Once he was done, perfectly rendering this chamber, he would reach outside, to wander the corridors, recording everything. There is a new history coming, my friends. History as seen by a blind man. I will find Rise Herat, who gives us his delicious version as told by a man who says nothing. I will find Gallan, who sings unheard and walks unseen by any. Together, we will set out to find our audience, who heeds us not. And by this, we perfect the world and raise for posterity every grand monument to stupidity.

I see towers and spires. I see bold bridges and the palaces of the privileged. I see forests where the highborn hunt, and where poachers are hanged by their necks beneath trees. I see jewels and stacked coins inside guarded fortresses and upon the walls stand earnest orators, crying down the paucity of all. I see their lies catch up to them, in flames and vengeance. I see a future laden with ash and soot-coated pools, and gibbets groaning. And all that I see, I will paint.

And all the historian would not say, keeps him mute.

And the weeping poet will walk away, to hide his absence of tears.

And everything ends.

He heard himself laugh, a low cackling sound, and quickly etched its wavy, juddering lines with his finger. The streaks hung there in the darkness, slowly fading as the echoes dwindled.

The blind man paints history. The voiceless historian mimes the tale. The poet dispenses with music, dancing in discord. There is no rhythm to these brush-strokes. There is no beginning and no end to this tale. There is no beauty in the song.

And this is how it is.

My friends, this is how it is.

* * *

At the Citadel gate Hish Tulla and Gripp Galas found three of Anomander’s officers awaiting their lord. Kellaras, Dathenar and Prazek were girded as for battle, and as Gripp went to collect Anomander’s horse from the stables Hish Tulla waited a few paces away from the Houseblades.

There was no conversation under way. Of the three, only Kellaras bore the ebon hues that were a legacy of his time in the Chamber of Night, and it seemed that this had made a tension among the three, as if loyalty itself was perhaps no thicker than skin.

Gripp returned with Anomander’s mount and his own. ‘Both had been left saddled,’ he said to her in explanation.

‘Distress is a flavour,’ Hish said, ‘that none welcome but none can avoid.’

At her comment, Dathenar grunted in amusement. ‘Wail for the world’s end, milady, when even the grooms lose sleep.’ He gestured grandly. ‘Observe our befuddled state in this courtyard, and imagine the same throughout Kurald Galain. I have had many thoughts on civil war in the times leading to this, but not once did I imagine it so shrouded in confusion.’