Desra rushed into the chamber. She saw Skintick, saw him slowly sitting up. She saw what must be the Jaghut, the hood drawn back to reveal that greenish, unhu-man visage, the hairless pate so mottled it might have been a mariner’s map of islands, a tortured coastline, reefs. He stood tall in his woollen robes. But nowhere could she find Nimander.
The Jaghut’s eyes fixed on her for a moment, and then he faced one of the walls of ice.
She followed that gaze.
Staggering into darkness he was struck countless times. Fists pounded, fingers raked ragged furrows through his skin. Hands closed about his limbs and pulled.
‘This one is mine!’
‘No, mine!’All at once voices cried out on all sides and a hand closed about Nimander’s waist, plucked him into the air. The giant figure carrying him ran, feet thumping like thunder, up a steep slope, rocks scurrying down, first a trickle, then a roar of cascading stones, with screams in their wake.
Choking dust blinded him.
A sharp-edged crest crunching underfoot, and then a sudden even steeper de-scent, down into a caldera. Grey clouds rising in plumes, sudden coruscating heat foul with gases that stung his eyes, burned in his throat.
He was flung on to hot ash.
The giant creature loomed over him.
Through tears Nimander looked up, saw a strangely child-like face peering down. The forehead sloped back behind an undulating brow-ridge from which the eyebrows streamed down in thick snarls of pale, almost white hair. Round, smooth cheeks, thick lips, a pug nose, a pale bulging wattle beneath the rounded chin. Its skin was bright yellow, its eyes emerald green.
It spoke in the language of the Tiste Andii. ‘I am like you. I too do not belong here.’
The voice was soft, a child’s voice. The giant slowly blinked, and then smiled, revealing a row of dagger like fangs.
Nimander struggled to speak: ‘Where-who-all those people…’
‘Spirits. Trapped like ants in amber. But it is not amber. It is the blood of dragons.’
‘Are you a spirit?’
The huge head shook in a negative. ‘I am an Elder, and I am lost.’
‘Elder.’ Nimander frowned. ‘You call yourself that. Why?’ A shrug like hills in motion. ‘The spirits have so named me.’