over what happens at all. The pain will only get worse; until you obey.”
“I have to go back in that room, don’t I?” said Smith sadly.
Mr. Silverpoint shrugged. Setting his drink down, he rose and selected an axe from a rack of weapons in the corner.
“Let’s go for a walk,” he said, holding the tent flap open.
They stepped out into the night, and the guards on duty came to attention and saluted. Mr. Silverpoint nodded to them.
“At ease,” he said. “This way, Smith.”
He walked to the near pavilion that had been set up for Lady Svnae. Taking a torch from its iron socket, he cleared his throat loudly outside the entrance.
“Daddy?”
“Rise and come with us, Svnae,” he said. “You’re being punished.”
She stepped out a moment later, wrapped in a dressing gown. She looked lovely, frightened, young and—next to her father—small. On any other night of the world, Smith would have been profoundly interested in her state of undress.
They stopped at the next pavilion, and Mr. Silverpoint said, “Come out of there, son.”
There was no answer. Mr. Silverpoint exhaled rather forcefully and tore open the tent flap, revealing Lord Ermenwyr. The lordling was still fully dressed, sitting bolt upright on the edge of a folding cot. He looked at his father with wide eyes.
“You’re being punished, too,” said Mr. Silverpoint. “Come along.”
He led them away through the night, across the day’s field where a banked fire still smoldered, the bones of the slain falling into ashes in its heart. Guards fanned out and walked with them at a discreet distance.
They came to the rock, and Mr. Silverpoint nodded at Svnae, who led them in. The chambers and corridors were deserted; the monks had withdrawn to the camp to tend the wounded. They climbed through the darkness, and their passage echoed like an army on the march.
The pain in Smith’s arm grew less with every step. It was still so cold he imagined waves of chill radiating from it, but it felt supple as it ever had. He looked up at the barrel-vault ceiling as they walked along, wondering who among his ancestors had cut these tunnels. The charnel house of Kast...
What had taken place, here, that the Yendri had found it crowded with the dead? It must have been in Lord Salt’s time, so long ago it was nearly fable. What had been the cause of the war? Why had the granaries of Troon been put to the torch? That was never clear in the stories; only the great deeds of the heroes were sung about, how they drove the vanquished before them like wraiths, how they enacted wonders with their swords and war hammers, how they triumphed in the last day of glory before the gods had been sick of them and wiped them out of existence.
And only a handful of people had survived, crouching in fishing-huts at the edge of the land, terrified of something in the interior.
Yet from those wretched ashes they had risen, hadn’t they? And built a fine new civilization on top of the old, better than what they’d had before? What other race could do such a thing?
What other race would need to?
It was true that they multiplied until they must build new cities, and it was true that crime and war and famine followed them inexorably … and now there were others in the world, other races who might be more worthy to inherit.
His arm felt fine now. Better than fine. Superior to dull flesh and blood. It was the part of him that belonged to the gods, after all.
Smith heard the sound of footsteps behind him, running, and Willowspear caught up with them.
“Where are you going?” he gasped. “What is he going to do?”
Mr. Silverpoint’s voice floated back to them along the tunnel. “Nothing, boy. I’m only here to observe.”
They emerged into the chamber. Mr. Silverpoint set the torch in a socket by the door. “Here we are,” he said. “What happens now, Smith?”
Smith blinked at the Keyhole, at the whirling fire before it. He knew that he could raise his cold blue arm and thrust it through that barrier and feel no pain at all. He knew he could grasp the dimly seen objects beyond and draw them out. They were only vials of poisons, and small ingenious devices. Still, once he had them, there would be no stopping him ever again.
He felt History pulling at him, like a tide sucking sand from beneath his feet. All that he had been, all