'Shit on its air,' growled Ferro, 'and shit on you. Why should I cross? What is it exactly, that is so useful to me about that side of a river? You have promised me vengeance, old pink, and given me nothing but lies, and rain, and bad food. Why should I take another stride with you? Tell me that!'

Bayaz frowned. 'My brother Yulwei helped you in the desert. You would have been killed if not for him. You gave him your word—'

'Word? Hah! A word is an easy chain to break, old man.' And she jerked her wrists apart in front of her. 'There. I am free of it. I did not promise to make a slave of myself!'

The Magus gave vent to a long sigh, slumping wearily forward in his saddle. 'As if life were not hard enough without your contributions. Why is it, Ferro, that you would rather make things difficult than easy?'

'Perhaps God had some purpose in mind when he made me so, but I do not know it. What is the Seed?'

Straight to the root of the matter. The old pink's eye seemed to give a sudden twitch as she said the word. 'Seed?' muttered Luthar, baffled.

Bayaz frowned at the puzzled faces of the others. 'It might be better not to know.'

'Not good enough. If you fall asleep for a week again, I want to know what we are doing, and why.'

'I am well recovered now,' snapped Bayaz, but Ferro knew it for a lie. Every part of him seemed shrunken, older and weaker than it had been. He might have been awake, and talking, but he was far from recovered. It would take more than bland assurances to fool her. 'It will not happen again, you can depend on—'

'I will ask you one more time, and hope at last for a simple answer. What is the Seed?'

Bayaz looked at her for a long moment, and she looked back. 'Very well. We will sit in the rain and discuss the nature of things.' And he nudged his horse back off the bridge until it was no more than a stride away. 'The Seed is one name for that thing that Glustrod dug for in the deep earth. It is that thing he used to do all this.'

'This?' grunted Ninefingers.

'All this.' And the First of the Magi swept his arm towards the wreckage that surrounded them. 'The Seed made a ruin of the greatest city in the world, and blighted the land about it from now until eternity.'

'It is a weapon, then?' murmured Ferro.