brys glanced down and saw that the shattered leg was mending in painful-looking spasms, growing solid beneath the huge warrior's weight.

sudden weakness rushed through him.

'release my hand,' the warrior said, 'lest you die.'

nodding, brys pulled his hand free, and staggered back.

'will you live?'

'i hope so,' he gasped, his head spinning. 'now, before i go, tell me their names.'

'what?'

'i have a good memory, guardian. there will be no more enslavement, so long as i remain alive. and beyond my life, i will ensure that those names are not forgotten-'

'we are ancient gods, mortal. you risk-'

'you have earned your peace, as far as i am concerned. against the tiste edur - those who came before to chain one of your kin - you will be ready next time. my life can add to your strength, and hopefully it will be sufficient for you to resist.'

the guardian straightened to its full height. 'it shall, mortal. your sacrifice shall not be forgotten.'

'the names! i feel - i am fading-'

words filled his mind, a tumbling avalanche of names, each searing a brand in his memory. he screamed at the shock of the assault, of countless layers of grief, dreams, lives and deaths, of realms unimaginable, of civilizations crumbling to ruins, then dust.

stories. so many stories - ah, errant-

'errant save us, what have you done ?'

brys found himself lying on his back, beneath him a hard, enamelled floor. he blinked open his eyes and saw kuru qan's wizened face hovering over him.

'i could not find mael,' the king's champion said. he felt incredibly weak, barely able to lift a hand to his face.

'you've scarcely a drop of blood left in you, finadd. tell me all that happened.'

the holds forsake me, stories without end ... 'i discovered what the tiste edur have done, ceda. an ancient god, stripped of its names, bound by a new one. it now serves the edur.'

kuru qan's eyes narrowed behind the thick lenses. 'stripped of its names. relevant? perhaps. can one of those names be found? will it serve to pry it loose from hannan mosag's grasp?'

brys closed his eyes. of all the names now held within him... had any of the other gods known its kin's identity? 'i may have it, ceda, but finding it will take time.'

'you return with secrets, finadd brys beddict.'

'and barely a handful of answers.'

the ceda leaned back. 'you need time to recover, my young friend. food, and wine, and plenty of both. can you stand?'

'i will try...'

the humble manservant bugg walked through the darkness of sherp's last lane, so named because poor sherp died there a few decades past. he had been a fixture in this neighbourhood, bugg recalled. old, half blind and muttering endlessly about a mysterious cracked altar long lost in the clay beneath the streets. or, more specifically, beneath this particular lane.

his body had been found curled up within a scratched circle, amidst rubbish and a half-dozen neck-wrung rats. peculiar as that had been, there were few who cared or were curious enough to seek explanations. people died in the alleys and streets all the time, after all.

bugg missed old sherp, even after all these years, but some things could not be undone.

he had been awakened by a rattling of the reed mat that now served as a door to tehol's modest residence. a dirt-smeared child delivering an urgent summons. she now scampered a few paces ahead, glancing back every now and then to make sure she was still being followed.

at the end of sherp's last lane was another alley, this one running perpendicular, to the left leading down to a sinkhole known as errant's heel which had become a refuse pit, and to the right ceasing after fifteen paces in a ruined house with a mostly collapsed roof.

the child led bugg to that ruin.

one section remained with sufficient headroom to stand, and in this chamber a family now resided. nerek: six children and a grandmother who'd wandered down from the north after the children's parents died of truce fever - which itself was a senseless injustice, since truce fever was easily cured by any letherii healer, given sufficient coin.

bugg did not know them, but he knew of them, and clearly they in turn had heard of the services he was prepared to offer, in certain circumstances, free of charge.

a tiny hand reached out to close about his own and the girl led him through the doorway into a corridor where he was forced to crouch beneath the sagging, sloping ceiling. three paces along and the lower half of another doorway was revealed and, beyond it, a crowded room.