Games with words. Scowling, Karsa lifted the lid.

A single carafe of crystal stood in its centre, flanked by a pair of chipped clay beakers. The wine’s deep red colour gleamed through the transparent crystal, bathing the otherwise empty interior of the chest with a warm, sunset hue. Karsa stared down into it for a moment, then grunted. ‘Aye, I can see that it would fit you, provided you curled up. You and the wine and the brazier—’

‘The brazier! That would be a hot journey!’

The Teblor’s scowl deepened. ‘Unlit, of course.’

‘Ah, yes, of course. Cease your gawking, then, and pour us some wine. I’m about to turn the meat here.’

Karsa reached down, then snatched his hand back. ‘It’s cold in there!’

‘I prefer my wine chilled, even the red. I prefer everything chilled, in fact.’

Grimacing, the Teblor picked up the carafe and the two beakers. ‘Then someone must have carried you here.’

‘Only if you believe all that I tell you. And all that you see, Karsa Orlong. A T’lan Imass army marched by here, not so long ago. Did they find me? No. Why? I was hidden in my chest, of course. Did they find the chest? No, because it was a rock. Did they note the rock? Perhaps. But then, it was only a rock. Now, I know what you’re thinking, and you would be precisely correct. The sorcery I speak of is not Omtose Phellack. But why would I seek to employ Omtose Phellack, when that is the very scent the T’lan Imass hunted? Oh no. Is there some cosmic law that Jaghut can only use Omtose Phellack? I’ve read a hundred thousand night skies and have yet to see it written there – oh, plenty of other laws, but nothing approaching that one, neither in detail nor intent. Thus saving us the bloody recourse of finding a Forkrul Assail to adjudicate, and believe me, such adjudication is invariably bloody. Rarely indeed is anyone satisfied. Rarer still that anyone is left alive. Is there justice in such a thing, I ask you? Oh yes, perhaps the purest justice of all. On any given day, the aggrieved and the aggriever could stand in each other’s clothes. Never a question of right and wrong, in truth, simply one of deciding who is least wrong. Do you grasp—’

‘What I grasp,’ Karsa cut in, ‘is the smell of burning meat.’

‘Ah, yes. Rare are my moments of discourse—’

‘I had no idea.’

‘—which cannot be said for this meat. Of course you wouldn’t, since we have just met. But I assure you, I have little opportunity to talk—’

‘There in your chest.’

Cynnigig grinned. ‘Precisely. You have the gist of it. Precisely. Thelomen Toblakai indeed.’

Karsa handed the Jaghut a beaker filled with wine. ‘Alas, my hand has warmed it some.’