‘So you will stay with me for a while longer?’

He nodded,

‘Then I should tell you some things, I think.’

They guided their horses on to the track and rode at the trot.

Traveller waited for her to continue.

The sun’s heat reminded him of his homeland, the savannahs of Dal Hon, although in this landscape there were fewer flies, and of the enormous herds of countless kinds of beasts-and the ones that hunted them-there was little sign. Here on the Lamatath there were bhederin, a lone breed of antelope, hares, wolves, coyotes, bears and not much else. Plenty of hawks and falcons overhead, of course-but this place did not teem as one might expect and he wondered about that.

Had the conflagration at Morn wiped everything out? Left a blasted landscape slow to recover, into which only a few species drifted down from the north? Or were the K’Chain Che’Malle rabid hunters, indulging in a slaughterfest that did not end until they themselves were extinct?

‘What do you know of the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths?’

He glanced across at her. ‘Not much. Only that he cannot be killed.’

‘Right.’

He waited.

Locusts crawled across the dusty track amidst shredded blades of grass, as if wondering who had beaten them to it. Somewhere high above a raptor loosed a piercing cry, the kind intended to panic a bird in flight.

‘His sword was forged by the power of the Crippled God. Possessing levels of sorcery to which the wielder can reach, each time, only by dying-fighting and dying with that weapon in his hands. The Emperor, a poor ravaged creature, a Tiste Edur, knew that death was but an illusion. He knew, I am certain of it, that he was cursed, so terribly cursed. That sword had driven him mad.’

Traveller imagined that such a weapon would indeed drive its wielder insane. He could feel sweat on the palms of his hands and shifted the reins into his right hand, settling the other on his thigh. His mouth felt unaccountably dry.

‘He needed champions. Challengers. Sometimes they would kill him. Some-times more than once. But as he came back again and again, ever stronger, in the end the challenger would fall. And so it went.’

‘A terrible fate,’ Traveller muttered.

‘Until one day some ships arrived. On board, yet more champions from distant lands. Among them, Karsa Orlong, the Toblakai. I happened to be with him, then.’

‘I would hear the story behind such a partnership.’

‘Maybe later. There was someone else, another champion. His name was Icarium.’

Traveller slowly twisted in his saddle, studied the woman across from him, Some unconscious message told the gelding to hull.

Samar’s Jhag horse continued on for a few steps, then she reined it in and turned to meet Traveller’s eyes. ‘I believe, if Icarium had met the Emperor, well, the dying would still be going on, spreading like a wildfire. An entire continent.,, pretty much incinerated. Who knows, perhaps the entire world.’

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

‘Instead,’ Samar Dev said, ‘Karsa was sent for first.’

‘What happened?’

Her smile was sad. ‘They fought.’

‘Samar Dev,’ Traveller said, ‘that makes no sense. The Toblakai still lives.’

‘Karsa killed the Emperor. With finality.’

‘How?’

‘I have some suspicions. I believe that, somewhere, somehow, Karsa Orlong spoke with the Crippled God-not a pleasant conversation, I’m sure. Karsa rarely has those.’

‘Then the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths-•’

‘Gone, delivered unto a final death. I like to believe Rhulad thanked Karsa with his last breath.’

If there was need for such a thought she was welcome to it. ‘And the sword? Does the Toblakai now carry it as his own?’

She collected her reins and nudged her mount onward. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Another reason why I have to find him.’

You are not alone in that, woman. ‘He bargained with the Crippled God. He replaced the Emperor.’

‘Did he?’

He urged his horse forward, came up alongside her once more. ‘What other possibility is there?’

And to that she grinned. ‘Ah, but that is where I know something you don’t, Traveller. I know Karsa Orlong.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It’s his favourite game, you see, pretending to be so… obvious. Blunt, lacking all subtlety, all decorum. Just a savage, after all. The only possibility is the obvi-ous one, isn’t it? That’s why I don’t believe that’s what he’s done.’