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bizarre realm so far from the world she knew. And she wondered whether that was a bad sign. Her companion, Leoman of the Flails, had named it the ‘Shores of Creation’.
    Firstly, there was the dawn – if such a term could be applied. It seemed to emerge from beneath the sea of molten light. It began as a brightening in one direction, call that the east if you must, though any magnet and needle brought here probably would not know what to do. The glimmering sea of energy seemed to give up some of its shine and this bright wash, or wave, swelled over the dome of the starry sky, obscuring it in a kind of daylight that, in its turn, faded back into starry night.
    Of their route of entry, the Chaos Whorl, she could find only the faintest bruising against the horizon in one direction, and that fading like the last traces of twilight. Perhaps the army of Tiste Liosan with Jayashul and her brother, L’oric, had overcome the magus who sustained that gap, or tear, in creation.
    Or perhaps he’d simply fled. Who knew? Not she. Not trapped here in this eternal neverplace. Which was just as well, since yet again she’d failed. Even with the help of her witch aunt Agayla and the Enchantress, the Queen of Dreams herself, she’d failed. And now it was over, everything, over and done. No more striving. No more seeking. No more self-recrimination – what was the point?
    It was, she decided, in one way deliciously liberating.
    She laid her head on Leoman’s bare arm. Was it then desperation that finally drove them together? Or mere loneliness? They were, after all, the only man and woman in all creation. And this man: one of the Malazan Empire’s deadliest enemies. He had been bodyguard to the rebel leader Sha’ik. Then he’d commanded the Seven Cities Army of the Apocalypse and delivered to the Empire one of its bloodiest maulings at the city of Y’Ghatan.
    Yet no ogre. Harsh, yes. Calculating, and a survivor. In the end not too unlike her.
    His breathing pattern changed and she knew he was awake. He sat up, ran his gaze down her naked flank and thigh and smiled from beneath his long moustache. ‘Good morning to you.’
    Gods, how she ached to tell him to get rid of that moustache! ‘If it is a morning.’
    Grunting, he crossed his legs and set his arms on his knees. ‘We can only assume.’
    ‘So, what now? Do we build a hut from driftwood? Weave hats from leaves and raise a brood of savages?’
    ‘There is no driftwood,’ he said absently, eyes narrowed to the south.
    She sifted a hand through the fine black sand they lay upon. ‘I’d always wondered how those old creation of the race myths ran. Populating the land was one thing, but what about the second generation? I suppose if you’re all for polygamy and incest in the first place it wouldn’t strike you as a problem …’
    She glanced up: his narrowed gaze was steady on the distance. ‘Burn take it! You’re not ignoring me already, are you?’
    His mouth quirked. ‘Not yet.’ He raised his chin to the south. ‘Our friend is gone.’
    She rolled over, scanned the sky over the shore. Gone indeed, their titanic neighbour. A being so immense it seemed as if he could hug the entire floating mountain of the Moon’s Spawn within the span of his arms. Now there was no sign of him. And she hadn’t heard a thing.
    She sprang to her feet, began dressing. ‘Why didn’t you say something, dammit!’
    He peered up at her, still smiling. ‘I didn’t want to interrupt. You don’t like it when I interrupt you.’
    She threw her weapon belt over a shoulder. ‘Very funny. C’mon.’
    He pulled on the silk shorts he wore beneath his felt trousers – for the itching, he’d explained. ‘Something tells me there’s no hurry, Kiska. If there’s any place to abandon haste, this is it.’
    She continued arming herself. ‘Your problem is you’re lazy. You’d be happy just to lie here all day.’
    ‘And make love to you? Certainly.’
    ‘
Leoman!
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