‘It seems,’ said Silchas, ‘the way ahead has seen no rain, Andarist. I imagine your builders are well pleased at that.’

Andarist nodded. ‘It is said that the Azathanai have power over both earth and sky.’

‘These are Tiste lands,’ Anomander countered. ‘Purake lands. I do not recall my invitation extending to the extravagant use of sorcery. Though,’ he added with a half-smile, ‘I find I cannot entirely object to a cloudless sky over us.’

‘We shall arrive with steam rising from us,’ Silchas observed, laughing, ‘like children born of chaos.’

* * *

Envy was an unwelcome emotion, and Sparo fought hard against it as the servants – the heavy burlap in their hands – slowly walked back from the wagon-bed, and the cloth slipped easily across the surface of the hearthstone, and gasps of wonder rose from his cadre of stone-workers and carpenters.

The massive foundation stones of the new house were behind the Tiste mason, and he did not need to turn and look at them to feel how their magnificence dwindled before the revelation of this Azathanai artefact. Destined to occupy the very centre of the Great Hall, the hearthstone would reside like a perfectly cut gem amidst a clutter of pebbles from the river. He felt diminished and offered no objection when the huge man standing at his side grunted and said, ‘Withdraw your workers, good Sparo. In the transport of the stone, I shall awaken sorcery.’

Sweat trickled down Sparo’s back beneath his rough tunic. ‘That will do,’ he barked to his crew. ‘Retreat to a safe distance, all of you!’ He watched his people hurry away, noted their uneasy glances back to the Azathanai High Mason.

‘There is nothing to fear, good Sparo.’

‘Earth magic is feral,’ Sparo replied. ‘It never sits well with us.’

Another grunt. ‘And yet you Tiste invite its gifts time and again.’

That was true enough. He glanced at the High Mason, feeling once more the almost physical buffeting the man’s presence delivered, as if the power the Azathanai held ever threatened to burst free; and saw once again the bestial wildness of a face that seemed moments from inviting such an eruption. ‘A meal is made finer, Lord, when one can avoid bloodying one’s own hands in the making of it.’

‘Then you are not a hunter, Sparo? Is that not unusual among the Tiste?’

Shrugging, Sparo said, ‘Less so of late, as most of the beasts are slain and shall never return to our lands. It seems that our days of glorious hunting will soon be at an end.’

‘Then let us hope,’ rumbled the mason, ‘that the Tiste do not turn to the final prey left them.’

Sparo frowned. ‘And what manner of creature might that be?’

‘Why, each other, of course.’