Crokus called up after him, 'How do you know?'
'Because everything's water-worn, lad. Waves crumbled this sea wall. Century after century of waves. I grew up in a port city, remember. I've seen what water can do. The Emperor had Malaz Bay dredged before the Imperial piers were built — revealed old sea walls and the like.' Reaching the top, he paused to catch his breath. 'Showed everyone that Malaz City's older than anybody'd realized.'
'And that the sea levels have risen since,' Mappo observed.
'Aye.'
At the top of the sea wall the city stretched out before them. While the remains were weathered, it was clear that the city had been deliberately destroyed. Every building had been reduced to rubble, revealing a cataclysmic use of force and fury. Scrub brush filled every open space that remained and low, gnarled trees clung to foundation stones and surmounted the mounds of wreckage.
Statuary had been a primary feature of the architecture, lining the broad colonnades and set in niches on every building wall. Marble body parts lay everywhere, each displaying the rigid style that Mappo had seen on the potsherd. The Trell began to sense a familiarity with the assortment of human figures portrayed.
Icarium was nowhere to be seen.
'Now where?' Fiddler asked.
A frail keening rising in his head, bringing sweat to his dark skin, Mappo stepped forward.
'Caught a scent of something, have you?'
He barely heard the sapper's question.
The city's pattern was hard to distinguish from what remained, yet Mappo followed his own mental map, born of his memory of the legend, its cadence, its precise metering when recounted in the harsh, clashing dialect of archaic Trell. People who possessed no written language carried the use of speech to astonishing extremes. Words were numbers were codes were formulae. Words held secret maps, the measuring of paces, the patterns of mortal minds, of histories, of cities, of continents and warrens.
The tribe Mappo had adopted all those centuries ago had chosen to return to the old ways, rejecting the changes that were afflicting the Trell. The elders had shown Mappo and the others all that was in danger of being lost, the power that resided in the telling of tales, the ritual unscrolling of memory.
Mappo knew where Icarium had gone. He knew what the Jhag would find. His heart thundering savagely in his chest, his pace increased as he scrambled over the rubble, pushing through thickets of thorn which lacerated even his tough hide.
Fiddler called out somewhere behind him, but the Trell did not respond. He'd found one of the curving avenues and was making for the centre.
The seven scorpion-sting thrones had once towered over the enclosure, each seventy-seven arm-spans high. Each had been shattered …
Little remained of the offerings and tributes that had once crowded the circle of sand, with one exception, before which Icarium now stood. The Jhag was motionless, his head tilted upwards to take in the immense construction that rose before him.
Its iron gears showed no rust, no corrosion, and would still be moving in a measure that could not be seen by mortal eyes. The enormous disc that dominated the structure stood at an angle, its marble face smothered with etched symbols. It faced the sun, though that fiery orb was barely visible through the sky's golden haze.
Mappo slowly walked towards Icarium and stopped two paces behind him.
His presence was sensed, for Icarium spoke. 'How can this be, friend?'
It was the voice of a lost child, and it twisted like a barbed shaft in the Trell's heart.
'This is mine, you see,' the Jhag continued. 'My …
His voice fell away.
Mappo hugged himself, unable to speak, unable even to think. Anguish and fear filled him until he too felt like a child, come face to face with a nightmare.
