I have listed separately some of the oral legends pertaining to the fall of Kuan-Hador. The one most told concerns the return of the shining swords. Among the nomads of the Varnii – distant relatives of the Chiatze – the shamen speak a succession of doggerel verses at season feasts. The first and last verse read:

But seek ye not the Men of Clay,

Who buried lie in crafted night,

Their shining swords are put away,

Their eyes are closed against the light.

Death must await these Men of Clay,

Who stand in rows of ghostly white,

And will until that dreadful day,

When they awake to one last fight.

A more complete translation can be found in Appendix 5. The Historian Ventaculus produced an appealing essay on the song, claiming it to be a metaphor for the death and resurrection of those of heroic virtue, a faith system not unusual among warrior peoples.

Waylander put the scroll back in its rightful place on the shelf and strolled from the library. Minutes later he emerged on to the central terrace outside the Banquet Hall. Kysumu was waiting there, standing by the balustrade and staring out over the bay and the sea beyond. As Waylander approached the little swordsman turned. He bowed deeply. Waylander returned the compliment.

'I have found little,' he told the Rajnee. 'There are stories of an ancient city that once ruled this land. Apparently it was destroyed by warriors with shining swords.'

'A city of demons,' said Kysumu.

'So it is said.'

'They are returning.'

'That is quite a leap of imagination,' said Waylander. 'The city fell around three thousand years ago. The scroll I examined was written a thousand years ago. One attack on a merchant and his bodyguards is too little to convince me.'

'I also discovered a scroll,' said Kysumu. 'It talked of nomads avoiding the ruins because their legends say the demons were not all slain, but had escaped through a gateway to another world, one day to return.'

'Even so, the evidence is small.'

'Perhaps,' said Kysumu. 'But when I see birds flying south I know winter is coming. They do not need to be large birds, Grey Man.'

Waylander smiled. 'Let us say you are correct, and the demons of Kuan-Hador are returning. What is your plan?'

'I have no plan. I will fight them. I am Rajnee.'

'Matze Chai tells me you believe your sword brought you here.'

'It is not a belief, Grey Man, it is a fact. And now that I am here I know it is right. How far are the ruins from the palace?'

'Less than a day's ride.'

'Will you loan me a horse?'

'I'll do better than that,' said Waylander. 'I'll take you myself.'

If one fact of life was incontrovertible for Yu Yu Liang it was that one golden ounce of good luck was invariably followed by several pounds of bad. Usually, in his experience, falling upon him from a great height. Or, as his mother would say, 'When the emperor's parade passes by, the horse-turd collectors are not far behind.'

The blonde-haired Norda had left his bed only moments before, and Yu Yu was happier than he had been in months. This was despite the initial criticism offered by the woman. 'You are not in a race,' she had whispered to him, as he clung to her.

He had paused, his heart pounding wildly. 'A race?' he managed to say, between great gulps of air.

'Be slow. We have plenty of time.'

If Nashda, the crippled god of all labourers, had appeared in his room offering him immortality at that moment it could not have been sweeter. First, there was this beautiful woman lying beneath him, her golden legs around his hips. Second, there was not a queue of impatient ditch-diggers outside the door shouting for him to hurry. Third, as far as he knew, this glorious creature desired no money from him. Which was fortuitous since he had no money. And now to be told he had plenty of time . . . Could Heaven be any sweeter?

He took her advice. There were many new joys to discover, and some obstacles to overcome. Kissing a woman who still had all her teeth was surprisingly pleasant. Almost as pleasant as the fact that there was no sandglass on the table beside the bed, swiftly trickling his time away.

If life could get better than this, Yu Yu Liang did not know how.

The first indications that there was a price to be paid for such pleasure came just after she left, when he pulled on his harsh, woollen shirt. His upper back tingled with pain from the scratches to his skin. She had also bitten his ear, which had been most pleasurable at the time, but now throbbed a little.

Even so Yu Yu was whistling a merry tune as he stepped from the room – to find himself facing three of the Grey Man's guards.

The first, a stocky man with tightly curled golden hair, was staring at him malevolently. 'You have made a bad mistake, you slant-eyed pig,' he said. 'You think you can come here and force yourself on our women?'

In Yu Yu's village there had been a Source temple, and many of the children had attended school there. They had no wish to learn the tongue of the round-eye, but the priests had supplied two meals a day, and for this it was worth putting in a little study. Yu Yu had been a quick learner, but lack of practice since then meant he needed a little time to translate complicated sentences. Apparently he had committed some kind of error and was being accused of stealing a woman's one-eyed pig. He looked into the man's face and saw the hatred there, then flicked his gaze to the man on either side. Both were staring at him through narrowed eyes. 'Well, now you are going to learn a little lesson,' continued the first man. 'We're going to teach you to stick with your own kind. Understand, yellow man?'

Despite having no knowledge of the pig theft, Yu Yu understood only too well the lesson they were about to deliver.

'I said, do you understand?'

The man's hatred turned briefly to shock, and then to blank emptiness as Yu Yu's left fist cannoned into his nose. He was already unconscious as the right cross followed. The guard hit the floor, blood seeping from his nostrils. A second guard lunged forward. Yu Yu butted him full in the face then brought his knee up into the man's groin.

The guard gave a strangled cry of pain and sagged against the Chiatze. Yu Yu pushed him away and downed him with a left hook to the jaw.

'You give lessons too?' Yu Yu asked the last guard.

The man shook his head vehemently. 'I didn't want to be here,' he said. 'It wasn't my idea.'

'I don't steal pigs,' said Yu Yu, then stalked away down the corridor, his good mood evaporating. There were scores of guards in the Grey Man's palace and when next they came it would be in greater numbers. This meant, at best, a bad beating.

Yu Yu had suffered such beatings before, blows and kicks raining in on him. The last such attack, just over a year ago, had almost killed him. His left arm had been broken in three places. Several ribs had been snapped, one of which had pierced his lung. It took months to recover, months of hardship and hunger. Unable to work he had been reduced, at first, to begging for rice at the poorhouse. Finally he had journeyed back to the Source temple. Some of the priests still remembered him, and he had been welcomed warmly. They tended his broken bones, and fed him. When his strength returned he journeyed back to the site of his beating and sought out singly each of the eight men involved in the attack. And he thrashed them. The last had been the most difficult. Shi Da was six and a half feet tall, heavily muscled and supremely tough. It had been his kicks that had snapped Yu Yu's ribs. Yu Yu had given a lot of thought to challenging Shi Da. It was a matter of honour that a challenge should be made, but the timing had to be exactly right.