The hills ahead were saw-toothed, the facing side clawed into near cliffs.

Those hills were where the T’lan Imass had broken the ice sheets, the first place of defiance. To protect the holy sites, the hidden caves, the flint quarries. Where, now, the weapons of the fallen were placed.

Weapons these renegades would reclaim. There was no provenance to the sorcery investing those stone blades, at least with respect to Tellann. They would feed the ones who held them, provided they were kin to the makers-or indeed made by those very hands long ago. Imass, then, since the art among the mortal peoples was long lost. Also, finding those weapons would give the renegades their final freedom, severing the power of Tellann from their bodies.

‘You spoke of betraying your clan,’ Trull Sengar said as they approached the hills. ‘These seem to be old memories, Onrack.’

‘Perhaps we are destined to repeat our crimes, Trull Sengar. Memories have returned to me-all that I had thought lost. I do not know why.’

‘The severing of the Ritual?’

‘Possibly.’

‘What was your crime?’

‘I trapped a woman in time. Or so it seemed. I painted her likeness in a sacred cave. It is now my belief that, in so doing, I was responsible for the terrible murders that followed, for her leaving the clan. She could not join in the Ritual that made us immortal, for by my hand she had already become so. Did she know this? Was this the reason for her defying Logros and the First Sword? There are no answers to that. What madness stole her mind, so that she would kill her closest kin, so that, indeed, she would seek to kill the First Sword himself, her own brother?’

‘A woman not your mate, then.’

‘No. She was a bonecaster. A Soletaken.’

‘Yet you loved her.’

A lopsided shrug. ‘Obsession is its own poison, Trull Sengar.’

A narrow goat trail led up into the range, steep and winding in its ascent. They began climbing.

‘I would object,’ the Tiste Edur said, ‘to this notion of being doomed to repeat our mistakes, Onrack. Are no lessons learned? Does not experience lead to wisdom?’

‘Trull Sengar. I have just betrayed Monok Ochem and Ibra Gholan. I have betrayed the T’lan Imass, for I chose not to accept my fate. Thus, the same crime as the one I committed long ago. I have always hungered for solitude from my kind. In the realm of the Nascent, I was content. As I was in the sacred caves that lie ahead.’

‘Content? And now, at this moment?’

Onrack was silent for a time. ‘When memories have returned, Trull Sengar, solitude is an illusion, for every silence is filled by a clamorous search for meaning.’

‘You’re sounding more… mortal with every day that passes, friend.’

‘Flawed, you mean.’

The Tiste Edur grunted. ‘Even so. Yet look at what you are doing right now, Onrack.’

‘What do you mean?’

Trull Sengar paused on the trail and looked at the T’lan Imass. His smile was sad. ‘You’re returning home.’

A short distance away were camped the Tiste Liosan. Battered, but alive. Which was, Malachar reflected, at least something.

Strange stars gleamed overhead, their light wavering, as if brimming with tears. The landscape stretching out beneath them seemed a lifeless wasteland of weathered rock and sand.

The fire they had built in the lee of a humped mesa had drawn strange moths the size of small birds, as well as a host of other flying creatures, including winged lizards. A swarm of flies had descended on them earlier, biting viciously before vanishing as quickly as they had come. And now, those bites seemed to crawl, as if the insects had left something behind.

There was, to Malachar’s mind, an air of… unwelcome to this realm. He scratched at one of the lumps on his arm, hissed as he felt something squirm beneath the hot skin. Turning back to the fire, he studied his seneschal.

Jorrude knelt beside the hearth, head lowered-a position that had not changed in some time-and Malachar’s disquiet deepened. Enias squatted close by the seneschal, ready to move if yet another fit of anguish overwhelmed his master, but those disturbing sessions were arriving ever less frequently. Orenas remained guarding the horses, and Malachar knew he stood with sword drawn in the darkness beyond the fire’s light.

There would be an accounting one day, he knew, with the T’lan Imass. The Tiste Liosan had proceeded with the ritual in good faith. They had been too open. Never trust a corpse. Malachar did not know if such a warning was found in the sacred text of Osric’s Visions. If not, he would see that it was added to the collected wisdom of the Tiste Liosan. When we return. If we return.

Jorrude slowly straightened. His face was ravaged with grief. ‘The Guardian is dead,’ he announced. ‘Our realm is assailed, but our brothers and sisters have been warned and even now ride out to the gates. The Tiste Liosan will hold. Until Osric’s return, we shall hold.’ He slowly swung to face each of them in turn, including Orenas who silently appeared out of the gloom. ‘For us, another task. The one we were assigned to complete. On this realm, somewhere, we will find the trespassers. The thieves of the Fire. I have quested, and they have never been closer to my senses. They are in this world, and we shall find them.’

Malachar waited, for he knew there was more.

Jorrude then smiled. ‘My brothers. We know nothing of this place. But that is a disadvantage that will prove temporary, for I have also sensed the presence of an old friend to the Tiste Liosan. Not far away. We shall seek him out-our first task-and ask him to acquaint us with the rigours of this land.’

‘Who is this old friend, Seneschal?’ Enias asked.

‘The Maker of Time, Brother Enias.’

Malachar slowly nodded. A friend of the Tiste Liosan indeed. Slayer of the Ten Thousand. Icarium.

‘Orenas,’ Jorrude said, ‘prepare our horses.’

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Seven faces in the rock

Six faces turned to the Teblor

One remains Unfound

Mother to the tribe of ghosts

the Teblor children we were told

to turn away

Mother’s Prayer of Giving

KARSA ORLONG WAS NO STRANGER TO STONE. RAW COPPER GOUGED from outcroppings, tin and their mating that was bronze, such materials had their place. But wood and stone were the words of the hands, the sacred shaping of will.

Parallel flakes, long and thin, translucent slivers punched away from the blade, leaving ripples reaching across, from edge to wavy spine. Smaller flakes removed from the twin edges, first one side, then flipping the blade over between blows, back and forth, all the way up the length.

To fight with such a weapon would demand changes to the style with which Karsa was most familiar. Wood flexed, slid with ease over shield rims, skipped effortlessly along out-thrust sword-blades. This flint sword’s serrated edges would behave differently, and he would have to adjust, especially given its massive weight and length.

The handle proved the most challenging. Flint did not welcome roundness, and the less angular the handle became, the less stable the striking platforms. For the pommel he worked the stone into a step-fractured, oversized diamond shape. The nearly right-angled step-fractures would normally be viewed as dangerous flaws, inviting a focus for shattering energies, but the gods had promised to make the weapon unbreakable, so Karsa dismissed his instinctive worry. He would wait until he found suitable materials for a cross-hilt.

He had no idea how much time passed during his making of the sword. All other considerations vanished for him-he felt no hunger, no thirst, and did not notice as the walls of the cavern grew slick with condensation, as the temperature ever rose, until both he and the stone were sheathed in sweat. He was also unmindful of the fire in the boulder-lined hearth that burned ceaselessly, unfuelled, the flames flickering with strange colours.