Samar extracted one mangled eye and was surprised to find two lenses, one concave, the other convex. She set those aside for later examination.

Cutting through the tough, scaled hide, she opened the neck regions, confirming the oversized veins and arteries necessary to feed an active brain, then continued on to reveal the chest region. Many of the ribs were already broken. She counted four lungs and two protolungs attached beneath them, these latter ones saturated with blood.

She cut through the lining of the first of three stomachs, then moved quickly back as the acids poured out. The blade of her knife sizzled and she watched as pitting etched into the iron surface. More hissing sounds, from the stone floor. Her eyes began watering.

Movement from the stomach, and Samar rose and took a step back. Worms were crawling out. A score, wriggling then dropping to the muddy stone. The colour of blued iron, segmented, each as long as an index finger. She glanced down at the crumbling knife in her hand and dropped the instrument, then collected wooden tongs from her satchel, moved to the edge of the acid pool, reached down and retrieved one of the worms.

Not a worm. Hundreds of legs, strangely finned, and, even more surprising, the creatures were mechanisms. Not living at all, the metal of their bodies somehow impervious to the acids. The thing twisted about in the grip of the tongs, then stopped moving. She shook it, but it had gone immobile, like a crooked nail. An infestation? She did not think so. No, there were many creatures that worked in concert. The pond of stomach acid had been home to these mechanisms, and they in turn worked in some fashion to the demon's benefit.

A hacking cough startled her, and she turned to see the Avower stumble to his feet. Hunched, twisted with arthritis, he shambled over. 'Samar Dev, the witch! What's that smell? Not you, I hope. You and me, we're the same sort, aren't we just?'

'We are?'

'Oh yes, Samar Dev.' He scratched at his crotch. 'We strip the layers of humanity, down to the very bones, but where does humanity end and animal begin? When does pain defeat reason? Where hides the soul and to where does it flee when all hope in the flesh is lost? Questions to ponder, for such as you and me. Oh how I have longed to meet you, to share knowledge-'

'You're a torturer.'

'Someone has to be,' he said, offended. 'In a culture that admits the need for torture, there must perforce be a torturer. A culture, Samar Dev, that values the acquisition of truths more than it does any single human life. Do you see? Oh,' he added, edging closer to frown down at the demon's corpse, 'the justifications are always the same.

To save many more lives, this one must be surrendered. Sacrificed.

Even the words used disguise the brutality. Why are torture chambers in the crypts? To mask the screams? True enough, but there's more.

This,' he said, waving one gnarled hand, 'is the nether realm of humanity, the rotted heart of unpleasantness.'

'I am seeking answers from something already dead. It is not the same-'

'Details. We are questioners, you and I. We slice back the armour to uncover the hidden truth. Besides, I'm retired. They want me to train another, you know, now that the Malazan laws have been struck down and torture's popular once more. But, the fools they send me! Ah, what is the point? Now, Falah'd Krithasanan, now he was something – you were likely just a child, then, or younger even. My, how he liked torturing people. Not for truths – he well understood that facile rubbish for what it was – facile rubbish. No, the greater questions interested him. How far along can a soul be dragged, trapped still within its broken body, how far? How far until it can no longer crawl back? This was my challenge, and oh how he appreciated my artistry!'

Samar Dev looked down to see that the rest of the mechanisms had all ceased to function. She placed the one she had retrieved in a small leather pouch, then repacked her kit, making sure to include the eye lenses. She'd get them to burn the rest of the body – well away from the city, and upwind.

'Will you not dine with me?'

'Alas, I cannot. I have work to do.'

'If only they'd bring your guest down here. Toblakai. Oh, he would be fun, wouldn't he?'

She paused. 'I doubt I could talk him into it, Avower.'

'The Falah'd has been considering it, you know.'

'No, I didn't know. I think it would be a mistake.'

'Well, those things are not for us to question, are they?'

'Something tells me Toblakai would be delighted to meet you, Avower.

Although it would be a short acquaintance.'

'Not if I have my way, Samar Dev!'

'Around Karsa Orlong, I suspect, only Karsa Orlong has his way.'

She returned to find the Teblor warrior poring over her collection of maps, which he'd laid out on the floor in the hallway. He had brought in a dozen votive candles, now lit and set out around him. He held one close as he perused the precious parchments. Without looking up, he said, 'This one here, witch. The lands and coast west and north… I was led to believe the Jhag Odhan was unbroken, that the plains ran all the way to the far-lands of Nemil and the Trell, yet here, this shows something different.'

'If you burn holes in my maps,' Samar Dev said, 'I will curse you and your bloodline for all eternity.'

'The Odhan sweeps westward, it seems, but only in the south. There are places of ice marked here. This continent looks too vast. There has been a mistake.'

'Possibly,' she conceded. 'Since that is the one direction I have not travelled, I can make no claim as to the map's accuracy. Mind you, that one was etched by Othun Dela Farat, a century ago. He was reputed to be reliable.'

'What of this region of lakes?' he asked, pointing to the northerly bulge along the coast, west of Yath Alban.

She set her equipment down, then, sighing, she crouched at his side. '

Difficult to cross. The bedrock is exposed there, badly folded, pocked with lakes and only a few, mostly impassable rivers. The forest is spruce, fir and pine, with low-lying thickets in the basins.'

'How do you know all that if you have never been there?'

She pointed. 'I am reading Dela's notes, there, along the border. He also says he found signs suggesting there were people living there, but no contact was ever made. Beyond lies the island kingdom of Sepik, now a remote subject of the Malazan Empire, although I would be surprised if the Malazans ever visited. The king was clever enough to send delegates proposing conditions of surrender, and the Emperor simply accepted.'

'The mapmaker hasn't written that much.'

'No, some of that information was mine. I have heard, now and then, certain odd stories about Sepik. There are, it seems, two distinct populations, one the subject of the other.' She shrugged at his blank look. 'Such things interest me.' Then frowned, as it became obvious that the distant expression on the giant's tattooed visage was born of something other than indifference. 'Is something wrong?'

Karsa Orlong bared his teeth. 'Tell me more of this Sepik.'

'I am afraid I have exhausted my knowledge.'

Scowling at her answer, he hunched down over the map once more. 'I shall need supplies. Tell me, is the weather the same as here?'

'You are going to Sepik?'

'Yes. Tell the Falah'd that I demand equipment, two extra horses, and five hundred crescents in silver. Dried foods, more waterskins. Three javelins and a hunting bow with thirty arrows, ten of them birdpointed. Six extra bowstrings and a supply of fletching, a brick of wax-'

'Wait! Wait, Karsa Orlong. Why would the Falah'd simply gift you all these things?'

'Tell him, if he does not, I will stay in this city.'

'Ah, I see.' She considered for a time, then asked, 'Why are you going to Sepik?'