might believe of himself what Kannwar had said. That he might simply give up loving her and leave her alone.
The nine remaining travellers were accompanied by perhaps a hundred of those they had rescued from Corata Pit, straggling in a long line behind them. Most of the survivors had departed in various directions to seek out family and friends or to recover what they could from their towns and villages; these hundred who remained were, in the main, too frightened to leave the shelter of the powerful magicians in case the god-storm—or something worse—returned.
They surmounted a low ridge and came to an involuntary halt as the spectacle of the Malayu Basin spread out before them. Directly ahead the land fell away to a vast level plain, a chequerboard of fields and forests fading into the distance, dotted with animals, everything painted golden in the soft morning light. But many of the animals were motionless, heaped together in the middle of green fields, others lying alone where they had fallen. And the trees of the forests were strewn about as though harvested by a scythe wielded by a blind and careless giant. To their right, in the west, the sea glimmered, the wide curve of Malayu Bay looking like a rough bite out of the land. Closer to hand a village lay athwart the path they trod, some distance down the slope, but even at a distance they could see that not one roof remained intact and many of the houses had been blown or shaken to pieces.
The travellers were drawn to the village like flies to a carcass, and as they picked their way along the narrow path between piles of debris, they looked in vain for someone alive. Bodies they saw aplenty, but no movement.
“Just how fierce was this storm and earthquake?” Mustar asked, shaking his head in sorrow.
Lenares knew. Fierce enough to extinguish thousands of lives. The hole in the world had grown rapidly, and was perhaps now already wide enough to admit the gods on a permanent basis. The void beyond the wall was leaking into the world, meaning that time itself had begun to lose its grip. Everywhere she looked Lenares could see severed threads, vanished nodes.
The world was unravelling.
“They have killed my subjects,” said the Undying Man, and Lenares flinched at the tone of his voice. The Emperor of Elamaq had frightened her, but not as much as this man did.
“They have killed my subjects,” he repeated, “and destroyed my land. They are fools and tyrants, and I will destroy them.”
Stella put a hand on his elbow. “We, Kannwar. We will rid the world of them. The Most High has called us all together for this purpose, remember? This is not just your fight.”
“Oh?” he said, and as he turned to her, his face, limbs and body began to elongate as he struggled to retain control of his illusion. His voice emerged from his lips like a ghost from a grave. “Whose land is this, Queen Stella? Are you able to look me in the eye and tell me that were this happening in fair Faltha, and were you to look down from Fealty on the devastation of the Central Plains and the ruins of Instruere, you would not feel as I feel? That you would not vow as I have vowed? Can you? Can you tell me that?”
“No,” she said. “I would react the same way you have.” She licked her lips. “But I would be wrong.”
“Your caution is why an unruly gaggle of priests rules your land in your stead.”
Her eyes flashed. “And your folly is why Husk likely sits in your throne room while you lament the loss of your citizens.”
“Ah, Stella, could you ever doubt why I love you?” Kannwar said, his lips curling into a smile. “I fell in love with your tongue before any other part of you.”
“You did nothing of the sort,” she snapped, really angry now. “You were intrigued by the aroma of the Most High set in me, and held me against my will while you plotted to harness it. Don’t play the lovable cad with me. I remember what you were, and what you did. I heard what you said to Lenares this afternoon. You were an evil man seventy years ago, and I fail to see any evidence you have changed since.”
She took a series of swift strides away from him and disappeared down a side street. After a few moments Robal followed her,