When she was gone, the Adjunct sighed. ‘In your obviously long life, Captain, did you ever throw dice with a T’lan Imass?’
‘No, and I used to think that wisdom on my part.’
‘And now?’
Ruthan Gudd shook his head. ‘They are terrible liars.’
‘Still,’ she said under her breath, ‘I appreciate the effort.’
‘We don’t need it, Adjunct. To keep us all going — we don’t need it.’
‘We don’t?’
‘No.’ And he pointed to Badalle and Saddic. ‘I will go among the troops this day, Adjunct, for I have a story to tell. Two children, a sack of toys.’
She eyed him. ‘These children?’
He nodded. ‘These children.’
Down on the strand where the sea meets the land
Where fishermen kneel over wounds that won’t heal
And the water weeps at the end of the day
In the mirror you walk away
Among the red trees and the long dead leaves
The axeman wanders but cannot remember
And the earth runs like tears and will not stay
In the mirror you walk away
In the silent season high on the hill’s bastion
In the burning rain and the soul’s dark stain
Where the children lie where they lay
In the mirror you walk away
Along the furrows of his heels a long shadow steals
Down from the altar pulled all the destinies fulfilled
Tell the tale another god has had his day
And in the mirror you walk away
When on the grey fields the troubles fall still
Another soldier’s cause dies for what never was
Drifting past the dreams now gone astray
In the mirror you walk away
Soiled the sacrament and broken the monument
Sullied the sculpture and soured the rapture
Beauty lives but brief its stay
And in the mirror you walk away
Gods will give and then take away
If faith tastes of blood
drink deep when you pray
Beauty lives but brief its stay
And when it all goes away
and there’s nothing left to save
In the mirror you walk away
In the mirror you walk away
Song of the Last Prayer (in the age of adjudication) Sevul of Kolanse He felt the nudge and imagined himself in the hold of a ship, rolling in heavy swells. When the nudge came a second time, he thought of drunken nights, sprawled beneath a table with someone’s booted foot thudding against him. With the third nudge — harder this time, delivered with irritation or impatience — he muttered a curse. But something had gummed together his lips, so the word came out as a moan.
He decided it was time to open his eyes.
That too proved a struggle, lids pulling apart as if glued, stinging viciously once he blinked his way clear. Gloom, blurred shapes, something like a face hovering over him. The air smelled of decay. The taste in his mouth was of old, old blood. And something else. Bitter. It was, he decided, the taste of failure.
‘Get up.’
Another figure, now kneeling beside him. A soft hand pressing against the side of his face — but his beard was stiff and it crackled under the palm, and the hand slipped away. Only to come back, hard enough to rock his head.
And a woman said, ‘We don’t have time for this. The door’s open. Some people round here got a feel for things like that.’
The first speaker said, ‘Poison’s gone inert. Long ago. But he ain’t moved in a while.’
‘The guardian should’ve-’
‘Off wandering the warrens, is my guess. Lucky us.’
‘Just help him to his feet, will you?’
Hands under his arms, a grunt, and he felt himself leave the stone floor except for his heels. Sudden pain in his lower back and his legs as they tried to take his weight. He couldn’t remember being this heavy — was he ever this heavy?
‘Stand up, damn you — I can’t hold you up long.’
‘How do you think I felt?’ the woman asked beside him. ‘He made all my bones creak.’
He swore at the sharp stabs lancing out from his legs, tottered-
‘There, back a step — lean against the wall. Good, like that. Now look at me, idiot. Look at me like you know me.’
It was dark, but he could make out the man’s face now. Studied the eyes fixing on his own, and frowned.
‘What’s my name?’ the man demanded.
He worked until he had some spit in his mouth, pushed with his tongue to force open his lips. ‘I know you,’ he managed to say. ‘Your name … Blob.’
‘Blob?’ The man’s head turned towards the woman. ‘He says my name is Blob.’
‘Should I slap him again?’
‘Blur,’ he now said, blinking at the woman. ‘Blob and Blur. I remember now. You got me drunk. Took advantage of me. I should probably kill you both. Where are my trousers?’
Still leaning against the wall, still using it to prop himself up, he glared at the man and the woman, watched them both back off a step. They were all in a corridor, and to his right was a thick wooden door, pushed open, revealing a snarled lumpy mess of a yard just beyond, and a cool draught was slinking in, smelling of brackish water and rubbish.
The man spoke slowly, as if to a child. ‘You’re wearing your trousers.’
‘Of course I am. Think I can’t dress myself? Where are my knives?’
The woman swore under her breath and then said, ‘The fool’s lost his mind. Not hard, since it
