Glass is sand and sand is glass!
The ant dancing blind as blind ants do
on the lip of the rim and the rim of the lip.

White in the night and grey in the day –
smiling spider she never smiles but smile she does
though the ant never sees, blind as it is –

and now was!

Tales to Scare Children
Malesen the Vindictive (b.?)

 

'Mindless panic, alas, makes her twitch.'

The Seerdomin's voice above him said, 'I believe it has grown ... excessive of late, Holy One.'

The Pannion Seer's reply was a shriek: 'Do you think I can't see that? Do you think I'm blind?'

'You are all wise and all knowing,' the Seerdomin officer rumbled. 'I was simply expressing my concern, Holy One. He can no longer walk, and his breath seems so laboured within that malformed chest.'

'He' . . . crippled . . . crumpled ribs like skeleton hands closing tighter on lungs, ever tighter. Seerdomin. This is me you describe.

But who am I?

I'd felt power once, Long ago.

There is a wolf.

A wolf. Trapped in this cage – my chest, these bones, yes, he cannot breathe. It hurts so to breathe.

The howls are gone. Silenced. The wolf cannot call . . . call. . .

To whom?

I'd rested my hand, once, on her furred shoulder. Near the neck. We'd not yet awakened, she and I. So close, travelling in step, yet not awakened . . . such tragic ignorance. Yet she'd gifted me her mortal visions, her only history – such as she knew it to be, whilst deep in her heart slept . . .

. . . slept my beloved.

'Holy One, your mother's embrace will kill him, should he be returned to it—'

'You dare order me?' the Seer hissed, and there was trembling in his voice.

'I do not command, Holy One. I state a fact.'

'Ultentha! Dearest Septarch, come forward! Yes, look upon this man at your Seerdomin's feet. What think you?'

'Holy One,' a new voice, softer, 'my most trusted servant speaks true. This man's bones are so mangled—'

'I can see!' the Seer screamed.

'Holy One,' the Septarch continued, 'relieve him from his horror.'

'No! I will not! He is mine! He is Mother's! She needs him – someone to hold – she needs him!'

'Her love is proving fatal,' the Seerdomin said.

'You both defy me? Shall I gather my Winged Ones? To send you to oblivion? To fight and squabble over what's left? Yes? Shall I?'

'As the Holy One wills.'

'Yes, Ultentha! Precisely! As I will!'

The Seerdomin spoke. 'Shall I return him to the Matron, then, Holy One?'

'Not yet. Leave him there. I am amused by the sight of him. Now, Ultentha, your report.'

'The trenches are completed, Holy One. The enemy will come across the flats to face the city wall. They'll not send scouts to the forested ridge on their right – I will stake my soul on that.'

'You have, Ultentha, you have. And what of those damned Great Ravens? If but one has seen

'Your Winged Ones have driven them off, Holy One. The skies have been cleared, and so the enemy's intelligence is thus thwarted. We shall permit them to establish their camps on the flats, then we shall rise from our hidden positions and descend upon their flank. This, in time with the assault of the Mage Cadres from the walls and the Winged Ones from the sky, as well as Septarch Inal's sortie from the gates – Holy One, victory will be ours.'

'I want Caladan Brood. I want his hammer, delivered into my hands. I want the Malazans annihilated. I want the Barghast gods grovelling at my feet. But most of all, I want the Grey Swords! Is that understood? I want that man, Itkovian – then I will have a replacement for my mother. Thus, hear me well, if you seek mercy for Toc the Younger, bring to me Itkovian. Alive.'

'It will be as you will, Holy One,' Septarch Ultentha said.

It will be as he wills. He is my god. What he wills, all that he wills. The wolf cannot breathe. The wolf is dying.

He – we are dying.

'And where is the enemy now, Ultentha?'

'They have indeed divided, two days past, since they crossed the river.'

'Yet are they not aware that the cities they march towards are dead?'

'So their Great Ravens must have reported, Holy One.'

'Then what are they up to?'

'We are unsure. Your Winged Ones dare not draw too close – their presence is yet to be noted, I believe, and best we keep it that way.'

'Agreed. Well, perhaps they imagine we have set traps – hidden troops, or some such thing – and fear a surprise attack from behind should they simply ignore the cities.'

'We are granted more time by their caution, Holy One.'

'They are fools, swollen with the victory at Capustan.'

'Indeed, Holy One. For which they will dearly pay.'

Everyone pays. No-one escapes. I thought I was safe. The wolf was a power unto himself, stretching awake. He was where I fled to.

But the wolf chose the wrong man, the wrong body. When he came down to take my eye – that flash of grey, burning, that I'd thought a stone – I'd been whole, young, sound.

But the Matron has me now. Old skin sloughing from her massive arms, the smell of abandoned snakepits. The twitch of her embrace – and bones break, break and break again. There has been so much pain, its thunder endless of late. I have felt her panic, as the Seer has said. This is what has taken my mind. This is what has destroyed me.

Better I had stayed destroyed. Better my memories never returned. Knowledge is no gift.

Cursed aware. Lying here on this cold floor, the softly surging waves of pain receding – I can no longer feel my legs. I smell salt. Dust and mould. There is weight on my left hand. It is pinned beneath me, and now grows numb.

I wish I could move.

'... salt the bodies. There's no shortage. Scurvy's taken so many of the Tenescowri, it's all our troops can do to gather the corpses, Holy One.'

'Mundane diseases will not take the soldiers, Ultentha. I have seen this in a dream. The mistress walked among the Tenescowri, and lo, their flesh swelled, their fingers and toes rotted and turned black, their teeth fell out in streams of red spit. But when she came upon my chosen warriors, I saw her smile. And she turned away.'

'Holy One,' the Seerdomin said, 'why would Poleil bless our cause?'

'I know not, nor do I care. Perhaps she has had her own vision, of the glory of our triumph, or perhaps she simply begs favour. Our soldiers will be hale. And once the invaders are destroyed, we can begin our march once more, to new cities, new lands, and there grow fat on the spoils.'

The invaders . . . among them, my kin. I was Toc the Younger, a Malazan. And the Malazans are coming.

The laugh that came from his throat began softly, a liquid sound, then grew louder as it continued.

The conversation fell silent. The sound he made was the only one in the chamber.

The Seer's voice spoke from directly above him. 'And what amuses you so, Toc the Younger? Can you speak? Ah, haven't I asked that once before?'

Breath wheezing, Toc answered, 'I speak. But you do not hear me. You never hear me.'

'Indeed?'

'Onearm's Host, Seer. The deadliest army the Malazan Empire has ever produced. It's coming for you.'

'And I should quake?'

Toc laughed again. 'Do as you like. But your mother knows.'

'You think she fears your stupid soldiers? I forgive your ignorance, Toc the Younger. Dear Mother, it must be explained, has ancient ... terrors. Moon's Spawn. But let me be more precise, so as to prevent your further misunderstanding. Moon's Spawn is now home to the Tiste Andii and their dreaded Lord, but they are as lizards in an abandoned temple. They dwell unaware of the magnificence surrounding them. Dear Mother cannot be reached by such details, alas. She is little more than instinct these days, the poor, mindless thing.

'The Jaghut remember Moon's Spawn. I alone am in possession of the relevant scrolls from Gothos's Folly that whisper of the K'Chain Nah'rhuk – the Short-Tails, misbegotten children of the Matrons – who fashioned mechanisms that bound sorcery in ways long lost, who built vast, floating fortresses from which they launched devastating attacks upon their long-tailed kin.

'Oh, they lost in the end. Were destroyed. And but one floating fortress remained, damaged, abandoned to the winds. Gothos believed it had drifted north, to collide with the ice of a Jaghut winter, and was so frozen, trapped for millennia. Until found by the Tiste Andii Lord.

'Do you comprehend, Toc the Younger? Anomander Rake knows nothing of Moon's Spawn's fullest powers – powers he has no means of accessing even were he to know of them. Dear Mother remembers, or at least some part of her does. Of course, she has nothing to fear. Moon's Spawn is not within two hundred leagues of here – my Winged Ones have searched for it, high overhead, through the warrens, everywhere. The only conclusion is that Moon's Spawn has fled, or failed at last – was it not almost destroyed over Pale? So you've told me.

'So you see, Toc the Younger, your Malazan army holds no terror for any of us, including dear Mother. Onearm's Host will be crushed in the assault on Coral. As will Brood and his Rhivi. Moreover, the White Faces will be shattered – they've not the discipline for this kind of war. I will have them all. And I will feed you bits of Dujek Onearm's flesh – you'd like some meat again, wouldn't you? Something that hasn't been ... regurgitated. Yes?'

He said nothing, even as his stomach clenched in visceral greed.

The Seer crouched lower and touched a fingertip to Toc's temple. 'It's so easy breaking you. All your faiths. One by one. Almost too easy. The only salvation you can hope for is mine, Toc the Younger. You understand that now, don't you?'

'Yes,' he replied.

'Very good. Pray, then, that there is mercy in my soul. True, I've yet to find any myself, though I admit I've little searched. But perhaps it exists. Hold to that, my friend.'

'Yes.'

The Seer straightened. 'I hear my mother's cries. Take him back, Seerdomin.'

'As you command, Holy One.'

Strong arms gathered Toc the Younger, lifted him with ease from the cold floor.

He was carried from the room. In the hallway, the Seerdomin paused.

'Toc, listen to me, please. She's chained down below, and the reach does not encompass the entire room. Listen. I will set you down beyond her grasp. I will bring food, water, blankets – the Seer will pay little heed to her cries, for she is always crying these days. Nor will he probe towards her mind – there are matters of far greater import consuming him.'

'He will have you devoured, Seerdomin.'

'I was devoured long ago, Malazan.'

'I – I am sorry for that.'

The man holding him said nothing for a long moment, and when he spoke at last, his voice cracked. 'You ... you offer compassion. Abyss take me, Toc, I am ever surpassed. Allow to me, please, my small efforts—'

'With gratitude, Seerdomin.'

'Thank you.'

He set off once more.

Toc spoke. 'Tell me, Seerdomin, does the ice still grip the sea?'

'Not for at least a league, Toc. Some unexpected twist of the currents has cleared the harbour. But the storms still rage over the bay, and the ice out there still thunders and churns like ten thousand demons at war. Can you not hear it?'

'No.'

'Aye, I'll grant you it's faint from here. From the keep's causeway, it is a veritable assault.'

'I – I remember the wind ...'

'It no longer reaches us. Yet another wayward vagary, for which I am thankful.'

'In the Matron's cave,' Toc said, 'there is no wind.'

 

Wood splintered, a sickening sound that trembled through the entire Meckros fragment. Lady Envy paused in her climb towards the street's ragged, torn end. The slope had grown suddenly steeper, the frost slick on the cobbles underfoot. She hissed in frustration, then drew on a warren and floated to where Lanas Tog stood on the very edge.

The T'lan Imass did not so much as sway on her perilous perch. Wind ripped at her tattered skins and bone-white hair. The swords still impaling her glistened with rime.

Reaching her side, Lady Envy saw more clearly the source of the terrible, snapping sounds. A vast section of ice had collided with them, was grinding its way along the base in a foaming sluice of jetting water and spraying ice.

'Dear me,' Lady Envy muttered. 'It seems we are ever pushed westward.'

'Yet we drive towards land none the less,' Lanas Tog replied. 'And that is sufficient.'

'Twenty leagues from Coral by this course, and all of it wilderness, assuming my memories of the region's map are accurate. I was so weary of walking, alas. Have you seen our abode yet? Apart from the canting floor and alarming views through the windows, it is quite sumptuous. I cannot abide discomfort, you know.'

The T'lan Imass made no reply, continued staring northwestward.

'You're all alike,' Lady Envy sniffed. 'It took weeks to get Tool in a conversational mood.'

'You have mentioned the name earlier. Who is Tool?'

'Onos T'oolan, First Sword. The last time I saw him, he was even more bedraggled than you, dear, so there's hope for you yet.'

'Onos T'oolan. I saw him but once.'

'The First Gathering, no doubt.'

'Yes. He spoke against the ritual.'

'So of course you hate him.'

The T'lan Imass did not immediately reply. The structure shifted wildly beneath them, their end pitching down as the floe punched clear, then lifting upward once more. There was not even a waver to Lanas Tog's stance. She spoke. 'Hate him? No. Of course I disagreed. We all did, and so he acquiesced. It is a common belief.'

Lady Envy waited, then crossed her arms and asked, 'What is?'

'That truth is proved by weight of numbers. That what the many believe to be right, must be so. When I see Onos T'oolan once more, I will tell him: he was the one who was right.'

'I don't think he holds a grudge, Lanas Tog. I suppose, thinking on it, that makes him unique among the T'lan Imass, doesn't it?'

'He is the First Sword.'

'I have had yet another, equally frustrating conversation with Mok. I'd been wondering, you see, why he and his brothers have not challenged you to combat yet. Both Senu and Thurule have fought Tool – and lost. Mok was next. Turns out the Seguleh will not fight women, unless attacked. So, by way of warning, do not attack them.'

'I have no reason to, Lady Envy. Should I find one, however—'

'All right, I'll be more direct. Tool was hard-pressed by both Senu and Thurule. Against Mok, well, it was probably even. Are you a match to the First Sword, Lanas Tog? If you truly seek to reach the Second Gathering in one piece, to deliver your message, then show some restraint.'

Iron grated against bone as Lanas Tog shrugged.

Lady Envy sighed. 'Now, which is more depressing? Attempting civil conversation with you and the Seguleh, or staring into the suffering eyes of a wolf? I cannot even comment on Garath's mood, for the beast still seems upset with me.'

'The ay has awakened,' Lanas Tog said.

'I know, I know, and truly, my heart weeps on her behalf, or at least on behalf of the miserable goddess residing within her. Then again, they both deserve a few tears, don't they? An eternity alone for the not-quite-mortal ay cannot have been fun, after all.'

The T'lan Imass turned her head. 'Who has granted the beast this edged gift?'

Lady Envy shrugged, smiling with delight at the opportunity to return such a gesture. 'A misguided sibling who'd thought he was being kind. All right, perhaps that was too simplistic an answer. My sibling had found the goddess, terribly damaged by the Fall, and needed a warm-blooded place to lay her spirit, so that it could heal. Serendipity. The ay's pack was dead, whilst she herself was too young to survive in normal circumstances. Worse yet, she was the last left on the entire continent.'

'Your sibling has a misplaced sense of mercy, Lady Envy.'

'I agree. We have something in common after all! How wonderful!'

A moment later, as she studied the T'lan Imass at her side, her effusiveness drained away. 'Oh,' she muttered, 'what a distressing truth that proved to be.'

Lanas Tog returned her gaze to the tumultuous panorama stretching away to the northwest. 'Most truths are,' she said.

'Well!' Lady Envy ran her hands through her hair. 'I think I'll head down and stare into a wolf's miserable eyes for a time! Just to improve my mood, you understand. You know, at least Tool had a sense of humour.'

'He is the First Sword.'

Muttering under her breath as she made her way back down the street, slippered feet barely brushing the icy cobbles, Lady Envy only paused when she reached the entrance to the house. 'Oh! That was quite funny! In an odd way. Well! How extraordinary!'

 

Crone hopped about in a fury. Brood stood watching the Great Raven. Off to one side was Korlat. Lingering a half-dozen paces away was Kallor. The army marched in wide ranks down the raised road to their left, whilst to their right, at a distance of two thousand paces, rumbled the herd of bhederin.

There were fewer of the beasts, Korlat noted. The crossing had claimed hundreds.

A shrill hiss from Crone recaptured her wandering attention.

The Great Raven had half spread her wings, halting directly in front of the warlord. 'You still do not grasp the gravity of this! Fool! Ox! Where is Anomander Rake? Tell me! I must speak with him – warn him—'

'Of what?' Brood asked. 'That a few hundred condors have chased you away?'

'Unknown sorcery hides within those abominable vultures! We are being deliberately kept away, you brainless thug!'

'From Coral and environs,' Kallor noted drily. 'We've just come in sight of Lest, Crone. One thing at a time.'

'Stupid! Do you think they're just sitting on their hands? They're preparing—'

'Of course they are,' Kallor drawled, sneering down at the Great Raven. 'What of it?'

'What's happened to Moon's Spawn? We know what Rake planned – has it succeeded? I cannot reach it! I cannot reach him! Where is Moon's Spawn?'

No-one spoke.

Crone's head darted down. 'You know less than I! Don't you? All this is bravado! We are lost!' The Great Raven wheeled to pin Korlat with her glittering, black eyes. 'Your Lord has failed, hasn't he? And taken three-quarters of the Tiste Andii with him! Will you be enough, Korlat? Will you—'

'Crone,' Brood rumbled. 'We'd asked for word on the Malazans, not a list of your fears.'

'The Malazans? They march! What else would they do? Endless wagons on the road, dust everywhere. Closing on Setta, which is empty but for a handful of sun-withered corpses!'

Kallor grunted. 'They're making a swift passage of it, then. As if in a hurry. Warlord, there is deceit here.'

Brood scowled, crossed his arms. 'You heard the bird, Kallor. The Malazans march. Faster than we'd expected, true, but that is all.'

'You dissemble,' Kallor grated.

Ignoring him, Brood faced the Great Raven once more. 'Have your kin keep an eye on them. As for what's happening at Coral, we'll worry about that when we reach Maurik and reunite our forces. Finally, regarding your master, Anomander Rake, have faith, Crone.'

'Upon faith you hold to success? Madness! We must prepare for the worst!'

Korlat's attention drifted once more. It had been doing that a lot of late. She'd forgotten what love could do, as it threaded its roots through her entire soul, as it tugged and pulled at her thoughts, obsession ripening like seductive fruit. She felt only its life, thickening within her, claiming all she was.

Fears for her Lord and her kin seemed almost inconsequential. If truly demanded, she could attempt her warren, reach him via the paths of Kurald Galain. But there was no urgency within her to do any such thing. This war would find its own path.

Her wants were held, one and all, in the eyes of a man. A mortal, of angled, edged nobility. A man past his youth, a soul layered in scars – yet he had surrendered it to her.

Almost impossible to believe.

She recalled her first sight of him up close. She had been standing with the Mhybe and Silverfox, the child's hand in her own. He had ridden towards the place of parley at Dujek's side. A soldier whose name she had already known – as a feared enemy, whose tactical prowess had defied Brood time and again, despite the odds against the Malazan's poorly supplied, numerically weakened forces.

Even then, he had been as a lodestone to her eye.

And not just hers alone, she realized. Her Lord had called him friend. The rarity of such a thing still threatened to steal her breath. Anomander Rake, in all the time she had known him, had acknowledged but one friend, and that was Caladan Brood. And between those two men, thousands of years of shared experiences, an alliance never broken. Countless clashes, it was true, but not once a final, irretrievable sundering.

The key to that, Korlat well understood, lay in their maintaining a respectable distance from each other, punctuated by the occasional convergence.

It was, she believed, a relationship that would never be broken. And from it, after centuries, had been born a friendship.

Yet Rake had shared but a few evenings in Whiskeyjack's company. Conversations of an unknown nature had taken place between them. And it had been enough.

Something in each of them has made them kin in spirit. Yet even I cannot see it. Anomander Rake cannot be reached out to, cannot be so much as touched – not his true self. I have never known what lies behind my Lord's eyes. I have but sensed its vast capacity – but not the flavour of all that it contains.

But Whiskeyjack – my dear mortal lover – while I cannot see all that is within him, I can see the cost of containment. The bleeding, but not the wound. And I can see his strength – even the last time, when he was so weary . . .

Directly south, the old walls of Lest were visible. There was no sign that repairs had been made since the Pannion conquest. The air above the city was clear of smoke, empty of birds. The Rhivi scouts had reported that there was naught but a few charred bones littering the streets. There had been raised gardens once, for which Lest had been known, but the flow of water had ceased weeks past and fire had since swept through the city – even at this distance Korlat could see the dark stain of soot on the walls.

'Devastation!' moaned Crone. 'This is the tale before us! All the way to Maurik. Whilst our alliance disintegrates before our eyes.'

'It does nothing of the sort,' rumbled Brood, his frown deepening.

'Oh? And where is Silverfox? What has happened to the Mhybe? Why do the Grey Swords and Trake's Legion march so far behind us? Why were the Malazans so eager to leave our sides? And now, Anomander Rake and Moon's Spawn have vanished! The Tiste Andii—'

'Are alive,' Korlat cut in, her own patience frayed at last.

Crone wheeled on her. 'Are you certain?'

Korlat nodded. Yet . . . am 1? No. Shall I then seek them out? No. We shall see what is to be seen at Coral. That is all. Her gaze slowly swung westward. And you, my dear lover, thief of all my thoughts, will you ever release me?

Please. Do not. Ever.

 

Riding beside Gruntle, Itkovian watched the two Grey Sword outriders canter towards the Shield Anvil and Destriant.

'Where are they coming from?' Gruntle asked.

'Flanking rearguard,' Itkovian replied.

'With news to deliver, it seems.'

'So it appears, sir.'

'Well? Aren't you curious? They've both asked you to ride with them – if you'd said yes you'd be hearing that report right now, instead of slouching along with us riffraff. Hey, that's a thought – I could divide my legion into two companies, call one Riff and the other—'

'Oh, spare us!' Stonny snapped behind them.

Gruntle twisted in his saddle. 'How long have you been in our shadow, woman?'

'I'm never in your shadow, Gruntle. Not you, not Itkovian. Not any man. Besides, with the sun so low on our right, I'd have to be alongside you to be in your shadow, not that I would be, of course.'

'So instead,' the Mortal Sword grinned, 'you're the woman behind me.'

'And what's that supposed to mean, pig?'

'Just stating a fact, lass.'

'Really? Well, you were wrong. I was about to make my way over to the Grey Swords, only you two oafs were in the way.'

'Stonny, this ain't a road, it's a plain. How in Hood's name could we be in your way when you could ride your horse anywhere?'

'Oafs. Lazy pigs. Someone here has to be curious. That someone needs a brain, of course, which is why you'll both just trot along, wondering what those outriders are reporting, wondering and doing not a damned thing about it. Because you're both brainless. As for me—'

'As for you,' Itkovian said drily, 'you seem to be talking to us, sir. Indeed, engaged in a conversation—'

'Which has now ended!' she snapped, neck-reining her horse to the left, then launching it past them.

They watched her ride towards the other column.

After a moment, Gruntle shrugged, then said, 'Wonder what she'll hear.'

'As do I,' Itkovian replied.

They rode on, their pace steady if a little slow. Gruntle's legion marched in their wake, a rabble, clumped like sea-raiders wandering inland in search of a farmhouse to pillage. Itkovian had suggested, some time earlier, that some training might prove beneficial, to which Gruntle had grinned and said nothing.

Trake's Mortal Sword despised armies; indeed, despised anything even remotely connected to the notion of military practices. He was indifferent to discipline, and had but one officer – a Lestari soldier, fortunately – to manage his now eight-score followers: stony-eyed misfits that he'd laughingly called Trake's Legion.

Gruntle was, in every respect, Itkovian's opposite.

'Here she comes,' the Mortal Sword growled.

'She rides,' Itkovian observed, 'with much drama.'

'Aye. A fierceness not unique to sitting a saddle, from all that I've heard.'

Itkovian glanced at Gruntle. 'My apologies. I had assumed you and she—'

'A few times,' the man replied. 'When we were both drunk, alas. Her more drunk than me, I'll admit. Neither of us talk about it, generally. We stumbled onto the subject once and it turned into an argument about which of us was the more embarrassed – ah, lass! What news?'

She reined in hard, her horse's hooves kicking up dust. 'Why in Hood's name should I tell you?'

'Then why in Hood's name did you ride back to us?'

She scowled. 'I was simply returning to my position, oaf – and you, Itkovian, that had better not be a hint of a smile I see there. If it was, I'd have to kill you.'

'Most certainly not, sir.'

'Glad to hear it.'

'So?' Gruntle asked her.

'What?'

'The news, woman!'

'Oh, that. Wonderful news, of course, it's the only kind we hear these days, right? Pleasing revelations. Happy times—'

'Stonny.'

'Old friends, Gruntle! Trundling after us about a league back. Big, bone carriage, pulled by a train that ain't quite what it seems. Dragging a pair of flatbed wagons behind, too, loaded with junk – did I say junk? I meant loot, of course, including more than one sun-blackened corpse. And an old man on the driver's seat. With a mangy cat in his lap. Well, what do you know? Old friends, yes?'

Gruntle's expression had flattened, his eyes suddenly cold. 'No Buke?'

'Not even his horse. Either he's flown, or—'

The Mortal Sword wheeled his horse round and drove his heels into the beast's flanks.

Itkovian hesitated. He glanced at Stonny and was surprised to see undisguised sympathy softening her face. Her green eyes found him. 'Catch up with him, will you?' she asked quietly.

He nodded, lowered the visor of his Malazan helm. The faintest shift in weight and a momentary brush of the reins against his horse's neck brought the animal about.

His mount was pleased with the opportunity to stretch its legs, and given its lighter burden was able to draw Itkovian alongside Gruntle with two-thirds of a league remaining. The Mortal Sword's horse was already labouring.

'Sir!' Itkovian called. 'Pace, sir! Else we'll be riding double on the return!'

Gruntle hissed a curse, made as if to urge his horse yet faster, then relented, straightening in the saddle, reins loose, as the beast's gallop slowed, fell into a canter.

'Fast trot now, sir,' Itkovian advised. 'We'll drop to a walk in a hundred paces so she can stretch her neck and open full her air passages.'

'Sorry, Itkovian,' Gruntle said a short while later. 'There's no heat to my temper these days, but that seems to make it all the deadlier, I'm afraid.'

'Trake would—'

'No, don't even try, friend. I've said it before. I don't give a damn what Trake wants or expects of me, and the rest of you had best stop seeing me that way. Mortal Sword – I hate titles. I didn't even like being called captain when I guarded caravans. I only used it so I could charge more.'

'Do you intend to attempt harm upon these travellers, sir?'

'You well know who they are.'

'I do.'

'I had a friend . . .'

'Aye, the one named Buke. I recall him. A man broken by sorrow. I once offered to take his burdens, but he refused me.'

Gruntle's head snapped round at that. 'You did? He did?'

Itkovian nodded. 'Perhaps I should have been more ... direct.'

'You should have grabbed him by the throat and done it no matter what he wanted. That's what the new Shield Anvil's done to that one-eyed First Child of the Dead Seed, Anaster, isn't it? And now the man rides at her side—'

'Rides unknowing. He is naught but a shell, sir. There was naught else within him but pain. Its taking has stolen his knowledge of himself. Would you have had that as Buke's fate as well, sir?'

The man grimaced.

Less than a third of a league remained, assuming Stonny's claim was accurate, but the roll of the eroded beach ridges reduced the line of sight, and indeed it was the sound that the carriage made, a muted clanking riding the wind, that alerted the two men to its proximity.

They crested a ridge and had to rein in quickly to avoid colliding with the train of oxen.

Emancipor Reese was wearing a broad, smudged bandage, wrapped vertically about his head, not quite covering a swollen jaw and puffy right eye. The cat in his lap screamed at the sudden arrival of the two riders, then clawed its way up the servant's chest, over the left shoulder, and onto the roof of the ghastly carriage, where it vanished into a fold of K'Chain Che'Malle bone and skin. Reese himself jumped in his seat, almost toppling from his perch before recovering his balance.

'Bathtardth! Why you do tha? Hood'th b'eth!'

'Apologies, sir,' Itkovian said, 'for startling you so. You are injured—'

'In'ured? Tho. Tooth. B'oke ith. Olib pith.'

Itkovian frowned, glanced at Gruntle.

The Mortal Sword shrugged. 'Olive pit, maybe?'

'Aye!' Reese nodded vigorously, then winced at the motion. 'Wha you wanth?'

Gruntle drew a deep breath, then said, 'The truth, Reese. Where's Buke?'

The servant shrugged. 'Gone.'

'Did they—'

'Tho! Gone! Thlown!' He jerked his arms up and down. 'Thlap thlap! Unnerthan? Yeth?'

Gruntle sighed, glanced away, then slowly nodded. 'Well enough,' he said a moment later.

The carriage door opened and Bauchelain leaned out. 'Why have we stop- ah, the caravan captain ... and the Grey Sword, I believe, but where, sir, is your uniform?'

'I see no need—'

'Never mind,' Bauchelain interrupted, climbing out, 'I wasn't really interested in your answer. Well, gentlemen, you have business to discuss, perhaps? Indulge my rudeness, if you will, I am weary and short of temper of late, alas. Indeed, before you utter another word, I advise you not to irritate me. The next unpleasant interruption is likely to see my temper snap entirely, and that would be a truly fell thing, I assure you. Now, what would you with us?'

'Nothing,' Gruntle said.

The necromancer's thin, black brows rose fractionally. 'Nothing?'

'I came to enquire of Buke.'

'Buke? Who – oh yes, him. Well, the next time you see him, tell him he is fired.'

'I'll do that.'

No-one spoke for a moment, then Itkovian cleared his throat. 'Sir,' he said to Bauchelain, 'your servant has broken a tooth and appears to be in considerable discomfort. Surely, with your arts ...'

Bauchelain turned and looked up at Reese. 'Ah, that explains the head garb. I admit I'd been wondering ... a newly acquired local fashion, perhaps? But no, as it turns out. Well, Reese, it seems I must once more ask Korbal Broach to make ready for surgery – this is the third such tooth to break, yes? More olives, no doubt. If you still persist in the belief that olive pits are deadly poison, why are you so careless when eating said fruit? Ah, never mind.'

'Tho thurgery, pleath! Tho! Pleath!'

'What are you babbling about, man? Be quiet! Wipe that drool away – it's unsightly. Do you think I cannot see your pain, servant? Tears have sprung from your eyes, and you are white – deathly white. And look at you shake so – not another moment must be wasted! Korbal Broach! Come out, if you will, with your black bag! Korbal!'

The wagon rocked slightly in answer.

Gruntle swung his horse round. Itkovian followed suit.

'Until later, then, gentlemen!' Bauchelain called out behind them. 'Rest assured I am grateful for your advising me of my servant's condition. As he is equally grateful, no doubt, and were he able to speak coherently I am sure he would tell you so.'

Gruntle lifted a hand in a brusque wave.

They set off to rejoin Trake's Legion.

Neither spoke for a time, until a soft rumbling from Gruntle drew Itkovian's attention. The Mortal Sword, he saw, was laughing.

'What amuses you so, sir?'

'You, Itkovian. I expect Reese will curse your concern for the rest of his days.'

'An odd expression of gratitude that would be. Will he not be healed?'

'Oh, yes, I am sure he will, Itkovian. But here's something for you to ponder on, if you will. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.'

'Can you explain that?'

'Ask Emancipor Reese, the next time you see him.'

'Very well, I will do just that, sir.'

 

The stench of smoke clung to the walls, and sufficient old stains blotting the rugs attested to the slaughter of acolytes down hallways and in anterooms and annexes throughout the temple.

Coll wondered if Hood had been pleased to have his own children delivered unto him, within the god's own sanctified structure.

It appeared to be no easy thing to desecrate a place made sacred to death. The Daru could feel the breath of unabated power, cool and indifferent, as he sat on the stone bench outside the chamber of the sepulchre.

Murillio paced up and down the wide main hallway to his right, stepping into his line of sight then out again, over and over.

In the holy chamber beyond, the Knight of Death was preparing a place for the Mhybe. Three bells had passed since Hood's chosen servant had walked into the chamber of the sepulchre, the doors closing of their own accord behind him.

Coll waited until Murillio reappeared once more. 'He can't let go of those swords.'

Murillio paused, glanced over. 'So?'

'Well,' Coll rumbled, 'it might well take him three bells to make a bed.'

His friend's expression filled with suspicion. 'That was supposed to be funny?'

'Not entirely. I was thinking in pragmatic terms. I was trying to imagine the physical awkwardness of attempting to do anything with swords stuck to your hands. That's all.'

Murillio made to say something, changed his mind with a muttered oath, wheeled and resumed his pacing.

They had carried the Mhybe into the temple five days past, settling her into a room that had once belonged to a ranking priest. They had unloaded the wagon and stored their food and water in the cellars amidst the shards of hundreds of shattered jugs and the floor and the walls made sticky with wine, the air thick and cloying and rank as an innkeeper's apron.

Every meal since had tasted wine-soaked, reminding Coll. of the almost two years he had wasted as a drunk, drowning in misery's dark waters as only a man in love with self-pity can. He would have liked to call the man he had been a stranger now, but the world had a way of spinning unnoticed, until what he'd thought he'd turned his back on suddenly faced him again.

Even worse, introspection – for him at least – was a funnel in sand, a spider waiting at the bottom. And Coll well knew he was quite capable of devouring himself.

Murillio strode into view again.

'The ant danced blind,' Coll said.

'What?'

'The old children's tale – remember it?'

'You've lost your mind, haven't you?'

'Not yet. At least I don't think so.'

'But that's just it, Coll. You wouldn't know, would you?'

He watched Murillio spin round once more, step past the wall's edge and out of sight. The world spins about us unseen. The blind dance in circles. There's no escaping what you are, and all your dreams glittered white at night, but grey in the light of day. And both are equally deadly. Who was that damned poet? The Vindictive. An orphan, he'd claimed. Wrote a thousand stories to terrify children. Was stoned by a mob in Darujhistan, which he survived. I think – that was years ago. His tales live in the streets, now. Singsong chants to accompany the games of the young.

Damned sinister, if you ask me.

He shook himself, seeking to clear his mind before stumbling into yet another pitfall of memory. Before she'd stolen his estate, before she'd destroyed him, Simtal had told him she carried his child. He wondered if that child had ever existed – Simtal fought with lies where others used knives. There'd been no announcement of any birth. Though of course the chance of his missing such an announcement was pretty much certain in those days that followed his fall. But his friends would have known. Would have told him, if not then, then now ...

Murillio stepped into view.

'A moment there,' Coll growled.

'Now what? The beetle flipped on its back? The worm circling the hole?'

'A question, Murillio.'

'All right, if you insist.'

'Did you ever hear tell of a child born to Simtal?'

He watched his friend's face slowly close, the eyes narrowing. 'That is a question not to be asked in this temple, Coll.'

'I'm asking it none the less.'

'I do not think you're ready—'

'Not for you to judge and you should know better, Murillio. Dammit, I've been sitting on the Council for months! And I'm still not ready? What absurdity is—'

'All right all right! It's just this: there's only rumours.'

'Don't lie to me.'

'I'm not. There was a span of more than a few months – just after your, uh, demise – when she made no public appearance. Explained away as mourning, of course, though everyone knew—'

'Yes, I know what everyone knew. So she hid out for a time. Go on.'

'Well, we believed she was consolidating her position. Behind the scenes. Rallick was keeping an eye on her. At least I think he was. He'd know more.'

'And you two never discussed the details of what she was up to, what she looked like? Murillio—'

'Well, what would Rallick know of mothering?'

'When they're with child, their bellies swell and their breasts get bigger. I'm sure our assassin friend has seen one or two so-afflicted women on Darujhistan's streets – did he just think they were eating melons whole?'

'No need to be sarcastic, Coll. All I'm saying is, he wasn't sure.'

'What about the estate's servants? Any women who'd just given birth?'

'Rallick never mentioned—'

'My, what an observant assassin.'

'Fine!' Murillio snapped. 'Here's what I think! She had a child. She sent it away. Somewhere. She wouldn't have abandoned it, because at some point she would have wanted to use it, as a verifiable heir, as marriage-bait, whatever. Simtal was lowborn; whatever contacts she had from her past were private ones – kept from everyone but those involved, including you, as you well know. I think she sent the child that way, somewhere no-one would think of looking.'

'Almost three, now,' Coll said, slowly leaning back to rest his head against the wall. He closed his eyes. 'Three years of age ...'

'Maybe so. But at the time there wasn't any way of finding—'

'You'd have needed my blood. Then Baruk...'

'Right,' Murillio snapped, 'we'd just go and bleed you one night when you were passed-out drunk.'

'Why not?'

'Because, you ox, back then, there didn't seem much point!'

'Fair enough. But I've walked a straight line for months now, Murillio.'

'Then you do it, Coll. Go to Baruk.'

'I will. Now that I know.'

'Listen, friend, I've known a lot of drunks in my time. You look at four, five months being sober and think it's eternity. But me, I see a man still brushing the puke from his clothes. A man who could get knocked right back down. I wasn't going to push – it's too soon—'

'I hear you. I don't curse your decision, Murillio. You were right to be cautious. But what I see – what I see now, that is – is a reason. Finally, a real reason to hold myself up.'

'Coll, I hope you're not thinking you can just walk into whatever household your child's being raised in and take it away—'

'Why not? It's mine.'

'And there's a place waiting for it on your mantelpiece, right?'

'You think I can't raise a child?'

'I know you can't, Coll. But, if you do this right, you can pay to see it grow up well, with opportunities that it might not otherwise have.'

'A hidden benefactor. Huh. That would be ... noble.'

'Be honest: it would be convenient, Coll. Not noble, not heroic.'

'And you call yourself a friend.'

'I do.'

Coll sighed. 'And so you should, though I don't know what I've done to deserve such friendship.'

'Since I don't want to depress you further, we'll discuss that subject some other time.'

The massive stone doors to the chamber of the sepulchre swung open.

Grunting, Coll rose from the bench.

The Knight of Death stepped into the hallway to stand directly before Murillio. 'Bring the woman,' the warrior said. 'The preparations are complete.'

Coll strode to the entrance and looked within. A large hole had been carved through the floor's solid stone in the centre of the chamber. Shattered stone rose in heaps banked against a side wall. Suddenly chilled, the Daru pushed past the Knight of Death. 'Hood's breath!' he exclaimed. 'That's a damned sarcophagus!'

'What?' Murillio cried, rushing to join Coll. He stared at the burial pit, then spun to the Knight. 'The Mhybe's not dead, you fool!'

The warrior's lifeless eyes fixed on Coll's companion. 'The preparations,' he said, 'are complete.'

 

Ankle-deep in dust, she stumbled across a wasteland. The tundra had disintegrated, and with it the hunters, the demonic pursuers who had been such unwelcome company for so long. The desolation surrounding her was, she realized, far worse. No grasses underfoot, no sweet cool wind. The hum of the blackfiies was gone, those avid companions so eager to feed on her flesh – though her scalp still crawled as if some had survived the devastation.

And she was weakening, her youthful muscles failing in some undefinable way. Not weariness alone, but some kind of chronic dissolution. She was losing her substantiality, and that realization was the most terrifying of all.

The sky overhead was colourless, devoid of cloud or even sun, yet faintly illuminated by some unseen source. It seemed impossibly distant – to look upward for too long was to risk madness, mind railing at its inability to comprehend what the eyes were seeing.

So she held her gaze fixed directly ahead as she staggered on. There was nothing to mark the horizon in any direction. She might well be walking in circles for all she knew, though if so it was a vast circle, for she'd yet to cross her own path. She had no destination in mind for this journey of the spirit; nor the will to seek to fashion one in this deathly dreamscape, had she known how.

Her lungs ached, as if they too were losing their ability to function. Before long, she believed, she herself would begin to dissolve, this young body defeated in a way that was opposite to what she had feared for so long. She would not be torn to pieces by wolves. The wolves were gone. No, she knew now that nothing had been as it had seemed – it had all been something different, something secret, a riddle she'd yet to work out. And now it was too late. Oblivion had come for her.

The Abyss she had seen in her nightmares of so long ago had been a place of chaos, of frenzied feeding on souls, of miasmic memories detached and flung on storm winds. Perhaps those visions had been the products of her own mind, after all. The true Abyss was what she was now seeing, on all sides, in every direction—

Something broke the horizon's flat line, something monstrous and crouched, bestial, off to her right. It had not been there a moment ago.

Or perhaps it had. Perhaps this world itself was shrinking, and her few frail steps had unveiled what lay beyond the land's curvature.

She moaned in sudden terror, even as her steps shifted direction, drew her towards the apparition.

It grew visibly larger with every stride she took, swelled horribly until it claimed a third of the sky. Pink-Streaked, raw bones, rising upward, a cage of ribs, each rib scarred, knotted with malignant growths, calcifications, porous nodes, cracks, twists and fissures. Between each bone, skin was stretched, enclosing whatever lay within. Blood vessels spanned the skin, pulsing like red lightning, flickering and dimming before her eyes.

For this, the storm of life was passing. For this, and for her as well.

'Are you mine?' she asked in a rasping voice as she stumbled to within twenty paces of the ghastly cage. 'Does my heart lie inside? Slowing with each beat? Are you me?'

Emotions suddenly assailed her – feelings that were not her own, but came from whatever lay within the cage. Anguish. Overwhelming pain.

She wanted to flee.

Yet it sensed her. It demanded that she stay.

That she come closer.

Close enough to reach out.

To touch.

The Mhybe screamed. She was in a cloud of dust that clawed her eyes blind, on her knees suddenly, feeling as if she was being torn apart – her spirit, her every instinct for survival rearing up one last time. To resist the summons. To flee.

But she could not move.

And then the force reached out. It began to pull.

And the land beneath her shifted, tilted. The dust slicked. The dust became as glass.

On her hands and knees, she looked up through streaming eyes, the scene dancing before her.

The ribs were ribs no longer. They were legs.

And skin was not skin. It had become a web.

And she was sliding.