‘Gratitude?’ Withal’s laugh was harsh. ‘You are thankful after compelling me into doing your bidding. That’s a good one. May you be as generous of thought after I force you into killing me.’ He studied the hooded figure. ‘I see your problem, you know. I see it now, and curse myself for having missed it before. You have no realm to command, as do other gods. So you sit there, alone, in your tent, and that is the extent of your realm, isn’t it? Broken flesh and foul, stifling air. Skin-thin walls and the heat the old and lame desire. Your world, and you alone in it, and the irony is, you cannot even command your own body.’
A wretched cough, then, ‘Spare me your sympathy, Meckros. I have given the problem of you considerable thought, and have found a solution, as you shall soon discover. When you do, think on what you have said to me. Now, go.’
‘You still don’t understand, do you? The more pain you deliver to others, god, the more shall be visited upon you. You sow your own misery, and because of that whatever sympathy you might rightly receive is swept away.’
‘I said go, Withal. Build yourself a nest. Mape’s waiting.’
They emerged onto a windswept sward with the crashing waves of the sea on their right and before them the delta of a broad river. On the river’s other side stood a walled city.
Seren Pedac studied the distant buildings, the tall, thin towers that seemed to lean seaward. ‘Old Katter,’ she said. ‘We’re thirty leagues south of Trate. How is that possible?’
‘Warrens,’ Corlo muttered, sagging until he sat on the ground. ‘Rotted. Septic, but still, a warren.’
The Acquitor made her way down to the beach. The sun was high and hot overhead. I must wash. Get clean. The sea …
Iron Bars followed, in one hand the encrusted object where the spirit of a Tiste Andii woman now resided.
She strode into the water, the foaming waves thrashing round her shins.
The Avowed flung the object past her – a small splash not far ahead.
Thighs, then hips.
Clean. Get clean.
To her chest. A wave rolled, lifted her from the bottom, spun and flung her towards the shore. She clawed herself round until she could push forward once again. Cold salty water rising over her face. Bright, sunlit, silty water, washing sight from her eyes. Water biting at scabbed wounds, stinging her broken lips, water filling her mouth and begging to be drawn inside.
Like this.