'Then…' The meaning of Bayaz' words was only just starting to sink into Jezal's mind. 'I came all this way… for nothing?' A sudden gust blew up, snuffing out the miserable tongue of flame and blowing grit in his face.

'Perhaps there is some mistake,' ventured Longfoot. 'Perhaps there is another spirit, perhaps there is another—'

'No mistake,' said Logen, firmly shaking his head.

'But…' Quai's eyes were bulging from his ashen face. 'But… how?'

Bayaz ignored him, muscles working on the side of his head.

'Kanedias. His hand is in this. He found some way to trick his brothers, and switch this lump of nothing for the Seed, and keep it for himself. Even in death, the Maker denies me!'

'Just a stone?' growled Ferro.

'I gave up my chance to fight for my country,' murmured Jezal, indignation starting to flicker up in his chest, 'and I slogged hundreds of miles across the wasteland, and I was beaten, and broken, and left scarred… for nothing?'

'The Seed.' Quai's pale lips were curling back from his teeth, his breath snorting fast through his nose. 'Where is it? Where?'

'If I knew that,' barked his master, 'do you suppose we would be sitting here on this forsaken island, bantering with spirits for a chunk of worthless rock?' And he lifted his arm and dashed the stone furiously onto the ground. It cracked open and split into fragments, and they bounced, and tumbled, and clattered down among a hundred others, a thousand others, a million others the same.

'It's not here.' Logen shook his head sadly. 'Say one thing for—'

'Just a stone?' snarled Ferro, her eyes swivelling from the fallen chunks of rock to Bayaz' face. 'You fucking old liar!' She sprang up, fists clenched tight by her sides. 'You promised me vengeance!'

Bayaz rounded on her, his face twisted with rage. 'You think I have no greater worries than your vengeance?' he roared, flecks of spit flying from his lips and out into the rushing gale. 'Or your disappointment?' he screamed in Quai's face, veins bulging in his neck. 'Or your fucking looks?' Jezal swallowed and faded back into the hollow, trying to seem as small as he possibly could, his own anger extinguished by Bayaz' towering rage as sharply as the meagre fire had been by the blasting wind a moment before. 'Tricked!' snarled the First of the Magi, his hands opening and closing with aimless fury. 'With what now will I fight Khalul?'