Glokta nodded, slowly, as the shape of things unfolded in his mind. 'He heard of my investigations from Severard, and I received a charming visit from your walking corpse, Mauthis, telling me to halt or die.'

'Exactly so. On other occasions Yoru took another face, and called himself the Tanner, and incited a few peasants to some rather unbecoming behaviour.' Bayaz examined his fingernails. 'All in a good cause, though, Superior.'

'To lend glamour to your latest puppet. To make him a favourite with the people. To make him familiar to the nobles, to the Closed Council. You were the source of the rumours.'

'Heroic acts in the ruined west? Jezal dan Luthar?' Bayaz snorted. 'He did little more than whine about the rain.'

'Amazing the rubbish idiots will believe if you shout it loudly enough. And you rigged the Contest too.'

'You noticed that?' Bayaz' smile grew wider. 'I am impressed, Superior, I am most impressed. You have fumbled so very close to the truth this whole time.' And yet so very far away. 'I wouldn't feel badly about it. I have many advantages. Sult groped towards the answers, in the end, but far too late. I suspected from the first what his plans might be.'

'Which is why you asked me to investigate?'

'The fact that you did not oblige me until the very last moment was the source of some annoyance.'

'Asking nicely might have helped.' It would have been refreshing, at least. 'I regret that I found myself in a difficult position. A case of too many masters.'

'No longer, though, eh? I was almost disappointed when I found out how limited Sult's studies were. Salt, and candles, and incantations? How pathetically adolescent. Enough to put a timely end to that would-be democrat Marovia, perhaps, but nothing to pose the slightest threat to me.'

Glokta frowned down at the squares board. Sult and Marovia. For all their cleverness, for all their power, their ugly little struggle was an irrelevance. They were small pieces in this game. So small they never even guessed how vast the board truly was. Which makes me what? A speck of dust between the squares, at best.

'What of the mysterious visitor to your chambers the day I first met you?' A visitor to my chambers too, perhaps? A woman, and cold…

Angry lines cut across Bayaz' forehead. 'A mistake made in my youth. You will speak no more of it.'

'Oh, as you command. And the Great Prophet Khalul?'

'The war will continue. On different battlefields, with different soldiers. But this will be the last battle fought with the weapons of the past. The magic leaks from the world. The lessons of the Old Time fade into the darkness of history. A new age dawns.'