If you seek the crumbled bones
of the T'lan Imass,
gather into one hand
the sands of Raraku

The Holy Desert
Anonymous

 

Kulp felt like a rat in a vast chamber crowded with ogres, caged in by shadows and but moments away from being crushed underfoot. Never before when entering the Meanas Warren had it felt so ... fraught.

There were strangers here, intruders, forces so inimical to the realm that the very atmosphere bridled. The essence of himself that had slipped through the fabric was reduced to a crouching, cowering creature. And yet, all he could feel was a series of fell passages, the spun wakes that marked the paths the unwelcome had taken. His senses shouted at him that – for the moment at least – he was alone, the dun sprawled-out landscape devoid of all life.

Still he trembled with terror.

Within his mind he reached back a ghostly hand, finding the tactile reassurance of the place where his body existed, the heave and slush of blood in his veins, the solid weight of flesh and bone. He sat cross-legged in the captain's cabin of the Silanda, watched over by a wary, restless Heboric, while the others waited on the deck, ever scanning the unbroken, remorselessly flat horizon on all sides.

They needed a way out. The entire Elder Warren they'd found themselves in was flooded, a soupy, shallow sea. The oarsmen could propel Silanda onward for a thousand years, until the wood rotted in their dead hands, the shafts snapping, until the ship began to disintegrate around them, still the drum would beat and the backs would bend. And we'd be long dead by then, nothing but mouldering dust. To escape, they must find a means of shifting warrens.

Kulp cursed his own limitations. Had he been a practitioner of Sere, or Denul or D'riss or indeed virtually any of the other warrens accessible to humans, he would find what they needed. But not Meanas. No seas, no rivers, not even a Hood-damned puddle. From within his warren, Kulp was seeking to effect a passage through to the mortal world . . . and it was proving problematic.

They were bound by peculiar laws, by rules of nature that seemed to play games with the principles of cause and effect. Had they been riding a wagon, the passage through the warrens would unerringly have taken them on a dry path. The primordial elements asserted an intractable consistency across all warrens. Land to land, air to air, water to water.

Kulp had heard of High Mages who – it was rumoured – had found ways to cheat those illimitable laws, and perhaps the gods and other Ascendants possessed such knowledge as well. But they were as beyond a lowly cadre mage as the tools of an ogre's smithy to a cowering rat.

His other concern was the vastness of the task itself. Pulling a handful of companions through his warren was difficult, but manageable. But an entire ship! He'd hoped he would find inspiration once within the Meanas Warren, some thunderbolt delivering a simple, elegant solution. With all the grace of poetry. Was it not Fisher Kel'Tath himself who once said poetry and sorcery were the twin edges to the knife in every man's heart? Where then are my magic cants?

Kulp sourly admitted that he felt as stupid within Meanas as he did sitting in the captain's cabin. The art of illusion is grace itself. There must be a way to ... to trick our way through. What's real versus what isn't is the synergy within a mortal's mind. And greater forces? Can reality itself be fooled into asserting an unreality?

His shouting senses changed pitch. Kulp was no longer alone. The thick, turgid air of the Meanas Warren – where shadows were textured like ground glass and to slip through them was to feel a shivering ecstasy – had begun to bulge, then bow, as if something huge approached, pushing the air before it. And whatever it was, it was coming fast.

A sudden thought flooded the mage's mind. And moreover, it possessed ... elegance. Togg's toes, can I do this? Building pressure, then vacuous wake, a certain current, a certain flow. Hood, it ain't water, but close enough.

I hope.

He saw Heboric jump back in alarm, striking his head on a low crossbeam in the cabin. Kulp slipped back into his body and loosed a rasping gasp. 'We're about to go, Heboric. Get everyone ready!'

The old man was rubbing a stump against the back of his head. 'Ready for what, Mage?'

'Anything.'

Kulp slid back out, mentally clambering back over his anchor within Meanas.

The Unwelcome was coming, a force of such power as to make the febrile atmosphere shiver. The mage saw nearby shadows vibrate into dissolution. He felt outrage building in the air, in the loamy earth underfoot. Whatever was passing through this warren had drawn the attention of... of whatever – Shadowthrone, the Hounds – or perhaps warrens truly are alive. In any case, on it came, in arrogant disregard.

Kulp suddenly thought back to Sormo's ritual that had drawn them into the T'lan Imass warren outside Hissar. Oh, Hood, Soletaken or D'ivers ... but such power! Who in the Abyss has such power? He could think of but two: Anomander Rake, the Son of Darkness, and Osric. Both Soletaken, both supremely arrogant. If there were others, the tales of their activities would have reached him, he was certain. Warriors talk about heroes. Mages talk about Ascendants. He would have heard.

Rake was on Genabackis, and Osric was reputed to have journeyed to a continent far to the south a century or so back. Well, maybe the cold-eyed bastard's back. Either way, he was about to find out.

The presence arrived. His spiritual belly flat on the soft ground, Kulp craned his head skyward.

The dragon came low to the earth. It defied every image of a draconian being Kulp had ever seen. Not Rake, not Osric. Hugely boned, with skin like dry shark hide, its wing-span dwarfed even that of the Son of Darkness – who has within him the blood of the draconian goddess – and the wings had nothing of the smooth, curving grace; the bones were multi-jointed in a crazed pattern, like that of a crushed bat wing, each knobbed joint prominent beneath taut, cracked skin. The dragon's head was as wide as it was long, like a viper's, the eyes high on its skull. There was no ridged forehead, instead the skull sloped back to a basal serration almost buried in neck and jaw muscles.

A dragon roughly cast, a creature exhaling an aura of primordial antiquity. And, Kulp realized with a breathless start as his senses devoured all that the creature projected, it was undead.

The mage felt it become aware of him as it sailed in a whisper twenty arm-spans overhead. A sudden sharpening of intensity that quickly passed into indifference.

As the dragon's wake arrived with a piercing wind, Kulp rolled onto his back and hissed the few words of High Meanas he possessed. The warren's fabric parted, a tear barely large enough to allow the passage of a horse. But it opened onto a vacuum, and the shrieking wind became a roar.

Still hovering between realms, Kulp watched in awe as Silanda's mud-crusted, battered prow filled the rent. The fabric split wider, then yet wider. Suddenly, the ship's beam seemed appallingly broad. The mage's awe turned to fear, then terror. Oh no, I've really done it now.

Milky, foaming water gushed in around the ship's hull. The portalway was tearing wider on all sides, uncontrolled, as the weight of a sea began to rush through.

A wall of water descended on Kulp and a moment later it struck, destroying his anchor, his spiritual presence. He was back in the pitching, groaning captain's cabin. Heboric was half in and half out of the cabin doorway, scrambling to find purchase as Silanda rode the wave.

The ex-priest shot Kulp a glare when he saw the mage clamber upright. 'Tell me you planned this! Tell me you've got it all under control, Mage!'

'Of course, you idiot! Can't you tell?' He climbed his way round the bolted-down furniture to the passage, stepping over Heboric as he went. 'Hold the fort, old man, we're counting on you!'

Heboric snarled a few choice words after him as Kulp made his way to the main deck.

If the Unwelcome's passage was to be bitterly tolerated and not directly opposed by the powers within Meanas, the rending of the warren obliterated the option of restraint. This was damage on a cosmic scale, a wounding quite possibly beyond repair.

I may just have destroyed my own warren. If reality can't be fooled. Of course it can be fooled – I do it all the time!

Kulp scrambled onto the main deck and hurried to the sterncastle. Gesler and Stormy were at the steering oar, both men grinning like demented fools as they struggled to stay the course. Gesler pointed forward and Kulp turned to see the vague, ghostlike apparition of the dragon, its narrow, bony tail waving in side-to-side rhythm like a snake crossing sand. As he watched, the creature's wedge-shaped head appeared as it twisted to cast its dead, black eye sockets in their direction.

Gesler waved.

Shaking himself, Kulp forced his way into the wind, coming to the stern rail which he gripped with both hands. The rent was already far away – yet still visible, meaning it must be ... oh, Hood! Water gushed in a tumbling torrent within the wake left by the Soletaken dragon. That it did not spread out to all sides was due entirely to the mass of shadows Kulp saw assailing its edges – and being destroyed in the effort. Yet still more arrived. The task of healing the breach was so overwhelming as to deny any opportunity of approaching the rent, of sealing the wound itself.

Shadowthrone! And every other hoary Ascendant bastard within hearing! Maybe I've got no faith in any of you, but you'd better acquire a faith in me. And fast! Illusion's my gift, here and now. Believe! Eyes on the rent, Kulp braced his legs wide, then released the stern rail and raised high both arms.

It shall close ... it shall heal! The scene before him wavered, the tear sealing, stitching together the edges. The water slowed. He pushed harder, willing the illusion to become real. His limbs shook. Sweat sprang out on his skin, soaked his clothing.

Reality pushed back. The illusion blurred. Kulp's knees buckled. He gripped the railing to keep himself upright. He was failing. No strength left. Failing. Dying...

The force that struck him from behind was like a physical blow to the back of his head. Stars spasmed across his vision. An alien power swept through him, flinging his body back upright. Spread-eagled, he felt his feet leave the tilted deck. The power held him, hovering in place, a will as cold as ice flooding his flesh.

The power was undead. The will that gripped him was a dragon's. Tinged with irritation, reluctant to act, it nevertheless grasped the illogic of Kulp's sorcerous effort ... and gave it all the force it needed. Then more.

He screamed, pain lancing through him with glacial fire.

Undead cared nothing for the limits of mortal flesh, a lesson now burning in his bones.

The distant rent closed. All at once other powers were channelling through the mage. Ascendants, grasping Kulp's outrageous intent, swept in to join the game with dark glee. Always a game. Damn you bastards one and all! I take back my prayers! Hear me? Hood take you all!

He realized the pain was gone, the Soletaken dragon withdrawing its attention as soon as other forces arrived to take its place. He remained hovering a few feet above the deck, however, his limbs twitching as the powers using him playfully plucked at his mortality. Not the indifference of an undead, but malice. Kulp began to yearn for the former.

He fell suddenly, cracking both knees on the dirt-smeared deck. Too! done with, now discarded . . .

Stormy was at his side, waving a wineskin before the mage's face. Kulp grasped it and poured until his mouth was full of the tart liquid.

'We ride the dragon's wake,' the soldier said. 'Though not on water any more. That gush has closed up tight as a sapper's arse. Whatever you did, Mage, it worked.'

'Not over yet,' Kulp muttered, trying to still his trembling limbs. He swallowed more wine.

'Watch yourself with that, then,' Stormy said with a grin. 'It packs a punch, right to the back of the head—'

'I won't notice the difference – my skull's already full of pulp.'

'You lit up with blue fire, Mage. Never seen anything like it. Make a damned good tavern tale.'

'Ah, I've achieved immortality at last. Take that, Hood!'

'Well enough to stand?'

Kulp was not too proud to accept the soldier's arm as he tottered to his feet. 'Give me a few moments,' he said, 'then I'll try to slip us from the warren ... back to our realm.'

'Will the ride be as rough, Mage?'

'I hope not.'

 

Felisin stood on the forecastle deck, watching the mage and Stormy passing the wineskin between them. She had felt the presence of the Ascendants, the cold, bloodless attention plucking and prodding at the ship and all who were upon it. The dragon was the worst of them all, gelid and remote. Like fleas on its hide, that's all we were to it.

She swung about. Baudin was studying the massive winged apparition cleaving the path ahead, his bandaged hand resting lightly on the carved rail. Whatever they rode rolled beneath them in a whispering surge. The oars still plied with remorseless patience, though it was clear that Silanda was moving more swiftly than anything muscle and bone could achieve – even when those muscles and bones were undead.

Look at us. A handful of destinies. We command nothing, not even our next step in this mad, fraught journey. The mage has his sorcery, the old soldier his stone sword and the other two their faith in the Tusked God. Heboric . . . Heboric has nothing. And as for me, I have pocks and scars. So much for our possessions.

'The beast prepares...'

She glanced over at Baudin. Oh yes, I forgot the thug. He has

his secrets, for what that's worth, like as not scant little. 'Prepares what? Are you an expert in dragons as well?'

'Something's opening ahead – there's a change in the sky. See it?'

She did. The unrelieved grey pall had acquired a stain ahead, a smudge of brass that deepened, grew larger. A word to the mage, I think—

But even as she turned, the stain blossomed, filling half the sky. From somewhere far behind them came a howl of curdled outrage. Shadows sped across their path, tumbled to the sides as Silanda's prow clove through them. The dragon crooked its wings, vanishing into a blazing inferno of bronze fire.

Spinning, Baudin wrapped Felisin in his huge arms and ducked down around her as the fire swept over the ship. She heard his hiss as the flames engulfed them.

The dragon's found a warren . . . to sear the fleas from its hide!

She flinched as the flames licked around Baudin's protective mass. She could smell him burning – the leather shirt, the skin of his back, his hair. Her gasps drew agony into her lungs.

Then Baudin was running, carrying her effortlessly in his arms, leaping down the companionway to the main deck. Voices were shouting. Felisin caught a glimpse of Heboric – his tattoos wreathed in black smoke – staggering, striking the port rail, then plummeting over the ship's side.

Silanda burned.

Still running, Baudin plunged past the mainmast. Kulp lunged into view and grasped the thug's arms as he tried to scream something the roaring fires swept away. But Baudin had become a thing mindless in its pain. His arm flung outward, and the mage was hurled back through the flames.

Bellowing, Baudin lurched on, a blind, hopeless flight to the sterncastle. The marines had vanished – either incinerated or dying somewhere below decks. Felisin did not struggle. Seeing that no escape was possible, she almost welcomed the bites of fire that now came with increasing frequency.

She simply watched as Baudin carried her over the stern rail.

They fell.

The breath was knocked from her lungs as they struck hard-packed sand. Still clutched in an embrace, they rolled down a steep slope and came to rest amidst a pile of water-smoothed cobbles. The bronze fire was gone.

Dust settling around them, Felisin stared up at bright sunlight. Somewhere near her head flies buzzed, the sound so natural that she trembled – as if desperately held defensive walls were crumbling within her. We've returned. Home. She knew it with instinctive certainty.

Baudin groaned. Slowly he pushed himself away, the cobbles sliding and grating beneath him.

She looked at him. The hair was gone from his head, leaving a flash-burned pate the colour of mottled bronze. His leather shirt was nothing but stitched strips hanging down his broad back like fragments of charred webbing. If anything, the skin of his back was darker and more mottled than that of his head. The bandages on his hand were gone as well, revealing swollen fingers and bruised joints. Incredibly, his skin was not cracked, not split open; instead, he had the appearance of having been gilded. Tempered.

Baudin rose, slowly, each move aching with precision. She saw him blink, draw a deep breath. His eyes widened as he looked down at himself.

Not what you were expecting. The pain fades – I see it in your face – now only a memory. You've survived, but somehow ... it all feels different. It feels. You feel.

Can nothing Ml you, Baudin?

He glanced at her, then frowned.

'We're alive,' she said.

She followed suit when he clambered upright. They stood in a narrow arroyo, a gorge where flash floods had swept through with such force as to pack the bends of the channel with skull-sized rocks. The cut was less than five paces wide, the sides twice the height of a man and banded in variously coloured layers of sand.

The heat was fierce. Sweat ran in runnels down her back. 'Can you see anywhere we can climb out?' she asked.

'Can you smell Otataral?' Baudin muttered.

A chill wrapped her bones. We're back on the island— 'No. Can you?'

He shook his head. 'Can't smell a damned thing. Just a thought.'

'Not a nice one,' she snapped. 'Let's find a way out.' You expect me to thank you for saving my life, don't you? You're waiting for even a single word, or maybe something as small as a look, a meeting of the eyes. You can wait for ever, thug.

They worked their way along the choked channel, surrounded by a whirring cloud of flies and their own echoes.

'I'm ... heavier,' Baudin said after a few minutes.

She paused, glanced back at him. 'What?'

He shrugged. 'Heavier.' He kneaded his own arm with his uninjured hand. 'More solid. I don't know. Something's changed.'

Something's changed. She stared at him, the emotions within her twisting around unvoiced fears.

'I could've sworn I was burning away to bones,' he said, his frown deepening.

'I haven't changed,' she said, turning and continuing on. She heard him follow a moment later.

They found a side channel, a cleft where torrents of water had rushed down to join the main channel's course, cutting through the layers of sandstone. This track quickly lost its depth, opening out after twenty or so paces. They emerged onto the edge of a range of blunt hills overlooking a broad valley of cracked earth. More hills, sharper and ragged, rose on the other side, blurry behind waves of heat.

Five hundred paces out on the pan stood a figure. At its feet lay a humped shape.

'Heboric,' Baudin said, squinting. 'The one standing.'

And the other one? Dead or alive? And who?

They walked side by side towards the ex-priest, who now watched them. His clothing too had burned away to little more than charred rags. Yet his flesh, beneath that skein of tattooing, was unmarred.

As they neared, Heboric gestured towards his own bald pate. 'Suits you, Baudin,' he said with a wry grin.

'What?' Felisin's tone was caustic. 'Are you two a brotherhood now?'

The figure at the old man's feet was the mage, Kulp. Her gaze fell to him. 'Dead.'

'Not quite,' Heboric said. 'He'll live, but he hit something going over the side.'

'Awaken him, then,' Felisin said. 'I don't plan on waiting in this heat just so he can get some beauty sleep. We're in a desert again, old man, in case you hadn't noticed. And desert means thirst, not to mention the fact that we're without food or anything like supplies. And finally, we've no idea where we are—'

'On the mainland,' Heboric said. 'Seven Cities.'

'How do you know that?'

The ex-priest shrugged. 'I know.'

Kulp groaned, then sat upright. One hand gingerly probing a lump above his left eye, the mage looked around. His expression soured.

'The Seventh Army's camped just over yonder,' Felisin said.

For a moment he looked credulous, then he gave a weary smile. 'Funny, lass.' He climbed to his feet and scanned the horizon on all sides before tilting his head back and sniffing the air. 'Mainland,' he pronounced.

'Why didn't all that white hair burn off?' Felisin asked. 'You're not even singed.'

'That dragon's warren,' Heboric said, 'what was it?'

'Damned if I know,' Kulp admitted, running a hand through the white shock on his head as if to confirm that it still existed. 'Chaos, maybe – a storm of it between warrens – I don't know. Never seen anything like it before, though that don't mean much – I'm no Ascendant, after all—'

'I'll say,' Felisin muttered.

The mage squinted at her. 'Those pocks on your face are fading.'

This time it was she who was startled.

Baudin grunted.

She whirled on him. 'What's so funny?'

'I saw that, only it don't make you any prettier.'

'Enough of this,' Heboric said. 'It's midday, meaning it'll get hotter before it gets cooler. We need somewhere to shelter.'

'Any sign of the marines?' Kulp asked.

'They're dead,' Felisin said. 'They went below decks, only the ship was on fire. Dead. Fewer mouths to feed.'

No-one replied to that.

Kulp took the lead, evidently choosing as their destination the far ridge of hills. The others followed without comment.

Twenty minutes later Kulp paused. 'We'd better pick up our pace. I smell a storm coming.'

Felisin snorted. 'All I smell is rank sweat – you're standing too close, Baudin, go away.'

'I'm sure he would if he could,' Heboric muttered, not un-sympathetically. A moment later he looked up in surprise, as if he had not intended to voice aloud that thought. His toadlike face twisted in dismay.

Felisin waited to regain control of her breathing, then she swung to face the thug.

Baudin's small eyes were like dull coins, revealing nothing.

'Bodyguard,' Kulp said, with a slow nod. His voice was cold as he addressed Heboric. 'Out with it. I want to know who our companion is, and where his loyalties lie. I let it slide before, because Gesler and his soldiers were on hand. But not now. This girl has a bodyguard – why? Right now, I can't see anyone caring a whit for a cruel-hearted creature like this one, meaning this loyalty's been bought. Who is she, Heboric?'

The ex-priest grimaced. 'Tavore's sister, Mage.'

Kulp blinked. 'Tavore? The Adjunct? Then what in Hood's name was she doing in a mining pit?'

'She sent me there,' Felisin said. 'You're right – no loyalty involved. I was just one more in Unta's cull.'

Clearly shaken, the mage spun to Baudin. 'You're a Claw, aren't you?' The air around Kulp seemed to glitter – Felisin realized he'd opened his warren. The mage bared his teeth. 'The Adjunct's remorse, in the flesh.'

'Not a Claw,' Heboric said.

'Then what?'

'That'll take a history lesson to explain—'

'Start talking.'

'An old rivalry,' the ex-priest said. 'Dancer and Surly. Dancer created a covert arm for military campaigns. In keeping with the Imperial symbol of the demon hand gripping a sphere, he called them his Talons. Surly used that model in creating the Claw. The Talons were external – outside the Empire – but the Claw were internal, a secret police, a network of spies and assassins.'

'But the Claw are used in covert military operations,' Kulp said.

'They are now. When Surly became Regent in the absence of Kellanved and Dancer, she sent her Claws after the Talons. The betrayal started subtly – a string of disastrous botched missions – but someone got careless and gave the game away. The two locked daggers and fought it out to the bitter end.'

'And the Claw won.'

Heboric nodded. 'Surly becomes Laseen, Laseen becomes Empress. The Claws sit atop the pile of skulls like well-fed crows. The Talons went the way of Dancer. Dead and gone ... or, as a few mused now and then, so far underground as to seem extinct.' The ex-priest grinned. 'Like Dancer himself, maybe.'

Felisin studied Baudin. Talon. What's my sister got to do with some secret sect of revivalists still clinging to the memory of the Emperor and Dancer? Why not use a Claw? Unless she needed to work outside anyone else's knowledge.

'It was too bitter to contemplate from the very start,' Heboric was saying. 'Throwing her younger sister into shackles like any other common victim. An example proclaiming her loyalty to the Empress—'

'Not just hers,' Felisin said. 'House Paran. Our brother's a renegade with Onearm on Genabackis. It made us ... vulnerable.'

'It all went wrong,' Heboric said, staring at Baudin. 'She wasn't meant to stay long in Skullcup, was she?'

Baudin shook his head. 'Can't pull out a person who don't want to go.' He shrugged, as if those words were enough and he would say nothing more on that subject.

'So the Talons remain,' Heboric said. 'Then who commands you?'

'No-one,' Baudin answered. 'I was born into it. There's a handful left, kicking around here and there, either old or drooling or both. A few first sons inherited ... the secret. Dancer's not dead. He ascended, alongside Kellanved – my father was there to see it, in Malaz City, the night of the Shadow Moon.'

Kulp snorted but Heboric was slowly nodding.

'I got close in my suppositions,' the ex-priest said. 'Too close for Laseen, as it turned out. She suspects or knows outright, doesn't she?'

Baudin shrugged. 'I'll ask next time we chat.'

'My need for a bodyguard is ended,' Felisin said. 'Get out of my sight, Baudin. Take my sister's concern through Hood's gates.'

'Lass—'

'Shut up, Heboric. I will try to kill you, Baudin. Every chance I get. You'll have to kill me to save your own skin. Go away. Now.'

The big man surprised her again. He made no appeal to the others, but simply turned away, taking a route at right angles to the one they had been travelling.

That's it. He's leaving. Out of my life, without a single word. She stared after him, wondering at the twisting in her heart.

'Damn you, Felisin,' the ex-priest snarled. 'We need him more than he needs us.'

Kulp spoke. 'I've a mind to join him and drag you with me, Heboric. Leave this foul witch to herself and Hood take her with my blessings.'

'Go ahead,' Felisin challenged.

The mage ignored her. 'I took on the responsibility of saving your skin, Heboric, and I'll stick to it because Duiker asked me. It's your call, now.'

The old man hugged himself. 'I owe her my life—'

'Thought you'd forgotten that,' Felisin sneered.

He shook his head.

Kulp sighed. 'All right. I suspect Baudin will do better without us, in any case. Let's get going before I melt, and maybe you can explain to me your comment about Dancer still being alive, Heboric? That's a very intriguing idea...'

Felisin shut their words away as she walked. This changes nothing, dear sister. Your cherished agent murdered my lover, the only person in Skullcup who gave a damn about me. I was Baudin's assignment, nothing more, and worse, he was incompetent, a bumbling, thick-skulled fool. Carrying around his father's secret sigil – how pathetic! I will find you, Tavore. There, in my river of blood. That I promise—

'—sorcery.'

The word jarred her into awareness. She looked over at Kulp. The mage had quickened his step, his face pale.

'What did you say?' she asked.

'I said that storm rolling up behind us isn't natural, that's what I said.'

She glanced back. A bruised wall of sand cut the valley down its length – the hills she and Baudin had left earlier had vanished. The wall rolled towards them like a leviathan.

'Time to run, I think,' Heboric gasped at her side. 'If we can reach the hills—'

'I know where we are!' Kulp shouted. 'Raraku! That's the Whirlwind!'

Ahead, two hundred or more paces away, rose the ragged, rock-strewn slopes of the hills. Deep defiles cut between each hump, like the imprint of vast ribs.

The three of them ran, knowing that they would not make it in time. The wind that struck their back howled like a thing demented. A moment later, the sand engulfed them.

 

'The truth of it was, we were out hunting Sha'ik's corpse.'

Fiddler frowned at the Trell sitting opposite him. 'Corpse? She's dead? How? When?' Was this your doing, Kalam? I can't believe it—

'Iskaral Pust claims she was murdered by a troop of Red Blades from Ehrlitan. Or so the Deck whispered to him.'

'I had no idea the Deck of Dragons could be so precise.'

'As far as I know, it cannot.'

They were sitting on stone benches within a burial chamber at least two levels below the Shadow priest's favoured haunts. The benches were attached alongside a rough-hewn wall that had once held painted tiles, and the indents in the limestone beneath them made it clear that the benches were actually pedestals, meant to hold the dead.

Fiddler flexed his leg, reached down and kneaded his knuckles in the still-swollen flesh around the mended bone. Elixirs, unguents . . . forced healing still hurts. His emotions were dark – had been for days now as the High Priest of Shadow found one excuse after another for delaying their departure, the latest being the need for more supplies. In a strange way Iskaral Pust reminded the sapper of Quick Ben, the squad's mage. An endless succession of plans within plans. He imagined peeling through them one by one, right down to thumbprint schemes all awhirl in devious patterns. It's quite possible that his very existence is nothing more than a collection of if-this and then-that suppositions. Hood's Abyss, maybe that's all we all are!

The High Priest made his head spin. As bad as Quick Ben and this Togg's thorn called Tremorlor. An Azath House, like the Deadhouse in Malaz City. But what are they, precisely? Does any-one know? Anyone at all? There were nothing but rumours, obscure warnings, and few of those at that. Most people did their best to ignore such Houses – the denizens of Malaz City seemed to nurture an almost deliberate ignorance. ']ust an abandoned house,' they say. 'Nothing special, except maybe a few spooks in the yard.' But there's a skittish look in the eyes of some of them.

Tremorlor, a House of the Azath. Sane people don't go looking for places like that.

'Something on your mind, soldier?' Mappo Runt quietly asked. 'I've been watching such a progression of expressions on your face as to fill a wall in Dessembrae's temple.'

Dessembrae. The Cult of Dassem.

'It appears I've just said something unwelcome to your ears,' Mappo continued.

'Eventually a man reaches a point where every memory is unwelcome,' Fiddler said, gritting his teeth. 'I think I've reached that point, Trell. I'm feeling old, used up. Pust has something in mind – we're part of some colossal scheme that'll likely see us dead before too long. Used to be I'd get a sniff or two of stuff like that. Had a nose for trouble, you might say. But I can't work it out – not this time. He's baffled me, plain and simple.'

'I think it's to do with Apsalar,' Mappo said after a time.

'Aye. And that worries me. A lot. She don't deserve any more grief.'

'Icarium pursues the question,' the Trell said, squinting down at the cracked, worn pavestones. The lantern's oil was getting low, deepening the chamber's gloom. 'I admit I have been wondering if the High Priest is intending to force Apsalar into a role she seems made for . ..'

'A role? Like what?'

'Sha'ik's prophecy speaks of a rebirth .. .'

The sapper paled, then vehemently shook his head. 'No. She wouldn't do it. This land's not hers, the goddess of the Whirlwind means nothing to her. Pust can try and force it all he wants, the lass will turn her back – mark my words.' Suddenly restless, Fiddler stood up and began pacing. His foot-falls whispered with faint echoes in the chamber. 'If Sha'ik's dead, she's dead. Hood take any obscure prophecies! The Apocalypse will fizzle out, the Whirlwind sink back into the ground to sleep another thousand years or however long it is until the next Year of Dryjhna comes around ...'

'Yet Pust seems to place much significance on this uprising,' Mappo said. 'It's far from over – or so he seems to believe.'

'How many gods and Ascendants are playing in this game, Trell?' Fiddler paused, eyeing the ancient warrior. 'Does she physically resemble Sha'ik?'

Mappo shrugged his massive shoulders. 'I saw the Whirlwind Seer but once, and that at a distance. Light-skinned for a Seven Cities native. Dark eyes, not especially tall or imposing. It's said the power is – was – within her eyes. Dark and cruel.' He shrugged a second time. 'Older than Apsalar. Perhaps twice her years. Same black hair, though. Details are irrelevant in matters of faith and attendant prophecies, Fiddler. Perhaps only the role need be reborn.'

'The lass ain't interested in vengeance against the Malazan Empire,' the sapper growled, resuming his pacing.

'And what of the shadowy god who once possessed her?'

'Gone,' he snapped. 'Nothing but memories and blissfully few of those.'

'Yet daily she discovers more. True?'

Fiddler said nothing. If Crokus had been present, the walls would have been resounding with his anger – the lad had a fierce temper when it came to Apsalar. Crokus was young, not by nature cruel, but the sapper felt certain that the lad would kill Iskaral Pust without hesitation at the mere possibility of the High Priest seeking to use Apsalar. And trying to kill Pust would probably prove suicidal. Bearding a priest in his den was never a wise move.

The lass was finding her memories, it was true. And they weren't shocking her as much as Fiddler would have expected – or hoped. Another disturbing sign. Although he told Mappo that Apsalar would refuse such a role, the sapper had to admit – to himself at least – that he couldn't be so certain.

With memories came the remembrance of power. And let's face it, there are few – in this world or any other – who'd turn their back on the promise of power. Iskaral Pust would know that, and that knowledge would shape any offer he made. Take on this role, lass, and you can topple an empire ...

'Of course,' Mappo said, leaning back against the wall and sighing, 'we may be on entirely the wrong ...' He slowly sat forward again, brows knitting.'... trail.'

Fiddler's eyes narrowed on the Trell. 'What do you mean?'

'The Path of Hands. The convergence of Soletaken and D'ivers – Pust is involved.'

'Explain.'

Mappo pointed a blunt finger at the paving stones beneath them. 'At the lowest levels of this temple there lies a chamber. Its floor – flagstones – displays a series of carvings. Inscribing something like a Deck of Dragons. Neither Icarium nor I have seen anything like it before. If it is indeed a Deck, it's an Elder version. Not Houses, but Holds, the forces more elemental, more raw and primitive.'

'How does that relate to shapeshifting?'

'You can view the past as something like a mouldy old book. The closer you get to the beginning, the more fragmented are the pages. They veritably fall apart in your hands, and you're left with but a handful of words – most of them in a language you can't even understand.' Mappo closed his eyes for a long moment, then he looked up and said, 'Somewhere among those scattered words is recounted the creation of shapeshifters – the forces that are Soletaken and D'ivers are that old, Fiddler. They were old even in Elder times. No one species can claim propriety, and that includes the four Founding Races: Jaghut, Forkrul Assail, Imass and K'Chain Che'Malle.

'No shapeshifter can abide another – under normal circumstances, that is. There are exceptions but I need not go into them here. Yet, within them all, there is a hunger as deep in the bone as the bestial fever itself. The lure to dominance. To command all other shapeshifters, to fashion an army of such creatures – all slaved to your desire. From an army, an Empire. An Empire of ferocity unlike anything that has been seen before—'

Fiddler grunted. 'Are you implying that an Empire born of Soletaken and D'ivers would be inherently worse – more evil – than any other? I'm surprised, Trell. Nastiness grows like a cancer in any and every organization – human or otherwise, as you well know. And nastiness gets nastier. Whatever evil you let ride becomes commonplace, eventually. Problem is, it's easier to get used to it than carve it out.'

Mappo's answering smile was broken-hearted. 'Well said, Fiddler. When I said ferocity I meant a miasma of chaos. But I will grant you that terror thrives equally well in order.' He rolled his shoulders a third time, sat straighter to work out kinks in his back. 'The shapeshifters are gathering to the promise of a gate through which they can attain such Ascendancy. To become a god of the Soletaken and D'ivers – each shapeshifter seeks nothing less, and will abide no obstacle. Fiddler, we think the gate lies below, and we think that Iskaral Pust will do all he can to prevent the shapeshifters from finding it – even to painting false trails in the desert, to mimic the trail of handprints that all lead to the place of the gate.'

'And Pust has a role in mind for you and Icarium?'

'Likely,' Mappo conceded. His face was suddenly ashen. 'I believe he knows about us – about Icarium, that is. He knows ...'

Knows what? Fiddler was tempted to ask, though he realized that the Trell would not willingly explain. The name Icarium was known – not widely, but known nonetheless. A Jaghut-blood wanderer around whom swirled, like the blackest wake, rumours of devastation, appalling murders, genocide. The sapper mentally shook his head. The Icarium he was coming to know made those rumours seem ludicrous. The Jhag was generous, compassionate. If horrors still trailed in his wake they must be ancient – youth was the time of excess, after all. This Icarium was too wise, too scarred, to tumble into power's river of blood. What did Pust hope would be unleashed by these two?

'Perhaps,' Fiddler said, 'you and Icarium are Pust's last line of defence. Should the Path converge here.' Aye, preventing the shapeshifters from reaching the gate's a good thing, but the. effort may prove fatal... or, it seems, something worse.

'Possibly,' Mappo admitted glumly.

'Well, you could leave.'

The Trell looked up, smiled wryly. 'Icarium has his own quest, I'm afraid. Thus, we shall remain.'

Fiddler's eyes narrowed. 'You two would seek to prevent the gate from being used, wouldn't you? That's what Iskaral Pust knows, that's what he relies upon, isn't it? He's used your sense of duty and honour against you.'

'A powerful ploy. And given its efficacy, he might well use it again – with the three of you.'

Fiddler scowled. 'He'd be hard-pressed to find me that loyal about anything. While being a soldier relies on such things as duty and honour, it's also something that beats Hood out of both of them. As for Crokus, his loyalty is to Apsalar. And as for her...' He fell silent.

'Aye.' Mappo reached out and settled a hand on the sapper's shoulder. 'And so I can see the cause of your distress, Fiddler. And empathize.'

'You say you'll escort us to Tremorlor.'

'We shall. The journey will be fraught. Icarium has decided to guide you.'

'Then it truly exists.'

'I certainly hope so.'

'I think it's time we rejoined the others.'

'And recount for them our thoughts?'

'Hood's breath, no!'

The Trell nodded, pushing himself to his feet.

Fiddler hissed.

'What is it?' Mappo asked.

'The lantern's out. Has been for some time. We're in the dark, Trell.'

 

The temple was oppressive to Fiddler's mind. The squat, cyclopean walls leaned and sagged in the lower levels, as if buckling under the weight of the stone overhead. Dust sifted like water from the ceiling joins in places, leaving pyramids on the paving stones. He limped in Mappo's wake as they made their way to the spiral stairs that would take them back up to the others.

Half a dozen bhok'arala shadowed them on the way, each gripping leafy branches that they used to sweep and swat the stones as they scampered along. The sapper would have been more amused if the creatures had not achieved such perfection in their mimicry of Iskaral Pust and his obsession with spiders – right down to the fierce concentration on their round, wrinkled black faces.

Mappo had explained that the creatures worshipped the High Priest. Not like a dog its master, but like acolytes their god. Offerings, obscure symbols and fitful icons crowded their awkward rituals. Many of those rituals seemed to involve bodily wastes. When you can't produce holy books, produce what you can, I suppose. The creatures drove Iskaral Pust to distraction. He cursed them, and had taken to carrying rocks in a sack. He flung the missiles at the bhok'arala at every opportunity.

The winged creatures gathered those god-sent objects and clearly revered them – the High Priest had found the sack carefully refilled when he awoke this morning. Pust had flown into a spitting rage at the discovery.

Mappo nearly stumbled over a cache of torches on the way. Darkness was anathema to shadows. Pust wanted to encourage an escort of his god's minions. They lit one each, sardonically aware of their ulterior value. While Mappo could see well enough without their aid, Fiddler had been left groping, one hand clutching the Trell's chest harness.

They reached the staircase and paused. The bhok'arala held back a dozen paces down the aisle, twittering among themselves in some obscure but vehement argument.

'Icarium has passed this way recently,' Mappo said.

'Does sorcery heighten your sensitivity?' Fiddler asked.

'Not precisely. More like centuries of companionship—'

'That which links you to him, you mean.'

The Trell grunted. 'Not one chain but a thousand, soldier.'

'Is your friendship such a burden, then?'

'Some burdens are willingly embraced.'

Fiddler was silent for a few breaths. 'It's said Icarium is obsessed with time, true?'

'Aye.'

'He builds bizarre constructs to measure it, places those constructs in locations all over the world.'

'His temporal maps, yes.'

'He feels he is nearing his goal, doesn't he? He's about to find his answer – the one you would do anything to prevent. Is that your vow, Mappo? To keep the Jhag ignorant?'

'Ignorant of the past, yes. His past.'

'That notion frightens me, Mappo. Without history there's no growth—'

'Aye.'

The sapper fell silent again. He'd run out of things he dared to say. There's such pain in this giant warrior. Such sadness. Has Icarium never wondered? Never questioned this centuries-long partnership? And what is friendship to the Jhag? Without memory it's an illusion, an agreement taken on faith and faith alone. How on earth is lcarium's generosity born from that?

They resumed their journey, climbing the saddle-backed stone steps. After a short pause, punctuated by what Fiddler was convinced was heated whispering, the bhok'arala fell silent and slipped into their wake once again.

Emerging onto the main level, Mappo and Fiddler were accosted with the harsh echo of a shouting voice, bouncing down the hallway from the altar chamber. The sapper grimaced. 'That would be Crokus.'

'Not in prayer, I take it.'

They found the young Daru thief at the extreme edge of his patience. He held Iskaral Pust by the front of his robe, pushed up against the wall behind the dusty altarstone. Pust's feet dangled ten inches above the flagstones, kicking feebly. Off to one side stood Apsalar, arms crossed, watching the scene without expression.

Fiddler stepped forward and laid a hand on the lad's shoulder. 'You're choking the life out of him, Crokus—'

'Precisely what he deserves, Fiddler!'

'I won't argue that, but in case you haven't noticed, there's shadows gathering.'

'He's right,' Apsalar said. 'Like I said before, Crokus. You're moments from Hood's Gates yourself.'

The Daru hesitated; then, with a snarl, he flung Pust away. The High Priest skidded along the wall, gasping, then straightened and began adjusting his robe. He spoke in a rasp. 'Precipitous youth! I am reminded of my own melodramatic gestures when I but toddled about in Aunt Tulla's yard. Bullying the chickens when they objected to the straw hats I had spent hours weaving. Incapable of appreciating the intricate plaits I devised. I was deeply offended.' He cocked his head, grinned up at Crokus. 'She'll look good in my new and improved straw hat—'

Fiddler intercepted Crokus's lunge and grappled with the lad. With Mappo's help he pulled him back as the High Priest scampered away, giggling.

The giggle broke into a fit of coughing that had Pust staggering about as if suddenly blinded. One groping hand found a wall, which he sagged against like a drunkard. The cough ended with a last hack, then he wiped his eyes and looked up.

Crokus growled, 'He wants Apsalar to—'

'We know,' Fiddler said. 'We worked that much out, lad. The point is, it's up to her, isn't it?'

Mappo glanced at him in surprise. The sapper shrugged. Late in this wisdom, but I got there eventually.

'I have been used by an Ascendant once,' Apsalar said. 'I'll not willingly be used again.'

'You are not to be used,' Iskaral Pust hissed, beginning a strange dance, 'you lead! You command! You impose your will! Dictate terms! Free to express every tantrum, enforce every whim, act like a spoiled child and be worshipped for it!' He ducked down suddenly, paused, then said in a whisper, 'Such lures as to entice! Self-examination is dispensed with at the beck and at the call of privileges unfettered! She wavers, she leans – see it in her eyes!'

'I do not,' Apsalar said coolly.

'She does! Such percipience in the lass as to sense my every thought – as if she could hear them aloud! The Rope's shadow remains within her, a linkage not to be denied! Gods, I am brilliant!'

With a disgusted snort Apsalar strode from the chamber.

Iskaral Pust scurried after her.

Fiddler held back the Daru's attempt to pursue. 'She can handle him, Crokus,' the sapper said. 'That should be plain – even to you.'

'There are more mysteries here than you imagine,' Mappo said, frowning after the High Priest.

They heard voices in the hall, then Icarium appeared at the entrance, wearing his deer-hide cloak with the dust of the desert on his dusky green skin. He saw the question in Mappo's eyes and shrugged. 'He's left the temple – I trailed him as far as the storm's edge.'

Fiddler asked, 'Who are you talking about?'

'Servant,' Mappo answered, his frown deepening. He glanced at Crokus. 'We think he's Apsalar's father.'

The lad's eyes widened. 'Is he one-armed?'

'No,' Icarium replied. 'Iskaral Pust's servant is a fisherman, however. Indeed, his barque can be found in a lower chamber of this temple. He speaks Malazan—'

'Her father lost an arm at the siege of Li Heng,' Crokus said, shaking his head. 'He was among the rebels who held the walls, and had his arm burned off when the Imperial Army retook the city.'

'When a god intervenes...' Mappo said, then shrugged. 'One of his arms looks ... young ... younger than the other, Crokus. Servant was sent into hiding when we brought you back here. Pust was hiding him from you. Why?'

Icarium spoke. 'Was it not Shadowthrone who arranged the possession? When Cotillion took her, Shadowthrone may well have taken him. There is little point in trying to guess at motivations – the Lord of the Shadow Realm is notoriously obscure. Nonetheless, I see a certain logic in the possibility.'

Crokus had gone pale. His gaze snapped to the vacant entranceway. 'Leverage,' he whispered.

Fiddler instantly grasped the Daru's meaning. He turned to Icarium. 'You said Servant's trail led into the Whirlwind storm. Is there a particular place where Sha'ik is expected to be reborn?'

'The High Priest says her body has not been moved from where it fell at the hands of the Red Blades.'

'Within the storm?'

The Jhag nodded.

'He's telling her right now,' Crokus growled, his hands balling into fists, the knuckles whitening.' "Be reborn, and you shall be reunited with your father.'''

' "A life given for a life taken,"' Mappo muttered. The Trell eyed the sapper. 'Are you mended well enough for a pursuit?'

Fiddler nodded. 'I can ride, walk ... or crawl if it comes to that.'

'I shall prepare for our departure, then.'

 

In the small storage room where the gear and travel packs had been assembled, Mappo crouched down over his own sack. He rummaged amidst the bedrolls and canvas tent until his hands found the hard, hide-wrapped object he sought. The Trell pulled it forth and slipped the waxed elk hide away, revealing a solid long-bone half again the length of his forearm. The shaft was golden in lustre, polished by age. Leather cord was wrapped around the grip, enough for two hands. The distal end was ringed in similarly polished spike-shaped teeth – each the size of his thumb – set in an iron collar.

A hint of sage reached Mappo's nostrils. The sorcery within the weapon was still potent. The efforts of seven Trell witches was not a thing to fade with time. The long-bone had been found in a mountain stream. The mineral-rich water had made it hard as iron, and just as heavy. Other parts of the strange, unknown beast's skeleton had been recovered as well, though those had remained with the Clan as revered objects, each invested with power.

Only once had Mappo seen all the fragments laid out together, hinting at a beast twice the mass of a plains bear, the upper and lower jaws both sporting a row of fangs that roughly interlocked. The thigh bone – which he now held in his hands – had the shape of a bird's, yet impossibly huge and twice as thick as the hollow shaft it surrounded. Ridges appeared here and there along the shaft, where what must have been massive muscles were attached.

His hands trembled beneath the burden of the weapon.

Icarium spoke behind him. 'I do not recall you ever using that, friend.'

Unwilling as yet to turn to the Jhag, Mappo closed his eyes. 'No.' You do not.

'I am continually astonished,' Icarium went on, 'at just how much you manage to fit into that tattered sack.'

Another trick of the Clan witches – this small, private warren beyond the drawstrings. Should never have lasted this long. They said a month, maybe two. Not centuries. His gaze fell again to the weapon in his hands. There was power in these bones to start with – the witches simply did some enhancements, spells of binding to keep the parts together and such. Perhaps the bone feeds the warren in the sack somehow . . . or the handful of irritating people I've stuffed inside in my own fits of ill temper. Wonder where they all went... He sighed and rewrapped the weapon, returned it to the sack and cinched tight the drawstrings. Then he straightened, turning to offer Icarium a smile.

The Jhag had collected his own weapons. 'It seems our journey to find Tremorlor shall have to wait a while longer,' he said, shrugging. 'Apsalar has set off in pursuit of her father.'

'And thus will be led to the place where Sha'ik's body awaits.'

'We are to go after her,' Icarium said. 'Perhaps we can circumvent Iskaral Pust's intentions.'

'Not just Pust, it seems, but the Whirlwind goddess – who may well have shaped this from the very start.'

The Jhag frowned.

Mappo sighed again. 'Think on it, friend. Sha'ik was anointed as the Seeress of the Apocalypse almost as soon as she was born. Forty or more years in Raraku, preparing for this year ... Raraku is not a kind place, and four decades will wear down even a chosen one. Perhaps preparation was all the Seeress was meant to achieve – the war itself requires new blood.'

'Yet did not the soldier say that Cotillion's relinquishing of the lass was forced upon him by the threat of Anomander Rake? The possession was meant to last much longer, taking the lass ever closer to the Empress herself...'

'So everyone assumes,' Mappo said. 'Iskaral Pust is a High Priest of Shadow. I think it best to assume that no matter how devious Pust is, Shadowthrone and Cotillion are more devious. By far. A truly possessed Apsalar would never get close to Laseen – the Claws would sniff it out, not to mention the Adjunct and her Otataral sword. But an Apsalar no longer possessed ... well. .. and Cotillion's made sure she's not just a simple fishergirl any more, hasn't he?'

'A scheme within a scheme. Have you discussed this with Fiddler?'

Mappo shook his head. 'I may be wrong. It may be that the Rulers of Shadow simply saw an opportunity here, a means to take advantage of the convergence – the dagger is honed, then slipped in amidst the tumult. I have been wondering why Apsalar's memories are returning so swiftly . .. and so painlessly.'

'And we have no role in this?'

'That I do not know.'

'Apsalar becomes Sha'ik. Sha'ik defeats the Malazan armies, liberates the Seven Cities. Laseen, forced to take charge herself, arrives with an army to reconquer the unruly citizens of this land.'

'Armed with Cotillion's skill and knowledge, Sha'ik kills Laseen. End of Empire—'

'End?' Icarium's brows rose. 'More likely a new Emperor or Empress with Shadow the patron gods ...'

Mappo grunted. 'A worrying thought.'

'Why?'

The Trell scowled. 'I had a sudden vision of Emperor Iskaral Pust...' He shook himself, lifted the sack and swung it over a shoulder. 'For the moment, I think it best we keep this conversation to ourselves, friend.'

Icarium nodded. He hesitated, then said, 'I have one question, Mappo.'

'Aye?'

'I feel closer to discovering ... who I am ... than ever before. Tremorlor is said to be time-aspected—'

'Aye, so it's said, though what that means is anyone's guess.'

'Answers, I believe. For me. For my life.'

'What do you ask, Icarium?'

'Should I discover my past, Mappo, how will that change me?'

'You are asking me? Why?'

Icarium's gaze was half-lidded as he smiled at Mappo. 'Because, friend, within you reside my memories – none of which you are prepared to reveal.'

And so we come to this point . . . again. 'Who you are, Icarium, is not dependent on me, nor on my memories. What value would it be to seek to become my version of you? I accompany you, friend, in your quest. If the truth – if your truth – is to be found, then you shall find it.'

Icarium was nodding, past echoes of this conversation returning to him – but little else, by the Ancients, little else, please – 'Yet something tells me that you, Mappo, are a part of that hidden truth.'

Ice filled the Trell's heart. He's not taken it that far before – is Tremorlor's proximity nudging open the locked gate? 'Then, when the time comes, you shall face a decision.'

'I think I shall.'

They studied each other, their eyes searching the altered reflection before them, one set plagued with innocent questing, the other disguising devastating knowledge. And between us, hanging in the balance, a friendship neither understands.

Icarium reached out and clasped Mappo's shoulder. 'We should join the others.'

 

Fiddler sat astride the Gral gelding as they waited at the base of the cliff. Bhok'arala scampered along the temple face, squealing and barking as they struggled with the lowering of the mule packs and assorted supplies. One had got its tail snagged in the rope and screamed pitifully as it slowly descended with the gear. Iskaral Pust hung half out of the tower window, throwing rocks at the hapless creature – none of which came close.

The sapper eyed Mappo and Icarium, sensing a new tension between them, though they continued to work together with familiar ease. The tension was in the words unspoken between the two, Fiddler suspected. Changes are coming to us all, it seems. He glanced over at Crokus, who sat rigid with barely restrained impatience on the spare mount he had inherited. He'd caught the lad running through a gamut of close-in knife-fighting moves a short while earlier. The few times the sapper had seen him use the knives before there'd been a kind of desperation marring his technique. Crokus had some skill but he lacked maturity – he was too conscious of himself behind the blades. That had changed, Fiddler realized as he watched the lad go through his routine. Taking cuts was essential to delivering killing thrusts. Knife-fighting was a messy business. Cold determination backed Crokus now – he would do more than just hold his own from now on, the sapper knew. Nor would he be so quick to throw his knives, unless he had plenty of spares tucked within easy reach in the folds of his telaba. Now more likely, I'd hazard.

The late-afternoon sky was hazy ochre, filled with the suspended residue of the Whirlwind, which still raged in the heart of Raraku no more than ten leagues distant. The heat was made even more oppressive by that suffocating cloak.

Mappo freed the snared bhok'aral, earning a nasty bite on the wrist for his kindness. The creature half scampered, half flew back up the cliff face, voicing an abusive torrent as it went.

Fiddler called out to the Trell. 'Set us a pace, then!'

Mappo nodded and he and Icarium set off down the trail.

The sapper was glad he was the only one to glance back to see a score of bhok'arala on the cliff face waving farewell, with Iskaral Pust almost falling from the window in his efforts to sweep the nearest creatures from the tower's stone wall with his broom.

 

The renegade Korbolo Dom's army of the Apocalypse was spread over the rumpled carpet of grassy hills that marked the south edge of the plain. On each hilltop stood command tents and the raised banners of various tribes and self-proclaimed battalions. Between small towns of tents and wagons roamed vast herds of cattle and horses.

The encampment's pickets were marked by three ragged rows of crucified prisoners. Kites and rhizan and capemoths swarmed around each victim.

The outermost line rose above the earthworks and trench less than fifty paces away from Kalam's position. He lay flat in the high yellow grasses, the heat of the parched ground rising up around him with a smell of dust and sage. Insects crawled over him, their prickling feet tracking aimless paths across his hands and forearms. The assassin ignored them, his eyes on the nearest of the crucified victims.

A young Malazan lad of no more than twelve or thirteen. Capemoths rode his arms from shoulder to wrist, making them look like wings. Rhizan gathered in writhing clumps at his hands and feet, where the spikes had been driven through bones and flesh. The boy had no eyes, no nose – his face was a ravaged wound – yet he still lived.

The image was etching itself into Kalam's heart like acid into bronze. His limbs felt cold, as if his own claim to life was withdrawing, pooling in his gut. I cannot save him. I cannot even kill him in swift mercy. Not this lad, not a single one of these hundreds of Malazans surrounding this army. I can do nothing. The knowledge was a whisper of madness. The assassin feared but one thing that left him skeined with terror: helplessness. But not the helplessness of being a prisoner, or of undergoing torture – he'd been victim to both, and he well knew that torture could break anyone – anyone at all. But this ... Kalam feared insignificance, he feared the inability to produce an effect, to force a change upon the world beyond his flesh.

It was this knowledge that the scene before him was searing into his soul. I can do nothing. Nothing. He stared across the intervening fifty paces into the young man's sightless sockets, the distance between diminishing with every breath, until he felt close enough to brush his lips against the boy's sun-cracked forehead. To whisper lies – your death won't be forgotten, the truth of your precious life which you still refuse to surrender because it's all you have. You are not alone, child – lies. The lad was alone. Alone with his withering, collapsing life. And when the body became a corpse, when it rotted and fell away to join all those others ringing a place that had once held an army, he would be forgotten. Another faceless victim. One in a number that beggared comprehension.

The Empire would exact revenge – if it was able – and the numbers would grow. The Imperial threat was ever thus: The destruction you wreak upon us and our kind, we deliver back to you tenfold. If Kalam succeeded in killing Laseen, then perhaps he would also succeed in guiding to the throne someone with spine enough to avoid ruling from a position of crisis. The assassin and Quick Ben had someone in mind for that. If all goes as planned. But for these, it was too late.

He let out a slow breath, only now realizing he was lying on an ants' nest and its inhabitants were telling him to leave in no uncertain terms. I lie with the weight of a god on their world, and these ants don't like it. We're so much more alike than most would think.

Kalam edged back through the grasses. Not the first scene of horror I've witnessed, after all. A soldier learns to wear every kind of armour, and so long as he stays in the trade, it works well enough. Gods, I don't think my sanity would survive peace!

With that chilling thought seeping like weakness into his limbs, Kalam reached the back slope, out of the victims' line of sight. He scanned the area, seeking sign of Apt's presence, but the demon seemed to have vanished. After a moment he rose into a crouch and padded back to the aspen grove where the others waited.

Minala rose from cover as he approached the low brush encircling the silver-leafed trees, crossbow in her hands.

Kalam shook his head. In silence they both slipped between the spindly boles and rejoined the group.

Keneb had succumbed to yet another bout of fever. His wife, Selv, hovered over him in tight-lipped fear that seemed on the edge of panic, holding a water-soaked cloth to Keneb's forehead and murmuring in an effort to still his thrashing and twitching. The children, Vaneb and Kesen, stood nearby, studiously attending to their horses.

'How bad is it?' Minala asked, carefully uncocking the crossbow.

Kalam was preoccupied with plucking and brushing ants from his body for a moment, then he sighed. 'We'll not get around them. I saw standards from the west tribes – those camps are still growing, meaning the Odhan to the west won't be empty. Eastward we'd run into villages and towns, all liberated and occupied by garrisons. That whole horizon is nothing but smoke.'

'If it was just you you'd get through,' Minala said, reaching up to brush her black hair from her face. Her light-grey eyes held hard on him. 'Just another soldier of the Apocalypse, it would be a simple task to take picket duty on the south edge, then slip away one night.'

Kalam grunted. 'Not as easy as you think. There're mages in that encampment.' And I've held the Book in my hands – not likely I'd stay anonymous—

'What difference would that make?' Minala asked. 'Maybe you've got a reputation, but you're no Ascendant.'

The assassin shrugged. He straightened, retrieved his pack, set it down and began rummaging through its contents.

'You haven't answered me, Corporal,' Minala continued, watching him. 'Why all this self-importance? You're not the type to delude yourself, so you must be holding something back from us. Some other . .. significant detail about yourself.'

'Sorcery,' Kalam muttered, pulling free a small object from the pack. 'Not mine. Quick Ben's.' He held up the object and quirked a wry grin.

'A rock.'

'Aye. Granted, it'd be more dramatic if it was a faceted gem or a tore of gold. But there's not a mage in this world stupid enough to invest power in a valuable object. After all, who'd steal a rock?'

'I've heard legends otherwise—'

'Oh, you'll find magic embedded in jewels and such – sorcerers make up dozens of them, all cursed in some way or other. Most of them are a kind of magical spying device – the sorcerer can track them, sometimes even see through them. Claws use that intelligence-gathering method all the time.' He tossed the rock in the air, caught it, then suddenly sobered. 'This was intended to be used as a last resort...' In the palace at Unta, actually.

'What does it do?'

The assassin grimaced. I haven't a clue. Quick Ben's not the expansive type, the bastard. 'It's your shaved knuckle in the hole, Kalam. With this you can stride right into the throne room. I guarantee it.' He glanced around, saw a low, flat rock nearby. 'Get everyone ready to move.'

The assassin crouched down before the flat rock, set the stone on it, then found a fist-sized cobble. He hefted it thoughtfully before bringing it crashing down on the stone.

He was shocked as it splattered like wet clay.

Darkness swept over them. Kalam looked up, slowly straightened. Damn, I should've guessed.

'Where are we?' Selv demanded in a high, taut voice.

'Mother!'

The assassin turned to see Kesen and Vaneb stumbling in knee-deep ash. Ash that was filled with charred bones. The horses were shying, tossing their heads as grey dust rose like smoke.

Hood's breath, we're in the Imperial Warren.' Kalam found himself standing on a broad, raised disc of grey basalt. Sky merged with land in a formless, colourless haze. I could wring your neck, Quick Ben! The assassin had heard rumours that such a warren had been created and the description matched, but the tales he'd picked up on Genabackis suggested that it was barely nascent, extending no more than a few hundred leagues – if leagues mean much here – in a ring around Unta. Instead, it reaches all the way into Seven Cities. And Genabackis? Why not? Quick Ben, there could be a Claw riding your shoulder right now...

The children had settled their horses and were now in the saddles, well away from the grisly scorched mound. Kalam glanced over to see Minala and Selv tying Keneb onto his saddle.

The assassin approached his own stallion. The beast snorted disdainfully as he swung himself up and gathered the reins.

'We're in a warren, aren't we?' Minala asked. 'I'd always believed all those tales of other realms were nothing but elaborate inventions wizards and priests used to prop up all the fumbling around they did.'

Kalam grunted. He'd been run through enough warrens and plunged into enough chaotic maelstroms of sorcery to take it for granted. Minala had just reminded him that for most people such a reality was remote, viewed with scepticism if acknowledged at all. Is such ignorance a comfort or a source of blind fear?

'I take it we're safe from Korbolo Dom here?'

'I certainly hope so,' the assassin muttered.

'How do we select a direction? There're no landmarks, no trail...'

'Quick Ben says you travel with an intention in mind and the warren will take you there.'

'And the destination you have in mind?'

Kalam scowled, was silent for a long moment. Then he sighed. 'Aren.'

'How safe are we?'

Safe? We've stepped into a hornets' nest. 'We'll see.'

'Oh, that's a comfort!' Minala snapped.

The image of the crucified Malazan boy rose once again in the assassin's thoughts. He glanced over at Keneb's children. 'Better this risk than a ... different certainty,' he muttered.

'Are you going to explain that comment?'

Kalam shook his head. 'Enough talk. I've a city to visualize...'

 

Lostara Yil walked her mount up to the gaping hole, understanding at once that, although she had never seen one before, this was a portalway into another warren. Its edges had begun fading, like a wound closing.

She hesitated. The assassin had chosen a short-cut, a means of slipping past the traitor's army between him and Aren. The Red Blade knew she had no choice but to follow, for the trail would prove far too cold should she manage the long way to Aren. Even getting through Korbolo Dom's forces would likely prove impossible – as a Red Blade she was bound to be recognized, even wearing unmarked armour as she did now.

Still, Lostara Yil hesitated.

Her horse reared back squealing as a figure staggered from the portalway. A man, grey-clothed, grey-skinned – even his hair was grey – straightened before her, glanced around with strangely luminous eyes, then smiled.

'Not a hole I expected to fall through,' he said in lilting Malazan. 'My apologies if I startled you.' He sketched a bow, the gesture resulting in clouds of dust cascading from him. The grey was ash, Lostara realized. Dark skin revealed itself in patches on the man's lean face.

He eyed her knowingly. 'You carry an aspected sigil. Hidden.'

'What?' Her hand drifted towards her sword hilt.

The man caught the motion, his smile broadening. 'You are a Red Blade, an officer in fact. Which makes us allies.'

Her eyes narrowed. 'Who are you?'

'Call me Pearl. Now, it seems you were about to enter the Imperial Warren. I suggest we do so before continuing our conversation – before the portalway closes.'

'Can you not keep it open, Pearl? After all, you were travelling it . . .'

The man's exaggerated frown was mocking. 'Alas, this is a door where no door should be possible. Granted, north of here even the Imperial Warren is fraught with ... unwelcome intruders... but their means of entry is far more ... primitive, shall we say... in nature. So, since this portalway is clearly not of your making, I suggest we take immediate advantage of its presence.'

'Not until I know who you are, Pearl. Rather, what you are.'

'I am a Claw, of course. Who else is granted the privilege of travelling the Imperial Warren?'

She nodded at the portalway. 'Someone's just granted that privilege to himself.'

Pearl's eyes sparkled. 'And this is what you shall tell me about, Red Blade.'

She sat in silence, thinking, then nodded. 'Yes. Ideal. I shall accompany you.'

Pearl took a step backward and beckoned with one gloved hand.

Lostara Yil tapped heels to her mount's flanks.

 

Quick Ben's shaved knuckle in the hole was slower in closing than anyone had anticipated. Seven hours after the Red Blade and the Claw had vanished within the Imperial Warren, stars glittered in the moonless sky overhead, and still the portalway gaped, its red-lined edges fading to dull magenta.

Sounds drifted into the glade, echoes of panic and alarm in Korbolo Dom's encampment. Parties of riders set out in all directions, bearing torches. Mages risked their warrens, seeking trails through the now perilous pathways of sorcery.

Thirteen hundred Malazan children had vanished, the liberation unseen by the pickets or the mounted patrols. The X-shaped wooden crosses were bare, with only stains of blood, urine and excrement to show that living beings had once hung from them in agony.

In the darkness the plain was strangely alive with shadows, flowing sourcelessly over the motionless grasses.

Apt strode silently into the glade, her daggerlike fangs gleaming their natural grin. Sweat glistened on her black hide, the thick spiny bristles of her hair wet with dew. She stood erect, her single forelimb clutching the limp body of a young boy. Blood dripped from his hands and feet, and his face had been horribly chewed and pecked, leaving him eyeless and with a gaping red hole where his nose had been. Faint breaths from fevered, shallow lungs showed in misty plumes that drifted forlornly in the clearing.

The demon squatted down on her haunches and waited.

Shadows gathered, pouring like liquid between the trees to hover before the portalway.

Apt cocked her head and spread wide her mouth in something like a canine yawn.

A vague shape took form within the shadows. The glowing eyes of guardian Hounds appeared to flank the figure.

'I thought I had lost you,' Shadowthrone whispered to the demon. 'Snared so long by Sha'ik and her doomed goddess. Yet this night you return, not alone – oh no, not alone, aptorian. You've grown ambitious since you were but a Demon Lord's concubine. Tell me, my dear, what am I to do with over a thousand dying mortals?'

The Hounds were eyeing Apt as if the demon was a potential meal.

'Am I a cutter? A healer?' Shadowthrone's voice was rising, octave by octave. 'Is Cotillion a kindly uncle? Are my Hounds farmyard skulkers and orphans' puppies?' The shadow that was the god flared wildly. 'Have you gone entirely insane?'

Apt spoke in a rapid, rasping series of clicks and hisses.

'Of course Kalam wanted to save them!' Shadowthrone shrieked. 'But he knew it was impossible! Only vengeance was possible! But now! Now I must exhaust my powers healing a thousand maimed children! And for what?'

Apt spoke again.

'Servants? And precisely how big do you think Shadow Keep is, you one-armed imbecile!'

The demon said nothing, her slate-grey multifaceted eye glimmering in the starlight.

Shadowthrone hunched suddenly, his gauzelike cloak wrapping close as he hugged himself. 'An army of servants,' he whispered. 'Servants. Abandoned by the Empire, left to their fates at the hand of Sha'ik's bloodlusted bandits. There will be ... ambivalence ... in their scarred, malleable souls ...' The god glanced up at the demon. 'I see long-term benefits in your precipitous act, demon. Lucky for you!'

Apt hissed and clicked.

'You wish to claim for your own the one in your clutches? And – if indeed you are to resume your guardianship of the Bridgeburner assassin – how precisely will you co-ordinate such conflicting responsibilities?'

The demon replied.

Shadowthrone spluttered. 'Such nerve, you coddled bitch! No wonder you fell from the Aptorian Lord's favour!' He fell silent, then, after a moment, flowed forward. 'Forced healing demands a price,' Shadowthrone murmured. 'The flesh recovers while the mind writhes with the memory of pain, that bludgeon of helplessness.' He raised a sleeve-shrouded hand to the boy's forehead. 'This child who shall ride you shall be ... unpredictable.' He hissed a laugh as the wounds began closing, as new flesh formed on the boy's ravaged face. 'What manner of eyes do you wish him to have, my dear?'

Apt answered.

Shadowthrone seemed to flinch, then he laughed again, harsh and cold this time.' "The eyes are love's prism," are they now? Will you go hand in hand to the fishmonger's on Market Day, my dear?'

The boy's head jerked back, bones altering shape, the twin gaping orbits merging to form a single larger one above a nose bridge that branched to either side, then ran up the outer edge of the socket in a thin, raised ridge. An eye to match the demon's blurred into existence.

Shadowthrone stepped back to examine his handiwork. 'Aai,' he whispered. 'Who then is it who now looks upon me through such a prism? Abyss Below, answer not!' The god spun abruptly to stare at the portalway. 'Cunning Quick Ben – I know his handiwork. He could have gone far under my patronage...'

The Malazan boy clambered to sit behind Apt's narrow, jutting shoulder blade. His frail body shook with the trauma of forced healing, and an eternity nailed to a cross, but his ghastly face showed a slightly ironic smile in a line that perfectly matched the demon's.

Apt approached the portalway.

Shadowthrone gestured. 'Go on then, trail the ones trailing the Bridgeburner. Whiskeyjack's soldiers were ever loyal, I seem to recall. Kalam does not intend to kiss Laseen's cheeks when he finds her, of that I'm certain.'

Apt hesitated, then spoke one last time.

A grimace entered the god's tone as he replied. 'That High Priest of mine alarms even me. If he cannot deceive the hunters on the Path of Hands, my precious realm – which has seen more than its share of intruders of late – will become very crowded indeed ...' Shadowthrone wagged his head. 'It was a simple task, after all.' He began to drift away, his Hounds following suit. 'Can anyone find reliable, competent help these days, I wonder ...'

A moment later Apt was alone, the shadows slipping away.

The portalway had begun to weaken, slowly closing the wound between the realms. The demon rasped words of comfort. The boy nodded.

They slid into the Imperial Warren.