‘Master.’
‘Yes?’
‘I low do you know how much a drowned cat weighs?’
‘Selush, of course.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You must remember. Three years ago. That feral cat netted in the Rinnesict Estate, the one raping a flightless ornamental duck. It was sentenced to Drowning.’
‘A terrible demise for a cat. Yes, I remember now. The yowl heard across the city’
That’s the one. Some unnamed benefactor took pity on the sodden feline corpse, paying Selush a small fortune to dress the beast for proper burial.’
‘You must be mad. Who would do that and why?’
‘Tor ulterior motives, obviously. I wanted to know how much a drowned cat weighs, of course. Otherwise, how valid the comparison? Descriptively, I’ve been waiting to use it for years.’
Three.’
‘No, much longer. Hence my curiosity, and opportunism., Prior to that cat’s watery end, I feared voicing the comparison, which, lacking veracity on my part, would invite ridicule.’
‘You’re a tender one, aren’t you?’- ‘Don’t tell anyone.’
‘Master, about those vaults.’
‘What about them?’
‘I think extensions are required.’
Tehol used the tip of his right index finger to stroke thej insect’s back-or, alternatively, rub it the wrong way. ‘Already? Well, how far under the river are you right now?’
‘More than halfway.’
‘And that is how many?’
‘Vaults? Sixteen. Each one three man-heights by two.’
‘All filled?’
‘All.’
‘Oh. So presumably it’s starting to hurt.’
‘Bugg’s Construction will be the first major enterprise to collapse.’
‘And how many will it drag down with it?’
‘No telling. Three, maybe four.’
‘I thought you said there was no telling.’
‘So don’t tell anyone.’
‘Good idea. Bugg, I need you to build me a box, to very specific specifications which I’ll come up with later.’
‘A box, Master. Wood good enough?’
‘What kind of sentence is that? Would good enough.’
‘No, wood, you know, the burning kind.’
‘Yes, would that wood will do.’
‘Size?’
‘Absolutely. But no lid.’
‘Finally, you’re getting specific.’
‘I told you I would.’
‘What’s this box for, Master?’
‘I can’t tell you, alas. Not specifically. But I need it soon.’
‘About the vaults…’
‘Make ten more, Bugg. Double the size. As for Bugg’s Construction, hold on for a while longer, amass debt, evade the creditors, keep purchasing materials and stockpiling them in storage buildings charging exorbitant rent. Oh, and embezzle all you can.’
‘I’ll lose my head.’
‘Don’t worry. Ezgara here has one to spare.’
‘Why, thank you.’
‘ Doesn’t even squeak, either.’
That’s a relief. What are you doing now, Master?’
‘What’s it look like?’
‘You’re going back to bed.’
‘And you need to build a box, Bugg, a most clever box. Remember, though, no lid.’
‘Can I at least ask what it’s for?’
Tehol settled back on his bed, studied the blue sky over-head for a moment, then smiled over at his manservant-who just happened to be an Elder God. ‘Why, comeuppance, Bugg, what else?’
Chapter Two
The waking moment awaits us all upon a threshold or where the road turns if life is pulled, sparks like moths inward to this single sliver of time gleaming like sunlight on water, we will accrete into a mass made small, veined with fears and shot through with all that’s suddenly precious, and the now is swallowed, the weight of self a crushing immediacy, on this day, where the road turns, comes the waking moment.
The ascent to the summit began where the Letherii-built road ended. With the river voicing its ceaseless roar fifteen paces to their left, the roughly shaped pavestones vanished beneath a black-stoned slide at the base of a moraine. Uprooted trees reached bent and twisted arms up through the rubble, jutting limbs from which hung root tendrils, dripping water. Swaths of forest climbed the mountainside to the north, on the other side of the river, and the ragged cliffs edging the tumbling wateron that side Were verdant with moss. The opposite mountain, flanking the trail, was a stark contrast, latticed with fissures, broken, gouged and mostly treeless. In the midst of this shattered facade shadows marked out odd regularities, of line and angle; and upon the trail itself, here and there, broad worn steps had been carved, eroded by flowing water and Centuries of footfalls.
Seren Pedac believed that a city had once occupied the entire mountainside, a vertical fortress carved into living stone. She could make out what she thought were large gaping windows, and possibly the fragmented ledges of balconies high up, hazy in the mists. Yet something-some-thing huge, terrible in its monstrosity-had impacted the entire side of the mountain, obliterating most of the city in a single blow. She could almost discern the outline of that collision, yet among the screes of rubble tracking down the sundered slopes the only visible stone belonged to the mountain itself.
They stood at the base of the trail. Seren watched the lifeless eyes of the Tiste Andii slowly scan upward.
‘Well?’ she asked.
Silchas Ruin shook his head. ‘Not from my people. K ‘Chain Che’Malle.’
‘A victim of your war?’
He glanced across at her, as if gauging the emotion behind her question, then said, ‘Most of the mountains from which the K’Chain Che’Malle carved their sky keeps are now beneath the waves, inundated following the collapse of Omtose Phellack. The cities are cut into the stone, although only in the very earliest versions are they us you see here-open to the air rather than buried within shapeless rock.’
‘An elaboration suggesting a sudden need for self-defence.’
He nodded.
Fear Sengar had moved past them and was beginning the ascent. After a moment Udinaas and Kettle followed.
Seren had prevailed in her insistence to leave the horses behind. In a clearing off to their right sat four wagons covered with tarps. It was clear that no such contrivance could manage this climb, and all transport from here on was by foot. As for the mass of weapons and armour the slavers had been conveying, either it would have been stashed here, awaiting a hauling crew, or the slaves would have been burdened like mules.
I have never made this particular crossing,’ Seren said, ‘although I have viewed this mountainside from a distance Even then, I thought I could see evidence of reshaping. I once asked Hull Beddict about it, but he would tell me nothing. At some point, however, I think our trail takes us inside.’
‘The sorcery that destroyed this city was formidable,’ Silchas Ruin said.
‘Perhaps some natural force-’
‘No, Acquitor. Starvald Demelain. The destruction was the work of dragons. Eleint of the pure blood. At least a dozen, working in concert, a combined unleashing of their warrens. Unusual,’ he added.
‘Which part?’
‘Such a large alliance, for one. Also, the extent of thei: rage. I wonder what crime the K’Chaih Che’Malle committed to warrant such retaliation.’
‘I know the answer to that,’ came a sibilant whisper from behind them, and Seren turned, squinted down at the insubstantial wraith crouched there.
‘Wither. I was wondering where you had gone to.’
‘Journeys into the heart of the stone, Seren Pedac. Into the frozen blood. What was their crime, you wonder, Silchas Ruin? Why, nothing less than the assured annihilation of all existence. If extinction awaited them, then so too would all else die. Desperation, or evil spite? Perhaps neither, perhaps a terrible accident, that wounding at the centre of it all. But what do we care? We shall all be dust by then. Indifferent. Insensate.’