Sarkanos, Ivindonos and Ganath stood looking down on the heaped corpses, the strewn pieces of flesh and fragments of bone. A field of battle knows only lost dreams and the ghosts clutch futilely at the ground, remembering naught but the last place of their lives, and the air is sullen now that the clangour is past, and the last moans of the dying have dwindled into silence.
While this did not belong to them, they yet stood. Of Jaghut, one can never know their thoughts, nor even their aspirations, but they were heard to speak, then.
'All told,' said Ganath. 'This sordid tale here has ended, and there is no-one left to heave the standard high, and proclaim justice triumphant.'
'This is a dark plain,' said Ivindonos, 'and I am mindful of such things, the sorrow untold, unless witnessed.'
'Not mindful enough,' said Sarkanos.
'A bold accusation,' said Ivindonos, his tusks bared in anger. 'Tell me what I am blind to. Tell me what greater sorrow exists than what we see before us.'
And Sarkanos made reply, 'Darker plains lie beyond.'
Stela Fragment (Yath Alban)
Anonymous There were times, Captain Ganoes Paran reflected, when a man could believe in nothing. No path taken could alter the future, and the future remained ever unknown, even by the gods. Sensing those currents, the tumult that lay ahead, achieved little except the loss of restful sleep, and a growing suspicion that all his efforts to shape that future were naught but conceit.
He had pushed the horses hard, staying well clear of villages and hamlets where the Mistress stalked, sowing her deadly seeds, gathering to herself the power of poisoned blood and ten thousand deaths by her hand. Before long, he knew, that toll would rise tenfold. Yet for all his caution, the stench of death was inescapable, arriving again and again as if from nowhere, and no matter how great the distance between him and inhabited areas.
Whatever Poliel's need, it was vast, and Paran was fearful, for he could not understand the game she played here.
Back in Darujhistan, ensconced within the Finnest House, this land known as Seven Cities had seemed so far from the centre of things – or what he believed would soon become the centre of things. And it had been, in part, that mystery that had set him on this path, seeking to discover how what happened here would become enfolded into the greater scheme. Assuming, of course, that such a greater scheme existed.
Equally as likely, he allowed, this war among the gods would implode into a maelstrom of chaos. There had been need, he had once been told, for a Master of the Deck of Dragons. There had been need, he had been told, for him. Paran had begun to suspect that, even then, it was already too late. This web was growing too fast, too snarled, for any single mind to fathom.
Except maybe Kruppe, the famed Eel of Darujhistan… gods, I wish he was here, in my place, right now. Why wasn't he made the Master of the Deck of Dragons? Or maybe that incorrigible aplomb was naught but bravado, behind which the real Kruppe cowered in terror.
Imagine Raest's thoughts… Paran smiled, recollecting. It had been early morning when that little fat man knocked on the door of the Finnest House, flushed of face and beaming up at the undead Jaghut Tyrant who opened it wide and stared down upon him with pitted eyes.
Then, hands fluttering and proclaiming something about a crucial meeting, Kruppe somehow slid past the Azath guardian, waddling into the main hall and sinking with a delighted sigh of contentment into the plush chair beside the fireplace.
An unexpected guest for breakfast; it seemed even Raest could do nothing about it. Or would not. The Jaghut had been typically reticent on the subject.
And so Paran had found himself seated opposite the famed Defier of Caladan Brood – this corpulent little man in his faded waistcoat who had confounded the most powerful ascendants on Genabackis – and watched him eat. And eat. While somehow, at the same time, talking nonstop.
'Kruppe knows the sad dilemma, yes indeed, of sad befuddled Master.
Twice sad? Nay, thrice sad! Four times sad – ah, how usage of the dread word culminates! Cease now, Sir Kruppe, lest we find ourselves weeping without surcease!' Lifting one greasy finger. 'Ah, but Master wonders, does he not, how can one man such as Kruppe know all these things? What things, you would also ask, given the chance, said chance Kruppe hastens to intercept with suitable answer. Had Kruppe such an answer, that is. But lo! He does not, and is that not the true wonder of it all?'
'For Hood's sake,' Paran cut in – and got no further.
'Yes indeed! For Hood's sake indeed, oh, you are brilliant and so worthy of the grand title of Master of the Deck of Dragons and Kruppe' s most trusted friend! Hood, at the very centre of things, oh yes, and that is why you must hasten, forthwith, to Seven Cities.'
Paran stared, dumbfounded, wondering what detail in that barrage of words he had missed. 'What?'
'The gods, dear precious friend of Kruppe's! They are at war, yes?
Terrible thing, war. Terrible things, gods. The two, together, ah, most terribler!'
Terri- what? Oh, never mind.'
'Kruppe never does.'
'Why Seven Cities?'
'Even the gods cast shadows, Master of the Deck. But what do shadows cast?'
'I don't know. Gods?'
Kruppe's expression grew pained. 'Oh my, a nonsensical reply. Kruppe's faith in dubious friend lies shaking. No, shaken. Not lies, is. See how Kruppe shakens? No, not gods. How can gods be cast? Do not answer that – such is the nature and unspoken agreement regards rhetoric.
Now, where was Kruppe? Oh yes. Most terrible crimes are in the offing off in Seven Cities. Eggs have been laid and schemes have hatched! One particularly large shell is about to be broken, and will have been broken by the time you arrive, which means it is as good as broken right now so what are you waiting for? In fact, foolish man, you are already too late, or will be, by then, and if not then, then soon, in the imminent sense of the word. Soon, then, you must go, despite it being too late – I suggest you leave tomorrow morning and make use of warrens and other nefarious paths of inequity to hasten your hopeless quest to arrive. On time, and in time, and in due time you will indeed arrive, and then you must walk the singular shadow – between, dare Kruppe utter such dread words – between life and death, the wavy, blurry metaphor so callously and indifferently trespassed by things that should know better. Now, you have worn out Kruppe's ears, distended Kruppe's largesse unto bursting his trouser belt, and heretofore otherwise exhausted his vast intellect.' He rose with a grunt, then patted his tummy. 'A mostly acceptable repast, although Kruppe advises that you inform your cook that the figs were veritably mummified – from the Jaghut's own store, one must assume, yes, hmm?'
There had been some sense, Paran had eventually concluded, within that quagmire of verbosity. Enough to frighten him, in any case, leading him to a more intense examination of the Deck of Dragons. Wherein the chaos was more pronounced than it ever had been before. And there, in its midst, the glimmer of a path, a way through – perhaps simply imagined, an illusion – but he would have to try, although the thought terrified him.
He was not the man for this. He was stumbling, half-blind, within a vortex of converging powers, and he found he was struggling to maintain even the illusion of control.
Seeing Apsalar again had been an unexpected gift. A girl no longer, yet, it appeared, as deadly as ever. Nonetheless, something like humanity had revealed itself, there in her eyes every now and then. He wondered what she had gone through since Cotillion had been banished from her outside Darujhistan – beyond what she had been willing to tell him, that is, and he wondered if she would complete her journey, to come out the other end, reborn one more time.
He rose in his stirrups to stretch his legs, scanning the south for the telltale shimmer that would announce his destination. Nothing but heat-haze yet, and rugged, treeless hills rising humped on the pan.
Seven Cities was a hot, blasted land, and he decided that even without plague, he didn't like it much.
One of those hills suddenly vanished in a cloud of dust and flying debris, then a thundering boom drummed through the ground, startling the horses. As he struggled to calm them – especially his own mount, which had taken this opportunity to renew its efforts to unseat him, bucking and kicking – he sensed something else rolling out from the destroyed mound.
Omtose Phellack.
Settling his horse as best he could, Paran collected the reins and rode at a slow, jumpy canter towards the ruined hill.
As he neared, he could hear crashing sounds from within the barrow – for a barrow it was – and when he was thirty paces distant, part of a desiccated body was flung from the hole, skidding in a clatter through the rubble. It came to a stop, then one arm lifted tremulously, dropping back down a moment later. A bone-helmed skull flew into view, ropes of hair twisting about, to bounce and roll in the dust.
Paran reined in, watching as a tall, gaunt figure climbed free of the barrow, slowly straightening. Grey-green skin, trailing dusty cobwebs, wearing a silver-clasped harness and baldric of iron mail from which hung knives in copper scabbards – the various metals blackened or green with verdigris. Whatever clothing had once covered the figure's body had since rotted away.
A Jaghut woman, her long black hair drawn into a single tail that reached down to the small of her back. Her tusks were silver-sheathed and thus black. She slowly looked round, her gaze finding and settling on him. Vertical pupils set in amber studied Paran from beneath a heavy brow. He watched her frown, then she asked, 'What manner of creature are you?'
'A well-mannered one,' Paran replied, attempting a smile. She had spoken in the Jaghut tongue and he had understood… somehow. One of the many gifts granted by virtue of being the Master? Or long proximity with Raest and his endless muttering? Either way, Paran surprised himself by replying in the same language.
At which her frown deepened. 'You speak my tongue as would an Imass… had any Imass bothered to learn it. Or a Jaghut whose tusks had been pulled.'
Paran glanced over at the partial corpse lying nearby. 'An Imass like that one?'
She drew her thin lips back in what he took to be a smile. 'A guardian left behind – it had lost its vigilance. Undead have a tendency towards boredom, and carelessness.'
'T'lan Imass.'
'If others are near, they will come now. I have little time.'
'T'lan Imass? None, Jaghut. None anywhere close.'
'You are certain?'
'I am. Reasonably. You have freed yourself… why?'
'Freedom needs an excuse?' She brushed dust and webs from her lean body, then faced west. 'One of my rituals has been shattered. I must needs repair it.'
Paran thought about that, then asked, 'A binding ritual? Something, or someone was imprisoned, and, like you just now, it seeks freedom?'
She looked displeased with the comparison. 'Unlike the entity I imprisoned, I have no interest in conquering the world.'
Oh. 'I am Ganoes Paran.'
'Ganath. You look pitiful, like a malnourished Imass – are you here to oppose me?'
He shook his head. 'I was but passing by, Ganath. I wish you good fortune-'
She suddenly turned, stared eastward, head cocking.
'Something?' he asked. 'T'lan Imass?'
She glanced at him. 'I am not certain. Perhaps… nothing. Tell me, is there a sea south of here?'
'Was there one when you were… not yet in your barrow?'
'Yes.'
Paran smiled. 'Ganath, there is indeed a sea just south of here, and it is where I am headed.'
'Then I shall travel with you. Why do you journey there?'
'To talk with some people. And you? I thought you were in a hurry to repair that ritual?'
'I am, yet I find a more pressing priority.'
'And that is?'
'The need for a bath.'
Too bloated to fly, the vultures scattered with outraged cries, hopping and waddling with wings crooked, leaving the once-human feast exposed in their wake. Apsalar slowed her steps, not sure whether she wanted to continue walking down this main street, although the raucous chattering and bickering of feeding vultures sounded from the side avenues as well, leading her to suspect that no alternative route was possible.
The villagers had died suffering – there was no mercy in this plague, for it had carved a long, tortured path to Hood's Gate. Swollen glands, slowly closing the throat, making it impossible to eat solid food, and narrowing the air passages, making every breath drawn agony.
And, in the gut, gases distending the stomach. Blocked from any means of escape, they eventually burst the stomach lining, allowing the victim's own acids to devour them from within. These, alas, were the final stages of the disease. Before then, there was fever, so hot that brains were cooked in the skull, driving the person half-mad – a state from which, even were the disease somehow halted then and there – there was no recovery. Eyes wept mucus, ears bled, flesh grew gelatinous at the joints – this was the Mistress in all her sordid glory.
The two skeletal reptiles accompanying Apsalar had sprinted ahead, entertaining themselves by frightening the vultures and bursting through buzzing masses of flies. Now they scampered back, unmindful of the blackened, half-eaten corpses they clambered over.
'Not-Apsalar! You are too slow!'
'No, Telorast,' cried Curdle, 'not slow enough!'
'Yes, not slow enough! We like this village – we want to play!'
Leading her placid horse, Apsalar began picking her way down the street. A score of villagers had crawled out here for some unknown reason, perhaps in some last, pathetic attempt to escape what could not be escaped. They had died clawing and fighting each other. 'You are welcome to stay as long as you like,' she said to the two creatures.
'That cannot be,' Telorast said. 'We are your guardians, after all.
Your sleepless, ever-vigilant sentinels. We shall stand guard over you no matter how diseased and disgusting you become.'
'And then we'll pick out your eyes!'
'Curdle! Don't tell her that!'
'Well, we'll wait until she's sleeping, of course. Thrashing in fever.'
'Exactly. She'll want us to by then, anyway.'
'I know, but we've walked through two villages now and she still isn't sick. I don't understand. All the other mortals are dead or dying, what makes her so special?'
'Chosen by the usurpers of Shadow – that's why she can just saunter through with her nose in the air. We may have to wait before we can pick out her eyes.'
Apsalar stepped past the heap of corpses. Just ahead, the village came to an abrupt end and beyond stood the charred remnants of three outlying buildings. A crow-haunted cemetery surmounted a nearby low hill where stood a lone guldindha tree. The black birds crowded the branches in sullen silence. A few makeshift platforms attested to some early efforts at ceremony to attend the dead, but clearly that had been short-lived. A dozen white goats stood in the tree's shade, watching Apsalar as she continued on down the road, flanked by the skeletons of Telorast and Curdle.
Something had happened, far to the north and west. No, she could be more precise than that. Y'Ghatan. There had been a battle… and the committing of a terrible crime. Y'Ghatan's lust for Malazan blood was legendary, and Apsalar feared that it had drunk deep once more.
In every land, there were places that saw battle again and again, an endless succession of slaughter, and more often than not such places held little strategic value in any greater scheme, or were ultimately indefensible. As if the very rocks and soil mocked every conqueror foolish enough to lay claim to them. Cotillion's thoughts, these. He had never been afraid to recognize futility, and the world's pleasure in defying human grandiosity.
She passed the last of the burned-out buildings, relieved to have left their stench behind – rotting bodies she was used to, but something of that charred reek slipped beneath her senses like a premonition. It was nearing dusk. Apsalar climbed back into the saddle and gathered up the reins.
She would attempt the warren of Shadow, even though she already knew it was too late – something had happened at Y'Ghatan; at the very least, she could look upon the wounds left behind and pick up the trail of the survivors. If any existed.
'She dreams of death,' Telorast said. 'And now she's angry.'
'With us?'
'Yes. No. Yes. No.'
'Ah, she's opened a warren! Shadow! Lifeless trail winding through lifeless hills, we shall perish from ennui! Wait, don't leave us!'
They climbed out of the pit to find a banquet awaiting them. A long table, four high-backed Untan-style chairs, a candelabra in the centre bearing four thick-stemmed beeswax candles, the golden light flickering down on silver plates heaped with Malazan delicacies. Oily santos fish from the shoals off Kartool, baked with butter and spices in clay; strips of marinated venison, smelling of almonds in the northern D'avorian style; grouse from the Seti plains stuffed with bull-berries and sage; baked gourds and fillets of snake from Dal Hon; assorted braised vegetables and four bottles of wine: a Malaz Island white from the Paran Estates, warmed rice wine from Itko Kan, a fullbodied red from Gris, and the orange-tinted belack wine from the Napan Isles.
Kalam stood staring at the bounteous apparition, as Stormy, with a grunt, walked over, boots puffing in the dust, and sat down in one of the chairs, reaching for the Grisian red.
'Well,' Quick Ben said, dusting himself off, 'this is nice. Who's the fourth chair for, you think?'
Kalam looked up at the looming bulk of the sky keep. 'I'd rather not think about that.'
Snorting sounds from Stormy as he launched into the venison strips.
'Do you suspect,' Quick Ben ventured as he sat down, 'there is some significance to the selection provided us?' He collected an alabaster goblet and poured himself a helping of the Paran white. 'Or is it the sheer decadence that he wants to rub our noses in?'
'My nose is just fine,' Stormy said, tipping his head to one side and spitting out a bone. 'Gods, I could eat all of this myself! Maybe I will at that!'
Sighing, Kalam joined them at the table. 'All right, at least this gives us time to talk about things.' He saw the wizard glance suspiciously at Stormy. 'Relax, Quick, I doubt Stormy can hear us above his own chewing.'
'Hah!' the Falari laughed, spitting fragments across the table, one landing with a plop in the wizard's goblet. 'As if I give a Hood's toenail about all your self-important preening! You two want to talk yourselves blue, go right ahead – I won't waste my time listening.'
Quick Ben found a silver meat-spear and delicately picked the piece of venison from the goblet. He took a tentative sip, made a face, and poured the wine away. As he refilled the goblet, he said, 'Well, I'm not entirely convinced Stormy here is irrelevant to our conversation.'
The red-bearded soldier looked up, small eyes narrowing with sudden unease. 'I couldn't be more irrelevant if I tried,' he said in a growl, reaching again for the bottle of red.
Kalam watched the man's throat bob as he downed mouthful after mouthful.
'It's that sword,' said Quick Ben. 'That T'lan Imass sword. How did you come by it, Stormy?'
'Huh, santos. In Falar only poor people eat those ugly fish, and the Kartoolii call it a delicacy! Idiots.' He collected one and began scooping the red, oily flesh from the clay shell. 'It was given to me,' he said, 'for safekeeping.'
'By a T'lan Imass?' Kalam asked.
'Aye.'
'So it plans on coming back for it?'
'If it can, aye.'
'Why would a T'lan Imass give you its sword? They generally use them, a lot.'
'Not where it was headed, assassin. What's this? Some kind of bird?'
'Yes,' said Quick Ben. 'Grouse. So, where was the T'lan Imass headed, then?'
'Grouse. What's that, some kind of duck? It went into a big wound in the sky, to seal it.'
The wizard leaned back. 'Don't expect it any time soon, then.'
'Well, it took the head of a Tiste Andii with it, and that head was still alive – Truth was the only one who saw that – the other T'lan Imass didn't, not even the bonecaster. Small wings – surprised the thing could fly at all. Not very well, hah, since someone caught it!'
He finished the Grisian and tossed away the bottle. It thumped in the thick dust. Stormy then reached for the Napan belack. 'You know what's the problem with you two? I'll tell ya. I'll tell ya the problem. You both think too much, and you think that by thinking so much you get somewhere with all that thinking, only you don't. Look, it's simple.
Something you don't like gets in your way you kill it, and once you kill it you can stop thinking about it and that's that.'
'Interesting philosophy, Stormy,' said Quick Ben. 'But what if that " something" is too big, or too many, or nastier than you?'
'Then you cut it down to size, wizard.'
'And if you can't?'
'Then you find someone else who can. Maybe they end up killing each other, and that's that.' He waved the half-empty bottle of belack. '
You think you can make all sortsa plans? Idiots. I squat down and shit on your plans!'
Kalam smiled at Quick Ben. 'Stormy's onto something there, maybe.'
The wizard scowled. 'What, squatting-'
'No, finding someone else to do the dirty work for us. We're old hands at that, Quick, aren't we?'
'Only, it gets harder.' Quick Ben gazed up at the sky keep. 'All right, let me think-'
'Oh we're in trouble now!'
'Stormy,' said Kalam, 'you're drunk.'
'I ain't drunk. Two bottlesa wine don't get me drunk. Not Stormy, they don't.'
'The question,' said the wizard, 'is this. Who or what defeated the K'
Chain Che'Malle the first time round? And then, is that powerful force still alive? Once we work out the answers to those-'
'Like I said,' the Falari growled, 'you talk and talk and talk and you ain't getting a damned thing.'
Quick Ben settled back, rubbing at his eyes. 'Fine, then. Go on, Stormy, let's hear your brilliance.'
'First, you're assuming those lizard things are your enemy in the firs' place. Third, if the legends are true, those lizards defeated themselves, so what in Hood's soiled trousers are you panicking 'bout?
Second, the Adjunct wanted to know all 'bout them and where they're going and all that. Well, the sky keeps ain't going nowhere, and we already know what's inside 'em, so we done our job. You idiots want to break into one – what for? You ain't got a clue what for. And five, you gonna finish that white wine, wizard? 'Cause I ain't touching that rice piss.'
Quick Ben slowly sat forward and slid the bottle towards Stormy.
No better gesture of defeat was possible, Kalam decided. 'Finish up, everyone,' he said, 'so we can get outa this damned warren and back to the Fourteenth.'
'Something else,' said Quick Ben, 'I wanted to talk about.'
'So go ahead,' Stormy said expansively, waving a grouse leg. 'Stormy's got your answers, yes he does.'
'I've heard stories… a Malazan escort, clashing with a fleet of strange ships off the Geni coast. From the descriptions of the foe, they sound like Tiste Edur. Stormy, that ship of yours, what was it called?'
'The Silanda. Dead grey-skinned folk, all cut down on the deck, and the ship's captain, speared right through, pinned to his Hood-damned chair in his cabin – gods below, the arm that threw that…'
'And Tiste Andii… heads.'
'Bodies were below, manning the sweeps.'
'Those grey-skinned folk were Tiste Edur,' Quick Ben said. 'I don't know, maybe I shouldn't put the two together, but something about them makes me nervous. Where did that Tiste Edur fleet come from?'
Kalam grunted, then said, 'It's a big world, Quick. They could've come from anywhere, blown off course by some storm, or on an exploratory mission of some kind.'
'More like raiding,' Stormy said. 'If they attacked right off like they did. Anyway, where we found the Silanda in the first place – there'd been a battle there, too. Against Tiste Andii. Messy.'
Quick Ben sighed and rubbed his eyes again. 'Near Coral, during the Pannion War, the body of a Tiste Edur was found. It had come up from deep water.' He shook his head. 'I've a feeling we haven't seen the last of them.'
'The Shadow Realm,' Kalam said. 'It was theirs, once, and now they want it back.'
The wizard's gaze narrowed on the assassin. 'Cotillion told you this?'
Kalam shrugged.
'It keeps coming back to Shadowthrone, doesn't it? No wonder I'm nervous. That slimy, slippery bastard-'
'Oh Hood's balls,' Stormy groaned, 'give me that rice piss, if you're gonna go on and on. Shadowthrone ain't scary. Shadowthrone's just Ammanas, and Ammanas is just Kellanved. Just like Cotillion's Dancer.
Hood knows, we knew the Emperor well enough. And Dancer. They up to something? No surprise. They were always up to something, from the very start. I tell you both right now,' he paused for a swig of rice wine, made a face, then continued, 'when all the dust's settled, they' ll be shining like pearls atop a dung-heap. Gods, Elder Gods, dragons, undead, spirits and the scary empty face of the Abyss itself – they won't none a them stand a chance. You want to worry about Tiste Edur, wizard? Go ahead. Maybe they ruled Shadow once, but Shadowthrone'll take 'em down. Him and Dancer.' He belched. 'An' you know why? I'll tell you why. They never fight fair. That's why.'
Kalam looked over at the empty chair, and his eyes slowly narrowed.
Stumbling, crawling, or dragging themselves along through the bed of white ash, they all came to where Bottle sat, the sky a swirl of stars overhead. Saying nothing, not one of those soldiers, but each in turn managing one gentle gesture – reaching out and with one finger, touching the head of Y'Ghatan the rat.
Tender, with great reverence – until she bit that finger, and the hand would be snatched back with a hissed curse.
One after another, Y'Ghatan bit them all.
She was hungry, Bottle explained, and pregnant. So he explained. Or tried to, but no-one was really listening. It seemed that they didn't even care, that her bite was part of the ritual, now, a price of blood, the payment of sacrifice.
He told those who would listen that she had bitten him too.
But she hadn't. Not her. Not him. Their souls were inextricably bound, now. And things like that were complicated, profound even. He studied the creature where it was settled in his lap. Profound, yes, that was the word.
He stroked her head. My dear rat. My sweet- ow! Damn you! Bitch!
Black, glittering eyes looked up at him, whiskered nose twitching.
Vile, disgusting creatures.
He set the creature down and it could wander over a precipice for all he cared. Instead, the rat snuggled up against his right foot and curled into sleep. Bottle looked over at the makeshift camp, at the array of dim faces he could see here and there. No-one had lit a fire.
Funny, that, in a sick way.
They had come through it. Bottle still found it difficult to believe.
And Gesler had gone back in, only to return a while later. Followed by Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas, the warrior dragging Strings into view, then himself collapsing. Bottle could hear the man's snores that had been going on uninterrupted half the night.
The sergeant was alive. The honey smeared into his wounds seemed to have delivered healing to match High Denul, making it obvious that it had been anything but ordinary honey – as if the strange visions weren't proof enough of that. Still, even that was unable to replace the blood Strings had lost, and that blood loss should have killed him. Yet now the sergeant slept, too weak to manage much else, but alive.
Bottle wished he was as tired… in that way, at least, the kind that beckoned warm and welcoming. Instead of this spiritual exhaustion that left his nerves frayed, images returning again and again of their nightmare journey among the buried bones of Y'Ghatan. And with them, the bitter taste of those moments when all seemed lost, hopeless.
Captain Faradan Sort and Sinn had stashed away a supply of water-casks and food-packs, which they had since retrieved, but for Bottle no amount of water could wash the taste of smoke and ashes from his mouth. And there was something else that burned still within him. The Adjunct had abandoned them, forcing the captain and Sinn to desert.
True enough, it was only reasonable to assume noone had been left alive. He knew his feeling was irrational, yet it gnawed at him nonetheless.
The captain had talked about the plague, sweeping towards them from the east, and the need to keep the army well ahead of it. The Adjunct had waited as long as she could. Bottle knew all that. Still…
'We're dead, you know.'
He looked over at Koryk, who sat cross-legged nearby, a child sleeping beside him. 'If we're dead,' Bottle said, 'why do we feel so awful?'
'As far as the Adjunct's concerned. We're dead. We can just… leave.'
'And go where, Koryk? Poliel stalks Seven Cities-'
'Ain't no plague gonna kill us. Not now.'
'You think we're immortal or something?' Bottle asked. He shook his head. 'We survived this, sure, but that doesn't mean a damned thing.
It sure as Hood doesn't mean that the next thing to come along won't kill us right and quick. Maybe you're feeling immune – to anything and everything the world can throw at us, now. But, believe me, we're not.'
'Better that than anything else,' Koryk muttered.
Bottle thought about the soldier's words. 'You think some god decided to use us? Pulled us out for a reason?'
'Either that, Bottle, or your rat's a genius.'
'The rat was four legs and a good nose, Koryk. Her soul was bound. By me. I was looking through her eyes, sensing everything she sensed-'
'And did she dream when you dreamed?'
'Well, I don't know-'
'Did she run away, then?'
'No, but-'
'So she waited around. For you to wake back up. So you could imprison her soul again.'
Bottle said nothing.
'Any god tries to use me,' Koryk said in a low voice, 'it'll regret it.'
'With all those fetishes you wear,' Bottle noted, 'I'd have thought you'd be delighted at the attention.'
'You're wrong. What I wear ain't for seeking blessings.'
'Then what are they?'
'Wards.'
'All of them?'
Koryk nodded. 'They make me invisible. To gods, spirits, demons…'
Bottle studied the soldier through the gloom. 'Well, maybe they don't work.'
'Depends,' he replied.
'On what?'
'Whether we're dead or not.'
Smiles laughed from nearby. 'Koryk's lost his mind. No surprise, it being so small, and things being so dark in there…'
'Not like ghosts and all that,' Koryk said in a sneering tone. 'You think like a ten-year-old, Smiles.'
Bottle winced.
Something skittered off a rock close to Koryk and the soldier started.
'What in Hood's name?'
'That was a knife,' Bottle said, having felt it whip past him. '
Amazing, she saved one for you.'
'More than one,' Smiles said. 'And Koryk, I wasn't aiming for your leg.'
'I told you you weren't immune,' Bottle said.
'I'm – never mind.'
I'm still alive, you were going to say. Then, wisely, decided not to.
Gesler crouched down in front of the captain. 'We're a hairless bunch,' he said, 'but otherwise pretty well mending. Captain, I don't know what made you believe in Sinn, enough to run from the army, but I'm damned glad you did.'
'You were all under my command,' she said. 'Then you got too far ahead of me. I did my best to find you, but the smoke, the flames – all too much.' She looked away. 'I didn't want to leave it at that.'
'How many did the legion lose?' Gesler asked. She shrugged. 'Maybe two thousand. Soldiers were still dying. We were trapped, Fist Keneb and Baralta and about eight hundred, on the wrong side of the breach – until Sinn pushed the fire back – don't ask me how. They say she's a High Mage of some kind. There was nothing addled about her that night, Sergeant, and I didn't think she was addled when she tried getting back into the city.'
Nodding, Gesler was silent for a moment, then he rose. 'I wish I could sleep… and it looks like I'm not alone in that. I wonder why that is…'
'The stars, Sergeant,' said Faradan Sort. 'They're glittering down.'
'Aye, might be that and nothing more.'
'Nothing more? I would think, more than enough.'
'Aye.' He looked down at the small bite on his right index finger. '
All for a damned rat, too.'
'All of you fools are probably infected with plague, now.'
He started, then smiled. 'Let the bitch try.'
Balm rubbed the last crusted mud from his face, then scowled over at his corporal. 'You, Deadsmell, you think I didn't hear you praying and gibbering down there? You ain't fooled me about nothing worth fooling about.'
The man, leaning against a rock, kept his eyes closed as he replied, '
Sergeant, you keep trying, but we know. We all know.'
'You all know what?'
'Why you're talking and talking and still talking.'
'What are you talking about?'
'You're glad to be alive, Sergeant. And you're glad your squad's made it through in one piece, the only one barring Fid's, and maybe Hellian's, as far as I can tell. We were charmed and that's all there was to it. Damned charmed, and you still can't believe it. Well, neither can we, all right?'
Balm spat into the dust. 'Listen to you mewling on and on. Sentimental tripe, all of it. I'm wondering who cursed me so that I'm still stuck with all of you. Fiddler I can understand. He's a Bridgeburner. And gods run when they see a Bridgeburner. But you, you ain't nobody, and that's what I don't get. In fact, if I did get it…'
Urb. He's as bad as the priest who disappeared. The once-priest, what was his name again? What did he look like? Nothing like Urb, that's for sure. But just as treacherous, treasonous, just as rotten and vile as whatever his name was.
He ain't my corporal no more, that's for sure. I want to kill him… oh gods, my head aches. My jaw… my teeth all loose.
Captain says she needs more sergeants. Well, she can have him, and whatever squad he ends up with has my prayers and pity. That's for sure. Said there were spiders and maybe there were and maybe I wasn't conscious so's I couldn't go crazy, which maybe I woulda done, but that don't change one truth, and that's for sure as sure can be that they crawled on me. All over me – I can still feel where their little sticky pointy legs dug into my skin. All over. Everywhere. And he just let 'em do it.
Maybe captain's got a bottle of something. Maybe if I call her over and talk real sweet, real sane and reasonable, maybe then they'd untie me. I won't kill Urb. I promise. You can have him, Captain. That's what I'll say. And she'll hesitate – I would – but then nod – the idiot – and cut these ropes. And hand me a bottle and I'll finish it.
Finish it and everybody'll say, hey, it's all right, then. She's back to normal.
And that's when I'll go for his throat. With my teeth – no, they're loose, can't use 'em for that. Find a knife, that's what I have to do.
Or a sword. I could trade the bottle for a sword. I did it the other way round, didn't I? Half the bottle. I'll drink the other half. Half a bottle, half a sword. A knife. Half a bottle for a knife. Which I'll stick in his throat, then trade back, for the other half of the bottle – if I'm quick that should work fine. I get the knife and the whole bottle.
But first, she should untie me. That's only fair.
I'm fine, as everyone can see. Peaceful, thoughtful'Sergeant?'
'What is it, Urb?'
'I think you still want to kill me.'
'What makes you say that?'
'The way you growl and gnash your teeth, I guess.'
Not me, that's for sure.
Oh, that's why my teeth still hurt so. I've made them even looser with all that gnashing. Gods, I used to dream stuff like this, my teeth all coming loose. The bastard punched me. No different from that man who disappeared, what was his name again?
Flashwit levered her bulk further down in the soft bed her weight had impressed in the sand. 'I wish,' she said.
Mayfly pursed her lips, then adjusted the nose she'd had broken more times than she could count. Moving it around made clicking sounds that she found, for some reason, vaguely satisfying. 'You wish what?'
'I wish I knew things, I guess.'
'What things?'
'Well, listen to Bottle there. And Gesler, and Deadsmell. They're smart. They talk about things and all that other stuff. That's what I wish.'
'Yeah, well, all those brains are goin' t'waste though, ain't they?'
'What do you mean?'
Mayfly snorted. 'You and me, Flashwit, we're heavy infantry, right? We plant our feet and we make the stand, and it don't matter what it's for. None a that don't matter.'
'But Bottle-'
'Waste, Flashwit. They're soldiers, for Treach's sake. Soldiers. So who needs brains to soldier? They just get in the way of soldierin' and it's no good things gettin' in the way. They figure things out and that gives 'em opinions and then maybe they don't want t'fight as much no more.'
'Why wouldn't they want to fight no more 'cause of 'pinions?'
'It's simple, Flashwit. Trust me. If soldiers thought too much about what they're doin', they wouldn't fight no more.'
'So how come I'm so tired, anyway, only I can't sleep?'
'That's simple, too.'
'It is?'
'Yeah, an' it ain't the stars neither. We're waitin' for the sun to come up. We all want to see that sun, because it was looking like we'd never see it no more.'
'Yeah.' A long contemplative silence, then, 'I wish.'
'Now what do you wish?'
'Only, that I was smart as you, Mayfly. You're so smart you got no ' pinions and that's pretty smart an' it makes me wonder if you ain't goin' t'waste being a heavy an' that. A soljer.'
'I ain't smart, Flashwit. Trust me on that, an' you know how I know?'
'No, how?'
''Cause… down there… you an' me, an' Saltlick an' Shortnose an'
Uru Hela an' Hanno, us heavies. We didn't get scared, not one of us, and that's how I know.'
'It wasn't scary. Jus' dark, an' it seemed t'go on for ever an' waitin' for Bottle to get us through, well that got boring sometimes, you know.'
'Right, and did the fire get you scared?'
'Well, burnin' hurt, didn't it?'
'Sure did.'
'I didn't like that.'
'Me neither.'
'So, what do you think we're all gonna do now?'
'The Fourteenth? Don't know, save the world, maybe.'
'Yeah. Maybe. I'd like that.'
'Me too.'
'Hey, is that the sun comin' up?'
'Well, it's east where it's getting brighter, so I guess, yeah, it must be.'
'Great. I bin waiting for this. I think.'
Cuttle found sergeants Thom Tissy, Cord and Gesler gathered near the base of the slope leading up to the west road. It seemed they weren't much interested in the rising sun. 'You're all looking serious,' the sapper said.
'We got a walk ahead of us,' Gesler said, 'that's all.'
'The Adjunct had no choice,' Cuttle said. 'That was a firestorm – there was no way she could have known there'd be survivors – digging under it all that way.'
Gesler glanced at the other two sergeants, then nodded. 'It's all right, Cuttle. We know. We're not contemplating murder or anything.'
Cuttle turned to face the camp. 'Some of the soldiers are thinking wrong on all of this.'
'Aye,' said Cord, 'but we'll put 'em straight on it before this day's out.'
'Good. Thing is,' he hesitated, turning back to the sergeants, 'I've been thinking on that. Who in Hood's name is going to believe us? More like we did our own deal with the Queen of Dreams. After all, we got one of Leoman's officers with us. And now, with the captain and Sinn going and getting themselves outlawed, well, it could be seen we're all traitors or something.'
'We made no deal with the Queen of Dreams,' Cord said.
'Are you sure about that?'
All three sergeants looked at him then.
Cuttle shrugged. 'Bottle, he's a strange one. Maybe he did make some deal, with somebody. Maybe the Queen of Dreams, maybe some other god.'
'He'd have told us, wouldn't he?' Gesler asked.
'Hard to say. He's a sneaky bastard. I'm getting nervous about that damned rat biting every one of us, like it knew what it was doing and we didn't.'
'Just a wild rat,' said Thom Tissy. 'Ain't nobody's pet, so why wouldn't it bite?'
Gesler said, 'Listen, Cuttle, sounds like you're just finding new things to worry about. What's the point of doing that? What we've got ahead of us right now is a long walk, and us with no armour, no weapons and virtually no clothing – the sun's gonna bake people crisp.'
'We need to find a village,' Cord said, 'and hope to Hood plague ain't found it first.'
'There you go, Cuttle,' Gesler said, grinning. 'Now you got another thing to worry about.'
Paran began to suspect that his horse knew what was coming: nostrils flaring, tossing its head as it shied and stamped, fighting the reins all the way down the trail. The freshwater sea was choppy, silty waves in the bay rolling up to batter at sun-bleached limestone crags. Dead desert bushes poked skeletal limbs out of the muddy shallows and insects swarmed everywhere.
'This is not the ancient sea,' Ganath said as she approached the shoreline.
'No,' Paran admitted. 'Half a year ago Raraku was a desert, and had been for thousands of years. Then, there was a… rebirth of sorts.'
'It will not last. Nothing lasts.'
He eyed the Jaghut woman for a moment. She stood looking out on the ochre waves, motionless for a dozen heartbeats, then she made her way down into the shallows. Paran dismounted and hobbled the horses, narrowly evading an attempted bite from the gelding he had been riding. He unpacked his camp kit and set about building a hearth.
Plenty of driftwood about, including entire uprooted trees, and it was not long before he had a cookfire lit.
Finished her bathing, Ganath joined him and stood nearby, water streaming down her oddly coloured, smooth skin. 'The spirits of the deep springs have awakened,' she said. 'It feels as if this place is young once again. Young, and raw. I do not understand.'
Paran nodded. 'Young, aye. And vulnerable.'
'Yes. Why are you here?'
'Ganath, it might be safer for you if you left.'
'When do you begin the ritual?'
'It's already begun.'
She glanced away. 'You are a strange god. Riding a miserable creature that dreams of killing you. Building a fire with which to cook food.
Tell me, in this new world, are all gods such as you?'
'I'm not a god,' Paran said. 'In place of the ancient Tiles of the Holds – and I'll grant you I'm not sure that's what they were called – in any case, there is now the Deck of Dragons, a fatid containing the High Houses. I am the Master of that Deck-'
'A Master, in the same manner as the Errant?'
'Who?'
'The Master of the Holds in my time,' she replied.
'I suppose so, then.'
'He was an ascendant, Ganoes Paran. Worshipped as a god by enclaves of Imass, Barghast and Trell. They kept his mouth filled with blood. He never knew thirst. Nor peace. I wonder how he fell.'
'I think I'd like to know that detail myself,' Paran said, shaken by the Jaghut's words. 'No-one worships me, Ganath.'
'They will. You are newly ascended. Even in this world of yours, I am certain that there is no shortage of followers, of those who are desperate to believe. And they will hunt down others and make of them victims. They will cut them and fill bowls with their innocent blood, in your name, Ganoes Paran, and so beseech your intercession, your adherence to whatever cause they righteously fashion. The Errant thought to defeat them, as you might well seek to do, and so he became the god of change. He walked the path of neutrality, yet flavoured it with a pleasure taken in impermanence. The Errant's enemy was ennui, stagnation. This is why the Forkrul Assail sought to annihilate him.
And all his mortal followers.' She paused, then added, 'Perhaps they succeeded. The Assail were never easily diverted from their chosen course.'
Paran said nothing. There were truths in her words that even he recognized, and they now weighed upon him, settling heavy and imponderable upon his spirit. Burdens were born from the loss of innocence. Naivete. While the innocent yearned to lose their innocence, those who had already done so in turn envied the innocent, and knew grief in what they had lost. Between the two, no exchange of truths was possible. He sensed the completion of an internal journey, and Paran found he did not appreciate recognizing that fact, nor the place where he now found himself. It did not suit him that ignorance remained inextricably bound to innocence, and the loss of one meant the loss of the other.
'I have troubled your mind, Ganoes Paran.'
He glanced up, then shrugged. 'You have been… timely. Much to my regret, yet still,' he shrugged again, 'perhaps all for the best.'
She faced the sea again and he followed her gaze. A sudden calm upon the modest bay before them, whilst white-caps continued to chop the waters beyond. 'What is happening?' she asked.
'They're coming.'
Some distant clamour, now, rising as if from a deep cavern, and the sunset seemed to have grown sickly, its very fires slave to a chaotic tumult, as if the shades of a hundred thousand sunsets and sunrises now waged celestial war. Whilst the horizons closed in, flickering with darkness, smoke and racing storms of sand and dust.
A stirring upon the pellucid waters of the bay, silt clouds rising from beneath, and the calm was spreading outward now, south, stilling the sea's wildness.
Ganath stepped back. 'What have you done?'
Muted but growing, the scuffle and rumble, the clangour and throathum, the sound of marching armies, the echoing of locked shields, the tympanous beat of iron and bronze weapons upon battered rims, of wagons creaking and churning rutted roads, and now the susurration, thrumming collisions, walls of horseflesh hammering into rows of raised pikes, the animal screams filling the air, then fading, only for the collision to repeat, louder this time, closer, and there was a violent patter cutting a swath across the bay, leaving a pale, muddy red road in its wake that bled outward, edges tearing, even as it sank down into the depths. Voices, now, crying out, bellowing, piteous and enraged, a cacophony of enmeshed lives, each one seeking to separate itself, seeking to claim its own existence, unique, a thing with eyes and voice. Fraught minds clutching at memories that tore away like shredded banners, with every gush of lost blood, with every crushing failure – soldiers, dying, ever dyingParan and Ganath watched, as colourless, sodden standards pierced the surface of the water, the spears lifting into the air, streaming mud – standards, banners, pikes bearing grisly, rotting trophies, rising along the entire shoreline now.
Raraku Sea had given up its dead.
In answer to the call of one man.
White, like slashes of absence, bone hands gripping shafts of black wood, forearms beneath tattered leather and corroded vambraces, and then, lifting clear of the water, rotted helms and flesh-stripped faces. Human, Trell, Barghast, Imass, Jaghut. The races, and all their race-wars. Oh, could I drag every mortal historian down here, to this shore, so that they could look upon our true roll, our progression of hatred and annihilation.
How many would seek, desperate in whatever zealotry gripped them, to hunt reasons and justifications? Causes, crimes and justices – Paran's thoughts stuttered to a halt, as he realized that, like Ganath, he had been backing up, step by step, pushed back, in the face of revelation.
Oh, these messengers would earn so much… displeasure. And vilification. And these dead, oh how they'd laugh, understanding so well the defensive tactic of all-out attack. The dead mock us, mock us all, and need say nothing…
All those enemies of reason – yet not reason as a force, or a god, not reason in the cold, critical sense. Reason only in its purest armour, when it strides forward into the midst of those haters of tolerance, oh gods below, I am lost, lost in all of this. You cannot fight unreason, and as these dead multitudes will tell you – are telling you even now – certitude is the enemy.
'These,' Ganath whispered, 'these dead have no blood to give you, Ganoes Paran. They will not worship. They will not follow. They will not dream of glory in your eyes. They are done with that, with all of that. What do you see, Ganoes Paran, in these staring holes that once were eyes? What do you see?'
'Answers,' he replied.
'Answers?' Her voice was harsh with rage. 'To what?'
Not replying, Paran forced himself forward, one step, then another.
The first ranks stood upon the shore's verge, foam swirling round their skeletal feet, behind them thousands upon thousands of kin.
Clutching weapons of wood, bone, horn, flint, copper, bronze and iron.
Arrayed in fragments of armour, fur, hide. Silent, now, motionless.
The sky overhead was dark, lowering and yet still, as if a storm had drawn its first breath… only to hold it.
Paran looked upon that ghastly rank facing him. He was not sure how to do this – he had not even known if his summoning would succeed. And now… there are so many. He cleared his throat, then began calling out names.
'Shank! Aimless! Runter! Detoran! Bucklund, Hedge, Mulch, Toes, Trotts!' And still more names, as he scoured his memory, his recollection, for every Bridgeburner he knew had died. At Coral, beneath Pale, in Blackdog Forest and Mott Wood, north of Genabaris and northeast of Nathilog – names he had once fixed in his mind as he researched – for Adjunct Lorn – the turgid, grim history of the Bridgeburners. He drew upon names of the deserters, although he knew not if they lived still or, if indeed dead, whether or not they had returned to the fold. The ones that had vanished in Blackdog's great marshes, that had disappeared after the taking of Mott City.
And when he was done, when he could remember no more names, he began his list again.
Then saw one figure in the front row dissolving, melting into sludge that pooled in the shallow water, slowly seeping away. And in its place arose a man he recognized, the fire-scorched, blasted face grinning – Paran belatedly realized that the brutal smile held no amusement, only the memory of a death-grimace. That and the terrible damage left behind by a weapon.
'Runter,' Paran whispered. 'Black Coral-'
'Captain,' cut in the dead sapper, 'what are you doing here?'
I wish people would stop asking me that. 'I need your help.'
More Bridgeburners were forming in the front ranks. Detoran. Sergeant Bucklund. Hedge, who now stepped from the water's edge. 'Captain. I always wondered why you were so hard to kill. Now I know.'
'You do?'
'Aye, you're doomed to haunt us! Hah! Hah hah!' Behind him, the others began laughing.
Hundreds of thousands of ghosts, all joined in laughter, was a sound Ganoes Paran never, ever wanted to hear again. Mercifully, it was shortlived, as if all at once the army of dead forgot the reason for their amusement.
'Now,' Hedge finally said, 'as you can see, we're busy. Hah!'
Paran shot out a hand. 'No, please, don't start again, Hedge.'
'Typical. People need to be dead to develop a real sense of humour.
You know, Captain, from this side the world seems a whole lot funnier.
Funny in a stupid, pointless way, I'll grant you-'
'Enough of that, Hedge. You think I don't sense the desperation here?
You're all in trouble – even worse, you need us. The living, that is, and that's the part you don't want to admit-'
'I admitted it clear enough,' Hedge said. 'To Fid.'
'Fiddler?'
'Aye. He's not too far away from here, you know. With the Fourteenth.'
'He's with the Fourteenth? What, has he lost his mind?'
Hedge smirked. 'Damn near, but, thanks to me, he's all right. For now.
This ain't the first time we've walked among the living, Captain. Gods below, you shoulda seen us twist Korbolo's hair – him and his damned Dogslayers – that was a night, let me tell you-'
'No, don't bother. I need your help.'
'Fine, be that way. With what?'
Paran hesitated. He'd needed to get to this point, yet now that he'd arrived, this was suddenly the last place he wanted to be. 'You, here,' he said, 'in Raraku – this sea, it's a damned gate. Between whatever nightmare world you're from, and mine. I need you, Hedge, to summon… something. From the other side.'
The mass of ghosts collectively recoiled, the motion snatching a tug of air seaward.
The dead Bridgeburner mage Shank asked, 'Who you got in mind, Captain, and what do you want it to do?'
Paran glanced back over a shoulder at Ganath, then back again. '
Something's escaped, Shank. Here, in Seven Cities. It needs to be hunted down. Destroyed.' He hesitated. 'I don't know, maybe there are entities out there that could do it, but there's no time to go looking for them. You see, this… thing… it feeds on blood, and the more blood it feeds on, the more powerful it gets. The First Emperor's gravest mistake, attempting to create his own version of an Elder God – you know, don't you? What – who – I am talking about. You know… it's out there, loose, unchained and hunting-'
'Oh it hunted all right,' Hedge said. 'They set it free, under a geas, then gave their own blood to it – the blood of six High Mages, priests and priestesses of the Nameless Ones – the fools sacrificed themselves.'
'Why? Why set Dejim Nebrahl free? What geas did they set upon it?'
'Just another path. Maybe it'll lead where they wanted it to, maybe not, but Dejim Nebrahl is now free of its geas. And now it just… hunts.'
Shank asked, in a tone filled with suspicion, 'So, Captain, who is it you want? To take the damned thing down?'
'I could only think of one… entity. The same entity that did it the first time. Shank, I need you to find the Deragoth.'