‘A handful, I would think. We keep small gardens and pluck weeds with uncommon vigour. After all, the Lord of Hate only spoke the truth, and by this made infernal argument none could oppose.’

They were silent then for a long time, until Varandas turned to Haut and asked, ‘And you?’

‘Mahybe Korya.’

Varandas’s brows lifted. ‘Indeed? A Tiste mahybe? Unprecedented and bold.’

‘I am otherwise helpless,’ said Haut.

Varandas gestured to the hole. ‘What do you think of this?’

‘I have been thinking of it, I admit,’ confessed Haut. ‘How did you come by it?’

‘No idea,’ Varandas answered.

They studied it some more.

* * *

‘The worship of stone,’ said Errastas, ‘is a plea to longevity, but that’s a secret stone never yields.’

Sechul Lath continued pulling rocks from the rubble, swearing as his fingers brushed the occasional stone that was still blistering hot. Steaming earth sifted down as the mound continued to settle. The air was rank with a smell he could not identify, but which he imagined to be outrage.

Nearby, Errastas crouched at a heap of broken slate tiles, rummaging through them and setting aside certain ones, arranging even stacks as if counting coins. ‘They claim,’ he went on, ‘that the buildings simply grew from the ground. At first they were little more than piles of rock, but still they rose from the earth, and soon new ones found the shape of hovels. Here and there, a wall or line. Others made circles. And then, as if all these pathetic efforts somehow merged and found each other, houses were born. Well, not just houses as we now know. But towers to match those of the Jaghut. And others that bore the semblance of wood, as you might imagine a Tiste would make. While yet others took to earth itself, in Thel Akai fashion, or hides like the huts of the Dog-Runners.’

Sechul adjusted his grip on a particularly large boulder and pulled on it. It came away with a grinding lurch. He rolled it to one side and studied the hole where the stone had been. And then twisted round to look at his companion.

‘But this is the struggle towards order,’ Errastas continued, frowning at a shattered tile. ‘The imperative of organization, which is both laudable and pathetic. We have all resisted dissolution, in our own ways, and thus make of our lives bold assertions to purpose and meaning.’ He flung the tile away, and then picked up another one. ‘This pose we insist upon, Setch, is substance constructed as argument. Our flesh, our blood, our bone, our selves. I for one am not impressed.’

Sechul returned to the mound of rubble. He tugged loose rocks and swept up handfuls of earth. He made the hole bigger.