‘Tell me, Talamandas,’ Quick Ben asked with veiled eyes, ‘is survival a right, or a privilege?’

‘The latter, mortal. The latter. And it must be earned. I wish for the chance. For all my people, I wish for the chance.’

The wizard slowly nodded. ‘A worthy wish, Old One.’ He held out his hand, palm up, stared down at it. ‘There’s salt in this clay, is there not? I smell it. Clay is usually airless, lifeless. Defiant of the tireless servants of the soil. But the salt, well. . .’ A writhing clump took shape on Quick Ben’s palm. ‘Sometimes,’ he went on, ‘the simplest of creatures can defeat the mightiest sorceries, in the simplest way imaginable.’ The worms – red like blood, thin, long and ridged with leg-like cilia along their lengths – twisted and heaved, fell in clumps to the glyph-strewn ground. ‘These are native to a distant continent. They feed on salt, or so it seems – the mines on the dry sea beds of Setta are thick with these things, especially in the dry season. They can turn the hardest pan of clay into sand. To put it another way, they bring air to the airless.’ He dropped the clump onto the ground, watched as the worms spread out, began burrowing. ‘And they breed faster than maggots. Ah, see those glyphs – there, on the edges? Their binding’s crumbling – can you feel the loosening?’

‘Mortal, who are you?’

‘In the eyes of the gods, Talamandas? Just a lowly salt-worm. I’ll hear your tale now, Old One . . .’

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER NINE

On the subcontinent of Stratem, beyond Korelri’s south range, can be found a vast peninsula where even the gods do not tread. Reaching to each coast, encompassing an area of thousands of square leagues, stretches a vast plaza. Aye, dear readers, there is no other word for it. Fashion this in your mind: near-seamless flagstones, unmarred by age and of grey, almost black, stone. Rippled lines of dark dust, minuscule dunes heaped by the moaning winds, these are all that break the breathless monotony. Who laid such stones?

Should we give credence to Gothos’s hoary tome, his glorious ‘Folly’? Should we attach a dread name to the makers of this plaza? If we must, then that name is K’Chain Che’Malle. Who, then, were the K’Chain Che’Malle? An Elder Race, or so Gothos tells. Extinct even before the rise of the Jaghut, the T’lan Imass, the Forkrul Assail.

Truth? Ah, if so, then these stones were laid down half a million – perhaps more – years ago. In the opinion of this chronicler, what utter nonsense.

My Endless Travels

Esslee Monot (the Dubious)

‘How do you measure a life, Toc the Younger? Please, darling, I would hear your thoughts. Deeds are the crudest measure of all, wouldn’t you say?’

He cast her a glower as they walked. ‘You suggesting that good intentions are enough, Lady?’