‘A Warren of Death? You are truly mad, K’rul. Who rules it?’

He smiled. ‘As of yet, no one. Do we have a deal?’

‘Yes, although I am sure I will come to regret it. Every gate a snare, then? I admit, that part pleases me.’

‘I thought it might.’

They walked into the temple.

Scabandari returned now to Osserc, who had regained something of himself and now stood near the dying embers of the bonfire. ‘Milord, we have a fraught journey ahead of us.’

‘We’ll not survive it. Not without horses.’

‘I will make a request of K’rul, then.’

Osserc spat into the embers. ‘Bargain with the Azathanai and they will own your life, Scara. No, we will find another way, and if we die upon the trail, so be it. I have this night won nothing but the truth of my own pathetic soul. My friend, I stand here, shamed before you.’

Glancing away, Scabandari found himself studying the pallid gleam of the distant Vitr Sea. ‘We have the trail ahead, then, to forge in you a new soul.’

Osserc’s abrupt laugh was harsh, filled with self-contempt. ‘You have little to work with, I’m afraid.’

‘Regret is a worthy temper,’ Scabandari said. ‘It shall be where we begin.’

‘Your faith may prove misplaced, Scara.’

He smiled. ‘I am hardly immune to lessons still to learn, Osserc. Very well then, let us test the measure of each other, and the day we stand before the Wise City, open ourselves one more time to the other, and see all there is to be seen.’

After a long moment, Osserc nodded. ‘In a back chamber of the temple there are supplies. Water and food. I’ve not seen the Azathanai eat, or drink for other than simple pleasure.’

‘Then we’ll take what we can carry, and be on our way.’

‘Scara, it’s the middle of the night and I’m exhausted!’

‘As am I, but damned if I’ll camp in their company. Who knows what new need they might find for us?’

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

‘SHALL WE FIND AMOROUS BLISS ONLY AMONG THE DEAD?’ LASA Rook asked. ‘Rolling among the flopping limbs so cadaverous and cold, our heat of passion a thing stolen by insensate flesh, to be wasted in the manner of the sun’s heat on a stone?’ The Thel Akai raised her ample arms. ‘The day’s death is but prelude, Hanako of the Scars, a reminder repeated all too often – each night, in fact, as if our souls needed such ominous stirring!’ Her gaze, settling upon him where he sat by the ring of rocks that encircled their modest cookfire, turned suddenly sly. ‘I see your flitting regard, eager cub, upon these breasts of mine, and the lure of my cocked hip with its inviting swell. Death’s threshold awaits us, closer now. On the morrow we shall see for ourselves this modest encampment of the desolate and the despondent, and if you’d an audience to our inaugural rutting, why, a more embittered mob you could not find.’