'Is this the biggest pillar you've seen, Heboric?' Felisin asked. 'There's a column in Aren ... or so I've heard ... that's as high as twenty men, and carved in a spiral from top to bottom. Beneth described it to me once.'
'Seen it,' Baudin grumbled. 'Not as wide, but maybe higher. What's this one made of, Priest?'
'Jade.'
Baudin grunted phlegmatically, but Felisin saw his eyes widen slightly. 'Well, I've seen taller. I've seen wider—'
'Shut up, Baudin,' Heboric snapped, wrapping his arms around himself. He glared up at the man from under the ridge of his brows. 'That's not a column over there,' he rasped. 'It's a finger.'
Dawn stole into the sky, spreading shadows on the landscape. The details of that carved jade finger were slowly prised from the gloom. Swells and folds of skin, the whorls of the pad, all became visible. So too did a ridge in the sand directly beneath it – another finger.
Fingers, to hand. Hand to arm, arm to body . . . For all the logic of that progression, it was impossible, Felisin thought. No such thing could be fashioned, no such thing could stand or stay in one piece. A hand, but no arm, no body.
Heboric said nothing, wrapped around himself, motionless as the night's darkness faded. He held the wrist that had touched the edifice tucked under him, as if the memory of that contact brought pain. Staring at him in the growing light, Felisin was struck anew by his tattoos. They seemed to have deepened somehow, become sharper.
Baudin finally rose and began pitching the two small tents, close to the base of the finger, where the shadows would hold longest. He ignored the towering monolith as if it was nothing more than the bole of a tree, and set about driving deep into the sand the long, thin spikes through the first tent's brass-hooped corners.
An orange tint suffused the air as the sun climbed higher. Although Felisin had seen that colour of sky before on the island, it had never before been so saturated. She could almost taste it, bitter as iron.
As Baudin began on the second tent, Heboric finally roused himself, his head lifting as he sniffed the air, then squinted upward. 'Hood's breath!' he growled. 'Hasn't there been enough?'
'What is it?' Felisin demanded. 'What's wrong?'
'There's been a storm,' the ex-priest said. 'That's Otataral dust.'
At the tents, Baudin paused. He ran a hand across one shoulder, then frowned at his palm. 'It's settling,' he said.
'We'd best get under cover—'
Felisin snorted. 'As if that will do any good! We've mined the stuff, in case you've forgotten. Whatever effect it's had on us, it's happened long ago.'
'Back at Skullcup we could wash ourselves at day's end,' Heboric said, slinging an arm through the food pack's strap and dragging it towards the tents.
She saw that he still held his other stump – the one that had touched the edifice – tight against his midriff.
'And you think that made a difference?' she asked. 'If that's true, why did every mage who worked there die or go mad? You're not thinking clearly, Heboric—'
'Sit there, then,' the old man snapped, ducking under the first tent's flap and pulling the pack in after him.
Felisin glanced at Baudin. The thug shrugged, resumed readying the second tent, without evident haste.
She sighed. She was exhausted, yet not sleepy. If she took to the tent, she would in all likelihood simply lie there, eyes open and studying the weave of the canvas above her face.
'Best get inside,' Baudin said.
'I'm not sleepy.'
He stepped close, the motion fluid like a cat's. 'I don't give a damn if you're sleepy or not. Sitting out under the sun will dry you out, meaning you'll drink more water, meaning less for us, meaning get in this damned tent, lass, before I lay a hand to your backside.'
'If Beneth was here you wouldn't—'
'The bastard's dead!' he snarled. 'And Hood take his rotten soul to the deepest pit!'
She sneered. 'Brave now – you wouldn't have dared stand up against him.'
He studied her as he would a bloodfly caught in a web. 'Maybe I did,' he said, a sly grin showing a moment before he turned away.
Suddenly cold, Felisin watched the thug stride over to the other tent, crouch down and crawl inside. I'm not fooled, Baudin. You were a mongrel skulking in alleys, and all that's changed is that you've left the alleys behind. You'd squirm in the sand at Beneth's feet, if he were here. She waited another minute in defiance before entering her own tent.
