need of you. There is no value in continuing this enmity.'
'He can't understand you!' Lady Envy said. 'He's a
The hulking creature turned away, padded slowly to where Baaljagg stood facing the storm. The wolf did not so much as glance at him.
Mok stepped forward. 'Baaljagg sees something, mistress.'
'What? Out there?'
They hurried up the pinnacle's slope.
The bergs of ice had captured a prize. Less than a thousand paces away, at the very edge of the small inlet before them, floated a structure. High-walled on two sides with what appeared to be a latticework of wicker, and surmounted by frost-rimed houses — three in all — it looked nothing more than a broken, torn-away piece of a port town or city. A narrow, crooked alley was indeed visible between the tall, warped houses. As the ice gripping the base of the structure twisted to some unseen current, the two opposites sides came into view, revealing the broken maw of wooden framework reaching beneath the street level, crowded with enormous balsa logs and what appeared to be massive inflated bladders, three of them punctured and flaccid.
'How decidedly peculiar,' Lady Envy said.
'Meckros,' Mok said.
'Excuse me?'
'The home of the Seguleh is an island, mistress. We are, on rare occasion, visited by the Meckros, who dwell in cities that ride the oceans. They endeavour to raid our coastline, ever forgetful of the unfortunate results of the previous raids. Their fierce zeal entertains those among the Lower Schools.'
'Well,' Lady Envy sniffed, 'I see no occupants in that… misplaced neighbourhood.'
'Nor do I, mistress. However, look at the ice immediately beyond the remnant. It has found an outward current and now seeks to join it.'
'Goodness, you can't be suggesting-'
Baaljagg gave clear answer to her unfinished question. The wolf spun, flashed past them, and hastened down to the wave-hammered rocks below. Moments later, they saw the huge wolf lunging from the thrashing water onto a broad raft of ice, then scampering across to the other side. Baaljagg then leapt outward, to land skidding on another floe.
'The method seems viable,' Mok said.
Garath plunged past them, following the wolf's route down to the shoreline.
'Oh!' Lady Envy cried, stamping a foot. 'Can't we ever
'I see a possible route forming, mistress, which might well permit us to avoid getting too wet-'
'Wet? Who's wet? Very well, call your brothers and lead the way.'
The journey across the pitching, heaving, often awash floes of ice proved frantic, perilous and exhausting. Upon reaching the rearing wall of wicker, they found no sign of Baaljagg or Garath, yet could follow their tracks on the snow-crusted raft, which seemed to be holding afloat most of the Meckros structure, round to the unwalled, broken side.
Within the chaotic framework of beams and struts, steeply angled, thick-planked ladders had been placed — no doubt originally built to assist in maintenance of the city's undercarriage. The frosted steps within sight all revealed deep gouging from the wolf's and the hound's passage upward.
Water streamed down the jumbled, web-like framework, revealing the sundered nature of the street and houses above.
Senu in the lead, followed by Thurule then Mok, with Lady Envy last, the travellers climbed slowly, cautiously upward.
They eventually emerged through a warehouse-sized trap door that opened onto the pitched, main floor of one of the houses. The chamber was crowded along three of its four walls with burlap-wrapped supplies. Huge barrels had tumbled, rolled, and were now gathered at one end. To its right were double doors, now shattered open, no doubt by Baaljagg and Garath, revealing a cobbled street beyond.
The air was bitter cold.
'It might be worthwhile,' Mok said to Lady Envy, 'to examine each of these houses, from level to level, to determine which is the most structurally sound and therefore inhabitable. There seem to be considerable stores remaining which we can exploit.'
'Yes, yes,' Lady Envy said distractedly. 'I leave to you and your brothers such mundane necessities. The assumption that our journey has brought us to, however, rests in the untested belief that this contraption will perforce carry us north, across the entire breadth of Coral Bay, and hence to the city that is our goal. I, and I alone, it seems, must do the fretting on this particular issue.'
'As you like, mistress.'
'Watch yourself, Mok!' she snapped.
He tilted his masked head in silent apology.
'My servants forget themselves, it seems. Think on the capacity of my fullest irritation, you three. In the meantime, I shall idle on the city's street, such as it is.' With that, she pivoted and strode languidly towards the doorway.
Baaljagg and Garath stood three paces beyond, the rain striking their broad backs hard enough to mist with spray. Both animals faced a lone figure, standing in the gloom of the opposite house's overhanging dormer.
For a moment, Lady Envy almost sighed, then the fact that she did not recognize the figure struck home. 'Oh! And here I was about to say: dear Tool, you waited for us after all! But lo, you are not him, are you?'
The T'lan Imass before them was shorter, squatter than Tool. Three black-iron broadswords of unfamiliar style impaled this undead warrior's broad, massive chest, two of them driven in from behind, the other from the T'lan Imass's left. Broken ribs jutted through black, salt-rimed skin. The leather strapping of all three sword handles hung in rotted, unravelled strips from the grips' wooden under-plates. Wispy remnants of old sorcery flowed fitfully along the pitted blades.
The warrior's features were extraordinarily heavy, the brow ridge a skinless shelf of bone, stained dark brown, the cheek bones swept out and high to frame flattened oval-shaped eye sockets. Cold-hammered copper fangs capped the undead's upper canines. The T'lan Imass did not wear a helm. Long hair, bleached white, dangled to either side of the broad, chinless face, weighted at the ends with shark teeth.
A most dreadful, appalling apparition, Lady Envy reflected. 'Have you a name, T'lan Imass?' she asked.
'I have heard the summons,' the warrior said in a voice that was distinctly feminine. 'It came from a place to match the direction I had already chosen. North. Not far, now. I shall attend the Second Gathering, and I shall address my Kin of the Ritual, and so tell them that I am Lanas Tog. Sent to bring word of the fates of the Ifayle T'lan Imass and of my own Kerluhm T'lan Imass.'
'How fascinating,' Lady Envy said. 'And their fates are?'
'I am the last of the Kerluhm. The Ifayle, who heeded our first summons, are all but destroyed. Those few that remain cannot extricate themselves from the conflict. I myself did not expect to survive the attempt. Yet I have.'
'A horrific conflict indeed,' Lady Envy quietly observed. 'Where does it occur?'
'The continent of Assail. Our losses: twenty-nine thousand eight hundred and fourteen Kerluhm. Twenty-two thousand two hundred Ifayle. Eight months of battle. We have lost this war.'
Lady Envy was silent for a long moment, then she said, 'It seems you've finally found a Jaghut Tyrant who is more than your match, Lanas Tog.'
The T'lan Imass cocked her head. 'Not Jaghut. Human.'
BOOK FOUR
