Nimander. Why, I’ve thought of one for each of us too-not much else to occupy my time on that endless walk. Skintick, the Blind Jester of House Dark. Do you like it?’
‘You’re not blind.’
‘I’m not?’
‘What is it you wished to talk about?’ Nimander asked. ‘Not silly titles, I should think.’
‘That depends. This Clip proudly asserts his own, after all.’
‘You do not believe him?’
A half-smile. ‘Cousin, there is very little I truly believe. Beyond the oxy-moronic fact that supposedly intelligent people seem to revel in being stupid. For this, I blame the chaotic tumult of emotions that devour reason as water devours snow.’
‘ “Emotions are the spawn of true motivations, whether those motivations be conscious or otherwise,”‘ said Nimander.
‘The man remembers what he reads. Making him decidedly dangerous, not to mention occasionally tedious.’
‘What are we to discuss?’ Nimander asked, in some exasperation. ‘He can claim any title he wishes-we can do nothing about it, can we?’
‘Well, we can choose to follow, or not follow.’
‘Even that is too late. We have followed. Into Kurald Galain, and now here. And in the time ahead, to the journey’s very end.’
‘To stand before Anomander Rake, yes.’ Skintick gestured at the surrounding forest. ‘Or we could just walk away. Leave Clip to his dramatic accounting with the Son of Darkness.’
‘Where would we go, then, Skintick? We don’t even know where we are. What realm is this? What world lies beyond this forest? Cousin, we have nowhere else to go.’
‘Nowhere, and anywhere. In the circumstances, Nimander, the former leads to the latter, like reaching a door everyone believes barred, locked tight, and lo, it opens wide at the touch. Nowhere and anywhere are states of mind. See this for¬est around us? Is it a barrier, or ten thousand paths leading into mystery and won¬der? Whichever you decide, the forest itself remains unchanged. It does not transform to suit your decision.’
‘And where is the joke in that, cousin?’
‘Laugh or cry, simple states of mind.’
‘And?’
Skintick glanced away, back towards the camp. ‘I find Clip… amusing.’
‘Why does that not surprise me?’
‘He has created a vast, portentous moment, the moment when he finally stands face to face with the Son of Darkness. He hears martial music, the thunder of drums, or howl of horns sweepingt round the high, swaying lower where this fated metting no doubt will occur. He sees few in Anomander Rake’s eyes, in answer to his own fury.’
‘Then he is a fool.’
‘Us young folk eommonly are. We should tell him.’
‘Tell him what? That he is a fool?’
Skintick’s smile broadened briefly, then he met Nimander’s eyes once more. ‘Something more subtle, I should think.’
‘Such as?’
‘The forest does not change.’
Now it was Nimander’s turn to glance away, to squint into the greyness of dawn, the misty wreaths shrouding the ankles of the trees. She died in my arms. Then Andarist died, bleeding out on to the cobbles. And Phaed was pulled from my hands. Thrown through a window, down to her death. I met the eyes of her killer, and saw that he had killed her… for me.
The forest does not change.
‘There are,’ Skintick said in a low voice, ‘things worth considering, Nimander. We are seven Tiste Andii, and Clip. So, eight. Wherever we now are, it is not our world. Yet, I am certain, it is the same world we have come to know, to even think of, as our own. The world of Drift Avalii, our first island prison. The world of the Malazan Empire, Adjunct Tavore, and the Isle that was our second prison. The same world. Perhaps this here is the very land where waits Anomander Rake-why would Clip take us through Kurald Galain to some place far from the Son of Darkness? We might find him another league onward through this forest.’
‘Why not to his front door?’
Skintick grinned his pleased grin. ‘Indeed, why not? In any case, Anomander Rake will not be alone. There will be other Tiste Andii with him. A community. Nimander, we have earned such a gift, haven’t we?’
To that, Nimander wanted to weep. I have earned nothing. Beyond remon-stration. Condemnation. The contempt of every one of them. Of Anomander Rake himself. For all my failures, the community will judge me, and that will be that. Self-pity tugged at him yet further, but he shook it off. For these who followed him, for Skintick and Desra and Nenanda, Kedeviss and Aranatha, yes, he could give them this last gift.
Which was not even his to give, but Clip’s. Clip, my usurper.
‘And so,’ he finally said, ‘we come back to the beginning. We will follow Clip, until he takes us to our people.’
‘I suppose you are right,’ Skintick said, as if satisfied with the circular nature of their conversation, as if something had indeed been achieved by the effort-though Nimander could not imagine what that might be.
Birdsong to awaken the sky to light, a musty warmth hinted at in the soft breaths rising from the humus. The air smelled impossibly clean. Nimander rubbed at his face, then saw Skintick’s almond-shaped eyes shift their gaze to over his shoulder, and so he turned, even as a fallen branch crackled underfoot to announce someone’s arrival.
Skintick raised his voice, ‘Join us, cousin.’
Aranatha moved like a lost child, ever tremulous, ever diffident. Eyes widening as they always did whenever she awakened to the outside world-she edged forward. ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said. ‘Nenanda was asking Clip about all sorts of things, until Desra told him to go away.’
Skintick’s brows lifted. ‘Desra? Stalking Clip now, is she? Well, my only surprise is that it’s taken this long-not that there was much chance within Kurald Galain.’
Nimander asked her, ‘Did Nenanda manage to get an explanation from Clip about where we are? And how far we still have to go?’
She continued creeping forward. The muted dawn light made her seem a thing of obsidian and silver, her long black hair glistening, her black skin faintly dusted, her silver eyes hinting of iron that never appeared. Like some Goddess of Hope. But one whose only strength lay in an optimism immune to defeat. Immune to all reality, in fact. ‘We have emerged somewhere south of where we were supposed to. There are, Clip explained, “layers of resistance”.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t understand what that means, but those were his words.’
Nimander briefly met Skintick’s eyes, then smiled up at Aranatha. ‘Did Clip say how much farther?’
‘Farther than he’d hoped. Tell me, do either of you smell the sea?’
‘Yes,’ Nimander replied. ‘Can’t be far, either. East, I think.’
‘We should go there-perhaps there will be villages.’
‘You possess impressive reserves, Aranatha,’ said Skintick.
‘If it’s not far…’
With a wry smile, Skintick straightened.
Nimander did the same.
It was simple enough to walk in the direction of the rising sun, clambering over tree-falls and skirting sinkholes. The only trails they crossed were those left by game-nothing taller than deer and so branches hung low over them- and none led to the sea. The air grew warmer, then, all at once, cooler, and ahead was the sound of wind singing through branches and leaves, and then the crashing of surf. Slanting bedrock pushed up between trees, forcing them to climb, scrambling up a sharply rising cant.
They emerged to find themselves atop a cliff of wind-scoured rock and stunted, twisted trees. The sea was before them, glittering fierce in the sun. Enormous swells rolled in, pounding the jagged, unforgiving shoreline far below. The coast to the north and the south was virtually identical as far as could be seen. Well out from shore,
