Hedge scowled. 'Ha ha.'

'I don't think she's kidding,' Detoran said.

'Fine,' Hedge snapped. 'I got a cusser waiting for it, and damned if I won't make sure I take you all with me.'

'Team spirit,' Trotts said, his smile broadening.

Picker grunted. 'All right, soldiers, let's get out of here.'

Paran and Silverfox stood apart from the others, watching the eastern sky grow light with streaks of copper and bronze. The last of the stars were withdrawing overhead, a cold, indifferent scatter surrendering to the warmth of a blue, cloudless day.

Through the awkwardness of the hours just past, stretching interminable as a succession of pain and discomfort in Paran's mind, emotional exhaustion had arrived, and with it a febrile calm. He had fallen silent, fearful of shattering that inner peace, knowing it to be nothing but an illusion, a pensively drawn breath within a storm.

'Tattersail must be drawn forth.' He had indeed done that. The first meeting of their eyes had unlocked every shared memory, and that unlocking was an explosive curse for Paran. A child. I face a child, and so recoil at the thought of intimacy — even if it had once been with a grown woman. The woman is no more. This is a child. But there was yet more to the anguish that boiled within the man. Another presence, entwined like wires of black iron through all that was Tattersail. Nightchill, the sorceress, once lover to Bellurdan — where she had led, the Thelomen had followed. Anything but an equal relationship, and now, with Nightchill, had come a bitter, demanding presence. Bitter, indeed. With Tayschrenn. with the Empress and the Malazan Empire and Hood knows what or who else. She knows she was betrayed at the Enfilade at Pale. Both her and, out there on the plain, Bellurdan. Her mate.

Silverfox spoke. 'You need not fear the T'lan Imass.'

He blinked, shook himself. 'So you have explained. Since you command them. We are all wondering, however, precisely what you plan with that undead army? What's the significance of this Gathering?'

She sighed. 'It is very simple, really. They gather for benediction. Mine.'

He faced her. 'Why?'

'I am a flesh and blood Bonecaster — the first such in hundreds of thousands of years.' Then her face hardened. 'But we shall need them first. In their fullest power. There are horrors awaiting us all… in the Pannion Domin.'

'The others must know of this, this benediction — what it means, Silverfox — and more of the threat that awaits us in the Pannion Domin. Brood, Kallor-'

She shook her head. 'My blessing is not their concern. Indeed, it is no-one's concern but mine. And the T'lan Imass themselves. As for the Pannion … I myself must learn more before I dare speak. Paran, I have told you these things for what we were, and for what you — we — have become.'

And what have we become? No, not a question for now. 'Jen'isand Rul.'

She frowned. 'That is a side of you that I do not understand. But there is more, Paran.' She hesitated, then said, 'Tell me, what do you know of the Deck of Dragons?'

'Almost nothing.' But he smiled, for he heard Tattersail now, more clearly than at any other time since they'd first met.

Silverfox drew a deep breath, held it a moment, then slowly released it, her veiled eyes once again on the rising sun. 'The Deck of Dragons. A kind of structure, imposed on power itself. Who created it? No-one knows. My belief — Tattersail's belief — is that each card is a gate into a warren, and there were once many more cards than there are now. There may have been other Decks — there may well be other Decks …'

He studied her. 'You have another suspicion, don't you?'

'Yes. I said no-one knows who created the Deck of Dragons. Yet there is another entity equally mysterious, also a kind of structure, focused upon power itself. Think of the terminology used with the Deck of Dragons. Houses … Houses of Dark, of Light, of Life and Death. ' She slowly faced him. 'Think of the word "Finnest". Its meaning, as the T'lan Imass know it, is "Hold of Ice". Long ago, among the Elder races, a Hold was synonymous with a House in its meaning and common usage, and indeed, synonymous with Warren. Where resides a Jaghut's wellspring of power? In a Finnest.' She paused again, searching Paran's eyes. 'Tremorlor is Trellish for "House of Life".'

Firmest. as in Firmest House, in Darujhistan … a House of the Azath. 'I've never heard of Tremorlor.'

'It is an Azath House in Seven Cities. In Malaz City in your own empire, there is the Deadhouse — the House of Death…'