Orb ,Sceptre ,Throne

war.’ He waved it aside. ‘No. Out of the question.’

Torn dropped his arms, the keratin plates grinding. ‘I thought not.’ He almost sighed. ‘However, my superiors commanded that the request be made. So be it. I ask, then, that you at least gather your most skilled mages and task them to delve into any activities out on the burial grounds.’

Aragan frowned, considering. ‘I can probably do that, yes. But think of it. What your Silvers are sensing is probably just the disturbances in the Warrens from what happened here … Anomander Rake’s sword broken, so they say. Hood cultists claiming he was here and died himself — if you can credit that. My cadre mages are still groaning from those shocks.’

‘Be that as it may … will you indulge me in this?’

‘Of course, Torn. Of course. As a favour to you.’

The Moranth inclined his helmed head in thanks. ‘Very good. Please pass on any intelligence. Until then, Ambassador.’

Aragan crossed to the door. ‘Attache.’

Once the Moranth had gone, Aragan waved in Captain Dreshen and returned to his breakfast. He ate staring out of the open twinned doors of the terrace. When he’d finished he sat back, sipping his watered wine. He raised his gaze to his aide. ‘Pass word down south to Fist … who is it down there?’

‘Steppen.’

‘Yes, Steppen. Tell her to send up all the troops she can spare. And who’s Central Command, the Free Cities garrisons?’

‘That would be Fist K’ess, in Pale.’

‘Right. He should be able to knock together at least a few companies. They can rendezvous to the west, somewhere south of Dhavran.’

Dreshen merely cocked a brow. ‘And when there are questions …?’

‘Just a training exercise, Captain. Nothing more. The usual hurry up and wait.’

‘I understand. Very good, Ambassador.’ He turned to go.

Aragan gulped down the last of his watered wine. ‘And who do we have in the city we can rely on to do some quiet work for us, off the books?’

A smile crept up Captain Dreshen’s lips. ‘We keep a list, Ambassador.’

She was getting used to the strangeness of this bizarre realm so far from the world she knew. And she wondered whether that was a bad sign. Her companion, Leoman of the Flails, had named it the ‘Shores of Creation’.

Firstly, there was the dawn — if such a term could be applied. It seemed to emerge from beneath the sea of molten light. It began as a brightening in one direction, call that the east if you must, though any magnet and needle brought here probably would not know what to do. The glimmering sea of energy seemed to give up some of its shine and this bright wash, or wave, swelled over the dome of the starry sky, obscuring it in a kind of daylight that, in its turn, faded back into starry night.

Of their route of entry, the Chaos Whorl, she could find only the faintest bruising against the horizon in one direction, and that fading like the last traces of twilight. Perhaps the army of Tiste Liosan with Jayashul and her brother, L’oric, had overcome the magus who sustained that gap, or tear, in creation.

Or perhaps he’d simply fled. Who knew? Not she. Not trapped here in this eternal neverplace. Which was just as well, since yet again she’d failed. Even with the help of her witch aunt Agayla and the Enchantress, the Queen of Dreams herself, she’d failed. And now it was over, everything, over and done. No more striving. No more seeking. No more self-recrimination — what was the point?

It was, she decided, in one way deliciously liberating.

She laid her head on Leoman’s bare arm. Was it then desperation that finally drove them together? Or mere loneliness? They were, after all, the only man and woman in all creation. And this man: one of the Malazan Empire’s deadliest enemies. He had been bodyguard to the rebel leader Sha’ik. Then he’d commanded the Seven Cities Army of the Apocalypse and delivered to the Empire one of its bloodiest maulings at the city of Y’Ghatan.

Yet no ogre. Harsh, yes. Calculating, and a survivor. In the end not too unlike her.

His breathing pattern changed and she knew he was awake. He sat up, ran his gaze down her naked flank and thigh and smiled from beneath his long moustache. ‘Good morning to you.’

Gods, how she ached to tell him to get rid of that moustache! ‘If it is a morning.’

Grunting, he crossed his legs and set his arms on his knees. ‘We can only assume.’

‘So, what now? Do we build a hut from driftwood? Weave hats from leaves and raise a brood of savages?’

‘There is no driftwood,’ he said absently, eyes narrowed to the south.

She sifted a hand through the fine black sand they lay upon. ‘I’d always wondered how those old creation of the race myths ran. Populating the land was one thing, but what about the second generation? I suppose if you’re all for polygamy and incest in the first place it wouldn’t strike you as a problem …’

She glanced up: his narrowed gaze was steady on the distance. ‘Burn take it! You’re not ignoring me already, are you?’

His mouth quirked. ‘Not yet.’ He raised his chin to the south. ‘Our friend is gone.’

She rolled over, scanned the sky over the shore. Gone indeed, their titanic neighbour. A being so immense it seemed as if he could hug the entire floating mountain of the Moon’s Spawn within the span of his arms. Now there was no sign of him. And she hadn’t heard a thing.

She sprang to her feet, began dressing. ‘Why didn’t you say something, dammit!’

He peered up at her, still smiling. ‘I didn’t want to interrupt. You don’t like it when I interrupt you.’

She threw her weapon belt over a shoulder. ‘Very funny. C’mon.’

He pulled on the silk shorts he wore beneath his felt trousers — for the itching, he’d explained. ‘Something tells me there’s no hurry, Kiska. If there’s any place to abandon haste, this is it.’

She continued arming herself. ‘Your problem is you’re lazy. You’d be happy just to lie here all day.’

‘And make love to you? Certainly.’

‘Leoman! You can turn off the charm, yes?’

He pulled his stained quilted gambeson over his head, yanked it down. ‘With you, Kiska? No charm. It’s the moustache — the moustache gets them every time.’

‘Gods deliver me!’ Kiska headed off down the beach. If he only knew.

Three rocky headlands later Kiska stood peering down on yet another long scimitar arc of black beach. The clatter of jagged volcanic rocks announced Leoman’s approach. He sat with a heavy sigh, adjusted the leather wrapping over his trouser legs. ‘He’d have a hard time hiding, Kiska.’

She bit back a snarl of disgust. ‘Don’t you want to find out what’s here?’

An uninterested wave: ‘There’s nothing here.’

She eyed the broad smooth expanse of the beach, noted something there, something tall. ‘Over there.’

Closer, she saw now why she’d missed it. The same dull black as the sands, he was. Now about her height, since he was sitting. As they approached, feet shushing through the sands, he stood, towering to twice that. He reminded her of a crude sculpture of a person carved from that fine-grained black stone, basalt. His hands were broad fingerless shovels, his head a worn stone between boulder-like shoulders. He was identical in every detail to the mountain-sized titan they’d watched these last weeks digging in the sea of light, apparently building up the shoreline. Leoman stepped up next to her, hands near his morningstars, but those weapons still sensibly strapped to his sides. ‘Greetings,’ she called, her voice dry and weak. Gods, how does one address an entity such as this?

Stone grated as it cocked its head aside as if listening.

‘My name is Kiska, and this is Leoman.’ She waited for an answer. The entity merely regarded them — or so she imagined, as now she could see that it had no eyes, no mouth, no features at all that could be named a face. ‘Do you understand-’

She flinched as a voice spoke within her mind: ‘Do you hear me? For I hear you.’ The wonder in Leoman’s widened eyes made it clear that he had heard as well. ‘Yes. I — we — can hear you.’

‘Good. I am pleased. Welcome, strangers! You are most welcome. For ages none have visited. I have been alone. Now even more come! I am gladdened. ’