavy and mottled, the other modest, plain– collided, and somehow were bound together with a twist and pronation of the stranger's wrist, whilst his freehand blurred out and over the weapons, palm connecting with Rhulad's forehead.\n\nBreaking the emperor's neck with aloud snap.\n\nMottled sword slid down the attacker's blade and he was already stepping past, his weapon's point already sliding out from the chest of another Edur.\n\nAnother heartbeat, and the last two Tiste Edur warriors were down, their bodies eagerly dispensing blood like payment onto the cobbles.\n\nThe stranger looked about, saw Udinaas, nodded, then waved to an alley-mouth, from which a woman emerged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She took a half-dozen strides before Udinaas recognized her.\n\nBadly used.\n\nBut no more of that. Not while this man lives.\n\nSeren Pedac took no notice of him, nor of the dead Edur. The stranger grasped her hand.\n\nUdinaas watched them head off down the street, disappear round a corner.\n\nSomewhere behind him, the shouts of Edur warriors, the sound of running feet.\n\nThe slave found he was standing beside Rhulad's body, staring down at it, the bizarre angle of the head on its twisted neck, the hands closed tight about the sword.\n\nWaiting for the mouth to open with mad laughter.\n\n\"Damned strangest armour I've ever seen. '\n\nSeren blinked. \"What?\"\n\n\"But he was good, with that sword. Fast. In another five years he'd have had the experience to have made him deadly. Enough to give anyone trouble. Shimmer, Blues, maybe even Skinner. But that armour! A damned fortune, right therefor the taking. If we'd the time.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"That Tiste Edur, lass.\"\n\n\"Tiste Edur?\"\n\n\"Never mind. There they are.\"\n\nAhead, crouched at the dead end of an alley, six figures. Two women, four men. All in crimson surcoats. Weapons out. Blood on the blades. One, more lightly armoured than the others and holding what looked to be some sort of diadem in his left hand, stepped forward.\n\nAnd said something in a language Seren had never heard before.\n\nIron Bars replied in an impatient growl. He drew Seren closer as the man who'd spoken began gesturing. The air seemed to shimmer all round them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Corlo's opening the warren, lass. We're going through, and if we're lucky we won't run into anything in there. No telling how far we can get. Far enough, I hope.\"\n\n\"Where?\" she asked. \"Where are we going?\"\n\nA murky wall of blackness yawned where the alley's blank wall had been.\n\n\"Letheras, Acquitor. We got a ship awaiting us, remember?\"\n\nStrangest armour I've ever seen.\n\nA damned fortune.\n\n\"Is he dead?\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Is he dead? Did you kill him? That Tiste Edur!\"\n\n\"No choice, lass. He was slowing us up and more were coming.\"\n\nOh, no.\n\nVomit spilling out onto the sand.\n\nAt least, Withal mused, the shrieks had stopped. He waited, seated on grass just above the beach, while the young Edur, on his hands and knees, head hanging down, shuddered and convulsed, coughed and spat.\n\nOff to one side, two of the Nachts, Rind and Pule, were fighting over apiece of driftwood that was falling apart with their efforts. Their games of destruction had become obsessive of late, leading the Meckros weaponsmith to wonder if they were in fact miming a truth on his behalf. Or the isolation was driving them insane.\n\nAnother kind of truth, that one.\n\nHe despised religion. Set no gods in his path. Ascendants were worse than rabid beasts. It was enough that mortals were capable of appalling evil; he wanted nothing to do with their immortal, immeasurably more powerful counterparts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And this broken god in his squalid tent, his eternal pain and the numbing smoke of the seeds he scattered onto the brazier before him, it was all of apiece to Withal. Suffering made manifest, consumed by the desire to spread the misery of its own existence into the world, into all the worlds. Misery and false escape, pain and mindless surrender. All of apiece.\n\nOn this small island, amidst this empty sea, Withal was lost. Within himself, among a host of faces that were all his own, he was losing the capacity to recognize any of them. Thought and self was reduced, formless and untethered. Wandering amidst a stranger's memories, whilst the world beyond unravelled.\n\nNest building.\n\nFrenzied destruction.\n\nFanged mouth agape in silent, convulsive laughter.\n\nThree jesters repeating the same performance again and again. What did it mean? What obvious lesson was being shown him that he was too blind, too thick, to understand?\n\nThe Edur lad was done, nothing left in his stomach. He lifted his head, eyes stripped naked to the bones of pain and horror. \"No,\" he whispered.\n\nWithal looked away, squinted along the strand.\n\n\"No more... please.\"\n\n\"Never much in the way of sunsets here,\" Withal mused. \"Or sunrises, for that matter.\"\n\n\"You don't know what it's like!\"\n\nThe Edur's scream trailed away.\"The nests are getting more elaborate, \"Withal said.\"I think he's striving fora particular shape. Sloped walls, a triangular entrance. Then Mape wrecks it. What am Ito take from all that?\"\n\n\"He can keep his damned sword. I'm not going. Over there. I'm not going over there and don't try to make me. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have nothing to do. Nothing.\"\n\nRhulad crawled towards him. \"You made that sword!\" he said in an accusatory rasp.\n\n\"Fire, hammer, anvil and quenching. I've made more swords than I can count. Just iron and sweat. They were broken blades, I think. Those black shards. From some kind of narrow-bladed, overlong knife. Two of them, black and brittle. Just pieces, really. I wonder where he collected them from? '\n\n\"Everything breaks,\" Rhulad said.\n\nWithal glanced over. \"Aye, lad. Everything breaks.\"\n\n\"You could do it.\"\n\n\"Do what?\"\n\n\"Break that sword.\"\n\n\"No. I can't. '\n\n\"Everything breaks!\"\n\n\"Including people, lad.\"\n\n\"That's not good enough. '\n\nWithal shrugged. \"I don't remember much of anything anymore. I think he's stealing my mind. He says he's my god. All I need to do is worship him, he says. And everything will come clear. So tell me, Rhulad Sengar, is it all clear to you? '\n\n\"This evil– it's of your making! '\n\n\"Is it? Maybe you're right. I accepted his bargain. But he lied, you see. He said he'd set me free, once I made the sword. He lies, Rhulad. That much I know. I know that now. This god lies.\"\n\n\"I have power. I am emperor. I've taken a wife. We are at war and Lether shall fall. '\n\nWithal gestured inland. \"And he's waiting for you. '\n\n\"They're frightened of me. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fear breeds its own loyalty, lad. They'll follow. They're waiting too, right now.\"\n\nRhulad clawed at his face, shuddered. \"He killed me. That man– not a Letherii, not a Letherii at all. He killed us. Seven of my brothers. And me. He was so... fast. It seemed he barely moved, and my kin were falling, dying.\"\n\n\"Next time will be harder. You'll be harder. It won't be as easy to find someone to kill you, next time. And the time after that. Do you understand that, lad? It's the essence of that mangled god who's waiting for you.\"\n\n\"Who is he?\"\n\n\"The god? A miserable little shit, Rhulad. Who has your soul in his hands.\"\n\n\"Father Shadow has abandoned us.\"\n\n\"Father Shadow is dead. Or as good as.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"Because if he wasn't, he'd have never let the Crippled God steal you. You and your people. He'd have come marching ashore... ' Withal fell silent.\n\nAnd that, he realized, was what he was coming to. A blood-soaked truth.\n\nHe hated religion, hated the gods. And he was alone.\n\n\"I will kill him. With the sword.\"\n\n\"Fool. There's nothing on this island that he doesn't hear, doesn't see, doesn't know.\"\n\nExcept, maybe, what's in my mind now. And, even if he knew, how could he stop me? No, he doesn't know. I must believe that. After all, if he did, he'd kill me. Right now, he'd kill me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rhulad climbed to his feet. \"I'm ready for him. '\n\n\"Are you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nWithal sighed. He glanced over at the two Nachts. Their contested driftwood was a scattering of splinters lying between them. Both creatures were staring down at it, bemused, poking fingers through the mess. The Meckros rose. \"All right then, lad, let's go. '\n\nShe was behind the black glass, within a tunnel of translucent obsidian, and there were no ghosts.\n\n\"Kurald Galain,\" Corlo said in a whisper, casting a glance back at them over one shoulder. \"Unexpected. It's a rotten conquest. That, or the Edur don't even know it, don't even know what they're using.\"\n\nThe air stank of death. Withered flesh, the breath of a crypt. The black stone beneath their feet was greasy and uncertain. Overhead, the ceiling was uneven, barely a hand's width higher than Iron Bars, who was the tallest among the group.\n\n\"It's a damned rats'maze,\" the mage continued, pausing at a branching.\n\n\"Just take us south,\" Iron Bars said in a low growl.\n\n\"Fine, but which way is that?\"\n\nThe soldiers crowded round, muttering and cursing in their strange language.\n\nCorlo faced Seren, his expression strangely taut. \"Any suggestions, Acquitor?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nThe mage said something in their native tongue to Iron Bars, who scowled and replied, \"That's enough, all of you. In Letherii. Since when was rudeness in the creed of the Crimson Guard? Acquitor, this is the Hold of Darkness-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There is no Hold of Darkness.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm trying to say it in away that makes sense to you. '\n\n\"All right.\"\n\nCorlo said, \"But, you see, Acquitor, it shouldn't be. '\n\nShe simply looked at him in the gloom.\n\nThe mage rubbed the back of his neck, and she saw the hand come away glistening with sweat. \"These are Tiste Edur, right? Not Tiste Andii. The Hold of Darkness, that's Tiste Andii. The Edur, they were from the, uh, Hold of Shadow. So, it was natural, you see, to expect that the warren would be Kurald Emurlahn. But it isn't. It's Kurald Galain, only it's breached. Over-run. Thick with spirits– Tiste Andii spirits-\"\n\n\"They're not here, \"she said.\"I've seen them. Those spirits. They're not here. '\n\n\"They are, Acquitor. I'm just keeping them away. For now... '\n\n\"But it's proving difficult. '\n\nThe mage nodded reluctantly.\n\n\"And you're lost. '\n\nAnother nod.\n\nShe tried to think, cut through the numbness– which seemed to be the only thing keeping away the pain of her battered flesh. \"You said the spirits are not Edur.\"\n\n\"That's right. Tiste Andii. '\n\n\"What is the relationship between the two? Are they allied?\"\n\nCorlo's eyes narrowed.\"Allied? '\n\n\"Those wraiths,\" Iron Bars said.\n\nThe mage's gaze darted to his commander, then back again to Seren Pedac.\"Those wraiths are bound. Compelled to fight alongside the Edur. Are they Andii spirits? Hood's breath, this is starting to make sense. What else would they be? Not Edur spirits, since no binding magic would be needed, would it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Iron Bars stepped in front of Seren. \"What are you suggesting?\"\n\nShe remembered back to her only contact with the spirits, their hunger. \"Mage Corlo, you say you're keeping them away. Are they trying to attack us? '\n\n\"I'm not sure. '\n\n\"Let one through. Maybe we can talk to it, maybe we can get help.\"\n\n\"Why would it be interested in helping us?\"\n\n\"Make a bargain.\"\n\n\"With what?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"Think of something.\"\n\nHe muttered a string of foreign words that she guessed were curses.\n\n\"Let one through,\" Iron Bars said.\n\nMore curses, then Corlo walked a few steps ahead to clear some space. \"Ready weapons,\" he said. \"In case it ain't interested in talking. '\n\nA moment later, the gloom in front of the mage wavered, and something black spread outward like spilled ink. A figure emerged, halting, uncertain.\n\nA woman, tall as an Edur but midnight-skinned, a reddish glint to her long, unbound hair. Green eyes, tilted and large, a face softer and rounder than Seren would have expected given her height and long limbs. She was wearing a leather harness and leggings, and on her shoulders rode the skin of some white-furred beast. She was unarmed.\n\nHer eyes hardened. She spoke, and in her words Seren heard a resemblance to Edur.\n\n\"I hate it when that happens,\" Corlo said.\n\nSeren tried Edur. \"Hello. We apologize for intruding on your world. We do not intend to stay long.\"\n\nThe woman's expression did not change.\"The Betrayers never do. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I may speak in the language of the Edur, but they are no allies of ours." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps in that, we share something.\"\n\n\"I was among the first to die in the war,\" the woman said, \"and so not at the hands of an Edur. They cannot take me, cannot force me to fight for them. I and those like me are beyond their grasp.\"\n\n\"Yet your spirit remains trapped,\" Seren said. \"Here, in this place.\"\n\n\"What do you want?\"\n\nSeren turned to Iron Bars. \"She asks what we want of her.\"\n\n\"Corlo?\"\n\nThe mage shrugged, then said, \"We need to escape the influence of the Edur. We need to get beyond their reach. Then to return to our world.\"\n\nSeren relayed Corlo's statements to the woman.\n\n\"You are mortal,\" she replied. \"You can pass through when we cannot.\"\n\n\"Can you guide us?\"\n\n\"And what is to be my reward for this service?\"\n\n\"What do you seek?\"\n\nShe considered, then shook her head. \"No. An unfair bargain. My service is not worth the payment I would ask. You require a guide to lead you to the border's edge. I will not deceive. It is not far. You would find it yourselves before too long. '\n\nSeren translated the exchange for the Crimson Guardsmen, then added, \"This is odd...\"\n\nIron Bars smiled. \"An honest broker?\"\n\nShe nodded wryly. \"I am Letherii, after all. Honesty makes me suspicious.\"\n\n\"Ask her what she would have us do for her,\" Iron Bars said.\n\nSeren Pedac did, and the woman held up her right hand, and in it was a small object, encrusted and corroded and unrecognizable. \"The K'Chain Che'Malle counter-attack drove a number of us down to the shoreline, then into the waves. I am a poor fighter. I died on that sea's foaming edge, and my corpse rolled out, drawn by the tide, along the muddy sands, where the mud swallowed it. \"She looked down at the object in her palm.\"This was a ring I wore. Returned tome by a wraith– many wraiths have done this for those of us beyond the reach of the Edur. I would ask that you return me to my bones, to what little of me remains. So that I can find oblivion. But this is too vast a gift, for offering you so little-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How would we go about doing as you ask?\"\n\n\"I would join with the substance of this ring. You would see me no more. And you would need to travel to the shoreline, then cast this into the sea.\"\n\n\"That does not seem difficult.\"\n\n\"Perhaps it isn't. The inequity lies in the exchange of values. '\n\nSeren shook her head. \"We see no inequity. Our desire is of equal value as far as we are concerned. We accept your bargain.\"\n\n\"How do I know you will not betray me?\"\n\nThe Letherii turned to Iron Bars. \"She doesn't trust us. '\n\nThe man strode to halt directly before the Tiste Andii woman. \"Acquitor, tell her I am an Avowed, of the Crimson Guard. If she would, she can seek the meaning of that. By laying her hand on my chest. Tell her I shall honour our pact.\"\n\n\"I've not told you what it is yet. She wants us to throw the thing she's holding into the sea.\"\n\n\" That's it?\"\n\n\"Doing so will end her existence. Which seems to be what she wants.\"\n\n\"Tell her to seek the cast of my soul.\"\n\n\"Very well.\"\n\nThe suspicious look in the woman's eyes grew more pronounced, but she stepped forward and set her left hand on the man's chest.\n\nThe hand flinched away and the woman staggered back a step, shock, then horror, writ on her face. \"How– how could you do– why?\"\n\nSeren said, \"Not the response you sought, I think, Iron Bars. She is... appalled.\"\n\n\"That is of no concern,\" the man replied. \"Does she accept my word?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The woman straightened, then, to Seren's question, she nodded and said,\"I cannot do otherwise. But... I had forgotten... this feeling. '\n\n\"What feeling?\"\n\n\"Sorrow.\"\n\n\"Iron Bars,\" Seren said, \"whatever this'Avowed\" means, she is overwhelmed with... pity.\"\n\n\"Yes well,\" he said, turning away, \"we all make mistakes.\"\n\nThe woman said, \"I will lead you now.\"\n\n\"What is your name?\"\n\n\"Sandalath Drukorlat.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Sandalath. It grieves me to know that our gift to you is oblivion.\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"Those who I once loved and who loved me believe I am gone in truth. There is no need for grief.\"\n\nNo need for grief. Where, then, does the pity lie?\n\n\"Stand up, lads,\" Iron Bars said, \"she's making ready to go. '\n\nMape lay on the knoll like something dead, but the Nacht's head slowly turned as Withal and Rhulad strode into view. She had stolen a hammer from the smithy sometime back, to better facilitate her destruction of Pule's nests, and now carried it with her everywhere. Withal watched askance as the gnarled, black-skinned creature lifted the hammer into view, eyes still fixed on him and the Tiste Edur, as if contemplating murder.\n\nOf the three Nachts, Mape made him the most nervous. Too much intelligence glittered in her small black eyes, too often she watched with something like a smile on her apish face. And the strength the creatures had displayed was sufficient to make any man worried. He knew Mape could tear his arms from his shoulders, were she so inclined." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps the Crippled God had bound them, as demons could be bound, and it was this and this alone that kept the beasts from Withal's throat. An unpleasant notion.\n\n\"What's to stop me, \"Rhulad asked in a growl,\"from driving the sword right through his scrawny chest? '\n\n\"Do not ask that question of me, Edur. Only the Crippled God can answer it. But I don't think it could ever be that easy. He's a clever bastard, and therein that tent his power is probably absolute.\"\n\n\"The vastness of his realm,\" Rhulad said, sneering.\n\nYes. Now why do those words, said in that way, interest me?\n\nThe ragged canvas shelter was directly ahead, smoke drifting from the side that had been drawn open. As they approached, the air grew hotter, drier, the grasses withered and bleached underfoot. The earth seemed strangely blighted.\n\nThey came opposite the entrance. Within, the god's huddled form in the gloom. Tendrils of smoke rising from the brazier.\n\nA cough, then, \"Such anger. Unreasonable, I think, given the efficacy of my gift.\"\n\n\"I don't want to go back, \"Rhulad said.\"Leave me here. Choose someone else. '\n\n\"Unwitting servants to our cause appear... from unexpected sources. Imagine, an Avowed of the Crimson Guard. Be glad it was not Skinner, or indeed Cowl. They would have taken more notice of you, and that would not have been a good thing. We're not yet ready for that. \"A hacking cough.\"Not yet ready. '\n\n\"I'm not going back. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You detest the flesh given you. I understand. But, Rhulad Sengar, the gold is your payment. For the power you seek.\"\n\n\"I want nothing more of that power.\"\n\n\"But you do,\" the Crippled God said, clearly amused. \"Consider the rewards already reaped. The throne of the Tiste Edur, the woman after whom you lusted for years– now in your possession, to do with as you please. Your brothers, bowing one and all before you. And a burgeoning prowess with the sword-\"\n\n\"It's not mine, though, is it? It is all I can do to hold on! The skill does not belong tome– and all can see that! I have earned nothing! '\n\n\"And what value is all that pride you seek, Rhulad Sengar? You mortals baffle me. It is a fool's curse, to measure oneself in endless dissatisfaction. It is not for me to guide you in the rule of your empire. That task belongs to you and you alone. There, make that your place of pride. Besides, has not your strength grown? You have muscles now surpassing your brother Fear's. Cease your whimpering, Edur.\"\n\n\"You are using me!\"\n\nThe Crippled God laughed. \"And Scabandari Bloodeye did not? Oh, I know the tale now. All of it. The seas whisper old truths, Rhulad Sengar. Revered Father Shadow, oh, such an absurd conceit. Murderer, knife-wielder, betrayer-\"\n\n\"Lies!\"\n\n\"-who then led you into your own betrayal. Of your once-allies, the Tiste Andii. You fell upon them at Scabandari's command. You killed those who had fought alongside you. That is the legacy of the Tiste Edur, Rhulad Sengar. Ask Hannan Mosag. He knows. Ask your brother, Fear. Your mother– the women know. Their memory has been far less... selective. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No more of this,\" the Edur pleaded, clawing at his face. \"You would poison me with dishonour. That is your purpose... for all you say.\"\n\n\"Perhaps what I offer,\" the Crippled God murmured, \"is absolution. The opportunity to make amends. It is within you, Rhulad Sengar. The power is yours to shape as you will. The empire shall cast your reflection, no-one else's. Will you flee from that? If that is your choice, then indeed I shall be forced to choose another. One who will prove, perhaps, less honourable. '\n\nThe sword clattered at Rhulad's feet.\n\n\"Choose.\"\n\nWithal watched, saw the Edur's expression change.\n\nWith a scream, Rhulad snatched up the weapon and lunged-\n\n-and was gone.\n\nRasping laughter. \"There is so little, Withal, that surprises meany more.\"\n\nDisgusted, the Meckros turned away.\n\n\"A moment, Withal. I see your weariness, your displeasure. What is it that plagues you so? That is what I ask myself.\"\n\n\"The lad doesn't deserve it-'\n\n\"Oh, but he does. They all do.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" Withal said, eyes level as he stared at the Crippled God, \"that does seem to be the sole judgement you possess. But it's hardly clean, is it? '\n\n\"Careful. My gratitude for what you have done for me wears thin.\"\n\n\"Gratitude?\" Withal's laugh was harsh.\"You are thankful after compelling me into doing your bidding. That's a good one. May you be as generous of thought after I force you into killing me.\" He studied the hooded figure. \"I see your problem, you know. I see it now, and curse myself for having missed it before. You have no realm to command, as do other gods. So you sit there, alone, in your tent, and that is the extent of your realm, isn't it? Broken flesh and foul, stifling air. Skin-thin walls and the heat the old and lame desire. Your world, and you alone in it, and the irony is, you cannot even command your own body. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A wretched cough, then, \"Spare me your sympathy, Meckros. I have given the problem of you considerable thought, and have found a solution, as you shall soon discover. When you do, think on what you have said tome. Now, go.\"\n\n\"You still don't understand, do you? The more pain you deliver to others, god, the more shall be visited upon you. You sow your own misery, and because of that whatever sympathy you might rightly receive is swept away. \"\"I said go, Withal. Build yourself a nest. Mape's waiting.\"\n\nThey emerged onto a windswept sward with the crashing waves of the sea on their right and before them the delta of abroad river. On the river's other side stood a walled city.\n\nSeren Pedac studied the distant buildings, the tall, thin towers that seemed to lean seaward. \"Old Katter,\" she said. \"We're thirty leagues south of Trate. How is that possible? '\n\n\"Warrens,\" Corlo muttered, sagging until he sat on the ground. \"Rotted. Septic, but still, a warren.\"\n\nThe Acquitor made her way down to the beach. The sun was high and hot overhead. I must wash. Get clean. The sea...\n\nIron Bars followed, in one hand the encrusted object where the spirit of a Tiste Andii woman now resided.\n\nShe strode into the water, the foaming waves thrashing round her shins.\n\nThe Avowed flung the object past her– a small splash not far ahead.\n\nThighs, then hips.\n\nClean. Get clean.\n\nTo her chest. A wave rolled, lifted her from the bottom, spun and flung her towards the shore. She clawed herself round until she could push forward once again. Cold salty water rising over her face. Bright, sunlit, silty water, washing sight from her eyes. Water biting at scabbed wounds, stinging her broken lips, water filling her mouth and begging to be drawn inside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Like this.\n\nHands grasped her, pulled her back. She fought, but could not break loose.\n\nClean!\n\nHer face swept by cold wind, eyes blinking in painful light. Coughing, weeping, she struggled, but the hands dragged her remorselessly onto the beach, flung her onto the sand. Then, as she tried to claw free, arms wrapped tight about her, pinning her own arms, and a voice gasped close to her ear, \"I know, lass. I know what it's about. But it ain't the way.\"\n\nHeaving, helpless sobs, now.\n\nAnd he held her still.\n\n\"Heal her, Corlo.\"\n\n\"I'm damn near done-'\n\n\"Now. And sleep. Make her sleep-\"\n\nNo, you can't die. Not again. I have need of you.\n\nSo many layers, pressing down upon these indurative remnants, a moment of vast pressure, the thick, so thick skin tracing innumerable small deaths. And life was voice, not words, but sound, motion. Where all else was still, silent. Oblivion waited when the last echo faded.\n\nDying the first time should have been enough. This world was foreign, after all. The gate sealed, swept away. Her husband– if he still lived– was long past his grief. Her daughter, perhaps a mother herself by now, a grandmother. She had fed on draconic blood, therein the wake of Anomander. Somewhere, she persisted, and lived free of sorrow.\n\nIt had been important to think that way. Her only weapon against insanity.\n\nNo gifts in death but one.\n\nBut something held her back.\n\nSomething with a voice. These are restless seas indeed. I had not thought my questing would prove so... easy. True, you are not human, but you will do. You will do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "These remnants, suddenly in motion, grating motion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fragments, particles too small to see, drawing together. As if remembering to what they had once belonged. And, within the sea, within the silts, waited all that was needed. For flesh, for bone and blood. All these echoes, resurrected, finding shape. She looked on in horror.\n\nWatched, as the body– so familiar, so strange– clawed its way upward through the silts. Silts that lightened, thinned, then burst into a plume that swirled in the currents. Arms reaching upward, a body heaving into view.\n\nShe hovered near, compelled to close, to enter, but knowing it was too soon.\n\nHer body, which she had left so long ago. It was not right. Not fair.\n\nScrambling mindlessly along the sea bottom. Finned creatures darting in and out of sight, drawn to the stirred-up sediments, frightened away by the flailing figure. Multi-legged shapes scrabbling from its path.\n\nA strange blurring, passed through, and then sunlight glittered close overhead. Hands broke the surface, firm sand underfoot, sloping upward.\n\nFace in the air.\n\nAnd she swept forward, plunged into the body, raced like fire within muscle and bone.\n\nSensations. Cold, a wind, the smell of salt and ashore-line's decay.\n\nMother Dark, I am... alive.\n\nThe voice of return came not in laughter, but in screams.\n\nAll had gathered as word of the emperor's death spread. The city was taken, but Rhulad Sengar had been killed. Neck snapped like a sapling. His body lay where it fell, with the slave Udinaas standing guard, a macabre sentinel who did not acknowledge anyone, but simply stared down at the coin-clad corpse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hannan Mosag. Mayen with Feather Witch trailing. Midik Buhn, now blooded and a warrior in truth. Hundreds of Edur warriors, blood-spattered with glory and slaughter. Silent, pale citizens, terrified of the taut expectancy in the smoky air.\n\nAll witness to the body's sudden convulsions, its piercing screams. Fora ghastly moment, Rhulad's neck remained broken, rocking his head in impossible angles as he staggered to his feet. Then the bone mended, and the head righted itself, sudden light in the hooded eyes.\n\nMore screams, from Letherii now. Figures fleeing.\n\nRhulad's ragged shrieks died and he stood, wavering, the sword trembling in his hands.\n\nUdinaas spoke. \"Emperor, Trate is yours.\"\n\nA sudden spasm, then Rhulad seemed to seethe others for the first time. \"Hannan Mosag, settle the garrison. The rest of the army shall camp outside the city. Send word to your K'risnan with the fleet: they are to make for Old Katter. '\n\nThe Warlock King stepped close and said in a low voice, \"It is true, then. You cannot die.\"\n\nRhulad flinched. \"I die, Hannan Mosag. It is all I know, dying. Leave me now. Udinaas.\"\n\n\"Emperor.\"\n\n\"I need– find– I am...\"\n\n\"Your tent awaits you and Mayen,\" the slave said.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nMidik Buhn spoke, \"Emperor, I shall lead your escort.\"\n\nHis expression confused, Rhulad looked down at his body, the smeared, crusted coins, the spattered furs. \"Yes, brother Midik. An escort.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And we shall find the one who... did this, sire... to you.\"\n\nRhulad's eyes flashed.\"He cannot be defeated. We are helpless before him. He lies... '\n\nMidik was frowning. He glanced at Udinaas.\n\n\"Emperor,\" the slave said, \"he meant the one who killed you and your kin. Herein this street.\"\n\nClawing at his face, Rhulad turned away. \"Of course. He wore... crimson.\"\n\nUdinaas said to Midik, \"I will give you a detailed description.\"\n\nA sharp nod. \"Yes. The city will be searched.\"\n\nBut he's gone, you fool. No, I don't know how I know. Still, the man's gone. With Seren Pedac.\"Of course. '\n\n\"Udinaas!\" A desperate gasp.\n\n\"I am here, Emperor.\"\n\n\"Take me out of this place!\"\n\nIt was known, now, and soon the Ceda would learn of it. But would he understand? How could he? It was impossible, insane.\n\nHe can do nothing. Will he realize this?\n\nThe warrior in gold trailed the slave, step by step, through the fallen city, Mayen and Feather Witch in their wake. Midik Buhn and a dozen warriors flanked them all, weapons at the ready. The passage was uncontested.\n\nWithal sat on a bench in his smithy. Plain walls, stone and plaster, the forge cold and filled with ash. Paved floor, the small workshop three-walled, the open side facing onto a fenced compound where stood a cut-stone-rimmed well, a quenching trough, firewood and a heap of tailings and slag. A hut on the opposite side housed his cot and nothing else." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The extent of his world. Mocking reminder of his profession, the purpose behind living.\n\nThe Crippled God's voice whispered in his mind, Withal. My gift. I am not without sympathy, no matter what you might think. I understood. Nachts are poor company fora man. Go, Withal, down to the beach. Take possession of my gift.\n\nHe slowly rose, bemused. A boat? A raft? A damned log I could ride outwith the tide? He made his way outside.\n\nAnd heard the Nachts, chattering excitedly down on the strand.\n\nWithal walked to the verge, and stood, looking down.\n\nA woman was staggering from the water. Tall, black-skinned, naked, long red hair.\n\nAnd the Meckros turned round, strode away.\n\n\"You bastard-\"\n\nThe Crippled God replied in mock consternation, Is this not what you want? Is she too tall for you? Her eyes too strange? Withal, I do not understand...\n\n\"How could you have done this? Take possession, you said. It's all you know, isn't it? Possession. Things to be used. People. Lives.\"\n\nShe needs your help, Withal. She is lost, alarmed, by the Nachts. Slow to recall her flesh.\n\n\"Later. Leave me alone, now. Leave us both alone.\"\n\nA soft laugh, then a cough. As you wish. Disappointing, this lack of gratitude.\n\n\"Go to the Abyss.\"\n\nNo reply.\n\nWithal entered the hut, stood facing the cot fora time, until he was certain that the Crippled God was not lurking somewhere in his skull. Then he lowered himself to his knees and bowed his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hated religion. Detested gods. But the nest was empty. The nest needed tearing apart. Rebuilding.\n\nThe Meckros had a host of gods for the choosing. But one was older than all the others, and that one belonged to the sea.\n\nWithal began to pray.\n\nIn Mael's name." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "None had seen the like. Chorum's Mill was a Marvel of invention. Wheels upon wheels, Granite and interlocking gears, axles and Spokes and rims of iron, a machine that climbed From that fast river three full levels and ground The finest flour Lether had ever seen– Some say it was the rain, the deluge that filled The water's course through the mill's stony toes. Some say it was the sheer complexity that was The cause of it all, the conceit of a mortal man's Vision. Some say it was the Errant's nudge, fickle And wayward that voiced the sudden roar that dawn, The explosions of stone and the shrieks of iron, And the vast wheels breaking free and bursting Through the thick walls, and the washing women Downstream the foam at their thighs looked up To see their granite doom rolling down– Not a wrinkle left, not a stain survived, and old Misker, perched on Ribble the Mule, well the mule Knew its place as it bolted and leapt head-first Down the well, but poor old Misker hugged the Draw pail on its rope and so swung clear, to Skin his knees on the round's cobbles and swear Loud, the boisterous breath preceding the fateful Descent of toothy death the gearwheel, tall as any Man but far taller than Misker (even perched on His mule) and that would not be hard once it was Done with him, why the rat– oh, did I forget to Mention the rat?\n\nExcerpt from The Rat's Tail (the cause of it all) Chant Prip\n\nStumbling in the gloom, the drunk had fallen into the canal. Tehol had mostly lost sight of him from his position at the edge of the roof, but he could hear splashing and curses, and the scrabbling against the rings set in the stonewall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sighing, Tehol glanced over at the nameless guard Brys had sent. Or one of them, at least. The three brothers looked pretty much identical, and none had given their names. Nothing outward or obvious to impress or inspire fear. And, by the unwavering cast of their lipless, eye-slitted expressions, sadly unqualified as welcome company.\n\n\"Can your friends tell you apart?\" Tehol enquired, then frowned. \"What a strange question to ask of a man. But you must be used to strange questions, since people will assume you were somewhere when you weren't, or, rather, not you, but the other yous, each of whom could be anywhere. It now occurs tome that saying nothing is a fine method for dealing with such confusion, to which each of you have agreed to as the proper response, unless you are the same amongst yourselves, in which case it was a silent agreement. Always the best kind. '\n\nThe drunk, far below, was climbing from the canal, swearing in more languages than Tehol believed existed. \"Will you listen to that? Atrocious. To hear such no doubt foul words uttered with such vehemence– hold on, that's no drunk, that's my manservant!\" Tehol waved and shouted, \"Bugg! What are you doing down there? Is this what I pay you for?\"\n\nThe sodden manservant was looking upward, and he yelled something back that Tehol could not make out. \"What? What did you say?\"\n\n\"You– don't– pay– me! '\n\n\"Oh, tell everyone, why don't you! '\n\nTehol watched as Bugg made his way to the bridge and crossed, then disappeared from view behind the nearby buildings. \"How embarrassing. Time's come fora serious talk with dear old Bugg. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sounds from below, more cursing. Then creaking from the ladder.\n\nBugg's mud-smeared head and face rose into view.\n\n\"Now,\" Tehol said, hands on hips, \"I'm sure I sent you off to do something important, and what do you do? Go falling into the canal. Was that on the list of tasks? I think not. '\n\n\"Are you berating me, master?\"\n\n\"Yes. What did you think?\"\n\n\"More effective, I believe, had you indeed sent me off to do something important. As it was, I was on a stroll, mesmerized by moonlight-\"\n\n\"Don't step there! Back! Back! '\n\nAlarmed, Bugg froze, then edged away.\n\n\"You nearly crushed Ezgara! And could he have got out of the way? I think not!\" Tehol moved closer and knelt beside the insect making its slow way across the roof's uneven surface.\"Oh, look, you startled it! '\n\n\"How can you tell?\" Bugg asked.\n\n\"Well, it's reversed direction, hasn't it? That must be startling, I would imagine.\"\n\n\"You know, master, it was a curio– I didn't think you would make it a pet. '\n\n\"That's because you're devoid of sentiment, Bugg. Whereas Ezgara here is doubly-\"\n\n\"Ovoid?\"\n\n\"Charmingly so.\" Tehol glanced over at the guard, who was staring back at him as was his wont. \"And this man agrees. Or, if not him, then his brothers. Why, one let Ezgara crawl allover his face, and he didn't even blink! '\n\n\"How did Ezgara manage to get onto his face, master?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And down the other's jerkin, not a flinch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These are warm-hearted men, Bugg, look well upon them and learn. '\n\n\"I shall, master.\"\n\n\"Now, did you enjoy your swim?\"\n\n\"Not particularly.\"\n\n\"A misstep, you say?\"\n\n\"I thought I heard someone whisper my name-\"\n\n\"Shurq Elalle?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Harlest Eberict? Kettle? Chief Investigator Rucket? Champion Ormly?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Might you have been imagining things?\"\n\n\"Quite possibly. For example, I believe I am being followed by rats.\"\n\n\"You probably are, Bugg. Maybe one of them whispered your name.\"\n\n\"An unpleasant notion, master.\"\n\n\"Yes it is. Do you think it pleases me that my manservant consorts with rats?\"\n\n\"Would you rather go hungry?\" Bugg reached under his shirt.\n\n\"You haven't! '\n\n\"No, it's cat, \"he said, withdrawing a small, skinned, headless and pawless carcass.\"Canal flavoured, alas. '\n\n\"Another gift from Rucket?\"\n\n\"No, oddly enough. The canal.\"\n\n\"Ugh.\"\n\n\"Smells fresh enough-\"\n\n\"What's that wire trailing from it? '\n\nThe manservant lifted the carcass higher, then took the dangling wire between two fingers and followed it back until it vanished in the flesh. He tugged, then grunted.\n\n\"What?\" Tehol asked.\n\n\"The wire leads to a large, barbed hook.\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\n\"And the wire's snapped at this end– I thought something broke my fall. \"He tore a small sliver of meat from one of the cat's legs, broke it in two, then placed one piece at each end of the insect named Ezgara. It settled to feed. \"Anyway, a quick rinse and we're ahead by two, if not three meals. Quite a run of fortune, master, of late. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes,\" Tehol mused." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now I'm nervous. So, have you any news to tell me? '\n\n\"Do you realize, master, that Gerun Eberict would have had to kill on average between ten and fifteen people a day in order to achieve his annual dividend? How does he find the time to do anything else?\"\n\n\"Perhaps he's recruited thugs sharing his insane appetites. '\n\n\"Indeed. Anyway, Shurq has disappeared– both Harlest and Ublala are distraught-\"\n\n\"Why Harlest?\"\n\n\"He had only Ublala to whom he could showoff his new fangs and talons, and Ublala was less than impressed, so much so that he pushed Harlest into the sarcophagus and sealed him in.\"\n\n\"Poor Harlest.\"\n\n\"He adjusted quickly enough,\" said Bugg, \"and now contemplates his dramatic resurrection– whenever it occurs.\"\n\n\"Disturbing news about Shurq Elalle.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"It means she didn't change her mind. It means she's going to break into the Tolls Repository. Perhaps even this very night.\"\n\nBugg glanced over at the guard. \"Master...\"\n\n\"Oops, that was careless, wasn't it? \"He rose and walked over.\"He hears all, it's true. My friend, we can at least agree on one thing, can't we? '\n\nThe eyes flickered as the man stared at Tehol.\n\n\"Any thief attempting the Repository is as good as dead, right?\" He smiled, then swung back to face his manservant.\n\nBugg began removing his wet clothes. \"I believe I've caught a chill. '\n\n\"The canal is notoriously noxious-\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist in storytelling, proceed with the tale.\nTags: epic fantasy, new characters, commerce, betrayal, cultural clash\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Midnight Tides\nChapter: 28" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Retreating Letherii forces had stripped the countryside ahead of the emperor and his army. The military food and materiel caches that Hull Beddict knew of were all emptied. If not for the shadow wraiths, supplying the Tiste Edur army would have been impossible– the invasion would have stalled. Unacceptable, Rhulad had decided. The enemy was reeling. It was necessary to keep it so.\n\nUdinaas remembered eating smoked eel from Moss River, onetime when the trader ship had docked in Dresh. Delicious, once one got used to the furry skin, which was to be chewed but not swallowed. He had since heard, from another slave, that the eels had been transplanted into Dresh Lake, producing a strain that was both bigger and nastier. It had turned out that those eels captured in Moss River were juveniles, and few ever reached adulthood since there was a razor-jawed species of predatory fish resident in the river. No such fish in Dresh Lake. Adolescent swimmers from Dresh started disappearing before anyone realized the adult eels were responsible. Razor-jawed fish were netted from the river and tossed into the lake, but their behaviour changed, turning them into frenzy feeders. Adult swimmers from Dresh started vanishing. The slave who had been relating all this then laughed and finished with, \"So they poisoned the whole lake, killed everything. And now no-one can swim in it!\"\n\nFrom this, Udinaas surmised, various lessons could be drawn, should one be inclined to draw lessons from multiple acts of stupidity.\n\nThey had camped on the road, a day's march west of Ribs. The emperor was suffering from some kind of fever. Healers were tending to him, and the last Udinaas had heard, Rhulad was sleeping. It was late afternoon, and the sun's light was painting the river's surface red and gold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Udinaas walked along the stony strand, flinging rocks out onto the water every now and then, shattering the lurid hues. At the moment, he was not feeling anything like a slave, or an Indebted. He marched in the shadow of the emperor, for all to see, for all to wonder at.\n\nHe heard boots crunching on pebbles and turned to see Hull Beddict scrambling down onto the strand. A big man, on whom every oversized muscle seemed to brood, somehow. There was fever in his eyes as well, but unlike Rhulad this heat had nothing to do with illness. \"Udinaas.\"\n\nThe slave watched the man approach, fighting his instinctive urge towards deference. The time for that was past, after all. He just wasn't sure what belonged in its stead.\n\n\"I have been looking for you.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"The emperor's condition... '\n\nUdinaas shrugged. \"A marsh fever, nothing more-\"\n\n\"I was not speaking of that, slave.\"\n\n\"I am not your slave, Hull Beddict.\"\n\n\"I am sorry. You are right.\"\n\nUdinaas collected another stone. He wiped the grit from its underside before throwing it out over the water. They watched it splash, then Udinaas said, \"I understand your need to distinguish yourself from the other Letherii marching with this army. Even so, we are all bound to servitude, and the varying shades of that are not as relevant as they once were.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you have a point, Udinaas, but I don't quite understand what you're getting at.\"\n\nHe brushed the grit from his hands. \"Who better to teach the newly conquered Letherii than the Edur's original Letherii slaves? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You anticipate anew status for you and your fellow slaves, then?\"\n\n\"Maybe. How are the Tiste Edur to rule? Much remains to be answered, Hull Beddict. I gather you intend to involve yourself in that particular reshaping, if you can.\"\n\nThe man's smile was sour.\"It seems I am to have little or no role in much of anything, Udinaas. '\n\n\"Then the Errant looks kindly upon you,\" Udinaas said.\n\n\"I am not surprised you might see it that way.\"\n\n\"It is a waste of time, Hull Beddict, to fashion intricate plans for restitution. What you did before, all you did before– the mistakes, the bad decisions– they are dead, for everyone but you. None of it has purchased a future claim to glory, none of it has earned you anything.\"\n\n\"Has not the emperor heeded my advice?\"\n\n\"In this war? When it suited him. But I trust you are not expecting any consideration in return.\" Udinaas turned, met Hull's eyes.\"Ah, I think you are. '\n\n\"Reciprocity, Udinaas. Surely the Tiste Edur understand that, since it is so essential within their own culture.\"\n\n\"There is no reciprocity when you display expectation, Hull Beddict. Poof! It vanishes. And that was just my point earlier: there is much that we can teach the future conquered Letherii.\"\n\n\"I am blood-bound to Binadas,\" Hull said, \"yet you accuse me of insensitivity to the mores of the Tiste Edur.\" His expression was wry. \"I am not often chastised in such things. You remind me of Seren Pedac.\"\n\n\"The Acquitor who escorted you? I saw her, in Trate.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hull stepped close, suddenly intent. \"During the battle?\"\n\nUdinaas nodded. \"She was in bad shape, but alive. She'd found a worthy escort of her own– I have no doubt she still lives. '\n\n\"An escort of her own? Who?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure. Foreigners. One of them killed Rhulad and his chosen brothers. \"Udinaas collected another stone.\"Look at that, Hull Beddict, a river of gold. Flowing into the sunset. ' He flung the stone, broke the mirrored perfection. Momentarily.\n\n\"You witnessed that killing.\"\n\n\"I did. Whoever that foreigner was, he was terrifying.\"\n\n\"More terrifying than Rhulad's return? '\n\nUdinaas said nothing fora time, then he stepped away, down to the water's edge. He stared into the shallows, saw the muddy bottom swarming with newborn eels.\"Do you know what is coming, Hull Beddict? '\n\n\"No. Do you?\"\n\n\"Dresh Lake. That's what's coming.\"\n\n\"I don't understand. '\n\n\"Doesn't matter. Don't mind me, Hull Beddict. Well, I'd best return. The emperor is awake. '\n\nHull followed him up from the strand. \"Things like that,\" he said. \"He's awake. How do you know? '\n\n\"A stirring in the shadows,\" Udinaas said. \"Rhulad sets the world to a tremble. Well,\" he amended, \"a small part of it. But it's growing. In any case, his fever has broken. He is weak, but alert. '\n\n\"Tell me,\" Hull said as they walked into the vast camp, \"about Feather Witch.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Udinaas grimaced. \"Why?\"\n\n\"She is no longer Mayen's slave. She now serves the Edur healers. Was that your work? '\n\n\"The emperor's command, Hull Beddict. '\n\n\"You claim no influence on him? Few would believe that now.\"\n\n\"Reciprocity.\"\n\n\"And in return, you give Rhulad what?\"\n\nFriendship. \"I do not advise him, Hull Beddict. I do not seek to influence him. I cannot answer your question.\" Rather, I won't.\n\n\"She affects to hold only hatred for you, Udinaas. But I am not convinced.\"\n\n\"Oh, I am.\"\n\n\"I think, perhaps, she has given her heart to you. Yet would fight it, for all the pointless prohibitions and prejudices of our people. What is the extent of your debt, Udinaas?\"\n\n\"My debt? My father's debt. Seven hundred and twenty-two docks, from the day I was taken as a slave. '\n\nHull reached out and stopped him. \"That's it? '\n\n\"A Beddict might well say that. For most Letherii, that is insurmountable. Especially given the interest.\" Udinaas resumed walking.\n\nHull came up alongside him. \"Who holds it?\"\n\n\"A minor lender in Letheras. Why are you asking?\"\n\n\"The lender's name? '\n\n\"Huldo.\"\n\n\"Huldo.\" After a moment, Hull snorted.\n\n\"You find that amusing?\"\n\n\"I do. Udinaas, my brother Tehol owns Huldo.\"\n\n\"Maybe once. As I understand it, Tehol owns nothing these days.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let me tell you a story about my brother." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was, I guess, around ten years old, when a family debt was purchased by a particularly unscrupulous lender. The plan was to force us to relinquish a certain holding, and so the debt was called. We couldn't pay, not all at once, and of course the lender knew it. Now, it was at the time assumed by all that Tehol was at school everyday during this crisis, and indeed, that, young as he was, he had no idea of the trouble our parents were in. Only much later did certain facts come to light. The fact that Tehol had finessed a debt of his own, over his tutor. Nothing large, but he was able to coerce the tutor into saying nothing about his absences, whilst he operated a business venture of his own down at a flow-out on the river. Two employees, both Nerek, sifting sewage. This particular out-flow issued from an estate district– extraordinary what treasures could be recovered. Jewellery, mostly. Rings, earrings, pearls. In any case, it seemed there was a windfall, a necklace, and the result was Tehol and his two Nerek employees found themselves suddenly flush-'\n\n\"By selling the necklace?\"\n\n\"Oh no, from the reward. Their business was returning lost items. Shortly thereafter, the lender pressuring our family received payment in full on our debt, and was then subsequently financially gutted when a host of holdings on him were called.\"\n\nUdinaas grunted. \"Grateful patrons, indeed.\"\n\n\"Probably. We never found out. And Tehol never explained a damned thing. It took me over a year to piece some of it together. My point is, Udinaas, Tehol's genius is of the diabolical kind. Destitute? Not a chance. Retired from business dealings? Impossible. I am now quite skilled at tracking my brother, you see. Huldo's not the only lender Tehol owns.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So,\" Udinaas said as they approached the emperor's tent,\"I am Indebted to the Beddicts. '\n\n\"Not anymore,\" Hull said. \"I am clearing it. Right now. I am sure Tehol will forgive me, assuming I ever get a chance to corner him.\"\n\nUdinaas looked over at the man. Then he nodded. \"I see. Reciprocity.\"\n\n\"I am without expectation, Udinaas.\"\n\n\"Good. I knew you were a fast learner.\"\n\nHull Beddict halted outside the entrance. \"I enjoyed speaking to you,\" he said.\n\nUdinaas hesitated, then smiled.\n\nSeated on his throne, sweat streaming down between and over the gold coins on his face, neck and chest, some horrible insight burning in his eyes, the emperor trembled as if rabid. \"Udinaas,\" he croaked. \"As you can see, we are well.\"\n\n\"These southlands, Emperor, hold strange diseases-\" \"We were not sick. We were... travelling.\" They were alone in the chamber. Hannan Mosag was overseeing the warriors, where some old feuds between tribes were threatening to breach the unity. Mayen was cloistered among the women, for it was said that Uruth Sengar was coming, summoned via the K'risnan. The air in the tent smelled of sour sweat.\n\n\"A long and difficult journey, then,\" Udinaas said. \"Do you wish some wine? Food?\"\n\n\"No. Not yet. We have... done something. A terrible thing. To achieve an alliance. When we strike the Letherii army outside Letheras, you shall see what has been won this day. We are... pleased. Yes, pleased.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yet frightened. By your own power.\"\n\nThe eyes flickered, fixed on Udinaas. \"We can hide little from you, it seems. Yes, frightened. We... I... have drowned an entire world. A fragment of Kurald Emurlahn, upon which our ships will soon travel. Seeking our lost kin. And... champions.\" He clawed at his face. \"I drowned a world.\"\n\nThe subject needed deflection, Udinaas decided. \"Champions? I do not understand, Emperor.\"\n\nA moment to recover, then a nod. \"Worthy foes, Udinaas. Skilled fighters capable of killing us. They are needed.\"\n\n\"For your power to grow yet stronger.\"\n\n'Yes. Stronger. It is necessary. So many things are necessary, now\n\nUdinaas risked a glance away as he said, \"It is right to fear, then, Emperor.\"\n\n\"It is? Explain.\"\n\n\"Fear bespeaks of wisdom. Recognition of responsibility.\"\n\n\"Wisdom. Yes, it must be so, mustn't it? We had not considered that before. We fear, because we are becoming wise. '\n\nOh, you poor lad. How can I do this? \"How will you incite these... champions?\"\n\nRhulad shivered, then raised the sword in his right hand. \"Who among them will turn away from such a challenge? Those who do are not worth fighting. Or, if they are yet reluctant, they will be compelled. This world is vast, Udinaas, far vaster than you might think. There are other lands, other empires. There are formidable peoples, races. We will search far. We will find those useful to us. And then, one day, we will conquer. Every kingdom. Every continent.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You will need to deceive those champions, Emperor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Into believing that killing you means their victory. You will have to make it seem that it is your ego that forces such challenges. They must know nothing of the sword's power, of its demands upon you. '\n\n\"Yes, you speak true, Udinaas. Together, we will shape the future. You will want for nothing.\"\n\n\"Emperor, I want for nothing now. I need no promises. Please, I did not mean to offend by that. What I meant was, there is no need for promises.\"\n\nSudden pain in Rhulad's dark eyes, a grief and sorrow that rent at Udinaas, somewhere deep inside. It was all he could do to continue meeting the emperor's gaze.\n\n\"We would have some wine, now, Udinaas.\" Atone of profound sorrow. \"Two goblets, for you and me. We shall drink, and think of nothing. We shall talk, perhaps, of inconsequential matters.\"\n\nUdinaas strode to the table where sat a jug of Letherii wine. \"I visited Dresh, once,\" he said as he poured out two cups full. \"And ate smoked Moss River eel. Would you like me to tell about Moss River eels, Emperor?\" He carried the two goblets over to the Edur seated on the throne.\n\n\"Is it inconsequential?\"\n\nUdinaas hesitated, then nodded. \"It is.\"\n\n\"Then, yes, Udinaas. We would.\"\n\nSeren Pedac and the Crimson Guardsmen rode at a canter. Half a league ahead was the town of Dissent. It had once been walled, but local builders had dismantled most of the stonework long ago. The town had since grown outward in a mostly chaotic manner, swallowing commons and nearby farms. But now Dissent was barely visible, devoured in turn by at least three encamped armies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Crimson Rampant Brigade,\" Seren said, scanning the distant banners. \"Snakebelt Battalion, and the Riven Brigade.\"\n\n\"Can we ride straight through?\" Iron Bars asked.\n\nShe glanced across at him, then nodded. \"I think so. My apologies. I'm a little shocked, that's all. If this is all that's left of the frontier armies... '\n\n\"The ground ahead is not ideal fora battle,\" the Avowed judged. \"I'd be surprised if the king intended to await the Edur here. Can you think of anywhere else close by that might be better suited? '\n\n\"Brans Keep, in the hills a few leagues northeast of Dissent.\"\n\n\"And Dissent is the nearest major town?\"\n\n\"Apart from Letheras itself,\" Seren said.\n\n\"Then this is temporary encampment. When the Tiste Edur draw closer, those three armies will march to Brans Keep. Assuming the warlord commanding them has any wits at all. In any case, Acquitor, other Letherii forces might already be waiting there, at Brans Keep. It's a question of logistics, keeping these ones here. '\n\n\"I hope you are right. Then again, I wonder if it will make any difference.\"\n\n\"We're far from the sea, Seren, \"Iron Bars said.\"That demon the Edur have chained can't reach here, and that evens things some.\"\n\nA worthy try, Iron Bars. \"Another day to Outkeep, then we should reach Letheras the following day, well before dusk.\"\n\n\"Could we hasten that, Acquitor? These soldiers camped ahead, might they be prepared to exchange horses?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If I insist, yes.\"\n\n\"Based on your desire to speak to the king.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And will you? Speak to the king, that is.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nHe said nothing fora time, whilst she waited. Then, \"And in Letheras, what will you do once you've arrived? '\n\n\"I expect I will have some dusting to do.\"\n\n\"Sorry?\"\n\n\"My house is closed up. I've not had a chance to send a message to my staff– all two of them. '\n\n\"That doesn't sound very secure– no-one to guard your possessions. '\n\nShe smiled. \"I have nothing of value, Iron Bars. Thieves are welcome to it. Well, I'd prefer if they left me my furniture– my neighbours are diligent enough, I suppose, to prevent anything like that. '\n\nThe Avowed stared ahead fora moment. \"We must needs depart your company, then, Acquitor. To make contact with our new employer. Presumably, we'll be shipping out soon after. '\n\nBefore the city's occupied and sealed up.\"I imagine so. '\n\n\"There might be room aboard...\"\n\n\"I am Letherii, Iron Bars.\" She shook her head. \"I am done with travelling fora time, I think.\"\n\n\"Understandable. Anyway, the offer's open. '\n\n\"Thank you.\" So here I run again.\n\nCorlo, riding behind them, called out, \"Easy on that, lass. Mockra's dangerous when you don't control it.\"\n\nThe Avowed turned his head, studied her.\n\nShe shrugged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An old man emerged from the ditch, a creature Of mud and wild autumn winds capering Like a hare across a bouldered field, across And through the stillness of time unhinged That sprawls patient and unexpectant in the Place where battle lies spent, unmoving and Never again moving bodies strewn and Death-twisted like lost languages tracking Contorted glyphs on a barrow door, and he Read well the aftermath, the disarticulated script Rent and dissolute the pillars of self toppled Like termite towers all spilled out round his Dancing feet, and he shouted in gleeful Revelation the truth he'd found, in these Red-fleshed pronouncements–\"There is peace! \"He shrieked.\"There is peace! \"and it was No difficult thing, where I satin the saddle Above salt-rimed horseflesh to lift my crossbow Aim and loose the quarrel, skewering the madman To his proclamation.\"Now, \"said I, in the Silence that followed,\"Now, there is peace. '\n\nThe Lay of Skinner Fisher kel Tath\n\nOn facing hills, the smouldering ruins of first reach in the low, flat floodplain between, the two armies of the Tiste Edur came within sight of one another. Wraiths swarmed through the ashes, weapons were lifted high, triumphant cries piercing the still morning air.\n\nThe convergence was, of course, incomplete. The third, easternmost force, led by Tomad Sengar and Binadas, was still striking south down Mappers' Road towards White Point. It would join with these two armies, Trull knew, somewhere close to Brans Keep, and there the fate of Lether, and indeed of the Edur empire, would be decided in a single battle.\n\nHe stood leaning on his spear, feeling no inclination to join his voice to the fierce tumult buffeting him from all sides. Just north of the ruins in the floodplain below, a hundred or more starlings cavorted and wheeled, their own cries drowned out, a detail that somehow transformed their dance into a fevered, nightmarish display." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the distant line of warriors opposite, a space was clearing, a single dominant standard bobbing forward, beneath it a figure flashing gold, holding high a sword.\n\nThe warcries redoubled.\n\nTrull flinched at the deafening sound. He pulled his gaze away from Rhulad on that far hilltop and saw Fear approaching.\n\n\"Trull! B'nagga, you and I– horses await us– we ride now to our emperor! '\n\nHe nodded, uneasy with the ferocity evident in Fear's eyes.\"Lead on, brother. '\n\nThe ride across to Rhulad's army was a strange experience. Trull did not like horses that much, and liked riding them even less. He was jolted again and again, jarring the scene on all sides. They rode across burnt ground, heaps of the remains of butchered livestock lining the tracks approaching the town. And the roaring of the warriors was a wave at their backs, pushing them onwards.\n\nThen, halfway across, the sensation shifted, spun entirely round, as the voices of the warriors in the emperor's army engulfed them. Their horses balked, and it was a struggle to make them resume the approach.\n\nAs they climbed the slope, Trull could see his brother Rhulad more clearly. He was barely recognizable, hulking now beneath the weight of the coins. His forehead was exposed, revealing skin the colour of dirty snow, the contrast darkening the pits of his eyes. His teeth were bared, but it seemed as much a grimace of pain as anything else. Hannan Mosag stood on the emperor's left, the slave Udinaas on the right. Hull Beddict was positioned three paces behind the Warlock King. Mayen and Uruth were nowhere to be seen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Arriving, they reined in and dismounted. Slaves appeared to lead the horses away.\n\nFear strode forward to kneel before the emperor. Across the valley, another surge of sound.\n\n\"My brother,\" Rhulad said in his rasping, broken voice. \"Rise before us.\" The emperor stepped close and settled a coin-backed hand on Fear's shoulder.\"There is much I must say to you, but later. '\n\n\"As you command, Emperor.\"\n\nRhulad's haunted eyes shifted.\"Trull. '\n\nHe knelt and studied the ground before him. \"Emperor.\"\n\n\"Rise. We have words for you as well.\"\n\nNo doubt. \"Mother arrived safely?\"\n\nA flash of irritation. \"She did.\" It seemed he would say something more to Trull, but then he changed his mind and faced B'nagga.\"The Jheck are well, B'nagga?\"\n\nA fierce grin. \"They are, Emperor.\"\n\n\"We are pleased. Hannan Mosag would speak to you regarding the impending lie of battle. A tent has been prepared for such matters. Hull Beddict has drawn us detailed maps.\"\n\nB'nagga bowed, then walked to the Warlock King. The two departed, trailed by Hull Beddict.\n\n\"Our brothers,\" Rhulad said, the sword shaking in his left hand. \"Come, we will take food and drink in our own tent. Udinaas, precede us.\"\n\nThe slave strode into the mass of warriors. The Edur melted back before the nondescript Letherii, and into his wake walked the emperor, Fear and Trull.\n\nThey reached the command tent a short while later, after traversing an avenue walled in flesh, waving weapons and frenzied warcries. Wraiths stood guard to either side of the entrance. As soon as the slave and the three brothers entered, Rhulad spun round and halted Trull with one hand. \"How far do you intend to push me, Trull?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked down at the hand pressed against his chest. \"It seems you are the one doing the pushing, Rhulad.\"\n\nA moment of taut silence, then his brother barked a laugh and stepped back. \"Words from our past, yes? As we once were, before...\" a wave of the sword, \"all this.\" His ravaged gaze fixed on Trull fora moment. \"We have missed you.\" He smiled at Fear. \"Missed you both. Udinaas, find us some wine!\"\n\n\"A Letherii drink,\" Fear said.\n\n\"I have acquired a taste for it, brother.\"\n\nTrull and Fear followed Rhulad into the inner chamber, where the slave was already pouring three cups of dark wine into Letherii-made goblets of silver and gold. Trull felt unbalanced, the sudden breach in Rhulad's façade shocking him, hurting him somewhere inside for reasons he could not immediately fathom.\n\nEschewing the throne dominating the centre of the room, the emperor settled down in a leather-slung tripod chair near the food-laden table along one wall. Two identical chairs flanked him. Rhulad gestured. \"Come, brothers, sit with us. We know, we understand well, it seemed all we were was but ashes, and the love we shared, as brothers, was so sadly strained, then.\"\n\nTrull could see that even Fear was stunned, as they sat down in the low chairs.\n\n\"We must not run from our memories,\" Rhulad said, as Udinaas brought him his cup. \"The blood of kin need not always burn, brothers. There must betimes when it simply... warms us.\"\n\nFear cleared his throat. \"We have... missed you as well, Emperor-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Enough! No titles. Rhulad, so our father named me, as he named all his sons, each in turn from the host of ancestors of the Sengar line. It is too easy to forget.\"\n\nUdinaas set a cup into Fear's hand. Fingers closed of their own accord.\n\nTrull glanced up as the slave approached him with the last cup. He met the Letherii's eyes, was startled by what he saw in them. He reached out and accepted the wine.\"Thank you, Udinaas. '\n\nA flinch from Rhulad. \"He is mine,\" he said in a tight voice.\n\nTrull's eyes widened.\"Of course, Rhulad. '\n\n\"Good. Yes. Fear, I must tell you of Mayen.\"\n\nSlowly leaning back, Trull studied the wine trembling in the cup in his hands. The slave's gaze, the message it seemed to convey. All is well.\n\n\"I did not,\" Fear ventured hesitantly, \"see her earlier...\"\n\n\"No, nor our mother. Mayen has been unwell.\" Rhulad shot Fear a nervous glance. \"I am sorry, brother. I should not have... should not have done that. And now, well, you see...\" He drained his wine in a single motion. \"Udinaas, more. Tell him. Explain, Udinaas, so that Fear understands.\"\n\nThe slave refilled the cup, then stepped back. \"She is with child,\" he said, meeting Fear's gaze.\"There is no doubt, now, that her heart belongs to you. Rhulad would have wished otherwise. At first, in any case. But not now. He understands. But the child, that has made matters difficult. Complicated. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The cup in Fear's hand had not visibly moved, but Trull could see that it was close to spilling, as if a numbness was stealing the strength of the limb.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Go on, ' Fear managed.\n\n\"There is no precedent, no rules among your people,\" Udinaas resumed. \"Rhulad would relinquish his marriage to her, he would undo all that has been done. But for the child, do you see, Fear Sengar?\"\n\n\"That child will be heir-\"\n\nRhulad interrupted with a harsh laugh. \"No heir, Fear. Ever. Don't you see? The throne shall be my eternal burden. '\n\nBurden. By the Sisters, what has awakened you, Rhulad? Who has awakened you? Trull snapped his gaze back to Udinaas, and mentally reeled in sudden realization. Udinaas? This... this slave?\n\nUdinaas was nodding, eyes still on Fear's own.\"The warrior that raises that child will be its father, in all things but the naming. There will be no deception. All will know. If there is to be a stigma... '\n\n\"It will be for me to deal with,\" Fear said. \"Should I choose to stand beside Mayen, once wife to the emperor, with a child not my own to raise as my wife's first-born. '\n\n\"It is as you say, Fear Sengar,\" Udinaas said. Then he stepped back.\n\nTrull slowly straightened, reached with one hand and gently righted the cup in Fear's grip. Startled, his brother looked at him, then nodded.\"Rhulad, what does Mother say to all this? '\n\n\"Mayen has been punishing herself with white nectar. It is not an easy thing to defeat, such... dependency. Uruth endeavours...\"\n\nA soft groan from Fear, as he closed his eyes.\n\nTrull watched Rhulad stretch out as if to touch Fear, watched him hesitate, then glance across to Trull." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Who nodded. Yes. Now.\n\nA momentary contact, that seemed to shoot through Fear, snapping his eyes open.\n\n\"Brother,\" Rhulad said, \"I am sorry.\"\n\nFear studied his youngest brother's face, then said,\"We are all sorry, Rhulad. For... so much. What has Uruth said of the child? Is it well? '\n\n\"Physically, yes, but it knows its mother's hunger. This will be... difficult. I know, you do not deserve any of this, Fear-'\n\n\"Perhaps, Rhulad, but I will accept the burden. For Mayen. And for you.\"\n\nNo-one spoke after that, not for sometime. They drank their wine, and it seemed to Trull that something was present, some part of his life he'd thought– not long gone, but non-existent in the first place. They sat, the three of them. Brothers, and nothing more.\n\nNight descended outside. Udinaas served food and still more wine. Sometime later, Trull rose, the alcohol softening details, and wandered through the chambers of the tent, his departure barely noticed by Rhulad and Fear.\n\nIna small room walled in by canvas, he found Udinaas.\n\nThe slave was sitting on a small stool, eating his own supper. He looked up in surprise at Trull's sudden arrival.\n\n\"Please,\" Trull said, \"resume your meal. You have earned it, Udinaas.\"\n\n\"Is there something you wish of me, Trull Sengar?\"\n\n\"No. Yes. What have you done?\"\n\nThe slave cocked his head. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"With... him. What have you done, Udinaas?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not much, Trull Sengar.\"\n\n\"No, I need an answer. What are you to him?\"\n\nUdinaas set down his plate, drank a mouthful of wine. \"A subject who's not afraid of him, I suppose. '\n\n\"That's... all? Wait, yes, I see. But then I wonder, why? Why are you not afraid of him? '\n\nUdinaas sighed, and Trull realized how exhausted the slave was. \"You, all the Edur, you seethe sword. Or the gold. You see... the power. The terrifying, brutal power.\" He shrugged. \"I see what it takes from him, what it costs Rhulad. I am Letherii, after all,\" he added with a grimace. \"I understand the notion of debt.\" He looked up. \"Trull Sengar, I am his friend. That is all.\"\n\nTrull studied the slave fora half-dozen heartbeats. \"Never betray him, Udinaas. Never.\"\n\nThe Letherii's gaze skittered away. He drank more wine.\n\n\"Udinaas-\"\n\n\"I heard you,\" the man said in a grating voice.\n\nTrull turned to leave. Then he paused and glanced back. \"I have no wish to depart on such terms. So, Udinaas, for what you have done, for what you have given him, thank you.\"\n\nThe slave nodded without looking up. He reached down to retrieve his plate.\n\nTrull returned to the central chamber to find that Hannan Mosag had arrived, and was speaking to Rhulad.\n\n\"... Hull believes it lies near a town downriver from here. A day's journey, perhaps. But, Emperor, a necessary journey none the less. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rhulad looked away, glared at the far wall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The armies must goon. To Brans Keep. No delays, no detours. I will go, and Fear and Trull as well. Hull Beddict, to guide us. Udinaas, of course.\"\n\n\"A K'risnan, \"the Warlock King said,\"and our new demonic allies, the two Kenryll'ah.\"\n\n\"Very well, those as well. We shall meet you at Brans Keep.\"\n\n\"What is it?\" Trull asked. \"What has happened?\"\n\n\"Something has been freed,\" Hannan Mosag said. \"And it must be dealt with.\"\n\n\"Freed by whom, and for what purpose?\"\n\nThe Warlock King shrugged. \"I know not who was responsible. But I assume it was freed to fight us.\"\n\n\"A demon of some sort?\"\n\n\"Yes. I can only sense its presence, its will. I cannot identify it. The town is named Brous.\"\n\nTrull slowly nodded. \"Would that Binadas were with us,\" he said.\n\nRhulad glanced up. \"Why?\"\n\nTrull smiled, said nothing.\n\nAfter a moment, Fear grunted, then nodded.\n\nRhulad matched Trull's smile.\"Yes, \"he said,\"would that he were. '\n\nHannan Mosag looked at the three of them in turn. \"I do not understand.\"\n\nThe emperor's laugh was harsh, only slightly bitter.\"You send us on another quest, Warlock King. '\n\nHannan Mosag visibly blanched.\n\nSeeing that, Rhulad laughed again, this time in pure amusement.\n\nAfter a moment, both Fear and Trull joined him, whilst Hannan Mosag stared at them all in disbelief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had drunk too much wine, Trull told himself later. That was all. Far too much wine.\n\nSeren Pedac and the Crimson Guardsmen guided their horses down from the road, across the ditch, and drew rein at the edge of a greenfield. The vanguard of the Merchants'Battalion had emerged from the city's gates, and the Acquitor could see Preda Unnutal Hebaz at the forefront, riding a blue-grey horse, white-maned, that tossed its head in irritation, hooves stamping with impatience.\n\n\"If she's not careful, \"Iron Bars observed,\"that beast will start bucking. And she'll find herself on her arse in the middle of the road.\"\n\n\"That would bean ill omen indeed,\" Seren said.\n\nAfter a moment, the Preda managed to calm the horse.\n\n\"I take it we have something of await before us,\" Iron Bars said.\n\n\"King's Battalion and Merchants'Battalion at the very least. I don't know what other forces are in Letheras. I wouldn't think the south battalions and brigades have had time to reach here, which is unfortunate.\" She thought fora moment, then said, \"If we cross this field, we can take the river road and enter through Fishers\" Gate. It will mean crossing two-thirds of the city to reach my home, but for you, Avowed, well, presumably the ship you're signed on with will be close by.\"\n\nIron Bars shrugged. \"We're delivering you to your door, Acquitor. '\n\n\"That's not necessary-'\n\n\"Even so, it is what we intend to do.\"\n\n\"Then, if you don't mind... '\n\n\"Fishers\" Gate it shall be. Lead on, Acquitor. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The rearguard elements of the King's Battalion had turned in the concourse before the Eternal Domicile and were now marching up the Avenue of the Seventh Closure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "King Ezgara Diskanar, who had stood witness on the balcony of the First Wing since his official despatch of the Preda at dawn, finally swung about and made his way inside. The investiture was about to begin, but Brys Beddict knew he had sometime before his presence was required.\n\nFour of his own guard were on the balcony with him. Brys gestured one over. \"Find me a messenger.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nBrys waited, staring out over the city. The air was oppressive with more than just humidity and heat. After the passing of the battalion's rearguard, few citizens ventured into its wake. The battle at Brans Keep was still days away, but it seemed that most of the city's residents– those who remained– had elected to stay in their homes as much as possible.\n\nThe messenger arrived, a woman he had employed often and one he knew he could trust.\n\n\"Deliver a missive to my brother, Tehol, at his home.\"\n\n\"He will be on his roof?\"\n\n\"I expect so, and that is the message– he is to stay there. Now, an additional message, to the Shavankrat brother guarding Tehol. A name. Gerun Eberict. That is all.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Go, then.\"\n\nShe quickly left. Brys strode into the narrow corridor that tracked the length of the wing on the second tier. At the far end steps descended to an antechamber that was part of the central dome complex. There, he found Finadd Moroch Nevath, sitting on a stone bench.\n\n\"Brys, I have been waiting for you.\"\n\n\"Not too long, I hope. What do you wish of me, Finadd?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you believe in gods?\"\n\nStartled, Brys was silent fora moment, then said, \"I am afraid I do not seethe relevance of that question.\"\n\nMoroch Nevath reached into a pouch at his hip and withdrew a battered tile, such as might be found among market readers. \"When did you last speak with Turudal Brizad?\"\n\n\"The First Consort has not been in the palace– either palace, since yesterday,\" Brys said. \"First Eunuch Nifadas ordered an extensive search, and it has been concluded that Turudal has fled. Not entirely surprising-\"\n\nMoroch tossed him the tile. Instinctively, Brys caught it in his left hand. He looked down at the ceramic plaque. Yellowed at the edges, latticed with cracks, the illustration reduced to a series of stylized scratches that Brys none the less recognized. \"The tile of the Errant. What of it, Moroch?\"\n\nThe soldier rose to his feet. He'd lost weight, Brys noted, and seemed to have aged ten years since joining the treaty delegation.\"He's been here. All along. The bastard's been right under our noses, Brys Beddict. '\n\n\"What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"The Errant. The First Consort. Turudal Brizad.\"\n\n\"That is... ridiculous.\"\n\n\"I have a somewhat harsher word for it, Brys.\"\n\nThe Champion glanced away from the man standing before him. \"How did you come to this extraordinary conclusion, Moroch?\"\n\n\"There have been Turudal Brizads every generation– oh, different names, but it's him. Scenes on tapestries, paintings. Walk the royal collection, Brys– everything's out in the hallway, about to be moved. It was right there, for anyone to see, should they find reason to look.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And what reason did you have, Moroch?\"\n\nA grimace. \"He asked me to do something for him.\"\n\nBrys grunted. \"He's a god. \"Supposedly.\"Why should he need your help? '\n\n\"Because he says you will be too busy.\"\n\nBrys thought back to his last conversation with Turudal Brizad.... the end of my objectivity. Something like that, as the man was walking away. \"I admit to some... scepticism, Moroch Nevath.\"\n\n\"Set it aside for the moment, Brys. I am hereto ask your advice. Assume the worst.\"\n\n\"A god asks for your help? I suppose one must consider possible motivations, and the consequences of accepting or rejecting the request.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Will doing as he asks be to the benefit of Lether?\"\n\n\"He says it will.\"\n\n\"Where is he now?\"\n\n\"In the city, somewhere. He was watching the last of the refugees allowed in this morning, on the wall, or so one of my guards reported.\"\n\n\"Then, I would think, Moroth, that you must do as he asks.\"\n\n\"Over the duty of protecting the king?\"\n\n\"I imagine the god assumes that task will be mine.\"\n\n\"We are almost equal, you and I, Brys.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"You may believe that you are the better between us. I believe otherwise.\"\n\n\"The decision was not ours to make, Moroch.\"\n\nMoroch studied him fora half-dozen heartbeats, then said, \"I thank you for the advice, Finadd.\"\n\n\"I hesitate to say it, Moroch Nevath, but the Errant be with you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not funny,\" the swordsman muttered as he strode away.\n\nBrys made his way into the dome complex. He came to the main corridor, halting to study the layout once more. The walls had been scrubbed, the dust on the floor mopped away. Guards and functionaries were moving about, readying for the investiture. Many glances were cast in the direction of the figure sleeping halfway down the corridor, curled upon the centre tile.\n\nSighing, Brys approached Kuru Qan. \"Ceda.\"\n\nThe old man made a sound, then turned over so that his back was to Brys.\n\n\"Wake up, Ceda. Please.\"\n\nHead lifting, Kuru Qan groped for the twin lenses lying on the floor nearby, drew them to his face. \"Who calls?\"\n\n\"It is Brys Beddict.\"\n\n\"Ah, Finadd.\" Kuru Qan twisted round and peered up. \"You look well.\"\n\nYou do not. \"Ceda, the investiture is about to begin. Unless you would have King Ezgara Diskanar step around you during his solemn march, you will have to move.\"\n\n\"No!\" The old man spread himself out on the flagstone. \"I must not! This is mine. My place.\"\n\n\"You insist that he step to one side on his approach? Ceda, you risk the king's anger-'\n\n\"Relevant? Not in the least.\" His fingers scrabbled on the stone. \"This is mine. Warn him, Finadd. Warn the king.\"\n\n\"About what?\"\n\n\"I will not be moved. Any who would try will be blasted into ashes. Ashes, Brys Beddict.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Brys glanced around. A small crowd had gathered to listen to the exchange. The Finadd scowled. \"Be on your way, all of you.\" People scrambled.\n\nTemporarily alone once more, Brys crouched down before the Ceda. \"You had paints and brushes with you last time. What happened to them?\"\n\n\"Paints and brushes?\" The eyes blinked behind the lenses. \"Gone. Gone away. The king wants you now, Finadd. He is ready to begin the procession. Nifadas is coming– he will complain, but no matter. It will be a small audience, won't it. Relevant? Oh yes. Best the king ignore me– explain that to him, Brys. '\n\nThe Finadd straightened. \"I shall, Ceda.\"\n\n\"Excellent. Now, be on your way.\"\n\n\"This doesn't smell right. '\n\nTrull looked over at the Kenryll'ah demon that had spoken. It was taller than the Tiste Edur on their horses. A face of sharper features than those on Lilac, black as chiselled basalt, the upper and lower canines protruding and glinting silver. A fur-lined collar, a vest of bronze scales, salt-rimed and dark with patination. A heavy leather belt on which was slung a huge scabbarded tulwar. Leather leggings, grey and supple. The other demon, standing at its side, differed only in the choice of weapons, a massive matlock gripped in two gauntleted hands.\n\nThis second Kenryll'ah bared its teeth.\"Making me hungry. '\n\n\"Split bones,\" the other said. \"Marrow.\"\n\nThe stench the two were referring to was that of rotting corpses. They had reached the edge of the clearing, beyond which was the palisade wall of the town of Brous. In the field were barrows, and one long excavated trench. There was no-one insight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Brothers,\" the emperor said, \"dismount and ready your weapons.\"\n\nTrull swung down from his horse. He turned. \"K'risnan, can you sense anything? '\n\nThe young Arapay warlock's face was sickly. He nodded.\"In the town, I think. It knows we're here.\"\n\nRhulad closed both hands on the grip of his sword and raised it to centre guard position. \"Udinaas, remain with the horses. Fear, on my left. Trull, my right. K'risnan, stay behind us five paces. Demons, out to either side. '\n\n\"Can't we eat first? '\n\n\"Or pee? I need topee.\"\n\n\"You should have thought of that before we left,\" the first demon said.\n\n\"And you should have eaten. We've plenty of spare horses, you know. '\n\nThe emperor hissed. \"Silence, both of you. We've had to listen to you the entire journey. No more, lest I decide to kill you first. '\n\n\"That wouldn't be wise, \"the second Kenryll'ah said. \"I smell more than meat, I smell the one thing still alive in there, and it isn't pleasant. '\n\n\"I taste it,\" the first demon said. \"And it makes me want to retch.\"\n\n\"You should have thought of retching before we left,\" the second one said.\n\n\"I think of retching every time I look at you.\"\n\n\"Enough!\"\n\n\"I apologize for my brother,\" the first demon said.\n\n\"And I for mine,\" the second one added.\n\nStrange tyrants. Trull unslung his spear and strode to Rhulad's side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They made their way across the clearing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reaching the pit, they saw the first of the bodies. Broken and tossed at the base of the deep, ragged excavation, like an open mass burial. Workers and soldiers. Flesh dark and bloating in the heat. Flies swarmed.\n\nThey skirted the pit and approached the town. The gates opposite them had been knocked down, inward, the heavy doors shattered. Somewhere in the town a dog was barking.\n\nThe street was strewn with corpses just inside the wall. The doors of every house and building within sight had been stove in. Ahead and to the right, two horses stood yoked to a wagon that had been knocked over. Exhaustion and the strain of the yokes had driven one of the beasts into an awkward sitting position. Trull hesitated, then walked over to them, drawing the knife at his belt. The others paused and watched as he cut the horses loose. Neither animal was in any condition to flee, but they slowly made their way outside on trembling, uncertain legs.\n\nTrull returned to his position beside Rhulad.\n\n\"It's coming, ' the first demon said.\n\nFurther down the main street a flock of starlings swirled into view, spinning between the buildings. Ina mass of black, the birds seemed to boil towards the Tiste Edur and the Kenryll'ah. Striding in the midst of the birds, a tall figure, spectral, its skin white, its hair pallid yellow and hanging in limp strands. It was wearing a leather harness that looked wrinkled and blackened with rot. There was something strange about its limbs.\n\n\"He is unarmed,\" Fear said.\n\n\"Yet,\" the K'risnan hissed behind them,\"he is the one. '\n\nThe starlings spun higher, alighting on roof edges to either side, as the figure halted ten paces away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Peaceful,\" it said in Letherii, \"is it not?\"\n\nRhulad spoke. \"I am Emperor Rhulad of the Tiste Edur. Who, and what, are you, stranger?\"\n\n\"I am Forkrul Assail. I am named Serenity.\"\n\n\"You area demon, then?\"\n\nThe head cocked. \"I am?\"\n\n\"This is not your world.\"\n\n\"It isn't? '\n\nRhulad half turned. \"K'risnan, banish him. '\n\n\"I cannot, Emperor.\"\n\n\"The tumult of your presence invites discord,\" Serenity said.\n\nWatching the Forkrul Assail's movements, Trull realized that it possessed extra joints in the arms and the legs, and there was some kind of hinge across the creature's breastbone. Its motion was oddly loose.\n\n\"Discord?\" Rhulad asked.\n\n\"I desire peace once more.\"\n\nFear spoke. \"If it is peace you seek, Serenity, then you need only turn and walkaway. Leave.\"\n\n\"To leave here is to arrive elsewhere. I cannot retreat from disorder, for it shall surely follow. Peace must be asserted where one finds oneself. Only when discord is resolved will there be peace.\" The Forkrul Assail then stepped forward.\n\n\"\"Ware! ' one of the demons snarled.\n\nSerenity surged closer, even as the starlings exploded skyward once more.\n\nTrull's weapon possessed the greatest reach, but he did not attempt to stab the creature. Its arms were lifted to fend off the attack, and Trull chose to batter at those with a high sweep of the spear shaft. Like a serpent, Serenity's right arm writhed around the shaft, binding the weapon. A sudden flex and the Blackwood cracked, then splintered, the red core welling into view down the length of the split. Trull had little time to feel shock, as Serenity's left hand lashed out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two fingertips touched Trull's temple-\n\nHe was already pitching himself to the side, but at the contact he felt his neck wrenched round. Had he remained standing, had he resisted, his neck would now be broken. As it was, ducking, shoulder dipping, he was flung downward, thrown off his feet.\n\nFear had charged in low, a beat behind Trull's high attack, slashing diagonally down and into take the Forkrul Assail at the knee.\n\nBut the leg folded back, the knee reversing its angle, whilst at the same time Serenity reached down with his left hand and grasped the sword-blade. The Forkrul Assail plucked it from Fear's hand, fingers clenching, crushing the iron.\n\nFor all their failures, Trull and Fear had done what was demanded of them. Their flank attacks had preceded Rhulad's, with the intention of opening Serenity to the emperor's attack. Rhulad's mottled sword was a blur, whistling in the air– yet not once making contact, as the Forkrul Assail seemed to simply flow around it.\n\nFlinging Fear's bent sword aside, Serenity stepped in.\n\nAnd plunged his fingers like spikes into Rhulad's chest, pushing past the coins, sliding between ribs, and piercing his heart, then snapping back out.\n\nThe emperor crumpled.\n\nSerenity swung to face Fear.\n\nThen leapt back, eight paces or more through the air, narrowly avoiding a matlock that struck the dirt of the street and sank deep.\n\nSerenity back-pedalled further as the other demon pursued, the massive tulwar dancing like a dagger in its hands.\n\nTrull scrambled to his feet. He spun, intending to collect another spear from the cache he'd left strapped to his horse-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "-and found Udinaas rushing towards him, the weapons cradled in his arms.\n\nTrull pulled one free, then turned once more, leaping over Rhulad's body. Ahead, the Forkrul Assail had darted to the left, ducking beneath a slash of the tulwar, hands lashing out even as the demon kicked it hard in the side.\n\nSerenity was thrown by the blow, thudded on the ground and rolled, twice, before regaining its feet.\n\nBut Trull had heard the crack of ribs in that kick.\n\nThe demon closed once more from the Forkrul Assail's right.\n\nA moment before they closed, Trull launched his spear.\n\nSerenity did not see it coming. Struck solidly just below the left collarbone, the creature was spun round by the impact. The demon's tulwar chopped down into its right thigh, ringing as it bit into bone. The demon wrenched it loose.\n\nTrull reached back and another spear was placed in his hand. He moved closer.\n\nStaggering back, the Forkrul Assail had plucked the spear from its shoulder and was fending off the tulwar slashes with its hands, pushing against the flat of the blade. The other demon was rushing in from the other side, matlock raised high.\n\nPale bluish blood streaming from the two wounds– which seemed to be closing even as Trull watched– Serenity leapt back once more, then turned and ran.\n\nThe Kenryll'ah prepared to pursue.\n\n\"Halt!\" Trull shouted. \"Leave it!\"\n\nUdinaas was standing above Rhulad's body. A few paces away stood the K'risnan, his young face frozen into an expression of terror. He was shaking his head in denial, again and again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"K'risnan. '\n\nWild eyes fixed on Trull. \"It... threw me back. My power... when the emperor died... all, flung back...\"\n\nThe demons approached.\n\n\"Leave it to us,\" the first one said, whipping blood from the tulwar.\n\n\"Yes,\" nodded the other. \"We've never before heard of these Forkrul Assail, but we've decided.\"\n\n\"We don't like them, ' the first demon said.\n\n\"Not in the least.\"\n\n\"We will hunt it down and tell it so.\"\n\nFear spoke. \"Udinaas, how long...\" His eyes were on Rhulad.\n\n\"Not long,\" the slave replied.\n\n\"Do we wait?\"\n\n\"It would be best, I think,\" said Udinaas.\n\nRubbing at his face, Fear walked over to his sword. He picked it up, examined it, then tossed it aside. He looked across at Trull.\n\nTrull said, \"It broke Blackwood.\"\n\nA grimace. \"I saw. That second spear, that was well thrown, brother.\"\n\nStill, the brothers knew. Without the Kenryll'ah, they would now be dead.\n\nThe first demon spoke. \"May we pursue now?\"\n\nFear hesitated, then nodded. \"Go.\"\n\nThe two Kenryll'ah swung round and headed up the street.\n\n\"We can eat on the way.\"\n\n\"Good idea, brother.\"\n\nSomewhere in the town, the dog was still barking.\n\n\"We have to help him,\" Sandalath Drukorlat said.\n\nWithal glanced over at her. They were standing on the sward's verge overlooking the beach. The Tiste Edur youth was curled up in the sand below. Still shrieking.\"It's not his first visit,\" Withal said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How is your head?\" she asked after a moment.\n\n\"It hurts.\"\n\nThe Tiste Edur fell silent, shuddering, then the youth's head jerked up. He stared at Withal and the Tiste Andii woman standing beside the Meckros weaponsmith. Then back again.\"Withal! '\n\nThe smith's brows rose, although the motion made him wince, and he said,\"He normally doesn't talk tome much.\" To the youth, \"Rhulad. I am not so cruel as to say welcome.\"\n\n\"Who is she? Who is that... betrayer!\"\n\nSandalath snorted. \"Pathetic. This is the god's sword-wielder? A mistake. '\n\n\"If it is,\" Withal said in a low voice, \"I have no intention of telling him so.\"\n\nRhulad clambered to his feet. \"It killed me.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Withal replied. \"It did, whatever'it\" was.\"\n\n\"A Forkrul Assail.\"\n\nSandalath stiffened. \"You should be more careful, Edur, in choosing your enemies.\"\n\nA laugh close to hysteria, as Rhulad made his way up from the beach. \"Choose, woman? I choose nothing.\"\n\n\"Few ever do, Edur.\"\n\n\"What is she doing here, Withal?\"\n\n\"The Crippled God thought I needed company. Beyond three insane Nachts.\"\n\n\"You are lovers?\"\n\n\"Don't be absurd, ' Sandalath said, sneering.\n\n\"Like she said,\" Withal added.\n\nRhulad stepped past them. \"I need my sword,\" he muttered, walking inland." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They turned to watch him.\n\n\"His sword,\" Sandalath murmured. \"The one the god had you make?\"\n\nWithal nodded. \"But I am not to blame.\"\n\n\"You were compelled.\"\n\n\"I was.\"\n\n\"It's not the weapon that's evil, it's the one wielding it. '\n\nHe studied her. \"I don't care if you crack my skull again. I am really starting to hate you. '\n\n\"I assure you my sentiments are identical regarding you.\"\n\nWithal turned away. \"I'm going to my shack. '\n\n\"Of course you are,\" she snapped behind him. \"To beg and mumble to your god. As if it'd bother listening to such pathetic mewling. '\n\n\"I'm hoping, \"Withal said over his shoulder,\"that it'll take pity on me.\"\n\n\"Why should it?\"\n\nHe did not reply, and wisely kept his answering smile to himself.\n\nStanding ten paces to the side of the throne, Brys Beddict watched as King Ezgara Diskanar walked solemnly into the domed chamber. Distracted irritation was on the king's face, since his journey had required a detour around the prone, shivering form of the Ceda, Kuru Qan, but that was behind him now, and Brys saw Ezgara slowly resume his stern expression.\n\nAwaiting him in the throne room was a handful of officials and guards. First Eunuch Nifadas was positioned to the right of the throne, holding the Lether crown on a blood-red pillow. First Concubine Nisall knelt at the foot of the dais, on the left side. Along with Brys and six of his guardsmen, Finadd Gerun Eberict was present with six of his own soldiers of the Palace Guard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And that was all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The investiture on this, the day of the Seventh Closure– or close enough since no-one could agree on that specific date– was to be witnessed by these few. Not as originally planned, of course. But there had been more riots, the last one the bloodiest of them all. The king's name had become a curse among the citizenry. The list of invitations had been truncated as a matter of security, and even then, Brys was nervous about Gerun Eberict's presence.\n\nThe king neared the dais, his robes sliding silken on the polished marble floor in his wake.\n\n\"This day,\" Nifadas intoned, \"Lether becomes an empire.\"\n\nThe guards executed the salute reserved for the royal line and held it, motionless as statues.\n\nEzgara Diskanar stepped up onto the dais and slowly turned round.\n\nThe First Eunuch moved to stand before him and raised the pillow.\n\nThe king took the crown and fitted it onto his head.\n\n\"This day,\" Nifadas said, stepped back, \"Lether is ruled by an emperor.\" He turned. \"Emperor Ezgara Diskanar.\"\n\nThe guards released their salute.\n\nAnd that is it.\n\nEzgara sat on the throne.\n\nLooking old and frail and lost.\n\nThe windows were shuttered tight. Weeds snarled the path, vines had run wild up the walls to either side of the stepped entrance. From the street behind them came the stench of smoke, and a distant roar from somewhere in the Creeper Quarter inland, beyond Settle Lake, indicated that yet another riot had begun.\n\nFrom the Fishers'Gate, Seren Pedac and the Crimson Guardsmen had walked their horses down littered streets. Signs of looting, the occasional corpse, a soldier's dead horse, and figures scurrying from their path into alleys and side avenues. Burnt-outbuildings, packs of hungry feral dogs drawn in from the abandoned farmlands and forests, refugee families huddled here and there, the King's City of Lether seemed to have succumbed to depraved barbarity with the enemy still leagues beyond the horizon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was stunned at how swiftly it had all crumbled, and more than a little frightened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For all her disgust and contempt for the ways of her people, there had remained, somewhere buried deep, a belief in its innate resiliency. But here, before her, was the evidence of sudden, thorough collapse. Greed and savagery unleashed, fear and panic triggering brutality and ruthless indifference.\n\nThey passed bodies of citizens who had been long in dying, simply left in the street while they bled out.\n\nDown one broad avenue, near the canal, a mob had passed through, perhaps only half a day earlier. There was evidence that soldiers had battled against it, and had been pushed back into a fighting withdrawal. Flanking buildings and estates had been trashed and looted. The street was sticky with blood, and the tracks of dozens of wagons were evident, indicating that here, at least, the city's garrison had returned to takeaway corpses.\n\nIron Bars and his Guardsmen said little during the journey, and now, gathered before her home, they remained on their horses, hands on weapons and watchful.\n\nSeren dismounted.\n\nAfter a moment, Iron Bars and Corlo did the same.\n\n\"Don't look broken into, ' the mage said.\n\n\"As I said,\" Seren replied, \"nothing inside is worth taking.\"\n\n\"I don't like this, \"the Avowed muttered.\"If trouble comes knocking, Acquitor... '\n\n\"It won't, \"she said.\"These riots won't last. The closer the Edur army gets, the quieter things will become.\"\n\n\"That's not what happened in Trate. '\n\n\"True, but this will be different.\"\n\n\"I don't see why you'd think so,\" Iron Bars said, shaking his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Go find your ship, Avowed,\" Seren said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She turned to the others. \"Thank you, all of you. I am honoured to have known you and travelled in your company.\"\n\n\"Go safe, lass,\" Corlo said.\n\nShe settled a hand on the mage's shoulder. Held his eyes, but said nothing.\n\nHe nodded. \"Easy on that.\"\n\n\"You heard?\"\n\n\"I did. And I've the headache to prove it. '\n\n\"Sorry.\"\n\n\"Try to remember, Seren Pedac, Mockra is a subtle warren.\"\n\n\"I will try.\" She faced Iron Bars.\n\n\"Once I've found our employer and planted my squad, \"he said,\"I'll pay you another visit, so we needn't get all soft here and now. '\n\n\"All right.\"\n\n\"A day, no longer, then I'll see you again, Acquitor. '\n\nShe nodded.\n\nThe Avowed and his mage swung themselves back into their saddles. The troop rode off.\n\nSeren watched them fora moment, then turned about and walked up the path. The key to the elaborate lock was under the second flagstone.\n\nThe door squealed when she pushed it back, and the smell of dust swept out to engulf her. She entered, shutting the door.\n\nGloom, and silence.\n\nShe did not move fora time, the corridor stretching before her. The door at its end was open, and she could see into the room beyond, which was lit by cloth-filtered sunlight coming from the courtyard at the back. A high-backed chair in that far room faced her, draped in muslin cloth.\n\nOne step, then another. On, down the corridor. Just before the entrance to the room, the mouldering body of a dead owl, lying as if asleep on the floor. She edged round it, then stepped into the room, noting the slight breeze coming from the broken window where the owl had presumably entered from the courtyard." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Help to continue the narrative for the writer.\nTags: epic fantasy, new characters, commerce, betrayal, cultural clash\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Midnight Tides\nChapter: 31" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The west gate was open and unguarded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lead elements of the Edur army had closed to within a thousand paces, advancing with caution. Ranging to either side of the column, in the ditches and across the fields, the first of the Soletaken wolves came into view.\n\nBugg sighed, looked over at the other occupant along the wall. \"You will have to work fast, I think.\"\n\nThe artist was a well-known and easily recognized figure in Letheras. Amass of hair that began on his head and swept down to join with the wild beard covering jaw and neck, his nub of a nose and small blue eyes the only visible features on his face. He was short and wiry, and painted with agitated capering– often perched on one leg– smearing paint on surfaces that always seemed too small for the image he was seeking to capture. This failing of perspective had long since been elevated into a technique, then a legitimate style, in so far as artistic styles could be legitimate. At Bugg's comment he scowled and rose upon one leg, the foot of the other against the knee.\"The scene, you fool! It is burned into my mind, here behind this eye, the left one. I forget nothing. Every detail. Historians will praise my work this day, you'll see. Praise!\"\n\n\"Are you done, then?\"\n\n\"Very nearly, very very nearly, yes, nearly done. Every detail. I have done it again. That's what they will say. Yes, I have done it again. '\n\n\"May I see?\"\n\nSudden suspicion.\n\nBugg added, \"I am something of an historian myself.\"\n\n\"You are? Have I read you? Are you famous?\"\n\n\"Famous? Probably. But I doubt you've read me, since I've yet to write anything down.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah, a lecturer!\"\n\n\"A scholar, swimming across the ocean of history.\"\n\n\"I like that. I could paint that.\"\n\n\"So, may I see your painting?\"\n\nA grand gesture with a multicoloured hand. \"Come along, then, old friend. See my genius for yourself.\"\n\nThe board perched on its easel was wider than it was high, in the manner of a landscape painting or, indeed, a record of some momentous vista of history. At least two arm-lengths wide. Bugg walked round fora look at the image captured on the surface.\n\nAnd saw two colours, divided in a rough diagonal. Scratchy red to the right, muddy brown to the left. \"Extraordinary,\" Bugg said. \"And what is it you have rendered here?\"\n\n\"What is it? Are you blind?\" The painter pointed with a brush. \"The column! Those approaching Edur, the vast army! The standard, of course. The standard!\"\n\nBugg squinted across the distance to the tiny patch of red that was the vanguard's lead standard.\"Ah, of course. Now I see. '\n\n\"And my brilliance blinds you, yes?\"\n\n\"Oh yes, all comprehension has been stolen from my eyes indeed.\"\n\nThe artist deftly switched legs and perched pensively, frowning out at the Edur column. \"Of course, they're closer now. I wish I'd brought another board, so I could elaborate yet further on the detail.\"\n\n\"Well, you could always use this wall.\"\n\nBushy brows arched. \"That's... clever. You area scholar indeed. '\n\n\"I must be going, now.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, stop distracting me. I need to focus, you know. Focus.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bugg quietly made his way down the stone stairs. \"A fine lesson,\" he muttered under his breath as he reached street level. Details... so many things to do this day.\n\nHe walked deserted streets, avoiding the major intersections where barricades had been raised and soldiers moved about in nervous expectation. The occasional furtive figure darted into and out of view as he went on.\n\nA short time later the manservant rounded a corner, paused, then approached the ruined temple. Standing near it was Turudal Brizad, who looked over as Bugg reached his side.\n\n\"Any suggestions?\" the god known as the Errant asked.\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"The mortal I requested for this task has not appeared.\"\n\n\"Oh. That's not good, since the Jheck are at the gates even as we speak. '\n\n\"And the first Edur from the ships have disembarked, yes.\"\n\n\"Why not act for yourself?\" Bugg asked.\n\n\"I cannot. My aspect enforces certain... prohibitions.\"\n\n\"Ah, the nudge, the pull or the push.\"\n\n\"Yes, only that.\"\n\n\"You have been about as direct as you can be.\"\n\nThe Errant nodded.\n\n\"Well, I see your dilemma,\" Bugg said.\n\n\"Thus my query– do you have any suggestions?\"\n\nThe manservant considered fora time, whilst the god waited patiently, then he sighed and said, \"Perhaps. Wait here. If I am successful, I will send someone to you.\"\n\n\"All right. I trust you will not be overlong.\"\n\n\"I hope not. Depends on my powers of persuasion.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then I am encouraged.\"\n\nWithout another word, Bugg headed off. He quickened his pace as he made his way towards the docks. Fortunately, it was not far, and he arrived at Front Street to see that only the main piers had been commandeered by the landing warriors of the Tiste Edur. They were taking their time, he noted, a sign of their confidence. No-one was opposing their landing. Bugg hurried along Front Street until he came to the lesser berths. Where he found his destination, a two-masted, sleek colt of a ship that needed new paint but seemed otherwise relatively sound. There was no-one visible on its deck, but as soon as he crossed the gangway he heard voices, then the thump of boots.\n\nBugg had reached the mid-deck when the cabin door swung open and two armed women emerged, swords out.\n\nBugg halted and held up his hands.\n\nThree more figures appeared once the two women stepped to either side. A tall, grey-maned man in a crimson surcoat, and a second man who was clearly a mage of some sort. The third arrival Bugg recognized.\n\n\"Good morning, Shand. So this is where Tehol sent you.\"\n\n\"Bugg. What in the Errant's name do you want? '\n\n\"Well said, lass. And are these fine soldiers Shurq Elalle's newly hired crew? '\n\n\"Who is this man?\" the grey-haired man asked Shand.\n\nShe scowled. \"My employer's manservant. And your employer works for my employer. His arrival means there's going to be trouble. Goon, Bugg, we're listening. '\n\n\"First, how about some introductions, Shand?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She rolled her eyes. \"Iron Bars-\"\n\n\"An Avowed of the Crimson Guard,\" Bugg cut in, smiling. \"Forgive me. Goon, please.\"\n\n\"Corlo-\"\n\n\"His High Mage. Again, forgive me, but that will have to do. I have very little time. I need these Guardsmen.\"\n\n\"You need us for what?\" Iron Bars asked.\n\n\"You have to kill the god of the Soletaken Jheck.\"\n\nThe Avowed's expression darkened.\"Soletaken. We've crossed paths with Soletaken before.\"\n\nBugg nodded. \"If the Jheck reach their god, they will of course protect it-\"\n\n\"How faraway?\"\n\n\"Just a few streets, in an abandoned temple.\"\n\nIron Bars nodded. \"This god, is it Soletaken or D'ivers? '\n\n\"D'ivers. '\n\nThe Avowed turned to Corlo, who said, \"Ready up, soldiers, we've some fighting ahead. '\n\nShand stared at them. \"What do I tell Shurq if she shows up in the meantime?\"\n\n\"We won't belong, ' Iron Bars said, drawing his sword.\n\n\"Wait!\" Shand swung to Bugg. \"You! How did you know they'd be here? '\n\nThe manservant shrugged. \"Errant's nudge, I suppose. Take care, Shand, and say hello to Hejun and Rissarh for me, won't you?\"\n\n---\n\nFifty paces' worth of empty cobbled road between them and the yawning gates of Letheras. Trull Sengar leaned on his spear and glanced over at Rhulad." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The emperor, fur-shouldered and hulking, was pacing like a beast, eyes fixed on the gateway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hannan Mosag and his surviving K'risnan had advanced ten paces in the midst of shadow wraiths, the latter now sliding forward.\n\nThe wraiths reached the gate, hovered a moment, then swept into the city.\n\nHannan Mosag turned and strode back to where the emperor and his brothers waited. \"It is as we sensed, Emperor. The Ceda's presence is nowhere to be found. There are but a handful of minor mages among the garrison. The wraiths and demons will take care of them. We should be able to carve our way through the barricades and reach the Eternal Domicile by noon. A fitting time for you to ascend the throne. '\n\n\"Barricades,\" Rhulad said, nodding. \"Good. We wish to fight. Udinaas!\"\n\n\"Here.\" The slave stepped forward.\n\n\"This time, Udinaas, you will accompany the Household, under Uruth's charge. '\n\n\"Emperor?\"\n\n\"We shall not risk you, Udinaas. Should we fall, however, you will be sent to us immediately.\"\n\nThe slave bowed and stepped back.\n\nRhulad swung to where stood his father and three brothers. \"We shall enter Letheras now. We shall claim our empire. Ready your weapons, blood of ours.\"\n\nThey began moving forward.\n\nTrull's gaze held on Hannan Mosag fora moment longer, wondering what the Warlock King was hiding, then he followed his brothers.\n\nHull Beddict was among the second company to enter Letheras, and twenty paces in from the gate he stepped to one side and halted, watching as the wary Edur marched on. None paid him any attention. From the nearby buildings, pallid faces looked down from windows and through slightly parted shutters. From out over the docks gulls wheeled and cried out in a cacophony of panic. Somewhere ahead, down the main avenue, the fighting began at the first barricade. There was a thump of sorcery, then screams." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A meaningless waste of life. He hoped not all the garrison soldiers would be so foolishly brave. There was no longer any reason for fighting. Lether was conquered. All that was left was to depose the ineffectual king and his treacherous advisers. The one truly just act of this war, as far as Hull Beddict was concerned.\n\nHis grieving for his brother Brys was done. Although Brys was not yet dead, his death was none the less ascertain an outcome as could exist. The King's Champion would die defending the king. It was tragic, and unnecessary, but it would be the last tradition acted out by the Letherii, and nothing Hull or anyone else could door say would prevent it.\n\nAll the ashes had settled in Hull's mind. The slaughter behind them, the murder waiting ahead of them. He had betrayed, to see an end to the corrupt insanity of his people. That the victory demanded the death of Brys offered the final layer of ash to shroud Hull's soul. There would be no absolution.\n\nEven so, one responsibility remained with Hull. As the third company of Tiste Edur entered through the gates, he turned and made his way down aside alley.\n\nHe needed to speak to Tehol. To explain things. To tell his brother that he knew of the deceptions, the schemes. Tehol was, he hoped, the one man in Letheras who would not hate Hull for what he had done. He needed to speak to him.\n\nHe needed something like forgiveness.\n\nFor not being thereto save their parents all those years ago.\n\nFor not being thereto save Brys now.\n\nForgiveness, a simple thing.\n\nUdinaas stood among the other slaves of the Sengar household, awaiting their turn to enter Letheras. Word had already come that there was fighting ahead, somewhere. Uruth stood nearby, and with her was Mayen, wrapped in a heavy cloak, her face looking ravaged, eyes like a thing hunted. Uruth remained close, as if fearing an escape attempt from the younger woman. Not out of compassion for Mayen, however. The child was all that mattered now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Poor Mayen.\n\nHe knew how she felt. Something like a fever gripped him, an urgency in his blood. Sweat trickled down his body beneath his tunic. His skin felt on fire. He held himself still, on the edge, he feared, of losing control.\n\nThe sensation had come on suddenly, like an inner wave of panic, a faceless terror. Worsening-\n\nHead spinning, it was a moment before he realized what was happening. Then horror flooded through Udinaas.\n\nThe Wyval.\n\nIt was coming to life within him.\n\nB'nagga in the lead, the Jheck entered the city. Soletaken, loping with heads sunk low, one and all seeking the scent of their god. And finding it within the fear-sour currents drifting through Letheras, an impatience, a sentience consumed with rage.\n\nGleeful howls, rising to fill the city, reverberating down the streets, from over nine thousand wolves. Striking terror amongst cowering citizens. Nine thousand wolves, white-furred, racing on a score of convergent routes towards the old temple, an inward rush of bestial madness.\n\nB'nagga joined his voice to the chilling howls, his heart filled with savage joy. The Pack awaited them. Demons, wraiths, Tiste Edur and damned emperors were as nothing now. Momentary allies of convenience. What would rise herein Letheras was the ascension of the Jheck. An empire of Soletaken, with a god-emperor upon the throne. Rhulad torn to pieces, every Edur sundered into bloody, sweet-tasting meat, rich marrow from split bones, skulls broken open, brains devoured." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This day would end in such slaughter that none who survived would forget.\n\nThis day, B'nagga told himself with a silent laugh, belonged to the Jheck.\n\nSeventy-three of his company's finest soldiers formed a shield wall behind Moroch Nevath. They held the principal bridge crossing Main Canal, a suitable site for this pathetic drama. Best of all, the Third Tiers were arrayed behind them, on which citizens had now appeared. Spectators– a Letherii talent. No doubt wagers were being made, and at least Moroch Nevath would have an audience.\n\nThe hooded looks, the rumours of his cowardice at High Fort, would cease this day. It wasn't much, but it would suffice.\n\nHe recalled he had promised to do something for Turudal Brizad, but the man's outrageous claims had not quite convinced Moroch. Tales of gods and such, coming from a painted consort at that, well, that would have to wait another day, another lifetime. Leave the foppish lover of the lost queen and that obnoxious chancellor to fight his own battles. Moroch wanted to cross blades with the Tiste Edur.\n\nIf they let him. A squalid death beneath a wave of sorcery was more likely.\n\nA grunt from one of his soldiers.\n\nMoroch nodded, seeing the first of the Edur approaching from the main avenue. \"Hold that shield wall,\" he said in a growl, moving to stand five paces in front of it. \"It's a small company– let's send their souls to the Errant's piss-hole. '\n\nIn answer to his bold words, shouts from the soldiers, voices made ugly with blood-lust. Swords hammering shield-rims." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Moroch smiled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They've seen us.\"Look at them, comrades– see how they hesitate. '\n\nBellowed challenges from the soldiers.\n\nThe Tiste Edur resumed their march. In their lead, a warrior draped in gold.\n\nWhom Moroch had seen before. \"Errant bless me,\" he whispered, then spun round. \"The emperor! The one in gold!\" And turned back, taking four more strides until he was at the very edge of the bridge. Raising his sword. \"Rhulad of the Edur!\" he shouted. \"Come and face me, you damned freak! Come forward and die!\"\n\nBugg pointed down the street. \"See that man? That's Turudal Brizad. That is who you are doing this favour for. If he's not grateful, give him an earful. I have to get going, but I will be back shortly-\"\n\nThe air filled suddenly with howling, coming from the north and west.\n\n\"Oh, damn,\" Bugg said. \"You'd better get going. And I'd better stay too,\" he added, heading off towards the Errant.\n\n\"Corlo,\" Iron Bars snapped as they followed the manservant.\n\n\"Oh, it's befuddled, some, Avowed. Can't hear a thing besides.\"\n\nIron Bars nodded. \"Weapons ready. We're wasting no time on this. How many in there, Corlo? '\n\n\"Six, their favourite number.\"\n\n\"Let's go. '\n\nBugg had moved ahead and was fifteen paces from Turudal, who had turned to face him, when the Avowed and his squad thumped past, gaining speed.\n\nAs they closed on the Errant the god, brows lifting, pointed towards the entrance to the ruined temple." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Crimson Guardsmen shifted course, reaching full sprint as they passed Turudal Brizad.\n\nBugg heard Iron Bars say to the god, \"Pleased-to-meet-you-see-you-later,\" and then the Avowed and his soldiers were past. Straight for the dark entrance, then plunging inside.\n\nBestial screams, human shouts, the deafening thunder of sorcery-\n\n\"He's mine! ' Rhulad said in a snarl, lifting his sword and stalking towards the lone Letherii swordsman at this end of the bridge.\n\nHannan Mosag called, \"Emperor! Leave these to my K'risnan-'\n\nRhulad spun round. \"No!\" he shrieked. \"We shall fight! We are warriors! These Letherii deserve to die honourably! We will hear nothing more from you!\" The emperor swung back. \"This, this brave swordsman. I want him.\"\n\nBeside Trull, Fear muttered, \"He wants to be killed by him. I recognize that Letherii. He was with the delegation.\"\n\nTrull nodded. The Finadd, a Letherii captain and bodyguard to Prince Quillas– he could not recall the man's name.\n\nIt was clear that Rhulad had not recognized him.\n\nMottled sword held at the ready, the emperor approached.\n\nMoroch Nevath smiled. Rhulad Sengar, who had died, only to return. If the rumours were true, he had died again in Trate. But this time, I will make him stay dead. I will cut him to pieces. He waited, watching the emperor's approach.\n\nFavouring the right side, the right foot edging ahead of the other, a detail telling Moroch that Rhulad had been trained to use a single-handed sword, rather than this two-handed monstrosity now wavering about before him like an oversized club." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sudden charge was not unexpected, only the speed of that weapon as the blade whirled towards Moroch's head. He barely managed to avoid getting his skull sliced in half, ducking and pitching to his right. A deafening clang, the shock ripping through him as the sword bit into his helmet, caught, then tore it from his head.\n\nMoroch sprang back, staying as low as possible, then straightened once more. The top third of his own sword was slick with blood. He had met the charge with a stop-hit.\n\nOpposite him, Rhulad staggered back, blood pulsing from his right thigh.\n\nThe lead leg was always vulnerable.\n\nLet's see you dance now, Emperor.\n\nMoroch shook off the numbing effects of the blow to his head. Muscles and tendons in his neck and back were screaming silent pain, and he knew that he had taken damage. For the moment, however, neither arm had seized in answer to the trauma.\n\nA shriek, as Rhulad attacked once more.\n\nTwo-handed thrust, broken timing– a moment's hesitation, sufficient to avoid Moroch's all-too-quick parry– then finishing in a full lunge.\n\nThe Finadd twisted his body in an effort to avoid the sword-point. Searing fire above his right hip as the mottled blade's edge sawed deep. A wet, red rush, spraying out to the side. Now inside the weapon's reach, Moroch drove his own sword in from a sharp angle, stabbing the tip into the emperor's left armpit. The bite of gold coin, the grating resistance of ribs, then inward, gouging along the inside of Rhulad's shoulder blade, striving for the spine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The mottled sword seemed to leap with a will of its own, reversing grip, hands lifting high, point down. A diagonal thrust, entering above Moroch's right hipbone, down through his groin.\n\nRhulad pushed down from the grip end, the point chewing through the Finadd's lower intestines, until the pommel clunked on the paving stones beneath them, then the emperor straightened, pushing the weapon backup, through Moroch's torso, alongside his heart, through his left lung, the point bursting free just behind his clavicle on that side.\n\nDying, Moroch threw the last of his strength against his own weapon, seeing Rhulad bow around its embedded point. Then a snap, as the emperor's spine broke.\n\nCrimson smile broadening, Moroch Nevath sagged to the slick stones, even as Rhulad pitched down.\n\nAnother figure loomed over him, then. One of Rhulad's brothers.\n\nWho spoke as if from along distance away. \"Tell me your name, Finadd.\"\n\nMoroch sought to answer, but he was drowning in blood. I am Moroch Nevath. And I have killed your damned emperor.\n\n\"Are you the King's Champion in truth? Your soldiers on the bridge seem to be yelling that– King's Champion... is that who you are, Finadd?\"\n\nNo.\n\nYou bastards have not met him yet.\n\nWith that pleasing thought, Moroch Nevath died.\n\nSo swift the healing, so terribly swift the return of life. Surrounded by the wolf howls reverberating through Letheras in a chorus of the damned, the emperor voiced a scream that tore the air.\n\nThe company of soldiers on the bridge were silenced, staring as Rhulad, sheathed in blood, staggered upright, tugging the sword from the Finadd's body, then skidding with a lurch as he stepped to one side. Righting himself, his eyes filled with madness and terror." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Udinaas!\"\n\nDesperately alone. A soul writhing in agony.\n\n\"Udinaas!\"\n\nTwo hundred paces away on the main avenue, Uruth Sengar heard her son's frantic cry. She spun, seeking the slave among those walking in her wake. At that moment, Mayen shrieked, pushed her way clear of the other women, and was suddenly running– into an alley. And gone.\n\nFrozen, Uruth hesitated, then with a hiss returned her attention to the slaves cowering in front of her.\n\n\"Udinaas! Where are you?\"\n\nBlank, terrified looks met her. Familiar faces one and all. But among them, nowhere could she find Udinaas.\n\nThe slave was gone.\n\nUruth plunged among them, fists flailing. \"Find him! Find Udinaas!\"\n\nA sudden hate raged through her. For Udinaas. For all the Letherii.\n\nBetrayed. My son is betrayed.\n\nOh, how they would pay.\n\nShe could hear sounds of fighting now throughout the city, as the invaders poured into the streets and were met by desperate soldiers. Frightened, moving about from one place of cover to the next in the overgrown yard, the child Kettle began to cry. She was alone.\n\nThe five killers were almost free. Their barrow was breaking apart, thick fissures welling in the dark, wet earth, submerged rocks grinding and snapping together. The muted sounds of five voices joined in a chant as heavy as drums... rising, coming ever closer to the surface.\n\n\"Oh,\" she moaned, \"where is everybody? Where are my friends?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kettle staggered over to the barrow containing her only ally. He was there, so very close. She reached down-\n\n-and was dragged in, a heaving passage of hot soil, then through, stumbling, slipping on a muddy bank. Before her sprawled a fetid swamp beneath a grey sky.\n\nAnd, almost within arm's reach, a figure was climbing from the dark water. White-skinned, longhair smeared with mud.\"Kettle! \"The voice a strained grasp.\"Behind you– reach-'\n\nShe turned round.\n\nTwo swords, points thrust into the mud.\n\n\"Kettle– take them– give them-\"\n\nA wet gasp, and she spun back, to seethe bared arms of another figure, clawing up to wrap about her friend– a woman's arms, lean, ribboned in muscle. He was dragged back– she saw him drive an elbow into the fiercely twisting, black-streaked face that rose suddenly from the slime. Connecting hard in a splatter of blood. But the clutching hands would not let go.\n\nAnd they both sank back into the swirling foam.\n\nWhimpering, Kettle crawled over to the swords. She tugged them from the mud, then clambered back to the water's edge.\n\nLimbs appeared amidst the thrashing waves.\n\nShivering, Kettle waited.\n\nSo easy, now, a slave once more, as the Wyval suffused his body, stealing the will of every muscle, every organ, the charging blood in his veins. Udinaas could barely see through his own eyes, as street after street blurred past. Sudden moments of brutal clarity, as he came upon three Soletaken wolves– which turned as one with snarls and bared fangs– and was among them, his hands now talons, the thumb-long claws tearing into wolf-flesh, curling round ribs and ripping them loose. A massive, gnarled fist, slamming into the side of a lunging, snapping head, breaking bone– the wolf's head suddenly lolling, the eyes blank in death." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then, motion once more.\n\nHis master needed him. Needed him now. No time to lose.\n\nA slave. Absolved of all responsibility, nothing more than a tool.\n\nAnd this, Udinaas knew, was the poison of surrender.\n\nClose, now, and closing.\n\nThere is nothing new in being used. Look upon these sprawled corpses, after all. Poor Letherii soldiers lying dead for no reason. Defending the corpse of a kingdom, citizens once more everyone of them. The kingdom that does not move, the kingdom in service to the god of dust– you will find the temples in crooked alleys, in the cracks between cobbles.\n\nYou will find, my friends, no sweeter world than this, where honour and faith and freedom are notions levelled one and all, layers as thin as hate, envy and betrayal. Every notion vulnerable to any sordid breeze, stirred up, stirred together. A world without demands to challenge the confused haze of holy apathy.\n\nThe god of dust rises dominant-\n\nAhead, a dozen wolves, charging straight for him.\n\nThere would, it seemed, be a delay.\n\nUdinaas bared his teeth.\n\n\"How are you managing it?\" Bugg asked.\n\nThe Errant glanced over. \"The wolves?\"\n\n\"They're everywhere but here, and they should have arrived long ago. '\n\nThe god shrugged. \"I keep nudging them away. It's not as difficult as I feared, although their leader is too clever by far– much harder to deceive. Besides, the beasts keep running into other... opposition. '\n\n\"What kind of opposition?\"\n\n\"Other.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The shouts from within the temple ceased then. Silence, no movement from the dark doorway. A half-dozen heartbeats, then, a muttering of voices and swearing.\n\nThe mage, Corlo, appeared, backing out and dragging a limp body in his wake, a body leaving twin trails of blood from its heels.\n\nConcerned, Bugg stepped forward. \"Is she alive?\"\n\nCorlo, himself amass of cuts and bruises, cast the manservant a slightly wild look. \"No, dammit.\"\n\n\"I am sorry for that,\" the Errant murmured.\n\nMore Guardsmen were emerging from the doorway. All were wounded, one of them badly, his left arm torn loose at the shoulder and dangling from a few pink-white tendons. His eyes were glazed with shock.\n\nCorlo glared at Turudal Brizad. \"Can you do any healing? Before the rest of us bleed out-\"\n\nIron Bars stepped from the ruined temple, sheathing his sword. He was covered in blood but none of it was his. His expression was alarmingly dark. \"We were expecting wolves, damn you,\" he said in a low growl as he stared at the Errant, who had closed to lay hands upon the most grievously injured soldier, raising new flesh to bind the arm once more to the shoulder as the soldier's face twisted with pain.\n\nTurudal Brizad shrugged. \"There was little time to elaborate on what you were about to fight, Avowed. In case you have forgotten.\"\n\n\"Damned cats,\" he said.\n\n\"Lizard cats, you mean,\" one of the Guardsmen said, spitting blood onto the street. \"Sometimes I think nature is insane.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You got that right, Halfpeck,\" Corlo said, reaching down to close the eyelids of the dead woman lying at his feet.\n\nIron Bars suddenly moved, a blur, past the Errant, both hands lifting-\n\n-as a huge white wolf, claws skittering, pitched round from an alley mouth and, head ducking, lunged towards Turudal Brizad, who had only just begun to turn round.\n\nThe Avowed caught it in mid-leap, left hand closing on its right leg just beneath the shoulder, right hand clutching its neck beneath the beast's jaws. He heaved the wolf high, pivoted and smashed it headfirst onto the street. Crushing snout, skull and shoulders. Limbs kicking spasmodically, the Soletaken flopped onto its back, yellow vomit spurting, urine arcing as it died. A moment later, all movement from the limbs ceased, although the urine continued to stream, the arc dwindling, then collapsing.\n\nIron Bars stepped back.\n\nHalfpeck suddenly laughed. \"It pissed on you!\"\n\n\"Be quiet,\" Iron Bars said, looking down at his wet legs. \"Hood take me, that stinks.\"\n\n\"We should get back to the ship,\" Corlo said. \"There's wolves allover the place and I don't think I can keep them away much longer.\"\n\nTurudal Brizad; \"But I can. Especially now.\"\n\nBugg asked, \"What's changed, apart from the Pack getting chopped to pieces? '\n\nThe Errant pointed down at the dead Soletaken. \"That was B'nagga, the leader of the Jheck. \"He shot Bugg a look, astonished and half disbelieving.\"You chose well, ' he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This squad managed to escape Assail,\" Bugg said, shrugging.\n\nThe god's eyes widened. He turned to Iron Bars.\"I will ensure you a clear path to your ship-'\n\n\"Oh, damn,\" Bugg cut in, slowly turning. \"They're getting out. '\n\n\"More trouble?\" Iron Bars asked, looking round, his hand drifting close to the sword at his hip.\n\n\"Not here,\" Bugg said. \"But not far.\" He faced the Avowed, gauging.\n\nIron Bars frowned, then said, \"Corlo, take the squad back to the ship. All right, old man, lead the way.\"\n\n\"You don't have to do this-'\n\n\"Yes I do. With that wolf pissing on me I feel the need to lose my temper. It's another fight, isn't it?\"\n\nBugg nodded. \"Might make the Pack seem like kittens, Iron Bars.\"\n\n\"Might? Will it or won't it? '\n\n\"All right, we might well lose this one.\"\n\n\"Fine,\" the Avowed snapped. \"Let's get it over with. '\n\nThe manservant sighed. \"Follow me, then. It's a dead Azath House we're heading to.\"\n\n\"Dead? Hood take me, a garden fete.\"\n\nA garden fete? Dear me, I like this man. \"And we're inviting ourselves, Avowed. Still with me? '\n\nIron Bars looked across at Corlo, who had stopped to listen, his face bloodless as he repeatedly shook his head in denial. The Avowed grunted. \"Once you've dropped \"em off, come and find us, Corlo. And try and make your arrival timely.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Avowed-\"\n\n\"Go.\"\n\nBugg glanced at the Errant. \"You coming?\"\n\n\"In spirit,\" he replied. \"There is another matter I must attend to, I am afraid. Oh,\" he added as Bugg and Iron Bars turned to go, \"dear manservant, I thank you. And you as well, Avowed. Tell me, Iron Bars, how many of the Avowed remain among the Crimson Guard?\"\n\n\"No idea. A few hundred, I'd imagine. '\n\n\"Scattered here and there...\"\n\nThe grey-haired soldier smiled. \"For the moment.\"\n\nBugg said, \"We shall have to run, I think.\"\n\n\"Can you keep up?\" Iron Bars asked.\n\n\"As swift as a charging wave, that's me, ' Bugg said.\n\nBrys stood alone in the corridor. The howling was, thankfully, over. It was the only sound that had managed to penetrate the walls. There was noway to know if the garrison was fighting in the city beyond the Eternal Domicile. It seemed such a pointless thing...\n\nHis breath caught upon hearing a strange sound. Brys lowered his gaze, fixed it upon the Ceda, who was lying curled tight in the chamber beyond, with his back to Brys and the throne room behind him.\n\nKuru Qan's head shifted slightly, then rose a fraction from the floor.\n\nAnd, from the Ceda, there came low laughter.\n\nThe path was unmistakable. Keening with glee, the demon drew itself to the cave's entrance, contracting its massive, corpulent presence, the bloated flesh of its body, away from the river's broad span. Inward, gathering, hovering before the tunnel beneath the city, where old swamp water still flowed, putrid and sweet, a flavour like sweet nectar to the demon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ready now, at last, for the lunge, the breaking away from the grip of its master. Who was so regrettably preoccupied at the moment.\n\nNow.\n\nSurging forward, filling the cave, then into the narrow, twisting tunnel.\n\nTo the heart. The wondrous, blessed heart of power.\n\nJoy and hunger burning like twin fires within it. Close, so close now.\n\nSquirming down, the path narrowing, squeezing with the vast pressure of overlying stone and earth. A little further.\n\nReaching out, the space suddenly opening, blissfully wide and high, spreading out to all sides, the water welcoming in its warmth.\n\nA storm of long-still silts sweeping up, blinding, shadows of dead things cavorting before its countless eyes.\n\nThe heart, the enormous cavern beneath the lake, the city's very soul– the power-\n\nAnd Brys heard Kuru Qan speak.\n\n\"Now, friend Bugg.\"\n\nThirty paces from the overgrown yard of the Azath tower, Bugg skidded to a halt. He cocked his head, then smiled.\n\nAhead, Iron Bars slowed, then turned round. \"What?\"\n\n\"Find the girl,\" the manservant said. \"I'll join you when I can. '\n\n\"Bugg?\"\n\n\"In a moment, Avowed. I must do something first.\"\n\nThe Crimson Guardsman hesitated, then nodded and swung back.\n\nBugg closed his eyes. Jaghut witch, hear me. Recall my favour at the quarry? The time has come for... reciprocity.\n\nShe replied in his mind, distant, yet swiftly closing. \"I hear you, little man. I know what you seek. Ah, you area clever one indeed...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Oh, I cannot take all the credit, this time.\n\nThe demon expanded to fill the cavern. The heart was all about, the power seeping into enliven its flesh. The chains of binding melted away.\n\nNow, it need only reach out and grasp hold.\n\nThe strength of a thousand gods awaited it.\n\nReaching.\n\nCountless grasping, clutching hands.\n\nFinding... nothing.\n\nThen, a mortal's voice-\n\nFrom the Ceda, two more words, uttered low and clear, \"Got you.\"\n\nA lie! Illusion! Deceit! The demon raged, spun in a conflagration of brown silt, seeking the way out– only to find the tunnel mouth sealed. A smooth surface, fiercely cold, the cold burning– the demon recoiled.\n\nThen, the lake overhead. Upward– fast, faster-\n\nUrsto Hoobutt and his sometime lover, Pinosel, were both drunk as they awaited the fall of Letheras. They had been singing, celebrating the end of their debts, sprawled on the mouldy walkway surrounding Settle Lake amidst nervous rats and head-jutting pigeons.\n\nWhen the wine ran out, they began bickering.\n\nIt had begun innocently enough, as Pinosel loosed aloud sigh and said, \"And now you can marry me.\"\n\nIt was a moment before her words registered, upon which, bleary-eyed, he looked over in disbelief. \"Marry you? Wha's wrong wi\"\"ow it is now, Cherrytart? '\n\n\"What's wrong? It's respectable I want, you fat, flea-bit oaf. I earned it. Respectable. You marry me, Ursto Hoobutt, now that the Edurians done conquered us. Marry me!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right, I will.\"\n\n\"When?\" she demanded, sensing the out he was angling towards.\n\n\"When... when...\" Hah! He had his answer-\n\nAnd, at that instant, the fetid green water of Settle Lake, sprawled out before them like a turgid plain of seaweed fertilizer, paled into murky white. And clouds began rising from its now frozen surface.\n\nAn icy breeze swept over Ursto Hoobutt and Pinosel.\n\nThere was a sudden deep thump from somewhere beneath the frozen lake's ice, although not a single crack showed.\n\nUrsto Hoobutt stared, disbelieving, Opened his mouth, then closed it.\n\nThen his shoulders sagged. \"Today, love. I'll marry ya today... '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the gods of dust were young They swam in blood.\n\nWhiteforth's Dream on the Day of the Seventh Closure Fever Witch\n\nShurq Elalle walked down the tunnel to the crypt door. her thoughts were on Gerun Eberict; her concern was for Tehol Beddict. The Finadd was of the most vicious sort, after all, and Tehol seemed so... helpless. Oh, fit enough, probably quite capable of running fast and far should the need arise. But it was clear that Tehol had no intention of running anywhere. The silent bodyguards Brys had assigned to him were some comfort, although, the way Gerun worked, they might prove little more than a minor inconvenience.\n\nIf that was not troubling enough, there was the ominous silence from Kettle at the dead Azath tower. Was that a result of the child's returning to life, thus severing the link that bound the dead? Or had something terrible happened?\n\nShe reached the portal and pushed it open.\n\nLight flared from a lantern, and she saw Ublala seated on the sarcophagus, the lantern on his lap as he adjusted the flame.\n\nShe saw his expression and frowned. \"What is wrong, my love?\"\n\n\"There's no time, \"he said, rising, bumping his head on the ceiling, then ducking into a hunch.\"Bad things. I was about to go. \"He set the lantern down on the lid.\"Couldn't wait for you any longer. I've got to go. '\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"It's the Seregahl, \"he mumbled, hands wringing.\"It's bad.\"\n\n\"The Seregahl? The old Tarthenal gods? Ublala, what are you talking about?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have to go.\" He headed for the doorway.\n\n\"Ublala, what about Harlest? Where are you going?\"\n\n\"The old tower.\" He was in the tunnel, his words dwindling. \"I love you, Shurq Elalle...\"\n\nShe stared at the empty doorway. Love? That sounded... final.\n\nShurq Elalle went to the sarcophagus and slid the lid to one side.\n\n\"Aarrgh! Hiss! Hiss! Hiss-\"\n\n\"Stop that, Harlest!\" She batted the clawing hands away. \"Get out of there. We have to go-\"\n\n\"Where?\" Harlest slowly sat up, practising baring his long fangs and making growling sounds.\n\nShe studied him fora moment, then said, \"A cemetery.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Harlest sighed, \"that's perfect. '\n\nSitting in the street, in a pool of darkening blood, the emperor of the Tiste Edur had one handheld against his face and seemed to be trying to claw his eyes out. He still screamed every now and then, a shrill, wordless release of raw anguish.\n\nOn the bridge, thirty paces distant, the Letherii soldiers were silent and motionless behind their shields. Other citizens of the city were visible along the edge of the canal on the other side, a row of onlookers, their numbers growing.\n\nTrull Sengar felt a hand settle on his shoulder and he turned to find Uruth, her face twisted with distress.\n\n\"Son, something must be done– he's losing his mind-'\n\nUdinaas, the damned slave who had become so essential, so integral to Rhulad– to the young Edur's sanity– had vanished. And now the emperor railed, recognizing no-one, froth on his lips, his cries those of a panicked beast.\"He must be hunted down, \"Trull said.\"That slave. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There is more-\"\n\nHannan Mosag had moved to stand close to Rhulad, and now spoke, his words carrying easily. \"Emperor Rhulad, hear me! This is a day of dark truths. Your slave, Udinaas, has done what we would expect of a Letherii. Their hearts are filled with treachery and they serve none but themselves. Rhulad, Udinaas has runaway.\" He paused, then said, \"From you.\"\n\nThe triumph was poorly hidden as the Warlock King continued. \"He has made himself into your white nectar, and now leaves you in pain. This is a world without faith, Emperor. Only your kin can be trusted-\"\n\nRhulad's head snapped up, features ravaged with hurt, a dark fire in his eyes.\"Trusted? You, Hannan Mosag? My brothers? Mayen? \"Blood-smeared gold, matted bear fur, sword-blade threaded through bits of human meat and intestines, the emperor staggered upright, chest heaving with emotion.\"You are all as nothing to us. Liars, cheats, betrayers! All of you! \"He whipped the sword, spattering red and pink fragments onto the cobbles and against the shins of those standing nearest him, and bared his teeth.\"The emperor shall reflect his people, \"he rasped, an ugly grin spreading.\"Reflect, as it must be. '\n\nTrull saw Fear take a step forward, halting as Rhulad's sword shot upward, the point hovering at Fear's throat.\n\n\"Oh no, brother, we want nothing from you. We want nothing from any of you. Except obedience. An empire must be shaped, and that shaping shall be by the emperor's hands. Warlock King! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sire?\"\n\nThe sword slid away from Fear's throat, waved carelessly towards the soldiers blocking the bridge.\"Get rid of them. '\n\nBinadas among them, the K'risnan shambled forward at Hannan Mosag's gesture. Behind them were four slaves with two large leather sacks which they dragged over the cobbles to where the K'risnan waited in a row. Noting the sacks, the Warlock King shook his head.\"Not here, I think. Something... simpler. \"He faced the emperor.\"A moment, sire, in which to prepare. I shall do this myself. '\n\nUruth tugged Trull round again. \"It is more than just Udinaas,\" she said. \"Mayen has escaped.\"\n\nHe stared at her, not quite comprehending. \"Escaped?\"\n\n\"We must find her...\"\n\n\"She ran away... from us? From her own people?\"\n\n\"It is the hunger, Trull. Please.\"\n\nAfter a moment, he pulled away, looked round until he saw a company of warriors grouped behind Theradas and Midik Buhn. Trull walked over to them.\n\nTheradas scowled. \"What do you want, Trull Sengar?\"\n\n\"The emperor's mother has orders for you and your warriors, Theradas. '\n\nHis expression lost its ferocity, was replaced with uncertainty. \"What are they?\"\n\n\"Mayen is lost, somewhere in the city. She must be found. As for Udinaas... if you see him...\"\n\n\"If we see him he will die terribly, Trull Sengar.\"\n\nHe betrayed Rhulad. When I warned him... Trull glanced over at Rhulad. A return from this madness? Not likely. It was too late. \"As you like, Theradas. Just find Mayen.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He watched them head off, then turned and met Uruth's eyes. She nodded.\n\nThe soldiers on the bridge knew what was coming. He saw them duck lower behind their shields. Pointless. Pathetic, yet there was courage here, among these Letherii. Udinaas, I did not... did not think you would-\n\nA seething, spitting grey wave rose suddenly at the foot of the bridge, churning higher.\n\nThe shield wall flinched back, contracted.\n\nThe wave plunged forward.\n\nFrom the banks of the canal to either side citizens shrieked and scattered-\n\n-as the sorcery rushed over the bridge, striking the soldiers in a spray of blood and strips of flesh. A heartbeat, then past, spreading out to wash over the fleeing citizens. Devouring them in writhing hunger.\n\nTrull saw it strike nearby buildings, smashing down doors and bursting through shuttered windows. Screams.\n\n\"Enough!\" Rhulad roared, stepping towards Hannan Mosag, who lowered his arms, which looked twisted and gnarled.\n\nThe sorcery vanished, leaving only heaps of bones, polished shields and armour on the bridge. From the sundered buildings, silence. Hannan Mosag sagged, and Trull saw how misshapen he had become beneath his furs.\n\nThe emperor suddenly giggled. \"So eager, Hannan Mosag! Your secret god is so eager!\"\n\nSecret god? Trull looked over at Fear, and found his brother staring back.\n\n\"Brothers,\" the emperor cried, waving his sword, \"we march to the Eternal Domicile! To the throne! None can deny us! And should they dare, their flesh shall be rendered from their bones! They will know pain. They will suffer! Brothers, this shall be a day of suffering\"– he seemed to find sweetness in tasting the word– \"for all who would oppose us! Now, walk with your Sire!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He is..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "transformed. Lost to us. And all for the treachery of a slave...\n\nAn overgrown yard, just visible through the old, battered stones of the gateway. From the skeletal, twisted branches of leaning trees, something like steam billowed upward. There was no-one about. Iron Bars slowed his steps and looked backup the street. That manservant had yet to appear from beyond the corner of the building he had jogged round moments earlier.\n\n\"Fine, then,\" the Avowed muttered, drawing his sword, \"we'll just have to see for ourselves... ' He approached the gateway, strode onto the winding stone path. The squat, square tower was opposite, stained and leaning and dead. From his left, the sounds of stones grinding together, the snap of wood, and thumps that trembled the ground beneath his feet. Over there, then.\n\nIron Bars walked into the yard.\n\nRound a mud-smeared barrow, over a fallen tree, to come to a halt ten paces from what had once been an extensive, elongated mound, now torn apart and steaming, mud sliding down as five huge figures dragged themselves free. Flesh darkened by peat, skin mapped by the tracks of countless roots, dangling hair the colour of copper. Tugging weapons free– massive two-handed swords of black, polished wood.\n\nThe five were chanting.\n\nIron Bars grunted. \"Tartheno Toblakai. Hood-damned Fenn. Well, this won't be fun. '\n\nOne of the warriors heard him and fixed black, murky eyes on the Avowed. The chant ceased, and it spoke. \"A child, my brothers.\"\n\n\"The one who spoke through the earth?\" another asked.\n\n\"I don't know. Does it matter? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It would not help us, that child. We have promised a terrible death.\"\n\n\"Then let us-\"\n\nThe Toblakai's words were cut short as Iron Bars rushed forward.\n\nA roar, a keening sweep of a wooden sword flung into the path of the Avowed's own weapon, which slid under, point gliding back round and over the warrior's enormous wrist, following in its swishing wake, to intercept the instinctive back-swing. Slashing through hard, thick skin, the edge scoring against muscle tough as wood.\n\nA huge presence lunging in from the Avowed's right. But Iron Bars continued forward, ducking beneath the first Toblakai's arm, then pivoting round as the second attacker slammed into the first warrior. Disengaging his sword, thrusting upward, seeking the soft space between the lower mandibles– a jerk of the giant's head, and the Avowed's sword point speared its right eye, plunging deep in a spurt of what seemed to be swamp water.\n\nA shriek.\n\nIron Bars found himself scrambling over the ruined barrow, the other Toblakai stumbling as they swung round to face him again– with a heap of boulders, mud and ripped-uproots in the way.\n\nThe Avowed leapt down onto level ground once more.\n\nBlack blood dripping from one arm, a hand pressed over a gouged socket and burst eye, the Toblakai he had attacked was staggering back.\n\nThe other four were spreading out, silent now, intent.\n\nUntil they could edge round the entire barrow, their approach would be difficult, the footing treacherous.\n\nOne down. Iron Bars was pleased-\n\nAnd then the fifth one shook itself and straightened. One-eyed, but turning to face the Avowed once more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You hurt our brother,\" one said.\n\n\"There's more to come, ' Iron Bars said.\n\n\"It's not good, hurting gods. '\n\nGods?\n\n\"We are the Seregahl,\" the lead Toblakai said. \"Before you hurt us, you might have begged for mercy. You might have knelt in worship, and perhaps we would have accepted you. But not now.\"\n\n\"No,\" the Avowed agreed, \"I suppose not.\"\n\n\"That is all you would say?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"Nothing else comes to mind.\"\n\n\"You are frowning. Why?\"\n\n\"Well, I've already killed a god today, \"Iron Bars said.\"If I'd known this was going to be a day for killing gods, I might have paced myself better.\"\n\nThe five were silent fora moment, then the first one said, \"What god have you killed this day, stranger?\"\n\n\"The Pack.\"\n\nA hiss from the Toblakai on the far right. \"The ones that escaped us! The fast ones!\"\n\n\"They were fast,\" Iron Bars said, nodding. \"But not, it seems, fast enough.\"\n\n\"D'ivers. '\n\n\"Yes,\" the Avowed said. \"Six of them... and only five of you.\"\n\nThe first Toblakai said to its brothers, \"Careful with this one, then.\"\n\n\"We are free,\" the one-eyed one growled. \"We must kill this one to remain so.\"\n\n\"True. This is cause enough.\"\n\nThey began advancing again.\n\nIron Bars inwardly sighed. At least he'd made them nervous. And that might serve to keep him alive a little while longer. Then again, he reminded himself, he'd faced worse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Well, maybe not." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe? Who am I kidding?\n\nHe shifted his weight, rising to the balls of his feet, readying himself to begin the dance. The dance of staying alive.\n\nUntil help came.\n\nHelp... from a short, pudgy, balding man. Oh, Hood, Iron Bars, just try and stay alive as long as you can– maybe they'll die of exhaustion.\n\n\"Look,\" one whined, \"he's smiling. '\n\nUnseen storms, raging through the streets, battering the city. Bugg's head was aching with the chaos of power, of the clash of fierce wills. He could still feel the impotent fury of the ancient god trapped beneath the ice of Settle Lake– the Ceda's trap had worked well indeed, and even now the ice was slowly thickening, closing in around the creature in the sealed cavern, and before the sunset it would find itself encased in the ice, feeling the unbearable cold seeping into its being, stealing sensation, stealing its life.\n\nGood things came of being nice to a Jaghut, something the T'lan Imass never understood.\n\nBugg made his way towards the end of the alley beyond which the old Azath tower was visible. He hoped Iron Bars had not done anything precipitous, such as entering the yard alone. Kettle would have warned him against that in any case. With luck, the child's buried ally was buried no longer. The Avowed was intended to give support, that was all, and only if necessity demanded it. This wasn't that man's fight, after all-\n\nHis steps slowed suddenly, as a cold dread swept through him. He quested outwith his senses, and detected movement where there should not be movement, an awakening of wills, intentions burning bright, threads of fate converging..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The manservant turned round, and began running.\n\nFour of his ablest killers approached Gerun Eberict from up the street. The Finadd raised a hand to halt those behind him.\n\n\"Finadd,\" the squad leader said upon arriving, \"we had some luck. The brother at the far lookout was flushed out into the street by a pack of Edur. He took six of the bastards down with him. Once the Edur left I sent Crillo out to make sure he was dead-\"\n\n\"He was cut to pieces,\" Crillo interrupted, grinning.\n\n\"-and he was at that,\" the squad leader resumed, with a glare at Crillo, whose grin broadened.\n\n\"And the other?\" Gerun asked, scanning the vicinity. It wouldn't do to run into a company of Tiste Edur right now.\n\nThe squad leader scowled. \"Crillo got'im. A damned lucky knife-throw-'\n\n\"No luck at all,\" Crillo cut in. \"Poor bastard never knew it was coming-\"\n\n\"Because he'd caught out the rest of us-'\n\n\"They're both dead? \"Gerun asked. Then shook his head.\"Luck indeed. It should not have been that easy. All right, that leaves the one on the roof. He'll have been looking for signals from his brothers and he won't be seeing them now. Meaning, he'll know we're coming. '\n\n\"It's just one man, Finadd-'\n\n\"A Shavankrats, Crillo. Don't get overconfident just because the Errant's nudged our way so far. All right, we stay as a group now-\" He stopped, then gestured everyone low.\n\nThirty paces ahead and coming from aside alley, alone figure ran into the street. A Tiste Edur woman. Like a startled deer she froze, head darting. Before she had a chance to look their way, she heard something behind her and bolted. A metallic flash in her right hand revealed that she carried a knife of some sort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gerun Eberict grunted. She was heading the same direction as he was. An undefended Tiste Edur woman. He would enjoy her before killing her. Once his other business was out of the way, of course. Might let the lads have ago, too. Crillo first, for the work he'd already done getting rid of Brys's damned guards.\n\nThe Finadd straightened. \"After her, then, since it's on the way. '\n\nDark laughs from his troop.\n\n\"Take point, Crillo.\"\n\nThey set out.\n\nFaces behind shutters at second floor windows– the whole city cowered like half-drowned rats. It was disgusting. But they were showing him, weren't they, showing him how few deserved to live. This new empire of the Tiste Edur would belittle different, he suspected. There would need to be controllers, deliverers of swift and incorruptible justice. People would continue to be rude. Would continue to litter the streets. And there would still be people who were just plain ugly, earning the mercy of Gerun's knife. He would have his work, as before, to make this city a place of beauty-\n\nThey had reached the place where the woman had emerged from the alley. Crillo was turning round, pointing in the direction she had run, when a spear struck his head, spinning him round in amass of blood, brain and shattered bone.\n\nFrom the alley rushed a score or more Tiste Edur warriors.\n\n\"Take them!\" Gerun Eberict commanded, and was pleased to see his men surge forward.\n\nPast the Finadd, who then stepped back.\n\nI can always get more men.\n\nAnd ran.\n\nOnto the trail of the woman. Coincidentally, of course. His real target was Tehol Beddict. He'd take her down first, leave her trussed and gagged close by, to await his return. More difficult, now, since he was alone. Tehol's bodyguard would be a challenge, but when one's sword edges were painted with poison, even the slightest cut would be sufficient to kill the man. Quickly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There!\n\nThe woman had been hiding in a niche twenty paces ahead. She bolted at his approach.\n\nGerun broke into a sprint.\n\nOh, he wanted her now. She was beautiful. He saw the knife in her hand and laughed. It was a fish knife– he'd seen the Letherii slaves using them in that Hiroth village.\n\nRunning hard, he quickly gained on her.\n\nAcross another street, into another alley.\n\nClose, now, to Tehol Beddict's home. But he could reach her in time– five more steps-\n\n\"There's trouble. '\n\nStunned, Tehol Beddict turned. \"Not mute after all...\" His words trailed away at seeing the unease in the bodyguard's eyes.\"Serious trouble, then. '\n\n\"My brothers are both dead. Gerun Eberict is coming.\" \"This city's full of Edur, \"Tehol said, throwing both hands up to encompass avast sweep of rooftops, tiers and bridges.\"Ranging round like wolves. And then there's those real wolves-\"\n\n\"It's Gerun. '\n\nTehol studied the man. \"All right. He's on the way fora visit. What should we do about it? '\n\n\"They can come up the walls, the way your thief friend does. We need to get below. We need a place with one door and only one door.\"\n\n\"Well, there's the warehouse opposite– I know it quite well-'\n\n\"Let's go, then. '\n\nThe guard went to the hatch, knelt at its edge and cautiously looked down into the room below. He waved Tehol forward, then began the descent.\n\nMoments later they stood in the room. The guard headed to the entrance, tugged the hanging back a fraction and peered outside. \"Looks clear. I'll lead, to that wall-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The warehouse wall. There's a watchman, Chalas-'\n\n\"If he's still there I'd be surprised.\"\n\n\"You have a point. All right. When we get to the wall, we head right. Round the corner and in through the office door, the first one we'll come to. The main sliding doors will be barred. '\n\n\"And if the office door is locked?\"\n\n\"I know where the key's hidden. '\n\nThe guard nodded.\n\nThey stepped into the narrow corridor, turned left and approached the street.\n\nThree more strides.\n\nShe threw a desperate look over her shoulder, then lunged forward in a sudden burst of speed.\n\nGerun snarled, reaching outwith one hand.\n\nA whimpering sound escaped her, and she raised the knife just as she reached the mouth of the alley.\n\nAnd thrust it into her own chest.\n\nGerun was a hand's width behind her, coming opposite aside corridor between two warehouses, when he was grasped hard, pulled off his feet, and yanked into the dark corridor.\n\nA fist crashed into his face, shattering his nose. Stunned, he was helpless as the sword was plucked from his hand, the helmet dragged from his head.\n\nThe massive hands lifted him and slammed him hard against a wall. Once, twice, three times, and with each impact the back of Gerun's head crunched against the cut stone. Then he was smashed onto the greasy cobbles, breaking his right shoulder and clavicle. Consciousness slipped away. When it returned a moment later he was vaguely aware of a huge, hulking figure crouched over him in the gloom.\n\nA massive hand snapped down to cover Gerun's mouth and the figure froze." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sound of running feet in the alleyway, a dozen, maybe more, all moccasined, the rasp of weapons. Then past.\n\nBlearily, Gerun Eberict stared up at an unfamiliar face. A mixed blood. Half Tarthenal, half Nerek.\n\nThe huge man crouched closer. \"For what you did to her,\" he said in a hoarse whisper. \"And don't think it'll be quick...\"\n\nThe handover his mouth, Gerun could say nothing. Could ask no questions. And he had plenty of those.\n\nIt was clear, however, that the mixed blood wasn't interested.\n\nAnd that, Gerun said to himself, was too bad.\n\nTehol was three paces behind the guard, who was nearing the warehouse wall, when a scraping noise alerted him. He looked to his right, in time to see an Edur woman stagger out from an alley. A knife handle jutted from her chest, and blood was streaming down.\n\nDumb misery in her eyes, she saw Tehol. Reached out a red-stained hand, then fell, landing on her left side and skidding slightly on the cobbles before coming to a stop.\n\n\"Guard!\" Tehol hissed, changing direction. \"She's hurt-'\n\nFrom the warehouse wall: \"No!\"\n\nAs Tehol reached her, he looked up to see Tiste Edur warriors rushing from the alley mouth. A spear sailed towards him-\n\n-and was intercepted by the guard lunging in from Tehol's left side. The weapon caught the man under his left arm, snapping ribs as it sank deep into his chest. With a soft groan, the guard stumbled past, then sprawled onto the street, blood pouring from his mouth and nose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tehol went perfectly still.\n\nThe Edur ranged out cautiously, until they formed a rough circle around Tehol and the dead woman. One checked on the bodyguard, turning the man over with one foot. It was clear that the man was also dead.\n\nIn trader tongue, one of the Tiste Edur said, \"You have killed her.\"\n\nTehol shook his head. \"No. She ran into view, already wounded. I was coming to... to help. I am sorry...\"\n\nThe warrior sneered, then said to the younger Edur beside him, \"Midik, see if this Letherii is armed.\"\n\nThe one named Midik stepped up to Tehol. Reached out to pat him down, then snorted. \"He's wearing rags, Theradas. There is no place he could hide anything. '\n\nA third warrior said, \"He killed Mayen. We should take him back-\"\n\n\"No,\" Theradas growled. He sheathed his sword and pushed Midik to one side as he came close to Tehol. \"Look at this one,\" he said in a growl. \"See the insolence in his eyes.\"\n\n\"You do poorly at reading a Letherii's expression, ' Tehol said sadly.\n\n\"That is too bad, for you.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Tehol replied, \"I imagine-\"\n\nTheradas struck him with a gloved fist.\n\nPitching Tehol's head back, his nose cracking loudly. He bent over, both hands to his face, then afoot slammed down diagonally against his right shin, snapping both bones. He fell. A heel crunched down on his chest, breaking ribs.\n\nTehol could feel his body trying to curl up as heels and fists battered at him. Afoot smashed down on his left cheek, crushing bone and bursting that eye. White fire blazed in his brain, swiftly darkening to murky black." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Help the author by continuing the tale.\nTags: epic fantasy, new characters, commerce, betrayal, cultural clash\nAuthor: Steven Erikson\nTitle: Midnight Tides\nChapter: 32" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tehol gave him an innocent smile.\n\nIt was momentary, as more of the memories of this day stirred awake. \"Chalas,\" he said after a moment. \"That old fool.\"\n\n\"You have friends, Tehol Beddict.\"\n\n\"And that poor guard. He threw himself in front of that spear. Friends– yes, what's happened to everyone else? Do you know? Is Shurq all right? Kettle? '\n\nBugg grunted, clearly distracted by something, then said, \"I think they're fine. '\n\n\"Do you want to go and see for certain?\"\n\nHe glanced down. \"Not really. I can be very selfish at times, you know.\"\n\n\"No, I didn't. But I admit, I do have a question. Only I don't know how to ask it.\"\n\nBugg studied him fora long moment, then he snorted, said, \"You have no idea, Tehol, how boring it can be... existing for all eternity.\"\n\n\"Fine, but... a manservant?\"\n\nBugg hesitated, then slowly shook his head, and met Tehol's gaze.\"My association with you, Tehol, has been an unceasing delight. You resurrected in me the pleasure of existence, and you cannot comprehend how rare that is. '\n\n\"But... a manservant!\"\n\nBugg drew a deep breath. \"I think it's time to make you forget this day, my friend. '\n\n\"Forget? Forget what? Is there anything to eat around here?\"\n\nHe'd wanted to believe. In all the possible glories. The world could be made simple, there need be no complexity, he'd so wanted it to be simple. He walked through the strangely silent city. Signs of fighting here and there. Dead Letherii soldiers, mostly. They should have given up. As would anyone professing to some rationality, but it seemed this was not the day for what was reasonable and straightforward. On this day, madness held dominion, flowing in invisible currents through this city." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Through these poor Letherii." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Through the Tiste Edur.\n\nFear Sengar walked on, unmindful of where his steps took him. All his life, he had been gifted with a single, easily defined role. To fashion warriors among his people. And, when the need arose, to lead them into battle. There had been no great tragedies to mar his youth, and he'd stridden, not stumbled, into adulthood.\n\nThere had been no time when he'd felt alone. Alone in the frightened sense, that is. Solitude was born of decision, and could be as easily yielded when its purpose was done. There had been Trull. And Binadas, and then Rhulad. But, first and foremost, Trull. A warrior with skill unmatched when it came to fighting with the spear, yet without blood-lust– and blood-lust was a curse, he well knew, among the Edur. The hunger that swept away all discipline, that could reduce a well-trained fighter into a savage, weapons swinging wild, that strange, seething silence of the Tiste Edur pulled from cool thought. Among other peoples, he knew, that descent was announced with screams and howls and shrieks. An odd difference, and one that, for some unknown reason, deeply troubled Fear Sengar.\n\nAnd then, looking upon this Champion of the Letherii king, this brother of Hull Beddict– Fear could not recall if he'd ever heard his name, but if he had, he'd forgotten it. That itself was a crime. He would have to learn that man's name. It was important to learn it.\n\nFear was skilled with his sword. One of the finest sword-wielders among the Tiste Edur, a truth he simply accepted, with neither pride nor affected modesty. And, he knew, had he stood face to face with that Champion in the throne room, he would have lasted sometime. Some fair time, and might well have, on occasion, surprised the Letherii. But Fear had no illusions about who would have been left standing when all was done." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wanted to weep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For that Champion. For his king. For Rhulad, the brother he'd failed again and again. For Trull, whom he had now abandoned– to a choice no warrior should be forced to make.\n\nBecause he had failed Rhulad yet again. Trull could see that, surely. There was noway to hide the cowardice raging through Fear. Not from his closest, most cherished brother. Who gave voice to all my doubts, my terrors, so that I could defy them– so that I could be seen to defy them.\n\nShaped by Hannan Mosag... all of this. He understood that now. From the very first, the brutal unification of the tribes, the secret pact with the unknown god had already been made. So obvious, now. The Warlock King had turned his back on Father Shadow, and why not, since Scabandari Bloodeye was gone. Gone, never to return.\n\nNot even Hannan Mosag, then, but long ago. That was when this path first began. Long, long ago.\n\nThere had been a moment, back then, when everything was still simple. He was certain of it. Before the fated choices were made. And to all that had occurred since, there was only one who could give answer, and that was Father Shadow himself.\n\nHe walked the dusty streets, past corpses lying here and there like passed-out revellers from some wild fete the night before. Barring the blood, the scattered weapons.\n\nHe was... lost. They had asked too much of him, far too much. Therein that throne room. We carried his body back. Across the ice wastes. I thought I had sent Trull to his death. So many failures, and everyone of them mine. There must be other ways... other ways..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Motionless, now, looking down upon a body.\n\nMayen.\n\nThe hunger, he saw, was gone from her face. Finally, there was nothing but peace there. As he'd seen before, when he'd looked upon her sleeping. Or singing with the other maidens. When he'd carried the sword which she then took into her hands. To bury at the threshold of her home. He would not think of other times, when he caught a certain darkness in her eyes, and was left wondering on the twisting of her mind– such things a man could not know, could never know. Fearful mysteries, the ones that lured a man into love, into fascination and, at times, into trembling terror.\n\nHer face held none of that now. Only peace. Sleeping, like the child within her, hereon this street.\n\nFear crouched, then knelt beside her. He closed a hand on the horn grip of the fisher knife, then pulled it from her chest. He studied the knife. A slave's tool. A small sigil was carved near its base, one he recognized.\n\nThe knife had belonged to Udinaas.\n\nWas this his gift? An offering of peace? Or simply one more act of deadly vengeance against the family of Edur who had owned him? Who had stolen his freedom? He abandoned Rhulad. As I have done. For that, I have no right to hate. But... what of this?\n\nHe rose, tucking the knife into his belt.\n\nMayen was dead. The child he would have loved was dead. Some force was here, some force eager to take everything away from him.\n\nAnd he did not know what to do.\n\nWeeping, ceaseless, weeping from the blood-spattered, twisted form lying on the floor of the throne room. On his knees ten paces away, Trull had his hands to his ears, wanting it to end, wanting someone to end it. This moment... it was trapped, deep within itself. It would not end. An eternal chorus of piteous crying, reaching into his skull." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hannan Mosag was dragging himself towards the throne, so bent and mangled he was barely able to move more than a few hand's widths at a time before the pain in his body forced him to pause once again.\n\nAmong the Letherii, only one remained, his reappearance a mystery, yet he stood, expression serene yet watchful, near the far wall. Young, handsome and somehow... soft. Not a soldier, then. He had said nothing, seeming content to observe.\n\nWhere were the other Edur? Trull could not understand. They had left Binadas, unconscious but alive, at the far end of the corridor. He turned his head in that direction, saw the huddled shapes of the queen and her son beside the entranceway. The prince looked either dead or asleep. The queen simply watched Hannan Mosag's tortured progress towards the dais, teeth gleaming in a wet smile.\n\nI need to find Father. He will know what to do... no, there is nothing to know, is there? Just as there is... nothing to do. Nothing at all, and that was the horror of it.\n\n\"Please... Trull...\"\n\nTrull shook his head, trying not to hear.\n\n\"All I wanted... you, and Fear, and Binadas. I wanted you to... include me. Not a child any longer, you see? That's all, Trull. '\n\nHannan Mosag grunted a laugh. \"Respect, Trull. That is what he wanted. Where does that come from, then? A sword? A wealth of coins burned into your skin? A title? That presumptuous, obnoxious we he's always using now? None of those? How about stealing his brother's wife?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Be quiet,\" Trull said.\n\n\"Do not speak to your king that way, Trull Sengar. It will... cost you.\"\n\n\"I am to quail at your threats, Warlock King?\"\n\nTrull let his hands fall away from his ears. The gesture had been useless. This chamber carried the slightest whisper. Besides, there could be no deafness without when there was none within. He caught slight movement from the Letherii at the far wall and looked over to see that he had turned his head, attention fixed now upon the entranceway. The man suddenly frowned.\n\nThen Trull heard footsteps. Heavy, dragging. A sound of metal, and something like streaming water.\n\nHannan Mosag twisted round where he lay. \"What? What comes? Trull– find a weapon, quickly!\"\n\nTrull did not move.\n\nRhulad's weeping resumed, indifferent to all else.\n\nThe thudding footsteps came closer.\n\nA moment later, an apparition shambled into view, blood pouring down from its gauntleted hands. Nearly the size of a Tarthenal, it was sheathed in black, stained iron plates, studded with green rivets. A great helm with caged eye-slits hid the face within, the grille-work hanging ragged on its shoulders and beneath its armoured chin. The figure was encrusted with barnacles at the joins of its elbows, knees and ankles. In one hand it carried a sword of Letherii steel, down which the blood flowed ceaselessly.\n\nRhulad hissed, \"What is it, Trull? What has come?\"\n\nThe monstrosity paused just within the entrance. Head creaking as it looked round, it fixed its focus, it seemed, on the corpse of the King's Champion. It resumed walking forward, leaving twin trails of blood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Trull!\" Rhulad shrieked.\n\nThe creature halted, looked down at the emperor lying on the floor. After a moment, a heavy voice rumbled from within the helm. \"You are gravely injured.\"\n\nTrembling, Rhulad laughed, a sound close to hysteria. \"Injured? Oh yes. Cut to pieces!\"\n\n\"You will live.\"\n\nHannan Mosag said in a growl, \"Begone, demon. Lest I banish you.\"\n\n\"You can try,\" it said. And moved forward once more. Until it stood directly in front of the Champion's body.\"I see no wounds, yet he lies dead. This honourable mortal. '\n\n\"Poison,\" said the Letherii at the far wall.\n\nThe creature looked over. \"I know you. I know all your names.\"\n\n\"I imagine you do, Guardian,\" the man replied.\n\n\"Poison. Tell me, did you... push him in that direction?\"\n\n\"It is my aspect,\" the Letherii said, shrugging. \"I am driven to... poignancy. Tell me, does your god know you are here?\"\n\n\"I will speak to him soon. Words of chastisement are necessary.\"\n\nThe man laughed, crossing his arms as he leaned back against the wall. \"I imagine they are at that.\"\n\nThe Guardian looked once more upon the Champion. \"He held the names. Of all those who were almost forgotten. This... this is a great loss.\"\n\n\"No,\" the Letherii said, \"those names are not lost. Not yet. But they will be... soon.\"\n\n\"I need... someone, then.\"\n\n\"And you will find him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Guardian regarded the Letherii once more. \"I am... pushed?\"\n\nThe man shrugged again.\n\nThe Guardian reached down, closed a firm grip on the Champion's sword-belt, then lifted him from the floor and slung him over its left shoulder. Standing in a spreading pool of blood, it turned about.\n\nAnd looked upon Rhulad Sengar. \"They show no mercy, your friends,\" it said.\n\n\"No?\" Rhulad's laugh became a cough. He gasped, then said,\"I am beginning to see... otherwise-'\n\n\"I have learned mercy,\" the Guardian said, and thrust down with his sword.\n\nInto Rhulad's back, severing the spine.\n\nTrull Sengar lurched to his feet, stared, disbelieving-\n\n-as the Letherii man whispered, \"And... once more.\"\n\nThe Guardian walked towards the entrance, ignoring Hannan Mosag's enraged bellow as it passed the Warlock King.\n\nTrull stumbled forward, around the motionless form of his brother, until he reached Hannan Mosag. Snapped a hand down and dragged the Warlock King up, until he held him close. \"The throne?\" Trull asked in a rasp. \"You just lost it, bastard.\" He flung Hannan Mosag back down onto the floor. \"I need to find Fear. Tell him,\" Trull said as he walked to the entranceway, \"tell him, Mosag, that I went to find Fear. I am sending in the others-\"\n\nRhulad spasmed behind him, then shrieked.\n\nSo be it.\n\nThe Wyval clawed its way free from the barrow, dripping red-streaked mud, flanks heaving. A moment later the wraith appeared, dragging the unconscious form of a Letherii man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shurq Elalle rose from where she had crouched beside Ublala, stroking his brow and wondering at the stupid smile plastered on his features, and, placing her hands on her hips, surveyed the scene. Five sprawled bodies, toppled trees, the stench of rotting earth. Two of her employees near the facing wall of the Azath tower, the mage tending to the Avowed's wounds. Avowed. What kind of tide is that, anyway?\n\nCloser to the gate, Kettle and the tall, white-skinned warrior with the two Letherii swords.\n\nImpressively naked, she noted, walking over. \"If I am not mistaken,\" she said to him, \"you are of the same blood as the Tiste Edur.\"\n\nA slight frown as he looked down upon her. \"No. I am Tiste Andii.\"\n\n\"If you say so. Now that you have finished off those... things, I take it your allegiance to the Azath tower is at an end.\"\n\nHe glanced over at it with his strange, red eyes. \"We were never... friends,\" he said, then faintly smiled. \"But it is dead. I am not bound to anyone's service but my own. \"Studied her once again.\"And there are things I must do... for myself. '\n\nKettle spoke. \"Can I come with you?\"\n\n\"That would please me, child,\" the warrior said.\n\nShurq Elalle narrowed her eyes. \"You made a promise, didn't you? \"she asked him.\"To the tower, and though it is dead the promise remains to be honoured. '\n\n\"She will be safe, so long as she chooses to remain with me,\" the warrior said, nodding." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shurq looked round once more, then said, \"This city is now ruled by the Tiste Edur. Will they take undue note of you?\"\n\n\"Accompanied by a Wyval, a wraith and the unconscious slave he insists on keeping with him, I would imagine so.\"\n\n\"Best, then,\" she said, \"you left Letheras without being seen.\"\n\n\"Agreed. Do you have a suggestion?\"\n\n\"Not yet-\"\n\n\"I have...\"\n\nThey turned to seethe Avowed and his mage, the latter lending the former his shoulder as they slowly approached. It had been Iron Bars who had spoken.\n\n\"You,\" Shurq Elalle said, \"work for me, now. No volunteering allowed.\"\n\nHe grinned. \"Aye, but all I'm saying is they need an escort. Someone who knows all the secret ways out of this city. It's the least I can do, since this Tiste Andii saved my life.\"\n\n\"Thinking of things before I do does not bode well fora good working relationship,\" Shurq Elalle said.\n\n\"Apologies, ma'am. I won't do it again, I promise.\"\n\n\"You think I'm being petty, don't you?\"\n\n\"Of course not. After all, the undead are never petty.\"\n\nShe crossed her arms. \"No? See that pit over there? There's an undead man named Harlest hiding in it, waiting to scare someone with his talons and fangs. '\n\nThey all turned to study the pit in the yard of the Azath tower. From which they could now hear faint singing.\n\n\"Hood's balls, \"Iron Bars muttered.\"When do we sail? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shurq Elalle shrugged. \"As soon as they let us. And who is Hood?\"\n\nThe white-skinned warrior replied distractedly, \"The Lord of Death, and yes, he has balls.\"\n\nEveryone turned to stare at the warrior, who shrugged.\n\nShurq grunted, then said, \"Don't make me laugh. '\n\nKettle pointed up. \"I like that. In your forehead, Mother. I like that.\"\n\n\"And let's keep it there, shall we? ' Fortunately, no-one seemed to grasp the significance of her comment.\n\nThe warrior said to Iron Bars. \"Your suggestion?\"\n\nThe Avowed nodded.\n\nTehol Beddict, lying atop the sarcophagus, was sleeping. Bugg had been staring down at him, thoughtful, when he heard the sound of footsteps almost directly behind him. He slowly swung about as the Guardian emerged from the wall of water that marked the tunnel mouth.\n\nThe apparition was carrying a body over one shoulder. It halted and was silent as it studied the manservant.\n\nHere, in this tomb emptied of water, in this place where an Elder god's will held all back, the Guardian did not bleed.\n\nBugg sighed. \"Oh, he will grieve for this,\" he said, finally recognizing the Letherii on the Guardian's shoulder.\n\n\"The Errant says the names remain alive within him,\" the creature said.\n\n\"The names? Ah, yes. Of course.\"\n\n\"You abandoned us, Mael.\"\n\n\"I know. I am sorry.\"\n\nThe Guardian stepped past him and stopped beside the sarcophagus. Its helmed head tilted down as it observed Tehol Beddict. \"This one shares his blood.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A brother, yes.\"\n\n\"He shall carry the memory of the names, then.\" It looked over. \"Do you object to this?\"\n\nBugg shook his head. \"How can I?\"\n\n\"That is true. You cannot. You have lost the right.\"\n\nThe manservant said nothing. He watched as the Guardian grasped hold of one of Brys's hands and set it down upon Tehol's brow. A moment, then it was done. The apparition stepped away, headed towards the far wall of water.\n\n\"Wait, please,\" Bugg said.\n\nIt paused, looked back.\n\n\"Where will you take him?\"\n\n\"Into the deep, where else, Elder One?\"\n\nBugg frowned. \"In that place...\"\n\n\"Yes. There shall be two Guardians now and forevermore.\"\n\n\"Will that eternal service please him, do you think?\"\n\nThe apparition cocked its head. \"I do not know. Does it please me?\"\n\nWith that ambiguous question hanging in the still air, the Guardian carried the body of Brys Beddict into the water.\n\nAfter along moment, Bugg turned back to regard Tehol. His friend would wake with a terrible headache, he knew.\n\nNothing to be done for it, alas. Except, perhaps, for some tea... I've a particularly nasty herbal mix that'll make him forget his headache. And if there is anyone in the world who will appreciate that, it is Tehol Beddict of Letheras.\n\nBut first, I'd better get him out of this tomb.\n\nThere were bodies lying in the throne room of the Eternal Domicile. The one halfway down the dais, face to the bloody tiles, still made Feather Witch's breath catch, her heart thud loud in her chest. Fear or excitement, she knew not which– perhaps both. King Ezgara Diskanar, flung down from the throne, where Rhulad Sengar of the Tiste Edur now sat, and the darkness in the emperor's eyes seemed beyond measure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There had been pain in this chamber– she could feel its bitter wake, hanging still in the air. And Rhulad had been its greatest fount. Betrayals, more betrayals than any mortal could bear. She knew this was truth, knew it in her heart.\n\nBefore the emperor stood Tomad and Uruth, flanking the trembling, huddled form of Hannan Mosag, who had paid a dear price for this day of triumph. It seemed that he awaited something, a posture of terrified expectation, his eyes downcast. Yet Rhulad appeared content to ignore the Warlock King. For now, he would indulge his sour triumph.\n\nEven so, where was Fear Sengar? And Trull? Feather Witch had assisted Uruth intending to Binadas, who remained unconscious and would continue so until the healing was done. But, apart from Rhulad's parents, the only others of the emperor's inner court present were a handful of his adopted brothers, Choram Irard, Kholb Harat and Matra Brith. The Buhns were absent, as was the Jheck warchief, B'nagga.\n\nTwo Letherii remained, apart from the pathetic wreckages of Queen Janall and Prince Quillas. And already the Chancellor, Triban Gnol, had knelt before Rhulad and proclaimed his eternal service. The other Letherii drew Feather Witch's attention again and again. Consort to the queen, Turudal Brizad gave the appearance of being almost indifferent to all he was witnessing herein the Eternal Domicile.\n\nAnd he was handsome, extraordinarily handsome.\n\nMore than once, she had met his gaze, and saw in his eyes– even from across the room– a certain avid interest that sent tremors through her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She remained a step behind Uruth, her new mistress, ever attentive, whilst commanders came and went with their irrelevant reports. Fighting here, an end to fighting there, the docks secured. The first of the emissaries from the protectorates eagerly awaited audience in the ruined hallway beyond.\n\nThe empire was born.\n\nAnd she had witnessed, and more than witnessed. A knife, pushed into the hands of Mayen, and word had come that she had been found. Dead. No more would Feather Witch cower beneath her fury. The whore was dead.\n\nRhulad's first command was to begin a hunt. For Udinaas. His adopted brothers were given a company of warriors each and sent out to find the slave. The search would be relentless, she knew, and in the end, Udinaas would be captured. And made to pay for his betrayal.\n\nShe did not know what to think about that. But the thought had run through her once– and only once, quickly driven away afterwards– a hope, a fervent prayer to the Errant that Udinaas would escape. That he would never be found. That at least one Letherii would defy this emperor, defeat him. And in defeating him thus, would break Rhulad's heart yet again.\n\nThe world has drawn breath... and now breathes once more. As steady as ever, as unbroken in rhythm as the tides.\n\nShe could see, through the cleverly fashioned, slitted windows high in the dome overhead, the deepening of the light, and she knew the sun was setting on this day.\n\nA day in which a kingdom was conquered, and a day in which that which was conquered began its inevitable destruction of the conquerors.\n\nFor such was the rhythm of these particular tides. Now, with the coming of night, when the shadows drew long, and what remained of the world turned away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For that is what the Tiste Edur believe, is it not? Until midnight, all is turned away, silent and motionless. Awaiting the last tide.\n\nOn his throne, Rhulad Sengar sat, draped in the gold of Lether, and the dying light gleamed in his hooded eyes. Darkened the stains on the sword held in his right hand, point to the dais.\n\nAnd Feather Witch, her eyes cast downward once more after that momentary glance, downward as required, saw, lying in the join of the dais, a severed finger. Small, like a child's. She stared at it, fascinated, filled with a sudden desire. To possess it. There was power in such things, after all. Power a witch could use.\n\nAssuming the person it had belonged to had been important.\n\nWell, I shall find that out soon enough.\n\nDusk was claiming the throne room. Someone would have to light lanterns, and soon.\n\nShe had not left the room. There had been no reason to. She had sat, motionless, empty, numb to the sounds of fighting, to the howling wolves, to the distant screams in the city beyond. And told herself, every now and then, that she waited. The end of one thing brought the birth of another, after all.\n\nLives and loves, the gamut of existence was marked by such things. A breaking of paths, the ragged, uneven ever-forward stumble. Blood dried, eventually. Turned to dust. The corpses of kings were laid down and sealed in darkness and set away, to be forgotten. Graves were dug for fallen soldiers, vast pits like mouths in the earth, opened in hunger, and all the bodies were tumbled down, each exhaling a last gasp of lime dust. Survivors grieved, fora time, and looked upon empty rooms and empty beds, the scattering of possessions no-one possessed any longer, and wondered what was to come, what would be written anew on the wiped-clean slate. Wondering, how can I goon?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kingdoms and empires, wars and causes, she was sick of them.\n\nShe wanted to begone. Away, so faraway that nothing of her life from before mattered in the least. No memories to drive her steps in this direction or that.\n\nCorlo had warned her. Not to fall into the cycle of weeping. So now she sat dry-eyed, and let the city beyond weep for itself. She was done with such things.\n\nA knock upon the door.\n\nSeren Pedac looked down the hallway, her heart lurching.\n\nA heavy sound, now repeated, insistent.\n\nThe Acquitor rose from the chair, tottering at the tingling in her legs– she had not moved in along time– then made her way unevenly forward.\n\nDusk had arrived. She had not noticed that. Someone has decided. Someone has ended this day. Why would they do that?\n\nAbsurd thoughts, pushed into her mind as if from somewhere outside, intones of faint irony, drawled out like a secret joke.\n\nAt the door now. Flinching as the knock sounded again, at a level opposite her face.\n\nSeren opened it.\n\nTo find, standing before her, Fear and Trull Sengar.\n\nTrull could not understand it, but it had seemed his steps were being guided, down this alley, along that street, through the vast city with unerring precision until he saw, in the gloom ahead, his brother. Walking with purpose over a minor bridge of the main canal. Turning in surprise at Trull's hoarse shout. Then waiting until his brother caught up to him.\n\n\"Rhulad is resurrected,\" Trull said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fear looked away, squinted into the shadows of the seemingly motionless water of the canal. \"By your hand, Trull?\"\n\n\"No. I... failed in that. Something else. A demon of some sort. It came for the Champion– I don't know why, but it carried the man's body away. After killing Rhulad in what it saw as an act of mercy.\" Trull grimaced. \"A gift of the ignorant. Fear-\"\n\n\"No. I will not return.\"\n\nTrull stared at him. \"Listen tome, please. I believe, if we work together, we can guide him back. From madness. For the Sisters\" sake, Fear, we must try. For our people-'\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"You... would leave me to this?\"\n\nSudden pain in Fear's face, but he refused to meet his brother's eyes. \"I must go. I understand something now, you see. This is not of Rhulad's making. Nor Hannan Mosag's. It is Father Shadow's, Trull. '\n\n\"Scabandari Bloodeye is dead-\"\n\n\"Not his spirit. It remains... somewhere. I intend to find it.\"\n\n\"To what end?\"\n\n\"We have been usurped. All of us. By the one behind that sword. No-one else can save us, Trull. I mean to find Scabandari Bloodeye. If he is bound, I mean to free him. His spirit. We shall return together, or not at all.\"\n\nTrull knew his brother well enough to cease arguing. Fear had found anew purpose, and with it he intended to flee... from everything, and everyone, else. \"How will you get out of the city? They will be looking for us– it's probable they are doing so even now. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hull once told me that Seren Pedac had her home here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fear shook his head. \"I don't know, I don't understand it myself, but I believe she might help.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nFear shook his head.\n\n\"How do you know where she lives?\"\n\n\"I don't. But it's... this way.\"\n\nHe began walking. Trull quickly caught up to him and gripped his arm. \"Listen– no, I don't mean to prevent you. But listen tome, please. '\n\n\"Very well, but let us walk in the meantime.\"\n\n\"All right. Do you not wonder at all this, Fear? How did I find you? It should have been impossible, yet here we are. And now you, and this house– the Acquitor's house– Fear, something is guiding us. We are being manipulated-'\n\nHis brother's smile was wry.\"What of it? '\n\nTo that, Trull had no answer. Silent, he walked with Fear. Coming upon a score of dead Letherii, he paused to collect a sword and scabbard. He strapped it on, ignoring Fear's raised brows, not out of some ambivalent emotion, but because he himself did not know why he had picked up the weapon. They walked on.\n\nUntil they came to a modest house.\n\nTrull's chest seemed to clench tight upon seeing her standing in the doorway. He could not understand it– no, he could, but it was impossible. Absurd. He'd only seen Seren Pedac a few times. Had but exchanged a few score words, if that. Yet, as he studied her face, the shock writ there, so at odds with the appalling depth in her eyes, he felt himself falling forward in his mind-\n\n\"What?\" she asked, gaze darting between him and Fear. \"What are you...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I need your help,\" Fear said.\n\n\"I cannot... I don't see how... '\n\nSisters take me, I would give my heart to this woman. This Letherii...\n\nFear said, \"I am fleeing. My brother, the emperor. I need a guide to take me through the city unseen. Tonight.\"\n\n\"How did you find me?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I don't even know why... why I have this belief that only you can help me.\"\n\nShe looked then at Trull, and he saw her eyes hold on his for what seemed along moment, slowly widening. \"And you, Trull Sengar?\" she asked. \"Are coming with us?\"\n\nWith us. She will do this. Why? What need within her does this answer? The pressure in his chest constricted suddenly, even as the fateful words left him. \"I cannot, Acquitor. I failed Rhulad this day. I must try... again. I must try to save him.\"\n\nSomething like resignation filled her eyes.\n\nAs if he had wounded something that already bore a thousand scars.\n\nAnd Trull wanted to cry out. Instead, he said, \"I am sorry. But I will await your return– both of you-\"\n\n\"We shall return here?\" she asked, glancing at Fear. \"Why?\"\n\n\"To end this,\" Fear said.\n\n\"To end what?\"\n\n\"The tyranny born here tonight, Seren Pedac.\"\n\n\"You would kill Rhulad? Your own brother?\"\n\n\"Kill him? That would notwork, as you know. No. But I shall find another way. I shall.\"\n\nOh, who has grasped hold of my soul tins night? He found himself unhitching the sword, heard himself saying, \"I don't know if you have a weapon, Acquitor, \"and knew his own disbelief at the absurdity of his own words, the shallowness of his reasoning,\"so I will give you mine... ' And he was holding the sheathed sword out to her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the threshold of her home.\n\nFear turned, studied him, but Trull could not look away from her, not even to see what must be realization dawning in his face.\n\nLetherii though she was, Seren Pedac clearly understood, her gaze becoming confused, then clearing. \"Just that, I take it. A weapon... for me to use.\"\n\nNo. \"Yes... Acquitor. A weapon...\"\n\nShe accepted it, but the gesture was without meaning now.\n\nTrull found himself stepping back. \"I have to go now. I will tell Rhulad I saw you, Fear, down at the docks.\"\n\n\"You cannot save him, brother,\" Fear said.\n\n\"I can but try. Go well, Fear.\"\n\nAnd he was walking away. It was best, he decided through sudden tears. They would probably never return. Nor would she have accepted the sword. Which was why she asked him before reaching out for it. A weapon to use. Only that.\n\nHe was being a fool. A moment of profound weakness, a love that made no sense, no sense at all. No, better by far the way it had played out. She'd understood, and so she'd made certain. No other meaning. No proclamation. Simply a gesture in the night.\n\nA weapon to use. Only that.\n\nThey remained standing at the threshold. Trull was gone, his footsteps swallowed by distance. Fear studied Seren Pedac as she looked down at the sword in her hands. Then, glancing up, she saw his fixed regard and smiled wryly.\n\n\"Your brother... startled me. Fora moment, I thought... never mind.\"\n\nThen why, Seren Pedac, is there such pain in your eyes? Fear hesitated, was about to speak, when a child's voice spoke behind him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you Seren Pedac?\"\n\nHe spun round, sword hissing from its scabbard.\n\nThe Acquitor stepped past, holding out a hand to stay him. \"Do I know you?\" she asked the small girl standing at the gate.\n\n\"I am Kettle. Iron Bars said you would help us. We need to leave the city. With no-one seeing.\"\n\n\"We?\"\n\nThe girl walked forward, and behind her came a tall, robed and hooded figure. Then a shadow wraith, dragging a body.\n\nA startled sound from Seren. \"Errant fend, this is about to get a lot harder.\"\n\nFear said to her, \"Acquitor, I would berate you for your generosity this night, had it not included me. Can you still manage this?\"\n\nShe was studying the tall, hooded figure as she replied, \"Probably. There are tunnels...\"\n\nFear faced the girl and her party once more. His gaze focused on the wraith. \"You, why are you not serving the emperor this night?\"\n\n\"I am unbound, Fear Sengar. You are fleeing? This is... unexpected.\"\n\nHe disliked the amusement in its voice. \"And who is that you are pulling behind you?\"\n\n\"The slave Udinaas.\"\n\nFear said to Seren, \"They will be hunting in earnest for these ones, Acquitor. For that slave.\"\n\n\"I remember him,\" she said.\n\n\"His betrayal of the emperor has exacted a high price,\" Fear said. \"More, I believe he killed Mayen-\"\n\n\"Believe what you like,\" the wraith said, \"but you are wrong. You forget, Fear Sengar, this man is a slave. A thing to be used, and used he has been. By me, by the Wyval that even now circles us in the dark overhead. For what befell Rhulad, for Mayen– neither of these tragedies belong to Udinaas.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As you say.\n\n\"We can argue this later,\" Seren said. \"Kettle, who is this disguised man?\"\n\nShe was about to answer when the figure said, \"I am Selekis, of the Azath tower.\"\n\n\"From the Azath tower?\" Seren asked. \"Amusing. Well, you're as tall as an Edur, Selekis. Can we not see your face? '\n\n\"I would rather not, Seren Pedac. Not yet, in any case.\" It seemed its hidden gaze was on Fear as it continued, \"Perhaps later, once we have quitted this city and have the time to discuss our eventual destinations. It maybe, indeed, that we will travel together for sometime.\"\n\n\"I think not,\" Fear said. \"I go to find Father Shadow.\"\n\n\"Indeed? And Scabandari Bloodeye still lives?\"\n\nShocked, Fear said nothing. He must be a Tiste Edur. One of the other tribes, perhaps. Also fleeing. No different from me, then.\n\n\"All of you,\" Seren said, \"inside. We should scrape together some supplies, although I am certain the Rat Catchers\" Guild will be able to supply us... fora price. '\n\nThe wraith softly laughed. \"It is the Letherii way, of course...\"\n\n---\n\nShurq Elalle stepped clear of the ladder and onto the roof. The sun was up, and people could be seen on the tiers, a little slower in their walking than was usual. Uncertain, filled perhaps with some trepidation. There were Tiste Edur, after all, patrolling in squads. Whilst yet others, in larger groups, were moving through the city as if looking for someone in particular." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tehol Beddict and his manservant were standing on the side overlooking the canal, their backs to Shurq as she approached. Tehol glanced over a shoulder and gave her a warm smile. He looked... different.\n\n\"Tehol Beddict,\" she said as she came to stand beside him, \"one of your eyes is blue.\"\n\n\"Is it? Must be some kind of nefarious infection, Shurq, since I can barely see with it besides.\"\n\n\"It'll clear up in time, ' Bugg said.\n\n\"So,\" Shurq said, \"have you resumed plotting the end of civilization, Tehol?\"\n\n\"I have, and a delicious end it will be.\"\n\nShe grunted. \"I'll send you Shand, Hejun and Rissarh, then-'\n\n\"Don't you dare. Deliver them to the islands. I work better alone. '\n\n\"Alone?\"\n\n\"Well, with Bugg here, of course. Every man needs a manservant, after all.\"\n\n\"I imagine so. Well, I am here, then, to say goodbye.\"\n\n\"Off for some pirating, are we?\"\n\n\"Why not? I'm simply elaborating on a well-established career. '\n\nTehol looked to Bugg, and said, \"The thief who sank...\"\n\n\"... has resurfaced,\" Bugg finished.\n\nThe two men smiled at each other.\n\nShurq Elalle turned away. \"Well, that's one thing I won't miss.\"\n\n---\n\nAfter she was gone, Tehol and Bugg stared out fora while longer at the reawakening city of Letheras. The city occupied, the throne usurped, strangers in the streets looking rather... lost." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The two-headed insect clung to Tehol's shoulder and would not move." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After a time, Tehol rubbed at his weak eye and sighed.\"You know, Bugg, I am glad you didn't do it.\"\n\n\"Do what?\"\n\n\"Make me forget.\"\n\n\"I figured you could handle it.\"\n\n\"You're right. I can. At least, this way, I can grieve. '\n\n\"In your own way.\"\n\n\"In my own way, yes. The only way I know how.\"\n\n\"I know, master.\"\n\nA short while later, Bugg turned about and walked towards the hatch. \"I'll be back shortly. '\n\n\"Right. And when you do, cleanup down there.\"\n\nThe manservant paused at the hatch, considered, then said, \"I think I will find the time to do just that, master.\"\n\n\"Excellent. Now I'm going to bed. '\n\n\"Good idea, master.\"\n\n\"Well, of course it is, Bugg. It's mine, isn't it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And it is this moment, my friends, When you must look away, As the world unfurls anew In shapes announced both bright And sordid, in dark and light And the sprawl of all existence That lies between.\n\nFisher kel Tath\n\nThe hole was vast and deep. The two Kenryll'ah demon princes stood at its edge, staring down into it, as they had been for sometime.\n\nFinally, one said, \"How far down do you think it goes, brother?\"\n\n\"I suspect, brother,\" the other replied, \"if we were to vacate our bladders into this abyss the streams would fray into mist long before they reached bottom.\"\n\n\"I suspect you are right. And that Forkrul Assail went down there, didn't he? '\n\n\"He did. Headfirst.\"\n\n\"You shouldn't have thrown him, then. '\n\n\"You are wrong, brother. I simply threw him in the wrong direction.\"\n\n\"That, or the world suddenly turned.\"\n\n\"Unlikely. This place doesn't do things like that. '\n\n\"You're right. It is proving exceedingly dull, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Exceedingly.\"\n\n\"Well, shall we?\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nThe two demons began loosening straps on their ornate baldrics. Dropping flaps. Shifting their stances to adequate width.\n\nAnd they stood there, side by side, until, perfectly timed, their flows were done.\n\nThe storm had risen sudden, impressively fierce as it raged on the seas. Three Nachts huddled at his feet, Withal stood on the beach, feeling the faint wisps of wind that managed to reach through the sorcerous barrier surrounding the island, brushing against his face like a woman's breath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A sweet woman, to be more precise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Unlike the one standing beside him. This tall, iron-eyed, foul-mouthed, humourless apparition who followed him around and never seemed to sleep and certainly would not let Kim sleep, not a single damned night the whole night through, not once. Always asking, asking and asking. What are you going to do? Besides praying?\n\nWell, what else could he do?\n\nRhulad Sengar came and went, more insane with each time. Shrieks, laughter, screams and wails. How many times could a man die?\n\nWe'll see, I suppose.\n\n\"That storm,\" Sandalath said, \"it wants to get through, doesn't it? '\n\nHe nodded. He could feel its wrath, and its impotence.\n\n\"It's waiting for something, \"she continued.\"Waiting for someone... to do something. '\n\nHe repressed the urge to hither– she'd kill him if he did– wait. Wait. Wait.\"Hold on, \"he whispered.\"Hold on... I've thought of something...\"\n\n\"A miracle!\" she shouted, throwing up her hands. \"Oh, I know! Let's pray! '\n\nAnd now he saw it, on the very edge of the thrashing waves beyond the reef. Saw it, and pointed. \"There! A boat, you black-hearted witch! A boat!\"\n\n\"So what? So what? Why don't you do something? '\n\nHe spun round, startling the Nachts, and began running.\n\nThere was anger, plenty of anger, giving strength to his strides. Oh, so much anger. Deliverers of suffering deserved what was coming to them, didn't they? Oh yes, they surely did. The Nachts had been showing him. Over and over again, the mad grinning apes. Over and over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Build a nest.\n\nKick it down.\n\nBuild a nest.\n\nKick... it... down!\n\nHe saw the hut, that squalid, insipid hovel crouched thereon the dead plain. Sensed the Crippled God's sudden awareness, sudden probings into his mind. But oh no, he laughed silently, it couldn't work it out. Couldn't fathom the endless refrain filling his skull.\n\nBuild a nest! Kick it down!\n\nHe reached the hut, not where the doorway made its slash in the wall, but from a blindside. And, with all his weight, the swordsmith flung himself into that flimsy structure.\n\nIt collapsed inward, Withal on top, landing upon a squawking figure beneath. Spitting, hissing with rage and indignation.\n\nWithal grasped handfuls of rotten canvas, heaved himself back upright, and dragged the tent away. Pegs snapping, ties breaking. Dragged it away from that horrid little bastard god.\n\nIt shrieked, the brazier tumbling, coals spilling out, sparks lodging in the god's ratty robes, where they smouldered-\n\n\"You will die for this, mortal!\"\n\nWithal stumbled back, laughing.\n\nAnd, from behind, the wind suddenly arrived.\n\nAlmost knocking him down.\n\nHe turned into it, facing the beach once more, and saw the stormclouds billowing, rushing in, growing ever higher, towering, spreading their shadow upon the island.\n\nLeaning into the gale, Withal ran back to the beach.\n\nThrashing, foaming waves on all sides, but there, before him, a stretch of calm. A stretch opposite Sandalath and the capering, dancing Nachts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Along which the boat slid gracefully through the reef, its lone sail luffing lightly as it glided to shore, grating to a halt five paces from the waterline.\n\nWithal reached the sand in time to see a squat, nondescript man clamber down from the side and wade ashore.\n\n\"This,\" he said to Withal in the Letherii trader's tongue,\"is for you. Take your friends and make sail. '\n\n\"Who are you?\" Sandalath demanded.\n\n\"Oh, be quiet!\" Withal snarled. \"Climb in, woman!\"\n\nThe Nachts had already done so, and were scrambling about the rigging.\n\nScowling, the Tiste Andii woman hurried towards the boat.\n\nWithal stared at the man.\n\nWho grimaced, then said, \"Aye, Withal of Meckros, you pray hard enough...\"\n\n\"I knew it.\"\n\n\"Now, get going. You'll find away of calm through. '\n\n\"And you, Mael?\"\n\n\"I'll drop in later. I've things for you to do, Withal. But for now,\" he faced inland, \"I am going to beat a god senseless.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "In partnership with the author, move the story forward.\nTags: epic fantasy, ancient city, magic, power dynamics, hidden secrets\nAuthor: Ian Cameron Esslemont\nTitle: Orb Sceptre Throne\nChapter: 5" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I aided him in his emergence from the Vitr...\"\n\nKiska laughed, and winced at the note of hysteria. \"Then I assure you, Maker, he is nothing like us.\"\n\n\"He is. He is formed as you, and mortal.\"\n\n\"Mortal? His name? Does he have a name?\"\n\nMaker shifted, glass crackling, and started a slow lumbering walk down the beach. Kiska moved alongside. \"Understand, little one, those who have experienced the Vitr firsthand emerge as if freshly born. Newly formed, or re-formed. His mind carries nothing of his prior existence. And he has proved a great help in my work and a balm to my loneliness. I named him Then-aj-Ehliel, Gift of Creation.\"\n\n\"Your... work?\" Leoman asked from where he trailed behind.\n\nStone grated as the great domed head turned to Leoman. \"Why, the bolstering and maintenance of the edge of existence, of course, against the constant erosion of the Vitr.\"\n\nKiska found that she'd stopped walking. Her hands covered her face, where they brushed dried flakes of blood. The ground seemed to waver drunkenly and there was a roaring in her ears. Gods below! This was... this was... impossible! What was she doing here? What could she possibly...\n\nHands supported her: Leoman. \"Kiska. You are all right?\"\n\nShe laughed again. All right! \"Did you hear that? What Maker said.\"\n\n\"Yes. Maintaining the shores. I understand.\"\n\nYet the desert nomad sounded unimpressed. Queen of Dreams! Was there nothing that could ruffle this man's reserve? She brushed away the rest of the dried blood, straightened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Kiska,\" Leoman began gently, \"the odds that this one could be...\"\n\nShe pulled away. \"Yes, yes.\"\n\nMaker raised an arm to gesture down the coast. \"Follow the shore on further. He is there, helping in my work.\"\n\nShe bowed. \"Our thanks, Maker. We are in your debt.\"\n\n\"Not at all. It is I who am indebted. It is good to see others. Good to speak to others.\"\n\nBowing again, Kiska headed off. As she walked, the sands pulling at her boots, she made every effort to keep her legs from wobbling and gasps of suppressed tears from bursting forth. This was impossible. She had wandered too far. The urgent unanswerable needs that drove heron now seemed... gods, she could hardly even recall them! Oponn's jest! Even if she found the man she no longer had anything to say to him. No compelling case to make for his return. She had nothing to offer save... herself. And now... now she was no longer so certain of that either.\n\nIt took nearly a month of digging. Ebbin worked entirely alone. He trusted no one else with the secret of his discovery; and, in truth, the youths and his two hired guards were quite content to spend their days lazing in the shade while he sweated underground. The dirt and stones he loosened from the blockage he pushed behind him to dump straight down to the water below.\n\nWith more funds from his backer he'd bought supplies, including two new lanterns. One lit his work now as he succeeded in clearing a narrow gap through the rockfall to peer beyond. To his enormous relief the tunnel continued onward. Ebbin wiped a grimed sleeve across his face, picked up the lantern, and wriggled ahead. He clawed his way through the dirt, then raised the light within the half-choked narrow confines. The flame burned as straight as a knife-blade. No air movement at all. He peered up the pipe-like length of the tunnel. Ruled straight, perfectly circular. Angling upwards as well. And no vermin, no detritus, no cobwebs. It was strange that the fall should have been so localized, but he shrugged off his concerns and began shuffling forward on his elbows and knees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tunnel debouched onto a circular chamber that in the poor light appeared smoothly domed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shattered stone littered the floor. He stepped in carefully over the sharp shards. As his vision adapted to the gloom, openings emerged from the dark: smaller side chambers, all broken open, circled the circumference of the main tomb.\n\nBeaten after all! Cheated! Yet how could someone have preceded him? Not one word in the records hinted at such a tomb! He wiped the cold sweat from his face. Damn them! The looting was most likely done almost immediately after completion. Cousins of workers, or sharp-eyed locals spying upon the construction. He kicked through the wreckage. Something lay uneven under his feet. He knelt, cupped the lamp-flame.\n\nA skull stared backup at him. He flinched; then, recovering, brushed aside more of the pulverized stone. More. A row... no, a circular band of human skulls set almost flush with the floor. And more bands. Ring upon nested ring of them. Rising, he closed upon a large shadowy object ahead.\n\nAt the centre, a mystifying sculpture-like construction: twin arches intersecting to create four triangular openings. Within, resting upon an onyx plinth, a cloaked corpse. And upon that corpse, glittering amber in the lamplight, a hammered mask of gold, plain, embossed with a face. And the mouth sculpted into the faintest of smiles like an aggravating, knowing smirk of superior knowledge.\n\nEbbin almost stepped into reach for that exquisite object, but something stopped him. Some instinct. And perhaps he was mistaken, but was that a ghostly, whispered, not for you... so faint he might have imagined it therein the dead silence so far underground? He pulled back his hand. Odd... these chambers looted, yet this crowning prize untouched. Why so?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He backed away, raised his lantern to the outer walls." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All of the smaller side niches broken open, their plinths empty. No, not all. One remained, its sealing door unscathed. He crossed to it. The door consisted of a single carved granite slab, unmarked, without any sigil. No hint of who, or what, lay within.\n\nHe tapped the solid rock. An aristocrat of the legendary Imperial Age? He eyed the central dais-like installation.\n\nOr loyal retainer thereof.\n\nHe ran his hands over the cold polished slab. He did not have the chisels to cut through this. And there was noway he was going to let his cretin assistants down here. No– to do this properly would take tools and resources currently beyond his reach.\n\nHe'll have to see his backer. And with this breakthrough the man will have to grant him further monies. He's bankrolled him this far, after all. Remarkable foresight and vision this businessman from One Eye Cat has shown. Even if others murmur against the man and spread ugly rumours of criminal interests. He of the odd northern name: Humble Measure.\n\nAshe returned to the tunnel an instinct, or irking detail, made him pause. Something about those sub-chambers. He counted them: twelve. Why always this mystical number? The legends? The old folktales of the twelve fiends? Mere mythology handed down from ancient practices? Ora homage from the builders? He shook his head. Too tenuous as yet.\n\nPerhaps an answer would be forthcoming.\n\nWord had spread across Genabackis that the great Warlord of the north had fora time established a camp in the hills east of Darujhistan, the city that had taken his friend and sometime enemy, Anomander, Lord of Moon's Spawn and Son of Darkness. Emissaries from across the north, the Free Cities and the Rhivi Plains came and went from his tent. They came asking for adjudication of land rights issues or title inheritances, and to settle territorial disputes. The great hulking beast of a man spent his days and evenings sitting cross-legged on layered carpets, drinking interminable cups of tea while city representatives and tribal elders argued and complained." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One such night, when the issue of Sogena's unfair taxation regime had degenerated into reminiscing of the old days before the arrival of the hated Malazans, Brood arose and went from the tent. Jiwan, son of one of the Warlord's trusted old staff of Rhivi, and now making a name for himself within the great man's council, took it upon himself to follow and intrude upon the Ascendant's solitude.\n\nHe found him standing alone in the night, staring west where the blue glow of the hated city softened the night. And perhaps the great man stared even further, beyond the city, to the barrow raised by his own hands in honour of his friend.\n\nJiwan thought of the rumours circulating that the tomb was actually empty. After all, how could any darkness contain the one known as the Son of Mother Dark herself? But he neither knew nor cared about the truth of that. He did know that only fear of this man kept war from flaring in the north once again. A peace that held the Rhivi's place upon the plains. The peace of the Warlord.\n\nA peace that may now be slipping. He cleared his throat to announce his presence. \"You are troubled, lord?\"\n\nThe man swung his heavy beast-like gaze to him, then away, to the distant glow. \"I allowed myself the luxury of thinking it was allover, Jiwan. Yet they rest uneasy. In the south. The Great Barrow of the Redeemer. And the Lesser, his Guardian. And this one of my friend. There is a tension. A stirring. I feel it.\" He voice softened almost into silence. \"I was fooling myself. Nothing is ever finished.\"\n\n\"The sword is shattered, is it not?\"\n\n\"Yes, it is shattered.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And the Lord of Moon's Spawn is gone. '\n\n\"Yes, he is gone.\"\n\nJiwan was uncertain. \"You fear, then, the Malazans shall be emboldened?\"\n\nThe Warlord glanced at him, surprise showing on his blunt, brutal features. \"The Malazans? No, not them. With Rake gone... It is his absence that troubles me.\"\n\nJiwan bowed, taking his leave. He knew it was right and proper that the Warlord should mourn his friend, but he, Jiwan, must think first of his people. An enemy was encamped on their borders to the north and the south, an enemy that was solid and real, not the haunted dreams of some troubled old man. The damnable Malazans. Who else would be emboldened by the fall of Anomander? They might seize this opportunity. But he was reluctant to speak of it yet. Loyalty and gratitude to the Warlord still swayed too many hearts among the elders. This too he understood. For he was not of stone; he felt it as well. Yet times move on– one must not remain a captive of the past.\n\nHe came to a decision. Changing direction, he headed instead to the corral. He would send word to the north for more warriors to gather. They must be ready should the Warlord call upon them... or not.\n\nThe nights in Darujhistan were far more hushed now than he could ever remember. Muted. One could perhaps even call the unaccustomed mood sombre. Ill-fitting airs for the city of blue-flame, of passions, or, as that toad friend of his named it, the city of dreams.\n\nFor his part Rallick hoped the mood was not one of tensed expectation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was past the sixth hour of night by the Wardens'bells. He stood at an unremarkable intersection in the Gadrobi district. Unremarkable but for one very remarkable thing: here, Hood, self-appointed godhead of death, met his end. Followed shortly thereafter by his destroyer, Anomander Rake, Lord of Moon's Spawn.\n\nEvents dire enough to shake the confidence of anyone.\n\nNo second-or third-storey lights shone in any window facing this crossroads. All forsook it. Patrons refused to enter the shops facing the site, and so the surrounding blocks progressively became abandoned. For who would live overlooking such an ill-omened locale? Weeds now poked up through cobbles. Doors gaped open, the empty shop-houses looted. In the heart of the most crowded and largest metropolis of the continent lay this blot of abandonment and death.\n\nThe thought caused Rallick to shift uneasily. Dead heart.\n\nYet not completely lifeless; another figure came walking up, boots kicking through the litter, his hands tucked beneath his dark cloak. Rallick inclined his chin in greeting. \"Krute.\"\n\n\"Rallick.\"\n\n\"Survived the guild bloodletting, I see. I'm pleased. '\n\nA soft grunt. \"Too few of us old-timers did. Gadrobi's my parish now. Shows you one way to get promoted. '\n\n\"Congratulations.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\" The man peered about. The wrinkles framing his small eyes tightened. \"But... I gotta wonder... who's really in charge? '\n\nFamiliar cold fingers brushed Rallick's neck.\"Vorcan's not interested, Krute,\" he said, his voice flat. \"As the guild now knows, she has a seat on the Council.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That talking shop? Sounds like a front tome.\"\n\n\"She's moved on. As have I. '\n\nThe man gave an exaggerated nod. \"Oh, so you say. So you say.\" He laughed, more like a grunt. \"There're some in the guild who say you have moved on– body and soul. Those who hold to the Rallick Nom cult. \"He laughed again, as if at the stupidity of people.\"And yet... got something to show you. \"He edged his head aside.\"This way. '\n\nAfter a measured glance all round, Rallick followed. To his ears his boots crackling on the gravel and debris of neglect sounded startlingly loud.\n\nThey crossed to the poorest, lowest-lying quarter, bordering on the Marsh district. Here the most squalid of what could hardly be called businesses occupied rotting row-houses and shacks. Rag-and-bone shops, pawnshops, manure collectors, small family tanneries. In the soggy alley of an open sewer lay two bodies.\n\nKrute invited him to examine them. \"What do you think?\"\n\nAn eye on the assassin, who backed up a reassuring distance, Rallick bent over the first. \"Professional work. Straight thrust through the back to the heart. Complete surprise– no twisting or turning in the wound.\" He pushed over the second, hesitated, then studied the neck. \"First-rate cut. Thin razor blade. Straight side to side. Right-handed, with a slight upward angle– attacker was shorter than victim.\"\n\nAn angry grunt from Krute. \"I missed that.\"\n\nRallick straightened. \"What's your point? '\n\n\"What brings two ex-Warden guards down hereto this shit-hole street, Rallick? You recognized them, didn't you? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I recognized them.\"\n\n\"But you didn't say... '\n\nA thin shrug from Rallick. \"You're inside now, Krute. '\n\n\"Dammit, man! I'm doing you a fucking favour! Everyone's accounted for! Everyone!\" He pulled savagely on his stubbled chin. \"Who could pad upon two veteran guards, take'em both without a peep? Without even a struggle? It's a shortlist, Rallick. And your name's on it... along with hers. '\n\n\"Like I said already, Krute. What's your point? '\n\nThe man let out along tight breath, almost like a growl. \"Always gotta be the hard way with you, hey, Rallick? Well, okay. Here's my point– Vorcan's short.\"\n\nRallick let his head fall as if studying the rank gutter, was quiet fora time, then began backing off. \"My advice to your superior is stay away. She's out of your class. '\n\nHe'd exited the alley, now ripening with something far beyond garbage, when a trick of the acoustics brought Krute's ghostly voice: \"Yours too, Rallick. Yours too.\"\n\n*\n\nImpatient banging brought the new waitress, Jess, lumbering to the doors of the Phoenix Inn. She unlatched the lock to peer out, blinking and wincing, into the glaring morning light. A tall dark figure brushed round her, imperious.\n\n\"Not open, sir,\" she said, surprised, still blinking. Then, eyeing the retreating back, she relaxed. \"Oh.\" And she shuffled to the kitchen to wake up Chud.\n\nRallick peered down at the fat man sprawled in his chair, head slung back, snoring. Amazement warred with disgust. Crushed pastries littered the table along with empty bottles, smears of exotic mustards and pâté. The rotund figure snored, mouth slack. Rallick had a good view of the bristles of his unshaven bulging neck and the ridiculous vanity of the scruffy braided rat-tail beard. He gave a table leg alight kick." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man snorted, jerking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pudgy hands patted vested stomach, the ruffles of the silk shirt. The head rolled forward, lips smacking. Beady eyes found Rallick, widened. \"Aaii! Thought grim graven friend new apparition of death come for modest Kruppe. Most discomfiting and shocking wakening. Kruppe has not yet seen to his toilet.\"\n\n\"Don't let me stop you. '\n\n\"Friend Rallick is always so civilized.\" A large stained handkerchief appeared in one hand, brushed flakes of pastry from the man's wide midriff. Then he wound a fold of the cloth round one finger and dabbed daintily at the corners of his mouth.\"Done! \"He sighed contentedly and slipped his hands into the black silk sash that circled his crimson waistcoat.\"Now Kruppe can only respond in kind. \"He raised his chin:\"Dearest Jess... We die of famishment! Bring biscuits, tea, Elingarth blood sausages and honeyed bacon, flatbreads and Moranth cloudberry syrup. \"He lowered his voice.\"Not sure how she'll fit in, you know.\"\n\nJess's voice bellowed from the kitchen.\"Chud says we ain't got none o\" that crap! '\n\n\"She'll serve just fine, I think, ' Rallick murmured under his breath.\n\nThe squat man's brows wrinkled, pained.\"Oh dear. I must have been dreaming... \"A quick shrug.\"Oh well. Biscuits and tea, then. Oh! And a crust of burnt toast for my friend here. '\n\nRallick could hear his clenched teeth grinding. \"Kruppe, I just-\"\n\nA raised hand forestalled him. \"Explain not, old friend! No need for explanations... please sit!\" Growling, Rallick pulled a chair outwith his heel, eased down and leaned back, hands on his thighs. \"Kruppe understands. Why, it is on everyone's sighing lips these days, dear friend. The city's two most deadly killers tamed by love's soothing embrace! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rallick's front chair legs struck the floor with a bang.\"What? '\n\n\"Do not worry! Kruppe's feelings shall recover. \"He peeled a sliver of wrinkled dried fruit from the table, sniffed it, then popped it into his mouth.\"Sustenance, Jess! We are positively expiring here! \"He shook his head, sighed dreamily.\"It is an old story, yes, friend? Love is found and old friends are forgotten. Kruppe does not wonder why you have been neglectful of us these last months. The two of you haunt the rooftops in flighty trysts, no doubt. Like bats in love. '\n\n\"Kruppe...\" Rallick ground out.\n\n\"Soon a brood of baby killers to follow. I see it now. Knives in the crib and garrottes in the playpen.\"\n\n\"Kruppe!\"\n\nThe fat man lifted his eyes to blink innocently up at Rallick. \"Yes?\"\n\n\"I just want to know if Cro-Cutter is in town.\"\n\n\"Kruppe wonders...\" Something strangled the man's voice and he choked. Pudgy fingers fished in his mouth, emerging with the mangled stringy sliver of fruit, which he then carefully smeared back onto the table.\"Jess! One need not cross the Cinnamon Wastes for tea! '\n\nThe big woman emerged from the kitchen, tray in hand. Her white linen shirt had been hastily laced, revealing a great deal of flesh. She glared at Kruppe, thumped the tray down, nodded to Rallick. \"Good to see you, sir.\"\n\n\"Jess. How's Meese doing these days? '\n\n\"She comes round most evenings.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You manage?\"\n\nShe pushed back her hair, waved to the empty tables. \"I'm worked off my feet. '\n\nRallick also eyed the empty common room. He frowned as if struck by anew thought. The woman walked back to the kitchen doors, her hips rolling like ships at sea. Rallick cleared his throat. \"Just who does own this place anyway, Kruppe?\"\n\n\"Friend Rallick was asking after young Cutter...\"\n\nRallick slid his gaze back. \"Yes?\"\n\nKruppe peered into the depths of the teapot. \"Kruppe wonders why.\"\n\nSnarling, Rallick stood, pushing back his chair. \"Is he here or not?\"\n\nLifting a knife and a biscuit, the little man peered up with a steady gaze. \"Kruppe assures friend Rallick that equally loved young vagabond is most assuredly not in our fair city.\" He raised the biscuit. \"Crumpet?\"\n\nRallick's chest, which had been clenched in one coiled breath since the inspection of certain wounds hours earlier, eased in along exhalation, and he nodded,\"Good... good. '\n\nKruppe's eyes had narrowed in their pockets of fat.\"Again– Kruppe wonders why. '\n\nBut Rallick had turned away. \"Doesn't matter. \"He called to the kitchen.\"Jess. '\n\nKruppe threw his arms wide. \"But breakfast has only just arrived!\"\n\nRallick pushed open the door in a bright wash of sunlight and walked out, the door swinging closed behind.\n\nShrugging, the fat man scooped up a smear of jam. \"And to think Kruppe named impatient friend civilized. Kruppe was egregiously in error!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the harsh morning light Scholar Ebbin trudged up the muddy unpaved street of the pure-gatherers in the Gadrobi district." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A dusty leather bag pulled atone shoulder and he wore a wide-brimmed hat yanked down firmly on his head. He stopped at a shuttered storefront of age-gnawed wood on worn stone foundations, banged on the solid door and waited. Across the street, between the cart traffic and crowds of market-goers, he noted the blue uniform of the Wardens. The sight was a surprise to him; while crime was endemic in this district, attention from the Wardens was rare. They had a wagon with them and appeared to be moving something.\n\nThe door vibrated as bars and locks were removed. It grated in its jambs to open a sliver. Darkness lay within. \"Ah,\" a thin voice breathed, \"it is you, good scholar. Enter.\"\n\nEbbin edged in sideways and the door ground shut. In the relative dark he was blind for the moment but he could make out a hunched dark figure securing bars and bolts again. \"You are ever mindful of thieves, Aman. Yet... rather a barrier to commerce, I would imagine.\"\n\n\"Darujhistan has fallen very far, good scholar,\" the bent man answered in his breathless voice. \"Very far indeed. It is not like the old days of peace and strict adherence to the laws of its rulers. As for commerce... I service a select few who know whereto find me, yes?\" He chuckled drily.\n\nThe unease that his visits here always engendered within Ebbin was not relieved by these comments. He thought of how his own whispered and circumspect enquiries into the subtleties of wardings, Warren-anchored barriers and the avoidance thereof led him step by step and source by source to this one man and his seemingly unpatronized shop. Yet to maintain appearances he answered genially enough, \"Of course, Aman. Very select,\" and he laughed modestly as well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aman ushered him into the shop proper, one foot dragging in his crippled walk, back twisted from some accident of birth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His hands too were crippled– malformed and bent as if having been caught within some mangling instrument. He shuffled behind his counter where a raised platform allowed him to peer over it, looming like some sort of gangly bird of prey.\n\nEbbin's vision was now adjusting to the permanent gloom in the shop, and he gently set his satchel on the counter.\n\n\"You have something for me?\" Aman asked, cocking a brow already higher than its fellow.\n\n\"Yes.\" He untied the leather strapping, eased out a wrapped object. \"From the lowest I've gone so far. '\n\nSetting the package between them, Ebbin carefully parted the thick felt outer wrappings then a sheer inner layer of silk to reveal what appeared to be nothing more than a fragment of eggshell, albeit one from an egg of impossibly huge dimensions. Aman bent forward even further, his canted nose almost touching the object. Seeing him up close Ebbin was struck by the deformed shape of his knobbly skull beneath its patchy pelt of filmy grey hair. Perhaps sensing his attention, Aman pulled away.\n\n\"A magnificent specimen, good scholar. Beautiful.\" The shopkeeper lit a lamp from a wall-sconced lantern, set it on the counter. \"May I?\" Ebbin gestured an invitation. For all his bent root-like fingers, the man lifted the fragment smoothly, held it before the flame. Ebbin crouched to peer: the flame was visible as a blurred glow through the fragment, which was astonishing enough, but the entire piece had somehow taken up the light and now glowed, warm, soft and luminous, like the dawn in miniature.\n\nAman sighed, almost nostalgically it seemed. \"I invite you to imagine, if you would, good scholar, entire structures of such stone, carved and polished to near pure translucency, glowing with the cold blue flames of the city. A magnificent sight it must have been, yes?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes. Darujhistan in the great Imperial Age of the Tyrants. At least, so it has been conjectured.\"\n\nThe bulbous eyes moved to his, blinked. \"Of course.\"\n\n\"Is it treated?\"\n\nAman returned the piece to its cloths and began rewrapping it. \"We shall see. It will have to be tested. Should it prove a fragment from a container utilized in certain, ah... esoteric... rituals from that age, then it maybe resold fora great deal to those eager to reuse it for their own... well... similar research.\"\n\nEbbin cleared his throat, uncomfortable. \"I see.\"\n\nAman tucked the package under the countertop. \"And how may I help you, good scholar?\"\n\n\"I've come to a chamber. One still sealed. '\n\nThe shopkeeper's fingers, which had been tapping the counter like spiders, stilled.\"In truth? \"he breathed in wonder.\"Sealed as yet? Astonishing. You must take care, good scholar. The traps these ancients set upon their interred... \"He shook his misshapen head.\"Deadly. '\n\n\"Of course, Aman. I know the risks. I am no amateur.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" the shopkeeper echoed, smiling to reveal a mouthful of misaligned teeth. \"The barrier?\"\n\nEbbin cleared his throat once more. \"Stone. A flat slab. Unmarked in anyway.\"\n\n\"Unmarked, you say? No sigils of any sort? Not even the faintest of inscriptions?\"\n\nEbbin frowned, impatient. \"I know my work. I've been excavating for decades. '\n\nAman raised his hands. \"No disrespect intended, good scholar. Please. It is just very... unusual.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "An uncomfortable shivering took Ebbin then and he rubbed his chest, nodding his agreement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes. It is... unusual.\"\n\n\"An unimportant personage, perhaps. A minor court retainer.\"\n\nEbbin thought of the figure laid out on its onyx bier at the chamber's centre. The beaten gold mask with its eerie mocking smile, and the bands of skulls encircling the plinth. Nested circlets of death. He nodded, shivering.\"Yes. My impression exactly. '\n\nAman appeared to be studying him somehow, his gaze weighing. Then the man quickly turned away to his shelves. \"I may have just the tools for you, good scholar. Moranth alchemicals... acids, perhaps? Or chisels. Not your everyday sort of tool, no, not at all. Hardened iron, alloyed with that Malazan mineral otataral. If you give me a few days I will have them for you.\"\n\n\"You have nothing like that here?\"\n\nA dry laugh from the man. \"Oh my goodness, no. That mineral would have a most deleterious effect upon... upon my wares.\"\n\nEbbin could only agree. \"If you say so, sir. A few days then. I have to consult with my backer in any case.\"\n\n\"Excellent, excellent.\" And he bobbed his head, his knotted fingers tapping incessantly on the counter.\n\n~\n\nOnce every bolt had been shut and every bar replaced, Aman shuffled back into his shop. Here he found a beautiful young woman, her long black hair braided and coiled atop her head, awaiting him. His mouth tightened into a sour pucker. \"Your intrusion into my affairs is most ill-advised. Most unwelcome.\"\n\nThe girl merely cocked a shapely hip to lean against the counter where she turned the wrapped package in slow circles. \"Why are we relying on this cretin?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We? There is no we. You are deluded. Your uninvited meddling will complicate matters most stressfully.\"\n\n\"They were watching the shop, Aman.\"\n\nThe man hobbled backup onto his platform behind the counter. \"Watching the shop? Of course they were watching the shop. They are always watching the shop! These agents of my one-time allies have proved most persistent. But because I remain within, and am circumspect... they have been none the wiser.\" He gently touched his fingertips to the wood countertop. \"Needless to say, said circumspection has now been shattered...\"\n\n\"They are dead, Aman.\"\n\nThe shopkeeper started to speak, caught himself, rubbed his hands over the countertop as if stroking it. He began again, slowly, \"Yes. However, the one who hired them now knows he, or she, is close to something. Best to have maintained the aura of mystery.\"\n\nThe girl's pale thin shoulders lifted in an unconcerned shrug. She began unwrapping the package.\"Then I will kill whoever that person is. '\n\n\"Ah yes. Speaking of mysteries. No one knows the identity of the circle-breaker. Many poseurs have surfaced pretending to the title, but no one knows for certain. It may have even been one of my old allies– even your mother.\"\n\nThe girl's coquettish gaze hardened.\"Never mention her tome, Aman. \"She peered up from half-lidded eyes.\"Anyone, you say? But not you, of course. '\n\nAman shook a bent finger. \"You are learning.\"\n\nShe made a face, then indicated the carved fragment. \"Is this thing really as valuable as you say?\"\n\nHe raised it between them, his gaze holding her eyes. \"Ahh... beautiful, yes? Slender, striking. A magnificent specimen. On the outside. But within, flawed. Worthless. Apiece of useless trash.\" He crushed it in his hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The girl flinched away as if slapped, bumping something in the dark. Her full lips tightened to a pale slash and a molten light blazed within her eyes. The man studied her quite calmly, his head cocked, fingertips lightly touching together. The golden light faded from her eyes as she stood quivering in suppressed rage. She drew a snarling breath and raised her chin in defiance. \"You are quite finished, I hope?\"\n\nHe bowed. \"Quite.\"\n\n\"And what is this monstrosity?\" she demanded, waving at the tall figure she'd struck.\n\nAman raised the lamp, revealing an armoured statue. The light reflected green and blue from an inlay of semi-precious stones. \"Magnificent, is it not? From distant Jacuruku. One of their stone soldiers.\"\n\nShe peered closer in an almost professional evaluation. \"An automaton?\"\n\n\"Not... quite.\" He set the lamp on the counter. \"In any case, m'lady, since you have returned, I suggest you make yourself useful and shadow our friend. Nothing untoward must happen to him. Be ready to intervene. He is close, Taya. Very close. '\n\n\"Why him? Why don't you go down? '\n\nThe man did nothing to hide the condescension in his answering chuckle. \"My dear. You are most diverting. The countless protections, wards and conditions imposed by my erstwhile allies are most exacting. Almost without openings. Only those who do not seek may pass. They must be innocent of bloodshed, possess no lust for personal gain... the conditions goon and on. Mammotlian contrived them. And so, since Mammotlian, a scholar, built the tomb, perhaps only a fellow like-minded spirit may possess the instincts to follow. If you see my reasoning.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And should he fail– like all the others?\"\n\nA crooked shrug from the man. \"Well, they're nearly out of floor space down there, aren't they?\"\n\nHer eyes constricted to slits and she tilted her head, unsure of his meaning.\n\nOn the street of the whitesmiths in the Gadrobi district, Barathol Mekhar inspected his latest consignment of iron ore. It was of unusually good quality. There was a useful variation of softness and brittleness within the clumps. He closed the box and went to the forge, held a handover the bed of coals. Still needed more time. He left the shop to cross a small open court to the rear of his row-house. Dusting his hands, he climbed the narrow stairs to his rooms above. Dawn was just brightening the sky outside the shuttered windows. Fora time he stood next to the bed where his wife Scillara still slept. Then he went to the other side of the bed to the tiny crib fashioned by his own hands. Kneeling, he studied the infant within, curled and plump.\n\nNever had he imagined such a treasure would be his. It seemed too defenceless for the world. Too tenuous. Its fragility terrified him. He feared even to touch it with his coarse blackened hands. He did however gently ease one into the crib to let the child's quick hot breath warm those fingers.\n\nSmiling, he rose to see Scillara watching him. \"Not runoff yet, I see,\" she said, stretching.\n\n\"Not yet.\"\n\n\"Not even with a squalling brat and a fat wife?\"\n\n\"I guess I must have done something terrible in a prior life.\"\n\n\"Musta been pretty damned awful.\" She looked about as if searching for something. \"Gods, I miss my pipe.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You'll live. '\n\nShe pointed to the door. \"Throw me my gown. Don't you have work to do? Money to earn? Enough to hire a cook. I'm getting sick of your burnt offerings.\"\n\n\"You could try lending a hand, you know.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"You don't want to eat my cooking. '\n\n\"I'll be outback then. \"He threw the gown.\"Could use some tea. '\n\n\"We all could.\"\n\nOn the way down the stairs he looked forward to another day standing at the forge where he could look over to the courtyard and see Scillara sitting on rugs laid out on the ground there, nursing little Chaur.\n\nLife, it seemed to him, was better than he'd ever hoped it could be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Turn not thine hand against thy father; for it is sacrilege\n\nInscription upon stone fragment\n\nDwelling Plains\n\nTHE CHALLENGE BEGAN as these things always do: with a look. A glance held a heartbeat too long. In this case lingering across the beaten dirt of the practice grounds at the centre of Cant, the marble halls of the Seguleh.\n\nJan, in the act of turning away to call fora slave, noted the glance, and stopped. Those of the ruling Jistarii family lineage out exercising that morning also instinctively sensed the tension. The crowd parted and Jan found himself staring across the emptied sparring fields and wrestling circles to Enoc, the newly installed Third. He watched while the young aristocrat's friends and closest supporters within the rankings crossed to stand at his side. Without needing to turn his head Jan knew his own friends had come to his. He held out his wooden practice sword. It was taken from his hand.\n\n\"Give him your back,\" Palla, the Sixth, hissed from behind. \"How dare he! This is not the place.\"\n\nJan answered calmly: \"Does not our young Third claim that daring is just what is lacking these days among our ranks?\" A snarl of clenched rage answered that. Jan allowed himself a slight raise of his chin to indicate the seats of the amphitheatre across the way. \"Look... the judges of the challenge assembled already.\"\n\n\"They are all of his family!\" Palla exclaimed. \"This is the work of his scheming uncle, that fat Olag.\"\n\nJan's sword appeared, offered hilt-first from behind. He took it and began securing the sheath to his sash. Across the field Enoc's coterie of supporters, ambitious young-bloods mostly, did the same for him. Someone handed Jana gourd of water and he sipped. His gaze did not leave Enoc's mask: a pale oval marred only by two black slashes, one down each cheek." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So, a year already, is it? He was surprised. Time seemed to pass evermore quickly as he became older. Not that he intended to get older– it was merely the byproduct of his extended wait for someone to manage to defeat him. Enoc obviously thought his chance had come. And he had to acknowledge that the daring youth seemed to have chosen his moment quite well: Enoc himself was yet fresh, merely having stretched and warmed up, while he had just completed a very gruelling series of sparring matches and was even now still sweating with exertion. It would appear that this cunning new Third had the advantage.\n\nBut Jan was where he wanted to be. His blood was hot and flowing fast. His limbs glowed with heat and felt strong. Practice did not drain him as it seemed to so many others. Rather, it enlivened him. Yet... a challenge during exercise... a time when by tradition all members of the Jistarii aristocracy were welcome to mix freely, practising and training. This was very bad form. An assembly of impartial judges wouldn't even countenance it.\n\nYet there was no question he must answer. It was his duty. He was Second.\n\nHe set the tips of his fingers on the two-handed grip of his longsword and walked out to the middle of the amphitheatre sands. Over the years he had lost count of the many Thirds who had come and gone beneath him. The ranks of the Agatii, the top thousand, were like a geyser in this manner– ever throwing up new challengers. And this one was an impatient example of a notoriously impatient ranking. Long ago it was always said that Second was the worst ranking to attain. Ever Second, never First. But with the death of the last ancient to achieve First, it was Third that was now so regarded. The itchiest ranking; the briefest rung... in one manner or another. And this one seems to think me tired. Very well. Let him do so. Let him challenge now, so very early. So very... precipitately. So be it. I can only do my part and accept." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Enoc strode out to meet him. The other Jistarii backed away, leaving the field clear, while slaves removed equipment. The wind was calm, and the sun was far enough overhead not to bean issue. Jan waited, head cocked. When the Third was close enough to allow private conversation, he offered the ritual exchange: \"I give you this last chance to reconsider. Form has been obeyed. No shame would accrue.\"\n\nThe gaze was scornful behind the white mask with its two black lines. \"Waiting is not for me, Second. I do not plan to cling to my perch– as you have.\"\n\nJan's breath caught momentarily.\"You covet the First? '\n\n\"It is time. If you will not lead, then stand aside for one who will.\"\n\nSo that is what they are whispering in the dormitories... How they have all forgotten. One does not claim First. It cannot betaken. It can only be given. And I– even I– was not judged worthy. Anger beckoned now, and with a supreme effort he allowed it to flow past. No. There must be no emotion. No thought. This one thinks too much– it slows him. One must not think. One must simply act. And he, Jan, had always been so very fast to act.\n\nPushing with his thumb, he eased the blade a fraction from its sheath. \"Very well, Third.\" He inhaled, and exhaling whispered the ritual words: \"I accept.\"\n\nTheir blades met crashing and grating even as the last syllable left Jan's mouth. Jan deflected several attacks, noting subconsciously how the lad relied too much on strength as a bolster to a form not yet quite at ease with itself. He knew instinctively he had the better of him, and that any of the rankers above the Tenth would see this as well. But the judges. They would not be convinced. Something much more irrefutable would be needed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The poor lad. In stacking the assembly his uncle has left me with no alternative. And now this one will pay the price.\n\nStill he delayed, parrying and circling. Among the highest rankings, actually being sloppy enough to spill blood was considered very poor form. The best victories were those achieved without such crudity.\n\nThe storm of the Third's unrelenting aggression washed over him in a constant ringing of tempered, hardened steel. Yet he remained calm– an eye of tranquillity surrounded by a blurred singing razor's edge. That storm had first been one of blustering overbearing power. But now it carried within it a discord of confusion, even recognition.\n\nAnd a coiling frantic desperation.\n\nJan chose to act. Best to end the testing now, lest he acquire a reputation for cruelty. In the midst of their entwined dance of thrust, feint and counter, Jan's blade extended a fraction of a finger's breadth further as his shift inwards allowed Enoc's own movement to close their distance more than intended and the tip of his blade licked the inside of the right elbow, severing tendon.\n\nEnoc's right arm fell limp, the longsword swinging loose. The lad froze, chest rising and falling in an all too open display of exertion. His fevered gaze through his mask was one of disbelief now crashing into horror.\n\nThe lad was crippled. Oh, it would heal, and in time he would probably regain use of the arm. But with that wound he would be hard pressed even to maintain a position within the Agatii. He would retain the right to carry a blade, of course. But there would be no more challenges for him.\n\nJan considered a whispered apology now while they held this fragile intimate moment between challengers, but the youth would probably take it as an insult. And so he said nothing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That delicate moment, the onlookers' breath caught in aesthetic appreciation of the beauty of a single cut perfectly executed in power, timing, accuracy and form, passed.\n\nAnd the gathered Jistarii all bowed to their Second.\n\nLater that evening Jan sat cross-legged at dinner with his closest friends among the ranked: Palla, the Sixth, and Lo, Eighth these many years, but recently, with the reported death of Blacksword, under consideration for promotion to the long empty rank of Seventh. With them also was an old friend of his youth, Beru, one of the Thirtieth.\n\n\"Will Gall reclaim the Third?\" Jan asked Palla.\n\nShe laughed, and, ducking her head, lifted her mask to take a pinched morsel of rice and meats. \"He will. And with gratitude to be back on his old rung again.\"\n\n\"Gratitude? I did not act as I did for his benefit.\"\n\nShe bowed, all formal, but her voice held humour: \"Gratitude for reminding everyone why he has remained Third for so long.\"\n\nJan motioned gently to close the subject. He turned to Lo, seeing the seven lines of soot that radiated from the eye holes of his friend's mask.\"And what of you? Will you take the Seventh? '\n\nLo bowed stiffly from the waist. \"If commanded. But I do not seek it. It is... distasteful... to step up in this manner.\"\n\nFrom Beru's tense pose Jan could tell he had something to say.\"And you, Beru? '\n\nThe man bowed, and kept his gaze averted. \"With respect, Second. There is talk of this swordsman, whoever he maybe, who slew Blacksword, the Lord of the Moon's Scion. Some say he must be regarded as the new Seventh. Some suggest a challenge. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jan had been reaching fora pinch of meat, but stilled. \"You know I am against such... adventurism. I opposed the expedition of punishment against the Pannions. What did that gain us? Mok's skills wasted against rabble and unworthy amateurs. '\n\nHis three companions ate in silence fora time, for all knew Jan's feelings regarding Mok, his elder brother, who volunteered to silence those disrespectful Pannions. And who returned... changed. Broken.\n\nIt fell to Palla to speak, the one who shared the greatest claim to intimacy with him, as the lovers they had been. Until both had climbed too high in the rankings and the tensions of the challenge intervened. \"And yet,\" she began, cautiously, \"you supported Oru's venture. '\n\nJan made a deliberate effort to soften his tone. \"Oru claimed to have had a vision. Who am Ito dispute that? I allowed him to call for any who would voluntarily accompany him.\"\n\n\"And twenty answered! Our greatest expedition ever mounted.\"\n\n\"True.\" And for the greatest goal of all. For only to him, as Second, did Oru reveal the truth of his vision... the belief that somehow, in some manner, he would regain the honour of the Seguleh stolen from them so long ago. A mad, desperate hope. But one he could not oppose.\n\nHis gaze fell on Lo, face turned away as he raised his mask to drink. Perhaps he should allow the challenge. Any man who could defeat Blacksword... if he could better Lo then he could have the rank.\n\nA gentle tap at the door broke into Jan's thoughts. He nodded for Beru to answer. On his knees, one hand on the grip of his sword, Beru cracked open the door and spoke in low tones to whoever was without. After a short exchange he opened it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was an old man, an unmasked honoured Jistarii who had chosen the path of priest. The man shuffled in on his knees and bowed, touching his brow to the bare hardwood floor. \"My lord. You are requested at the temple. There is... something for you to see.\"\n\nJan inclined his mask fractionally. \"Very well. I will attend.\" The priest bowed again. He shuffled backwards on his knees and stepped out of the low threshold without turning his back upon them. Jan took a sip of tea to cleanse his mouth.\n\nPalla bowed in a request to speak.\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"May we accompany you?\"\n\n\"If you wish.\"\n\nThe main temple of Cant was a large open-sided building of columns and arches. It was constructed entirely of white marble veined with black. Lit torches hissed in the evening wind, casting shadows among the eerily pallid white stone columns, floor and ceiling. The High Priest, Sengen, awaited them. He wore the plain tunic and trousers of rough cloth that were the customary clothing of the Seguleh. He was clean shaven, as most Seguleh males of the Jistarii tended to be, and his long grey hair was oiled and pulled back tightly in a braid. He bowed to Jan.\n\n\"Sengen,\" Jan acknowledged, thereby granting him permission to speak.\n\n\"Only the Second may accompany me,\" the old man commanded, stepping forward.\n\nPalla and Lo stiffened, exchanged outraged glances. Jan raised a hand for patience. \"That is your right here within the temple.\"\n\nSengen bowed again, beckoning Jan forward.\n\nHe led him to the very rear. To the altarpiece: a single pillar of unearthly translucent white stone, waist-high, its top empty. Sengen regarded the pillar reverently, his hands crossed over his chest. Jan stared at him, puzzled by his odd behaviour. Then his gaze moved to the pillar, and he started forward, amazed. Beads of moisture ran down the white stone, and a thin vapour, as of a morning mist, drifted from it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It sweats, Second,\" the High Priest breathed, awed. \"The stone sweats.\"\n\n\"What does this mean?\"\n\nEyes fixed on the pale stone, Sengen answered, \"It means that what we have been awaiting all this time may come. Our purpose.\"\n\nShaken, Jan stepped away. Yet the pillar was empty... was this right? How could this happen?\n\n\"It is your duty to make ready,\" Sengen said sharply.\n\nJan nodded. Turning, he caught his reflection on a nearby polished shield. A pale white mask distinguished by a single blood-red smear across the brow. A mark put thereby the last First, so long ago. \"Yes,\" he answered, his voice thick. \"I shall.\"\n\nHis three friends waited on the steps of the temple. Coming to them Jan stood silent for sometime while they shifted, uncomfortable, gazes averted. \"Lo,\" he said at last. \"I give you permission to seek out this Seventh. We may have need of him.\"\n\n\"Need?\" Lo echoed, glancing up in startlement, then quickly away.\n\n\"You may take one other with you. Who would that be?\"\n\nLo gestured. \"Beru here, if he would.\"\n\n\"No. I would have him remain. Choose another.\"\n\nLo bowed. \"As you command.\"\n\n\"What is it?\" Palla asked, inclining her head. \"You are... troubled.\"\n\nJan regarded her. Fora moment he allowed himself the pleasure of taking in her lithe limbs, her tall proud bearing, and wished she had not pursued the Path of the Challenge. But that was selfish of him; she deserved her rank. \"Gather the Agatii, Sixth. We must make ready. The altarstone has awakened.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The three glanced to the temple, their eyes behind their masks widening in awe. \"We thought that just a legend,\" Palla breathed.\n\n\"Before he passed, the First imparted tome a portion of what was handed down to him. It is no legend. Now go, Palla. Tell the first half of the Agatii to gather here.\"\n\nPalla jerked a swift bow and dashed down the steps. Jan turned to the Eighth. \"A vessel will be placed at your disposal.\"\n\nLo bowed and backed away down the stairs. Watching him go, Beru spoke, wonder in his voice. \"And what can this lowly Thirtieth do to help?\"\n\n\"I would have you remain among the ranks, Beru. Listen to the talk in the dormitories. A difficult time maybe coming. We will all be tested. Let us hope we are not judged... unworthy.\"\n\n\"I understand, Second.\" Jan did not answer, and, sensing that his friend wished to be alone now, Beru bowed and departed.\n\nJan stood for sometime in the chill air of the evening. He looked out across the paved white stone Plaza of Gathering to the houses and the mountains of this, their adopted homeland. That adoption was itself no secret. They knew they'd come from elsewhere; all their old stories told of a great march, an exile, although none named their mythical place of origin. That was another truth the First had confirmed: their homeland was to the north. And he had named it.\n\nPrecious little more guidance had the ancient yielded, though. When pressed for more the old man had simply peered up at him from where he lay and shaken his head. \"It is best you do not know these things,\" he had said. \"It is best for all.\"\n\nIgnorance? How could ignorance be best? Jan's instincts railed against such a claim. Yet he was raised and trained to obey, and so he had submitted. He was Second. It was his duty. Perhaps it was the old man's tone that had convinced him. Those words had carried in them a crushing grief, a terrible weight of truth that Jan feared he might not be able to endure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You smell that?\" Picker asked. She looked up from where she sat with her feet on a table in the nearly empty common room of K'rul's bar, chair pushed back, cleaning her nails with a dagger.\n\nBlend, chin in hand at the bar counter, cocked a brow to Duiker in his customary seat. \"That a comment?\"\n\nPicker wrinkled her nose. \"No– not you. Somethin\" even worse... Somethin'I ain't smelt since... \"The chair banged down and she cursed.\"That hair-shirted puke is back in town! '\n\nBlend straightened, peered around. \"No...\" She lunged for the door. \"Get the back!\"\n\nThe door opened before Blend reached it. She tried to push it shut on a man with a shock of unkempt salt-and-pepper hair and a weather-darkened grizzled face, wearing along ragged hair shirt. He managed to squeeze in as she slammed it shut. \"Good to see you too, Blend,\" he commented, scowling.\n\nBlend flinched away, covering her nose and mouth. \"Spindle. What in Hood's dead arse are you doing here? '\n\nPicker ran in from the rear: \"Back's locked. There's noway he can-Oh. Damn.\"\n\nA toothy smile from the man. \"Just like old times.\" He ambled over to sit at Duiker's table, nodded to the grey-bearded man.\"Historian. Been awhile. '\n\nThe old man's mouth crooked up just a touch.\"Nothing seems to keep you Bridgeburners down. '\n\n\"Shit floats,\" Picker muttered from the baron the far side of the room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So how'bout a drink then? \"Spindle called loudly.\"\"Less you're just too damned busy with all your customers an'all.\"\n\n\"We're out, \"Blend said.\"Have to try somewhere else. Don't let us stop you.\"\n\nSpindle turned in his chair. \"Out? What kind of bar has no alcohol?\"\n\n\"A very grim one,\" Duiker offered so low no one seemed to hear.\n\n\"Hunh.\" The man pulled on his ragged shirt at its neck as if it were uncomfortable, or too tight. \"Well, I think maybe I can help you outwith that.\"\n\nPicker and Blend exchanged sceptical glances and said in unison, \"Oh?\"\n\n\"Sure. Got some work kicked my way. You know, paid work for coin. For drink and food. And to pay the rent.\" Spindle studied Blend more closely. \"Who do you pay rent to here anyway?\"\n\nThe women shifted their stances, squinting at the walls. \"Why us?\" Blend asked suddenly and Picker nodded.\n\n\"They just want people they can count onto keep their damned mouths shut.\"\n\n\"People have given upon the assassins\" guild, have they? ' Picker commented.\n\n\"If there's any of them left... ' Blend added, aside.\n\nSpindle rolled his eyes to the ceiling. \"Not that kinda work!\"\n\n\"What in Fener's prang is it then? ' Blend demanded.\n\nSitting back, booted feet straight out before him, the veteran clasped his hands over his belt. He smiled lopsidedly in what Picker imagined to bean effort at ingratiation, but which looked more like the leer of a dirty old man. \"Right up your alley, Blend. Plain ol\" low-profile reconnaissance. Observe and report. Nothin'more.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How much?\" Picker asked.\n\n\"A gold council per day.\"\n\nBlend whistled. \"Who's worth that much? Not you, that's for damned sure.\"\n\nSpindle lost his smile. \"They're payin'a lotto make sure the job gets done.\"\n\n\"Who's paying? \"Duiker suddenly asked in a low hoarse voice.\"Who's the principal?\"\n\nAll three regarded the old historian, amazed.\n\n\"Damned straight!\" Blend said.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Picker said. \"Could be a trap. Fake contract to draw us out.\"\n\nSpindle dismissed that with a wave. \"Ach! You're soundin'too much like Antsy.\" He peered around. \"Where is that lunatic anyway?\"\n\nBlend leaned back to set her elbows on the bar. \"Went south. Said he was... ah, antsy.\" She scowled. \"Stop changing the subject! Who's payin\"?\"\n\nSpindle just waved again. \"Never you mind. I know. And I know we can trust'em. '\n\n\"Them?\" Picker said, arching a brow. \"Who're them? '\n\nSpindle threw his hands up. \"All right, all right! Trusting as Jags, you lot are. Okay!\" He leaned forward and tapped the side of his gashed and battered nose. \"You could say it's our old employers. '\n\nIf Picker had had something in her hands she would've thrown it at the man.\"You great idjit! We're deserters!\"\n\nHe produced that knowing smirk once more. \"Exactly. That makes us free agents, right?\"\n\n\"It makes political sense,\" Duiker said, and he brushed a hand across the tabletop. \"Aragan can't have the Council accuse him of meddling, or spying. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Spindle's brows rose.\"Aragan? That old dog's here?\"\n\nBlend and Picker both swore aloud. \"Spindle!\" Blend managed, swallowing more curses. \"You brick-headed ox! He's the Oponn-cursed ambassador! You said you knew who you were working for! '\n\nSpindle's face reddened and he stood, heaving back his chair.\"Well he hardly stopped me on the damned street, did he! '\n\nThe old historian eyed the three veterans glaring each other down across the room. He raised a hand. \"I'll mind the shop. '\n\nAll three blinked and eased out tensed breaths. Picker gave a curt nod. \"Okay then.\"\n\n\"Where?\" Blend asked.\n\nSpindle was frowning down at the historian. \"South of the city. The burial fields. People want to know what's goin'on there.\"\n\n\"Everyone says that's all tapped out, ' Picker said.\n\n\"The past never goes away– we carry it with us,\" Duiker murmured, as if quoting.\n\nBrows crimped, Spindle scratched a scab on his nose. \"Yeah. Like the man says.\"\n\nBlend was behind the bar. She pulled out a set of scabbarded long-knives wrapped in a belt. \"We should head out tonight. Before the Ridge Town gate closes.\"\n\nA wide sideways grin climbed up Spindle's mouth.\"Spot their campfires, hey? '\n\n\"Just like old times.\"\n\nThey walked the desolate shore of black sands, over coarse volcanic headlands, and along the restless glowing waves of the Sea of Vitr. Beach after beach stretched out in arcs of pulverized glass-like sands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As they walked one such beach Leoman cleared his throat and motioned to their rear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you think he really is what he claims?\"\n\nKiska shrugged her impatience. \"I don't even know what it is it claims to be. '\n\nLeoman nodded to that. \"True enough. Not for the likes of us, perhaps.\" He stretched, easing the muscles of his shoulders and back.\n\nHow like a cat, Kiska thought again. With his damned moustache– like whiskers!\n\n\"I had a friend once,\" he said, after a time of walking in silence, \"who was good at ignoring or putting such questions out of his mind. He simply refused to dwell upon what was out of his control. I always admired that quality in him.\"\n\n\"And what came of this admirably reasonable fellow?\" she asked, squinting aside.\n\nThe man smiled, brushing his moustache with a finger and thumb. \"He went off to slay a god.\"\n\nKiska looked to the sky. Oh, Burn deliver me! \"Are your companions always so extravagant?\"\n\nHe eyed her sidelong. The edge of his mouth crooked up. \"Strangely enough, yes.\"\n\nKiska had stridden on ahead to where an eroded cliff blocked the way. They would have to climb.\n\nAt the top Kiska could see far out over the empty sea of shimmering, shifting light. Nothing marred it. Behind, the shadowy figure of Maker had re-joined the sky. The entity had returned to what Kiska mused must bean infinite labour. Was it some kind of curse? Ora thankless calling nobly pursued?\n\nShe turned her attention to the next curve of beach and her breath caught.\n\nLeoman found her like that, sitting on her haunches, staring, and drew breath to ask what was the matter, but she raised her chin to the beach ahead. He looked, and grunted a curse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "An immense skeletal corpse lay sprawled across the beach." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Half its length narrowed down to the glimmering surf, where it disappeared, eaten away by the Vitr.\n\nThe corpse of a dragon.\n\nThey approached side by side. Leoman clutched his morningstars and Kiska her stave– though she knew neither would help them should the beast prove some sort of undead creature. But no sentience animated the dark sockets of its eyes. The flesh of its great snout, itself of greater length than she or Leoman, was desiccated, curled back from the dark openings of its nostrils. Yellowed curved teeth, an alchemist's hoard, grinned back at them.\n\nWho had this Eleint been in life? Had it been known to humans? Or was this the extent of its life... this one brief titanic struggle to escape the Vitr? The idea made her very sad.\n\nLeoman cleared his throat but said nothing. She nodded, swallowing. As they walked away his hand found hers but she pulled it free. She covered her reaction by walking impatiently ahead to where the beach ended at a tumble of the loose porous volcanic rocks.\n\nAfter a time, Leoman called after her: \"There's no hurry, lass. '\n\nShe hung her head, pausing on the uneven rocks jutting out into the glowing waves of the Vitr. She glanced back to the man; he was coming along slowly, taking great care with his footing.\n\n\"We don't know for certain-'\n\n\"Yes, yes! I know. Now hurry up.\"\n\nHe came up beside her and offered a wink. \"Wouldn't do to get yourself killed this close, would it? '\n\n\"This close to what?\"\n\nHe brushed his moustache. \"Well, to an answer. One way or t'other. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Leoman,\" she began, slowly, as she hopped from rock to rock, \"promise me one thing, won't you? Should I fall into the Vitr and get myself burned to ashes. '\n\n\"And what is that, lass?\"\n\n\"That you'll shave off that idiotic moustache. \"She jumped down onto the black sands of the next long stretch of beach.\"And stop calling me'lass\". '\n\nHe thumped down next to her, ran a finger along the moustache, grinning. \"I'll have you know the ladies always love it when I-'\n\n\"I don't want to know! \"she cut in.\"Thank you. '\n\n\"So you keep sayin\". But I promise you you'll-\"\n\nKiska had snapped up a hand. She knelt and he joined her.\n\nTracks in the sands. Unlike any spoor she'd ever seen, but tracks all the same. When they'd yet to see any at all. Some kind of shuffling awkward walk. She pointed to cliffs inland that the beach climbed towards. Leoman nodded. He freed his morningstars to hold them in his hands, the chains gripped to the hafts. Kiska levelled her stave.\n\nThey kept to the edge of the rocky headland, slipping inland, keeping an eye on where the beach ended at the cliffs. She saw the dark mouths of a number of caves. She looked at Leoman, pointed. He nodded. Reaching the cliff, she dodged ahead from cover to cover. Behind, a strangled snarl sounded Leoman's objection. The first opening was narrow and she slipped within, stave held for thrusting. The cramped space was empty. But packed sand floored it, and depressions showed where people, or things, might have sat or lain. A population? Here? Of what nature? A sound raised the hairs on the back of her neck. A high-pitched keening. Leoman's morningstars, which he could raise to a blurred speed greater than any she had ever seen or heard tell of." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She leapt out of the cave to seethe man facing off a crowd of malformed creatures. Daemons, summoned monstrosities, all somehow warped or wounded. They grasped with mangled clawed hands. The faces of some were no more than drooling smears. Most raised limbs far too crippled to be any danger. Leoman held them off, his back to the cave mouth.\n\n\"What do you want?\" she yelled. \"Speak! Can you understand me?\"\n\nThen the ground shook. Kiska tottered, righted herself and peered up. A gigantic creature had joined the crowd. It appeared to have jumped down from the cliff. It straightened to a height greater than that of a Thelomen. Great splayed clawed feet, like those of a bird of prey, dug into the sands. Its broad torso was armoured like that of a river lizard. It brushed aside its smaller kin with wide, blackened, taloned hands. A huge shaggy mane of coarse hair surrounded red blazing eyes and a mouth of misaligned dagger-like teeth.\n\nShe sent one quick glance to Leoman, who nodded, and they both leapt backwards into the cave. In the narrow chute of the entrance she took the forefront; there was no room for morningstars.\n\nA shadow occluded the opening. A deep voice of stones grinding rumbled, \"Who are you, and what do you wish here?\"\n\n\"Who are you to attack us!\"\n\n\"We did not attack you– you trespass! This is our home.\"\n\n\"We didn't know you lived here... '\n\n\"So. Even when you knew you were the strangers here, you assume we are the interlopers. How very typically human of you.\"\n\nKiska looked at Leoman, who rolled his eyes. A lecture on manners was the last thing she expected. \"So... this is a misunderstanding? We can come out?\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "In your capacity as the author's assistant, extend the narrative.\nTags: epic fantasy, ancient city, magic, power dynamics, hidden secrets\nAuthor: Ian Cameron Esslemont\nTitle: Orb Sceptre Throne\nChapter: 7" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The guard fell to his knees, pulling frantically at the mask, but he was unable to move it. Transfixed, Ebbin watched as the cloaked figure disappeared in a great swirling cloud of dust and the dark cloak fell empty to the floor.\n\nThe captain and remaining guard now beat at some sort of invisible barrier beneath the intersecting arches. They screamed unheard commands at Ebbin, who could only shake his head in mute appalled terror while behind the two men the corpse of their fellow climbed to his feet. The gold mask shimmered brightly in the lantern light, its mysterious graven smile now horrifying in its promise. Ebbin pointed, his other hand covering his mouth.\n\nThe two men turned. It seemed to Ebbin they both leapt in shock, dismay and terror as they realized what awaited each in turn. The captain swung a huge two-handed blow at his ex-guard's neck but the corpse took it on an arm. Though the strike slashed along the bone, flensing that arm, no blood flowed, and the revenant was not slowed.\n\nThe captain danced away out of reach. The remaining guard punched at whatever barrier it was that held him captive. Falling to his knees he held out his arms to Ebbin, pleading, begging, as if this were somehow all the scholar's doing. From behind, his dead companion wrapped an arm round his neck, and tearing the mask from his head– in the process pulling away the flesh, which brought up Ebbin's gorge in a gasping heave of vomit– clamped the mask over the other's face.\n\nWhen Ebbin looked up, wiping his mouth, coughing, only two figures remained within the arches. The captain and his last guard. Drin was retreating round and round the onyx plinth, always giving ground before the slow relentless advance of the masked fiend." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ebbin could only sit and watch, fascinated, helpless. As time passed he decided that there must have been good reasons why this man Drin was a captain. How long had he held out? How many hours caught therein the confines of his inescapable prison, avoiding his unkillable foe? He himself would not have lasted more than the first minute. Yet for what seemed half a day this man had ducked and flinched aside, postponing his end. Occasionally he would dash into aim a blow at his enemy's neck, perhaps in the hope that decapitation would end the curse. But Drin faced something extraordinary– blades damaged it, but it seemed that none could bring it down. No blow could dismember it, or slow it.\n\nFinally, after hours of that macabre dance around the raised plinth, Captain Drin turned his strained, sweat-sheathed face to Ebbin. He mouthed something, perhaps \"Remember me\". Ebbin wasn't sure. And though no soldier, he roused himself to salute the man.\n\nThe captain nodded in bleak acknowledgement and then, throwing aside his sword, launched himself upon the creature. Legs clamped around the revenant's waist, he clasped both hands on the mask and worked to yank it free. Ebbin's heart leapt in admiration: Yes! If he can dislodge the mask before it is set upon his face! Perhaps then this curse will somehow be broken...\n\nThough a bear of a man, Drin was no match for the fiend. One by one, his fingers were prised from their grip on the gold, and the fiend took hold of the mask himself.\n\nEbbin looked away. Gods! Was there no escape for anyone? Was this to be his end as well?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After waiting a time, his limbs twitching in dread, he could not help but glance up.\n\nAll was as it had been before under the arches. A figure lay upon the black stone plinth, dark cloak wrapped tight, gold mask covering its face. But Ebbin knew that Captain Drin, or at least his body, now bore that mask. As for the others, all the countless others who preceded him, well, there was plenty of dust on the floor of the chamber.\n\nThe scholar staggered to his feet, gathered up his shoulder bag. There was nothing here. This whole tomb was just one gruesome trap. A trap for those foolish enough to come digging up the past. Everything he had ever hoped for was now shattered. He stumbled for the exit. On the way he froze and his gorge rose again in a wrenching dry heave.\n\nSet in the stone floor of the chamber lay three fresh skulls. The bare bone of two still gleamed wet with gore.\n\n\n\nAfter the guards descended, Scorch and Leff peered down into the darkness of the well fora time before wandering over to the shade of a lean-to to return to teaching the two Gadrobi youths how to play troughs. The boys didn't seem able to grasp the basic arithmetic; or perhaps the problem was their own disagreements over the rules. Humble's two guards sat down to lean against the stone lip of the well.\n\nLeff tucked an arm under his head, sighed, \"If only we were still with Her Ladyship, hey? Too bad...\"\n\nScorch threw the carved knuckle dice so hard they bounced from the board to disappear into the dirt. The two youths hunted for them. \"What was that?\" he answered, his voice low.\n\n\"What was what?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Was that an impercation?\"Cause it sounded like maybe you was makin'an impercation!\"\n\nLeff pushed himself upon his elbows, rolled his eyes. \"Gettin\" all huffy won't change the facts, Scorch.\"\n\n\"Facts? And just what facts might those be?\"\n\n\"That it was you that lost us the job with Lady Varada.\"\n\n\"I did not-\" Scorch threw up his arms. \"Tor explained it. The lady didn't want so many guards no more. So who gets the axe? Why, us outside guards, right? Plain and simple. That hierarchy thing, right? '\n\nLeff waved that aside. \"Didn't you see through all that bullcrap? I did. Tor was just coverin'up the truth. Sparin\" our feelings. '\n\nHis shoulders falling, Scorch frowned, uncertain. \"Really? Then... what was he really sayin\"? '\n\n\"That it was you lost us the job.\"\n\nScorch threw himself aside to sit facing the opposite direction.\n\nTowards noon the old hag came limping up to the lean-to. She shooed the youths away, gabbling in Gadrobi, then turned on Scorch and Leff. \"You two, get out!\" she spat. \"You go! Bad things come. I see in the sands. In smoke!\"\n\nScorch and Leff shared a knowing look. \"Better stay off that fermented goat's milk, \"Leff said.\"That kefir can sneak upon ya. '\n\nThe old woman waved an angry dismissal. \"Die then... Daru dogs!\" And she scuttled off.\n\nLeff stretched out, yawning. \"Keep a watch, Scorch,\" he said, and closed his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Around mid-afternoon Leff awoke to the screeching of the winch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The guards were raising it. He and Scorch wandered over. It was the scholar, Ebbin. Scorch leaned over to help him out, then lurched as the man seemed to fall into his arms. Leff helped to yank him over the lip of the well and set him down in the dirt where he lay panting, his face gleaming pale as milk.\n\n\"Where's the captain? ' one of the guards asked.\n\n\"Water,\" Ebbin gasped, and Leff helped him to sit up while Scorch went to fetch a skin. The scholar took along drink, then splashed his face and pulled out a cloth to wipe it dry. \"Down below,\" he breathed, hoarse. \"A trap. They were taken.\"\n\n\"Taken?\" the guard echoed.\n\nEbbin nodded. He appeared on the verge of tears.\n\n\"Show us,\" the guard said.\n\nEbbin gaped up at him. \"What?\"\n\nThe guard stepped back and drew his longsword. Scorch and Leff eyed one another, set their hands on the grips of their shortswords. Ebbin struggled to his feet. \"Show you?\" He laughed. Rather unnervingly, Leff thought. \"You have no idea-\"\n\nThe second guard raised a cocked crossbow. \"You show us, old man. Or die now.\"\n\nEbbin looked from one to the other, pressed his hands to his face and moaned from behind his fingers: \"Gods forgive me...\" Then he brushed Scorch's hand from his weapon.\"You wish to see? \"he asked the guard.\"Truly see? '\n\nThe man gestured to the well with his longsword. \"You first.\"\n\n\"If you must.\" Ebbin looked at Scorch and Leff. \"You two. Lower us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Leff scratched his cheek, bemused. \"Well– if you say so, scholar.\"\n\n\"Those are my orders.\" He swung his feet up over the stone lip of the well, began readying the sling seat.\n\n\"We comeback up first,\" the guard warned.\n\nEbbin gave along slow nod. \"Yes. You first.\"\n\nIt seemed to Leff that no sooner had the second guard descended than the rope shook with a signal to be raised. He and Scorch rewound the barrel winch to bring it backup and were surprised to see that the occupant of the sling seat was Ebbin. Scorch helped him out.\n\n\"And the guards, sir?\" Leff asked. \"They saw?\"\n\nThe scholar was sickly pale and panting once again. He drew a cloth and wiped at his sweaty face. He nodded. \"Oh yes. They found out what happened to their captain.\"\n\n\"So...\" Scorch began, \"we wait for'em? '\n\n\"No. They won't becoming backup. ' Ebbin held his brow, looking faint.\n\n\"You all right, sir?\" Leff asked.\n\n\"No. I... I don't feel well. I need to get back to Darujhistan. \"He nodded with sudden vigour.\"Yes. That's right. I must go to Darujhistan.\"\n\n\"We'll pack up the camp then, ' Leff said.\n\n\"No! You two wait here. Guard the camp. Wait for me. Yes?\"\n\nLeff frowned, doubtful. \"Well... if you say so.\"\n\nEbbin took his forearm. \"Excellent. Thank you.\" He paused, blinking, then glanced about as if confused. \"Now, you'll closeup here, yes? You won't go down?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Scorch and Leff eyed one another: the man's mad!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No, sir. You don't have to worry about that. We ain't goin'down there.\"\n\n\"Good! Good. I knew I could trust you. Now, I must go.\"\n\n\"Go? Now?\" Leff raised a brow. \"Night's comin\", sir. We really shouldn't let you go all alone. Can't you wait till tomorrow?\"\n\nEbbin jerked as if stung. \"No! I must go! It is important... I feel it.\"\n\nScorch and Leff exchanged looks. Scorch inclined his head, indicating that Leff should accompany the scholar. Leff flinched, offended, and pointed back. Scorch gestured angrily that Leff should go. Leff's hand went to his sword grip and he glared his defiance.\n\n\"Uncle!\" a voice called from the gathering dusk and both guards spun, hands at weapons.\n\nA slim girl was suddenly quite close. She wore loose white robes that rippled in the weak evening wind. Her feet were bare. Rings glinted gold on her toes.\n\nEbbin stared at the girl in utter incomprehension. \"Uncle?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered, smiling. She took the man's arm, leaning against him.\"May I call you that? I feel there is some sort of connection between us, yes? You feel it too? '\n\nScorch cleared his throat. \"Ah, miss? You lost?\"\n\nShe ignored him so completely it was as if he hadn't spoken. She whispered something into Ebbin's ear and the scholar's brows rose.\"Really? From him? '\n\nShe nodded eagerly. \"Oh yes! And he is ever so keen to hear what you have found.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ebbin passed a handover his eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Gods! What I have found! Yes. Of course.\" He turned to Scorch and Leff and rubbed his eyes, squinting, as if trying to focus on them. \"Ah, you two. I will go with this girl here. You two stay.\"\n\nThe guards shared another look. \"I think,\" Scorch began respectfully, \"you should both comeback to camp with-\" He stopped because the girl had flicked out an arm and a knife blade appeared in her hand. Its razor tip hovered a finger's width from his throat.\n\n\"You have seen and heard enough,\" she said.\n\n\"No!\" Ebbin shouted, rousing himself. \"Ignore them. They have no idea...\"\n\nThe girl's kohl-ringed eyes, now touched by a deep smouldering crimson, slid to the scholar. The arm flexed and the blade disappeared. She bowed her head.\"As you command, Uncle. '\n\nBut Ebbin had staggered off. \"Darujhistan,\" he was muttering. \"There's something... '\n\nThe girl remained a moment, eyeing the two men. A smile played about her full lips as she enjoyed their extreme discomfort. Then she winked and blew a kiss at each, and sauntered off after Ebbin.\n\nLeff let go along tensed breath.\n\n\"Gods below,\" Scorch murmured.\n\n\"Reminds me of the Mistress.\"\n\nScorch cocked his head. \"Yeah. Don't she just. Now what? '\n\n\"Now?\" Leff kicked at the lid of the well. \"Now I'd say we're out of work again.\"\n\n\"Shit.\"\n\n\n\nLying flat on the crest of one of the low rises of the Dwelling Plain, Picker watched the white-robed girl escort the old man north. If they kept going in that direction they'd make the trader road to Raven Town, then onto Darujhistan. Along hike, but if they didn't stop at an inn they'd make Darujhistan near dawn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A noise from the dark behind her announced Spindle's presence and she slid backwards down behind the rise.\n\n\"See that?\" Spindle hissed from the dark.\n\n\"Yeah,\" she answered drily. \"I was watchin\". \"Struck by a thought she raised her chin to the north, asking,\"What does your mum say about that girl? '\n\nSpindle reflexively rubbed his shirt. \"My mum tells me to watch out for girls like that.\"\n\nPicker grunted her agreement. \"Well... she was right.\"\n\n\"\"Course she's right! She's a witch! '\n\nPicker paid no attention to the tense in that statement since the man's shirt was woven from his mother's hair, and that shirt was the main reason he was still alive.\n\n\"Now what?\"\n\n\"Now?\" Picker gave a slow shrug in the dark. \"Maybe we should eyeball that well.\"\n\n\"Hunh. Well, I ain't goin'down.\"\n\nShe raised a hand as if to slap him. \"\"Course no one's goin\" down! Six go down. One comes up! They ain't payin\" us enough for that! '\n\n\"Where's Blend anyway? '\n\n\"She's around. C'mon. Let's see if those two guards are gone yet. '\n\n~\n\nBlend joined them at the well. She just appeared out of the dark, as washer way. Picker examined the wooden lid and the lock. \"All back like nothin\" happened. '\n\n\"Mark it,\" Blend said. \"We may have to describe its location.\"\n\nPicker used a rock to scrape the side– a mark that would only mean something to a Malazan marine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Spindle had been standing motionless as if listening, and now he raised a hand for silence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pointed frantically to the well. Picker stilled, listening. A blow from down below. Falling stones, rubble. A muted splash. Another strike, like a punch. Closer. She raised her stunned gaze to Spindle, who was now backing away, a hand pressed to his chest over his shirt. Picker signed a retreat and scrambled for cover.\n\nMoments later some sort of blast sent the wooden lid erupting into the night sky, where it turned over and over, hung fora moment, then fell with a crash.\n\nA figure climbed from the well. He wore along dark cloak and a mask. The mask caught the moonlight and for an instant it glowed like a moon in miniature. Then the man turned away to walk off north, calmly and regally, as if out fora stroll in his own pleasure garden.\n\n\"Did you see that?\" Picker breathed. She eyed Spindle behind their pile of stones. \"What does your mum say about him?\"\n\n\"I think she would've shat herself. '\n\n\"Well, I nearly did.\"\n\nSpindle drew his crossbow from beneath his cloak. \"I say we give him lots of room.\"\n\nPicker nodded. \"Oh yeah. Plenty.\"\n\n\n\nIt was all very confusing for Ebbin. He knew that he had to get back to Darujhistan– though why, he didn't really know. It was some sort of instinct, or overwhelming certainty. Then a girl appeared in the middle of the plain and claimed to have been sent by Aman. Even more strangely, somehow he recognized her, though he was sure he'd never seen her before in his life.\n\nThen they set out on a damnably trying walk. His legs ached beyond anything he'd ever experienced. The soles of his feet felt as if they'd been hammered allover by truncheons. And he was having hallucinations. Sometimes it seemed as if the entire Dwelling Plain was one huge urban conglomeration of square flat-roofed mud buildings all jammed together. Smoke from countless hearth fires rose into the night sky while he and Taya walked the giant city's narrow crooked ways." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of course, Ebbin realized... the Dwelling Plain!\n\nFar ahead, glimpsed through the narrow gaps in the tall mud walls, there sometimes reared some sort of domed edifice like a monument, or immense temple. Its pallid stone glowed with a pale blue luminescence that seemed somehow familiar. At other times the great urban sprawl lay smashed inflaming ruins all around, the victim of some sort of titanic upheaval.\n\nWhen they entered Raven Town he was desperate fora rest, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to demand that they stop. And the girl, Taya, was pushing him along like some sort of draught animal and constantly shooting quick looks behind. It seemed as if she was actually frightened of something.\n\nCould it be... him? No, that would be too terrible to imagine. Too awful.\n\nAnd there, on the main street through town, within sight of the closed city gate, who should stand waiting wrapped in a shabby cloak but Aman himself? Ebbin stared– he'd never seen the man stick his head outside his shop, let alone leave it.\n\nAman waved Taya onward then wrapped one crooked arm round Ebbin as if supporting him. Ebbin tried to tell him what he'd seen, all the horrors, but somehow he couldn't force the words past his throat. Aman started force-marching him along in his own slow crablike limp. Ebbin glared ferociously at him as if he could somehow send his thoughts to him but the man just patted his arm. \"There, there, good friend. It'll all be over soon enough. '\n\nWhat would be over? This nightmare of a night? Or far more than that? Ebbin dreaded the answer. As they closed on the gates the great iron-bound leaves improbably swung open to greet them, and there was Taya. She waved them in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Aman frog-marched him onward. Like Taya, he too was glancing behind, squinting with one eye, then the other. What was back there? Ebbin tried to look but the shopkeeper forced him on. They passed through mostly empty streets. In one of the market squares the early-morning vendors were busy setting up their stalls and arranging their goods. Ebbin and Aman marched through with no one paying them any particular attention. Taya was still with them. Sometimes she shadowed them closely and Ebbin caught sight of her glowing white robes. At other times she was nowhere to be seen.\n\nThey reached the main east– west thoroughfare that ran alongside the Second Tier Wall. Aman hugged Ebbin closely, as if afraid he would runoff, but the scholar was too confused to muster any sort of resolution. At times he didn't recognize any of the streets they walked. Tall white-stone buildings faced the roads, great estates, their façades richly decorated with scrollwork. Fanciful miniature creatures, some winged, peeped out amid the scrolls and stone forests.\n\nAnd Ebbin recognized the style. It was the fabled Darujhistani Imperial baroque.\n\nBut perhaps this was all nothing more than his own deluded wish fulfilment. He wondered, terrified, whether the horrific events in the mausoleum had finally driven him over the edge. Perhaps he was mad. His peers, the scholars and researchers of the Philosophical Society, had already dismissed him as such.\n\nHe remembered a chilling definition of insanity he'd read in some wry old commentator's compendium: when you think everyone around you is mad, that's when you should start to suspect it's actually you.\n\nThey reached the ruined old gates to the estate district and here another figure awaited them. This one appeared to be no more than a dark shadow, a tall man in tattered clothes, a ghost. Ebbin flinched away but Aman marched him right up to the wavering, translucent shade." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Taya, now with them, curtsied to the ghost." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Uncle,\" she murmured.\n\nAman bowed mockingly. \"Well met, Hinter.\"\n\nThe shade arched a brow in lofty disparagement. \"Aman. We'd thought you dead. '\n\nThe hunched shopkeeper waved to indicate his bent body. \"Who could have survived, yes?\"\n\n\"Indeed.\"\n\n\"All is in readiness?\" Aman enquired.\n\n\"All is ready,\" the shade responded tartly, \"since I am left with no alternative. He comes?\"\n\nAman shook Ebbin by his shoulders. \"Oh yes. He comes. Always away, scholar. There is always away. If it is nearly impossible to break in– then perhaps one must reverse one's thinking, yes? I am sorry, scholar. But no one has ever escaped him. '\n\nThe shade turned away. \"Not true,\" it murmured. \"One did.\"\n\nAman sniffed and rubbed his lopsided face. \"Him. I never did believe that.\"\n\n\n\nSpindle and Picker followed the masked man up the Raven Town trader road, all the way into town. It was eerie the way no one was about. Dogs ran before it. Early-morning merchants and farmers turned sharply to take side streets, or quickly entered shops and buildings lining the way. The man had the entire road to himself. Picker passed men and women crouched in the dirt beside it, hands covering their faces, shuddering. Picker yanked a hand away from the face of one old farmer only to provoke gabbled terror and tears.\n\nThe fellow strode majestically along right up to and through the open Raven Town gate. A city gate that should not be open. Picker signed to Spindle to checkout the west gatehouse, then slipped into the east. Blend, she knew, would keep tabs on their friend. Inside she found the guards dead, thrust through with swift professional cuts. Their young little sprite? Or another? An organization? Their guild friends?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She exited to see Spindle, who signed that on his side all were dead. She answered in kind. Together they trotted on after Blend. They found early risers in the streets but all were silent, all turned to face the walls. Picker pulled one burly labourer round only to find him weeping, his eyes screwed shut.\n\nAt the spice-sellers' square they found the morning market already setup in amaze of carts, mats laid out and stalls unfolded, but utterly silent and still. People crouched, hiding their faces, or lay on their sides as if asleep. Picker swallowed to wet her throat, tightened her sweaty grip on her long-knife. Then Spindle touched her shoulder and pointed up to the paling clear night sky.\n\n\"Would ya look at that.\"\n\n\n\nAmbassador Aragan awoke with a start and a curse. He flailed about, searching fora weapon.\n\n\"It's all right, sir! \"a familiar voice yelped, alarmed.\"It's me sir!\"\n\nAragan sat up, blinking in the dark. \"Burn's teats, man! What houris it? '\n\n\"Just dawn, sir.\"\n\n\"This better be good, Captain.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. It's the Moranth mission, sir. They're fleeing the city.\"\n\nAragan gaped at the captain, then shut his mouth. \"What?\" He threw himself from his bed, searched the floor. Captain Dreshen held out his dressing gown.\n\n\"This way, sir.\"\n\nDreshen led him to what had originally been a front guest bedroom but was now an office of trade relations. Here night staff crowded the windows looking over the city. Aragan pushed his way through to the front. The pre-dawn was a paling violet in the east, the brightest stars still blazing above. His heart sinking, Aragan saw the obscene green streak over the setting, mottled moon. He made a sign against evil, though he knew the gesture was meaningless. After all, every escaped cow and dead chicken was blamed on the damned thing, so there was noway of knowing what influence, if any, it might be exerting on anyone's life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Movement caught his eye. Winking, glimmering, flashing high over the city. Quorl wings– a flight of the giant dragonfly-like creatures taking their Moranth masters west, to the Mountains of Mist, which some called Cloud Forest. Aragan was reminded of the Free Cities campaign to the north and similar night flights and drops over Pale and Cat.\n\nEven as he watched, another wing took flight, heaving up from rooftops around the quarters of the Moranth embassy. The quorls turned through the air, wings scintillating like jewels in the pre-dawn light, and arced to the west. Aragan watched them go, feeling both terrified and exhilarated. He pushed away from the window, faced his aide. \"Rouse the garrison, Captain. Order full alert.\"\n\nThe aide saluted. \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"And fetch my armour.\"\n\n\n\nPicker ducked reflexively as quorls swooped overhead, sending stalls toppling and garments and powdered spice flying.\n\n\"Dammit to dead Hood!\" Spindle swore. \"Is it a drop?\"\n\nPicker covered her eyes from the stinging spice. \"No. A pick-up. They're runnin\".\"\n\n\"Fanderay... maybe we should too.\"\n\n\"Not yet. We've been hired to recon. So-\"She broke off as a whistle sounded.\"That's Blend. This way, c'mon. '\n\nThey halted at the corner of a wide boulevard. Blend stepped out of shadows to meet them. \"You lose him?\" Picker asked.\n\n\"Hood, no. Walkin\" right up aside the Second Tier Wall, plain as day. Headed for the estate district. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You see them quorls?\" Spindle asked.\n\nBlend eyed him as if he were demented. \"You two hang back. I'll tag along. '\n\nPicker nodded. \"Right.\"\n\nSpindle handed over a satchel. \"Take this... insurance.\"\n\nShe held the bag away from herself. \"This what I think it is?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\nShe shot him a dark look. \"Been holding out onus?\"\n\n\"No more than anyone else.\"\n\n\"That's not an answer, ' Blend growled.\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\n\nAn old woman was shouting herself hoarse in the narrow crooked paths through the Maiten shantytown west of Darujhistan: \"Pretty birdies! Pretty birdies! Look all at the pretties!\" In the twilight before dawn the garbage-sorters, beggars and labourers groaned and pressed their thread-thin blankets to their heads.\n\n\"For the love of Burn, shut up!\" one fellow bellowed.\n\nThe women, already up preparing the meals for the day, fanned their cook-fires and watched the old woman pointing to the lightening sky as she staggered up and down the alleys. They looked atone another and shook their heads. There she went again. That crazy old woman– proving all the clichés their men kept mouthing about old women who lived in the most rundown huts at the edges of towns. Someone should let her know what an embarrassment she was.\n\nAnd where did she come by all that smoke, anyway?\n\n\"Almost now! Almost!\" the old woman shouted. Then she fell to her knees in the mud and streams of excrement and loudly retched up the contents of her stomach." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The women pursed their lips." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gods, the menfolk would never let them live this one down! Someone ought to guide her to the lake and set heron along walk up a short pier.\n\nProblem was– the women knew she really was a witch.\n\n\n\nThe fat demon, who was about the size of a medium breed of dog, sat dozing amid the tumbled broken rock of the ancient ruins. Grunting, it coughed, then choked in earnest, flailing. Clawed fingers thrust their way into his mouth, seeking, then withdrew holding along pale fishbone.\n\nThe demon sighed its relief, adjusted its buttocks on the rocks and cast a cursory glance to the stone arch opposite. It froze.\n\nOh no. Nononononono. Not again!\n\nIt launched itself into the air. Its tiny wings struggled to gain purchase, failed. It bounced tumbling downhill, gained momentum, succeeded in lifting its dragging feet from the weeds and took off slowly and heavily across the city like an obscene bumblebee.\n\nOnce more it had that word for its master. That most unwelcome word.\n\n\n\nShe'd been irritable of late. Distracted. Short-tempered. If Rallick were the type of man to be dismissive of women he might've characterized her as catty. Not that he would dare intimate such a thing to Vorcan Radok, once mistress of Darujhistan's assassins. And so it was sometime before he finally worked up the determination to mention the topic of the professional killings in the Gadrobi district. He alluded to it over dinner. Her gaze in response had been withering. She sipped her wine.\n\n\"And you think I'm responsible? Taken work on the side? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know who did it, ' he responded, honestly enough.\n\nBut that had been enough to break the spell between them. She retired alone and he sat up late into the night in turn damning her as an unreasonable prickly woman and damning himself for allowing anything to come between them. When he finally lay down she was asleep– or pretending to be.\n\nShe'd been sleeping poorly lately. Tonight she tossed and turned, even murmured in a language he'd never heard before. So he was not surprised when she rose naked and padded across to the open terrace doors to stare into the blue radiance that glowed over Darujhistan. He came up behind her, set his hands on her shoulders. \"What is it?\"\n\n\"Something...\" she breathed, head cocked as if listening to the night.\n\n\"Should I-\" She lifted a hand for silence. He stilled, trusting her instincts.\n\nThen, astonishingly, the skin beneath his fingers flashed almost unbearably hot. For an instant it was as if he held the spiny, gnarled back of a boar, or a bull bhederin, and Vorcan flinched backwards, brushing him aside like a child. \"No!\" she ground out. \"How could...\"\n\nShe went to the bed, began throwing on clothes.\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\nDressed, she stopped before him. Something new was in her dark eyes. Something that stole his breath, for real fear swam in those deep pools. \"Leave the estate now,\" she told him. \"Do not return. Do not try to contact me. Go.\"\n\n\"Tell me what it is. I'll-'\n\n\"No! You will do nothing.\" She pressed a smooth dry palm to the side of his face. \"Promise me, Rallick. No matter what happens, what comes, you will not act. No contracts, no... attempts.\" She rose on her toes to brush her dry hot lips to his. \"Please,\" she whispered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He nodded, swallowing. \"If you insist.\"\n\nShe backed away from him into the darker gloom of the bed-chamber, those dark eyes holding his. He dressed quietly while listening to the night, trying to hear what she might've heard. But he detected nothing– as far as he could tell it was merely an unusually still and quiet night.\n\nDownstairs, Vorcan's one servant, the butler-cum-castellan Studlock, who never seemed to be off duty, let him out. Rallick listened to the many locks being ratcheted back into place behind him, then set out into the night.\n\n\n\nIn the tallest tower of his grounds, Baruk stood looking out over the estate district of Darujhistan. Fora moment he looked not upon the night-sleeping buildings as they lay now but upon another city, one of a profusion of towers much like his, all aglow with a flickering ghostly blue illumination. And amidst all the towers, rearing far more immense, a great dome encompassing Majesty Hill. Then he passed a shaking hand before his eyes and glanced aside, down to where a shivering, whimpering Chillbais crouched, terrified, but not quite so terrified as to not be chewing on a loaf of old bread.\n\n\"Was he waiting?\" Baruk mused. \"Waiting for Anomander to begone?\" He drew his hand down his chin. \"I wonder.\" He went to the door, turned as a final thought struck him. \"You are free to go, Chillbais. Your service is done.\" He pulled the door shut behind him.\n\nFat loaf of bread jammed in his mouth, the demon peered about the empty room. Free? Free to go where? Free to do what? Oh dear, oh dear. Free perhaps to be enslaved by something far worse? No, no, no. Not I." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chillbais waddled to a clothes chest, struggled up over the side to tumble in, then pulled the top closed.\n\n\n\nAman dragged Ebbin to the ruins atop Despot's Barbican. Here, he turned to face the way they'd come, a fist tight on Ebbin's shirt.\n\n\"Why are you doing this?\" Ebbin asked in a plaintive whisper.\n\nAman slapped him. \"Quiet. Your turn will come.\"\n\n\"He is near,\" the shade of Hinter said.\n\nAman tilted his crooked head in order to look skywards. \"The moon is not right,\" he warned.\n\n\"Soon,\" answered the shade.\n\nTaya ran up. Her gossamer silks blew behind her like white flames. \"He is here.\"\n\nAman pushed Ebbin to his knees, then lowered himself onto one knee. He shook Ebbin, snarling, \"Bow your head, slave.\"\n\nEbbin could not have kept his head erect if he tried; something was hammering him down. Some unbearable pressure like the hand of a giant was squashing him as if he were an insect. A whimper slipped from him as he glimpsed the dirty bottom edge of a dark cloak before him.\n\n\"Father,\" Aman murmured. \"We remain your faithful servants.\"\n\nEbbin whimpered, shaking. This was not for him. Such scenes were not to be witnessed by such as he. The pressure– the iron hand grinding him into the dirt– eased, and he caught his breath.\n\nAman straightened, yanked him up. \"Stand now.\"\n\nHe complied, but would not raise his gaze beyond the mud-spattered edge of the cloak. So, now it was his turn. A hand would clasp his armor shoulder and the mask would be pressed to his face. He would be blind behind it, unable to breathe. He would die choking. And then... and then... what? What was this thing before him? Would he then become... it?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some force compelled Ebbin's gaze upwards." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His eyes climbed to the oval gold mask, now a glowing circle of reflected light. The mysterious mocking smile engraved there was sly now, as if he and it shared some hidden knowledge unguessed at even by those surrounding them.\n\nThe cloaked figure raised a hand, gesturing, and Aman bowed again. \"Yes. Spread out. Guard all approaches. Let none interfere.\"\n\nEbbin was left alone with the creature. What had they named it? Father? In truth? Perhaps the title was merely honorific. Now would it do it? Take him? His knees lost their strength and he fell to the ground. Gods! Why this agonizing delay? Won't it just end things?\n\nStanding above him the creature held out its right hand, pointed to Ebbin's. Mystified, Ebbin looked at his own right hand. It was fisted, the knuckles white with pressure. When did... His breath caught. He remembered the tomb. He remembered reaching...\n\nOh no. Please, no...\n\nSomething was in his fist. It was hard and round. Ebbin's heart lurched, skipping and tripping, refusing to beat.\n\nOh no. Oh no, no. Please no.\n\nHe held out his hand. It was oddly numb, as if it were someone else's. He unclenched his fingers and thereon his palm rested the gleaming white pearl from the last niche of the sepulchre. Moonlight shone from it like molten silver.\n\nPlease! I beg of you... do not make me do what I think you will demand. Please! Spare me!\n\nThe creature raised its head to the night sky, and for an instant Ebbin had the dizzying sense that the moon was no longer in the sky but on the mask before him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A pale circle. A pearl... of course! It was so obvious. He would have to warn everyone! He-\n\nThe creature raised a hand above that smiling uplifted mouth. The fingers were pinched together as if holding some delicacy, a grape or a sweet, then opened there above the mouth. The moon lowered to regard him. Its enigmatic smile was now one of triumph.\n\nOh no.\n\n\n\nAt Lady Varada's estate its two remaining guards, Madrun and Lazan Door, were engaged in their timeless ritual of tossing dice against a wall when one bone die refused to stop spinning. Both watched it, wonder-struck, as it turned and turned before them.\n\nThen screaming erupted from the estate. They ran for the main hall. Here they found the castellan, Studlock, in his layered cloths as if wrapped in rags, blocking the way down to the rooms below. The continuous howling was not just one of fear. It sounded as if a woman was having her hands and feet sawn off.\n\nStudlock raised open hands. \"M'lady gave commands not to be disturbed. '\n\nThe two guards peered in past the castellan. \"Would you listen!\" said Madrun. \"Someone's got her. '\n\n\"Not at all,\" soothed Studlock. \"M'lady is experiencing an illness. Nothing more. You may characterize it as something like withdrawal. I will prepare suitable medicines this moment– if I have your word not to go below! M'lady values her privacy.\"\n\nMadrun and Lazan winced at a particularly terrifying scream. \"But...\"\n\nStudlock shook a crooked finger. \"Your devotion is commendable, I assure you. However, all is in hand. Oil of d'bayang, I believe, is called for. And alcohol. A great deal of alcohol. \"The castellan shuddered within his strips of cloth.\"Though how anyone could consume such poison is beyond me. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lazan stroked his face and jerked as if surprised when his fingers touched his flesh. He tapped his partner on the shoulder and the two reluctantly withdrew.\n\nBehind them the tormented howling continued throughout the night.\n\n\n\nIn the deepest donjon beneath his estate High Alchemist Baruk knelt before a large diagram cut into the stone floor and inscribed in poured bronze, silver andiron. In one hand he held out a smoking taper with which he drew symbols in the air, while with the other he flicked drops of blood from a cut across the meat of his thumb.\n\nIn mid-ceremony the locked, warded and sealed iron-bound door to the chamber crashed open and a gust of wind blew out the taper and brushed aside the intricate forest of symbols lingering in the air.\n\nBaruk's shoulders fell.\" Blast. '\n\nHe lunged for the middle of the concentric rings of wards but something seemed to yank on his feet and he fell short. His arms, which crossed the rings of engraved metal, burst into flames. The robes fell to ash, revealing black armoured limbs twisted in sinew. His hands glowed, smoking, becoming toughened claws. The yanking continued. He scrabbled at the stone floor, gouging the rock and the metal bands.\n\n\"No!\"\n\nHe flew backwards, stopped only by his clawed hands grasping the stone doorjamb. He hung there, snarling, while the stone fractured and ground beneath his amber talons. The stones exploded in an eruption of dust and shards and he was whipped away up the hall to disappear.\n\n\n\nRallick entered the Phoenix Inn to find the common room uncharacteristically subdued. The crowd was quiet, the talk a low murmur, tense and guarded. He nodded to Scurve, the barkeeper, as he crossed to the back. Here Kruppe sat at his usual table. A dusty dark bottle stood before him, unopened. Rallick pulled up a chair and sat, noted the two glasses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are you celebrating?\"\n\nThe fat man roused himself, blinking as if returning from some trance. \"I? Celebrating? Neither. I invite you to join me in giving witness. We shall drink to the inevitable. The unavoidable. The relentless turning of the celestial globes in which all that was before shall be again. As it must.\" He took up the bottle and began picking at its seal.\n\n\"What are you going on about?\"\n\nTongue pressed firmly between his teeth, Kruppe answered, \"Nothing. And everything. Chance versus inevitability. How those two war. Their eternal battle is what we call our lives, my friend! Which shall win? We shall see... as we saw before.\"\n\nFora time Rallick watched his friend wrestling with the bottle, then, sighing his impatience, snatched it from him and began picking with his knife at the tar-like substance hardened around the neck. \"What drink is this?\" he asked. \"I've not seen the like. Is it foreign? Malazan? '\n\n\"No. No foreign distillation is that. It is sadly entirely of our own making. And very sour it is too. It was set aside long ago for just this foreseen occasion.\"\n\n\"And the occasion?\" Rallick managed to remove the last of the old wax.\n\nKruppe reached for the bottle but Rallick jammed his blade into the cork and twisted. The fat man winced, yanking back his hand. He studied his fingertips as if burned. \"Nothing important,\" he murmured. \"Everything is connected to everything else. Nothing is of more significance than any other thing.\"\n\nTwisting and twisting, Rallick drew out the cork. He handed back the bottle. Kruppe took it, gingerly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So we're celebrating nothing? ' Rallick said, arching a brow.\n\nKruppe raised the bottle. \"You are most correct. This is nothing to celebrate.\" He tilted the bottle to pour. Nothing appeared. He tilted the bottle even further. Still nothing emerged. He held the bottle upside down over the glass, shook it, and not one drop fell. Rallick took it from him and held it up to one eye. He handed it back.\n\n\"Empty. Empty as death's mercy. What kind of joke is this, Kruppe? '\n\nKruppe frowned at the bottle. \"An entirely surprising one, I assure you, dear friend.\"\n\nRallick raised a hand to Jess. \"If you're too tight-fisted to spring fora bottle you just have to say so, Kruppe. No need for cheap conjuror's tricks.\"\n\nThe squat man suddenly grinned like a cherub, his cheeks bunching. He raised a finger. \"Ahh! Now I have the way of it. The bottle was not empty at all!\"\n\nRallick grimaced his incomprehension. \"What?\"\n\n\"No. Not at all, dear friend. What you must consider, my dear Rallick, was that perhaps it was never full to begin with!\"\n\nRallick just signalled all the more impatiently for Jess.\n\n\n\nIn the slums west of Maiten the old woman sat slouched in the dirt before her shack and inhaled savagely on a clay pipe. The embers blazed, threatening to ignite the tangled nest of hair that hung down over her face. She sucked again, gasping, her face reddening, and held the smoke far down in her lungs, her eyes watering, before releasing the cloud in a fit of coughing. She wiped her wet lips with a dirty sleeve and staggered uncertainly to her feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now is the time,\" she murmured to no one. \"Now it is.\" She reached for the open doorway to her shack, tottering. She managed to hook a hand on either side of the ramshackle wattle-and-daub edge to heave herself inside, then fell, fighting down vomit.\n\nShe felt about in the dirt until one hand found a bag, which she clutched to herself and curled around, sometimes giggling and sometimes weeping. The weeping became a sad song crooned hoarsely in a language none around her understood. She lay cradling the bag for sometime.\n\n\n\nAtop Despot's Barbican, Aman, Taya and the shade of Hinter made their way through the maze of ruined foundations to return to their master's side. Aman fell to his knees in obeisance, saying, \"Yes, Father?\"\n\nHinter bowed, as did Taya. Her eyes shone with wild exhilaration as she peered up at the masked figure. She noted the body of the scholar lying nearby and kicked it. The man grunted, stirring. \"This one lives?\" she asked aloud.\n\nThe masked creature gestured. Aman grunted his understanding. \"He will speak the Father's will. '\n\nThe girl sneered. \"This one? Him? He is nothing.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" Hinter said. \"A slave. He will never be a threat.\"\n\n\"And speaking of slaves!\" Aman suddenly crowed, peering down the hill.\n\nAmong the ruins something was clawing its way to them. Blackened, smoking, it made its agonized crippled slither all the way up to the mud-smeared edge of the masked creature's cloak. There it lay, face pressed to the dirt. Aman cackled his enjoyment of the sight. Hinter merely shook his head. Taya's face lit up with avid glee. She knelt to prod the sizzling body, raw and crimson where cracks revealed deeper flesh. \"Is this... her?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" said Hinter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is Barukanal.\"\n\nThe grin inverted to a pout. She searched the hillside. \"No others?\"\n\n\"They appear to have eluded the Call,\" Hinter mused, thoughtful. \"For the moment.\"\n\nTaya straightened from the smoking body. \"What is to become of him then?\"\n\n\"He is to be punished,\" came anew voice and the three turned to regard Scholar Ebbin, who was now sitting up, a handover his stomach, the other over his mouth, horrified shock on his face.\n\nAfter a moment of silence, the city eerily still beneath them, Taya cleared her throat. \"So,\" she asked Aman, \"is that it? Is it done?\"\n\n\"It has merely begun,\" Hinter said. And he pointed an ethereal arm to the sky.\n\nTaya looked up and her face lit with child-like pleasure. \"Ohhh... Beautiful!\"\n\n*\n\nAt first Jan thought he dreamt. A voice was calling him. Distant at first, it seemed faint, gentle even. He saw his old master, the last First, sitting cross-legged before him. On his face was not the pale oval mask of all other Seguleh, painted or not. Instead he wore coarse wood, unpolished and gouged, worn to remind its bearer of the imperfection and shame of his people.\n\nAs always, the dark sharp eyes behind the mask studied and weighed him. Then, alarmingly, the mask tilted downwards as if in apology. I am so sorry, the wiry old man seemed to say.\n\nThen the image exploded into smoke and afar more distant figure now stood in the darkness, cloaked, tall and commanding. Upon his face was not the child's crude wooden mask, but a beaten golden oval that shone cold and bright, like the moon. And in his dream Jan bowed to the mask." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yet it was not the bended knee and lowered head of devotion freely given to his old master." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In his dream Jan was sickened to find that he had no choice.\n\nHe awoke, his body shivering in a cold sweat. Alight tap at his door sounded again. He reached out and drew on his mask. Rising, he picked up the sword that lay next to his bedding and crossed to the door. A servant was waiting, head lowered.\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"The Third and Fourth await without, sir. And... others.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\nJan slid the door shut and threw on a shirt, trousers and sash. He went to the front. Therein the night, their servants holding torches aloft, waited his fellows of the Ten, the ruling Eldrii. They bowed.\n\n\"You felt it?\" Jan asked.\n\nSix masks inclined their assent.\n\nJan answered their bow. \"We are called, my friends. As was promised us so long ago. Ready the ships.\"\n\nAnd they bowed once more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And he who knew many conflicts\n\nspoke these words:\n\nWhere have the swordsmen gone?\n\nWhere is the gold giver?\n\nWhere are the feasts of the hall?\n\nAlas for the bright dome!\n\nAlas for the fallen splendour!\n\nNow that time has passed away,\n\ndark buried in night,\n\nas if it had never been!\n\nWhere lay the servants,\n\nwound round with wards?\n\nBrought low by warriors\n\nand their cruel spears.\n\nNow storms beat\n\nat rocky cliffs,\n\nthe bones of the earth\n\nharbingers of storm.\n\nAll is strife and trouble\n\nin earthly kingdoms.\n\nHere men are fleeting.\n\nHere honour is fleeting.\n\nAll the foundation of the world\n\nturns to waste!\n\nSong of the Exiles\n\nCant\n\nANTSY SPENT THE night on the common room dirt floor. Malakai paid for that and a room for Orchid. Money, it seemed, wasn't an issue for the man. She woke him up in the morning bleary-eyed and hungover; he'd brooded far too long into the night over far too many earthenware bottles of cheap Confederation beer. That the ale went onto Malakai's bill made the drinking all the easier, and his funk all the greater. His friend Jallin made no reappearance and Antsy decided that maybe he'd seen the last of that skinny thief.\n\nMalakai brought down six fat skins of sweet water, two bulging panniers and a coil of braided jute rope, and piled the lot beside Antsy and Orchid. Antsy took the majority of the waterskins, the rope, and one pannier to balance his own. He wondered resentfully whether the man had taken them on merely to serve as porters. Malakai wore his thick dirty cloak once more, but now, in his black waist sash and on two shoulder baldrics, he carried as many knives as you could collect from shaking down an entire bourse of Darujhistani toughs. Each was shoved into a tight leather sheath so it wouldn't fallout or rattle. The man caught Antsy eyeing the hardware and smiled, waving a leather-gloved hand.\"For show, ' he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Orchid took the second pannier. She too was unable to look away from all the pig-stickers. Malakai led the way, and though Antsy listened he didn't hear the faintest rattle or tap. The man still moved as silently as a shade. Antsy shivered, reminded of certain assassin-types he'd served beside over the years; then he shrugged and thumped along behind: better with him than against him. Leaving the inn he winced as the bright morning glare stabbed his eyes.\n\nThe day's fee-collecting had already begun. They entered the crowd, but unlike yesterday, when Antsy had had to push his way through the press, it parted before them as if everyone sensed that something was up. The faces he passed betrayed hostility, curiosity, resentment, and even smug smiles as if some knew what waited out at the Spawns– and it wasn't pretty.\n\nMalakai handled the transaction. Antsy experienced a moment of light-headed avarice when the man tipped a stream of cut rubies onto the tabletop. Whatever this man was after out at the Spawns, riches could not be it. He probably already possessed enough to purchase a title in Darujhistan. Free Cities Confederation troops escorted them to the launch.\n\n\"So you made it safe and sound, I see,\" a voice greeted Antsy when he jumped up and swung his legs into the tall boat. Malakai, already within, turned to the voice, his eyes narrowing dangerously. There, ensconced at the stern, sat the young Darujhistani nobleman from the Island Inn who'd probably saved Antsy's neck.\n\nAntsy touched Malakai's arm.\"It's okay. I met him here.\" Malakai just turned away to occupy the prow.\n\nAntsy leaned over the side to help Orchid up. She tried to clasp his hand but he avoided that to show her the wrist grip. He hauled but barely raised her; the girl was surprisingly heavy. Must be her damned height." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wait,\" said the young sword who had moved next to him. He jumped over the side and knelt before Orchid. \"You may stand on me, m'lady. '\n\nOrchid stared at his bent back as if it were some sort of cruel trick– that he would tumble her into the surf or move aside at the last instant. \"Go ahead, lass,\" Antsy growled. \"Give the damned fool your boot.\"\n\nShe planted one muddy shoe on his back and, steadied by Antsy, swung the other over the side. Looking rather embarrassed, she sat down among their equipment. Antsy helped the nobleman backup. \"Thanks,\" he told him. \"And thanks again.\"\n\n\"Yes. Thank you,\" Orchid added, her flushed face turned aside.\n\n\"It was nothing,\" and the young man bowed.\n\n\"Anyone else!\" a guard bellowed from the beach. \"Anyone else for today?\"\n\n\"So, what's your name? ' Antsy asked.\n\nThe lad bowed again, brushed back his long brown hair. \"Corien. Corien Lim. Honoured, sir.\"\n\nAntsy cocked a brow. \"Honoured? What in the Abyss for?\" He touched his neck. \"It's me who's grateful.\"\n\nThe lad smiled. \"Honoured to meet a veteran. I am a great admirer of your, ah, military organization.\"\n\nAntsy lost his ease and frowned, glancing about. \"Yeah. Well. Keep that under your damned hat.\"\n\nThe youth laughed. \"It is quite obvious to everyone, sir, I assure you.\"\n\nConfederation guards began pushing the launch out. Antsy steadied himself. \"Sir? I ain't no Hood-damned officer. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your name, then. If you would?\"\n\n\"Red.\"\n\nCorien's gaze rose to his hair.\"Admirable alias. ' Grinning, he bowed to Orchid and returned to the stern.\n\nAntsy sat amid the coiled rope and piled panniers. \"Thanks for all your help,\" he muttered aside to Malakai. But the man continued to ignore everyone, his gaze on the horizon and the black dots of the distant Spawns.\n\nGlancing back, Antsy watched the crowd diminishing on the beach. He caught eyes glaring daggers at him. It was Jallin sending doom and destruction upon his head byway of the evil eye. The youth drew a finger across his neck in a universal gesture. Antsy simply turned aside: he was on his way while the thief was stuck in Hurly. And that, he decided, must lie at the root of the youth's fanatical hatred.\n\nThe crossing took most of the day. First, the twelve guards rowed them out to awaiting double-masted Confederation coaster. Here they were offered smoked meats and kegs of water at outrageous prices. They declined. The sails were raised and they headed south, crossways to the prevailing easterlies.\n\nAntsy watched Corien strike up conversations with the sailors. Easy charm, that one had. Boundless confidence that seemed to flow into anyone he addressed. Had to watch out for that. Confidence got you killed. Better to be careful. Better to be... suspicious.\n\nHe settled into the deepest shade he could find on the coaster's deck. He unwrapped his grinding stone, spat on it, and set to work on the edges of his long-knives. He knew they thought he was crazy, all his buddies in the army. They sure looked at him askance whenever he gave his opinion. But he was also just assure he'd long ago come to the deepest truest secret about how to stay alive... and it was one most people either didn't want to know, or couldn't face up to." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The truth is that the goal of existence is to kill you.\n\nOnce you grasped that essential truth it was pretty much everything you needed to know in a nutshell right there. He'd learned that the hard way, growing up working Walk's fishing fleet and then in the army. Of course, the world always won in the end. The only real question was just how long you could holdout against all the infinite weapons and tools and stratagems at its disposal. The only way he'd succeeded so far was in always expecting the worst.\n\n\"Look at him,\" Orchid snorted from where she leaned against the ship's railing.\"The peacock fool. Can't he see they're just stringing him along– laughing at him? '\n\nAntsy turned an eye on Corien, still joking with the sailors. \"Maybe. Where's our employer? '\n\nShe peered round the deck. \"Don't know. He sort of disappeared the moment we got onboard. '\n\n\"Good.\"\n\nShe pulled her wind-tossed longhair from her face, peered down at him, puzzled. \"Why?\"\n\nHe let out along breath, brushed a thumb across the long-knife's edge. Good enough for hack'n\"slash work.\"\"Cause who's to say these Confederation boys are gonna deliver us to the Spawns? ' Now the girl looked completely thrown. Poor lass... not fit for the world, you are.\n\n\"Whatever do you mean?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"No one's comeback, right? So who's to say they don't just dump us over the side? '\n\n\"But– that would be murder!\"\n\nHe winced. \"Keep your voice down, lass. And yeah– it would. But these boys are pirates and wreckers for generations. Nothing new for them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I don't believe it. '\n\nLike always. Denial of the discomfiting truth. He hugged his pannier to his lap. \"Yeah. Well. Let's just hope so. '\n\nThe Spawns grew to the south. They became a collection of jagged black-rock islands. The only signs of life were wheeling cawing seabirds and faint tendrils of smoke rising here and there amid the peaks. They didn't look all that big, only the main island, which at sea level looked as wide as a mountain. From there it climbed steep and saw-edged into a series of knife-like crags. He wondered why it hadn't sunk lower. Could it have landed on shoals? Surely the Rivan Sea wasn't so shallow this far out. It also struck him that the entire mammoth structure listed to one side. Antsy canted his head as he followed the angle down to where the waves crashed in a distant white surf at the waterline. Burn preserve him! Was it floating?\n\nAt last a reef-like collection of black rocks reared ahead, sharp-edged and spotted with bird-droppings. The sea hissed and the muted roar of surf reached Antsy. At a yell from the mainmast the anchor was dropped. Men ran for the sails, taking them in. Their bare feet thumped over the deck timbers. Some readied the ship's boat, a flat-bottomed punt.\n\nMalakai appeared at Antsy's side.\"We'll disembark now.\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\nThe punt was lowered into the rough waters and four sailors climbed down to handle it. Their equipment was lowered by rope. Antsy climbed down first then called for Orchid. She was lowered in a sling that he helped guide from below. Next came Malakai. Last, Corien swung down on one of the punt's ropes. The sailors pushed off using long polished poles. Everyone crouched as low as possible as the tiny punt yawed alarmingly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Poling from rock to rock the sailors made good time. Soon the ship was lost to sight behind amaze of stone shards that varied from man-height to ship-size. The farther they penetrated into the eerie reef the smoother the water became until it was as if they were crossing a land-locked lagoon.\n\n\"Look there,\" Orchid cried, pointing.\n\nTo one side a pointed stone shard resembling an immense fang reared at an angle from the waters. Its contours troubled Antsy until he recognized its features: a circular staircase cut from the very rock spiralled upwards, ending at empty air. The sight brought home the outrageousness, the impertinence, of their intentions. Orchid sobered, losing her excited grin, and she rubbed her arms as if chilled. Even the sailors grew quiet. They peered everywhere at once and Antsy didn't think it was from the difficulty of the passage. Only Malakai and, surprisingly, Corien appeared unaffected by the atmosphere of alien grandeur.\n\nEvery little sound echoed into distorted noise: the harsh cawing of the seabirds, the crack of the poles against rock, unseen falling stones, and the constant slap of the waves. From beneath the water, Antsy caught the glint of the day's dying light glimmering from sunken metal, possibly even silver or gold. Multicoloured fish darted, nibbling at algae and seaweed.\n\nOrchid began humming a slow dirge-like tune. The humming became words that she whispered to the passing shattered basaltic rock.\n\nMother Dark he forswore,\n\nDeath's own blade he bore.\n\nDragon's blood courses his veins,\n\nImmortal,\n\nHe walks till end of Light:\n\nAnomander," }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Night's own fickle Knight.\n\nEveryone turned to her. Even the sailors stopped poling. Blinking as if returning from along daydream she blushed furiously, her dark features flushing, and she lowered her head. \"From an epic poem composed during the Holy City period of the Seven Cities region,\" she said.\n\nCorien cleared his throat. \"Thank you. Very appropriate.\"\n\nThe sailors eyed one another but none commented. They returned to their poling, following a route known only to them. The main island reared over them now, rising sheer from the surf as a cliff. The sailors started edging the punt round it. Between the shards, off to one side, Antsy spotted an anchored ship rocking in the waves. It was long and low-slung in the water, single-masted. A war galley. Shields hung all along its side just above the oar-ports. In the dying light it was hard to tell, but the shields appeared somehow decorated. Then it was gone in the maze of rocks. Antsy turned away shaking his head; it was almost as if he'd imagined it.\n\nThe punt yawed dangerously now, threatening to capsize. The waves batted it like the toy it was. A number of times it was almost swamped as the surf threatened to suck it against the rocks of the cliff. A darker shadow, the mouth of a cave someway above the waterline, came into view round the curve ahead and as they drew near Antsy spotted a rope ladder hanging from it into the surf. The sailors poled the boat to just beneath. \"Get your gear,\" one yelled over the crash of the waves.\n\n\"Get closer!\" Antsy demanded, but started gathering the equipment. Corien grabbed one set of waterskins and Antsy silently thanked him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now, go!\" a sailor shouted.\n\n\"Wait just a damned minute!\"\n\nWhen the punt dipped in the surf Malakai suddenly leapt to land on a tiny stone ledge. He trailed the rope behind him. Antsy pressed it into Orchid's hands.\"Hold on. '\n\n\"I can't swim! '\n\n\"Then hold on, dammit!\"\n\nThe poles cracked against the rocks as the sailors desperately fended the boat from the cliff. Orchid yelled something lost in the crash of waves and jumped for the end of the rope ladder. The punt nearly tipped over. She disappeared into the foaming blue-black waves. Malakai hauled on the rope. Antsy remembered the girl's amazingly strong grip. She appeared again, thrown up by the surf, driven against the rock wall, to which she clung. Malakai began making his way to her, dragging the rope ladder with him.\n\nCorien took the punt's side next. While the man timed his jump Antsy belted the two panniers he had been carrying to himself.\"How do we get off the damned island? ' he yelled to the nearest sailor.\n\nThe man waved him away. \"Go, damn you!\"\n\nAntsy pointed to the cave. \"Is this where we get off, too?\"\n\nCorien leapt and hit the side, where he hung by both hands. He clambered up the uneven cliff face.\n\n\"Jump or we take you back with us!\" a sailor barked, and swung his pole at Antsy.\n\nAll right– we'll have to do this the hard way then. Antsy drew a dirk and yanked the nearest sailor down into the bottom of the boat. All four screamed insults. The punt bounced like a cork. Antsy shoved two fingers\" length of the dirk blade into the man's side. The sailor jerked, then held himself utterly still. The other three were too busy holding the punt off from the cliff to come to his aid.\"You know! \"Antsy yelled.\"What's the story on getting out?\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Move the story forward as the writer's assistant.\nTags: epic fantasy, ancient city, magic, power dynamics, hidden secrets\nAuthor: Ian Cameron Esslemont\nTitle: Orb Sceptre Throne\nChapter: 8" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now, go!\" a sailor shouted.\n\n\"Wait just a damned minute!\"\n\nWhen the punt dipped in the surf Malakai suddenly leapt to land on a tiny stone ledge. He trailed the rope behind him. Antsy pressed it into Orchid's hands.\"Hold on. '\n\n\"I can't swim! '\n\n\"Then hold on, dammit!\"\n\nThe poles cracked against the rocks as the sailors desperately fended the boat from the cliff. Orchid yelled something lost in the crash of waves and jumped for the end of the rope ladder. The punt nearly tipped over. She disappeared into the foaming blue-black waves. Malakai hauled on the rope. Antsy remembered the girl's amazingly strong grip. She appeared again, thrown up by the surf, driven against the rock wall, to which she clung. Malakai began making his way to her, dragging the rope ladder with him.\n\nCorien took the punt's side next. While the man timed his jump Antsy belted the two panniers he had been carrying to himself.\"How do we get off the damned island? ' he yelled to the nearest sailor.\n\nThe man waved him away. \"Go, damn you!\"\n\nAntsy pointed to the cave. \"Is this where we get off, too?\"\n\nCorien leapt and hit the side, where he hung by both hands. He clambered up the uneven cliff face.\n\n\"Jump or we take you back with us!\" a sailor barked, and swung his pole at Antsy.\n\nAll right– we'll have to do this the hard way then. Antsy drew a dirk and yanked the nearest sailor down into the bottom of the boat. All four screamed insults. The punt bounced like a cork. Antsy shoved two fingers\" length of the dirk blade into the man's side. The sailor jerked, then held himself utterly still. The other three were too busy holding the punt off from the cliff to come to his aid.\"You know! \"Antsy yelled.\"What's the story on getting out?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let me go or we're all dead! '\n\n\"Answer!\"\n\n\"All right! Hood's grin, man! '\n\nThen the bottom of the punt launched up into Antsy, clouting him in the mouth, and there was a shout of warning, a snapping of wood, and the water sucked him down into its cold embrace. The sailor he still had by the belt kicked at him; the two panniers of equipment dragged him down like stone weights. He cut the straps of one, hoping it was the right choice. A wall of black stone veined with bubbles flew at him. The collision knocked out his remaining breath and he gulped in a mouthful of water. He scrabbled fora grip over the slimy rock. He knew he was drowning and it outraged him that there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it. It wasn't goddamned fair.\n\nIt seemed that the world, with all its infinite traps, had finally caught up with him.\n\nHe came to coughing and vomiting up seawater. Someone held him upright in chest-high surging waves: Malakai. The man was shouting something: \"Did you lose it! Where is it?\"\n\nStill dry-heaving, Antsy dug at the remaining pannier; it was his. He grinned his relief to Malakai, who grunted, nodding. The man also had a grip on the rope ladder and he swung Antsy to it. \"Damned fool.\"\n\nAt the back of the cave was a flight of ascending steps cut into the rock, barely as wide as his shoulders. It was pitch black but for the light from the cave mouth. Antsy felt his way on all fours. Seawater dripped from him onto the stairs, which were cold beneath his hands, and as slippery as polished marble. He kept almost falling until he realized that the stairs tilted crazily to one side. He smelled something, an old familiar smell– it came from something smeared over the stairs, and because it had been sometime it took him a moment to recognize the tang of dried blood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Almost at the top,\" came Orchid's voice from above.\n\nHands took his shoulders and she led him to a wall. He leaned against it, grateful. She seemed to behaving no trouble in the absolute black. \"Corien?\"\n\n\"Gone ahead.\"\n\n\"How far?\" from Malakai, sharp.\n\n\"Not far,\" came Corien's voice.\n\nAntsy couldn't take it any longer:\"I can't see a goddamned blasted thing!\"\n\nSilence, the muted roar of the surf. \"Anyone else?\" asked Malakai.\n\n\"I've always had excellent night vision, ' said Orchid.\n\n\"Before I came I visited an alchemist. He gave mean unguent,\" Corien said.\n\n\"Can you give some to Red?\"\n\n\"Ah. Sorry. There's really only enough for one. '\n\nAntsy felt his way along the wall to the top of the stairs. He squinted down; there, dull grey, a glimmering.\n\n\"Don't we have any light? ' Orchid asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" Malakai answered, reluctantly. \"But I'd rather not announce our presence by shining it everywhere. '\n\n\"Well, you should've thought of that when you hired us. '\n\nCorien chuckled his appreciation of the point.\n\nAlong silence followed that. Antsy peered about the black, which seemed to him no longer absolute. His vision was adjusting; he could make out blobs of greater and lesser darkness, catch hints of movement. Someone slid down one wall to a sitting position. \"We'll wait, \"said Malakai.\"We're wet and it's night. We'll have more light in the morning.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone sat. Equipment banged to the floor. \"What was that about, Red?\" Corien asked. \"There on the boat?\"\n\nAntsy debated not bothering to answer but decided that since they were all stuck together he might as well make the effort. \"I wanted some information so I put a knife to one of them. We capsized.\"\n\nCorien laughed aloud barracks-room bray. \"Remind me not to withhold information from you in the future.\"\n\nAntsy allowed himself a sour half-smile. He hugged his pannier to his chest. He was soaked, cold, and his mouth hurt like the devil. This was not going the way he'd imagined. Then he laughed, thinking of something:\"I'm sure as Hood not keeping watch tonight.\"\n\nOrchid and Corien chuckled.\n\n\"I will. Everyone get some sleep,\" growled Malakai.\n\nNo one spoke again that night.\n\nKiska had no idea how long they sat imprisoned in their cliff-face cave. Or even that such concepts as days or hours mattered here at what now truly seemed to be the \"Shores of Creation\". Leoman practised with his morningstars at the widest point of the cave-fissure. Kiska had her chance to practise close work with the stave. She tested herself until her arms burned then threw herself down to sleep.\n\nBut sleep would not come. Instead, her thoughts wandered to one of her last assignments within the Claw. One of a team pursuing indigenous leaders in Seven Cities. Assassination, disruption of nativist movements, the seeding of spies and provocateurs. Ugly work. Murder, torture, extortion, blackmail. That was where she fell away from the Claw. Not out of squeamishness, or adherence to any sort of misplaced moral philosophy– if they weren't doing it to others then others'd be doing it to them, after all– no, it was purely professional disgust. The politicking within the Claw. The careerist lies and backstabbing. The toadying and outright favouritism in promotions. At first it only disgusted her and she kept her distance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But then it happened to her.\n\nIt had been a routine operation. The target was an entrenched anti-occupation movement gaining strength around Aren. She'd been second in command of the Hand assigned the clean-up. They were lucky to have two locally recruited agents: Seven Cities natives who favoured the Malazan mission of suppressing the wasteful feuding, the opening up of the culture to the wider world.\n\nThese two were tasked with infiltrating the movement.\n\nDuring this time the Hand waited and watched. Buildings were noted. Members were marked. The Handheld off until word was passed of a major meet or gathering. The night was set. Kiska's Hand was positioned; the sign was given; they moved.\n\nThey stepped right into an ambush.\n\nSomehow, these Seven Cities patriots had gotten word of the attack. A number proved to be hardened veterans from the first war of invasion. When it all was over the small dank cellar was a bloodbath. Only she and the Hand commander remained standing.\n\nOn searching the side rooms she found their agents. Both had been monstrously tortured. Mauled and carved almost beyond recognition as human. Bound and hanging like meat. Unbelievably, one still lived. Though eyeless, his stomach eviscerated, the innards dangling in loops, he mouthed that the insurgents had been tipped off. That he'd overheard their boasting of a source within the Claw itself.\n\nBoth Kiska and Lotte, the Hand commander, immediately knew who it probably was. The man was Lotte's rival for promotion to the regional directorate. Kiska was all for murdering him that night. Right then and therewith the blood still wet on their boots and gloves. But Lotte demurred. He was willing to grant his rival this round. The operation would be reported as botched, a black mark on his record, and the other fellow would get the directorship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But with Kiska's help he vowed to see to it that the man's tenure would be one long series of failures and setbacks in the region. He would be removed. And then, Lotte proposed, he himself and Kiska could potentially rule the Seven Cities holdings from behind the scenes. In the dark of the cellar, the stink of blood and bile a miasma in the air, the dead a carpet round their feet, and Lotte's gaze bright upon her weighing, guarded, Kiska thought it prudent to agree.\n\nBut her faith in the virtue of her calling had been shaken– no, more than shaken... it had been stabbed through the heart. Lost among the self-promotion and careerist manoeuvring within the order was any concern or responsibility to their larger mission serving the Empire. It seemed that the entire Malazan goal of subduing the Seven Cities region could go down inflames so long as one Claw operative managed to sabotage his rivals. And also dead were two infinitely valuable local agents, loyal and dedicated to the Malazan cause. Betrayed fora cheap leg-up in one bureaucrat's career. Kiska was sickened beyond disgust by the utter short-sighted selfishness of it.\n\nShortly after that she abandoned the Claw and fled to the service of High Mage Tayschrenn. There they dared not touch her, and there she remained until that day: the day that saw not only the Empress's fall, but Tayschrenn's disappearance. The fall of the Empire's greatest High Mage to this Yathengar, a Seven Cities priest-mage, crazed with revenge for the occupation of his lands and the insults to his city gods. To destroy his enemy the man had actually summoned raw Chaos to drive a hole in creation itself. And the two had been sucked within.\n\nSo now she sought him. Across all the face of creation, it seemed, she sought her master. Again she scoured among her feelings for the reasons for such pursuit. The most uncomfortable suspicion was of course that she longed for his attention, his embrace as a man. She studied that urge as ruthlessly as possible to come to the conclusion: no. She no longer dreamt of such a liaison– the stuff of some syrupy courtly romance. When she'd been younger she'd allowed herself the illusion. But no longer. Perhaps some scholar would argue she sought him as the father figure she'd never truly known as a child. Perhaps. What she thought far more germane was that she considered him possibly the only one left who could enforce some sort of standard of behaviour, or moral direction, upon the Empire. If that were at all possible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All very high-sounding in purpose and aspiration.\n\nBut the suspicion pricked her: perhaps the truth was far less noble. Perhaps she was here because she was afraid the Claw would eventually come for her. The organization was famous for never forgetting. But no, all that was so long ago and faraway. They had much bigger things to concern themselves with. And she had leverage. She knew things about the Empire. Things no one wanted whispered.\n\nYet was that not another good reason to see you gone?\n\nShe opened her eyes to the familiar narrow cave. Something was different. She heard whispering, a murmuring out beyond the cave mouth. Leoman lay asleep, his breath even, the pulse at his neck steady. Thinking of Seven Cities: this man had served in the resistance against Malazan occupation alongside Yathengar, or at least in sympathy with him. And in that region he had delivered a heart-thrust to the Empire with the conflagration at Y'Ghatan.\n\nThe dizzying idea came to her that in her actions she was somehow aiding him in some hidden goals against the Empire. Perhaps she should take the opportunity now to slay him in his sleep, or regret it later. Yet she knew she could not bring herself to commit murder. She was no cold-blooded killer, though trained in such techniques.\n\nShe rose and glided soundlessly to the opening.\n\nIt was unguarded. The lumpish beings who had barricaded them in had moved off. They were whispering– well, croaking, belching and lisping– among themselves. It was the gloomy dusk of night. Alien stars glimmered overhead. It occurred to her that if she wished she could makeup new constellations among them. The Stave and the Morningstar perhaps." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lumpy guards squealed and burbled as they caught sight of her, and they came limping up to surround her. It seemed to her that she could smack them to pieces with her staff, but she felt pity for them. Pity and sadness. She couldn't bring herself to strike anyone of them.\n\nAt least not yet.\n\nOne of the malformed creatures edged up closer before her; it struck her that they were even more wary of her than she of them.\n\n\"You are understanding of me?\" it asked.\n\n\"Yes. Yes, I am.\"\n\n\"We are decided to allow you to go. You go if you wish. Imprisonment is hurtful. We are many victims of cruel imprisonment. We would not impress it upon any other. We are not like you.\"\n\nKiska thought it rather convenient of them to allow her to leave after she'd already escaped. But she let that pass. Instead she asked,\"Like me? '\n\n\"Yes. Like you. Those who summon us, imprison us, use us cruelly, send us melt among the Vitr. Those like you.\"\n\nKiska understood. Human mages. Summoners. Theurgical researchers. Her breath caught as she realized: like Tayschrenn.\n\nSteps behind her and Leoman emerged. \"Labour problems?\" he asked.\n\n\"They are lowering the blockade.\"\n\nThe Seven Cities native nodded sagely. \"Sieges area test of patience.\"\n\nKiska didn't say that she thought these things could easily outwait them if it came to that. She addressed them:\"I am looking for the one known as Thenaj. Do you know where he is? '\n\nA flurry of hissing and burbling among the dun-brown creatures answered her. Their spokesman pointed the longer of its blunt limbs. \"It is as feared. You are come to take him away. You mustn't! The Great One is much pleased by him. He was very sad all alone for so long. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Great One. You mean Maker?\"\n\n\"Names are dangerous things. To us he is the Great One.\"\n\n\"I understand.\" She set her hands on her hips. \"May we go then?\"\n\n\"We will not close the way... but we will not help either.\"\n\nKiska sighed. \"Fine.\" She waved Leoman forward. \"Let's go. '\n\nThey walked in silence fora time. The malformed creatures were left behind at their caves. Leoman, she noted, paced warily, hands on his weapons. \"You're nervous? ' she asked.\n\n\"I'm wondering how the big one will take this. '\n\n\"Sounds like he was outvoted.\"\n\n\"Ah, voting. Such apolitical arrangement is fine on paper, or among philosophers. But it tends to break apart upon the rocks of application.\"\n\nKiska cocked a brow. A revolutionary political philosopher? \"Oh? How so?\"\n\n\"Inequity. Disparities in power. For some unknown reason our big friend chooses to play along with the delusion of egalitarianism. But believe me, when the wishes of the powerful are thwarted they will set aside any communal agreements and pursue their own plans regardless. Because they can.\"\n\n\"You sound bitter.\"\n\n\"No. Not bitter. Realistic.\" He waved a gloved hand. \"Oh, because no one likes to think of themselves as a despot they will cloak their actions in high-sounding rhetoric. Announce that he– or she– sees the situation more clearly. That everyone will thank them in the end. That it is for the better. And soon.\"\n\nShe eyed him where he walked next to her, hands on the hafts of his weapons, his gaze somewhere else. The Sea of Vitr glimmered ahead. Lazy waves came hissing up the black scoured strand. \"You sure you're not bitter? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Beneath his moustache the man's lips curled up in a rueful smile.\"The curse of an unflinching eye. \"He froze.\"And here comes the test. '\n\nKiska glanced over and tensed. It was the big demon hurrying up to them on its broad ungainly bird's feet. It stopped a short distance off, glowered down at them.\"You are out, ' it growled after a time.\n\nKiska decided to forgo any sarcastic response. She levelled her stave before her. \"Yes.\"\n\nIt looked over them to the cliff face. \"I disapprove. But it is their decision.\" It held out an amber-taloned hand and clenched it as if crushing them within. \"If you hurt anyone you will answer tome.\" And it stalked off.\n\nKiska caught Leoman's bemused gaze.\"And what do you say to that? '\n\nHe stroked his moustache, frowning thoughtfully. \"I would say this place seems to have rules of its own.\"\n\nShe could not argue with that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What is the Deck of Dragons\n\nBut where one bends to look\n\nFor reflections\n\nOf all things unseen?\n\nVerse attributed to the Seer of Callows\n\nSPINDLE COULD NOT sleep after he and Blend and Picker dragged themselves back to K'rul's bar. It was dawn in any case, and his nerves were shot. They'd witnessed something they shouldn't have; they all knew it. No one said a thing all the way back from the base of Majesty Hill– which wasn't very far in any case, as K'rul's old temple stood on its own hill in the estate district.\n\nBlend and Picker thumped up the stairs to their room. Spindle slouched into a booth. The common room was empty. The historian was upstairs asleep. After dozing fora short time, Spindle was driven by a full bladder to shamble out of the rear kitchen exit. Facing the yard, looking out over the chicken coop, the woodpile and the pigsty, he untied his trousers and relieved himself in the chill air.\n\nIn mid-stream he gaped, jerked, traced a warm stream down his leg, then stumbled back inside, struggling with his trousers.\n\n\"Picker! Blend! Burn's own tits, would you come and look at this! '\n\n\"Shut up!\" came the muffled response.\n\n\"No, really! This is amazin\"! You gotta see this. '\n\nShambled footsteps sounded from above. Picker's voice called down:\"If it's just you findin\" your little soldier then I'm gonna be real mad.\"\n\n\"Ha, ha! No. I'm fucking serious here. '\n\n\"All right, all right.\" Picker appeared, tucking in her shirt and tying her trousers, boots clumping. \"What is it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Out back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Take a look.\"\n\n\"What? Has Moon's Spawn returned? '\n\n\"Somethin\" like that. '\n\nPicker sobered, eyed the man, doubtful. She hiked up her trousers and headed to the kitchen. Spindle followed.\n\nAt the open doorway Picker stopped, peered right, then left. Behind, Spindle hopped from foot to foot, brushing at his wet pants. \"Do you see it? Do ya?\"\n\n\"What? The amazin\" chickens? They dancin\"? Singin\"? '\n\n\"No! Not...\" He squeezed his way round her, stared squinting into the distance. \"But there was...\" He turned back to the big woman, hunched his shoulders. \"There was this huge dome-like thing there. Over the hilltop...\"\n\nPicker just shook her head in a slow heavy dismissal. She rubbed her arm where scars marked a ring round the flesh, eyed the distance once more. Then she pushed him aside, muttering, \"Fuckin\" moron. Can't believe I'm beginnin'to miss Antsy.\"\n\nSpindle was left alone in the chill air. He turned back to the view across the hills of the estate district, snorted to himself.\n\n\"What did it look like?\" someone asked from behind.\n\nHe spun, jumping. It was Duiker, the old historian. He nodded a greeting. \"It was pale. Kinda see-through. Big. Like the moon. It looked like the moon.\"\n\nThe historian frowned thoughtfully behind his thick grey beard. His gaze fixed on Spindle. \"You lot been gone days. What happened?\"\n\n\"I'll tell you over some hot mulled wine. '\n\n\"We don't have any. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Spindle cast another pinched glance over the hilltops. \"Then I'm gonna go get some. '\n\n\n\nTorvald Nom awoke to a cat's claws sinking into his chest. He jerked upright with a gasp, heard something ricochet off the shelves under the open window, then sat tensed, limbs trembling with startled awareness.\n\n\"What is it?\" Tiserra murmured, still mostly asleep.\n\n\"For a moment I thought you'd thrown yourself upon me and sunk your nails into my chest in an ecstasy of passion, dear. But it was the cat. '\n\n\"That's nice, ' she murmured into her pillow.\n\nTorvald sighed, peered about the shadowed room. \"Well. I'm awake now. Might as wellhead out. '\n\n\"Hmph.\"\n\n\"Don't trouble yourself. Don't bustle about with tea and bread and such for your workingman.\"\n\n\"Hmm?\"\n\n\"Never mind.\" Torvald got up.\n\nPassing through the streets on his walk to the estate district it struck him that the city was very quiet this morning. He felt that sense of suspended expectation, the atmosphere that some described as \"holding one's breath'. And he had had the strangest dreams just before awakening so very painfully. He did hear one noise that was very out of place indeed. He recognized it only because of his travels so far from this city of his birth. For it was a sound utterly unfamiliar to Darujhistan: the ordered stamp of marching soldiery. He hurried to where the marching echoed, the Second Tier Way.\n\nHe joined a press of Darujhistani citizenry turned out to watch this once in a lifetime sight. The tall cross-piece hanging banner preceding the column declared their allegiance: the white sceptre on afield of black, the sceptre much like an orb clasped in an upright three-toed predatory bird's foot. The naked clawed grip of the Malazan Empire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elite heavy infantry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Campaign stripes marked them as veterans of every engagement on these, to them, foreign Genabackan lands. They carried broad rectangular shields blackened and edged in burgundy. Shortswords swung belted high at their sides. Crossbows and javelins rode strapped to their backs. The Malazan delegation honour guard, some two hundred strong. Withdrawing?\n\n\"What's going on? ' he asked one fellow in the crowd.\n\n\"The Empire's invading! ' the man bellowed, half drunk.\n\nTorvald grimaced at his bad luck. \"They're headed in the wrong direction, ' he pointed out.\n\n\"Ha ha!\" the drunk yelled. \"We beat them! Good riddance, y'damned foreigners! '\n\nTorvald walked away just in case the appropriately feared Malazan mailed fist should make itself felt. The rear of the column came marching up. Mounted officers rode just before a train of wagons and carts and strings of spare mounts. Torvald noted that he did not seethe bald and rather fat figure of the ambassador among the officers. He hurried onto bring the news to his employer, the head of his family house and thus councilwoman, Lady Varada.\n\nMadrun let him into the compound. \"Captain,\" the man said, bowing. Torvald always listened carefully to this welcome but so far he'd yet to detect even the slightest tinge of insincerity. More than ever he regretted the absence of his old partners, Scorch and Leff, who used to guard these doors.\n\nAt least then he wasn't the obvious weak link in the estate's personnel.\n\nThe castellan Studlock met him at the open front doors of the house. \"I have orders from the mistress,\" he lisped as Torvald hurried past." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes?\"\n\n\"The mistress is... ill,\" Studlock murmured. \"Yes. That is it. Quite ill.\"\n\nTorvald sniffed the air. \"What is that I smell? Is something burning?\"\n\n\"Just my preparations. The singeing of rare leaves. An infusion gone wrong.\" The strange man crept up close; the tatters and strips of gauzy cloth he wrapped himself in dragged long behind. Torvald flinched away. \"You appear tired, malnourished,\" Studlock went on. \"Are you having trouble in your sexual performance? Perhaps a mineral poultice to rebalance your animus?\"\n\n\"Rebalance my what? Ah, no. Thank you.\"\n\n\"A pity.\"\n\n\"Ill, you say? Where is she?\"\n\n\"The mistress is... indisposed.\"\n\n\"Indisposed...\"\n\n\"Yes. Quite. She did, however, leave detailed instructions regarding you.\"\n\n\"Me?\"\n\n\"Yes. None other.\"\n\n\"I see. And these instructions?\"\n\nThe man edged closer, his watery green eyes narrowed upon Torvald. \"There is a worrisome choleric tinge to you. Have you evacuated lately?\"\n\n\"Evacu what?\"\n\n\"Evacuated. Discharged your bodily wastes.\"\n\n\"Ah! Yes.\"\n\n\"And your bowels? How are they?\"\n\n\"Sacrosanct, thank you.\"\n\n\"Regretful. How am Ito continue my practice?\"\n\nTorvald was surprised. \"You're a physicker? '\n\nThe man blinked his confusion. \"No.\"\n\nTorvald regarded the unnerving hunched figure fora time, cleared his throat. \"So... these instructions?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes. You are now head of House Nom. Congratulations.\" The castellan shuffled away.\n\nTorvald stood motionless in the receiving hall fora longtime. Then he stormed up the stairs for his employer's office. He was in the process of ransacking her desk when he looked up to seethe gauzy apparition of Studlock before him once again.\n\n\"There must be some mistake.\"\n\n\"None, I assure you.\"\n\n\"What of Bellam?\"\n\n\"Young Bellam remains an eventual heir.\"\n\n\"But... it can't be official. There has to be paperwork. Certificates and such. '\n\nThe castellan drew a scroll from within the folds of cloth at his chest. \"I have them here. Sealed and authenticated.\"\n\nTorvald slumped down into the chair. That had been his last hope. He straightened, his brows rising. \"Aha! I appoint another. Someone else. Anyone else.\"\n\n\"Rallick Nom will support m'lady's choice. So then will the majority of the House.\"\n\nTorvald slumped once more. Damn him! He would, too– if only to avoid being appointed himself!\n\nHe set his elbows on the desk, cupped his head in his hands. \"But this is terrible... Tiserra will kill me! One day I leave for work and when I come home it's hello dear your husband has a seat on the Council! Rather a shock. '\n\nThe castellan cocked his head. \"Will she not be pleased?\"\n\n\"You don't know her. '\n\n\"You are correct. I do not. Are introductions in order? Some tea? My special brew...\"\n\nTorvald threw up his hands. \"No! No, no, thank you. That's quite all right. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Studlock's shoulders fell.\"That is regrettable. Who will I test it on? '\n\nTorvald frowned. \"So, now what? What do I do?\"\n\n\"You should register your appointment with the clerk of the Council, I imagine.\"\n\n\"Ah. Thank you. How very... practical.\"\n\nThe castellan bowed. \"My only wish is to serve.\"\n\nTorvald had never been to Majesty Hill; indeed, had never dreamed he'd have cause. The Wardens at the lowest gate stopped him to inspect his paperwork. Before him rose the stairs that switched back and forth up the flank of the hill, lined all the way by monuments, family shrines, plaques commemorating victories– real and invented– and other grandiose pronouncements meant to impress the reader with the virtue and generosity of their sponsors. All no more than base self-aggrandizement, Torvald reflected, once you boiled it all down.\n\nHe clasped his hands behind his back and rocked on the worn heels of his old boots. Perhaps such an attitude was precisely what was not welcome on yon prestigious hilltop.\n\nA clerk bowed as he handed back the scrolled paperwork. \"Welcome, sir. My apologies for the delay. We do not see many councillors here at the gate.\"\n\n\"No? You do not? Just what do you see, then?\"\n\n\"Petitioners mostly. Appellants and other claimants summoned, or hoping, to address the assembly. And minor functionaries, of course.\"\n\n\"Ah. I see.\" Torvald wondered, vaguely, whether he'd just been insulted in some very sophisticated indirect fashion. Considering where he was headed, he decided that he'd better get used to it. \"So, just where do the Council members enter?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man bowed– unctuously, it seemed to Torvald. \"These days most take the carriageway from the south.\"\n\n\"Ah, well. Perhaps many would benefit from coming in this way occasionally, don't you think? '\n\n\"Oh, beyond a doubt, sir,\" the man agreed smoothly, his face straight.\n\nGood at his job, this one, Torvald reflected. This gate must be where most of the squeezing of petitioners takes place. A coveted post. He bowed a farewell. \"I'd best be going then. '\n\n\"A sound decision, sir.\"\n\nTorvald walked away, wincing. Damn, drubbed by a bureaucrat. It's going to be along day.\n\nEventually, after rather a boring walk up an unnecessarily long set of stairs, he entered what appeared to be a main reception hall lined by many doors. It was... deserted. Is the place closed? Yet someone was here: noise reached him, a muted roaring as of many voices shouting. But where was it coming from?\n\nA door slammed and a robed clerk appeared, sheaf of papers in hand, reading as he scuttled quickly across the hall.\n\nTorvald cleared his throat. \"Excuse me– could you tell me...\"\n\nThe man disappeared into another side door. Torvald lowered his arm. A gods-damned rabbit warren. He poked his head into that door to see another hall, also lined by doors, albeit far less ornate. It occurred to him that a rather large old friend of his would know exactly what to do to a place like this. The sound of another door opening pulled him away. Another functionary was walking the hall. He planted himself before her.\n\nThe plump woman nearly ran into him before halting to blink up confusedly. \"Yes?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wordlessly offered his paperwork." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She examined it, then bowed. \"Welcome, House Nom. I shall see to it that these are registered with the proper offices. You are no doubt come for the assembling of the emergency steering committee.\"\n\nIt was now his turn to blink his confusion. \"I'm sorry? '\n\n\"This way. If you would, sir.\"\n\nTorvald followed the woman down the long hall, round a series of turns, to a tall set of double doors. Two city Wardens barred the entrance. From behind the doors came a riotous roaring such as Torvald imagined must prevail before the gates to Hood's old realm.\n\nThe guards'hands went to their shortswords.\"This is a closed emergency session, ' pronounced one in what sounded like a carefully rehearsed line.\n\nThe woman bowed her agreement. \"And Councillor Nom is hereto participate.\"\n\nThe guard's brow furrowed. He licked his lips while he appeared to be frantically digging through options. The brows unfurled and he smiled, reciting,\"Chambers are closed. '\n\n\"Open those doors!\" a bull-roar echoed from behind Torvald, who spun.\n\nA great bhederin of a fellow was hurrying up, unshaven, finery askew, a hand to his forehead, grimacing in pain. The clerk bowed. \"Councillor Coll.\"\n\nTorvald stared despite himself. Great gods, the Councillor Coll? The man was a legend in the city.\n\nThe councillor cocked a bloodshot eye at Torvald. The clerk murmured, \"Councillor Coll, may I introduce Councillor Nom, newly invested.\"\n\nThe bleary, watering eyes widened. \"Indeed... may I ask after the mesmerizing Lady Varada, whom I have seen only from a distance, across the assembly?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The stale bite of cheap Daru spirits wafted from the man and Torvald struggled not to change his expression." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah... her health precludes her participation... I am come in her stead.\"\n\n\"My regrets to your family, Nom. And may she soon recover.\"\n\nTorvald frantically cast about for something equally well-mannered and sophisticated. \"Ah, our thanks.\" Wonderful! Off to a dazzling start, you are.\n\nBut Councillor Coll's attention had shifted to the closed doors and the guards.\"You're still here?\" he demanded.\n\n\"Of course you may enter, Councillor. But this other...\"\n\nColl snatched up the sheaf of papers held by the clerk: Torvald's documents. He waved the flapping pages, complete with wax seals and coloured ribbons, before the faces of the guards.\"You see these certificates? This man is as qualified to sit as I! '\n\nThe guards eyed the sheaf, all in the tiniest spidery penmanship, the way those manning a wooden palisade might dread the approach of a siege onager. Resistance collapsed and they stood aside.\n\nThe clerk pushed open the twin leaves. And as they passed within, it occurred to Torvald that an impenetrable bureaucracy was in truth more powerful than any sword.\n\nThey stood high in a semicircular amphitheatre of seats. The view reminded Torvald of a depiction of one corner of Hood's realm: an immense prison for kings and despots, all arguing over who was in charge, when in truth none of the dead outside cared what went on within its tall walls.\n\nThe floor of the amphitheatre was crowded with the cream of the city aristocracy. All were standing talking at once, many red-faced, some waving their exasperation. Occasionally thrown papers fluttered over the crowd, or some particularly loud yell penetrated the din, but mostly it was an unintelligible gabbling of voices." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Welcome to Council,\" the clerk said, shouting to be heard though she stood right next to him.\n\n\"How very inspiring,\" he answered, to himself of course, as none could have possibly heard, or cared to hear, for that matter.\n\nThe woman backed out, pulled the doors closed. Councillor Coll took his arm and hurried him down the stairs. \"My thanks,\" Torvald offered.\n\n\"You can thank me by swearing to give me your first vote.\"\n\nSuch avow struck Torvald as extremely dangerous, but he also knew that honour would dictate that he had no choice. Best to pretend that such was the case, then.\n\nAloud, exceptionally sharp knocking sounded which Torvald identified as coming from a slim man standing on the raised speaker's platform, banging a stone on the lectern.\n\n\"Order!\" he bellowed in a surprisingly commanding voice. \"Order!\"\n\nThe clamour slowly diminished and the councillors stood silent, leaving only a single old fellow waving his arms and shouting, \"I tell you, everything would go so smoothly if only everyone would just do as I say!\"\n\n\"Hear, hear!\" someone shouted in answer and they all burst into applause.\n\nThe old fellow peered about myopically then hurriedly turned away, red-faced.\n\n\"The floor recognizes Councillor Lim,\" a clerk announced into the silence.\n\nIt now occurred to Torvald that crowding about the central lectern were only some fifty or so members of the Council, yet the amphitheatre held seats for hundreds. \"Where is everyone?\" he whispered to Coll.\n\n\"It's a damned trick, \"Coll answered, low and fierce.\"There is a little-known emergency steering committee that can be called to meet in case of fires and such. Just those close enough to participate. Quorum is thirty. Thankfully I was nearby... sleeping in my chambers. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Passed out, you mean. So, an emergency sub-committee of Council. But to decide what?\n\nAt the lectern, Lim stood tall and pole-thin, his dark expensive silk shirt and trousers accentuating his figure. He raised his arms for silence.\n\nSo, Lim, is it? Torvald believed he'd heard that Shardan Lim was dead.\n\n\"Thank you,\" the fellow began. \"My fellow councillors, fair Darujhistan has weathered astounding events of late. Many of you, myself included, no doubt wish that history would be so good as to pass us by for once, allow us our well-earned peace to quietly tend our fields and watch our children play...\"\n\nTorvald snorted: the man looked as peaceful and compassionate as a viper. Coll chuckled. Torvald glanced over to see him offer a wink. \"What's going on? '\n\nIn answer, the man gestured to the front. \"Let us hear from Lim.\"\n\n\"That's not Shardan Lim, is it? '\n\n\"Ah. You are new. No, this is Jeshin Lim. His cousin.\"\n\nTorvald grunted. He'd never heard of a Jeshin Lim. But then, he'd probably never heard of most of the men and women in the hall. The young man had been talking all the while, offering some long-winded soothing introduction to the course of action he wished to suggest. In time, the meat of the speech arrived: \"... and so it is clear that this abrupt, unannounced flight by all the Moranth present within the city, combined with the equally sudden withdrawal of their allies, the Imperial Malazan elements staining our fair city, can amount to only one thing: the first stage in a pre-planned, coordinated initiation of hostilities against the freedom and independence of Darujhistan!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hall erupted into chaotic noise once more. Most cheered, calling out their support of the claim. Only a few shouted their dismissal.\n\nTorvald and Coll remained silent. Torvald leaned to Coll. \"Why is he saying everything twice?\"\n\n\"Ah. An older style of rhetoric. Something of a traditionalist, our Jeshin. New to assembly, he is. But there's a great deal of money backing him. '\n\nCloser to the man, Torvald noted that while Coll was impressively large, it had all gone to fat. And though a strong miasma of Daru spirits surrounded him, he did not appear to be drunk.\n\n\"And what do you propose?\" an old man's sarcastic voice cut through the shouting.\n\nThe raucous arguing died down as everyone waited for Lim's answer.\n\nColl gestured aside, indicating the speaker: an aged fellow, thin and straight, his hair a grey hedging round his skull. \"Councillor D'Arle. '\n\n\"Will you marshal the troops?\" the old man continued scathingly. \"Assemble the navy? But wait... we have none! And the Malazans know this! If they wanted to occupy us they would have done so long ago.\"\n\nCouncillor Lim was shaking his head. \"With all respect to House D'Arle, that is not so. The truth is that the Malazans have tried to annex us to their Empire but that said efforts have to this time failed, or been defeated by circumstance, or the intervention of diversionary challenges– such as the Pannions to the south. Now, however, with said threat crushed, and Moon's Spawn also eliminated from the field– now it appears clear that the Malazans see that it is time to bring our fair city to heel.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You do have a proposal,\" Councillor D'Arle demanded,\"lurking somewhere within all that puff and wind?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'\n\n\"I like this fellow,\" Torvald whispered to Coll.\n\nA taut smile from Coll. \"Sad family history there.\"\n\nShowing surprising patience, Councillor Lim inclined his head in assent. \"I do. I propose that this emergency assembly of the Council now vote upon the investiture of the ancient position created precisely for such rare crises. I am speaking, of course, of the temporary and limited post of Legate of Council.\"\n\nColl's meaty hand closed painfully on Torvald's shoulder. \"The bastard!\" he hissed, giving out a cloud of stale alcohol. \"You can't do that! ' he bellowed into the hall.\n\nLim's thin brows rose.\"I see that we are fortunate in this time of threat to have Councillor Coll with us. You have a proposal for the floor, do you? '\n\n\"Only that the office of Legate was abolished centuries ago because of its abuses!\"\n\n\"Hear, hear!\" called Councillor D'Arle.\n\n\"And short-sighted and mistaken that was too,\" Lim answered. \"For how else can the city respond quickly and authoritatively to sudden emergencies?\"\n\nA cheer went up from the gathered councillors. Coll slowly shook his head. \"A stacked deck, as they say,\" he murmured to Torvald.\n\n\"We will now vote upon the reinvestment of the position of temporary Legate of Council,\" called out the clerk. \"All in favour raise hands.\"\n\nAlmost all raised their hands. Coll and Torvald did not.\n\n\"Proposal carried,\" announced the clerk.\n\nA great cheer answered that pronouncement. The councillors congratulated one another, slapping backs and shaking hands. The celebration seemed premature to Torvald as they had yet to actually do anything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Councillor D'Arle pushed his way forward.\"And I suppose you would tender your name for this post? \"The man's voice was icy with scorn.\n\nLim bowed. \"Yes. Since Councillor D'Arle has been good enough to mention it. '\n\nThe old councillor's jaws snapped shut.\n\n\"Seconded!\" another councillor shouted.\n\nIt occurred to Torvald that the man with him was probably the only councillor who could boast of any direct military training or experience and that time was running out. He shouted, \"I nominate Councillor Coll!\"\n\n\"What in Oponn's name are you doing? ' Coll ground through clenched teeth.\n\nSilence answered the shout. Councillor Lim squinted down at Torvald. A look of distaste clenched his pale fleshless face. \"And you are...?\"\n\n\"Nom, Torvald Nom.\"\n\n\"Councillor,\" Coll hissed.\n\n\"Councillor! Ah, Nom.\"\n\nLim inclined his head in greeting. \"I see. Welcome, then, to House Nom, so long absent from these proceedings. We have a nomination on the floor. Does anyone second?\"\n\nSilence, then a young woman's voice called out,\"I second. '\n\nTorvald sat to find Coll glaring at him. \"I don't know whether to thank you or call you out, ' the man growled.\n\n\"Don't you think you should be Legate? '\n\n\"If reason and logic ruled the world no one would be Legate. But it doesn't rule. Power and influence does. And I have neither. I am sorry to say that you have made yourself some enemies this day, my friend. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, we're off to a good start then. Who was that who seconded? '\n\n\"Councillor Redda Orr. Most say she is too young to sit on the Council, but she has a sharp political mind and grew up in these halls.\"\n\n\"Friend of yours?\"\n\n\"No. She just hates House Lim. Blames them for her father's death. '\n\n\"Ah.\" Rather belatedly it occurred to Torvald that he had just leapt into a kind of gladiatorial free-for-all without knowing any of the rules or the players. But then, why should he change the habits of a lifetime? He'd always run a very fast and loose game. Never mind the poor record scattered in his wake– he was alive, wasn't he? There were many others who couldn't boast as much.\n\n\"Very good,\" announced the clerk. \"We will now vote upon the nomination of Councillor Lim to the position of temporary Legate of Council. All in favour?\"\n\nAlmost all hands rose. The clerk did a quick count. \"We have a majority of forty-two votes. Nomination carried.\"\n\nThis time a stunned silence answered the announcement, as if those gathered could not believe that they'd actually succeeded. Then an enormous cheer arose, councillors laughing, reaching up to clasp Lim's hands, hugging one another.\n\n\"I wonder just how much all this cost,\" Coll murmured into the clamour. \"A family fortune, I imagine.\"\n\nSpeaking of money, it occurred to Torvald that he still had to break the news to Tis. Perhaps he should visit the bourse of the flower-sellers before heading home. And on the subject of costly items, just how huge was his new income from this prestigious post?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Excuse me for being so ill-mannered, friend Coll... but what is the pay for sitting on this assembly?\"\n\nThe big man frowned. His thick greying brows bunched down over his eyes, almost obscuring them. \"Pay? There's no pay associated with a seat on the Council. It's a service. One's civic duty. However, \"and here the man strove to keep his face straight,\"monies do flow to members... indirect relation to their power and influence upon the Council... '\n\nTorvald slumped into a nearby seat. In other words, his earnings would amount to the impressive sum of zero. Perhaps for the immediate future it would be better if he avoided returning home altogether...\n\n\n\nImpatient banging brought Jess lumbering once more to the doors of the Phoenix Inn. She unlatched the lock to peer out into the glaring morning light. A tall dark figure brushed in past her, imperious.\n\n\"Not– oh, it's you, ' she said, blinking. She shuffled to the kitchen to wake Chud.\n\nRallick crossed to the rear table, which stood covered in clumps of old wax, stained by spills of red Rhivi wine. Empty wine bottles crowded it, and crumbs lay scattered like the wreckage of war.\n\nJess came shuffling up to offer a glass of steaming tea. Rallick took it. \"Thank you.\" He blew on the small tumbler, then sipped. \"So... where is he?\"\n\nJess cocked a brow at the man– a man rumoured to be the lover of Vorcan, once head of the city's guild of assassins. And thus to her a man commanding a great deal of physical... tension. She kept her eyes on him.\"Where's who?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The toad... self-proclaimed Eel. The fat man.\"\n\nShe swept an arm to the table. \"Why, he's right-\"She stared, gaping.\"Fanderay's tits! He's not here! He's buggered off! Where's he got to? \"A hand closed over her mouth.\"Oh, Burn's mercy... who's gonna cover his tab? Have you seen the size of his tab? '\n\nRallick handed over the glass. \"No. And I don't care to, thank you. ' He headed for the door.\n\n\"Where are you going?\"\n\nWithout stopping Rallick answered, \"Looks like maybe it's up tome to settle accounts, Jess. I seem to be the only one around here willing to do it. '\n\nOf all the men and women she'd seen in the Phoenix Innit had always appeared to Jess that Rallick was the one who could close any debt. But this was a damnably huge one.\n\n*\n\nRallick pushed open the ornamental wrought-iron gate that allowed entrance to the grounds of the alchemist Baruk's modest estate. He walked the curving flagged path past subdued plantings of flowering shrubs. A small fountain tinkled spray from the mouth of an amphora held at a boy's stone shoulder. Leaves cluttered the surface of the pond, as did something else: apiece of litter, or wind-tossed garbage. Rallick's long face drew down, accentuating the deep lines framing his mouth.\n\nBaruk's grounds were always immaculate.\n\nHe pulled on a pair of leather gloves and extracted the litter from the sodden leaves. A card. A card from an expensive custom-made Dragons Deck. Soaked now, and flame-scorched. Turning it over, he grunted. A card of rulership: Crown. He dropped it back into the glimmering water." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The front door was unlocked. He lifted the latch and pushed it open. Inside lay destruction. Shards of ceramic urns and expensive glassware littered the carpet of the entranceway. Paintings had been thrown down; furniture overturned.\n\nRallick crouched to his haunches just outside the threshold. He drew pieces of wood and metal from his pockets and waist until he'd assembled a medium-sized crossbow, its metal parts blued. The sort of weapon that would immediately have you arrested should anyone catch sight of it.\n\nHe loaded it, then cocked it by slipping afoot into its stirrup and straightening. Then he crossed his arms, cradling the weapon across his chest. He called out, \"Roald? Hello? Anyone?\"\n\nNo answer. He heard the wind brushing through nearby boughs; a carriage made its noisy metal-tyred way down one of the alleys bordering the estate. In the light of the sun he studied the weave of the carpet lining the entranceway.\n\nSmooth well-worn slippers. The foot narrow, gracile. Yet the impression very heavy. Female. Slim but hefty? Entering then leaving. Trod over some shards as she left. Agent of the vandalism? No other recent traffic... except... the ghostliest of hints. A brushing across the rich weft as of broad, splayed moccasined feet slipping side to side, never lifting, entering and exiting also. And before the woman arrived, as her tracks obscure these others. An interesting puzzle.\n\nHe rose, edged inwards. Over the years he'd done occasional work for Baruk; non-assassination jobs, gathering intelligence, trailing people, collecting rare objects, and suchlike. As had Kruppe, Murillio, and sometimes Coll. Indeed, it was this very work that had thrown the lot of them together. Four as unlikely associates as one might imagine. In any case, he knew enough to be very wary of crossing this particular threshold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But others had entered already, to no ill effects he could discern. He peered into the nearest room opening off the foyer. Some sort of waiting room. Complete carnage and wanton devastation. Everything broken, thrown to the floor. Vandalism. Plain juvenile vindictiveness.\n\nHe moved on. Up the narrow tower stairs he found chambers similarly ruined. So far he couldn't tell if the intruder had come deliberately searching for something and was venting her frustration upon failing to discover it, or whether such destruction, or insult, had been the prime purpose of the visitation from the start.\n\nHe glanced into what appeared to have been some sort of workroom. Delicate glass fragments of globes covered the bare stone floor, as did the tattered remains of torn books and scrolls. Workbenches had been swept clear of their clutter, which now lay in tangled heaps on the floor.\n\nHis foot crushed a glass shard and a chest flew open across the room. Rallick's crossbow snapped out, seeming to point of its own accord, only to fall again– a squat toad-like familiar, or demon, was peeping out, its amber eyes huge with fear.\"Gone! \"it croaked.\"Out! Oh my! '\n\nRallick frowned, his mouth drawing down even further. \"Who? Who's out? '\n\n\"Hinter gone! Out. Oh my!\"\n\nHinter? As in the old ghost story Hinter of Hinter's Tower?\n\n\"Where's Baruk? '\n\n\"Gone! Oh my!\"\n\n\"And the place ransacked,\" Rallick muttered, more to himself.\n\n\"Not all,\" and the demon's clawed hand flew to cover its mouth.\n\nWith a jerk of the crossbow, Rallick motioned the creature from the chest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The demon led him down the narrow circular staircase, which continued on past ground level, passing floor after floor of quarters, storerooms, and workrooms. Rallick had had no idea the place was so extensive. It seemed so small from the outside. The creature stopped at what appeared to be the lowest floor. Rallick lit a wall-mounted lantern and raised it to peer around. The room was bare, almost completely empty. Nothing to vandalize here. Old inscriptions covered the floor in ever-narrowing circles. Old metal-working tools lined the walls: tongs, hammers, a small portable forge, twinned anvils. The demon waddled to a heavy metal chest against one wall, only to recoil as if struck.\n\n\"Oh no!\" it gibbered. \"Out! Out!\" It slapped its bald head with its tiny undersized clawed hands and hopped from foot to foot.\n\n\"What's out? '\n\n\"Scary big man squash us with hammer for this! Oh no!\"\n\nHammer?\n\nRallick crossed to the chest. It was constructed of thick metal plates. A lock at its front hung open. He pulled on the lid, failed to budge it. He set down the crossbow, clasped a hand at either side of the lid and lifted. It grated, edging upwards. He strained, gasping, managed to lever it up to clang back against the stonewall. It was a full hand's thickness of dull metal.\n\n\"A lot of lead,\" he muttered.\n\n\"Not lead!\" the creature answered. \"Magic-killing metal!\"\n\nRallick flinched from the chest. Otataral! An entire box of the metal? Beru fend! Why, an ounce of this would bring a man a fortune!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Within, a length of white silk lined the bottom, empty.\n\nThe demon was blubbering, hands at its head. \"Scary big man mustn't know! He will flatten us all! '\n\nSomething lay scattered on the dusty stones of the floor next to the chest. Rallick bent to study the mess. Crumbs? And next to that, a ring-stain– as of a wineglass? He pressed a finger to the crumbs, touched it to his tongue. Pastry crumbs?\n\nHe straightened, asked almost absently, \"What was in the chest?\"\n\nThe demon's hands were now squeezing its own neck.\"The master's most awful terrible possessions of all!\" it choked, throttling itself. \"Flakes. Slivers. Little scary slivers.\"\n\n\"Slivers of what?\"\n\nThe creature's already red face now glowed bright carmine. Its amber eyes bulged.\"Slivers of death! ' it gurgled in a seeming last gasp, and fell, fat stomach heaving.\n\nRallick regarded the empty otataral chest. Slivers of death?\n\nWent, Filless and Scarlon, the three cadre mages assigned to Ambassador Aragan's contingent of the Fifth, were busy in the embassy cellar sorting through files for destruction. None noticed the presence of the slim young girl until she cleared her throat. Then all three looked up from the folders and string-bound sheaves of orders and logistical summaries to stare, dumbfounded, at what appeared to be a dancing girl in loose white robes with silver bracelets rattling on her wrists.\n\n\"Are you lost, child?\" Filless demanded, first to recover her wits.\n\n\"You three do constitute the last full Imperial mage cadre in this theatre, do you not?\" the girl enquired, and she smiled, demurely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The three exchanged wondering glances. \"You area guest of the ambassador...?\" Scarlon offered, tentatively.\n\nThe pale girl drew up her long mane of black hair, knotted it through itself. \"No. I am the last thing you will ever see.\"\n\nAll three dived for cover, summoning their Warrens; none lived long enough to channel them. Filless died last, and hardest, as she was not only a mage of Denul but the last Claw of the contingent as well.\n\nIt was half a day before the mess was discovered.\n\nAmbassador Aragan kicked through the wreckage of singed papers, destroyed tables, blood and gore-smeared folders cluttering the cellar. His aide, Dreshen, stood at a distance, as did the hastily assembled bodyguard of marines.\n\nThe ambassador was in a filthy mood.\n\n\"No one heard a thing? Not a damned thing?\" he demanded, turning on them.\n\n\"No, sir,\" Dreshen answered, wincing.\n\n\"Someone enters the estate, happens to find all three of our cadre mages together in the same room, and kills them all without so much as a peep?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"And of course the only ones who could be counted onto sense anything happen to be the very three lying here!\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nDreshen swallowed to settle his stomach as the ambassador squatted on his haunches next to the ravaged body of Filless: the woman's face had been torn as if by jagged blades and her midriff had been slashed open, her looped entrails spilt out over her lap. Aragan stared down moodily at the corpse, drew a hand across the woman's staring eyes to shut them. Dreshen felt his knees going weak at the sight of all the ropy blue and pink viscera." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aragan used some of the scattered papers to wipe the blood from his hands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stood, and started to pace again. \"An act of war, Captain. An Osserc-damned act of war.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"In the Academy this is what you'd calla'pre-emptive strike\". '\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\n\"We're effectively cutoff now, aren't we, Captain?\"\n\n\"Ah. Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Communications neatly severed. No cadre mages to contact Unta. No access to the Imperial Warren.\" Aragan turned. \"There must be some talents among the rankers, surely?\"\n\n\"Minor only, sir. None trained in cadre protocols.\"\n\nThe ambassador stood still, apparently thinking. He had that wide-legged stance of big men, when in fact most of his size was abroad circle around his middle. He pulled on his lower lip, his mouth drawn down in a moue of angry disgust. \"An act of war...\" he mused. \"Someone's made their opening moves against us and we don't even know who we're facing yet! We are too far behind. \"He pointed to Dreshen.\"What about Fist K'ess? He must have cadre.\"\n\nDreshen nodded thoughtfully. \"Yes... but none to spare, I'm sure. There's still fighting in the north.\"\n\nAragan grunted, accepting this. \"And Fist Steppen?\"\n\nHis aide cocked his head. \"I don't believe there are any active cadre in the south. '\n\nAragan looked to the low ceiling. Ye gods! That the Empire of Nightchill, Tattersail and Tayschrenn should be reduced to this! It would be laughable if it weren't so damned tragic! Very well. If it's to be war... then war it shall be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He crossed to the stairs. His bodyguard parted to make way for him. He stopped before his aide. \"Get the box, Captain.\"\n\nDreshen frowned, uncertain. \"The box, sir?\"\n\n\"Yes. The box.\"\n\nDreshen's pale thin brows rose.\"Ah! The box. Yes, sir. Here? '\n\nThe ambassador peered about the cellar, shook his head. \"No. Upstairs.\"\n\nAragan waited in his office, hands clasped behind his back. Eventually Captain Dreshen entered, followed by two marines carrying a small battered travel trunk which they thumped down heavily on a table. Aragan motioned the marines out. He reached for the buckles securing the leather straps around the iron box but hesitated at the last moment and looked to Dreshen. \"Well, let's just hope I'm allowed to open this.\"\n\nThe captain offered a strained smile. \"Of course, sir.\"\n\nAragan undid the buckles, opened the latches, and swung up the lid. Within lay along thin object wrapped in oiled leathers. Captain Dreshen studied the item, mystified. The truth was, he had no idea what was in the box– other than that the cadre mages all considered it the most important artefact the Fifth Army possessed.\n\nAragan pulled off the oiled wrap and Dreshen caught his breath, stepping back. Burn, Oponn and Fanderay protect him. No. It couldn't be...\n\nHis mouth drawn wide in satisfaction, Aragan hefted the thing in one hand. It was about the length of along-knife. One end was a blade, the other sculpted into a three-toed bird's foot grasping a frosted orb of glass or crystal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An Imperial Sceptre.\n\nAragan slammed the artefact blade-first into the table. The gleaming point bit deep into the wood and the sceptre stood upright, at a slight angle. Aragan set his fists to the table on either side, studied the orb. Despite his awe, Dreshen edged forward as well.\n\nAragan cleared his throat. \"This is Ambassador Aragan in Darujhistan. I do not know whether anyone is listening, or if this message will reach anyone, but I must report that all the remaining mage cadre of the Fifth have been murdered. Assassinated. Cadre Filless may have also reported that our allies, the Moranth, have fled the city– terrified, as far as I can see. Something is stirring herein the city and it has moved against us. This is our only remaining communication channel to command. If Unta values Darujhistan then some sort of help must be sent. That is all.\"\n\nThe ambassador pushed himself from the table, stood with arms crossed regarding the sceptre. Dreshen watched as well, though for what he had no idea.\n\nAfter a protracted silence during which nothing apparently changed in the state of the sceptre, Dreshen coughed into a fist. \"How long,\" he began, \"until...\"\n\n\"Until we know? Until they answer– or if anyone's going to answer at all? \"Aragan shrugged his round shoulders.\"Who knows. \"He peered round the room.\"Until then I want this room sealed and guarded. Yes, Captain? '\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nThey shut and sealed all the doors, locking the last one behind them. While Aragan waited Captain Dreshen went to find two marines to post on the door.\n\nBehind, in the gloom of the office, the only light was the glow through the slats of the folding terrace doors, now barred from within. And it may have been a trick of that uncertain light, but deep within the depths of the orb, a glimmering awakened and the clouds, like a storm of snow, began to churn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Spindle finally started awake, fully clothed on his cot, he lay back and held his head, groaning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No more Barghast mead. Never again. Even warm, as he'd had it with Duiker. Though come to think of it, the historian had drunk little more than one tumbler from the jug.\n\nHolding his head very still for fear that it might falloff, he carefully edged his way down the stairs to the common room. By the light streaming in through the temple-bar's few windows he saw that it was late afternoon. Damned well slept most of the day– a bad sign. Discipline's goin' by the wayside.\n\nNow that the bar was wet once more a few of the regulars had returned to sit by themselves among the tables and booths. Irredeemable souses all, they spent the day expertly maintaining a steady state of numbness bordering on unconsciousness. Watching them, Spindle sometimes worried that that was where he was headed. Somehow, though, the abstract dread was not enough to stop him from getting hammered whenever possible.\n\nHe was surprised to see some tall well-dressed fellow sitting with the historian, and slowly eased himself down into a chair at the table. The two older men shared a knowing, amused glance.\n\n\"Care for another to chase that one away?\" Duiker asked.\n\nSpindle showed his teeth. \"Evil bastard.\"\n\nThe historian– a dour grim man at the best of times– offered a death's-head grin. He motioned to his companion,\"Fisher, Spindle. '\n\nThe bard nodded his greeting, his face held tight– Spindle recognized this as the politest possible reaction he could get to his hair shirt, which he never washed. He was surprised that this was the fellow Picker and Blend had spoken of: he had thought he'd be more imposing, more... mysterious. And they said he didn't come round much anymore. Taken up with a witch, or some such thing. He turned to the historian. \"Remind me to never buy mead again.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've heard that before, ' Duiker answered.\n\nSpindle blew out a breath, rubbed his face. \"Damned strange night last night.\" He tried to get the attention of Picker behind the bar.\n\n\"They have been strange, lately,\" Fisher affirmed, his gaze distant.\n\n\"Last night?\" Duiker asked, a grey brow arching. \"You mean two nights ago, don't you? '\n\nSpindle stared, amazed. Damn, but time flies when you finally have coin in your pocket!\n\n\"Spindle, why don't you tell Fisher here what you thought you saw two nights ago. '\n\nSpindle waved to Picker, who looked right through him. \"Does a man have to get his own tea and a bite around here?\" he murmured absently. Then he stiffened and half started up from the table, only to groan and sink back down again, holding his head. \"Beru take it!\"\n\nThe historian lost his amused half-smile and studied him, uncertain. \"What is it?\"\n\nYe gods! Two days and I haven't reported in! What was that woman's name? Fells? Fillish? Damn! The saboteur's bloodshot eyes darted right and left and his face took on a pale greenish hue.\"Nothing, \"he said.\"Think I'll get me some soup.\" He nodded a curt goodbye and ran.\n\nAfter Spindle had darted out of the bar Duiker said to Fisher, \"There goes one of the last remaining Bridgeburner cadre mages. Or rather, a mage who thinks he's a saboteur. '\n\nFisher touched along thin finger to his nose and nodded thoughtfully. \"Yes, there was a certain air about him.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist with the plot and keep the story going.\nTags: epic fantasy, ancient city, magic, power dynamics, hidden secrets\nAuthor: Ian Cameron Esslemont\nTitle: Orb Sceptre Throne\nChapter: 10" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Outside the hall, Fist K'ess turned to the male officer with him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cancel all furloughs, restrict the troops to garrison. Have we no one capable of raising the Imperial Warren? '\n\n\"None.\"\n\nThe Fist pulled savagely at his chin. \"What a gods-awful state of affairs. Going to the dogs, we are. Go!\"\n\nThe man saluted, ran off.\n\nThe Fist started walking again, striking a stiff marching pace. The other officer, the woman, hurried after him. \"Might I remind you we are at half strength, Fist,\" she said. \"Half went south at Ambassador Aragan's request. Now we know why. '\n\n\"Yes, yes. Your point?\"\n\n\"We are under strength. In case of an uprising I suggest we withdraw.\"\n\nThe Fist halted. Next to him lay a stretch of buildings still in ruins from the siege of years ago. Squatters now occupied it, living in huts of wood and straw among the fallen stonewalls. \"Withdraw?\" he repeated, outraged. \"Withdraw to where?\"\n\n\"West. The mountains.\"\n\nHe rubbed his chin. \"Throw ourselves on the mercy of the Moranth, you mean? Aye, there's some merit there. I'll keep it in mind. Until then, no. Too much Malazan blood was spilled taking this city. We'll not withdraw. ' He started off again, his pace swift.\n\nCaptain Fal-ej, of the Seven Cities, struggled to keep up.\n\nK'ess barked at her:\"Send our swiftest rider south, Captain. I want to know from that fat-arse Aragan what in the name of fallen Hood is going on! '\n\nCaptain Fal-ej saluted and ran off.\n\nK'ess massaged his unshaven throat. He spat aside.\"What a gods-damned time to choose to quit drinking. Just when things were getting quiet... ' He shook his head and hurried on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As was his habit of late, the Warlord spent time in the evening in silent solitary vigil overlooking the valley leading west to the glow of Darujhistan. Yet perhaps his gaze passed over the city, even beyond, to the barrow of Anomander Rake, once Lord of Moon's Spawn. This evening was dark and close. Thick clouds massed from the north, over Lake Azur and the Tahlyn Mountains beyond.\n\nSomething troubled the Warlord; this everyone spoke of, though none knew what it was. The castings of the shamans hinted at blood and violence to come. Word of war against the Malazan invaders swept like wildfire across the wide plains– though the elders themselves had not raised the White Spear. All this might have been part of the weight the Warlord carried. For though he was so named, some now whispered that he was too old, too grief-stricken, and perhaps his time had passed.\n\nHe mayor may not have been aware of these whispers within the assembly as he stood his solitary evening vigils out upon the hillside. Some said that in truth it was his distaste for it all that drove him from the tents to begin with.\n\nIn either case, late into one such evening the Warlord suddenly knew he was no longer alone. He glanced about to see standing a short distance off a man he'd thought his friend. A single glimpse, however, was enough to convince him that that was no longer the case. He shifted his weight to face the man, slid a handover the grip of the hammer at his side.\"Greetings, Baruk. What brings you from the city? '\n\nThe man certainly was Baruk, but not the Baruk the Warlord knew, with that avid hungry light in his fever-bright eyes, the fresh scars that traced a map of pain across his face. \"The one you called Baruk is gone. Burned away in the cleansing flames of truth. I am Barukanal, restored and reborn.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gossamer flames of power burned like auroras at the man's hands, where forests of rings now gleamed gold. Caladan's grip tightened upon his hammer. \"Truth? Which truth would that be?\"\n\n\"The truth of power. One I know you are intimately familiar with. The truth that power will always be used. The question only being by whom.\"\n\n\"Then you know enough not to tempt me.\"\n\nA gleeful mockery of a smile twitched the man's mouth.\"I recall enough to know that to bean empty threat, Warlord. '\n\nIn answer Caladan's lips pulled back over his prominent canines.\"Then you presume too much. If the... presence... I sense makes any effort to reach beyond Darujhistan, I will not hesitate to remove the city from the face of the continent. '\n\nThe one he once knew as Baruk gave a sham frown of sorrow. Backing away, he gestured to the west. \"More deaths, Warlord? How many more must die...?\" The figure dissipated into the night, leaving Brood to pull his clenched hand from the hammer and massage its stiff knuckles. He let out an animal growl and headed backup the hill to the distant lit tents. Baruk taken, he mused. That one will be a dangerous opponent. Yet he wondered at the constant stream of tears that had glistened on the man's scarred cheeks. And the eyes– that feyness could just as easily have been torment and horror trapped within.\n\nBefore he reached the tent the flap was pushed aside and a Rhivi elder hurried out. \"The shamans bring amazing news from the north, Warlord.\"\n\nSomething in Caladan's expression caused the elder to flinch aside.\"Why am I not surprised? ' Brood rumbled as he stalked past." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the most difficult act he had ever had to force himself to commit. Every step deliberate, stiff, reluctant, he approached the squat, ominous house that stood alone in the woods of Coll's estate. Every beat of Rallick's pounding heart screamed at him to flee. For not so long ago, when the Jaghut Tyrant Raest returned to the city only to be entombed herein this Azath construct, so too was he. And perhaps the house would not give him up a second time.\n\nBut he did not flee. He understood necessity. He alone in this city seemed to understand that there were things that simply had to be done. Reaching the door he paused, hand outstretched. Someone had been digging in the yard. A trail of dirt led across the grounds. He knelt to study the spoor. Two sets of tracks. One in rotted leather sandals. The other naked bony feet. Very bony, and very definitely inhuman in shape. Shedding dirt as they came.\n\nWhile he crouched there before the door it opened and Rallick found himself staring up at the grim, emaciated figure of the ancient Jaghut Tyrant Raest, prisoner to the house, and now its... guardian? Or perhaps more accurately its interpreter or spokesman. Or doorman.\n\n\"Not even if you beg,\" the Jag breathed, his inflection completely dead.\n\nRallick straightened. \"May I speak to you?\"\n\nThe unsettling vertical-pupils of the eyes rose to encompass the night sky over the estate district; narrowed. \"We already have a boarder. I am not taking in more. No matter how awful it will get.\"\n\nA shiver ran its fingers down Rallick's spine. He clenched and unclenched his sweaty hands.\"That is the last thing I would want. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Jag shuffled out of the doorway backup the hall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That is what they all say– then there's no getting rid of them. '\n\nRallick forced himself up the hall. Behind, the door swung shut, enclosing him in almost utter gloom. On one side, in a narrow corridor a large man lay blocking the way, snoring loudly and wetly. Raest passed this strange apparition without comment and Rallick was forced to follow. Murky light shone ahead; a sort of limpid greenish underwater glow cast down as if from a skylight. Here he found the Jag seated at a table and across from him sat another creature– an Imass. Or at least so Rallick assumed. He was no expert. Half-rotted flesh over bones and those bones stained dark. Battered armour of leather, furs and bone plates. And overall clumps of dried dirt. The entity held wooden slats in ravaged hands of bone and ligament. It raised its empty sockets to regard Rallick fora moment then returned its gaze to the slats in its hands.\n\nIn that brief regard a cold wind had brushed Rallick's face. He heard it moaning, carrying the call of large animals far in the distance. He shivered again.\n\nThe Jag, Raest, took up his own slats.\n\nCards, he realized. They were playing cards. Now. With so much hanging over the city.\n\nOn the table between them sat the corpse of a cat.\n\nRallick cleared his throat. \"What is going on?\"\n\n\"I am up ten thousand gold bars,\" Raest breathed. \"My friend here is having trouble with the changes in the rules.\"\n\nThe Imass's voice came as a low creaking of dry sinew:\"I am better at mechanisms. '\n\n\"No,\" Rallick insisted. \"The city. What's going on outside? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The neighbourhood is fast deteriorating. I am considering a move.\"\n\n\"A move? You can move?\"\n\nThe Tyrant turned his ravaged features to study him wordlessly fora time.\n\nRallick swallowed. Ah. I see.\n\nThe Jag laid down one wooden card from his hand.\n\nThe Imass edged its blunt skeletal chin forward to study the card then sat back to return to the contemplation of its own. Rallick also leaned to squint at the face; he saw nothing more than a crudely scratched image he couldn't make out.\n\n\"No,\" the Jag continued, \"I've put too much work into the place. \"Rallick eyed the walls of rotting wood, the hanging roots, the dust sifting down through the cascading starlight.\"Besides, Fluffy here would be devastated. '\n\nFluffy? Please be referring to the cat– my sanity won't survive otherwise.\n\n\"Can you give meany hint of what is to come?\"\n\n\"I serve the House now. Only it. However, I can tell you what sort of game we are playing.\"\n\nGame?\n\nFrom his mangled leathery hand the Imass slowly slid a wooden card onto the table.\n\nRaest leaned forward to study the image scratched upon its face. He sat back, shaking his head. \"No– not her. She's out of the game. For now. \"He brushed the card aside. The ligaments of the Imass's neck creaked as it followed the card to the far edge of the table. It growled.\n\nRallick found he was holding his breath. \"What sort of game... is it?\" he asked, hardly able to speak.\n\n\"It's a game of bluff. Bluff on both sides. Remember that, servant of Hood. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hood is gone.\"\n\n\"The paths remain.\"\n\n\"I see.\"\n\n\"Do you? It would be astounding if you did.\"\n\nRallick clenched his lips. I can't settle my aim here. He turned his attention to the Imass. Those are not his leg bones. He looked away.\"Is there anything more you can tell me? '\n\nThe Jag remained immobile, his slashed and battered face a mask, long grey hairlike iron shavings hanging to his shoulders. \"I can tell you that you are distracting me from the game. Go away.\"\n\nRallick decided that he should not wait to be told twice. He edged back out of the room, not turning away from the oddly mismatched, yet so utterly matched, couple.\n\nHe reached the closed door.\n\nNow for the hardest part of all.\n\nBut the door did open.\n\nWhen someone entered his office, Legate Jeshin Lim's first thought was that a councillor had requested an unscheduled meeting and his staff had ushered him or her through. He was surprised, therefore, upon peering up from composing his next speech to seethe merchant Humble Measure standing before him.\n\nHe stifled the urge to leap from his chair. Burn's mercy! Who allowed the man in! Someone will lose their position over this. He transformed his twitch of mouth into a rigid, if rather strained, welcoming smile. Well... one can hardly complain. This man's money allowed me entrance to this office... why not the man himself?\n\nHe stood, smiling, and came round the desk. \"Humble Measure! This is a surprise!\" He motioned to a chair. \"Please, sit. May I offer you some tea?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The big man sat stiffly and ponderously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"None, Legate... thank you.\"\n\nHow odd to see him outside the offices at his works. He looks... diminished. Jeshin poured himself a tiny thimbleful of tea and retreated once more behind his desk. \"What can I do for you, old friend?\"\n\n\"First,\" the man ground out, \"congratulations upon the renewal of the ancient honoured position, Legate.\"\n\nLim waved such formalities aside. \"It is our victory, Humble. Our shared vision led to this. We achieved it together.\"\n\nHumble inclined his head in acknowledgement. \"The Legate is too generous. Yet I wonder, then, why, with this victory in your grasp, you have not gone onto move Darujhistan towards the position of pre-eminence we once agreed it deserves?\"\n\nJeshin frowned, cocking his head. The tea sat forgotten before him. \"How so?\"\n\n\"Legate– Darujhistan must have an arsenal. Arms, armour, siege engines. The matériel of war-\" He stopped himself, because the Legate had raised a hand to speak.\n\nBack to this old argument. Should've anticipated it. The man's a fanatic. \"Humble... your point is well taken. Arms and armour are needed, yes. Yet look at what we have accomplished! We are in accord on so much. Darujhistan shall beset once more on a course of pre-eminence. We only differ in this one small matter– you believe that putting weapons and armour on every citizen will accomplish this, while I believe the city's defences must first be addressed. The walls, Humble-'\n\nThe merchant interrupted. \"Darujhistan has walls, Legate.\"\n\nJeshin waved this aside. \"Hardly worth the name. Playgrounds for the city's children. Neglected and pillaged for centuries. They must be rebuilt, strengthened. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's not the walls of Darujhistan that must be strengthened, Legate... it is the will. '\n\nJeshin stilled, hands pressed to the cool marble surface of his desk. \"The discussion is closed, Humble. I thank you for your concern. I know I can count on your cooperation in our efforts to bring prestige and influence to our city.\" And he stood, smiling once more. He motioned to the door.\n\nHumble Measure levered his bulk from the chair. He glowered from under his thick brows. Without a word he turned and lumbered to the door.\n\nJeshin watched him go, stiff smile still fixed on his lips. A guard. Guards, today. Unbribable guards. Am I not the damned Legate of this ridiculous city?\n\nHumble's closed carriage rocked as he settled his weight within. He sat hunched forward, elbows on knees, as if examining someone seated opposite. The carriage started its twisting way down Majesty Hill. The man's heavy-lidded eyes were narrowed, almost closed, as he lolled back and forth. Indeed, another passenger might have thought him asleep.\n\nBut he was far from asleep. Like the ponderous presses of his foundry his mind was slowly working, inexorably turning, and with crushing irresistible weight. And the conclusion he reached was that he did not sacrifice so much to put a Legate in charge of this city in order that the holder of the position could cower behind walls.\n\nFortunately, however, ways exist to resolve this temporary hindrance.\n\nThe Mengal mountains ran as a backbone along the west coast of the Genabackan continent. They were for the most part a dangerous unsettled wilderness. A trader mud track twisted along the skirts of their inland eastward slope, unkept, swept away in places by erosion, crossed by fallen trees. Mule trains, two-wheeled carts and backpacks were the only way to make the trip. And even then in places the track was practically impassable. Far quicker and easier to ship any goods, livestock or people up and down the coast by water. But there were always those for whom the up-front expense of such cargo space or berths was unaffordable. For these petty traders, tinkers, travelling smiths, would-be homesteaders, or plain adventurers off to find anew horizon there would always be the mud track through the tall evergreen forest, their breath pluming in the cold wet mist cascading down the slopes, and their own rag-swathed feet and bent, burdened backs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And so, too, there were always those who preyed upon them.\n\nYusek's people were out of the east, Bastion way. During the Troubles they'd packed up and headed west. By the time they crossed the Dwelling Plain the way of life had become habit and they just kept on moving. Eventually Yusek raised her head and looked around and realized that all her family's starving and slogging hadn't gotten them anywhere worth going. So she packed up everything useful and did the only thing she knew how to do: she moved on.\n\nShe'd fallen in with Orbern's crew, or rather they'd taken everything she had and given her the choice to join them or starve in the cold. She being young and new, they'd tried using her, of course, but she'd grownup defending herself and had discovered early on that she didn't mind the shedding of blood half as much as those around her. So they made her a scout, or a runner, or whatever you damned well wanted to call it, on account of the fact that she could walk all their fat drunken arses into the ground. And they had no armour worth the name to give her anyway.\n\nOrbern claimed to be from Darujhistan. From one of the city's noble families. Kept going on about being cheated of his position, unappreciated, or driven out by idiots, or some such. Not that anyone gave a damn. Fancied himself'Lord of the western mountains'. Even had a horse, a sickly lonely-looking thing that he insisted on riding through the dense brush. Stupidest spectacle Yusek had ever seen.\n\nNoble-born or not, Orbern ran things because at least he had some kind of claim to an education. Knew how to build. He'd had them put up a palisade across the gorge they occupied. Raised log cabins that didn't leak. Even got a crude sort of forge up and running for their metalworking needs. It used a big ol' flat stone as an anvil." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And because of all this the man's rule was tolerated, even if he was a pompous ass.\n\nToday Yusek was \"scouting\". Which consisted of crouching under the cover of a tall evergreen watching the rain misting down the mountainside. The Mengal mountains were tall enough to gather clouds to themselves, but here they were not tall enough to completely shadow the leeward slopes, and deep valleys cut through to the coast. As a result, a portion of the mist always reached inland– not that any ever touched the Dwelling Plain.\n\nShe was keeping an eye on the trader track where it came winding up from the south. And this day, sure enough with the damned cold rain and all, there came two figures tramping through the mud, stepping over the trunks of fallen trees, pushing through the channels of run-off that charged across the path.\n\nDamned fools. Out in this weather. Now she had to get soaked too!\n\nShe went down to meet them.\n\nThey were a couple of the sorriest travellers she'd ever seen. Carried no goods or packs as far as she could make out; they wore big loose hooded cloaks pulled close against the rain. At least they were armed, as she could seethe polished bronze heels of sheaths hanging down beneath their cloaks.\n\nAs she stepped out onto the track they stopped and exchanged looks with each other from under their deep hoods. \"Where you headed?\" she asked.\n\nOne stepped forward. \"North,\" he said in a strange accent.\n\n\"I'm with a settlement just-'\n\n\"Do you know of a monastery herein these mountains?\" the fellow demanded, cutting her off.\n\n\"A what? Monastery? No. Like I said, I'm with-'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the two had walked right past her. She watched them go, dumbfounded. What in the name of Mowri...\n\nShe caught up with them. \"Listen. There's a settlement near here. Orbern-town. ' Stupid damned name. Orbern-town! Damned ass. Ha! Ass-town!\n\nThe two stopped. Even this close Yusek couldn't see into the deep hoods. One spoke again, the same one as before– the other had yet to say anything at all.\"There are people there who would know these mountains well? ' he asked.\n\nYusek wiped the cold mist from her face, shrugged. \"Yeah. Sure. You bet.\"\n\n\"Very well. You may lead us there.\"\n\nShe snorted, waved for them to follow. Listen to that! \"You may lead us there...\" Who do these two think they are?\n\nYusek wouldn't have denied she'd grownup in the middle of nowhere and knew next to nothing, but even she would've runoff when the sharpened logs of the palisade hove into view. She especially would've panicked when the heavy log door was pushed shut behind them and the great cross-piece was set into place and all the hairy unwashed mountain men of Orbern's crew came shambling out to see what was up.\n\nBut not these two. They followed her right in, meek as lambs to the axe. Some people, she reflected, didn't have the sense to be allowed to live.\n\nShe led them straight up to the main log \"Hall\" as Orbern called it, pushed open the door. The two followed her in. A bunch of the crew pushed in behind.\n\nOrbern was eating; he spent a lot of time doing that, hanging around the table. Yusek guessed this was his way of playing \"Lord of the Manor\". He looked up as if surprised, set down his knife and wiped his hands on the layered robes he wore to demonstrate his \"Office\". He had a great head of straggly hair and beard that Yusek figured he cultivated, again as part of his image as some kind of great master of the wilderness, like those of the ex-free cities of the north." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And who do we have here?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he asked, all arch and loud.\n\n\"Travellers, sir,\" she answered, addressing him as he kept telling them to.\n\nOrbern pulled on his beard, nodding. \"Excellent! Greetings, sirs! Welcome to Orbern-town– such as it is at this time. Admittedly no Mengal yet. But we are growing. Soon we hope to become a regular waystop on the trader road. What may we do for you? Beds for the night, perhaps?\"\n\nSome of the boys behind the travellers chuckled at that. The two didn't even turn round.\n\n\"Do you know of a monastery in these mountains, north of here?\"\n\nOrbern made a great show of stroking his beard and studying the cross-beams above. \"A monastery, you say? Are you on a devotional pilgrimage? Are they expecting you?\"\n\n\"If none here knows it then we will move on.\"\n\nA lot more of the men laughed at that. Yusek couldn't hide her disbelief. How dense can you be?\n\nOrbern merely raised a hand for silence. \"There's no hurry. Perhaps we do know of such a place. Perhaps-'\n\n\"Do you know?\" the traveller asked, interrupting.\n\nOrbern was thrown fora moment but recovered smoothly. \"I? No. But fora contribution to Orbern-town's-'\n\n\"Then who?\"\n\nOrbern glared from beneath his tangled brows. Yusek laughed, and none too gently. Now this was funny... this was a good show. \"A contribution to Orbern-town's future will gain you our goodwill, ' Orbern ground out, sounding far from friendly.\n\nAs if byway of answer, the spokesman of the two pushed back his heavy hood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yusek heard gasps of hissed breaths. Almost as one the crowd of outlaws and murderers, hunted men all, flinched several steps backwards, clearing a circle round the two. She stared surprised: the man wore a mask, a painted oval, all complex swirls and bands. Oddest thing, she thought. Then she glanced to Orbern.\n\nThe man was frozen, eyes huge. He appeared to be struggling to take a breath to speak but failing. Yusek made a disgusted face. What's this? So the fellow's wearing a mask? So what?\n\nNo one moved or spoke; it was as if all were too terrified. A few like Yusek were peering about, confused; mostly men from the north. Since no one was saying anything she stepped forward, hands on the knives at her belt. \"Hand over everything you have,\" she demanded.\n\nA strangled high-pitched laugh burst from Orbern. He waved his hands frantically. \"Don't listen to her! \"he spluttered, almost squeaking.\"You are free to go, of course! '\n\n\"What's this? \"called out Waynar, a great hairy fellow from the north who claimed Barghast blood. He uncrossed his thick arms and stepped forward.\"Free to go? '\n\n\"Would you shut up!\" Orbern snarled at him, then offered the two guests a nervous laugh.\n\n\"You ain't our king or anything, \"Waynar countered. He loomed up so close to the visitors that his out-thrust chin almost touched the masked forehead of the much shorter and slighter of the two.\"Who in Hood're you? An\" why're you wearin\" that stupid mask? '\n\nDamned straight! Yusek added silently. 'Bout time someone took charge. Looks like Orbern might be on the outs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The spokesman tilted his head to peer past Waynar's shaggy bulk.\"Is this one in defiance of your orders? '\n\nOrbern's shoulders fell. He clasped his head in his hands and let out along shuddering breath.\"I am very sorry, Waynar, \"he said.\"But... yes. He is. '\n\nThe spokesman shrugged. Or appeared to shrug. Something happened. Yusek wasn't sure; she didn't quite catch it. His cloak moved, anyway. Waynar's eyes bulged. His mouth opened but nothing came out. Then a great torrent of blood and fluids came gushing down from the man's waist, down over his legs, splattering amid falling wet glistening coils and viscera. The man almost split in half.\n\nYusek screamed, jumping backwards. Even the strangers stepped away from the spreading pool of gore.\n\nSome went for their swords but others in the crowd stopped them, grabbing their arms. Orbern threw up his hands for calm. \"Do not move!\" he called. To the travellers he offered a small bow of his head. \"There will be no further challenges. Your demonstration is most... pointed. North of here you will find a handful of small settlements, homesteads and such. And I have heard rumours of a temple of some sort.\"\n\n\"Who knows this region best?\" the spokesman asked, his voice still mild and uninflected.\n\nOrbern's brows drew down once more.\"Well, Yusek here has covered most of the slopes. '\n\nYusek tore her gaze from the pile of viscera and saw that the spokesman stranger was now regarding her through his painted mask. His eyes were hazel brown.\n\n\"What?\" she snapped.\n\n\"You will guide us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sure as the bony finger of the Taker, I will not.\"\n\nThe spokesman turned away. \"It is decided. We require food and water.\"\n\nOrbern exhaled his relief. \"Shel-ken, find them some supplies.\"\n\n\"No! It is not decided!\" Yusek snarled. She glared at Orbern. \"I won't go with these murderers! '\n\n\"Is this one also defying the hierarchy?\" the spokesman asked of Orbern.\n\nYusek backed up until her shoulder blades pressed against a wall. Orbern eyed her, one brow arched as if to ask: well?\n\nAll eyes swung to her. A few of Orbern's men licked their lips as if eager to see her sliced from throat to crotch.\"No, ' she said.\n\nYusek confronted Orbern after the two visitors had left the hall to wait outside. \"What are you doing?\" she demanded while he watched, pulling on one fat lip, as the mess that had been Waynar was hauled away. Fresh sawdust was thrown over the stained dirt floor. He returned to picking at the greasy bird carcass. \"Well?\"\n\nHis tired gaze flicked to her. \"You're hardly really a member of this little community of ours, are you, Yusek? You take every excuse to range over the slopes for days on end. It's as if you've just been waiting for an excuse to cut and run anyway. '\n\nShe couldn't find it in herself to deny any of what he said.\"But with these two murderers? You saw what they did to Waynar! You just want to get me killed. '\n\nOrbern pushed aside the bones. \"Yusek...\" He rubbed his brow, sighing. \"Firstly, dear, Waynar asked for it. He challenged the Seguleh. So, lesson number one– do not challenge them! Now, secondly, contrary to what we all just saw, in their company you will be the safest you've been in years. \"He sat back, opening his hands.\"Thirdly, almost everyone here is a murderer– since when has that been a problem for you? And lastly, frankly, it has been a royal pain in the arse keeping everyone off your arse this last year. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If they can't control themselves that's their problem, not mine. They can go hump animals.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't fool yourself– some do. Or each other. In any case, I agree, yes. Why women get blamed for men's callousness and lack of respect for others is beyond me. But it becomes your problem when it's you they're attacking. Yes?\"\n\n\"I'll kill anyone who tries that. They know that. '\n\n\"So I'm down yet another man. '\n\n\"It's not my damn fault they're arseholes!\"\n\nHe pulled savagely on his beard. \"Yusek! The reason they've been driven out of all other towns and villages and families– any community of cooperative people– is because they are murderous, selfish, short-sighted, impulsive, cruel arseholes! \"He pointed to the door.\"I'm doing you a favour.\"\n\nShe didn't move.\"I can take care of myself. '\n\n\"The fact that you're still alive proves that, Yusek. But the odds are stacking up. Eventually, you'll disappear and Ezzen, or Dullet, will have a self-satisfied smirk on his face fora few days... and that would be the end of it.\"\n\nYusek lowered her chin. \"I'm not asking you to dome any favours. ' She hated how sullen that sounded, but it was the truth.\n\nOrbern sighed again. \"I know. But I am anyway. Osserc knows why. Must be my civilized conscience.\"\n\nShe went to pack the rest of her meagre belongings. Queen's throw! I may as well just ditch'em. She spotted Short-tall, out of the south, and raised her chin to him. \"So who are these Segulath anyway?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's Seguleh, \"he corrected her, then drew a slashing line across the air.\"Swords, sweetmeat. Walking swords is what they are. Watch yourself or they'll do you as they did Waynar.\"\n\nShe gave him a face, threw her tied bedroll over her shoulder.\n\nShe found them waiting in the muddy garbage-strewn grounds that Orbern called the \"Marshalling field\". A pack of gathered stores sat with them.\n\nThe spokesman indicated it. \"Carry this.\"\n\n\"I ain't no one's pack mule.\"\n\n\"None the less.\"\n\n\"No. You can fucking carry it.\"\n\nSomething whipped past her face– a silvery blur. Her bedroll fell from her shoulder into the mud, its rope tie cut. The man straightened, his cloak falling back into place.\n\nYusek stared. How in the name of Togg did he do that? She raised her gaze to the painted mask and the eyes behind: these studied her, narrowed, as if gauging her reaction. It was not the swaggering superior look she was used to from all those who'd bested her in the past.\n\nShe spat to one side– \"Fine!\" – yanked up the pack, which was damned heavy, adjusted it on her back. \"You do have a name...?\"\n\nThe spokesman motioned for her to walk with him. The silent partner followed, hood still raised. As they approached the palisade door she spotted fat Orbern upon the catwalk. He waved for the solid log cross-piece to be pulled aside and the door pushed open. They exited into the woods with almost the entire crew of Orbern-town at the palisade watching them go.\n\n\"My name is Sall,\" the spokesman said. Now, in the silence of the woods, he sounded rather young." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yusek jerked a thumb to the other. \"And him?\"\n\nSall was silent fora time, perhaps searching for the right words. \"In the rankings of the Seguleh I am of the Three Hundredth-\"\n\n\"Three hundredth what?\" she cut in.\n\nAgain, he was silent fora while. The rain had letup and now the streams of run-off trickled across the track. Heavy drops pattered amid the woods. The morning's mist was gone with the rain.\n\n\"The Three Hundredth I refer to means among the Seguleh fighters,\" Sall said, his tone now quite icy. It seemed he wasn't used to being interrupted.\n\nShe eyed him sidelong. He'd raised his hood again.\"So... you mean that you're among the top three hundred fighters of all you Seguleh?\"\n\n\"Among all those who choose to pursue the rankings, yes. Not all need do so.\"\n\nAmong the three hundred best fighters of these Seguleh? Damn! She jerked her thumb to the other. \"And him?\"\n\n\"Yusek\"– he spoke much more quietly now– \"I can give you his name... but it will be of no use to you. You might address him but he will never speak to you. He is Lo. And he is Eighth.\"\n\nEighth? Like in eighth best of all of \"em? Burn's embrace! And they're out herein the middle of nowhere?\"What're you two doing here?\"\n\n\"As I said, we are looking fora monastery that is supposed to be somewhere herein these mountains.\"\n\nYusek snorted. Damned foolishness. Here she was guiding a couple of fanatics off to some temple so they could bow to some dusty piece of bone, or a sacred statue on a wall, or have a senile old man wave his handover their heads. What a fucking waste of her time!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She decided to ditch them right away.\n\nShe simply didn't stop walking. So far that tactic had never failed her. She'd lost everyone she'd ever walked away from. As the day progressed, sure enough they fell back just as everyone always did. Once they were far enough behind on the trail she shucked the pack from her shoulders, took the best of the dried staples and a skin of water, and just kept right ongoing without looking back. In fact, she decided to run.\n\nShe made for an overhang she knew of, a kind of unofficial way-station along the trail. It was much further than an average day's travel but she'd push on into the night.\n\nFor all the rest of the day, into the long twilight of evening, until the light failed entirely and she couldn't make out the track ahead, she saw no more sign of them. The combined light of the mottled moon and the ill-omened green night sky visitor allowed her to find the narrow path up the rocks to the overhang and here she crouched down on her hams, in the dirt and rotting leaves, and chewed on a strip of dried venison. Her legs were trembling and numb, her chest aflame, but she'd made it. And she was rid of them. She was rid of them all! Fat Orbern, leering Ezzen, slow-witted Henst with his clumsy paws. She'd done it again! Shaken the useless dust from her heels. Just like her ma and pa that day in the worst stretch of the Dwelling Plain when it was them or her and damned if it was gonna be her!\n\nI'll head for Mengal just as I've always wanted. Make a name for myself there. Must be plenty of opportunities fora girl like me... I'll be-" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She stiffened, listening. Rocks were falling down on the trail. She slowly straightened, a hand going to the fighting knife at her hip, her heart thudding.\n\nThe hooded and cloaked figure of Sall climbed up into the overhang. He brushed dirt from himself. He dropped the pack to the dry dust and leaves. She lowered her hand. I don't fucking believe it!\n\n\"A fair first day's travel, Yusek. \"The hood rose as he peered about.\"I approve. You may rest. I will take first watch. '\n\nLo joined them, rising as silently as a ghost from the murk. He crossed to the rear of the overhang and sat without a word.\n\n\"Who are you people...?\" she breathed, awed despite herself.\n\n\"We are the Seguleh, Yusek. And all these lands will soon come to know us again.\"\n\nSpindle sat on a stone bench in the Circle of Faiths. It was a paved plaza in the Daru district that through the years, building by building and yard by yard, had been invaded then annexed by the worshippers of foreign, emerging, or even discredited religions. A sort of unofficial bazaar to any god, spirit or ascendant you'd care to name. Tall prayer sticks burned next to him as votive offerings to some obscure northern deity, possibly Barghast ancestor spirits. He waved the thick smoke from his face. Across the plaza a tiny stone building looking unnervingly like a sepulchre housed a priest of the new cult of the Shattered God. The man sat gabbling onto all who passed but was rather hard to understand, speaking as he was through broken teeth and a swollen jaw from the many beatings the local toughs meted out. Spindle had to hand it to the fellow, though. The man was undeterred. He even seemed to relish the extra challenge to his devotion and perseverance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some people just want to be persecuted... it proves they're right.\n\nBut then, he knew all about persecution. He and his ma together had watched the world succeed in its persecution of his father, uncles, brothers, aunts, sisters and uncounted cousins. \"Ain't gonna lose you, little \"un,\" she'd always told him. She repeated it yet again when word came of the loss of his last brother, fallen overboard in rough seas off the coast of Delanss.\"That's my sworn vow, that is.\" And he'd looked up from where he sat next to her chair to watch her brushing her hair– hair so long it would drag along the ground behind her should she ever let it down.\"Hold you in my arms, I will. Bind you up in protection. Keep you safe. Your mama's gonna keep you safe. You'll see. '\n\nHe rubbed his shirt over his chest. She was close now. He could feel her next to him the way he could when trouble was coming.\n\nBeen three days and no contact yet from any of the cadre mages. Should've been contact by now. Ain't right.\n\n\"You look like a brother,\" someone addressed him in Daru.\n\nSpindle shaded his eyes to blink up at a young swell-sword all done up in mock Malazan officer gear complete with torcs and Quonstyle longsword. On his silk surcoat the lad bore the sword symbol of the cult of Dessembrae. \"Whazzat? Brother?\"\n\n\"One of the initiate. The Elite. Recognized by Dessembrae.\"\n\n\"What in Osserc's smothering warmth are you going on about? '\n\nThe young man's ingratiating smile slipped into a stung haughtiness as he looked Spindle up and down.\"My apology. Clearly I am mistaken. Obviously you do not possess the requisite dignity. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Spindle hawked up a mouthful of phlegm and spat. \"Dignity, my arse. If he saw you now he wouldn't know whether to laugh or cry. '\n\n\"So those found unworthy may grumble.\"\n\nSpindle considered rousing himself to teach the pupa lesson, but he was feeling at ease on the bench and decided not to let the ignorant fool ruin his day. He waved the lad away. \"Take your rubbish elsewhere.\"\n\nThe aristocratic youth actually tossed his head as he walked off. Spindle snorted at the absurdity of it all, then realized he was no longer alone on the bench. He eyed the fellow sidelong: tall and rangy, wrapped in an old travelling cloak. Long black wavy hair. Looked Talian in profile.\n\n\"If that lad knew he was talking to a Bridgeburner he'd have pissed himself, ' the man said.\n\nSpindle cursed under his breath. \"Took your own damned time, didn't you? \"He rubbed his handover his chest, listening for guidance, heard nothing. This man was no mage.\"Who are you anyway? Where's Filless?\"\n\n\"Filless is no longer with us. Someone's made a sport of hunting Imperial mages and Claws. \"He turned to address him directly.\"If I were you I'd keep my head down.\"\n\n\"Hunh. That's me. Question still stands. Who're you?\"\n\n\"I'm with the Imperial delegation. '\n\nSpindle snorted again. \"Military intelligence. Shoulda known.\"\n\n\"We learned long ago not to depend entirely on the Claw.\"\n\n\"Hood's cautionary finger to that, my friend. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So– your report?\"\n\n\"Some kinda spook's entered the city. Drug his arse outta the burial grounds to the south. Wasn't alone neither. Has servants. And they ain't entirely human, if you know what I mean. '\n\nThe intelligence officer let out a faint whistle, fingers tapping on his lap. \"And the Moranth flee... Damned scary, that.\"\n\n\"As did we. You lot marched out.\"\n\n\"Just a training exercise,\" the fellow answered, as if it was un-important. \"I want you to try to track him, or it, down.\"\n\nSpindle gave him his best glare. The feller tells me to keep my head down, then he has the nerve... He spat again. \"Not me. Just a bystander, remember?\"\n\nThe young officer murmured, \"Might I remind you the punishment for desertion is still death?\"\n\nStretching out his legs, Spindle took out a handful of nuts he'd purchased from a street vendor, began cracking them and tossed them one by one into his mouth.\"Amateurish bluff, lad. I'm the last asset you got left in this whole Queen-damned city.\"\n\nThe officer studied his tapping fingers fora time. \"I wouldn't count on that. When the Fifth came to this continent an Imperial Sceptre was sent with High Fist Dujek. It's with us now. Herein the city. And it's awakened. '\n\nSpindle missed his mouth with a thrown nut. Gods all around. Aline straight to Unta. Anything could be sent through. An army of Claws. A High Mage. He cleared his throat, shrugging. \"Well, then, you don't need me. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The young intelligence officer pursed his lips eloquently. \"Until then– we'll just have to put up with you. '\n\nDamned Empire! Never lets you go. Always drags you back in. Sons a bitches.\n\nThen he squeezed the nuts in his sweaty hand. Oh no. Picker's gonna kill me!\n\nStooped and shuffling, Aman picked his way through his wrecked shop. Taya followed in his wake. Her steps were dainty and soundless against his noisy dragging of his boots through the broken wares.\n\nShe wrinkled her nose at the churned-up dust. \"Revenge?\" she asked. \"A warning?\"\n\nAman picked up a relatively whole glass urn, turned it in an errant ray of sunlight that penetrated the shutters he kept locked. \"No, my dear. Neither.\" He dropped the urn to smash to pieces alongside its fellows. \"Irrelevant. All too irrelevant.\"\n\nTaya studied his gnarled profile. She blew a hair from her face. \"Then why are we here?\"\n\n\"Tone, dear. Watch your tone. Petulant. It is not becoming.\"\n\nShe raised her full painted lips in a smirk that was almost a leer. \"Depends upon what you're looking for. '\n\nAfter a moment Aman tilted his head to acknowledge the point. \"True. It has served you in the past. But things are changing now. And you must change as well.\"\n\nShe snorted her opinion of that. \"Nothing has changed! Still we skulk in the shadows.\" Her gaze slid sideways to Aman. \"Perhaps you're too used to living like rats? '\n\nHe was examining the glittering jade-encrusted statue, running his mangled hands over its strange crusted armour of stone. \"You are wasting your breath, young one. Too long among those who can so easily be stung. Whereas I possess no vanity to be plucked like a thin rich robe. No fragile self-image so readily chipped or shattered.\" He regarded her, his gaze weighing. \"No. The die is cast... as they say. We merely wait while the ripples spread outward– if I maybe permitted to tweak my metaphors. We must wait for we are yet vulnerable, yes? But soon... soon we shall be unassailable. Never you doubt, child.\" He clasped his hands together under his uneven chin as if praying. \"So. What happened here?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She shrugged her thin bare shoulders. \"Someone broke in and ransacked the place. Probably offended by your housekeeping.\"\n\nAman touched his fingertips to his mouth. His mismatched eyes, one brown, the other a sickly yellow, seemed to peer in two directions. \"No. That is not what happened at all. Observe.\" He indicated the floor next to the statue. Taya looked: near where it stood the floorboards clearly showed the dark outline, free of dust, of its carved stone armoured boots.\n\n\"It moved,\" she breathed.\n\nAman smiled lopsidedly– the only way he could. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"So... it's alive? '\n\nHe patted the statue's chest.\"No. It is not. Makes it even more formidable, truth be told. No, this is what happened. Someone entered undetected, bypassing all my considerable wards, spirit guardians, and Warren-keyed traps. An accomplishment all by itself. He was in the process of examining the premises when the one guardian he did not anticipate acted. '\n\n\"And the mess?\"\n\n\"The clumsy efforts of my foreign friend to corner the pest... who, with breathtaking insolence, continued his search even while being chased.\" He shook his misshapen head, awed. \"Such effrontery! It will be his downfall.\"\n\nTaya raised an expressive, elegant brow. \"Whose downfall?\"\n\nAman tugged at something clasped in one stone fist. He pulled again, grunting. Cloth tore. He raised a dirty shred of material: a stained handkerchief. \"An old friend. Slipped greasily away... yet again.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The scholar and traveller Sulerem of Mengal writes in his journals of a distant land to the south where every man and woman is as a sovereign unto themselves. It is a wasteland wherein over a hundred years not even one fallen tree has been moved.\n\nLetters of the Philosophical Society\n\nDarujhistan\n\nKISKA HAD LONG lost track of how many leagues of shoreline she and Leoman had walked when, eventually, as she knew he would, the man cleared his throat in away that told her he had something to say– something she would no doubt not want to hear.\n\nShe stopped on the stretch of black sand, the sun-bright surf brushing up the strand, and turned to regard him. He stood some paces back. His hands were at his weapon belt; his long pale robes hung grimed and ragged at their bottom edge over his chain coat. He was growing a beard to match his moustache and his hair hung long and unkempt from beneath his peaked helmet.\n\nShe knew she must present no prettier a picture. She waved for him to speak. \"What is it?\"\n\nHe gave an uneasy shrug, not meeting her eyes. \"This is useless, Kiska. If he wanted to be found he'd have come to us long ago. '\n\n\"We don't know that... '\n\n\"Stands to reason.\"\n\n\"And I suppose you have some brilliant alternative?\"\n\n\"I suggest we strike inland. Perhaps we'll find something. Away... \"He tailed off, seeing Kiska's change of expression. She was no longer looking at him, but above and beyond. He turned round. A moment later he cursed softly. She came up to stand next to him. \"It's closing, ' he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes. Definitely smaller.\"\n\nThe dark smear in the slate-grey sky that was the Whorl had faded to a fraction of the size it had once been.\n\n\"Looks like the Liosan have put an end to it.\"\n\n\"I suppose so. Two offspring of Osserc ought to be enough.\"\n\nHe studied her, his gaze oddly gentle. \"That could be our way out closing before us.\"\n\nShe turned away to keep walking. \"All the more reason to track him down.\"\n\n\"Kiska,\" he called, a touch irritated. \"We could be walking in the wrong direction.\"\n\n\"Go ahead! I'm not keeping you! I'm sure all the ladies are missing your moustache.\"\n\nShe walked on in silence. Part of her wondered whether he'd answer, or whether he was following along at a distance. She refused to glance behind.\n\nThen his voice came, shouting from far off: \"What if I told you I could find him?\"\n\nShe stopped, let out along angry breath. Ye gods! Was this all just some sort of game to the fellow? She turned round, eyed him. He was standing as before, hands still at his belt, rocking back and forth on the heels of his boots. Shaking her head, she retraced her tracks backup the stretch of beach and planted herself before him, hands on hips.\n\n\"This better be good.\"\n\nHis brown eyes held the usual glint of amusement. He brushed at his now enormous untrimmed moustache, so very pleased with himself. Like the damned cat that has the mouse.\n\n\"You seem to have a soft spot for these local unfortunates, don't you? '\n\nShe flinched away, eyeing him warily. \"I'll not let you harm any of them. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man looked positively pained– or made a great show of it. \"Never. What do you think I am?\"\n\nA murderous self-interested callous prick? Yet didn't there seem to be something more to the man? He did appear to have a surprising gentleness. A kind of unpredictable fey compassion. His problem is that he hides it too well.\"Your point? '\n\nA nod. \"My point is that your pity for them seems to have blinded you to how they could be of use in your... well, quest.\"\n\nShe felt distaste hardening her mouth. \"And that is?\"\n\nHe sighed, opening his hands. \"Think, Kiska. There is some kind of connection there. All we need do is keep an eye on them. And eventually...\" He gave an evocative shrug.\n\nShe felt a fool. Yes. Stands to reason. Simple. Elegant. Why didn't I think of it? Because it was passive. She much preferred action. Yet Leoman was hardly the retiring type. Perhaps it was because he must have grownup hunting and thought like a hunter, whereas she had not. For her, just sitting and waiting for something to happen, well, it grated against all her instincts.\n\nYet she had to agree. And so she allowed a curt nod and headed backup the curve of shoreline. Leoman followed at a discreet distance. Perhaps to spare her his supercilious smirk and self-satisfied grooming of his moustache.\n\nBarathol was slow to answer the loud persistent knocking at his door. It had a suspiciously arrogant and officious sound to it. Finally opening up, he found that he'd been right. A clerk faced him, a great sheaf of scrolls tucked under one arm and another in his hand. Behind him stood three Wardens of the city watch, and behind them stood a wrinkled pinch-faced woman he recognized as a representative of the city blacksmiths\" guild." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He crossed his thick arms, peered down at the clerk. \"Yes?\"\n\n\"Are you...\" the young man consulted the scroll he was holding, \"the smith known as Barathol Mekhar, a registered foreigner?\"\n\n\"I'm not foreign where I was born. '\n\nThe clerk blinked up at him. His brows wrinkled as he considered the point. Then he shrugged. \"Well, Barathol, as a tradesman and a resident you are hereby conscripted to the city's construction efforts. '\n\n\"I'm not a mason. '\n\n\"Metalworking is also required,\" the woman observed from the rear.\n\nBarathol jerked a thumb to her. \"Then why isn't she conscripted? '\n\n\"Members of the blacksmiths\" guild in good standing are exempt, ' the woman replied, prim and flushed with triumph.\n\nBarathol nodded. \"I see.\"\n\n\"I'll give you a good exempting, ' Scillara spat from behind Barathol and tried to push past him. He threw an arm across the doorway.\n\n\"Is it paid service?\" he asked.\n\nThe clerk allowed the thick paper of the scroll to snap back into a cylinder. \"It will count as taxation.\"\n\nBarathol had yet to pay any tax whatsoever on any of his income but decided that perhaps it would be best not to raise the point at this time. \"Starting when?\"\n\n\"The morrow. Report to the site foreman in the morning.\" The man hurried off, clearly relieved to be done. The woman threw Barathol a haughty glare then hastened in his wake. The three Wardens ambled off, hands tucked into belts. Barathol closed the door.\n\n\"How can you go along with that?\" Scillara demanded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Barathol peered around the small apartment, which was barely furnished at all. The only domestic touches were those he'd added: a cloth at the table, utensils he'd made. \"Have to,\" he murmured. \"No choice.\"\n\n\"No choice,\" she echoed, disappointed. \"No choice. I thought I'd picked one with a spine. '\n\nHe flinched, but eased his shoulders. \"They would arrest me. You'd be on the street. '\n\nShe sniffed, dismissing that. \"I've been there before. I'll do it again.\"\n\n\"Not with the little'un. Not with him. I'll not see that happen.\"\n\nScillara gave a great rolling of her eyes. \"Gods! Back to that. Martyr for the children.\" She waved him off and headed up the stairs. Barathol watched her go.\n\nOnly thing worth martyring for, I'd say.\n\n\"You a friend o\" that rat? '\n\nRallick looked up from his usual seat in the Phoenix Inn. He blinked, widening his gaze at the astounding apparitions before him. Two men, twins it seemed, embalmed in dust. Clothes ragged and torn. Dirt-pasted faces cadaver hollow. Hair all standing wind-tossed and hardened in grime. \"What rat might that be?\" he asked, though he sat at the man's table.\n\nEach pulled out a chair and sat, stiffly. One coughed into a fist and managed, croaking, \"While we hash that out how'bout standing two thirsty men a drink? '\n\nRallick signed to Scurve fora round.\n\nThe two let out long exhalations as if cool cloths had just been pressed to their brows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And who are you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rallick asked.\n\n\"Leff.\"\n\n\"Scorch.\"\n\nAh. In the flesh. He leaned back, nodding. \"I see. What can I do for you?\"\n\n\"We're at the rat's table but we don't see no hide nor tail, ' said the one who gave his name as Leff.\n\n\"And for the immediate future let's keep it to rat– shall we? '\n\n\"Oh?\" said the other, Scorch, his expression puzzled. Or at least so it looked beneath all the pancaking of dust and grit and untrimmed beard. \"Why'zat? '\n\nSubtlety, Rallick decided, would be lost upon these two and so he allowed himself an exaggerated frown and lift of his shoulders. \"Well... let's just say that everyone's name is on a list somewhere...\"\n\nThe two stiffened, their gazes flying to one another. One touched a dirty finger to his nose; the other touched a finger just beneath his left eye. Both gave Rallick broad winks.\n\n\"From your lips to the gods\" ears, friend, ' said Leff.\n\nThe drinks arrived care of Jess: two tall stoneware tankards of weak beer. The two men stared at them as if they were miraculous visitations from the gods. Each reached out shaking dusty hands to wrap them round a tankard. Each lowered his mouth as if unequal to the task of raising the vessel. Each sniffed in a great lungful then sighed, dreamily. They took first sips by sucking in the top film then coughed, convulsing and gagging. When the fits had subsided they returned to the tankards to rest their noses just above them once more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All this Rallick watched wordlessly, his face a mask. And so it is for men. What we lust after almost kills us yet we always return for more... we never learn.\n\nRallick waited while the two addressed the tankards. It took sometime. The surrounding tables changed over during the wait. Rallick overheard talk of Lim, this new Legate, and of vague building plans. Right now operations were beginning at the mole to recover stone blocks dumped into the harbour. Finally, after much sighing and swallowing, the two wiped their mouths, leaving great smears of wet dirt across their faces.\n\nLeff pointed to Scorch's face and laughed. Scorch pointed to his and he scowled. Left cleared his throat and spat onto the straw and sawdust scattered across the floor.\"We're lookin\" fora man, ' he told Rallick.\n\n\"I'm happy for you. '\n\nBoth frowned and canted their heads as if thinking they'd misheard him.\n\nRallick sighed and waved his comment aside. \"What's that got to do with the rat? '\n\n\"We've done work together. Him \"n\" us. Might be a percentage in it all for him. If you know what I mean. ' And he touched a finger under his eye once more.\n\n\"I'm listening. '\n\n\"This feller owes us a lot o\" money-'\n\n\"And countin\"! \"Scorch interjected.\"And countin\"!\"\n\nLeff nodded his profound, rather drunken agreement. \"And counting too. A scholar. Ain't been seen fora longtime– so his landlady says. Overdue on rent too. '\n\n\"Maybe he's skipped. '\n\nScorch shook his head, unsteadily. \"Naw. All his books'n\"old broken pieces'n\"such is still there. He'd never leave them behind. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right. So, when did you last see him?\"\n\n\"Ah. Well...\" The two blinked atone another, their heads sinking lower and lower. \"We'd rather not say at this juncture of time... kinda confuse the issue... if you know what I mean. '\n\n\"Fair enough.\" Rallick eyed the two slumping in their chairs. Full tankards on empty stomachs. They'll be under the table in moments.\"There're rooms upstairs, you know. You can maybe use a rest.\"\n\nLeff gave a vague wave as he tottered to his feet. \"Naw. You tell that rat. We're lookin'for the scholar.\"\n\nScorch banged into the neighbouring table, righted himself. \"Look out for that dancing girl, though! That minx. Got a temper like a she-devil. Wouldn't even give us a kiss. '\n\nRallick watched them go. I'll no doubt see them in the gutter later tonight. And dancing girls? Where'd that come from?\n\nKenth, out of Saltoan, had graduated quickly to full Claw membership. He'd always heard the old-timers grumble that the winnowing of the ranks that had been going on fora while now had also thinned their quality. He was determined to prove them wrong. He was of Golana's clan and they had been given the biggest contract of recent times, one guaranteed to restore the reputation of the guild in Darujhistan.\n\nThe target was Jeshin Lim, the new self-styled Legate.\n\nThe Hand moved in as soon as the coming dawn allowed enough light. The Lim estate was well known to the guild. And this Lim was inexcusably negligent in not hiring more guards now that he was Legate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kenth's particular talent was climbing and so he was assigned to help secure the second-storey rooms while the main party assaulted the Legate's chambers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their watchers had reported that the man was not taking any particular extra precautions such as sleeping indifferent rooms, or even securing his doors and windows.\n\nKenth and his brothers and sisters stole across the estate grounds, dark shadows slipping from cover to cover. No challenges arose from roving guards; no dogs barked or attacked; no Warren-laid traps or alarms burst forthwith claps of thunder or blazing lights.\n\nIt seemed to Kenth that this city's ruling class had forgotten their fear of the guild. Tonight, he decided, would restore that ancient and time-tested balance of power.\n\nThe estate's ancient brick and stonewall was simplicity itself to scale. He found a small window terrace and popped the thin wood shutters sealing it. Within, the false dawn's glow through the shutters revealed the room to be made up as a child's nursery. It was empty. From here he gained the second-storey main hall. He went from room to room finding all unsecured, and all empty. It seemed that their watchers\" report was accurate: the Legate had sent all the Lim family members to another of their many residences scattered about the city and surrounding countryside.\n\nPresumably, one would think, for their safety.\n\nYet at the same time all to the guild's convenience.\n\nHaving secured the east wing of the rambling building, Kenth signed to his opposite number covering the west wing, then padded to his assigned post guarding the narrow servants' stairs. Here he waited, tensed, fingertips on the top stair feeling for the slight vibrations of footsteps below, his ears pricked for the telltale creak of old dry wood. He waited, and waited.\n\nAnd still his superior did not show to sign the all-clear.\n\nA pink and amber dawn brightened perceptibly in the east-facing rooms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Should he check in? But, gods, abandoning his assigned post! He would be lucky to be kept on as message-runner! Not to mention whipped to a bloody pulp. Still... so much time!\n\nDread and the insect-crawling passage of minutes won out and Kenth padded off to check on his opposite number across the main stairs. He leaned out to glance across the broad balustraded marble expanse. And the woman was not there!\n\nSomething lay in a dark heap at the top of the stairs.\n\nHe darted out, knelt, blades ready. It was Hyanth, dead. No sign of a wound. Magery! No doubts now– time to report.\n\nHe ran for the main chambers. The tall twin door leaves were open. He slid in, a hand raised in the alarm sign, only to halt, stunned. Everyone was dead. That is, the entire assault team lay sprawled as corpses. And on the bed, sheer sheet rising and falling, in calm sleep, the Legate.\n\nKenth did not even hesitate then. He went for the target, blades out.\n\nBefore he reached the big four-poster something slammed into his back, sending him tumbling forward to hit the base of the wall. He peered up dazed at a slim lithe figure wrapped in black cloth. The figure stepped over him to open the shutters of a nearby window, then grasped his shoulders and, with astounding strength, levered him out and held him there. He scrabbled frantically for handholds.\n\nShe whispered close to his cheek, \"Take this message to your superiors, good soldier,\" and released him.\n\nKenth half fell, half scrambled, from stone to stone, snapping latticework and grasping at vines, and crashed to the ground. He lay groaning, his vision flashing with blazing lights. Fortunately, he'd managed to avoid landing on his back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Report, he told himself– or thought he did. Report!\n\nHe lurched to his feet, muffling a cry of pain. Then he staggered, hunched, arms wrapped around his torso, across the grounds to the rallying point.\n\n*\n\nRallick satin his room in an old tenement building of the Gadrobi district. He sipped the morning's first cup of tea while considering all that he'd learned– or, rather, what little he'd learned.\n\nBaruk missing. Vorcan secreting herself away. Both reputed members of this half-mythic T'orrud Cabal. And in the Council an old forbidden title renewed.\n\nA power struggle. It all adds up to a power struggle. Yet with whom? This upstart Legate?\n\nAnd Vorcan's words: No matter what happens, you will not act.\n\nThen there's what Raest said. Bluff. It's a game of bluff. And what is bluff but lies, deception, misdirection?\n\nAnd who does that remind him of?\n\nHe stilled, hands wrapped around the warm cup. He cocked his head, listening; the building was silent. Not in all the years he'd kept this room was the building ever silent. He stood, pushing back the chair, hands loose at his sides.\n\n\"Who's there? '\n\nThe door swung open revealing the empty hall beyond. Someone spoke, and Rallick recognized the voice of Krute of Talient. \"It's all come clear now, Rallick. '\n\n\"What's clear, Krute? '\n\n\"No longer in the guild, you said... aye, I'll give you that. But it's all in the open now. No need to play the innocent.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Take on the role of the writer's aide and proceed with the narrative.\nTags: epic fantasy, ancient city, magic, power dynamics, hidden secrets\nAuthor: Ian Cameron Esslemont\nTitle: Orb Sceptre Throne\nChapter: 11" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Report, he told himself– or thought he did. Report!\n\nHe lurched to his feet, muffling a cry of pain. Then he staggered, hunched, arms wrapped around his torso, across the grounds to the rallying point.\n\n\n\nRallick satin his room in an old tenement building of the Gadrobi district. He sipped the morning's first cup of tea while considering all that he'd learned– or, rather, what little he'd learned.\n\nBaruk missing. Vorcan secreting herself away. Both reputed members of this half-mythic T'orrud Cabal. And in the Council an old forbidden title renewed.\n\nA power struggle. It all adds up to a power struggle. Yet with whom? This upstart Legate?\n\nAnd Vorcan's words: No matter what happens, you will not act.\n\nThen there's what Raest said. Bluff. It's a game of bluff. And what is bluff but lies, deception, misdirection?\n\nAnd who does that remind him of?\n\nHe stilled, hands wrapped around the warm cup. He cocked his head, listening; the building was silent. Not in all the years he'd kept this room was the building ever silent. He stood, pushing back the chair, hands loose at his sides.\n\n\"Who's there? '\n\nThe door swung open revealing the empty hall beyond. Someone spoke, and Rallick recognized the voice of Krute of Talient. \"It's all come clear now, Rallick. '\n\n\"What's clear, Krute? '\n\n\"No longer in the guild, you said... aye, I'll give you that. But it's all in the open now. No need to play the innocent.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are you talking about, Krute?\"\n\n\"She's backing the Legate, ain't she? And maybe you are too. We lost six of our best this night. But one made it out. What he brought with him made everything clear. I'm sorry you chose to go your own way on this, my friend. '\n\nSomething came sliding in along the floor. A blade: blued, slim, needle-tipped, good for close-infighting and balanced for throwing. An exquisite weapon exactly like those commissioned by only one person he knew.\n\nThe old floor creaked in the hall: a number of men on both sides of the door. Rallick considered the window and the sheer three-storey drop.\n\nDamn. Done in by my own precautions.\n\nHe raced through a number of other options, none particularly promising. Then he noticed a smell. A strong sewer stink.\n\n\"Gas leak, lads!\" Krute shouted from the hall. \"Damn you, Rallick! A trap! Make for the roof.\"\n\nRallick remained frozen, hands close to the heavy curved knives beneath his loose shirt. The floorboards of the hall creaked and popped, then were silent. He edged towards the door, leaned to peer out. It was empty.\n\nGas? None can afford gas here.\n\nHe returned to his room, froze again. Something was on the table that had not been there before. A small leaf-wrapped object. He pulled open the greasy package to reveal a rolled crepe. A breakfast crepe with a delicate nibble taken from one end, as if the purchaser couldn't bear to part with the treat without a taste and hoped no one would notice.\n\nLies, deception and misdirection." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So be it.\n\n\n\n\"So you are saying that your timely arrival scared them off? Is that what you're saying? \"Lim eyed the two estate guards, both retired members of the city watch, standing uncomfortable, and extremely nervous, before him. Somehow he was not convinced. He pulled his dressing gown tighter about himself.\"And the mess outside? '\n\n\"Ah! Well, in their haste to flee– one appears to have fallen.\"\n\n\"Is that so? A clumsy assassin. It's standards that appear to have fallen. '\n\nThe guards shared embarrassed glances. One swallowed while the other clasped and reclasped a hand on the shortsword at his side.\n\nSighing his disgust, Lim turned away. He faced the small desk he kept in his room for correspondence and composing his memoirs. He picked up a slim gold mask among the mementos there and turned it in his hands. \"I suppose I should hire more guards.\"\n\n\"We strongly recommend it, sir.\"\n\nHe turned, favoured the two with an arched brow. \"Well... do so. Take your leave. Hire as many as you deem appropriate.\"\n\nThey snapped salutes. \"Yes, sir. Right away, sir.\"\n\nIncompetents. It's a miracle I'm alive. Someone had taken out a contract on me and I slept right through it. And frankly, who it is I suspect is no mystery. The Abyss has no fury like a patron scorned, as they may say. I'll have to respond. Hit him where it hurts. In the moneybelt.\n\nLim crossed the room to dress, then paused, confused. Hadn't there been a rug here? The servants appear to betaking great liberties with the furnishings. They ought to let me know when they take things away to be cleaned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Torvald Nom and Tiserra eyed one another across the table of their house. Her gaze was a steady unswerving pressure while he shot furtive skittish glances her way between long perusals of the various ceramic bowls, jars and cups arrayed about the room. A breakfast meal of tea, honey and flatbreads lay untouched between them.\n\n\"I'm not moving, ' Tiserra said.\n\n\"No one has mentioned such a thing.\"\n\n\"Well... I'm not. '\n\n\"As you say.\"\n\nShe sipped her tea. Torvald shifted in his seat. \"Did you say something?\" she demanded.\n\n\"No– nothing at all.\"\n\n\"I suppose you'll be receiving all sorts of petitions to intervene in this or that. Ladies throwing themselves at you, bosoms heaving, panting how they'll do anything to have your support.\"\n\n\"No bosoms heaved my way yet, dear.\"\n\nTiserra glared. Torvald cleared his throat, reached fora flatbread.\n\n\"And I'll attend none of those damned fancy parties, or gala fetes. '\n\nTorvald withdrew his hand. \"Perish the thought.\"\n\n\"Won't have those harridans whispering behind their hands about the cut of my dress or the state of my hair. '\n\n\"Who would do such a thing?\"\n\n\"Won't have it. '\n\n\"Quite.\"\n\n\"I like it here!\"\n\n\"Absolutely.\"\n\nShe raised the cup to her mouth, set it down untouched. \"So we're agreed, then. '\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"All right then.\" She shifted in her seat, tore a flatbread. \"Good.\" She nibbled at the bread. \"So... what has this Legate proposed?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nothing too shocking yet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Various construction and maintenance projects. All long overdue, really.\" He spread honey on a flatbread.\n\n\"And how much does the position pay?\"\n\nThe rolled flatbread paused before it reached his mouth. Damn.\n\nIn his private room in the Malazan garrison at Pale, Fist K'ess was woken by shouts of alarm and banging. He leapt up from his piled furs and blankets already gripping the sheathed shortsword he always slept with and thumped barefoot to unlatch the heavy wood door. Captain Fal-ej stood waiting there, fully armed and armoured, torch in hand.\n\n\"What is it, Captain?\" he demanded.\n\nThe Seven Cities officer took in her Fist standing in the open doorway and quickly looked away. \"Fire, sir. Kitchens and barracks.\"\n\n\"Kitchens and barracks?\"\n\nA weary nod. \"They abut each other.\"\n\n\"Who in the name of Togg built...\"\n\nThe captain raised a forestalling hand. \"Be that as it may– perhaps the Fist should get dressed.\"\n\nK'ess frowned, then remembered that he was naked.\"Well... if you think it would help. ' He gave the captain a courtly nod and slammed the door shut. Facing the adzed wooden slats Captain Fal-ej let out a silent breath of awe and headed down the hall on weak knees. By the great stallions of Ugarat. This puts the man into a different perspective.\n\nFist K'ess caught up with Fal-ej where the captain stood shouting commands to a bucket-brigade vainly tossing water on the burgeoning flames consuming the barracks. Studying the conflagration, a hand raised to shield his face from the heat, the Fist shouted:\"Never mind! It's a loss! Just try to stop it from spreading.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fal-ej saluted. \"Yes, sir.\" She jogged off, shouting more commands.\n\nAfter the captain had reorganized the soldiers K'ess waved her to him.\"Anyone hurt? '\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\nA roar as the roof collapsed silenced any further talk and drove everyone back a step, coughing and covering their faces. Fist K'ess wiped a smear of some sort of air-borne grease from his face– the larders up in smoke.\n\n\"What happened?\" he asked. \"An accident?\" He asked but he didn't believe it: the fire had spread far too swiftly. The shake of her head confirmed his suspicions. Sabotage, act of rebellion, call it what you will. They never wanted us here.\n\nAnd now this new Legate down in Darujhistan to goad them on.\n\nHe waved the captain further back to talk. \"Any suspects?\"\n\nShe'd pulled off her helmet and now ran a hand through her matted dark hair. K'ess noted how her features seemed to glow– a combination of sweat from the heat and the grease of the smoke. He realized she had a strange look in her eyes even as he studied them.\n\nShe glanced away, clearing her throat. \"One of the kitchen staff, probably. Or one of the local servants.\"\n\n\"You have them?\"\n\n\"A few. They all claim innocence, of course. What do you want done with them? We could... send a message.\"\n\n\"I very much doubt that the one who set this hung about to get caught.\"\n\n\"I agree, Fist.\"\n\n\"So... let them know what we could do with them should we be so inclined. Then let them go.\"\n\nHer thick black brows rose. \"Let them... go?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We're soldiers, not executioners, or some sort of police. It's subjugation that requires brutality, and I'm not willing to stoop to that yet. Do you understand, Captain? '\n\nThe woman's face hardened as if struck.\"I am from Seven Cities, Fist. '\n\nK'ess cursed himself for his obvious misstep but kept his expression blank. He inclined his head in acknowledgement.\"My apologies– then you more than understand. '\n\nA lieutenant arrived, rescuing the Fist from his discomfort. \"A mob at the gates, sir. Blocking the exit.\"\n\n\"Armed?\"\n\n\"Haphazardly so. Though there maybe veterans mixed in among'em. '\n\nK'ess turned to Fal-ej.\"My apologies again, Captain. You were correct. Perhaps we should have withdrawn earlier. It seems we're always underestimating Pale.\" He motioned to the lieutenant. \"Have the entire command salvage what they can then form up before the gates. We're evacuating. '\n\nThe lieutenant saluted. \"Aye, sir.\" He ran off, bellowing.\n\n\"North, sir?\" Fal-ej asked.\n\nThey flinched at another thundering reverberation accompanied by curtains of sparks from the collapsing barracks. Did we have any Moranth munitions stored there? Well, I understand they aren't flammable anyway.\n\nTheir few horses, pulled from the stalls, began screaming their terror as the flames drew nearer the mustering square. \"No, Captain. South. We'll catch up with the Twenty-second. '\n\n\"Aye. And the gates?\"\n\n\"I understand they're designed to be unhinged, if need be. '\n\nThe Captain's full lips drew up in a feral grin of anticipation.\"I'll see to it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Very good.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "K'ess saluted. Fal-ej jogged for the gates. He wiped his sweat-slick face. Now to toss everything from my office into these damned flames.\n\nA short time later, mounting amid the column, K'ess slapped his gauntlets against his cape to putout drifting sparks. Then he nodded to the bannerman, who dipped the black, grey and silver standard of the Fifth. At the gates Fal-ej oversaw the saboteurs who struck the hinges. At her wave, K'ess motioned that the banner be pointed forward and the entire garrison charged into the broad timber doors. For an instant the gates wavered, creaking, then shouts of alarm from beyond signalled their leaning outwards.\n\nK'ess drew his longsword, bellowing,\"Onward, Fifth! '\n\nThe entire column leaned forward, shields to backs, pressing. The gates groaned, gave, toppled. Screams sounded beyond. The broad timber leaves crashed down– but they did not lie flat– far from it, in truth. The front ranks stepped upon to the planks, ignoring the cries beneath. The garrison marched out, stamping over a good portion of the crushed mob while the rest fled. Even halfway back in the column, when K'ess urged his mount upon to the planking the flattened gate still settled slightly.\n\nWatching from across the square, the Lord Mayor stared in utter horror at the slaughter done by the Malazans in one murderous gesture. He turned to the shadowy figure next to him. \"This is unspeakable! What have we done?\"\n\n\"We?\" intoned the shade of Hinter. \"As yet I have done nothing. This is all your doing, Lord Mayor.\"\n\nThe man's plump hands clasped the furred robes at his neck as if he were strangling himself.\"What? \"he spluttered.\"But you assured me... '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The shade made a gesture as if to remove dust from one translucent sleeve. \"All I assured you was that you would be rid of the Malazans. And behold– am I not good to my word?\"\n\n\"But... these deaths!\"\n\n\"Not nearly so many as when they arrived, I understand.\"\n\nThat comment, so calmly delivered, touched something in the Lord Mayor and he clenched his fists around the rich material. \"You will fare no better! Darujhistan has no more army than we!\"\n\nThe tall shade's regard seemed to radiate an almost godlike disinterest.\"We shall see. In any case, I suppose we do owe you our thanks for sending them off. Therefore– you are now on your own. \"The shimmering figure bowed mockingly, murmuring,\"Better luck to come. '\n\nThe Lord Mayor's eyes bulged.\"You are... leaving? But what of the Rhivi raiders? Barghast war bands? The Moranth? You said you would protect us! ' The mayor, nearly breathless, ceased his objections when he saw he was alone; the shade had faded from view. He glanced, terrified, at the shadows surrounding him in the empty night, then quickly scuttled away.\n\n*\n\nThe Malazans had not entirely abandoned southern Genabackis. After the crushing of the Pannion Seer Dujek embarked with the battered remnants of his Host for some distant continent, while Captain Paran collected his remaining columns and also departed. Not all elements withdrew, however. A small portion consisting mainly of the last under-strength legion of the Second Army was left behind. Its mandate, straight from Dujek, was to maintain order while the surviving inhabitants of the region rebuilt their lives, their cities, and their defences. Command of this garrison fell to a veteran who had risen through the logistics and supply side of campaigning. Her name was Argell Steppen and she was awarded the honorary rank of Fist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What she was entrusted with some thought no honour. Many soldiers muttered that these last fragments of the Second, Fifth and Sixth armies were shattered, if not irrevocably broken. Whether the blunt-talking, short, and some thought rather unattractive woman agreed with this estimation she never said. What she did do was order a general withdrawal from the festering wrecks that were the one-time urban centres of the south– Bastion, Capustan and others– to a hillock near the headwaters of the River Eryn, close by the verges of the Cinnamon Wastes. And here she ordered a fortress built. Most of her command thought her mad to be constructing a redoubt in the middle of nowhere so far from the coast.\n\nThen the raids began.\n\nBendan, son of Hurule, had grownup among the huts, open sewers and garbage heaps of the Gadrobi slums west of Darujhistan. Being a young lad kicking about the alleys with no income or any likelihood of it, he naturally joined together with other youths of his background to form a brotherhood for mutual support and protection. And for the generation of gainful profit. An organization that the city Wardens and ruling Council of Darujhistan denounced as a gang.\n\nAfter a successful run of thefts, beatings and a few murders, the ire of the wealthier class of merchants was finally roused and the Wardens were spurred to corner Bendan and his fellows in the abandoned two-storey house they used as their base. By this time he had acquired a nickname, the Butcher, of which he was extremely proud, but which stood him in no stead against the armour and shortswords of the Wardens.\n\nHe escaped the encirclement, unlike most of the brothers and sisters of his gang, the last remaining friends of or ties to his youth. Hunted, with nowhere to turn, he naturally sought out the final option available for someone without any attachments to his homeland: enlistment among the invading Malazans." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He watched now, under the cover of night, from the crest of a shoreward dune on the coast just north of Coral, close to Maurik, while four ships stole quietly upon to the strand. He glanced to his right, down the line of his fellow squad-members, anxious for the signal. Eventually, the sergeant, a giant of a man with skin so black Bendan had thought it paint, gave the sign.\n\nAs one the squad slithered down the rear of the crest then jogged for the narrow streambed the raiders had been using. Here, undercover of the scraggy brittle brush, they readied crossbows and javelins. Somewhere in the dark across the steep-sided cut waited the 33rd. Once his squad, the 23rd, opened fire and engaged the raiders, they'd charge in from the rear. Meanwhile, the 4th was perhaps even now coming up the shore, ready to cutoff retreat to the ships.\n\n\"Like herding sheep,\" the corporal, Little, had told him, winking. \"Just keep them from breaking out.\"\n\n\"More like wolves,\" the oldest of the squad had warned, a hairy and very dirty fellow in tattered leathers everyone called Bone. \"These Confederation boys are pirates and slavers. Been raiding this coast for generations. Think it's their gods-given right. This'll be right sharp.\"\n\n\"I'm not afraid of no fight, \"he'd said.\n\n\"Right, Butcher,\" Bone had answered.\n\nHe'd given that name when asked. And surprisingly, they used it. Only when they said it they used the same tone they used for arse, or idiot. And somehow there was noway he could call them on it. So he'd shrunk back, glowering, determined to show them what fighting was all about. After all, it was the one thing he'd had to do everyday of his life, and since he wasn't dead yet he was obviously good at it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let none escape,\" had been bald Sergeant Hektar's last rumbled instruction.\"This is our warning stroke. Our last chance before we go. '\n\nBefore they left. Marching out! Bendan had seen everyone's reaction to that stunning news. Crazy as one of them Tenescowri! Abandoning the fortress before it's even finished. Who was this ambassador to order them out? Couldn't Steppen have just sent tenor twenty for that marionette to inspect?\n\nEveryone in his squad was disgusted at this typical army stupidity. All except Bone, who'd muttered through a mouthful of the leaves he chewed,\"The ways of officers is a mystery to regular people. '\n\nBendan thought it an improvement– he was damned sick of hammering rocks and humping dirt. He'd take a bit of marching over that backbreaking work anytime.\n\nNow, it seemed, was their last chance for any real action and everyone was eager to make it count. Beneath them, tracing the bed of the dry cut, came the Confederacy raiders jogging along to their target, another defenceless farming hamlet. He struggled with his crossbow in the disorienting light of the silvery bright reborn moon, and the greenish glow of the swelling arc of light in the sky that some named the Sword of God– though just which god varied.\n\nThe mechanism of the crossbow defeated him once again. He couldn't seem to master the damned foreign thing. He set it down and readied one of the wicked barbed javelins he'd brought against just such a possibility. And just in time as well, as the whistled signal came to fire.\n\nEveryone straightened, letting loose. Crossbows thumped, soldiers shouted, tossing javelins. Bendan hurled his, then, without waiting to see whether he'd struck anyone or not, he started down the slope readying his shortsword and shield. What he glimpsed below worried him. Instead of the milling chaos he'd been told to expect the line of warriors had simply knelt behind large shields, taken the initial barrage, and even now was counter-charging up through the rock and brush." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And damn his dead and gone ancestors but there were a lot of them.\n\nNo more time to think as his headlong run brought him smack into the first of the raiders. He shield-bashed the man and knocked him backwards off his feet. That shock absorbed almost all his inertia and now he traded blows with two others. His squad was ridiculously outnumbered. Bendan released all the ferocity he'd learned in life or death fights before he'd even grown hair on his chin. He gave himself into the blazing rage completely, whirling, screaming, attacking without let-up. Raiders backpedalled before him, overborne. Blades struck his hauberk of leather hardened with mail andiron lozenges but he ignored the blows in a determination to carry on until dead. Only this complete abandon had seen him walkaway from all his fights– bloodied and punished, but upright.\n\nThen in what seemed like an instant all that stood before him wore the black of Malaz and he lowered his arm, weaving, sucking in great ragged breaths, near to vomiting. The other squad had pushed through from the other side. The column of raiders had broken and men were running for their ships. Bendan and his squad mates left them for the others.\n\nSomeone offered him a skin of water and he sucked in a small mouthful and splashed one spray over his face. The blows he'd taken were agony and he knew he'd be hardly able to move tomorrow but he'd been lucky: none was serious enough to take him down.\n\nSergeant Hektar came by and cuffed his shoulder. \"Damn, Butcher,\" he rumbled. \"I can see we're gonna have to rein you in some. '\n\nNearby Bone had a cloth pressed to his blood-smeared face, still grinning. \"Lookin\" forward to a full day's march tomorrow, lad?\" He laughed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bendan waved that off.\n\n\"What about these wounded, Hek?\" someone called.\n\nThe massive Dal Hon ran a handover his gleaming nut-brown scalp. \"These are slavers... give them a taste of it. We sell them.\"\n\n\"Can't do that, \"Bone shouted from where he was rifling the bodies, one-handed.\"Empire don't sell slaves.\"\n\n\"Indentureship is so much better, is it?\" the Dal Hon muttered, and shrugged. \"So we give them away to the Coral merchants.\"\n\nBone's answering laugh was genuine, but it wasn't pleasant.\n\nLater that night as he was walking back to camp it occurred to Bendan that when Hektar had called him \"Butcher\" he hadn't used that tone. The sergeant had seemed to mean it. He felt grateful, but also a little embarrassed. Because for the entire fight he'd been so terrified he'd pissed himself.\n\nAwareness came to Ebbin in brief disconnected instants. Like startling flashes of lightning in an otherwise terrifying pitch-black landscape of lashing, spinning winds. Each illuminated an instant tableau frozen in stark contrast of light and shadow: he huddled among the bones of a hilltop sepulchre, its stone door shattered; he was chiselling layers of barnacles and sea-growths from a stone revealing it white and pure as mountain snow; he was being kicked aside by Aman while the girl Taya danced frenziedly before a cloaked figure with the face of the sun; his hands held before his face cracked and bloodied, sleeves in tatters.\n\nAt other times, the worst times, he was called to writhe in abject terror before that cloaked figure. During these times, lost in the eternal storm that now raged in his mind, the being's face shone silver like the moon. At other times he raged insane against this monster, shook his fists, swore himself hoarse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All his tormentor ever gave in return was lofty mocking amusement. As if not only his life and ambitions were meaningless, puerile, but the hopes, struggles and dreams of everyone in the city and beyond were nothing more than puffery and self-important vacuousness. This god-like overview of the entire sweep of human civilization on the continent sent Ebbin once more into the eternal raging storm within his mind.\n\nYet the stones are important. He is worried about the stones. Will there be enough to complete the base?\n\nAt other times they shook him from his tortured nightmare trance to perform tasks for them. The girl– though hardly a girl, Taya– always accompanied him. He helped oversee the salvaging of these very stone blocks being taken from the city mole. He hired craftsmen, answered queries. In short, he was the human face before the operations these fiends wished to complete.\n\nAnd all the while he was powerless to speak of any of it. He tried– gods, how he fought to utter a word of objection or defiance! But the moment he contemplated such rebellion his mouth and throat constricted as if throttled. Not even his hands would cooperate to scrawl a plea for help. And so, like a prisoner within his own skull, he could only watch and speculate.\n\nWhatever these fiends planned, it reached back all the way to their internment. A resurrection of their rule as one of the legendary Tyrants. Yet why the elaborate charade? Why wait to declare their return? Why the mask? Ebbin was frustrated beyond measure by the mystery. He felt that he had almost all the pieces, yet arranging a meaningful pattern defied him.\n\nOne strange moment seemed to almost shock him out of his fugue. He was working in the tent on the salvage site near the shore at the base of Majesty Hill when someone stopped before his table and spoke to him. He looked up from the wage lists, blinking, to see a dark muscled fellow with a wide mane of black hair peering down at him; startling honest concern creased the man's features.\"Yes...? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you sure you are all right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "the fellow asked.\n\nSomething squeezed Ebbin's chest painfully– and it was no outside coercion from the masked fiend. He fought to find his voice.\"Yes... yes. Thank you. ' Emboldened, he took another breath.\n\n\"Your name...?\"\n\n\"Barathol Mekhar.\"\n\nEbbin searched his mental lists, found the man. Foreigner, skilled, unregistered blacksmith. Something in that sketch moved him to lurch forward, saying, \"You have to-\" Then came the clenching fist at his throat. He struggled to continue, even to breathe.\n\nThe man's puzzled concern returned.\"Yes? '\n\nThen Taya was thereat his side to wrap an arm about his shoulders, and squeeze, painfully. \"My uncle has a lot on his mind,\" she explained sweetly. \"He is ashamed. He gambled, you see. And he lost. He lost everything.\" She squeezed him again, digging in the nails of a hand. \"Isn't that so, Uncle? '\n\nEbbin could only nod his sunken head.\n\n\"Well,\" the man said, his voice gruff but gentle, \"I understand. I was just saying that I could setup a smithing station here for your needs. Sharpening tools, forging items.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Taya said. \"That would be excellent. Thank you. I believe we will have need of that.\"\n\nAfter one last warning clasp she watched while the man moved off, then she left Ebbin to pickup his stylus and return to his record-keeping.\n\nAntsy and Corien led the way out of Pearl Town, as Panar had named it. Malakai immediately slipped away without a word. Ashamed to be seen with the likes of us, Antsy grumbled to himself. Progress was slow, as they elected to travel with no light at all. Orchid murmured directions from close behind. Despite the girl's descriptions of the way ahead Antsy kept crashing into walls in the pitch black. And Corien limped, unsteady, grunting his pain, his breathing wet and laboured." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I see them,\" Orchid announced after they'd walked amaze of narrow streets.\"Stairs, ahead. '\n\nAntsy let out a snort of disgust. Just great– climbing blasted stairs in the dark!\n\n\"They're very broad. Open on the right. They climb a cliff up and up... Great Mother– so high! '\n\nIn the dark Antsy rolled his eyes. Wonderful. Absolute night all around and a drop-off. Couldn't get any better.\"Malakai? '\n\n\"No sign.\"\n\nGettin'too casual, he is. Antsy's right foot banged up against the riser of the first stair and he tumbled forward onto them. He dropped his sword and scraped a shin, cursing. The blade clanged from the stone steps like anvils falling in the dark.\n\n\"Sorry, Red,\" Orchid offered, sounding embarrassed.\n\nAntsy just cursed under his breath. Corien almost fell over him as he felt his way forward in the black ink. Fucking band of travelling harlequins, we are. Just missing the floppy hats.\n\nOrchid grasped his arm to help him up and he almost yanked it free.\n\n\"Keep tight to the left,\" she suggested. \"Single file... I guess.\"\n\n\"I'll go first, \"Antsy said. Then he froze, his lips clenching tight.\"Orchid– where's my Hood-damned sword?\"\n\n\"Oh! Sorry.\" She pressed it to his hand. He snapped it up, grated a sullen, \"Thanks.\"\n\nCan't even find my own damned sword! Useless! Completely useless!\n\nUp they went, sliding along the smooth left wall. The staircase was quite broad, with shallow risers only a hand's breadth or so in height. Luckily the natural list of the Spawn tilted forward and to the left. If it had leaned the other way he didn't think they could have managed. A gathering warm breeze dried the sweat on the nape of his neck and pressed against his back as the air pushed in around him, rushing up this access. Just warm air rising? Or something more... worrisome? He couldn't be sure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Feel that wind?\" Corien asked from the dark.\n\n\"So pleasant fora change,\" Orchid answered.\n\nAntsy said nothing.\n\nFinally, Orchid ordered a stop. \"Something's ahead. Doors. Broken doors. Stone. Very thick. Looks like we can get through, though. \"Antsy grunted his understanding.\"Careful now. Slow. '\n\nAntsy and Corien felt their way over shards of shattered rock, ducked under leaning eaves of larger fragments. The Darujhistani swordsman was stumbling more and more and Antsy found himself helping him constantly now. He whispered, \"How're you doing? '\n\n\"Not so well, I'm afraid. Feeling weak. '\n\nAntsy touched the back of a hand to the lad's forehead: hot and slick with sweat. Maybe an infection. That blade or sharpened stick couldn't have been too clean. \"We have to stop,\" he said, louder.\n\n\"Corien?\" Orchid asked. \"It's bad? '\n\n\"My apologies. Not what I had in mind.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you say so? \"she demanded, outraged.\"I asked earlier! '\n\n\"We couldn't very well have stayed there, \"he said, tired and patient,\"could we? '\n\n\"There are rooms ahead,\" came Malakai's voice from far to the fore.\n\nDespite himself Antsy flinched at the sudden announcement from the dark. Hate it when he does that! \"What've you been doing! ' he yelled back angrily.\n\n\"Scouting,\" came the answer, much closer now. \"Orchid, the hall goes on straight then there are multiple rooms to either side. Take one. We need to rest anyway.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Antsy started forward, still helping Corien. \"Any sign of the Malazans?\"\n\n\"No. None. No sign of anyone at all.\"\n\n\"Perhaps we should've brought that fellow Panar with us, ' Orchid said.\n\nAntsy snorted. \"What could he do for us?\"\n\n\"He knows his way around the Spawn. He could direct us.\"\n\n\"Almost all of what he told us was lies,\" Malakai said, dismissive.\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"His story's full of holes. How did he getaway from the attacks he described? I wager he betrayed his comrades. Sold them out to save his skin. '\n\n\"You don't know that, \"said Orchid, outraged.\"You weren't there. Why assume that?\"\n\n\"Because of his other lies.\"\n\n\"What do you mean his other lies?\" she demanded, her voice getting even louder. \"Stop making empty accusations. Either you know or you don't. '\n\n\"Leave it be,\" Antsy murmured. \"I agree with him.\"\n\n\"No! I will not be shut up by this man's airs and knowing hints. '\n\n\"Very well,\" Malakai answered, sounding grimly pleased. \"These poor starving men and women you seem to feel such sympathy for. These scrapings of the would-be treasure-hunters who came scrambling for easy riches. They can't buy food and water from any Confederation boats. They've nothing left to sell. They didn't even have the weapons left to stab our two friends. Now, there's only one thing left down hereto eat– which is why they attacked us in the first place, and why they didn't pursue us afterwards. We killed or badly wounded a number of them, and– for the time being at least– they have enough to eat. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Orchid's breath caught in the dark.\"No, \"she said, her voice strangled.\"I don't believe you.\"\n\nMalakai didn't answer; he didn't need to.\n\nAntsy remembered those snarling rat-like faces, the bared teeth, the frenzied glistening eyes, and thought he'd vomit right then. Instead, he took a bracing deep breath of the sea-tinged air.\"So this is not the way? ' he asked, dizzy.\n\n\"The way?\" Malakai answered. \"It's away– at least that. And that's what I want. We'll reconnoitre after a rest. '\n\nAntsy grunted his agreement and he and Corien continued shambling up the hall.\n\nThey took turns keeping watch, or in Antsy's case listening very hard indeed. And the titanic fragment of Moon's Spawn spoke to him. A saboteur, he understood the deep groans that came shuddering up through the stone beneath his thighs and hands. The sharp distant poppings of snaps and cracks. He'd spent a lot of time underground. It reminded him of something... something from his youth. But for the life of him he couldn't quite place it just then.\n\nEven Malakai stayed with them to lie down and to stand a watch. It seemed he wasn't the sort to pretend he needed less sleep than anyone else.\n\nIn the \"morning\", when Malakai woke everyone, Orchid came to Antsy and set a hand on his arm to crouch down next to him. \"Corien's getting worse, \"she whispered.\"I've done everything I can, but that weapon, whatever it was, must've been filthy. '\n\n\"How bad-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can still walk,\" Corien interrupted loudly. \"The quiet and dark, you know. Sharpens the hearing.\"\n\n\"You'll have to walk on your own, ' Malakai said flatly.\n\n\"Your concern is a soothing balm,\" the youth replied.\n\nAntsy smiled in the dark: he would've just told Malakai to go fuck himself.\n\n\"Red, you lead then,\" Malakai said, ignoring the sarcasm. \"Corien... walk with Orchid.\"\n\n\"And you?\" Orchid demanded. \"Wandering off gods know where? You should stay with us in case there's trouble. '\n\n\"If there's trouble I'll be more use as a hidden asset.\"\n\nOrchid just snorted at that. Antsy imagined her throwing up her hands in the dark.\n\nAs they readied, Antsy asked Orchid over and held out his pannier. \"You're sure? ' she said, surprised.\n\n\"Yeah– no use in a fight. An\" I'll need both hands. Corien? The use of your sword perhaps?\"\n\n\"Yes, Red.\" There came the unmistakable sound of polished iron brushing wood as the blade cleared the mouth of the sheath. \"Orchid?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes.\" Fumblings as Corien handed Orchid the weapon. \"Ach!\"\n\n\"What?\" from both Antsy and Corien.\n\n\"Cut my hand on the edge.\"\n\n\"Don't hold it by the blade! \"Corien exclaimed.\"Both edges are razor sharp. '\n\n\"So I see,\" she answered, scathing. \"Here.\"\n\nThe grip was pressed to Antsy, who took it and readied his own sword in his left hand. \"Okay. Which way?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"To the right.\"\n\nAntsy edged to the right. He held the blades before him, off slightly to each side. Occasionally a tip grated against a wall and he would adjust his direction. Behind, Corien grunted his effort. His boots slid heavily over the smooth stone floor and every breath was tight with pain. Antsy knew Orchid was doing her best to help him along.\n\nAfter a time turning corners and crossing large chambers– meeting places, or assemblies, Orchid thought them– she sent them climbing up against the Spawn's slant to what she said was a large building front across abroad open court.\"Do you even know where you're going?\" Antsy finally complained.\n\n\"Malakai is there, waiting,\" she said; then, rather impatiently, \"I've been keeping us to the main ways, you know! '\n\nAntsy now said aloud what had been bothering him for sometime: \"Then where is everyone? The place is deserted! Where're these Malazans? Where's anyone?\"\n\n\"How in the name of-\" She stopped herself. \"How should I know?\"\n\nAntsy just grumbled. Again it seemed the constant straining to see in the utter dark was giving him hallucinations. Lights blossomed before his eyes. Shapes of deepest blue seemed to waver in his vision like ghosts. He silently fumed against it all. What a fool I was for throwing myself into this. A bad start before a worse end! I'm gonna die in the dark like a blasted worm.\n\n\"You made it,\" Malakai said blandly from the dark. Antsy pulled up sharply. The observation was neither a compliment nor a complaint. \"This looks to be some sort of large complex. We should take a look.\"\n\n\"I'm not so sure we should go in there, ' Orchid said, sounding worried." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not for you to say." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Corien, perhaps you can sit down inside, in any case.\"\n\nThe lad managed a tight, \"Certainly. That would be... most welcome.\"\n\n\"We are agreed then.\"\n\n\"Which way?\" Antsy rasped, his throat dry– already they were getting low on water.\n\n\"There are stairs up,\" Orchid said.\n\nHe slid his foot ahead until he bumped up against the first, then he carefully felt his way up until Orchid told him he was on the last. \"This is a very wide doorway, tall too,\" she murmured. \"Open double doors. Inside is a kind of arcade with many side openings and corridors.\"\n\nShit. This could take forever. \"Look, Malakai,\" he grumbled, \"it would help if we knew what we were looking for... Malakai...?\"\n\n\"He's gone. '\n\nOsserc-damned useless whore's son! That's fucking well it! He pulled off his rolled blanket and began rummaging through it.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" Orchid asked.\n\n\"I'm getting the lantern. '\n\n\"Malakai said-\"\n\n\"Malakai can dick himself with his own-\" Antsy bit off his words, cleared his throat. \"Sorry, lass. Malakai isn't here, is he? '\n\nHe set the lantern on the stone floor, pulled out his set of flints and tinder and began striking. The sparks startled him at first, so huge and bright were they. Light deprivation– seen it before in the mines. Have to shield the lantern. In moments he had the tinder glowing: that alone seemed light enough. He took up a pinch of the lint and shavings and held them to the wick and blew. Once the wick caught he blew again, steadily, pinched out the tinder and shoved it away back into its box, which he snapped shut." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lantern's flame blossomed to life and he had to turn his face away, so harsh was the golden light. Blinking, squinting against the pain the light struck in his eyes, he could eventually see and what he saw took his breath away.\n\nEverything was black, yes, but not plain or grim. The walls, the columns of the carved stone arcades, all writhed with intricate carving. Stone vines climbed the walls, delicate stone leaves seemed to wave before his eyes. Bowers of trees, all carved from the glittering finely grained black stone, arched over a second-storey walkway above.\n\nThen he saw the smooth polished floor and he frowned. Dust covered it, but so too did a litter of broken pots and scattered furniture. No looting here. Why?\n\nIn the light, Corien shuffled over to aside alcove of carved benches and sat down, hissing his pain. Antsy set the lantern on the bench next to him. The lad squinted his puzzlement. His face gleamed sickly pale, sheathed in sweat. \"You keep the light,\" Antsy told him. \"I'll have a poke around. \"Corien drew breath to object but Antsy held out his sword, pommel first. Offering a tired smile, Corien took it.\"Look after Orchid here while I'm gone.\"\n\nOrchid had the sense not to object to that bit of chauvinism.\n\nShortsword out, Antsy picked his way through the litter. It was a large main entrance hall, or gathering chamber. Halls opened off it all around. Stairs led down and up from it on both the right and the left. The stairs were intricately carved, the balusters with vines and blossoms. His light-starved eyes made out much more in the weak light than he knew he could've normally; as on a night of a full moon or afresh snow. In places the floor bore carved designs like grille-work or lattices bearing foliage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Far off across the chamber the lantern glowed like a star. Next to it Orchid paced restlessly. Antsy found an overturned chest or travel box, its contents of cloth spilled across the floor. He kicked through the dark rich robes. Damn me if I don't know what's valuable or not! A Togg-damned waste of time this is.\n\nSomething about the nearby stairs caught his attention and he crossed to them. The dust was disturbed here. Not by tracks, but brushed aside, as if disturbed by a wind or the dragging of a wide cloth. He decided to follow as far the light extended. The stairs brought him to a floor just beneath the main one. Here light streamed down through the carvings in the floor above, casting illuminated scenes of bowers of trees across another smooth floor. An intended effect, Antsy wondered? Did lamps or suchlike burning above cast the same shadows when this place was occupied? He walked out onto the floor.\n\nAn object gleamed in the light streaming down. A stick of some kind. Antsy walked up and crouched over it. A bone. A leg bone. A human tibia. And not clean, either. Tangles of ligaments and dried meat still clung to its ends.\n\nHe straightened, swallowed the bile churning sickly in his stomach. A dense glow now shone from the far end of the chamber. Fascinated, unable to turn away, he edged closer until the light was sufficient to reveal a carpet of similar remains choking the far side. The shadows of alien blossoms streamed down upon amass of human carcasses. Many still wore their helmets. Their feet remained in boots. The meat of calf and thigh was gone, as were the viscera from empty gutted chests and abdomens. Ribcages gaped like open mouths hanging with desiccated strips of flesh and meat. Antsy had seen similar remains after battles where scavengers had picked over the dead, taking the choice bits and leaving the rest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He choked back a yell of alarm and ran for the stairs.\n\nNot looted. Avoided! Everyone else knows better! And Panar sent us here! To our damned deaths.\n\nHe came pelting back to Orchid and Corien, who stared, tensing in alarm. \"What is it?\" Orchid demanded, rising.\n\n\"We have to get out of here– now!\"\n\n\"What-\"\n\n\"That– thing– everyone was scared of below. I think this is its lair. We have to go.\" He snatched up the lantern, took Corien by the arm. \"Come on.\"\n\nHe chivvied them backup the hall to the doors. Here Orchid suddenly let out a cry and froze. Antsy let goof Corien, drew his shortsword. He squinted, seeing nothing. \"What?\"\n\nHand at mouth, the girl stammered, \"The door.\"\n\nAntsy peered at the doorway anew. What of it? Dark, yes, but... Dark. The light did not penetrate. Something was blocking the entrance, something utterly black like a curtain of night. \"What is it?\"\n\nBut Orchid could not speak. She merely jerked her head side to side, appalled, eyes huge.\n\nShit. Antsy hefted his shortsword. Somehow he didn't think it would do him much good. And munitions? Probably not them either. He looked to Corien; that finely curled hair now hung down sweat-plastered. The lad met his eye and nodded, hand tightening on his swordgrip.\n\n\"It is a creature of Elder Night,\" said Malakai, stepping out from an alcove next to them. \"Call it what you will. A daemon, or a fiend. Night animate. No doubt to it we are the invaders, the monsters.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Spare me your sophistry,\" Antsy grated. \"What can you do against it?\"\n\n\"I?\" The man cocked a brow. \"Nothing. We are trapped. It would seem Panar has the last laugh after all.\"\n\nAntsy almost threw his shortsword at the man. \"Fine,\" he snarled. \"Everyone back! I'll try my munitions. '\n\n\"Red...\" Corien warned, touching his arm.\n\nAntsy spun: Orchid had advanced upon the creature.\n\nShit! \"Orchid!\"\n\nThe girl ignored him, or couldn't hear. One hand was at her throat, the other reaching out as if entreating. She spoke, and Antsy started, for now she uttered another language. One completely unfamiliar to him. Sing-song, it was. Not unpleasant to his ears.\n\nShe spoke at length, pausing from time to time as if awaiting an answer. Antsy, Corien and Malakai waited, silent, scarcely breathing.\n\nDespite his anticipation Antsy jerked when a reply came at last. Words murmured from the night, deep and resonating, as if enunciated by all the immeasurable dark surrounding them. Orchid shuddered as if burned– Antsy wondered if she was even more surprised to hear an answer than they. Her breath caught and she looked aside, head bowed as if searching for something, grasping after memories.\n\nCome on... Do it, girl. You can do it...\n\nShe nodded then, her gaze distant, and returned her attention to the doorway in front of her. Both hands went to her neck, as if she would throttle herself, and she spoke slowly, haltingly, for sometime. The speech ended in a gasp, Orchid wrung out, breathless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Silence followed. The barrier across the doorway seemed to waver in the lantern light like a wall of hanging velvet. The thing spoke again, a brief response, and Orchid launched into some sort of recitation. Antsy squeezed the grip of his shortsword, his hand wet with sweat. A biting cold now filled the hall. His breath plumed before him.\n\nShe finished again with a gasp as if barely able to squeeze out the words. In the silence that followed, Antsy wiped the ice from his hands then examined his fingers: blue and numb with cold. An answer rolled out of the dark: a speech in slow measured tones, a chant almost. The coal-black curtain wavered, then disappeared or slipped away like a shadow exposed to light.\n\nA hissed exhalation escaped Orchid and she would have toppled but for Antsy rushing forward to steady her. He guided her to a bench. Her skirts rattled ice-stiff and rimed with hoarfrost. Her skin was burning cold to the touch. Corien sat beside her, holding the lantern close.\n\n\"Malakai...\" Antsy said, gesturing to the entrance.\n\nAfter a moment the man answered from beyond, \"It's gone. '\n\nA distant shout sounded from the darkened halls beyond: a frenzied cry of frustration and rage, and Antsy barked a laugh. \"So much for Panar's vengeance. I'm tempted to slit his throat.\"\n\n\"No!\" said Orchid, struggling up. Antsy helped her stand. \"Let's just go. '\n\n\"And just which way do we go?\" Malakai asked, appearing from the dark.\n\n\"Any way,\" she answered, annoyed. \"Right. Left. It doesn't matter. Just find away up. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because what you seek is in the upper levels.\"\n\nMalakai froze, astonished. His eyes widened with new appreciation, and he gave a bow of his head– though shallow and tinged by irony. \"Very well. I will be back shortly.\"\n\nOrchid turned to Corien where he slouched on the bench, a hand pressed to his side. She knelt before him. Gently, she set her own handover his and he hissed at the touch. She spoke again in that same eerie tongue that raised the hairs on the small of Antsy's neck. It sounded like an invocation or recitation.\n\nA great sigh escaped from Corien and the man would have fallen forward if Antsy hadn't steadied him. Antsy let him slide down on the bench, unconscious.\n\n\"What was that!\" he demanded, far more harshly than he'd intended. Fear. I'm hearing fear in my voice.\n\nOrchid held her hands out before her, studying them. She stood, wiped the wet condensation from her face. \"Strange, isn't it? \"she said dreamily.\"To be told stories all your life, to read them, study them, then suddenly discover it's all true...\"\n\nAntsy was looking at a line of empty pedestals. Someone had set a rusted helmet on one. It looked just like a decapitated head. \"Yeah. Life's full o'twists and turns,\" he breathed, uneasy.\n\nShe sat, folded her graceful dark hands primly on her lap. Like a priestess, Antsy thought. She looks like some kinda damned ancient priestess with her thick mane of tousled black hair, tattered skirts, and torn lace. Who was she?\n\nHe cleared his throat. \"So... what happened there?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her gaze was tired, half-lidded, directed at the entrance. \"I'm not sure myself. It surprised me, answering like that. Probably was just as amazed as I was to hear the old tongue. '\n\n\"Yeah. The old tongue. Imagine that. And?\"\n\nAn exhausted lift and fall of the shoulders. \"I invoked the Rite of Passage as recorded by Hul\" Alanen-Teth, a Jaghut who claimed to have travelled the Paths of Eternal Night. The guardian honoured the formula. '\n\nBeside her Corien stirred groggily. Antsy nodded to her, accepting her words. \"Well, thanks for saving our lives.\"\n\nAwry smile twisted her lips. Head lowered, she peered up at him. \"I did not save your life, Red. You it called... \"Honoured Guest\".\"\n\nHe frowned at her. \"What...?\"\n\nCorien sat up. He held his head, touched his side. His brows rose. \"The pain is gone.\"\n\nOrchid nodded. \"Good. That was an Andii invocation of healing. You will be weak fora time, but you should mend.\" She stood. \"Now, if you will excuse me. I... I want to be alone fora time.\"\n\nAs she passed, Antsy touched the cloth of her sleeve. He tried to catch her gaze but she would not meet his eyes. \"And what did it call you...?\"\n\nShe flinched away. \"Not now.\"\n\nAntsy eased himself down next to Corien. They exchanged wondering glances. Antsy blew out a breath. \"Well... what d'you know. '\n\nThe lad gave along thoughtful nod.\n\nWhen Malakai returned he found them still sitting side by side. He cocked a brow. \"What's this? Why aren't we moving?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Orchid's resting, ' Antsy said, smiling up at him.\n\n\"And what are you so pleased about?\"\n\nAntsy tucked his hands up under his arms. \"Oh, I'm always in a better mood when the squad has its cadre mage. '\n\nThe man wrinkled his dark brows, uncertain what to make of that. But Antsy just smiled. It seemed to him that everything had changed. As in battle. Things had reversed themselves as they can in any close engagement. There'd been no announcement, no horns blowing to signal it. Everyone involved just knew it, sensed it. The energy had shifted. Earlier, the party had been Malakai's. Now, it was Orchid's. And he and Corien? Well, they were her guards now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Madrun and Lazan Door–\n\nFrom distant lands they hail.\n\nOne day Door did announce:\n\n'Tis time my hair to cut.\n\nYet no shear would tear\n\nNo blade would part\n\nNo scissor snick nor sever\n\nAnd so it grew–\n\nthis bounteous mane.\n\nWenches plotted\n\nKnives were sharpened\n\nYet no helm nor hat could tame\n\nThese wilful, prideful curls.\n\nWhen last Door heard\n\nHis hair had fled\n\nFighting pirates off far Elingarth!\n\nattributed to Fisher\n\nIN THE MORNING Brood pushed aside the heavy cloth flap of his tent to find the Rhivi warriors in the process of breaking camp. He frowned then, feeling a chill premonition, and crossed to where one of the Elders stood wrapped in a blanket warming himself at afire. It was one of the more amiable of them, Tserig, called the Toothless. The Warlord inclined his head in greeting. \"Word from the north?\"\n\nLooking unhappy, the old man gave a shallow bow. \"Yes, Great One. A rider came in the night. The Malazans are in disarray. They have been driven from Pale and are retreating to the southwest.\" He shrugged, apologetic. \"The circle of war leaders decided to act.\"\n\nWithout consulting me. \"I see. Since when did the Rhivi chase after war?\"\n\nThe old man seemed to consider one answer but clamped his lips tight against it. He adjusted the folds of the horse blanket, indicated the embers dying before him. \"War is like a grass fire, Great One, is it not? Once sparked it cannot be controlled. It will burn and burn until it has consumed everything it can reach.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Its fuel is blood, Tserig.\"\n\nA gloomy nod of agreement. \"I know, Ancient One. I was against it. But I am old– and toothless.\"\n\nBrood smiled his appreciation. \"And so your reward is to be the one who has to break the news that my, ah, leadership is no longer required.\"\n\nThe old man offered another half-bow. \"I am sorry, Warlord... perhaps they merely did not wish to disturb you in your mourning.\"\n\n\"That's putting about as pretty a face on it as anyone can manage. ' He eyed the embers fora time, rubbed a forefinger along his jaw. Tserig, he noted, was cringing away and Brood realized the old man must think he was scowling his displeasure at him, so he turned to face the west.\n\n\"What will you do now, Great One?\" the old man ventured after a time.\n\nAround them the last of the burdened asses, carts, travois and herded bhederin made their way north, following the track through the Gadrobi hills. Riders bowed to Brood as they passed, or saluted, raising spears and loosing their war calls. \"If the Mhybe was still with us, or Silverfox, none of this would be happening...\" he murmured, but distractedly, his thoughts elsewhere.\n\n\"I agree, Warlord. But they are gone from us. The Mhybe was given her great reward. And Silverfox has departed. Gone to another land, some say.\" Like Brood, the old man did not mention the other who was gone from them as well.\n\nThe Warlord cleared his throat, profoundly uncomfortable. How to broach this without insulting this man, his people, and all they have sacrificed these last years?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Would you share the morning tea with me, Warlord?\" Tserig said suddenly, his gaze oddly gentle, as if he were addressing a youth rather than someone incalculably older than he.\n\n\"Yes. Thank you, Tserig. I would welcome that.\"\n\nThe old man motioned aside to an attendant, who hurried to ready the tall bronze pot and the tiny thimble-sized cups, and the two stood in silence waiting for the leaves to steep. Both watched the ragged columns of the Rhivi snaking their way north through a cut in the hills. Behind them Tserig's servants struck his tent.\n\n\"You'll make much better time now with the herds returned to the north, ' Brood observed.\n\n\"Yes. Mostly it is those fearful of the Malazans, or anxious to prove themselves as warriors, who have remained. Is it any wonder then that they should have found their excuse? And Jiwan had at his service a most convincing weapon.\"\n\n\"And what is that?\"\n\n\"An earnest belief in his cause.\"\n\nBrood found himself again appreciating the old man. He allowed himself a grin.\n\nA servant handed each a tiny bronze cup then poured tea in long hissing streams from the slim pot. Tserig raised his cup to the Warlord. \"To wise counsel.\"\n\n\"Wise counsel.\"\n\nThe old man smacked his lips, sucking in the tea. \"I ask then, again. What will you do?\"\n\nBrood grimaced his awkwardness. He looked off to the west. \"I've become convinced that we shouldn't confront these Malazans any longer. It will be a disaster for the Rhivi, in the long run.\"\n\nDistaste wrinkled Tserig's pursed lips.\"Yet they hem us in on all sides. Trespass across our lands. Kill all the animals they find. They are like a plague. Are we to abandon our way of life? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tserig,\" Brood's voice was low and hoarse with emotion,\"that will happen anyway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is inevitable. Question is, then, how best to mitigate the damage of it all? The answer is ugly and brutal, but it is plain... You get better terms in a peace treaty than you get when you're conquered– which is to say, no terms whatsoever.\"\n\nThat stung the old man's pride and he straightened, offended.\"You question our spirit! '\n\nThe Warlord raised a placating hand. \"No. Never that. I am not talking about the brief season of war... I am talking about the generations that follow.\"\n\nTserig's gaze sank to the fire. His face was pained as if he were studying such a future within the dying embers.\"Treaties, \"he finally spat.\"Never honoured by the powerful. I place no faith in such agreements. '\n\n\"They will be honoured,\" Brood grated, \"if I witness them.\"\n\nTserig's greying brows rose as he considered this, then he bowed his head almost in salute.\"I accept your plan, Warlord, as the best course for my people. How then do we proceed? '\n\nBrood, who had been eyeing the west before, raised his chin to the distant horizon, the brown hills, and Lake Azur beyond. \"Have you ever been on a boat, Tserig?\"\n\nThe old man shuddered. \"Ancient hearth-goddess, no. My feet have never left touch with our Mother.\"\n\nThe Warlord's beast-like eyes swung to him, held steady.\n\nTserig hunched beneath the weight of that gaze, gummed his lips. \"Please... Great One. Have mercy on an old man.\"\n\nIn Darujhistan's guildhall of guards, sentinels, wardens and gate-men, Captain Soen of the Legate's bodyguard looked these two most recent applicants up and down and didn't bother hiding his disgust. Clothes no better than rags, dirt-smeared faces, cracked sandals. Not even a scrap of armour or a weapon showing anywhere. Must have pawned the lotto buy booze. And must be alive with fleas. Trake's tail, I'm hereto hire guards– not beggars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Names?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he demanded, and grimaced as a wafting hint of their stink reached him.\n\n\"Scorch, sir,\" said one.\n\n\"Leff.\"\n\n\"You're in the lists, I assume? '\n\nThe two appeared to pale where they stood before him. They exchanged terrified glances. \"Ah, beggin\" yer pardon, \"said the one who had given his name as Scorch,\"but did you say list, sir? '\n\nSoen rolled his eyes. \"Gods, man. Yes. The lists. The record of all certified members in good standing with the guild in the city!\" At their expressions of complete blankness the captain leaned forward to explain, more slowly, \"Your references.\"\n\nThe one named Leff made a great show of understanding, nodding vigorously. \"Oh sure, Cap'n, sir. O'course.\"\n\nHis friend goggled what resembled complete surprise. Un-convinced, but required to be thorough, Soen walked over to the record keeper where he satin the rear of the hall. \"Scorch and Leff,\" he said.\n\nThe clerk immediately began scrolling through along rolled sheet, winding the document down and down. \"Now there's a list, ' one of these new applicants murmured to his companion.\n\nAfter searching fora time the clerk appeared to have found his place, for he stopped and began to read. His brows shot up and he went back to the beginning once again. His brows continued to rise, almost touching his slicked-flat hair. He looked up, amazement plain on his face. \"Their references are impeccable!\"\n\nSoen, who had leaned his elbows on the counter, flinched straight. \"What?\"\n\n\"These two are in excellent standing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let me see that.\" He reached for the scroll.\n\nThe clerk backed away, hugging the roll to his chest. \"This is proprietary information, I'll have you know! Try that again and you'll be blacklisted.\"\n\nSoen turned on the two applicants, who stood shifting from foot to foot like eunuchs in a brothel. Gods. Guild rules are that I have to hire them now. Damn their stranglehold. He marched up to them, as close as their stink would allow. \"Okay. Your references are in order. Fine.\" He held up a finger. \"But before I see you tomorrow you'd better be cleaned up and fit for duty– or I'll have some ex-Urdomen I know scrub you allover with rayskin brushes. How would you like that?\"\n\nThe one who had given his name as Scorch raised a hand.\n\n\"Yes? What?\"\n\n\"Ah... does this mean we're hired, Captain, sir? '\n\n\"Does this...\" Soen dragged a hand down his face, took a deep breath to calm himself. \"Yes,\" he hissed, \"you're hired. Report to the Legate's manor tomorrow.\" He eyed them up and down once more. \"Mind you,\" and he raised a warning finger, \"you two report to the servants\" gate– is that understood? '\n\nScorch nodded vigorously. \"Oh yes, sir. Understood.\" He saluted multiple times.\n\nSoen waved a dismissal and stalked off, muttering. Elder gods, look away! How standards have fallen from the old days. Damned embarrassing it is. Still, these two could free up a couple of good men I could use elsewhere...\n\nOnce the Captain was gone Leff cuffed Scorch. \"There! Y'see? Wasn't so hard, was it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I thought I said we should try here.\"\n\nLeff appeared not to have heard. \"Let's go. '\n\n\"Where?\"\n\nLeff made a great show of looking to the sky. \"Well, you heard the Captain! It's as obvious as Moon's Spawn in full-on daylight, o\" course. '\n\n\"What is?\"\n\n\"Where we have t'go! '\n\n\"An\" that's...\"\n\n\"To the lake, man!\"\n\nScorch's permanent scowl of uncertainty deepened into stunned incomprehension.\"The lake? '\n\nLeff sighed his impatience. \"Yes! Can't you hear? The man told us to get cleaned up. So it's awash in the lake for us.\" He stomped out.\n\nScorch was slow to follow. He scratched the thick grime caking one cheek, muttering, bemused, \"People do that? They wash? In the lake...?\"\n\nYusek guided her two charges north up the slopes of the coastal Mengal range. She was aware that these peaks were also known as the Mountains of Rain and she mused, bitterly, that they were damned well living up to that title. This wide pass in particular led all the way to the coast. Her leathers were rotting off her; the skin of her toes was peeling off like bark; and she had a constant racking cough, spitting up great wads of thick green catarrh.\n\nShe took out her frustrations on the two Seguleh. Their silence and impenetrable calm only sharpened her tongue. Think they're so damned superior. Nothing more than smug arseholes is what they are!\n\nThis day she was off ahead alone, if only to give herself a break from her constant snarling and sniping. She studied the lower slopes where the banners of sinking mist were burning away, leaving shallow rivulets and gullies that would eventually come together to form the headwaters of the Maiten River." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Move the narrative forward in collaboration with the writer.\nTags: epic fantasy, ancient city, magic, power dynamics, hidden secrets\nAuthor: Ian Cameron Esslemont\nTitle: Orb Sceptre Throne\nChapter: 13" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had found Tayschrenn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Succeeded in an apparently impossible task. Followed him through the Whorl to the very edge of existence. And now he did not even recognize them.\n\nEventually, the tall figure re-emerged from the glare of the Vitr. Kiska climbed to her feet. The man favoured her and Leoman with a harsh, unforgiving gaze. Kiska couldn't trust herself to speak; she was afraid that anything she might say would be wrong.\"So, \"he began at last, musing,\"you are from my past. '\n\nKiska swallowed to wet her throat, managed a faint, \"Yes.\" Then, stronger, \"You are needed-\" She stopped as he raised a hand to silence her. He examined that hand, and the other, turning them over before his face. Kiska noted that his flesh was healed. The Vitr appeared to have somehow restored him.\n\nHe continued to study his hands, flexing them. \"And I take it that I, too, was a mage.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Kiska breathed, knowing that she could not lie.\n\nLeoman, to his credit, remained silent, his narrowed dark eyes travelling between them, observing, gauging. The demon was also silent, watching, its great taloned hands clenched, the lenses of its bulbous eyes flashing as it blinked.\n\nAt Kiska's whispered yes the man shuddered as if struck. His eyes squeezed shut and his hands fisted rigid, then fell to his sides. He exhaled through clenched teeth, made a sweeping gesture with one hand as if cutting the air between them.\"Well, you can keep that past. I want nothing to do with it. \"He motioned to the demon.\"Come, Korus. We have work to do. '\n\nKiska could not read the demon's alien face but the massive tangle of fangs at its mouth seemed to curve in a grin of triumph." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But Tayschrenn!\"\n\nThe man paused. He turned back, his expression unchanged. \"If that was my name it is no longer. You can keep it as well... and take it with you when you go.\"\n\nShe could not think of anything more to say. The ex-High Mage walked away, trailed by the demon Korus. She turned to Leoman; the man gave along slow shrug. \"Kiska, I'm sorry... '\n\nSnarling, she turned and stalked off along the shore. I've not come all this way...\n\nThe gentle metal jingling of Leoman's armour announced his following.\"Kiska, listen... You've done everything that could be expected. If he does not want to come then that is his choice...\"\n\nKiska kept walking. I'll convince him. He's needed.\n\n\"You may not believe me but I've been through something rather similar before. '\n\nDid he really say that? She spun on her heel. \"Yes– you're right. I do not believe you've followed a quarry to the edge of creation only to have him walkaway!\"\n\nLeoman gripped his belt in both hands, rocked ever so slightly under her glare. \"I was bodyguard to Sha'ik. You know that. '\n\nHer rage abated and she hesitated, interested despite her doubts. \"Yes?\"\n\nHis narrowed gaze was on the middle distance, perhaps unwilling to meet her eyes. \"I was with the uprising from the start. Rose through the ranks to become her bodyguard. She dragged my partner and me out to the deep desert, claimed she was going to be reborn. She had her blasted Holy Book with her. She'd consulted it, the divinatory deck, the astrological signs, everything. All to beat the right place at the right time to be reborn... '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And?\" Kiska prompted.\n\n\"The Malazans put a crossbow bolt through her head at that very moment.\"\n\nQueen preserve me! She turned away, furious. \"There is a point to this?\"\n\nStung, his voice hardened. \"The point is that what happened was not what I thought was supposed to happen– that's the point! '\n\nShe stopped, glancing back. \"But she was reborn...\"\n\n\"A– girl– showed up just then to take on the mantle. She became the new Sha'ik. '\n\n\"Ah-ha! So eventually you did succeed! Your determination paid off.\"\n\n\"No. Actually, that's not my point at all. I was thinking more that we should strike inland, see what turns up. '\n\n\"Well, I'm staying. His memory might return. \"She waved him away and walked on after Tayschrenn, yelling over her shoulder:\"Did you think of that! '\n\nLeoman stood kicking at the black sand. He sucked a breath in through his teeth. \"Yes,\" he said, all alone. \"I thought of that.\"\n\nAfter they left the temple quarters Malakai scouted ahead as usual. Antsy was content to let him range about as before. Frankly, part of him hoped he'd never return. Orchid was subdued. The lass had been handed a lotto think about. Corien was still weak and so he carried the dimmed lantern and the crossbow while Antsy led.\n\nThe way up was an ornate hall, or tunnel, broad and gently rising. More like a covered boulevard, with openings off it, perhaps shops or private dwellings. These chambers gaped empty, stripped of furnishings but fora litter of broken pots, trampled torn cloth, and shattered glass. The avenue opened to what appeared to be abroad square, and beyond this, just hinted at by the weak lantern light, marched street after street of another underground city." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shit. Now what? He turned to Orchid. \"Which way?\"\n\nShe was eyeing the buildings, her lower lip clenched in her teeth. Clearly, this was not what she'd been expecting.\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"I don't know. We should explore... I guess. '\n\n\"Where is Malakai, I wonder?\" Corien murmured, keeping his voice down.\n\n\"Exploring, I guess,\" Antsy said, rather more acidly than he'd intended.\"C'mon. This way.\"\n\nHe led them up a narrow alleyway where the tilt, or cant, of the entire structure was uncomfortably evident. Antsy had to push off occasionally from the right-leaning wall.\n\n\"We should make for one edge of the town,\" Orchid finally announced, perhaps having regained her bearings.\n\n\"Why?\" Antsy asked, and stopped for her answer. Both spoke in subdued tones, almost whispering; the quiet emptiness and gaping doorways seemed to demand a reverent, or at least sombre, response. Gone, the silent stone streets and alleys seemed to sigh. They are gone from us.\n\n\"Because we're under a kind of cave roof here, that's why.\"\n\nAntsy couldn't help glancing up into what was, for him, an impenetrable gloom. He grunted his understanding.\"All right. This way. ' He headed in what he believed to be the right direction.\n\nA short time later he felt it before he heard it: a massive shuddering that threw them all from side to side. They reached out to steady themselves on the walls. Stones fell all around them, shattering. Orchid let out a panicked cry. Wreckage within the buildings about them shifted and crashed anew. It felt like every earthquake Antsy had experienced– only in this case a Spawnquake." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then, slowly, ponderously, the entire structure around them rolled slightly, forwards and backwards, like a titanic ship. They tottered and fought to keep their balance just as one would on any vessel. In the slow, almost gentle rocking Antsy thought he sensed anew equilibrium in the massive artefact's balance. Thankfully a poise slightly closer to upright than before.\n\n\"What is it?\" Orchid whispered, fierce.\n\n\"I do believe we just lost a chunk of our island.\"\n\n\"Are we sinking?\" Corien asked, dread tightening his voice.\n\nAntsy scratched the bristles of his untrimmed beard. \"It's possible... of course, we might just rise some, too. '\n\n\"Rise?\" Orchid scoffed. \"How could that be possible?\"\n\nAntsy took a breath to explain but both had moved on, obviously uninterested in anything too technical. He cleared his throat, muttering, \"Well– it's just a theory. '\n\nThey came to where walls of stone bordered the town. Some sections of the rock had been left naked, others smoothed. Some bore mosaics depicting scenes of a great river of brightness running through darkness, others of an immense city of towers. Antsy wondered if such a city were somewhere within this gigantic mountain of stone. Tracing round the edge of the town they came to a set of three broad staircases leading upwards. A strong breeze blew into their faces down out of the shafts.\n\n\"Definitely rising,\" Antsy said. Corien and Orchid just eyed one another, uncertain. Corien, Antsy saw, was walking more and more stiffly, grimacing with the effort, while Orchid looked bedraggled and exhausted. \"We'll rest here. '\n\nOrchid was so worn out she merely gestured her acceptance and slumped down against a wall. Corien eased himself down with a hiss of pain. Antsy crouched to sort through their provisions. \"How're you holding up? ' he asked Corien, if only to hold back the darkness and the unsettling, watchful silence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bed rest would have been better,\" he answered with a grin. \"But I'm much improved. Thank you, Orchid. '\n\nAnon-committal murmur sounded from where she lay on her bedroll of cloaks and blankets. Antsy gnawed on some sort of dried meat, passed a waterskin to Corien. \"I don't know about you, lad, but my goals have experienced a major revision. '\n\nThe aristocratic youth's answering grin was bright in the gloom.\"Getting off alive would be a good start. '\n\n\"Un-huh. I think we understand each other.\" Antsy hefted the waterskin, stoppered it. Too damned low. \"You rest. I'll take first watch. '\n\nThe lad nodded his gratitude and eased further down. Antsy pushed himself to his feet. He set the lamp in the middle of the alcove they'd chosen, then turned his back to the light to stare out into the dimly lit adjacent street and portals. He cradled his cocked crossbow in his arms. So many damned nights spent on sentry duty. Seems like nothin's changed. Just the venue. Same ol'same old. Still... there's not many as can say they've wandered the bowels of the Moon's Spawn. Thought I was gonna collect a retirement package but seems I've just bought myself a last hurrah.\n\nDamned stupid waste. Looks like someone on this rock is gonna be cleaning his teeth with my bones.\n\nAn'to think Blend and Picker were relieved to see me go! Not like there's so many of us Bridgeburners left, is there? Even Ferret got a proper service and remembrance. Whiskeyjack took off his helmet and said a few words with Free Cities battle magics blastin'overhead and two dragons circling. And it's not like he was a popular guy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thinking of Ferret he found he could almost seethe skinny hunched figure therein front of him: his pinched paleface and sharp teeth– gods! We weren't kind to the fellow, were we?\n\nThen Ferret looked him up and down and said: \"What the fuck are you doin\" here, Antsy? You're not dead.\"\n\nAntsy jerked a startled breath and the crossbow jumped in his hands, the bolt skittering off down the stone street.\n\nCorien called, alarmed, \"What is it?\"\n\nFeeling that he'd, well, seen a ghost, Antsy squinted into the empty dark.\"Nothin\". False alarm.\"\n\n\"Time for my watch?\"\n\nAntsy eyed the remaining fuel in the lamp. \"Naw. Bit longer.\"\n\n\"Well. I'm up now. '\n\nAntsy nodded, distracted, while he rubbed the back of his neck. \"Yeah. Fine.\" I swear this damned dark is gonna drive me rat-crazy.\n\nIn the \"morning\"– that is, when they were all up and eating alight meal of dried fruit and old stale bread– Malakai emerged from the dark. He looked much the worse for wear, was growing a beard, and his dark jacket hung torn and stained with sweat.\n\nBut then, Antsy reflected, none of us is looking any prettier.\n\nDistaste curled the man's slash of a mouth as he studied them.\"What's this? You should be up the stairs by now.\"\n\nAntsy decided he'd had a stomachful of the man's command style. He's never with us yet he presumes he's leading. He cleared his throat. \"Ah, we had us a talk. An\" we've decided we're goin'our own way in our own time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "the man breathed, a dangerous edge entering his voice.\n\nRather belatedly Antsy glanced about for his crossbow. He saw it sitting to one side, uncocked. Damn. Gotta think these things through before I open my stupid mouth.\n\n\"Yes,\" Orchid cut in quickly. \"We've decided. '\n\nThe dark glittering eyes shifted to her. A scoffing smile now openly stretched his lips. \"And where will you go?\"\n\n\"The closest way out. We're going to get off this rock while we still have food and water and strength in our legs. '\n\n\"You'll never make it. '\n\nAntsy cast a quick anxious glance to Orchid: that evaluation, so final, made her flinch.\n\n\"That maybe so,\" Corien said into the silence following Malakai's comment,\"but that's our worry.\"\n\nThe man seemed to make a show of considering the idea. He gave a great exaggerated frown while his hands brushed his belt. Antsy knew all the blades the man carried at that belt, and in other places. He ached to slip a hand into his shirt to the shoulder harness where he kept a munition in reserve, but he also knew Malakai would act the moment he saw him do that. \"There's still the matter of my investment in you two, ' Malakai said, and cocked an eye to Antsy.\n\nShit. Why didn't I load the damned crossbow when I had the chance?\n\n\"If I may...?\" Corien spoke up. Malakai gave the slightest dip of his head, his eyes fixed on Antsy. \"Well. It seems tome that you are already of the opinion that you've afar better chance of achieving your goal– whatever that is– without us... yes? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Both Antsy and Malakai turned to eye the lad." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes?\" Malakai prompted.\n\n\"Well, then, cutting us free recoups your investment by improving your odds of success.\"\n\nAntsy glared his anger. What in Osserc's dark humour is this?\n\nBut Malakai nodded thoughtfully. Something in the proposition seemed to touch on his own private evaluation and he slipped his hands from his belt. \"Very well. On your heads let it be.\"\n\n\"Yeah– right,\" Antsy said, scratching his stubbled jaw, still rather puzzled.\n\n\"We'll part company here, then. \"Malakai bowed to Orchid.\"I would wish you luck but I'm afraid your luck will run to the lad's pull. '\n\n\"We'll see, ' she answered, firm, having regained her confidence.\n\n\"Farewell then.\" And the man backed away into the darkness to disappear up a narrow side alley. Antsy listened fora time but couldn't hear one betraying step or scuff. He thought the man had gone but looked to Orchid for confirmation.\n\n\"He's left, ' she said after a time.\n\nCorien let out along breath. \"Thank the gods.\"\n\n\"He didn't ask for any of the water or food, ' Orchid said, surprised.\n\n\"Maybe he knows where he can steal any he needs,\" Antsy said.\n\n\"So what now?\" Corien asked.\n\nAntsy was silent, until it occurred to him that maybe that question had been asked of him. He cleared his throat. \"Well... I suppose we press on. Keep an eye out.\"\n\n\"Good,\" Orchid said, emphatic. \"I don't want him to get too far ahead of us. '\n\nAntsy blinked in the dimming light of the lamp. \"Hunh? What's that supposed to mean? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I mean just that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I don't trust him. He's after something. And there are things hereon Moon's Spawn that mustn't seethe light of day.\"\n\nAs if on cue the lamp guttered then, and went out. After a moment of surprised silence Corien laughed. Even Orchid joined in, though Antsy just swore. \"Can't see a damned thing! ' he complained, and started searching through his bags for more oil.\n\n\"Would you like to see then, Red?\" Orchid offered from the dark.\n\n\"Hunh? You can do that? Why didn't you-'\n\n\"I told you I don't trust Malakai. I don't want him to know what I can do. If I can, that is.\"\n\n\"Well, gods, yes! If you would.\"\n\nShe crossed to his side. He heard her skirts rustling over the stones, felt the warmth radiating from her. Her cool dry hands touched his face. The touch pleased him.\n\n\"I'm glad you managed that without violence, Red, \"she whispered.\"You nudged him just the right way. '\n\nAntsy resisted the urge to shrug, kept his head steady in her hands. \"He's been itching to drop us since we landed. I just handed him the moment. Anyway, it was Corien here who sealed the deal. '\n\n\"I just helped out,\" Corien protested.\n\n\"No. How'd you know he'd buy that argument?\"\n\nThe lad grunted from the dark, sitting down. \"Well... it's a touch embarrassing to say, but my guess is that he didn't want to face you down, Red.\"\n\nAntsy jerked his surprise in Orchid's hands and she let out an impatient hiss.\"Sorry, \"he murmured.\"Lad, the man's a killer. I think he just decided he didn't want our blood on his hands. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is he a killer? Think on it, Red. We actually haven't seen him use all that hardware, have we? '\n\n\"In Pearl Town he knifed plenty.\"\n\n\"Certainly– scared unarmed men and women in the dark from behind. But you're a veteran, Red. You wouldn't flinch. You may not know it, but you're a rather intimidating presence. '\n\nAntsy snorted. Me? You haven't met the scary Bridgeburners, friend.\n\nOrchid's long-fingered hands tightened on Antsy's cheeks. \"If you've quite finished? '\n\n\"Sorry.\"\n\n\"Fine. Now hold still. Shut your eyes.\"\n\nHe obeyed. She began speaking, singing really, in that smooth quiet tongue she'd used with the guardian. He was hearing Tiste Andii, he realized, and a sort of shiver ran up his spine. Been hunted too often by those strange people. The language seemed to hold more silence and pauses than sounds. It was as a whispering of a distant wind and seemed so suited to the dark. After a time she stopped, or the sounds drifted away to silence. The hands withdrew, warmed now by the heat of his cheeks. Antsy remained motionless; he felt profoundly relaxed, almost asleep. It reminded him of a trick Mallet used to pull on the wounded. A few low sounds, a steady touch, and the troopers calmed right down.\n\nBut nothing happened. A profound depression gripped his chest. Now he was doomed for sure. His last hope lost. How could he be any use, blind, a cripple? Then he realized that he was so relaxed he hadn't opened his eyes.\n\nHe blinked and a world of vision jumped to life before him. He couldn't believe it. Couldn't credit his eyes because what he saw was so alien. Monochrome, it was. All shades of deepest blue. As if he was looking at the world through a shard of blue-stained glass. The darkness of deep murky mauve even gathered in the distances, just like true vision. He looked up. There, almost directly overhead, was a stone set in the wall. It was carved in the likeness of an Andii face, feline, almost, and it gave off a lantern-like blue glow. It had been there all this time yet he'd had no idea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He laughed. It was amazing.\n\n\"So... it worked?\"\n\nHe looked to Orchid's anxious, glistening face. The girl had never looked so beautiful to him. He quelled an urge to kiss her.\"Yeah. Worked just great. It's just... amazin\". '\n\n\"So you can see me then?\" Corien asked. Antsy turned to where the lad sat slumped higher upon the stairs. He was squinting roughly in their direction.\n\n\"Yeah. It's like the light of a full moon. You look terrible. '\n\n\"Oh dear. What would they say in Majesty Hall?\"\n\n\"Can you do him?\" he asked of Orchid.\n\n\"Yes, I think so.\"\n\nCorien raised a gloved hand. \"No need. Time to see to myself.\" He fumbled at his waist-pouch and withdrew a tiny wooden box. \"Now we shall see,\" and he chuckled. He pulled off one glove and dipped the tip of a finger into the box. It looked to Antsy as if the man was about to take snuff but the finger went into one eye instead. Corien hissed his pain. After doing the other eye he peered about, blinking comically, eyes watering.\n\n\"Well?\" Antsy asked.\n\n\"Like pressing salt to one's eyes. I really must talk to my alchemist about this. Tell me, is that face up there really glowing? '\n\nA presence haunted the estate of Lady Varada. It brushed against windows and pressed against locked doors. The two colourfully dressed guards it easily bypassed to enter the main rooms of the manor house. In these empty halls it hovered near door handles and latches to find each and all dusted with a white powder the presence knew to be a rare poison sifted from the pollen of a flower found only in the near-mythical land of Drift Avalii. Other rooms it quickly sped through as if sensing the drifting fumes of scents deadly to any living creature." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Eventually, after much probing and many turnings back at dead ends, it gained access to the lower floors and here the tenebrous drifting presence coiled inwards, firmed and thickened into the figure of a slim young woman in diaphanous white cloth, silver wristlets and anklets tinkling musically on her limbs.\n\nThe girl descended a last set of raw granite steps to the deepest chamber to come to a halt where a figure crouched in the middle of the empty room, legs drawn up beneath her stomach, head bowed. The girl pressed a hand to her mouth to cover a smile but her eyes held a savage triumph.\n\n\"Mother,\" she said. \"You're looking... poorly. '\n\nThe figure raised her head to peer up through tangled black hairlike a sweep of night. \"Taya,\" she answered, her voice tight with suppressed pain. \"I asked you to stay away.\"\n\n\"You sent me away,\" Taya snapped. \"Why, I now know.\"\n\n\"You know nothing,\" the woman snarled. She surged to her knees, revealing fine mesh chains at wrist and ankle that thrummed taut, and she gasped her agony as flames burst into life where the metal of the fetters clasped her flesh.\n\nTaya nodded her appreciation. \"So that is how you managed. Otataral chains. We'd wondered. Imagine. Vorcan Radok imprisoning herself. \"She pressed a hand to her lips.\"Dare I say it? How... ironic? '\n\nVorcan returned to her crouch, panting and hissing her pain. \"You've come. You've seen. Now you can go.\"\n\nThe arm swept down savagely. \"No, Mother. You do not dismiss me. Not any longer. Now it is I who dismiss you. And seeing you now... like this... I can finally do so.\" She set her hands on her hips, tsking. \"Look at you. Such a mess. And your so-called guards! I could have slain the lot had I wished.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Head down, Vorcan half gasped, \"I would advise you not to draw any weapon on Lazan or Madrun. And Studlock... well, you wouldn't know whereto stick your knife to slay him. '\n\n\"Where is that creature from?\"\n\n\"Not even I know.\"\n\nTaya's mouth drew down in the small pout of a frown and she sighed her exaggerated boredom.\"Well, it has been a treat talking, Mother. But I have a life worth living. \"She raised her hand to her mouth once more, this time blowing a kiss.\"Thank you. Your wretched failure here frees me of so much. I had come dreaming of killing you but now I see that your suffering pleases me more. Farewell! Think of me often at the court of Darujhistan's rightful king reinstated. I know I will bethinking of you.\"\n\nShe backed away, climbing the steps, waving. Vorcan did not raise her head.\n\nSometime later another figure came shambling down the stairs, long tatters of his cloth wrappings trailing behind. Studlock bowed, \"She is gone, mistress.\"\n\nVorcan nodded heavily. \"Good. None interfered? Madrun? Lazan?\"\n\n\"None. Your instructions were most precise. Only she and the other are to be allowed to pass.\"\n\nShe sank lower, relaxing, the chains clattering. \"Good. Good.\"\n\nStudlock rubbed his cloth-wrapped hands together, perhaps as a gesture of worry. \"What shall we do, mistress?\"\n\n\"We will wait. Wait and see. His arising will be contested. We will see what form that will take.\"\n\n\"But who, mistress? Who will contend?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The same as before.\"\n\nThe strangely jointed hands fell. \"Oh dear. Him.\"\n\nA short stout man (generous of diameter, thank you!), dapper in waistcoat and frilled sleeves, daintily crosses the mud and open sewer channel of the town of broken hopes west of the dreaming city. And what is this? Does that city now whimper and grimace in its sleep? Does the dream threaten to slide into nightmare? Does a crowned figure stalk the edges of its vision?\n\nAnd where all the frustrated failed gods take it does this meandering alley lead?\n\nVexed hero turns aside to a file of washerwomen bent to task at nearby trickle of stream. He pauses, struck breathless for the nonce by glorious vista of said washerwomen's backsides presented. He mops brow with handkerchief, sighs wistfully. Then, remembering errand, approaches.\n\n\"Good washerwomen! Would you be so kind as to help a poor lost soul?\"\n\nThe stolid women slow in their hearty slapping of wet garments and muscular wringing of alarmingly wound cloth. \"Who in Oponn's poor jest are you? ' one welcomes rather undemurely.\n\n\"I am but a humble petitioner hoping to find my way to a resident of these parts.\"\n\n\"Who's \"at?\" another fine strapping figure of her trade asks, and spits a brown stream of chewing leaf juice.\n\nAfter hastily shifting silk-slippered foot aside of striking juice our heroic quester bows gallantly. \"Why, an old woman. Living alone. A widow, truth be told, many times over. Some think her perhaps crazy and ignorantly ascribe to her charges of witchery and hexing... and such...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Enquirer splutters to silence as all slapping and wringing of cloths cease. All eyes turn narrowed and flashing to the fine generous figure of our innocent searcher– who extends one foot to his rear, poised.\n\n\"Get'im! '\n\n\"Slimy rat!\"\n\n\"The nerve!\"\n\nLater that same evening a family of Maiten town was quite mystified to find a fat fellow in black and red silk finery, rather faded, hiding behind their goat pen. \"Yes?\" the father asked, quite slowly, worried that perhaps the poor man had lost his senses.\n\nThe man straightened up, his head coming almost to the shoulders of the father. He adjusted his stained clothes, brushed soapsuds from his lapels, glanced about. \"Just admiring your handsome animals, good sir. Ah! You wouldn't by any chance happen to know of an old woman living alone hereabouts, that is about here– one whom the uncaring world unjustly ostracizes with calumny and obloquy? '\n\nThe father's brow furrowed as he attempted to make sense of the question. He motioned upriver.\"Well, there's a crazy old witch further along at the edge of town.\"\n\nThe rotund fellow bowed. \"My thanks, keeper of such handsome animals.\"\n\nLater, after much dodging of roving packs of washerwomen armed with wet laundry, the out-of-breath and by now very hungry wanderer came across a straw-roofed wattle-and-daub hut upon the threshold of which sat a nest-haired old woman, pipe in mouth, busy kneading the mud with her naked toes.\n\nHe bowed in a lace-sleeved flourish. \"Ah! Queen of the dreaming city! What a privilege! I am come to pay my respects.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The old woman peered up, eyes red and unfocused. A vague smile came and went around her pipe. \"Slippery ball offish oil... do you bring offering?\"\n\n\"But of course.\" Another flourish and a wrapped object the size of a walnut appeared. He bowed, holding it out.\n\nThe old woman snatched it up with a speed that belied her years. She tore the paper and pinched off apiece of the dark gum within and pushed it into her pipe. Fumbling behind her at the hearth fire inside the hut, she found a smouldering stick that she touched to the pipe while pulling in long steady inhalations. After a few breaths the stick glowed and she drew long and hard. Her eyes closed in silky pleasure.\n\nThe man clasped his hands behind his back, looked to the sky, lips pursed, rocked back and forth on his muddy heels.\n\nEventually the woman exhaled, allowing the smoke to drift from her mouth and immediately sucking it in once more by drawing it up through her nose.\n\nThe man let out his own long breath and examined his fingernails.\n\nSometime later a satisfied sigh returned the man's attention to the old woman. He found her peering up at him, eyes dreamy, a wicked smile at the lips.\"Oily Kruppe– what can this poor nobody do for you? '\n\n\"Nobody! Calumny in truth! You are the secret carrier of my heart! This you have known all these years.\"\n\n\"Oiliness indeed...\" But the smile broadened, became rather lascivious. \"You know my price.\"\n\n\"Of course! I am all aquiver. And so, the, ah... objects... are ready then?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Almost now.\"\n\n\"Almost. Ah... well. Somehow I must contain myself. More dunkings in handy chilly river for this frustrated suitor.\"\n\n\"Come back again– and don't forget more offering. '\n\n\"Fates forfend! I shall come courting again, queen of my heart. You shall not be rid of me so easily. The siege has hardly begun!\"\n\nThe woman leaned forward and clutched a clawed hand at the man's knee.\"Then don't forget your battering ram!\"\n\nThe man shrank back, paling, his arms nearly crossing over his crotch. \"Earthy princess! Your saltiness is, and will be, a treat... I am sure. But I must go– ceaseless labour, twisty plottings, constant confounding, as you know.\"\n\nBut the woman merely murmured, smiling dreamily, \"Almost now.\" She giggled and patted her chest.\n\n\"Er, yes. Farewell! He backed away, bowing, blowing kisses.\"I shiver in anticipation. ' And he turned and waddled, rather swiftly, up the mud track.\n\nThe crowd of washerwomen watched the slimy interloper disappear into the maze of Maiten town. \"Why let the wretch go?\" one hissed, furious.\n\n\"Why?\" another snarled, turning upon her. \"Why? Didn't you see? He's a friend of that crazy old witch!\"\n\nLooking out over the night-time blue-lit streets Ambassador Aragan considered whether the city had ever been this quiet. His gaze rose to the yawning banner of green slicing the night sky and he wondered if perhaps that had much to do with the general reserve. Somehow he didn't think so." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was out of the command loop now. The Fists had control. He'd remained as a sort of standing offer of dialogue with... whatever... was gathering power around Majesty Hill. Something that drove the Moranth off just by showing up. And we're powerless to do anything.\n\nHe crossed his arms, leaned against the windowsill. At least the troops will be in a position to withdraw north if need be. Gods! He'd almost prefer a plain old physical threat like the Pannion Domin. Here he felt as if he were pushing against nothing. It was unnerving in the extreme. And he had to say that it reminded him of the way the old Emperor used to operate.\n\nSomeone stepped up next to him at the window then, making him jump aside, a hand going to his throat. \"Gods, man! Don't do that! '\n\nThe newcomer merely offered a slit of a smile, hands clasped behind his back. Aragan took in the green silk shirt, dark green cloak, long thin face and cat-like, openly dismissive eyes. Well, at least Unta is taking things seriously– sending this fellow, of all people. He cleared his throat. \"So, what word from the capital?\"\n\n\"Darujhistan is important to the throne, Ambassador. Whosoever controls this city potentially controls the entire continent. The Empress knew it, as does the Emperor.\"\n\nAragan simply nodded, returning his gaze to the city. \"My thoughts as well. What will you do?\"\n\n\"What I do best, Ambassador. I will watch and wait.\"\n\nNot sure what to make of that, Aragan merely grunted, hoping his reaction would betaken as wise agreement.\n\nThe tall man turned to him. \"I understand you have hired someone to gather intelligence already. I'd like to question him, if possible. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Certainly. Dreshen has the particulars.\"\n\n\"Very good.\" The man gave the slightest inclination of his head. \"I will be in touch, Ambassador.\"\n\nAragan nodded, openly relieved that the man was going. \"Yes, of course. Until later.\"\n\nThe shadowy figure backed away to cross the room to the door. He quietly shut it behind him. Aragan was rather disappointed; he had expected something much more dramatic. Sulphurous smoke and a clap of thunder, perhaps. Still, shouldn't be disillusioned. It's few can boast of having the Master of all the Claw come up behind them out of the dark and live to tell the tale.\n\n*\n\nIt was the dead of night but torches and lanterns set on poles lit the long excavation trench that extended in an immense arc all round one side of the sprawling Old Palace and the assembly galleries of Majesty Hall. Work continued day and night. Cleaned polished stones were delivered by hand-drawn cart up the steep Way of Just Rulership to be delivered to the excavation for setting within the trench. Workers dug, laid gravel and sand, levelled, compressed and prepared the foundation. All under the watchful exacting eyes of the construction bosses; one a hunched fellow with large hands that appeared to have been mangled by the white blocks he was always caressing; the other, tall, fierce and scowling, quick with a cuff or a strike of the staff he sometimes carried.\n\nThe stones were gently laid one by one. A moving tent enclosed the last touches of the installation and the refilling of the trench behind. \"Interment\" the two overseers called this final series of hidden steps.\n\nOne worker, levelling-board in hand, often lingered close to the flaps of the heavy canvas tent. His fellow crew members frequently had to call him back to task. \"If we fall behind I'll not take a lashing for your laziness, ' one grumbled to him while they tamped down a layer of fine sand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Walk away then,\" the new fellow answered. \"There's other work. '\n\n\"Ha! Other work! Listen to this one, would you? There is no other work at all! Everything's shutdown. The mines, the ironworks, all road crews. It's work here or starve for all of us. Where've you been, anyway? '\n\nThe newcomer shrugged. \"Been working in a tavern lately.\"\n\n\"So that's what you call working? \"another of the crew said, laughing.\"I can believe that. '\n\nThe new hand pulled on the long ratty shirt he wore, mouth clamped against any comment.\n\nThe man next to him grimaced his distaste, covering his nose. \"And it doesn't cost anything to douse yourself with water once in awhile too, you know. '\n\n\"Back to work!\" came a barked command followed by a slap of wood against the shoulder of the newcomer, who straightened, glaring, hands fisted.\n\nBut the overseer had moved on, his back turned. Another of the crew dragged the newcomer back down to the bottom of the trench. \"Don't try it, friend. And what's your name, anyway?\"\n\nThe newcomer looked startled, as if the question was completely unexpected. He pulled at the greasy long shirt. \"Ah... Turn-er. Turner.\"\n\n\"Turner? Harmon. Well, friend, a word to the wise. There's much worse they've done to some.\"\n\n\"Oh? Such as?\"\n\nThey were levelling a layer of gravel over the foundation. Head down, one answered, \"A fellow dropped a tool on one of them stones and what happened to him was a terrible thing to see.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So? What happened?\"\n\nEyes met to share gauging looks. \"Magery happened,\" whispered a crew member. \"The tall one with the staff– he just points, he does, and the mangoes down screaming in agony. Bites his own tongue off.\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"Aye. There's Warren magics here. Maybe these two are Free Cities mages from up north. Maybe Pale necromancers. Who knows? '\n\nThe crew had a break as more gravel was sent for. They stood, stretching and grimacing over their aches and pains. \"What're they up to? ' Turner asked.\n\nGazes slid aside, feet were shifted, uneasy. Harmon peered right and left then edged closer. A pained look crossed his face and he backed up a step. Then, taking a great breath, he leaned in. \"Some kinda protection for the city, right? This is one o\" the new Legate's improvements, right?\"\n\n\"One?\" grumbled another. \"Only one I knows.\"\n\nTurner looked suitably impressed. \"Damn... you don't say. Must be them stones, hey? '\n\nHarmon frowned, suddenly a touch uneasy. \"Well, I suppose so.\"\n\n\"Only one way to find out, don't you think? ' And Turner picked up a shovel and headed backup the trench for the tent.\n\n\"Gods, man...\" Harmon hissed, appalled.\n\n\"Don't be a fool! ' another called, voice low.\n\nAfter that, hammers started clanging and chisels ringing as the crew was suddenly very busy.\n\nSpindle was damned terrified, but he bet that these two Adepts– and he knew the two as such: as far above his capabilities as any Imperial High Mage– would see only what they expected to see: an empty-headed labourer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pushed through the hanging flap to find himself almost blind in the shrouded darkness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Burn take it! Didn't think of that.\n\n\"What in the name of the Cursed Ones do you think you're doing? \"a voice snarled down the length of the tent. Spindle bowed, touching his forehead repeatedly.\"Just reportin\", sir. We're almost done with the-'\n\n\"I don't give a shit what you're finished with or not. Never come inhere. Get out! Now!\"\n\nSpindle could just make out a hunched figure, lantern set before him, bent over the glowing white blocks, instruments in hand. He bowed again, touching his forehead. \"O\" course, sir. Yes. Course. Sorry. ' He backed away, bowing, feeling behind himself for the flap.\n\n\"Out!\"\n\nHe scuttled backwards through the flap, turned round and ran straight into the other overseer, the tall quick-tempered one. This mage grabbed his arm, glowering murder. At his touch Spindle felt his hair shirt writhe as if it had come alive. The mage let go, obviously quite shocked. Spindle froze; he'd been found out. This Adept had him. But the tall fellow, scars healing on his face and hands, simply regripped his staff, slowly and stiffly, his knuckles white with strain. And the eyes, black pits in yellowed orbs, shifted to the side, urging him onwards. Spindle bowed again in his role of a normal labourer returning to his work, though this man had seen through his façade.\n\nAll the rest of his shift he shared in the loading, levelling and tamping of dirt, sand and gravels, but he hardly saw any of it. Nor did any of the crew bother him. They'd marked him as either touched or irredeemably dim. Trouble to be avoided, in either case. His hands did their tasks but his mind puzzled over what he'd glimpsed inside that tent. That strange hunchback bent over the stones– and such stones! Glowing, they were, as if lit from within. But what had captured his attention were the tools. Magnificent iron etching styluses, and an assortment of engineering instruments any saboteur would give his left hand for. A compass for inscribing arcs, a spirit level– only the second one he'd ever seen outside the Academy in Unta– and an eyepiece of what he suspected might be part of a surveyor's instrument, one he'd only heard described: an alidade. Gods, he'd never even touched an alidade!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "How he wished he could talk to Fiddler or Hedge about this." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Those two knew more engineering than he. With such tools you could lay down a perfect wall– straight or curved.\n\nAnd no one needs that kind of precision fora battlement!\n\nIn the auditorium of the assembly chambers Councillor Coll had lately had a great deal of time on his hands. Fewer of his fellow Councillors than ever were now comfortable being seen in his company. The faction supporting the reinstallation of the Legate was pre-eminent and the subsequent favours, funds and prestige flowed accordingly. So now, in assembly, Councillor Coll sat surrounded by empty seats, hands clasped over his wide stomach, tapping his fingers. He used the time to think.\n\nThat day it occurred to him that in fact it had been sometime since he'd even seen Lim; not that this'Legate'was legally obliged to officiate here at the Council. Around mid-morning he heaved himself out of his seat– Ye gods but I am starting to get a touch heavy– to walk the steps down to the debate floor. Among the councillors present he selected one clearly in the Legate's camp, one who would have nothing to risk in actually being seen talking to him. Conversation quietened in the man's group as he drew near and the three councillors sketched the briefest greetings his way. Coll bowed to Councillor Ester-Jeen, who merely arched a supercilious brow.\n\n\"Councillor Coll,\" he murmured.\n\n\"Ester-Jeen.\"\n\nThe other two councillors remembered pressing business and bowed their leave-taking. \"Yes?\" Ester-Jeen said, his tone implying the relationship of a superior to a petitioner. Coll let that pass, though in his youth such a peremptory and disrespectful greeting would have drawn a challenge from him. He noted an unusual ornament on the man's breast, a gold brooch worked in the shape of a tiny oval mask." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was wondering, Ester-Jeen, just where is our illustrious leader? He doesn't seem very interested in actually leading. '\n\nThe man physically paled at Coll's daring in giving voice to such disrespect. He dropped a gloved hand to the gilt rapier at his hip even though, as Coll knew, the councillor had never fought a duel. Then his eyes fluttered and the hand fell away as he seemed to remember that not only had Coll fought many duels but he was also a veteran of the Free Cities wars from years ago.\n\nHe opted fora superior frosty glare. \"The Legate is not required to sit here and be bored by the Council's unending chatter. He will grant audience in the Great Hall for any official business. '\n\n\"Audience?\" Coll repeated, outraged. Conversations surrounding them stilled. Coll glanced about, met many hostile, even some pitying, gazes. He lowered his voice. \"Since when do we herein Darujhistan use such language as'audience\"? And the Great Hall... we don't use that. It's considered...\" Coll searched for the right term, \"well... cursed.\"\n\nHaving gauged the atmosphere of the room, Councillor Ester-Jeen was now quite at ease. No one, it appeared, was prepared to offer Coll any support whatsoever. The man was simply making a sad spectacle of his ignorance and isolation. Perhaps now, if he was very careful, he could even lure him into discrediting himself entirely. He spoke up loudly. \"If you have any legitimate business regarding matters before the Council then of course you may approach the Legate. Otherwise, Coll, I would suggest you not waste his time.\" And he offered a small shrug of embarrassment as if to say: I am very sorry to be the one to have to tell you this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was gratified by the reaction his words elicited. The big man reared up as if slapped– which of course he had been– and his eyes widened, stunned. He glanced about at the gathered councillors and Ester-Jeen saw only flat gazes answering. Then Coll spun on his heels and marched for the doors. Ester-Jeen was delighted. He's actually going to do it– the fool.\n\nWhen Coll pushed past Councillor Orr the young woman whispered through gritted teeth: \"Don't. ' But he was past listening. He could not let this stand. There was noway he could ever face anyone of those present again unless he did exactly what that upstart useless popinjay wanted him to. He marched for the Great Hall.\n\nMajesty Hall itself was in truth amaze of halls and chambers and auditoriums, all of various sizes, ages, and levels of decrepitude. The Great Hall was among the most ancient of the hill's architecture. It was sometimes used for ceremonial balls and mass assemblies. But other than that it stood empty and neglected, having a rather off-putting dusty air, quite similar to that of the equally old Despot's Barbican.\n\nColl found the double doors of panelled beaten copper and bronze, as tall as three men, unaccountably closed. Before them stood two city Wardens.\n\n\"Open up,\" he snapped, not slowing in his headlong rush.\n\nThe two shared helpless glances. Then, bowing to the inevitable, one threw open a small clerk's door just before Coll brained himself on the polished copper panels. Coll was furious that he had to enter like some damned mouse but enter he did, ducking and stepping over the threshold. Within, he found the long hall lit by shafts of light streaming down from high openings. Motes hung in the shafts like the downy seeds of wildflowers over a sunny field. Other than that the Great Hall appeared empty. He walked slowly up its polished pink marble floor– recently dusted, he noted– his boot heels clicking loudly in the silence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Someone, or something, waited at the far end. Some sort of large seat had been constructed of white stone blocks and someone sat upon it. He wore along loose cloak of rich material, a deep maroon. But what was most mystifying was the large gold mask that entirely covered his face.\n\nThe Queen-damned Legate has lost his gibbering mind.\n\nColl stopped short of the– what should he call it? A dais? – and squinted up at the figure. \"Lim? Is that you? What is all this ridiculous mummery?\"\n\nThe figure on the dais flicked a hand and out from the side of the hall shuffled an old man in dusty frayed clothes, grey hair all askew. The man bowed to Coll, and, nervously rubbing his hands at his chest, gulped, \"I speak for the Legate.\"\n\n\"What? You?\" Coll turned on Lim. \"Speak for your damned self!\" He drew breath to excoriate the fool but stopped; he saw that the gold mask, beaten in the design of a calm half-smiling face, had no holes in it whatsoever. None for eyes or mouth. How in Burn's mysteries does the man breathe?\n\nA strange urge almost overcame Coll then to tear the mask from the fool's face but he was distracted by the emergence of a second man from the side of the hall. A tall familiar figure walking with a staff of twisted gnarled wood. His one-time employer, High Alchemist Baruk.\n\nRelief flooded Coll. \"Thank goodness... Baruk, what is all this nonsense?\"\n\nThe man came very close and Coll saw that the man was Baruk, yet not. A nest of pale scars skeined his face and hands and his lips were drawn back from his teeth in a savage gleeful smile. Yet only a dead sort of dismissal, if even that, animated his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And suddenly Coll knew." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He knew. All those whispered rumours and hearsay. The T'orrud Cabal. It was true. Baruk had been with them all along. And now, after all these years, they'd made their move and claimed power. He flinched away from this man whom he'd thought a friend.\"You'll never succeed,\" he breathed, feeling utterly hollow inside. \"The Cabal will be deposed. You will see.\"\n\nBaruk shook his head, the smile broadening to become somehow even more fey. \"You still don't understand, Coll, \"he whispered, leaning close.\"We're here now because the Cabal failed.\"\n\nThe hamlet clinging on at the southern edge of the Dwelling Plain was on no map. Once every few years a caravan train of camels and mules passed by on its way south to Callows and Morn beyond. But other than such intermittent visitors only ill-advised travellers, the desperate, criminal, or utterly lost, ever found their way to such an isolated stretch of emptiness. The inhabitants, refugees mostly, peppered by a few hardened locals born and raised, were bent to their task of squeezing any sustenance out of the unproductive sandy soil. Those in the southernmost fields noted the strange phenomenon first: a dark snaking line coming out of the depths of the hard brush of the Plain of Lamatath to the south. A few stopped to peer, hands shading their eyes, then returned to hoeing and jabbing at the hard soil as if to beat it into submission.\n\nWhen next they looked up, the line had drawn nearer, taken on more dimension in the shimmering heat-glare of the sun. It looked like a double file of men jogging, no doubt on the move since dawn and not stopping yet. Some leaned on their hoes to watch fora time, wondering at the bizarre sight. One or two thought that perhaps they ought to sound some sort of alarm. Though what any of them could do in the face of such an unprecedented visitation they were not sure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Close to noon, the sun at its highest, their unrelenting steady approach brought the file of men– and women– close enough now to make out details." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone had stopped working to watch, silent. Lightly armoured, they were, in leathers, those leathers now dark with sweat. All were armed with long blades, some carrying two. All lean, wiry and nut-dark. But these details were as nothing compared to their most extraordinary feature: all wore masks. And multicoloured, they were, too. Painted almost gaily.\n\nThey could be faintly heard now. Their sandalled feet fell unusually light upon the dry hardpan, all in unison, like a distant drumming. The double file of men and women passed straight across the landscape, unwavering, arrow-like, pointed north-east. Without a pause each easily vaulted a heaped wall of fieldstone as they came to it. The sight made one farmer think of a stream of water flowing magically northward.\n\nAnd on they passed, none even sparing a glance for the closest of the farmers who stood not an arm's reach aside. Apart from the beat of their footfalls, utterly silent. Ghost-like. Indeed, it was almost like a vision imposed by the heat. Only the dust remained to hang in the still air, the file now to the north, jogging onward, diminishing.\n\nYet as the dust settled it revealed a newcomer. One of the masked. He'd stopped next to one of the children: young Hireth. Who stood staring up, mouth agape, water gourd in one hand. The man knelt, held out a hand for the gourd. Hireth's father dared to edge slightly closer; the visitor seemed to ignore him. As if being shaken out of a daze Hireth snapped her mouth shut then held out the gourd. The man took it. He turned his head aside while he lifted his mask to drink, then rose and handed back the gourd. Something in his manner made her bend her knees in a curtsy. The man reached out to gently run a hand down one cheek of her bare upturned face. The father almost started forward then but something in the gentleness of the touch, its near reverence, made him stop. He watched spellbound, his pickaxe clenched in his sweaty hands. Jogging all the day under this sun and not even breathing hard! These are demons off on some summoned errand. Go now. Do not trouble us!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And the stranger set off, running gracefully at a league-swallowing easy pace. Hireth's father came to her.\"Did he say anything, child? '\n\nShe shook her head, as if she too had somehow been captured by the visitors' spell of silence.\n\nHe squeezed her shoulder to reassure her. So, he hadn't spoken. Somehow he didn't imagine the man, or demon, had. And he'd been different from the rest. His mask had been very pale, all creamy white, it was. With only one smear of reddish dirt across the brow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Let it be known that a number of centuries past an ambitious and expansionist dynasty of rulers named the Jannids asserted control over the southern city states. These rulers prosecuted successful campaigns across the lands gaining sway all the way north to the Pannion region. They were famous for having raised countless stelae upon which they ordered engraved the detailed histories of those campaigns, listing their victories, together with exhaustive compilings of treasure taken, prisoners, and states humbled. Only in one campaign were they crushed– a defeat that triggered their downfall. This is known because of one unpolished boulder that lies on the western shore south of Morn. Carved on it area mere four words: \"The Jannids fell here.\"\n\nHistories of Genabackis\n\nSulerem of Mengal\n\nTHE FIRST VESSEL leaving Darujhistan's harbour that morning was an old merchantman ferrying passengers and freight westward around the lakeshore. Upon sighting the ancient ship, its paint sun-faded to a uniform pale grey, sails patched and threadbare, sides battered and scraped to naked slivers, Torvald halted on the wharf. Passengers brushed past laden with rolled reed mats and bags of possessions. Some drove young sucklings ahead of them. Just about all carried fowl gobbling inside cages woven of reed and green branches.\n\nHe turned on one of the city Wardens sent to escort him to the docks. \"This is supposed to be a diplomatic mission,\" he hissed, struggling to keep his voice low. \"I can't goon this tub! '\n\nOne of the guards tucked a folded pinch of leaves into a cheek and leaned against piled crates. \"It's a secret mission, Councillor, ' he drawled.\n\nTorvald tried his best superior glare but the fellow was clearly indifferent. \"If it's so secret then how come you know about it? And don't call me Councillor.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A lazy roll of the shoulders from the man." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Orders.\"\n\nTorvald began to wonder just what those orders were. See him from the city even if it means throwing him from the docks, perhaps. He picked up his heavy travelling bag and slipped its strap over a shoulder. \"Fine. Secret. Tell your superiors you saw me off then,\" he said, and headed up the gangway.\n\nThe small deck was crammed with goods. Pigs squealed, terrified, sheep bawled, and caged birds gabbled. All this did nothing for the state of the decking. The only available space was a suspiciously clear arc surrounding two figures sitting against the side close to the bow. Torvald could well understand the avoidance: one of them was a giant of a fellow with a massive tangle of hair and beard all unkempt together like a great mane of dirty blond and grey. His shoulders were titanic, his upper arms as massive as Torvald's own thighs, and his chest swept out like a barrel. Torvald thought him perhaps a travelling strongman. The fellow next to him was a skinny Rhivi tribesman elder looking particularly frail in such company. To Torvald the two would have appeared afar more intimidating pair if the big fellow hadn't been so clearly absorbed in studying the city, laid out pink and golden in the dawn's light, climbing in cliff ridge over cliff ridge to Majesty Hill beyond. The old fellow was clearly sick as a dog, bleary-eyed and pale.\n\nBut then Torvald had travelled fora time in the company of someone who could arguably be named the most intimidating figure these lands had ever met. He dropped his bag and leaned up against the side. \"Not going to try your luck?\" he said to the big fellow.\n\nThe man's gaze swung to him and Torvald suppressed a flinch when he saw the bestial eyes, the irises oddly shaped, and felt the plain sheer weight of the man's regard. The fellow cocked one thick brow, rumbled, \"How's that? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Torvald found his throat suddenly dry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The city... they're always hungry for new acts. '\n\n\"Acts?\" the man slowly enunciated, his voice hardening.\n\n\"You know... bending bars, breaking chains.\"\n\nBoth brows rose as comprehension dawned and the fellow eased back, relaxing. \"Ah. No.\" He crooked a small nostalgic smile. \"Been a lot of years since I've had to do any of that. '\n\nSomehow, Torvald felt immense relief. \"I'm sorry– I thought... '\n\nThe man raised a gnarled hand to forestall any further explanation. \"I understand.\" The fierce eyes looked him up and down. \"What are you doing on a tub like this?\"\n\nMy point exactly. Torvald offered an indifferent shrug. \"First boat leaving.\"\n\n\"And far from the fastest,\" the man rumbled.\n\nUnformed suspicions writhed anew in Torvald's stomach and he glanced over to seethe two city Wardens, who, grinning, offered lazy waves of farewell.\n\nGods curse the Legate!\n\nThe gangway scraped up and wharf hands threw off the lines. Two of the crew pushed off with poles while others set the single lateen-rigged sail. The menagerie of animals squealed and voided anew.\n\nTorvald threw himself down against the side, rested his arms on his knees. Burn's love. Did I just sell myself onto a slow boat to nowhere for the price of a bright certificate and an empty fancy title? He pressed his hands to his head.\n\nLim has just rid himself of an irritating new councillor.\n\n\"Love or coin?\" A quavering thin voice spoke up.\n\nTorvald raised his head to seethe Rhivi elder studying him from around the great bulk of his companion. \"I'm sorry...? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your reasons for travel– if you would speak of them. In my experience a man travels for one of two reasons. A powerful husband or a powerful debt.\"\n\nTorvald snorted a self-mocking laugh. \"No. Nothing so romantic. Just a plain old powerful political rival.\"\n\nThe big fellow now eyed him sidelong, his gaze narrow. \"Really?\" he rumbled.\n\nThe lazy silt-laden stream that ran into Lake Azur at Dhavran hardly deserved a name. Some called it the Red, others the Muddy. In any case, it was a barrier of a sort. Over the years a crossing had been constructed of stones and garbage capped by a simple bridge of laid logs packed with dirt. Fist K'ess eyed the mud-choked channel and thought it the most pathetic crossing he'd ever seen.\n\n\"Do we defend here?\" Captain Fal-ej asked. Her tone more than made clear her own disenchantment.\n\nK'ess adjusted his seat astride his mount. He'd been too long out of the saddle and his thighs were scraped raw. Fora time he eyed the troops marching onto the short causeway. Not enough to make a stand. And Dhavran? This collection of mud and wood huts doesn't boast one defensible position.\n\nHe sipped some water from a skin hung on his saddle then sucked his teeth. At first he'd considered heading west into the Moranth mountains to wait things out there. But then a rider had arrived from Captain Goyan's contingent: they were moving on. And why? Word had come from the Fifth. Fist Steppen moving north. Rendezvous south of Dhavran.\n\nAll very well and good. Altogether they might field close to ten thousand. Every remaining Malazan trooper south of Cat. Enough for him to finally unclench his anxious buttocks fora moment or two." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But before he could allow himself that one moment of relaxation reports arrived from loyal Barghast scouts in the eastward foothills of the Tahlyn range: a large force moving west. Rhivi tribals, apparently. Some three days out and moving far faster than they.\n\nIt was a race he knew he wouldn't win. Thus the hope of contesting the crossing here at Dhavran. And thus his disappointment.\n\nHe straightened in his stirrups fora moment to adjust the sweaty leathers beneath his mail skirting. He eyed Fal-ej while she watched the troops march. Her helmet hung from her pommel and she'd wrapped a scarf around her head in the style of her homeland, Seven Cities. A handsome woman. Damned smart. But a touch sharp-edged. Haughty, some of the officers thought her, he knew. But not he. Good wide hips on her too. Fit for throwing out sons, as his ma would've said. Womanlike that ought to have someone to hold onto.\n\n\"Sir?\" she said. Her gaze had moved to him, questioning.\n\nHe cleared his throat. \"We keep going. Double-time. This place is too wretched.\"\n\nShe nodded her curt assent, relieved. \"Yes, Fist.\"\n\nK'ess plucked at the gauntlets he held in one hand.\"Fal-ej... ' he began.\n\n\"Yes, Fist?\" she answered quickly.\n\nHe slapped the gauntlets to his armoured thigh. \"Nothing. It's not important. \"He waved towards the stream.\"Keep the sappers on that ramshackle excuse fora bridge. The last thing we need is for it to fall apart under us. '\n\nFal-ej saluted, kneed her mount into motion. \"Yes, Fist.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He watched her go, frowning at himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now's not the time– what with a horde of Rhivi closing in onus. He sighed.\n\nCaptain Fal-ej urged her mount down the stream's oversized channel more savagely than she intended. Remember your priorities, woman, she castigated herself. By the Seven False Gods, what's gotten into you? Hanging about like a mare in heat. It must be offensive to the man.\n\nShe pulled up next to abridge picket, demanded, \"Where are the damned saboteurs, trooper?\"\n\nThe man saluted twice for good measure. He pointed vaguely down towards the stream. \"Thought I saw them headin\" off that way, Captain, sir... '\n\nFal-ej yanked the reins over, kneed the mount onward. Has the responsibility of every soldier on his shoulders, woman! Not likely to allow himself to be distracted– and hardly by a figure such as yourself! Calluses on your cheeks from the helmet. Stink of sweat always on you. Arms like some blacksmith's!\n\nCresting a grassed sandbar she spotted the crew squatting around a campfire, gutted fish on sticks over the flames. She slapped her mount down towards the stream and pulled up, kicking mud over them. \"What is this?\"\n\nThe marine sergeant, a great fat woman, merely peered up unperturbed. \"Just havin\" a bite, Cap'n.\"\n\n\"You were ordered to keep an eye on the bridge.\"\n\n\"Bridge is good as beer, Cap'n. Nothin'thereto break. Just big ol\" logs. '\n\nFal-ej glared down at them. \"Well... just the same, stay on it! Something might give.\"\n\nThe sergeant rubbed a large black mole on one cheek, considering. \"Such as...?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fal-ej threw her arms out wide. \"How in the name of Ehrlitan should I know! I'm not the engineer. Now get going! '\n\nFrowning her agreement, the sergeant motioned to a trooper. \"Whitey, take your team over.\"\n\n\"Aw, c'mon, Sarge. Fish is almost ready. '\n\nThe sergeant's voice took on an edge.\"Get going... now. '\n\n\"Fine!\" The man straightened to slap dirt off his hide trousers, motioned his team up. The sergeant turned to the captain, cocked a brow and saluted.\n\nFal-ej answered the salute and yanked her mount round. \"Thank you, sergeant.\" She rode off kicking up more mud.\n\n\"What's gotten under her saddle? \"a trooper muttered.\"Martinet bitch. '\n\n\"Naw,\" the sergeant said as she watched the woman go, a hand shading her gaze. \"Ain't nothing a good humping wouldn't cure.\"\n\n\"Sarge!\" one trooper groaned. \"Do you have to?\"\n\n\"That's your answer for everything, ' another complained.\n\nThe sergeant turned, rubbing her hands together. \"Yes indeed– too bad none of you poor excuses are up to it.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't goon about the damned Moranth. We don't believe none o\" those stories. '\n\n\"Now don't go and just kill everyone, okay! ' Yusek snarled over her shoulder as they struggled up the narrow mountain trail.\n\n\"You exaggerate,\" Sall answered calmly.\n\n\"No, I do not fucking exaggerate! Someone raises a cooking ladle your way and you two butcher two hundred! Try to show a little respect. This is some kinda monastery or something.\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Assist the writer, move the story forward.\nTags: epic fantasy, ancient city, magic, power dynamics, hidden secrets\nAuthor: Ian Cameron Esslemont\nTitle: Orb Sceptre Throne\nChapter: 14" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fal-ej threw her arms out wide. \"How in the name of Ehrlitan should I know! I'm not the engineer. Now get going! '\n\nFrowning her agreement, the sergeant motioned to a trooper. \"Whitey, take your team over.\"\n\n\"Aw, c'mon, Sarge. Fish is almost ready. '\n\nThe sergeant's voice took on an edge.\"Get going... now. '\n\n\"Fine!\" The man straightened to slap dirt off his hide trousers, motioned his team up. The sergeant turned to the captain, cocked a brow and saluted.\n\nFal-ej answered the salute and yanked her mount round. \"Thank you, sergeant.\" She rode off kicking up more mud.\n\n\"What's gotten under her saddle? \"a trooper muttered.\"Martinet bitch. '\n\n\"Naw,\" the sergeant said as she watched the woman go, a hand shading her gaze. \"Ain't nothing a good humping wouldn't cure.\"\n\n\"Sarge!\" one trooper groaned. \"Do you have to?\"\n\n\"That's your answer for everything, ' another complained.\n\nThe sergeant turned, rubbing her hands together. \"Yes indeed– too bad none of you poor excuses are up to it.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't goon about the damned Moranth. We don't believe none o\" those stories. '\n\n\"Now don't go and just kill everyone, okay! ' Yusek snarled over her shoulder as they struggled up the narrow mountain trail.\n\n\"You exaggerate,\" Sall answered calmly.\n\n\"No, I do not fucking exaggerate! Someone raises a cooking ladle your way and you two butcher two hundred! Try to show a little respect. This is some kinda monastery or something.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If they are unarmed they have nothing to fear from us.\"\n\nShe snorted her scorn. Pausing, she glanced further down to distant Lo making his way up after them. No sign of sweat or labour on either of them! No shortage of breath. Yusek, for her part, felt light-headed and nauseous with the height. Gods. Never been this high before. They say the air is poisonous up here. Kill you assure as a blade to the heart.\n\nSwallowing to wet her rasping throat she glanced ahead to the monastery walls of heaped cobbles. Tattered prayer flags snapped in the cold wind. White tendrils of smoke blew here and therefrom cook-fires. Overhead a clear, painfully bright blue sky domed the world. Beautiful, in its way, but fora faint green blemish across its vault– the Scimitar of a god's vengeance, some named that banner.\n\nA monk, or acolyte, or whatever you would call him, met them at the stone arch that was the compound's entrance. Yusek took the shaven-headed slim figure fora boy until she spoke, revealing her sex.\"Enter, please, the adytum. We offer food, shelter, and peace for contemplation to all who would enter. '\n\n\"Adytum?\" Yusek repeated. \"Is that the place's name? '\n\n\"The adytum is a location. The most sacred place. The inner shrine of worship for our faith.\"\n\n\"What faith is that?\"\n\n\"Dessembrae.\" And the woman gestured aside, inviting. Nor did she blink in the face of the two masked Seguleh.\n\nYusek urged Sall forward. \"Well? Goon!\"\n\nBy his hesitation the young man appeared almost embarrassed. \"There is a proper time for everything,\" he told Yusek aside; then, to the acolyte: \"Thank you. We would rest. And any hot food you may spare would be welcome.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The acolyte showed them to a simple hut of piled stone cobbles, almost like a cell. Afire already burned in its small central hearth. Smoke drifted up to the ceiling hole. A black iron pot was heating over the low flames. The young acolyte– no older than I am, Yusek reflected– in her loose shirt over trousers of plain cloth and bare feet, stopped at the threshold. \"You would prefer separate quarters?\" she asked Yusek, who nodded. \"This way.\"\n\nThe hut she showed Yusek was no different from the other. \"Listen,\" Yusek told her, lowering her voice, \"those two are Seguleh.\"\n\n\"I have heard of them.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Well, they're hereto kill someone. You have to warn him– tell him to get out of here. '\n\n\"They've come to kill someone? I doubt that very much. '\n\nYusek found herself clenching her teeth. \"You don't understand-'\n\nThe young woman held up a hand. \"Your concern does you credit. But there is no need for worry. The man you speak of has no interest in their challenges. They will leave empty-handed.\"\n\nYusek wanted to grab the girl's shoulder and shake her. You little fool! You have no idea what you are facing here! But the girl studied her, calm, uninflected, and something in that steady regard made Yusek uneasy. As if she's looking through me... like I'm a ghost or something.\n\nThe girl bowed. \"If that is all.\"\n\n\"Yeah... I suppose so.\"\n\nThe girl withdrew. Yusek sat on the cot, unrolled the bedding of thick woven blankets provided against the cold. In truth she was exhausted, which surprised her. Hardly a full day's journey since their last camp, she freezing her butt off, complaining the entire time, and those two maintaining their infuriating silence– not even telling her to shut the Abyss up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She lay down, threw an arm across her eyes. Well, she was free of them. She'd brought them to the monastery and now her obligation was over. She'd takeoff tomorrow and leave these pathetic empty wastes behind. Maybe she'd head on north to Mengal. Who knew, maybe she'd take a ship to some rich distant land like Quon Tali or Seven Cities.\n\nShe fell asleep dreaming of that. Of getting away, faraway.\n\nWhen she started awake the light coming in through the shutters over the single tiny window held the pink of dawn. Normally she never woke up this early but normally she never fell asleep in the afternoon. Groaning, she stretched her stiff frozen limbs, then dropped to her knees before the hearth to tease the fire back to life. After a hot cup of tea she felt alive enough to head out.\n\nWhen she opened the door the first thing that struck her was the silence. She'd grown used to the forest with its constant background noise of the wind through the branches, the trunks groaning as they flexed. Here there was only the low moan of the wind over stone, the faint snap of the prayer flags. She found herself almost trying to soften the fall of her moccasins on the stone-flagged walk. Almost. Then she shook off the spell and went to find something to eat.\n\nTo her chagrin she found everyone up already. What is it with these people that they getup so early? It's inhuman. A group of the monks, or priests, were out on a central field of sand, weaving through some sort of exercise or devotional movements. She watched fora time: the practice held a kind of flowing beauty. It seemed almost hypnotic. But she was hungry and so she turned away to find someone to ask for directions to a kitchen or mess." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Later, chewing on a hot flatbread, she wandered back out to the central open field to see Sall and Lo watching the monks, who were now engaged in some sort of paired physical training of throws and falls.\n\nAha, she thought. This is more like it. She stepped up to Sall. \"Going to talk tome? Or am Ia nobody now?\"\n\nStanding arms crossed, the youth did not shift his gaze from the monks. \"I will speak to you... for the time being.\"\n\n\"Well, that's something, I suppose. What now? What will you two do? '\n\n\"Lo will challenge the– the man here.\"\n\nYusek gave an exaggerated nod. She too watched the monks. \"So which one's he? '\n\nA heavy breath raised Sall's shoulders.\"That is the problem. He will not identify himself. Nor will anyone else do so. \"His voice took on an almost puzzled edge:\"They are simply ignoring us. '\n\nYusek choked on her bread. Gulping, she managed to swallow, then broke out in a laugh that left her almost helpless. She bent forward, resting her hands on her knees to catch her breath. She straightened, wiping her cheeks. Sall was regarding her from behind his mask, his dark brown eyes uncomfortable. She took a steadying breath. \"Aii-ya. So... how does it feel to be on the receiving end, hey?\"\n\nThe lad had the grace to lower his gaze. Again a great breath raised his chest behind his crossed arms. \"It is most... frustrating,\" he admitted.\n\nYusek gave a satisfied: \"It most certainly is.\"\n\nThe lad returned to watching the monks go through their regimen of exercise and training. Yusek sat on the stone kerb surrounding the practice field. Need five days'rations fora start. I wonder if there's any dried meat in the larder here. Probably not. This lot do not look like the hunter type." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And she'd be on her own again. Target of any arsehole who thought he could twist her arm...\n\nIt occurred to her that perhaps she shouldn't be in such an all-fire hurry to getaway.\n\nSall straightened then and Yusek peered up. Sticks were being brought out: wooden swords. Oh-ho. Things are getting interesting now.\n\nThe monks paired off, one practice sword per pair, attacker and defender. While Yusek watched, the swordsmen cut and thrust and the defenders threw them like dolls, or bent them to their knees, sword-arm twisted.\n\nRidiculous! Any real swordsman would cut an unarmed manor woman to pieces. Sall must be laughing inside– or groaning.\n\nShe gave a glance and saw him turn his masked face to Lo. Something imperceptible to her passed between them, and the lad unclasped his cloak. He laid it on the stone flags then placed his sheathed swords on top of the cloth and walked out onto the sands. Yusek shifted to look at Lo and jumped to find him next to her. It gave her the creeps how he did that.\n\nThe monks all stopped their exercises to watch while Sall approached the nearest pair. Bowing, he held out a hand for the wooden sword. The acolyte turned a glance to the monk leading the practice, a wiry petite woman. She nodded and the acolyte handed over the sword.\n\nSall faced his partner. He bowed then struck a ready stance, left foot shifting back behind him. Yusek rose to her feet. The acolyte, even younger than Sall, brought his empty hands up between them, one above the other, elbows bent.\n\nSall struck then, but not as Yusek had seen before. Slowly, gently, he brought the wooden blade down in an exaggerated overhead drop cut. The youth shifted inwards underneath the cut, somehow hooked Sall's arms, and bent, pulling the swordsman over his shoulder and throwing him to the ground. But Sall rolled easily and came to his feet once more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The two faced off once again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This time Sall swung a horizontal slash. The youth side-stepped, took the Seguleh's arm, and somehow led him in a spinning dance then let go and sent him flying out over the sands. The performance would have appeared laughably false had not Yusek known that Sall was in noway cooperating. Next, Sall mimed a slow two-handed thrust. The youth stepped aside of the move, somehow pushing Sall to send him tumbling aside.\n\nLo stood silent at Yusek's side.\n\nSall rose to brush the dust from his shoulders. He bowed again and the two paired off once more. This time he raised his sword high above his head, the blade vertical. He held it therefor a time, motionless, then brought it down in a slow angled strike. The youth again stepped in close, but Sall now side-stepped himself, bringing the sword around for another sweep. The youth pursued and now the two circled faster and faster, swords arcing and the youth's arms twisting as if attempting to ensnare his opponent's. The nearest monks scrambled backwards out of the way of the match as it spun seemingly out of control.\n\nThe silence of it was the most eerie thing to Yusek. All she could hear was the snap and flutter of the monk's sleeves and the hiss of the wooden sword. Neither man gasped or yelled or snarled. Even their feet shifted noiselessly over the sands. At first she'd thought this some sort of a duel, but she saw now that it was more of a sparring match– the exchange of known moves and countermoves, each now faster than the last, each testing the other.\n\nFinally, at some signal or agreement between the two, they spun apart to face one another.\n\nAmazingly, neither betrayed the least hint of exertion. Neither's chest rose more than before; neither breathed loudly at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Both bowed. Sall now stepped up, his blade held low at his side, his right leg back. The monk matched his step. Swiftly, Sall thrust the wooden sword through his belt and faced the youth with his hands at his sides.\n\nThe youth's large brown eyes shifted to the woman leading the practice; she gave another small nod. The youth raised his hands again, ready.\n\nThis time when Sall moved Yusek missed it. So too did his partner. One moment Sall stood with his hands at his sides, empty. The next he held the blade one-handed against the youth's neck.\n\nA soft grunt escaped Lo.\n\nThe young acolyte's eyes grew huge and after taking a moment to digest what had just happened he bowed to Sall.\n\nSo ends the lesson.\n\nBut apparently not. For the woman who had been leading the practice now approached Sall. She bowed and waved in an unmistakable try that with me gesture.\n\nThe woman, Yusek noted with interest, was no taller or heavier than herself. Her hair was cut short and her bare arms were extraordinarily lean and muscled. Sall's mask turned towards Lo, who, his arms across his chest, gave a small flick of one hand. Sall bowed to the woman, accepting.\n\nThe two faced off. Sall pushed the wooden sword through his belt once more. The woman struck a ready pose exactly like that of her student. The acolytes stood frozen, silent, and their watchful intensity reminded Yusek of the Seguleh themselves.\n\nSall shifted his sandalled feet in the sand a few times, as if unhappy with his stance, then stilled. This time Yusek almost caught it. One moment Sall was motionless. Then, in the next, he was off his feet describing an arc through the air over the back of the spinning woman, who had thrown him flying high to land in a great swath of bursting sand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sall sprang to his feet, sword still in hand, and to Yusek every line of his body shouted of his utter astonishment.\n\nA clenched hiss sounded from Lo and the man walked away.\n\nYusek looked to Sall; the youth's masked face followed Lo's retreat, then fell. Yusek did not need to see his expression to recognize the crushing shame that hunched his form. Bowing, he handed over the sword, then walked off in the opposite direction. Yusek followed.\n\nShe found him sitting on a ledge on the very lip of the cliff the monastery occupied. Before his feet the mountain swept down thousands of feet into misted emptiness. Yusek sat next to him. The frigid cutting wind buffeted both of them. Yusek's cloak snapped.\n\nShe was not used to such dizzying heights and a sickening vertigo gripped her as she clutched the stone she sat upon. \"Not that bad, is it?\" she offered, trying to make light of things.\n\nAfter a time the Seguleh youth let out along, pained breath. \"You do not understand, Yusek.\"\n\n\"Try me.\"\n\n\"I lost. I have shamed Lo. I can no longer be considered among the Agatii.\"\n\n\"The Agatii?\"\n\n\"The Honoured Thousand. The select warriors of the Seguleh.\"\n\n\"So? Have to turn in your mask or some such thing?\"\n\nAt least he snorted a weak laugh at that. \"No. But... I will have to repaint it.\"\n\n\"Well, so what? I mean, it's not like it was deliberate, or some kind of crime, or something. '\n\nThe lad sighed, his breath almost cracking in its suppressed emotion. \"You don't understand, Yusek. Lois Eighth! He sits with Jan among the ruling Ten, the Eldrii. \"He clenched his hands, held them where the mask curved to expose the mouth.\"But one other thing... he is my father. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yusek stared, speechless. Ye Gods... the poor kid. What a burden! That's just fucking cruel, that's what that is.\n\nShe selected a small stone, tossed it over the edge. She watched its stomach-turning descent for an instant then glanced away, her throat burning. She swallowed sour bile. \"Listen, Sall– so what if some woman beat you in some match. Who the fuck cares? C'mon, she wasn't even armed!\"\n\nThe lad turned to study her directly through his mask. His brown eyes appeared even more pained. \"Exactly, Yusek. She wasn't even armed. '\n\n\"Well... so what? Big deal. It wasn't for real. You weren't prepared for it, were you?\" She nudged his shoulder. \"It's a valuable lesson, right? Listen. I was thinking. When I head out I want to be able to handle myself better... won't you teach me a few moves?\" She nudged him again. \"Hey? What do you say?\"\n\nIf anything his masked head hung even lower. \"I'm not worthy of teaching anyone anything, Yusek. Ask that woman. '\n\n\"Well, I'm asking you. C'mon. You know more than I do about it all, right?\"\n\n\"It would be improper...\"\n\n\"Never mind that. Just the basics, hey?\"\n\n\"Not right now.\"\n\n\"Naw... tomorrow, hey?\"\n\nHe let out another long-suffering breath. \"Tomorrow, then.\"\n\n\"Yeah. All right. Tomorrow.\" She stood, brushed the dust off her bottom, and left him to sit alone fora time. Poor bastard. Obviously thinks the world of his father. And to think she'd travelled with them all these days and hadn't even the first suspicion they were father and son! What an odd people." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Personally, Krute of Talient did not want to honour yet another request from this particular client, but the communication had percolated up through standard channels thereby ensuring that enough of the guild knew of it to make it impossible for him to simply ignore it. Of course as Parish Master of the Gadrobi district he had a measure of influence on which contracts to pursue– but it was a short-lived master who neglected the fundamental truth that, in the end, everyone was only in it for the treasure.\n\nAnd so come the mid-night he found himself stepping carefully through the empty and eerily quiet yards of the Eldra Iron Mongers. It was an unnatural sensation; to his memory the works had never been still. The Legate, however, had commandeered all labour for his city works projects, leaving Humble Measure with no one to run his forges, furnaces and mine.\n\nAll very deliberate and calculated, of course, as a sort of unannounced war had broken out between the two: the successful political protégé and his former patron and sponsor. And this kind of falling-out always generated the most vicious and wilful vendettas. His boots loud on the scattered gravel as he peered around at the dark sheds and silent furnaces, it occurred to Krute that his reservations might all be for naught; surely even this man's legendary wealth must be exhausted by now. There could be noway the man could offer enough to tempt the guild anew. In point of fact, he wouldn't be all that surprised to turn a corner in one of these cavernous warehouses and find the man hanging from a rafter.\n\nNo such easy resolution confronted him, however, when he pushed aside a great slab-like door to enter a silent smelting shed. The tang of smoke still clung to everything and he fancied he could still feel a residual heat leaking out of the great furnaces." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Undisguised steps sounded from the front of the shed and Krute turned to seethe proprietor, Humble Measure himself, at the door. The closing of his works had obviously not been kind to him. His hair was unkempt and soot marred his face. The black of the soot cast the whites of his eyes into a bright, almost fevered, glow. His clothes were likewise askew, torn and soot-blackened. It appeared as if the man was attempting the impossible, and frankly insane, task of single-handedly keeping the works going.\n\nKrute inclined his head in greeting. \"Humble Measure.\"\n\n\"Parish Master. I was beginning to suspect that the guild had lost its edge.\"\n\n\"Whosoever has the coin gets our blades,\" Krute observed, congratulating himself on that pointed reminder.\n\n\"Of course. That is as it should be.\" The man drew a cloth from a shirt pocket and wiped his hands. Krute noted with growing unease that the cloth was just as blackened as the man's hands. Humble waved him forward.\"This way, Master. \"As they walked, the ironmonger talked.\"It strikes me that you assassins represent the exchange of business reduced to its purest form. What say you, Master? '\n\nKrute shrugged. \"Hadn't really given it much thought. \"Gabble on, man. I'm really not interested in what crazy things you have to say.\n\n\"You do not care who you kill, or for what hidden purpose, or to what consequences. You are merely paid money to do something, and so you do it. Rather like a prostitute, yes?\"\n\nKrute frowned, eyeing the man sidelong. \"What're you gettin'at?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I mean that questions of morality or ethics, honour or principles– all are irrelevant, yes?\"\n\nKrute hunched his shoulders. \"Not all principles...\"\n\nThe man flashed him a smile bright against his grimed face. \"Of course. The principle of greed and profit remains paramount. Utterly uninhibited, in fact.\"\n\nHe led Krute to a dilapidated manor house, pushed open the front door. \"Let me provide an example, if I may.\" At the back of the house the ironmonger unlocked a trapdoor, revealing stone steps leading down. \"Let us say there exists a city occupying a marshy lowland. The inhabitants of this urban centre are cursed by a wasting disease carried by flies that multiply like... well, like flies, within the swamps. Then, let us suppose that a learned man studies the situation and proposes a solution to said curse: move the city to the hills nearby where the scouring winds will keep the flies at bay.\"\n\nThey reached a stone-walled cellar. Here Humble lit a lantern and led the way to an arched portal sealed by an iron-barred gate, which he unlocked. \"An excavation fora wine cellar here revealed much more,\" he explained, pointing to a hole in the floor where a ladder led on down. \"Now, the leaders of this fair– but cursed– city, landowners all, were naturally horrified by the idea of all their property becoming worthless and so they hired local assassins to put an end to such unwelcome talk.\"\n\nStepping down off the ladder Krute was astonished to find himself in a corridor of brick lined by niches. \"Burial catacombs,\" Humble told him, leaning close. \"They date back thousands of years.\" He motioned onward. \"This way, if you please. These killers, now, all local, were themselves victims of this wasting disease, with milky eyes and withered limbs. And all had lost sisters, brothers and parents to the fevers. But– and here is where the tale demonstrates the perversity of humanity– they accepted the contract to kill this scholar.\" The ironmonger turned to Krute. \"Is that not, well, so sadly predictable?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The assassin rubbed the back of a hand against his jaw. Won't this man ever shut up?\"Sounds like waters too deep for me, sir. '\n\n\"Are they?\" the man asked, his eyes bright in the gloom. Then he shrugged. \"Perhaps so.\" He waved a hand. \"Well, just ten years later the city was an abandoned fever-infested field of ruins in any case.\"\n\n\"Your point being?\"\n\n\"Ah!\" Humble got to his knees and began pulling bricks from the wall. Slowly, brick by brick, a small opening was revealed. He invited Krute to slither in. Fora moment Krute wondered whether the man intended to kill him, or bury him alive, or some such thing. But he knew the guild would avenge his death and he also knew that Humble was aware of this. Nevertheless, he decided some measure of caution was called for and so he motioned Humble ahead.\n\n\"After you.\"\n\nA shrug. \"If you wish.\"\n\nWithin, the darkness hinted at a larger room, perhaps a burial chamber. Humble edged inwards, lantern pushed along ahead. Krute followed. What he saw took his breath away. A sea of gold reflected the already golden flame. Stacks of bars set out in rows crammed the tomb. A fortune countless leaps beyond any of Krute's imaginings.\n\n\"Poured by myself and a few trusted aides in the very works above our heads,\" Humble murmured with a touch of pride. \"All of this is yours should you succeed in the contract.\"\n\n\"And that contract?\" Krute asked, distracted. He didn't move his gaze from the neatly heaped bars. Take twenty men all day to move this mountain...\n\n\"The contract, and my point, is that I still want the Legate's head. Even if his improvements or plans for the city are somehow in alignment with my own, they are not what I planned and so I want his head. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Krute's nod was one of slow deliberate agreement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vindictiveness. You can always count on that. The guild practically survives on it. He thought of Vorcan now standing behind the Legate. No doubt she means to retake the guild– then there will be a harrowing!\"The man has powerful allies... '\n\n\"Thus this astonishing price.\"\n\nKrute rubbed his stubbled cheek once more, swallowed hard. \"Speaking for the guild, ironmonger, we agree to try again. But it will take sometime to prepare.\"\n\n\"I understand. Time you have. This chamber will remain sealed until you succeed. And should we both die in what comes– it will remain sealed forever.\"\n\n\"We have an agreement then, Humble Measure.\"\n\nOn a rooftop across the broad avenue facing the main doors of the Eldra Iron Mongers, Rallick Nom lay prone, chin resting on a fist, crossbow cradled in an elbow. He'd watched while Krute entered the closed and now quiet works, and he kept watch until, many hours later, the man exited as well.\n\nSo, Humble Measure wasn't a man to abandon a task half finished. Rallick could tell from the character of his old friend's thoughtful and distracted walk that he was already planning ahead, considering the coming job.\n\nWhat to do? Too late to kill the client now. An agreement's already been struck. The guild will follow through regardless. A matter of reputation. And I'm in the crosshairs. Have to find a place to lie low; somewhere no one's going to come hunting. And there's only one place comes to mind... Hope he won't object to house guests.\n\nRallick pushed himself backwards along the slate-shake roof.\n\nA knock at the door to his offices drew Ambassador Aragan out of his thoughts as he stood at the window overlooking the city. He'd been thinking of the troubling lack of word from the north– it wasn't like K'ess to be out of touch for this long. Nor had word come from the south, either, for that matter. It was oddly as if events outside the city were somehow unreal, or suspended in time. A bizarre sensation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He turned at the knock, growling, \"Yes?\"\n\nA trooper, one of his personal guard, opened the door. \"Trouble downstairs, sir.\"\n\nComing down, Aragan found a city Warden in the open doorway, the rest of his detachment waiting outside. His own guard was ranged across the bottom of the stairs, tensed, awaiting his command.\n\n\"Ambassador Aragan,\" the city Warden officer called, \"you are summoned to an audience with the Legate.\"\n\nAt least this Legate sent an escort of twenty... Anything less would have been an insult.\n\n\"Stand down ranks,\" he ordered. Passing the sergeant, he murmured, \"Remain until I return.\"\n\n\"Sir.\"\n\nAragan stopped before the Warden, gestured to invite the man outside. \"After you.\"\n\nThe man's gaze slid over the solid front of Malazan veterans and his lips compressed. He backed up then aside to allow Aragan to exit. The detachment formed up to either side of the ambassador and the officer waved a hand. They marched off, heading, Aragan knew, for Majesty Hill.\n\nAlong the way, the only thing of interest Aragan noted was the scar of recent construction that marred the grounds atop the hill. Abroad trench had been dug up and back-filled. It cut through crushed gravel walkways, ornamental hedges and beds of flowering perennials. He only caught a glimpse as they passed, but it appeared to describe an immense arc heading off round the buildings. Some sort of defensive installation? Pits?\n\nThen he was hurried along through the interminable stone halls of the complex. To his surprise and growing discomfort, he was not escorted as he'd expected straight to Council. Rather, he was taken into older dusty halls where they met almost no one save for the odd harried-looking clerk. Was he to be imprisoned? Questioned?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The way led to what he recognized from formal gatherings as the Great Hall. The largest of the surviving ancient wings of Majesty Hall. Guards pushed open one of the immense copper and bronze panelled doors and Aragan was escorted in.\n\nThe long hall was, for the most part, empty. The only light entered in long shafts from openings high up where the pale marble of the walls met the arched roof. A small scattering of people waited at the far end, where one fellow sat on a large seat, or throne, of white stone blocks: the Legate. As Aragan had heard rumoured, the man had indeed taken to wearing a gold mask. However, a few of the gathered coterie also sported gold masks– slim things that encircled their eyes and covered only the upper half of their faces.\n\nThe escort stopped Aragan directly before what he guessed he ought to consider a \"throne\". He crossed his arms, waiting. In time the Legate ceased his low conversation with an old man– a rather jarring figure in his old tattered clothes amid the glittering finery and riches on display among the coterie. This fellow stepped forward, hunched, hands clasped to his chest as if hugging himself.\n\n\"Ambassador Aragan,\" he began, almost cringing, \"I speak for the Legate.\"\n\nAragan ignored the ridiculous figure and addressed the Legate. \"You speak to the Imperium when you speak tome... You should show proper respect.\"\n\nThe old man glanced backwards to the Legate– like a dog to its master, Aragan thought. \"Invaders, thieves and murderers deserve no respect,\" he said, gulping as if in horror of what he'd just announced.\n\n\"Darujhistan was more than eager to cooperate with us in the crushing of the Pannions,\" Aragan observed as drily as he could manage given his growing anger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Self-interest guided us both in that,\" the old man said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now, that same self-interest should guide your diminished forces north to Cat in a withdrawal and complete abandonment of the lands of South Genabackis.\"\n\n\"That is your demand?\"\n\n\"Such is our generous offer.\"\n\nAragan couldn't help himself; he had to drawl,\"Or what? '\n\nThe figure on the throne gave one lazy flick of a hand. \"Or they will be annihilated,\" the old man said, disbelief in his hoarse voice.\n\nA number of the gathered crowd hissed their anxiety at that announcement; clearly it was far beyond anything they anticipated. All faces, masked and otherwise, now turned to study Aragan. He squinted his scepticism and opened his hands. \"With what? By whom? You have no army worth the name.\"\n\n\"We need no army,\" said the old man, rubbing his chest. \"We merely speak for all the peoples of the south. It is they who will throw off your foreign yoke.\"\n\n\"Or trade anew one for an old one, I suspect,\" Aragan answered, now eyeing the masked figure with new suspicion.\n\n\"We merely advise and guide... just as a caring parent wishes the best for his children.\"\n\nAragan cocked a brow. \"What?\" Where did that come from?\n\nOne of the masked followers– a tall fellow with a great mane of salted hair– motioned curtly then, and the spokesman bowed. \"The audience is at an end. You have our terms. Follow them or many will die.\"\n\nThe Wardens urged Aragan back. He retreated, eyeing the masked Legate who sat so immobile on his throne. Was that even the Lim in truth, he wondered. Yet he'd recognized a number of councillors among the crowd. They would know him. Surely they would not put up with some impostor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His thoughts elsewhere, Aragan allowed himself to be ushered out and back down Majesty Hill. So, it was all out in the open now. War had been declared. Yet a war against what, or whom? He felt as if he was facing a ghost, a shadow. Who is our enemy? This masked would-be king? If Darujhistan wants a king in all but name then that is up to them– we never controlled the city.\n\nBut if the army is attacked... well, that is another matter entirely.\n\nBack in the manor house Aragan entered his offices to find the emissary from the Imperial Throne sitting on his couch, legs outstretched, waiting for him.\n\nIn the plain light of day he saw more clearly whom he faced: the tall thin frame, the oddly shaped eyes, silvered hair. So this was Topper– true to his descriptions. The once and returned Clawmaster.\n\n\"You witnessed?\" Aragan grunted, and headed to a sideboard to pour a drink.\n\n\"From a distance, yes.\"\n\n\"A distance?\"\n\n\"There are some very powerful magi gathered together on that hilltop.\"\n\nAragan gulped down his drink, studied the lanky, unnerving man. \"Too much for you?\"\n\nA thin humourless smile. \"Let's just say it would be counterproductive for me to tip my hand as yet. \"The man's gaze roved about the room as if uninterested in him. \"And what ridiculous demands were made?\"\n\n\"Very ridiculous ones. We're to withdraw to the north. Relinquish all territory south of Cat. '\n\n\"Including Pale?\"\n\nA sombre nod from Aragan. \"Yes. Including Pale.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That would not go down well.\"\n\n\"No. I imagine it wouldn't. '\n\nThe man cocked his head like a grackle, watching him. \"And what would you recommend?\"\n\nIt occurred to Aragan that he was angry. He felt insulted. As if he, and by extension the entire Empire which he represented, had been accorded none of the respect they warranted. He sucked his teeth then finished the last few drops of the rare Moranth liqueur. \"It seems tome that so far whatever it is that now squats on Majesty Hill has done all the pushing. It's long past time someone pushed back. '\n\nThe thin slash of a smile drew up, revealing sharp white teeth. \"Mallick chose well in you, I think, Ambassador Aragan.\"\n\n\"Most of my promotions were under Laseen.\"\n\nThe smile faltered and the man sat up, leaning forward. The mention of the former Empress seemed to have stung him. Ah yes, Aragan realized. His failure in averting her assassination. \"Yes. A lesson therefor all of us.\"\n\n\"Lesson?\" Somehow Aragan could not help probing; it pleased him to be able to penetrate the fellow's irritating manner.\n\nElbows on his knees and hands hanging loose, the master assassin said, \"That in our line of work we all die alone, Ambassador.\"\n\nAragan didn't know whether to laugh or snort his scorn. What the devil did he mean by that? What line of work? He served the Throne.\n\nTopper stood. \"I will begin making my arrangements, then.\"\n\n\"You've located our assets? '\n\n\"Oh yes. And it's time I paid a visit. They will be none too pleased. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is there anything I can do?\"\n\n\"See to our regular forces, Ambassador. Leave the rest tome.\"\n\nAragan nodded. \"Very good. May Oponn favour you, Clawmaster.\"\n\nA clench of pain crossed Topper's face.\"Let's leave those two out of this, shall we?\"\n\n*\n\n\"I'm tellin'ya it's some kinda foundation... but for what I got no idea. \"Spindle sat back in his chair and frowned his confusion.\"Seems too flimsy fora wall. '\n\nAt the table Picker sent a glance to the historian, Duiker. The man was unaware of her regard, his thoughts obviously distant as he pursued the problem. Good. May it rouse the man even further. \"Guards?\" she asked Spindle.\n\n\"Hardly any. City Wardens, that's it. \"The mage drummed his fingers on the table.\"Naw, it's them mages you gotta watch for. Plenty scary, them. Remind me of the Old Guard cadre, Hairlock and Sister Chill.\" He rubbed a handover his greasy shirt. \"You know, I swear one had me cold to rights. But damned if he didn't let me go. '\n\n\"Which?\" the old man asked.\n\n\"The tall one– scholarly look to him.\"\n\nThe historian grunted, returned to studying the tabletop.\n\n\"There's more than them to worry about, ' the bard, Fisher, said from the bar.\n\nPicker cocked a brow. \"Oh?\"\n\n\"Sadly, Envy supports this Legate.\"\n\nBlend, behind the bar, let out along drawn-out'Damn...\" The front door opened and a customer entered. Blend sent a cursory glance over then froze, her eyes bulging. \"Look out!\" she bellowed and disappeared behind the bar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fisher just stared his puzzlement.\n\nPicker knocked over the table to duck behind. Spindle threw himself into a booth. The historian remained in his chair. He eyed the newcomer first with surprise, then distaste. He raised a hand fora halt. \"He came in the front door, Blend,\" he called.\n\nBlend straightened from behind the bar, a cocked crossbow trained on the man at the door. \"You've got some nerve showing yourself here, y'damned snake.\"\n\nThe tall fellow held up both gloved hands. \"Now, now. I come in peace.\"\n\nSpindle emerged, hand on the shortsword at his side. \"What d'ya want? '\n\n\"Just a chat. Let us sit down together over drinks. Reminisce and tell lies of the old days.\"\n\n\"I'd rather fall into a privy, ' Picker said, standing, twin long-knives out.\n\n\"Who's this? ' Fisher asked Blend.\n\n\"Topper. Clawmaster. The Empire's found us. '\n\nTopper looked to the ceiling. \"We never lost track of you, Blend.\"\n\n\"Everyone relax,\" Duiker said. \"If Mallick wanted your heads he wouldn't send this one. '\n\nTopper squinted, edging forward. \"Do my eyes deceive me? Not Imperial Historian Duiker?\"\n\n\"Ex.\"\n\nBlend raised her crossbow, pulled out the bolt. Picker sheathed her long-knives and righted the table. \"What're you after? ' she grumbled.\n\n\"We have a common enemy.\"\n\nBlend, Picker and Spindle shared quick looks, then Picker snorted, \"No, we don't. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Topper pulled a chair to the table. He undid his dark green silk-lined cloak and hung it over the back, then sat. The shirt beneath was a fine satiny forest green. He drew off his gloves and peered round innocently at everyone. \"A drink, perhaps?\"\n\nBlend drew a pint from the bar and ambled over. \"Whatever you're sellin'we don't want any, ' she growled.\n\nThe Clawmaster took the earthenware pint and sipped. He made a face. \"Are you trying to kill me?\" Spindle started up from the table and Picker flinched. Topper raised a placating hand. \"A joke.\"\n\nSpindle's mocking smile was sickly.\"Very funny. '\n\nDuiker eyed the Clawmaster, his lined face stony behind his grey beard. He steepled his hands on the table. \"What is your proposal? And bear in mind– these soldiers are retired.\"\n\nTopper hooked an arm over the top of his chair. He turned the pint in circles before him. \"Retired? Is that what you call it? According to the lists you are all deserters. Except for our honoured historian here.\"\n\n\"Not according to us,\" Picker ground out.\n\n\"Dujek told us-\" began Spindle.\n\n\"He was not in a position to offer anything,\" Topper interrupted.\n\n\"Don't push that line, \"Blend warned from where she now stood behind Topper's chair. \"That dog won't hunt. '\n\nTopper gave a small shrug. \"Fair enough. I understand you've already accepted a contract to collect intelligence. What would it take for you to sign on for something a little more... direct? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As free agents?\" Picker said.\n\n\"Yes. Free agents.\"\n\nPicker opened her mouth to name something, a price perhaps, but Duiker took hold of her arm, silencing her. He whispered into her ear and her tangled brows rose. She cuffed the old man's shoulder.\"Our price, Clawmaster, is the formal decommissioning of the Bridgeburners. '\n\nTopper's slit gaze glanced aside to the historian and his lips pursed. After turning the mug in circles on the rough slats of the table he gave a slow nod.\"Agreed. It will be arranged. '\n\n\"And the job?\" Spindle asked nervously.\n\nAn easy shrug from the slouched Clawmaster. \"Well... it seems for reasons known only to himself this Legate wants a wall built... Therefore, we should do our best to interfere with that.\" His gaze rose to Spindle. \"I take it you have munitions?\" The saboteur-trained mage gave a jerked nod. \"Excellent. Then you lot can do what you're best at. '\n\n\"And you?\" Blend demanded, her chin stuck out.\n\n\"I'll provide cover in case there are any... complications. '\n\nPicker snorted. \"Somehow I'm not so relieved by that. '\n\nThe Clawmaster laid his hands flat on the table. His smile was now supremely assured. \"You should be.\"\n\nAt their servants'table in the kitchens of the Lim estate, Leff let out along loud sigh. Scorch, opposite, roused himself, blinking.\"You say somethin\"?\"\n\nLeff shook his head. He tucked his hands up under his arms, sighed again. \"You know, Scorch, I don't think anyone's comin\" back. I'm gettin\" the distinct feeling that we've been handed our hats.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Scorch's puzzled frown deepened even further.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Howzat? Hats? I ain't got no hat.\"\n\nLeff glared his disapproval. \"It's an expression, man. Means we're fired.\"\n\nScorch goggled at his partner. \"What? Fired? We ain't even been paid yet! '\n\nNow Leff banged his chair forward, gaping. \"Ain't been paid yet? How can that be? You're supposed to be in charge of all that.\"\n\nScorch's consternation creased his forehead until his brows met between his small darting eyes.\"I thought you were supposed to be handlin'that.\"\n\nLeff pressed a hand to his brow. \"I distinctly remember me saying that you should do it.\"\n\n\"Oh. Well, we could take it up with the boss. What's \"is name– Ebbin.\"\n\nNow Leff's brow wrinkled in bewilderment.\"The scholar? What in the Queen's name does he have to do with any of this?\"\n\n\"He's with the Legate. I seen him. '\n\nLeff dropped his hand, amazed. \"Burn protect us! Why didn't you say so? '\n\n\"You didn't say it was important. '\n\nLeff pushed himself up from the table, stretched his numb legs, wincing. \"Gods, man. You have to learn to think for yourself! I can't be expected to keep doin'all the thinking for us.\"\n\nScorch hung his head. \"Sorry, Leff.\"\n\n\"Well, I should think so!\"\n\nCity Wardens stopped them at the gate to the Way of Justice leading up Majesty Hill. The two Wardens gripped their wood truncheons. \"You're carrying weapons, ' one called, accusing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Leff and Scorch glanced to their peace-strapped swords, the crossbows over their shoulders. \"Looks like it,\" Leff answered and attempted to brush past. The thick wooden portal was closed, however, and he pushed against it to no effect. \"Open up,\" he shouted. \"Official business.\"\n\nThe two Wardens shared smirks. \"Official? You two?\"\n\n\"Go squat your official business off in the bushes,\" the other suggested.\n\nScorch drew himself up, offended. \"I'll have you know we're all certified, listed and official. I'd go ahead \"n\" check if I were you. Otherwise could be consequences. '\n\n\"That's right, \"Leff put in, though with much less certainty.\"Consequences. '\n\nOne of the Wardens banged his truncheon on the rough timbers of the door. A small communicating slit opened. \"Names?\" someone demanded from behind the slit.\n\n\"Leff and Scorch,\" Leff shouted, mouth to the slit.\n\n\"All right, all right!\" the hidden clerk grumbled. \"You don't have to shout. '\n\nOne Warden leaned against the door, arms crossed, shaking his head. Leff adjusted the weight of the crossbow against his shoulder. Scorch dug a finger into his ear and twisted it round.\n\nThe heavy door slid backwards and the Warden almost fell with it. He jerked, wildly surprised, and received a superior look from Leff as the latter pushed through. Scorch ambled after, crossbow held behind his neck, arms draped over it. \"Consequences,\" he murmured, and winked.\n\nAs they wandered their slow way up the twisting path Leff rubbed his unshaven jaw, casting narrowed wondering glances Scorch's way. Finally an idea occurred to him and he gave an exaggerated knowing nod, saying,\"Ah! I get it now... good ol'Captain Soen. Ever conscientious, that one. Good guess, Scorch.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Scorch's permanent scowl of resentful confusion took on an even greater perplexity.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What're you talking about? I just said that, that's all. Sounded like the kinda thing important persons say. '\n\nLeff used his crossbow to brush aside a clerk who was waving papers at him. \"Sometimes I wonder about you, Scorch. I really do.\"\n\nBut his partner was ambling down another hall. \"Got us in, didn't it? '\n\nEventually, after being shooed out of a number of chambers and offices, they found the guarded doors to the Great Hall. Leff approached the city Wardens, and as one opened his mouth to challenge them, bellowed: \"Message for Captain Soen!\" The Warden snapped his mouth shut and exchanged an uncertain glance with his fellow. Leff pushed open the small clerk's door and strode in.\n\n\"Message for Captain Soen!\" Scorch echoed as he stepped through.\n\n\"You don't have to say it again! ' Leff hissed, pushing him aside.\n\nScorch pushed back and Leff nearly dropped his crossbow. \"I got us in, didn't I! '\n\n\"We're already... ' Leff tailed off, feeling the weight of numerous eyes. He turned.\n\nA great crowd of nobles and councillors filled the length of the Great Hall. All were dressed in rich finery. Many wore masks, as was traditional for the various city religious ceremonies and fetes. Leff bowed, cuffing Scorch, who bowed as well. Dismissing them, the many eyes turned away. Leff scanned the crowd. \"There he is.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Soen, dammit! Who else? C'mon. '\n\nThey tramped forward. The clank and clatter of their weaponry almost drowned out the low murmured conversations. A figure sat motionless on a raised seat of white stone at the far end of the hall. Before Scorch and Leff were halfway across Soen intercepted them, a sharp grip on the forearm of each. He steered them aside into the shadows of a colonnaded walk along one wall of the hall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What in the name of the Queen of Mysteries are you two doing here?\" he hissed, furious.\n\nScorch looked to Leff. Leff saluted. \"Reporting in, sir.\"\n\nThe big man's salted brows clenched.\"What? Reporting? Why? '\n\nA panicked look gripped Leff's lined features, as if he'd reached the end of his gambit and hadn't realized more might be required.\"Ah... reporting that the manor house is all secure, sir! '\n\n\"What? Secure? Who gives a-\" The captain bit back his rising voice, peered round, anxious. \"You two are fired,\" he said, his voice low and fierce. \"Get out of here and never comeback.\"\n\n\"Fired?\" Scorch echoed, outraged. \"What for? Guild rules-\"\n\n\"Guild rules require justification, I know. Deserting your post. How's that? '\n\nThe two shared a pained look. Leff pulled at his lower lip. \"Well... I suppose that would kinda do it.\"\n\n\"It most certainly does. Pay can be collected at the guild office. Now leave– or must I escort you out?\" The captain didn't wait for an answer but beckoned others of Lim's private guard over.\n\n\"Wait!\" a voice called. Captain Soen turned and immediately bowed to one knee. \"Sir.\"\n\nScorch and Leff were astonished to see their old employer, the scholar Ebbin. Something like wonder was on the man's face as he gazed upon them.\"I... know... you, ' he breathed, as if awed by the realization.\n\nLeff knuckled his brow. \"Yes, sir. Been working for you for sometime now, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The old man's gaze seemed to wander as he stood, brows furrowed in concentration.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes. I remember. I... remember you. \"He glanced to the captain.\"These men work for me, Soen. They are my guards. '\n\nThe captain's brows climbed almost all the way up to the rim of his helmet. He shot a glance to the immobile and silent figure on the throne, blew out a breath.\"Well... if you say so... sir. '\n\n\"They may remain.\"\n\nSoen was obviously still very confused, but as a good private soldier he accepted his employer's dictates– no matter how stupid in his estimation. He saluted.\"Yes, sir. '\n\nLeff saluted too. Then he cuffed Scorch, who also saluted.\n\nBut the scholar had wandered off. He'd pulled out a cloth and was wiping his sweaty strained face, the other hand rubbing his chest. Captain Soen scowled down at the pair; then he nodded to himself.\"I see it now. Friends in high places. Looks like I'm stuck with you.\" He eyed them up and down again, his disgust increasing. \"At least get yourselves cleaned up.\"\n\nScorch straightened, outraged. \"I washed just a few weeks ago!\"\n\n\"Your clothes and armour, man! Clean them up.\"\n\nLeff saluted. \"Yessir. Right away, sir.\"\n\nThe captain just shook his head, jerked a thumb to another of his guards. \"Willa here will kit you out. Comeback when you're presentable. '\n\n\"Yes, sir! With pleasure, sir!\"\n\nSoen answered with a gesture that was half salute, half dismissive wave. \"Whatever. Get out of here– now.\"\n\nThey travelled at night once they entered the desolate hills of the Dwelling Plain. Despite this, and all Fist Steppen's many precautions in water conservation, they still lost irreplaceable mounts and dray animals. Even a few men and women collapsed under the unrelenting pace. Some died; others recuperated in the wagons trailing the column." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That pace was nightmare for Bendan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Never having had cause to walk for longer than one bell– what in Fanderay's name for? There was never any need– he couldn't believe what was being demanded of them. What in all the Lost Lands could be so important? He managed to keep up, but barely. He walked in a daze and knew he'd be no use in a fight. Not that there'd been any raids. But still, he felt defenceless, hardly able to stand.\n\nThis day their scout, a Rhivi exile named Tarat– word was the young woman had killed a relative– raised her hand and crouched, studying the dry dusty ground. Sergeant Hektar joined her, and, bored, Bendan staggered over.\n\n\"What is it?\" the giant Dal Hon rumbled.\n\n\"The column has crossed this trail,\" she answered, a hand indicating a line northward.\n\n\"So?\"\n\n\"It's like nothing I have ever seen before. '\n\n\"So?\"\n\nThe girl blew out a breath and pushed the unruly kinked hair from her freckled face. \"Malazan. I know every spoor on the face of these lands. If I see something new it is a strange matter. Still... this trail reminds me of something. Something from an old story...\"\n\nBendan simply took the opportunity fora breather; and he didn't mind standing looking down at the tribal girl, either. Fine haunches she had. Too bad she also had a knife for anyone who got too close. He pulled out his skin of water and took a pull. He was about to take another when Hektar pushed the skin down.\n\n\"That's enough, trooper. You know the water rules. '\n\n\"I know I'm damned thirsty. '\n\n\"You'll be even more thirsty two days from now when you run out. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Both of them jumped when the Rhivi girl let out a shout of alarm and scrambled back from the trail as if it was a snake that had reared at her. \"What is it?\" Hektar demanded.\n\nTarat's gaze swung to them, her eyes huge with wonder.\"I have to speak to the commander. '\n\nAlmost the entire column had passed now. Hektar drew off his helmet to wipe his dark sweaty face. \"She's with the van... ' he began.\n\n\"I must. Immediately.\"\n\nHektar sighed his disgust. He wiped the leather liner inside the helmet then pulled it on again. \"All right. Let's go. '\n\n\"I'll tell Little, ' Bendan said.\n\n\"No– you're comin'with us. Let's go. '\n\n\"What for? You got her. You don't need me. '\n\n\"You seen it too. Now c'mon. '\n\n\"Aw, for Hood's sake... ' But the big sergeant crooked a finger and started after the scout. Bendan dragged himself along behind.\n\nThe van was a damned long way ahead. First, they were all mounted, something which irked Bendan no end. Why should they be mounted when the rest of them had to plod along? And second, they were all so much cleaner and better accoutred than he. Something that also never failed to stir his resentment. Why should they wear such superior armour– cuirasses of hammered iron and banded hauberks– when all he wore was a hauberk of boiled leather faced with ring mail, with mailed sleeves? It was his general view that anyone with better equipment than his, or with greater wealth, just didn't deserve it.\n\nIn response to a signal from the sergeant a messenger rode over, spoke to him briefly, then wheeled off to take his request to the Fist. Shortly thereafter a small mounted body broke off from the van to return to them. It was Fist Steppen, accompanied by a small guard and her inner staff. They parted around the three waiting troopers. Sergeant Hektar saluted the dumpy sunburned woman in her sweat-stained riding trousers and loose shirting. The skin of her forehead was angry-red and peeling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fist Steppen.\"\n\n\"You have a report?\"\n\nHektar gestured to Tarat. \"Our Rhivi scout has news.\"\n\nTarat saluted, quite smartly. Steppen nodded to her. \"The trail the column passed just back-\" the girl began, but was interrupted.\n\n\"We all saw it,\" an officer put in. \"A band marching double-file, north. Bandits, perhaps.\"\n\nTarat's hand snapped closed on the bone-handled knife at her side and she glared at the man.\n\nSteppen raised a hand for silence. \"Continue,\" she said to Tarat.\n\nThe girl did so, but still glared murder at the officer. \"No bandits– or even soldiers– have the discipline to maintain such a straight trail. Look to our own meandering track if you don't believe me. Men and women pause to adjust gear, to relieve themselves, to remove stones from their sandals. Only one people are capable of moving across the land in this manner. It is said they can march for four days and nights without a single pause. '\n\n\"It is said?\" Steppen asked, cocking her head.\n\nTarat lost her glare, removed her hand from her blade. \"In our stories, Fist. Among us Rhivi are told stories of these people. Most speak darkly of them.\"\n\n\"And they are?\"\n\nTarat was clearly unwilling to say just who she was talking about, but asked directly she hunched slightly, as if expecting scorn, and said, \"The Seguleh.\"\n\nBendan laughed out loud. Hektar glared for him to shut up but he couldn't help it. The Fist arched a brow.\"You have something to add, trooper? I see you too area local. What is your opinion? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He waved a hand in apology. \"I'm sorry, ma'am. It's just... the Seguleh? Scary stories for children only, ma'am.\"\n\n\"I assure you they are quite real.\"\n\n\"Oh yes. Real enough. Down south. I'd say they're damned good all right– damned good at puffing up their reputation, if you follow me, ma'am. '\n\nLeather creaked as the Fist leaned forward onto her pommel. \"You are from Darujhistan, yes?\"\n\n\"Yes, m'am. '\n\n\"And the opinion you express regarding these people... this would be typical of the city, would it?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. Just a lot of tall tales.\"\n\n\"I see. Thank you. Very informative.\" She turned to Tarat. \"Thank you for your report. That is all.\"\n\nThe troop edged their mounts aside and cantered off to return to the van. Tarat whirled to face Bendan. \"Laugh at me again and I'll slit you open like a weasel. Yes? '\n\nBendan held out his arms. \"Yeah. Fine. Whatever.\"\n\nThe tribal girl stalked away on those fine haunches.\n\nGods! So damned prickly!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We are the freemen privateers.\n\nWe sail the forested isles\n\nfrom Callows to far Galatan!\n\nWe have thrown off the chains\n\nof yoke, coin and tyrant.\n\nSo join us who dare to be free!\n\nThe Freemen Privateers\n\nAuthor unknown\n\nBARATHOL HAD TAKEN to sleeping in his work tent. During the late afternoon he'd drop in on the house to make sure little Chaur was fed and clean. He didn't blame Scillara for her lack of maternal instincts– he was resigned to it. Perhaps it balanced what he admitted might be his own over-developed nurturing instinct.\n\nThis night he was bringing up the heat of the forge, readying for another shift, when he heard a strange sound. It seemed to becoming from the excavation trench. Outside the tent, the work crew was on break and all should have been silent, yet intermittent clanging or thumping reached him. He stepped out into the dig, listening.\n\nHe thought it came from the exposed stone blocks themselves. Kneeling, he placed an ear close to the cold smooth stone. Shortly, he heard it: a clanging or banging reverberating down the stones. It sounded as if someone was digging somewhere along the now nearly completed arc of set blocks. He stood to peer about; no one was around. The mages who oversaw the installations never arrived until much later. Frowning, he picked up a crowbar and set off to walk the circuit.\n\nHe sensed nothing strange until halfway round the nearly completed circle. Here the arc cut through a patch of woods dense in underbrush, part of an artificial park planted on the hilltop. Damn good cover, it occurred to him, and he immediately ducked down to take advantage. Edging forward, he found another excavation, this one much smaller. A pit had been dug over the arc of the stone ring. Even as he watched, dirt flew up to land in the brush. What in the Twins' name was this?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he sensed someone behind him. He spun, gripping the crowbar horizontally in both hands. Steel rang from the heavy tool and a wide burly figure readied for another thrust. Barathol fell, swinging the crowbar; it glanced from a shin and the figure grunted her– her? – pain, tumbling. As the assassin fell, her foot caught him across the throat. Both rolled in the dirt, gasping. Barathol rose just in time to block another stab then readied the crowbar fora swing but stopped, astonished. His attacker also froze.\n\n\"Barathol?\" she said, amazed.\n\n\"Blend?\"\n\n\"What in the Queen's name're you doing here?\" she snarled, wincing and holding her shin.\n\n\"What are you marines up to?\" he demanded.\n\nA needle-point pricked his back and a voice whispered from behind, \"The Legate has declared war on Malaz, friend. Time to choose sides.\"\n\n\"Don't do it, Topper, ' Blend warned.\n\nTopper? Where had he heard that name before?\n\nBlend straightened, tested her weight on her leg. \"Stand aside, Barathol. This is nothing to do with you.\"\n\n\"Barathol?\" said the one named Topper. \"Mekhar? Kalam's relation? '\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nThe knife point pressed harder for an instant, as if its holder were of a mind to finish him quickly then and there. He wasn't the type to go quietly and he almost moved rather than just stand and be slaughtered but the thought of little Chaur stopped him and he froze, tensed, his limbs twitching.\n\n\"Don't, \"Blend urged Topper.\"He's a friend.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The blade withdrew– slightly. \"Are you, Barathol... a friend?\"\n\n\"This is just a job. I have rent to pay. A family to feed. I'm lucky to have any work. '\n\n\"If it's just a question of coin– you'll have it.\"\n\n\"On your word?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nBarathol allowed himself a small shrug. \"Then I'll be on my way. This isn't my business.\"\n\n\"Very well. On your way. But I'll be watching. One word to anyone and you'll die. Understood?\"\n\n\"Yeah. I know the drill.\"\n\nThe blade pricked him to urge him on. He nodded to Blend and headed off. A few steps later he tossed the crowbar into the woods and continued along the path.\n\nAt the trench the work crew had returned to prepping the foundation. Barathol made a show of straightening his trousers as he descended into the trench. He pushed aside the tent flap and ducked in. The tall mage was there waiting for him, staff of old wood in one hand.\n\n\"Where were you?\" he growled.\n\n\"Call of nature.\"\n\n\"Took your time.\"\n\n\"I'm not eating right these days. '\n\n\"How much do you think I care about the state of your bowels?\"\n\nBarathol held a handover the coals, thrust in a bar to stir them. \"You asked.\"\n\n\"Don't leave the forge again. We are on a timetable. There can be no delay. '\n\nOver his shoulder Barathol studied the strangely lean angular fellow. \"Oh? To accomplish what?\"\n\nThe man's eyes seemed to flare and he clasped the staff in both hands. The wood creaked in the fierce grip.\"That is not your concern, ' he ground out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Barathol shrugged. He gestured to the wood and leather bellows. \"Work those for me then.\"\n\nThe mage sneered. The fresh scars on his face twisted in disgust. \"Find another to do that, imbecile.\"\n\nBarathol threw down the bar. \"Fine. More delay.\"\n\nHe impressed a worker from the crew to help on the bellows. The entire time, the mage paced the narrow confines of the tent. The work might have gone as usual, but for Barathol it seemed to flow as slowly as the silver melting in the glowing ceramic crucible. He kept suppressing the urge to peer over his shoulder, and he hunched at particularly loud bangs and crashes of dropped equipment in the trench.\n\nAll the time, he felt the gaze of the mage on his back like the twin impressions of heated dagger-points. Finally, the work was done. Both moulds were poured, and the mage shouldered him aside to inspect the cooling bars. \"These appear acceptable,\" he growled, bent over them. A flicked hand dismissed Barathol, who straightened his back with a murmured \"You're welcome'.\n\nHe pushed aside the heavy canvas flap and stepped out into cool dawn air. He drew a cloth from inside his shirt and wiped his face and hands, then stood still fora moment, enjoying the caress of the wind. Walking up from the trench he paused, glanced back towards the distant woods hidden behind awing of the rambling complex of Majesty Hall. No alarm as yet. Not even a peep. Reconnoitring? Investigating the stones? Or... no, they wouldn't dare try that, would they?\n\nBest to be faraway in any case.\n\nHe headed fora twisting walkway down the hill.\n\nHalfway along the trail he flinched as a boom erupted over the hillside, echoing and rolling into the distance. It sounded eerily like broad sails catching a brisk wind. He turned in time to see a great cloud of dirt and dust billowing up over the tiled rooftops of the various buildings crowding the hilltop. He could even make out the clattering of rocks as they tumbled down the cliffs. Distant shouts and screams sounded. He hung his head. Damn! Now I have to go back fora look– it would be strange if I didn't." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Work to move the story forward.\nTags: epic fantasy, ancient city, magic, power dynamics, hidden secrets\nAuthor: Ian Cameron Esslemont\nTitle: Orb Sceptre Throne\nChapter: 17" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He launched himself into the slim tunnel and pushed himself along on elbows and knees to where it emptied into a larger chamber. Here he dusted himself off then peered about. Empty. Side vaults empty as well. He examined the skulls decorating the floor, the empty stone plinth. Then he found the one occupied side vault. Here he paused fora longtime.\n\nThe lingering magery flickering about this corpse interested him the most. He rested his hands on the stone ledge the carcass lay upon to lean closely over the remains. Why had this one alone resisted, or failed, reconstitution and escape? It seemed a puzzle. A trap within a trap within a trap. Subtle weavings. Yet who was trapping whom? And could he be certain? According to those cretin marines there could be only one witness. Only one individual emerged from the well before this masked creature appeared. The one others called scholar, a small-time potterer here among the ruins.\n\nHe leaned back, brushed his fingertip across his lips. As before: one set apart. Why? There must be some significance. He simply couldn't get a tight enough grip upon it yet. The lineaments of the castings held a cold sharp edge. They whispered of non-human origins. Not Tiste– he knew his own. Certainly not K'Chain nor Forkrul. That left Jaghut. So, the legends of the ancient Jaghut Tyrants. Returned? Didn't the Finnest house finish that?\n\nReason enough for any other to be wary.\n\nHe brushed his gloved hands together, climbed from the narrow alcove. Too many players for things to be straightforward and clear. Have to watch and wait.\n\nAt least until the inevitable frantic recall to the capital comes.\n\nWhile the cargo scow was slow, it made steady progress all through the day and on through the night and so far sooner than Torvald expected they drew up next to the sagging dilapidated pier at Dhavran. His travelling companions, he knew, would be disembarking here. He was saddened to see them go. They'd been extraordinarily informative regarding the political situation among the Free Cities and the Malazans to the north. From hints and details he gathered that the big fellow, Cal, had once been some sort of military commander far in the north." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the dawn's light, alongside all the other passengers preparing to leave, the two put together their meagre travelling gear. At the rail Torvald waited to say his farewells. Sailors readied the gangway.\n\n\"Sorry to say goodbye,\" he told the old man, Tserig.\n\nThe fellow glanced up to his huge companion, who peered down at Torvald from amid his wild mane of blowing hair and beard, a half-smile at his lips, and rumbled, \"Haven't you been listening? You're coming with us.\"\n\nTorvald blinked. For an instant he had a flashback to another of his travelling companions, one similarly large and abstruse. \"I'm sorry? '\n\n\"There is no longer at Pale anything of any relevance to your master in Darujhistan. Here at Dhavran, however, will soon arrive something of great significance.\"\n\n\"And that is?\"\n\n\"The Rhivi nation is invading the south, meaning to crush the Malazans. Don't you think you should discuss the matter with them? You are, I gather, a duly appointed city councillor, yes? '\n\nTorvald coughed to clear his throat. \"You are not serious, I hope?\"\n\n\"Very serious.\"\n\nTserig gummed his nearly toothless mouth, nodding his agreement. \"We are hereto try to talk them out of it.\"\n\nThe gangway slammed down, rattling the dock. The crowd on the deck hefted their bags and rolls while babies cried, pigs squealed, and caged fowl gobbled. Torvald shouldered his own bag. \"Well... I suppose I ought to accompany you, then.\"\n\n\"Very good,\" Cal said. \"They should be here shortly.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They waited until all the other departing passengers had shuffled down the gangway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tor watched families reunited amid hugs and tears; travelling petty traders set down their wares and immediately start haggling; and local merchants fussed over the unloading of ordered goods. This was the stuff of normal life– the daily round of trying to build a better future. This was what people wanted. Really, in the final accounting, they just wanted to be left alone to get on with things.\n\nOnce the way was clear they hefted their bags and tramped down the planking. Tor noted that it bowed alarmingly beneath Cal's weight.\n\nThey setup camp close to the muddy riverside where a meagre bridge made a crossing. Here they waited. \"It will only be a few days,\" Tserig assured Torvald. In the meantime Torvald questioned Cal. It turned out the man knew an incredible amount regarding general history and politics. Torvald, who had been away from the region for sometime, suddenly found himself very well informed.\n\nJust a few days later the first of the Rhivi outriders arrived at the broad shallow valley that this creek, the Red, meandered through. Cal, Tserig and Torvald went to meet them at the bridge.\n\nThe riders trotted up to the bridge, dismounted. Cal awaited them with his hands tucked into the wide leather belt of his travel-stained trousers. Old Tserig leaned on a large walking stick. Torvald stood just behind. He keenly felt that he was intruding.\n\nThe two outriders knelt before Cal. \"Warlord,\" they said.\n\nTorvald slapped a hand to his mouth. Great gods! Warlord? Cal– Caladan– Caladan Brood! He heard a roaring in his ears and his vision darkened, narrowing to a tunnel. The old man grasped his arm with a grip like the snaring of a root, steadying him. The riders bowed to Tserig as well, murmuring, \"Elder.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I would treat with Jiwan,\" Caladan said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If he will receive my words.\"\n\n\"We will carry your message.\"\n\n\"One more thing.\" The Warlord motioned aside to Torvald. \"I also have with mean emissary from the ruling council of Darujhistan, Torvald Nom. He too would speak with Jiwan.\"\n\nThe two bowed again, then returned to their mounts. Caladan watched them go. After a time he turned to Torvald. \"We should have an answer soon enough.\"\n\nTor struggled to find his voice. \"Why... why didn't you tell me...? '\n\n\"I could hardly announce it thereon that boat, could I?\"\n\n\"Well... I suppose not. But... why aren't you... \"Tor swallowed, realizing his indelicacy, and finished lamely,\"you know. '\n\n\"With them?\" the big man supplied, arching a bushy brow. \"I argued against any further war but I was outvoted. The young bloods want to prove themselves. And being the aggressive faction– they won the day.\" His hands knotted at his belt. \"At least that is how it had better have been. Otherwise...\" He shook the great mane about his head and gestured to the creek. \"In the meantime let's try and catch some fish. '\n\nIn the end, it was Tserig who caught them. Wading along the shore, robes pulled high up over his skinny shanks, he scared two whiskered bottom-feeders into the shallows and Torvald scooped them up. They skewered them over flames, and after the meal, the noise of hooves announced the approach of riders. Rising, Caladan pulled his hands through his thick beard then wiped them on his trousers. Torvald helped Tserig to his feet. \"My thanks,\" the man murmured. \"My joints are not what they used to be. Though I'll have you know my prick is just fine. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Torvald clamped his teeth together against a choking laugh. \"That... is... encouraging news, Elder.\"\n\nThe old man gummed his mouth, nodding. \"It should be!\"\n\nThe riders were Rhivi warriors finely accoutred in mail and enamelled leather armour with skirtings that hung down the sides of their mounts. Torvald recognized these men and women as the cream of the Rhivi's leading clans. The foremost rider drew off his helmet to nod to Caladan. His thin beard was braided, as was his long black hair.\n\n\"Warlord. To what do we owe this honour... again?\"\n\n\"Jiwan. I am hereto ask you one last time to put down the spear. No goodwill come of it, only suffering and tears. Think of your people– the lives that will be lost.\"\n\nThe young commander nodded thoughtfully, frowning. \"I hear your words, Warlord, and I honour you for your past leadership and wisdom. But these words are not those of a war leader. They are the words of an old man who has lost a great friend. A mourning elder who looks at life only to see death. Such a dark vision must not guide a people. We who see life, who look ahead to the future, we must lead. And so, Caladan... I ask that you stand aside.\"\n\n\"Pretty words, Jiwan,\" Brood answered, unruffled by the young man's dismissal.\"I see now how you turned the heads of the Circle of Elders. But I do not think I will stand aside. I think I will block this bridge to you and all those foolish enough to follow anyone hypocritical– or inexperienced– enough to speak of life while going to war. '\n\nTorvald's mood had fallen from uncomfortable to distinctly exposed hereon the open bridge as more and more of the Rhivi cavalry, mixed medium and light, came trotting down the shallow valley. He felt like an interloper among the negotiations of a war leader who had dominated the north for decades, and had led the resistance there against the invading Malazans. Now to be dismissed in such an ignoble and off-handed manner! It grated against his instincts. To so blindly dismiss the hard-learned wisdom of centuries!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The young war leader's gaze now found Torvald." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He raised his chin.\"You are this Darujhistani emissary, Torvald, Nom of Nom? '\n\nTorvald bowed from the waist. \"I am he.\"\n\n\"What think you of this man's position here? '\n\n\"I think it... rather unassailable.\"\n\nA scornful smile drew back the youth's lips.\"Strange words from an emissary of Darujhistan when all the others are so eager for Malazan blood. '\n\n\"What's that? ' Caladan growled, his voice suddenly low and menacing.\n\nThe war leader seemed to believe he had scored a point and he nodded his assurances. \"Oh, yes. The city is with us. We have the fullest intelligence from them. For example, the remnant fleeing just before us numberless than twelve hundreds, while our numbers swell with every passing day. Soon we shall reach thirty thousands! And your Legate, Nom of Nom, promises aid during the engagement. Obviously he too recognizes the threat these Malazans pose.\" Jiwan sat up taller in his saddle. He raised his voice to be heard by the surrounding riders. \"Now is our chance to rid our lands of the invader! They are weak. Leaderless. Few in number. Now is our best chance and perhaps our only chance! We must strike now! While we are assembled! The gods have handed us this opportunity. We must not let it slip away out of fear.\"\n\n\"Your words lack respect!\" Tserig called suddenly. \"They displease the ancestors.\" The Elder pointed to Caladan. \"This man sheltered Silverfox the Liberator! The gift of the Mhybe!\"\n\nThe war leader bowed his head in acknowledgement. \"True. But where is the miraculous Silverfox now?\" He turned in his saddle to shout: \"She has abandoned us!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Enough!\" Caladan bellowed. So strong was the yell that Torvald felt the bridge judder beneath his feet. \"Enough talk. Jiwan, this bridge is closed to you.\"\n\nExaggerated regret drew the war leader's mouth down. He shook his head.\"Caladan, it is sad to see you reduced to such petty gestures. \"He pointed to the shallow waterway.\"You accomplish nothing. We will merely ride through the creek. '\n\nCaladan crossed his arms. \"You are welcome to do so. You are much overdue, I think, forgetting muddy.\"\n\nJiwan merely clamped his lips shut. Yanking on his reins he waved for the cavalry to go round. Torvald watched while the columns passed to either side of the bridge. Some refused to acknowledge the Warlord or glance his way, while the lingering eyes of others held sadness, regret, and even guilt.\n\nIt was many hours before the last of the riders passed. Above, the mottled moon and the Scimitar cast bright competing shadows while threads of clouds passed between them. Caladan finally let out along breath. \"A large force,\" he admitted. \"Every clan represented.\"\n\n\"They smell blood,\" Tserig agreed.\n\n\"Malazan blood.\"\n\n\"What will you do now?\" Torvald asked.\n\nThe huge man uncrossed his arms and shifted his stance. The logs of the bridge creaked beneath their feet. \"I warned your Legate not to interfere in this. But he has defied me. Whipped the Rhivi onto the Malazans. All Jiwan sees is the glory of being the war leader who defeats the Malazans. He doesn't see that Rhivi blood is simply ridding this creature of his enemies for him. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll go back, then, \"Torvald said, certain of what he should do.\"Speak against this. '\n\nThe man's tangled brows rose.\"Great Burn, no, lad. You'll be killed out of hand. No. I'm going. I intend to take this Legate by the neck and let him know of my displeasure. '\n\nSuddenly Torvald felt rather afraid for his city. There were stories of this man– this Ascendant– levelling mountains in the north. \"You won't... \"he began, only to pause as he realized he wasn't sure what he intended to say. Won't destroy the city?\n\nThe man smiled his reassurance. \"Only this Legate troubles me. I am sorry, Torvald Nom, but all is not as you think in your home. I suspect something is controlling Lim, or he has struck a bargain where he should not have.\"\n\nSomething strange going on? What is strange about Lim's having resurrected an ancient reviled title? Or started wearing a gold mask? There is nothing strange in that.\n\n\"Tserig,\" Caladan continued, \"would you re-join Jiwan's forces? If things go badly there will be a need for your voice. '\n\n\"I understand, Warlord.\"\n\nCaladan regarded Torvald, stroked his beard. \"Perhaps if you accompanied me you would be safe enough.\"\n\nTor thought about the offer but realized that there might be something else he could do. Something perhaps only he could do. \"No.\"\n\nCaladan stopped to turn, frowning. \"No?\"\n\n\"No. The Moranth withdrew when they sensed something was happening. And here we are in the shadows of their mountains. I'll... I'll go to them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Torvald Nom, that is an extraordinary offer. But no one has ever succeeded in reaching them in their mountain strongholds. They speak to no one. I've heard that only the Emperor and Dancer ever managed to sneak into Cloud Forest. '\n\n\"They will speak tome.\"\n\nThe Ascendant eyed him while he pulled at his beard. He was obviously curious as to the source of Torvald's certainty, but refrained from challenging it. He grunted instead, nodding.\"Very well. I wish there was some help I could offer. '\n\n\"Well– I could use a horse.\"\n\nThe big man smiled behind his beard. His gaze shifted to the south where a galaxy of campfires now lit the plain. \"I think I might be able to produce one.\"\n\nLeoman sat with his arms draped over his folded knees. He watched the titanic shadow of Maker high against the horizon where the giant continued his labour while the stars wheeled and the waves of glimmering Vitr worked their eternal erosion.\n\nHe sighed and glanced over to where Kiska stood high on the strand, facing the Sea of Vitr. Day after day she stood in plain view of Tayschrenn, or Thenaj, and his cohort of helpers while they carried out their rescue mission of dragging unfortunates from the burning energies of creation and destruction. Her goal, he believed he understood, was that somehow, eventually, the sight of her would trigger some memory within the archmagus and the man would come to his senses.\n\nHe thought it a forlorn hope. He stretched then sat back, his elbows in the black sand. Was he losing weight? Wasting away? Would he fade to a haunt doomed to wander the shores of creation wringing his hands or searching fora black button he'd dropped?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kiska nudged his leg– he'd been wool-gathering. He'd been doing a lot of that lately. She peered down at him, then away, screwing up her eyes. \"You don't have to stay, ' she said.\n\nHe nodded. \"True.\"\n\n\"You should go. There's no need for you to be here. '\n\n\"One does not return empty-handed to the Queen of Dreams.\"\n\n\"She's not vindictive. '\n\nHe snorted. \"This is all assuming we can return.\"\n\n\"She wouldn't have sent us to our deaths. '\n\n\"She said she couldn't see beyond Chaos. '\n\nKiska set her hands on her hips. \"Well... so, you're just going to lie around watching? '\n\nHe peered about as if searching for something else, then returned his gaze to her. \"Looks like it.\"\n\n\"Well... you're making me uncomfortable. '\n\n\"Oh– I'm making you uncomfortable? '\n\n\"Yes! So go away.\"\n\nHe pointed one sandalled foot to the beach. \"I'm sure our friends feel the same way. '\n\n\"That's different. '\n\n\"It is? Shall we ask them?\"\n\nKiska's lips tightened to almost nothing.\"They won't talk tome.\"\n\nFine lips they are for kissing. Too bad there's been precious little of that. Now there's a reason to go back. He squinted up at her. \"That's because you're making them uncomfortable.\"\n\nShe waved curtly, dismissing him– \"Gods, I don't know why I bother'– and marched away.\n\nWell... that didn't work. What now? Bash heron the head and drag her back to the Enchantress? Here you are, Your Ladyship– one troublesome agent returned safe and sound. Are we even now?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He eased back into studying the horizon. Time for that yet. Best wait a touch longer. See if she works this out of her system all on her own. As he'd learned from experience– it's always easiest simply to set out the bait and wait for them to come to you.\n\nThe old witch who lived at the very western edge of the shantytown that itself clung to the western edge of Darujhistan seemed to spend all her time whittling. That and incessantly humming and chanting to herself. People whose errands happened to bring them wandering by sometimes considered telling the hag to shut up. But, after reconsidering, none ever did so. It was after all asking for trouble to insult a witch.\n\nThis afternoon, as the sun descended to the west, where just visible was the top of the great hump of the tomb of the Andii prince– uncharacteristically unlooted as yet, as, again, it would be asking for trouble to attempt to rob the tomb of the Son of Darkness– this afternoon the witch's head snapped up from her sticks and she stuffed them away into the folds of her layered shirts. She stood, peering narrowly to the south. Out came her pipe in one hand and in her other a pinch of mud or gum that she rolled between grimy thumb and forefinger.\n\nShe brought the lump up to her eyes, squinting. Brought it even closer, so close that her thumb touched the bridge of her nose and her eyes crossed. Then she grunted, satisfied, and jammed the lump into the pipe. This she lit, puffing, before returning to studying the south, an arm tucked under the one holding the pipe. Passers-by noted her attention and stopped to look as well. But, seeing nothing but the dusty hills of the Dwelling Plain, they shook their heads at the woman's craziness and moved on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Almost,\" the woman muttered aloud as if conversing with someone. She blew twin plumes of smoke from her nostrils. \"Almost.\"\n\nBarathol was in the back, building a crib. Little Chaur, he'd noticed, was now as long as the basket he currently slept in. It was late afternoon and the work was going slowly; he kept forgetting where he was in the process– which piece to cut and how long to make it. He was, frankly, dead on his feet. His hands were clumsy crude gloves, his thoughts glacial.\n\nGlancing up he noticed Scillara at the backdoor, watching, arms crossed over her broad chest. \"Asleep then?\" he said.\n\n\"Aye. A feed and a nap– practising being a regular man, he is.\"\n\n\"Our needs are simple.\"\n\n\"Bar...\" she began slowly.\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"I'm... sorry. I was– I am– angry that you took that work. I'm scared that...\"\n\nHe set down his handsaw. \"Yes?\"\n\nShe raised her eyes to the darkening sky as if not believing what she was about to confess. \"I'm scared. Scared that I'm going to lose you.\"\n\nHe sat back, resting his hands on his thighs, and gave her a crooked smile. \"You'll never lose me so long as you have Chaur, yes? '\n\n\"I'm sorry, Bar. All I see is a lump of need that looks at me with hungry eyes. I don't like that look, Bar.\"\n\n\"In time then, Scil. Ashe grows you'll see more and more of you and me in him. '\n\nShe was looking to the north, picking at the cracked wood of the jamb. \"I don't know. It's you I chose– not him. Maybe... maybe we should go. Leave tonight while we can.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's work for me here." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Enough for us to get by on. '\n\n\"And this other work? When will it finish?\"\n\n\"Soon. Very soon. They're almost done now. '\n\nShe watched him carefully, as if studying him. \"What've they got you doing up there anyway? '\n\n\"Nothing important, Scil. Nothing important.\"\n\nGrisp Falaunt was lord of one row of turnips. That and a shack that really wasn't a shack being as it was more of a lean-to of broken lumber and canvas cobbled from the remains of what once was a shack. But from the shade of his wholly-owned domicile he could look south to the shimmering images of orchards, fields and groves covering the hills of the Dwelling Plain. All that had almost been– and rightfully ought to have been– his. For in the absence of all other claims was he not the lord and master of all the vast plain? Who could dispute that? Why, none, o\" course.\n\nAgain he reached down next to his chair, where his hand encountered nothing, and he growled and adjusted the cactus spine held between his teeth from one side to the other. Damned trespassing devil-dogs. Broke his fine cabin and burst the heart of his last loyal friend, fine Scamper, buried now among the turnips.\n\nOught to fence his property. That's what he ought to do. Then them fancy nobles in Darujhistan would come a callin\". Why, then-\n\nGrisp leaned forward, the front legs of his chair thumping in the dust. What in the name o' dried-up Burn was that? More trespassers?\n\nA file of men had emerged from a gulch, or draw, or gully, or whatever it was you called a damned depression out thereon the plain. A great cloud of dust was following them. In fact, they was running like the very devil-dogs was after them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And they was headed right for him.\n\nOr not. Maybe not quite right for him. More like... His slit gaze shifted aslant to his last remaining row of turnips. The spine clamped between his lips stood straight up. Oh no.\n\nHood's bones! They was headed for his turnip plantation!\n\nChair thrown aside numb bare feet tangling with staked rope ties of canvas roof much cursing and flailing to stand bony chest thrown out athwart limp brown leaves defiant!\n\nThe jogging twin files of men and women– masked, for all sakes! – parted to either side, their sandalled feet trampling the row into flattened dirt and bruised turnip flesh.\n\nUpraised fists fell. Screwed-up features twisted into puzzlement, then despair.\n\nGrisp landed on the tattered rear of his trousers while the yellow ochre dust of the Dwelling Plain blew about him. There, between his feet, brown leaves intact, lay his last undamaged turnip.\n\n\"Fair enough,\" he croaked, waving the dust from his face. \"This time, Scamper m'boy. This time I mean it. Time for action. Time for pullin'up stakes and movin\" on. Fer... \"He eyed the limp bug-gnawed specimen before him and slumped even further into the dry dirt.\"Aw, t'Hood with it.\"\n\n\n\nNot long after that, the guards of Cutter Road Gate, newly reconstructed, let goof the robes of the dealer in rare woods from the plains of Lamatath as the alarm from the watchtower sent up its strident warning. Both peered down the length of Cutter Lake Road over the heads of the crowd of farmers and petty traders held up behind the tottering wagon of the dealer in rare woods." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The elder guard noticed that the wagon was blocking the gate. \"Get moving, you damned fool!\" he bellowed at the man. The other guard, staring south, mouthed something like \"Ghak!\"\n\nGhak? the elder wondered, then an arm slammed him backwards into the wall of the gatehouse and he slid down the gritty stones, dazed and breathless, while a file of men and women jogged by, hands resting near the grips of sheathed swords as they passed without so much as a glance down.\n\nAfter the last of the file had gone the man pulled himself up, wincing and gasping and rubbing his chest. Masks, he wondered? Why in Beru's name were they wearin\" masks? He and his partner shared helpless stricken looks across the wagon. The dealer leaned to one side to spit a stream of thick brown fluid across the dusty road.\n\n\"You all are in big trouble now,\" he commented with great satisfaction, and flicked the reins.\n\nOn a street in the Gadrobi district a boy coming into adolescence ran up to a heavyset woman standing in the entranceway to the open hall of a school of swordsmanship. \"Masked men!\" he cried excitedly, his eyes shining. \"Masked men running through the streets!\"\n\n\"What's that? ' the woman answered sharply.\n\n\"Some say Seguleh!\" He waved her out. \"Come.\"\n\n\"Inside,\" she demanded.\n\n\"But...\"\n\n\"Harllo...\"\n\nHis shoulders slumped and he brushed in past her. \"Yes, Mother.\"\n\nThe woman slowly closed the door on people running past, on yells sounding from the distance. Inside, she lowered a heavy bar across the door then pulled a crossbow from where it hung on the wall. She flexed its band, testing it, and nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sulty handed out the plates of hot goat skewers on couscous then paused, tilting her head– marching feet, double-time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Been along time since she'd heard that sound. Her gaze caught Scurve at the bar and he shrugged; evidently he knew nothing of it.\n\nMoments later a man ducked inside, breathless, red-faced. \"Seguleh!\" he shouted. \"On the Way!\"\n\nAs one the patrons surged to their feet to charge the door.\n\n\"You ain't paid! \"Jess bellowed. Then the two women were left alone in the room amid fallen chairs and steaming food. Sulty blew hair from her face. Jess motioned the others outside.\"Might as well have a look. '\n\nThey joined the crowd eyeing the distant Second Tier Way. But there was nothing to see. Whoever, or whatever, had passed, and only the witnesses remained. The patrons gathered round those who claimed to have seen. The women rubbed their aching chapped hands in their aprons, shrugged, and went back inside.\n\nIt had nothing to do with them.\n\nIn the common room, Sulty eyed the table with its steaming plates and skewers and wondered– hadn't there been five?\n\nThe clerk posted at the gate to the Way of Justice heard the marching echoing up the walls enclosing the Way. Puzzled, he picked up his scrolls and stepped outside. No notice of procession had been filed for this day. Who were these fools?\n\nA double file of men and women came jogging round a corner and the clerk stared, squinting. Great Fanderay... were they... Before he could complete his thought they sped past to either side, leather jerkins stained wet with sweat, limbs glistening, eyes hidden behind masks riveted straight ahead.\n\nOne by one the scrolls slid from the clerk's hands. Kicked and trampled, they flew, wind-caught, to flutter over the wall of the Second Tier, wafting towards the glimmering waters of Lake Azur." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After the last had passed the clerk quickly finished his sums and came to an astounding number that kept him from discovering his empty hands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Five hundred. Great Ancient Mother of the Hearth! Surely they cannot be real!\n\nHe crossed to one of the city Wardens who guarded the Way. The man was staring off up the rising cobbled path, a gourd of water half-raised to his mouth. \"Do something,\" the clerk demanded.\n\nThe man swallowed, his face as pale as the finest vellum. \"Do what?\"\n\n\"Warn them! Warn the Council!\"\n\nThe man slammed the wooden stopper home. \"I'll just trot along behind, shall I? '\n\nThe clerk raised his hands to shake a finger, then realized. He started, gaping. \"Great Mother of Pain!\" He threw himself to the stone lip of the wall to peer over and down. \"I'm ruined! '\n\n\"You're ruined? \"The guard flicked the truncheon at his side and snorted.\"I think we're all fucking ruined.\"\n\n\n\nThe journey had been a strange experience in double vision for Jan. All the landmarks, major features and place names remained as handed down through the ancient lays and stories of his people. And yet all was different. Gone were the orchards, groves and fields of the verdant Dwelling Plain. All was dust and desolation. The great network of irrigation canals and the artificial lakes sand-choked and buried; the many brick towers, the leagues of urban dwelling, all gnawed to the barest foundations and scatterings of eroded sun-dried brick. A population collapse– just as described in the catastrophe of their exile.\n\nAnd the city itself, fair white-walled Darujhistan. White-walled no more. Oh, it appeared large and wealthy enough. But gone were the soaring towers of translucent white stone so clear one could seethe sun through their walls. Gone the great Orb of the King, the Circle of Pure Justice. All destroyed in the Great Shattering and Fall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Many of the inhabitants carried weapons, as well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There appeared to have been a proliferation of those willing to place themselves under the judgement of the sword. But that could wait. Ahead lay the Throne and the one who sent out the call. What would it be? The fulfilment of the long-held dream of his people? It seemed unreal that this should be achieved, now, in his lifetime. The last First had never spoken of it, had always deflected Jan's probes. It was this uncharacteristic reluctance that troubled him now as he jogged up the Way of Justice. Such guardedness had all been too much for one Second, the one whose name had been stricken. Slaves to tradition, he had denounced them, as he threw away his sword.\n\nAnd it was said the man had subsequently taken up a sword in the service of true slavery. But such were tales outside the testing circle and thus beneath attending.\n\nIn any case, they would soon know. Jan led the way. He hardly noticed the figures he brushed aside as he entered the Hall of Majesty. The body of their handed-down songs and stories contained many descriptions of the approach to the Throne, although it took a moment to sort through the subsequent alterations and additions to the rambling complex. That done, Jan directed those of the Fiftieth to guard the path, then walked up to the tall panelled doors– not even noting the two guards who stood ashen-faced to either side– and pushed them open.\n\nIt was dusk now, and the golden light of the sunset shone almost straight across the Great Hall, illuminating the gathered crowd inflames of argent. Jan paused, disconcerted to find a sea of plain golden masks directed his way. Though not all, he noted, wore them. And among those who did some now fell limp to crash to the floor.\n\nHe ignored them all as beneath his direct attention and strode for the Throne. His escort, the Twenty, followed him in. The crowd parted like torn cloth. Two of those insensate were dragged across the floor to clear the way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The one on the throne rose to meet him.\n\nHe wore the template upon which all these others were obviously patterned. Jan recognized the power and authority radiating from it as if from the sun itself– but it was not the mask he had come all this way to meet. Halting, he met the man with his own masked head slightly inclined, eyes a shade downcast: the posture of uncertainty regarding rank.\n\nThe masked figure gestured, arms open, his thick burgundy robes wide.\n\n\"Greetings, loyal children.\" A voice spoke from one side, quavering and breathless, almost choking. \"You have answered the call of your master. Soon all shall be restored to what it was. The Circle of Perfect Rulership is near completion.\"\n\nThe golden Father? First guide me! Was this the source of your silence? Ancestors forgive me... which do I choose? The knee or the blade? Which will it be? All now are watching, waiting upon me, the Second, to show the way. And yet... there it is. For am I not Second? And did not the last First ever instruct– the Second has but one task.\n\nThe Second follows.\n\nAnd so he knelt before their ancient master reborn, his mask bent to the floor. And, leathers shifting and hissing, all the Twenty knelt in turn.\n\nIn the crowd yet another of those assembled crashed to the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And the truth is not yet revealed\n\nWith the fall of the first gossamer veil\n\nNor does the second drifting shroud\n\nSent curling to the gold-dusted tiles\n\nBring the unthinking one step closer\n\nTo the necessary awareness of how\n\nClose wafts the third clinging cowl\n\nTroubling those fascinated as pure\n\nWhite flashes yet promise and allure\n\nDistracting the unwary from the\n\nFourth sheet unwound enlightening\n\nAll too late that only Death could\n\nDance so seductively\n\nSong of the White Throne\n\nMad Ira Nuer\n\nANTSY AWOKE TO a hammering on the wall of their room. \"Up and on your feet,\" someone growled. \"Let's go. ' The feeble yellow light of a lamp glowed through the burlap hanging. He sat up, stretched, and set to pulling on his gear. He and Corien stepped out first to give Orchid more privacy to squat over the chamber pot.\n\nThe motley crew in their mismatched armour, men mostly, all chuckled at the loud hiss of the liquid stream against metal that came echoing out from behind the hanging. In charge of this detachment was the fellow boasting the huge thick beard tied off in tails and the tattered dirty jupon over the banded iron hauberk, its heraldry rendered murky and indistinguishable. When Orchid stepped out he gestured impatiently. \"This way.\"\n\nThey were led through narrower and narrower private passages– what might have once been a large private dwelling– to a guarded room where tables stood crowded by scrolls and vellum sheets held down by countless statues of animals real and fantastic, some carved from semi-precious stone, others cast in silver and gold. Light was provided by a large candelabra so low it threatened to ignite the many sheets. A fat man sat with his boots upon one of the tables, leaning back, studying a document." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But what really caught Antsy's attention was the wonderful scent of fresh fruit and cooked meat. His stomach lurched and grumbled and his mouth, dry for days, now flooded.\n\n\"Prisoners, sir,\" their captor grunted.\n\nThe man did not lookup from the document. \"Very good, Lieutenant.\"\n\nThe lieutenant promptly slouched into a chair, one of slung cured leather over carved dark wood that itself looked like a work of art. He helped himself to a cut-crystal jug of red wine, pouring it into a cup that appeared to have been carved from jade. He waved away the guards.\n\nThe man tossed down the sheet. He was unshaven, his face glistening in the candlelight. His hair hung in a tangled mess around a bald dome. He rubbed his sunken red-ringed eyes with a pudgy hand thick with gem-studded rings. He blinked at them. \"A Darujhistan dandy, a Malazan deserter, and some rich merchant's plaything. How can any of you be of use tome? '\n\n\"Torbal Loat,\" Antsy blurted, the name suddenly coming to him.\n\nThe man cocked one bloodshot eye. \"Met before, have we?\"\n\n\"This fellow carved out quite the territory for himself up north during the wars,\" Antsy told Corien and Orchid.\n\n\"Before you Malazans drove me out.\"\n\nAntsy raised his hands. \"Hey, I chucked that in. No percentage there.\"\n\nThe man merely grunted. He raised his chin to Corien. \"You can use a blade, I assume?\"\n\nThe youth bowed. \"At your service.\"\n\nThe lieutenant laughed a harsh bray and raised his glass in salute." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And you?\" Torbal demanded of Orchid.\n\n\"She's a mage of Rashan, ' Antsy said before she could answer.\n\nTorbal's heavy mouth twisted his irritation.\"This true? If not, I'll kill you myself.\"\n\n\"I have some small gifts, yes,\" she stammered.\n\nHe grunted, unimpressed. \"Well... it's the usual deal. You swear to fight for me and you'll receive your fair share of food and shares in the profits. As you can see, we control the majority of the Spawn. Most of all that is worth anything is with us. Fight well and eventually your original gear will be returned. Though,\" and he glared at Antsy, \"not all of it. Desertion is of course punishable by immediate execution,\" he added, continuing to give Antsy a hard eye.\n\n\"For a share of the total profits I'm your man, ' Antsy said.\n\n\"As am I,\" Corien added.\n\n\"And I.\"\n\n\"Now,\" Torbal began, picking up a starfruit and examining it. \"Our lookouts report that there was someone else with you... What happened to him?\"\n\nAntsy could not take his eyes from the ripe yellow star-shaped fruit. \"He ran off.\"\n\n\"Ran off? You won't mind then if we have a look for him? '\n\nAntsy kept his face dead straight as he said: \"No. We don't mind at all. '\n\n\"Where do you get all this food?\" Corien breathed, his voice thick with longing.\n\nTorbal's expression said that he was very pleased his little demonstration had had the desired effect. He sat back and took a bite of the fruit.\"I have contacts with the Confederation boys. Fora few trinkets I get regular shipments. My people eat well– remember that. \"He gestured to the lieutenant.\"Get them rooms. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lieutenant pushed himself up. \"Let's go. '\n\nHe marched them back through the rambling living quarters. Antsy quickly became lost though he was doing his best to keep his bearings; he suspected the man was leading them in circles. Eventually he stopped before a portal covered by a hanging– a hacked portion of a tapestry that must once have been worth a fortune before such desecration. \"You have a name?\" Antsy asked him.\n\nThe man pulled off his helmet and shook out long thick hair around his scarred and pitted face. \"Otan.\"\n\n\"Otan of Genalle?\"\n\n\"The same.\"\n\n\"You gave us– ah, the Malazans– a lot of trouble.\"\n\n\"I still do,\" the man said, eyeing Antsy with obvious distaste. \"Listen... Torbal says you live for now, but I don't like you. Spy or deserter, whichever you are, I'll be keeping an eye on you. Be sure of that.\"\n\n\"That'll keep me warm at night, friend. '\n\n\"We'll settle this. Don't worry. We'll settle up. ' He ambled off, his armour rattling and creaking.\n\nIt was a plain living chamber. Aside room allowed the option of privacy for Orchid. They remained together in the main room talking in low voices while Corien kept a watch at the hanging.\n\n\"What now?\" Orchid asked. \"We're captives. '\n\n\"Are we at the top?\" Antsy asked.\n\n\"No. According to all the descriptions I've heard there's still away to go.\"\n\n\"Thought so.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nHe gestured back the way they'd come.\"I didn't think this lot would be in charge.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They have a lot of swords,\" Corien pointed out.\n\n\"Yeah. But they're fighting someone for control of the rock. '\n\n\"Who?\"\n\nAntsy rubbed his slick forehead; his fingers came away greasy and sticky. He sighed. \"I think maybe Malazans.\"\n\n\"Malazans?\" Orchid echoed in disbelief.\n\n\"Yeah.\" Antsy sat on a stone sleeping ledge. \"I heard that awhile back a Malazan man-of-war bulled its way through to here. That would be maybe some two hundred fighting men. That's why old Otan there's accusing me of being a spy.\"\n\nCorien raised a hand for silence. Someone approached and he opened the hanging. It was a slave, a skinny crippled fellow with one hand and one bandaged eye. He was hugging a platter containing a hunk of cheese, dry hardtack, smoked meat, and a ceramic pot of water.\n\n\"What's your story, old man? ' Antsy asked him.\n\nThe man's answer was the sad wreckage of a smile. A stream of clear fluid ran down his cheek from under the bandage.\"Came out to make my fortune. Like a gold rush, everyone said. Jewels to be plucked from the streets of the Spawn. \"With his remaining hand he gestured to himself.\"But, as I found, riches don't come cheap.\"\n\n\"I hear you, old man. What about weapons?\"\n\n\"When there's an attack. '\n\nCorien swore, then apologized to Orchid.\n\n\"An attack?\" Antsy continued. \"Who?\"\n\nThe man shook his battered head. \"Can't say. Talk means punishment. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I understand. Thanks for the food.\"\n\nThe old fellow bowed and padded off into the darkness. Antsy used his short eating knife to cut slices from the lump of cheese. Chewing, he squinted into the dark side room. \"I think your night vision thing is still working, Orchid.\"\n\n\"Me too,\" Corien affirmed.\n\n\"Good,\" she said bleakly.\n\nAntsy turned his squint on her. \"Could you give us darkness?\"\n\n\"There's plenty of that. '\n\nHe cut and handed out slivers of the hard meat. Tasting it he wasn't sure what it was. Horse?\"No. Real darkness. The kind that light can't penetrate– would we still be able to see in that?\"\n\n\"I think so, yes. I believe you should.\"\n\n\"Good. That might be enough to get us out of here.\"\n\n\"Darkness?\" Corien said. \"We have no weapons.\"\n\n\"Then we'll bash people over the head and take theirs! ' Antsy answered, a touch irritated.\n\nCorien inclined his head. \"Of course. A sophisticated plan. When?\"\n\nAntsy scratched his own thickening beard. \"Yeah. When. Common wisdom says we should wait awhile– look like we're fitting in. But I can't shake the feeling that time's not on our side. This whole rock is unstable. Who knows what might happen to it? Everyday we're stuck here we're tempting Oponn and I don't like that.\"\n\n\"So... we don't wait? '\n\n\"No.\" He wrapped the food to pack it away. \"We go now.\"\n\n\"But our supplies. Your munitions!\"\n\n\"I'm happier keeping my head, thanks. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Corien smiled his rueful admiration. \"You've weathered more reversals than we have, Red. '\n\nAntsy shoved the food into a roll of the tattered blankets and tied it off. \"Aw, Hood. It ain't Red. It's Antsy.\"\n\nThe youth and Orchid shared a glance of suppressed humour. \"Well,\" Corien said, \"we knew it wasn't Red. '\n\n\"So,\" Orchid whispered, facing Antsy. \"What do we do?\"\n\nHe moved to the hanging and motioned to Corien. \"Snuff the light.\"\n\nCorien wet his fingers and pinched the wick of twisted hemp. In the bloom of utter dark Antsy waited for his vision to adjust. Eventually the faint blue glow returned and the walls and his companions slowly emerged from the gloom as if wavering into existence. He raised his hands to the Darujhistani aristocrat, who nodded his affirmation.\n\nOrchid came up. \"Now?\" she whispered.\n\nHe motioned a negative. \"Let's give it awhile. Maybe they'll think we're sleeping. '\n\nShe was standing so close her thick mane of black hair brushed his ear, sending a shiver down his frame. He suddenly became very aware of the warmth of her body so close. The smell of her sweat was a pleasure to him. It reminded him of some rare spice. He turned his face away, clearing his throat. Ye gods, man. Get a grip.\n\n\"So,\" he began, his voice thick and hoarse, \"Morn thought you part Andii. What do you think?\"\n\nHer dark eyes sought his but he resolutely kept them on the hall. \"It feels right. I guess I'd never thought about it until he said it. It explains a lot of things. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He leaned back against the side of the portal. \"Never thought about it? Who raised you, then?\"\n\n\"I grew up in what I know now was some sort of temple, or religious community. The priests and priestesses were my parents and teachers. I never left it. As I grew older I explored a bit and found that the temple was on an island. Avery small island. After that I suppose I just contented myself with learning about the world through the stories and texts in the temple. That and my teachers.\"\n\n\"Who taught you the Andii tongue, and their letters.\"\n\n\"And their literature and legends and mythology.\"\n\n\"That didn't make you wonder? '\n\nShe cocked her head aside in the darkness, considering. \"No. Should it have? I just thought it was normal. I thought everyone learned these things. There was nothing to compare it to. Now, I know that must have been a temple to Elder Dark.\" She shook her head, a regretful smile at her lips. \"I'm not the first to discover that most of what I've been taught was either wrong, irrelevant, or insane.\"\n\nAntsy nodded at that. Yeah. Parents and family work their craziness too. Gods, just look at Spindle.\n\n\"There's more, of course, \"she continued, sounding puzzled.\"Other strange things that I still can't understand. I seem to remember...\" She shifted, uneasy.\n\n\"You don't have to goon, \"Antsy murmured, keeping his gaze fixed on the dark hall.\"I understand. But maybe I can help you sort through it. '\n\nShe let out a steadying breath, her lips clenched, then nodded. \"I had many teachers. They seemed to come and go.\"\n\n\"Uh-huh. And this is strange?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Antsy... They were young when they came and when they left... they were old.\"\n\nHe forced himself to swallow to wet his suddenly dry throat. \"Ah. That is strange. You sure...?\"\n\n\"Yes. And I seem to remember it happening many times.\"\n\nAntsy let out a sound as if thinking that through. Queen release me! When will I learn to keep my damned mouth shut? \"Well... Andii are long-lived, right? There you go.\" Hood! This \"child\" is probably more than twice my age! What's shebeen learning all that time?\"Listen. Maybe that's enough for-\"\n\nThe jarring clanging of metal on metal blasted through the Spawn's steady background noise of groans and clatterings. Corien leapt to his feet. Shouts sounded up the hall and quite a few screams as well. A figure stepped into the hall, shouted:\"C'mon, you lot! It's the alarm. Let's go!\"\n\nTheir watcher. Antsy nodded to Orchid. \"Put a darkness herein the hall.\"\n\nShe shut her eyes, murmuring, and all the faint glow of distant lights disappeared. The man peered about, panicked. \"What in the Abyss...\"\n\nAntsy made for him. The fellow heard his approach and went for his sword but he was obviously blind, so Antsy kicked him in the groin then kneed him in the face, shattering the cartilage of his nose and possibly killing him. He took the man's weapons while he lay stunned.\n\n\"Which way?\" he called to Orchid. She pointed up the other way. He gave the sword to Corien, kept a fighting dirk. \"I'll lead. Corien, watch the rear. '\n\nAs they traced halls and turned corners, it came to him that Orchid was attempting to lead them round the settlement. He was happy with that because occasional blasts and screams reached them from whatever was going on over atone side of the complex. But as Orchid took longer and longer to choose directions the noise steadily became louder with each length of empty hall or chamber traversed and the yellow glow of lanterns and lamps thickened. By the time she came to a full halt in a narrow chamber whose only other exit was an open portal, he could make out the thumping release of crossbows, the ringing of iron from stone, shouts, and, above all, an argument of some sort between a high strident harridan's voice and a much lower, deeper and fainter man's voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is not the way!\" the woman screeched.\n\n\"Let us hear what our guide has to say,\" the man murmured.\n\n\"Fire!\" a voice bellowed, Otan's, then a volley of crossbows released, the bolts clattering from stone.\n\n\"Aiya!\" the woman yelled. \"Who are these wretches?\"\n\n\"Indigenes? Perhaps?\"\n\n\"Indigenes? Are you brainless? These are not Andii!\"\n\n\"Yet strictly speaking... are they not the new residents here?\"\n\nWhat in the name of Oponn...? Antsy edged forward to peer round the lip of the opening. What was this? The portal gave access to a large hall, what seemed a main boulevard faced by many building fronts carved from the stone of the Spawn. Bodies lay scattered among wreckage across the floor. Lanterns lay fallen, spilled oil burning to send up clouds of black smoke that obscured the high ceiling.\n\nTwo figures faced each other in the centre of the hall. One, the old woman, wore an eye-watering costume of all shades of red, complete with a headdress of fluttering crimson ribbons, and what appeared to be carmine gloves on her hands. The other was a short round ball of a man, bland-faced, in layered dark robes, his hands clasped across his broad front as if to hold it in from bursting.\n\nSo amazed by these two was Antsy that he failed to notice a third figure scuttling up the hall. The fellow was staring at him, his eyes huge and his mouth open in his own incredulity. \"Kill that man!\" the skinny youth howled, pointing.\n\nAntsy flinched– and met the glaring eyes of the young thief from Hurly. Great Burn! What was that fool's name? Jallin! Yes, that's right." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lad ran to the squabbling pair, still pointing. \"Kill him, mistress!\"\n\nThe woman took a swipe at him that he ducked. \"Shut up, fool. Does the way goon?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the youth snarled.\n\nArmour clattering announced another file of crossbowmen led by Otan crossing the hall.\n\nGotta give the man credit for guts.\n\n\"Hesta...\" the fat man murmured.\n\nThe woman threw her hands in the air. \"Oh, cursed gods above! More of them?\"\n\nShe lowered her arms, palms out. Orchid yanked on the back of Antsy's armour.\"Down! ' she hissed. Like an upended forge, flames came billowing up the wide boulevard. Men and women screamed, reduced to dark shapes consumed by the churning yellow and orange.\n\nA furnace's searing heat crackled at Antsy's arms, which he had thrown up to protect his head, and then with a redoubled avalanche roar the radiance disappeared, leaving him blinking, momentarily blinded. The cackle of the youth sounded in the sudden silence, followed by a slap that cut it off. \"Show us!\" the woman commanded.\n\n\"Perhaps they merely wished to talk,\" the man's voice reached them, retreating.\n\n\"Oh, shut up!\"\n\nAntsy dared raise his head. Flames lit a scene out of Hood's own realm. Burning corpses and furnishings sent smoke curling up into the thickening miasma choking the air. He didn't like the way it just hung there. No outlet.\n\nOrchid was crushing the burnt ends of her frazzled hair. \"I'm sorry, Antsy, ' she said, sounding miserable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sorry for what?\"\n\nShe raised her soot-smeared chin to the boulevard. \"That's the way up. '\n\nSomehow I knew she was going to say that.\n\nBendan gave his name to everyone in the Malazan camp as \"Butcher\". His own squad didn't use it anymore now that they'd reached the main rendezvous south-west of Dhavran. They'd used it fora while after that last engagement and during the march, and it had been among the happiest times of his life. It even rivalled the feeling of belonging and safety he'd known among his peers in the mud ways and alleys of Maiten town. He'd revelled in it those few years alongside his brothers and sisters, jumping rival gangs and cleaning out anyone not a local and foolish enough to wander into their territory. He'd felt untouchable then, utterly secure. Wanted and appreciated. Valued, even, it seemed to him now, looking back. He'd gone from worthless to valued. When they'd all been together on the street they could stomp on anyone's face and no one dared say anything! He remembered how Biter and Short Legs had held one kid down and invited him to lay in. And he'd kicked and kicked on and on until the kid coughed up an explosion of blood and never moved anymore. How they'd all laughed! Good times then.\n\nNow when I say \"Butcher's the name'I just get funny looks. Even outright laughs. What's wrong with everyone? There's a guy in the 10th named'Rabbit. \"What kinda name's that fora soldier?\n\nHis squad spent the days digging a big-arse ditch to surround the new fort. Other squads were dragging logs from the nearest woods, raising a palisade. It was a damned crowded camp: all the remnants of the Second, Fifth and Sixth from Pale all jammed together on one round hilltop surrounded by a deep ditch that put the top of the palisade logs a good three man-heights above the head of any attacker. And on top of that Fist Steppen had them sharpening a forest of stakes to set leaning out like the quills on one of them mythical spiny lizards." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was gettin'so troops were starting to call her'Scaredy-Step\". Bendan just called her a dumb-arse granma hiding behind her walls when everyone knew the way to win was to go break heads. He had said as much to his squaddies and Corporal Little had comeback with some watery talk about how winning was control of ground, not battles. Ground? He understood that. In Maiten town he and his brothers and sisters had had theirs– and defending it meant fighting! You had to be out there everyday showing those rivals you were strong and so crazy-arse violent they'd better leave you alone. That he knew and understood.\n\nThen Corporal Little had said something really loopy. She said that the best way to win was not to have to fight at all! How the fuck was that possible? You had to fight to win. You had to tear the head off the other guy– otherwise it was you without ahead! He was starting to suspect that maybe Little was some kinda gutless woman hiding behind her fancy book-learned ideas.\n\nNot to mention how she slapped his hand away when he grabbed her tit. Imagine that? Turning him down? Back in Maiten town every girl he cornered went along with it in the end. All it took was a little playful arm-twisting– not like he was gonna really hurt them. This corporal must prefer women, not like a proper gal at all.\n\nThen orders came fora march west. Minimal gear. The squads formed up, including his, thank the gods! And they were off even though it was near dusk. Rumours flew up and down the column as they trotted along. Some of theirs under attack, apparently.\n\nThey jogged through half the night until they came over the rise of a gentle valley slope and there before them, under the bright starlight and emerald glare of the Scimitar, churned a horde of horsemen all circling a dark knot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sergeant Hektar slapped him on the back as they headed down without a pause. \"Now there's action, hey, Butcher? '\n\n\"But look how fucking many there are!\"\n\nThe big black fellow made a face. \"Naw– that's just an advance force. Just a few thousand. Enough for you to butcher, hey? '\n\n\"Well... yeah,\" he answered as they picked up their pace. I suppose so... but why? Just to rescue a few troopers stupid enough to get caught out in the open? What a dumb waste.\n\n\"Ready shields!\" came the order.\n\nBendan struggled with his big rectangular burden as he trotted along.\n\n\"Form square!\"\n\nThe column thickened and slowed to a steady march. And just in time, as elements of the cavalry swung off to encircle them.\n\n\"Halt!\"\n\nOnce the manoeuvring was done Bendan's squad was far back from the front rank. They would wait for their turn to cycle through to the shield wall. Dust blew up, obscuring his view beyond the square. Riders, men and women– Rhivi, he recognized– circled them, firing their short-bows and hurling javelins.\n\nWhat's gotten them all riled up?\n\nThen the frantic call came: \"Merge! Merge!\" and the square shuddered, shields scraping shields. Everyone shifted position as men and women came surging into the centre, many supporting others or even carrying them over their backs. All grimed and dirt-smeared, battered, and gulping down air.\n\nUseless bastards. Gonna get killed \"cause of you. Hope you're happy.\n\nBeing near the centre he saw the captain commanding the column salute some beat-up burly fellow and heads around him craned, gawking, and people whispered: \"K'ess. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So who's this K'ess?\" he asked Bone next to him.\n\nThe man gave him one of those funny looks as he struggled to keep his shield overhead. \"Served on Onearm's staff. Putin charge of Pale when the Host headed south. Now he's in charge of this whole mess. Other than the Ambassador, o\" course. '\n\nShit! And we had to rescue him? Piss-poor start if you ask me.\n\nOrders to reverse sounded and they turned to face the way they'd come. Then started the inevitable grinding march back. Bendan's squad cycled through to a turn in the shield wall. The Rhivi circled past, whooping and shouting and throwing their slim javelins. He watched from over the lip of his shield, fuming. \"Why don't the order come to rush \"em?\" he demanded. \"We're just hidin'here behind our shields like cowards!\"\n\n\"Be my guest!\" Bone laughed, and he hawked up a mouthful of all the dust they'd been swallowing.\n\n\"Hey, Tarat!\" Bendan shouted to their squad scout. \"Them's your people out there, ain't they?\"\n\n\"Just bone-headed fools tiring their horses for no good reason,\" she commented, sour.\n\n\"Looks like they're havin'fun,\" Hektar said, a wide smile on his face.\n\n\"What're you smiling about? ' Bendan snapped.\n\nThe big man turned his bright teeth on him. \"I'm smilin\"\"cause I see we got nothin'to worry about from these Rhivi. Another day's soldierin'under the belt, lads!\" he added.\n\nLaughter all around answered that.\n\nWhat was with these fools? Why were they laughing? Couldn't they see that one of these arrows or javelins could easily take any of them?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sun was just topping hills to the east when their slogging retreat brought them within sight of the fort. The shield on Bendan's arm seemed to weigh as much as a horse itself. His arm was screaming and numb all at the same time. Dust coated his mouth and he was stumbling on his feet. Horns sounded then, pealing from behind the palisade as if welcoming the sun, and from all around, amid the fields of tall grass, crossbow ranks rose as if sprouting from the ground. The circling Rhivi flinched aside, their cartwheeling attack broken as wings of the cavalry swung to either side. Orders were shouted and salvos of bolts shot to either side of their square. Men and women in the formation shouted and bashed their shields, sending the Rhivi on.\n\nBendan rested his bronze-faced shield on the ground. Gods almighty! It was about Burn-damned time. What a useless errand! They'd been safe in the fort– why should they have to stick their necks out for these fools? And all they did was hide behind their shields. They didn't kick anyone's head!\n\nNew clarion calls sounded from the fort. The men and women around Bendan searched the horizons. Sergeant Hektar, one of the tallest of them all, grunted as he peered to the west.\n\n\"What is it?\" Bendan demanded.\n\n\"Company. They almost succeeded.\"\n\n\"Who succeeded? At what? What d'you mean? '\n\nA woman's voice bellowed astonishingly loud from within the square:\"To the fort! Double-time! Move out! '\n\nThe entire detachment immediately set off, jogging swiftly. Troopers ran carrying others on their backs, or supporting wounded between them.\n\nThen thunder reached Bendan. Thunder on a mostly clear dawn. He squinted back over his shoulder to see a dark tide flowing over the distant hills. A flood that seemed to extend from horizon to horizon. Dead god's bones! Thousands upon thousands of the bastards!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He heeled and toed it even faster for the cover of the fort.\n\nKrute heard first-hand from many in the guild the doubts raised by the arrival of these Seguleh. Their prowess was said to be unsurpassed. And perhaps it was. But he was now in agreement with Grand Master Seba. The guild in the recent past seemed to have lost its way. They were assassins. Their art was concealment and murder. To have to fight meant one had failed already. Rallick's unsanctioned storied feats of the past seemed to have convinced some that fighting ability actually had something to do with murdering people. The unromantic and ugly truth was that it really didn't.\n\nMuch as he admired Rallick– and was saddened by his betrayal– he thought the man had done this one disservice to the guild. In his opinion the best assassination was the one no one even suspected. And Rallick had succeeded in that requirement when he hid the act behind the façade of a duel. But most seemed to have misread that moment. Dazzled by the romanticism of the confrontation, they'd taken away the wrong lesson. The real lesson was not his prowess with his chosen weapons, but rather the stratagem of hitting upon one fatal weakness to reach the target, in that case the latter's overconfidence and bloated pride.\n\nAnd in this case he believed they'd found the correct weakness as well. Surrounded by these Seguleh the Legate seemed to consider himself invulnerable. He slept entirely unguarded in a small chamber behind the Great Hall, or the'throne room', as it was now officially known. Word from informants within the Wardens was that the Legate had even gone so far as to forbid anyone from entering the throne room at night, Seguleh or otherwise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Squatting on his haunches on the roof of that selfsame hall, Krute looked to the three guild talents accompanying him as team leader. Hardly qualifying for the title mage, these two lads and one lass did have some small abilities in sensing the presence of Warren magics and powers. They nodded their approval and so Krute signed the all clear to the team assembled on the roof. These six tossed their hair-thin lines down the open windows and rappelled down. They would execute the target within and return in a matter of minutes– should all go as planned.\n\nHe glanced back to the three guild talents. The youths exchanged looks. One pressed a hand to the roof. The second raised her face to the gusting warm wind as if sniffing for scent. The third held his hands cupped close to one eye. Krute knew that in his hands the lad held four night bugs, the sort of flying insects that light up. What do they do when a haunt's around? Dance a jig?\n\nThe wind was high this night. Thin feathery clouds did nothing to diminish the combined light from the reborn moon and the Scimitar. Light that was both a blessing and a curse, depending upon when you wanted it, and when you didn't. He studied the ropes again and saw all still slack. The sight made him uneasy. Should be climbing by now. He signed that he would go to investigate.\n\nCloser, he saw that one of the ropes was now taut. In fact it fairly vibrated under some immense strain. Ashe watched, it narrowed even further to the thickness of a reed; then, instantly, it was gone. Snapped. He heard a muted thump from below.\n\nDamn the fates! What was it? A hidden guard? Yet no alarm." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Take the role of the writer's aide, proceed with the narrative.\nTags: epic fantasy, ancient city, magic, power dynamics, hidden secrets\nAuthor: Ian Cameron Esslemont\nTitle: Orb Sceptre Throne\nChapter: 18" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Squatting on his haunches on the roof of that selfsame hall, Krute looked to the three guild talents accompanying him as team leader. Hardly qualifying for the title mage, these two lads and one lass did have some small abilities in sensing the presence of Warren magics and powers. They nodded their approval and so Krute signed the all clear to the team assembled on the roof. These six tossed their hair-thin lines down the open windows and rappelled down. They would execute the target within and return in a matter of minutes– should all go as planned.\n\nHe glanced back to the three guild talents. The youths exchanged looks. One pressed a hand to the roof. The second raised her face to the gusting warm wind as if sniffing for scent. The third held his hands cupped close to one eye. Krute knew that in his hands the lad held four night bugs, the sort of flying insects that light up. What do they do when a haunt's around? Dance a jig?\n\nThe wind was high this night. Thin feathery clouds did nothing to diminish the combined light from the reborn moon and the Scimitar. Light that was both a blessing and a curse, depending upon when you wanted it, and when you didn't. He studied the ropes again and saw all still slack. The sight made him uneasy. Should be climbing by now. He signed that he would go to investigate.\n\nCloser, he saw that one of the ropes was now taut. In fact it fairly vibrated under some immense strain. Ashe watched, it narrowed even further to the thickness of a reed; then, instantly, it was gone. Snapped. He heard a muted thump from below.\n\nDamn the fates! What was it? A hidden guard? Yet no alarm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He clambered down to the window to peer in. The interior was as black as a cloudy night. But far below, in the shafting silver and jade light, he made out a figure climbing to its feet, cloaked. Ashe peered down, straining to see, the figure raised its face to him and revealed the bright pale oval of the mask of the Legate.\n\nKrute was a hard man in a hard calling but even he felt a preternatural dread at the sight of that graven half-smile– hinting at so many uncanny secrets– and a hand beckoning him down. He scuttled backup the rope, his flesh cold. Ye gods, spare him... what were they facing here?\n\nCrouched, the wind snapping his cloak, he ran along the centre line back to the jumbled tiled slopes of the Majesty Hall roof. Where not one sign remained of the three guild practitioners.\n\nTogg take it!\n\nThen the instinct of decades of stalking and striking screamed at him and he threw himself flat, rolling.\n\nTwin blades hissed through the air and he stared, astonished, at a young girl snarling down at him, her clothes no more than diaphanous wind-whipped scarves. She raised the blades again only to jerk aside, howling, grasping at a crossbow bolt now standing from her side. She staggered, then tumbled down the sloped tiled roof and disappeared from sight.\n\nA fist at his collar yanked Krute: Rallick. The man threw his crossbow aside, drew his twinned curved blades. \"She'll be back– or another. Go now. Run. ' He shouldered Krute back.\n\n\"That's not Vorcan... ' the assassin managed, still stunned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No. Goon.\" The man pushed him onto the maze of canted roofs. \"Run.\"\n\nKrute needed no further urging.\n\nRallick slipped into the cover of a gable that offered a view of the throne-room roof and squatted, arms over his knees, curved knives pointed out, ready.\n\nA band of low clouds driven off the lake came wafting across the long scar in the night sky that was the Banner– what he'd once heard Vorcan call the Strangers. In the rippling light the rooftop was empty, then in the next instant a figure stood tall right before him, staff planted and leather shoes poking out from under thick layered robes.\n\nRallick slowly straightened to stand before the man who had employed him for years, who had healed his broken bones and brought him back from near death. High Alchemist Baruk. He struck a ready stance, blades raised, one foot back. \"Baruk.\"\n\n\"Barukanal, now,\" the man grated. \"Do not make the mistake of forgetting that.\" His hands were white fists upon the staff. The scars that traced his face like a tangled net darkened now as blood pounded behind the man's features. The wind snagged his long unbound iron-grey hair.\"I am sent to find assassins who have made an attempt upon the Legate, \"he said, his voice whip-tight.\"You haven't... by any chance... seen them. Have you?\"\n\nRallick edged his weapons down. He cleared his throat and straightened, almost believing himself dreaming. Ina voice full of wonder he managed, \"I saw some men running to the east. They looked suspicious.\"\n\n\"Thank you, citizen. Tell me... have you also seen the new construction encircling the hill?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In fact I have.\" Rallick noted with alarm that the flesh upon the man's face and neck was cracking and smoking along the fault lines of the scars. Baruk's frame shuddered and he staggered aside as if yanked. He spoke, grinding out every word as if each were a droplet of agony: \"There is a man in the city, a Malazan... He may have a unique insight into its... peculiar... qualities...\"\n\n\"I will ask around,\" Rallick assured him. Then, sheathing his knives, he could not help reaching out to the tortured figure. \"Baruk... tell me... what can I-\"\n\n\"No!\" The staff snapped up and the man staggered backwards. \"Stay away!\" Turning, he flung himself from the roof, robes flapping, and disappeared.\n\nRallick leaned over the edge but saw no sign of him. Then, hunching, he ran as fast as he dared across the forest of mismatched tiled roofs.\n\nMoments after Rallick left the roof the wavering commingled olive and silver light of the night revealed another figure that uncurled itself from a window to stand, stretching. The man wore a cloak that shone almost emerald in the light. He tapped one gloved finger to his pursed lips and whispered aloud, \"Again, some go in... yet none come out. The lesson being...\" he held up his gloved hands and examined them as if the answer were written there, \"don't go in. '\n\nHe clasped his hands behind his back and set off, whistling soundlessly, tracing more or less the route taken by the ex-assassin.\n\nWhen Rallick judged it safe to return to the Phoenix Inn he walked straight to the old table and sat facing the door in the seat where Kruppe usually held court. Rather disconcertingly, the empty seat was already warm and he was thinking of shifting to another chair when Sulty thumped down a tankard of beer, gave him a wink, and moved onto serve the rest of the crowd. Rallick pushed back his seat, held the tankard in both hands before him, and studied that crowd." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Guarded optimism he judged the mood. People seemed to think that things would get better now that the Seguleh had arrived to guard the city. Rumours were that the Legate had somehow contracted to have them come. Never mind the utter impossibility of such a notion to anyone who knew the least shred about those people. And to guard the city against whom? The Malazans? They hadn't the troops to pacify the city in the first place. That left... who? No one he could think of. The city was without threats, as it had been for decades before the arrival of the Seguleh. And so the disconcerting thought: what were they here for?\n\nHis roving eye caught a man watching him from the bar. A tall, very dark foreigner, all in green. Ina gesture like a mockery of some conspirator, the fellow offered him an exaggerated wink and shifted his gaze to the rear. As usual Rallick chose to reveal no hint of his mood– which was one of extreme annoyance– and he got up to push out through the crowd to the backdoor.\n\nHe waited leaning against a wall, arms crossed, hands on the grips of his knives. The stranger ambled out after a moment, hands clasped behind his back. \"What do you want?\" Rallick said, trying to keep his voice as flat as possible.\n\nThe man held up his gloved hands, a smirk at his lips. \"Parley, as they say.\"\n\n\"Claw?\"\n\nThe fellow merely shrugged.\n\n\"Say your piece.\"\n\nThe man waved a hand in an airy manner and Rallick clamped down even harder on his irritation. \"Oh... a pooling of intelligence and a uniting of efforts.\"\n\n\"I'm not with the guild. You got the wrong man. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A smile from the man– the kind of crazy grin that Rallick had known from some as an affectation of unpredictable menace. But he now saw with a tensing of chilling certainty that from this fellow the pose was utterly genuine. Avery dangerous sort– the kind who truly just doesn't give a damn.\"The guild, such as it is, doesn't interest me. But you do.\"\n\n\"How so?\"\n\nThe man leaned up against the opposite alley wall, which put him in the light of the Scimitar. He grimaced and held up a hand in the light. \"You know, there are those around the world right now who go out at night carrying parasols so that the unnatural light of our Visitor doesn't reach them. They claim it corrupts all it touches. '\n\n\"Then everything's corrupted. '\n\n\"Indeed. We are all of us slowly rotting until we fall dead.\"\n\n\"Is that your message? Sounds like something from a street prophet of the Broken God.\"\n\nThe man let his hand fall, frowned his exaggerated thoughtfulness. \"Indeed? I suppose so. But no. That is not my message. My point is that we have intelligence mentioning'the Eel\". And in that intelligence this very inn features rather prominently. And here you are. What say you to that?\"\n\nGreat Burn! Does this man think I'm the Eel? No– he must be fishing. Ha! Fishing for the Eel. Have to remember that one. But then if I told him who I thought maybe was the Eel he'd have a good laugh. No– he's just trying to provoke a reaction.\n\nRallick turned his face away to study the empty street and the rats waddling down the centre gutter. \"That's not much of a point. ' His peripheral vision caught his reward in a first betrayal of temper from the man as his mouth tightened to a slit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are being deliberately difficult. Well, I blame myself. Ought to have expected it. We are both victims of our calling, yes? Neither of us willing to place our cards on the table. So be it– for now. If you should wish to exchange intelligence, then look to reach me through K'rul's bar.\"\n\nRallick eyed the man, puzzled. \"K'rul's bar? You mean the old temple to K'rul? '\n\n\"Yes. K'rul's Bar and Temple.\" The man tilted his head in farewell and ambled off up the street.\n\nThere he goes. Yet another rat on the street.\n\nThere's a bar at K'rul's temple? Since when?\n\nA knock brought Barathol to the door. Little Chaur was down for the night and Scillara was in bed, sent off by that one evening pipe she allowed herself to \"ease the nerves\". He'd taken the pipe from her hand as he did every night, and pulled up the blanket.\n\nHe was downstairs making a meal when the knock came. He opened the door to find one of the Majesty Hall clerks, now known as court officials, awaiting him with hands tucked into his robes and an oddly arrogant and impatient angle to his head.\n\n\"What?\" Barathol asked, his own mood not improved by the youth's superior airs.\n\n\"You are summoned to the installation. Immediately.\"\n\nHe half turned away. \"In a minute. I'm just making a meal. '\n\n\"Immediately,\" the young man repeated, emphasizing each syllable. Lifting his head he directed Barathol's attention to his companions. Barathol peered out to see two Seguleh standing on the road, masked, swords at their hips.\n\nAh. So that's how it is. The new cock of the roost. So be it. No business of mine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He gave the clerk a slow nod. \"Very well. I'll get my gear. '\n\nBarathol watched the faces of the passers-by as the little party walked the streets. At first there'd been jubilation. The average citizen now thought himself unassailable. Now, as the Seguleh went abroad to enforce the Legate's will it seemed to him that a few people had finally– belatedly– begun to wonder. Just who did these swordsmen protect the city from? They limited themselves to guarding within the walls, atop Majesty Hill, and in the throne room itself. Protecting the ruler from... whom? Well, to his mind, from the ruled, of course. Perhaps this mounting suspicion was behind the worried, even pitying, glances that followed him. Could I be next? some seemed to wonder.\n\nThe worksite was guarded by four Seguleh. Ducking into the tent Barathol found the two mages already present, awaiting him impatiently. \"Begin at once,\" the tall one, Barukanal, commanded, motioning to the forge with his staff. Barathol rolled down his sleeves and donned his thick leather apron.\n\nAnd who were these two anyway? Advisers? Hirelings? Surely not servants, as some believed. Yet why should such obviously powerful mages advise a mere Darujhistani aristocrat, mask or not? Unless, as others hinted, dark pacts were sealed, deals struck, and powers granted. To Barathol's mind these more ominous speculations ran closer to whatever might be the truth of things.\n\nHe took over at the bellows from the worker who was prepping the coals. After pumping, he picked up a bar to stir the bed, testing the heat by holding his handover the glowing pile.\n\n\"This is your last pour,\" the hunched mage told him from the entrance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Barathol eyed the man's warped puzzle-piece face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A warning?\n\n\"I go now to deal with those fools at K'rul's,\" the hunched one told Barukanal.\n\n\"I will finish things here,\" Barukanal answered.\n\nBarathol straightened from the forge. K'rul's? The Malazans? How to warn them? And finish things here? What did he mean by that?\n\nBoth now watched him, their eyes glittering in the glow of the forge. \"Get back to work,\" the hunched one, Aman, told him and ducked from the tent.\n\nBarathol reluctantly turned to nurturing the bed. Well, if anyone could handle themselves, it was those Bridgeburners. They hardly needed his help. He thought of that chaotic night not so many months ago. Antsy guiding him and his friend, poor dying Chaur, to that eerie structure on Coll's estate. Do I not owe him more than I can ever repay?\n\nHe turned from the forge, wiping the sweat from his face. \"I'm going fora bite, \"he announced.\"The bed needs to heat yet. '\n\nThe mage did not move from the entrance. He leaned on his tall warped staff. \"You will remain until the pour is done. Such are my orders.\"\n\n\"There is nothing I can do here fora while.\"\n\nA grimace twisted the mage's face and he said, his voice tight and impatient with something that might have been pain,\"The blacksmith's sand awaits. I believe you have a mould to form?\"\n\nBarathol regarded the table, turned aside. \"If I must.\" Well, I tried. After that blast they must know what to expect anyway.\n\nAfter packing and setting the mould and checking the bed's heat again, he set the ceramic crucible into the coals and heaped them up around it. The bits and pieces of silver went in next. Barukanal crowded his elbow through the entire process." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As the silver melted Barathol skimmed the slag of impurities from the top." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was hardly demanding work. The mould was uncomplicated, open-faced. Not like a lost-wax pour where so many little things could go wrong.\n\nOutside in the night the picks and shovels had gone silent. The stones were set and ready for their pins.\n\nOnce the liquid silver reached the mark scratched into the glowing wall of the crucible, Barathol readied the bars he would use to lift and tilt the vessel. At that moment the mage's hand shot out like a viper to grasp his wrist. He pulled against the grip but couldn't free himself. And Barathol was a strongman; among the strongest. Not even Kalam could beat him.\n\nThe mage's other hand came up with a short wicked blade.\"Blood from the forger of the links, \"he whispered, close.\"Such will strengthen the circle immeasurably. '\n\nBarathol raised the bars to smash the man across the head but the mage clenched his grip ferociously and he groaned from the agony of the grinding bones. Ye gods, this creature could pinch my hand off like a petal!\n\nThe mage slashed the blade across Barathol's numb wrist then held the wound over the crucible. Drops fell hissing and dancing.\n\n\"Do not be upset,\" the creature murmured. \"Aman would have taken the offering from your throat.\" He released him and moved to one side. \"Now pour. Quickly.\"\n\nWorking his hand, Barathol readied the bars. He pinched the crucible between their jaws. Grunting, he lifted the vessel and swung it to where the moulds waited. He poured until the level of the first swelled just above the lip of the mould, where surface tension kept it from spilling, then moved to the second." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Finished, Barathol set the crucible on its stand to cool and stood back to wipe the sweat from his face. Blood dripped freely from his wrist. He washed his hands in the quenching water.\n\nFrom where he was bent over the smoking moulds, the mage said, \"Go now. Do not return. Your work is done.\"\n\nBarathol merely grunted. He wrapped his wounded wrist in a rag then pushed his way from the tent. In the trench the final two white stones waited end to end. The tips of the installation coming together to form one perfect infinite circle. Briefly Barathol wondered what this structure might be meant to enclose or foreclose. Was it to keep inviolate what lay within? Or was it to keep ineffective that which lay without?\n\nNo matter. It was no longer his concern. If it came to it he could simply do as Scillara suggested and pack up the family to go. He turned away, flexing his wrist. He'd had enough of all this. His concern now was just the small circle of his family.\n\nThe uncomfortable echoes within that thought haunted him all the way down the hill.\n\n\n\nLady Envy was with her maid and dressmaker when a servant announced, \"Someone at the door, m'lady. '\n\nArms held outstretched, the dressmaker measuring a length of cloth against one, her maid's hands in her freshly washed hair, Lady Envy stared at the man.\"Well– answer it, you great oaf! '\n\nThe servant bowed from the waist and shuffled backwards, head lowered.\n\nHe returned accompanied by three Seguleh.\n\nLady Envy beamed. She drew her dressing gown tighter about her and shooed away her servants. The three remained immobile, tensed, hands close to their weapons, their attention everywhere but on her. Envy crossed the room, a hand at her lips. \"How very thoughtful of Lim!\" she exclaimed. \"Three new ones! The old ones had become rather battered.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One turned her– her! What a disappointment! – mask to give Envy a superior glance. Haughtiness? Was that haughtiness being turned upon me?\n\n\"We have been warned against you, Envy,\" the Seguleh woman said. \"Your enchantments hold no more power over us. The Second has knelt and we are bound by links far stronger than any you can forge.\"\n\nEnvy fiddled at the knot of her gown. \"What nonsense is this? Links?\"\n\n\"Where is he, sorceress?\"\n\nEnvy seemed to have just discovered her wet hair; she began twining the length. \"I'm sorry... where is who? '\n\n\"The renegade. We know he is with you. Where is he?\"\n\n\"Renegade? Whatever are you-\" But the three turned aside, dismissing her.\n\nOh really, this is too much!\n\nThurule had entered. The three fanned out, facing him. The one who had spoken made a small gesture with her left hand, turning it palm up as if in interrogation. Thurule's masked face seemed to drop ever so slightly. Perhaps it was the light, but it appeared as if his dark eyes behind the mask were blinking rapidly.\n\n\"Choose!\" the woman commanded.\n\nCarefully, Thurule raised a hand to his mask and peeled it away. The face revealed beneath appeared surprisingly youthful. He released the mask to let it fall before him then raised his sandalled foot and pressed down upon it. The mask shattered into powder and painted shards. His own face seemed to splinter in the act.\n\nCeramic, Envy marvelled. They are ceramic.\n\nThe three Seguleh relaxed, hands easing slightly from their weapons. Without a word they turned and left." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Envy crossed her arms and regarded Thurule. \"Well,\" she said. \"Whatever am Ito do with you now?\"\n\n\"Whatever you wish,\" the man said, speaking the first words she had heard from him in perhaps a year. He wouldn't raise his gaze from the fragments littering the polished floor.\n\nShe hugged her chilled shoulders. \"Well... you have rather lost that certain mysterious cachet I kept you for, I must say.\" She bit at a finger with perfect white teeth. \"I'm going to have to let you go, Thurule. '\n\nThe man's brows clenched as he bowed.\"I understand. I am unworthy. '\n\nOh, Dark Mother! Please! She turned away, snapping her fingers. \"Palley! Where are you? My hair is drying! The court awaits me!\"\n\nHer maid rushed back into the room. When Envy glanced back the man was gone. Thank the false gods! Really. How positively embarrassing.\n\n\n\nMadrun and Lazan Door were tossing dice against the steps of Lady Varada's estate house when four masked Seguleh entered the compound. The two shared knowing looks as Lazan scooped up the dice.\n\n\"Our taciturn kin approach,\" Madrun rumbled. \"Perhaps we too should remain silent as well. We could stare atone another till the gods pack up the world and return from whence they came.\"\n\n\"And these would yet remain none the wiser,\" Lazan answered. \"No, reflections of themselves these understand all too well.\" They straightened to meet the arrivals, the giant Madrun in his clashing patchwork clothes looming overall. \"You are bold burglars, sirs,\" Lazan greeted them.\n\n\"You two are known to us,\" one said. \"Cause no trouble and you may remain.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is of no help,\" Madrun complained to Lazar. \"Trouble has so many facets.\"\n\n\"Stand aside. We are hereto search the premises.\"\n\n\"Does doing our job constitute trouble?\" Lazar enquired, smiling, revealing his silver-tipped gold teeth.\n\nThe four spread out. The spokesman stepped forward. Olive green dominated the swirls painted upon his mask. From the pattern Madrun and Lazan Door knew him to be of the Four Hundredth. \"I shall enter,\" he said calmly. \"If you interfere my companions will act. Is this clear enough even for you?\"\n\nMadrun raised his hand. \"A moment, please. If you would. Am Ito understand, then, that you mean to enter while your companions wait, poised, in case we should attempt to stop you? Is that what you are trying to explain?\"\n\nThe spokesman remained silent for sometime. From behind his mask his gaze stabbed between the two, blazing. He drew breath to speak again, reconsidered, and clamped his jaws against it. His hand went to his sword.\n\n\"Gentlemen and lady...\" a sibilant voice quavered from the doorway, \"may I direct your attention to what I have here?\"\n\nAll turned to face the doorway where Studious Lock floated amid his gauzy layers of tattered wrap. He held in one rag-covered hand a glass sphere containing a dark mist. \"Spores of the Even-tine fungus. Known as the Mind-gnawer among the clans of the northern Odhan. Inhaled, they germinate within, sending fibres stealing up into the brain and releasing pathogens that render the poor victim insane... before killing him... or her. My companions have of course been consuming an inoculating chemical regularly. I myself am immune for reasons I need not expound here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Inoculating chemical?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Madrun mouthed to Lazan.\n\n\"So, gentlemen... and lady,\" Studlock added, nodding to the female Seguleh, \"will you enter?\"\n\nThe spokesman eased his hand from his sword. \"We shall not press the matter now, Studious. But we shall return.\"\n\n\"Please do so. I look forward to expounding on yet another of my preparations. Or, perhaps, remaining silent and exploring the results in dissection. Always most edifying, that.\"\n\nThe spokesman bowed, keeping his eyes upon Madrun and Lazan, then backed away.\n\nOnce the four had left, the gazes of the two guards swung to Studlock. The giant Madrun's carried a degree of alarm. Lazan's held grudging approval. \"Well played,\" he murmured. \"That orb, I presume, holds nothing of the kind.\"\n\nStudious, who had been admiring the object, now blinked at Lazan from behind his gauzy mask. \"What's that? Nothing of the kind? Not at all. It holds precisely that. ' And he threw it down to shatter on the steps.\n\nBoth guards leapt from the vicinity.\n\nA good five paces off Madrun straightened his waistcoat and the billowing frilled shirt beneath it and cleared his throat. \"This inoculating chemical you mentioned, Studious. Its efficacy is beyond reproach, yes?\"\n\nThe castellan was examining the stone steps. \"What's that? \"He waved a wrapped hand.\"Oh, that. There is no known antidote. '\n\n\"No known...\" The gazes of the two guards met across the thirty feet between them. Lazan slapped his handover his nose and capped teeth.\n\n\"Well, that should be the end of them,\" Studlock announced, satisfied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"End of who?\" the giant Madrun fairly squeaked.\n\nThe castellan gazed at him, his masked head tilted. \"Why, the ants of course! What else? Even-tine spores affect only them.\" He floated back inside. \"Didn't I say that? '\n\nThe two regarded one another fora time in silence. Lazan eased out his long-held breath. He raised a hand and shook it, rattling the dice. \"The bones didn't see that, ' he commented.\n\nMadrun nodded in profound agreement. \"Yes. Spores. Much too small to be seen.\"\n\n\n\nThey took turns keeping watch at the ruined door to the bar. A barrier of a table and heaped chairs blocked it. A few of the regulars had banged on the table to be let in and Picker nearly speared one fellow who refused to believe the bar was actually closed and tried to climb in over the chairs.\n\nTwo days after the Seguleh entered town Blend was watching the street from a front window when she called out, \"Trouble!\"\n\nSpindle snatched up his makeshift spear and ran for the front. He peered out between the slats they'd hammered across the window: the hunched mage, Aman, across the way. With him were several Seguleh. Spindle glanced back over his shoulder. The historian sat at his usual place. Picker had run for the rear. The bard was out.\"Hood. We are so dead, ' he groaned.\n\nHe set aside the spear to pickup one of the readied crossbows. Blend did the same. \"Raise your Warren,\" she told him.\n\n\"My Warren's no use here. '\n\nBlend sent a scornful look from her window. \"Your Warren's never of any damned use. What about your other help? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was silent fora time, considering. Blend fired through the window. \"The next one won't miss! \"she bellowed.\"Stay away! '\n\nThe mage, or whatever he was, Aman, remained across the street, watching, while the Seguleh advanced. Duiker came to Spindle's side.\"I'm unarmed. Perhaps I could talk to them...\"\n\n\"You could try,\" Spindle told him; then, to Blend, \"My other help says we're not alone here. ' He was forced to fire on an advancing Seguleh. The woman knocked the bolt aside with her blade. Gods damn! From only twenty feet away, too.\n\n\"What are your terms?\" Duiker called from the scorched doorway.\n\n\"Your heads are my terms,\" the mage shouted back.\n\nA scream of surprise and terror sounded from the rear and Blend jumped. Picker? She threw down the crossbow and ran for the door to the pantry and kitchen. Duiker took her place, thrusting with a spear. He drew the haft back, surprised, to examine its cleanly severed end.\n\nAs Blend reached the door it was thrust open to reveal a Seguleh. She swung, her blade biting into the man's chest. He responded by grasping her arm and twisting. She buckled, hissing her pain and leaving the long-knife standing from the man's leather-armoured chest.\n\nSpindle stared, then sniffed the air. Vinegar? Blades hacked at the wooden slats behind him. \"Hey– it's them pickled fellows from downstairs! '\n\nPicker rushed out from behind the preserved Seguleh. She twisted its grip from Blend's wrist and it moved on, ignoring them. Spindle and Duiker retreated from the front where the living Seguleh were pushing back the barrier. They watched in disbelief as three more of the slow-walking, deliberate creatures emerged from the rear and took up defensive positions with the one Blend had stabbed: two at the front and two others holding the windows. The rest, Spindle assumed, were covering the back. At the entrance the two attacking Seguleh thrust and cut so beautifully he could only watch, awed. But their preserved– undead? – brethren, while slower, possessed the insurmountable advantage of already being dead. And so blades sliced into leathery hardened flesh to no visible effect and the attackers could make no headway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As the assault wore on it looked to Spindle as if their protectors would be literally hacked to pieces, so he went behind the bar to collect his kitbag. Then he jumped upon to a table in full view of the entrance, pulled out a wrapped object, shook off the layer of insulating cloth and held over his head his last remaining cusser. \"See this?\" he shouted.\n\nThe attacking Seguleh flinched back a step– they indeed recognized what he had.\n\n\"Don't press me! You come inhere, we all go together! Understand? '\n\n\"We won't just lay down our swords, y'damned fool,\" Picker yelled out of a window.\n\nDragging uneven steps sounded outside and the bent figure of the mage, Aman, appeared at the doorway. He pushed aside the two attacking Seguleh to study the frozen tableau first through one eye then through the other, much lower one; the Seguleh ready, weapons poised; their preserved undead fellows; Blend and Picker taking advantage of the lull to wind crossbows; Duiker already holding a loaded one; and Spindle, arms upraised.\n\n\"You wouldn't dare wreck this temple, ' Aman said.\n\n\"Temple?\" Spindle said in disbelief. \"This is a bar.\"\n\n\"A bar. You think this is a bar?\"\n\n\"It's our bar, \"Picker said.\"So we can blow it up if we want to. '\n\n\"Privilege of ownership,\" Blend added, spitting to one side.\n\nThe mage turned to Duiker. \"And what of you, historian? Are you prepared to die?\"\n\nDuiker levelled the crossbow on him. \"I've already died. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of the mage's mismatched eyes twitched and he frowned his acceptance of the point.\"I see. Well argued. For now, then. ' He waved the Seguleh back.\n\nOnce they were up the street Spindle couldn't help himself and he leaned out of the door to yell:\"Hey, you Seguleh boys. You heel real well. Do you rollover too? '\n\nIt seemed to him that the four with Aman all missed a step with that comment, and their backs straightened. But he couldn't be sure. He turned to the bar to find their preserved Seguleh guardians shuffling back downstairs. Everyone watched them go then lifted their heads to stare at him.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"You're not a proper saboteur, Spin, \"Picker said, and nodded to his hand.\"Could you put that away now? '\n\nHe saw that he was still cradling the cusser in one hand. \"This?\" He threw it up and caught it again to a collective gust of breaths from the other three. \"Aw, don't worry. It's a dud. Hollow.\"\n\nBlend reached up as if to throttle him. \"Well, you ought to let us know, dammit all to the Abyss!\"\n\n\"No. You shouldn't know. Don't you see? That would ruin the effect. They have to seethe fear in your eyes to know it's real, right? '\n\nPicker waved him away. \"Aw, shove it.\"\n\n\"Now is the time to gird one's loins for the labour ahead, \"the diminutive fat man murmured as he walked the mud lane between leaning shacks of waste-wood, felt and cloth. He wiped his gleaming mournful face with a sodden handkerchief.\"Yes indeed... the time has come to hitch up one's trousers and be a man! Or is it to pull them down and be a man? I never could get that straight... Oh dear, I really should stop right there!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He paused at an intersection of two lanes where a dog eyed him, growling. No hordes of unreasonably angry washerwomen armed with dirty laundry! Excellent. And the Maiten insight where come curling currents from the plain where fates move as they do– forward, misplacing things as they go.\n\nSeven dogs now surrounded him, muzzles down between forelimbs, lips pulled back from broken teeth.\n\nHoary old ones! Washerwomen preferable to this.\n\nHe drew a bone from one loose sleeve. \"Good doggies!\" He threw. Though not nearly so far as he would have wished. He turned and ran, or jogged, puffing, in the opposite direction.\n\nThe next two corners brought him to the hut on the extreme western edge of the shantytown where he stopped, short of breath, and wiped his face.\n\n\"And here he is panting in anticipation,\" the old woman sitting on the threshold observed around the pipe in her mouth.\n\n\"Indeed. Here I am yet again. Your ever hopeful suitor. Slave to your whim. Prostrate in inspiration.\"\n\n\"I can smell your inspiration from here,\" she observed, grimacing. \"You brought offering?\"\n\n\"But of course!\" From a sleeve he produced a cloth-wrapped wedge the size of a quarter brick.\n\nThe old woman raised her tangled brows, impressed, as she took it. \"Things are progressing nicely, aren't they, love? \"She tore apiece and moulded it in one grimed fist, warming and softening it.\"The circle complete, yes? ' and she eyed him, smirking.\n\nHe ducked his head. \"Ah– yes. Spoke too quickly, Kruppe did. Yet, is it not so? Was Kruppe not quite correct? There! Yes, god-like perspicacity, that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Back to anticipation, are we?\" the old woman murmured, and she drew long and hard on the pipe. \"Suggesting... perspiration.\"\n\n\"Yes. Well. I am dancing as fast as I can, dearest.\"\n\n\"Hmm, dancing,\" she purred, exhaling a great stream of smoke. \"That's what I want to see. Won't you come in?\"\n\n\"Gladly. Dogs and washerwomen and whatnot. But before... you have them, yes? Ready?\"\n\nShe pressed her hands to her wide chest. \"All hot and ready for you, love.\"\n\nThe man passed a handover his eyes. \"Kruppe is speechless.\"\n\n\"For once. Now, come in– and think of Darujhistan.\" And she disappeared within.\n\nKruppe wiped his slick forehead. \"Oh, fair city. Dreaming city. The things I do for you!\"\n\nShall we draw a curtain across such a commonplace domestic scene? Modesty would insist. Yet Kruppe found the witch athwart her tattered blankets snoring to beat a storm. Well. Shall vanity be stung to no end? Shall the Eel skulk away, tail between its... whatever? Never! The prize awaits! And he knelt over the insensate woman, reaching for her layered shirts.\n\nTo feel eyes upon him. Beady eyes, low to the ground.\n\nHe turned to find the dogs watching from the doorway, eager, tongues lolling.\n\nAiya! Kruppe cannot perform like this! He flapped his hands. \"Begone! Have you no decency?\"\n\nLiquid eyes begged, muzzles nudged forepaws." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Defeated, Kruppe drew yet another bone from within his voluminous sleeve and threw. The dogs spun away, claws kicking up dirt.\n\n\"Now, where were we, my love?\" He wriggled his fingers above her and therefrom a fold of the shirts peeped the weave of a dirty linen sack.\n\nAha! And now to pluck this blushing blossom...\n\nKruppe walked the trash-strewn mud ways of Maiten town, and all was well. He inhaled the scent of the open sewer, the steaming waste, and sighed. He patted his chest where a bag rested still warm from another, far greater and more bountiful nook. All was music to his ears: the fighting dogs, the laundry slapped with alarming force upon the rocks, the fond taunting and rock-throwing of the playful local urchins.\n\nAnd now for the city! Fair Darujhistan. Ringed round and enclosed. Yet are there not ways around all walls and gates for such as the slippery perspiry Eel!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is said that once a ruler in far off Tulips hosted a great and rich banquet (Tulips then being a prosperous city, unlike now) at the end of which he invited the guests to stand and give their definition of a full and happy life– the best version of which he would reward with a heavy torc of gold. One after another the guests stood to assure the ruler that his was in fact that best exemplar of a full and happy life. A Seguleh traveller chanced to be attending the celebration and she did not rise to participate in the competition. Irked, the king bade the woman stand and deliver her, all too secretive, version of a full and happy life.\n\nThe woman dipped her mask in compliance and stood. \"Of a full and happy life I can give no accounting,\" she replied. \"But we Seguleh believe that the gods give men and women glimpses of happiness only to reach again to take them away. Therefore, it seems to us that it is only at the very end, at one's death, that any such measure can be made. '\n\nAnd the king bade the woman depart without any largesse or honour, for he thought it utter foolishness to withhold measure until the end. Yet it is said that afterwards all peace of mind fled the ruler as he fretted without cease over when his many advantages might slip from him and in the end he died tormented and mad." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sulerem of Mengal\n\nJAN HAD GROWN up knowing an old saying among the seguleh: certainty is the spine of the blade. And he accepted this, making it part of his own bones. For were they not the sword of truth? The anvil of its testing? Yet nothing since the Call was as he thought it would be. Nothing in the shining glory of service to the First in their songs and stories had prepared him for the truth to be found here, in their original home, Darujhistan.\n\nDoubts assailed the others. That much was obvious. Therefore the duty was upon him to shoulder the weight of those doubts. To take them all upon himself and show there need be no concern. For was he not the Second? Did not all their eyes turn to him for guidance, for assurance? Let the purity of the cut lie in the steadiness of the blade.\n\nSo shall it be. Let it not be said that the Second bent from his responsibilities.\n\nOnly the First can call. And they answered. What need be complicated in that? And what do they find but the ancient mask that is a circle of gold? As storied and as fearsome as in their legends of old. What can he do but obey?\n\nWhy, then, this need to dwell upon any of this at all?\n\nPerhaps because they were warriors. Not guards. Not warders of people or of the peace. The transition was easily accomplished; these local authorities, these Wardens, acquiesced immediately. Challenges were minimal. Only two deaths. One, a local simpleton, the other far too stubborn to pass by unanswered.\n\nNow, perhaps now, began the truly difficult part as mundane daily trivia intruded upon their purpose.\n\nSuch as now, confronted by these two shabby would-be guards in the hands of Palla, Sixth, herein the court. Jan signed to Ira, Twentieth, who demanded: \"Why have you returned? The hired guards have all been dismissed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "One knuckled his dirty sweaty brow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your pardons, sirs and madams. We've not been let go that we know of. '\n\nJan tilted his head and Ira continued, \"The orders were given. All have been notified.\"\n\nThe man saluted once more. \"That's all as you say for sure, sirs and madams. Me \"n\" Leff here, we don't dispute any of that.\"\n\n\"Then what is your claim?\" Ira demanded.\n\nJan gave Palla a sign and she released them. They straightened their armour.\n\n\"Well, ma'am, \"began the spokesman– though not necessarily the lower of the pair. Frankly, between these two, any gradation at all was difficult to tell.\"It's just that we're not your usual run o'the mill Majesty Hall guards. No, sir...\"\n\n\"They work for me,\" breathed a weak voice.\n\nJan peered at the bedraggled figure of the Mouthpiece of the Legate. He inclined his head in respect. \"This is so?\" he asked. \"They answer to you?\"\n\nThe man's eyes darted, haunted and bloodshot; his features had sunk to a sweaty pasty pallor. Clearly this fellow found his duties far outmatched the strength of his nerves. Jan's gaze shifted to the masked Legate, motionless on his throne. He appeared unaware. Yet always he demonstrated preternatural knowledge of all that went on around him. And this man spoke his will. Jan wondered at such an unlikely choice. However, again, it was not for him to wonder.\n\n\"Yes,\" the man affirmed, anew certainty entering his quavering voice. \"I remember them. I hired them.\"\n\nJan signed his assent. \"Very well. It shall be as you say.\" He turned away, dismissing them from his thoughts. He scanned the court, searching for potential dangers or threats and found only one. The sorceress, Envy, with her flowing green dress and curled oiled hair. How he longed to part her head from her body for the debasement she brought to his brother and two followers. But she was an honoured guest of the Legate and so must he swallow her presence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Oh, certainly some members hereof the court obviously longed to challenge the Legate. Their posture, breaths and sweat shouted it– especially one older ex-soldier councillor who looked as though he might have been a potential threat, a decade ago. And hints had come to him of assassination attempts, which the Legate and his pet mages handled.\n\nAll very well. So why then this unease? This discomfort? Perhaps it is the loss of Cant. I miss its green mountain slopes. Peace of mind slipped away with it beyond the horizon. Soon Gall will sense this and he will challenge. Then there will be anew Second and all of this will no longer be my concern. I almost welcome it. Is this what cowardice feels like?\n\nThe Legate stood then and descended the throne of pale white stone. He gestured and Jan moved to join him. The members of the court, masked councillors, their wives and masked mistresses, aristocrats and wealthy merchants, all parted at his approach. He stopped before the Legate and inclined his masked head in obeisance.\n\n\"Second.\" The Mouthpiece had come to his side. \"Our enemies await to the west. You Seguleh are my blade and anvil. Crush them and Darujhistan shall rule all these lands unrivalled, as before.\"\n\n\"I understand, Legate. These invading Malazans shall be removed from our shores.\"\n\nThe Legate gestured impatiently. Though the beaten gold features could not change, cast forever into their secretive half-smile, the shifting light and shadow enlivened the lips and empty eyes with expression. Now they appeared angered.\n\n\"The invaders are but a nuisance. They mean nothing. No. I speak of the true threat. This city's eternal enemy... the Moranth. ' The Mouthpiece let out a strangled gasp as he spoke these words and clamped a hand to his mouth as if he were about to be sick." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jan dared glance up more fully, as if he could discern some intent from the golden oval before him. \"The Moranth, Legate? I do not understand.\"\n\n\"Always they forestalled us,\" the Mouthpiece began again, his voice ghostly faint. \"They alone defied us when all others fell. Now we shall finish them.\"\n\n\"The Moranth wars ended a millennium ago.\"\n\n\"With the fall of the last of the Tyrants and the breaking of the Circle, yes.\" The oval turned to address Jan more directly. \"Now that Darujhistan arises renewed we must answer that crime against us, yes?\"\n\nAnd what could Jan do but bow when commanded by his First? For the gold mask was the legendary progenitor, the Father of them all. Attack the Moranth? Bring them low? An entire people? Was this what we were forged to accomplish? Our noble purpose?\n\nAnd you in your cracked wooden mask who told me so little. Was this the burden you sought to spare me? Well do I understand it now. No wonder we hide our faces.\n\nThat burden is shame.\n\nCaptain Dreshen found Ambassador Aragan in the stables, currying the two remaining horses. Catching his breath he reported: \"Sir! The majority of the Seguleh have marched from the city.\"\n\nAragan straightened to peer over the back of the black bay, Doan, his favourite. He rested his hands there, a brush in each. \"Out of the city?\" His gaze slitted. \"Which way?\"\n\nDreshen nodded their shared understanding. \"West.\"\n\n\"Dead Hood's own grin. We have to warn them. '\n\n\"The mounts won't make it all the way. '\n\n\"No.\" Aragan wiped his sleeve across his face. \"A boat. Fastest one we can find. Then we'll ride. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes. And... can we count on reinforcements?\"\n\n\"No. No reinforcements. No recruits. Nothing. Everything's been committed to another theatre. '\n\nDreshen could not believe it. \"But what of our gains here?\"\n\nAragan threw a blanket over Doan's back.\"Seems Unta considers us overextended. And I have to say I'm inclined to agree.\" He eyed Dreshen up and down. \"Now get the Sceptre and our armour, Captain. In that order.\"\n\nThe Untan nobleman drew himself up straight, grinning and saluting. \"Aye, sir. With pleasure.\"\n\nThe two horsemen rode to the waterfront. Large bundles lay tied behind the cantles of their saddles. They led their mounts down to the private wharves. Here a grossly exaggerated price was paid in rare silver councils for immediate passage west. A gangway was readied and the mounts were guided down onto the deck of the low, sleek vessel. Hands threw off lines and picked up oars. The vessel made its slow way out of the harbour to the larger bay, where the freshening wind caught the sails. The pilot threw the side rudder over and they churned a course along the coast to the west.\n\n\n\nThe Great Barrow of the Son of Darkness, Lord of Moon's Spawn, Anomander Rake, now rose almost within sight of the ever-creeping edge of the Maiten shantytown. Here a bear of a man satin the grass and eyed the late afternoon glow of distant Darujhistan.\n\nThe lake air had cooled his temper, and now he recognized his vow to squeeze some sense into this creature who paraded as the Legate as foolish and unrealistic in the extreme. What was he to do? Use the hammer there? In the city? Kill tens of thousands? No. And this Legate knew it. So what was he to do?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For the first time in many years no responsibilities weighed upon his shoulders. No cause to champion. He turned back to the barrow. Nearby, the pilgrims and worshippers who congregated here were erecting a tent for him. He hadn't asked. But they knew him as the one who had raised the barrow and so he shared in their worship and regard.\n\nHe was not unaccustomed to it. All who worshipped Burn knew him as her champion. Caladan Brood, Warlord of the north. Yet war was far from his chosen vocation. Oh, he revelled in the individual challenge. Wrestling and trials of strength and skill. But war? Organized slaughter? No. That was the field of cold-hearted weighers of options such as Kallor. Or the opposite, those who inspired from all-embracing hearts, such as Dujek.\n\nAnd what of him? Did he have this quality? He supposed he did, but in another way. Like Anomander, he inspired by example.\n\nSo he would wait. As before, eventually someone would be needed to settle things one way or the other. That was what he did best. Have the last word. The final say. The finishing blow.\n\nThe merest nudge of Sall's hand sent Yusek sprawling to the beaten dirt of the practice yard.\n\n\"You were off-balance again.\"\n\nShe looked up at the kaleidoscope pattern of his mask, the amused brown eyes behind, and knocked aside his proffered hand. \"So I noticed. I was leaning forward because I was trying to hit you. That's the whole point, isn't it?\" She jumped up to face him.\n\n\"Do not sacrifice form fora possible hit. When you lean forward you bring your head closer. Not a good idea.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But what if I hit?\"\n\nA wave in the Seguleh hand-talk dismissed the idea. \"What if you miss?\"\n\nFine. Be that way. Yusek struck a ready pose, sword before her in both hands, tip held steady angled outwards at a height about level with her nose. At first she'd resisted his insistence that she use a two-handed sword grip, arguing that daggers were quicker. But Sall had been unmoved. He pointed out that most of her opponents would be larger than her and so she would need the added leverage.\n\nWhen she'd grudgingly agreed, saying it would help'muscle them back\", he'd shaken his head yet again.\n\n\"No muscles.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, no muscles? Everyone knows that's what you do in a fight– you smash the other guy down. '\n\n\"No. Do not strain. Do not tense until the last instant. Let the blade fall on its own. Let its weight do the work.\"\n\nIt all sounded crazy to her. But she'd seen the lad cut through all the most fearsome, and big, hulking swordsmen she'd known, so fair enough.\n\nNow, he circled her yet again, studying her stance. He crouched before her, tilting his masked head. \"You have the same problem I used to have. Your stance is too long– always too eager to rush in, yes?\"\n\n\"That's how you finish it. Bring it to them. '\n\nSall gave a sad shake of his head. He unwound a leather strip from his sash and knotted it round one of her ankles. \"What's this? Tying me up? ' He paused, but only for an instant, then waved her other foot closer. She edged it inwards." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Closer yet.\"\n\nShe gritted her teeth but complied. He tied the length tight, straightened. \"Very good. This distance will allow you to recover more quickly in either direction. I want you to pace the length of the field in the high angle cut with each step, yes?\"\n\n\"Fine.\"\n\n\"Begin.\"\n\nShe stepped, swinging, and almost fellas her extended foot was yanked short. She turned to stare at him, appalled. Was I that unbalanced? He urged her onward.\n\nFine. Just dandy. She concentrated on her stride and started again. The shorter stance felt uncomfortable and awkward. But then, she'd been standing however she damned well pleased all this time. No one had ever shown her any technique. She must have all kinds of bad habits.\n\nThe wind was cold but she was sweating now as she paced up and down the length of the sand and gravel practice yard. On the far side of the field the priests were outdoing their forms, which Sall explained were some sort of moving meditations. It made no sense to her. She found a rhythm, cutting side to side as she stepped, turning, and cutting again. Her arms burned. Holding an iron bar out from your body all day built up endurance and strength. Now, when she picked up her old fighting dirks, the heaviest she could find, they were like hollow sticks in her hands. And it seemed to her that with the slightest shift of her two-handed grip she could move the tip of the sword even faster than she could weave her daggers.\n\nLeverage, Sall called that. The sword was a lever, he'd said. A lever for the application or redirection of force. Nothing more mystical than that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the sunset behind the western coastal peaks the air chilled quickly. Yusek dropped down next to Sall, exhausted, her shirt wet with sweat.\n\n\"Your determination is commendable.\"\n\n\"Well, I have a lot of catching up to do, don't I? \"She nudged him with a shoulder.\"I could really use aback rub too... '\n\nBut Sall's attention was on his father Lo, who had spent these last days doing nothing more than watching the various priests at their practice and exercises. Now he had climbed to his feet, his gaze fixed. Sall stood as well.\n\nLo began making his way through the kneeling ranks of priests, none of whom moved. Sall edged forward also.\n\nOf all the lousy timing. \"What is it?\" Yusek asked, now a touch worried. Gods, not like at Dernan's! Please no. Sall signed for silence. Silence! It's always silence with these two. That's their answer for everything. Don't they see that silence answers nothing?\n\nLo stopped near the middle of the assembled priests. He stood before one fellow, salt-and-pepper haircut short, features very dark, but calm, eyes downcast. Sall, Yusek noticed, was fairly quivering so tense was he. She also climbed to her feet.\n\nThen Lo's blade was out, the tip extending close to the forehead of the kneeling man. The surrounding priests coolly shifted aside, not one saying a word. Great Burn! What was this? What was going on?\"Sall... ' He signed again for silence, gesturing her aside.\n\nLo adjusted his grip on the sword, struck a ready stance, and for the first time Yusek heard words pass through his mask. \"I challenge you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The kneeling man said nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did not move. He did not even lookup.\n\nYusek's breath caught as Lo's blade flew up and he let go a heart-stopping yell, swinging for the man's neck. She jerked her head aside; she could not help it. When she opened her eyes Lo stood frozen, his blade pressed against the man's neck. The man himself appeared to have not flinched one hair's breadth.\n\nShe and Sall ran up through the motionless priests. The man slowly raised his eyes. In the darkening afternoon light they appeared to carry the depths of the ocean within them. He mouthed one word: No.\n\nLo stepped back, sheathing his blade. Then he turned and walked away. Sall stood fora time staring down at the kneeling man, then he followed his father. Yusek remained. The priests merely returned to their duties, sweeping the compound, chopping wood, readying the evening meal. While Yusek watched, a bead of blood ran from the cut across the side of the man's neck.\n\nShaken, she retreated to her hut. So that was him? The slayer of the Son of Darkness? How could that be? He looked like nothing to her. No bluster, no show. It was contrary to everything she'd seen among Orbern's gang, or Dernan's. Just a man past middle age. Impossible to pick out of a crowd. Yet Lo had somehow managed. Just by watching. Obviously there was much more here than she could see.\n\nShe filled a bowl at the kitchens then sought out Sall. She found him sitting before his room. She sat next to him, tore off a pinch from her flatbread and dipped it into the stew. \"Now what?\" she asked, chewing.\n\nHe seemed to have been studying his open empty hands on his lap. \"We leave. No one can be compelled to accept a challenge. My father could now claim Seventh should he choose to do so. I don't believe he will, however. Not like this. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Going to talk to him?\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Who? Him of course. Ask him why he's here. What he's doing. Maybe you'd learn something. '\n\nSall made a gesture of helplessness. \"There is no need. He has made his position clear.\"\n\nYusek studied Sall fora time as if attempting to peer past his mask. Then she gave a disgusted grunt. \"Gods... how you fellows manage is a mystery tome. How do you fucking accomplish anything? Aren't you the least bit curious? '\n\nHe gave a cutting sign with his hand. \"If he wanted to speak, he would do so.\"\n\n\"Oh? He'd just goon like you blabbermouths? \"She stood.\"Well, I'm going to talk to him. Even if you won't. '\n\n\"Yusek...\"\n\nShe paused, looking down. \"Yes?\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\nGrunting again, she left. Can't fucking believe this crap. Should I tuck them in, too? Maybe this wasn't all so different from the bluster and chest-thumping she'd seen at Orbern's. Posturing. Maybe it was all just posturing taken so far no one could back down anymore– even if they wanted to.\n\nShe wondered. She really wondered.\n\nThe fellow was still kneeling in the same place. Looking west into the darkening mauve and deep blood-red of the fading sunset. Above, blotting out any stars that might've been visible, arced the jade curve of the Scimitar.\n\nShe sat next to him, dipped her bread, and tore off a bite with her teeth. \"So...\" She chewed and swallowed. \"As good as anyplace to hide, I suppose.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His gaze slid round to her. He let out along breath. Like I'm the pebble in the shoe, she thought.\n\n\"They send you?\"\n\n\"No, they fucking well didn't send me. You're the man of the world, right? You should know they wouldn't do something like that. '\n\nHis mouth quirked up and he let go something that might've been a rueful snort. His gaze slid back to the west.\"Lectured by a child. Serves me right. Well, yes. That was unfair of me. They wouldn't do something like that. I'm just tired. Tired of it all. '\n\n\"Tired of what?\"\n\nHe raised his chin to the west, to the sunset and the Scimitar. \"Choices are being made even as we speak. Important choices that will affect all of us. I refuse to be part of it. I'm tired of being used. \"His voice fell and it seemed to Yusek that he wasn't talking to her any longer. Perhaps he'd never really been talking to her at all.\"I did what I thought was right. Damn them all, I don't even know what the right choice is anymore. I don't even know if one exists. Everything I do is used. '\n\n\"If everything you do is used one way or the other then why worry about it? There's nothing you can do about all that. That's beyond your control, right?\" The man's gaze slowly edged back to her.\"I mean, who cares about them? They can all take a flying leap into the Abyss, right? You can only do what you think is right, yes? '\n\nOne dark brow arched up. \"That's one way of looking at things. Maybe you should get some sleep. You've got along day ahead of you tomorrow.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now who's tucking who in?\n\n\"Right.\" She stood. \"I heard them say you killed the Lord of Moon's Spawn. But I don't think that's right. I mean, he's an Ascendant, right? Immortal. You can't just kill someone like that. \"She shrugged.\"Well, that's just what I think.\"\n\nThe man's gaze followed her as she crossed the moonlit central field and remained fixed for sometime where she disappeared amid the stone huts. Then his eyes slowly swung back to the west, the night sky, and the Scimitar above. He felt it there, in the west. Tugging at him. It was happening again. Another gathering.\n\nHe felt its call because he was close himself. Close, if not already there. But fighting. Refusing. Ashe told the girl: it was a choice awaiting him. It seemed that no matter which way he turned, there it was, inevitable.\n\nIf only he knew which would be for the best. Yet perhaps it wasn't a question of choice. Perhaps it had always been merely about doing. Perhaps that was the better way of thinking of things.\n\nHe could not be sure and that doubt was a torment. Because he didn't think much of his choices so far.\n\nIn the morning Yusek stepped out chilled and wrapped in her blanket to seethe man still there, still kneeling, the pink and amber sun's rays painting his back.\n\nNow that just ain't human.\n\nShe shuffled to the kitchens for hot tea and around of fresh bread. She had to jostle elbows and push herself forward just to swipe that much. These boys and girls might be priests and such, she reflected, but they sure weren't shy when mealtime came around." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At her hut she packed what few bits and pieces she owned into a roll that she tied off and threw onto her back. Her new sword she belted at her left hip. On the grounds she found Sall and Lo ready to go. The fellow Lo had challenged was there as well.\n\nSall greeted her. \"We are leaving.\"\n\nShe couldn't help looking to the sky.\"Yeah. I guessed. '\n\n\"Where will you head?\" he asked.\n\nShe shrugged, indifferent. \"I dunno. Mengal, I guess. Thanks for the lessons.\"\n\nHe gave a sign she recognized as meant to dismiss the subject. \"It was nothing. You were a conscientious student. That is all a teacher can ask for.\"\n\nShe knew Sall to be her age but sometimes he talked so stiffly, like he was some old guy of thirty or something.\n\nThe fellow Lo had challenged stepped forward. Sall inclined his head to the man and, incredibly, so did Lo.\n\nSo... Lo just indicated that he considers the man higher ranked. Even though the man refused his challenge. He doesn't want to take the rank that way. Just as Sall said. Hey! I'm starting to understand these crazy people!\n\nBut abbreviated bows only seemed to make the man's already pained face tighten even more.\"I'm sorry you came all this way for nothing,\" he growled, his voice hoarse. \"But when you get to Cant, give my regards to your Second. I've heard good things of him. '\n\nSall turned his masked face to Lo. Something passed between them. Sall turned back to the man. \"Slayer of Blacksword, we are not returning to Cant.\"\n\nSomething almost like panic seemed to claw at the man's face.\"You're not?\" The lines bracketing his eyes and mouth tightened into an angry suspicion. \"Tell me where you are headed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We travel to Darujhistan to join our brothers and sisters. The First has called and we have answered.\"\n\nYusek stared. Darujhistan? They're going to Darujhistan!\n\nThe man was shaking his head, appalled. \"All the scheming gods– you mustn't go there. Don't you see?\"\n\n\"See... what?\"\n\n\"Don't make yourself a weapon, \"he said, his voice thick with emotion.\"Take it from me. Weapons get used. '\n\nSall tilted his head a fraction. His eyes behind the mask appeared troubled, but he answered, \"It is our duty. Our defining purpose. It makes us Seguleh.\"\n\nThe man blinked as if fighting back tears. Every word Sall spoke seemed to strike him like a blow. \"Gods, you people have backed yourselves up to the very Abyss...\"\n\nLo moved slightly– a motion Yusek would never have caught before, but she understood it now as a gesture of impatience.\n\nSall said: \"Thank you for your words, Slayer of Blacksword. But we must go.\"\n\n\"I'm going with you, ' the man said.\n\nEven masked, Sall's shock was obvious. He glanced at Lo, who answered with a gesture Yusek had seen him use in regard to her very often: the It's her life sign.\n\n\"If you wish,\" Sall said. \"You are free to travel where you will.\"\n\n\"Fine.\" He motioned to the hut dwellings. \"Just let me pack a few things.\"\n\nAfter the man had gone, Yusek faced Sall. \"You didn't tell me you were going to Darujhistan! \"And she couldn't believe it when the answering shift of his shoulders said, How is this is relevant?" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "In your capacity as the author's assistant, extend the narrative.\nTags: epic fantasy, ancient city, magic, power dynamics, hidden secrets\nAuthor: Ian Cameron Esslemont\nTitle: Orb Sceptre Throne\nChapter: 21" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Fists met each other's gaze. K'ess cocked a brow. Steppen gave one quick nod that bulged her double chin. K'ess leaned over the catwalk.\"Captain Fal-ej! '\n\n\"Aye?\"\n\n\"An immediate withdrawal west! Over the wall! Lightest pack. Three days\" water. '\n\n\"Aye, sir!\"\n\nBoth Fists returned to gauging the fighting. Rhivi riders, alone and in packs, thundered off through the encirclement, riding north for the lake. Many fell, but the majority bulled through. Presumably those survivors wouldn't stop for anything.\n\n\"Four squads should remain on the walls till everyone's gone, \"K'ess said. \"I'll stay with them. '\n\n\"I believe you held the rear-guard last,\" Steppen pointed out. \"It's my turn. '\n\nK'ess looked the rather dumpy woman up and down.\"You sure you're up to it?\"\n\nSteppen merely looked to the sky. \"These recruits don't know what a hard march is. Not like the run to Evinor. Time they learned. '\n\nK'ess cast an eye over the fort.\"A shame, really. Well built. '\n\n\"Have to have a word with the engineers. I was really looking for something roomier.\"\n\nThe distant scream of a dying horse pierced the din of battle, making Steppen wince. She faced the east. \"Run, you poor bastards,\" she murmured. \"Flee. Just mount up and ride.\"\n\nK'ess squeezed her shoulder.\"Oponn's favour.\" He turned and left her.\n\n\"Toren,\" she called, using his first name, and he paused on his way down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Give them something to remember,\" she said, smiling. \"Show them what they've taken on, yes?\n\nFist K'ess inclined his head in agreement.\"Somewhere narrow, Argell. I will see you there. \"He offered a brief salute and bounded down the stairs. Steppen turned to the east again and the screams drifting across with the wind. Gods. So it's true. All that she'd heard. These Seguleh. A few hundreds against some thirty thousand and it's a rout.\n\nFacing the gathering twilight she whispered: \"Yes, Toren. We'll meet again there. '\n\nCrouched in the tall grass, Captain Fal-ej scanned a landscape painted an unnatural watery green. Like the bottom of the sea, she thought to herself. Almost beautiful. To either side sergeants awaited her command to fire. Damn the man. Where was he? This bravado could cost them an experienced commander. Not to mention she hadn't yet told him all that she wanted to.\n\nThen movement among the grass and the Fist came running up the slope. Fal-ej signed fora stand-down. She rose to meet him. \"We're on the move, \"she called rather angrily.\"Where's Fist Steppen?\"\n\n\"Holding the fort.\"\n\nShe stared past K'ess to the distant structure.\"That's-\"\n\n\"Yes,\" K'ess cut in.\"She's buying us time. Now let's go. Double-time. '\n\nFal-ej backed away, signing a withdrawal to the sergeants. K'ess kept going.\"No rearguard or outliers, Captain, \"he called.\"Just a rear watch. '\n\n\"Aye,\" she answered. She raised her arm in the air to inscribe the circular pullout sign." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\n\nWhen dawn came Fist Steppen found herself looking out at an encirclement of Seguleh. Crows and other scavenging birds wheeled in the brightening eastern sky, or hopped obscenely among the distant trampled grass. The Seguleh facing her showed no wounds, though blood splashed some. One stepped forward insolently close given the fifteen crossbows covering him. His mask was a dizzying swirled design.\n\n\"You are surrounded,\" he called. \"You do not possess sufficient forces to defend your walls. Throw down your weapons and you will be allowed to live.\"\n\n\"Let us discuss terms,\" Steppen answered, a hand tight on the adzed log before her. \"What assurances can you provide of our fair treatment? I request a third-party negotiator.\"\n\nThe Seguleh gave an odd cutting motion with his hand. \"We will not allow you to delay. You are not important.\"\n\n\"Not important? You mean you would just pass us by?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Ah. Well. In that case.\" She pointed. \"Kill that man.\"\n\nFifteen crossbows fired. The Seguleh twisted and ducked. Only two bolts struck him: one high in the leg, the other slashing the flesh of his left arm. The Seguleh charged the walls. Using their hands and feet they climbed the log palisade. Troopers backed away, dropping their crossbows as there was no time to reload. Steppen drew her slim blade. At least we wounded one of them, she told herself as the first appeared atop the walls. She swung but he dropped below the blade. Another jumped cat-like over the top to land with her sword already drawn. Steppen swung and the woman seemed to parry and counter all in the same fluid motion. Her blade slid easily through Steppen's leather armour to slash across her front, eviscerating her. The Fist tried one last attack but was off balance from the severing of so many muscle groups and she could not regain her footing. She fell off the catwalk to land in a wet tangled heap. As she lay in the dirt staring at the bark of the palisade logs her last thought was: Not that much of a damned delay..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Torvald Nom did not spend too long in his cell. Just two meal periods later the door ratcheted and opened to reveal a Silver flanked by two Black. Torvald's first thought was that this was the same Silver. Then he realized that he really couldn't tell at all. He wished he'd spent more time memorizing the engraving on his driver's armour. But he'd been rather busy trying not to throw up at the time. He slowly climbed to his feet and gave a shallow bow.\"Welcome. If I'd known you were coming I would have saved some of my food.\"\n\n\"Torvald Nom of Nom,\" the Silver said, and he recognized her voice, \"word has come from our Blue cousins affirming your story. Your credentials from the Darujhistan Council have also been deemed adequate. Our apologies.\"\n\nTorvald gave another brief bow. He suspected that this was all the contrition he was going to see. \"I am glad.\" Gods! \"I am glad.\" How banal! Shouldn't I say something profound like:\"Let this meeting usher in anew age of accord between our two peoples. ' Something puffed up and self-important like that?\n\nThe Silver motioned him out. \"This way, please.\"\n\nAs they walked the stone passages Torvald glanced sideways at his guide. He drew along breath and straightened his shirts and cloak. \"So... what is your name? If I may enquire.\"\n\n\"Galene.\"\n\n\"Galene? Galene. Well, where are we going? What's happening? '\n\n\"There are disturbing movements of forces in the foothills.\" She paused fora time as if sorting through her words. \"I have been chosen to act as your guide.\"\n\nAnd you're thrilled no end. Well, we all have our rows to hoe.\"Disturbing movements? You mean the Rhivi? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No. I do not mean the northern tribals.\"\n\n\"No? Then... the Malazans?\"\n\n\"No. Not the Malazans.\"\n\nTor frowned at the maddening woman. \"Well... then who?\" She ushered him into a stone circular staircase that they climbed single-file, he second. \"Well?\"\n\n\"Your Darujhistani army has been summoned, Nom of Nom.\"\n\n\"Army? Darujhistan has never had an army.\"\n\nThey emerged onto another of the tower roofs. Here rank after rank of quorl awaited, wings setting up a roar of commingled thrumming. The wind buffeted him. Most, he saw, carried two Moranth: a driver and a passenger. Ashe watched, stunned, waves of the quorl took off in file after file, peeling away in flights. From other towers more arose until the sky was darkened by their fragile silhouettes sweeping overhead like a tide rushing down a valley. An army– so swift!\n\n\"Who?\" he shouted to Galene. \"Who is it?\"\n\n\"Our old enemy,\" she answered, icy fury in her voice. \"The ones who drove us from the plains. Who exiled us to these mountaintops ages ago.\" She thrust a finger at him. \"Your murdering Seguleh.\"\n\nJust inside the unlocked gate of the Eldra Iron Mongers, Barathol cast about for someone, anyone, to greet him. It was illegal to be out this late; the Legate had lowered a curfew that was enforced by the Seguleh. And never had Barathol heard of a curfew so scrupulously respected.\n\nThe works were silent. For months now no black choking smoke had swirled about this end of the city and the waters of the bay lapped almost clear. He was of a mind to turn round– curfew breaking compounded by trespassing– when he spotted the odd little fellow himself, arms clasped behind his back, closely studying a workbench of abandoned tools. He came up behind and was about to speak when Kruppe asked: \"Was the carriage ride diverting?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Kruppe– I don't know what you calla carriage, but I don't calla cart pulled by an ass a carriage. I could have walked faster.\"\n\nThe little man's chin pulled in, aghast.\"What! Why, the lad assured me it was a carriage. Most replete. '\n\n\"Would that be the same lad who was hitting the ass to keep it going?\"\n\n\"I wouldn't know, was it? And you do mean the ass pulling the cart, yes? '\n\nBarathol pulled a hand down his jowls and chin while he studied the bland-faced fellow. He appeared completely forthright. \"I'm going now. ' He turned to leave.\n\n\"No, no, no!\" Kruppe dodged around him. \"It must be you. Please. A simple job. Delicate and... ah, tricky, yes. But perfect for you.\"\n\n\"Kruppe– I'm no master craftsman. I'm just an average smith. You don't want me. And I have to say I'm starting to wonder about this villa of yours.\"\n\n\"Why, I am assured it is most exquisite! Airy. Charming. With enormous... character.\"\n\n\"Sounds like an old shack missing a wall.\"\n\nKruppe froze, surprised. \"You've seen it? '\n\nBarathol started off again. \"Like I said, I'm heading home. ' Rattling at the gate stopped him. The tall iron-barred doors had been closed and someone was approaching. It was hard to see in the eerie jade-hued light but the man appeared to be a tramp or a beggar. His clothes hung tattered and blackened. His hair was a wild nest and his face and hands glistened, soot-smeared and sweaty. He was rubbing his hands in a rag that was even dirtier." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The derelict stopped before them. He eyed Barathol up and down, said to Kruppe, \"Is this your smith?\"\n\n\"\"Tis he. '\n\n\"I know all the smiths in the city. This one's new tome. '\n\n\"He's a smith of foreign extraction. '\n\nA smile shone bright against the man's grimed face.\"Just as I am. \"He pointed.\"This way. '\n\nAs they walked Barathol peered about the quiet ghostly yard and open silent sheds. \"There maybe guards...\"\n\n\"No guards,\" said the tramp. \"Just me– the owner.\"\n\nBarathol stopped dead. \"You are Humble Measure?\"\n\n\"In the flesh.\"\n\nBarathol turned to Kruppe, his gaze narrowing. \"What's going on here? '\n\nHumble waved the rag at Kruppe. \"This man has contracted for some work. Welcome income.\" He opened his arms wide to encompass his yards. \"There has been a temporary slowdown in production.\"\n\n\"Fabrication,\" Kruppe said. \"A delicate job.\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" Humble Measure agreed. He motioned Barathol onward. \"Let me tell you a story– if I may. There once was a man who was frightened. He was afraid of the rule of oppressive overlords, of marauding armies, of murderers, of bloody-handed thieves. In short, of almost everything. To defend against them and to be strong he decided to build thick walls of stone all about him. He shackled himself to these walls so that he could not be dragged off. He barred the window with thick iron rods. He secured the door with locks and crossbars and swallowed the keys. Then, one day, peering terrified from between the bars he realized that in his extraordinary efforts to be protected and unassailable he had built for himself something else entirely.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A prison.\"\n\n\"Exactly so. In his efforts to be free of oppression he had enslaved himself.\"\n\nThey had entered one of the larger worksheds. Humble led him to a metal bench cluttered with metal forging tools, tongs, hammers, and pinchers. Nearby, one of the immense furnaces glowed, crackling and hissing. A wide stone box sat upon the bench.\n\n\"Never touch with your naked hand what lies within,\" Kruppe warned.\n\nHumble Measure raised a pair of fine pinchers. \"I will assist.\"\n\nBarathol waved to him. \"You do it. You're the master smith. '\n\n\"It requires your, ah, intent,\" Kruppe said.\n\n\"Mine? What for?\"\n\nThe little man peered to the vaulted roof as if searching for the right words. \"For a certain quality of circularity.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Just that.\"\n\nBarathol eyed the two as if judging their sanity– which seemed utterly lacking. \"Just what is the job?\"\n\n\"Inlay,\" Humble said.\n\n\"We do not possess the, ah, resources to unmake what lies within that box,\" Kruppe explained. \"But perhaps you can soften it enough fora fine bit of inlay.\"\n\nBarathol grunted. Inlay. Well... that didn't seem so unreasonable.\n\nKruppe entwined his pudgy fingers over his stomach. \"Very good. I'll leave you two to your trade secrets. \"He suddenly thrust a finger into the air.\"But remember! The finished product must be dipped in bee's wax! That is most imperative.\"\n\nHumble waved him off. \"Yes, yes. We know our trade. Now begone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Be gone?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'll have you know, sir, that Kruppe was about to go! Kruppe will not be hurried or rushed off. No unseemly haste for the timely Kruppe. '\n\n\"Shall we open the box now?\" Humble asked Barathol.\n\n\"Kruppe is leaving– farewell!\"\n\nAs they descended the foothills, the Dwelling Plain lay before them, dun and ochre, shimmering in the day's heat, and Yusek cursed the sight of it. She could not believe that here she was yet again setting out across its damned dust-choked hills and draws. How many times had she sworn, and to how many gods and demons, that once she escaped she would never set foot upon it again?\n\nThe master of the monastery led the way. Sall followed, then she, and Lo came last. The master carried a sword on his back, wrapped and tightly tied in cloth. Other than this he was unarmed. Yusek still did not know what to call him. When Sall had asked what name they should use in addressing him he'd been silent fora very longtime before drawing a ragged breath and saying in a hoarse voice,\"Grief. '\n\nYet neither Seguleh chose to call him that. When they needed to gain his attention they simply said, \"Seventh.\"\n\nOne day as they descended towards the plain the Seventh halted, peering to the north. Everyone stopped as well and Yusek squinted, but she saw nothing. \"Large numbers on the move,\" the Seventh said. \"Possibly armies.\" He started off again but Sall remained still.\n\n\"Our brothers and sisters maybe involved,\" the youth said.\n\n\"That does not concern us,\" the Seventh replied harshly. \"Our purpose lies in Darujhistan. And we must hurry. Things move apace.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We should not turn from them.\"\n\nThe Seventh faced him squarely now. He drew a hard breath. \"Tell me, do you think I want to go to this cursed city? It's the last place I would ever want to go. But I am going– because you came tome. So the least you can damned well do is accompany me. '\n\nThe ferocity of the man's words almost drove Yusek back a step. Sall merely inclined his head in acquiescence. Though he did murmur,\"My apologies, Seventh. '\n\nThe man looked away, blinking. He threw himself further down the trail. \"Let's move. '\n\nFor her part Yusek couldn't believe she was actually going to Darujhistan. Never did she dream she would seethe great city. City of Blue Flames. Wealthiest city on all the continent, from Evinor in the north to Elingarth in the south. It was said you could find for sale there cloth so sheer it was like the kiss of water. And rare fruits and birds to eat. Like duck. She'd never had roasted duck. She'd heard it called succulent. Now there was a word for food. Succulent. She'd like all her food to be succulent. And she'd bathe in hot water in a tub with scented soap. She'd heard of that too. Now that, as far as she could imagine, must be the height of luxury.\n\nEating duck in a tub. Now there's luxury for you.\n\nAnd Sall here. Well, she'll talk him out of wearing that stupid mask. And with him at her back there'll be no stopping them. They'll waylay all those rich fat merchants. She'll become so famous even bearded Orbern squatting in his fort in the woods will hear of her. Yes, that sounded like a plan to her. And you had to have a plan– that much she knew. You don't get anywhere without a plan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The two figures walking down the street of the bakers in the Gadrobi district cut a colourful, if jarring, picture. One was unusually tall and dressed as if he had rolled in the cast-off scraps behind a tailor's shop. The other wore drab threadbare rags, was bald, and had a face that glimmered as if speckled in metal paint. And when this one smiled at those passing in the streets, they flinched away.\n\nThey strode nonchalantly, apparently pointing out the sights to one another. They might have been on a stroll to find an inn to pass the evening. They came abreast of a sad figure crouched down on his haunches against a wall, head bowed, and the shorter of the figures nudged his companion and they swung to stand either side of the hunched beggar. There they slid down the wall to sit as bookends.\n\n\"All is not as desolate as it seems,\" the larger, bushy-haired one sighed, his gaze scanning the street.\n\n\"The sting fades and new horizons show themselves,\" the other confirmed.\n\nThe larger cocked his head. \"Think of it as rigidity sacrificed for an infinity of possibility...\"\n\n\"Well said,\" his companion agreed. \"You are your own man now. You may do as you choose.\"\n\nThe one between them tentatively raised his head. His long untrimmed hair hung down over his eyes. \"Actions not dedicated to a higher purpose are meaningless,\" he countered as if reciting a text.\n\nThe two exchanged glances over his head.\n\n\"Then select a purpose,\" the thin bald one suggested, smiling and flashing gold-capped teeth.\n\n\"Such as?\"\n\nThe big one waved expansively. \"Well... such as ours, perhaps.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And that is?\"\n\nSmiling, the thin one clasped the fellow's shoulder.\"That our every action, our very appearance, be a constant denunciation and thumb in the eye to our brethren. Now... \"he and his companion hooked arms through the young man's, \"let us continue this discussion in more convivial surroundings.\"\n\n\"I suggest Magajal's place, ' the big one rumbled as they set off.\n\nThe bright metal glimmering on the bald one's face was in fact gold thread stitching. It wrinkled as he frowned.\"She waters her wine to excess. No. Dinner first at the Terrace overlooking the lake. We will consider later diversions over the meal. '\n\n\"Excellent.\"\n\n\"Come, friend,\" the bald one encouraged. \"Let this day be the first in an open-ended garden of companionship, adventure and extravagance.\"\n\nSpindle watched the street through the slats nailed over the window of K'rul's bar then sat back in his chair, crossbow on his lap. \"Looks quiet,\" he called back over his shoulder. \"Maybe they've given upon us as not worth the candle. '\n\n\"Whistling in the dark,\" Picker grumbled from the bar. She cocked an eye to the bard Fisher at the end of the counter, where he was scratching on a sheet of vellum. She drew two tankards of beer and slid down to him, peered uncomprehending at the marks squiggled on the sheet. \"Whatcha writin\"? '\n\n\"An epic poem.\" He lifted one of the tankards, saluted her, and drank.\n\nLeaning forward on her elbows, she narrowed her gaze as if struck by a sudden new thought. \"Why're you here anyway? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I like a quiet place to compose.\"\n\nShe chuckled. \"That's a good one. \"Then she frowned.\"Wait a minute... ' She had opened her mouth to say more when aloud groaning stilled everyone. It seemed to becoming from the walls themselves, as if the building were twisting, or being squeezed.\n\nSpindle jumped to his feet, clutching his crossbow. \"What's that? '\n\n\"Don't fucking know, \"Picker growled as she eased her way from behind the bar, long-knives out.\"Blend! '\n\n\"Clear,\" came the answer from the rear.\n\n\"Sounded like it came from below,\" Fisher said.\n\nPicker nodded her agreement. \"Let's have a look. Spin, check the cellar. '\n\n\"What? Why do I have to check the cellar?\"\n\n\"\"Cause I say so, that's why! Now go.\"\n\nGrumbling, Spindle tramped for the stairs.\n\nAfter Spindle disappeared a sudden explosive crack of wood made everyone flinch. \"Upstairs,\" Picker grunted and headed up. Fisher's hand strayed to his longsword.\n\n\"This epic poem of yours,\" Duiker whispered into the heavy silence, \"what's it about? '\n\n\"The Elder Gods.\"\n\nPicker came back down, wonder on her face. She motioned upstairs. \"Timbers split in the roof and walls. Main load-bearing ones too.\"\n\nSpindle emerged looking pale and ill. Speechless, he indicated his boots. Black fluid, crusted and gummy like old blood, caked them. His feet had left a bloody smeared trail on the dirty stone floor. \"The cellar,\" he managed, his voice choked. \"Awash. Somethin's goin'on, Pick. Somethin\" terrible. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Duiker turned his head to study the foreign bard straight on. \"This poem... How's it going? '\n\nFisher let out a taut breath. \"I think I'm nearing the end. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Paradise would be a city where pearls cobble roads and gems serve as playthings for children. And why? Not because all will be so wealthy, but because its citizens will have recognized that such things truly are toys.\n\nWords of the Street Prophets\n\nCompiler's name withheld\n\nTHERE WERE TIMES when Kiska was dozing in the cave half asleep in the dim phantom light of night when she thought she heard weeping. The sound came drifting in over the surf, faint, wavering, and she would have dismissed it as a scrap of dream had she not heard it more than once.\n\nThe sound grated like a blade down her spine, for she knew who it was. If Tayschrenn was not dead as Leoman insisted, then it could be none other. His mind was gone– or, more accurately, she had destroyed his mind by playing into the hand of the Queen of Dreams.\n\nThe scheming bitch. She saw it all now. The elegance. All the hallmarks of her plotting. She, Kiska, naïve agent, would find the archmagus and deliver to him the poison supplied by her. And once that happened whatever reaction it was would be unleashed and he would be stricken.\n\nAnd she the brainless dupe. Gods! Every time her thoughts returned to that she bashed the heels of her hands to her forehead. She would escape from here if only to track the damned Enchantress down.\n\nAnd Agayla? No– she too must have been ignorant of the Queen's intent. Must have.\n\nGods above and below, forgotten and forsworn! When would she ever learn? Never trust anyone. Never. That had been her mistake. She'd trusted and been used. As it is for everyone everywhere. You are no different, woman." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She groaned again and wrapped her head in her arms, pulling it down between her knees.\n\nFurther into the cave Leoman stirred. \"Don't beat yourself up, child, \"he said.\"You... we... had noway of knowing. '\n\n\"Shut the Abyss up.\"\n\nShe heard pebbles striking the wall as he tossed them one by one. \"It stings now but that will pass. I should know. And it wasn't even on purpose. So never mind. What's done is done. There's no sense worrying about it. '\n\nShe raised her head to stare at him, incredulous. \"Says the man who murdered thousands in a firestorm he deliberately set!\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"It was war. I was fighting for my life.\"\n\n\"Why should your life be worth more than anyone else's in that city? '\n\nThe man tossed another pebble. \"It is tome.\"\n\nShe turned away. \"Gods. You're beyond hope. '\n\n\"Just honest.\"\n\nFrom the cave mouth came the dragging uneven footsteps of the rescued creatures. Kiska and Leoman shared a glance. He rose, brushed dirt from the tattered Seven Cities robes he still wore over his mail. Kiska pushed herself to her feet.\n\n\"You may exit,\" came a weak quavering voice. \"Follow us.\"\n\nShe ducked from the cave, followed by Leoman. The creatures had hobbled off towards the shore. \"Come,\" one called.\n\nThey descended the strand of black sand. Kiska glanced about, searching for the giant, Korus. He seemed nowhere about. The enormous faint silhouette of Maker was visible, larger than any mountain, labouring somewhere on the distant shoreline." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then she saw someone at the shore and she froze. Her heart lurched as if it had been hammered. She clamped a hand to her mouth. Him. Standing. Standing. Staring out at the bright Vitr sea. Oh, my Queen– I have wronged you so.\n\nShe ran all the way down to him only to stop just short. She reached out as if to touch him but yanked her hand back, afraid she shouldn't. Or that he might not be there. He turned to her and she flinched, catching her breath. For he was Tayschrenn yet he wasn't. Gone was the sharp questing gaze that could flense flesh from bone. And gone also was the guarded mien– immobile, almost mask-like. He smiled now, studying her in turn. Yet the sight made her heartache even more so sad was it, so melancholy.\n\n\"You are... healed?\" she asked, her voice catching.\n\n\"Healed? Yes, Kiska. I am healed.\" He reached out to brush her hair from her face. \"And harrowed. Cut through to the core.\"\n\n\"I don't understand. '\n\nHe invited her to walk with him along the shore. \"You restored me, Kiska. Though I wonder whether I should thank you for it.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I mean I was– am– Thenaj still. Just as I am also Tayschrenn. And I find that I was everything Thenaj loathed. Yet I am both still. And now I must choose who to be.\"\n\n\"You are both? Be both then. Who you are.\"\n\nAgain the wintry smile as he walked, his long thin hair loose. \"Always the hard choice with you, hey, Kiska? Easier just to deny the one or the other. Blot it out. Pretend it never was... but instead you counsel conciliation. The difficult third path of adaptation and growth.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He held his long-fingered hands out in front of him, turned them over as if studying them for the first time. \"So be it. I shall be both– and neither.\"\n\n\"And,\" Kiska asked warily, \"what will you do?\"\n\n\"Yes. What to do. I cannot return to the old now that I am not who I was... Yet one possibility does beckon. A possible place for me. One perhaps only I can fill...\"\n\n\"And that is?\"\n\nHe turned to face her, square on. Shook his head. \"We shall see. I may not be strong enough to take it on. For now it is enough that we will be going. I am finished here.\"\n\n\"So– we are leaving? You are coming with me?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nKiska felt as if she had shed ten stone. \"Thank the gods!\"\n\n\"Do not thank them,\" Tayschrenn snapped in a manner something like his old self. \"Terrible, unforgivable things are stirring and it could be argued that they are to blame. They've stuck their hands into the furnace once too many times and now they find they cannot pull them out. So do not thank them. But perhaps we can find it within us to pity them. '\n\nKiska did not know what to make of that– most of which seemed directed more at himself, in any case. But it wasn't important. She'd heard the words she'd wanted to hear. He was returning. She had succeeded. Sent on a mission across creation to find someone cast into Chaos– and she had succeeded!\n\nAnd now she wondered: was that in truth what mattered to her? Was it that which had been gnawing at her all this time? Not concern for Tayschrenn; not fear of her own fate. Was it just that she couldn't stomach failure? Not a flattering piece of self-revelation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps, as Tayschrenn suggested, she should just blot that one out.\n\nHe led her back to where Leoman stood waiting, hands on his belt, next to the gathered creatures.\n\nTayschrenn stopped in front of the man and frowned. \"Leoman of the Flails. You have some nerve standing here before me.\"\n\nThe man gave an insouciant shrug. \"All that is the past.\"\n\nThe mage's gaze narrowed, the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes deepening. \"Funny you should say that...\"\n\n\"Thenaj...\" one of the unformed asked, its thin voice trembling. \"What is happening?\"\n\n\"I am sorry. But– I am leaving.\"\n\n\"Leaving? Going?\" The creatures setup a clamour of murmuring and crying.\n\nThen Korus appeared, bounding towards them from among the dunes. \"What is this!\" it bellowed. \"You are going?\" Coming close, it dug in its odd clawed feet to halt, kicking up sand. \"I knew you would betray us! Look at you. I sense it in you– mage. Torturer! Murderer!\"\n\n\"That's not fair! ' Kiska shouted.\n\n\"Look at you... abandoning us. Does your word mean nothing? No– of course it does not, for you have been forsworn all your life!\"\n\nUndisguised hurt twisted Tayschrenn's features. He raised a hand to speak.\"Please, Korus... my friend... '\n\n\"And what are we to do?\" the giant demon raged on. It thrust a taloned hand to the Vitr. \"Every day I hear them calling. Our brothers and sisters, dying! Burning into dissolution! What are we to do?\" Kiska was astounded to hear true torment in the demon's cracking trembling voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Korus... Korus. Please. Listen tome. Give me your hands.\"\n\nThe huge beast flinched away. \"What?\"\n\n\"Korus, trust me. I am still the man you knew as Thenaj. Truly. I am. Now give me your hands.\"\n\nThe high-born demon edged its wide taloned hands closer. Its knife-like fangs ground and scraped at the strain of the gesture. Tayschrenn took the mangled fingers in his. Scar tissue that twisted up Korus's forearms marked the extent of its past suffering. After a moment Tayschrenn released them.\"There. '\n\n\"There? What trick is this?\"\n\n\"You are now inured to the Vitr, friend. You may enter it as I did. Without fear or effect. You will take my place.\"\n\nThe demon backed away. It cocked its wide mangy head as if it could not, or would not, believe. \"How can I...\"\n\nTayschrenn gestured to the Vitr sea. \"Go ahead. Test it.\"\n\nKorus stepped back, still wary. Then it padded down to the waves. It dipped a hand into a glimmering wash of the liquid light and raised it, letting the fluid run from its taloned fingers. Then, peering back at them, it laughed. It threw back its maned head and let go a great shaking roar of laughter. It fell to its knees splashing both hands in the Vitr as if it were no more than a tidal pool. The malformed creatures gathered nearby on the shore. They murmured their amazement while Korus chuckled on and on.\n\n\"That was a great thing,\" Kiska said.\n\nThe mage shook his head. \"Was it? Few who call survive. He will suffer much failure. That will be a torment.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No. His helplessness was his torment.\"\n\n\"Helplessness?\" The mage examined his own hands once more. \"Ah. Helplessness.\"\n\n\"And now?\" she asked.\n\n\"Now we will go.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Leoman said. \"Now you will go.\"\n\n\"You?\" Kiska repeated sharply. \"What do you mean? You said that earlier too.\"\n\nThe man brushed his moustache, shrugging again. \"I mean I will be staying, I think.\"\n\n\"You? Stay?\" Kiska laughed. \"That's absurd. \"She gestured to the desolate shore.\"There's nothing here for you.\"\n\n\"It's peaceful, Kiska, \"he answered calmly, completely unruffled by her disparagement.\"I can sleep here. And tome that means a lot. '\n\n\"I understand,\" Tayschrenn said.\n\nKiska set her hands on her hips. \"This is ridiculous.\" She gestured towards Tayschrenn. \"I just got-You're coming with us. That's all there is to it.\"\n\n\"No. And who knows... if this place can help our friend here, perhaps it can help me.\"\n\nKiska waved, entreating Tayschrenn to speak. \"Say something. He can't stay here all alone! '\n\nThe mage cleared his throat, nodding. \"Maker likes stories. I was always sorry I didn't have any for him. '\n\nLeoman groomed his moustache again. \"Oh-ho!\" He smiled behind his hand. \"Have I got stories for him.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nTayschrenn took her hand. \"Come.\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\nHe pulled her along behind like a reluctant child." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No– we can't just leave him here all alone..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'\n\n\"He is not alone.\"\n\n\"Well, yes, but...\"\n\n\"He knows what is best for him. Now come. We have far to go.\"\n\n\"Fine!\" She twisted her hand free and straightened her shirt. \"Fine. Leave him exiled, then! Forever!\"\n\nTayschrenn walked on, hands clasped behind his back. \"He is not exiled. He can leave whenever he wishes. Maker can send him anywhere he chooses.\"\n\n\"Oh... well. Why didn't you say so? \"Kiska ran to catch up. She glanced back, caught Leoman's eye, and waved farewell.\n\nLeoman answered the wave then turned away, arms crossed, to watch Korus play in the sea. And, to Kiska's eyes, he did possess the look of a man at peace.\n\nNoise from downstairs woke Scillara. She tensed, listening in the dark. The city had been quiet these last weeks now that the Legate had imposed his curfew. Every sound carried a sudden insistence and stood out as rare and unexpected as... well, as an honest man.\n\nShe reached down for the long-knife Barathol kept on the floor under the bed. She'd laughed, of course, as washer way with him– anything to dance away from the grim– for she'd spotted him long ago as one of those who could slide too easily into gloomy brooding.\n\nUp to her to chivvy him along.\n\nStrangely enough, her first thought had been for the babe. Now there's a shocker. Gettin\" tome after all. Just as Barathol said.\n\nShe listened once more: now all she could hear were the babe's quick wet breaths." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then it came again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Someone moving about downstairs. As if they had two sticks to steal! As disappointing a break-in as they come. She went quickly to the stairs and edged her way down, blade out in front. Let them chuckle at the fat woman with a knife; she'd had to cut her fair share of men turned ugly with drink and sour tempers.\n\nAlight was visible on the main floor. Halfway down the stone stairs she saw Barathol at the rear seeing to the banked fire. She reached up through the trapdoor to slip the blade onto the bedroom floor and went down.\n\n\"Back already?\"\n\nHe grunted and turned from coaxing the fire going. She was shocked to see that he was sodden through. \"You're soaked. Was it raining? '\n\n\"No,\" he croaked, his voice ragged.\n\nShe took the sticks and tinder from his shaking hands. \"I'll see to it. What happened, then? ' She blew on the embers.\n\nHe slumped into a chair. \"I washed. Washed everything. Dumped water over myself from a cistern.\"\n\n\"To hide the smell of the drink?\"\n\nNot a glimmer answered that. \"No. To wash away... something else.\" He held out his hands and turned them over. They shook like leaves. Kneeling, she reached for them but he yanked them away. Even so, she felt their chill. Frozen!\n\n\"A lad came yesterday with a cooked meal for us and a note sayin\" you were working still. \"He looked confused, blinking heavily. Exhausted– what was this job? I'll have that fat man's head!\n\n\"Message? I sent no message.\"\n\n\"Well. You're back now. Want to seethe little one? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He straightened, lurching. \"No! Have to... have to wash first.\"\n\n\"Wash?\" She laughed lightly. \"You're cleaner than I've ever seen you!\"\n\nHe merely stared at the fire. \"Heat water. Bring that cake of soap. And our smallest knife. Have to cut my nails. Scour my hands. Before– before I touch anything.\"\n\n\"Barathol... you're clean enough-'\n\n\"No!\" He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes. \"Dammit, woman, just do as I ask for once.\"\n\nScillara backed away. Fine. Just this once then! She went to fill the pot.\n\n\n\nChal Grilol had been a woodwright turning out spoked wheels for wagons and chests, benches, just about anything anyone required in the neighbourhood. Then the joint-ache took his hands and he couldn't hold a tool no more. He couldn't work so he lost his home; his boys were long gone and the wife was dead so he was out on the street sleeping under a wharf on the waterfront. Tonight he was out fishing off the end of the dock, using a lantern to lure fingerlings.\n\nThen along came this two-wheeled cart pushed backwards up the dock by a shaggy man all dirty and wild-haired and muttering to himself. And while Chal watched, amazed, this burly fellow proceeded to toss tools and bits and pieces from the cart into the lake. He threw hammers as far as he could out into the waves. Wearing thick leather gloves he tossed handfuls of smaller tools like scatterings of stones off the dock. Then he got upon to the cart and kicked over a big anvil that fell with a resounding bang that shook the entire dock from end to end. This he pushed over and over until he tipped it off the end with a huge splash. Last, the gloves themselves followed into the drink." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dusting his hands, the fellow turned to Chal, still sitting, pole in his hands. He took out a soot-smeared rag and wiped his face and hands then peered down, frowning. \"You might bethinking to yourself, friend: \"That lot could be worth a copper or two.\" But don't consider it. \"He leaned even closer and there was something in his eyes, something wild and terrible.\"They're cursed, friend. Touched with a fearsome curse.\" He glanced about as if listening to the night, the water lapping, the boats groaning against their berths. \"Even now it might not be safe.\" And he patted Chal's shoulder and started up the dock with his cart.\"G'night!\"\n\nAs the creaking of the cartwheels diminished up the waterfront Chal sat listening and it seemed to him that the murmur of the water had taken on a more ominous hollow moaning and that the wheels' groaning had returned to his ears– this time accompanied by the jangling of metal chain, perhaps from the nearby ships. Pole in one hand and lantern in the other, he ran. His naked feet slapped the grey boards as he went and a cold chill seemed to nip at them with each step.\n\n*\n\nSpindle was half awake in the bar common room, chin in hands, dredging his brain trying to figure out what that damned alchemist-mage, Baruk, had been trying to tell him. There must be something there. He was sure of it. Why else let him go? Why else hint at... whatever it was he meant? Something was there just beyond his reach; it was driving him crazy.\n\nAt the barrier they'd thrown across the door, watching the night-time street, Blend recrossed her legs and tilted back in her chair, her crossbow on her lap. Then the long stone counter of the bar exploded. There was no other word for it. It just burst with an eruption that sent Blend cartwheeling backwards, the crossbow firing, to fall on her back. Spindle fell from his chair and scooted under the table." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Feet thumped and in came Duiker wearing a shirt and trousers, sheathed sword in hand, followed by Picker in along nightshirt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bard, Fisher, was out: taking the mood of the city, or some damned thing like that.\n\n\"What happened?\" Picker demanded. Peering up, Spindle thought the woman's heavy unbound breasts pushed out the nightshirt in a very appealing way.\n\n\"Damned bar cracked,\" Blend said. \"Spin... Get outta there, Spin. Take a look.\"\n\n\"Fell out of my chair, that's all. ' He straightened, adjusted his shirt. She waved him to the bar.\n\nThe stone was cracked clean across. Dust still lingered in the air. \"More of the same,\" he said. \"This place is under some kinda pressure. Like it's bein'twisted and squeezed. Just like K'rul himself. '\n\n\"Herself,\" Blend corrected. \"You saw her.\"\n\n\"Yeah. But I always thought o\" K'rul as a he.\"\n\n\"Always been a she– everyone knows that!\"\n\n\"Not as I'd heard. '\n\n\"Doesn't fucking matter! \"Picker cut in.\"Get your priorities straight, would you? Spin, we in worse trouble now? Should we cutout? '\n\nHe laid a hand on the stone counter and tried to sort through the jangling messages blaring from his Warren. Gods! Like an overturned anthill. Everything's running allover, frantic, hunting for cover from what they don't even know. Got the feeling it won't matter where we go...\n\n\"We should stay,\" Duiker suddenly announced. Everyone looked at the old man.\n\n\"Why?\" Blend demanded.\n\n\"I think it helps. Us, people, being here. I think it helps.\"\n\nBlend turned to Spindle. \"Well?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He gave a quick jerk of his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah. Not sure we'd be any safer anywhere else. '\n\n\"Good.\" Blend peered about the place, almost possessive. \"Don't want to be run out. Got too much invested here. \"She glared at them.\"Well, get back to sleep. Excitement's over.\"\n\nSpindle watched Picker head back to the old priest cells. Man, haven't had a woman in along time if Picker's lookin' good. He rubbed his hand on the smooth cold stone. Stone. The stones. Maybe that was it. Something about the stones. Yes! Had to be it. But what? What about the stones?\n\nHe slapped the counter. Queen take it! It was infuriating! He knew there was something there. He just couldn't reach it. Had to be important. It just had to be.\n\nJan lay in the quarters that had been setup for the Seguleh among the rambling rooms of Majesty Hall. One of the Hundredth came to let him know that the Legate required him in the Great Hall. He nodded and rose.\n\nRequired. Their new status here. Servants. Servants to the Throne. Yet it was not as if this were new. They were merely returning to their original place. Their original role. Was this not all they had yearned for during the long exile? Why then his disquiet, his unease?\n\nToo proud for service? Too arrogant to bend the knee? Was that his trouble?\n\nPerhaps. Yet he could not help suspecting that the cause lay deeper than that. Something more integral, more essential.\n\nHe found the Great Hall crowded with councillors, city aristocrats, court functionaries, and general hangers-on such as Lady Envy– many of whom had no actual purpose but who seemed able to behave as if they did. He ignored them all, of course, not being of the sword. Even those who did wear weapons on their hips, such as some of the councillors. He and his brothers and sisters had had to come up with anew category for those individuals: eunuchs who still retained their weapons." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Talk was a low murmur– perhaps so that everyone could eavesdrop on everyone else. Jan walked straight for the throne. Four of the Twenty guarded it. Also present were those two shabby guards. They stood off to one side among the pillars of the colonnade. Right now their crossbows hung at their sides as they ate some sort of steamed buns. It occurred to Jan that they always seemed to be eating.\n\nThe Mouthpiece approached, looking as pale and haggard as always. He appeared sick, fevered perhaps, sweaty, a hand constantly at his throat. \"Second,\" he greeted him. Jan bowed. \"We have a prisoner. A spy who worked against us. He must be executed.\"\n\nJan gave the slightest of shrugs. \"Executed? Very well. Let it be done.\"\n\nThe Mouthpiece wiped his brow, swallowed, and held his stomach, pained. \"You do not seem to understand. The execution is for you Seguleh to perform. You must see to it.\"\n\nJan faced the gold-masked figure on the throne. \"There must be some misunderstanding. We are warriors, not headsmen. We do not kill prisoners.\"\n\nThe gold oval edged his way. It seemed to Jan that the graven half-smile on the lips took on a cold aloofness. \"You Seguleh have always been my executioners,\" said the Mouthpiece. \"That is the purpose for which I moulded you. The perfect executioners who slew any and all who opposed me. Now... fulfil your role.\"\n\nIt was not only the speed of Jan's reflexes that had raised him to the rank of Second; it was also the quickness of his mind. And so in answer he merely inclined his mask slightly and turned to leave." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now is not the time, nor the place. Leaping into opposition now would mean confrontation and escalation. Before entering into battle one must consider all the potential outcomes, select the most desirable, then guide the engagement to the achievement of that end.\n\nAnd what is that end? At this time I have no idea what it might be...\n\nWhen the city Warden opened the cell door for Jan and two of the Hundredth, the prisoner stood to meet them. He held his head level. His hands were bound behind his back. He was an older, rather overweight, retired city guardsman, now dishevelled from having been searched and mildly beaten.\n\n\"You are charged with conspiring to bring down the rule of the Legate,\" Jan said.\n\nThe two of the Hundredth exchanged wondering glances; the prisoner seemed unaware of the extraordinary honour Jan had just accorded him.\n\nThe man shrugged as best he could with his hands tightly bound. \"I am not ashamed. Nor do I deny it. I would do it again. Darujhistan can govern itself without coercion or command.\"\n\n\"That would be chaos.\"\n\nThe ex-guardsman appeared amused. \"Only to those who do not understand it.\"\n\nJan gave a quick cut of his hand. \"Hierarchy must be clear.\"\n\n\"You of all people I do not expect to understand such things.\"\n\n\"Perhaps that is so,\" Jan agreed. \"I do not pretend to be conversant with all forms of rulership.\"\n\nThe former guardsman nodded. \"Ah... I see it now. You speak of rulership. I speak of governance.\"\n\n\"I do not seethe distinction.\"\n\nThe ex-guardsman studied Jan closely, as if attempting to peer in behind the mask. What he saw there, or failed to see, appeared to disappoint him. \"Then that is the gulf between us.\" He tilted his head as if struck by anew thought. \"Yet you are speaking tome– why?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am trying to understand.\"\n\nThis admission rocked the ex-guardsman and his eyes widened as he seemed to appreciate the depth of it. Then his gaze slid to the floor and he let out a heavy breath. \"If that is so, then I am saddened for you.\"\n\nNow Jan was shaken as if struck. I am hereto execute this man yet he pities me?\n\nPerhaps alarmed by Jan's reaction one of the Hundredth stepped forward, gripping her sword.\"Kneel, \"she commanded.\"You have been condemned to die. '\n\nJan snapped out a hand-command. No. \"This is for me.\"\n\n\"You are Second,\" the woman dared breathe, mask held aside.\n\n\"All the more reason it must be me.\" Yes, I am Second. Tome must fall this burden. Tome must fall the guilt. He slipped a hand to his sword-grip, addressed the ex-guardsman. \"It will be quick.\"\n\n\"For me it will be,\" the man whispered before Jan's blade flashed one-handed beneath his chin. The knees gave first, seeming to drag the body down. It fell straight, limp, sagging.\n\nJan regarded the corpse and its last pumping jets of arterial blood as the heart stubbornly laboured on, refusing to admit to the end. He carefully cleaned his blade before resheathing it. The two of the Hundredth stared on, fascinated by the graphic demonstration. Jan motioned them out, rather impatiently, and remained behind. The man was right. For him this had been quick. But I fear I will never put this behind me. I have murdered. Tome now falls the guilt for this... and so much more. Oh, First, why did you not speak of this? Was it because your guilt was too great? And yet all that was so long ago. Can't a people change? Perhaps they can– if those around them will allow it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Leaving the hall of cells Jan motioned to the prison guards. They passed him, eyes downcast, sliding along the far wall. And where Jan might have once read respect, or due esteem, he now saw only fear. Perhaps even a touch of distaste.\n\nOr was that just himself?\n\nAntsy could no longer hear the muted groaning and crack of rock echoing through the Spawn now that he was chiselling out the stone threshold under the great stone doors concealing what this crazy-eyed gang of witches, priests, mages and mercenaries were convinced was the Throne of Night.\n\nHe didn't think they led to anything remotely like that at all. Maybe the Broom Closet of Dust. Or more likely the Toilet of Crap. But that wasn't his worry. His job was to open these doors, or no one was going anywhere. Even when he rested, the sharp ringing of iron on iron twanged in his ears, and so it was a shock to glance over and see a set of fine polished leather boots right next to him. He glanced up and saw the armoured and richly attired fellow who he assumed to be a mage, who had given his name as Bauchelain.\n\n\"What do you want?\" Antsy said, rather loudly because of all the ringing.\n\nThe man bent down to study him with unsettling intensity. \"You are close to death,\" he said.\n\nAntsy looked the fellow up and down very pointedly. \"I sure am.\"\n\nHe shook his head, chuckling. \"No, no, no. Not me. Not at the moment, in any case. No, I mean death is watching you. You are of interest to... ah... it.\"\n\n\"You mean Hood?\"\n\n\"Certainly not. Hood has gone to his oh-so-poetic and appropriate end, has he not? Dying, as he did. Which itself raises all sorts of disturbing chicken-and-egg questions and other philosophical conundrums. No, what I mean is the new manifestation it has fixed on while it flails about trying to find a permanent one– if any. Which brings us back to you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Me?\"\n\n\"Yes. The current manifestation of death is, again appropriately enough, soldiers. A certain band of soldiers, whose remains, so rumours have it, can be found on this very rock. My companion, Korbal Broach, is very eager to make their acquaintance. Quite keen he is to study them. You wouldn't happen to know their whereabouts, would you? '\n\nAntsy swallowed hard and said, dead level, \"I have no idea what yer talking about.\"\n\n\"Ah. A shame, that. Well, let's hope something turns up, yes? '\n\nAntsy said nothing.\n\nA reedy old man's voice called from the darkness:\"Master Bauchelain! Our, ah, friend is getting into trouble again! '\n\nThe fellow stroked his goatee, looking at the ceiling and sighing. \"Must go. Korbal's wandered off. Till later then, yes? Take care. '\n\nShaken, Antsy returned to his chiselling. Burn's own blood! Truth be told, he'd come here precisely to make sure nothing like what that creature was hinting at would happen, or had happened. In the back of his mind he'd known the danger existed, what with the Spawn crashing and all. Sure, a bucketful of gems and coin would go along way. But that was just cream. All along he'd wanted to make sure things were still all squared away and proper. The thought of a broken sealed pit or whatever it was, and people messin' about with the bones of his brothers and sisters, made him too furious to even think straight-\n\nHe left off his chiselling, panting, hands fisted on his thighs. Almost busted a thumb there.\n\nSomeone else was standing behind him now: cracked sandals, tattered trouser legs over bony bruised shanks. The lad, Jallin. He leaned down. \"You're gonna die, soldier, \"he said, matter of fact.\"My mistress. The things I seen her do. She's gonna do for you...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Shut the Abyss up,\" Antsy growled. \"I'm busy. '\n\nThe lad flinched, almost hurt. Then he recovered, grinning toothily. \"Gonna die,\" he mouthed, backing away.\n\nShaking his head Antsy returned to his work. Sometime later someone banged on the stone flag of the threshold and Antsy whipped round, a curse on his lips. It was the blond-haired mercenary in his plain cloth tabard over mail armour, and canvas-covered round shield. With him were two of his guards. The other two, it seemed, hadn't made it.\"What is it? ' Antsy asked, wary.\n\nThe man peered at his work from under his tangled brows. \"You are making a hole, yes? A nest?\"\n\nThe accent was completely unfamiliar but Antsy nodded. \"Yeah. Sorta...\"\n\n\"How deep?\"\n\n\"About the span of a hand. Why?\"\n\n\"We will help dig. You go rest. Yes?\"\n\n\"You're not from Elingarth, are you? '\n\n\"No. We are from another land. Faraway.\" He motioned to his guards and they held out their hands for the hammer and chisel. Antsy passed them over. The two laid aside their shields and set to work with a vengeance, bashing away. Antsy backed off. He drew out a cloth and wiped his face. \"Why're you here? '\n\n\"Same as you, hey? The stories of riches we heard. We were in the south. We had a ship. We were... how you say... taxing shipping, yes? Then we came here.\" He shook his head. \"Very large mistake. You get us out, we owe you much.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Antsy.\"\n\n\"Cull. Cull Heel. Now you go sleep. We dig.\"\n\nAntsy kneaded the cloth in his numb aching hands. \"Well, all right. You come get me in a little while, hey?\"\n\nThe man waved him off. \"Yes, yes.\"\n\nAntsy walked towards the room off the main chamber that Orchid and Corien had taken. He caught the two mages, the old woman and the fat man, eyeing him all the way across the chamber. He tried his best to ignore them.\n\nWithin, Orchid turned quickly on him, asking, \"How is it going?\"\n\nAntsy lay down on a pile of gathered cloaks and odd clothing and threw an arm over his eyes. \"Damned slow.\"\n\n\"They keep coming round– peering at us. Like they're sizing us up fora meal. Gives me the shivers. '\n\n\"Who does?\"\n\n\"All of them.\"\n\n\"Orchid,\" Corien warned gently from across the room.\n\n\"What? Oh.\"\n\nAlight kick woke Antsy and he blinked, squinting in the bluish magelight. It was Corien. The lad waved him up. One of the mercenaries was there; the man gestured him out. After pulling together his gear Antsy followed. Something about the mercenaries struck him then as he walked: they were all damned big fellows, wide and tall, unusually so. And they all had the same broad heavy faces, as if they were related by blood.\n\nThe blond man, Cull, motioned to the chiselled-out gap. \"Good, yes?\"\n\n\"Let's have a look. \"Antsy lay on his stomach to measure the space. Still too tight for his cusser. He pushed himself up to his knees.\"A touch more yet. ' He reached for the hammer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, no. We do more. You watch.\"\n\n\"It's all right. I should... '\n\nCull held up a bloodied hand. \"No. You need your fingers to get us out, yes? We do this.\"\n\nHunh. How do you like that? He peered around at all the sweaty glistening faces watching from the dark walkways and portals: the tall woman, Seris; the old mage, Hemper; Hesta and Ogule. Typical. They want out but don't even consider lending a hand. Privileged shits. And as for the Malazans, well, at least they were standing guard down the hall.\n\nWhile Antsy was crouched, watching the chiselling, Orchid emerged from the dark to come to his side. \"You should see this,\" she said, sounding unusually subdued.\n\n\"We're close here, Orchid. '\n\n\"It'll only take a moment. '\n\nHe saw the wonder on her face and grunted. \"All right. But quick.\"\n\n\"This way.\"\n\nShe led him up an unlit side passage; his mage-sight allowed him to see here away from the lanterns in the main chamber. Through doorways and a short set of stairs down she brought him into another large cavern, this one low-ceilinged and filled with undecorated stone pillars. Crystals glistened on the uneven black rock walls and from where he stood he could see a sort of natural set of terraces descending into the distance. Dirt lay under his feet along with brown withered plant stalks. \"What's this? \"he breathed, sharing Orchid's wonder.\n\nA figure emerged from the gloom: Malakai. He carried a bunch of stalks gathered up in one hand like a bouquet. He sat on the ledge of one of the low terraces, which Antsy now recognized as a kind of planting bed. \"A garden,\" the man said, inspecting the dead stalks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Antsy stared, amazed. \"Not...\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Orchid whispered, awed. \"The legends were true. A garden.\"\n\n\"There were flowers here that scholars tell had never seen the sun,\" Malakai said, and he shook his head. \"Imagine what a single such blossom would have bought. All dead now. This is what Apsalar sought when she came to the Spawn so long ago. The Lady of Thieves came to steal arose. A black rose. One that poets claimed had been touched by the tears of Mother Dark herself.\" Shrugging, he let the handful of chaff fall. \"And I sought to best her. To succeed where she had failed.\" He motioned to encompass the wrecked cavern, the spilled soil and overturned beds. \"So much for my ambitions.\"\n\nAntsy kicked at the black dirt underfoot. \"We still need to get out, Malakai. You can lend a hand.\"\n\nThe man drew a heavy breath. \"Yes. Well... we shall see.\"\n\nAntsy motioned to Orchid. \"I have to go,\" he said, low.\n\nShe nodded and waved him out.\n\nBack in the main chamber the chiselling had stopped. On the way to the throne-room doors Antsy heard ominous popping and cracking that reverberated up through the stone beneath his feet. Time's runnin\" out, I swear.\n\nThe mercenaries were all crouched inspecting the pocket they'd worked. They were arguing. The blond man, Cull, was cuffing the other two and shouting them down. Antsy picked up his pace.\n\n\"What's this? '\n\n\"Ah, Malazan. I tell these fools no more. We wait for you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Antsy pushed through them– a hard task in that each seemed as solid and immobile as the rock itself– and studied the gap beneath the stone doors. \"Looks good. Let's try the fit. ' He swung his pannier forward.\n\nThe three mercenaries backed away. Antsy took a moment to study them. \"Who are you anyway? What do I call you?\"\n\nCull thumped his broad armoured chest. \"We are the Heels!\"\n\nAntsy just stared. Right. The Heels. Okay... He waved them off and returned his attention to the pocket. The fit was too wide in places and too tight in one spot. A last few touches of the chisel fixed that. Stone chips helped keep the cusser in place, then Antsy pulled out a stone of rough unpolished granite. With this he started to abrade the keratin shell of the cusser as close to the top of it as he could reach.\n\nFiddler and Hedge had perfected this technique– skimming. They used it to time charges. Problem was, he'd never actually had call to do it himself. But they'd all talked it over pretty thoroughly. All the squad saboteurs. Come to think of it– none of them had ever done it themselves neither!\n\nShit.\n\nHe pulled away the granite grinding stone. Well then, he decided. Maybe that's good enough. Lying on his stomach he turned back to the chamber, yelled:\"Seris! Get your people ready! '\n\nThe tall woman emerged from the gloom. \"Now? You are prepared?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" And he shouted louder. \"Munitions! Ware!\"\n\nHe pulled out a small hard case, opened it. Inside rested a glass tube. This he unstoppered, and, reaching awkwardly under the lip of the door's bottom, let three drops fall into the scar he'd scraped into the shell of the munition." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pushed himself away as quickly as he could and ran." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Across the chamber he spotted Orchid and Corien behind a thick pillar and joined them.\n\n\"How long?\" Corien whispered.\n\n\"Don't know. Shouldn't be too-\"\n\nThe entire structure juddered around them, groaning and snapping in an agony of tortured rock. A stone arch burst overhead, sending shards pattering down. The Spawn began to tilt. Equipment, rubbish and broken rubble slid across the floor. Antsy grabbed hold of the pillar together with Orchid and Corien.\n\nHe watched, horrified, as something came tumbling out from the tilting threshold before the doors and rolled down the shallow stairs. The cusser. Sweet Soliel, no!\n\nEven as he stared it bounced once, twice, three times, then slid down the polished smooth stone floor to disappear into the great yawning hole in the middle of the chamber.\n\nHood's laughter!\n\nEveryone was screaming and shouting and cursing. Apiece of what looked like expensive travelling baggage came sliding out of the darkness to follow the cusser down the well. An old man yelled his despair.\n\nThen the stone of the Spawn kicked Antsy. At least that's what it felt like. The floor jerked, punishing his ankles and knees. A great gust of air came shooting from the well. It stank of the acrid smoke of expended munitions and was heavy with water vapour.\n\nPonderously, among bursting and grinding complaints of stone, the Spawn began to tilt back in the opposite direction, righting itself. The old woman, Hesta, came staggering out of the dark. Her ribbons and hair had gone, revealing a wrinkled bald scalp. With her pale head and scrawny body she more than ever resembled a vulture." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Proceed with the plot as the storytelling partner.\nTags: epic fantasy, ancient city, magic, power dynamics, hidden secrets\nAuthor: Ian Cameron Esslemont\nTitle: Orb Sceptre Throne\nChapter: 23" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Aragan nodded. \"Oponn favour you, man.\" He waved Captain Dreshen to follow.\n\nWhen he found K'ess, the Fist stared his disbelief before belatedly saluting.\"Ambassador– you shouldn't be here. I suggest you withdraw-\"\n\n\"None of us should be here, Fist. What's the butcher's bill?\"\n\nThe Fist exchanged bleak glances with the aides and staff surrounding him. \"First estimate is forty percent incapacitated,\" he reported, his voice hoarse. \"Wounded or otherwise.\"\n\nAragan's chest constricted like an iron band. He couldn't draw breath. Burn deliver them! Forty percent! This was... unimaginable. What were these Seguleh? The noise of the nearby fighting faded to a dull roar. He blinked away the darkness that seemed to be clawing at him from the edges of his vision and forced in a deep steadying breath. \"Fist. The Rhivi have bought us time. We no longer have the troops to hold this line. I suggest we withdraw to the head of the valley, among the rocks.\"\n\nFist K'ess saluted. The man's face was a lifeless mask, shocked beyond expression, beyond feeling. \"Yes, Ambassador.\"\n\n\n\nThen a bellowed call came: \"Retreat! Move out! Up valley!\"\n\n\"Damn,\" Hektar murmured, stricken. \"I can't see nothing. '\n\nThough feeling strangely weak and a touch dizzy Bendan took the man's elbow with his one good hand.\"I'll guide you, Sarge. Don't you worry. C'mon, this way.\"\n\nAfter the scramble higher up the slope, Bendan found himself and Hektar among the front ranks. Not believing his terrible luck, he glanced to the slashed limping and crippled troopers on his left and right and swallowed his outrage. A gimp and a blind man– best the Empire can muster! What a Twins-cursed joke. \"Get back, Sarge. You're no use. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can still fill a slot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hold the line.\"\n\n\"You can't see a thing! '\n\nThe beaming smile returned. \"We're all just hidin'behind our shields anyways, ain't we? '\n\nBendan squinted down the valley to where the Seguleh had assembled. What in the name of the Queen of Mysteries were they waiting for?\n\n\"Still not comin\"? ' Hektar asked.\n\n\"Yeah. They're just... standin'there. Like they was waitin\" for us to runaway or somethin\".\"\n\nSomeone came scrambling among the rocks. It was Bone, the old saboteur. \"Hey, Sarge! I...\" His voice trailed away when Hektar turned to the sound of his voice. \"Damn! I'm sorry, Sarge. '\n\n\"I'm still standing. Seen Little? '\n\n\"Yeah... up the lines.\"\n\n\"Good.\"\n\n\"What're they waitin'for?\" Bendan complained yet again.\n\n\"They do not pursue,\" K'ess muttered where he stood with Aragan at the centre of the Malazan lines.\n\n\"No,\" Aragan answered, distracted. \"They maybe giving us time to have a good think about this. And frankly, the troops deserve that... In fact, they deserve better than that...\"\n\nBracing himself, he stepped out among the rocks before the lines and turned to face the troops. He raised his arms for their attention. \"Rankers! You know me. Some of you knew meas Fist Aragan, some as Captain Aragan. Abyss– some of you old dogs even knew meas Sergeant Aragan! And what's my point? \"He swept an arm behind to the Seguleh, now forming up in column.\"You've all heard the stories about how these Seguleh have never been beaten. How they've slaughtered everyone who's ever faced them. Well, look around... We're still here! And now– now they're offerin\" you a choice! All you have to do is drop your swords to surrender. That's all. But if you do that I can promise you one thing... You ain't gonna get another shot at the bastards! So what's it going to be? Hey? What's your answer? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Silence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Aragan glared right and left, his heart hammering, gulping his breaths. Then at the far end of the line a hulking Dal Honese trooper drew his blade, held it out saluting, and bashed it to his shield twice. Hands went to sword-grips all up and down the lines. Swords hissed, drawing to clash in a great thunderous roar against shields, once, twice, then extending in the formal salute.\n\nThere's your Malazan answer. Aragan's vision blurred and he blinked to clear it. To all appearances the man was overcome. Inwardly he unclenched a nightmare of dread. Thank the gods they didn't tell me to piss off.\n\nHe rejoined Fist K'ess in the lines.\n\n\"Well done, sir,\" K'ess murmured.\"Still not coming. '\n\nAragan squinted down on the gathered Seguleh, then up the mountain slope behind, sweeping on above to the distant snow-touched peaks, then back again. \"They're waiting... ' He cursed and slammed a fist to his armoured thigh.\n\nK'ess glanced at him.\"What? '\n\nAragan raised his hands as if clutching at the air. \"We're bait! Nothing more than Hood-damned bait! '\n\n\"Bait? What do you mean?\"\n\n\"They don't want us, man! They've never wanted us.\" He pointed to the mountains. \"It's the Moranth! They're calling out the Moranth!\"\n\nK'ess rubbed his chin, nodding. Then he muttered darkly,\"Knew we should've stayed at Dhavran.\"\n\nShouts of alarm sounded and Bendan glanced up. The Seguleh had started up the valley. They came on at a slow jog, double-file. \"Would ya look at that,\" Bone murmured from nearby. \"Beautiful. Done for the Rhivi and now comin\" to finish us off. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Shut up,\" Bendan snapped.\n\n\"What's that? \"Bone answered, grinning.\"Thought you was all for butchery. '\n\n\"Not like this.\"\n\n\"Aw. Not so pleasant when it's you gettin'pummelled, hey?\"\n\n\"I mean not like this!\" He thrust a hand behind them. \"What're we doin'here? There's nothing here but rocks. What's the point?\"\n\n\"Point is we stood up,\" Hektar answered. Then he tilted his head, listening. \"Swear I hear somethin\". '\n\n\n\nTorvald held on for his life as the Silver sent her quorl stooping down the mountain slope, scudding over trees and stone outcroppings with barely an arm's length to spare. They turned and the valley came into his sight ahead. The Seguleh were advancing in column on the Malazans, who had formed anew line, a much thinner line, along higher rough ground.\n\n\"Open the satchel,\" Galene shouted over the wind tearing at them.\n\nArms wrapped in the leather strapping, his hands free, Tor reached for the heavy-duty leather pack tied to the saddle between them. He undid the metal clasps and opened the mouth of the pack. What he saw nestled within made him jump and the quorl jerked in answer, weaving unsteadily in its flight.\n\n\"Careful!\" Galene called loudly, her voice pitched rather higher.\n\nHis gaze slit, Torvald peered down at the valley swooping up to meet them, the diminutive figures moving there, and he shook his head. \"No. I won't do it, ' he shouted.\n\nGalene turned awkwardly in the saddle to glance back at him. \"Take it out!\" she ordered, fierce." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No! How can you even consider-\" and he choked, his heart strangling him, as the quorl curved sideways, turning and diving as if meaning to smash into the valley floor below. Behind them, flight after flight of burdened quorl followed, all flitting downslope in a careering, rushing stream.\n\n\n\n\"Night-damned arm,\" Bendan snarled, as he tried to raise his shield higher.\n\n\"What's that? ' Hektar asked.\n\n\"Ach– took a slash on the shield arm. Now I can't get it high enough! '\n\n\"Use your belt. Strap it and tie it off.\"\n\nBendan grunted. \"Right. But then... what am I gonna do after?\"\n\nThe big Dal Hon turned in his direction as if staring though his eyes were gone. Bendan ducked his head. \"Ah. Right.\" Then he jerked, surprised. \"Would ya look at that!\" He rose from his crouch pointing skyward where curve after curve of Moranth quorls came arching down the valley. They appeared to be swooping in on the closing Seguleh.\n\nBone straightened, shading his gaze. \"Oh, no...\" he whispered.\n\n\"What is it?\" Hektar asked, peering wildly about, his sword ready.\n\n\"Moranth flyin\" in on their monster mounts, \"Bendan told him.\"Gonna land and rush the Seguleh! \"He threw up his one good arm, shouting:\"Yah! '\n\n\"No, they aren't, \"Bone said, his voice shaky.\"Burn forgive us... The poor bastards... '\n\nBendan eyed him, frowning. \"What's that? '\n\nThe grizzled saboteur was hugging himself, backing away among the tall boulders. \"Slaughter... Hood-damned slaughter!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's the matter, man? '\n\nThe saboteur pointed to him. \"Take cover,\" he ordered. \"All o\" you take cover. \"He ran off up the lines, shouting as he went:\" Get cover now, damn you all! '\n\nYet the lines were stirring, readying shields, regripping weapons. For the Seguleh were close now.\n\n\n\nGalene reached behind herself one-handed to pull the fat oblong from its pack. Ducking from the driving wind, Tor grasped it in both hands, hugging it. \"No!\" he shouted. \"It's murder! '\n\n\"Let go, fool!\" The quorl weaved drunkenly. Treetops slashed by beneath, almost striking Tor's boots. The impossible storm of wind threatened to sweep him from the saddle.\"This is war, \"she grated.\"Our survival! '\n\n\"But they stand no chance!\"\n\nShe yanked the cusser free. \"Then they should not have taken up the sword.\"\n\nThe quorl dived even lower now. Tor rose off his seat in the descent. Just ahead the Seguleh column was spreading out. They now appeared so close, and he was rushing in upon them at such a ferocious speed, it seemed to him that they would collide. Before him the valley head rose rocky and steep, thin streams darkening the stonewall here and there. At its foot the Malazan line stood firm in their black surcoats, shields overlapping. Tor spared one quick glance back: line after line of quorl followed, their Silver drivers hunched forward as if racing, Red and Black passengers behind cradling the fat munitions in their arms.\n\nGalene raised the cusser in both hands. The slashing wind snapped her flying jesses and straps about her armoured form." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\n\nSword in hand, Aragan turned from the panting veteran saboteur to stare down into the valley. He took in the jogging Seguleh. Then, above, the swooping Moranth. And he felt as if he would faint. Oh, Hood, no... So close... He staggered forward, threw his arms out, bellowing: \"Take cover now! Cover!\"\n\nBendan felt himself bending backwards further and further as the Moranth quorl seemed to becoming straight for him personally. He saw riders throwing and dark objects tumbling through the air as the quorl tore overhead, so low it seemed he could stretch up and touch their delicate thrumming wingtips. He yanked Hektar– the only man still standing– down among the rearing jumbled boulders and bellowed in his ear over the roaring: \"Shield!\"\n\nAn enormous invisible wall struck Bendan, smashing him down into the rocks. His shield bashed him in the face, stunning him. Stones and dirt and thick choking clouds of dust came billowing over him and he coughed, spitting, and shaking his ringing pummelled head. Multiple blasts punished him, driving him down into the surrounding broken rocks, punching the breath from him.\n\nHe didn't know if he lost consciousness, but at some point he realized that it seemed to be over. He'd been waiting, tensed, curled into a ball beneath his shield, for yet another concussion that never came. He dared to raise his head. Dirt and gravel tumbled from his back. He shook it from his hair and staggered up. All was obscured in hanging drifting smoke and swirling dust. He could hear nothing over the punishing ringing in his ears. He spat again, blinking, holding his chest where his ribs ached from the concussive waves that had battered him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A huge shape shambled upright nearby, dirt sifting from him: Hektar, arms out, blindly searching about the rocks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bendan clasped his arm. \"I'm here, ' he croaked.\n\nThe Dal Hon wiped his face where a clear wetness had cut through the dirt caked beneath his bloodied wrappings. \"Poor bastards,\" he was saying. \"Poor fucking bastards.\"\n\nIt occurred to Bendan that the man was crying.\n\n~\n\nTorvald had pressed himself to Galene's back, one arm around her, the other clasping one of the saddle grips. He squeezed his eyes closed to miss their dizzying near vertical climb scudding over the naked rock face of the valley head. He felt the pressure wave of the multiple eruptions behind him. It was like a hand pressing him into the Moranth Silver and rushing the quorl along like a great tidal push.\n\nCold wetness chilled his cheeks in the slashing wind and he knew that he was weeping. Galene shifted in the saddle and adjusted the jesses and the quorl tilted, arching backwards. It seemed that they were turning round.\n\nWhile the smoke and dust swirled and hung in curtains over the blasted slope Bendan patted Hektar's arm.\"It's all right, man. They woulda done for us.\"\n\n\"Ain't right, \"the sergeant was saying over and over.\"What was done here. Ain't right. It's a fucking tragedy is what it is. '\n\nHorrified shouts sounded from the lines and Bendan turned, squinting into the clouds of settling dust. He almost fell then, his knees weakening, a hand going to his throat. \"Oh no... Hood, no... Don't do this... '\n\n\"What is it?\" Hektar demanded, peering blindly about.\n\nThey came out of the hanging smoke and dust. Some limped, some staggered. Others stayed upright only by virtue of their swords dragging along over the rocks. Still they came onward, advancing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All around, troopers retreated, backing up the rising slope, edging past boulders. \"Stop!\" Bendan shouted to one tattered figure making for him. \"Please– stop!\"\n\nIt was a woman, one arm shattered, bone glistening white through the flesh. Her mask was broken, half gone, that side of her face a blackened red ruin. Still she raised her sword, pointing.\n\nBendan backed away, a hand on Hektar's arm.\n\n\"Where is he?\" the Dal Hon whispered.\n\n\"She's on your left. '\n\nThe Seguleh came on. A trooper scrambled down to her, hunched, sword in one hand, reaching outwith the other. \"Let's put it down, lass, \"he urged, gently.\"Drop your sword. It's allover now.\"\n\nLunging, she slashed one-handed and he fell, eviscerated in a great gout of splashing innards. She straightened again, weaving slightly, blade pointing straight at Bendan.\n\n\"Tell me when she's close, ' Hektar ground out.\n\nTwo more regulars charged her, swinging. Both were weeping as they attacked. She sidestepped, parrying, her sword sliding easily over the first to slash his throat then quickly blocking the other, twisting in a blur round and under his shield, taking the man's leg off at the knee. He fell shrieking.\n\nIt seemed to Bendan that the woman would have fallen at that moment but for leaning her weight on a stab into the crippled man's chest. She recovered then, her mouth writhing in agony beneath its caked dirt and blood. The sword snapped up again, the point inhumanly steady.\n\nHe let go Hektar's arm.\"Ready now, ' he whispered beneath his breath, crouching, shortsword raised." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two quick paces from the woman closed the gap. Bendan hunched even further, eyes barely peeping over his shield. Her blade slashed across the top and he flinched. Warmth ran down his nose. Behind his shield Hektar cocked his head as if listening; then he suddenly launched himself forward with a roar, throwing his arms out.\n\nThe woman slashed and a forearm flew but the man's enormous weight bulled her over and they fell together. Her slim blade somehow licked up between them even as they crashed among the rocks and Bendan jumped after them. He stabbed at the woman, piercing her hip, his blade grating down the pelvis bone. Lancing burning pain erupted in his leg and he glanced down to seethe woman's blade twist free from high in his thigh. Then more troopers crowded him, all thrusting, crying, cursing, weeping. He slumped down against a rock, his leg completely numb. He satin a cold shaky sweat of pain, shock and panic.\n\nOne of the troopers turned Hektar over to reveal the man's chest slashed open. Pink foam blew at his mouth as he laboured to breathe. Bendan slid down to cradle the man's head on his lap. Hektar's wide smile returned but the teeth were bright red with blood now.\"Got one, ' the big man murmured.\n\n\"Yeah. You got one.\"\n\n\"All... done... now.\"\n\n\"Yeah, Sarge. All done now.\"\n\nBendan sat fora longtime holding the dead man. Squad cutters came and tied off his cuts and stopped the bleeding. When they gently pulled at the corpse he batted them away. Having seen it before, the healers moved off without objecting. The hot sun beat down and still Bendan rocked him. Carrion birds gathered, circling over the blasted field of kicked-up dirt and scattered torn bodies. A shadow occluded the sun over Bendan and he looked up, squinting. It was Corporal Little." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She crouched on her haunches at his side, rested a hand on Hektar, then looked to him.\n\n\"Don't you say it, \"he croaked.\"Don't you fucking say anything.\"\n\nShe looked away, blinking back tears. \"No,\" she managed, her voice barely audible. \"I guess not.\"\n\n\n\n\"Sir?\" Fist K'ess said, clearing his throat. Ambassador Aragan did not turn away from where he had stood since the attack, his gaze steady on the shattered field. K'ess himself was not insensate to the horror: the drifting smoke, the broken bodies lying in droves around craters blasted into the loose talus of the slope. He almost turned away, imagining that firestorm of blasts and the fragmented rock chips lancing like shrapnel through unprotected flesh. What disturbed him the most, however, was the silence. How eerie it was; nothing like any of the many fields of battle he'd known. No cries or moans of wounded echoed over the slopes. No calls for water. No outbursts or hopeless cursing.\n\nIndeed, all the murmured sounds of stricken awe, all the curses, the moans and quiet weeping came now from the Malazan troops behind him. And he wondered: what was worse? To have died in that ill-fated charge, or to have to live now having witnessed it?\n\nIt took a strong effort of will to tear his gaze from that appalling field of slaughter and he glanced back to Captain Fal-ej, the woman's arm and chest bloodied and wrapped in stiff drying cloth. She signed to him to speak again.\"Sir, \"he repeated, a touch louder.\"The Moranth have landed. A contingent awaits. '\n\nThe ambassador appeared to gather himself. He turned, blinking and wiping at his eyes. He cleared his throat against the back of his hand. \"Yes. The Moranth,\" he said, his voice shaking with emotion. \"Thank you, Fist. Let's go and see what they want, shall we? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As they clambered down the rocks K'ess was surprised to see a man alongside a Moranth Silver and a battered Red. What was more, the ambassador and the Red actually embraced.\n\n\"Fist K'ess, Captain Fal-ej, \"said Aragan,\"may I introduce Torn, our attaché. '\n\nTorn gestured to the Silver. \"Galene, an Elect. What you might calla priestess. And this is Torvald, Nom of Nom, member of the Darujhistan Council.\"\n\nK'ess and Fal-ej bowed.\"Councillor, an honour. '\n\nThe Darujhistani aristocrat grimaced. He looked shaky and sickly pale. \"Well, it would seem the Council has been suspended.\"\n\n\"None the less,\" Aragan murmured. He gestured aside to another officer, calling, \"Captain Dreshen!\"\n\nThe young officer jogged up, bowing. Aragan held out a hand and the man dug in his shoulder bag to pullout an object about the size of a mace, wrapped in black silk. He handed it to Aragan who held it in both hands, studying it, lips pursed in thought. He looked up. \"Attaché Torn, Councillor Nom. I believe we need to negotiate.\" He gestured towards the woods. The Moranth Red bowed.\n\n\"Yes, Ambassador.\" He turned to Torvald. \"Councillor...\"\n\nThe three walked off into the forest. Fist K'ess faced the Silver, Galene.\"What of the prisoners? '\n\nThe Moranth female tilted her bright helm. \"Prisoners?\"\n\n\"Some of the Seguleh survived. Badly wounded, but alive. Some few threw down their swords.\"\n\n\"Surprising, that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "K'ess rubbed an arm as if cold.\"Well– it might just have been the shock. '\n\n\"Perhaps. What of it?\"\n\n\"Well... we could hold them until such time as they can be repatriated.\"\n\n\"I doubt they will be, Fist. But, yes, if you wish. We have no interest in them.\"\n\n\"Very good.\" He bowed. Elect, Torn named her– one of those who guide their people?\n\nWhen the Silver had gone K'ess introduced the two captains, then eyed the woods. Negotiate? Aragan, you've got balls.\n\nCaptain Fal-ej cleared her throat. \"Fist. Forgive me... but we're in no position to negotiate anything. '\n\n\"Yes, Captain.\"\n\n\"Then...?\"\n\nK'ess raised his chin to the blasted field of craters and thrown dirt.\"Look... '\n\nMalazan rankers were silently spreading out among the fallen torn bodies, collecting around the mangled corpses. Out came cloaks and blankets and other odds and ends to wrap the bodies. Then out came saboteur shovels and picks to hack individual shallow graves out of the thin rocky soil. Some even took advantage of the craters the munitions had blasted to site their pits.\n\nThen one by one, respectful hands clenching the tied-off cloth at head and feet and sides, the bodies were laid in their graves. Only the noise of shovels clattering from stones sounded from the valley. Each pit was covered and the troopers stood still fora long moment, heads bowed.\n\nWatching and observing his own silence, K'ess thought back to that wrenching moan of pain that had swept through the massed ranks as realization came of what was about to strike. It had beed an awful, hopeless sound. The one that soldiers give when they see unavoidable death descending over a compatriot, for, in that instant, the Seguleh had become– if not friends– then brothers and sisters of the battlefield." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now he did not have to wonder at their thoughts. Once they may have been, Thank the gods that ain't me. Or, Damn you to Hood's lost Abyss. Now he knew they shared what he himself felt as a knife point in his heart: No one should die like that. If this is war then I want no more to do with it.\n\nTo one side the captured Seguleh, a bare handful out of the four hundred, sat or stood, unarmed, still masked, watching while their dead were buried. K'ess could not even imagine what was going through their minds.\n\nClearing his throat, he turned to the officers. \"Captain Fal-ej... I believe what Aragan is hoping to do is stop the Moranth from doing to Darujhistan what they just did herein this valley. Reducing the entire city to smoking rubble.\"\n\n\"By the Seven,\" Fal-ej murmured, falling back on her old faith. \"That would be unforgivable. We cannot allow that.\"\n\nK'ess let out along pained breath.\"It looks as though we no longer have much say in the matter. '\n\n\"But, Fist... over a half-million live there.\"\n\n\"Yes, Captain... Yes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The contempt of the cultured elite of Darujhistan for the manners and customs of the Seguleh of the far south is well known. One Council member famously remarked that what these Seguleh fail to understand is that words are the most powerful weapons of all.\n\nA Seguleh informed of this argument responded: \"Then when he is silent he is useless.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sulerem of Mengal\n\nLIKE SMALL BLESSINGS moments of calm occasionally descended unbidden into the punishing windstorm of Ebbin's thoughts. During these respites he was able, at least briefly, to gather his scattered identity and reconstitute his thoughts.\n\nSometimes he would find himself in a recurring dream of the gold-masked figure standing at the edge of Majesty Hill overlooking Darujhistan. Either the ancient terror allowed him to join him therein reviewing these memories, or he was simply too insignificant to matter. Each time Ebbin was unwilling to creep up to the overlook, for he knew what would confront him there: the city inflames, screams, mass murder, carnage. The fall of a civilization.\n\nAfter many of these dreams, or waking nightmares– having wandered here, or been drawn, or allowed to discover him here– Ebbin finally dared speak: \"Why do you always come here?\"\n\n\"Lessons learned,\" the masked and cloaked figure answered.\n\n\"You seek to avoid this.\"\n\n\"I seek to avoid a paradox. Escape the inescapable. I wish to complete the circle without suffering its fate.\"\n\n\"Each time it has ended this way.\"\n\n\"So far.\"\n\n\"So many would-be tyrants,\" Ebbin breathed, saddened.\n\nThe graven gold face turned his way. \"Still you do not fully understand.\"\n\nEmboldened, Ebbin ventured: \"What is thereto understand? You failed once, you shall fail again.\"\n\n\"Once? No, scholar. Evidently the truth is even more difficult for you to swallow than that. In truth, I have failed countless times.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nThe taunting secretive curve carved on the lips of the mask seemed to be verging on a full smile. \"Each time it has been me, scholar. In truth, there has been but one Tyrant.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The raging winds of Ebbin's mind crept closer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Walls of impenetrable black closing in.\"But... that cannot be. What of Raest? What of him? '\n\n\"Ah, yes. Raest. Too crude in his methods. I have refined and perfected his tools. Lessons learned, scholar.\"\n\nEbbin clenched his skull as if to hold it from flying apart. \"Why tell me this?\"\n\n\"Give up, scholar. Yield. There can be but one outcome.\"\n\n\"No! Never. I... never.\" And he fled. Hands pressed to his skull, he ran from the ledge and laughter chased him. The laughter melded with the howling of the winds that came sweeping into toss him, spinning and flying, into countless shattered fragments.\n\nJan could not get used to being confronted wherever he turned by near replicas of the Legate's gold mask. The ladies of the court held theirs on long gold stems that they raised to their faces. The men's rested on the bridges of their noses, held thereby fine thread that ran behind their heads.\n\nPart of Jan wished to slap them all off. Just as he still could not help twitching upon meeting so many directly challenging, even haughty, stares from armed men.\n\nThese are no longer your people, his inner voice said to him. These are no longer your ways.\n\nAcross the court Palla, the Sixth, signed to him: Any word?\n\nNone.\n\nIt has been long.\n\nThe mountains are vast.\n\nThe Moranth have never been shy.\n\nTrue. A tentative throat-clearing at his side. Jan turned, knowing who to expect: the Mouthpiece. \"Yes?\"\n\n\"A word, Second.\"\n\nThey crossed to the edge of the court where a pillared colonnade stretched all along one wall. It was the favoured locale for much whispering. \"Yes?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Send a runner to your people in the south." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Have them all relocate hereto the city.\"\n\nJan's gaze snapped to the masked figure on his throne, his hands resting lightly atop a white stone armrest to either side.\"All? '\n\n\"Yes. All. It seems strange notions and distortions have crept into your teachings over the years. It would be best if I took overall future training.\"\n\n\"You,\" Jan said, his gaze fixed on the broad oval mask.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nJan nearly fainted in the animal urge to draw and slice. No! The burden is yours! Endure! He allowed himself a shuddering intake of breath while his eyes slitted almost closed. \"Very well,\" he grated through clenched jaws. \"It shall be as you order.\"\n\n\"Of course.\" The Mouthpiece, Jan noted, appeared more sweaty and pallid than ever before.\n\nHe turned his back, signing to Palla: We must talk.\n\nAt aside entrance he came to the two private guards. Seeing him, they jumped to attention, saluting. \"Don't you worry there, sir, \"one said,\"we'll keep a watch out. Ain't that so, Scorch? ' He elbowed his companion.\n\n\"Yessir.\" The other winced, blinking his bloodshot eyes.\n\nJan swept past without answer. Odd that the Legate should want these two here. But, as he had read, every court has its fools.\n\nHe waited in his quarters for Palla to find a moment to excuse herself. Eventually the door quickly opened and was just as swiftly shut. What now? she signed.\n\n\"He would have us all here. All our people.\"\n\n\"That cannot be allowed,\" she answered, her mask averted.\n\n\"No. It cannot. We do not belong here.\" Something shook him then. Something arising from the base of his spine and low in his stomach. He shuddered as it clenched his throat and he fought it with hands clamped to his sides. Was this weakness? Is this the gathering wail of despair? \"I am so sorry.\" The words seemed to escape of their own accord. \"This is all my doing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She drew close, almost raising her mask to gaze up at him. \"No! You did as any Second would have. The call came and you answered. There is no error in that. It is this place,\" she went on, fierce. \"Here. Darujhistan. It is no longer worthy of us.\"\n\nJan groaned. Oh, the loftiness of pride! No longer worthy of us? Or are we simply... obsolete?\n\n\"What should we do?\"\n\n\"When the others return I will reinstitute the Exile.\"\n\n\"Gall will challenge.\"\n\n\"That is his right.\"\n\n\"We must not allow that. He must be stopped before he can-\"\n\n\"Palla! Listen to yourself. And we worry about perversion of our ways?\"\n\nShe touched his arm, lightly, as if frightened that he would brush her hand aside. \"But what if he...\"\n\n\"What if he wins?\"\n\nShe whispered a faint'Yes\" .\n\nHe crooked his lips. \"Is your estimation of my abilities so low?\"\n\nShe ducked, genuinely hurt, and he winced inwardly. \"I see how all this weighs upon you,\" she breathed.\n\nHe touched her arm. \"I only jest. If he should best me then he deserves the victory.\"\n\nHer grip tightened. \"Then do not force me to wade through the Fourth and Third to reach him.\"\n\n\"I will go peacefully knowing you would avenge me, Palla.\"\n\n\"You know,\" she said, after a brief silence, \"the others will note our absence, and...\"\n\n\"... there will be much wagging of tongues in the dormitory.\" He allowed his fingertips to trace a line down her taut arm. \"Another reason to hope for better times, Palla.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She returned the gesture, sending a shiver through his flesh. \"Let us hope, then.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" He opened the door. \"In the meantime...\"\n\nStepping out to the hall she murmured low, \"We delay.\"\n\nAntsy came to, coughing up a great gout of water followed all too swiftly by the contents of his stomach. On his side, his face pressed into dirt, he groaned, his stomach still cramping. A great shout of surprise sounded then and hands grasped at him.\n\n\"You're alive! ' Orchid cried.\n\n\"We thought you dead,\" Corien said, amazed.\n\nHe merely groaned again, dry-heaving. \"What in the Abyss happened?\" he managed, spitting.\n\n\"You ought to ask these gentlemen,\" Corien said.\n\nAntsy peered up. It was still as dark as the inside of a barrel, but his mage-vision allowed him to see that they occupied what appeared to be a meadow surrounded by a thick forest, its boughs windswept. Starry night arched above, empty of any greenish glow.\n\nWith him were Orchid and Corien, yes, but also the three mercenaries, the Heels, and about tenor so Malazan marines including Sergeant Girth. But what captured his attention were the six Seguleh standing about him, water dripping from their leathers.\n\n\"Where's the Hood-damned menagerie of mages? '\n\n\"All fled as soon as they could,\" said Orchid.\n\n\"Even Malakai?\"\n\nCorien nodded. \"Even him.\"\n\n\"Well... how do you like that. Not even a by-your-leave.\" He eyed the Seguleh. \"Who's the spokesman here? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I,\" said one.\n\n\"Right.\" He gestured for Corien to help him up. \"So, what happened?\"\n\n\"We returned to the Throne as soon as we were able. You were in our way so we merely pushed you through with us.\"\n\n\"Well... my thanks.\"\n\n\"We did not intend to save your life– we thought you dead.\"\n\nAntsy waved a hand. \"I said thanks!\" He held his head, grimacing. \"Leave it at that. Gods.\"\n\nHe faced Orchid. \"So. Where are we?\"\n\n\"Isn't that obvious? \"She turned a full circle, arms raised to the night sky.\"Kurald Galain. Elder Night. '\n\n\"We shouldn't be here. We have to go. Right away. '\n\n\"And go where?\" Girth demanded, pushing forward blindly. Antsy realized that none of the others could see a thing. \"Just where would you suggest? And how? And who's gonna send us? All the mages have scarpered. We're no better off now than where we were.\"\n\nAntsy pointed. \"We have her.\"\n\nThe Malazan sergeant peered about. \"Who?\"\n\n\"Orchid– the girl!\" Antsy barked then held his head again, groaning.\n\nGirth pulled at his beard. \"Fine. So– question still stands. What's the marching orders? '\n\n\"Well... I don't know quite yet, ' Antsy admitted. He rubbed his neck, feeling where the dagger had entered, and found only slit cloth and throbbing pain.\n\n\"I would suggest Darujhistan,\" said anew voice, and Orchid gasped.\n\n\"Morn! You escaped.\" She ran to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hooded figure of dark wavered, translucent. \"I am barely here at all, Orchid,\" he said, his voice hollow. \"In truth I am very committed elsewhere.\"\n\n\"You're fading! '\n\n\"I'm sorry, child. This sending has done its duty. Now it must disperse. All I can say is that these men ought to go to Darujhistan. You have given me much hope, child. It was a pleasure, this time I spent with you. I found it... renewing. '\n\n\"Don't go! '\n\n\"I must. I cannot stay. It is too... painful. May Night bless you. Farewell.\"\n\nThe hooded figure faded away like smoke.\n\nAfter a moment of silence, Girth complained, \"Well– that was no damned help. And I still can't see a Togg-farting thing! '\n\nAntsy went to Orchid's side, whispered,\"We should go, lass. These Warrens are dangerous. '\n\n\"I believe it maybe too late,\" Corien said, pointing to the woods.\n\nSome sort of party or procession was approaching through the trees. They carried torches on tall poles, but to Antsy's eyes the torches burned with black flames that gave off black light that seemed to aid his mage-vision. The strange inversion made him dizzy.\n\nThe Malazan marines were linking up, he noticed, weapons out, sweeping the blades through what to them must be utter dark. \"Form circle!\" Antsy barked, and set to helping organize them. When he reached for Cull Heel the man brushed his hand aside, making him jump. \"You can see?\"\n\n\"Aye,\" the man ground out, his narrowed eyes on the approaching party. \"We can see a little– someone's coming. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Antsy had no time to wonder about that at the moment. \"Form up with the soldiers. Help them out.\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\nAside, the Seguleh formed their own small circle round one of their number as if to protect him. His mask was mostly pale; only a handful of lines marred it. Three crossed the forehead and three each cheek. One crossed the bridge of the nose. While Antsy studied him the man's hand strayed to a cloth-wrapped package thrust into his waist sash and rested therefor a time as if making sure of it.\n\nAntsy and Corien shifted to stand before Orchid at the centre of the circled marines and Heel mercenaries.\n\n\"That's close enough, ' Antsy shouted. The party halted. It consisted of a double file of female Tiste Andii. From their flowing dress and rich jewellery he thought them priestesses of some sort. One at the forefront advanced slightly closer. She held high a torch of the liquid pitch light.\n\n\"There is no need for such suspicion,\" she called in accented Talian, perhaps making herself understood through magery.\n\n\"What do you want?\" Antsy called.\n\nShe gestured towards him. \"Our daughter.\"\n\nA gasped breath sounded from Orchid. \"I think that's up to her, ' Antsy said.\n\n\"Indeed. Then let it be so.\" The Andii woman's eyes, almost black as the night surrounding them, swept past him.\"Child, \"she called,\"we have been bereft, in mourning. For we have lost a Son of Darkness. Yet behold. We rejoice! For just as precious and rare are the Daughters of Tiam! '\n\nOrchid's weight fell on Antsy, and he grunted. The girl was much more solid than she looked. He clasped her arm.\"What's this, lass? What's she goin'on about?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She steadied herself, blinking rapidly, a hand on Antsy's shoulder.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If what she says is true-'\n\n\"It is,\" the Andii woman asserted.\n\n\"-then I am part Andii, yes. But also part– Eleint.\"\n\nAntsy jerked away a step. \"Eleint! But that's... '\n\n\"Yes,\" the Andii woman shouted. \"That is so. Child, whoever hid you and protected you all these years has taught you also, I see. Very good. Now join us. It is time to continue your education.\"\n\n\"Orchid,\" Corien murmured, \"you don't have to go with these witches... '\n\n\"I need to know,\" she answered just as low, fierce. \"I want to.\"\n\nAntsy nodded. \"\"Tis true– we can't stop you. But what of us?\"\n\nShe shot him an insulted look. \"I'm not an utter fool, Bridgeburner. \"She raised her chin to the Andii woman.\"I have terms! '\n\nThey barely made it to shore before the hide boat became too heavy with water to be manoeuvrable. Crouched, Yusek hugged her knees, warming herself, watching the flooded thing slowly drift away. It was no more than an oval rim now, like a squeezed ring laid on the smooth dark surface of the river. She was soaked and shivering but had to admit that she missed the damned thing. Beat walkin', that was for sure.\n\nThe Seventh merely shouldered his meagre roll of gear, waterskin and such, and set off. Sall and Lo followed. Yusek bent her head back to send an entreating look to the sky and all the gods, but bit back any complaint knowing it would be entirely useless. Well, she suddenly realized, seem to have finally understood that lesson at least." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She pulled up her own roll and shoulder bag of wet gear and followed. It was many hours before dawn. She was exhausted. It had been almost impossible to sleep in the damned boat what with the constant bailing and the sloshing water. Now they were expected to march on? What was the rush? It wasn't like the city was goin\" anywhere.\n\nShe pushed herself to reach Sall, and announced: \"I'm beat! I ain't going another step. We need to sleep.\"\n\nSall hesitated, glanced ahead to the others. \"They will not stop.\"\n\nYusek sank to her knees. \"Well– what's the use of arriving on your last legs? Too tired to be of any use? Aw, fuck it, ' and she glared at the river making its sluggish way north, gleaming beneath bands of clouds.\n\nSall jogged ahead.\n\nSometime later the three returned. They sat without a word. A few scraps of food were handed out and the waterskins made the rounds. Someone must have kept watch but Yusek didn't know who because she immediately fell asleep.\n\nLate in the morning they set off again, following the Maiten's east shore. Here they climbed small hills and narrow gullies the sides of which seemed too steep to be natural. It occurred to Yusek that they were crossing the remains of large channels that might have once carried water from the river. The Maiten was far too low now even to reach these features, but at sometime in the past it must have run much higher. And these channels, then, would have directed part of the flow eastward. To farms, no doubt. Yet now the Dwelling Plain was a dusty wasteland of dry hills and wind-scoured hardpan. Frankly that fitted quite well with her personal experience of what happened anywhere after people arrived. She'd seen it again and again as a refugee fleeing the Pannions. Their bands would come staggering into towns and settlements, and fighting would immediately breakout over water and food. Homes were invaded, herds decimated, water sources bled dry. Then the whole stream would move on again, a swarm of locusts, consuming and destroying all it met. And the only way to have a hope of snatching anything, a handful of barley, or a crust of hard bread, was to be among the first to arrive. Thus the mad dash westward; the desperate effort to beat the mob; to be among the first to kick down the doors." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had been a harrowing time. And it had left its mark upon her wiry lean limbs, her restless gaze and her constant, almost feverish, nerves. And what of the scars one couldn't see? The marks upon psyche and spirit? Well, she didn't even want to think about that.\n\nNow Sall, he interested her. He wasn't like anyone she'd ever met on her march west, nor among Orbern's crew. All those boys forced too early to become men had ruled through muscle and viciousness, the fist and the club. But not Sall, nor his father Lo, or this fellow, the Seventh.\n\nTheir way was strange, and, she could admit, harsh. But it had clear rules, and that attracted her. She knew she wanted to be part of it.\n\nLate in the day, from one of the higher hillsides, they saw the first hints that they were getting closer. Smoke stained the northeast sky and ahead more and more huts and rotten piers crowded the riverbanks. They were close now. Close to the greatest city of the continent. Yusek had to hug herself to contain her yip of glee.\n\nThe murmurings of the arrival preceded them: doors slamming, sandalled feet stamping the stone floor; gasps and exclamations. Then the doors to the Great Hall swung open to admit a troop of Seguleh, dirty and sweat-stained, jogging up the centre.\n\nCourtiers and aristocrats hastily flinched to the sides, making way. From near the white throne Jan watched their advance with stunned incomprehension. What was this? Why were they here?\n\nLeading the troop came Gall. Soot stained his mask and black dried blood caked his side where a wound still gaped wet and open. The Third bowed to Jan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Speak,\" Jan managed, almost breathless with wonder.\n\nGall straightened, weaving slightly. His chest worked soundlessly. \"The Moranth,\" he grated. \"They... used their alchemical weapons upon us. Only we few... escaped the slaughter.\"\n\nStill uncomprehending, Jan glared at the man. \"That is nothing new. They have always had their strange chemistries. The smoking and bursting globes that they throw.\"\n\nThe Third shook his head as if unable to find the words. \"This is different, Second. Things have changed during our absence.\"\n\nAnd what an understatement, Gall. Yes. It seems that just as we have changed, so too have the Moranth. It is to be expected.\n\nThe Third bowed again. \"I accept full responsibility, Second. I await your judgement.\"\n\nJan signed for him to rise. \"No, Third. All responsibility is mine and mine alone. Our rush to engage was foolish. And obviously costly beyond measure. We must re-evaluate our strategy.\"\n\n\"I concur,\" put in anew voice and Jan glanced down to seethe Mouthpiece at his side. \"When the rest of your people arrive, Second, then anew army will be sent to punish the Moranth. In the meantime control over the city must be enforced. You Seguleh must keep the population in order.\"\n\nJan struggled to keep his tone neutral as he said: \"And how do you propose we do so?\"\n\n\"Why,\" the sickly pale man answered as he dabbed a cloth to his sweaty forehead, \"are you not my sword and anvil?\"\n\nJan turned his mask to the immobile Legate upon his white stone seat. \"I suggest, Legate, that we may not have the time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh?\"\n\n\"Yes. The Moranth have dealt us a severe blow. I would be surprised if they did not strike now while we are weakened.\"\n\n\"Do not fear, Second. We are impregnable here within the protection of the Circle.\"\n\nFear? This creature thinks I fear? Great Ancestors! The gulf between our thinking. Our mutual miscomprehension... beyond belief. If I fear at all, it is for the future of my people.\n\nYet Jan bowed, saying, \"Of that I have no doubt, Legate.\"\n\n*\n\nA knock brought Tiserra to her door. She was reluctant to open it, expecting some damned debt collector– not that she couldn't handle such a one, but it was a distraction from her work. Finally, the persistence of the knocking, and its gentleness, persuaded her to answer.\n\nShe saw there the tall slim man that Bellam, one of her nephews on Torvald's side, had become. She opened the door fully and he bowed.\n\n\"Auntie.\"\n\n\"Bellam– a pleasure. You do not come by often enough.\"\n\n\"I am sorry, Auntie. I understand that the Legate has sent Torvald from the city. Some sort of political mission. So you are alone...\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Well, Seguleh have returned to the city from the west. Just a bare ragged handful. People think there will be trouble. We are heading out to a residence in the Gadrobi hills. Perhaps you would care to join us?\"\n\nTouched, she squeezed his arm. \"Why, thank you for the offer, nephew. But no. I will remain. Torvald will be returning and I will have to be here for him. And do not worry, I will be safe. Now go. Look after your mother and father, yes?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reluctant, a touch confused, the lad hesitated. \"How do you know...\"\n\n\"Never you mind that, lad. Now go.\"\n\nHe was still uncertain, but he bowed, deferring to her in any case. Sometimes, she knew, a reputation for fierceness made things so much easier.\n\nShe did not shut the door but threw on a shawl instead. So, it shall be this night. I must warn the Greyfaces– no gas! Shut the pipes! Squeeze their throats shut just as tight if I must!\n\nThe forest they walked gave way to a canyon. A narrow strip of starry night sky shone above. Tayschrenn led, moving confidently. Kiska kept a wary eye out. The canyon became a cave then a series of natural stone tunnels. Kiska finally ventured to ask: \"Where are we going?\"\n\nBut the mage merely raised a hand for patience. Kiska subsided, grumbling.\n\nEventually they emerged from a cave mouth and Kiska found herself high on the steep slope of some sort of mountain. Not too faraway the sea spread to the horizons, black and glimmering like the sky. The jade banner of the Visitor glared high above. They were on an island.\n\n\"Where are we?\"\n\n\"Kartool.\"\n\n\"Kartool!\" Kiska suppressed a start of revulsion. \"Why hereof all places?\"\n\nHe turned on her a fond, almost amused, glance. \"As I said, along delayed reunion. Come.\" Kiska wasn't sure if she approved of this peculiar sense of humour the High Mage seemed to have acquired.\n\nHe led the way along the narrow stone ledge. It curved round the wall of the mountain. For an instant Kiska had a flashback to a similar path on the cliffs of Malaz Isle, no great distance from her now. Agayla... are you there? Is this the Queen's intent? Is this the right path? Gods, if I only knew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The track stepped upon to a wide flat walkway that ran straight into the side of the mountain, to a worked cave entrance whose stone pillars were carved with the sigils of D'rek, the Worm of the World's Autumn. After a moment's stunned silence, Kiska cleared her throat.\"Ah, Tayschrenn– this is a temple to D'rek...\"\n\n\"Indeed it is. I am glad to see your education encompasses the cult's iconography. '\n\nHa! \"D'rek tried to capture you! '\n\n\"Many times, yes. Capture or kill. But that is the past. Anew crossroads has been reached. It is time fora chat. Mustn't hold grudges. '\n\nThey walked the processional way, where braziers lit the tunnel between thick pillars carved from the stone of the walls. No one was about. \"Where is everyone?\" Kiska breathed, her voice low.\n\n\"D'rek is still without priests, Kiska. Even here and at the temple below. This is the Holy of Holies. The most sacred shrine. Only priests and priestesses were ever allowed entrance here. '\n\n\"And these braziers?\"\n\n\"We've been invited, Kiska. Here we are. '\n\nThe processional way ended at a great cavern, roughly circular. Kiska followed the line of its roof up and up until, squinting, she realized there was no roof. They stood at the base of a central vent that ran through the mountain to its very top. A dormant volcano.\n\nAt the centre of the cavern was a pit, a black jagged hole that led down into smoke and utter night. Kiska flinched back from its lip; whatever was down there, it smelled vile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What now?\" she asked, a hand at her nose.\n\n\"Now she and I are going to have a talk, and you mustn't interfere. Stay here, yes? '\n\n\"Well, all right,\" she allowed, doubtful. \"But where are you-\" Then she screamed as Tayschrenn stepped up and threw himself into the pit, diving in along arc to disappear from sight.\n\nScreaming still, she nearly threw herself in after him, but a strong hand grasped her cloak and yanked her away. She fell on her back and found herself looking up at an old woman, bent, hair a thick ropy nest and eyes bright circles of milky white. \"Doan do that,\" the old crone snarled at her crossly, shaking a crooked finger.\n\n\"Don't do what? ' she gasped, completely shocked.\n\n\"Doan yell like that to wake the dead. Hurts the ears, that does.\"\n\n\"Sorry.\" She leapt to her feet. \"But he jumped! He-\"\n\n\"Yes, yes.\" The old woman waved dismissively. \"That's what the most powerful of them do. Doan worry y'self. He'll be back. Or... he'll be dinner for the Worm!\" and she chuckled, shuffling off.\n\nKiska followed. \"Dinner! You mean... down there... it's down there? '\n\n\"Oh aye. Down there. Far enough. Coiling and churning eternal. The Worm of the Earth. A worm of energy, it is. Fire and flame, molten rock and boiling metal. Ever restless. And a good thing too! Else we'd all be dead! '\n\n\"I'm sorry– I'm not sure what you mean.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Never mind. Make y'self useful. See that bucket? '\n\nKiska peered into the shadows. \"I think so.\"\n\n\"Well, fill it and follow me!\"\n\nAgainst the wall Kiska found a bucket and woven baskets bursting with coal. She filled the bucket and followed.\n\n\"Keep the fires going– that's my job, \"the old hag was muttering.\"Can't be neglected! It's the light and heat that keeps us all alive. Yes? ' She peered about blindly.\n\n\"Ah... yes,\" Kiska said.\n\n\"That's right! \"Reaching the wall, the woman walked along, tracing her way with one hand. The other hand she held up high, quavering. Nearing a brazier, she patted at the hot metal to test its heat. Kiska winced at the sight. Nodding to herself, satisfied, she moved on.\"There's precious few these days understand that, girl,\" she muttered. \"Precious few understand that it's all about service. Serving! '\n\n\"Yes,\" Kiska answered, understanding now that this washer role.\n\n\"No,\" the old crone muttered, spitting aside. \"Nowadays it's all about gathering– influence and power and whatnot. \"She found another brazier, patted its hot iron with her naked hand, waved.\"Low! Fill it! '\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well, that's not how it used to be. Not how it should be! Do you understand me? '\n\n\"Ah... yes.\" I have no idea what you're blathering on about, you miserable hag.\n\n\"Only way to sustain anything, to build anything, is to give! You understand me, girl? Give and give of y'self till there's nothing left to give! Only then can you have something! If you take, you diminish things till there's nothing left. If you give, you provide and things grow! Yes? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes.\"\n\n\"There y'go! That's right. Everyone's greedy these days. It'll only diminish the pot till there's nothing left! Then we're all in the dark, yes?\"\n\n\"Ah... right. Yes.\"\n\nThe old woman leaned back against the wall, breathing wetly. \"There we go. All done.\"\n\n\"We're done? ' Kiska studied the countless other braziers surrounding the chamber.\n\n\"Not us! Me. I'm done. You goon and finish. '\n\nKiska eased out along low breath between her teeth, but continued. She went all the way round the cavern, tossing lumps of coal into any of the braziers that were low, relighting others that had gone out. When she returned the bucket to its place she found the old woman sitting against the wall, her knees drawn uptight, a cloak wrapped around her, asleep, her mouth half open.\n\nTired, hungry, her nerves still jangling for Tayschrenn, Kiska eased herself down the wall to sit with her own knees drawn up and rested her chin on them. Soon afterwards she fell asleep.\n\nShe awoke to alight kick and jerked, blinking. Tayschrenn was peering down at her. He appeared to be in a good mood. He was smiling and seemed unharmed from his descent, but for his mussed hair and soot-stained cloak.\n\n\"I'm sorry if I scared you, \"he said.\"But I don't think you would've reacted well to my telling you what I was about to do. '\n\n\"No. I wouldn't have. \"She pushed herself up, wincing and easing her back.\"So– we're done here?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You... spoke to her?\"\n\nThe mage eyed her sidelong. \"Sort of. That's not really how we communicated. '\n\n\"I see. Well, I had a grand old time doing chores here.\"\n\n\"Chores?\"\n\n\"Yes. The old woman who takes care of the place. She showed me the ropes. Gods, does she ever goon.\"\n\nTayschrenn had been on his way to the tunnel. He stopped to turn. \"Kiska. There's no one else here. '\n\n\"Sure there is.\" She glanced about. The old woman was nowhere to be seen. \"She was right here.\"\n\n\"Must have been a dream, Kiska. Because we are all alone. But tell me... what did she have to say?\"\n\nBaruk's workroom was at the very top of the tower. On the way up the endless narrow circular stairway Spindle had grumbled to himself: Gods, why do they always have to beat the top? Never on the ground floor. All this useless walking up and down!\n\nSince being guided into the room by the little waddling demon, Duiker had had him searching for all the various chemicals in their phials, globes, decanters and cups. The historian dropped samples from each liquid onto a chip of the white stone. He hadn't been happy with any of the reactions produced.\n\nEventually, long past midnight, they gave up for the time being and Spindle gestured for the old man to rest. He would take first watch. An old campaigner, the historian curled upon all the cloths they'd piled together as abed and went to sleep.\n\nFrom a seat beneath a window Spindle watched the city below. It struck him as oddly dark. Very few of the many gas jets of blue flame that normally illuminated its streets and buildings appeared to be lit. Above, the green radiance of the Scimitar shone down. And it seemed to him that the two nimbuses warred over the city. Or at least that was what he fancied. The night was very quiet. In fact the city had been very quiet ever since the Seguleh arrived. Everyone hurried, reluctant to be out, constantly peering over their shoulders. People were afraid. And the Seguleh hadn't even done anything yet! He had the impression that they simply weren't welcome, weren't wanted, herein Darujhistan. Which struck him as odd since the city seemed to welcome everyone, priding itself on being so cosmopolitan and all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He supposed it was more what they represented. Or stood for, perhaps.\n\nA few bells later he woke the historian.\n\nIn the morning nothing had changed. None of the chemicals they tested elicited the sort of reaction the historian seemed to expect. As the day waned Spindle returned to his seat at the window. A growled sigh of frustration drew his gaze to Duiker as the man pushed himself away from the worktable. He regarded Spindle through bloodshot, squinting eyes. \"Nothing. I don't understand it. This should be the answer. Why is nothing reacting? '\n\nSpindle shrugged. \"Maybe we need anew sample? Another shard?\"\n\nThe historian waved his hands in a gesture of helplessness. \"Well... perhaps. Go get one.\"\n\n\"All right.\" He heaved himself from the chair and headed to the top of the stairs where they'd dropped their load of stones. Here he found the fat little demon, its head in the cloak, stuffing its great mouth with the chips.\n\n\"Hey! Git outta there!\"\n\nIt raced off, dragging the cloak with it. Spindle gave chase. Its little clawed feet clicked over the polished stone floor as it ducked under tables and around furniture. Spindle swore again for leaving his shortsword behind. He almost lost his quarry amid all the furnishings and hangings but spotted a telltale corner of the cloak peeping out of a well-hidden door. Searching about, Spindle found a fireplace poker and raised it, then reached for the slim stone door.\n\nHe yanked it open, poker poised, and the little demon hissed at him then ran between his legs and scuttled off. Spindle let it go; it had abandoned the cloak. He gathered up the cloth and gave it a shake. Just a few leavings rattled at the bottom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Togg curse it!\n\nThen he glimpsed something else in the narrow cupboard. A huge amphora as tall as his waist set on a wrought-iron stand. It looked to be of some sort of fired ceramic, glazed black. Its lid was sealed with wax and pressed into the liberal drippings was some kind of sigil.\n\nHe went to get the historian.\n\nTogether they carried the amphora into the workroom. Duiker studied the seal then looked at Spindle, arching one grey brow. Spindle reached outward to feel for any Warren-anchored wardings or traps. He sensed nothing and shrugged. \"What's the seal? ' he asked.\n\n\"Looks like the High Alchemist's own. As far as I can deduce. '\n\n\"Should we open it?\"\n\nThe historian sat back in his chair, rested his chin in one hand. \"Well, that is a question. We're inside the inner sanctum of a powerful alchemist. We find an amphora specifically hidden away and sealed and so naturally we open it. Sounds like an epitaph tome. '\n\nSpindle nodded, pursing his lips. \"I see what you mean. Let's go get the pet. '\n\nThey lured it in with the stone chips. Spindle held one out, beckoning, backing up until they had it in the room. Duiker closed the door on it. It looked unhappy but Spindle held the chip over its head and let it have it.\n\nThen he held out another of their rapidly dwindling supply and pointed to the amphora. \"Should we open that?\" The little demon wouldn't take its beady blood-red eyes off the chip. It hissed and tried to jump. Its potbelly wobbled.\"What will happen if we open that? ' Spindle tried again, pointing. It held up its skinny arms, clawing the air. Spindle sighed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Put the chip on the jar,\" Duiker suggested.\n\nSpindle did so, resting the piece of Alabaster on the wax. The little demon watched with narrowed eyes. It waddled over to the amphora and with scratching claws and feet tried its best to climb it. Spindle had to stop the thing from toppling over.\n\nDuiker came up and shooed the demon off. It snatched up the stone chip and scrambled off, claws scritching. \"I guess we have our answer,\" Spindle said.\n\n\"Unless the wretch has no idea what's in there– which is more than likely. '\n\n\"Ah. Well. What'll we do? '\n\nDuiker rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced. \"I guess we have no choice. We open it.\"\n\nUsing the tools and supplies available in the alchemist's workroom Spindle setup a rig. First he selected the sharpest steel tool he could find to scour a ring all the way round the neck of the amphora. Then he adjusted the height of a table so that it matched the height of the scoured line and secured the amphora to the edge. He cleared the table of everything and poured a decanter of oil allover it. Earlier he'd spotted along iron bar and this he laid down on the tabletop so that one end touched the neck of the amphora while the other extended out over the opposite edge. Then he stood on a chair to drive a pin into the ceiling over the table. Using rope, he hung the biggest lead weight he could find from the pin. Carefully, he measured the length so that the weight– in the form of an elephant, appropriately enough– just touched the far end of the bar.\n\nAll this extraordinary effort Duiker watched, bemused, arms crossed. Finally he waved a hand. \"Why all this?\"" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue the tale as the writer's plot helper.\nTags: epic fantasy, ancient city, magic, power dynamics, hidden secrets\nAuthor: Ian Cameron Esslemont\nTitle: Orb Sceptre Throne\nChapter: 26" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The men stared. Several let out long sighs. \"I'm joinin'Shadow,\" one murmured to his neighbour.\n\nThe moustached soldier found his voice: \"We, ah– we're... \"He raised a hand for silence.\"What's that noise?\"\n\nSordiko nodded to him. \"War, Malazan. The Legate has called the Seguleh and now they and the Moranth make war upon each other as in ancient times. Only now the city is caught between.\"\n\n\"Legate?\" one shouted, stepping forward. Youngest of them, Darujhistani by his tattered clothes and the style of his weapon. In fact... She squinted. \"You are of the Lim family?\"\n\n\"Yes. Corien.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, Corien, but your cousin... '\n\nThe Seguleh started for the main exit. A priestess blocked it, shouting, \"The High Priestess has not given you leave!\"\n\nThe lead Seguleh, one of the Twenty by his mask, cocked his head towards Sordiko in a silent question. She waved the priestess aside. Unreasonable bastards. They marched out. All of the rest of the ragtag wretches followed. Dammit! \"You, Malazans! Your troops are west of the city! You three others– who are you? There's something strange about you! Comeback! '\n\nThe doors gaped empty until attending priestesses slammed and barred them. Sordiko set her fists to her hips. How do you like that? First time so many men have ever walked out on me...\n\nThe streets were jammed with citizenry all attempting to flee at once and therefore unable to flee anywhere because the way was choked. From the steps to the temple to Shadow, Antsy glimpsed a strange darkness that hungover the city, and above this, the circling quorls, and the munitions punishing the hilltop Majesty Hall. An immense opalescent dome shimmered over that hilltop. The Seguleh seemed to be making straight for the hill. The crowds screamed and flinched aside, leaving them clear passage. Antsy urged Corien onward. \"C'mon! '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're headin'west,\" Sergeant Girth shouted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ain't our fight. Gonna get yourself kilt! '\n\nAntsy waved the man off. Miserable bastard. Save his skin and that's the thanks I get. Well, his duty is to get his troops back safe. Fair enough, then.\n\nThe Heels marched with him and Corien. They had huge grins pasted to their faces and peered about like country hicks, nudging one another and pointing at buildings as if this was one big night out. Trailing along in the wake of the Seguleh they all made good time. And just what do you plan to do, Antsy? \"Cept maybe get your fool head blown off. Still, these boys and girls had been on a mission. And now they're charging for their fellows. Something's definitely up.\n\n\n\nA richly appointed carriage careered its way down one of the switchback roads of the Third Tier escarpment. Four panicked horses drew it. The coachman whipped them between terrified glances over his shoulder to Majesty Hill, where bursts of light made him flinch and an accompanying rumbling shook the carriage beneath him.\n\nThey roared down the road, sending pedestrians fleeing for the walls. \"Out of the way!\" the coachman bellowed. \"Clear way for Lord Pal'ull! Clearway! '\n\nAnd all the citizenry did dart aside. The carriage swung round a sharp corner, iron rims striking sparks from the flint cobbles, horses' hooves clattering. A further stretch of jammed pedestrians jumped for the walls– all but for one very tall fellow coming up against the flow.\n\n\"Clear!\" the coachman bellowed. Then his eyes widened and he dropped the whip to yank the reins aside. The horses plunged to the right and passed the tall armoured figure, but the carriage swung sideways and slammed into him in an eruption of splintering wood and bending, wrenching iron. The coachman was thrown from his seat over the road wall while the horses continued down the way, dragging the shattered fore-section of the carriage behind them in a shower of trailing sparks and falling splinters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The armoured figure, bright reflections flashing from it in emerald and sapphire, hadn't shifted a fraction. It lifted one heavy foot to crunch down on the broken wreckage, snapping and flattening the siding. Lord and Lady Pal'ull lay unconscious amid the remains. It walked on without pause, crushing all the debris in its way.\n\nAfter the great lumbering armoured figure had passed, the citizenry descended on the wreckage in a looting horde. Ten minutes later all that remained at the scene was shattered wood and an unconscious lord and lady in their linen underclothes.\n\n\n\nAragan adjusted his seat on his mount– his arse was getting numb. He was still waiting next to Fist K'ess. A short time ago several quorls had come flitting overhead, twin saddles empty. Some limped along on damaged wings, hardly able to stay aloft. A few came soaring down out of the night sky in a sort of controlled fall to land out of sight without any sound of their crash.\n\nHe and K'ess shared looks of dread. Fearsome though the Moranth might be, both had hoped it wouldn't come to this. K'ess had offered marines for the assault but Aragan had vetoed the suggestion. They'd lost enough troops against the Seguleh; no need to lose more. They were the outsiders here. This was an ancient feud. One this Legate had reopened– perhaps to his short-lived regret. Or so Aragan hoped.\n\nRegardless, he would watch and report. And faraway, across Seeker's Deep, Command at Unta would then adjust Imperial strategy accordingly...\n\nA deep murmuring rose to his attention. It hummed in his ears like a shaking of the earth. Standing water in the fields rippled as if vibrating. Aragan turned in his saddle, along with many others, peering about for the source of the penetrating din." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then the light changed. Something intervened in the night sky between the glowing bright green Scimitar and the ground. He squinted up to look. A cloud. A wide dark cloud sweeping in from the west.\n\nThe murmuring swelled to a deafening thrumming that drowned out all other sounds. Aragan hunched beneath the punishing noise, as did K'ess and others all around. Peering up, he caught the cloud of glimmering wings. Each quorl now carried only one rider, but from every saddle hung fat double panniers fore and aft.\n\nAragan turned a glare on Torn. \"What is this?\" he shouted.\n\n\"The alternative,\" calmly answered Torn.\n\n\"Give the assault a chance!\"\n\n\"We are. We await the signal.\"\n\n\"Signal? What signal?\"\n\n\"Success or failure.\"\n\nAragan thrust a hand to the city. \"Gods, man! Give them time to offer terms, or calla truce!\"\n\nTorn shook a slow negative. \"There will be no terms from the Tyrant. We know him of old.\"\n\n\"Torn, be careful here. You could be opening a blood-feud that will soak all these lands!\"\n\n\"So it was in the old days, Malazan,\" Torn answered, steel in his voice. \"The lands of Pale were once ours. We had colonies in the lowlands. Where are they now, I ask you! Annihilated. Such are his terms.\"\n\nAragan opened his mouth but no words would come. And above the quorls circled, waiting, a thrumming drone promising a cataclysm of destruction for the unsuspecting city beyond. Mortal enemies, each determined to utterly crush the other. No quarter. No survival for the fallen. These stakes are far too high. And we Malazans, outsiders, no more than impotent witnesses? Yet what can we do? What are our options? Soliel look away! Is there nothing we can do?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of thy bones they have made a seat;\n\nThey have taken the orbs of thine eyes\n\nYet it is they who are blind\n\nWarning carved on tomb entrance,\n\nDwelling Plain\n\nTHE WOODEN STAIRCASE left Torvald at the rear of the rambling buildings. Paths nearby led through a slim belt of woods and courts that encircled the top of Majesty Hill. He half walked, half dragged the wounded Galene through the park-like strip. It looked as though she'd twisted or broken her leg in the crash. The blasts and echoing reverberations shook him rarely now; through the trees he glimpsed quorls diving into deposit their riders. He knew that somewhere Seguleh were waiting and he dreaded what would happen should he run into any now. But then, neither of them had weapons drawn so he imagined at worst they'd only be captured.\n\nHis fears played out when they rounded a curve and he saw two Seguleh standing where major paths crossed. He stopped abruptly, his shoulders falling. One calmly waved him forward. Galene fumbled for her longsword but he pushed her hand aside. \"No point,\" he murmured.\n\n\"I have one munition,\" she whispered, reaching to her opposite side.\n\n\"No!\" They'd just kill us.\"It's too late.\"\n\n\"I won't allow myself-'\n\nThe Seguleh spun aside raising their weapons as heavy armoured feet came pounding up another path. A column of Black Moranth charged: the first two held their wide shields up and threw something from behind. Galene yanked Torvald down.\n\nHe fell; she yelped her pain as she bent her wounded leg.\n\nMultiple blasts buffeted him and gravel came pattering down all around. When he raised his head he glimpsed the Moranth finishing off the stunned and lacerated Seguleh. Even then there was a ferocious exchange of blows and half the Moranth were wounded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hands raised him and Galene. \"We saw you go down,\" one Black said to her, \"and came for you.\" They took her from Torvald, one to each side.\n\n\"Take me to the main entrance,\" she ordered, her voice tight with suppressed pain.\n\nThe party formed up around Torvald and Galene and they headed to the front of the rambling complex. In the distance the staccato blasts of sharpers came and went in great volleys that shook the night. They had not gone far when they caught a glimpse through the trees of the main approach, and Galene groaned at what was revealed.\n\nThe walkways and flagged open courts and benches had been turned into one huge killing zone littered with Moranth fallen. As they landed they had formed squares or circles of interlocking shields, yet despite barrages of sharpers and crossbow volleys Seguleh had won through to slice their way into the formations, wreaking terrible destruction before being cut down from all sides.\n\nAnd to one side further defences awaited in the form of a tall mage, watching, staff at his side, seemingly content to let the fighting proceed in its own course– for the time being.\n\nGalene straightened. \"We cannot win through,\" Torvald heard her murmur. \"Yet he cannot be allowed to succeed. Cannot.\" From a pouch at her side she drew a tube, about the size of a baton, enamelled a deep red. She turned her helmed head to him. \"I'm sorry, Councillor. '\n\nTorvald eyed the tube, uncertain at first, then horror raised the hair on his arms and neck and he lunged for her. \"No!\" A Black restrained him. \"Don't call it! Please don't summon them. Wait! Just wait. That is all I ask!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Very well, Councillor. For you, a moment.\"\n\n\n\nIt looked to Spindle as though they were getting close; damned close. The depth looked right from what he remembered of the trench. So far they'd been ignored, as the Seguleh had much more immediate worries. Wave after wave of Moranth had landed, formed up, and made for the entrances to Majesty Hall, where they were met by the Seguleh. So far, from what glimpses he could snatch, despite their munitions it looked as if the Moranth were coming off far the worse. That meant that for him and Fisher time was running out.\n\nHe straightened once more to toss a shovelful of dirt only to see a pair of sandalled feet on either side of the pit. He looked up: the feet belonged to two Seguleh who were peering down at them, swords pointed.\n\n\"Do not move,\" one commanded.\n\nSpindle glanced to Fisher who slowly straightened, shovel in hand.\n\n\"Explain this,\" the Seguleh demanded.\n\nSpindle opened his mouth to answer then gaped, shocked, and threw himself flat yelling: \"Down!\"\n\nFisher fell immediately. The Seguleh only had time to turn before multiple eruptions blasted about the pit, sending earth flying. Spindle held his hands over his head as stones and clots of soil struck him. Fisher recovered first; he straightened, shaking his hair and brushing dirt from himself.\n\n\"What was that?\" he demanded, speaking overly loud as everyone does after enduring blasts.\n\n\"Just a hit and run,\" Spindle said, picking up his shovel. \"C'mon. We're almost there.\"\n\nBut attention had been drawn; only one of the Seguleh had been taken down. The other had limped off, and now more were on their way. Spindle had barely scooped up the freshly fallen soil when another two came jumping through the low brush to glare down at them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Out,\" one ordered.\n\nSpindle dropped his shovel and raised his hands. Fisher followed suit.\n\n\"Out!\"\n\n\"Okay, okay!\" Spindle reached up to the side.\n\nA great war whoop erupted from the woods, freezing him; it sounded like across between a Barghast war bellow and a death scream. Even the Seguleh flinched. Then a huge multicoloured shape jumped the pit, two swords flashing, followed by another equally bizarre-looking fellow also wielding two swords. Even more astoundingly, they drove off the Seguleh in a dazzling coordinated attack of continuous multiple strikes.\n\nSpindle stared open-mouthed at the astonishing apparition.\n\n\"Ha ha!\" the huge one announced, waving his blades. \"That is how you do it!\" He peered down at Spindle and Fisher. \"Well? Go ahead, you two– dig away!\" He motioned across the pit and Spindle turned to see a third man standing there.\n\n\"Ah, yes,\" the newcomer said, his voice nowhere near as loud as the huge one's.\"Dig. '\n\nHalf stunned, Spindle retrieved his shovel to set to it once more. Fisher, he saw, was shaking his head in disbelief as he worked. \"You know them?\" Spindle asked.\n\n\"It's Madrun and Lazan Door is who it is. '\n\nSpindle tossed a shovelful of dirt. \"I thought those were just stories,\" he hissed.\n\n\"No– they're flesh and blood. As for what's attributed to them, well... some of that is my fault.\"\n\n\n\nAt the main entrance Jan watched while more and more of the Moranth gathered. Their strategy was simple but effective. They formed into tight squares of shield-walls from behind which the rear ranks threw their munitions. And those munitions: like the punishing heavier ones used earlier, these too demonstrated afar greater killing capacity than those written of in their records." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was to be expected, he allowed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Time had passed. The Moranth had gone their way just as the Seguleh had gone theirs.\n\nSo far they had held them off. But the cost had been horrific. Anyone fallen brother or sister was too much for Jan to imagine. Yet now, before his disbelieving eyes, ten, twenty, lacerated and maimed by the salvos of munitions. Each bloody cut was a slash across his heart. Each fallen, a name and a face well known: Toru, Sengal, Leah, Arras, Rhuk.\n\nI am responsible for this. On my head lie their severed futures. Their lost potential. How many possible Seconds cut down before they could display their mastery?\n\nHow can I possibly atone for this? What act could even begin to repair the damage wrought?\n\nAll this he watched and his heart bled.\n\nA runner arrived. She bowed her head, begging to speak, and Jan signed his permission. \"They have broken through in the eastern wing, Second. We were few there.\"\n\n\"I see.\" He nodded to Palla. \"Watch here. I will go.\"\n\n\"Take at least five,\" Palla urged.\n\n\"No. You must defend these doors. Only I need go.\"\n\n\"But, Second...\"\n\n\"No. It is for me to answer this.\" He set off before Palla could speak again. The runner followed.\n\nJan found the doors blasted open and another fallen: Por, the Thirteenth. Yet the price the Moranth paid to achieve this breach had been high. Their slain far exceeded the few defenders. He drew his blade and stole ahead as silently as he could. With each step he loosed the fisted hold he kept upon everything driven down within his blazing chest: his self-condemnation, his self-disgust, his rage, and above all the lacerating sorrow that threatened to suffocate him. Until at last he carried no awareness at all into the rear of the ranks before him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Horul, of the Hundredth, quickly fell behind within the maze of rooms. The Second more than ran; he charged unchecked by numbers. He did not slow no matter how many faced him; driving, spinning, slashing until only the bellows and howls of wounded Moranth led heron. And at every turn, every room, the fallen. Each bearing only a single mortal wound either to neck or to artery or to nearly severed limb. They did not know what was coming, so swift was his advance. No chance to throw their munitions or form a defence. It seemed to her he passed through them like a breeze, utterly silent but for the hiss of his two-handed blade.\n\nShe found him standing motionless deep within the east wing; listening, perhaps. She carefully stepped over the carpet of fallen choking the room: some sort of last stand. Gore limned his sleeves and legs. Bright droplets spattered his once pure mask, like seeds on snow. He seemed completely unaware of her before him.\n\n\"Second,\" she breathed, almost reverent. \"Second. Never had I ever imagined...\"\n\nAwareness suddenly flooded his gaze, but not before she glimpsed something naked and utterly unguarded that drove her eyes away. Horror. Horror and soul-lashing pain.\n\n\"I... live,\" he uttered, wonder in his voice.\n\n\"Yes. You live.\"\n\n\"Not... today, then.\"\n\n\"No. Not today.\"\n\n\"Tomorrow, then.\" He eased a hand from his side, releasing at the same time a hiss of suppressed pain. Horul glimpsed the wound from a penetrating thrust. His despairing smile made her turn her mask away again.\n\n\"Second!\"\n\n\"Bind it, Horul,\" he managed through clenched lips. \"Bind it tight.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\n\nNow that the last of the crowd of councillors, aristocrats and court functionaries had all long since fled, the Great Hall was quiet. Scorch and Leff stood watch leaning up against the rear of one of the fat columns that ran along a wall. All was hushed now; the pounding had faded away. Only the laboured breathing and occasional muted sobs of that miserable Mouthpiece broke the silence of the hall. But listening, his head cocked, Leff could make out the distant clash of fighting.\n\nScorch turned to him, even more anxious and confused than usual. Then he sent a meaningful glance to a nearby exit. Leff shook his head. Scorch glared, demanding an explanation.\n\nHis voice as low as possible, Leff whispered: \"You don't really think anyone's gonna get through all them Seguleh, do ya?\"\n\nScorch's expressive brows rose and he gave a great show of the light dawning. He winked.\"Right. What now? '\n\nLeff hefted his crossbow. \"Well, now we gotta guard, don't we? Up to us. Last line o'defence and such.\"\n\nScorch nodded towards the centre of the hall. \"Maybe we should, y\" know, take a look...? '\n\n\"Right. You go ahead.\"\n\n\"Me?\" Scorch ducked his head. He whispered sotto voce: \"Why me? You go– you're senior \"n\" all. '\n\n\"No, I ain't. Equals we are. Same rank. \"He urged Scorch out.\"G'wan.\"\n\nCursing under his breath, Scorch edged around the column. He stepped out, leaning to peer at the throne. \"Still there,\" he whispered. \"Hasn't moved a muscle. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fine. Good. All's... \"Leff's voice faded away as he peered closely at Scorch. \"Wait a minute. What's that? '\n\n\"What's what? '\n\n\n\nIn the doorway, Palla ducked flying stone chips from an errant throw. She waved aside the obscuring smoke to study the blasted grounds dotted with fallen, and the Moranth squares pushing for the walls. Then she scanned the night sky, now empty of quorls.\n\n\"I believe that is all of them,\" she called to Shun, the Eighteenth.\n\n\"How many?\"\n\n\"I cannot be certain. Perhaps a thousand.\"\n\n\"Then we have won. These last few we will finish off.\"\n\n\"Still, they have taken too many with them.\"\n\n\"It was their gamble. They-\"\n\nA dull brown blade smeared in gore erupted from the Eighteenth's chest and was withdrawn almost before Palla had registered that it was there. She leapt backwards an instant before it slashed again, striking shards of stone from where she had just been standing. As Shun fella walking horror was revealed behind him in the doorway: carious face of dried sinew and skull brown with age, broken remnants of hide and bone armour, limbs of bare bone strung with ligaments and creaking flesh, legs oddly mismatched.\n\nAncestors give me strength! Imass!\n\n\"Attend!\" Palla shouted, backing away as she parried sweep after sweep of the wide flint sword.\n\nThree others of the Hundredth charged. Blows rocked the Imass in a flurry of bone chips, sliced rotten hide and bits of cured flesh, and still it came on. A downward sweep taken full on the edge of one Seguleh's sword shattered the blade and knocked the bearer to crash against a wall and slump unconscious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still Palla yielded ground one hard-fought step at a time. Each overbearing attack she slipped as obliquely as she dared, feeling her blade shudder and flex on the cusp of failing in her hands. Another of the Hundredth lunged close as the creature appeared to waver, but the Imass snatched the youth's arm and propelled him into a pillar to smack wetly and fall.\n\n\"It's not you I want, \"it ground out.\"Stand aside. '\n\nThe third Hundredth took the opportunity to leap, swinging a great blow to the creature's neck. The blade chopped but caught. The half fleshless skull atop canted but did not topple. Palla halted her own lunge as the Imass seized the lad under the chin and lifted him from the floor while it knocked the blade from its neck.\n\nHow can I save the poor lad? What could I possibly...\n\nInspiration came. Palla offered the long deep bow of the ancient form, hands out from her sides. Then she struck the most traditional of the ready stances.\n\n\"Your challenge is accepted.\"\n\nThe Imass stilled. A second later it tossed the lad through an open doorway, where he landed amid furniture. \"What is your rank?\"\n\n\"Sixth.\"\n\n\"Sixth? I met the First. Long ages ago. Then I wouldn't have dared face any of the champions. Let us see how things proceed– now that I have had ample time to practise. ' It grasped the naked flint tang of its sword in both bone and sinew hands, and advanced.\n\n\n\nThe whirling storms that scattered Ebbin's consciousness to the furthest corners of his mind had receded. And all his memories came crashing in at once, bringing with them the horrifying awareness of all that had happened, caused by him. The one small stone he dislodged and the avalanche it precipitated. And so he wept. Arms wrapped around his head, he sobbed, abject." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You see, the voice whispered within his mind, the favour I do you? Ignorance is a blessing.\n\nStung, Ebbin moved to scuttle off on all fours.\n\nIn his mind a hand clutched his neck. The monstrosity straddled him, gold mask turned to study the roiling clouds. \"Let me go!\" Ebbin pleaded. \"You're finished! '\n\n\"Nay. I have won. The Moranth are defeated. They cannot touch me.\"\n\n\"Your attack failed!\"\n\n\"True,\" the creature allowed. \"That was... impetuous. But live and learn, yes, scholar? I will bide my time.\"\n\n\"No– you are lost. You're revealed for what you are. '\n\n\"And what is that, dear scholar?\"\n\n\"A monster nightmare of our childhood.\"\n\nThe hand released his neck. The Tyrant stepped away from him. Mocking laughter rose from behind the graven gold oval. The embossed lips seemed to drip it. \"Oh, scholar. If you only knew.\" The mask snapped away. \"Enemies gather... but not the one I was expecting. Of course, the same maybe said for me. We will continue this discussion later, scholar.\"\n\nThe figure swirled away, but Ebbin's awareness remained. He groaned and held his head once more.\n\n\n\n\"There. That thing. In your crossbow.\"\n\nScorch lifted the weapon to take a look. \"What? Nothing.\"\n\n\"No– the...\" Exasperated, Leff stepped out to tap the stock. \"Look at that bolt. Where'd you get that? '\n\nScorch stared. His mouth opened in amazement. \"Would you look at that!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Leff cuffed him. \"Keep it down,\" he hissed, fierce. \"Where'd you get it? You holding out on me? '\n\n\"I ain't never seen it afore in all my life! I promise. '\n\n\"You stole it, didn't ya? '\n\n\"What? Never.\"\n\n\"Well– we need to give it back. Got our position to think about. Can't be wavin'stolen goods about.\"\n\nUnnoticed, the Legate stood to step down from his throne. He stopped before it, hands clasped behind his back.\n\nLeff grabbed the stock. \"Look at that thing. All engraved. Wax on the head, too– real fancy, that. Gotta give it back.\"\n\n\"No– let go. Don't... \"Scorch knocked one of Leff's hands aside. Leff tried twisting the weapon from his partner's grip.\n\n\"Just cooperate! Let me...\"\n\n\"Watch it!\" Scorch hissed. \"Don't... '\n\nThe crossbow fired, jerking in their four hands.\n\nThe bolt slammed into the Legate, who spun round with the force of the impact.\n\nFour eyes swivelled to seethe Legate straightening. He touched at the feathered end of the bolt where it stood from his ribs. The mask turned their way. A hand stretched out to them.\n\nScorch and Leff looked atone another, eyes hugely wide at the enormity of the accident. And at the magnitude of their immediate danger.\n\n\"Fire!\" they yelled in unison and Leff levelled his crossbow, noticing in passing that an identical bolt sat snugly in the channel of his stock. He aimed and fired while Scorch slipped afoot through the stirrup of his weapon and yanked ferociously." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Leff's bolt threw the Legate back another step. His knees appeared to weaken briefly as he staggered. Yet he came on. Smoke streamed from the two wounds.\n\n\"Fire!\" Leff bawled again and Scorch levelled his weapon. The third bolt struck true, thumping the Legate backwards a good few weaving steps.\n\nLeff reached into the sack at his side and was briefly surprised to see that every single one of the bolts he possessed had intricately engraved blackened shafts and gleaming iron heads encased in wax. None of this stopped him from frantically reloading.\n\n\"He's still comin'for us!\" Scorch yelled, nearly bursting into tears.\n\n\"Fire'em all! ' Leff howled.\n\n\n\nLady Envy left a second-storey terrace overlooking the front battle-grounds. Tapping her fingertips together she crossed the abandoned darkened office. So, an Imass. Never cared for them. Smelly unkempt things always leaving bits of themselves lying about. She cocked her head, thinking. Been ages since I destroyed one of them.\n\nShe remembered impertinences recently suffered from one Imass in particular and her mouth hardened. Yes... too long by far.\n\nShe headed for the stairs.\n\nYet something whispered from the dark drew her to a pause. A presence. Someone's there. In the shadows.\"Who is it? '\n\n\"Envy.\"\n\nThe barest whisper from the night.\n\nShe raised her defences. Her Warren crackled, sending papers flying and bursting into flame around her. \"Who's there! I demand that you show yourself! '\n\n\"Still afraid of the dark, Envy?\"\n\nThat voice! So familiar. Who? \"Who are you?\" she called, tentative now, a hand at her throat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"With reason!\"\n\nA flash of munitions lit the room, and in a freeze-frame instant revealed a tall man all in black. Face, eyes and hair all black. Envy backed away, her hand at her mouth, and gasped, choking and stammering, \"Father...!\"\n\nAnd she fainted dead away.\n\n\n\nOne of the Moranth guarding Galene gestured, pointing through the woods, and Torvald joined in squinting at the nearest building corner. There one of the mages had been standing– the hunched, oddly proportioned one– and now while they watched he was down on all fours attempting to getup, clutching at his chest.\n\n\"There! Look there!\" Torvald hissed. He almost reached out for the Moranth Silver. \"Something's happening. '\n\nThe red tube still in her gauntleted fist, Galene shifted her attention.\n\nThe mage managed to straighten but fell backwards against the wall. Panting, in obvious agony, he hugged his chest as if he would burst. Then he disappeared.\n\n\"There!\" Torvald exclaimed. \"See that! We've won! '\n\n\"Contain yourself, Councillor,\" Galene said. She gestured to one of her guards. \"Check in with the wing commanders. What's going on? '\n\nThe Black trooper ran off through the woods.\n\n\n\nUp hall after hall they duelled. The heavy flint sword was a blur in the hands of the tireless Imass. Palla retreated step by step, yielding, slipping all blows, leaving countless gashes across the fleshless ribs and skull and hacking apart rotting furs. She struck for the joints, hoping to sever ligaments and cripple the creature, not knowing if it was even possible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But she was tiring. Her reactions were slowing. The weakness of complete exhaustion now stood between what she wanted to do and what she could. She knew she would fall; it was merely a question of when and how.\n\nIt came unseen in the form of a closing feint from the creature, a stunning elbow to her temple and a choking grip on her neck. Blinking, Palla found herself staring into two empty eye sockets where only a low glow simmered, like distant campfires.\n\n\"You would have beaten me, Sixth,\" the Imass growled, slamming her into a stone door and releasing her to fall, \"had I been alive.\"\n\nThe Imass walked on.\n\n\n\nRallick watched from a window high up in the Great Hall while the two guards hammered bolt after bolt into the Legate. Then he watched them throw down their crossbows and run. Amazingly, the creature still stood. It must have fifteen bolts in it yet it remained upright. It leaned now, bracing itself with one arm, against a pillar.\n\nRallick had raised the coiled fine silk rope ready to toss it down, when out of the shadows came that shuffling servant, the Mouthpiece, and he knelt flat once more. The fellow came edging out the way a mouse might circle a crippled cat.\n\n\"You are done!\" the Mouthpiece yelled, a fist raised. Then he flinched. \"How can you say that? It is over! It is!\" The fellow was frantic with emotion, weeping uncontrollably. He backed away. \"Flee? Me? Go? Why? Why would they kill me? I have done nothing! Nothing!\"\n\nThen he jumped as if seeing something terrifying. His hands flew to his throat and chest. \"No!\" he breathed, appalled. \"No– they wouldn't. They mustn't! Dear Soliel succour me... no!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He fled from the chamber.\n\nAfter a moment the Legate straightened from the pillar. The mask lowered as he seemed to inspect the many crossbow bolts studding his torso and the thin wisps of smoke arising from each wound. What could only be described as a muted chuckle shook him. The creature gestured to himself as if to say: yet here I am! And he laughed on and on behind the gold mask.\n\nRallick eased away from the open window ledge and pulled himself up to the roof again. Crouching, he brushed the tips of his fingers over his lips fora time, eyes narrowed, and came to a decision. He stuffed the coil of rope down his shirt and padded off along the roof, heading for the maze of mismatched gables and slopes of the complex.\n\nDown in the Great Hall the main doors opened. The Legate turned to face them then rocked backwards, obviously shocked. An Imass strode within. The Legate backed away, hands raised. The Imass closed with astonishing speed on its oddly shaped legs, clasped hold of the Legate and raised its flint sword.\n\n\"Now I take your head, Jaghut,\" it growled.\n\nThen it stilled, hands falling. What dried muscle and flesh remained on its ravaged visage twisted as it frowned its uncertainty. It lowered its fleshless face to the gold mask as if inspecting the workmanship. A low rumble shook the sinews and bones of its torso. Its jaws shifted in something like disgust. \"Faugh! Human!\" It threw down the Legate in a snapping of crossbow bolts and stalked from the chamber.\n\nAt the doors it met Palla, staggering towards the throne room, but it passed on, ignoring her, and Palla paid it no attention as its broad flint weapon was now tucked into the twisted hair rope it wore as a belt. She took in the crossbow-bolt-studded form of the Legate lying supine on the floor, and fled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "~\n\nAfter a time the Legate managed to roll onto his side and lever himself upright. All in the snapping of more of the bolts. He staggered for the doors, one heavy step at a time. All the while his crossbow-bolt-lanced chest convulsed in what may have been silent laughter.\n\nThe doors to the Great Hall slammed shut. The Legate pulled up short. He turned in a slow weaving and shuffling circle to scan the chamber.\n\nKruppe stepped out from behind the nearest pillar. He slicked back his oiled hair and adjusted his frilled shirt cuffs and crimson waistcoat. Then he made a great show of waving a handkerchief in a rather too elaborate courtier's bow.\"Never did Kruppe imagine he would be called to court! '\n\nThe Legate lunged for him.\n\nKruppe twisted and narrowly avoided one grasping hand. \"Come, then, Legate. Let us dance again!\" Another catching hand swung, missing a sleeve by a breath. Kruppe dodged aside. \"Nearly!\" he encouraged. \"Come. This way.\" He waved the handkerchief. \"It strikes Kruppe that the problem with masks is one of seeing clearly.\"\n\nThe Legate snapped out a clawed hand; cloth tore as Kruppe backed away. \"Oh my!\"\n\n\n\n\"Pay-dirt!\" Spindle announced, sitting back from where he'd cleared a patch of dirt from the bottom of the pit. Fisher crouched down. It was a mud-smeared flat white surface. Together they cleared as wide a space as possible.\n\n\"Hurry, my friends,\" called one of their protectors from above. Spindle glanced up to seethe man's gold and silver teeth bright against his face in a gleaming smile.\"We are attracting too much attention. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What? You? Attract attention?\"\n\nBut the man was gone and the rapid clash of swordplay sounded from all sides of the pit. Spindle caught Fisher's eye and nodded to the bottles.\n\nTogether they uncorked two and upended them. Neither was prepared for the reaction that instantly engulfed them.\n\n\n\nPalla met Jan at the main entrance. She groaned inwardly at his blood-spattered condition. Upon catching sight of her he demanded: \"What has happened? Where is this Imass?\"\n\nPalla waved her battered state aside. \"It is gone. It killed the Legate.\"\n\n\"What? He is dead?\"\n\n\"Or near it.\"\n\n\"Why would it...\" The Second turned away to the grounds; Palla thought he moved awkwardly, as if stiff. \"Recall everyone. Retreat to the inner halls.\"\n\nPalla bowed. \"As you order.\" She ran for the open doors.\n\nJan turned a puzzled glance up the wide entrance foyer, and headed for the Great Hall.\n\n\n\nGreat roiling choking clouds drove the Seguleh from the pit. The smoke gnawed the tissue of the nose and seared the lungs. Coughing and gagging, Madrun, Lazan and Thurule backed away.\n\n\"They have been consumed!\" Madrun announced, hand on chest.\n\nA shadow moved within the clouds and figures emerged: the taller of the two dragging the shorter. The three quickly rushed into aid the man, who went to his knees hacking and gasping. The smaller of the two, the Malazan, sat up and made for the pit again. Lazan held him back. \"You'll die, man. It's poison!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The rest have to go!\" the Malazan answered. His eyes were weeping uncontrollably and a stream of blood dripped from his nose.\n\n\"There's nothing you can do. '\n\n\"Oh yes, there is!\" and the fellow raised his arms to inscribe a great circle in the air. If Lazan had had one hair on his head he knew it would be prickling and he edged away. The Malazan ducked back within the dense clouds.\n\nMadrun was thumping the other on the back. Then he raised his head to peer about. \"Am I mad, or do you hear horses screaming?\"\n\n\n\nIn the Great Hall the Legate lurched away from reaching after Kruppe to face the doors. Something like a muffled snarl of panic sounded from his throat. He made unsteadily for the exit. Halfway there he fell to his knees, swayed, then crashed face down, a last few crossbow bolts snapping, the mask clanging against the floor.\n\nStill wary, Kruppe edged slightly forward to peer more closely.\n\nThe Legate's limbs shifted and he fumbled at the polished stone flagging. He began dragging himself onward. Kruppe threw his arms out in vexation. Great Elemental Forces! What more must Kruppe do?\n\nSliding one arm ahead of the other, the Legate began to chuckle. Ashe crawled, the chuckle swelled into a muffled dark laughter.\n\nKruppe backed away. He tucked the handkerchief into a sleeve and set his hands on his hips. His dimpled cheeks pulled down in an uncertain frown.\n\nReally now. This is quite unreasonable.\n\n\n\nTorvald stood immobile, listening as intently as he could. He felt as if his nerves were as taut as those annoying high-pitched Seven Cities stringed instruments. He believed he could discern a lessening in the clash of battle. Did that mean one side or the other was winning? Exactly what was going on? From their vantage they could see only a small portion of the overall extent of the front. Galene still held the baton ready in one hand but he saw her stance shift as if she, too, sensed the change." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Something...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he began, but she raised a hand for silence.\n\nA Black trooper ran to them from the woods. Torvald pushed closer to hear the report.\n\n\"The Seguleh have withdrawn to the interior,\" he announced.\n\nGalene examined the blasted field dotted with fallen. \"Why would they... Our numbers?\" she snapped.\n\n\"Less than three hundred of the flight remain viable.\"\n\n\"Ancestors,\" the Silver breathed, and the baton creaked in her ferocious grip. \"And they?\"\n\n\"Perhaps seventy.\"\n\n\"Then why... One last charge...\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" Torvald observed, breaking in, \"someone could go and ask.\"\n\nAnd Galene turned to look him up and down.\n\n\n\n\"It is very quiet,\" Councillor D'Arle whispered from his post next to the stairs up from the lowest of the cellars.\"Perhaps I should take a look. '\n\nColl rested a hand on the old man's arm.\"I'll go.\" He turned back to examine all the gathered councillors, aristocrats and court bureaucrats staring from the dark. No one else volunteered. Sighing, he loosed his sword in its sheath and started up.\n\nHalfway he stopped as he heard footsteps behind. Redda Orr came up round a corner. \"What are you doing?\" he hissed.\n\n\"I'm coming with you. '\n\n\"No, you're not. This isn't some summer jaunt. Stay below!\"\n\n\"I'm trained! ' She drew her slim sword far more swiftly than he ever could.\n\nColl shook his head. \"I'm sure you are, child. But this isn't the duelling field.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I could take you, old man...\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\" Coll motioned to one side. \"What's that? '\n\nRedda looked. He snatched the blade from her hand. She gaped, frozen, then fury blazed in her eyes. \"What a dirty trick!\"\n\n\"Yes, it was.\" He started up the stairs again carrying both swords. \"The world's full of them so you'd better get used to it.\"\n\nAshe approached the top landing he lay flat to peer over the lip, his blade ready. His gaze met the sandalled feet of two Seguleh. One motioned him back down the stairs.\n\nDamn. We're prisoners. Goddamned prisoners.\n\nWhat's going on? Has the Legate won?\n\nA thought struck him on the way down and he paused, swallowing. Gods! Are we expendable now?\n\n\n\nMadrun, Lazan, Thurule and Fisher all crouched as near as was possible to the foaming roiling clouds steaming from the pit. The noisome fumes seemed to repel all the birds and bats stooping in upon them, and the dogs charging from the woods– even one mad horse that had stormed past threatening to run them down.\n\nA dull thud sounded from nearby and Madrun observed, disbelieving, \"Did that owl just crash into a tree?\"\n\nThe mist churned and out came the Malazan, a cloth pressed to his nose and mouth. He would have fallen had Fisher not lunged to support him. He hung coughing and gagging, and waved an arm weakly to the pit. \"That's the lot. But it's still there– still in one piece!\"\n\n\"What is, Malazan?\" Madrun asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lazan had been squinting off into the woods and now he backed away to tap Madrun on the arm. The giant glanced over and visibly started, amazement and panic in his gaze. \"Holy Ancestors, I cannot believe it,\" he murmured to Lazan. The two began edging away.\n\n\"Come, Thurule,\" Lazan called. \"We have fulfilled our mistress's instructions– now is the time to withdraw! '\n\nSpindle watched in stunned astonishment as the three ran off in what could only be described as a panicked flight. He even sensed his ma grow quiescent in what felt almost like respectful deference. He turned to the woods and saw something huge approaching. Clearing his throat, he spat up a mouthful of the awful fumes he'd endured and raised his Warren to its highest pitch.\n\nFisher, an arm under one of Spindle's, whispered, awed,\"Is that... '\n\nThe shape emerged from the shadows to resolve into a wide and massive figure that Spindle recognized as Caladan Brood, the Warlord. The man's narrowed gaze was turned aside, following Madrun and Lazan Door's hasty retreat. Bizarrely, he held a spitting cat by the scruff of the neck. His heavy gaze swung to Spindle.\n\n\"What are those two fools doing here?\" he demanded.\n\n\"I... I don't know, ' said Spindle.\n\nThe Warlord held out the frenzied cat. \"That's quite enough, Malazan, ' he growled.\n\nSpindle blinked. \"Oh! Sorry.\" He lowered his Warren. Brood handed the cat to him; it ravaged his hand and arm escaping." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fisher,\" Brood said. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\nThe bard shrugged. \"You know how I feel about witnessing things.\"\n\nThe Warlord grunted his understanding. \"Careful. One day you might just buy yourself too much trouble.\" He studied the pit barely visible through the boiling fumes. \"Let's have a look, then. ' And he walked into the cloud of poisonous steam.\n\nSpindle watched as best he could through the mist. Peering forward, he thought he saw the Warlord down in the pit studying the stones, tapping them. The man sat back as if thinking. Then he raised both arms up over his head, clasped his hands into a great double fist and brought it down in a tremendous blow that shook the ground beneath Spindle's feet. Once more he raised his fists and swung them down. This time the air was split by an immense crack that felt almost like a knife jabbing Spindle's ears.\n\nThe Warlord pulled himself up from the pit and emerged waving the fumes from his face. He paused to glance down at Spindle. \"I warned the creature,\" he said, and walked off the way he'd come.\n\nSpindle let out along slow breath. Fisher echoed the sentiment with a nod. Spindle gestured to the pit. \"Well– you know, we must've weakened it for him... '\n\n\"Oh, of course...\"\n\n\n\nJan found the double doors of the Great Hall closed, but they opened easily at his touch. Within lay the Legate, or his body. He lay on his back, hands crossed over his chest. A forest of broken bolts stood from him at all angles. The gleaming gold oval remained fixed to his face. Yet it was marred now; a crack ran from the bottom up one cheek to just below a graven eye. Jan approached. He wanted to kneel to make certain of him, but to do so would possibly reopen the wound at his side. Was the man dead? He could not be sure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A voice whispered then, within his mind: \"Servant...\"\n\nHe flinched away. What was this?\n\n\"Take the mask, servant.\"\n\nThe mask?\n\n\"Yes. I sense you are wounded. Accept it and you will live forever.\"\n\nAccept it? Wear it?\n\n\"Yes. I have been banished from this flesh– but accept the mask and together we shall live again.\"\n\nJan retreated from the corpse. No.\n\n\"No? No! You have no choice, servant. Do as I command!\"\n\nNo. Our slavery is long over. We have found our own way. We are our own masters now. I consign you to the past. I turn my face from you. You no longer exist.\n\n\"Slave! Comeback! I order you! Obey!\"\n\nJan walked away. Leaving the throne room he met one of the pet mages at the doors; the one who paraded as a dancing girl. She came staggering up, an arm across her stomach, agony on her panicked face. \"What is going on?\" she gasped. \"Where are the others? What has happened?\"\n\n\"To us he is as dead,\" Jan said, flatly, and walked on, stiffly.\n\n\"No! Impossible!\" She lurched into the room.\n\nWithin, alone, Taya edged up to the body. \"Master!\" She reached out, but at the last instant she yanked back her hand as if stung. She started to her feet, flinching away. \"No...\" she murmured, wincing. \"Please... not that. Anything but-\"\n\nA sound spun her around. Someone emerged from behind one of the pillars. He was tall, dressed all in shades of green, and his hair hung silver and black. Along snarled hiss escaped her. \"You...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Topper bowed. \"As they say, all good things, et cetera. And look at you. You area bonus. One I've been hoping to pluck for sometime now. '\n\nTaya flicked her hands and short thin blades appeared. \"I will have your head.\"\n\n\"I rather doubt that.\"\n\nThey charged, meeting in a maelstrom of whirling flashing blades. Competing Warrens rose together, spinning and swirling until both disappeared in aloud burst of displaced air.\n\n\n\nTorvald had never felt so exposed in all his life. Unarmed, he walked across the gouged and overturned dirt and broken flags of the once-groomed grounds. Galene limped at his side supported by a single Black. They made for the group of Seguleh guarding the main entrance, the majority of whose masks, he noted, bore very few marks.\n\nAs they neared, one Seguleh signalled for them to halt. Another, who carried a single bold line across his brow, signed to a third and these two approached.\n\n\"I am Councillor Nom,\" Torvald said quickly. \"I am come to propose negotiations.\"\n\n\"What is it you wish?\" the smaller Seguleh asked. She carried five hatch lines on her mask.\n\n\"We come to demand your surrender,\" Galene said.\n\n\"Our surrender? I rather think it is you who should surrender.\"\n\nGalene held up an empty gauntleted hand then slowly reached into her shoulder bag to remove a red baton. She held it up. \"Your protective sorceries are gone, Seguleh. I merely have to signal with this and the hilltop will be reduced to rubble.\"\n\nThe Seguleh Sixth motioned to Torvald. \"What think you of this, Councillor Nom?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Torvald swallowed. His voice came faint: \"Darujhistan would consider that an act of war.\"\n\nGalene's helm shifted to face him.\"Better that than the alternative. '\n\n\"We propose,\" said the Sixth, \"that you merely stand aside and allow us to return to our homeland.\"\n\n\"Happily,\" Galene snapped. \"We propose that you merely set down your swords and go unarmed.\"\n\n\"That is unacceptable to us.\"\n\n\"Then we have an impasse.\"\n\n\"Not so,\" the Sixth began again, anew iron in her voice. \"We could march outright now if we so chose and there are none here who could stop us.\"\n\n\"Go ahead. We will chase you down like dogs and slay everyone of you from above!\"\n\nTorvald loudly cleared his throat. \"What of the hostages?\"\n\nThe Sixth reluctantly pulled her gaze from Galene. \"What hostages?\"\n\n\"The councillors and other citizens.\"\n\nThe Sixth glanced to the one with her, obviously the Seguleh Second. Torvald felt almost dizzy standing this close to the highest living ranked of them. He couldn't imagine what it must take to occupy such a position– let alone have all the others accept it as fully justified.\n\nThe Second signed something and the Sixth inclined her masked head. She turned to Galene. \"They will be released. It is not our way to hide behind hostages.\"\n\nTorvald bowed. \"Very good. My– our– thanks.\"\n\nGalene held out the red baton. \"Once the non-combatants are clear consider your final answer carefully.\"\n\n\"You have it already,\" the Sixth replied, and the two Seguleh turned away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Torvald and Galene watched them go. \"Stiff-necked fools,\" she ground out. \"They merely have to set aside their swords and all this would be behind us.\"\n\n\"Galene, I believe you are asking for the one thing they simply cannot do.\"\n\n\n\nSpindle and Fisher crouched in the woods, peering through the branches.\n\n\"Looks like a parley,\" Spindle whispered.\n\n\"Shh,\" Fisher warned. \"We don't want-'\n\nBursting eruptions of munitions drove them to the ground with their hands over their heads. Feet ran past nearby. Alarms were shouted, followed by more munitions.\n\nSpindle raised his head fora peep. He saw a handful of Seguleh dodging for the entrance, Moranth running to intercept. Another group followed in the distance and Spindle gaped, astonished, at who was among them. He put fingers to his mouth and let go a piercing whistle. The fellow he had spotted skidded to a halt, grabbing another and gesturing.\n\nSpindle jumped to his feet, waving. The whole group made for him.\n\nSpindle opened his arms wide and to his further amazement Antsy accepted the greeting, giving an answering hug in return. \"You dog!\" Spindle laughed, cuffing him.\n\n\"What are you doin\" here? \"Antsy said.\"Thought you were down south. '\n\n\"You too!\" He gestured to the lad with him. \"Who's this? '\n\n\"Corien,\" the lad answered. \"Corien Lim.\"\n\n\"Lim! No...\"\n\n\"Fisher!\" one of the giants with Antsy suddenly bellowed. He grabbed hold of the bard and lifted him from his feet in a great bear hug." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Great Mother!\" Fisher cursed. \"Cull? Cull Heel? What are you doing here!\"\n\n\"Fisher! Comeback home with us, yes? You have been gone too long!\"\n\nAt that moment Moranth emerged from the woods to surround them.\n\n\n\nJan ordered the release of the citizens, then saw to the defences of the main entrance. Should the Moranth return to their aerial bombardment his plan was for his people to occupy those same deepest cellars, wait for night to return, then scatter in all directions to return to Cant in ones and twos. Undignified, but perhaps the best way of ensuring that as many as possible made it out alive. His side was completely numb and he was weak from loss of blood, but if he could just avoid any further exertion he believed he might yet live to see this through.\n\nIt was here that the guards assigned to the west found him. They came escorting exhausted and bedraggled brothers and sisters whom he did not immediately recognize. It was not until one went to one knee before him that Jan realized who he was. With that understanding came a wave of anticipation that nearly caused him to faint. Great Ancestors! Oru, the Eleventh, gone more than two years, assumed lost by so many, returned now, at such a time!\n\nJan moved to raise him up but restrained himself, exclaiming instead, \"Oru!\" He then clamped down on his breathing to observe dispassionately, \"You are returned to us. I am pleased– but you should not have come here.\"\n\nThe Eleventh stood. His eyes shone now with even greater passion than Jan remembered from years ago. \"I believe it was fated that I should do so, Second.\" He drew from his waist a small object wrapped in a fine black cloth. \"Just as I believed it was my fate to one day find this.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jan stared at the flat object held so delicately in Oru's hands. This is it? The Unmarred? It seems so small. His arms remained petrified at his sides. His eyes rose to meet Oru's eager, avid gaze. \"There can be no doubt?\"\n\n\"None, Second.\"\n\n\"Then call everyone. All must witness this.\"\n\nOru bowed. \"Yes... Second.\"\n\nThey assembled in the main entrance foyer, all remaining of the Five Hundred. Jan was stricken through the heart to countless than one hundred. Of the Eldrii, the Ten, only he, Gall and Palla yet lived.\n\nHe raised his chin for their attention. Through the windows the sky was lightening to the dark blue and violet of a coming predawn. Please, all our Ancestors, he invoked, eyes on the coming day, allow me the strength to see this through! Grant me that and you shall have me.\n\n\"Brothers and sisters,\" he started, his voice thick with emotion– and more. \"In this time of our greatest testing, one who has been gone from us on along journey has returned– with the object he vowed never to return without.\"\n\nThe gathered stirred, masks shifting to the Eleventh at his side. \"Oru,\" Jan went on, \"hold up the Mask of our Ancestors. The Pure One crafted by the First who led us on our exile...\" Even as he repeated the traditional words of invocation a sudden new realization came to Jan and their meaning shifted, taking on an utterly new significance. His breath caught at the truth of this new formulation. Everything made sense now: his people's fate, their exile. It came to him that this must be what others describe as a religious awakening.\n\nHe took a renewing breath and continued, louder, his voice rough. \"... on our exile... which was in truth a deliverance. A flight from slavery and a flight from our shame. Crafted in the hope of an eventual redemption, a cleansing of our past.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Oru pulled off the black covering and held up above his head a pure unmarred mask carved from the same translucent bright stone as the Legate's throne. In the gathering brightness of dawn it seemed to glow with an inner light. All those present stared immobile. It seemed to Jan that a great easing of some long-held breath escaped from them all, and as one they bowed to one knee, heads lowered.\n\n\"A sign,\" he continued. \"A promise. An offering sent from our past to our future. One we hope to one day be worthy of. One which belongs to all our people and must be returned to await that future safe in the temple at Cant.\"\n\nAt these words the Third, Gall, straightened. \"Nay! Take it, Second. Don it! With you at our head we will sweep these Moranth before us and return triumphant!\"\n\n\"No! It must not betaken up in anger or bloodshed. That would taint it beyond redemption. No, this artefact is too important for us few hereto risk its destruction. We shall accede to the Moranth demands so that we may see it brought safely home.\"\n\n\"To that decision I give my fullest support.\" Anew voice spoke up from the back of the assembly– which parted swiftly as Seguleh drew blades against the newcomer.\n\nJan and Gall both peered, squinting. Jan recognized Lo first, then his son and some girl. And with them one other, and as soon as he looked at this man he recognized him and knew him for what he was, and what he could be, all in one transfiguring instant. He knew then what he must do.\n\nGall turned his back on Lo, the Eighth, and the man who all knew must be the slayer of Blacksword, the presumed Seventh. He faced Jan. \"We must not put down our swords. How can we abandon what it means to be Seguleh? It is not for you to propose such a thing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jan felt remarkably calm in the face of what all others present must see as an inexcusable insult. The Third's behaviour was nothing less than a direct challenge. Jan knew that was exactly what Gall intended. Yet I am not strong enough! I will fall and all I have just glimpsed will be lost to us! Please, Gall, my old friend. Stand aside just this once...\n\nAfter along bracing breath Jan's answer emerged level and strong:\"I propose it because I have seen what we could all too easily become– what we must never become. '\n\nThe Third reached out as if begging something of him. In his gaze Jan saw the reluctance, the torment of his position. \"Please,\" he whispered. \"Do not drive me to what duty demands of me...\"\n\n\"I have spoken, Third,\" Jan said. \"It shall be as I say.\"\n\nAnd Gall said what Jan knew he felt he must as Third: \"Then I challenge you.\"\n\n\n\nAfter the Seguleh left to return inside, Torvald waited with Galene. She tapped the red baton in her palm, shaking her helmed head. \"I fear we have our answer,\" she murmured. \"I'm sorry. But once word comes that your fellow councillors are clear, I am compelled to act. '\n\nGods protect us! Torvald turned away to study the vista of Darujhistan spread out below in the coming light of the east. The various fires appeared to have been mastered, the looming threat of a firestorm feeding gas eruptions circumvented. For that he gave thanks. One miracle. Dare he hope for another?\n\n\"Couldn't you-'\n\n\"No.\" She rubbed her leg, hissing with pain. \"If it were up tome alone... perhaps. But I am not hereon my own. I must think of my people. We cannot allow this threat to exist.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then I am sorry as well, because I have no idea how the Council will take this. There maybe war between us.\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\"\n\nA party of Black troopers jogged up. One saluted Galene. \"A small group that contained Seguleh were allowed through the cordon.\"\n\nGalene straightened, outraged. \"Allowed through? On whose authority?\"\n\nAnother of the troopers saluted. \"Mine, Commander.\"\n\nTorvald studied the last speaker. He appeared to be the oldest Moranth he'd seen yet. The chitinous plates of his armour were thick, cracked and lined. He bore the countless scarifications and gouges of a veteran of many battles.\n\nGalene nodded to the trooper. \"Master Sergeant. Your record is beyond reproach. Why have you done this?\"\n\nThe veteran bowed. \"M'lady. You know I was among the first contingent serving alongside the Malazans. I fought with them for decades. I allowed that party through because of the man who was with them. Though it has been many years, I recognized him. I would know him anywhere. He was Dassem, the First Sword of the Empire. '\n\nTorvald couldn't believe what he was hearing. The First Sword? Here? Was this credible?\n\nGalene's voice was barely audible:\"That is impossible. '\n\n\"Elect,\" the veteran continued, anew edge in his voice, \"must I remind you that our treaty of alliance with the Malazans included Dassem as a signatory?\"\n\n\"And if he lives...\"\n\n\"Exactly, Elect. If he lives... then contrary to what we had assumed, that treaty is not void.\"\n\n*\n\nCrowded within the rear of the hall, Yusek whispered to Sall, \"What's goin'on?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A challenge for leadership,\" he answered just as low.\n\n\"If this is how things get resolved then I'm surprised there's any of you above Fiftieth.\"\n\nHe turned to regard her more closely. \"Yusek– no one will be hurt. At this level it will all be over before you or I notice.\"\n\n\"And if someone was hurt?\"\n\n\"Then, consider. I see only the Sixth and Third with us now. That means this man, the Seventh, could be within one or two ranks of Second.\"\n\n\"That's not why I came here, ' the Seventh growled.\n\n\"Yet it is our way,\" Sall murmured, undeterred.\n\nPalla came to Jan's side, whispering, fierce:\"Do not accept! There is something wrong... I see it. You're wounded.\"\n\n\"I must answer or stand aside– as you well know.\" How to salvage this? The future I foresaw mustn't be lost to us!\"Will you second me? ' he asked.\n\n\"Of course,\" she answered, nearly choking.\n\n\"No challenges here!\" a voice called from the crowd and a Hundredth stepped forward. Horul. \"This must wait until we return to Cant.\" A strange panic filled her voice. \"Before the temple...\"\n\nOru signed a negative. \"The challenge has been made. It must be answered. What say you, Second?\"\n\nJan inclined his head to the Eleventh. \"I accept.\"\n\nGall bowed, then looked around; by tradition the next highest ranked present or available should second him... the Seventh.\n\nLo extended a hand, inviting the dark-skinned Malazan forward. The man shot him a glare but the gathered Seguleh parted and so he reluctantly advanced." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ashe passed through the ranks some reached out reverently to the sword wrapped in rags on his back and Yusek heard them murmuring a word." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's that they're saying?\" she whispered to Sall.\n\n\"Many say the sword on his back is the Son of Darkness's own. The very one that defeated him. They are saying what legends hold as its oldest name– Grief. '\n\nThe four gathered near the centre of the hall and all the assembled Seguleh backed away to the walls. \"Challenge has been issued,\" Gall called out.\n\n\"And accepted,\" Jan answered.\n\nPalla stepped forward. \"As honour has been met I ask that said challenge be withdrawn.\" And she added so low that only the four gathered could hear: \"If you proceed in this, Gall, then I will challenge you.\"\n\n\"Do as you feel you must,\" he answered, equally low. \"Just as I must.\"\n\n\"Now you say that the challenge will proceed,\" Jan prompted the Seventh.\n\nThe Seventh studied the Second. He looked him up and down. Fora longtime he let his gaze linger on Jan's wounded side.\"Is this what you wish? ' he asked finally, uncertain.\n\nJan allowed himself a stiff nod. \"Yes. It is what I wish.\"\n\n\"Very well.\" He raised his voice: \"The challenge proceeds.\"\n\nThe two seconds withdrew. Gall stepped away from Jan to make room.\n\nJan eased his weapon free. The moment the challenge was issued he had known what he had to do. It would be his most difficult performance ever. Weakened as he was he did not know if he could succeed. Yet he must. He would give all he had left. Even if it meant destroying a friend. He shouted to Gall: \"In all the times we've fought you've never come close. What have you planned this time?\"\n\n\"What is he doing?\" Palla murmured, thinking aloud. \"He's never taunted anyone before. '" } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Helping with the plot, keep the story going.\nTags: epic fantasy, ancient city, magic, power dynamics, hidden secrets\nAuthor: Ian Cameron Esslemont\nTitle: Orb Sceptre Throne\nChapter: 27" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ashe passed through the ranks some reached out reverently to the sword wrapped in rags on his back and Yusek heard them murmuring a word." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's that they're saying?\" she whispered to Sall.\n\n\"Many say the sword on his back is the Son of Darkness's own. The very one that defeated him. They are saying what legends hold as its oldest name– Grief. '\n\nThe four gathered near the centre of the hall and all the assembled Seguleh backed away to the walls. \"Challenge has been issued,\" Gall called out.\n\n\"And accepted,\" Jan answered.\n\nPalla stepped forward. \"As honour has been met I ask that said challenge be withdrawn.\" And she added so low that only the four gathered could hear: \"If you proceed in this, Gall, then I will challenge you.\"\n\n\"Do as you feel you must,\" he answered, equally low. \"Just as I must.\"\n\n\"Now you say that the challenge will proceed,\" Jan prompted the Seventh.\n\nThe Seventh studied the Second. He looked him up and down. Fora longtime he let his gaze linger on Jan's wounded side.\"Is this what you wish? ' he asked finally, uncertain.\n\nJan allowed himself a stiff nod. \"Yes. It is what I wish.\"\n\n\"Very well.\" He raised his voice: \"The challenge proceeds.\"\n\nThe two seconds withdrew. Gall stepped away from Jan to make room.\n\nJan eased his weapon free. The moment the challenge was issued he had known what he had to do. It would be his most difficult performance ever. Weakened as he was he did not know if he could succeed. Yet he must. He would give all he had left. Even if it meant destroying a friend. He shouted to Gall: \"In all the times we've fought you've never come close. What have you planned this time?\"\n\n\"What is he doing?\" Palla murmured, thinking aloud. \"He's never taunted anyone before. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's setting him up, ' the Seventh answered grimly.\n\nPalla turned to the Malazan. \"What?\" but then swords clashed.\n\nThe instant their swords met Jan manoeuvred Gall to his wounded side. The Third came on with more passion and power than he had ever displayed in all the years upon the practice sands. But Jan had been one of his teachers and knew what Gall would do before he knew himself. It must be quick– already I'm weakening. No hint. He mustn't have time to pull the thrust.\n\nI'm sorry, my friend. In so many ways you are the most honourable of all of us. But this must be so.\n\nYusek stared, appalled and fascinated. Gods, it was so beautiful! So elegant. This was not the bashing and grunting she'd known. This was more like dance. A dance of nerves, flesh, and razor-sharp iron.\n\n~\n\nThe time had come. Jan knew he could delay no longer; he was about to fall. Already in his parries and turns he had been preparing the way, leaving his hurt side slightly open. And now in an over-extended riposte he began a recovery that would invite the counter-thrust, and in the fraction of a heartbeat that committed Gall to making the move he reversed his recovery and advanced to meet the sword that was already flashing towards him and the razor-edged blade slid in as smoothly as if pushing through cloth.\n\nYusek could not be sure. It looked to her as if the Third deliberately thrust the Second through the side even as he was turning to him. She could not contain a scream at the ugly shock of it. Hers was the only cry in the utterly silent hall.\n\nPalla did not move. This is not happening, she told herself. Such things do not happen. Yet the Second lay with the Third's sword through his side. Only by conscious effort could she move her legs. She and the Seventh approached. All others remained immobile, hushed. Shocked beyond all reaction, perhaps." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gall stood frozen. He stared at his empty hands as if in disbelief. He raised his gaze and there through the mask Palla saw desolation. \"I didn't... ' he groaned.\n\n\"I know,\" the Seventh answered.\n\nThey knelt at Jan's side. He lived still, panting, his breath wet.\"Oru, ' he rasped.\n\n\"Eleventh!\" Palla called.\n\nA crash sounded close by: Gall had fallen to his knees, his hands covering his face. He rocked himself and shuddered with silent tears.\n\nOru ran to them. The Second swallowed hard to whisper: \"My last request, Oru.\" His voice was slurred. \"Offer the mask to the Seventh.\"\n\n\"What?\" Palla gasped. \"No. You will live! There is no need.\"\n\nThe Seventh jerked upright. \"Do not offer this thing tome.\"\n\n\"You must,\" the Second barely mouthed. \"You will take us... home.\" His eyes, behind their blood-spattered mask, closed.\n\n\"Jan!\" Palla grated, her lips clenched against a ferocious scream. \"Jan!\"\n\n\"He is dead,\" Oru said. The Eleventh straightened and turned to face the gathered Seguleh. He studied the mask he held in both hands.\n\nAfter along moment he raised his head to be seen by all present, turning a full circle. \"All you know me,\" he began, his voice low. 'You know that years ago a vision came tome– a vision that I could find our lost legacy, our birthright. You also know that by tradition the mark of the First cannot betaken... it can only be offered. I came fully intending to offer it to our Second. But he refused. His last request was that it be offered to the Seventh..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But,\" he continued, after a hard breath, \"we are Seguleh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We must not forget who we are. And with us rank is paramount. Therefore... I am bound by tradition. By duty. By our ancient code. To offer this mask of the Unmarred, the First, to the Third.\"\n\nHe turned to where Gall crouched rocking himself in mute anguish. \"Third– do you accept?\"\n\nHis face still covered, the man gave one savage negative jerk of his head.\n\nOru turned to Palla next. \"Sixth. Do you accept?\"\n\nThroughout, Palla had not taken her eyes from the dead Second. Without looking up, she shook her head.\n\nOru turned to the Seventh. \"It has come to you, Seventh. Do you accept?\"\n\nThe man raised a hand. \"A moment– there is one here who may choose to dispute this.\"\n\nOru cocked his head, thinking, then turned to the entrance. \"Eighth,\" he called. \"Will you approach?\"\n\nLo started forward. Sall moved to follow then stopped to point a finger at Yusek. \"You, stay here.\"\n\n\"No fucking kidding,\" she answered under her breath.\n\nLo came to Oru's side. The Seventh faced him.\"Tell me, Eighth. If this mask came to you what would you do? '\n\nThe lean man gave an indifferent shrug. Behind his mask his eyes were half lidded, almost lazy. \"Challenge has been issued. It must be met.\"\n\nAside, Sall started forward, drawing breath, but a sign from Lo checked him.\n\nThe Seventh let out a ragged breath. \"Gods– they say never gamble with the Seguleh and now I know why.\" He glared at the Eighth. His deep blue eyes shaded dark as his hands worked at his sides. \"Damn you, Lo. You're determined not to leave meany room... \"Lowering his voice even more he growled,\"I'm of half a mind to call your bluff.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But you won't. ' The Eighth motioned Oru closer. The Eleventh held out the mask.\n\nWordless, the Seventh snatched the sword from his back and shook the rags from it. Hissed breaths escaped from a hundred throats as the blackwood sheath was revealed, the hilt all blued tonight black, and the sable stone orb that was its pommel. The Seventh tied it to his belt then raised his face to the gathering. \"I do not claim to be unmarred myself,\" he began, and emotion cracked his voice, stopping him. After a moment he continued: \"Far from it. However, I accept this honour in the promise that perhaps one day I will prove worthy of it.\"\n\nHe took the translucent white stone mask from Oru's hands and raised it to his face.\n\n\n\n\"Damned quiet in there,\" Torvald murmured aloud just to hear someone speak– the Moranth were utterly silent. Pink and gold bands now brightened the undersides of clouds to the east. Dawn was coming. The Moranth remained battle-ready. They appeared to fully expect the Seguleh to come charging out at any moment. And if that did happen, from what he'd seen he personally didn't think anything would stop them.\n\nA Black messenger came jogging up to Galene and saluted. \"Noncombatants captured on the grounds, Elect.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"A citizen, Malazans, and other foreigners.\"\n\n\"Malazans and foreigners? What are they doing here?\"\n\n\"They looked to have come to help fight.\"\n\n\"Well, release them and warn them off.\"\n\nThe Black saluted. \"Very good.\" He moved to leave.\n\n\"Where are the councillors?\" Torvald asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The messenger looked to his commander. Galene waved to allow an answer. \"They have been escorted off the hill.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\nGalene faced Torvald. She crossed her arms, the red baton still in one hand. \"I'm sorry, Councillor. I can't delay much longer. We will withdraw and then I will be forced to signal.\"\n\n\"I'm damned sorry as well. This will destroy our relations forages to come. '\n\nGalene nodded her understanding. \"You are sounding more and more like a councillor, Nom of Nom.\" She turned to an aide and signed. He ran off, signalling to others as he went. The Moranth Black troops stirred, readying to withdraw. \"We will be last,\" she told him.\n\nTogether, they watched the troops back away, making for stairs and twisting roadways down Majesty Hill. Torvald's gaze kept returning to the blasted main entrance. What are you bastards doing in there? Do you mean to hide it out?\n\nThen movement caught his eye and he shouted, near panicked, \"Galene! Someone's coming! '\n\nShe spun to the entrance, a hand going to her sword.\n\nA small party of Seguleh approached– not the all-out charge they'd been fearing. From their masks these men and women represented the top leadership of the people. One fellow, however, carried afar heavier build and was far darker of skin, as dark as many Malazans, in fact. And the mask he wore blazed white in the dawn's light as if glowing. Torvald squinted even more closely at it: was it...\n\nHe turned to Galene. \"That mask! It's-'\n\n\"Yes. I see,\" she answered, and there was something in her voice that Torvald had never heard– what might have been a touch of awe. She crossed her arms, awaiting the party." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The four Seguleh, three men and one woman, stopped short of Galene. The lead one, not even of their stock it seemed to Torvald, matched Galene's crossed arms.\"You are the Elect in charge of this assault group? ' he asked, speaking barbarously accented Daru.\n\n\"I am Galene.\" Then she bowed to the man. \"Greetings, First. This is an unlooked-for honour.\"\n\nFirst, Torvald wondered? This was the man, then? But which First? And still Torvald did not know him, as the mask obscured his face.\n\n\"I propose to lead the Seguleh south, to Cant. You have my word that we shall never return. What say you?\" His gaze slid aside to another of the Seguleh, one bearing ten hatch marks on his mask, and he continued: \"Shall there be any challenge between us, Elect?\"\n\nGalene uncrossed her arms. Her armour gleamed mirror-like in the gathering light. \"There can be no challenge between us, First.\"\n\nHe gave the slightest dip of his head in salute. \"Very good. We will leave by the Worrytown gate. Notify your forces.\"\n\nGalene saluted. \"Done. First...\" she called as he turned away.\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"I am... relieved.\"\n\nThe man bowed briefly again. \"As am I.\"\n\nTorvald watched them go. Wondrous gods! Was that it then? Done? Finished? Wordless, suddenly exhausted, he watched Galene exchange the red baton for one of gold. This she held skyward and twisted. Some sort of munition shot from it, launched into the still deep-blue sky, where it burst into a sizzling amber flame. Torvald watched it drift like a burning flower, smoking and popping." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\n\nTo the west of Darujhistan Captain Fal-ej nudged Fist K'ess, who looked then nudged Ambassador Aragan, who jerked, blinking, and squinted to the city. He then turned to Attaché Torn.\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"A signal.\"\n\nAragan bit back a sharp reply; instead he examined the quorls filling the fields around them. Hours ago they'd swooped down and landed in order to conserve their strength and wait out the night. None stirred now. No orders were shouted to mount.\n\n\"Which?\" he asked, dread choking in his throat.\n\nTorn turned his helmed head to Aragan. \"It is the call to stand down. It seems, Ambassador, that the Elect has met with some sort of victory.\"\n\nVictory? Against over a hundred Seguleh? He didn't think that possible. But then, they would hardly have surrendered, would they?\"Now what? '\n\n\"Now?\" Torn indicated the quorls, now readying, rising to flight, all unburdened, carrying only single riders. \"The assault group will be extracted. And then we shall have a report.\"\n\nAragan watched the quorls liftoff and flitt away, making for the glow and drifting smoke over Darujhistan. Twin wakes followed some passing low over flooded fields nearby. And what a report that will be...\n\nNot far off Sergeant Little nudged her squad awake to motion to the disappearing quorls. \"Looks like a pick-up,\" she said. \"Must be what those officer types call'a cessation of hostilities\".\"\n\n\"Sounds so pretty when you say it, Little,\" one trooper called out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Music to my ears,\" Bendan murmured, half awake." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We gonna move out?\"\n\nLittle shifted where she lay on one elbow. \"Don't know. '\n\n\"We'll pullback to Pale, \"Bone opined while he picked at his teeth.\"Re-garrison. Won't they be happy to see us.\"\n\n\"Pale! That pit,\" someone grumbled. \"Nothing there.\"\n\n\"Don't matter, \"Bendan sighed.\"All the same to us. '\n\nLittle eyed him where he lay with an arm over his face. \"That's right, trooper. All the same to us. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And did we not know the sweetest lassitude there\n\nbathed in such silken glow?\n\nHow sad we must part, for the stars command\n\nand none can forestall their turning upon the great\n\nimmutable orbs" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "SINCE SHE HAD the dawn watch Blend made an early breakfast of fried rashers, eggs, the butt-end of a loaf of heavy black bread and a pot of herb tea, and sat down near the front to eat.\n\nThe smell of cooking roused Picker, who was asleep on a bench. She sat up and rolled her neck to get the kinks out. \"Save me some tea.\"\n\n\"\"Course. '\n\nPicker groaned, rubbing her face where she sat. \"You know– I really expected something last night undercover of all that mayhem.\"\n\n\"Me too. Haven't heard from Spin or Fisher neither. '\n\n\"True. Can't believe those Moranth dropped into take on the Seguleh. '\n\n\"Must've had munitions up the you-know-what. '\n\nBlend washed down a mouthful of bread then set down her cup. \"You hear somethin\"? '\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Out front...\" She pushed back her chair.\n\nThe barrier at the door exploded inward with an eruption of flung splinters and boards. The heavy oak table that held heaped benches slid backwards, grating on the stone floor. Blend tripped on her chair. Picker threw aside the table before her and made for the bar.\n\nA giant fought to force his way through the shattered timbers of the door.\n\nBlend drew her long-knives and closed in a leap, arms drawn back to thrust. Both weapons hit home in the armoured giant's chest. One rebounded while the other shattered into fragments. A sweep of one thick arm knocked her flying backwards.\n\nPicker fired a crossbow from the bar but the bolt glanced off the creature's inlaid armour. It stepped forward, pushing back the heaped benches and broken timbers. Blend ran for the kitchen. Picker reloaded. Duiker appeared from the hall then ducked away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Picker fired again but the second bolt glanced off the creature's closed full helm. She threw down the crossbow and headed out from behind the bar.\n\nThe giant batted aside benches and took another step. Blend came in from the kitchen; she carried their massive log-splitting axe. This she raised over her head in both hands and ran across the room loosing a blood-searing war howl. The axe crashed home against the creature's chest and flew free of Blend's hands. A great shower of stone chips clattered to the floor and the thing lumbered a heavy single step backwards. A crack now showed in its broad chest armour.\n\n\"It ain't human! ' Blend yelled.\n\nFrom the hall Duiker appeared carrying a great two-handed broadsword. He shook it free of the sheath and advanced. Blend searched for the axe. Picker lifted one of the benches and swung it at the thing in an attempt to beat it back. It groped clumsily for the bench.\n\nThe broadsword hacked stone chips from arms and torso, yet still it advanced. It appeared to be making straight for the stairs down to the cellars. Picker hammered at it using the bench as a battering ram while Blend and Duiker chopped at the limbs. Nearing the top of the stairs it managed to get hold of the haft of the axe to wrench it from Blend's hands. It snapped the thick haft in two and tossed the pieces aside.\n\n\"Spindle's munition! ' Picker suddenly yelled.\n\n\"Right!\" Blend dodged one awkward grab to run for the bar.\n\nBoth Duiker and Picker gripped the bench and fended the thing off by butting it in the chest. Blend reappeared behind it, cutoff. \"Now what?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dive!\" Picker yelled.\n\nBlend hugged the munition, hunched, then threw herself forward, sliding between the thing's wide braced legs, and almost tumbled down the stairs. Duiker stopped her. The thing planted one foot onto the cellar steps. The three looked at each other, their close quarters.\"Now what? ' Picker asked again.\n\n\"I don't-' Duiker began, and then a skeletal hand grasped his shoulder and shoved him aside. A file of undead Seguleh came climbing the stairs, unsheathing their swords. Duiker, Picker and Blend slid down along the walls, dodging the swinging weapons.\n\nThe guardians, or whatever they were, held the giant off fora time. Their weapons hacked great gouges out of its armour, which appeared to be layered plates of solid stone or fired clay. Its finish of inlaid multicoloured stones had long since been scraped and bashed away. Yet it was destroying them; the clumsy stone hands grasped arms to wrench them from sockets; closed overheads to crush skulls like blood-fruit. The guardians were falling one by one. Their torn limbs and mangled bodies cluttered the stairs.\n\nDown in the darkness of the first cellar level the three eyed one another. Duiker motioned to the cusser in Blend's hands. She nodded.\n\nThey waited until the last of the pickled Seguleh fell. Duiker took a torch, then he and Picker lay down on the much narrower rough stone staircase leading down to the lowest cellar– the one they never used. From the top of this staircase Blend watched for the giant to make its appearance.\n\nIts heavy leaden steps announced it. Each shook the stone beneath them. It turned the corner of the landing. Blend yelled, \"Munitions!\" and threw, then jumped for the stairs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They heard the cusser crack like a dropped pot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then the giant took another step.\n\nDuiker cursed under his breath.\n\n\"How do you like that!\" Blend snarled. \"It really was a dud!\"\n\nAnother step sounded and the rock beneath them creaked as if under immense pressure.\n\n\"Now what?\" Picker whispered, fierce.\n\n\"Let's get out of here, ' Duiker said.\n\nPicker climbed to her feet. \"Damn right.\"\n\nThey scrambled backup into the upper cellar only to find that the giant had reached the narrow aisle that led through barrels stacked ceiling tall. They were cutoff.\n\n\"Shit!\" Picker exploded, and she reached for her sheaths only to find them empty. \"Now what?\"\n\nExhausted, Duiker wiped his hot slick face. \"We backup. It might widen out down below.\"\n\n\"That's a plan, ' Blend growled and she motioned them back.\n\nThe stairs were uneven, roughly hewn and overgrown with mould– even something that felt like a kind of moss or thick lichen. Duiker hoped the thing might lose its footing and come tumbling down in a heap of wreckage. Then he thought– lichen? Growing on these cut stone stairs? Then that would mean... Burn preserve them... thousands of years!\n\nThe stairs lost definition until Duiker found himself sliding backwards down nothing more than a stone chute. Roots hung, clawing their hair. It had become hotter and far more humid.\n\n\"We ain't never come this low, \"Picker whispered, hushed.\"I don't know if I can go down anymore!\"\n\nDuiker, leading the backwards descent, came up against a hard flat surface. In the dimming light of the torch he could just make out a rough-hewn granite slab. \"End of the way,\" he called. \"Looks like the entrance to a tomb.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the gloom Picker punched a dirt wall. \"Fener take it! I can't fucking believe it. What a goddamned place to die. Break it down! '\n\n\"No! I think that's what it's hereto do,\" Duiker said. \"If we all charged it and hit it high we might trip it up. One of us might get by.\" He glimpsed movement up the narrow tunnel. \"Here it comes.\" He jabbed the end of the torch high into a wall. \"Let's go. '\n\n\"I'll lead, ' Picker growled, and turned sideways, hunching a shoulder.\n\nThey ran backup the sloped tunnel. Picker and Blend let out bellowing war howls as they went. They jumped up at the last instant to smash into the creature's battered chest only to tumble together at its stone feet. It rocked backwards but did not fall.\n\nLying in a heap before it they peered up, bruised and puzzled. It remained immobile, like the statue it perhaps had been in truth. A sudden sharp crack split the air like the eruption of a flawed pot in a kiln and an arm fell off it to thump onto them then roll down the tunnel floor, bursting into shards. The other arm split and fell too, bursting like crockery.\n\nThey all scrambled up and backed away. A great crack shot in a jagged diagonal across its torso and the halves slid in opposite directions to crash into countless shards. Its lower torso and legs fell forward, shattering as well.\n\nThe flickering torch revealed standing behind the wreckage a man with long straight greying hair wearing a dirty threadbare shirt and trousers. A young woman hovered close behind him, all in dark clothes and carrying a stave. Blend took one look at the man, gaped, then went for her empty sheaths once more. \"Fucking Tayschrenn!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Picker snatched a dirk from her belt.\n\n\"Hold!\" Duiker bellowed. He pushed forward, and a strange sort of half-smile touched the newcomer's lips.\n\n\"Duiker,\" he said. \"If there was one man I did not expect to run into right now, that would be you.\"\n\nThe old Imperial Historian looked him up and down. \"It is you,\" he breathed, amazed. \"Yet not– you look different.\"\n\n\"We grow older. Things change. You are right... I am not the man I was.\"\n\nPicker snorted at that. \"What do you want?\" She raised her chin in defiance. \"We're retired. It's all official now. On the books.\"\n\nThe High Mage shook his head, frowning now. \"I understand your anger and suspicion, Bridgeburner. You have every right to it. All I can say is that I'm sorry for what happened. I regret it greatly. '\n\n\"Sorry?\" Picker echoed, derisive. \"You're sorry? '\n\nTayschrenn glanced over his shoulder. \"Let's backup, Kiska. '\n\nIn the cellar the three still warily eyed the High Mage. \"What are you doing here?\" Duiker asked.\n\nThe High Mage motioned to the tunnel. \"I've come to attempt something long overdue. Something that should have been done years ago. '\n\nPicker and Blend shared puzzled glances. Duiker eyed the tunnel, then his gaze shifted back to Tayschrenn. He pulled at his black and grey beard. \"If I'm right in what you're suggesting, then I think no one has ever been strong enough– or willing enough– to risk it. If you fail you'll probably be destroyed. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At that the young woman at Tayschrenn's side started her surprise and turned a savage glare on him.\"What's this?\" she hissed.\n\nThe High Mage raised a hand for quiet.\n\n\"No! I'll not be hushed. You never said anything about this. '\n\nDuiker caught Blend's eye and motioned to the stairs. She nudged Picker and they started up.\n\nAlone now, Tayschrenn took Kiska's shoulders.\"I'm sorry. But it has to be this way. This is something only I can do.\"\n\nKiska wrenched free of his hands. She stamped the butt of the stave to the cobbled floor in a crashing report. \"For this I drag you from the ends of the earth? So you can throw your life away on some damned fool attempt– at what?\"\n\nThe High Mage leaned back against a barrel. He eyed the darkness as if studying something hidden deep within its depths. \"Think, Kiska. Think of all those who nudged and manipulated and plain lied to bring you and me hereto this place at this time.\" He raised a finger, \"Your Aunt Agayla for one. The Enchantress. That priest of Shadow you mentioned– so Shadowthrone himself schemed for this. Even D'rek has given me her blessing. And so it must be. '\n\nShe threw out her arms. \"Oh, certainly! Better you than they, yes? Why haven't they stepped up if it is all so vital? '\n\nHe pressed his hands together before his lips and studied her over them. \"It is hard, I know. But right now at this moment all those I just mentioned, and many others, are utterly enmeshed in a struggle that spans the world. All their strength is already committed in a confrontation manifesting across countless fronts. And K'rul may fail. Wounded, poisoned, weakened– the effort may prove beyond her. That we cannot allow to happen. '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But why you?\"\n\nHe crooked a chiding smile. \"Tell me, Kiska. If Maker were here– what would he do?\"\n\nShe drew a great shuddering breath, then her shoulders fell. \"He would do his job,\" she granted, looking away, her lips clenched tight.\n\n\"Very good.\" He crossed to her and touched his lips to her brow. \"Kiska– you saved me and you have made me whole. For this I will always be grateful.\" He caught her gaze and held it. \"But now it is your turn. Be whole. Live now not for me or any other. But for yourself.\"\n\nHer answer was hardly audible. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Very good. Farewell. And, my thanks.\" He walked away down the tunnel.\n\nUpstairs Blend gave a great shout of surprise and Picker and Duiker ran up to find the wrecked K'rul's bar crowded. Antsy and Spindle were there, as was Fisher, plus three huge fellows, shields leaning up against their table, busy emptying tall tankards of ale.\n\nAntsy shouted from the bar, \"Did you see...\"\n\nPicker crossed to the bar and gave a sombre nod. \"Yeah. We saw'im. '\n\n\"Just about crapped my pants, I tell you,\" Antsy muttered.\n\n\"I need a drink.\" She fished behind the bar to pullout a bottle, eyed him up and down. \"So, you're back. You look awful. No big bags o'gems?\"\n\nHe ducked his head, glowering. \"The go-down, get-rich, comeback plan got upended. Long fucking story. At least I didn't die. '\n\nPicker snorted a laugh. \"Same old Antsy. Who're these huge bastards? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Old friends of Fisher.\" He lowered his voice. \"Not too pleased to see'em, though. '\n\n\"No kiddin\"? '\n\nSpindle came to the bar and poured a glass from Picker's bottle.\n\n\"So what was all this trouble in the city anyway?\" Antsy asked him.\n\n\"Long story,\" Spindle grumbled. He leaned back against the bar. \"Just my stupid luck too. I come hereto avoid all the trouble down south, then this happens!\" He studied the glass, took a sip. \"I'm headin'back south.\"\n\nCareful slow steps sounded from the rear, crackling and shifting through the broken stone and wood. All eyes turned to the noise and conversation died down to a heavy silence.\n\nThe young woman came up from below. She wore a once stylish dark shirt under leathers that were tattered, scraped and grimed. Her long black hair hung unwashed and mussed but pretty oval features did much to makeup for all that. She held her stave crossways, a touch defensive, and peered around at everyone, her eyes puffy as if she had been crying. She wiped her face. \"This supposed to be a bar, then?\" she asked of the room in general.\n\n\"Yeah...\" Blend admitted guardedly.\n\n\"Got any wine? I could use a glass.\"\n\nBlend nodded. \"Take a seat.\"\n\n\"Who's the gal? ' Spindle asked, his voice low.\n\n\"She's a Claw, ' Picker murmured.\n\nSpindle choked on his drink.\n\n\n\nStudious Lock was in the kitchen experimentally poking at a burlap bag of potatoes and thinking to himself: Dear Unknowable Ancients... They eat these growths? A crash sounded from the main chambers, followed by furniture breaking, gasping, flailing limbs thumping the floor, and a man's roar of outraged pain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Guests!\n\nHe hurried out. A man– half Andii! – in a torn green shirt, blood-spattered, a blade in each hand, was climbing to his feet among the broken wood of an ornamental table. He drew the back of one hand across his face, leaving a smear of bright fresh blood.\n\n\"You are in need of dressing!\" Studious announced, eager.\n\nSeeing him, the man flinched away, almost falling again. \"Don't you touch me! ' He ran off, following a trail of bare bloody footprints that led to stairs to the lower levels.\n\n\"I have unguents!\" Studious called after him.\n\nThen he sniffed the air and his mouth moved in what might be called a smile. Ah! The Mistress's daughter has returned! Perhaps I should find some pretty live plants and pull them up to kill them. As is the barbaric custom here for celebrations.\n\nThe lowest cellar was all one empty roughly octagonal room. At its centre a single figure sat cross-legged. She occupied a series of concentric circles inscribed in the floor, which was dotted with wards and sigils and symbols in languages spoken by no human. Her head was bowed and long black hair hung in a curtain that touched the ground before her.\n\nTaya came down the wide staircase sliding along a wall. She clutched her side, blood a smear down that leg. Her gauzy scarves hung in tatters. She threw herself down before the crouched figure, a hand reaching, entreating.\n\n\"Mother! Protect me!\"\n\nThe figure's head rose.\n\nTopper came bounding down the stairs. He caught sight of the two women and stuttered to a halt. He raised his blades out from his sides, head cocked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The woman within the centre of the wards stood. Chains rattled, running from her wrists to rings set in the floor at her sides. She wrapped a hand round one of these chains and yanked. Metal screeched and the chain snapped. She did the same with the other.\n\nTopper's brows rose in silent appreciation. A feral smile twisted his lips and he flicked the blades, shaking droplets of blood across the floor.\n\nThe woman advanced out of the concentric circles, dragging the chains behind her. She lashed one, sending a scattering of sparks flying. \"Clawmaster,\" she said from behind the curtain of hair. \"Do we have a quarrel?\"\n\nTopper eased his left leg slightly further back. \"Vorcan. I'm here for that one. She must answer fora crime against the Empire. '\n\nVorcan glanced back to the prone figure. \"Leave her tome.\"\n\n\"To you?\" A puzzled frown creased his brow. He tapped one bloody blade to his lips, thinking. After a moment the feral grin returned and he offered a mockingly elaborate courtier's bow.\"Very well. For now. However... if I see her again I will take her head. '\n\nVorcan pointed to the stairs. Remaining half bowed, Topper backed up, all the while keeping his eyes on her. At the top he disappeared in a swirl of darkness.\n\nVorcan turned back to Taya.\n\nShe lay on her side, still panting, drenched in a sweat of pain and exhaustion. She stared up at Vorcan, her brows crimped in puzzlement. \"All this time...\" she breathed. \"You could have...\"\n\n\"Yes. Had I chosen to– of my own freewill.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Taya shook her head in mute rueful incomprehension. Then she grimaced, hissing. She struggled to rise. \"Well, thank you. I knew you would help me, Mother.\"\n\nA metal click sounded and Taya jerked up an arm. One of the chains now hung from it. \"What is this?\" Vorcan gripped the other wrist and transferred the second chain. \"No!\" Taya reached fora fallen knife. Vorcan kicked it aside, then took her daughter's neck in a vice grip. While she held her in the choking throttle she reattached the chains to their rings. Then she tossed her down and backed away.\n\nTaya lunged but the chains rang and grated, restraining her. She lay rubbing her wrists. \"You cannot do this tome! I'll have your heart! '\n\nVorcan continued backing away up the stairs.\n\n\"Mother? You're not really...? '\n\nVorcan disappeared. An unseen door closed heavily and a lock ratcheted.\n\n\"Mother! Don't leave me like this! '\n\nTaya collapsed to curl into a tight foetal ball at the centre of the concentric rings. She wrapped her arms around herself and laid her head on the cold hard floor.\n\n\"Mother...\"\n\n\n\nRallick found his man sitting on a bench in the grounds of Majesty Hill. He was facing the east. The sun's warm light was a golden wash across him. He sat next to him; the man did not stir from studying the sunrise over the distant Gadrobi hills.\n\n\"You were supposed to run,\" Rallick said after a time, his hands clasped on his lap.\n\nScholar Ebbin nodded, almost distractedly. He pressed a bunched cloth to his forehead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He wanted you to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He drove you off.\"\n\nThe man nodded again. He let out along sigh.\n\n\"But you didn't. '\n\nEbbin shook his head.\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nSlowly, the scholar turned his head to face him. He swallowed to speak. \"I don't want to die. '\n\nRallick looked away. His mouth tightened. \"I'm sorry. '\n\nEbbin studied the sunrise once more. He tapped a finger to his temple. \"He's inside right now. Raging. But only a voice. Just a voice. He's harmless now, I swear. Couldn't I just-'\n\n\"No.\"\n\nEbbin pressed the cloth to his watering eyes. \"I've hurt no one! I didn't mean this to happen. It isn't right! '\n\n\"I'm sorry, ' Rallick said again. His voice was now much softer.\n\n\"I could have run, you know! Could've. But I didn't!\"\n\nAt that Rallick's gaze tightened as if pained.\"I know. '\n\n\"Couldn't you just...? '\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Please...\" Ebbin whispered.\n\nRallick motioned to a copse of woods. \"Come with me.\"\n\n\"No... I don't... '\n\nRallick clasped an arm round his shoulders to raise him from the bench. \"This way, scholar. Only one thing left.\"\n\n\n\nA fist wrapped tight in the scholar's shirt, Rallick banged on the door of the Finnest house. Ebbin stared, taking in all the details of the bizarre structure.\"Is this... \"he murmured, awed.\"Then there really was... '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The door swung open and there stood a horror." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ebbin jerked to scream but Rallick slapped a hand to his mouth. The scholar slumped, fainting in his arms.\n\n\"A sign,\" Raest announced. \"That is what I need. Something like– Keep off the Mounds.\"\n\n\"Can't you take him? '\n\n\"We already have a boarder.\"\n\n\"That sleeping fellow?\"\n\nRaest shuffled backup the hall. Rallick followed, dragging Ebbin with him. The Jaghut motioned to the huge man lying on the floor, snoring. \"Our boarder. Quiet. Undemanding.\"\n\nRallick studied the sprawled man. Now he thought he recognized him; in fact, he knew where he'd seen him. He'd been with that foreign blacksmith. He adjusted Ebbin in his arms. \"Well, perhaps he'd like to leave now... Can he? '\n\n\"Can he what?\"\n\nRallick studied the Jag's dead scarred face. He cleared his throat.\"Can he– I mean, is he hale? Whole? '\n\n\"Physically, yes. As for his mind– it is the same as when he came to us.\"\n\nEbbin roused in Rallick's arms. He peered about, frowning.\"Where am I? '\n\n\"Could you wake him?\" Rallick asked.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"No?\"\n\n\"No. I cannot. You, however, may.\"\n\nRallick struggled to conceal his irritation. He sat Ebbin against a wall then knelt over the big fellow. He touched the back of a hand to his cheek. It was as warm as a child's.\n\n\"Is this...\" Scholar Ebbin gasped. He pointed to Raest. \"Are you...? By all the gods! I have a thousand questions!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Standing above Rallick the Jaghut let out along low growl.\n\n\n\nIn the grounds of the High Alchemist Baruk's estate a small pot-bellied demon anxiously edged out of the tower's open door. As the rich amber morning sunlight struck its knobbled head it hissed, ducking and writhing from side to side. Then it shaded its gaze, blinking, and continued along in its uneven gait.\n\nIt stopped before a man lying prone halfway up the walk. Smoke curled from his shredded robes and blood matted his torn scalp. He appeared to have been in an explosion. The demon took hold of his shoulders and began attempting to drag him up the walk.\n\nAfter much gasping and flailing, with the man himself weakly pushing, the demon managed to heave him in through the door. He propped him against a wall and waddled off. A short time later he returned with a silver flask that he opened and offered to him.\n\nThe man just peered up through pained eyes, breathing wetly, his jaws clenching against his agony. Anger appeared to be gathering in those eyes.\n\nThe demon slapped a hand to his forehead then leaned over to carefully tilt the flask to the man's mouth. The fellow drank as much as he could then gasped, choking and coughing. After a time he managed to lift an arm to take the flask. Blinking, he peered around at the rubbish, the strewn wreckage and broken furniture.\"Chillbais... ' he began, weakly, and coughed again.\n\n\"Yes, master?\"\n\nHe waved the flask to the surroundings. \"... what have you done to the place?\"\n\n\n\nThe brightening light cascading in through the windows woke Envy. A hand went to her forehead and, pressing there, she groaned. She rose unsteadily to her feet and staggered to a window. There she tensed, straightening, and glared about." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No...\" she breathed. She gripped the sill, cracking its stone under her nails. \"No!\"\n\nShe threw herself back from the window as if to dash from the room, but halfway across she raised both hands and came to a halt. She spent sometime adjusting her dress and hair, then let out along, calming breath. \"Very well. What's done is done. Can't be helped. It has all been rather a disappointment, after all.\" She set her hands on her hips. \"Yes. Not what I'd hoped at all. Not at all. Perhaps a change in scenery. \"She tapped a finger to her pursed lips. Her arched brows rose as an idea struck.\"Yes... perhaps the Empire. Hmm. They maybe sophisticated enough... '\n\nShe waved a hand as if dismissing the rooms, Majesty Hall, the entire city, and walked out.\n\nAcross the city a burly foreigner drove a wagon into the yard of the Eldra Iron Mongers and shut the gates behind him. The master of the works himself, Humble Measure, met him as he brought the wagon to a halt before one of the cavernous shops.\n\nBarathol dropped the reins, peered down at Humble. \"Ready?\"\n\nHumble Measure raised along-handled pair of iron tongs. \"Ready.\"\n\nThey went to the rear of the wagon and lowered the gate. A metal casket filled the bed. Barathol grabbed hold of a rope handle and yanked it out. It fell with a crash amid the black clinker and slag. He looked to Humble again. \"Furnace ready?\"\n\n\"Iron's roiling white hot. '\n\n\"All right. Let's get it done. '\n\nHumble set the tongs on the lid and took the other handle. Together they carried the casket into the shop, where an orange and yellow glow flickered and smoke once more billowed out to hangover the city." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Afterwards, as they walked back to the wagon, Humble Measure wiped his blackened hands on a filthy rag." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Until next time, then.\"\n\nBarathol gave a harsh laugh. \"I know what you mean– but let's hope not, yes? '\n\n\"Yes. Quite. Twins favour you, then.\"\n\nBarathol nodded and shook the reins.\n\nHumble Measure watched the mango. Yes, he agreed: let us hope there will be no further call. Yet in the meantime one must remain vigilant. He had his cause now. He'd been misguided before. Sought answers in the wrong directions. But now he understood. And he would apply all his resources just as ruthlessly as before. He knew where the true threats lay now and he would keep watch.\n\nHe would await the slips of paper inscribed with the broken circle.\n\nFor Torvald the farewells had been swift and without ceremony. The quorls arrived to pickup the survivors of the Moranth assault group and they had flown off, swooping to the east around the city. Galene left last. As if in salute she offered the slightest tilt of her engraved helm. He answered with his best awkward effort at a formal bow.\n\nHe stood fora time watching them disappear into the sun's glare. A mannered cough brought him round to see a young Darujhistani aristocrat in much-damaged finery.\"Yes? '\n\nThe lad bowed. \"I understand you are the new Councillor Nom.\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\n\"Permit me to introduce myself– my name is Corien. Corien Lim.\"\n\nTorvald could not keep his brows from rising. \"Ah... I see. Well... I am sorry for your loss.\"\n\nThe lad bowed again. He rubbed at his grimed nose, grimacing. \"You are most courteous, sir. I take this liberty because given the circumstances I believe we maybe seeing much more of each other.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Torvald had no idea what to say to that so he nodded sagely. \"Really. That is... most interesting.\"\n\nThe Lim scion bowed again, taking his leave. \"Until then, sir.\"\n\nTorvald turned onto a path down the hill. He walked in silence, deep in puzzled thought. Had he just received his first overture of recognition from an aristocrat– a possible future councillor? If so, things were looking up for Torvald Nom. Then he recalled what lay ahead and he lost even that thin shred of optimism: homecoming awaited.\n\nWhat should it be this time? Pirates? Invasions? Slavers? Stomach troubles?\n\nAshe walked the district he passed patches of fire damage. A few city blocks had burned but overall the harm was not nearly so terrible as he had feared. And everywhere, on every corner, lay pots in heaps, abandoned or broken. Some still held water– no doubt drawn from wells, troughs, and even the lake itself.\n\nHe frowned, eyeing them: something familiar about those pots.\n\nHe paused before the door to his own house. Once more wiped his hands on the thighs of his trousers. Ashe reached for the handle the door was yanked inward. Tiserra stood in the threshold. She cocked an eye.\n\n\"Greetings, fair wife!\" He moved to step in but she blocked the way.\n\n\"And what was it this time?\" she demanded.\n\n\"Ah! Well...\" Torvald pulled a hand down his unshaven cheek. \"You may not believe this, good wife... but I was sent on a secret diplomatic mission to the north, only to be kidnapped by Moranth. And in negotiation with them, I managed to save the city!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, really? You saved the city, did you?\"\n\nHe pressed a hand to his heart. \"Gods\" own truth! That's exactly what happened. If I may come in I'll tell you all about it. '\n\n\"Indeed?\" She edged slightly to one side. \"I can't wait to hear. Does it bear upon this non-paying job of yours? '\n\nHe slid in around her. \"Ah... odd you should mention that. In fact it does.\"\n\nShe shut the door and brushed drying clay from her hands. \"Well then. It's a good thing that I'm owed fora great many pots.\"\n\nCouncillor Coll walked the empty rooms of his manor house. Reaching the wide base of the ornate curved staircase he paused to rest a hand on the balustrade. After a time he set a booted foot on the first stair. Jaws tight, he leaned forward until he had to raise his rear foot to place it upon the second. He eased a breath out between clenched teeth, then continued on.\n\nThe bedroom door was open. He entered to standby the low dresser. Thick curtains hung closed before the terrace doors, holding the room in a dim murky light. The air smelled of dust and stale perfume. He crossed to the curtains and parted them. A shaft of light played across the room: dust motes spun and danced.\n\nHe yanked the thick cloths to the sides and then pulled the double doors open. A gust of wind sent the dust swirling from the bedcovers. Taking a deep breath of the air, he turned to the door. Passing the dresser cluttered with its tiny glass bottles he ran a finger through the thick grey layer upon it. He examined his finger, then dusted his hands together and left." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Outside, his carriage-driver asked, \"Destination, Councillor?\"\n\n\"Destination?\" Coll answered, outraged. \"Why, Majesty Hall of course!\"\n\nThe carriage-driver rolled his eyes to the sky as he gave the reins a tug.\n\nFar outside Darujhistan, on the western edge of Maiten town, an old woman staggered from her straw-roofed shack. She held her head, groaning and blinking in the light. She wrenched at her great mane of matted frizzy hair to examine a handful. She let out a great yelp of horror and batted at the curled mass, raising a cloud of dust and dirt.\n\nThen she worked her mouth as if having tasted something vile. She spat in the street, wiped her mouth and grimaced her disgust. She caught sight now of her mud-caked tatters of skirts and grabbed fists of them, twisting them back and forth. \"May the gods die of crotch-rot! What's happened to my dress? '\n\n\"Watch yer mouth, y\" damned drunken witch, ' a passer-by growled.\n\n\"How would you like-\" She held her head and groaned anew. \"Oh gods! Wait till I get my hands on that slimy toad!\" She reached for the wall of her shack. \"Oh, my head. My poor head. Where's Derudan's hookah off to?\" She stumbled inside and began searching amid the rubbish.\n\n\n\nWest of the Maiten River the Malazan army broke camp to march. Fist K'ess was packing his travel panniers with orders and records when Ambassador Aragan entered. The Fist saluted, then motioned an invitation to a stool where a tray of tea waited." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aragan waved a negative." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm off for the city. '\n\nK'ess paused in his packing.\"With respect, Ambassador. Perhaps you should wait... '\n\nThe big man tucked his hands into his tight weapon belt. \"No, no. I'll have my honour guard, of course. '\n\n\"Come to Pale with the Fifth.\"\n\nThe Ambassador tilted his balding head. \"Generous offer, Fist, but the embassy hasn't been formally closed. We'll see what the final decision is from whoever ends up in control there.\"\n\n\"Very well.\" K'ess saluted once more.\"A pleasure, Ambassador. '\n\nAragan seemed almost embarrassed as he turned away, clearing his throat. \"You're too kind, Fist. ' He walked off with his splay-legged rolling gait.\n\nK'ess watched him go. A soldier who just wanted to be a soldier but ended up a politician.\n\nCaptain Fal-ej paused at the open tent flaps to salute.\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Outriders ready.\"\n\n\"Send them off.\"\n\n\"At once.\" She turned to go.\n\n\"Captain,\" K'ess called quickly.\n\nShe turned back, blinking. \"Yes?\"\n\n\"We'll stay close to the lake shore, Captain. '\n\n\"Very good, Fist.\"\n\nK'ess pulled a hand down his unshaven chin.\"And perhaps– as we ride– you might tell me all about Seven Cities. I never did make it there. '\n\nCaptain Fal-ej's thick dark brows rose very high and she smiled broadly.\"That would please me a great deal, Fist. '\n\n\n\nThat evening Kruppe sat once more at his usual table near the back of the Phoenix Inn. Jess was on duty that night and when she caught sight of him she marched right over. \"You again! You've some nerve showing your oily self here. I've half a mind to call Scurve to toss you outright now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kruppe threw up his hands. \"Good Jess! What ire! What passion! I am overcome. Indeed, I am overcome with famishment. A bottle of red if you would be so kind. With two glasses, for Kruppe is in a bountiful munificent mood. And a touch of that gorgeous mutton I smell. And the pear tart for afters.\"\n\nJess set her fists on her wide hips. \"And how are you going to pay for all this?\"\n\nKruppe pointed past her. \"Oh, look!\"Tis Meese herself thereat the bar. She'll speak for me, I'm certain. '\n\n\"Oh, I'll have a word with her about you all right, you can be sure of that. '\n\nJess crossed to the bar and spoke with Meese. Kruppe watched, eyes narrowed, nervously tapping his fingertips together. The older woman waved Jess close and whispered something in her ear. Jess's eyes widened in surprise and she appeared to mouth Really?\n\nThe older woman gave a serious nod.\n\nJess straightened. Her wondering frown seemed to say: who would have thought it?\n\nShe returned to Kruppe's table. Here she bent down to him with a wide smile, and pushed back her hair.\"Was that two glasses you asked for, sir? '\n\nKruppe's gaze darted left and right. His fingertips halted their tapping.\"Why... yes, good Jess. If you would be amenable? '\n\n\"Certainly, sir. Right away.\" She turned to go but paused fora moment to adjust the lie of her skirt over one broad hip. Then she walked off, swinging those hips like two great warships.\n\nKruppe's brows climbed very high indeed and his gaze shifted to Meese at the bar. An evil smirk raised the corners of her mouth and she winked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Proceed" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Great anxious gods! Whatever did the evil Meese tell the poor woman!\n\nLater that night Kruppe sat back to wipe his enormous handkerchief across his mouth and survey the conquered plates, crusts and bones scattered before him. Most restorative struggle to the death! Kruppe is... satisfied.\n\nYet the second glass remained untouched opposite and he regarded it fora moment, then poured himself more of the– slightly disappointing– red.\n\nTwo cloaked and hooded figures pulled up chairs to either side of him and leaned close.\n\nKruppe set his glass back down. \"Gentlemen... Kruppe was expecting company this night, but not you two.\" He gestured to the empty glass. \"Alas, perhaps my friend's days of bachelor conviviality are done. The chains of domesticity have closed upon him and gone are the times of carefree bonhomie... Out of the window, as it were. '\n\n\"Whatever in the Abyss are you going on about, ya fat fool?\" Leff growled. \"We're in real trouble here and we need your help! '\n\n\"My help? How can poor Kruppe be of any service to you?\"\n\n\"We need to get out of town,\" Scorch added urgently from the other side.\n\nKruppe's expressive thick brows climbed again; he clamped his handkerchief to his mouth and coughed behind it fora time. Fit over, he stuffed the cloth back into a frilly sleeve and thoughtfully stroked the tiny rat's tail braided beard at his chin. \"Really?\" he managed after a time. \"Kruppe hardly dares ask what for...?\"\n\n\"It was an accident-\" Scorch began.\n\n\"It was your fault!\" Leff cut in. \"You fired!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You grabbed it!\" Scorch yelled, nearly choking.\n\nNearby conversations stopped as people glanced over.\n\nKruppe raised his hands for quiet. \"Decorum in the bar, please, gentlemen. Now, what, exactly, are you two staggering blindly around?\"\n\nThe two exchanged stricken looks. \"We killed the Legate,\" they said together in a fierce whisper.\n\nKruppe slapped a hand to his mouth, choking again. Once the coughing fit had passed he took a quick sip of wine to clear his throat. \"Oh dear,\" he murmured. \"Most serious. I daresay you are in a great deal of trouble.\"\n\nLeff pulled his hood lower and glared about. \"You have to help! The whole city's after us! '\n\nKruppe stroked the slim beard once more, shaking his head. He sighed heavily. \"Kruppe is only one man... This may lie beyond even his astounding abilities.\"\n\n\"You have to get us out of the city,\" Scorch pleaded. \"We'll do anything! '\n\nKruppe's hand paused upon the beard. His eyes darted once more.\"Anything...? '\n\nThe two shared a glance of utter desperation and together they jerked a nod.\n\nThe little man picked up a last crust and gave it an experimental nibble. \"It just so happens that Kruppe does know of a job outside the city that maybe admirably suited to your, ah, unique, talents...\"\n\nThe two sagged in relief. Leff cuffed Kruppe on the back. \"You're a true friend, Kruppe. Got no idea where we'd be without ya.\"\n\nKruppe took a dainty sip of his wine. \"You have no idea,\" he murmured." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Start Chapter" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "THE NEXT MORNING Antsy sat looking out of the still gaping doorway of K'rul's Temple and Bar and sipped his tea. Sadly, once more they were all out of liquor as last night the three gigantic friends of Fisher, the Heel brothers, had been up drinking and singing until every bottle and keg was bone dry. After the not-so-discreet glowers from Blend and Picker the bard was out now seeing them off.\n\nAntsy sipped the tea again and grimaced his disgust: damned cheap southern leaf.\n\nDuiker came down and sat with him. The old historian rubbed his face and sighed blearily. \"Didn't sleep a wink. '\n\n\"You'd think with Fisher with \"em they'd at least be able to carry a tune. '\n\n\"See the sigil on one's shield? Black mountain on a blue field? Know it? '\n\nAntsy shook his head. He poured Duiker some tea. \"Do you think he's still down there? ' And he inclined his head to the rear.\n\nThe historian shrugged. \"Don't know. Probably not. \"He looked to where the Claw sat at her own table staring out of an open window. She appeared pensive, somehow lost. He glanced around at the empty common room.\"So, Spindle's off?\"\n\n\"Aye. We can breathe easily now.\" Antsy laughed. The laugh died away as he squinted at something outside. \"Look there,\" he murmured, and he lifted his chin to the open door. \"He's got some nerve showin'his face here.\" Duiker turned in his chair. Across the street a man loitered; but not just any man. Duiker recognized him. In fact, he suspected that every Malazan in the building would've recognized him: Topper, Clawmaster to the Empire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The woman appeared to have seen him now as well, as a hissed breath escaped her and she stood up. Antsy sent her a questioning look, which she answered with a sign: stand down. She picked up her stave and went to the door. On her way she paused at their table. \"Thanks for the room,\" she told Antsy. She inclined her head to Duiker. \"Historian.\" She crossed the road and the two appeared to talk fora time. Then they walked off more or less side by side.\n\nAntsy sighed his regret. She'd been a fine place to rest his eyes, what with her long legs sheathed in those tall leather boots, and that challenging dark gaze she had– almost made him think maybe he wasn't as old as he knew he was. Now she walks off with the Clawmaster like they was old acquaintances, which, he supposed, they must be. Which made him glad he didn't try sittin\" down next to her after all.\n\nThe streets were crowded that morning as all Darujhistan was out inspecting the aftermath of fallen Moranth munitions and the fires that followed. The damage was not nearly as severe as it might have been thanks to the neighbourhood fire-fighting volunteers and no shortage of pots.\n\nAs they walked the streets Topper told Kiska: \"I was surprised to sense your presence.\"\n\n\"And I yours.\"\n\nHis gaze slid sideways to her. \"What, may I ask, drew you here– of all places?\"\n\n\"A job. All finished now. You?\"\n\n\"The same.\"\n\n\"What is it you wish to talk about, then?\"\n\nThe man studied his nails, then straightened the rings on all eight fingers. \"We're short personnel. Could always use an experienced hand. What say you? Ever considered teaching? The Academy at Unta perhaps? '" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She pushed the too-long fringe from her eyes while she considered. Need a damned haircut before I do anything– and a good scrubbing. \"I'll admit I'm interested. Have to think about it, though. Got one last errand to see to. Then I'll give you my answer. '\n\nTopper bowed, his smile sardonic as ever. \"Very good. Welcome back to the fold, Kiska.\" And he cutaway suddenly to walk off down aside alley. She continued on alone. Let's not get ahead of ourselves...\n\n\n\nThe tall iron-studded doors to the Varada estate hung open. Rallick entered to find that the two usual colourfully dressed guards had been joined by a third. All three now tossed dice together, arguing and grabbing at the bouncing pieces. Seeing him, one offered a faintly disturbing grin of gold and silver capped teeth. The second gave abroad lewd wink, while the third actually blushed and bowed deeply to hide his reaction.\n\nStudlock met him at the door. \"The Mistress awaits upstairs. Perhaps you wish to freshen up before ascending? Scented oils to disguise unwelcome bodily odours? Honey for offending breath?\"\n\nRallick paused to study the man in his gauze wrappings. \"Ah... no... thank you.\" He moved to go but paused again. \"Is my...\"\n\nStudlock hovered close, hands raised. \"Yes?\"\n\nRallick backed away. \"Never mind. Thank you.\"\n\nThe bedroom was empty, the terrace doors open. He went out and leaned against the rail to look about, but saw nothing. Then his gaze lifted to the lattices and climbing vines that rose to the tiled roof. He took hold of one and gave it a strong pull. It held." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He found her sitting on the peak looking out across the Estate District to Majesty Hall atop its hill." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wore a loose armless shirt and trousers, and was barefoot. Her hair blew brushed by the wind. He sat at her side. In the distance Majesty Hall appeared no different from before. From here only the smoke rising from the ragged woods gave any sign of last night's assault.\n\n\"I'm glad you stayed away, \"she said.\"Glad you weren't taken.\"\n\n\"You could have told me more.\"\n\nShe tilted her head, thinking, her gaze still on Majesty Hall. \"No. If I'd told you more you would have been tempted to try some sort of work-around and would have failed. This way all that uncertainty forced you to keep your distance. '\n\n\"If you say so.\"\n\nShe turned a smile on him. \"I do.\"\n\n\"And... the girl?\"\n\nThe smile overturned into a tight scowl. \"Sent to her room to think things over.\"\n\n\"Some things are the same everywhere, it seems.\"\n\nVorcan nodded her slow agreement. \"That is so.\" She glanced to him sidelong, pushing back her thick hair. \"And you? What of you?\"\n\n\"I do not need to think anything over.\"\n\nHe leaned to her and they kissed.\n\nShe bumped him with her bare shoulder and together they took in the view fora time. \"So tell me,\" she said, after the silence, \"how did he escape us? What was his last trick?\"\n\nRallick's eyes narrowed and he studied her from their very edges. He slowly shook his head. She cast him one quick look then let go a wistful sigh and rested her shoulder against his.\n\n\"Well... had to try.\"\n\n\n\nA knock brought Barathol to the door; this time he came without any reluctance as the tapping sounded hesitant, almost respectful. He opened the door to see a worker there, a teamster. The man jerked a nod. \"Was hired to deliver someone to this house,\" the fellow said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh?\"\n\nThe man motioned to the wagon. Someone was sitting hunched in the rear bed. A great wide figure of a man; he appeared to be studying the space between his feet.\n\nBarathol's breath caught in his chest and he took one hesitant step out. He approached slowly, silently, until he stood right before the big man, who caught sight of his feet and raised his gaze all the way up Barathol's figure to his eyes, and a hugely wide smile broke thereon his face and he said, \"Thol!\"\n\nBarathol could not answer. He reached out to gently squeeze the man's arm. Finally, he succeeded in clearing his throat to say thickly,\"Chaur... welcome back. '\n\nSmiling, nodding, the big man slipped from the wagon bed. He peered around eagerly like a child.\n\nThe teamster coughed. Barathol looked at him. \"Got another job too,\" the man said.\n\n\"Another?\"\n\n\"Yessir. On my way here. Was stopped by an odd little fellow. He hired me to take you out to your villa, now. If you wish.\"\n\n\"My... villa?\"\n\n\"Yessir. East of the city, up in the hills.\"\n\nHis hand still on Chaur's shoulder, Barathol turned to the row-house to yell,\"Scillara! Get the lad! We're going fora ride!\"\n\n\n\nIn the middle of the night south of the city on the Dwelling Plain Scorch and Leff fought to secure a heavy man-sized bundle to a tripod and barrel winch setup over an open well. They knocked each other's hands aside and fought and cursed one another as they wrestled with the heavyweight." } ]
[ { "from": "system", "value": "Support the writer by proceeding with the storyline.\nTags: epic fantasy, ancient city, magic, power dynamics, hidden secrets\nAuthor: Ian Cameron Esslemont\nTitle: Orb Sceptre Throne\nChapter: 30" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Continue" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh?\"\n\nThe man motioned to the wagon. Someone was sitting hunched in the rear bed. A great wide figure of a man; he appeared to be studying the space between his feet.\n\nBarathol's breath caught in his chest and he took one hesitant step out. He approached slowly, silently, until he stood right before the big man, who caught sight of his feet and raised his gaze all the way up Barathol's figure to his eyes, and a hugely wide smile broke thereon his face and he said, \"Thol!\"\n\nBarathol could not answer. He reached out to gently squeeze the man's arm. Finally, he succeeded in clearing his throat to say thickly,\"Chaur... welcome back. '\n\nSmiling, nodding, the big man slipped from the wagon bed. He peered around eagerly like a child.\n\nThe teamster coughed. Barathol looked at him. \"Got another job too,\" the man said.\n\n\"Another?\"\n\n\"Yessir. On my way here. Was stopped by an odd little fellow. He hired me to take you out to your villa, now. If you wish.\"\n\n\"My... villa?\"\n\n\"Yessir. East of the city, up in the hills.\"\n\nHis hand still on Chaur's shoulder, Barathol turned to the row-house to yell,\"Scillara! Get the lad! We're going fora ride!\"\n\n\n\nIn the middle of the night south of the city on the Dwelling Plain Scorch and Leff fought to secure a heavy man-sized bundle to a tripod and barrel winch setup over an open well. They knocked each other's hands aside and fought and cursed one another as they wrestled with the heavyweight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every now and then the bundle, a contorted hunchbacked man wrapped in chains and gagged, exploded in a fit of writhing fury, struggling to escape and cursing them from behind the gag. His mismatched eyes bulged and his big mangled hands clawed at the chains. \"Shut up, ya evil fiend!\" Leff yelled at the bound man. Then the two ducked and peered round nervously.\n\n\"Quiet!\" Scorch hissed.\n\n\"I am being quiet,\" Leff answered. \"You be quiet.\" He yanked on the iron hook. \"Got that on secure?\"\n\n\"\"Course! '\n\n\"Okay, so, what we do is take hold of the handles-\"\n\nScorch pointed to the barrel. \"Have to flip the latch thing first.\"\n\n\"No– you don't have to do that. You just ease off on the handles slow like... '\n\n\"No. The latch thingy has to be over.\"\n\nThe bound man suspended over the well attempted to say something as he slowly spun. He repeated it louder and more urgently.\n\n\"No– I remember succinctly how it went-\"\n\n\"Dissinctly. You mean you remember dissinctly.\"\n\n\"Don't you pick apart my language– you just know I'm right.\"\n\nThe hanging man yelled something unintelligible through his gag.\n\nScorch gave him a savage push. \"Shut the Abyss up!\"\n\nThe man swung and hit the side of the mouth of the well. The jerk shook the chain. The barrel winch rocked and the latch in its teeth slipped with a metallic ping.\n\nThe hanging figure disappeared with a hissing of rope as the barrel spun. A smothered roar echoed from the well, ending in a splash." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The two men had thrown themselves to the ground and now hesitantly rose to peer down into the darkness of the well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A weak groan sounded from below. They jumped to the handles and started rewinding the winch.\n\n\"Y'know, \"began Scorch,\"maybe one of us should go down first and the other lower \"im down to him.\"\n\n\"Sounds good,\" Leff grunted, heaving on the handle. \"You go.\"\n\n\"No– you.\"\n\n\"Should be you.\"\n\n\"Why's that? '\n\n\"Your idea.\"\n\nFora time Scorch chewed on that as he worked. Finally he grunted a curse under his breath. \"I hate bein\" the idea man. '\n\n\n\nThe Seguleh established a camp on the coast just outside the city of Callows. The curious and the just plain gawkers from the city were so many that the mayor was forced to post guards at a respectful distance around the camp simply to keep the hordes away. The mayor was just thankful that so far no one had been killed and he hoped the vessels would be readied soon, for the disruption of the Seguleh's presence to the city's daily trade and business had been crippling.\n\nOn the third day Sall approached his father, Lo, where he stood facing the calm waters of the sheltered inlet. He bowed, requesting permission to speak.\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Father... I have questions about what happened in the Great Hall...\"\n\nLo slowly turned to face him more directly. \"Oh?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Sall drew a breath to steel himself. \"Would you really have led us on a charge through the Moranth and on through the city– as you claimed?\"\n\nThe tall slim man, extraordinarily slim even for the Seguleh, nodded his masked head as he considered the question. Seven hatch marks still marred the pale oval of that mask, as the First had judged that all challenges must wait until they were once more on the testing grounds at Cant. \"It was a valid option. We would have finished the Moranth then passed on unharmed through the city, avoiding their fliers. Then we could have scattered into parties of two or three. Travelling only at night we would have reached the coast relatively unharmed. There was merit there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It was only chance, then, that it was the very option the First least wished to pursue." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And because of that the mask did not come to you...\"\n\nLo nodded again. \"I merely presented the choice. Choices surround us everyday, son. The testis in the choosing.\"\n\nSall's breath caught.\"He passed your test. '\n\n\"Yes. Sall, the truth of it is that once you are competent enough in your technique, or your speed is as great as it can be– then what differentiates those at the highest levels? The truth is that unquantifiable ability to read others. To enter into their skin. To be able to understand them so completely that you know what they will do before they do it themselves. A sort of complete empathy. Jan possessed that. We could not help but love him for it. Gall worshipped him. But Gall was a traditionalist and would not have followed the road Jan had chosen. And so Jan did what he had to do to ensure that the mask would not come to him. And Palla? Well, those two might as well have been husband and wife. She may never recover.\"\n\n\"And so it came to you– but you never challenged him!\"\n\nLo's voice took on an edge.\"His entire life has been his test, Sall. That is my judgement. '\n\n\"Yes, Father.\"\n\nEach was silent fora time, facing the shore where an honour guard surrounded a canopy over a wrapped body on its stretcher. They were taking the Second home for burial at Cant. Burial in the soil of their new homeland. With the body was the Unmarred, the new First. The man stood with head bowed, his mask pure and shining in whatever light touched it. And it seemed to Lo that Jan had chosen well.\n\nLo tilted his mask aside, to where Yusek trained now with a group of the lesser ranks. \"As for you... She has demonstrated endurance, spirit, speed with her blade.\" He pressed a hand to Sall's shoulder.\"Good choice, son. You have my approval. ' And the Eighth, perhaps soon to be the next Third, walked away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sall watched Yusek practising and mused, I'm sorry to say this, Father, but I don't think I know who made the choice– which, I suppose, is perhaps the way it ought to be.\n\n\n\nOn a hill of black stone on the shore of the glimmering Vitr sea, Leoman sat with the hulking soot-black figure of Maker.\n\n\"... and so after Lammala was Seuthess– or was it Cora? I'm not certain. In any case, Seuthess... now there was a beauty. And didn't she know it. Full of herself, she was. We fought like cat and dog.\"\n\nAnd Maker nodded his boulder-like head, a hand on his chin. \"So– these many women– this is how things work among you humans...\"\n\n\"No, no, no!\" Leoman waved his hands. \"That's what I'm tryin\" to make you understand. It's very unusual. Why, I'm one in a thousand, I am. They just can't stay away from me. Like a curse, it is. They just can't help it. '\n\nMaker turned his head and gestured. \"Indeed. You speak the truth, Leoman...\"\n\nLeoman leaned back to see a familiar figure all in dark clothes walking up. Her long black hair blew lightly in the thin wind off the Vitr sea and she strode with her hands tucked into her belt behind her back, her head cocked slightly as if to say: well, well... look who's here.\n\n\"By the Seven Holies...\" He climbed to his feet, dusted off his grimed robes. He set a hand on Maker's shoulder and gave him a wink and a grin.\"You see? It's all in the moustache, friend. All in the moustache.\" He went to meet Kiska." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Next" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\n\nIn his dream the short rotund man was drawn where he'd hoped he'd never need be drawn again. Out of the shaken, but recovering city. Out past the shacks leaning as they did against its too-short walls, to the road that curved southwards leading to endless plain upon endless beckoning plain. And hereto be waylaid into the stuttering light of a small fire in the dark next to a river where a single figure awaited.\n\nAnd this figure! Dire and dark. Hooded and hunched. Oh dear!\n\nKruppe sat to pull on his thin rat-tail beard. \"Kruppe admits to some trepidation. He believed himself free of mysterious lurkers at fires. To what does he owe this visitation?\"\n\nThe figure waved a hand– and a youthful fit-looking hand at that. \"Merely asocial call, friend Kruppe. If I may call you that. No need for alarm.\"\n\n\"Kruppe is reassured, he assures you. It is not in the least alarming that his social calls should now take the form of hooded figures in his dreams. He is positively cheered.\"\n\n\"You should be. I am hereto thank you– and to introduce myself.\" The figure pulled back the hood to reveal a tanned sharp-featured face, along blade of a nose, and hanging silvered dark hair.\n\nKruppe's brows rose.\"Fearsome High Mage Tayschrenn! I am... surprised. Are my dreams privy to everyone? '\n\nTayschrenn shook his head. \"You need no longer play the innocent with me.\"\n\n\"Nay! Kruppe must be Kruppe! But what of... the other... may Kruppe ask?\"\n\n\"Still with me. I have much to learn yet. These things can take centuries.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Keep going" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah... Why, of course! Kruppe is no stranger to such things!\"\n\nThe man warmed his hands at the fire. Yet a man no longer. Near force of nature now! \"And that name,\" he began after a time. \"Old names must pass away.\"\n\n\"Absolutely– was about to suggest that selfsame thing. How then, pray, shall you be called upon?\"\n\nThe figure studied the fire, thinking. In his dark eyes the twinned flames danced just as brightly. Reaching a decision he crooked an amused smile and shifted those eyes to Kruppe. \"You may call me T'renn. '" } ]

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.