Thirty paces, then another small clearing, this one ringed tight in thick, petrified boles. A squat, rectangular mason’s chest sat in the skeletal shade cast down by the branches – which had remained intact down to the very twigs. Toblakai stepped to one side, studied her face as she stared in silence at his works-in-progress.

Before them, the trunks of two of the trees ringing the clearing had been reshaped beneath chisel and pick. Two warriors stared out with sightless eyes, one slightly shorter than Toblakai but far more robust, the other taller and thinner.

He saw that her breath had quickened, a slight flush on her cheeks. ‘You have talent ... rough, but driven,’ she murmured without pulling her eyes from their study. ‘Do you intend to ring the entire clearing with such formidable warriors?’

‘No. The others will be ... different.’

Her head turned at a sound. She stepped quickly closer to Karsa. ‘A snake.’

He nodded. ‘There will be more, coming from all sides. The clearing will be filled with snakes, should we choose to remain here.’

‘Flare-necks.’

‘And others. They won’t bite or spit, however. They never do. They come ... to watch.’

She shot him a searching glance, then shivered slightly. ‘What power manifests here? It is not the Whirlwind’s—’

‘No. Nor do I have a name for it. Perhaps the Holy Desert itself.’

She slowly shook her head to that. ‘I think you are wrong. The power, I believe, is yours.’

He shrugged. ‘We shall see, when I have done them all.’

‘How many?’

‘Besides Bairoth and Delum Thord? Seven.’

She frowned. ‘One for each of the Holy Protectors?’

No. ‘Perhaps. I have not decided. These two you see, they were my friends. Now dead.’ He paused, then added, ‘I had but two friends.’

She seemed to flinch slightly at that. ‘What of Leoman? What of Mathok? What of... me?’

‘I have no plans on carving your likenesses here.’

‘That is not what I meant.’

I know. He gestured at the two Teblor warriors. ‘Creation, Chosen One.’

‘When I was young, I wrote poetry, in the path that my mother already walked. Did you know that?’

He smiled at the word ‘young’ but replied in all serious-ness, ‘No, I did not.’

‘I... I have resurrected the habit.’

‘May it serve you well.’

She must have sensed something of the blood-slick edge underlying his statement, for her expression tightened. ‘But that is never its purpose, is it. To serve. Or to yield satisfaction – self-satisfaction, I mean, since the other kind but follows as a returning ripple in a well—’

‘Confusing the pattern.’

‘As you say. It is far too easy to see you as a knot-browed barbarian, Toblakai. No, the drive to create is something other, isn’t it? Have you an answer?’

He shrugged. ‘If one exists, it will only be found in the search – and searching is at creation’s heart, Chosen One.’