'… you will have many opportunities to improve yourself on this journey of ours, my young friend, and I suggest you take advantage of them. Master Ninefingers in particular, is well worthy of study. I feel you could learn a great deal from him…'

Jezal almost gasped with disbelief. 'From that ape?'

'That ape, as you say, is famous throughout the North. The Bloody-Nine, they call him there. A name to fill strong men with fear or courage, depending on which side they stand. A fighter and tactician of deep cunning and matchless experience. Above all, he has learned the trick of saying a great deal less than he knows.' Bayaz glanced across at him. 'The precise opposite of some people I could name.'

Jezal frowned and hunched his shoulders. He could see nothing to be learned from Ninefingers apart, perhaps, from how to eat with one's hands and go days without washing.

'The great forum,' muttered Bayaz, as they passed into a wide, open space. 'The throbbing heart of the city.' Even he sounded disappointed. 'Here the citizens of Calcis would come to buy and sell, to watch spectacles and hear cases at law, to argue philosophy and politics. In the Old Time it would have been crammed shoulder to shoulder here, until late in the evening.'

There was ample space now. The vast paved area could easily have accommodated fifty times the sorry crowd that was gathered there. The grand statues round the edge were stained and broken, their dirty pedestals leaning at all angles. A few desultory stalls were laid out in the centre, crowded together like sheep in cold weather.

'A shadow of its former glory. Still,' and Bayaz pointed out the dishevelled sculptures, 'these are the only occupants that need interest us today.'

'Really, and they are?'

'Emperors of the distant past, my boy, each with a tale to tell.'

Jezal groaned inwardly. He had nothing more than a passing interest in the history of his own country, let alone that of some decaying backwater in the far-flung west of the World. 'There's a lot of them,' he muttered.

'And these are by no means all. The history of the Old Empire stretches back for many centuries.'

'Must be why they call it old.'

'Don't try to be clever with me, Captain Luthar, you have not the equipment. While your forebears in the Union were running around naked, communicating by gestures and worshipping mud, here my master Juvens was guiding the birth of a mighty nation, a nation that in scale and wealth, in knowledge and grandeur, has never been equalled. Adua, Talins, Shaffa, they are but shadows of the wondrous cities that once thrived in the valley of the great river Aos. This is the cradle of civilisation, my young friend.'