He looked at her blankly, then faced the mound of severed heads once more. ‘Neither demons nor spectres, as you can see. Tiste Andii, most of them. A few Quon Talian sailors. Come, let us go and examine the captain’s cabin – magic tumbles from that room in waves.’

‘What kind of magic, Pearl?’

He had already begun walking towards the hatch. A dismissive gesture. ‘Kurald Galain, Tellann, Kurald Emurlahn, Rashan—’ He paused suddenly and swung round. ‘Rashan. Yet you feel nothing?’

She shrugged. ‘Are there more ... heads ... in there, Pearl? If so, I think I’d rather not—’

‘Follow me,’ he snapped.

Inside, black wood, the air thick as if roiling with memories of violence. A grey-skinned, barbaric-looking corpse pinned to the captain’s chair by a massive spear. Other bodies, sprawled here and there as if grabbed, broken then tossed aside.

A dull, sourceless glow permeated the low, cramped room. Barring strange patches on the floor, smeared with, Lostara saw, otataral dust.

‘Not Tiste Andii,’ Pearl muttered. ‘These must be Tiste Edur. Oh, there are plenty of mysteries here. Gesler told me about the crew manning the oars down below – headless bodies. Those poor Tiste Andii on the deck. Now, I wonder who killed these Edur ...’

‘How does all this lead us further onto Felisin’s trail, Pearl?’

‘She was here, wasn’t she? Witness to all this. The captain here had a whistle, strung around his neck, which was used to direct the rowers. It’s disappeared, alas.’

‘And without that whistle, this ship just sits here.’

Pearl nodded. ‘Too bad, isn’t it? Imagine, a ship with a crew you never have to feed, that never needs rest, that never mutinies.’

‘You can have it,’ Lostara said, turning back to the doorway. ‘I hate ships. Always have. And now I’m leaving this one.’

‘I see no reason not to join you,’ Pearl said. ‘We have a journey ahead of us, after all.’

‘We do? Where?’

‘The Silanda travelled warrens between the place where it was found by Gesler, and where it reappeared in this realm. From what I can gather, that journey crossed the mainland, from the north Otataral Sea down to Aren Bay. If Felisin, Heboric and Baudin jumped off, they might well have reappeared on land somewhere on that route.’

‘To find themselves in the midst of the rebellion.’

‘Given what seems to have led up to it, they might well have considered that a far less horrendous option.’

‘Until some band of raiders stumbled onto them.’

Captain Keneb’s 9th Company was called to muster in three successive assemblies on the parade ground. There had been no advance warning, simply the arrival of an officer commanding the soldiers to proceed at double-time.