'There was… was Logen Ninefingers, from the distant North.' Ah, yes, he of the scars and the tight lips. 'Ferro Maljinn, a Kantic woman.' The one that gave our friend Superior Goyle so much trouble. 'Jezal dan Luthar, a… a Union officer.' A posturing dolt. 'Malacus Quai, Bayaz' apprentice.' The skinny liar with the troglodyte's complexion. 'And then Bayaz himself!'

'Six of you?'

'Only six!'

'A long and a difficult journey to undertake. What was at the edge of the World that demanded such an effort, besides water?'

Longfoot's lip trembled. 'Nothing!' Glokta frowned, and nudged at the Navigator's big toe with the head of the hammer. 'It was not there! The thing that Bayaz sought! It was not there! He said he had been tricked!'

'What was it that he thought would be there?'

'He said it was a stone!'

'A stone?'

'The woman asked him. He said it was a rock… a rock from the Other Side.' The Navigator shook his sweating head. 'An unholy notion! I am glad we found no such thing. Bayaz called it the Seed!'

Glokta felt the grin melting from his face. The Seed. Is it my imagination, or has the room grown colder? 'What else did he say about it?'

'Just myths and nonsense!'

'Try me.'

'Stories, about Glustrod, and ruined Aulcus, and taking forms, and stealing faces! About speaking to devils, and the summoning of them. About the Other Side.'

'What else?' Glokta dealt Longfoot's toe a firmer tap with the hammer.

'Ah! Ah! He said the Seed was the stuff of the world below! That it was left over from before the Old Time, when demons walked the earth! He said it was a great and powerful weapon! That he meant to use it, against the Gurkish! Against the Prophet!' A weapon, from before the Old Time. The summoning of devils, the taking of forms. Kanedias seemed to frown down from the wall more grimly than ever, and Glokta flinched. He remembered his nightmare trip into the House of the Maker, the patterns of light on the floor, the shifting rings in the darkness. He remembered stepping out onto the roof, standing high above the city without climbing a single stair.

'You did not find it?' he whispered, his mouth dry.

'No! It was not there!'

'And then?'

'That was all! We came back across the mountains. We made a raft and rode the great Aos back to the sea. We took a ship from Calcis and I sit before you now!'

Glokta narrowed his eyes, studying carefully his prisoner's face. There is more. I see it. 'What are you not telling me?'

'I have told you everything! I have no talent for dissembling!' That, at least, is true. His lies are plain.