A mystery without an answer. Trull suspected it was never intended as a bridge. Rather, it had been built for some other purpose. It did not make sense to him that it functioned solely as what had immediately occurred to him the first time he had visited. There were, after all, easier ways to measure the passage of time.
Trull straightened, then waved his warriors across.
Ahlrada took the lead.
They reached the other side and fanned out, seeking cover. The ground resumed its downward slope, amidst boulders, pines and straggly oaks. They would cautiously move down in a few moments, to search for defensible positions that permitted a line of sight down the trail.
Trull crouched near Ahlrada, scanning the area ahead, when he heard the warrior grunt, then step away, swearing under his breath.
‘What’s wrong, Captain?’
‘I felt it… move. Here.’
Trull edged over, and saw that Ahlrada’s original position had been on a slightly curved panel of stone, set lower than the surrounding rock. It was covered in dust and gravel, but looked too smooth to be natural. He reached down and brushed the panel clear.
And saw arcane symbols carved into the stone, row upon row, the language unknown to him. Deeply delineated grooves formed an incomplete box around the writing, the base and side lines visible. Beneath the base a new row of lettering was just beginning to show.
Trull glanced back at the bridge, then back at the recessed panel. ‘It moved?’
‘Yes, I am certain of it,’ Ahlrada said. ‘Not much, but yes.’
‘Was there a sound?’
‘More felt than heard, Leader. As if something huge and buried was… shifting.’
Trull stared down at the panel, running his fingers along the lettering. ‘Do you recognize the language?’
Ahlrada shrugged and looked away. ‘We should head down, Leader.’
‘You have seen such writing before.’
‘Not in… stone. In ice. It doesn’t matter.’
‘Ice?’
‘I once lived and hunted with the Den-Ratha, on the north coast. North and east, deep into the ice seas. Before the unification. There was a wall, covered in such writing, a berg that blocked our way. Twenty man-heights high, half a league wide. But it sank into the sea – it was gone the next season.’
Trull knew that Ahlrada had, like Binadas, journeyed far and wide, had fashioned blood-bound kinships with many Edur from rival tribes. And, like Trull himself, had opposed the wars of subjugation conducted by Hannan Mosag. By all counts, he realized, they should be friends. ‘What did your Den-Ratha comrades say about it?’
‘The Tusked Man wrote them, they said.’ He shrugged again. ‘It is nothing. A myth.’
‘A man with tusks?’
‘He has been… seen. Over generations, sightings every now and then. Skin of green or grey. Tusks white as whalebone. Always to the north, standing on snow or ice. Leader, this is not the time.’
Trull sighed, then said, ‘Send the squads down.’
A short time later Canarth reported that he smelled rotting meat.
But it was only a dead owl, lying beside the trail.
There were dark times for the Letherii, so long ago now. The First Empire, from which vast fleets had sailed forth to map the world. The coasts of all six continents had been charted, eight hundred and eleven islands scattered in the vast oceans, ruins and riches discovered, ancient sorceries and fierce, ignorant tribes encountered. Other peoples, not human, all of whom bled easily enough. Barghast, Trell, Tartheno, Fenn, Mare, Jhag, Krinn, Jheck… Colonies had been established on foreign coasts. Wars and conquests, always conquests. Until… all was brought down, all was destroyed. The First Empire collapsed in upon itself Beasts rose in the midst of its cities, a nightmare burgeoning like Plague.
The Emperor who was One was now Seven, and the Seven were scattered, lost in madness. The great cities burned. And people died in the millions.
The nightmare had a name, and that name was T’lan Imass.
Two words, inspiring hatred and terror. But beyond those two words, there was nothing. All memory of who or what the T’lan Imass had been was lost in the chaos that followed.
Few Letherii remained who were aware of even that much. True, they knew the name ‘First Empire’. And they knew of the fall of that glorious civilization of so long ago, a civilization that was their legacy. And little else, barring the prophecy of rebirth.
Udinaas could no longer make that claim of blissful ignorance for himself. Within the world of ghosts and shades, the past lived on, breathed like a thing alive and ever restive. And voices haunted him, long dead voices. The Tiste Andii shade, Wither, was indifferent to the Letherii slave’s own desires, his pleading for silence, for an end to the grisly cacophony of regrets which seemed to be all that held ghosts together,
