To that, Nimander wanted to weep. I have earned nothing. Beyond remon-stration. Condemnation. The contempt of every one of them. Of Anomander Rake himself. For all my failures, the community will judge me, and that will be that. Self-pity tugged at him yet further, but he shook it off. For these who followed him, for Skintick and Desra and Nenanda, Kedeviss and Aranatha, yes, he could give them this last gift.
Which was not even his to give, but Clip’s. Clip, my usurper.
‘And so,’ he finally said, ‘we come back to the beginning. We will follow Clip, until he takes us to our people.’
‘I suppose you are right,’ Skintick said, as if satisfied with the circular nature of their conversation, as if something had indeed been achieved by the effort-though Nimander could not imagine what that might be.
Birdsong to awaken the sky to light, a musty warmth hinted at in the soft breaths rising from the humus. The air smelled impossibly clean. Nimander rubbed at his face, then saw Skintick’s almond-shaped eyes shift their gaze to over his shoulder, and so he turned, even as a fallen branch crackled underfoot to announce someone’s arrival.
Skintick raised his voice, ‘Join us, cousin.’
Aranatha moved like a lost child, ever tremulous, ever diffident. Eyes widening as they always did whenever she awakened to the outside world-she edged forward. ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said. ‘Nenanda was asking Clip about all sorts of things, until Desra told him to go away.’
Skintick’s brows lifted. ‘Desra? Stalking Clip now, is she? Well, my only surprise is that it’s taken this long-not that there was much chance within Kurald Galain.’
Nimander asked her, ‘Did Nenanda manage to get an explanation from Clip about where we are? And how far we still have to go?’
She continued creeping forward. The muted dawn light made her seem a thing of obsidian and silver, her long black hair glistening, her black skin faintly dusted, her silver eyes hinting of iron that never appeared. Like some Goddess of Hope. But one whose only strength lay in an optimism immune to defeat. Immune to all reality, in fact. ‘We have emerged somewhere south of where we were supposed to. There are, Clip explained, “layers of resistance”.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t understand what that means, but those were his words.’
Nimander briefly met Skintick’s eyes, then smiled up at Aranatha. ‘Did Clip say how much farther?’