A short time later, while Trull Sengar ate, Onrack moved to the edge of the wall facing onto the marsh. The flood waters had found old basins in the landscape, from which gases now leaked upward to drift in pale smears over the thick, percolating surface. Thicker fog obscured the horizon, but the T’lan Imass thought he could sense a rising of elevation, a range of low, humped hills.

‘It’s getting lighter,’ Trull Sengar said from where he lay beside the hearth. ‘The sky is glowing in places. There ... and there.’

Onrack lifted his head. The sky had been an unrelieved sea of pewter, darkening every now and then to loose a deluge of rain, though that had grown more infrequent of late. But now rents had appeared, ragged-edged. A swollen orb of yellow light commanded one entire horizon, the wall ahead seeming to drive towards its very heart; whilst directly overhead hung a smaller circle of blurred fire, this one rimmed in blue.

‘The suns return,’ the Tiste Edur murmured. ‘Here, in the Nascent, the ancient twin hearts of Kurald Emurlahn live on. There was no way of telling, for we did not rediscover this warren until after the Breach. The flood waters must have brought chaos to the climate. And destroyed the civilization that existed here.’

Onrack looked down. ‘Were they Tiste Edur?’

The man shook his head. ‘No, more like your descendants, Onrack. Although the corpses we saw here along the wall were badly decayed.’ Trull grimaced. ‘They are as vermin, these humans of yours.’

‘Not mine,’ Onrack replied.

‘You feel no pride, then, at their insipid success?’

The T’lan Imass cocked his head. ‘They are prone to mistakes, Trull Sengar. The Logros have killed them in their thousands when the need to reassert order made doing so necessary. With ever greater frequency they annihilate themselves, for success breeds contempt for those very qualities that purchased it.’

‘It seems you’ve given this some thought.’

Onrack shrugged in a clatter of bones. ‘More than my kin, perhaps, the edge of my irritation with humankind remains jagged.’

The Tiste Edur was attempting to stand, his motions slow and deliberate. ‘The Nascent required ... cleansing,’ he said, his tone bitter, ‘or so it was judged.’

‘Your methods,’ Onrack said, ‘are more extreme than what the Logros would choose.’

Managing to totter upright, Trull Sengar faced the T’lan Imass with a wry grin. ‘Sometimes, friend, what is begun proves too powerful to contain.’

‘Such is the curse of success.’

Trull seemed to wince at the words, and he turned away. ‘I must needs find fresh, clean water.’

‘How long had you been chained?’

The man shrugged. ‘Long, I suppose. The sorcery within the Shorning was designed to prolong suffering. Your sword severed its power, and now the mundane requirements of the flesh return.’