Onrack added nothing to that. After all, if Monok Ochem found reasons to deceive, Onrack could find none to contradict the bonecaster. It did not matter in any case. No Eres had ever been discovered in the Warren of Tellann.

After a moment, Trull Sengar asked, ‘Are we close, Onrack?’

‘We are.’

‘And will we then return to our own world?’

‘We shall. The First Throne lies at the base of a crevasse, beneath a city—’

‘The Tiste Edur,’ Monok Ochem cut in, ‘has no need for learning the name of that city, Onrack the Broken. He already knows too much of our people.’

‘What I know of you T’lan Imass hardly qualifies as secrets,’ Trull Sengar said. ‘You prefer killing to negotiation. You do not hesitate to murder gods when the opportunity arises. And you prefer to clean up your own messes – laudable, this last one. Unfortunately, this particular mess is too big, though I suspect you are still too proud to admit to that. As for your First Throne, I am not interested in discovering its precise location. Besides, I’m not likely to survive the clash with your renegade kin.’

‘That is true,’ Monok Ochem agreed.

‘You will likely make sure of it,’ Trull Sengar added.

The bonecaster said nothing.

There was no need to, Onrack reflected. But I shall defend him. Perhaps Monok and Ibra understand this, and so they will strike at me first. It is what I would do, were I in their place. Which, oddly enough, I am.

The trail opened suddenly into a clearing filled with bones. Countless beasts of the jungle and savanna had been dragged here by, Onrack surmised, leopards or hyenas. The longbones he noted were all gnawed and split open by powerful jaws. The air reeked of rotted flesh and flies swarmed in the thousands.

‘The Eres did not fashion holy sites of their own,’ Monok Ochem said, ‘but they understood that there were places where death gathered, where life was naught but memories, drifting lost and bemused. And, to such places, they would often bring their own dead. Power gathers in layers – this is the birthplace of the sacred.’

‘And so you have transformed it into a gate,’ Trull Sengar said.

‘Yes,’ the bonecaster replied.

‘You are too eager to credit the Imass, Monok Ochem,’ Onrack said. He faced the Tiste Edur. ‘Eres holy sites burned through the barriers of Tellann. They are too old to be resisted.’

‘You said their sanctity was born of death. Are they Hood’s, then?’