He shook his head. ‘I have my reasons, Lasa Rook, and they shall remain mine, forever unspoken, yet no less indurate. And now there is Erelan Kreed, whom I will not abandon. What glory is found in turning aside? What truth can be revealed unless one indeed walks through the gate? No, I will find what I seek.’

She now glared at the four of them. ‘You… you men!’

When Hanako set out, the others fell in behind him. He heard a sharp low cry from Garelko and turned to see Lasa Rook gripping his right ear as she hissed, ‘Convince these idiots, old man, or you’ll rue your failure!’

‘I’ll try! I swear it!’

Setting his gaze southward again, Hanako hurried on. ‘Forgive me my pace,’ he called out. ‘Find your own to suit – it matters not.’

‘What do you mean, Hanako?’ Tathenal asked.

In reply, Hanako pointed ahead. ‘See the sky? There, my friends, the world holds its breath.’

He heard their soft exclamations and low muttering, as yet another argument erupted between Lasa Rook and her husbands.

Hanako was glad of the lovemaking. That had been a fire in need of dousing. Now his mind felt clear, his resolve harsh and bold with new resilience.

Death, I will face you at last. Unblinking, I will face that which all who are said to be heroic must face. And I will have my answer.

But I am no fool. Lord of the Rock-Piles, I’ll not deny you. Each time, you win in the end. Indeed, you never lose. And so I will ask you, O Lord of Death, what worth the victory… in such a crooked game?

* * *

Gethol’s mottled face bore an expression of old pain and suffering that Arathan suspected was permanent. Five centuries buried beneath the earth, bound in roots, must have taken such a toll that he wondered how the Jaghut remained sane. Assuming sanity was ever there in the first place. These are Jaghut, after all.

Gethol was staring at Arathan with a strangely remote contemplation, as if in studying the young black-skinned Tiste Andii, he was in fact looking through to something else. The uncanny regard unnerved Arathan, but he was not prepared to reveal that to this brother of Gothos. He stared back.

After the passage of some time, Gothos glanced up from his desk and said, ‘Is this really necessary?’

Gethol frowned and then, with a shrug, he looked away. ‘This charge of yours. This bastard son of Draconus.’

‘Yes, what of him?’

‘Yes,’ Arathan added, ‘what of me?’

Grunting, Gethol said, ‘Some things are better left unsaid, I suppose.’

Gothos set his stylus down. ‘I imagine you said very little for a rather long time, Gethol.’

‘This is true.’

‘All those useless words.’

‘Spake the writer leaning over his tome.’

‘If I presume in error, brother, do enlighten me.’