Groaning, Garelko stretched. ‘This fusion of dreams and truth has left me out of sorts. For all I know, I’ve not yet wakened, and it is my curse to see both of you haunting me even in my slumber. Pray there comes a day when there are as many girls born among the Thel Akai as boys. Then, a husband can stand alone, face to face with his wife, and there will be peace and everlasting joy in the world.’

Tathenal laughed. ‘You dodder, Garelko. The Tiste make such marriages and are no happier than us. The curse of your dreams has you yearning for the madness they espouse.’

‘Then wake me, I beg you.’

Sighing, Ravast slipped down from the slab. ‘I feel the leash grow taut, and would not welcome a whipping.’

‘You are long since whipped well and truly,’ said Tathenal.

‘Oh, roll over, will you?’

The three Thel Akai readied their gear once more, and in so doing Ravast was reminded again of his lost weapon. To a dragon, no less. Few would ever believe him, and the exhortations of his fellow husbands held little veracity. It was, in any case, an unpleasant notion, this proof of legends and old, half-forgotten tales.

Words momentarily exhausted, they made the trail in silence, and resumed their descent.

* * *

‘Beyond you, I am in need of allies.’

Skillen Droe glanced over at the cloaked figure trudging alongside him. ‘You will find few.’

‘There is a caustic sea, the essence of which is chaos.’

‘I know it.’

‘Mael does not claim it,’ K’rul said. ‘Indeed, none of us does. Ardata has ventured there, to its shoreline, and contemplates a journey into its depths. There is some risk.’

‘Is she alone?’

K’rul hesitated, and then said, ‘I cannot be certain. Ardata guards her realm jealously. It is my thought that we could appeal to that possessiveness.’

‘I will defend you, K’rul. But we are not allies. You have foolishly made yourself vulnerable.’

‘Very well.’

‘I will make this plain to her.’

‘Understood, Droe.’

They walked now along the edge of a vast pit. Its sheer walls were cracked, shattered as if from the blows of some giant hammer. The dusty floor of the crater showed crystalline outcrops that glittered with blue light. A steep ramp had been carved into the opposite cliff-side, curling round until it was out of sight, somewhere against the edge they skirted. Thus far, Skillen Droe could not see where the ramp debouched. There was something strangely protean about the dimensions of this pit, and the landscape surrounding it. They had been edging along it for some time now.

‘This is a quarry, K’rul?’

‘The Builders, I would think. They have, they tell me, reduced entire worlds to rubble, leaving them to float in clouds that ever circle the sun – a sun not our own, one must assume.’