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And Hull Beddict, who had forged blood-ties with those fierce tribes, was there to witness all his enthusias debts, the debts exchanged for land The deadly maze lined with traders, merchants, seducers of false need, purveyors of destructive poisons Defiance answered with annihilation The devouring of pride, independence, and self-sufficiency In all, a war so profoundly cynical in its cold, heartless expediting that no honourable soul could survive witness Especially when that soul was responsible for it For all of it

And to this day, the Nerek worshipped Hull Beddict As did the half-dozen indebted beggars ere all that was left of the Faraed And the scattered re and drunk in the pit towns outside the cities to the south, still bore the three bar tattoos beneath their left shoulders – a match to those on Hull’s own back

He sat now in silence beside her, his eyes on the ebbing flauards had returned to the capital, bearing the King’s Reed The Sentinel was Sentinel no longer Nor would he return to the southlands He had walked into the o, a day out fro aniht him back At least some of the way Oh, but it was far less noble than it first seemed Perhaps it would have been Truly noble Had I not then made sore use of him

She had succulorious in that

Seren wondered if he would ever forgive her She then wondered if she would ever forgive herself

‘Buruk the Pale knows all that I need to learn,’ Hull Beddict said

‘Possibly’

‘He will tell ardless of his instructions,’ she said, ‘he reame, Hull Head of a merchant house conveniently placed in Trate, with considerable experience dealing with the Hiroth and Arapay’ And, through e into Edur lands

‘Hannan Mosag will send his warriors after those ships,’ Hull Beddict said ‘The queen’s interest in those ’

‘I expect she has anticipated the loss’

The man beside her was not the naive youth he had once been But he was long reht of hand that was so ling with the n at work here ‘I begin to see the path she takes,’ he said after a time, and the bleak despair in his voice was so raw that she looked away, blinking

He went on, ‘This is the curse, then, that we are so inclined to look ahead, ever ahead As if the path before us should be any different from the one behind us’

Aye, and it pays to relance back

I really should stop doing that

‘Five wings will buy you a grovel,’ Tehol Beddict muttered from his bed ‘Haven’t you ever wondered how odd it is? Of course, every god should have a throne, but shouldn’t it also follow that every throne built for a god is actually occupied? And if it isn’t, who in their right mind decided that it hile to worship an eed stool at the foot of the bed, Bugg paused in his knitting He held out and exa on, one eye squeezing into a critical squint

Tehol’s gaze flicked down at his servant ‘I’th close to, if not identical with, that of ht Why do you persist in this conceit? You’ve no talent to speak of, in , co’

‘Not half ashis knitting

‘Well, I see no point in arguing that’ He sighed, wiggling his toes beneath the threadbare sheet The as freshening, blessedly cool and only faintly reeking of the south shore’s Stink Flats Bed and stool were the only furniture on the roof of Tehol’s house Bugg still slept below, despite the sweltering heat, and only cah to see Saved on la dreadfully expensive now that the whales were getting scarce

He reached down to the half-dozen dried figs on the tarnished plate Bugg had set down beside hi trip to the public privies awaitstheof the workers on the dome of the Eternal Domicile Purely accidental, this exquisitely unobstructed view of the distant palace rising fro for that, particularly the way the nearby towers and Third Height bridges so neatly fraara Diskanar’s conceit ‘Eternal Domicile indeed Eternally unfinished’