Yet now, the perfection was gone. The healers had done what they could, but Triban Gnol could see the misshapen marring of once-flawless lines. He could still hear the snap of his finger bones, the betrayal of all that his mother had loved, had worshipped in their secret ways.

His father, of course, would have laughed. A sour grunt of a laugh. Well, not his true father, anyway. Simply the man who had ruled the household with thick-skulled murky cruelty. He had known that his wife’s cherished son was not his own. His hands were thick and clumsy-all the more viciously ironic in that artistic talent resided within those bludgeon tools. No, Triban Gnol’s once-perfect hands had come from his mother’s lover, the young (so young, then) consort, Turudal Brizad, a man who was anything but what he seemed to be. Anything, yes, and nothing as well.

She would have approved, he knew, of her son’s finding in the consort-his father-a perfect lover.

Such were the sordid vagaries of palace life in King Ezgara Diskanar’s cherished kingdom, all of which seemed aged now, exhausted, bitter as ashes in Triban Gnol’s mouth. The consort was gone, yet not gone. Touch withdrawn, probably for ever now, a consort whose existence had become as ephemeral as his timeless beauty.

Ephemeral, yes. As with all things that these hands had once held; as with all things that had passed through these long, slim fingers. He knew he was feeling sorry for himself. An old man, beyond all hopes of attraction for anyone. Ghosts crowded him, the array of stained hues that had once painted his cherished works of art, layer upon layer-oh, the only time they had been truly soaked in blood had been the night he had murdered his father. All the others had died somewhat removed from such direct effort. A host of lovers who had betrayed him in some way or other, often in the simple but terrible crime of not loving him enough. And now, like a crooked ancient, he took children to his bed, gagging them to silence their cries. Using them up. Watching his hands do their work, the failed and ever-failing artist in pursuit of some kind of perfection, yet destroying all that he touched.

The crowding ghosts were accusation enough. They did not need to whisper in his skull.

Triban Gnol watched his hands as he sat behind his desk, watched their hunt for beauty and perfection, lost now and for ever more. He broke my fingers. 1 can still hear-

‘Chancellor?’

He looked up, studied Sirryn, his newly favoured agent in the palace. Yes, the man was ideal. Stupid and unimaginative, he had probably tormented weaker children outside the tutor’s classroom, to’ compensate for the fog in his head that made every attempt at learning a pointless waste of time. A creature eager for faith, suckling at someone’s tit as if begging to be convinced that anything-absolutely any-thing-could taste like nectar.

‘It draws close to the eighth bell, sir.’

‘Yes.’

‘The Emperor-’

‘Tell me nothing of the Emperor, Sirryn. I do not need your observations on the Emperor.’

‘Of course. My apologies, Chancellor.’

He would see these hands before him painted crimson again, he now knew. In a most literal fashion. ‘Have you found Bruthen Trana?’

Sirryn’s gaze flickered, then fell to the floor. ‘No. He has truly vanished, sir.’

‘Hannan Mosag sent him away,’ Triban Gnol said, musing. ‘Back up to the Edur homeland, I suspect. To dig in the middens.’

‘The middens, sir?’

‘Heaps of garbage, Sirryn.’

‘But-why-’

‘Hannan Mosag did not approve of Bruthen’s precipitous stupidity. The fool very nearly launched a palace bloodbath. At the very least, sent away or not, Bruthen Trana has made it plain to all that such a bloodbath is imminent.’

‘But the Emperor cannot be killed. There can be no-’

‘That means nothing. It never has. I rule this empire. Besides, there is now a champion…’ Triban Gnol fell silent, then shook his head and slowly rose. ‘Come, Sirryn, it is time to tell the Emperor of the war we are now in.’

Outside in the corridor waited seven Letherii mages, called in from the four armies massing just west of Letheras. The Chancellor experienced a moment of regret that Kuru Qan was gone. And Enedictal and Nekal Bara, mages of impressive prowess. These new ones were but pale shadows, mostly supplanted by Hannan Mosag’s Cedance of Tiste Edur. Yet they would be needed, because there weren’t enough K’risnan left. And soon, the Chancellor suspected as he set out for the throne room, the others falling in behind him, soon there would be still fewer K’risnan.

The foreign enemy was deadly. They killed mages as a matter of course. Using explosive incendiaries, grenados. Able to somehow hide from the sorcery seeking them, they sprang deadly ambushes that rarely left behind a corpse of their own.